Sept Rue Saint-Catherine

This is 7 Rue Saint-Catherine in Avignon where I spent some time buying shoes. At one of the many long and pleasant dinners with my friends Stephanie et Julien, after the second desert, before the third Cognac, they told the story of how our street got its name. Apparently, on her way back from Vallon-Pont-d'Arc to Siena, city of her destiny, the (not yet Saint) Catherine was traveling under protection. Her protector was the warrior Archangel Michael who appeared at her side and said: "Ç'a va bien, Cat?" He could call her that as he watched her once brushing her teeth. She replied "Oui, et toi, Mitch?" She could call him that as they have known each other for a long time. They walked for a while and then she asked "Perhaps you know, Mitch, what time it may be?". He looked at her perfect face and at her long, slim, graceful limbs and replied "Perhaps, Cat, it may be time to buy a watch". Julien then added that, according to legend, this conversation happened just down the road from us, a place they call Place de l'Horloge.

B Flat

This is Nadja von der Vogelwalde (don't bother asking: yes, she is a direct descendant of Walther). The New York Recorder called her brilliant, most imaginative, and the brightest composer of her generation. Her creativity is heliofrenospastic which means that she works non-stop in her mind. At home, washing dishes, walking, running, biking, at the gym, at the store, everywhere and every moment Nadja composes music, she's deep in her current project. So when she sits down at her piano or laptop, the music just comes out complete, ready, and perfect. (Mozart was a heliofrenospast as am I) we don't write-review-re-write-re-review and leave it for weeks or months, no, we have it all. From early on Nadja was first in everything: winning deals, awards and competitions everywhere she went. She also has a sense of scale: no smallish sonatas or three-minute commissions for the local symphony, but symphonies and concertos, large works (like her idols Berlioz and Mahler), she is fierce and fearless, that's how Nadja is. Her favorite scale is B Flat Major (like Schubert's Impromptu Nr. 3 and Bach's Brandenburg Concerto Nr. 6), this and being tall, slim and dark earned her the nickname Clarinet (musician joke, I don't expect y'all to get it). Her favorite meal is seared foie gras on toast with a glass of well-chilled Sauternes. One night when we walked through the city and her stilettos became uncomfortable she took them off ... she B Flat ... 

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* graphite and watercolor on bond paper, private collection Toronto 

Helena G.

This is Helena, she's clever with a devastatingly quick wit. A while ago we stood outside a downtown bar sharing a joint and started talking about languages. Turned out we were even: three "fluent", two "very good", other two "getting by" and then two more "some". According to the International Polyglot Assoc. (Unit 2B, 512 S Sage Ave, Mobile, AL 36606, US), we are "Speaks Several Languages", far from the lofty "Cert. Polyglot". I told Helena of my first day of learning German (I was eleven and it ended in a fistfight) and she told me her first day of learning French (she was six). Mademoiselle Ferrand asked if someone can say something in French and Helena went like "me, me, me, me, me, me, me!" and getting the nod she said "Laisse mes mains sur tes hanches". 

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Mademoiselle Ferrand immediately demanded to know who said that and when Helena said that it was Adamo, Mademoiselle Ferrand told her that he is a pervert and she should stay away from him. Funny things happen when you learn  languages from your parent's record collection. Helena works now for The United Fruitgumm Co. where she writes copy and does translations in Portuguese, Turkish and Spanish, sometimes her colleagues hear her in her cubicle singing softly "Tombe la Neige" or "Viens, viens ma Brune". Helena finds herself strangely attracted to sardines, she has  currently no pets as she cannot decide if cat or dog, but whatever she's gonna get will be called Iphigenia. 

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* graphite and watercolor on paper, private collection, Toronto  

Alessia dé V.

This is Alessia the sweetest kid you ever likely to meet: clever, talented, friendly, a delight to hang out with during her recent reenactment of a famous movie scene. Alessia has a secret though, a very secret secret, so secret that she herself, may not know it: she has the innate ability and the psychic qualities to perform the art and science of 'Pataphysics: rare! While normal practitioners study and sweat years to even get close to trying to find imaginary solutions, these chosen individuals are born ready with this superb capability (like a gene mutation, like). Alessia is an intuitive, instinctive and intrinsic practitioner who could build a profile of anything real or imaginary from its smell, texture, color, shape, ideas, impressions, memories and vibes. and then totally own the anything real or imaginary.  There are only eight like her in North America and a total of forty-two on the globe some dormant, some awake and functional who scour the world to find their like and activate them. 'Pataphysics has a king called UBU and a prophet called Alfred who walks with a parrot on his shoulder even in low-ceiling rooms. It is said that one may recognize practitioners as they love Wednesdays, all shades of the color green, the number 525 and they are rarely seen eating or drinking but they hate Tuesdays, all snakes and Kohlrabi. Alessia has a cat called Dougie and a dog called Cathy.  

 

Maia Tyddr Isz

This is Maia Tyddr, born in Cynghordy (Pop. 624), Carmarthenshire, Wales. Her mother Raisa (née Kleinhorn) is from Narva, Estonia and married Maia's father Henry when they met and fell in love at the University of Bangor where she took Biology and he took Criminology. They moved to his family's ancestral home for Raisa to give birth (bringing the village's Jewish population from zero to two). When Maia was twelve they came to Canada and settled in Toronto where she now studies Philosophy and Earth Sciences. She told me that she hates the letter "B" and the numeral "4" and that her favorite shape is the triangle (an homage to Immanuel Kant, kind of her idol). She assumes this position, which helps her focus, for inspiration and decision making. Maia is famously very gay and promiscuous.

Recently Maia was in a traffic accident. The cop who sternly asked for "license and registration" mellowed significantly when he saw her name: "Where you say you from?" when she said Cynghordy, he couldn't stop laughing: "I'm from Cilycwm, you must know it." Maia: "Tidy, are you kidding me? I used to bike there twenty minutes to get pizza at Ozzys." So Delwyn (the cop) thought to give his fellow Welsh a break: ”Tell me exactly how it happened, let's see what I can do.” Delwyn knew that the Welsh are not naturally inclined to conceal their emotions so he was not greatly surprised to hear Maia say "I got distracted, see, by this really tidy girl on the sidewalk, the size of her breasts and the shape of her hips, God! It aroused me suddenly with great intensity, so I braked late and hit that car in front." Delwyn decided to go, in his report, with ”distracted, at fault for collision”. He also decided not to ask if she wanted to grab a pizza sometime. Maia got a $290 fine and her insurance was cancelled. She sold the car and bought a bike, a helmet and a parrot that talks (she called it Isz). 

Glen Ray Jr.

Glen was born on August 14th 1992 at the Toronto Mount Sinai Hospital and died four days later due to "not being viable". His parents, Mary and Joe were grief stricken and did the only rational thing they could think of: the "Sharon Procedure" instantly trying for another kid. What you read here is a "what would have been" story with an image generated by www.wemakeupshit4U.org (you should subscribe). Glen was bullied in all his years at school and had no friends, getting excellent marks in all subjects didn't make him popular. It was only when he went to university that he bloomed. He studied Music, Philosophy and History and learned German, Spanish and Italian to go with his already good French graduating with Honors. His took a job as a research assistant at the Musicus GmbH in Graz, Austria. He quickly became the world's foremost authority on Franz Joseph Haydn following his trail from Rohrau to Hamburg, Eisenstadt, Vienna, London and back to Eisenstadt where Haydn is buried at the Bergkirche. Colleagues, behind his back, would call him Frau Haydn recognizing his profound knowledge of the subject and acknowledging his sexual orientation. It is well known that Haydn was a mentor to Mozart and tutor of Beethoven. It was not known until Glen discovered it, that Haydn had a twin sister Edeltraud Maria, twenty minutes older and ten times more talented. They travelled together, she ostensibly housekeeper and cook, but it very well may have been she who invented the symphony and composed or contributed greatly to the, according to Mandyczewski, one hundred and four symphonies (some say 106). When his book "Haydn and I" came out in 2020, the publisher insisted on a world tour and Glen obliged asking only that the first stop be Toronto. After the launch and signings, Glen and his small entourage walked South on University Ave. towards the Shangri-La hotel. Glen, gesticulating agitated to make a point, didn't watch his step, stumbled and fell violently hitting his head on the pavement precisely in front of the Mount Sinai Hospital. They rushed him to Emergency just feet away. The triage doctor pronounced him at nine oh five PM marking cause of death as "not being viable".

  

Renée W

This is Renée as I met her at a theater venue the other day ... she is totally, purely, absolutely and thoroughly authentic (which cannot be said of many). She grew up in a warm and loving family with siblings and many aunts, uncles and cousins. To nobody's surprise she turned out to be clever, talented, hard working and gifted with an inquisitive mind. One day, Renée was about six, at a family reunion, uncle Brett said something that changed her life forever: "Vowels are fried and consonants are boiled". Uncle Brett was known to make up crazy shit like that after he came back from northern Kenya where he helped set up a sanctuary for the Reticulated Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata). Renée took it seriously and started intense research to learn everything she could about vowels. Unavoidably she found "EUNOIA", the famous anthology of univocalics by Canadian poet Christian Bök. [EUNOIA is the shortest English word that contains all the vowels]. When I told her that, in Romanian, I can compose sentences with only vowels, she flipped out (I have the picture) and went onto Duolingo to start learning the language. I smiled and said: "That sheep is hers" and "She takes eggs" and "They take that sheep" and "I take sheep" and "I take her blouse"*. Renée is currently developing an App to play a vowel game ... The New York Times seems to be interested.

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* Romanian sentences made up from vowels only