* (restored)
—-

 

Laporte, Roger (1925-2001). A philosopher by training, Laporte is primarily known as the author of a series of unusual works (including La Veille, 1963; Fugue, 1970; Moriendo, 1983) where attention focuses on the activity of writing itself, to the virtual exclusion of other subject-matter. Assembled in one volume (Une vie, 1986), the nine separate texts are experiments in a new genre, labelled ‘biographie’ (see Carnets, 1979; Lettre à personne, 1988), where the writer’s self is apprehended in its primordial relationship to language and utterance. Austere but rigorous and elevating, Laporte’s work often invokes kindred spirits such as Mallarmé, Artaud, and Blanchot, on whom he has written with penetration (Quinze variations sur un thème biographique, 1975). While a number of Laporte’s essays on contemporary philosophers have been published in periodicals and anthologies in the UK and the United States, only a very few fragments of his own vastly significant writing have been translated into English. Nonetheless, the scholar Ian Maclachlan’s brilliant and acclaimed book length study of Laporte’s work, Roger Laporte: The Orphic Text, was published by Oxford University Press in 2000. Laporte died in 2001.

 

 

 

 

a tribute to Roger Laporte by Derrida, Giraudon, Deguy, & others

 

 

 

‘Fugue is a long monologue in which a narrator proposes to write a novel that would expose his experience of writing in its immediacy, that is, as he sets his hand down to write on the blank page. The narrator states that his purpose “is to write a book that would be its own content, a book that would produce and register its own elaboration”. His project is dictated, he says, by his intention to “reveal the inner workings of the thought process”. The metafictional theme of writing is maintained throughout the novel. It is in fact its fundamental organizing principle.
—-”In the fugal structure and in the novel, a single theme is present as a unifying element. In both, it is a base element that is “searched out”. In the case of the fugue, it is the multiple entries of, and variations on, the theme that expose its musical potential. In the novel, the narrator proposes various models that he hopes will shed light on the question “What is writing?”. Thus the fugal theme or subject, as it is also called, and the novel’s theme can be projected onto each other as counterparts. Particular features — both are monothematic compositions whose themes have a unifying function and provide the potential for exploration and development — are recruited to participate in the construct of a blended space.’

from Frederique Arroyas’ ‘When is a Text like Music?’ (read the entirety)

 

 

 

Extrait du chapitre consacré à Marcel Proust

On peut en revanche essayer de comprendre pourquoi chez Proust les expériences de mémoire affective s’accompagnent toujours d’un tel sentiment de félicité que sa propre mort, véritable hantise, lui devient indifférente. – Une expérience majeure, constante, partagée par Swann et par le narrateur, est celle de l’oubli. Donnons un seul exemple, mais particulièrement probant on sait quelle longue et très cruelle souffrance fut pour le narrateur le départ, puis la mort d’Albertine. Le temps passe. Le narrateur est à Venise. Il reçoit un télégramme : la signature, à la suite d’une erreur de la poste, ne porte pas le prénom de Gilberte, mais celui d’Albertine…. ce que le narrateur accueille avec indifférence, car son amour pour la jeune fille en fleur est complétement mort. Proust a raison de penser que non seulement nous oublions le passé, mais que notre moi d’alors, le moi par exemple de celui qui aimait Albertine, n’existe plus, du moins en apparence. Il n’est pas question de mésestimer le temps retrouvé, mais nul mieux que Proust ne nous apprend que 1a mort ne coïncide pas avec la fin de notre existence, qu’elle ne se réduit point au trépas, mais que nous ne cessons de mourir tout an long de notre vie ». Sans doute la mémoire affective qui s’accompagne toujours d’une bouleversante félicité, ne vaut-elle que pour Proust lui-même, mais qui, plus que lui, a souffert de l’oubli! A un ami qui part pour un long voyage, Proust écrit “il est triste de leur séparation, mais qu’il est encore plus triste à la pensée que dans un certain temps il sera devenu indifférent. Si Proust avait été moins vulnérable, moins sensible à l’oubli, à la mort de soi, il n’aurait pas éprouvé une immense joie en retrouvant un moment du passé complètement oublié, perdu en apparence à jamais, en ayant ainsi la preuve que la mort, n’existe pas dans la mesure où il se retrouve lui-même tel qu’il était alors. A présent nous sommes mieux à même, non de partager l’incommunicable, mais de comprendre la félicité proustienne.

 

Extrait du chapitre consacré à Georges Bataille

S’il on est Balzac, on peut s’aventurer, avec plus ou moins de bonheur, à résumer La Chartreuse de Parme, mais aucun des trois récits majeurs de Bataille ne saurait être repris en peu de mots; même faire des citations est impossible et d’abord serait ridicule. On peut seulement dire avec Marguerite Duras:

« Edwarda restera suffisamment inintelligible des siècles durant… le sujet d’Edwarda se situant en deçà ou au-delà des acceptions particulières du langage, comment en rendrait-il compte! »

Par je ne sais quelle inconséquence, quel manque de lucidité cruel, il est arrivé à Bataille d’écrire de volumineux, d’ennuyeux ouvrages de sociologie ou d’anthropologie, par exemple L’Erotisme, Histoire de l’érotisme… sans parler de La Part maudite, mais ces ouvrages ne nous touchent guère, car ils parlent de l’érotisme, mais précisément ils ne font que parler de l’érotisme, à jamais extérieur au livre. Chez Bataille, non pas l’auteur des traités d’anthropologie (auxquels il a consacré beaucoup de temps!), mais l’auteur de textes érotiques, comme chez nul autre, même chez Sade, l’érotisme et l’écriture sont « coextensifs » pour reprendre la judicieuse remarque de Denis Hollier. Ces récits sont inséparables de leur trajet, de leur mouvement – celui d’une « crue », bien mise en lumière par Lucette Finas -, de leur caractère excessif, de plus en plus outrancier : aucune barrière ne limite la fiction. S’imaginer qu’écrire de tels récits érotiques est une partie de plaisir est une naïveté et d’abord un contresens, car l’acte d’écrire, touchant à l’extrême, rencontre le danger, que naturellement Bataille ne fuit pas, mais tout au contraire recherche. Ici encore Denis Hollier voit juste lorsqu’il écrit :

« Pour Bataille, l’écriture est une pratique réelle de déséquilibre, un risque réel pour la, santé, mentale. La folie est contamment en jeu dans ce qu’il écrit. Mais la “folie” est précisément l’inimitable écriture sans règle ni modèle . »

 

 

 

Extrait du chapitre consacré à Maurice Blanchot.

Si écrire est lié, au silence comme à son destin, si « le silence est la seule exigence qui vaille, “ on comprend que Blanchot ait pu dire : « … de cette écriture toujours extérieure à ce qui s’écrit, nulle trace, nulle preuve ne s’inscrit visiblement dans les livres. – N’arrive-t-il pas à Blanchot de nuancer cette affirrtiation ? Dans un texte dont E. Levinas souligne qu’il a été écrit « d’une façon prophétique plus de six mois avant Mai 68 », on peut lire ces lignes de Blanchot : « De cette écriture toujours exitérieure à ce qui s’écrit, nulle trace, nulle preuve ne s’inscrit visiblement dans les livres, peut-être de-ci de-là sur les murs ou sur la nuit, tout, de même qu’au début de l’hommes c’est l’encoche inutile ou 1’entaille de hasard marquée dans la pierre qui lui fit, à son insu, rencontrer l’illégitime écriture de l’avenir, un avenir non théologique qui n’est, pas encore le nôtre”. Puisque le silence doit passer par l’écriture pour s’accomplir n’est-ce pas lui qui devient impossible ? Dans La Part du feu , commentant encore une fois Mallarmé, Blanchot cite ce texte : « L’aramature du poème a lieu parmi le blanc du papier, significatif silence qu’il n’est pas moins beau de composer que le vers. » Blanchot remarque que ce blanc matériel « est peut-être le dernier vestige du langage qui s’efface, le mouvement même de sa disparition, mais il apparaît davantage encore comme l’emblème matériel d’un silence qui pour se laisser représenter doit se faire chose, ce qui reste ainsi le scandale du langage, son paradoxe insurmontable ». Blanchot résume ce paradoxe en cette formule : « Tout proférer, c’est aussi proférer le silence. C’est donc empêcher que la parole redevienne jamais silencieuse. De cette impossibilité, Mallarmé ne s’est jamais affranchi. » On peut ajouter: de cette impossibilité Blanchot ne s’est jamais affranchi. Il y a chez Blanchot une nostalgie de l’effacement, un amour de la discrétion, une passion pour le silence qui n’échappe à aucun lecteur, mais, par une contradiction insurmontable, ce désir d’une parfaite absence ne cesse de se montrer, de se dire, sans pouvoir par conséquent jamais s’accomplir. « Si le propre du langage est de rendre nulle la présence qu’il signifie », mais si le silence parfait est inaccessible, que peut faire l’écrivain ? Se tenir dans cet entre-deux, aussi près que possible du silence, et c’est pourquoi Blanchot donne la préférence, en particulier dans son oeuvre de fiction, à toutes les formes de langage qui font penser au silence. Lisons dans Au moment voulu ce que le narrateur dit de Claudia « cantatrice sublime » : « Des voix liées harmonieusement à la désolation, à la misère anonyme, j’en avais entendu, je leur avais prêté attention, mais celle-ci était indifférente et neutre, repliée en une région vocale où elle se dépouillait si complètement de toutes perfections superflues qu’elle semblait, privée d’elle-même. Cette voix, que fait-elle entendre ? Contrairement au « pathétique des registres graves », la voix de Claudia laisse très peu entendre. Son amie lui disait : « Tu as fait ta voix de pauvre » on bien « tu as chanté en blanc “.

« Lorsqu’on a commencé à faire sa part au silence, il l’exige toujours plus grande »…

Excerpt (in English from Ian Maclachlan’s Roger Laporte: The Orphic Text

 

Roger Laporte @ Wikipedia
Roger Laporte @ Editions P.O.L.
Roger Laporte @ Éditions Fata Morgana
Roger Laporte @ Gallimard

 

_____________

 

ÉCRAN DE NUIT #031 | ROGER LAPORTE

FRÉDÉRIC-YVES JEANNET – UCHRONIQUE 50: ROGER LAPORTE

Roger Laporte Heidegger

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Thank you very much for the Nico personal backgrounding. I was at that Whisky show too, and  the indifferent reaction to Hardin was painful, yeah. As I’ve said before, I met Nico once. I was at the Pyramid Club in the early 80s. Jim Fouratt brought Nico and Ari into the club. He introduced her to me. She was visibly jonesing for dope and a sweaty, unwell looking mess. She immediately started pumping me as to whether I knew where she could score heroin. I said I didn’t know, and she lost interest in me and moved on to someone else. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Thanks for thanking Jane! Glad you liked the post a lot. Oh, your Maggie Broon video is beautiful! Everyone, Go watch a short psychedelic video that Ben ‘_Black_Acrylic’ Robinson made about Maggie Broon, The Broons’ glamorous daughter in the DC Thomson comic strip, back in 2008, here. It’s surely not a surprise to you that I really like your flash fiction’s inspiration and title. ** Misanthrope, Thanks for thanking Jane. Well, we need govt. permission to leave our homes here too, and a serious reason to, and only for an hour, and only with 1 km of our abodes. The vast majority of businesses and eateries and all museums and galleries, etc., etc. are closed, so it’s not that it’s all that less stringent. The main difference is that it feels less post-apocalyptic because this time Parisians are determined to get out and have some kind of life rather than staying in hiding like last time. We had our version of Veterans Day yesterday too — Armistice Day. Same occasion, same deal, a day off, wreath laying, some pomp, no big. ** Sypha, Hey. I’ve always heard vague stories about Nico’s racism, but I’ve never heard a specific example laid out, which doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I would say ‘The Marble Index’ is my favorite of hers too, but I also have a big fondness for ‘The End’. ** Ferdinand, Hi, F. I’ve only seen ‘Nico Icon’, which I didn’t think was all that great, but lots of people seem to. ** Steve Erickson, ‘Nico 1988’ does not seem like a must-see. I agree about ‘The Inner Scar’. I understand he’s bit difficult about his earliest and best work, or can be. But the restoration, etc. is inevitable. I don’t know that Julianna Barwick, but the Enya comparison is not exactly an impetus to rush towards it for me. ** Gus, Hi, Gus! Oh, have I not responded did to an email from you. I’ll go find it. I am slow, and my laptop broke, and I had no email for several days, so I am behind more than even usual. Things are okay. I’m feeling a little under the weather today, which is eerie under the circumstances, but otherwise working and hanging in there. You? Still totally down to have that chat. I’ll go find the mail from you that I seem to have missed, and let’s sort out when and how to do that. ** Armando, Good morning to you. Mm, I think I maybe did one total Nico post on my dead blog, but this is the first extant one. Of course she features in posts about related filmmakers and stuff. The zoom chat with my old friend was very nice. He’s a composer, musician and sound engineer. We’re the two members of our high school gang who succeeded at what we dreamed we would do artistically. The Rennes trip was good, good to get away, gave Gisele feedback on the current incarnation of her new theater piece and then straight back to Paris. A quickie. ‘Victoria’ sounds awfully good. I’m on it. Today my plan is reverse course on having woken up feel just slightly sickly. And buying cigarettes and food. Pretty much it. You, yours? ** Okay. Today’s restored post is quite old, and, sadly, Roger Laporte remains as overlooked now as he was all those years ago. So here’s my second attempt to do what little I can to try to reverse that neglect. See you tomorrow.

—-

1. No one
“No one loved Nico and Nico loved no one . . . she was just alone . . . she couldn’t bear for anyone to touch her . . . Nico had sex with no one.” — Carlos de Maldonaldo-Bostock

‘In the documentary Nico Icon, friends and relatives of the singer, model and actress Nico describe her as “crazy,” “terrifying,” “a freak,” “a junkie” and “desperate.” But they also call her a “dreaming,” “boundless” “pure beauty” and “goddess.” Which raises the questions: Just who was Nico? And, in the 49 years she lived, did anybody really know her?

‘Born Christa Paffgen, Nico appeared in such films as Federico Fellini’s Dolce Vita in 1960 and Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls in 1966. She recorded a handful of spooky and singular solo albums that are as revered today as they were pitifully unheard and sidelined in her time. She was romantically — and, in most cases, creatively — involved with some of the late 20th century’s most important artistic figures: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Alain Delon, Tim Buckley, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Brian Jones, Iggy Pop, and Jeanne Moreau among others. But she remains best known for singing in the influential rock group the Velvet Underground at the behest of Warhol. It wasn’t her voice that got her the job. It was her presence: tall, icy, Teutonic and beautiful. But her singing — deep, mechanical and heavily accented with long-drawn-out consonants — soon grew as striking as her looks.

‘Apparently Nico was like the Kelippot, empty human shells in cabalistic mythology. Many people in the documentary say there was nothing beneath her surface: no love, no interests, no cares. There was only a wish to annihilate the one thing that attracted everyone to her: her beauty. And that she succeeded in doing, with years of heroin addiction and self-abuse.

‘”I have no limits,” she says in an interview in the movie, referring not just to her future but to her changeable past. She spent the half-century she lived trying not to be known, fabricating her background and making wildly contradictory statements to interviewers and friends — that is, when she talked at all. By simply existing as a silent German beauty, Nico became a blank screen for those around her, allowing them to project their own images onto her emptiness.’ — Neil Strauss, NYT

 

2. 1972
“Nico spoke no language — not articulately, at least.” — Carlos de Maldonaldo-Bostock

Nico interview 1972

destroymichael: Would anyone happen to know what she is saying in english?
Luna2548: she explains how she met lou and J.cale, that she was really impressed and it was the most beautiful day of her life, that she met andy at castel where she went dancing and then i don’t really understand what she means by marquis de sade dances, perverted dances she says !? lol Then she is speaking about la cicatrice intérieur… Before speaking about the movie, the journalist tell her that apart from the vu album, c.girls and the two other albums, she didn’t record anything else so he ask her if she intented to release another album and she answers you think it isn’t enough? Also, she says she would like to play at the opera one day, that when she makes music she thinks about theatre and cinema and she thinks her music is very visual. it’s not a very clear interview, but not only because of Nico, she speaks french very well…sorry for my english…
dragnpop: when she speaks of Marquis de Sade dances and perverted dances, she referrs to Gerard Malanga, who was performing something known as the “whip dance” – a dance with a whip – during Andy Warhol’s EPI – exploding plastic inevitable.
esquibelle: I idolized Nico for years as a goddess, adored her voice and unique songs. Then I met her, to do an interview for a music paper, and was sorely disappointed! She was nothing like I’d imagined! She was not too nice, bumming money for drugs, food, etc. from fans. Brown teeth, strung out, condescending and surly. She mocked her fans. She was a tragic figure, struggling with regrets, because she knew she could have done so more with her life.
girlsdocry: I would say he’s asking questions expecting a precise answer, which she never gives, such as in the end. He also implies that she is lazy and have done nothing interesting lately. But you have a point : he is very rude and unrespectful, especially when he assumes she hasn’t done anything since she left the VU. If I was her, I would have reacted more violently, but she just seem to be above all that, like a queen talking to an annoying servant.
tooboredforwords: she sounds like a man no offence ppl
Rosarie0: How suitable French is for her. It’s all so smooth. She’s telling him to get fuc–d, so smoothly.
kutkrap: This guy speaks to her like she’s some kind of retard or a kid on a tv show, it’s really weird..reallt rude, i’d say. But she is luminous…

 

3. Songstress
“Heroin does make you a colder and a meaner person . . . not so much Nico because she had always been different.” — Lutz Ulbrich

‘Chelsea Girls’ live in the Chelsea Hotel

‘I’m Not Saying’

‘Winter Song’

‘Heroes’ live

‘These Days’

‘All That is My Own’

‘Afraid’ live

‘My Heart is Empty’ live

’60/40′ live

‘Le Petite Chevalier’

‘My Funny Valentine’

 

4. Superstar & actress
“Nico had no inner life, or what inner life she did have was kept strictly inner . . . there was nothing to talk to Nico about because she had no interests.” — Viva

Nico in Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’

Between 1970 and 1979, Nico made about seven films with French director Philippe Garrel. She met Garrel in 1969 and contributed the song “The Falconer” to his film, Le Lit de la Vierge. Soon after, she was living with Garrel and became a central figure in his cinematic and personal circles. Nico’s first acting appearance with Garrel occurred in his 1972 film, La Cicatrice Intérieure. Nico also supplied the music for this film and collaborated closely with the director. She also appeared in the Garrel films Anathor (1972); the silent Jean Seberg biopic, Les Hautes Solitudes, released in 1974; Un onge passe (1975); Le Berceau de cristal (1976), starring Pierre Clementi, Nico and Anita Pallenberg; and Voyage au jardin des morts (1978). His 1991 film J’entends Plus la Guitare is dedicated to Nico. — Wikipedia

‘La Cicatrice Intérieure’ (trailer)

‘Le Lit de la vierge’ (clip)

Andy Warhol: ‘[Nico] called us from a Mexican restaurant and we went right over to meet her. She was sitting at a table with a pitcher in front of her, dipping her long beautiful fingers into the sangria, lifting out slices of wine-soaked oranges. When she saw us, she tilted her head to the side and brushed her hair back with her other hand and said very slowly, ‘I only like the fooood that flooooats in the wiiine.’

‘During dinner, Nico told us that she’d been on TV in England in a rock show called Ready, Steady, Go! and right there she pulled a demo 45 rpm out of her bag of a song called I’ll Keep It with Mine that had been written for her, she said, by Bob Dylan, who’d been over there touring. (It was one of a few pressings that had Dylan playing the piano on it, and eventually Judy Collins recorded it.) Nico said that Al Grossman [Dylan’s manager] had heard it and told her that if she came to the United States, he’d manage her. When she said that, it didn’t sound too promising, because we’d heard Edie telling us so much that she was ‘under contract’ to Grossman and nothing much seem to be happening for her… We were still seeing Edie, but we weren’t showing her films anymore…

‘Nico had cut a record called I’m Not Sayin’ in London (Andrew Oldham, the Stones’ producer had produced it), and she’d also been in La Dolce Vita. She had a young son – we’d heard rumors that the father was Alain Delon and Paul [Morrissey] asked her about that immediately because Delon was one of his favorite actors, and Nico said yes, that it was true and that the boy was in Europe with Alain’s mother. The minute we left the restaurant Paul said that we should use Nico in the movies and find a rock group to play for her. He was raving that she was ‘the most beautiful creature that ever lived’.’

Nico in Warhol’s ‘I, A Man’

Nico in Warhol’s ‘Chelsea Girls’

Nico discusses Andy Warhol

Nico’s complete filmography

 

5. Jim Morrison
“I like my relations to be physical and of the psyche. We hit each other because we were drunk and we enjoyed the sensation. We made love in a gentle way, do you know? I thought of Jim Morrison as my brother, so we would grow together. We still do, because he is my soul brother. We exchanged blood. I carry his blood inside me. When he died, and I told people that he wasn’t dead, this was my meaning.” — Nico

Nico discusses Jim Morrison

Nico sings Morrison’s ‘The End’

 

6. John Cale *
“Being a living legend is such a precarious livelihood. It’s like being a bar of soap in a shower which doesn’t have any water in it.” — John Cale

… covers Nico’s ‘Frozen Warnings’

‘Backstage at the Roundhouse, Nico sits alone on a flight of wooden steps that lead up to the stage. A black velvet cape over her shoulders, one leg up and the other extended, her chin resting on her hand resting on her knee. Under empty beams and open blue lights on Sunday night. Waiting until it is time.

‘John Cale left the Velvet Underground two and a half years ago. Nico left before he did. Until a week ago, the only way to hear these people together was on the first Velvet Underground album. Separately, John is also on the second and his own album, Vintage Violence. Nico has made three albums, Chelsea Girls, The Marble Index, and the latest, Desertshore. And then, last week, a small announcement in a hip London magazine said: “John Cale – Nico, Roundhouse, Sunday.”

‘Nico goes on stage first, before a large and noisy crowd packed in to see Pink Floyd, who will follow. “I don’t know what mood you’re in”, Nico says to the audience in her unreproducible voice. “I suppose you’re in a very peace-loving mood.” She begins with “Janitor of Lunacy” from her new album, pumping away steadily, her legs in high leather boots on the harmonium pedal, her shoulder bag hanging from her chair. John Cale plays viola in the background then switches to piano. The combination of her voice, syllables stretched to madness and dropped, and the cavernous repetition of the harmonium slow the Roundhouse crowd down. The stage goes all black except for soft purple and green spots high above her head. The light show flickers down to a single picture, all grainy and glowing. The people stop talking. A great hall becomes a mediaeval cathedral. “I’m glad you like it,” Nico says, after some applause. “If I had a back-up group now, I would do the old songs like ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ and ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’. I don’t think I would do ‘Femme Fatale’. “I haven’t that much of a sense of humor. Back then it was all right. It was a part I was playing. My hair was blonde and I…” She stops and looks at the audience. “It has changed. Now. I don’t know what part I’m playing.”.’ — Rolling Stone, 1971

*Nico’s second album The Marble Index (1969) was arranged by John Cale. He produced her third and fourth albums, Desertshore (1970) and The End (1974). On Desertshore, Cale plays most of the instruments. Nico wrote the music, sang, and played the harmonium. On The End, Cale plays a wide range of instruments including xylophone, synthesizer, acoustic guitar, and electric piano. Cale and Nico reunited in 1985 when he produced her final studio album Camera Obscura.

 

7. Death
“For one whose life was bedecked with musty glamour, Nico died an absurdly ungracious death. No one knew who she was — just another junkie looking for drugs in the sun.” — Pat Gilbert

‘On 18 July 1988, she went for a bike-ride on the isle of Ibiza.  She was visiting again, a bike rider of a healthy-living woman, almost clean of her narcotic past. People found her unconscious by the side of her bike, and took her to the Cannes Nisto Hospital. She was incorrectly diagnosed as suffering from exposure, and she died the next day. X-rays later revealed she had suffered a minor heart attack while riding her bike, fallen and struck her head, causing a severe cerebral hemorrhage that led to her death. Not the thing we expected from the woman who always was living in places the sun couldn’t reach.  She remained in fact where she was, her whole life a mystery! Her ashes were buried in Berlin, in a small cemetery in the Grunewald Forest, at the edge of the Wannsee, in to her mother’s grave, Margarete Päffgen (1910-1970) on 16 August 1988, with a few friends playing a song from Desertshore on a cassette recorder …’ — from The Nico Website

 

8. Fashion model (1952 – 1967)
“After leaving school at 13, Nico started selling lingerie and soon was spotted by fashion people. She later moved to Paris and worked for Vogue, Tempo, Vie Nuove, Mascotte Spettacolo, Camera, ELLE, and other fashion magazines until the mid 1960s.” — mog.com

See many more Nico fashion modeling photos here

 

9. Ari (Christian Aaron Boulogne)
“My mother died of too much sun.” — Ari

‘In 1962, Christian Aaron Boulogne – Ari was his nickname – was born from a short-lasted relationship between Nico and French actor Alain Delon, who denied paternity for many years. Maternal responsibility wasn’t Nico’s strong suit. She supposedly took LSD while pregnant (can you imagine the unborn child hallucinating in the womb?) and dragged the child with her in her nomadic bohemian lifestyle. His infancy was spent in New York with his mother, in Andy Warhol’s Factory, as a mascot for the Velvet Underground. At the age of four he emptied the drinking glasses of Bob Dylan, John Cale and Paul Morrissey, and sucked on amphetamine pills, mistaking them for candy. Ari became Warhol’s youngest star when he appeared with his Nico in the film ‘The Chelsea Girls’ in 1966.

‘When Alain Delon’s mother, Edith Boulogne, saw Ari’s photograph in a French newspaper, she was instantly convinced it was her son’s child. Edith Boulogne [Alain Delon’s mother]: ‘I said to myself, that’s my son’s child. We went to see her [Nico], her and the baby. The kid was about two years old. He came running into my husband’s arms. We were so moved. I saw my own son in him. And I truly believed that my son would accept him… When he heard about it two years after we had taken the baby, he had his agent tell me that I had to choose between the baby and my son. My husband said, ‘Your son can feed himself, but Ari can’t raise himself.’ So we kept him. Think about it, he was so little. Before we took him, she [Nico] dragged him around everywhere. He ate nothing but french fries, in train stations, hotels, airports. They lived like bohemians. She came to see him once in three years. She brought him something from America. Guess what? An orange. My husband and I looked at each other, speechless. We took the orange and thought, she’s really not like other people… but I still liked her. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen’.

‘Delon’s mother adopted the child, giving him his last name: ‘Boulogne’. At the age of 17, Ari ran off from his adoptive parents, joined Nico and became a heroin addict – turned on to the drug by mother. After Nico died in 1988, Ari spent his much of his life in and out of detoxication clinics and psychiatric hospitals. In 2001, at the age of 38, living in Paris, he fathered a son and wrote a book about his relationship with his mother called “L’Amour N’Oublie Jamais” (Love Never Forgets).”‘ — Valter, Documents

 

10. The Velvet Underground
“And with the Velvets come the blonde, bland, beautiful Nico, another cooler Dietrich for another cooler generation.” — from the linernotes of The Velvet Underground and Nico

… rehearsing

‘Femme Fatale’ (live)

‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ (live)

‘Femme Fatale’ and ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ are two songs that are very identified with you. How did it come out that those songs were performed by you ? I mean listening to that first LP I imagine that ‘Venus in Furs’ or ‘Run Run Run’ could well have been performed by you. How did you, did you have an affin … did you have a good feeling for those songs, or did Lou say “Look, these are for you, Nico.”, how did it come about the Velvet new songs ?
We just agreed upon them.
They just seemed right ?
Yes it seemed right. We never thought, about, you know analyzing every little thing.
Alright.
Er, it just happened, and, or it didn’t, because, three songs is all I sang in that group.
It’s remarkable, isn’t it ?
Maybe for, except for improvisations.
Were the live performances that you were involved in different than the ones that were recorded on that LP ? Was that the sound of the Velvets made live or was it …
No, there was, there was more improvisation.
Mm. And …
There was not only noise, but er, the kind of music you can hear when, when it’s storm, a storm outside, or that you can hear in, in elementary violence like it.
Andy Warhol’s name is on the cover as producing that record.
I mean Moe was the best drummer ever. I just heard her on that song at the hotel that we played before.
Alright.
She had the best drums sound.
She’s actually done a good LP of her own, too, sort of a garage record, she plays all the instruments, in recent times. It’s really good. ‘Louie Louie’ and all these old rock songs.
I don’t know that record. I saw her three summers ago in Los Angeles and she was married to this woodcutter, that’s how he looked like. And she had grown her hair, and she didn’t look like a boy anymore.
Right, yeah, ’cause some of the cover photos of those LPs were pretty deceptive, weren’t they, Moe Tucker, and er …
And she’s not a good singer. She’s only good on that one song ‘When you close the door’ .
Mm. Yeah, well, she’s rough, but she’s good. Well, er …
The tapes she gave me weren’t so good, that’s what I mean.
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p.s. Hey. Today Jane Bogaert, a member of the blog’s silent majority readership, has generously gifted us with this beautiful, concisely built post about one of music’s more enigmatic royals, the late great Nico. Take its pleasures to heart, and if you can spare a word for our guest-host, who I think I can safely assume will be looking in today, that would be cool. Thanks a ton, Jane. ** Dominik, Hey, D! I used to try to write fan fiction, or incorporate fan fiction-style in my novels, and I guess I did in ‘Guide’ in a way, but it’s a tough form, I think. More difficult to pull of than I had imagined, or at least more difficult if you need the writing you read to not be godawful. My trip was good, productive. Nice to get out of Paris. The train was crowded, but everyone seemed pretty civilised, so I think escaped without infection, although I guess I’ll find out, ha ha. Cool. How was your day, I mean today, or, well, yesterday too? I like your love. It’s very hunky. Take some love like this. ** Ferdinand, Hey. Oh, yeah, I don’t think I shared that here. Everyone, Kindly Ferdinand reminds me that I haven’t shared this just published piece in/on The Face about me and Diarmuid Hester called ‘Cult author Dennis Cooper on meth, the death of NYC and Miley Cyrus’. If you want to solve the mystery of that headline, there’s where. Thanks, man. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, you snuck in a reference to your favorite film. I … think my health survived the train rides, or else I will be (unpleasantly) surprised if it didn’t. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Welcome ‘home’. Next year you should work in a haunt or haunted maze as a scary but strangely jovial zombie. I think you would really blossom. All evidence is that masks help, but they’re not perfect, and it’s the mask non-users in private locations who are the culprits, but … yeah, more restrictions are in all of our immediate futures, I fear. ** _Black_Acrylic, It is a charismatic form. That’s a good adjective for it. I’ll go see you transform Maggie Broon even if I don’t know what she’s being transformed from. Or maybe I’ll do a little research on her first. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! Surprise! Yeah, I was trawling around in the archives, and there it was screaming at me for immortality. Me too, re: the form. It’s a toughie, strangely. It seems like it shouldn’t be. I’m good. Coping with the quarantine, getting stuff done as best I can, feeling all right. You? What’s the latest? Are you working on anything? ** Steve Erickson, Yeah, Hanson kind of helped pioneer self-releasing records successfully, or somewhat successfully at least. Not a huge surprise about their politics, and I guess the drummer is a COVID truther, but at least they didn’t endorse you-know-who unless I missed something. ** Okay. You can luxuriate in the many facets of Nico all day today if you like. See you tomorrow.