(Untitled)

[gainsbourgc]

On the rue de Verneuil which I easily pass each morning on my way to the flat, there is nestled a very small graffiti-splattered house more often than not mistaken for a cottage where my father took his last whiff of his favourite brand of mentholated oxygen. Here the walls soak in the ink of a babel of translations, all underlined and exclaimed

Comments

[gbernal]

Of course we are all born relics, these tiny vessels that have minds of their own for brief periods of time but that will be remembered in clusters or associated to other items rather than standing on their own. Of your relationship to your father, I would say that it's like your music. While you have the passion for it, as he did, nobody can say that your voice and your words are his. You are your own but still a segment of a greater something. What that is, I cannot answer because I am neither philosopher nor prophet.

I am at gael es cursi. It's not a true statement, for the record.

[gainsbourgc]

I am lucky then to have met so many directors in place of relic collectors. Nothing of his I truly have ever wanted to keep to myself and everything remains untouched when I visit. I have always felt like I shared him with France, which has always been preferable. It was suggested I sing the songs in English because they were afraid my French would sound hauntingly familiar. I always protest this, I haven't chainsmoked long enough. The topic has found itself sadly infinite. The second I stop and think I have figured out the dynamic, I or someone else stops me and finds another quality lost or found within me. There are simply too many fragments of him spread in the world to count. You may be neither, but you have come surprisingly close. Tell me, have you been getting enough sleep.

Yet another paradox Gael? I wouldn't dream of suggesting it is.

[gbernal]

It's kind of like the debate of form versus content. Some people insist that there's a form, like a shell or a vase, and then you fill it up with content. I guess there the form would be the person and the content would be the past, like your connections with your father. And then there are the people who say you can't peel the shell away, you can't crack the vase and expect to find anything inside because everything's form in its own way. I subscribe to the latter option, but I find it hard to explain today. My words are getting away from me and getting nowhere. It takes a long time to smoke that many cigarettes, and one should always consider pace. Well, as many fragments of him that exist out there, there are just as many parts of you, and you are here now. You are your own focus. No, I never get enough sleep, but thank you for noticing.

More like a pun combined with some self-promotion.

[gainsbourgc]

A friend of mine has always been fascinated with collecting authentic Russian matryoshka dolls. She told me how much time and energy was spent searching for the very aboriginal ones and the costly ones embossed with metal or golden designs. They're all funnily stacked together in her living room and once when I unassembled one of them I noticed that she had mismatched all of them; the expensive ones, the antique ones, to the one she found at a thrift store in Kiev. As they got smaller they simply varied in value, so I had no idea which one to expect. I asked her why she did it this way and she simply shrugged and told me that she couldn't picture having it any other way, that she just enjoyed the suspense of not knowing what came next. This is a tame comparison at best, but it has always stuck with me. I hope for nothing more than to live in a very translucent vase, and if anything, I have mastered a very slow and reasonable pace.

I have never taken you for a self-promoting man Gael Bernal. Ah, Diego es Rudo?

[brmolko]

I've always been a great fan of your father's work, and how could I not? This may sound strange, but the first time I saw you was in a Franco Zaffirelli film, Jane Eyre, and at the time, I didn't know it was you (meaning who you were related to), because I caught the film on TV beyond the credits, and I thought that you brought really something to that role. As you did with Fautine in Les Miserables. I suppose I said a lot, when all I really wanted to say is that I'm really glad to see you around.

molko on meds if you ever happen to be on.

[gainsbourgc]

Both roles have been very good to me in the matter of which they pertained to and how I could relate to them. Maybe not so much with Fautine as with Jane, but I think with both I was lucky to find sides of me that were very much like those characters. I would've been terrible if they had asked me to play Elizabeth Bennet or to dance in the Moulin Rouge. Though, who knows. But thank you Brian, I think you know how much I adore your work. Requiem for a Jerk is a staple in most of my mixes, that is, whenever I can get away with it.

[johndepp]

I don't think it matters what our parents do, we're always in their limelight in one way or another. We'll end up putting our children through the same thing, and so the cycle continues. All we can do is make our own way, but you already knew that. I think what I'm really trying to say is I'm shit at telepathy.

[gainsbourgc]

I'm a terrible replier, but here I am. My son has aspirations to be a great conquistador and my daughter is finding enlightenment through collecting newts. Ones mommy has to take care of and eventually throw away. When I picture them older I would like them to feel their own sort of achievement before ever realising who or what their family meant to anyone else. It's a tangled web we weave Johnny. You must try harder, look within yourself, and try not to fall asleep.

[frystephen]

I can scarcely construct a comment after that beautiful entry. I've been attempting to communicate the shadow of my father over my life for years and never come close to something as comprehensive as this. Which is to say I can relate.

[gainsbourgc]

It's took a lifetime to construct a semblance of thoughts that I can hold in my hand and not watch leak through my fingers. Every minute, every day there is a new discovery, or a discovery lost, as I grow to realise that my hands are truly my own and when I open my mouth I do not hear his voice. I can honestly say that the day after writing this I wanted to scrap it all and write the exact opposite, just to see how it would feel and sound. Tell me about yours.