You know what I’d like? I have an idea. It’s totally stupid, but sometimes I get these ideas (the sound of peace is also the sound of routine)…
Listen, can I come see you at the Couche-Tard? We could continue our conversation… The worst that could happen is that I’ll transform back into a hostess and interview you… It wouldn’t bother me… What do you think? I know that it’s unusual, but then what isn’t between us?
I’ll wait to hear from you!
Take care!
Courrège
xxx
* * *
Friendliness is a slippery slope.
Courrège confronted me with her friendliness. For me, this was a challenge.
Yet the proximity of a friendly face is essential to our survival. If necessary, we can invent this face and superimpose it on those we meet, but the effect is not the same.
I was not in love with Courrège, and I couldn’t explain it.
She was getting used to it. I was getting used to it.
It was as though I was running under a tiny, cartoonish cloud raining down on me. Cold water soaked my body.
Courrège was playing the little cloud, and I wasn’t fighting it. It was dangerous.
I called her and invited her to drop by the next day, during my shift.
* * *
Stunning nature has spoiled us with the luxury of power, of potential.
Actually, I want to take up Guyau’s writing once again. We live with texts inside us as though they were monkeys climbing and clinging onto our consciousness, despite fatigue and repeat warnings.
Writing is a learned animal that shakes us.
I lost Guyau. He escaped from my pores, like a liquid with a strange volatility. I felt the regular movement of secretions stirring my body, sometimes with blinding fierceness. A nourishment that had sustained me during a mental exercise, Guyau’s book was producing its waste water, its fluids of intellectual anti-prostration.
We think “yes, yes, moral fecundity, of course,” then we keep reading, we assimilate, we chew then digest the thought, then we think “here is an important author who tried to define an ethics of anomie without laws, a kind of methodical anarchist,” then we start to doubt, to recognize rhetorical holes in the text, arguments that are somewhat slack and collapse in the face of our natural scepticism.
Then we arrive at this conclusion: “Isn’t it in fact a work about power, an examination of natural morality regulated by our animal potential?” It would be too perfect if we were right. It would be too simple, of course. We circle around the subject. We are living beings who can. We are living beings who will continue being able in a society that regiments potential. We are living organisms who know they are alive, who recognize their freedom relative to the social overseer.
Returning to the book, I get the unbelievable urge to type once and for all a quote that’s as revealing as it is deliciously empty: “As we have already explained, instead of saying, I must, therefore I can, it is more true to say, I can, therefore I must. Hence a certain impersonal duty is created by the very power to act. Such is the first natural equivalent of the mystical and transcendental duty.”
If a resolute agnostic tells us we can, that’s fine. But if he tells us that, because we can, we’ll be faced with many natural duties, responsibilities inherent to humanity’s natural power to act, what immediately comes to mind?
And is what comes to mind good?
I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed. Four-colour display stands. Forsaken books on a hideous cardboard stand with eye-catching design. He’s the one I want to talk about, the conqueror: the businessman.
Why do businessmen take themselves for “philosophers”? In what country are we living?
It’s no doubt monstrous to associate a philosopher like Guyau with a businessman like Edmond Bourque, but how can one avoid relating them? They both teach the non-ideological ideology of potential that rules everything, that contributes to both success and social problems.
Edmond Bourque, Choosing to Succeed – A Practical Guide in 9 Steps and 36 Easy Keys (Forward by Alain Bouchard), Les éditions QualiPerformance.
What was the man’s title? President and CEO of Couche-Tard? Professor at the HEC Montréal business school?
I’m not sure anymore. We sold his book. He was next to the coffee machine. He ruled from his cardboard display stand, sharing his recipe for success with the coffee drinkers that happened to come by.
Pinocchio’s amusement park comes to mind.
A Couche-Tard with amusement rides, in which all the children slowly transform into donkeys, servile beasts imprisoned by their desire for indolence, for unreserved entertainment.
A park of perverted potential.
Mental health is the prerogative of true thinkers, and I was only a reader, doubling as a consumer of potato chips, chocolate bars, cheese sticks, and packaged popcorn, beer, coffee, and all kinds of newspapers. I was contributing to the smooth functioning of the carnival of poverty, desire, common interests that make the wheels of economy turn, paying truckloads of riches to the rich, and with increasing difficulty, hospital care for the poorest of the poor.
Was Bourque ultimately my true master, the one who regulated my potential without my being aware of it?
* * *
It’s the evening when Courrège will be dropping by.
To prepare myself, I thought that printing out a small batch of Super 7 results would make my work easier.
Plenty of change in the till.
The coffee machine is full.
My potential is at maximum.
It’s fine. I become a Couche-Tard cashier once again.
I’m alive. That’s what counts.
* * *
The human race publishes a book every thirty seconds.
—gabriel zaïd
I don’t amuse myself by speaking; I live by speaking but I amuse myself by reading. I wouldn’t know how to live without these small linguistic packets that everyone collects in their own way, sticks back together like old pieces of an endless puzzle, always metamorphosing.
If in Gutenberg’s time, in 1450, 100 books were published annually for a population of 500 million inhabitants and, in 2000, one million books were published annually for a population of six billion inhabitants, it would be reasonable to predict than in 100 years, when more than twelve billion people will populate the earth, we will feed readers around the world over two million books annually, that is, one book every fifteen seconds.
A 6/49, a pack of Belvedere, a copy of La Presse.
From behind my counter, elevated by what the manager calls “the podium,” I’m thinking.
A pack of citrus-flavoured Chiclets gum.
What stuns me in this procession of books that secretly terrify us is the fact that a published book calls forth another, that the organic structure of publishing naturally functions according to an exponential model.
A new author is born, two reviewers are born. A new scientific field emerges, three popularizing writers will be called to the task. Every published author awakens a writing vocation in two or three members of her extended family. Every famous author drags in his wake a handful of epigones, admirers who will become authors themselves one day.
A bag of cheese curds, a 500 ml bottle of Tropicana juice.
Courrège is late.
She’s picking up Maldonne’s habits.
A box of S.O.S. A litre of Montclair water.
Hawkers of the obvious also find their audience. Edmond Bourque is proof of this.
The continuum of satisfaction goes on. Someone is always in the dep. As soon as I have a moment alone, I sneak up to the coffee machine and return with a copy of Bourque’s book. To propose a social activity to Courrège.
(Otherwise, for a total parody of these pop psychology books that re
adily crop up like morel mushrooms in a field of conifers devastated by fire, I recommend an elegant book by François Blais, Iphigénie en Haute-Ville,** published by L’instant même.)
courrège: I’m not too late?!
She wasn’t too late. It was okay.
As soon as the latest customer leaves with his Journal de Montréal, I propose my game to her. I’ll give her a page number and she’ll read a paragraph of Bourque’s book to me.
ghislain: Listen, let’s play a game.
courrège: You don’t want me to help you a bit?
ghislain: No need.
courrège: You sure?
ghislain: Yes, yes.
courrège: But you’re on camera!
ghislain: They tape me to see if I filch a pack of gum or forget to card a minor.
courrège: Okay, have it your way.
ghislain: I’m a spy. A double agent like Aquin. I gather information about the vast world in order to understand it better. I’m only trying to discover what mosquito bit us.
courrège: But what do you get out of always being in a precarious position like that?
ghislain: I’m not in a precarious position. I analyze, I read.
courrège: And then?
ghislain: I read, ergo I think, ergo I am. Of necessity, I take up more space than others, I assume more space in the great symbolic machine.
ghislain (to customer): Yes, sir. You want the Super 7 results? Here you go. An Export “A” King Size Extra Light. Here you go. Thank you. Until next time!
courrège: Do you realize just how much of a hypocrite you can be?
ghislain: Have you seen the two Clerks movies by Kevin Smith?
courrège: Yes.
ghislain: There’s your answer.
courrège: What answer? That vulgarity and frustration rule the world? That stupidity and all types of inferiority complexes are existential stimulants? I write to you because I consider you to be a special human being, not a fart bag for retarded adolescents!
ghislain: You’re really sexy when you’re angry.
courrège: Stop talking nonsense.
ghislain: I swear.
ghislain: $3.67 ma’am. Thank you! Please come see us again!
ghislain (handing Bourque’s book to Courrège): Go to page 61. Read me some of that nonsense.
courrège (flipping the pages): “We can often observe a difference of opinion between individuals who live or work together, tacitly expressed by a facial reaction in conversation, by a shift in tone in the language or writing style.”
ghislain: A coffee, a Journal de Montréal, a ham sandwich, $6.80. Thank you! Until next time!
ghislain (to Courrège): Bourque bombards us with the evident. The obvious.
courrège: I think it’s well-written.
ghislain: Yes, well, beyond the clear formulation, you agree with me that everything he says is obvious.
courrège: It’s his fifth key. He calls it “the necessity of collaboration.”
ghislain: He has thirty-six just like it. Would you want to buy this pack of banalities?
courrège: I don’t know. Everyone seeks guidance. I imagine that the owner of Couche-Tard wanted to circulate his mentor’s ideas.
ghislain: $8.92, sir! Thank you! Please come see us again!
ghislain: You don’t find that sad?
courrège: What should I find sad?
ghislain: You don’t find the racket of the obvious sad? As though no one had ever learned anything, as though no one had the least bit of initiative? You don’t find it sad that an adult feels the need to be told that he should learn to collaborate in order to get on in life?
courrège: It’s not a bad thing to be reminded of the obvious.
ghislain: But the obvious is what friends are for; it’s what conversation is for! Family, loved ones, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends should be the ones dealing with the obvious, not a book!
courrège: I don’t see why not a book.
ghislain: The Bible also states the obvious, but at least it’s coated in a good stew of ambiguities, horrors, tales, incomprehensible things, and poems. It’s much closer to life, ultimately. It deserves to be read because it’s complex, at times as dense as a Basile novel.
courrège: Why do you think so many cooking shows exist?
ghislain: Cooking… Everybody loves to eat, don’t they?
courrège: Because people are fascinated by successful recipes. Because people love to be given advice, because they’re lazy. Because they like to watch Josée di Stasio chatting while cutting onions.
ghislain: Reading Bourque is like cutting onions or reading a successful recipe?
courrège: Absolutely. Just like diets, the recipe for success is always miraculous, even if what it conveys is obvious. People still want to read the story of Mister “if you want it, you can do it.” They’re still interested in the experience of a “I did all the steps took my time persevered stayed patient and I succeeded,” as well as the difficulties of Madam “I overcame a great challenge fought against prejudice met my soul mate” or even Mister or Madam “I sacrificed my life for the children’s happiness I neglected all my talents for a good cause.”
ghislain: A Lundi, a Journal de Montréal, a large bag of Lay’s Old Fashioned Bar-B-Q chips. $9.96. Thank you, ma’am! Until next time!
courrège: I’m not against cheap hope.
ghislain: If hope means having a bit of future pleasure, I could say that I sell instant hope, here at Couche-Tard.
courrège: You sell instant satisfaction to those in need of it.
ghislain: It’s pretty sad. My job is sad.
courrège: You’re the one who’s sad, Ghislain.
* * *
In my bed, late at night.
I started thinking about the scene when Harry and Adletsky meet in Saul Bellow’s novel, which I had just been reading (The Actual, Viking, 1997). A famous billionaire invites a known writer to come see him. An unexpected appointment. Harry, with the main narrator’s voice in tow, shows up. The conversation begins.
Each deserves the other’s esteem. No faux pas. No one loses, each wins in this comical struggle to impress the other.
Soon Harry and Adletsky find their point in common: they both understood the purpose of a grand society dinner. Behind the smokescreen of gowns and wandering hands, a woman and a man had a score to settle. The climax of the show, the nodal point uniting the network of guests, had escaped everyone except the writer and the billionaire.
Adletsky tells him: “Anyway, I thought I’d like to become acquainted with somebody like you—a first-class noticer obviously.”
A writer = a first-class noticer.
I fell asleep turning this thought over in my mind: all first-class noticers open the door to a universe that goes beyond themselves.
My life is twisted up, dying in an ashtray that’s no longer smouldering. An old panicky film, blurry scenes, cracks in narrated platitudes are not enough to allow me a respite. I dream that I’m not dreaming. More than a summons, it concerns a gradual, horizontal precipice. A highway lined with old dwarf palms bloating up plaster pots. Silence. I don’t hear anything. A long shot that will become the narrative blurs what I’ll do to Courrège.
I walk down the hallway. I see Saul Bellow’s door. He’s there, a great among greats, slumped over by the door. His face lies in a puddle of Cuban rum. I pull on his arm. He stands up on his own, impassive and dignified. I open the door. A young Bellow greets me. His mischievous head is buried in the folds of the soft leather couch. He throws a cotton ball at me.
I sit up. I have fallen under his desk, I’m scratching his legs. I’m bent on trying to hide, to flee an obligation I can’t recall. I’m forced to perform a task that gnaws at me. I sweat. Laugh. Bite. Think. Speak. At the same time, I’m worried. I emit
groans that make sense. Then my conversation improves. The young Bellow seems to be listening to me. I feel camaraderie grow between us. We go back into the hallway. There’s a puddle of Cuban rum on the floor. No one notices it.
I have a bunch of keys.
I know that one of them will open the most important door in the hallway.
I concentrate.
The young Bellow runs in a zigzag, kicking everything. But I’m fixed to the spot, frozen in a solemn pose. I leave behind a concentrational space. I dissolve into the evident. I slip into a Prague of silent film, a Prague of Orson Welles filming The Trial.
I carry on a long process of depersonalization.
I’m pulverized into read books. I’m dispersed among dreamt books, books watched onscreen, filmed books.
Inflated with moral air, I slowly empty and land on a patched-up sofa in the office of the child Bellow.
He eyes me from head to toe, suspicious—an expression that’s totally new to him. I’m unmasked.
I stretch.
I slide the button on the clock radio.
Gypsy music invades my bedroom.
Pause.
* * *
* Iconostase pour Pier Paolo Pasolini: Discours poétique sur les gays, le féminisme et les nouveaux mâles [Iconostasis for Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Poetic Discourse on Gays, Feminism and the New Male], published in 1983. (Trans.)
† Journal poétique, 1964–1965: Élégie pour apprendre à vivre, suivie de pièces brèves [Poetic Journal, 1964–1965: Elegy for Learning to Live, Followed by Some Short Works], published in 1965. (Trans.)
‡ Takeover. (Trans.)
§ The French edition of Basile’s novel was called Acid, while the Quebec edition was called The Travels of Irkoutsk. (Trans.)
¶ Beaulieu published a poetry collection called Oracle des ombres [Oracle of Shadows] in 1979. (Trans.)
** Iphigenia in Upper Town. (Trans.)
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