Le Grand Bizarre
Chronicle of an Almost Perfect CrimeThe IntrigueThat day, I received an anonymous envelope. Inside, the hand-written letter aroused my curiosity:“All born of the same mother. Bastards. Childhood disturbed by edifying imaginations. Emerging from the same womb, each speaking an invented language, these consumerist energies joined around a substitute paternal figure to offer an unbroken, horrifying scream. That’s how the ties were formed that came to unite a community that fled across arid deserts of miserable decency.“Forgetting the journeys of their predecessors outside Egypt, the flight takes place outside the world but always on the backs of dromedaries. Their prophets moved to the front and, following in the footsteps their mentor, huge breaths burst out to express what each of them felt bursting out of himself.“Simultaneously pursued by various social services and institutions that were supposed to protect and support them, they advanced, never looking back and constantly rallying banished poets and paralytic esthetes around them, preaching an inaudible word into the ears of many.”Was that a prophecy or evidence of a crime? Of course, I had to find out what this document was all about.The InvestigationThe case had to lead me somewhere, to Poitiers, to that place called Le Confort Modern.Apparently people talked a lot there and my instincts told me that I had to find the answers to my questions there.I take the train from the Paris-Montparnasse station. In Poitiers, at night, in winter. No one is on the train platform. Yet I let them know I was coming. I walk down the stairs and move toward the dark, deserted parking lot. Obviously. I spot a minivan and, even though the lights are off, I sense someone’s presence. I move toward the car. Indeed, someone was waiting for me. The door opens, not a word. I ask no questions, I make no attempt to see his face, I get in and let myself be guided.We arrive at Le Confort Modern. A group of people are gathered in front of the entrance — a few wandering, disillusioned, faceless silhouettes. Do I really have to look at them? It seems to be an exhibition opening. I enter the space, I can’t make out much. Voices, certainly. Looks. I move forward and blend into the crowd.At the exhibition entrance, golden, made-up eyes are on the look out, anxious. It’s a den, a sacred temple that the visitor is invited to enter and wander around in. An overhead light and thick smoke permeate the somber space, accentuate its strangeness and animate a twilight, never-before-seen atmosphere.I busy myself at the bar, sip a Bloody Mary. And I wait… in that rather cosmic ambiance.A lush, heterogeneous inventory of shapes and iconic elements — like a window displaying a proselyte divinity, depicting a disquieting, mysterious mythology — is presented to me. I could easily let myself be carried away but that’s not what I came for.Further off, I make out a stage. A show is about to begin. That may elucidate my case.The suspectsSeveral characters with obvious pseudonyms: La Verité / Guy Stranger / Glove / La Rééducation / Da Prophet / Heautontimoroumenos / Post Nose / Le Grand Bizarre.The cluesThe performance begins — a string of scenes in which each of them enigmatically appears in turn.The intro reveals a large veil concealing our suspects. They’re shown in silhouette. The manifesto (the letter I received) is recited on the soundtrack in the background. I’m on the edge of my seat.The veil opens like a curtain. Le Grand Bizarre appears and breaks into a slightly naïve baroque dance.Guy Stranger follows. He plays a weird character teaching an incomprehensible course at a flip chart. He demonstrates something, but what?After him, the Glove duo is on — one is endowed with a strident electric guitar, the other with a mike. The latter longs for love, relentlessly shrieking the same phrase. I’m also searching for some answers.Le Grand Bizarre reappears, now nude with a cone on his face, like a megaphone equipped with a laser to target victims, as he hurls out pertinent, inoffensive insults.La Rééducation follows — a futuristic metal duo bustling about in front of computers, emitting sounds of obsolete musicality.Post Nose makes his appearance via Skype. We don’t really know his whereabouts. But he delivers a convoluted discourse. Mystery continues to abound.Le Grand Bizarre comes back, now wearing a rectangular, striped suit of armor and carrying a guitar.Da Prophet, like a kind of MC, acts out a musical bazaar.Heautontimoroumenos executes a transcendent dance. Then Le Grand Bizarre’s band does a musical improv.For the finale, Guy Stranger reappears — covered in earthworms and sitting in a bathtub — and recites a poem. He’s epitomizes putrefaction or an exquisite cadaver.Intoxicating confusion. This experimental landscape is a work in progress; its intangible, fanciful, mysterious universe recounts a story without structure. Letting oneself plunge into an almost Lynchian universe. Understanding via empirical intuition and giving way to red magic.So my questions remain open and no longer have any real importance.I get back on the train.
