Paris or Proust with Robert Stevens

Paris or Proust with Robert Stevens

Who or what in history would you like to know more about?

I would like to know more about the French photographer Charles Marville, who photographed the streets of Paris in the mid 1850s. He disappeared from Paris one day and was never heard from again. Sadly, most information about him can only come from looking at his photos.

Which author/artist/musician inspire you but that few people know about?

The photographer Yvon has inspired me so much that I decided to publish a book about him so others would know him too. I love the way he saw Paris early and late in the day and recorded major sites as if they belonged to a time that no longer existed – like remembering what was.

What image have you seen recently that has affected you?

I recently saw a photograph by Eugene Atget of Avenue Segur in Paris, made in the summer of 1925 – I love the way the light falls off the trees on the street. I did not know it before.

What language don’t you speak and wish you did, and why?

After many years of going to France, I still don’t speak the language well and I tell myself I will stay in Paris a few months and immerse myself in the language.

Coffee or tea?

I love coffee and can drink many cups, especially in the morning. It is an essential ritual though I now realize I also love ice tea and make my own, which I drink for lunch and dinner.

Describe your sense of humor?

My sense of humor is very dry, and often people who don’t know me, miss it.

Best piece of advice you were ever given, and who gave it to you?

I guess the best advice that I remember at this moment, was from a former employer in the Midwest. He told me I should go to New York City and work where he had worked in the publishing business. So without a real plan, I left graduate school in Rochester, N.Y, put all my things in storage and took the train to New York City and have been here ever since.

What question have you wanted to ask but never dared?

When I am riding the subway I am intrigued by how people look and what they wear. I often want to go around the car asking people what they do and why they are dressed that way. But I would never dare. People on the subway still don’t like to be bothered!

Paris or Proust?

Paris and Proust because in the photographs of Yvon, Atget and others, there is always a sense of what was. I have memories of walking through Parisian streets in another life even though my ancestors are from England and Sweden. I think there is a secret in my past about living in Paris.

Robert Stevens was a photo editor at TIME magazine for twenty years. Currently, he is a Professor of Photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His book of edited photos, Yvon's Paris, was published in May 2010, W.W. Norton.

Vanity Fair: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/05/paris-in-postcards.html

HeadButler.com: http://www.headbutler.com/books/art-and-photography/yvons-paris

Paris or Proust with Alexandra Avakian

Paris or Proust

with Alexandra Avakian

Who or what in history would like to know more about?

My whole life revolves around learning more about people and places, because I am a photographer. I am interested in almost anybody or anyplace and love to learn more.

Which author/artist/musician inspire you but that few people know about?

My closest family members, who create and struggle, never give up, do profound work, and finally succeed in putting it out there.

What image have you seen recently that has affected you?

A photo of a dead Thai demonstrator today in the Washington Post.

What language don’t you speak and wish you did, and why?

Armenian. Just because.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee is the bottom line in the morning, but I prefer the taste of tea.

Describe your sense of humor?

At times silly, at times deadpan.

Best piece of advice you were ever given, and who gave it to you?

3 pieces:

"Listen to the voice inside." Dorothy Tristan, my mother.

"The most important possession you have is your reputation." Aram Avakian, my father.

"Happiness is a choice." John Hancock, my stepfather.

What question have you wanted to ask but never dared?

Will I be around to know my grandchildren?

Paris or Proust?

Paris, for sure.

Photojournalist Alexandra Avakian has covered many of the most important issues of her time, with subjects ranging from Haiti to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the former Soviet Union, from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to war and famine in Africa. Her photographs have been published in TIME, LIFE, The New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic. Avakian's recent memoir, Windows of the Soul: My Journeys in the Muslim World was published my National Geographic/Focal Point. www.alexandraavakian.com

Paris or Proust with William Sutcliffe

Paris or Proust with Will Sutcliffe

Who or what in history would you like to know more about?

I know almost nothing about my own family history before my grandparents. I wish I was able to go back a bit further and find out how the generations before this lived.

Which author/artist/musician inspire you but that few people know about?

Anthony Burgess is well known, but is I think getting more and more forgotten since his death. I think "Earthly Powers" is one of the truly great novels of the 20th century, and I hope it will always be remembered as such.

What image have you seen recently that has affected you?

I was recently in the West Bank, and I cannot get the sight of the Separation Wall out of my head. The experience of seeing it up close, and of going through the checkpoints, is unforgettably horrific.

What language don’t you speak and wish you did, and why?

Arabic. I'd love to be able to travel more in the Middle East, and to understand the region more by speaking to the people who live there, rather than relying on what I can read in western newspapers, which I find increasingly hard to trust on the issues that count in this region.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee.

Describe your sense of humor?

Laconic.

Best piece of advice you were ever given, and who gave it to you?

A professor who taught me at university once crossed out every adjective in one of my essays. I often think of him when I am editing my work.

What question have you wanted to ask but never dared?

I suffer from the opposite problem. I ask too many questions and never know when to shut up.

Paris or Proust?

Paris. You can't eat Proust. Unless you are very hungry.

William Sutcliffe is the author of five novels, New Boy, Are You Experienced?, The Love Hexagon, Bad Influence and Whatever Makes You Happy, which have been translated into twenty languages. He also works as a journalist and screenwriter.

On his latest novel, Whatever Makes You Happy:

Everyone in my family, from my teenaged daughter to my husband and mother-in law, has got something out of it besides laughter.

Amanda Craig, Independent

Very funny A convincing, moving portrait of an evolving relationship between mother and adult son.

Guardian

'Brilliantly observed, howlingly funny and, if you have a son, all too recognisable' Woman and Home 'A moving meditation on miscommunications between sexes, across generations and over dinner tables.

Financial Times

A US link: http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Makes-You-Happy-Novel/dp/1596914955/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275061627&sr=1-3

And a UK link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whatever-Makes-Happy-William-Sutcliffe/dp/0747596522/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241511368&sr=1-8

Paris or Proust with Alexandra Handal

Paris or Proust

with Alexandra Handal

Who or what in history would like to know more about?

I would like to continue exploring in my art practice moments in history when the destruction of social and cultural memory is being used as a weapon to eradicate a people – by targeting not only their constructed world, but also erasing the remnants and artefacts that testify their existence. I’m particularly interested in how that plays a role in the way in which places are then imagined, perceived and narrated by power.

Which author/artist/musician inspire you but that few people know about?

Filmmaker, Pedro Costa.

What image have you seen recently that has affected you?

On the 16^th April 1945, US General George S. Patton ordered 1,000 citizens of Weimar to tour the Buchenwald concentration camp in order to witness the atrocities that were committed by the Nazis and had the event documented. I have recently seen this archival footage. What haunted me most were the stories that were etched on the faces of the German war spectators – as it spoke of the carnage that humankind is capable of. Shame and denial were in evidence in their body language.

What language don’t you speak and wish you did, and why?

Although Arabic was among the five languages that my Palestinian family spoke at home while I was growing-up, it is the only one I am not fluent in yet. I hope to be in the near future so that among other things I can sing the lyrics to Oum Kulthum’s songs without having to hum most of it.

Coffee or tea?

I usually wake-up to a deep dark coffee with a chocolaty accent. My favorite moment is when the coffee starts brewing and I can inhale its aroma even before taking my first sip. In the evening, I opt for shy yansoon* which I find soothing. It is believed among Palestinians to have remedial powers. I get mine from a teashop in Salah Eddin Street in East Jerusalem.

*anise tea

Describe your sense of humor?

You can’t put your hands on it - as similarly to a souk* - it is made-up of an assortment of flavours and contains a number of regional characteristics. It can be vivacious, absurd, spicy, subtle and unpredictable.

*marketplace

Best piece of advice you were ever given, and who gave it to you?

I was in my early twenties and as I often did, I went over to my belated teta’s* house, known to her grandchildren as Ninnin, to have lunch with her. I came wearing a summery navy blue decolté* dress that had small flower patterns on it and that gave me a delicate cleavage. As I entered the living room, my teta looked at me from where she always sat and said: ‘il faut t’habillé comme ça plus souvent*’. From her facial expression and her encouraging ways, I understood her advice as ‘live your dreams, be the woman you want to be, and don’t let anyone tamper with your freedom’. I keep her spirit alive in me.

*1: grandmother in arabic *2: strapless *3: ‘You should dress like that more often’.

What question have you wanted to ask but never dared?

I feel that daring questions often only lead to a boxing match between two opponents and becomes about whose wrong or right. I prefer to swim where tides are the most dangerous. In my view, this is by asking what might seem at first as a mundane question, however it slowly discloses the most painful and cruellest of realites.

Paris or Proust?

Having a jambon au beurre with cornichon at the Gare du Nord after a weekend in Paris, with one of my favorite books in hand, À la recherche du temps perdu: du côté de chez Swann* by Marcel Proust to accompany me on the journey back home to London.

*Remembrance of Things Past: Swann’s Way

Alexandra Handal’s short film, From the Bed & Breakfast Notebooks (2008) was selected for the prestigious New Contemporaries 2009 internationally juried exhibition, which showcases emerging artists in the UK, culminating in an exhibition at A Foundation, London (2009) and Cornerhouse, Manchester (2009). Her forthcoming group show Whose Map is it? new mapping by artists will take place between 2 June - 24 July 2010 at the Institute of International Visuals Arts (INIVA) in London where she will be exhibiting an installation of pencil drawings on vellum titled, Labyrinth of Remains and Migration. For more information, see: http://www.iniva.org/press/2010/whose_map_is_it or visit http://alexandrahandal.org/

Paris or Proust with Adam Foulds

Paris or Proust with Adam Foulds

Who or what in history would like to know more about?

Shakespeare's diet and sleeping habits. What he looked like when he walked, ran or threw a ball.

Which author/artist/musician inspire you but that few people know about?

The British composer Oliver Knussen. The poems of James Schuyler. Christopher Logue's version of Homer's Iliad. The novels of Danilo Kis.

What image have you seen recently that has affected you?

Larry Burrows' photo “Reaching Out, Battle for Hill 484, DMZ, 1966,” an extraordinary image from the Vietnam War that is on the cover of Jonathan Shay's book, Achilles In Vietnam: Combat Trauma And The Undoing Of Character. The book talks very movingly about the profound bond of love that develops between combat soldiers and quotes one veteran interpreting the man holding the soldier back as saying: “No, you can't follow him into death.”

What language don’t you speak and wish you did, and why?

Russian. For Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gogol and all the others. And for its beautiful sound.

Coffee or tea?

Green tea or espresso.

Describe your sense of humor?

Varied. How about things I find funny? Marx Brothers. The Big Lebowski. Evelyn Waugh. Laurel And Hardy.

Best piece of advice you were ever given, and who gave it to you?

'You must be the change you want to see in the world.' Mahatma Gandhi. It wasn't given to me personally.

What question have you wanted to ask but never dared?

I can't think of an answer to this one. Perhaps I've always asked when I wanted to know something.

Paris or Proust?

Does it have to be choice? In my life I suppose I've made it to some extent: I know Proust better than I know Paris. I've read In Search Of Lost Time three times. Once isn't enough.

Adam Foulds has produced three books in the last five years. The novel, The Truth about These Strange Times (2007) won the Betty Trask award and made him the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Broken Words (2008), a narrative poem, was short-listed for the John Llewellyn Rhys Award and won the Costa Prize in poetry. In 2009, his novel, The Quickening Maze, was short-listed for the Booker Prize.