Conversation with Charly Marlat, publicist.
Charly: How’s that material coming along?
Jean-Pierre: What material?
Charly: Come on. What I keep having to remind you about. The stuff for your blog.
Jean-Pierre: Oh that.
Charly: …?
Jean-Pierre: Pff. I’m at a loss. I don’t know what you want from me.
Charly: I want more of what you normally do.
Jean-Pierre: Meaning my piano or my stories?
Charly: I want you to combine both.
Jean-Pierre: I told you already. It’s a nice idea, but in practice…you want me to write about the sex lives of famous composers? It isn’t all that exciting. Composers’ sex lives I mean. It’s not as exciting as you might think.
Charly: That’s not true. Those guys were super passionate types. Come on…they’re artists!
Jean-Pierre: You and your clichés. Most of my musician friends, I can promise you, have devastatingly boring sex lives. They’re very passionate on the viola…yes…but give them a pair of breasts and you may as well hand them a bassoon.
Charly: I don’t know what that means.
Jean-Pierre: It means they’re useless in bed.
Charly: Ok, but I’m not telling you to write about the sex lives of viola players.
Jean-Pierre: That’s already a relief.
Charly: J-P, we’ve been over this. These are communicating vessels*: one thing feeds another**. You know you wouldn’t sell half as many tickets to your concerts if it weren’t for your unusual sideline…
Jean-Pierre: Look. If you want me to write about the sex lives of composers, then I am going to need some creative license.
Charly: You have it.
Jean-Pierre: No, but really. You can’t parade me like I am some sort of historian. You’ve got my brother for that. I don’t want to be confined to the facts.
Charly: None of us do.
Jean-Pierre: Well ok, but this has to be made abundantly clear. I am not a historian.
Charly: Fine.
Jean-Pierre: Fine.
Charly: So who are you going to start with?
Jean-Pierre: I don’t know yet! I need some time to think!
Charly: Meaning…more time.
Jean-Pierre: Yes. More time.
Charly: And when you’ve had more time, who will you start with?
Jean-Pierre: Jean-Sebastian Bach, probably. Or Claude Debussy.
Charly: Were they some of the more exciting ones?
Jean-Pierre: Who knows. They could be.
*As you may have deduced, this conversation took place in French, which means there are certain awkward-to-translate phrases. This is one of them. Context clues should help.
**See? It isn’t so difficult.
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