the pleasures and terrors of a truthful reportage:

I've liked the fact that reportage freezes time. and one can return,
complete with the notes and bruises from the rest of our unimagined journeys.
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The pleasures & terrors of a truthful reportage are that,
each time one glances toward it:
 one sees something different.
These are my visual notes,
made while watching Jacques regard the last class he would teach personally.
I've chosen to leave these scrolling in sequence. Perhaps latter a better montage will present itself.
Here is Jack regarding the school built upon his pedagogy. Myself I regard it as a philosophy.
Philosophy often arrives via theatre in French Culture.

The concept of a school as a place of learning and discovery. A laboratory to become concious
of what we really are. So are not proceeding idiotically in one big mistake.
Our physical world. Not a tower built of sandy words, that on a good day, can thankfully.
be carried off in a clarifying wind.

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These are my selections from the last two year class leading up to "the commands" in which the student produce
theatre from a word.   Madame Fay Lecoq is here. In service of  realities. Fay once asked me how I deal with the
minutia of my shop. The answer was of course, the bulk of my time is spent in its service. Particularly in terms of
the venality's, pettiness, and ignorance that compose most schools.
Jacques had Fay and his family. I believe Patrick Lecoq ( is toward the rear of Fay's portrait.
(Hello Patrick ..I miss you. Other stories of the school & the Lecoqs ... are in progress.)
But this is the last class. We knew Jack was ill. It is a story of heroism.

I've always called this photograph: "Ou est ma femme?" A quote from Jacques when dependable help was needed.

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The teaching continued.  The auto-cours, the clowns, buffoons, story telling mime, the set contructions,
the experimentation with space.

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one of the last commands was this ... I believe it was " Le Diable". 
A masculine noun with a very feminine creation.

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And then it was over. A meal of course.This is France. I do miss Madame Lecoq's pate. With a good red.
And the posing for Alain's group photographs. With the knowlege and terror that the ship is approaching the shore.
France, Spain, Portegal, Canada , America. It is a big shore on a small planet. And all that was shared can
only be stored, safely, in the memory palace. But &quote;Tout Bouge". Everything moves and changes.
As Jack said in a poem: &quote. Moi assui! We can hold on for only so long.
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And within it all. There is life. The living of it.
Perhaps the difference between Lecoq and the others ... his theatre is no place to hide.
And often, the dance. To avoid saying what can only sound stupid.
I remember the woman was from Spain and had a green bicycle.

 

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Finally,  after the dance. With the school put in order and  returned to a neutral place. I found myself in the position
Jacques was in looking upon his school.He said one can see the world in a rain drop.
Well, before me Jacques and Fay made their way accross the school floor. Where boxers once plied another craft
of indiviguality. Jacques carrying the gladstone case of  Neutral Masks created by Amleto Sartori.
( in Budaism another kind of journey.)
I see a camera.  A clown nose held in salute.
A sihouette in a graphic doorway.
It was the last time I would see Jacques.

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Please note:

The Pleasure & Terrors of a Truthful Reportage was created by and is the property of H.Scott Heist.
All rights to photographs, text, and concept are reserved.
Pleasures and Terrors of a Truthful Reportage, Splinter Cottage, The View from Splinter Cottage 
and Every Day is a Short Story are trademarks in use for many 
years and their rights are simiarly reserved. 

© h. scott heist 09