Filed under: %a la mod,Glory, glory, glory,ideonomy,Seraphic,Uncategorized
And a second catalog of tales, with fewer interconnections : Valène’s incomplete catalog of 179 stories from the Fifty-First chapter of Life, A User’s Manual, a life-work of Perec, poetic puzzlemaker and one of the great writers of the 20th century, lovingly translated into English by the meticulous David Bellos :
1 The Coronation at Covadonga of Alkhamah's victor, Don Pelage
2 The Russian singer and Schönberg living in Holland as exiles
3 The deaf cat on the top floor with one blue & one yellow eye
4 Barrels of sand being filled by order of the fumbling cretin
5 The miserly old woman marking all her expenses in a notebook
6 The puzzlemaker's backgammon game giving him his bad tempers
7 The concierge watering potted plants for residents when away
8 The parents naming their son Gilbert after Bécaud their idol
9 A bigamous count's wife accepting his Turkish female rescuer
10 The businesswoman, regretting that she had to leave the land
11 The boy taking down the bins dreaming how to write his novel
12 The Australian round-the-worlder and her well-dressed nephew
13 The anthropologist, failing to locate the ever-evasive tribe
14 The cook's refusal of an oven with the self-cleansing device
15 1% sacrificed to art by the MD of a world-wide hotel company
16 The nurse casually leafing through a shiny new photo magazine
17 The poet who went on a pilgrimage shipwrecked at Arkhangelsk
18 The impatient Italian violinplayer who riled his miniaturist
19 The fat, sausage-eating couple keeping their wireless set on
20 The one-armed officer after the bombardment of General H.-Q.
21 The daughter's sad reveries, at the side of her father's bed
22 Austrian customers getting just the steamiest “Turkish Bath”
23 The Paraguayan odd-job man, getting ready to ignite a letter
24 The billionaire sporting knickerbockers to practice painting
25 The Woods & Water Dept. official opens a sanctuary for birds
26 The widow with her souvenirs wrapped in old weekly magazines
27 An international thief taken to be a high-ranking magistrate
28 Robinson Crusoe leading a very decent life style on his isle
29 The domino-playing rodent who feasted on dried-out Edam rind
30 The suffering “word-snuffer” messing around in old bookshops
31 The black-clad investigator selling the latest key to dreams
32 The man in vegetable oils opening a fish restaurant in Paris
33 The famous old soldier killed by a loose Venetian chandelier
34 The injured cyclist who then married his pace-maker’s sister
35 The cook whose master ingested only eggs and poached haddock
36 The newly-weds taking credit over 2 yrs to have a luxury bed
37 The art dealer's deserted wife, left for an Italian Angelina
38 The childhood friend reading the biographies of her 5 nieces
39 The gentleman who inserted into bottles figures made of cork
40 An archaeologist researching the Arab king's Spanish capital
41 The Pole living quietly in the Oise now his clowning is over
42 The hag who cut the hot water to stop her son-in-law shaving
43 A Dutchman who knew any No. could be but the sum of K primes
44 Robert Scipion devising his supremely clever cross-word clue
45 The scientist learning to lip-read the deaf-mute's equations
46 The Albanian terrorist serenading his love, an American star
47 The Stuttgarter businessman wanting to roast his leg of boar
48 Dodéca's owner's son preferring the porn trade to priesthood
49 A barman speaking pidgin in order to swap his mother-goddess
50 The boy seeing in his dreams the cake he hadn't been allowed
51 7 actors each refusing the role after they'd seen the script
52 A deserter from US forces in Korea allowing his squad to die
53 The superstar who started out as a sex-changed guitar-player
54 A redheaded white man enjoying a rich maharajah's tiger hunt
55 A liberal grandfather moved to creation by a detective story
56 The expert penman copying suras from the Koran in the casbah
57 Angelica's aria from Arconati's Orlando requested by Orfanik
58 The actor plotting suicide with the help of a foster brother
59 Her arm held high a Japanese athlete bears the Olympic torch
60 Embattled Aetius stopping the Huns on the Catalaunian Fields
61 Selim’s arrow hitting the end wall of a room 888 metres long
62 The staff sergeant deceasing because of his rubber-gum binge
63 The mate of the Fox alighting on Fitz-James's final messages
64 The student staying in a room for six months without budging
65 The producer's wife off yet again on a trip around the globe
66 The central-heating engineer making sure the fueljet ignites
67 The executive who entertained all his workmates very grandly
68 The boy sorting medical blotters he'd been collecting avidly
69 The actor-cook hired by an American lady who was hugely rich
70 The former croupier who turned into a shy, retiring old lady
71 The technician trying a new experiment, and losing 3 fingers
72 The young lady living in the Ardennes with a Belgian builder
73 The Dr's ancestor nearly solving the synthetic gem conundrum
74 The ravishing American magician and Mephisto agreeing a deal
75 The curio dealer's son in red leather on his Guzzi motorbike
76 The principal destroying the secrets of the German scientist
77 The historian, turned down 46 times, burning his 1200-pp. MS
78 A Jap who turned a quartz watch Co into a gigantic syndicate
79 The Swedish diplomat trying madly to avenge his son and wife
80 The delayed voyager begging to have her green beans returned
81 The star seeking admission by meditating a recipe for afters
82 The lady who was interested in hoarding clockwork mechanisms
83 The magician guessing answers with digits selected at random
84 The Russian prince presenting a mahogany sofa shaped in an S
85 The superfluous driver playing cardgames to use up his hours
86 A medic, hoping to make a mark on gastronomy with crab salad
87 An optimistic engineer liquidating his exotic hides business
88 The Japanese sage initiating in great anguish Three Free Men
89 A selftaught old man again going over his sanatorium stories
90 A relative twice removed, obliged to auction his inheritance
91 Customs & Excise men unpacking the raging princess's samovar
92 The trader in Indian cotton goods doing up a flat on the 8th
93 French-style overtures brought to the Hamburg Opera by a Hun
94 Marguerite, restoring things seen through a magnifying glass
95 The puzzlemaker with his ginger cat taking the name of Chéri
96 The nightclub waiter, legging up on stage to start a cabaret
97 The rich amateur leaving his musical collection to a library
98 A housing and estate agency woman looking at that empty flat
99 The lady doing the Englishman's black cardboard puzzle boxes
100 The critic committing 4 crimes for 1 of Percival's seascapes
101 The Praetor ordering 30000 Lusitanians to be killed in a day
102 A student in a long coat staring at a map of the Paris metro
103 The building manager, trying to solve his cash-flow problems
104 The girl studying the craftsman's rings to sell in her store
105 Nationalists fighting the Damascene publisher who was French
106 A little girl gnawing at the edges of her shortbread cookies
107 The maid, imagining she'd seen the evil eye in an undertaker
108 A painstaking scientist examining rats' reactions to poisons
109 The pranking student who put beef stock in vegetarians' soup
110 A workman gazing at his letter, as he leaves with two others
111 The aged gentleman's gentleman recomputing his nth factorial
112 The staggered priest offering help to a Frenchman lost in NY
113 The druggist spending his fortune on the Holy Vase of Joseph
114 The jigsaw glue being perfected by a head of a chemistry lab
115 That gent in a black cloak donning new, tight-fitting gloves
116 Old Guyomard cutting Bellmer's sheet in 2 through the middle
117 Original fine champagne proffered to Colbert by Don Pérignon
118 A gay waltz being written by an old friend of Liszt & Chopin
119 Agreeably drowsy after lunch, M. Riri sitting at his counter
120 Gallant Amerigo learning a continent was to be named America
121 Mark Twain reading his obituary long before he'd intended to
122 The woman polishing a dagger that was Kléber's murder weapon
123 The college endowed by its ex-rector, an expert in philology
124 The single mother reading Pirandello's story of Daddi, Romeo
125 The historian who used pseudonyms to publish rubbishy novels
126 The librarian collecting proof that Hitler continues to live
127 A blind man tuning a Russian prima donna's grand piano-forte
128 A decorator making the most of the young pig’s crimson bones
129 The agent trading cowries believing he'd make millions at it
130 The disappointed customer who in dyeing her hair lost it all
131 The assistant librarian using red pencil to ring opera crits
132 The lovelorn coachman who thought he'd heard a rodent mewing
133 The kitchen-lads bringing up hot tasty snacks for a grand do
134 The nurse's milk jug spilt on the carpet by two naughty cats
135 A Tommy and his bride-to-be stuck between floors in the lift
138 The bookdealer who found three of Victor Hugo's original MSS
137 The English “au pair” reading an epistle from her boy-friend
138 The ordnance general who was shot in the lounge of his hotel
139 The doctor whom loaded fire-arms forced to carry out surgery
140 Safari-buffs with their native guide - posing for the camera
141 The French prof, getting pupils' vacation assignments marked
142 A beautiful Polish woman and her wee son dreaming of Tunisia
143 The judge's spouse whose pearls had cooked black in the fire
144 The cyclist struggling for recognition for his 1-hour record
145 A conscript startled on seeing his old physics schoolteacher
146 The ex-landlord dreaming of a “hero” of the traditional kind
147 A conductor rehearsing his band for 9 weeks, again and again
148 A gifted numerate, aspiring to construct a massive radiomast
149 Antipodean fans giving their idol a present of 71 white mice
150 The Spanish ex-concierge not too keen to unjam the lift door
151 Listening to an enormous phonogram, a smoker of an 89c cigar
152 A choreographer, returning to torment the loveless ballerina
153 The man who delivered wine on a trike doing the hall mirrors
154 An obviously pornographic old man waiting at the school gate
155 The botanist hoping an ivory Epiphyllum would carry his name
156 The so-called Russian who solved every brainteaser published
157 The infant Mozart, performing for Louis and Marie-Antoinette
158 A sword-swallower who on medication threw up a load of nails
159 A man who made religious articles dying of cold in the woods
160 Blind horses, deep down in the mine, hauling railway waggons
161 A urologist musing on the arguments of Galen and Asclepiades
162 A handsome pilot looking for the castle at Corbenic on a map
163 The carpenter's workman warming his hands at a woodchip fire
164 Visitors to the Orient trying to solve the magic ring puzzle
165 A ballet maestro beaten to death in the U.S.A. by 3 hoodlums
166 A princess, who said prayers at her regal granddad's bedside
167 The tenant (for 6 wks) insisting on full checks on all pipes
168 A manager who managed to be away for four months in the year
169 A lady who owned a curio shop fishing for a malosol cucumber
170 The man who saw his own death warrant in a newspaper cutting
171 The emperor thinking of the “Eagle” to attack the Royal Navy
172 Famous works improved by a celebrated artist's layer of haze
173 Eugene of Savoy having a list made of the relics of Golgotha
174 in a polka-dot dress, a woman who knitted beside the seaside
175 The Tommies enjoying girls' gym practices on a Pacific beach
176 Gedeon Spilett locating the last match in his trouser pocket
177 A young trapeze artist refusing to climb down from his perch
178 Woodworms' hollow honeycombs solidified by an Italian artist
179 Lonely Valène putting every bit of the block onto his canvas