LIBIDINAL INTENSITIES

Currado Malaspina, Paris, 2012

My old friend, the jarringly impetuous Parisian artist Currado Malaspina has an infernal temper. Like a drummer's brush, he skirts the surface of civility until neither prayer nor plea can prevent his rage from crashing violently down.

I remember one episode in particular where a capricious remark from a young critic made the long dead dance and the musty crypts quake from the crush of Currado's reaction.

Spark Boon, a recent survivor of the CalArts graduate program was in Paris on a research grant looking for meta-narratives in Lyotard's bank statements and laundry lists. Malaspina, as a young member of the Collège international de philosophie in the 1970's knew the great French theorist and Boon contacted him to ask a few questions. 

It should be noted that Lyotard and Malaspina shared a deep and abiding mutual distrust, but young Spark Boon had no way of knowing this in advance. When he innocently inquired about Currado's thoughts on Adorno's "negative dialectics" the fine timbers of reason collapsed and an untrimmed tirade exploded like Mauna Loa.

Spark Boon, Rome, 2012

I have to say that beneath the weight of Currado's wrath, young Spark Boon handled himself admirably. He is a promising scholar and a thoughtful and original critic. I am impressed by his character and his wit.

Though I am not too impressed with his French.

Dommage ...