Funny how we touch each other and continue our journeys. Like ants. The other night on the metro debated with myself: to get off at Vavin or to continue homeward. I got off, saw two friends in La Coupole. Madelaine Frye and Béatrice Conrad-Eybesfeld. The next afternoon Madelaine back in London and Béatrice in Bonn doing a TV programme. Talked with Jack Moore in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Three days afterwards talked with him in Rome, then Amsterdam. (As I write this he is visiting Michael Hoenig in Berlin.) Traffic in, traffic out. We meet each other, linger together a few moments, then moveon. Making waves, all of us, all of the time...

This is a second draft; the first was done on the 7th of February. Today is the 6th of March. There might not be a third draft. This just might be it.

      Last year at this time I was recovering from my round-the-world trip. Since then I have made a few short trips: to Cannes (for the film festival), to Edinburgh (for the Festival), to Frankfurt (for the Book Fair), to Amsterdam (to visit the Videoheads Studio), to London (to promote Workers) - and always to share time and space with friends. Then too there have been the endless streams of visitors to A2 - some to stay a night, some for much longer.

      Several important events in my life since my last newsletter. The Préfecture have issued me a ten year Carte de Travail. I met Barbara Creighton in Shakespeare and Co and she stayed some four months with me. Barbara, Susan Patton, Karin Hentschel, and Will Reed have painted my kitchen. Now Will and Mc continue; soon the entire house will be repainted! And yes, I have a cat! A fat old tabby called Elsa. Again one night in La Coupole a lovely lady asked me if I might know someone who would like her pussy and thinking that she meant ... I said ... and the rest is history. Anyway Elsa is lovely!
      Lots of dinner parties at A2 as always. Thanks to Cathy Sroufe and Susan Patton! One of our best ever was a birthday fête for Dominique Ferry and Camille Perrottet. We also had a welcome-back-to-Paris dinner for Jane Gozzett on Christmas Eve. (Jane had been in Hong Kong for almost two months creating a "collection".)

      Workers of the World, Unite and Stop Working! re-printed! First edition of 5,000, second of 6,000... And now it will be published in the German-language this month! Critical reception generally good. Attacked by the "Time Out in London" resident Marxist who said: "Jim Haynes, one of the key figures of the old underground press, is something of a '60s whale - friendly, harmless and with a disproportionately tiny brain - washed up on a hard, litter-strewn, '70s beach"… etc etc Not one for passing up an opportunity, I challenged said fellow to a public debate. It will be hosted by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on the 11th of April.

      With luck (and some spare cash), Dandelion will publish Tom Dunker's The Lesson They've Been Trying to Teach Us! in a bi-lingual -English and French - edition soon. We also plan to bring out four excellent Sarah Bean "stories" in a bi-lingual edition and my own More Romance, Less Romanticism. My partner in Dandehion is now "a Frenchman". Born in the USA, Will became stateless in Vietnam. Later he secured a World Passport in a prison in Bangkok after a woman showed him a Mike Zwerin article in the Village Voice. NOW thanks to Mike, and Gary Davis, and Will's fullering some 96 hours per week, it looks like old Dandelion Editions may survive.(Needless to say, we still solicit your printing biz.) Thanks also to our other partner, Jean-François Degremont, our books are more or less in order.

      Andrew Brown is a member of the team of film-makers who created the movie "Word Is Out". He stayed chez A2 for several months to help promote the film's Paris opening. Both Andrew and the film are superb! "Word Is Out" (called "Parlons-en" in French) is distributed in France by Pascale Dauman and Anabel Herbout of Paris-Films. Two superb ladies! Try to see the film; it is over-flowing with warmth and tenderness. Hooray for Andrew...

     The afternoon post just delivered. Beautiful long letter from Gaily Waley (better known as Gail Carmichael Shaw) in Sydney. She reports: Australia is just "sun, surf and sex..."

Afternoon post also produces a postcard with an illegible signature - which is a sure-fire way to drive me mad! Please sign your letters and postcards clearly - and please keep them coming! I love to get letters. Every morning starts better if I have received a letter from a dear friend.

Yesterday had the third meeting of my second semester courses and I am in love with all my students! And yesterday I heard rumours that Vincennes just might continue in its present location - so maybe I will be back there again next autumn. That would be nice.

More or less plan to attend the Cannes Film Festival again this May. Also am thinking about jumping across the great water to the good old US of A this June. I would like to attend the American Booksellers Association meeting in Los Angeles the end of May, but don't think I will be free from my university obligations in time to do so. But maybe I will journey over in June. It would be nice to visit with my family in Louisiana and Texas as well as visit many friends on the East Coast, in the South, and out West. I can taste the red beans and rice now. It would be good if I could find a distributor for Dandelion Edition publications in America or at least a few friendly booksellers.

      Then I would like to go up to the Edinburgh Festival again this year. We would like to have the entire Videoheads team up there too. Sheila Colvin bas been appointed Assistant to the Director of the Festival, John Drummond. That's good news!

      And I would like to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair again this autumn. There are so many things to do, places to go, people to be with. I still have not been to Africa. And every year I get invitations to visit friends. (I never did visit my dear old friend in Teheran, Elahé. I hope that she is all right. Sometimes one can wait too long to go.)

      News from everywhere: Pierre and Paulette have a son: Emmanuel! Pierre Dommergues was one of the people responsible for my coming to Paris and to Vincennes... Speaking of sons, Jesper is now 17. (And miracle of miracle his papa is only 31 or se...) Jesper plans to journey to the USA this summer as well... Susan Patton is one of my housemates. She is a part of Maxim Gillan's team, putting out the newspaper "Israel and Palestine" -a must paper for anyone concerned with the ever-changing Middle East. (Boite Postale 130-10, 75463 Paris)... Martin Lehberger is back in publishing. Newly based in Paris, he represents the Munchen firm, K.G.Saur... Noah Hardy recently won his legal case over back wages due him from a local university... Humbert Camerlo and Amanda Porter met one evening not too long ago chez A2 and now they are moving into a Montmartre apartment together. Now I have two good reasons to journey north to Montmartre!... Camille Perrottet and Sabine Bach off to the USA soon. Watch out America!... Anny Cruska is in Amsterdam at Videoheads Studio to learn video and to improve her English. Everyone knows that Amsterdam English is the best in the world!... Took a walk one Sunday afternoon in my neighborhood, saw a woman leading her car, asked her if she were moving in or out. She said out and now Tom Woods is a neighbor. Our cable video system has another client as well as an excellent camera-person.... Suzanne Brøgger's book, Deliver Us From Love, is now out in paperback... Recently attended a vernissage in Sylvie Bourdon's gallery. Some twenty different erotic representations of the ever-delightful Sylvie herself! ... Riva Boren had an exhibition of her paintings in Paris in January. An opportunity to visit with Riva. Also with Charlotte and Roger Jeanty...

      Another housemate is Cathy Sroufe. Not only is she one of the world's great dessertmakers, she is also a dancer. She has a nice habit of bringing her dancer friends home for dinner. Recently it bas been Cathleen Andrews, Lisa Markuson, and Leith Symington!… Videoheads still actively videotaping dance, theatre and music productions. We hope to establish a Foundation that would create an archive of this material. Ossia Trilling, who is an outstanding theatre critic as well as being an old friend, is helping us to establish this Foundation. Ossia stayed a few days chez nous when he was in Paris to cover Berg's "Lulu" at the Paris Opera...

      Bumped into one of my neighbors - Samuel Beckett - the other morning and gave him a copy of Workers. Sam will be 73 years young in April!
     
With this newsletter I hope to try something for the first time (i.e. the two photographs below). The one on the left of the page (if Will doesn't mess up that is) is of young J. Haynes doing his priest-look. Note hair and beard. Photo on the right shows young Jim after being scalped by Barbara Creighton (her going-away present, but to whom?). Note beautiful blue sweater knitted by Ulli Lindenmann. (Note also my new telephone numbers..)