Subject:
Fwd: first response
To:
mriver@mteww.com
=======================================


--- Revueneuf@aol.com wrote:
> From: Revueneuf@aol.com
> Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999 18:50:58 EST
> Subject: first response
> To: t_whid@yahoo.com
>
> hello Mark and Tim!
> we just received a first response to the 99 steps! It's a two pages document with drawings and texts I add to this email the scan I made of it. Shall we send the original documents to 39 Ainsle St. #2L in NY? We are going to translate the text for you, but one text is too long and too complex to translate, I'll just explain the content. Here is the description:
>
> First sheet:
>
> side 1: a drawing of a hand in a square with a title above : "La surface" (no need to translate) In the Hand the Name: "Xavier" Under the hand "9/9, MTAA, 28/11/99"
>
> side 2: the following text "Même dans cette cham bre qui ignore les lois de la ville au dehors, on peut se sentir perdu dans la foule." (Even in this room, insulated from the laws of the external city, one may found oneself lost in a crowd) "J'aime vraiment la tête de Julien/Xavier. Xavier Julien" (I really like Julien's/Xavier's face. Xavier/Julien".
>
> Second sheet:
>
> side 1:
> It's a list of 93 names written on the margins of a long photocopied text which looks like a document given to students at school or University to work on. I would say that it is a text given to students in History. It's an excerpt from a text called "Histoire des Comtes de Guines et des Seigneurs d'Ardres" (History of the Counts of Guines and the Lords of Ardres). It is taken from a book on French Medieval Castles. This text is about the rivalry between two local noblemans in the High Middle Age (I would say between the 9th and 12th century, because of the names and the context), when the kings of France had just a symbolical power, whereas the country was in fact composed of thousands of little counties, dukedoms and other kind of lordships fighting with one another. This text tells an episode of the fights between Arnoul II, Lord of Ardres (a very little area I never heard of), who refused to obey the Count of Guines (I don't know this town). It says that the Count of Guines leads several attacks against the territory of Arnoul, but failed in his siege to the town of Ardres because suddenly the local population organised an attack that pushed the Count back to his own territory. Then, Arnoul II decides to protect his town building a fortified castle and digging out a trench around it and around his village. Half of the text is in fact a very precise description of the castle itself, which happens to be a single and very high keep (a tower),which was built by a local carpenter called "Lodovick". This Tower is said to be like an "inextricable labyrinth" and Lodovick is compared to "Dedalus". Inside the Tower and the complicated organisation of rooms and levels live the lord, his family, his daughters and his sons (the text says that "the daughters slept regularly in their rooms, whereas the sons slept their when they wanted"), his soldiers, his servants and even animals (porcs, gooses, chickens and other fowls). It is said also that the tower also includes on its top a chapel richly decorated with sculptures and paintings which made it comparable with "Salomon's tabernacle". Some passage of the description of the Tower are hardly understandable because of the complexity of the construction. Sometimes it even seem "impossible" (like this sentence: " the first floor was on the ground level" ?!?) The title of the text is "Le Donjon d'Ardres" (The Keep - or Tower?- of Ardres).

side 2: a very quick made drawing ( which doesn't make much sense but one can vaguely distinguished a silhouette, a spiral, some arrows etc.) which bears the following title: "Plan de la chambre" (Map of the room). Our opinion is of course that Xavier and Julien are bad pupils who want to receive their certificate without having really accomplished their work... In another hand, they had to concentrate some 30 min at least to produce these fake documentation of the 99 steps (the hand, the spiral, the silhouette, the 93 (I guess they didn't expect we would spend time to count them!) names etc.). Moreover, the text they chose to write the list of names on could possibly have been chosen in purpose, comparing the labyrinth of the Tower of Ardres to the 99 steps. In this way, and as far as 9/9 is involved in the 99 steps project, 9/9 think they made their own interpretation of the 99 steps project and could therefore be considered as co-author of this work of collaborative art. Perhaps their certificate could just bear a slight warning indicating that they could at least have put 99 names instead of 93 and make their drawings more credible. But of course the final decision is up to you both.
>
> We are waiting for your opinion and/or instructions.
>
> bien à vous!
>
> stef & arno
>