What IS LeVautourChronique? ( A Mission-Statement, Expanded Scope, and Updated Aesthetics…)

As my readership begins to gradually diversify a bit, I’ve noticed lately that I’ve been fielding more questions about what the theme and purpose of this website is. I’m aware that it’s not always completely evident from one entry to the next what, if any, is the connection between them…. So, this is probably a good time to establish the ground-rules…

My theme with LeVautourChronique is intentionally and by its nature pliable, but there are definite guidelines, and I feel that thus far I’ve adhered to them fairly consistently. Basically, this is an Arts and Culture blog dedicated to the Poetics and Politics of Identity. Critically, I’m of the belief that all Artists and public figures (and most individuals in general, whether consciously aware of it or not) are actively engaged in a project (or projects) of Identity-Construction, and that for artists this often even goes so far as being a facet of their catalog, one of their primary artistic creations (sometimes even their master-work, the larger piece that all of their other works are merely elements of… I’ve done academic work attempting to assert this about Walt Whitman, for instance.) Therefore, on this site, critique of nearly any element of art, culture, society, myself, my projects, daily life, etc is and has been fair game, as long as it is viewed, observed, and analyzed through this lens.

Now then, over seventy entries in and with those parameters finally clarified, I want to also make it clear that, when I started this site, I never intended to be the sole contributing writer to it in the long-run. My ideas for this site and reasons for establishing it, like most projects, seemed to require to be done in stages, and I think that it’s time to move a small step up that ladder.

So, from this point forward, consider this an open call. Keep in mind the theme just discussed (to reiterate, in a nutshell: An Arts and Culture blog dedicated to the Poetics and Politics of Identity and Identity Construction), let your mind spin, and send me some essays, reviews, musings, guerilla-journalism, poetry, abstract creative writing, whatever. I want it to be known, too, that I’m not only speaking of or to my close friends or frequent collaborators here; this is open to ANYONE if I think that your ideas fit well with what we’re trying to do and say on this site (…although part of me would like to start off with a couple contributions from artists/ writers in my own inner circle that I know and trust, just to test the water a bit [wink wink, get at me, kids.]…)

To get a few potential F.A.Q.’s on the subject out of the way…

Will you get paid for contributing your writing to LeVautourChronique? Yes and no. You will get paid in the same way that I get paid for maintaining the site. For the time-being, therefore, your compensation comes in the form of promotion, readership, networking, the free exchange of creative ideas, etc.

Will contributions published here be limited exclusively to ideas and opinions that agree explicitly with my own? Absolutely not. In fact, a desire for differing ideas is one of the driving forces behind my interest in the inclusion of additional writers. Open dialogue is definitely one of my goals here. Contributions from authors other than myself will feature by-lines, and probably an introductory blurb so as not to confuse my own thoughts with those of others. I will not, however, publish here anything perceived as intolerant, ignorant, or unnecessarily negative, however well you might think that your writing with those traits might adhere to the blog’s theme.

Will I stop posting my own work here once I start accepting contributions? Absolutely not. This will still primarily be my blog, and primarily the online home of my own ideas, reviews, and essays. In fact, you will most likely notice that the next few posts are still my own, as I have a handful in the works and partially written… and that won’t mean in any way that I’ve dismissed the idea of accepting contributions, either.

How do I submit my contributions, or send additional questions, comments, or feedback? The best way is to email me, at bernard.levautour@yahoo.com.

With a newly-clarified mission-statement, and a widened scope for future entries on this site, I think that this is also as good a time as any to introduce a bit of a new look to L.V.C. I am therefore retiring the awkward/ outdated quasi-unintentionally phallic-looking B+W vulture logo (I’ll leave it up until the next post, in case you haven’t a clue what I’m referring to…) and replacing it with a brand new and far more appropriate-feeling logo(the aesthetic tone around here has evolved with the blog, I feel…)…




…which features an image from my portfolio of Miss Chloe Claustrophobia (herself a conceptual-art project pertaining to the theme of Identity-Construction) digitally modified in collaboration with Sara Jane of Alloy Images/ Swords We Swallow / Tipsy Cougar (who is also my wonderful and supportive girlfriend.).

So, stay tuned. Click the “Follow” link at the top of the page. Contribute your writing. Help this site become a home for active, constructive, and creative dialogue. In the meantime, enjoy my rants and rambles more thoroughly now that you hopefully have a better understanding of why I post them here.

Thanks for reading.


-Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour

“This very deep, dark fault;” The “Gap” Between Constructed Artistic Identities in Murakami’s “Dance Dance Dance.”

Demonstrations of theories about identity construction abound in contemporary (particularly “post-modern” and post-”post-modern”) Literature. I stumbled on one recently that spells things out in an interesting way, so I figured that I would share.

At a pivotal moment, in the midst of a tense piece of dialogue in Haruki Murakami’s 1988 novel “Dance Dance Dance,” Gotanda, an actor, explains to the unnamed narrator, “I get this gap between me Gotanda and me the actor and stand back and actually observe myself doing shit. I’m on one side of this very deep, dark fault, and then unconsciously, on the other side, I have this urge to destroy something.” This is a problematic phenomenon for the troubled character, who expresses that it “never happens when other people are around, though. Only when I’m alone.”

Through Gotanda’s dialogue admissions in these passages, Murakami establishes a paradigm, and at the same time a paradox, of the ways in which artists (and artistically-minded individuals) construct their identities. By doing so, he also sheds light on the construction of his own novel, as it becomes suddenly apparent that the narrator, who, on a surface level the work seems to be telling the story of, is NOT being portrayed as having a dynamically constructed and artistically-minded identity in the same way that Gotanda and most other characters in the novel do, thus shifting the narrator’s position within his own narrative from subject to something more akin to a Greek Chorus, a mere facilitator of the tale actually being told.

Gotanda’s “gap” is something expressed as a virtual constant for artistic individuals. The artist builds two distinctly separate identities, one for “self as artist,” and another for “self as private individual.” The “gap” is the void left by the discrepancies and differences between the two constructions, which, as one is distinctly intended for public consumption, while the other functions in terms of private self-perception, is why Gotanda points out that the gap is only present, is only something that he notices, “when I’m alone.”

The identity/ construction -free narrator (who is symbolically identified as such by the very act of remaining nonchalantly unnamed throughout the novel) is able to fulfill his “facilitator” role within the work of allowing stories about the gap to be told unencumbered by the necessary problems created by the nature of the constructs themselves (a description of identity, without the sort of foil provided by the narrator, would necessarily be presented within the context of either one construction or other, the intended “public” or “private” personae of the artist relating the self-involved anecdote). As Gotanda tells the narrator in this conversation about murder over beers, “whenever I’m with you, I feel so relaxed. I never feel the gap. You don’t know how precious that is.” Precious indeed, to an even greater extent to Murakami himself than to Gotanda, as the way in which the narrator’s character is constructed provides the precious necessary neutral backdrop on which to make the author’s larger points about personal and artistic identity. The ironies, complexities, and contradictions with which this is done are far too detailed to expound upon completely in a medium such as this. He is a character skillfully constructed for a difficult purpose; he is, in a broad sense, an “artist,” which allows him to empathize to certain degrees with Gotanda and others and come and go effortlessly or accidentally within their lives and social circles, yet, due to the nature of his “art” (which he views as existing in the realm of “commerce rather than “creation” and refers to frequently as “shoveling cultural snow”) he is devoid of the need to think of himself in such a way that requires a construction of an artistic identity. He lacks “the gap,” therefore, because he has built the constructions on neither side of it, and is therefore able to present Gotanda with a surface on which to lay his own bare, and demonstrate a theory on the way that the construction of identities operates for artists.

We are what we create ourselves to be. Just mind the gap.



(Image courtesy of Alloy Images; I am indebted to Sara Jane D'Agostino of that organization for exposing me to Murakami's writing.)