Midnight at the oasis
Sing your camel to bed
Shadows painting our faces
Traces romance in our heads…
Maria Muldaur, 1974.
The thing is, it wasn’t really midnight. It was actually more like
3 am. The only Camels about were the ones being smoked by revelling 20-something bo-bos (bourgeois bohemians). And instead of Oasis, it was Pulp – or at least the former front man of the band - who I had the good fortune to come across under the mood-lighting of a cavernous waterfall.
The occasion was La Nuit Blanche; an evening whose English translation (White Night) sounds like a dyslexic superhero movie. Sadly it was rock stars not caped crusaders who had gathered this evening in Buttes Chaumont; the 61-acre park that sits in the 19th, adding a touch of refreshing greenery to an otherwise sombre arrondissement.
The reason I was here was the same reason as everybody else: to witness the glorious illuminations and hand-crafted installations that had been scattered all over the park to celebrate Paris’ annual nocturnal art celebration. Judging by the quality of the evening’s attendees, I was obviously in great company. Our conversation, for those avid fans among you, read like a manual on awkward introductions:
JPS: Hi, sorry, would it be ok if I had a photo with you?
Jarvis Cocker: Erm, I dunno, you’ll have to ask my manager.
Points to scowling wife. She nods reluctantly. JPS and Jarvis strike a pose while a friend readies the camera.
Jarvis Cocker: Are you gonna smile?
JPS: Yes, are you?
The situation was all so very forced, and after managing a thirty-second chit-chat about one of his Paris gigs I’d attended, there really was nothing particularly interesting left to say. It begs the question, why do we get so star-struck? Do we have the right to interrupt a person’s evening, if we have nothing of vital significance to say? It's true that there were so many better things I could have said to such a star of the music world. Imagining how the conversation could have developed, I started along the following lines...
JPS: Hi Jarvis! I was just wondering what you made of Speech Debelle winning the Mercury Music Prize?
Or…
JPS: Jarvis! I’m just starting up my own prog-rock band, would you like you to join?
Or…
JPS: Jarvis, your suit’s on fire, but it’s ok because I just happen to have this fire extinguisher in my hands…
In each of these alternative realities, a generally more furtive relationship is established than the one which vanished before it had even begun that night in Buttes Chaumont. Sadly it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that you are able conjure up such pearls of wisdom. And so, feeling a little embarassed, it was back to reality for me, and back to normality for him. "But it's ok", I told myself. "We'll get him next time…"
