I am pleased (with myself) for having taken the time to let the French (français) and Spanish (español) languages each develop their own versions of this poem, drafted in English in the dark of a Montparnasse theater. And, as ever, this work in other languages helped me revise the original text. (And there are also Three notes in English.)

Along the way I came across this Spanish expression: “un foco andante listo para ser estrellado.” A literal tranlsation would be “a walking spotlight ready to be smashed” (ou “un phare ambulant prêt à être détruit”). Figuratively: an accident waiting to happen (un accident qui ne demande qu’à se produire.)

English

And then a light bulb went off

In a Paris theater men’s room

I was peeing in the dark,

Until the arrival of another human

Who quickly turned on the light.

This provoked neither he nor I,

But I’d been enjoying the dark.

Perhaps the other found this odd;

At least we did not speak.

My argument, I suppose, would be

Why, oh why, oh why?

Since filaments were invented . . .

One after another blight.

Three notes

§ It would seem I keep coming back to a comment of Bob Dylan’s from 1991: “There’s enough of everything.  There was too much of it with electricity, maybe, some people said that.  Some people said the light bulb was going too far.”

§ I recently attended a concert by the extraordinary young French pianist Julie Haismann. After the concert one of the organizers, from the Paris group Piano con Moto, remarked that decades ago there was no Internet, concerts were publicized by word of mouth, printed flyers and old-fashioned “fixed” telephones. But the concert spaces always ended up full of spectators. Since the Internet, publicizing is easier and attendance is way down. People are distracted by all the diversions their screens offer them at low cost, and they no longer appreciate the tremendous value that is added by hearing classical music performed live? Can their ears—or their wallets—no longer hear the difference between recorded and live music?

§ And there is this from the first section of William Wordsworth’s 1806 Personal Talk (two lines from the very top, then six from the end):

I am not One who much or oft delight

To season my fireside with personal talk. . . .

Better than such discourse doth silence long,

Long, barren silence, square with my desire;

To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,

In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,

And listen to the flapping of the flame,

Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

Français

Sur notre longue descente l’ampoule est radieuse ?

Dans les toilettes d’un théâtre

Je pissais dans le noir,

Jusqu’à l’arrivé d’un autre homme,

Qui la pièce a allumée.

A voix haute je n’ai rien dit,

Mais. . . J’appréciais l’obscurité.

L’autre m’aurait trouvé curieux ?

Il n’y a pas eu d’échange de mots.

Mais mon argument, je suppose :

Pourquoi, pourquoi, pourquoi ?

Faut-il toujours être allumé

Par la dernière nouveauté?

Español

Y entonces se enciende una bombilla en mi cabeza

En un salón de un teatro,

una noche en París,

a oscuras, yo orinaba,

hasta que llegó uno

que encendió la luz.

Nada alto no dijimos.

No hubo gran conflicto

entre este señor y yo,

pero yo estaba disfrutando

de la oscuridad.

Y podría argumentar

por bajar la iluminación.

¿Acaso en primer lugar

revela la bombilla

nuestro declive prolongado?

— Poem(s) and photograph by William Eaton.