Buffo, celestial clown, was also a dancer, singer and musician, and traveled the world with his fragile figure. In 2005, Howard Buten told the story of this unique character in a book published by Actes Sud, Funny (transl. Jean-Pierre Carasso) retracing his journey from his beginnings in the United States to his rise in France.
Howard Buten was born in 1950 in Detroit, Michigan. He led three parallel careers, in the United States then in France, clearly distinguishing them: by day, he worked as a clinical psychologist in Saint-Denis, dedicated to autistic children at the Adam Shelton center, which he founded in 1996; in the evening, he transformed into Buffo; and at night he devoted himself to writing.
His literary work was crowned with success with his 1981 bestseller, When I was five I killed myselffollowed by six other novels translated by Jean-Pierre Carasso, published by Editions du Seuil (Le Heart under the steamroller in 1984, Monsieur Butterfly in 1987, It will be necessary to cover it well in 1989) and at Éditions de l’Olivier (Histoire de Rofo, clown co-written with Jean-Pierre Carasso in 1991, It was better before in 1994, When are we arriving? in 2000).
He has also written works on autism, including These children who do not come from another planet: autistic people in 1995 at Gallimard Jeunesse and There’s someone in there: autism published by Odile Jacob in 2003.
Nancy Huston wanted to pay him a final tribute in a text, Dance of moleculestransmitted by the publisher Actes Sud:
Dance of molecules, dance of neurons, which make us be or believe we are this or that; dance of memories that come and go, surface and sink, constitute us for a moment then dissolve, disperse, become floating letters, scraps of color, ether. Howard you just “ go into the next room » as the other said, and you suddenly become more present to me: while we have lost our lives for thirteen years, a thousand memories of you wake up and come alive in my brain today.
Howard! friend ! comrade! big brother in bilingualism, biculturalism and exile! Free electron with multiple professions! Clown and shrink, violinist and novelist, great lover and great depressive, and hay of the unhealthy need for compartmentalization among the French!
I remember the day when, rightly proud, you showed me the “Adam Shelton Center” which had just opened in Saint-Denis, half-board for adolescents with spectrum disorders. autism, named after one of your first patients. When accompanying me to the exit after the visit, seeing a young person gesticulating and muttering in front of the door, you said to him: “ Are you stuck? And what do we do when we’re stuck? But yes! Let’s dance!! » Grabbing him in your arms, you led him into a wild waltz which ended up propelling him, hilarious, to the other side of the barrier.
I remember that, coming to join me in Montreal, in Quimper or at the Vieille Grille in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, playing Thelonious Monk opposite my Gesualdo in Les Dissonants, a show about musicians and madness, you had never stage fright. You could read the newspaper up to thirty seconds before you appeared on stage.
I remember meeting you by chance in Avignon very late in the evening, sitting alone at a café terrace. You had just given Buffo for about the three thousandth time, masterfully embodying in this character our confusion, our shyness, our awkwardness and our thirst for love of all of us – but this time you had a gap. “ Black hole, you told me, shaken. It’s not that I didn’t know where I was in the show, I no longer knew where I was… or who. »
Before, after, it doesn’t matter: I remember beautiful parties at our mutual friends’ house. Their teenage son, neuroatypical, delighted you by composing and recomposing the guest list: to this party, to the next, and to the next one again. Let the party begin! I would have liked so much that you could have met my first granddaughter Sofia, whose difficulties of body and mind transformed the whole family for the better.
I remember our mornings of laughter spent looking for rhymes and
puns by translating the songs from your musical When I was five I killed myself. The show never existed; our laughter, yes!I remember that one day, walking arm in arm through the familiar streets of your neighborhood in New York, we got lost….
I remember one evening when, sitting at a table in a restaurant on rue du Faubourg du Temple in Paris, our memory lapses became the very fabric of our conversation. When you took out your money to invite me at the end of the meal, you spilled a glass, squirting red wine onto the white tablecloth and my equally white shirt. The waiter was amazed to see us laughing out loud, and then blown away to discover the generosity of your tip. I remember your loyalty, in friendship and in love.
It was an absolute joy to participate, for a moment – with you, Howard Buten, Buffo, Thelonious, Ben, and so on – in this dance of molecules and synapses which has just been interrupted, and which people will call From now on “ your life ».
– Nancy Huston
Photo credits: © X. Delcroix (Actes Sud)
By Hocine Bouhadjera
Contact : [email protected]
Related News :