ORIGINS OF THE GAME:

I believe this to be one of those childhood games that makes such a strong impression on us that, without even wishing to, we never really stop playing it. Many of us live as if following the "rules of a game", even if what is happening is indeed no game. And in the case of this particular game, all its ever changing rules escape my memory, but a fundamental image of it remains cruelly imprinted in my memory: the wallpaper that occupied the bedroom I slept in at my grandfather's house. I use the word "occupy" advisedly because it was not a discreet presence. Indeed the style was similar to a "Jouy canvas" version of the La Fontaine fable "The Miller, His Son and Their Ass", with faux 18th century pastoral scenes reproduced ad infinitum.

At the time I was unable to appreciate the irony of this somewhat "prosaic" design in a Normandy country cottage, but on the other hand what a delight, or what a nightmare, for my wild imagination. I would stay awake at night or lie quietly in my bed at dawn when nothing yet stirred in the sleeping house.

The game itself ranged from reinterpreting the fable, with for example the ass being the victim of an accident, to a "mathematical study" of the various combinations on a wall or in the entire bedroom. There is another fundamental game, the rules of which I do indeed remember because they are so right for me. This is the game of "Consequences" invented by the surrealists and which provided many a delightful family evening.