This was the first of seven recorded conversations between Jonas Mekas and Benn Northover from 2011 to 2017.
Originally Published in AnOther Magazine the conversations spanned subjects related to life, poetry, cinema and friendship.
This first installment around the subject of Shamanism, was filmed by Hopi Lebel and Thomas Boujut in a noisy little café in Paris during production of their documentary on Jonas, ‘Hanging Out With Mekas’.
Benn: I often relate to your comment that New York saved your sanity.
Jonas: Yes, after the war there was a conference in Yalta where the Eastern European countries were divided between France, the United States, England and the Soviet Union like cake. At that point, I felt totally disappointed with western civilization; I was nowhere. But then when I landed in New York, in Brooklyn, suddenly everything was alive and free. You could buy... oranges (laughs) and you could see anything, it was like the sun began to shine. It was then that I began to put the pieces of myself together. All the possibilities were there. It was very exciting, almost ecstatic.