"... je mène l'horrible vie de plage..."

Autograph postcard signed by Max Jacob (12 lines in black ink written from the hotel du port on the island of Bréhat) to his friend the writer Nino Frank.
The postcard depicts a boat leaving Paimpol to sail towards Iceland.
Max Jacob thanks his friend who favorably received his recent work, revealing to him the confidential nature of the latter: "... tes bonnes paroles sur mon livre me vont droit au coeur... il est écrit pour très peu de gens dont tu es..." ["your kind words about my book go straight to my heart... it is written for very few people, of whom you are one..."]
He also extols to him the virtues and expiatory merits of labor: "... travaille cher ami : c'est tout dans la vie... " ["work, dear friend: it is everything in life..."] while castigating the vegetative state of the vacationer: "... je mène l'horrible vie de plage..." ["I lead the horrible beach life..."]
Nino Frank, fleeing fascism, settled in Paris in 1923. He became friends with Max Jacob, Pierre Mac Orlan, Léon-Paul Fargue, André Malraux, Blaise Cendrars and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes with whom he founded the review Bifur in 1929.
Translator, journalist but also filmmaker and radio personality, Nino Frank met Blaise Cendrars in 1928 who would become his great friend and with whom he collaborated (Rhum, Film sans images). He created the expression film noir to designate the Hollywood detective genre, which refers to dramatic suspense cinema produced in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s.