Part i deals with "The Review and its contexts" ranging from special issues of L'Illustration, the enormous impact of photography, the revival of L'Artiste founded in 1831, the educative aire of Le Japon artistique, the conservative but technically brilliant and expensive Les Lettres et les arts, Le Livre moderne and other bibliographical periodicals founded by Octave Uzanne, then on to the effect of the theatre--the end of year review, Le Chat noir, and the artistic and satirical exchanges between Paris and Switzerland exemplified by Le
Sapajou. The second part is a panorama of European reviews starting with L'Hydropathe, Le Decadent, Le Panurge, Le Chat noir and La Plume.
Upon seeing the finished pieces, Fiorello asked: "What's a sapajou?"
Thus the piece he called "Dancing Sapajous," whose organs were exposed, spilled out, and diseased, had the legs off Rodin ballerinas and the arms off Elvis.
/ Sagouin, makio or mandrill / Ouistitis, sapajou, gorilla / From its head to its back / You will bring me its skin.
(1) Shortly after Jocko starting playing at the Theatre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, the Theatre de la Gaite put on Sapajou with Jules Perrot playing the monkey.
Later, recalling the circumstances behind another work, the
sapajou remembers the duo's stall-floor coupling: "Her shoeheel stutters and then catches a clogged groove of dung and earth grouting, catches cobble, and retraces it, retraces it." His exactness of observation comes from jealousy and a fine animal distance from the thing.