‘A poetic chamber of reflection’

    

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RW Bro. Francis Dumaurier, of l’Union Française Lodge 17 in the Tenth Manhattan District, recently launched what he calls his “personal Chamber of Reflection.” Brotherly Rhymes exhibits Francis’ poetry.

“I personally wrote each story in the classic style of three quatrains of alternating alexandrine verses, and I illustrated them with assistance from Google’s Gemini and/or ChatGPT image generators,” he says in an introduction. “A new one will be posted each Thursday afternoon for as long as I can manage to do it.”

Click here.

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“These ‘Brotherly Rhymes’ are offered to you free of charge, and I am solely responsible for their contents, which are not sanctioned by any Grand Lodge, any other organized institution, nor any individual person or group of persons living or dead,” he also says. “The illustrations are not photographs of anything or anybody. These images were created with assistance from AI to illustrate each story, and they are works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or localities, is purely coincidental. I hope that you will enjoy visiting my personal Chamber of Reflection.”

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Francis is Grand Representative of the Grande Loge Nationale Française near the Grand Lodge of the State of New York. Beyond the apartments of the temple, he is the author recently of Giorgio Gomelsky: For Your Love, about the life of his friend (and our Masonic brother), the legendary music impressario. Francis also is an actor. Surely you’ve seen him in Marty Supreme and The Artist; maybe you caught him on SNL, Letterman, or Conan. Busy man!

Click here for his Brotherly Rhymes.

     

‘For Your Love book release party’

    

The New York book release party for Bro. Francis Dumaurier’s For Your Love will take place on Tuesday the 27th. For Your Love is the biography of Bro. Giorgio Gomelsky, the rock and roll impresario of Swinging Sixties London who later became a Freemason in l’Union Française Lodge 17 in Manhattan. From the publicity:

For Your Love

Book Release Party

Tuesday, June 27 at 6:30

Free admission, but RSVP here

Journey NYC

27 West 24th Street, Manhattan

Francis Dumaurier, author and close friend of Giorgio, will present his recently published book about the incredible life of Giorgio Gomelsky. Raul Gonzalez, musician, late friend, and last manager of Giorgio’s Red Door, will co-host the event and share some of the works his band, Barra Libre, produced with Giorgio.

If you would like to collaborate in this event and have something about Giorgio you would like to share (multimedia, videos, photos, etc.), or share a story about Giorgio, please contact Raul here.

A limited number of copies of the book will be available for sale ($20) and will be signed by the author upon request.

To order a copy, click here.

RSVP by Friday, June 23 here.

Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.

     

‘New film: A Way of Light’

   

Word has just come from Bro. Francis Dumaurier about a new short film from the National Grand Lodge of France commemorating the 300th anniversary of Anderson’s Constitutions. An English-language version is available on YouTube:

RW Bro. Dumaurier is the GLNF’s Grand Representative Near New York.

     

‘For your Brotherly Love’

    

For Your Love, Bro. Francis Dumaurier’s biography of Bro. Giorgio Gomelsky, has been available in digital format for more than a year, but the high quality print versions are coming to market now. In fact, on Sunday, Dumaurier will launch his book in London with a celebration at the historic Crawdaddy Club, where the Rolling Stones got their start and the Yardbirds later served as the house band. (A New York City book launch is coming in June.)

Giorgio Gomelsky (1934-2016) was the impresario and record producer who figured significantly in the Swinging Sixties without himself becoming a household name. I mean he was a name in my household—or at least in my bedroom where my record collection was—but I don’t think he ascended into the stratosphere like Brian Epstein, George Martin, Andrew Oldham, et al.

But, did you know it was Gomelsky who introduced the Beatles to the Stones? Sure, they would have met eventually, but that encounter was sixty years ago last Friday at the Crawdaddy Club. Later in 1963, the Stones would have their first hit single with “I Wanna Be Your Man,” penned pretty much for them by Lennon and McCartney.

Born in Soviet Georgia and died in New York City, Gomelsky’s story has ups and downs, all of which are pretty amazing. He was at Masonic labor in l’Union Française 17 in the Tenth Manhattan District, as is Bro. Francis.

Francis Dumaurier

Tickets to the event Sunday can be had here. There will be a book-signing, live music, and more.

     

‘Joyeux anniversaire, mes frères!’

    

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Just a quick and belated happy anniversary greeting to l’Union Française Lodge 17 on its recent 225th anniversary. I should have attended the gala last week.

RW Bro. Francis shares this proclamation from the Mayor’s Office. (I don’t know what to make of the absence of a mention of Freemasonry.)

Joyeux anniversaire, mes frères!

     

‘French Rite EA° on Tuesday’

     
Have you seen Garibaldi Lodge’s Italian-language Entered Apprentice Degree? You will have a chance to see the same ritual in its original French on Tuesday, when l’Union Française Lodge 17 will initiate four candidates at Masonic Hall. From the publicity, courtesy Bro. Francis:

The oldest lodge of the 10th Manhattan District, l’Union Française 17, will initiate candidates Tuesday, June 19, in the French Doric Room on the 10th Floor of Masonic Hall, located at 71 West 23rd Street. We open at 6 p.m., and the degree should start around 6:45. No one can be admitted after the degree has begun. Please have your current dues card ready for the Tiler.

Our First Degree does include the rites of purification of Rosicrucian origin, not seen in the traditional American degrees, which we have kept alive since 1797. This degree will be conducted in French by our Worshipful Master with the able assistance of our Senior Deacon and his College of Officers in the intimate setting of our regular lodge room, which gives every visitor the instant feeling of being actively part of the proceedings.

There will be a post-meeting dinner in the restaurant Saju (120 West 44th Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, near Times Square) at the cost of $50 (cash) per person, including wine, tax, and tips. You can make your necessary reservations with our Secretary here.

I hope that the length of your cable tow will permit you, and all other interested Brothers who may want to come with you, to join us for this ancient esoteric ceremony, and to help us welcome these four candidates into our Royal Craft.

Fraternally,
RW Francis Dumaurier, 33°, MSA, KYCH
Grand Representative of France
     

‘Giorgio Gomelsky was a Freemason?!’

     
I first encountered the name Giorgio Gomelsky more than 35 years ago when, as a teenager, I was busy tracking down Yardbirds records, and spotted his name in the liner notes. It wasn’t easy finding those LPs in the early ’80s. You needed a sympathetic merchant willing to keep an eye out for used out-of-print vinyl, and imports, and reissues, and bootlegs, and whatever else, but I gradually accumulated them. I don’t know why Giorgio Gomelsky remained in the trivia section of my brain all this time, except that I once thought it a highly unlikely name for a purveyor of early 1960s London blues-rock bands, and such quirky things tend to stick.

So I was bowled over today to learn that Gomelsky, who died in 2016, was a Freemason. And a New York Mason at that.

Bro. Francis Dumaurier announced the progress of his new book. From the publicity:

The French editor Camion Blanc has recently published my book, Mon Ami Giorgio Gomelsky—Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds, Magma, Gong which is available in paper and Epub versions on Amazon. It features 40 original photographs and illustrations that are published for the first time. I am finishing the English translation, and will try to find an American publisher when the final version is cleared by my editor.

This book celebrates the love of life and phenomenal vision of a giant of a man with whom I shared a close friendship of 30 years. He was the first manager of the Rolling Stones, and introduced the Stones to the Beatles. He managed and produced the Yardbirds, launching the careers of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. And he managed and produced Gong and Magma in France, and was a keystone of the New York underground rock music scene for more than 30 years.

Brother Giorgio Gomelsky was also a member of l’Union Française Lodge 17 from 1986 to 1996, where he served as Senior Warden.


Francis Dumaurier, in addition to being an author, is an actor you might know from The Post and a slew of television programs.