lundi 30 juin 2003

Streaming radio, steaming consciousness I've been listening to some pretty strange, archived sounds out of Massachusetts. Somebody told me at the weekend they considered the Boston area another world from the rest of the United States. Pressed to explain, since I'd imagine that the US includes many more or less united places, my friend said: "Just different, sometimes bizarre... "Like being in a kind of England that isn't at all English any more." That didn't get anybody far. Now I'm invited to: "Walk down a dark alleyway, now -- remain naked, tracing the electromagnetic ley lines of your body with magenta nail gloss before having basted self with that moldy stink'in kefir in the back of the fridge, and go out and beat Bill Gates to the airport, mimicking a rival technology inventor (such as Mike Doyle at Eolas), and skip through the early streets talking to animals telepathically! ...well, go on...and get that megaphone digitalized just in case..." with this to boot: "you're the policeman, you work it out..." Maybe I don't need to know anything about Gary Geiserman, but sitting in my "inspect" folder has been an iTunes radio streaming playlist downloaded some days ago. It's a pity I can't remember where I found it and have lost that bit of browsing history. There's a whole load of archived shows, dating from 1995 to last month, where those quotes came from at New Metaphysics, which is apparently a site you can't always log on to easily. Elsewhere, no policeman, I learned at least this much. "Out of frustration I just called WZBC. The guy's name was Gary Geiserman. And his show was called The New Metaphysics. It was great. Unfortunately he was just fired a few weeks ago. For swearing or profanity on the air, according to the DJ I talked to. She said 'we want to push the limits but he just went too far'," someone wrote on the 'Joe Frank mailing list' (yeah, the what?) in November last year. The first stream I came on dates from February 1999, is tedious in parts, but in others a remarkable musical-vocal-movietrack-DJ collage by somebody who sounds as if he's been stoned forever. A wee bit of it's in German and there's even a kind of storyline. I begin to understand that poll about Americans and aliens I mentioned a while back in a "truth is out there" post. Good mildly brain-teasing listening for a rainy, convalescent-mood day like this, Gary's now sometimes at Stream475, while I've found iTunes -- the alternative being Real Player -- quite happy with equally offbeat, sometimes oldie places like Mountain Radio (ex-Café Eclectic). If I'm going to be stuck around the flat or not far away for much longer, I'll be doing more searching at Live365, as well as catching up on my CDs... The only other G.G. link I found worth pursuing led me to 'gullboy: New Sound reviews', mostly maintained by another generation from mine, but a good place (the G.G. reference was in an piece on 'Never Mind the Bootlegs, Here's Sex with Nid and Sancy'. I'll skip that, thanks...) zzz On new metaphysics, if I didn't always leave getting back into it until so late in the day, you'd get a quicker review of 'Mappa Mundi', my current read. I can't resist an extract: "...She made a face at him that said Ta-DA! and waved her hands in the air. Dan paused, forgetting the funny story about Bill and the security system, and looked at the gobbledegook that had suddenly cluttered the screen in the terse, efficient Courier font that meant he couldn't read anything properly without putting his lenses in. 'Stages One and Two?' He wished he listened to more of what she said. It would make life so much simpler. 'Physical Event Map and Mental Event Map,' Natalie grinned like a maniac and waited for him to get it. He waited. She said, 'You know, it means we've stuck together the real world of physical events like chemistry and electricity and the non-physical world of mental life. It's the big kahuna. The foundation for a genuine working theory of consciousness. Dan, for fuck's sake! The Holy Grail, man!' Her voice had risen on the last phrases as he'd kept his face straight and now he could grin too. 'Gotcha.' He nodded wisely." But he hasn't ... neither has Natalie, a research scientist, and nor have we. Yet. That's from pp. 141-1 and not a spoiler, but I bookmarked it. The semi-classic thriller part of Justina Robson's near-future tale about medical nanotechnology doesn't really begin until 'Map' starts on p. 63 ... or maybe 'Compass Rose' just a few pages before that. Natalie rarely swears, but she is on to something. So are other people, and agencies with ruthless ideas in mind. Robson's writing styles switch gear with ease, depending on which country she's got you in, and she doesn't go easy on the metaphysical front. I'm hooked. One of those novels you want to finish fast and also don't. As if the prospect of a "working theory of consciousness" wasn't enough, 'kuro5hin' has yet to post part III of an ambitious and well-written 'Introduction to the Theory of Relativity'. Don't rush it just for me. 11:10:08 PM  link   your views? [] A blog entry about the blog! Oh dear... Ok, this is it. So I hope all three and a half of you like it! I wanted a place easier to navigate, for the second half of the year. Especially now that I've realised that I'm catering to 3 ½ very different tastes, interests and occasional requests. A printing problem in some browsers persists. iCab still can't quite render the pages properly, which is either me or something destined to change when the full-featured final version comes out. I owe thanks to Dave Raggett at W3C, the World Wide Web consortium, for his beginner's HTML markup guide, which many of us must keep bookmarked. The Webmonkey people offer a useful HTML Cheatsheet, while Doctor HTML drives me to despair with an online single-page analysis my pages never completely pass! I prefer the less cruel W3C version. I also appreciate the HTML and web page design site put together by Kevin O'Connor. Ever to hand is the 'Bible' from O'Reilly, not quite the latest edition, but found at an unbelievable price at Gibert Joseph (Flash site) on the Boulevard St Michel, the best place for computer books in Paris, including ones in English. People in town should know that they often have "second-hand" bargains which are virtually new. You also tend to get better service there than at the better known Gibert Jeune. I prefer having such guides between soft covers, but O'Reilly's Safari online bookshelf deal is an interesting one if you want access to a great deal of excellent technical material. Post-midnight tweaking won me a "congratulations" from W3C on valid CSS. People can check their cascading style sheet online with the validator. zzz The new look started here, with Bryan's CandidBlue theme: The Moveable Type look of Bell's January offering pleased somebody lacking the skill yet for that, though I keep tabs on how MT's coming on. This is where you tell me you preferred the look this place had until yesterday afternoon! It's a slight pity I no kept trace of the blog's initial appearance on the Net, but even the second incarnation was becoming technically thorny. There's more to this than just a change of colours. Maybe I was the only person to see n° 2 as intended, using Omniweb, which could cope with a Times New Roman font set up badly for other browsers (hence a pictorial detail, running the 4.5b1 beta). What I didn't want from Bryan's templates were too much grey, topic of a pre-war pro-UN outburst in March. I couldn't do without some yellow alongside the blue dominants. Since the templates don't come with item titles switched "on", it took me a while just to figure that little touch out. Titles matter, since my mind's now hopelessly opposed to trying to classify entries by category. Even if used here, there would be rather a lot of them! Apart from obvious differences, some aimed at making this place more "user-friendly" (since I can scarcely believe it now runs to two sizeable books), I've decided, when it comes to sharing, to stop sitting on the fence and opt for a Creative Commons licence, removing the standard © mention. The Creative Commons concept is appealing and workable in jurisdictions outside the United States. The change mainly means that should you find anything useful in this log, feel free to take it unless it already belongs to somebody else, but please give credit as well. Anyway, that's enough writing about me writing, bane of all bloggers! Back to normal business after this. Ah, the HTML. Apart from a glitch of mine I might have fixed in line 4, no others appear until line 340, says the W3C. Then there are more than 100. Which means that Bryan's tweaked home and other page templates are fine. All the mistakes are my own. And yesterday I thought I was learning! Maybe I did. But, ouf! no more major make-up jobs for a good while to come. 2:02:16 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 29 juin 2003

Work in progress... ...and it shows! After yesterday's lack of success on some fronts, I'm fiddling with a new template by Bryan B. Things will get better... 2:02:00 PM  link   your views? []

samedi 28 juin 2003

Behind the scenes Nothing but cleaning things up and a bit of spying today. Nice to see Marianne in poetic mood at belcatja (no "permalinks" there); Katja has been instead concerned with marking their teachers' performance this year. Great stuff if you can understand both French and their French, the text message and Net shorthand of our times... I've begun treatment. Today. For Crohn's disease (speculated about enough already, with the main links on May 19). We decided to stop hanging around for the conclusive tests to be done in a clinic on July 17. It's pretty clear, with virtually all other possibilities ruled out and something nasty still going busily in my guts. "Blogs are not simply online diaries. They are not simply a new form of instant publishing and group-think. Many are written by people who have been to hell and back. (...) Much of my early blogging was about my father's downward spiral into illness and finally his death last year on April 9th. Am I saying you have to turn your blog into General Hospital to get readers? Not at all. I'm saying that many of us have been through personal crises that have given us new wisdom, new clarity about what matters and what doesn't. (...) It's a life and death thing. It's not casual. We have some skin in the game." That's a savagely chopped excerpt from a 'Halley's Comment' entry well worth the read: 'Dying to tell you our stories'. With links, like a handful of mine, to people who "have been to hell and back". Not that my probable Crohn's is at a critical phase yet; on the contrary, the ongoing diagnosis is beginning to explain a lot, while the treatment could help with a range of problematic symptoms I've enjoyed for more than a decade... I saw Halley Suitt's thoughts via Dave Winer, whose telegraphic style is poles apart from my own, except when he waxes 'angry on 'Scripting News', a rare event (and insight into a technical row at one of the cores of the "blogosphere"). Behind the scenes here, a host of code changes were triggered when I noticed that my pages have stopped printing decently in the new Safari 1.0 browser. (They still don't, but that's another story and I've stopped blaming myself, for now...) Sorry if the slightly altered looks irritate some who don't use fairly big screen resolutions (I usually work in 1152 x 864). However, to cater to the majority of two and a half of my three and a half readers, all those links down the side should now open in a new window -- or you obviously retain the "new tab" option. Whatever. By request. As to the in-text links, that remains your call. 11:58:17 PM  link   your views? []

vendredi 27 juin 2003

Bravo, l'Entrepôt; bravo, 'Kaena'! Deux grandes réussites! Congratulations to the young new team who have restored life to l'Entrepôt, the cultural centre round the corner, at 7-9 rue Francis de Pressencé, 75014 Paris. If they maintain the new qualities, they merit all the success they can get. The rich programme includes concerts several nights of the week, a lot of jazz and some world music. The three renovated cinemas offer more than a dozen films from all over the world. No list here; suffice to say that this week Britain, Brazil, Guinea, Iran, Spain and Tadjikistan are among the sources. The current mini-film festival is devoted to Russian director Alexander Sokurov (his "island" in the Net, English or Russian - Александр Сокуров). There's literature, the bar, conferences, the garden, movies for children, and the restaurant. I haven't tested the restaurant ... yet. I'm told it's good at last. There are ciné-resto and ciné-concert formulas (each a very reasonable 20 euros). The cinema I sat in at the end of the afternoon (salle 3) was very comfortable, new seats, superb new sound. When I came out, a score of people were preparing for the evening or sitting around near the bar, ears open as jazz musicians set up and warmed up. The pianist broke off for a brief, dazzling but also moving excursion into Chopin ... or Liszt? Chopin. The quartier's resident Django Reinhardt, who now has somewhere to hang out, quietly said: "You don't have to stop." I briefly introduced l'Entrepôt, its history and the dynamic new team at the end of a May 24 entry. Thanks to Lynda, in particular, for the tip-off. She goes mainly for the music and dance. They don't do cartes de fidelité" (discount cards for regulars) any more. The chap I asked looked slightly abashed, but needn't have done. At their prices, the selection is already generous. They'll need little help to attract and keep a crowd. Still, the website again: l'Entrepôt. I wish them "une longue et fructueuse vie" (a long, fruitful life)! zzz The other fine achievement is 'Kaena, la prophétie' (Kaena, the prophecy). A fantasy fable, the first French computer-image movie is billed as a movie for kids. Careful. It's neither for small children nor ones who get scare dreams rather than frissons of fear. The heroine, even more curvaceous than Lara Croft, is easy to "identify with" but some of the monsters are truly terrifying. The plot, like some of the 3D animation, does share features with 'Ice Age': a journey from one era to the next; great big eyes for some of the human and alien beings; fun creatures as a foil for high drama; even a kind of "cradle of humanity" parallel -- not too serious. Attempts at great realism are largely absent from the people, but stunningly effective in the floating forest world inhabited by humans and in sequences such as the extended beginning, where a starship crashes to its doom on the planet Astria. A touch of 'Final Fantasy' video game comes as no surprise when you read that director Chris Delaporte began that way "in 1995. I was working on the 'Heart of Darkness' video game, which had 35 minutes of pure 3D animation." Delaporte tells a good tale of how a game idea became a feature film in an interview on 'Kaena', a remarkable bi-lingual website (link recalled below: interview in .rtf format on press page). Making a movie, he says, was Steven Spielberg's idea, the problem being that S.S. laid down a condition: "that he didn't end up being the fifth wheel". A sci-fi fan who wanted to get right into creating a fantasy world, Delaporte rallied co-director Pascal Pinon and a varied team to his dream, brought to the screen this month by Paris-based Xilam Films (the photos here belong to Xilam), with help from Studio Canal in France and Canada's TVA International. Parts are "played" in French by Cécile de France, Michael Lonsdale and Victoria Abril. In the English version, these roles go to Kirsten Dunst, the late Richard Harris and Anjelica Huston. The story itself is derivative - and who cares? The constantly roving Kaena has a people to save, a high priest is dangerously unaware of the true nature of those villagers' gods, there's a legend and a mad old man. A wise survivor from the alien starship might help, except that ending a 600-year struggle for survival could also close the book for humanity. 'Kaena' (the front door again) is breath-takingly gorgeous to watch and the music by Farid Russlan provides a sumptuous counterpoint. Despite some classic big fights, the absence of any "black and white" good and bad characters is noteworthy: everybody is doing their best to survive and much of the film is in sepia shades or a techno-electric blue. Afterwards, I read that Delaporte didn't want "goodies" and "baddies", while he acknowledges many influences but only one direct "link" to another film. "I can't believe in villains who are evil without reason, the kind you often meet in movies. I think that is such a caricature! I don't want to say, 'He's good, and he's evil'. I can't do that in life, so there really wasn't a reason for me to do that in the film," he says. I've joined those at the IMDb, where only two people have said anything so far, with a straight 8/10, a slightly weighted score but well merited by a first movie. Ah. The 'Axis', tree at the centre of the world. Now there's one of the oldest legends around, in a place where, as the "village madman" warns Kaena, up is down and down is up. 10:22:12 PM  link   your views? [] 'Comical Ali' is back?!? The BBC is reporting that Iraq's ex-information minister 'resurfaces'. "Looking thinner and greyer" than during the war, Baghdad's "grand master of spin" (the light relief in part two of an April spit) now reveals that he was interrogated and freed by the Americans. The only glitch is that US Central Command doesn't know this yet. So they say. Oh, what a minefield day this is going to be for "bloggers"! Not just them either. My mind is so boggled that now I am hitting the sandbagck. 12:44:14 AM  link   your views? [] 'Retarded' news. Brain machine. Five days late, indeed. So I'm slow? So I just use a tiny green chip in my pea brain? '''Remember that old saw which says that we only use a small part our brain? Well, it might just be true. Except that now we can actually prove it physically and experimentally. That has to be significant. I mean, it has to be, doesn't it?' (cognition scientist Allan Snyder) "C'est dans le New-York Times." So pssst told us this week. So the NetNewsWire reader says... 'Savant for a day' by Lawrence Osborne for the NYT Magazine requires quick and free registration to read. It's well worth it. Story of a chap who goes to Australia to have electricity beamed into his frontal lobes. (Which are what and where?) When I shortly go to sleep, I'll remember to stick plug in ear to stop said pea exiting during night and being crushed into carpet. This, as my regulars know, prevents long morning searches and reassures my daughter. 12:23:09 AM  link   your views? []

jeudi 26 juin 2003

A blogtree, roots, marshland and good web-weaving The day was too lovely to bury myself in the dark for 'Kaena' after all, but she'll still be round the corner tomorrow. Instead, I had something that needed getting to the Marais in the heart of town, an easy stone's throw from this delightful old house. I haven't (yet) asked permission from Alan "Z" Zeleznikar to pinch his picture, but he does say "my life is an open book"; it illustrates the good, "possibly true travel stories" at his site. Since la Poste is currently unreliable (I'm still getting mine from a cheery postal lass, but near neighbours say their post-people are being erratic), urgency warranted the detour. Especially a stroll much of the way back under a storm-laden sky which never quite broke. The murky Seine and its old bridges looked gorgeous and the brooding clouds lightened up. And there are many more Americans back in town than a few weeks ago, behaving and being treated perfectly well as far as eye could tell, so I'll lighten up too! When it came to checking back online, I went to a book-marked "blogtree" and decided that it would be fun to join in. Hence the novelty on the right-hand side of the home page. Figuring out which "parents" directly inspired me to start logging was easy enough (for a first three anyway -- discounting "Strangelove" Rumsfeld). Finding out who your "siblings" are proves amusing! zzz The Marais, or "marsh", takes it name from flooding by the Seine and has nothing to do with the sentiment I expressed yesterday. Moreover, I don't know why "j'en ai marre", which means "I'm fed up" or "I of it have (had enough)" appears to have the same root as the verb "se marrer" (pronounced almost like the marsh, "marr-eh" and "mar-eh", with those "r"s I still can't do right). "Je me suis bien marré" means "I had a really good laugh" -- yet "tu me fais marrer" means "you make me laugh" in a pejorative, unkind way. "Il est marrant" means "he's very amusing". "Marraine" means "godmother". Since I'm aware of no common root, this is a poser to be put to André B., whose explanation will be more marrant, if equally accurate, to any furnished by Littré, the 19th-century lexicographer (here portrayed by his longtime foes in the Roman Catholic Church. The G5 François was teasing about is the new Power Mac (I chose the UK Apple Store because I've been comparing the "official" price in different countries). It's a lot of money to lay out anywhere! And a waste of power for any needs of mine. As ever, Apple is offering a measly 128 MB of installed RAM, which is nowhere near enough memory to drive a monster like that. So bringing it up to speed for the new operating systems will cost even more from the outset. The video memory is much better though, and also at last on a par outside North America with what's being offered on "home ground". Before any change, I try to be sensible comparing day-to-day working practices and needs with the cost and hidden extra charges entailed in the "latest, greatest and fastest" machine. For my current and predicted requirements, a mid-range eMac is perfect, if not one of Apple's most elegant computers. The "tilt-and-swivel" stand was a ferociously expensive "extra" when I got mine, which is very secure but has a slight wobble to it when the desk gets bumped hard. This should count as a defect, but I regard it as inbuilt suspension. zzz On another technical front, Tom at 'plasticbag' has done some superb writing on how to make your website and links "accessible, clearly laid-out and fundamentally honest" for readers and search engines (linked to the article with its comments). For me, this kind of thing is indispensable reading. For this entry, like it's predecessor, I'm using a tool called HTML Creator, developed by Finnish-American computer science student Aram Kudurshian. He is asking just 15 dollars for a shareware gift to people like me. It has won awards, as well as being slapped down by real geeks on the VT info page. Apart from one or two things I've yet to sort out, I agree with somebody called 'The Mac Manger', who gave it five stars and said: "I'm not very knowledgable in HTML so the built in Reference is very helpful and the assistants speed up many of the monotonous tasks. HTML Creator might not be for the advanced user but it's great for new users and intermediate webmasters." It's also a fine learning tool, along with the O'Reilly tome I once mentioned, half a dozen websites, and a few other pieces of carefully selected shareware which I'm discovering how to use. All told, for less than 100 euros ($115/£80), I'm finding you can sift Version Tracker OS X (or Mac OS or Windows) and build up a neat collection of page-creation time-savers. These, unlike the big commercial products, fit well into my computer budget over two months. When I'm more proficient, I'll mention what else strikes me as outstanding. zzz The magic 26th. Monthly start-again date across France for budgeting, the unexpected or otherwise, with Visa. Now Tristam gets a proper birthday present, instead of a time travel entry and confusion with others, and a few software developers get their rightful dues. 11:10:57 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 25 juin 2003

J'en ai marre! "T'as déjà commandé ton G5?" netmaster François demanded over lunch. No way, I told him. I'm happy with what I've got, thanks. Where's the rush? Moments earlier, Francis the newswhiz told me he was abandoning Apple. "Ah, foul treachery," I cried. "Don't do that!" "Too late. My machine won't do enough. I've already got a new PC, and it's got this and that..." The list was impressive and extensive. So I half forgave him, even if he pulled the GHz stunt. He added: "I'll keep the old one, though, unless--" The "unless" came back to mind before he shut up shop. Down I went and asked for all the specs: "je déteste le gaspillage!" In fact, I hadn't realised that it was a so-called "old" Mac, 1997, but it may have quite enough potential to kill two birds with one affordable stone. To be explored. Earlier, one of my e-mails said: "i'm surprised u haven't even mentioned panther yet, what with all the hoo-hah this wk. don't say u wr asleep? gonna grab it or not?" I wasn't altogether asleep. But it's sunny, glorious, too hot for some and likely not to stay that way much longer. Since Monday, I've preferred to let fellow enthusiasts rave or rant on about the great Mac confab in San Francisco. I read summaries of Steve's keynotes because when he makes his speeches: bits of the WWW choke up they're far, far too long he adores worship non-Americans will have to wait on many promises I can't stand "high mass" without amazing music. I also waited to fetch Safari One, which some might still consider a beta browser for a beta OS (that's their problem) and a handful, starting in French with MacGregor, who unleased a rumour from "relatively reliable sources" (MacPlus) that this marvel would be ported to Windows (that would be Apple's problem). That put the cat among the pigeons a month ago, sternly to be scorned out of court by John Farr at Applelinks in little more than a day. But. Steve has done some daft things in his time... zzz I enjoyed watching the ritual foreplay ahead of the act of consecration. One day, even a few Panther screenshots appeared at 4 OS X, and links spread like wormholes until all were tramped shut with the usual notice "at the request of Apple's legal department", which shovelled aside the grovelling snivellers. For the hell of it, MacRumors today produces a "who was closest?" rumour roundup. I'm quite happy to see that Frogland "deserves credit for providing the lead info on such an important Apple event, however, based on the above record, they remain consistently inconsistent in their accuracy -- which has also been true of them in the past." MacBidouille broke the first fairly accurate "niouz" about the new Power Mac and its insides from March 10, and whether or not their crystal ball is clouded, they are among the most lively French Mac sites. I note also from a MacPolls effort on Sunday that just 25.56 percent, or 764 people out of the 2,989 who bothered to answer the question, said they would not be following the Keynote live, one way or another. Were the other 2,225 telling the truth? Are we expected to believe that such figures are remotely representative of the Mac-using world as a whole? Could up to 74.44 percent of Mac-owners be such disciples, such ... sheep? Even were it conceivable, I'd imagine that a good number of such followers remain agnostics. I couldn't help myself: when I found myself having to register at MacRumors to do something there, the nickname I selected was "le loup". zzz Vagary (be warned: quite in character, there've been no more posts since June 16 till now) was on to something with this quiz(illa) biz. When I did the "what is your animal personality?" one, finding out that I was a wolf was inevitable. Even Marianne knew that from a very early age, and nobody ever told the kid. However, that particular quiz only proved to offer seven other possibilities. Not enough for my shamanistic mind. Quizilla kept me out of trouble. The only story I've been ahead of recently was about NetNewsWire. You got word of the clever new version of this newsreader here two days before MacCentral "broke it". They, however, bothered to add that Ranchero Software is offering a $10 discount on the full, paying version until the end of this month. Brent must be in a better mood than I am! zzz Now I remember what I was planning to write about it in the first place. "Oui, j'en ai marre!" With everything! I wanted a decent tantrum, of the kind I enjoyed when I was a tot. Since I've been feeling as sick as a dog for the best part of four days now, I want to stop counting my blessings (and clichés) and start bitching. Who at? Well, what at, then? We made a good start over lunch, François and me and a clever feller I didn't know before, with the Americans, flavour of the year. François, who has lived there, said nice things, but we soon put a stop to that positive, open-minded approach. It has obviously rubbed off too much... "Navel-gazers," I began. "Always needing assurance and congratulating themselves on really quite pathetic achievements." "Good start," said clever feller. "Their friendships turn out to be self-interested. I'm generalising, of course." "Please do," we agreed. We soon tired of the Americans and went on to the Brits. Clever feller saw his chance to place a cliché or two of praise but got stopped in his tracks with a mention of how the trains have gone off the rails and some of the health system down the plug-hole. Then I said: "Thatcher really turned them into a nation where it's every man for himself." Neatly committing at least three British sins at once: perfidy, self-flagellation and smug superiority. When it came to the French, clever feller again wanted to be kind! "We've learned to rejoice in the various comforts of life," he rightly said. I suggested that he meant France had discovered how to be a filthy consumer society like the rest when Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was president, but François explained that I was describing a change in mind-set which took roughly 10 years, 1975-85, and gathered further steam under Mitterrand. Clever feller defended Chirac, conceding that he was a "ripoux" (pourri in "verlan" or backwards, meaning "rotten", like a bad Apple) and less cunning than Mitterrand, but argued that the man at least had the whole of the national interest at heart. A "national" interest was an odd concept, I considered, in a country "so lacking in any sense of community spirit". François thought there was one. Even in internet forums. All kinds of "little communities"! zzz This put paid to a staggering headache which, at its worst for just two hours this morning, was initially eased by some lousy news from a friend on the 'phone, and finally vanished so that I managed to avoid throwing up during lunch. But. Again but: I am also fed up with being confined to quarters by the physical question of how far across town I dare go, screwing July's holiday plans into a ball and throwing them into the waste-paper basket, and being told that codeine is now just as bad for me as aspirin has long been. I'm temporarily enraged by what life and death have prematurely done to some of my friends. I am cross with friends who behave like cats which decide they want to be caressed and then spin round with bristling tails and claws and spit four-letter verbs not only at you but everybody else in their four-letter world. At such times, I can be known to frequent such crap-shooting places as Cruel Site of the Day and equally delightful Morons Dot Org. Their daily findings cheer me up. I don't care if they're not PC! Oh. Panther. Sod Panther for now. I haven't got the foggiest idea whether I will give Apple yet another 120-plus dollars for yet another OS upgrade. One, which to my eyes, largely looks more like a gadget-freak's wet dream than a major improvement like Jaguar was. Tomorrow, I am going to see 'Kaena'. It is a fantasy. It's for kids of all ages. It is French. It is a first for this country. And it's showing, literally, just round the corner this week. '2 Fast 2 Furious' would both bore me and give me more cause for anger. It may be topping the British film charts and heading that way here, but 2 Fast and 2 Furious are 2 Facts of Life which incline me to give 2 Fingers to other people's "realities". Like deadlines. 11:54:09 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 24 juin 2003

Nicholas Powell: fine arts, fine friend. A tribute Tragic news came almost out of the blue in the monthly e-mail from the Paris branch of the National Union of Journalists: Since My Condition prevents me from going either to today's funeral or to tonight's branch meeting, I'd like to say something here. My heart really goes out to Nicholas's family and especially to his wife, Véronique. In sillier times, Nicholas and I found ourselves locked into a similar trap. For lack of any other appropriate label in the France of the early 1980s, we had declared ourselves "travailleurs indépendants", i.e. self-employed journalists of a professional category equivalent to young lawyers, doctors, writers... Soon, terrifying chunks of our income and part of our souls were deep in the clutches of URSSAF, which then had no pretty face-mask. URSSAF, a fortress in a Paris suburb, was a monster of French administration at its most malign. We (and others) went that way as one of the required steps for state welfare cover, but URSSAF replied to no letters. 'Phone calls were nightmares. Forms and demands were regular. Nicholas Powell, in one of many fits of shared exasperation when asked for the umpteenth time to declare his "employees", simply filled in the names of his cats. He encouraged me to do likewise, as we pored over a table spread with fearful paperwork. Eventually, my only way out of URSSAF, which they befittingly called my "radiation", was to march into the keep of the castle itself and sit there until they agreed to hear and do away with me, which took a whole day. This radical move was my response to the only letter I have ever received written entirely in red ink, including the envelope, which I was ordered under bizarre rules of the time personally to fetch and sign for at the town hall, not even the post office. Braver and far more fluent in French than I was then, Nicholas declared war against the whole state machine, of which URSSAF was only a part. He enlisted a lawyer, the help of friends like me, the British ambassador, and the NUJ and French unions. He won a mighty victory. When he was done, all British journalists living in France who earned most of their income as true freelances working for the foreign press, and not French employers, were henceforth allowed to make their social security payments in Britain but receive the benefits in this country. Without being charged the rates handed out to French self-employed people in dissimilar circumstances. This battle has been taken on again since, by another admirable fellow in the branch, because years and several changes of government later, the French announced a change in the rules. Nobody was having this. Powell thus put in a rare appearance last year at a branch meeting where I did the same. It was the last time I saw him and he was too pushed over a deadline to hang around, but far from any battlefields, I have the very warmest memories of wild times. One night, we took my visiting mother to one of his favourite restaurants. Unfortunately, this was long before Eurostar. I had in my enthusiasm not bothered to think that my mum would have preferred not to have done the ferry and the haul into the Gare du Nord, then be dragged down to the Seine and a place where waiters were known to stroll on top of the tables and serve up digestifs with dead snakes in the bottles. Nicholas, however, she liked at once. Taken by a man so tall, fine-featured, cultivated and elegant, she enjoyed his stories, the shared interest in all things French and a real nose for the fine arts. Nearly two decades on, by January 2001, that flair was such that Nick telling the likes of Forbes.com readers "why it could be cheaper not to buy art in Europe" (he wasn't capable of perpetrating the horrible "to not buy" in their sub-editor's headline). Arts we often discussed, especially music, were my "patch" before arriving in France, and his career moved ever deeper in that direction while my own veered elsewhere. Away from work, Nicholas long helped keep me up to date. He also occasionally led me late at night to one or two Parisian "clubs" so dimly lit that I was both curious and glad not always to know exactly what was happening in some of the most shadowy alcoves. We emerged, unscathed, to find pre-dawn taxis. It was certainly a part of my education. After our weddings and family lives began, we saw less and less of each other, though Catherine and I sometimes had dinner with Nicholas and Véronique, who is also a gifted denizen of the fine art world and a teacher in more ways than one. On this grievous day, I can only wish her and their children all the courage in the world, as well as lasting happy memories. Nicholas became an increasingly specialised writer, producing catalogues and, I believe, at least one book, as well as many articles. In 1999, he contributed to a supplement in the IHT by announcing to the world that "In Paris, Autumn is Asian." When occasionally, in recent years, we were lucky enough to meet and chat, he asked me whether I'd yet visited the Drouot salesrooms he mentions there and told me it was "scandalous, Nicholas" that I hadn't, since I'd find it fascinating even if art collecting wasn't my thing. "Take Marianne too," he recommended. Most of his recent online legacy as an arts correspondent is to be found at the 'Financial Times'. The opera I knew about, but I didn't realise that Nick was such a frequent, as well as fine, theatre critic. The best way to judge for yourselves is to to head for the FT search page, type in his name and select the categories 'Search this journalist' and then, say, "Last 3 years". For more, you have to be a subscriber, but some of Nicholas's earlier work, for 'Variety', is most easily reached via 'Find Articles'. Not very long ago, Nicholas worked occasionally round the corner from here. I twice met him on Gergovie Street and the second time we made time to have lunch together. I'm glad we did. He was admitted to hospital shortly before I was confined, for the duration, to not very much further than this part of town. Few journalists expect ever to leave more than an ephemeral record of years of hard work. A handful of the best don't even bother with bylines. But qualities, such as the attention to detail, the perseverance, the curiosity, the almost fierce earnestness that would suddenly burst into a cascade of wit, and the sense of fun, which I remember from that lunch and many a high time in the '80s, stay forever with family and friends. There's no point in regretting I saw Nicholas Powell so infrequently after that decade when I was so lucky ever to have known him at all. 4:42:50 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 22 juin 2003

Welcome bites from the blogroll I'm delighted, catching up, that the admirable chipstah, with whom I'm relieved still to find myself disagreeing about almost everything, has been invited to help "write the constitution of the 100% Capitalist 6th Republic". For France. The notion is generous to a fault since it's clearly painful for him to contemplate the French at all, but I wouldn't dream of suggesting he spare himself and his friends the agony. It could make for a fun read. From his new-look blog, I found the dissident frogman and learned that Marianne and I have both broken the law with the picture of Che G. Well, we'll be blowed! No wonder I'm interested in the whole Creative Commons concept. Brian Flemming and Bryan Bell are among several in the blogroll who are into this already. I've seen numerous pleas to sign this petition intended for the US Congress, on reclaiming the public domain. I'm happy to add my voice to those from outside the United States, since US legislation on copyright issues does not stop at the border. Holly finds that wine can help you pass out and save you from mishap. My drinking days are done, but yesterday I passed out with no problem. What was intended as a short after-lunch siesta lasted until well into this morning, with no interruptions but for nausea groans when I had to wake up occasionally to go the loo. How Marianne put up with it -- and what she did with her weekend -- I scarcely know. I hate fetching a doctor out on a Sunday, but occasionally there's no choice. Marianne tracked down an open pharmacy afterwards for the necessary, since I couldn't go anywhere. Just when I thought the worst was over. But the past week was far worse than mine for too many people I know, while I'm lucky -- I like it when the temperature outside hits 30°C and over. Thus, still getting up to date (without having served as any "role model" this weekend), I thought I might be glad to learn that "the marketing boys and girls have spotted a new type of man". I wasn't, but when Hash went on to mention "gastro porn", that was it. I had to read more... I'm more glad that Mike, had a "quiet day", since he's been (sparingly) blogging an ailment too. With him, it's the ear and he has all my sympathy, though I wouldn't have spent the night in a shop waiting for the latest Harry Potter (his books page). Then again, there's the "soon to be released 'Harry Potter Challenges the Pentagon' in which Harry Potter takes on Lord Voldemort, and (...) Lord Voldemort has an insatiable appetite for violence. I pointed out that the increase in the Pentagon budget takes money away from education. (...) Harry Potter knows that education or Hogwarts is the place where magic is made and we are going to create new magic in the country by rebuilding our education system." That comes from the blog of US "progressive" presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich (thanks to Norm for the tip). While maybe I'm too cynical to conceive of Kucinich in the White House, there seems to be a sense of humour there fighting to get out. Something I liked about Clinton was his ability to make fun of himself. You don't see much of that in Washington these days. In California, Ian Newman feels uncharitable today even about US telephone operators because: "the way they pronounce their W's makes me want to send violent electrical currents down the phone line to enter their head and search out their brain and fry it into a hard, dry, blackened nugget." However, he doesn't tell them so directly (instead he reveals this on words with wings. No "permalink" yet.) Me, it's those damned buttons! Towards the end of last week, trouble at Apple robbed me of both my iDisk and my .mac page. And then my ISP went down for the second time in three days. The first time, Noos decently left a message on their machine right at the outset to say that "our technicians are working on it". By Friday, they were wiser. I pressed button 3, had to punch in my own 'phone number, then button 2, then 2 again and a few more to be told exactly the same. What you lose in service, they make up for in special high-rate 'phone calls, raking it in. The only thing worse when Noos goes down is being told to go to their website to find out why. Rainer is having no online difficulties. It's good to see his blog turned into a highly readable travelog for the duration. Even the erratic vagary is with us. Only one post so far this month, but with a "silly quiz": ADJUSTMENT "the mediator, adjuster, arbitrator" You have a deep love for simplicity, clarity, fairness, and balance. You have a great ability to edit, synthesize, and research ideas. Your sites are turned inwards, as shown on the card by the masked eyes. Alpha and Omega are symbolic of your need to complete that which you begin. You have little tolerance of complexity, as shown by the webbing in the background. 'Which major arcana of the thoth tarot deck are you?' 'brought to you by Quizilla' who have other "tests" too. That's supposed to be me. Now we know. 11:44:56 PM  link   your views? []

samedi 21 juin 2003

Flashes of browsing genius (OS X definitely; but Windows untested) Brent is brilliant. As are some of his friends, like Bryan Bell (blogrolled) who designed the icon and badge for NetNewsWire, as well as the original template for this log, which I have tampered around with considerably since. Several of my visitors have yet to work out that the little orange XML button in the "round here" section to the right opens a messy-looking page with a URL at the top like this: http://radio.weblogs.com/0120356/rss.xml There's no need to get technical. It suffices to use simply that link with the "/rss.xml" feed at the end to "subscribe" to this blog in a news reader. All week, I've been using Brent's (blogrolled: "inessential") marvellous NetNewsWire in the 1.0.3 beta, but it quietly slipped out of beta yesterday, going by the version number. Countless things have been fixed. The same goes for the free NNNLite, which is not as light as all that. It gets the most extensive list of reported changes at VersionTracker (where as I write, the new paying version has yet to show up). The coolest idea by far is a new ability to switch into "combined view". As shown here, on many weblogs, you now get headlines plus text in one place. With pushing 800 unread items to sift through among many subscriptions, this cuts the time taken substantially. Kudos, Brent. I've already learned to speed-read NNN, but what an improvement! Verbose as I am, I guess that for my own next clever trick, I should learn how to do as some others can and put the opening part of any entry on my home page, with the option to click and read on, so that each "article" no longer comes up in full here or in the combined view mode in NNN. zzz Where I pinched this little statement from now escapes me. For me, it's long since done -- apart from a copy kept on a Mac OS 9 partition just to check out any changes I make learning HTML. But if you use Windows and are happy with Internet Explorer, you might be interested in the freeware Avant. This purports to be the "fastest ... on earth" and, "an upgrade to Internet Explorer. Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser," i.e. IE with tabs. It certainly seems worth checking out. The site has a busy forum and offers "skins", if you want to change the look of Avant/IE. This I got from Brendan, a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who posted about Avant on his System.out.Blog. Brendan doesn't like IE, so his link was a kind thought. 1:04:03 PM  link   your views? []

vendredi 20 juin 2003

Births, marriages and ... a court circular "Don't forget Tristam's birthday." I shall, of course, when he actually celebrates it tomorrow, on that musical midsummer day. Not for lack of being reminded by his Gran, who's now kite-flying above the clouds after the winter wretchedness, this year, of one of her four-monthly cycles(*) and has said this still slightly short of half a dozen times to his wayward uncle of late. After all, a bright lad's "coming of age" is a once-in-a-lifetime horror. Unless I'm mistaken and in those badlands just north of Hadrian's Wall, they still expect you to wait until 21 and three-quarters. Since I haven't bothered to buy Tristam anything and have no ever-growing 18th-birthday present for him in the shape of the newspapers of his lifetime, I thought he might be proud and pleased to have the "blogosphere" shown two or three pictorial details of distant days. Above, for instance, is an illustration of how alarmingly tall the fellow already was during the last lengthy visit Marianne and I paid to his part of the world in the summer of 1996, after a stay in York. Despite those swords (with Marianne) and an interest in military history inherited from his father Jon, I'm relieved to report that Tristam abandoned a plan to enlist and have Her Britannic Majesty's forces pay for the furthering of his academic career. Nothing, however, stopped his growth in all other respects, not even a fire extinguisher or putting funny hats, hefty books and large rocks on his head, or even hanging him from trees. Moments after this second snap was shot, that swing snapped, but I forget who was projected like a missile down the garden when it did. Not Rowan, in the picture. Maybe it was me. Proof that even the Dumfries and Galloway lowlands of Scotland sometimes see the sun and a chill sea people are insane enough to swim in (myself reluctantly included, but where there are waves I just have to go in, regardless) came on the fine day of a beach picnic. Burying Tristam and making a Sand-Venus of him was undoubtedly, in retrospect, one of numerous bids simply to silence a youth whose capacity to ask questions is boundless and exhausting, even after lights out (thus Grandpa, pictured, pretends to be otherwise engaged). T's very first utterance was probably not "Waaahhhh" but "Why?"... I've never asked his mother about that, but the date is not swiftly forgotten. The event prevented his bit of the family from coming to one of those interminable French weddings where the food, while excellent, came so late in the evening that most of the cross-Channel guests must have feared they were going to keel over. At least one had to go and sleep in the car-park before the liquid sustenance was replaced by more substantial fare. That marriage required the renting of a lovely Norman manor-house for visiting guests and I remember most of it really quite well since it was my own. I shamefacedly confess that by the time Catherine and I cut the gigantic cake, I could scarcely still hold a knife straight. And I want, "M.K.", my picture, please, of your own much-photographed wedding dress. How many times need I remind you? Though I scarely blame you for second thoughts now you see what I do to people in the blog. Other attempts to silence Tristam included banishment. The lad may have spent whole tracts of his childhood under canvas or in an old caravan safely detached from the family home. But this is also because his Dad has a habit of acquiring ruined piles of stone and utterly transforming them, from foundations to roof, into robust and environmentally friendly houses. Bedrooms for T. and sister Rowan are rarely the first bits to get built. Maybe Jon will end up pursuing this multi-crafted skill in France one day. It's not as if there's a lack of demand. I have yet to reply to an e-mail from "the Colonel", Hugh, in South Africa called 'Champagne Time!!' where he announced to his own world that he now owned a house in southwest France (to reveal exactly where would be most unfair, if he's to have any peace: hence I do so). But now I digress from Tristam a moment to congratulate Hugh! He will not be alone by the time he gets there. A rough calculation performed by a bunch of us over lunch at the "canteen" of late suggested that, at the current rate of the purchase and rebuilding of relics, foreigners may outnumber the French in the south within another 15 years or so. This is not always resented by such "locals" as remain; at least one small town has its elected English mayor. Tristam's attention to detail extends to the building of things, as he was here. Exactly what it is I forget, but it absorbed him for as long as a rock-pool can, even one which appears to contain very little to the less practised eye. Despite the family gift for construction, design and (for the most part) stunning patience -- talents that have also given Jon painful back trouble and his wife Louise an awful time after too much exposure to the more toxic aspects of decorating -- once their present task is accomplished, it may be time to move on. What they do is neither recognised nor rewarded as it deserves to be where they are and the costs charged by municipal authorities for simple tasks they can manage better themselves but are not legally allowed to undertake, such as linking their piping to the water mains, are scandalous! So it's Louise who crops Tristam's head. At least, I think that's what's going on here, rather than a search for local flora and fauna. Why pay somebody else to do what you're fine at yourself, while it's evident that he thoroughly enjoyed it? Once he's 18, though, after "pestering" me with many a query about journalism, among other prospects for an interesting future, he might be empowered to deny his mother such pleasures. Oh well, since she's herself a darned good photographer, she'll have more time for such other skills. Yeah. Pix. I've spoken to Béa, long since back from Nigeria and her subsequent hols. She did remember to take some for me and they will be released to the world after I've seen her, maybe next week. Another colleague, Gina, has also promised to mail me some of her snaps from Algeria, where she covered the terrifying earthquakes that literally shook one of my friends at the canteen. He, poor Malek, was in an eighth-floor room during one of them, as part of the neighbourhood collapsed. His account of the aftermath is even worse than what I've read to date. That, Tristam, is no matter for your birthday, however, even in blogland! So in the hope that this e-card turns both of your ears bright red, I wish you the happiest of days! ______ *She, the poor soul, has it far worse than I do. Where my "downers" are, usually, relatively short-lived and manageable, as I indicated in an earlier entry on cyclothymia, for reasons nobody's yet been able to fathom, my mother's low and high spells are far more extreme and come evenly spaced in those four-monthly cycles which don't even coincide with the seasons. She copes admirably well with something for which a really effective treatment has proved, over the years, extraordinarily elusive, despite all the progress in medicine and psychology. 8:58:31 PM  link   your views? [] 'Where've I been?' Time-warping my mind. Somebody -- Neil McIntosh -- thought at 'The Guardian' that, let alone we novices, even seasoned 'bloggers' are bored now, or maybe even becoming boring. "This is a whole new social minefield...," Neil laments. One comment that "real life trumps blogging" does have its merits, along with a decent bit of sunshine, for heaven's sake! Recent absences have been for reasons mainly either too dull or just too distressingly horrible to disclose, but they've not stopped me getting my feet wet and my fingers burned. Fearful trouble resulted after I 'phoned an old friend, not spoken to in several years, who just happens to be the most gifted astrologer I know. Yes, I'm afraid you did read that right. S.'s insights astonish me. Being a practical, down-to-earth person, she soon switched on her computer and called up an old chart of mine. Whereupon I informed her that it was all a bit "wrong" anyway, since my mother had only recently expressed certainty about the hour I was born. This, you see, changes what's in the ascendant. It became a mite unnerving, but entertaining, to be told what had happened to me in the past couple of years, from My Condition (right down to the intestinal gruesomeness of recent weeks) to one or two travels abroad, the state of my finances, an encounter or two, and even a little detail about my previous evening. You don't have to believe this, of course, but I gave the woman no help whatever and most of S.'s findings were so spot on, despite my silence on clues, that it led to a fun conversation. Thing is, I'm not terribly sure that she gets any real assistance from the stars. Does it have to be that complicated? When she was done, I pointed out that I also had difficulties with reincarnation, something else she's long studied. But the other thing is: I've been reading too much leading-edge physics of late. Time appears to be non-existent, since we simply perceive things in terms of past, present and future because of the nature of our perceptual apparatus, while the other dimensions those frontline scientists are exploring are equally strange. Consciousness itself remains a wide-open debate. I have absolutely no problem, therefore, with the notion that some people can employ astrology, or whatever other mind-stretching or focussing "tool" or method it might be, to leap around those dimensions a little and even get inside heads, so to speak. Then S. told me she didn't believe in reincarnation either, except in purely symbolic terms. Since even for her, past lives were just one illusion among many, I asked her why she hadn't bothered to explain that little aspect of her outlook during the years I used to chase her. "Because you weren't ready for it then," she rather smugly replied. The hell was unleashed when I raved on to somebody I really should have known far better than to have bothered, since such matters can be profoundly disturbing to people who care not even to think of these things. I did apologise, but too late, I fear. Another somebody, however, who I've very long known as being at least as rooted in the "real world" as S. herself, but usually more Cartesian in her mindset, astonished me by asking whether I might put her in touch with my old friend! There's one condition. Even divested of the mumbo-jumbo, the money-spinning, the deceit, the false hopes and ridiculous trappings that go with so much of the "trade", I've yet to be convinced there's a clairvoyant in the world who can "see" any further than our "freedom of choice." That's why the quote that prefaces my newest read -- back in the sci-fi and bitterly controversial nanotech domain currently exercising politicians and those who want to carve out our ethical codes -- made such a striking start: 'Free will is an illusion caused by our inability to analyse our own motives' Charles Darwin Thus is the tone set for 'Mappa Mundi' by Justina Robson (her corner of the Web), which I'll write up in due course. On nanotech, Wired has yesterday/today produced an admirable, link-rich article by Noah Schachtman, called 'Rage Against the (Green) Machine', in which he covers not only "grey goo" but "green goo", and weighs up some of the arguments. zzz Back at the "canteen", fellow worrywart Baudier was exercised by the salts I was dropping in my water, which led to a discussion on something else long considered, like astrology, the domain of none but frauds and weirdos. He could never understand why France's scientific community almost unanimously set about crucifying one of their own finest, Jacques Benveniste (his own corner). This hitherto respected researcher in 1988 published his findings in 'Nature', on the "memory of water", suggesting that, as some people are proposing once again (HealthWorld Online), water retains a "memory" of substances dissolved in it, which might "explain" why homeopathy seems to "work". All the palaver earned Benveniste his special place at Charlatans, a lively French site which reported the "story of an imposture". But fellow Frenchman Michel Schiff, of the National Centre for Scientific Research (English door to the CNRS), wrote a book (Amazon France) in Benveniste's defence, which also made it into English. This is discussed by the open-minded meryfela, another liker of interesting controversies, also known as Jeff Merrifield (his home). It was a news brief on the Beeb early this week that sent me back to 'The Guardian' for more on Benveniste and indeed the 18th-century founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, whom the paper considered "far out". The 'New Scientist' also returns to the scene, with an "Icy claim that water has memory" ... and a chance of vindication for Benveniste. There sure is "far more in heaven and earth...", especially earth! It was back in 1995 that I ventured into poetry on the grand scale, with 'Gaia's Complaint'. 'Gaia' got some kind and keen observations from an editor at Faber, and a mixture of high praise and rude remarks from others, but is probably best off where she is, unpublished! After all, Gaia is not the only woman in the work and the others (S. helped inspire it) are still very much alive. Poor old Gaia. She's endured some very low blows of late, but 'Gaia theory' is making a striking comeback. Except that now we're supposed to call it "Earth system science". So romantic, isn't it? What was wrong with the more heavenly notions? Maybe I'm just warped. Twisted neurones. 1:24:46 AM  link   your views? []

jeudi 19 juin 2003

Midsummer melodies. Or cacaphony. It depends. Well. I had to go to Uganda (via allAfrica), catching up on life, to be reminded that Saturday is World Music Day. Which, as that article in 'The Monitor' recalls, began here on the midsummer streets of France as the 'Fête de la Musique' (great where-it's-all-at site, partly in English) in 1982; truly a memorable night. Auntie Beeb, for all her doddery age, has a mind of her own and decided World Music Day was on January 1 (homepage and links). If you are lucky enough to have a decent internet connection, several intriguing, long and wide-ranging concert recordings there still work (and are the kind of thing very wicked Mac OS X users might be tempted to pinch with the formidable Audio Hijack or its "Pro" incarnation). On Saturday, it's all happening, from Bangladesh to Nova Scotia. "While some professionals criticize it for being a gimmick and others complain that it has been taken over by sponsors and media organizations, the fête de la musique gives anyone who wants to the chance to play or listen to absolutely every type of music. A virtually trouble-free festival of over 15 hundred concerts in a single night!" So Christian Dupavillon declared by way of the French embassy in the United States in 2001, in his article explaining what he decided to do on learning that "the French owned more than four million musical instruments. Three quarters of these instruments lay deteriorating in cupboards, attics and cellars before departing this life in dustbins and on rubbish tips." This year, energy permitting, I'll remember to decide what to do before it's too late. Because Dupavillon's right. Since anyone can indeed play anything anywhere and they will, there are parts of town you definitely want to avoid. It's all a matter of taste. 9:38:05 PM  link   your views? []

lundi 16 juin 2003

'Bel Canto': a hostage drama to grip the heart "A cleverly paced, suspenseful novel told with great emotional delicacy: its author earns a powerful, unexpected ending. To be read at a single sitting," wrote Erica Wagner in 'The Times' of my latest read. That's not the way I read, even on holiday. Books are the pleasure to close my days. While when I'm hooked, the light goes out much later than it should have done, one go is usually far too much. So the, yes, very cleverly paced 'Bel Canto: a Novel' was taken in doses, as I was drawn to hostages and hostage-takers alike, hoping against hope for an ending which would defy the laws of tragedy, stare fate in the face and win. Just as the bel canto of the title, the fragile beauty of a great art which becomes centrally important to charged, finely wrought relationships between the members of each of the main "sides" in Ann Patchett's claustrophobic huis clos brings a strange kind of redemption in the face of death. At less length, but with equal insight into character, Patchett reminded me of Pat Barker's phenomenal ability to work her way inside the heads of people caught up in terrible, impossible, almost unimaginable circumstances you just wonder how a writer can get so right, in the latter's 'Regeneration Trilogy'*. With one of several differences, since occasionally you have to remember to stop suspending disbelief. Roxane Coss is the great diva of an opera lover's dreams, who reluctantly renounces other commitments for an irresistible offer that be star of Japanese businessman Katsumi Hosokawa's birthday party in an unidentified Latin American country. And in the end, the lack of a name doesn't matter. Hosokawa agrees to come to the poor, dictatorially ruled place, bringing at least a prospect of good deals and business, if Coss -- the woman of whose language he speaks not a word but is his sole escape into art and dream in a life devoted entirely to his work -- can be persuaded to sing for him at his 53rd birthday party. One is lavishly thrown and hosted by puppet Vice-President Ruben Iglesias, the powerless, publicly "acceptable face" of a brutal regime. With him, Hosokawa brings the bright young Gen Watanabe, polyglot translator and indispensable aide. Gen is set to become vital to all in a multi-lingual stand-off after the party is brought to an abrupt end when the youths and three generals of a well-disciplined, stealthy, armed guerrilla movement burst in on the feast. The country's president is all they want. At first. But the president turned down his invitation at the last minute, knowing full well that he always would. His favourite television soap opera takes precedence over any affair of state, any visitor, however illustrious. The days, then weeks, that follow take the shape of any siege you may have read about: the threats, the sudden bursts of violence, the demands, the unpredictable, the bonds that form between captors and captives, a kind of complicity. The L.A.-born Patchett, who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, tells this story with a conviction, a subtleness and, sometimes, a humour which draw you right into each of the hearts in the palatial house. There are two main love stories in 'Bel Canto' and a host of subsidiary ones. They end partly as the reader knows they must, and yet not, because Patchett does, indeed, surprise. And much is said and achieved without words. This is not "magical fiction" of a Latin American kind, but the prize-winning novelist does succeed in making you identify with people who do sometimes improbable things in settling into their new lives together, with the rules gradually relaxed. That music could hold such sway, for instance, over everybody at the ruined party stretches the imagination. But the solitary Gen, the fragile girl guerrilla Carmen, a young priest, the increasingly distraught Red Cross official who serves as go-between with the regime outside the walls, the reserved Hosokawa and Iglesias, the impeccable host, are among characters you soon really care about. Thanks, Mum. Your Chistmas present was far off my usual tracks, but I enjoyed it after all. ______ *For another day, perhaps. But Barker's brilliant, early 1990s insight (a review, among others) into the savagery, mental torment and dazzling poetry of World War One -- 'Regeneration', 'The Eye in the Door' and 'The Ghost Road' -- was the first thing ever ended in the Métro to take me into work absolutely shaken to the core and blinded by tears. An absolute masterpiece. 1:54:52 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 15 juin 2003

Footnote to 'une nuit blanche'* Through no fault of his own, Tony was unable via the 'comments box' to rectify a point of info in last night's ramblings that, in fact, needed no correction. Only he will understand this, but that scarcely matters. ;). "One more thing," he adds, however: "When u publish yr autobigraphy, I shd like to appear as someone who had been there, done that & got the T-shirt & was therefore blasé about yesdy's film, rather than just a dozy philistine." Fair point, sir. Except that there will be no autobiography. Thus I'd say forthwith that Tony's collection of T-shirts is substantial and wide-ranging if largely metaphorical, since I have very rarely seen him in any such thing. His elegance of attire, on the contrary, puts me to shame. zzz As befits a rock of his stature, the man sent me today in search of John Donne, conscious that few others would fit immediate needs. Since it is all in the "wired world" now, Tony, not just lining your shelves, here's just one place for 'The Works of John Donne'. It's the "labor of love" of one Anniina Jokinen, who's also achieved such surprising -- and modestly introduced -- things as this: 'John Donne. ELEGY XX - ELEGIA 20. Finnish Translation. Suomenkielinen käännös.' Quite something, n'est-ce pas? In return for a kindness rendered today, I should tell you -- and others -- of Luminarium. Here's what Anniina and the others there say: "This site combines three sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one." You have much of the "quality library". For the likes of me, a find like this is precious indeed. zzz I ended up talking sense tonight, rather than risking further accusations from the likes of even Francis the newsvendor of speaking in "poetry rather than French..." And we're both still alive. Leopard and wolf alike. Nothing broken. Not even a plate. True, it started with a truce, under the aegis of the Red Cross (more neutral territory you can scarcely find) and ended with a fresh beginning under the full moon... It was more a matter, for me, of listening than talking. At a restaurant so rare and perfect that there's no way I am disclosing its name and location on the Internet. A place which can remain that good in Paris for 10 years deserves all the secrecy it can get! [Update: unfair, hence the photo.] Should you chance on this sidestreet and this gentleman, who loves his work, don't even hesitate. I have merely removed the address and 'phone number. I am under orders to sleep properly now. This shall be done. At this hour, the noise of a great party across the garden out the back begins to show signs of abating. Others may wish to close their windows. Not me. Not at this time of year. It's only too short, yet already the eternally dissatisfied are complaining of the "heat"! Where the wildcat has come from, with tales to touch me to the very quick but not for the Net, it was 35°C. That doesn't sound so bad... On Friday night, I finally fell asleep to what used to be the dawn chorus. Now it's one single bird, which I'm ashamed to say I cannot identify and will have to ask the lady who takes such loving care of that shared garden below. All the swallows disappeared after 1995. And I woke, not so very much later, to appropriate rumbles of thunder. One thing I have to share. What have I done? This I found when I dared set foot at Marianne's own, shared new weblog. As now she knows, I even did as I was told and read no more. I jumped to the end (of the love poem), for such it was, as her remark at the bottom of it pointed out. But I have also told her that you cannot go so public with such things and then always expect your father to do as he is warned at the risk of his very skin. It must be in the genes! For good or for ill, I dare not imagine. As for this entry, I think it was safely ... ahem, p