I am getting quieter and quieter. Yes. Partly because I've been away and working. Partly because I have no inspiration whatsoever.
I have been compiling a few things. Chocolates, for one... Which I couldn't find on my own, nooo... Had to read about in the Cool Hunting newsletter. Charlemagne have the crappiest site ever, but apparently make hemp-flavored milk chocolate, among other things. Here's what CH has to say about it.
Photography... Philippe Chancel, so unapologetically French, in the intimacy of a falsely modest woman (who you kidding, lady), so playful in Angkor, tyrannically geometric in North Korea... And Denis Darzacq, with his amazing series on free-falling.
The sis, bless her, had the good grace of not waiting a second to share her latest find. Here's PeekVid, thanks to which I was able to watch the new episodes of Scrubs. The last two are hilarious - the musical one, especially, deserves to be mentioned. It was written with the help of the team of Avenue Q. A similar idea: alluc.org.
Sorry, people. All I can do for now. More soon, hopefully.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Only a week
It's only been a week. Too intense for me to even go into details. Here are the highlights.
I saw sweet, grey London covered in snow, where I went for work.
Paris in turn, was as sad as it was sunny.
Then life began again, early Monday morning.
It doesn't wait for anybody, does it.
Tête la première et en plein coeur. Merci.
I saw sweet, grey London covered in snow, where I went for work.
Paris in turn, was as sad as it was sunny.
Then life began again, early Monday morning.
It doesn't wait for anybody, does it.
Tête la première et en plein coeur. Merci.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
B&W
There's a town in Flanders called Sint Niklaas. It seems like a nice enough place for kids to grow up and grown-ups to live and work. Interesting fact, though: 11 of the 39 seats of the city council are held by the far-right party, Vlaams Belang - some anti-immigration organization (and I would love to give you more details, except I don't speak Flemish and apparently, their stuff is exclusively targeted at Flemish-speaking Flemings, which in a country like Belgium, is, erm... quite eloquent). 11 out of 39, that's a tad more than 28 percent. Respectable score.
But, you know, to hell with contradictions. The mayor of this town is a Socialist, who was elected along with a list of deputies and other aides. Among whom a man called Wouter Van Bellingen. The guy grew up in the region, adopted, like his siblings, by a local family. Elected fair and square by the people of Sint Niklaas. So now he's an "Echevin", as they call them in the old schoolness that characterizes the Belgian version of French, a deputy-mayor.
Here, like in France, all couples have to stop by city hall to get married. And part of Mr. Van Bellingen's responsibilities is to perform weddings.
To the point. Three couples refused to have him as a registrar. Why, you ask? Simple. He's black. More precisely, he is the first black man elected in Flanders.
He's had to deal with quite a bit of shit in his life. He has colorful anecdotes, such as that time where he went after a lady who'd forgotten her purse in the train and she didn't know whether to tip him, and another man told her: "you're lucky, usually they go home with it." Or these people in the street who make monkey noises when they see him.
You'd think he'd let that bring him down. I know it would me. I'd get angry and throw a dozen tantrums (I would, I have, I swear, got witnesses). No. His response? Performing a mass-wedding ceremony on March 21st, the Day Against Racism. See how they like it.
I haven't seen much about that. Expatica, Le Monde, some TV station in New Zealand... Picked that up from AFP and Reuters. It depresses me.
But you see, it's snowing tonight. Big-ass flakes. My lovely neighbor Erick cooked a hot prawn curry and got me drunk on half a bottle of white Italian wine. And that, I like. So I'm going to bed. A wide, tired smile on my face.
With tree-hugging, hippy, Scandinavian love (and thanks to the sis):
But, you know, to hell with contradictions. The mayor of this town is a Socialist, who was elected along with a list of deputies and other aides. Among whom a man called Wouter Van Bellingen. The guy grew up in the region, adopted, like his siblings, by a local family. Elected fair and square by the people of Sint Niklaas. So now he's an "Echevin", as they call them in the old schoolness that characterizes the Belgian version of French, a deputy-mayor.
Here, like in France, all couples have to stop by city hall to get married. And part of Mr. Van Bellingen's responsibilities is to perform weddings.
To the point. Three couples refused to have him as a registrar. Why, you ask? Simple. He's black. More precisely, he is the first black man elected in Flanders.
He's had to deal with quite a bit of shit in his life. He has colorful anecdotes, such as that time where he went after a lady who'd forgotten her purse in the train and she didn't know whether to tip him, and another man told her: "you're lucky, usually they go home with it." Or these people in the street who make monkey noises when they see him.
You'd think he'd let that bring him down. I know it would me. I'd get angry and throw a dozen tantrums (I would, I have, I swear, got witnesses). No. His response? Performing a mass-wedding ceremony on March 21st, the Day Against Racism. See how they like it.
I haven't seen much about that. Expatica, Le Monde, some TV station in New Zealand... Picked that up from AFP and Reuters. It depresses me.
But you see, it's snowing tonight. Big-ass flakes. My lovely neighbor Erick cooked a hot prawn curry and got me drunk on half a bottle of white Italian wine. And that, I like. So I'm going to bed. A wide, tired smile on my face.
With tree-hugging, hippy, Scandinavian love (and thanks to the sis):
Monday, February 5, 2007
Of shoes and other nothings
A week without a post and no one to complain about it. Wonder what that says about the readership. One, I know, was toasting herself in Cuba. Due to this, a couple of others were working overtime. Miss Y is probably on a roll in Melbourne. The sis is preoccupied by the job search (and that'll be the perfect excuse to never check this). Busy boy Alex is running around in NY... As for the rest, I'm simply assuming they've given up on trying to keep up with me if it means reading in English. Pack of lazy asses.
But the kids came to visit last weekend. We skipped the 15th Erotic Festival and successfully went shoe-shopping. Yes. Proud Euro-fashion victims. Won't have none of that big sneakers crap.
There was a lot of walking around (so comfortable, so cool, great shoes). The weather, for once, cooperated. Pictures were taken. We later stopped at Brüsel, one of'em big ol' comic stores. Ideas of images were jotted down for decorating the hostess's (me - I'm in a third person crisis today) place.
I sat in the stairs, waiting for the tourists to finish browsing.
Girl - Hey, do you like my picture?"
Boy 1 - Not bad. Except the socks and the shoes don't go together."
Boy 2 - Well that's the point, isn't it."
Yeah, man. Exactly.
On the new rules of privacy: an interesting piece in the New York Mag. They will tell you anything...
But the kids came to visit last weekend. We skipped the 15th Erotic Festival and successfully went shoe-shopping. Yes. Proud Euro-fashion victims. Won't have none of that big sneakers crap.
There was a lot of walking around (so comfortable, so cool, great shoes). The weather, for once, cooperated. Pictures were taken. We later stopped at Brüsel, one of'em big ol' comic stores. Ideas of images were jotted down for decorating the hostess's (me - I'm in a third person crisis today) place.
I sat in the stairs, waiting for the tourists to finish browsing.
Girl - Hey, do you like my picture?"
Boy 1 - Not bad. Except the socks and the shoes don't go together."
Boy 2 - Well that's the point, isn't it."
Yeah, man. Exactly.
On the new rules of privacy: an interesting piece in the New York Mag. They will tell you anything...
Monday, January 29, 2007
Coffee, please
Oh my. I thought the alcohol was always the main culprit of my feeling sick on school mornings following a night out. Turns out sheer lack of sleep might also have something to do with it. This is what happens when I update this thing, then have dinner, then take a quick shower and go to bed with the papers at 1:30am.
Allow me to discuss French matters today. Here's what The Guardian prints this morning: "Bruno Dumont, the award-winning golden boy of French independent film whose recent offerings could be described as a mix of extreme violence, extreme sex and extreme boredom, is the latest victim of audience desertion." I love this. French cinema, at long last, getting embarrassingly real. This story is merely stating the obvious but, as one of my smartass colleagues puts it, someone's gotta do it.
On a more political note, there's something happening in France foreign press doesn't seem to have picked up on yet. Most of you know we're electing a new president in a few months (if not, where have you been?). Disillusioned by Socialist Party's candidate Ségolène Royal, a dilly-dallying populist with no clear vision for her country, and scared of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, an economic revolutionary (good) with fascist tendencies (bad), a growing minority is seriously (yes, seriously) considering François Bayrou (who?) as a viable option.
The Third Man, huh...? Just look at the length of the wikipedia entries for each of them. It says it all. A few months ago, I would have laughed at the prospect and I wouldn't have been the only one. Papers like Le Monde are still snickering at the thought of it, but with apparently diminishing confidence.
People who would traditionally vote for the Socialists are letting go of the past and reluctantly moving forward, for lack of a better choice. The European constitution, the state of the tax system, the level of unemployment call for some sort of change. So far, 'Ségo' hasn't offered more than a (most un)comfortable status-quo. 'Sarko', on the other hand, told the Americans that he was ashamed of being French (I'm sorry, Mr. I-Want-To-Represent-The-French-People, what did you just say?).
Whatever it is, people are desperate for inspiration and ideas that will go beyond the anachronic right-left debate, which, I'm sorry, is totally last century. "Can we please move on?" is the question that seems to be in everyone's minds. Anyway, Paris Link is the only one so far (along with a couple of obscure Canadian publications) that has bothered writing something up on it in English. Wonder if others will catch up.
Good day, now.
Allow me to discuss French matters today. Here's what The Guardian prints this morning: "Bruno Dumont, the award-winning golden boy of French independent film whose recent offerings could be described as a mix of extreme violence, extreme sex and extreme boredom, is the latest victim of audience desertion." I love this. French cinema, at long last, getting embarrassingly real. This story is merely stating the obvious but, as one of my smartass colleagues puts it, someone's gotta do it.
On a more political note, there's something happening in France foreign press doesn't seem to have picked up on yet. Most of you know we're electing a new president in a few months (if not, where have you been?). Disillusioned by Socialist Party's candidate Ségolène Royal, a dilly-dallying populist with no clear vision for her country, and scared of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, an economic revolutionary (good) with fascist tendencies (bad), a growing minority is seriously (yes, seriously) considering François Bayrou (who?) as a viable option.
The Third Man, huh...? Just look at the length of the wikipedia entries for each of them. It says it all. A few months ago, I would have laughed at the prospect and I wouldn't have been the only one. Papers like Le Monde are still snickering at the thought of it, but with apparently diminishing confidence.
People who would traditionally vote for the Socialists are letting go of the past and reluctantly moving forward, for lack of a better choice. The European constitution, the state of the tax system, the level of unemployment call for some sort of change. So far, 'Ségo' hasn't offered more than a (most un)comfortable status-quo. 'Sarko', on the other hand, told the Americans that he was ashamed of being French (I'm sorry, Mr. I-Want-To-Represent-The-French-People, what did you just say?).
Whatever it is, people are desperate for inspiration and ideas that will go beyond the anachronic right-left debate, which, I'm sorry, is totally last century. "Can we please move on?" is the question that seems to be in everyone's minds. Anyway, Paris Link is the only one so far (along with a couple of obscure Canadian publications) that has bothered writing something up on it in English. Wonder if others will catch up.
Good day, now.
Sunday afternoon tea
Here's what The Guardian says about the place I just got back from: "Reopened in a vast new venue just off the Grand Place is Le You (18 rue Duquesnoy, 00 32 2 639 1400) - a labyrinth of dancefloors and chill-out rooms that has a wild reputation for its Sunday afternoon gay-friendly tea dances."
Surrounded by men of all ages, styles, shapes and sizes (including a few specimens of the very elusive pocket gay) and on a very high dosis of apple juice, I danced my heart out to some of the first house hits, as well as the unavoidable "It's Raining Men" and other "Sing Hallelujahs" (and, what can I say, I may have also sung along). Some of the boys had the good taste of coming accessorized, so I wasn't the only girl. Though when a guy tried to set me up with his lesbian friend only to watch her run in the other direction, I wasn't sure how to take it. I thought about it for a second, decided she was shy and carried on dancing.
I left my gay prince at midnight. Tomorrow's Monday, even for fucking Cinderella over here.
Surrounded by men of all ages, styles, shapes and sizes (including a few specimens of the very elusive pocket gay) and on a very high dosis of apple juice, I danced my heart out to some of the first house hits, as well as the unavoidable "It's Raining Men" and other "Sing Hallelujahs" (and, what can I say, I may have also sung along). Some of the boys had the good taste of coming accessorized, so I wasn't the only girl. Though when a guy tried to set me up with his lesbian friend only to watch her run in the other direction, I wasn't sure how to take it. I thought about it for a second, decided she was shy and carried on dancing.
I left my gay prince at midnight. Tomorrow's Monday, even for fucking Cinderella over here.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Random Brussels
More of Brussels, you
, you.
A whole lotta whatever it is at the Place du Jeu de Balle.
"Very Gilbert & George..." I mean... Pierre & Gilles of course.*
Chillin'.
Leaving the Place.
Way to advertise a repair-shop...
Boule & Bill are on the house... Roba, 1992.
A fat-ass priest helping out a sexy lady and her panther... Only in comics.
, you.
"Very Gilbert & George..." I mean... Pierre & Gilles of course.*
Chillin'.
Leaving the Place.
Way to advertise a repair-shop...
Boule & Bill are on the house... Roba, 1992.
A fat-ass priest helping out a sexy lady and her panther... Only in comics.
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