Last day of September

I don't want to say banalities (although I probably will), but I can't help thinking that this is the last day of September. Autumn is definitely here, it's grey outside, soon it will be Halloween, and I can't see where the year has gone.

Krabat, ou L'Apprenti Sorcier, ou Les douze corbeaux

Et non, je ne parle pas de l'apprenti sorcier qui a multiplié les balais, foutu une inondation chez son maître et a inspiré le Fantasia de Walt Disney. Je parle d'un autre apprenti sorcier, dont j'ai fait la découverte il y a plus d'une vingtaine d'années en regardant Ciné-famille à Radio-Canada, un samedi après-midi. J'ai manqué le début d'un dessin animé qui racontait l'histoire d'un adolescent qui devenait l'apprenti d'un meunier, pour vite découvrir que son nouveau maître est un sorcier maléfique qui à chaque année se battait en un duel mortel contre son plus vieil apprenti pour préserver son pouvoir. Les apprentis se transformaient en divers animaux (surtout des corbeaux), le sorcier était cruel et prompt à la torture tant physique que psychologique, le film mélangeait authenticité historique et onirisme sombre (lire: très sombre), c'était absolument terrifiant pour un film pour enfants, les images souvent sanglantes, mais l'histoire demeurait touchante sans jamais tomber dans la sensiblerie. L'apprenti sorcier, comme on l'appelait en français, m'est donc resté en mémoire.

Or, j'ai enfin pu retrouver le film en question. À en juger par les commentaires sur imdb, je ne suis pas le seul à avoir découvert le film via Ciné-famille, ni à être hanté par son histoire. On a plus de détails en français ici. C'est l'oeuvre d'un certain Karel Zeman, adaptation du roman Krabat d'Ottfried Preussler, traduit en anglais sous le titre The Satanic Mill et en français sous le titre Les douze corbeaux. On retrouve le film au complet sur youtube dans une langue qui m'est hélas inconnue (je ne crois pas que ce soit de l'Allemand). Autre découverte, on en a fait une nouvelle adaptation, que je me promets de voir. Pour ceux qui comprennent l'allemand, on retrouve le teaser ici et le trailer là. Plus bas, des scènes du film de Karel Zeman.

The story of an epiphany

"Joyce said that the epiphany was the showing-forth of a certain truth in circumstances that were not really conducive to the showing-forth of that truth. The three magi on the Feast of Epiphany arrived at a stable in Bethlehem, and instead of the great revelation of the King of Heaven coming to earth, they found a dirty child in a dirty stable. The epiphany lay in the contrast between the truth and the appearance."

This quote is taken from here (brilliant essay about short narrative, by the way). I know, I quote Anthony Burgess again, but this entry is mainly about him again (and besides, I didn't read James Joyce much). Well, I have been thinking about a blog entry like this one for ages, I simply did not know how to work it out. I still don't know how to write it down. An epiphany is, according to Wikipedia, "the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something". We all reach epiphanies at certain points in our life, sometimes when something happens, something when barely anything happens, but our perception gets something. For men of literature like myself (either writers, wannabe writers, academics or wannabe academics), epiphany is often found in written works.

I had my first beginning of epiphany watching A Clockwork Orange when I was 16, a few weeks (days?) before the beginning of school, in a hot August day of 1993. At first, I just loved, loved, loved that movie. But then again, I had started to be fascinated by other movies at that time, so that was nothing else than another bit of fascination like I was developing so often then. Still, the movie haunted me, enough for me to go and buy the book (in November, the time when the action in the novel was set), which I read in a bit more than 48 hours. I was fascinated by it. There was the language, inventive and wild, there were the almost existentialist themes of freedom and responsibility, there was the moral ideology of the whole book. I loved that book. I also started admiring Anthony Burgess a lot. And something happened on November 22 1993, right after I read A Clockwork Orange (and when I was re-reading it obsessively): Burgess died. I remember learning the news (it must have been on the 23rd) right after lunch time, we were going to school my brother and I and stopped to see the neighbours, the TV was on, and on the news they announced his death. It was a cold and winter November day, it felt appropriate. Then in the next year, I read other Anthony Burgess novels, to see what he had written apart from that. I fell in love with them all, sometimes right away, sometimes slowly. Anthony Burgess made me discover real literature, but more than that, he showed me that one's life could relate to art. I was happily surprised, and yet not so much surprised, that he had written the script of Jesus of Nazareth, one of my childhood's favourite movie.

Burgess writing accompanied me in the transition from teenage through adulthood and, more importantly, shaped it. I gradually renounced my faith, my apostasy echoed his own, as my very irrational Catholic feeling of guilt regarding my rejection of Catholic faith (and ultimately of any faith). I might not have been original, but I knew I was not alone. I also rediscovered classical music and, while it took me a long while to get in contact with other cultures, Anthony Burgess influenced my perception of them (especially the British and Italian one). Reading Honey for the Bears and Earthly Powers got rid of any remnant of homophobia I had. Anthony Burgess did not only make me see literature differently, it made me discover life, the truth underneath the shell of reality. It all started with A Clockwork Orange. Why was it an epiphany? Well, the novel was not even his best one.

RIP Paul Newman

Just learned that Paul Newman died yesterday. This is sad news. Even though he was getting old at 83, he was such a great actor. He played many roles, but for me he has always been Henry Gondorff from The Sting, one of my favourite. Here are some clips from the movie, as an homage to Paul Newman's skills and talent.

La question de l'anglais

Je me rends compte, ce qui me trouble un peu, que j'écris de plus en plus anglais dans ce blogue et pire, que ces blogues sont souvent, à mon avis, les plus intéressants en terme de contenu. Alors j'essaie autant que possible d'écrire en français sur des sujets un peu plus profonds (ce qui ne veut pas dire plus intéressants pour mes lecteurs), mais je me demande tout de même en ce moment pourquoi je suis si naturellement poussé à utiliser l'anglais. Il y a, je crois, plusieurs raisons à cela: 1)je vis présentement en Angleterre, c'est la langue de mon environnement donc j'y suis plus familier. 2)mon lectorat, même modeste, est plus anglophone que francophone, ce qui est compréhensible vu la prépondérance de l'anglais dans le monde virtuel et le monde tout court. J'ai plus de chances d'attirer ici des anglophones, donc. 3)n'essayant de ne pas prêcher à des convertis, certains sujets de mes billets (la culture québécoise, par exemple) sont abordés en anglais pour les faire découvrir à ceux qui ne les connaissent pas. 4)je demeure, pour un Québécois, étrangement anglophile. Cela dit, ce blogue est la preuve virtuelle vivante que le pouvoir d'attrait de l'anglais est extrêmement fort.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

The song always reminds me of that deliciously cynical scene in the deliciously cynical Full Metal Jacket, and because of this scene probably I give the song more artistic value than it deserves, but I like it anyway. So I give it to you, in its pure 60s cheesy glory, devoid of all the artistry that Stanley Kubrick infused it with.

Réflexion sur les feuilles mortes

Aujourd'hui, il fait doux, mais pas chaud. Les arbres commencent de plus en plus à montrer leurs couleurs d'automne, certaines feuilles tombent. On appelle les feuilles tombées "feuilles mortes", ce qui est une expression exacte. La feuille en effet meurt et se décompose. Elle prend une couleur terne, mais plus souvent devient beaucoup plus vive, jaune ou rouge, ou bourgogne comme celles de certains arbres ici (et comme je ne connais rien au jardinage, ne me demandez pas quelle sorte d'arbre a les feuilles bourgogne en automne). Les couleurs ici ne sont jamais aussi vives qu'au Québec, mais c'est tout de même très présentable. Je ne suis certainement pas le premier à le noter, mais c'est ironique que la nature ne soit jamais aussi belle que lorsqu'elle meurt. Dans le monde animal, la décomposition est grotesque, dans le monde végétal, elle a la beauté tragique.

Citons François Villon

"Rien ne m'est sûr que la chose incertaine."

Je voulais citer François Villon depuis un certain temps, j'ai pensé à celle-ci parce qu'elle reflète bien ma présente situation.

I wish I had learned Italian

This is the kind of event that makes me regret I am only bilingual, and that I did not learned Italian more thoroughly when I had the chance, years ago. I got offered a one-day job today, a company needed right there and then somebody to translate something from Italian to English. Being a tad too far (two hours of commuting, counting the journey from the station to the company), having be advised too late in the day and my command of Italian being way too primitive (that's what happens when you can sing it more than understand it), I was forced to decline. It's a shame, as it would have got me something to do and a bit of pocket money in the meantime. Then again, I wonder if it would have covered travel expenses, but maybe I could have charge them travel expenses (and I did not care as much about travel expenses, I just wanted to get busy doing something else than looking for a job). In the end, I guess I said no because of my very primitive knowledge of Italian. Shame, shame, shame.

Les joies du snack-bar

Trouvé sur youtube, un classique de François Pérusse:

Are we doomed?

Irshad Manji, an intellectual I greatly admire, especially for her stand for secular society, just taught me something today through her blog: the sharia seems now to be fully operating in the UK. If this is true (and it might not be), this is indeed bad news. That said, if inside a community, a parallel legal system is applied, even with both parties agreeing to submit themselves to it and then to its judgment, it is a de facto breach in the rule of law. What's wrong with this country? Don't we have enough with the Christian fundies already? We need as well to give the integrist elements in the Muslim community legal legitimacy? This is bad, bad, bad news. I have nothing about any believer, might he be Christian or Muslim, or whatever. But one cannot, should not, make two different kind of citizens, ruled by different kind of laws. The whole point of living in a democracy is that everybody is equal in the law, but a faith-based judiciary system just throws all that in the window. It creates faith-based ghettos, it makes people prisoners of their own communities, it's morally wrong and legally baffling. In my blog entry about 9/11, I mentioned the sharia and wondered if we loved enough our freedom to fight for it. More than ever, I am worried about it.

Blogging for the sake of sanity

I am very bored these days, as unemployment has taken its toll on me and I am really bored to death in nowhere town. Well, my wife and I do keep ourselves busy, but weekdays are long, long, long, and they end up being very exhausting even when I don't do much. That's the problem about being unemployed: one feels like he "works" without a salary, whatever the efforts he makes they are, in essence, fruitless. And the longer it is, the more exhausting it gets. I have sometimes the feeling that a vampire is sucking my energy and my morale. So I am not so happy these days. I guess this is partially why I blog: because it helps me keep my sanity. Of course, I don't have much of a readership, but writing makes me feel less schizophrenic by putting my thoughts in the outside world. So I make an effort to blog at least once a day, I try to be as interesting as possible. Because a mind is like a shark: if it stops moving, it drowns.

Équinoxe

C'est aujourd'hui l'équinoxe, donc officiellement le premier jour de l'automne. Je tenais à le souligner.

John the Baptist, the Irish way

I found this on Youtube today, an animated movie whose script is basically an audio of Biblical stories told by Irish schoolgirls in the 1960s. I don't know if it's because of the Irish accent, but even I, an unrepentant unbeliever and long time lapsed catholic, found this story of the birth of Quebec's patron saint utterly irresistible. I love the naïveté of the whole thing and will watch more of those short films in the future.

L'automne en théorie

Selon mon calendrier, demain est le jour de l'équinoxe, début officiel de l'automne. D'habitude c'est le 21, il semblerait que cette année c'est le 22. Cela dit, pour moi, (et d'un point de vue strictement météorologique), l'automne commence le premier septembre. Mais je me tenais à souligner l'arrivée officielle de l'automne. J'espère que l'on aura vite l'impression que c'est l'automne ici. En effet, après plusieurs jours frais au début du mois, il fait plutôt chaud et ensoleillé jusqu'à maintenant. Pas de chaleur estivale ou de canicule, mais il fait tout de même un peu trop chaud malgré la brise fraîche. J'aime me sentir confortable en septembre: c'est la saison des vêtements plus lourds, des couvertures supplémentaires sur le lit (j'en ai une que j'ai achetée chez Marks & Spencer qui m'a fait survivre à Liverpool et que j'ai très hâte de réutiliser) et de la nourriture plus consistante. Bref, j'ai hâte de me sentir vraiment en automne.

Is opera sexy?

This entry on Black Dogs made me aware of the existence of a poll launched by Playboy called Too Hot to Handel (lame isn't it?), trying to decide who is the most sexy classical music star. There are among them three opera singers (and you know how much I love opera). I am a bit baffled about the poll. The comments are crass and vulgar, for once, but that's not what bothers me. It is Playboy after all, and that has to be expected from them. I was just happy it was not Hustler! No, I was bothered by the very existence of the poll, as if you could resume sexiness by physical beauty in a medium that creates beauty through sounds. I am not a high brow musical critic and I am pretty shallow most of the time. There is sexiness in music, but it does not belong to the same medium. And for the record, I do find opera sexy, in itself. What the Playboy poll basically said is that what is sexy has to be visually sexy. Sadly, it is an approach that many opera houses probably agree with nowadays: singers are often casted for their good looks. But music should transcend that. Carmen does not have to be good looking: she is a witch, it is through her voice that she enthralls men around her. And I think professionalism is sometimes lost somewhere. Have a look on youtube at Danielle de Niese, one of the singers in the poll. Beautiful woman, no doubt. Lovely voice too, no doubt about that either. But look at the way she sings in concert. She can't keep still! It makes her performance look somewhat artificial and out of control. I sometimes had the impression to watch a pop star performing, the movements making us focus on herself, not the voice. She could sing the arias and the emotions would flow through them easily, it would all be about her voice, not about her look.

La matière première d'un roman policier

L'internet est une invention merveilleuse. Je peux non seulement suivre le procès des chefs maffieux capturés à Montréal en 2006 lors de l'Opération Colisée, mais je peux aussi consulter, d'un simple clic de souris, le dossier de la preuve. Bon d'accord, la prose est froide et le style télégraphique, mais il y a quand même là le contenu d'un roman policier. Ce n'est pas aussi passionnant que de lire The Road to Hell de William Marsden et Julian Sher, qui est un brillant récit de la guerre des motards des années 90 au Québec (avec ses héros et ses méchants, tous plus vrais que nature), mais quand même. Quand je lis sur un procès important au Québec, surtout quand il concerne le crime organisé, je me mets à déplorer qu'on n'ait pas une plus grande littérature policière. La matière première est là pourtant.

The Great Gig in the Sky

Not quite a feel-good Friday song (and I guess I could have given you Learning to Fly, which I grew to love and is quite upbeat), but this is a great song, from probably their greatest album, and it is about death in an exhilarating way. Rest in Peace Rick, you are missed.

Wish You Were Here

It might look like I cannot stop grieving Richard Wright, and I know I said that putting Wish You Were Here on this blog would be cliché, but there is this nice tribute I found on youtube and I don't see why I wouldn't put more Pink Floyd here anyway, especially since it's a great song. Unoriginality be damned.

Why do I love Pink Floyd that much? Well, because they made symphonic music more than modern ones, and is one of the very few rock groups that has both powerful music and powerful text. In other words, Pink Floyd was not marshmallow and fluffy stuff, it was music with content. Dealing with teenage alienation (like all teenager) in the 90s, the music seemed to illustrate my feelings and thoughts. I guess my choice of music never varied that much. I like "classical" music, whatever the time period, and opera. Pink Floyd is as operatic as a modern group can be. The Wall is, in essence, a modern opera (not a rock opera or a psychedelic opera or a musical, an opera, period). But the way the music does not merely accompany the voice but carries it is quite close to opera music. Of course, there is no story/plot in a Pink Floyd album (except The Wall, and even then), so maybe their music belongs to the form of the oratorio. Oh, well enough musing and let's get to the music.

Entre chien et loup

J'ai toujours aimé l'expression québécoise "entre chien et loup", qui décrit le moment où le soir tombe, sans que ce soit encore vraiment la nuit. Littéralement, cela signifie qu'à ce moment précis entre le jour et la nuit, on ne peut différencier la silhouette du chien de celle du loup. À l'automne, le soir tombe plus tôt et l'expression prend toute sa force. Lorsque les ombres s'allongent lentement pour devenir l'obscurité, la nature est d'une beauté inquiétante.

Lady Arachnid

Right by my wife's car, there is a big spider who did her web there. My wife is really scared of spiders, so she doesn't like it so much, but I thought I'd take a picture and put it here. I find spiders of this kind to have a certain type of beauty, elegant and a bit sinister. We used to have two of them like this one in Chicoutimi, much bigger though, they had those huge cobwebs, they were all white and shiny. We Christened them Shelob and Ungoliant, like the monstrous spiders from Tolkien's imagination. This is one is still very pretty.

V'là l'bon vent

J'ai fait un petit voyage en train aujourd'hui, le chemin de fer passait près de la Tamise, il y avait pleins de canards et d'oies sur les berges. Voilà un autre aspect de l'automne que j'aime: la présence de la sauvagine. Pour une raison quelconque, j'aime les canards. J'aime aussi leur foie, ce qui choque ma femme, qui est végétarienne. Voir les oies et les canards un jour d'automne (automne qui se rafraîchit) m'a fait penser à la chanson V'là l'bon vent, que j'ai toujours aimée pour ses accents mélancoliques et pour son histoire un cruelle. Elle m'a donné de l'empathie pour les canards, ce qui me donne des remords quand j'en mange, mais (au grand déplaisir de ma femme) ne coupe pas mon appétit. Mon père est par moments chasseur. Enfant j'admirais beaucoup ce sport, que je considérais plus comme un métier saisonnier, même si de ma mémoire on n'a jamais mangé le gibier qu'il a tué. À l'occasion, mon père allait à la chasse au gros gibier, mais il était surtout amateur de chasse à la perdrix et de chasse aux canards. Or, dans la chanson, la chasse n'a rien d'admirable: le fils du roi est cruel et tue une créature sans défense dont il ne semble pas manger la chair. Il est vrai que le mystérieux narrateur blâme le prince d'avoir tué le canard blanc, pas le noir qu'il visait, et précise que le canard était son canard (au narrateur, pas au prince). Cela m'a toujours semblé bizarre: le fils du roi ne chassait pas le canard sauvage mais le canard d'un quidam? Il était voleur et prince! Je soupçonne la chanson (d'origine acadienne il semblerait), d'avoir une signification historico-politique et religieuse (enfin la version que je connais le plus, il en existe des centaines et le sens change de l'une à l'autre): le fils du roi doit être anglais (dont Protestant), il s'empare par la violence d'un bien des Acadiens/canadiens français (et catholiques). Le canard blanc, pur comme un agneau sans tache, est une figure messianique: sa souffrance est celle d'un homme, il vit sa passion en agonisant. Mais ce sont les locaux qui vont ultimement profiter des richesses que le canard donne avec sa mort (les plumes pour faire un lit de camp, dans certaines versions de l'or et des diamants). Ultimement, c'est le peuple français d'Amérique qui l'emportera. Cela dit, peut-être que je vais chercher trop loin. Enfant, la chanson m'a seulement conscientisé face au sort des animaux: ce n'étaient plus des proies. Et la monarchie était une institution cruelle et malfaisante.

Vous pouvez en voir une interprétation absolument mignonne ici.

RIP Richard Wright

I thought I wouldn't blog today, but I just learnt some very sad news. Richard Wright is dead. At 65. Being dead was sad enough, but at this relatively young age, and from cancer, that's quite depressing. He was one of the original members of Pink Floyd. I can't express how much their music meant to me when I was a teenager growing up in 90s Québec. I absolutely, utterly love Pink Floyd. I could live without almost any music from the XXth century, but theirs. I was guttered when I learned the death of Syd Barrett in 2006. I am guttered today.

I put here in his honour the song Time, from their great albukm Dark Side of the Moon, which made me discover them. And the song is de circonstances (and Wish you Were Here might have been a bit cliché now). RIP Richard Wright, but the music survives, per omnia seculae seculorum.

What an apple represents

I haven't blogged about food for ages, I might as well do it now, but this is not exactly a food entry, as it is not about eating. This weekend, my wife and I went to visit friends in Windsor, where we spent a bit of the afternoon in the house of a little family (the couple, friends of my wife, and their daughter). I was lucky enough to pick a few apples from their tree. I didn't get any home, although they were really good, because I recently bought loads of apples from Waitrose (it was a special offer). As you know, I love picking fruits, especially apples. I am not so keen on the desserts we make with them, except apple crumbles and the Dorset apple cake my wife makes. I have never been keen on apple pies. Yet, to eat a fresh apple is one of the simple pleasures of life I enjoy.

The apple is a fascinating fruit. More than any other, it is the fruit of autumn: it is easily recognized, it's shape and bright red colour associates it with wealth and plentiful harvests. It's flavour is both sweet and slightly sour. It was mistakenly associated with the Forbidden Fruit, because of a mistranslation from Latin. Of course, it is also associated with many cultural icons: William Tell, Isaac Newton, Snow White, the apple Paris gave to Aphrodite and thus set in motion the Trojan War, and so on and so forth. The apple might have given Newton the key to modern physics, it is a fruit deeply associated with legends, witchcraft, superstition, folklore. it was an important ingredient for magic potions and divination spells (there is a good list of them in this book). It is ironic that apple pie is identified with simple purity: there is nothing pure about apples. Not only can you poison your stepdaughter with it, but you can also distill it and turn it into cider, maybe the most treacherous alcohol there is...

More on this in this wikipedia entry.

Grizelda the witch

Last year, I bought to my wife a bouquet for Halloween, I can't remember which kind of flowers, they were orange (of course). A witch was coming with the bouquet, we called her Grizelda. I put her on display to take a picture of her and will put her back in a drawer before my wife gets home. Then I will put her back on display for Halloween. I love decorating the house for Halloween, but I don't have much here in England. Grizelda is (hopefully) the beginning of a whole bunch of decorations. I will of course carve a Jack O'Lantern in due time, and will show you pictures.

Un automne timide

Il a fait un temps splendide aujourd'hui, avec un soleil éclatant et une petite brise pas assez forte pour baisser la température. Selon ce que je vois sur la section météo de cyberpresse, bien qu'il fasse pluvieux à Montréal, il fait assez chaud (dans les 20 degrés). Les couleurs de l'automne se font voir de plus en plus, mais la température n'est pas encore fraîche, pas encore tout à fait automnale. Cela dit, il ne fait pas vraiment chaud non plus, ce n'est plus l'été.

Une autre version de Fantômas à découvrir

J'ai trouvé ces deux vidéos sur youtube, la série de Fantômas version Louis Feuillade, une série de films muets datant des débuts du cinéma. Elle a fait école. Plus facile à se procurer que la série de Claude Chabrol (laquelle ne semble pas avoir été commercialisée ni en VHS ni en DVD), on retrouve la collection complète des Fantômas de Feuillade sur DVD. Le noir et blanc donne un ton sinistre à souhait, parfait pour le personnage. Puisque j'aime le cinéma muet quand il est sinistre, il faut que je découvre ces films...

New York, New York

Well, here's the feel-good Friday song, New York, New York. I have never been to New York, sadly, I am not even the biggest fan of Frank Sinatra, but this one I love. For some reason I have a long history with this song. I sang it at my wedding with the singer we had hired for the day, that was one of the few moments when I ever sang in public, I mean in front of an audience. Well, it wasn't opera, which is what I used to sing, but that was nice anyway. I also used to sing it when I was going out with my group of (mainly) Italian friends. They used to put it at the end of the night in British clubs, for some reasons. Any excuse for me not to dance (singing is my thing, you see, my violon d'Ingres, i.e. a talent that you don't use to earn a living). Anyway, here it is, enjoy:

When the future became murder

"Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder."

Lenoard Cohen, The future

During my first year at university, I learned from my teacher of history of literature that a century never arbitrarily starts with an 00 year, or an 01 year. It is an event that changes the time period, as history has to be changed. Originally, a century meant a period of time of unspecified length, not a hundred years. So, in spite of the big fuss we made then about it, the 21ct century and the new millennium did not start on the 1st of January 2000, or 2001 as it should have been (as the alleged birth of Christ was year 1, not 0), but on September 11 2001. This day, our perception of life, history, and our consciousness of our place in history was transformed.

Like everybody (of course I am not being original here, I doubt anything in this entry is), I remember that day vividly. I remember waking up late, a few minutes after 9:00. Seeing the first images of the World Trade Center, I had the feeling of watching an abyss opening. I remember my anger at what the Islamists had done. It was pretty clear to me from early on it was them, although I knew nothing about Bin Laden or Al Qaeda. The year before, I had as a roommate an American from New York, Jewish, very smart man, who was studying international relationships in the UK. We had discussed about many things that year, he was into history and so was I, so among other things we had speculated about what would be the next great war. We both agreed that this would be against Islamists. (I was worried about him, but he ended up alive and well). We were right, but I never thought we would be right so quickly. It was Western civilisation that was attacked, not only America. To paraphrase Salman Rushdie civilisation was attacked because it permitted consumption of alcohol, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, pork, because it taught evolution in class. I hoped then that the answer to the attack would have been firm and devoid of any kind of ambiguity, that it was going to take a firm stand for Western values. Sadly, I was wrong.

Yes, we went to Afghanistan and got rid of the Talibans, which was a good thing, but Bin Landen is alive and free, and unpunished for the crime he committed. Then Bush went into Iraq and fought a petty tyrant who had nothing to do with 9/11 and was no threat to America. The answer to 9/11 got more and more timid, to the point of being cowardly. Some members of the Muslim communities tried to condone the attack, or to excuse it. Then certain Left wing people did the same. When Islamists tried to legalize the sharia in Canada, some liberals, in the name of cultural relativism, thought it was a good thing. In the UK, the archbishop of Canterbury even thought it was inevitable! And what about the Right? During the Danish cartoon controversy, instead of making a firm stand for freedom of expression and the right to mock God (even God, especially God), Bush, the Vatican and other world leaders first said that the cartoons were disrespectful and shocking. Before condemning the violence, before condemning the anger, before condemning the fanaticism, they condemned an act of free speech because it was provocative. I sometimes suspect that they are in the core God fearing idiots (as most God fearing men are, Muslim or Chritian), envying the Islamists for expressing their anger so openly.

So many innocent lives taken during 9/11. But it was our own innocence that was taken in the meantime, our own insouciance. It had crumbled and shattered with the attacks. Freedom can be hated so much, its manifestation so repulsive for a fanatic that it can be threatened through an act of wanton destruction. Sometimes, I wonder if our freedom did not get buried in the pile of debris in the meantime. The threat is still there, sometimes more subtle, but very much potent. I wonder if we still have the strength and will to fight it. I also wonder if we love our freedom enough.

I already put this song on another blog entry. I never found a satisfying clip made on youtube, but what matters are the words. They are prophetic. On September 11, 2001, the new millennium started, and future became, indeed, murder:

L'automne commence à prendre des couleurs

Je suis allé magasiner les appartements aujourd'hui. Il faisait un peu trop chaud à mon goût, mais c'était supportable parce qu'il y avait une brise. Les arbres ont pris des couleurs, alors c'est très agréable d'être dehors. L'automne commence à prendre des couleurs. Pas autant qu'au Québec, mais c'est quand même très agréable.

The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories

I have been blogging recently about attics and very often about monsters, ghosts and superstitions. I might as well blog about more about such topics. In 2006, before starting my job at Liverpool and waiting for my working permit to be granted, I bought, to read something different than my usual crime fiction and to read something that puts you in the mood for Halloween, I bought The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories. It's a great collection, there are some hidden gems in it and many classics. It made me rediscover Walter Scott, H.G. Wells and Bram Stoker and made me discover M.R. James, E. Nesbit, F. Marion Crawford and many others, among them an important number of women writers (the introduction said many ghost story writers were female because they could find freedom in writing they couldn't find in society, but I suspect it is because they found every day environment hostile in its familiarity). But more than anything else, it gave me some fascinating stories to read.

I love horror stories since I got too old for my parents to forbid me to read them. I don't particularly like modern authors, I much prefer classic ones. As autumn is starting again, I will get back to it.

Quand on parle franglais

J'essaie d'habitude de ne pas parler politique sur ce blogue. Sérieusement. Pas parce que je n'aime pas ça, mais le sujet me déprime un peu ces temps-ci et il y a d'autres blogues pour ça, sur des gens qui s'y connaissent mieux que moi. J'ai un peu blogué politique, par ricochet, et la dernière fois ça m'a valu les visites d'un troll. Mais Patrick Lagacé a aujourd'hui blogué sur Justin Trudeau (le fils de l'autre), candidat libéral dans Papineau, qui a lancé sur son site web un message dans les deux langues officielles. Mais dire qu'il passe de l'anglais au français serait un euphémisme: il passe d'une langue à une autre dans la même phrase! Ridicule? Ce serait un euphémisme également. Grotesque, ça ressemble plus à ça. Dans un sens, la forme est appropriée, car elle épouse la vacuité et l'imbécilité du fond: si on peut comprendre ce qu'il y a à comprendre, le message est rempli de généralités, de clichés, de barbarisme et de narcissisme. Justin Trudeau semble surtout aimer deux choses: son visage et le son de sa voix, qu'il rend mielleuse. J'avais l'impression d'entendre un élève enthousiaste mais médiocre réciter sa poésie. Cet homme est d'une insignifiance... Le groupe Prenez garde aux chiens (jamais entendu parler jusqu'à aujourd'hui, mais je vais corriger ça) en a fait une parodie brillante de méchanceté, plus vraie que vraie, que je me fais un plaisir de mettre ici:



Cela étant dit, j'espère que mon blogue ne sera jamais comme ça. Quand même, puisque je passe d'une langue à une autre, il faudrait éviter ça.

My life in the attic

The flat I live in at the moment is at the attic of its block. This is part of its charm. I don't know why, but I always found attics full of character. If it was not situated in the attic, my flat wouldn't have much of it really. It has a warm red carpet, but the walls are a bit bland. The fact that it is an attic gives it a little something that made me appreciate it. My flat has those weird angles that makes it uncommon.

I grew up in a basement, but in my adult life, I lived above ground floor, and recently it seems that I am attracted to attics. Before being married, my future wife's bedroom was in her parent's attic, when we visited my brother-in-law we stayed in the attic, we spent our stay in Brittany in a bedroom in the attic and even our stay in Paris was on the top floor.

Attics are fascinating. As I said, they have some uncommon angles that make them stands out. They are way above ground, so you can see from the window the exterior as if you were living in the nest of a bird of prey. Owls hiding in old house's attics were at the origins of many ghost stories. They are traditionally considered sinister and, at least according to wikipedia, inhospitable. This is where people used to put their old and useless things. That said, I don't find attics inhospitable, in fact I think they can be quite homely.

Plaisirs terrifiants de l'automne

J'ai déjà cité Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, cette citation en fait, mais elle vaut la peine d'être réutilisée en guise d'introduction pour ce billet:

"Des moyens très simples créent la terreur: une porte qui s'ouvre, un jardin sous la lune... On ne voit pas le diable mais son oeuvre..."

Il fait depuis notre retour en Angleterre un temps d'automne un peu sinistre, avec de la pluie et du vent. Cela dit, je ne m'en plains pas car j'aime l'automne. Les arbres ont déjà commencé à prendre des couleurs. L'automne est aussi le compte à rebours pour l'Halloween, ce qui, dans mon cas, veut dire lire des histoires d'horreur ou des livres sur le folklore et les légendes. Il n'y a pas de plaisir plus délicieux (et cathartique) que de lire une histoire effrayante dans le confort de son salon, quand il fait un sale temps dehors et que la nature prend des allures sinistres avant l'hiver. Je n'ai hélas pas ce bouquin sous la main, étant donné qu'il est stationné à Montréal (ou à Chicoutimi?). Cela dit, j'ai encore à terminer La Légende de la Mort d'Anatole Le Braz. J'ai hélas terminé la section sur l'Ankou, mais je peux y revenir bien sûr. Et il me reste tout le chapitre sur les morts malfaisants. J'ai aussi sous la main The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories que je recommande fortement. Déjà lu, mais je peux toujours relire mes histoires préférées. cela dit, il me faudra faire l'acquisition d'autres livres.

Il y a aussi les films d'horreur que j'essaie de voir en marathon. Halloween bien sûr, l'un de mes préférés, un petit bijou d'efficacité, mais également Nosferatu et les films d'horreur de la Hammer. Comme vous pouvez le constater, je préfère les vieux classiques.

Septembre

Septembre est déjà arrivé, et avec lui l'automne. Du moins, il semblerait: il pleut des clous et a cessé de faire chaud. Pour moi, l'automne commence au début de septembre, bien avant le 21. C'est un peu pour ça que je préfère en général septembre à août: l'été peut bien être terminé une fois les vacances finies, alors qu'on ne peut plus en profiter.

Je me suis rendu compte que je n'ai pas donné d'illustrations de Detective Tales au mois d'août. Voici celle de septembre 1940, particulièrement dramatique. Ce n'est pas Roger délivrant Angélique, mais c'est quand même une modernisation du même thème.
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I almost forgotten it: August is over and September has started. And it is a real September, a real "beginning of Autumn" kind of time: very rainy, dark, cool. I prefer sunny and dry, but that will do for the time being. For me, Autumn starts at the beginning of September, not on the 21st. I don't mind the beginning of Autumn, I actually prefer September to August, because in September, bad weather and cold times are expected, it's not like it's Summertime anymore, and since the holidays are over, there is no point getting hot weather. We just need to get back to work and not regret it. With all the travelling and everything else, I discovered that I forgot to put a cover of Detective Tales during August. It is a silly "tradition" that probably interests only me, but I like it nevertheless, so here is the cover of the September 1940 one, very dramatic, with a damsel in distress in dire danger. Is she a redhead or a brunette?

Mon Louvre

English below (but probably not a translation of the French version)...

Que dire là dessus, par où commencer? Enfin, ÇA, le musée d'art, l'ancien palais des rois de France, l'espèce de géant qui, quant à moi, représente plus Paris que la Tour Eiffel (et depuis plus longtemps). Je suis donc allé au Louvre, comme des millions de gens dans le monde. J'essaierai de ne pas trop en parler avec des clichés et de montrer ici ma vision personnelle, d'une expérience personnelle du musée d'art le plus célèbre du monde (sans doute). Pour trop de monde, ce ne sont quelques oeuvres d'art emblématiques: la Joconde, la Vénus de Milo, c'est ça et c'est à peu près tout. Le Louvre, c'est non seulement une sorte de creuset qui a pris en réserve des oeuvres d'art de partout et de toutes les époques, c'est aussi un lieu qui est une oeuvre d'art en soi. L'ancien y côtoie le moderne dans un espace qui fait la symbiose des cultures et des époques. D'accord, les clichés s'arrêtent ici.

On ne peut faire qu'une expérience partielle du Louvre. Le musée est trop grand, et les sensibilités différentes. Le Louvre ne peut être embrassé d'un seul regard, on ne peut le voir que de manière fragmentaire. Il en va de même des oeuvres qu'il recèle. Un visiteur se fait un peu sa propre exposition, il choisit dans les salles qu'il visite les oeuvres qui le toucheront. Pour ma part, j'ai eu l'impression de me promener dans les méandres de la pensée humaine. Oui, j'ai vu Mona Lisa, Vénus et les autres. Mais j'ai tenté de ne pas rester aveugle face aux autres oeuvres. Cette peinture de Saint Jean Baptiste par un des élèves de Lénoard de Vinci, par exemple. Tableau peu connu, celui d'un élève anonyme, dont l'oeuvre se trouve immortalisée soudainement du fait qu'il est au Louvre. Je dis que c'est un portrait de Saint Jean Baptiste, mais ça pourrait tout aussi bien être Bacchus (les interprétations diffèrent). J'ai cru tout de suite voir le saint patron des Québécois: le bâton, le pagne, il avait les attributs de ce que les gens de ma génération se font encore du personnage (y compris les cheveux en boucle). Voilà en quoi mon expérience était fragmentaire: j'étais un Québécois au Louvre, reconnaissant dans ce tableau un reflet de ma culture.

J'ai eu également beaucoup de plaisir à voir les tableaux anglais. C'est que je suis anglophile, même en France, surtout en France. On oublie souvent l'art anglais au milieu de toutes ces oeuvres françaises et italiennes. J'aime la sensibilité différente qui a inspiré les oeuvres anglaises. Ce tableau de Lady Macbeth atteinte de folie, par exemple, sombre et sinistre. Ou le Pandemonium de John Martin, dans son cadre original, que je n'ai pas photographié. C'est un tableau grandiose et terrifiant.

Roger délivrant Angélique d'Ingres m'a également fait une forte impression. Je n'ai jamais lu l'histoire originale, mais j'ai toujours aimé le tableau, une variation de la légende de Persée sauvant Andromède. J'en ai hélas pris une photo très floue.

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Okay, what to say that has not been said already, about the Louvre? That is: avoiding any cliché. I have been to the Louvre, it had a powerful imrpession on me. It is difficult to explain. Both the palais and what it contains are enough for a few blog entries, I will try to be brief, especially as my French text was already quite long. One often goes to the Louvre for the clichés. I will not put here the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo (although I have seen them). I want to show you some works that had an impression on me. So here it goes. This is what I saw of/in the Louvre. I did not have the impression of walking through history, or anything like this, as the Louvre contains all cultures, all histories (or almost). I had the impression of walking through human psyche, from all time. The very ancient (those Egyptians sculptures) lives there with the very modern (the glass pyramids). The eye cannot contain the Louvre, nor can it contain the mind, had it been put into shape and form. We see glimpses of it, we cannot see the whole work. On these pictures, you can see what I saw of the human mind.

Retour de Paris

Ma femme et moi sommes de retour, après avoir passé les derniers jours de nos vacances à Paris. J'aime bien la ville maintenant, enfin je l'aime plus qu'il y a seize ans quand je l'ai visitée la première fois. Je reviendrai un peu sur le voyage, enfin certains aspects de celui-ci, mais je ne veux pas faire de ce blogue un journal de bord, alors je ne m'attarderai pas sur le voyage plus qu'il ne le faut. Cela dit, quelques détails ici: j'ai pu m'acheter quelques romans en français, les restaurants sont souvent hors de prix, on ne reconnaît pas toujours mon accent, je n'aime toujours pas le café et je m'ennuie vite de la vraie bière.