Joliet, Illinois (a crime fiction post)

 From time to time, I rewatch beloved old classic movies, because I love to revisit them and rediscover old things about them. I saw on Netflix that The Sting was available, so I started watching it again. I love, love, love this caper, it made me discover Robert Redford, Paul Newman and... poker (more on the latter in this post). Anyway, I was watching the movie and it struck me that it starts in the city of Joliet, Illinois. And that it might be the only thing I know about Joliet: it's featured in The Sting. Okay, so most of the action is set in the most famous and infamous Chicago, but I like when a work of crime fiction shed light on a lesser known place. Lesser known to someone like me who is not from the US anyway.

What did Chamberlain do? (a frustrating yet fascinatin video)

I guess it's all around the internet now, but I'll show it here anyway. I found this on Richard Hétu's blog. It's baffling, surrealistic. An indigest cocktail of ignorance and loud mouth. The worst thing is, we find this sort of ignorance displayed here by Kevin James (never heard of the guy before, don't think I missed anything) everywhere in the world. But you' ve got to give that to United States: they have some educated people who can actually put those big mouths at their place, right in the middle of their verbal diarrhea. Québec journalists are often more on the whussy side. Anyway, I think the whole rhetoric (if you can call it that way) of Kevin James (and Bush and co) against Obama in that whole controversy could fall into Godwin's Law.

Mai 2008

Il semblerait que l'été ne nous fera pas faux-bond cette année. En effet, s'il ne fait pas toujours beau, il fait chaud et le soleil se montre quotidiennement. Dans les journaux québécois, on parle beaucoup de Mai 68 ces jours-ci. Époque troublée et anarchique, un peu infantile aussi à mes yeux. Je suis en train de lire Hard Revolution de George Pelecanos, comme je l'ai dit ici. Le roman a pour trame de fond la même époque et une situation similaire (la lutte pour les droits civiques), mais sur un continent différent. Je ne peux m'empêcher de penser que ce qui s,est passé aux États-Unis a été plus positif et ultimement plus profitable que ce qui s'est passé en France. Un article sur Mai 68 et son héritage ici.