"From One Lifetime to the Next"

XXX

2011-06-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

Borrowed from here.

So I'm turning 30 today.

It apparently is a big deal for any girl, judging by the reactions of all of my friends who recently turned 30. Now I usually pride myself on being quite rational, but 30 has always been flagged in my mental representation of age (and I mean literally, as I am part of the roughly 10% of the population who has a visual, 3D and colored mental representation of numbers - it's a hereditary thing...).
The thing is, my mum turned 30 not long after I was born, and I always thought that meant I'd be a mum by the time I turned 30. Which is as irrational as it gets.

So I'm turning 30 and I am not a mum. But I am happily married, healthy, I have an amazing family, amazing in-laws, and amazing friends. Which is as good as it gets!

Robert Kroetsch R.I.P.

2011-06-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

Alberta writer Robert Kroetsch passed away on June 21st at age 83.

My thoughts go to his family and friends, and to Aritha VanHerk, Rudy Wiebe and Thomas Wharton among many others.

He taught the lovely treachery of words to those of us who were lucky enough to read his works.

Here is a beautiful, heartfelt tribute to Robert Kroetsch by Thomas Wharton, another wonderful Alberta writer whom I admire very much.

The stars, the moon...

2011-03-08T03:47:00.000-08:00

Snows

2011-01-27T04:44:00.001-08:00

Les vacances de Noël en quelques clichés...

"Sealed with a kiss"

2011-01-27T04:34:00.000-08:00

10 Juillet 2010

Mariage civil...

2010-05-31T04:39:00.000-07:00

Mairie de Lessy, le 22 mai 2010

Rendez-vous en juillet à l'église!

Growing, growing, growing...

2010-03-31T23:53:00.001-07:00

Perrine et Marion!

"Not my faust!"

2010-03-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

En attendant que l'autre gars de la maison rentre du boulot hier soir...

Mieux vaut être près de sa maîtresse que bien installé...

Le parquet tout chaud, au soleil.

Meet Faust

2010-03-25T08:23:00.001-07:00

Faust, né mi-novembre 2009 et arrivé à la maison le 20 mars dernier.
Il aime: nous, les croquettes, le carton.
Il n'aime pas: être tout seul, le peigne, les gamelles vides.

Flash back!

2010-03-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

01/02/2010 à 13h50
La tarte tropézienne, chez Sénéquier à... St Tropez.

14/02/2010 à 17h40
Coucher de soleil sur Cassis, depuis la route des crêtes... que nous ferons en vélo.
Un jour.

Bébé cyclotte...

2010-03-10T23:01:00.000-08:00

20/02/2010
Distance : 6.7 km

Dénivelé : 370 m

Oui.... c'est bien pour ça que dans "Bébé cyclotte", il y a "bébé"!
Mais attendez, avec du travail, je parviendrai, de là, à prendre la petite route qui monte en haut du Mont Caume, ce qui ajoutera 320 m de dénivelée en 3.9 km. Et quand j'aurai fait ça 150 fois, je m'attaquerai au Mont Faron, avec ses redoutables pourcentages!
Et alors, lorsque j'aurai fait ça 150 fois... et bien j'enlèverai peut-être "bébé" à "bébé cyclotte".

Mais quoi qu'il arrive, ce qui compte, c'est de ne pas enlever "cyclotte", et de toujours se faire plaisir!!!

Marion & Perrine

2009-12-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

On December 18 I became an aunt to Perrine (left) and Marion (right)!!!

X-Mas Cocooning

2009-12-21T01:00:00.001-08:00

La der'

2009-12-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

Emil Nolde - Haute Mer

Aujourd'hui la Jeanne est partie pour son dernier périple. Cette ville de métal que j'ai appris à connaître abrite en ce moment même des centaines de visages qui me sont familiers. La coque se heurte à des creux de 6 mètres: ils sont dans le golfe de Gascogne. Ceux qui sont de quart - mais qui vont passer la relève d'ici 20 minutes à l'heure où j'écris - sont aux aguets, les autres sont peut-être entrain d'essayer de dormir, ou bien de calculer la probabilité pour que l'ordinateur posé sur le bureau reste à sa place jusqu'au matin.
Pour les moins anciens, demain une partie de la journée sera assurément consacrée au ramassage, tri, rangement de documents, réparation de classeurs, consolidation de placards et tiroirs!

Bon vent et bonne mer les amis!

Heartwarming traditions

2009-11-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'm buying decorations for our Christmas tree.

My fiancé and I have spent the last two Christmases (does that plural work?) away from home and family, so we're particularly excited about this one...

Dimanche au placard

2009-11-29T03:38:00.000-08:00

Ceci n'est pas mon dressing.

Aujourd'hui c'est dimanche, le ciel est couvert.
Je me suis fixé comme objectif de mettre de l'ordre dans le dressing, où règne actuellement un chaos de plus en plus mal dissimulé.

Il s'agit d'abord de se rendre à l'évidence: l'été des tongs, maillots de bains, paréos, débardeurs, est FINI. Le panier de l'été n'ira pas à la cave, qui est pleine comme un oeuf, mais tout en haut du dressing, là où je pourrais l'oublier facilement, comme j'avais oublié le panier de l'hiver, me demandant pendant une semaine ou deux en octobre où mes pulls pouvaient bien être stockés. Je ne suis pas seulement petite, j'ai aussi une tête de linotte. J'ai fini par descendre le panier de l'hiver, avec l'impression de retrouver de vieux amis, en dépit du fait que je l'avais placé là seulement 2 mois plus tôt.

J'ai dans l'idée de confectionner de discrètes étiquettes pour pallier mes déficiences neuronales.

Instinctively self vs. other...

2009-11-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

La proue devant Abu Dhabi

During the two trips, we called at 20 different places, on 6 different continents, each time spending an average of 3 days ashore. Each crossing lasted 7 to 15 days.

Désert du Grand Barra - Djibouti

Traveling that way - very slowly, with most of our time spent within our own community, in a restricted space - gave me a whole new conception of geography.
In a car, a plane, a train, you can only think of yourself as being in a transitory state, going from A to B. Most of the time, B is the only reason why you left A.

For us [except for the public relations staff] it was different, since the whole point of the trip lay in the work we accomplished during the crossings. Ports of call were only the most wonderful recess I'd ever had, and the notion of destination was insignificant, since our trip was a loop.

Fort Cochin - Inde

It took us days and days to go from one place to the next, so in a way every place seemed extremely remote, but during the crossings I was either busy indoor or outside staring at the vast ocean, so my mind started dividing space in 2: everything familiar on one side, everything unfamiliar on the other. In the former was the ocean, the ship, the crew, my work. In the latter were all the places we visited and all the people we met, on terra firma. In a word, the former was SELF and the latter was OTHER.

La Khazneh - Petra - Jordanie

The consequence is that even if you notice differences between each country, and each culture, your mind will still file them in the same category, whether you want it or not, because in each new place you also can't help noticing how different it is from your community. In the long run, you picture your home on one side of the world, and all those other countries together on the other side of the world, you and your ship somewhere in between, and that's the only vague and subjective notion of distance you're left with.

Dans le Wadi Rum - Jordanie

Of course I did not understand that before the end of the second trip.

Now, I can't help thinking that the frame of mind of European colonizers must have been somewhat similar to the one I was left with after two 6-month-long navigations...

De retour au port base

Back on Earth

2009-07-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am!
A lot has happened in my life during the last years, including two long trips (6 and 5 months) as a member of the crew of a navy ship. As you probably guessed I am not personnally allowed to publish any detail about what we did, but there is an official blog with lots of pictures:

http://jdb.marine.defense.gouv.fr/batiment/jda

I'll still be appointed on the ship until the end of my contract in the fall.
This experience is nearing an end, but its impact on my life and on my personality will last indefinitely.

:)

52000 km plus tard....

2008-06-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

Erased to preserve confidentiality...

Nouvelles du bord

2007-10-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Erased to preserve confidentiality...

It's a new dawn, it's a new day...

2007-09-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

Erased to preserve confidentiality...

Dr Education nationale: the institution who made a monster..

2007-06-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

I'm alive! Aliiive!" yells I.

And then hell breaks loose: Massive convulsions wrack the sarcophagus, damn near shaking it off its cradle.

"Where have you been?" says you.
"My blogging self was in a coma for 3 months" says I.
"I noticed. Well what did your real self do these past months???" says you.

Closeup on my face, I'm obviously remembering...

Fade in to...

Me studying for my second, big, major, tough competitive exam.

Fade in to...

Me realizing my brain can't keep up.
On my face you can read: despair.
My thoughts are: I'm not good enough / I'm not as good as everybody thinks / I can't live up to the expectations of the people I care for.

Fade in to...

Me unable to sleep at night.

Fade in to...

Me unable to finish my meals.

Fade in to...

Me breaking down nearly everyday.

Then...

April 17 to 20. Me taking the exams. Beautiful weather.
On my face you can read: relief. I'm not doing such a bad job after all.

Then...

Different scenes that show that for a month and a half, I'm waiting for the results of both exams. The anguish is becoming overwhelming.
Not a night goes by without a nightmare about the results.

Then...

The first results arrive: I'm allowed to take the second session of the first exam.

Fade in to...

The last results arrive. I failed for the second time. Only difference: this year I worked twice as hard, and I got abysmally low grades.
On my face you can read: the confusing and exasperating feeling of having suffered for absolutely nothing.

Fade in to...

I receive the letter that says when I'm summoned for the second session.

Closeup on the letter: my oral exams are to take place exactly during my brother's wedding.
On my face you can read: utter disappointment, utter disbelief, utter disjoy.

Then...

Me looking for another job, another future, another prospect. And finding them, too.

Fade in to...

Me applying for a job as a teacher for the french gvt. If I get the job, I'll be travelling around the world from december to may.
Me applying for a "Master 2", to finish my MA, in case I don't get the job.

Fade out.

Credits.

Prison Break

2007-03-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

I used to be a free spirit...

and a juvenile delinquent

I loved cars and got caught for speeding...
...several times.
I even knew how to handle a detonator.
One day I organized a bank raid. Although I had arranged and rehearsed it to the last detail...
...my siblings didn't listen
...so things went horribly wrong, and I was sent to prison.
My brother and my cousin decided to get me out of there.
They finally did. We were worried that if they caught us we would all go to prison

...but we found shelter in a farm.

TO BE CONTINUED

Shakespeare sketch

2007-03-14T15:42:00.001-07:00

With Hugh Laurie and Rowan Atkinson, and it's hilarious! To me, it is!
I'm working on Coriolanus and I needed a break...

Waning gibbous

2007-03-09T04:48:00.001-08:00

Last night I was up until 3 a.m., and from my desk I could see the moon rise. It had a faint coral hue and it glowed softly. Just like a child, I felt immensely reassured to see it there, and it reminded me of the small orange night light my parents would plug in our room.

No show

2007-03-07T13:07:00.000-08:00

I saw Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola today. I don't know what I think about it yet, which is usually a good sign.

I also recommend The Last King of Scotland, Babel and Das Leben der Anderen.
I have grown to enjoy films in which there are narrative gaps that are left to be filled by the viewer's imagination. When I was younger I was annoyed when something was not shown or told, but now I find omissions stimulating. At the end of Babel a depressed girl gives a written note to the man who comforted her, and later you can just see him reading it. I liked how it made me study his face for a hint of what the note said. In Lost In Translation, you never get to know what Bob whispers to Charlotte when they say goodbye. To me this narrative strategy has two interesting effects: it brings depth to the diegetical world the film creates by giving the viewer limited perceptions. You don't feel like a privileged audience, but it feels all the more real, because that is what we experience everyday. Secondly there is no better way to attract someone's attention on something than by not showing that thing. Turning the written note or the whispered words into definite, unequivocal meaning would be more comfortable (although possibly disappointing), but less intense. I definitely choose intense.

Rinko Kikuchi in Babel

C'est pas l'homme qui prend la route...

2007-03-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

I'll be busy next summer.

Busy taking oral exams (praying to God those won't prevent me from going to my brother's wedding), and then busy road tripping to Norway, Sweden and Finland with two of my friends for 3 weeks (praying to God we can keep it cheap), and then going to the highlands in Scotland with my parents (praying to God... nothing, I couldn't ask for more!).
I will need to keep summer 2008 simple... anyone wants to come visit?

So...

2007-03-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

So I haven't posted anything in nearly a month. Main reason is because my entire (professional) future will be defined by the competitive exams I'll be taking in 2 weeks and again in 7 weeks. So I'm beyond stressed out.
I could definitely take a little time to write posts, but I can't seem to find topics other than the exams, and I really don't think that's interesting. But I do miss writing in here, so I think (I think a lot these days, don't I) that I'll try to write small posts every day, and keep it very simple. Fortune cookies type of posts!
So there!

The freedom of freedom Freedom

2007-02-08T13:49:00.001-08:00

I wrote this in an openDemocracy.com forum back in 2003, and I thought it was funny, so... here it is:

I have re-written the last paragraph of the US Declaration of Independence, replacing every word that was borrowed from the French language by "freedom", so as to help the American people who eat freedom fries further deny their cultural ties with France:

"We, therefore, the freedoms of the united States of America, in Freedom Congress, Freedomed, freedoming to the Supreme Freedom of the world for the freedom of our freedoms, do, in the Name, and by the Freedom of the good Freedom of these Colonies, freedomly freedom and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Freedom States; that they are Absolved from all Freedom to the British Freedom, and that all freedom connection between them and the State of Great Freedom, is and ought to be freedomly dissolved; and that as Free and Freedom States, they have full Freedom to freedom freedom, conclude Freedom, freedom Freedoms, freedom Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Freedom States may of right do. And for the freedom of this Declaration, with a freedom freedom on the freedom of freedom Freedom, we freedomly freedom to each other our Lives, our Freedoms and our freedomed Freedom."

I know it's a ridiculous argument against French-bashing, but I couldn't help myself...

Brendon Grosjean

2007-02-06T06:43:00.000-08:00

As I was walking home from campus at noon, I saw a woman with a stroller stop and start talking to her child. I walked past and saw that she was pointing at faces on a big tabloid poster, and telling her 3 or 4-year-old whose faces they were. It amazes me that some people -- including those in France who name their kid after their favorite tv series actor or character -- have such a narrow cultural horizon to begin with, that tv actually broadens it.

A license for tv.... 116 euros.
A library card.... 15 euros.
Intellectual curiosity.... priceless.

2007-01-26T05:35:00.000-08:00

Some days like today are normal until you pick up the phone and learn what happened to a friend.

1-2-3-4

2007-01-26T02:19:00.000-08:00

Okay so yesterday I went and interviewed one of the demonstrating fir trees. Their slogan is "1-2-3-4, we can't bear it anymore, 5-6-7-8, the forest will retaliate!" The spokestree said we should leave them be and buy fake trees, or change that tradition for a less barbaric one. "Don't you like being decorated?" I asked, and he said that the decorating thing is okay, but we shouldn't fell them. "But then again, he added in hushed tones, look how big-headed that one got by being the center of attention! He wasn't half as big when they brought him here...".
Before I left he said "if a tree falls in a forest, do you know why no one can hear it?"
"No"
"Because of the chainsaw!"
With lines like that, that one could probably run for president...

Odds and sods

2007-01-24T06:39:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention that at last winter is showing its head here in Nancy. It snowed all day yesterday, and today we're having a clear blue shiny beautiful cold weather.

(that's Place Stanislas invaded by fir trees demonstrating against Christmas)

Unfortunately, my oh so beloved neighbors haven't stopped drilling holes in the walls. Tomorrow I'm moving in the campus library with all my stuff -- they're not the friendliest people there but I'm sure they won't mind.

Priceless piece of history

2007-01-24T04:39:00.000-08:00

I love this:

Monday January 15 2007
The Guardian
[...]
On September 10 1956, Guy Mollet, the then French prime minister, came to London to discuss the possibility of a merger between the two countries with his British counterpart, Sir Anthony Eden, according to declassified papers from the National Archives, uncovered by the BBC.

A British cabinet paper from the period reads: "When the French prime minister, Monsieur Mollet, was recently in London, he raised with the prime minister the possibility of a union between the United Kingdom and France."

At the time of the proposal, France was in economic difficulties and faced the escalating Suez crisis. Britain had been a staunch French ally during the two world wars.

When Mr Mollet's request for a union failed, he quickly responded with another plan - that France be allowed to join the British commonwealth - which was said to have been met more warmly by Sir Anthony.
[...]
Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited

I can't figure out how this could have worked, culturally. The reactions to this so-called revelation (apparently it was already mentioned in Keith Kyle's book about Suez) on both sides of the Channel are eloquent. I know I wouldn't bother -- both languages are already in my brain anyway...
but it seems an armed conquest of one country by the other would be more believable than a peaceful union! I guess the European Union in itself really is an accomplishment...

Al'ud and al tarab

2007-01-21T14:47:00.000-08:00

I went to a fantastic concert on friday night. It was oud virtuoso and composer Marcel Khalifé -- from Lebanon -- playing his "concerto al andalus" with the Gradus Ad Musicam symphonic orchestra. His son Rami -- a pianist who graduated from Julliard in 2003 -- also played. It was magical! Marcel ended with one of his ballads, and in the audience the arab speakers who knew it (it seems they all did) sang along.

Oriental music really is something I have to explore.

Freedom fries curriculum

2007-01-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

Not many things I hear or see anger me. I am generally unhopeful about mankind, but rarely angry. However over the last couple of years, I have found that one recurring behavior invariably angers me: when people utter ridiculous and/or harmful statements with an obscene amount of assertiveness.

This kind of comment, I think, illustrates rather well what I call a vulgar blend of ignorance and self-confidence:

Wednesday, September, 06, 2006 9:10 AM
Uncle Max writes:

a few points

1) We are just pups. Just 230 years out of the block we are already the richest, most powerful nation in history. And we saved uncounted numbers of european butts 4 times in the last century.

2)Europe - especially the frogs - realize that with every breath they take and HATE us for it.

3)A story is told that in 1956 when france was loudly proclaiming its decision not to join NATO, French President General Charles De Gaulle loudly proclaimed that he wanted every American soldier out of France.

Replied then Secretary-of-State John Foster Dulles "Does that include the 100,000 buried there?"

History does not record the General's reply. Perhaps for once in his life he just decided to shut up.

To those both in this country and without who hate us, I quote the late Richard J. Daley of the great city of Chicago: "I'll see you at the Christmas party and I'll have mistletoe on the back of my suitcoat."

iow -
----------------------------------------------
source here

This is probably the zillionth time I have read something like that, and it is certainly not the last. Now there is no way the genius who wrote that figured such a subtle approach to foreign affairs on his own. Nor, I assume, did he learn about French culture and politics in a college debate team. So that leaves us with the media. Welcome on Fox Planet, folks!

What I am

2007-01-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

Everyone who knows me knows I am a night owl.

"On dirait encore une de ces robes étranges de danseuses, où une gaze transparente et sombre laisse entrevoir les splendeurs amorties d'une jupe éclatante, comme sous le noir présent transperce le délicieux passé; et les étoiles vacillantes d'or et d'argent, dont elle est semée, représentent ces feux de la fantaisie qui ne s'allument bien que sous le deuil profond de la Nuit."

Baudelaire, Le crépuscule du soir

Nigel Kennedy - Tribute to Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze

2007-01-07T15:41:00.001-08:00

Enjoy! I certainly did.

The irony of it all

2007-01-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

The most apprehensive individuals will notice that I was away from my blog for a number of rotations. And the most inquisitive of them will wonder what went through that brain of mine during all that time.
Well, something happened that I know will change the course of history. I have at last decided to acknowledge a fundamental feature of my psyche. My friends and family, nay, everyone around me has tried to make me own the truth about myself for as long as I can remember, and I have restlessly denied it with might and main. Indeed to acknowledge it is to accept it, and with that come tremendous responsibilities towards the world and towards myself.

The truth is, dear reader, that I am a genius.

I can almost hear my friends' sigh of relief, as I decide to take on this burden and face the consequences. A genius does not fail. I will not fail!

Well well, time for my medication. And so I leave you. :p

"The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history."
[Bertrand Russell]

My Jack Lament

2007-01-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

After a week spent with my family, I'm back in town. I have to readjust my mind to the lonely, quiet, academic atmosphere of my place. I relish the fact that no one was waiting for me to come back, and I can really take care of myself. I am definitely going through a loner phase... which often happens in winter. If I was a shaman, I would have a bear for my guardian spirit!
I wish everyone a happy new year!

Apap plays Mozart - 3rd movement Cadenza

2006-12-27T06:37:00.001-08:00

No wonder why Gilles Apap is sometimes dubbed the French Kennedy...

Wind and tea

2006-12-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

I wish... I could have a walk on a beach like that, and then go back home for a cup of tea. Feeling the cold wind on my face, and then the warmth of my mug under my hands. But the nearest beach is 250 km away from here, so I will settle for tea and imagine the bit with the beach.

Violinic charisma

2006-12-26T06:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I had only ever heard about the guy. Now I have seen one of his concerts on dvd, and I am absolutely dazzled. Nigel Kennedy rocks.

And if Nigel Kennedy is old news to you, try Gilles Apap.
Kennedy is more influenced by Hendrix or The Doors, and Apap is apparently more into a bohemian, Indian sort of music (even when they are playing classical music). But when you look at them playing, you have the same impression that they become one with their violin.

It is completely addictive.

Cliché

2006-12-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Something is new in the state of Denmark

2006-12-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

Beware! This post is going to be extremely self-centered. Feel free to skip it.

I have been mentally comparing this academic year with the last one. The thing is, since I failed the agrégation last year (I even hate saying it), I am doing it all over again, going to the (mostly) same classes, living in the same place, and so on. So nothing has changed much, really. And still, everything is different... Exam-wise I am more stressed out because it's the second attempt and there is more pressure, but I know what to expect, which helps a lot. Many of the students preparing for the exams are new, and some teachers were replaced by others. It's a blend of new and old faces inside the same picture.

There are a couple of persons I already knew, but whom I am getting to know better. I realize I have quite a hard time making friends. It takes me forever to trust someone enough to really bond with them. Or rather, only a very small number of persons can make me feel safe enough to go there. Last year it didn't happen once, and I felt very lonely. So I am amazed at how everything is/feels different now. I hope the persons I am getting to know better now will become real friends.
Only time can tell!

Here are my Christmas presents from Frank. He took them in Beijing:

"you didn't know???"

2006-12-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

Lately I've listened to a mind-spinningly wide variety of music genres, and I love every one of them. There are a couple of genres I definitely don't like (and don't believe I will anytime soon), but I feel like my tastes could stretch endlessly.... It might be because I have so little choice in my life right now, about what to do or think, that it's a way for me to compensate for my frustration -- sailing on the vast ocean seas of musical exploration.

I have only recently discovered the band "Godspeed You! Black Emperor", which apparently is Canadian. It is some sort of ambient post-rock, with sounds that sometimes remind me of Pink Floyd, and sometimes of Archive, among others. The tracks are very long (often over 15 minutes) and create an enthralling atmosphere.
When I ask my friends if they know Godspeed, I'm sure they'll look at me like I'm nuts and say "you didn't???" -- which is usually what happens when I think I've discovered something. Imagine how Columbus or Vespucci would have felt if they had come back to Europe and everyone had said "what, you mean you didn't know???"
-- at least Don Cristobal wouldn't look so offended for nothing...

Morphée m'aime

2006-12-15T16:52:00.000-08:00

(Nymphe et Satyre)

My bedtime music tonight:
Archive - You all look the same to me - Again
Jeff Buckley - Live at Sin-é - Hallelujah & Lover, you should have come over
The Tindersticks - Waiting for the moon - Until the Morning Comes
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter - Reckless Burning - Reckless Burning
Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation - Mighty Rearranger - All the Kings Horses

Oh, Morpheus, give me joy till morning
For my forever painful love:
Just blow out candles' burning
And let my dreams in blessing move.
Let from my soul disappear
The separation's sharp rebuke!
And let me see that dear look,
And let me hear voice that dear.
And when will vanish dark of night
And you will free my eyes at leaving,
Oh, if my heart would have a right
To lose its love till dark of evening!

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837)

My name is -

2006-12-15T02:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday night we had a great conference about Casino Royale -- both the 1953 novel and the 2006 film -- and about how the representation of Britishness has changed. A lot of paratextual elements too, that is to say how the novel and the films were promoted, in what particular way they were received and so on. Then my friend and I went to the restaurant with two teachers and the guest, and had a great time talking about films and research and teaching. There is a wide range of possibilities within the field of cultural studies that I can't wait to explore... the world is not enough!

Please don't talk to me

2006-12-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

Mr Bennet to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice:
"You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?"

weapons of mass antisocial behaviors

I am presently being bothered by the she-homo-laptopian seated at my left.

I was quietly reading about Determinism in History on the internet and listening to Mozart (the very relaxing clarinet concerto) when this student arrived. All of a sudden all I could hear was the combination of her frantic typing and of the erratic rhythm of her open-mouthed chewing. The typing isn't so bad, but the chewing is so high-pitched that I had to switch from Mozart to swing, and considerably raise the volume of my headphones.

"Universal -chew- determin-chew-ism depends on a -chew-concept of cau-chew-sation that was -chew- not -chew chew-generally adopted -chew-until after the seven-chew-teenth-century-chew- “scientific rev-chew chew-olution.”"

I thought maybe she has to finish some paper and is stressed out about it. But no, she is actually chatting on the internet. I know it's bad to look at what others are doing, but she was the one invading my personal space in the first place.
So now I'm posting this misanthropic message while listening to a rather loud Sinatra. (And as I'm typing this, another student is taking place at my right, with a huge book entitled Molière. Now this one I like!)

I know, I'm proud and prejudiced...

Why won't you talk to me

2006-12-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

My internet connection at home is broken right now...

It's very weird to be sitting in a corner in a hallway of building J on campus, surrounded by fellow homo laptopians. Apparently we're all here to benefit from the joys of world wide communication, all plugged to the wall for power and connected to the wireless network, and all very carefully avoiding eye-contact with one another. That's what I don't like about university: it should be a place of absolute open-mindedness and exchanges, and instead in seven years I've found it more difficult to make friends here than anywhere else in the city.

I have stood here before...

2006-12-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

When I have to walk in the pouring rain, I love the moment when I'm so completely soaked that I don't even care anymore. I'm standing in the street with my hands in my pockets, and I let the water run down my face as if I were in my shower. People run around with their collars up, holding things over their heads, trying to hide from the rain, and I'm there, wholly relaxed, waiting for the traffic to stop. It feels like time has slowed down for me only. I get the exact same feeling when I look at this picture...

Un samedi soir sur la Terre

2006-12-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

Fireplace lit, jazz playing, pictures of summer vacations on the walls, souvenirs of my best friend's wedding on the homemade piece of furniture, waiting for parents to return from shopping, waiting for friends and family to come for dinner. Here and now is home.

You name it

2006-11-30T04:34:00.000-08:00

"Mr Evil Devil?"

"why do you insist on calling me that? you know I hate it"

"because I like it, and you never tell me why you hate it"

"obviously because the way you say it I sound like a caricature. I mean "evil devil", it's like all I do is being evil"

"maybe it would explain the name"

"which I didn't choose either, by the way"

"who does? and anyway what would you name yourself?"

"well if you must know, I like Yaveh...."

"you're joking"

"no! why do you think I got kicked out of up there??"

"I don't think it was only a matter of name!"

"name, my dear, is everything. You think stories are everything, but you're wrong. Stories are only an elaborate way of using names. You will argue that each name is a small story, but that's only word play."

"So really it doesn't matter whether I call you Mr Evil Devil or Simon. You just don't like my calling you"

"if you were as afraid of me as you should, you wouldn't even dare call me at all."

"but I'm not afraid!"

"Thank you, I noticed."

Full of the Devil

2006-11-29T13:35:00.000-08:00

Anyone with extra time, you name the price, I'll buy it. I would sell a bit of my soul to the Devil, but he says it's not good enough.

He said: "I want pure souls that don't ask questions"
So I told him, "pure doesn't exist, and no questions means either over-confident or downright stupid"
"I mean I want souls that don't argue"
"You contradict yourself"
"No I don't"
"Yes you do. You know well the base arg- in argue means 'to be white, bright, clear', and someone who argues is someone who is willing to be crystal clear. So that's the kind of souls you're supposed to be looking for. Otherwise you wouldn't be Lucifer, the light carrier. More coffee?"
"Yes please. You see that's why I like spending an hour or two with you now and then"
"Because I argue well?"
"No, because you make good coffee."

Jazz me up

2006-11-22T00:42:00.000-08:00

I'm going through a jazz week. I heard a bit of Miles Davis in some movie, and BAM! it hit me. The urge to dig up and dust Miles, John, Cannonball and co.... and they're working their magic:
Right now I have a lot of work to do that stresses me out, my shower is being renovated, the entire appartment next door is being renovated (that's a lot of people regularly hammering at walls, believe me), and the skies are shades of sad grey.
Yet "Blue in Green" is playing softly, making this not only a perfect moment, but a moment I'll be able to conjure up anytime in the future by just playing this track. Music has a way of making past feelings materialize like a photograph.

And now I see the sun decides "Autumn Leaves" is a right time to peak through. Perfect, I tell you.

Rush

2006-11-20T15:06:00.000-08:00

almost

no time to post
no time to post
no time to post
no time to post
gone

My devolution theory

2006-11-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

("Devolution Theory", not for sale)

From left to right:
Can no.1 comes from the Cocaniferous geological era.
Then it's the Cocapermian era, the Triassicola era, the Jurassicola era, the Cretacolaceous era, the Caffeinotiertiary era, and finally the Erectocan quaternary era. Always Coca-Cola.

"Go back to work!" I hear you silently say. And so I do.

Mon luth constellé

2006-11-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

I love living on the fourth floor. Nancy is a small city, so downtown buildings are not very tall. I have these big windows and quite a wide view of the city -- roofs of old downtown houses, a couple of buidlings, the trees of the Pépinière park, the basilique St Epvre, the tall Park Inn railway station hotel, the stadium spotlights. These are on, so I know there's a football/soccer match tonight. The lights inside the bell tower of the basilique are still on so I know it's not past midnight.

The one thing I hate about living in a city is the sky at night. It's either shades of orange because of the reflection of city lights on clouds, or plain black. The only heavenly bodies you can see are the moon and some of the brightest stars. And a couple of planets, like Venus or Jupiter.

If you haven't already, you must download Stellarium. It's a great (and easy to use and free) planetarium. And very beautiful.

I remember our philosophy teacher in high school telling us about stars. See, latin sidus means "heavenly body, star, constellation", and desiderare (de-siderare) basically means "to stop seeing the star". So, desiring originally means you realize something important (the star) is missing. And he told us how desire is what keeps you alive and moving, that if you have no "star" to look for, you become still, and depressed. And that's a disaster, "a bad star". Consider means "seeing all the stars", which I think was a navigation term, initally. When you see all the stars, you can make the right decision, you know where to go.

***

I'm a Charlotte

2006-11-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

I finally saw Lost In Translation. I loved it. I knew I would.

Talking about translation, I have this beautiful text to translate into French: it's from Stephen Crane's "Open Boat". Here's one sentence: "The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he commanded for a day or a decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in the greys of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a top-mast with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low and lower, and down."

To think I'm about to make a French mess of it!

The lovely treachery of sounds

2006-11-15T07:38:00.000-08:00

Matt got me thinking (this is becoming a forum, really) about how I learned English. And it's actually all about imitating.

The earliest memory I have of English is in my parents's car, looking outside, and listening to 50's and 60's American hits, especially Tutti Frutti, which I thought I sang perfectly well. But since I was six years old, and had no idea what anything meant, it sounded more like "tooda frood, all rooda...". In France we call that "yogurt English". My parents later told me it made them laugh, when I was really doing my best to imitate Little Richard.
When I was nine, I started going to a weekly private English lesson, at my best friend's house. His mother is a great English teacher, and she taught us the basics of English with a "Chatterbox Student Book." It was fun time every tuesday night, for two years.

Since I could read basic English, instead of just singing songs in "yogurt", I learned lyrics by heart, and would listen to a song on my parents' record player again and again until I could sing it perfectly. The first one I learned was Chris Rea's Auberge. I tortured myself until I could pronounce the "th" and "h" sounds and sing it all both fast and articulately. I didn't understand half of the lyrics, and to this day I don't know why I felt the urge to do that.
But I kept doing that with all the songs I liked, and later on, as my English got better, and it was easier to find films in English, I started doing it with films. I imitated accents and intonations.
When I got in college, I lived in a students hall, and I only had a compact stereo, so back home I recorded my favorite films on audio tapes, so I could listen to films in English all the time. I still do that.

I know I'm particularly addicted to English, but the urge to imitate languages goes beyond that. I learned some of the Lakota parts in Dances With Wolves, and I can't help imitating all sorts of French accents. At school I was very bad at German, except for the accent, so my teacher was always puzzled. So in a way I always feel like I'm only convincing people I speak good English by imitating it. In Paris Frank (Tester) told me "your English is flawless", and I felt like a sort of charlatan. I wanted to answer "it is only a reproduction!"

It's a kind of Magrittean approach to languages, I guess.

Happy me

2006-11-14T16:10:00.000-08:00

Today was sort of an empty day. I got up this morning with no sense of purpose, and no matter what I did, it seems I went through this day with no motivation whatsoever for anything at all. I have tons of things to do, and I was busy all day, but I felt like a robot. It got to the point when there was no music I felt like listening to, although I have an astronomic amount of albums, of every music genre you can think of.

I think the weather had something to do with it: it was positively gloomy. As a great uncle of mine used to say:"we would fare better with no weather at all!" or something like that. I can't translate it literally, it would make no sense.

Usually when I feel under-motivated, I can summon the right thought and feel better in an instant. It works with the cold, too: when I'm cold I make the decision that I'm going to relax and that I'm not going to let it bother me. Actually I do that all the time, whenever I feel that something is starting to bug me -- anything or anyone --, I rationalize and consciously switch to a different point of view. And it works 99 percent of the time! That's my way of being a happy person. The downside of it is: I can't understand people who complain on and on and about everything. I tend to associate it with a lack of will power, which is probably unfair of me.

Anyway today I was not unhappy -- thank God -- I was just frankly too lazy to switch to another, better point of view.

But it's all over now: I have found the right thought, the right point of view, the right music, and the right book to read. And it will be an in bed way of reading for me.

Happy me!

-Girl With a Pearl Earring-

2006-11-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

-Girl With a Pearl Earring-
Johannes Vermeer c.1665

This is her picture as she was:
It seems a thing to wonder on,
As though mine image in the glass
Should tarry when myself am gone.
I gaze until she seems to stir,--
Until mine eyes almost aver
That now, even now, the sweet lips part
To breathe the words of the sweet heart:--
And yet the earth is over her.

from The Portrait,
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

My first frontier

2006-11-13T07:25:00.000-08:00

I remember as a kid being utterly fascinated by the idea of a foreign country. I remember "hiking" in the Pyrenees with my parents when I was six or seven, and one day we were in the Cirque de Troumouse (cf. map); my mother was pointing at elements of the cirque and naming them, and then she told me "...and this whole line of mountains is the frontier. Right behind this is Spain." I wouldn't believe her: surely that was not the real frontier, Spain could only be much further away! It was irrational, but to me, a foreign country was so remote psychologically that it was physically impossible to stand so close to one.

It was my first frontier. I tried to imagine what it was like beyond, people living in the same mountains, but speaking a different language. If they were so close, why couldn't they speak French, the real language?

When I walk in a church

2006-11-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

(Laon et sa cathédrale, Aisne, France)
Photo de Jean-Pierre Gilson

I have been thinking quite a lot about God lately, probably because of The Power and the Glory, which is a sort of long meditation about faith shaped into a thriller. A "whisky priest" running away from the police in Mexico when the clergy was persecuted.

Anyway yesterday night I had a conversation about faith and God with a friend of mine who is a firm believer. I told her I'm really not sure I believe in God, but that I think about God a lot, and she said "if you think about Him then you believe in Him." She looked and sounded so positive, like it was completely obvious, that for the first time in years I really don't know what to think. All this time when I thought I had lost my faith, did I really only have a different faith of my own? It is always so difficult to distinguish culture from the cult, and the cult from the individual faith... that deep feeling when I walk in a church and light a candle: is that faith, then?

Then, as the conversation went on I realized we have a rather comparable feeling of what the faith in God implies/should imply. There was a moment when we deviated, because she clearly defines God as a person, and I don't -- I have a more abstract vision, I guess. But we both agreed that it is an absolute that can only transcend human understanding, and that at the same time God is the essence of humanity, with all its flaws and weaknesses.

I still don't know... but God has to be the most beautiful story ever written -- whether that proves His existence or not.

(St Quentin, Aisne, France)
Photo de Jean-Pierre Gilson

Use soap, and write stories

2006-11-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

The question on everyone's lips when I tell them I study culture, art, stories and language: what for? who could it help? you can't cure someone with a story!

Yes you can!
Why is it so hard to remember that words can kill, wreak havoc, and bring salvation? All the stories we hear, read, see, imagine, shape both our perception of the world and our sense of self. People have used stories to undertake crusades. Forget about their power, and tyrants won't even have to burn books anymore. Remove stories from humankind, and the one thing left to distinguish us from other animals will be soap.

So, funny how this world, which is made of stories, so easily dismisses them as trivial entertainement -- the inconsequential thing we supposedly produce to forget about the real world, for a while only.

Brain storm

2006-11-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

Devolution in the UK: a historical inevitability? -- The profane and the sacred in The Power and the Glory -- Language in Coriolanus -- Characterization in Pride and Prejudice -- Cleft sentences in English -- The Great Vowel Shift -- Translating Maupassant and Stephen Crane -- The place of Lewis and Clark in American history -- and on and on and on!

Whoever decided there was only 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year was not preparing for this exam.

O lilliterate loiterer!

2006-11-04T05:05:00.000-08:00

While I was very seriously working on the specific aspect of language in Coriolanus, for some strange and unfathomable reason that has nothing to do with a lack of assiduity, I came across the extremely funny Shakespearean Insulter on the internet. I also recommend the Shakespeare Insult Kit. If you're going to insult someone, at least make it original. And never underestimate the element of surprise.

Loki Sky Walker

2006-11-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

This is one of his names. But he is far more ancient and powerful than Luke. At least he used to be, before Christianization and Hollywood.

He is the Norse god of mischief, a master trickster, changing shapes and genders at will. Father and mother of many beasts, humans and monsters. He is the adopted brother of the great Odin, god of war and wisdom. He is a creator of chaos. A giant that hides in the smallest things.

Loki is the Sly-One, the Sly-God, the Shape-Changer, the Trickster, the Sky Traveller, the Sky Walker, the Lie-Smith and Loftur.

Loki can trick gods.

What say you to that, young padawan?

Anekdotos II

2006-11-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

I'll start by saying that I have in my possession these two big, hardcover books called "La civilisation du phoque." They are, basically, a compiling of the journals Paul-Emile Victor kept when he stayed in Ammassalik, Greenland in the thirties. PEV, as he is often called, is a major reference in terms of exploration of the poles and of inuit ethnography. Now these two books he wrote with the help of Joëlle Robert-Lamblin, a great researcher who works on indigenous peoples of the Arctic.

I remember, when they told us our papers had been accepted, I told Chloé, "maybe even Joëlle Robert-Lamblin will come to the conference!" But then they sent us the list of participants, and she was not in it.

On thursday I was seated at the table in the projection room, waiting for the session to begin. Suddenly I looked up from my paper and saw Joëlle Robert-Lamblin looking for a seat. Slow-motion, close-up and dismay all over again (Anekdotos I). On my left sat Yvon Csonka and on my right Nancy Wachowich, both experts in social anthropology. Saying that at that moment I wanted to disappear would be quite an understatement. Since I could not very well run away or crawl under the table, I tried to focus on my paper.

At the end of the session, to my great relief, Nancy told me she thought my paper was interesting. And Mrs Robert-Lamblin came up to me, and told me the greatest anecdote about a very old film I talked about. She met the son of the main actor in the film, and promised to send me his email address (which she did) and I gave her a copy of the film. I couldn't believe it. It took me at least ten minutes to recollect myself.

Anekdotos I

2006-11-01T14:08:00.000-08:00

So, at the embassy, Chloé and I recognized Christopher Trott, whom we had met in Rouen over a year ago. Fortunately he remembered us (we'd already had a great time in Rouen), and kindly introduced us to his friends Peter Kulchyski from the University of Manitoba as well, and Frank Tester from UBC.

We also met David Neufeld from Whitehorse. What happened is that Chloé saw "Northwest Territories" I think on his nametag, and started stealing glances at him and speaking in hushed, eager tones with me -- yes, just because of where he comes from (sorry Chloé!). I turned around and saw that he was smiling at us with an inquisitive look on his face. So, although I am dreadfully shy in this kind of situation, I went to him to explain the reason of our enthusiasm. He was very friendly and chatted with us for quite a while.

That night I also got to see two of the organizers, Béatrice Collignon and Michèle Therrien, whom I already knew, and they told me "oh, so, is your paper really in French? because it would be much better if it was in English, you know." Slow motion, close-up on my face, on which you could read total dismay. "I wrote it in French [until very late last night]! You really think I should translate it [until late tonight -- please say no]?" They said yes, it would be better, so the same night, I started translating my paper, with an enormous headache instead of a dictionary. At 2 a.m., I had only translated a third of it, and Chloé convinced me that I had to give up and sleep, and that I should do it in French as planned, and that no, I would not die from embarrassment.

It turned out that most people spoke or understood French, and for those who didn't I translated a bit of my paper and answered in English. And I didn't die from embarrassment at all.

By the way, up there is a picture of the new, rather controversial museum, where the conference took place.

Back on the air

2006-11-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

The short version of what happened at the Inuit studies conference:

-- Wednesday: train to Paris, reception at the Canadian embassy for the opening ceremony. Champagne, refined food, meeting interesting people.

-- Thursday: big long day, including reading my paper about orality, representation and films, which went far more smoothly than I expected. Meeting more interesting people, listening to more interesting papers. Dinner in a small restaurant with some of the interesting people we had met at the embassy.

-- Friday: nice day, extremely interesting papers, lunch with a friend we had met in York a year ago. Dinner cruise with everyone on the river Seine, and had a late night drink with a small party of interesting people.

-- Saturday: closing ceremony in the morning, Isuma's latest film The Journals of Knud Rasmussen in the afternoon. I loved it. Had dinner at the Lutetia brasserie on the quai Bourbon.

That's the short version.

Message à caractère informatif

2006-10-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

Hier je n'ai même pas pensé à mon blog!
Et cette semaine je n'aurai pas le temps de toute façon, car Chloé et moi partons demain pour le congrès des études inuit à Paris. Donc c'est la panique habituelle, mais au moins j'aurai des choses intéressantes à raconter à mon retour: ça changera!
Bon je retourne préparer le couscous Garbit (très nordique, comme plat), et hop, au travail.

Et coucou Papa et Maman!

The abominable yet

2006-10-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

Chloé and I are in the middle of a work session:
C "Listen to this: in my thesis I cited Foucault, and then I said 'yet, blah blah blah'. Can you believe I dared say yet about Foucault?"
D "You yetted Foucault?!"
C "I did. I yetted Foucault."

Lo and behold, the verbalized version of conjunction "yet" was born.

C "what's more, I used Thomas Wharton to yet Foucault and he doesn't even know it."
D "wait until he reads it from my blog. Now that I think of it, in my own thesis I yetted Sherrill Grace and the whole postcolonial theory."
C "well, that's something, too."

Nonsensicality

2006-10-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

I find that the most preposterous and fictional concept we have yet invented is that of nonfiction. And there is hardly any we believe in more... actually, our whole civilization is based on a twisted definition of reality!
I'm going to eat a cookie, now.

Food nut

2006-10-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

I have just read somewhere that US Thanksgiving will be on November 23rd. So I have a month to figure out how to cook a pumkin pie. It shouldn't be too difficult. Corn on the cob is definitely easy, we had some for Canadian Thanksgiving. Everyone loved it! The brownies were delicious, too. The whole meal was great.
......I'm rambling about food again, aren't I?

Le côté politique de la force...

2006-10-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

En général j'évite de me prononcer sur des sujets aussi complexes que l'Afrique du Nord et la France, parce que je n'ai jamais travaillé sur ces problèmes.

Cela étant dit, je conseille la lecture de cet article. Il faut le prendre comme un parti pris, mais ça peut être un bon début de réflexion par rapport à Indigènes. Si quelqu'un trouve un autre son de cloche (à part celui, plus neutre, qui se contente de dire que le visa de Jamel a été refusé sans raison officielle), je suis preneuse, car je n'ai rien trouvé.
SI ce que suggère l'article d'Afrik.com est vrai, on aura de quoi s'énerver.

Sinon je reste sceptique sur l'approche de France 2 du problème, qui relègue la nouvelle du refus de visa dans la catégorie "potins de stars" de son blog:
-- soit ils décident de pousser le binarisme (méchants français/gentils algériens) au maximum, quitte à ne surtout pas se mouiller (une enquète qui remettrait en cause la crédibilité des autorités algériennes risquerait de gâcher l'impact du film, ce qui est un point de vue presque défendable),
-- soit la "peoplisation" de la politique et de l'histoire n'a officiellement plus aucune limite.

The lute connection

2006-10-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

Obviously I'm not the only one who feels connected to the Elizabethan age (1575-2006). Sting (Songs from the Labyrinth) does too. Do I feel particularly connected to Sting, now? No. International stardom makes him even more remote than 16C lute players.
I do like the new album, though.

Beowulf is good for you

2006-10-20T01:03:00.000-07:00

This post comes as a sort of answer to Matt's post Literary Oddities

Beowulf I first heard of in 1st year, in "Introduction to English Literature". We were a group of maybe 200 or 150 students, at least half of which had no idea what they were doing there (anybody can get into college in France, they don't check on anything. Besides, it's very cheap).

When the teacher -- who is a great medievalist -- started with Beowulf, reading the part about his death in Old English, I heard rumblings of discontent rising. Someone said Old English is not English, so what was the point of all that? I had no friends in college at that time so I didn't exclaim how cool I thought it was, for fear of being hanged there and then by my fellow students. After the lecture, I did spot one student who seemed to think it was great, too. I think she was talking to the teacher, or something.

The exact same thing happened with Thomas More and Utopia. Since it was first published in Latin, rumblings again, "what's the point" again... except I was the one spotted by that other student talking with the teacher after the lecture. Of course, the student was Chloé.

Light, air and water

2006-10-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

I've just read this post: Environment r us and it made me want to post this:

(Delphine, Laquet sous le col de Lanserlia, devant la Dent Parrachée, Haute-Maurienne, 31 Aout 2006)

Doors and seeds

2006-10-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

In Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, the narrator says "there is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in." The idea is that you're not the one who opens the door, it opens itself without your being aware. And you can only know in retrospect. What I would add is that not one door but many open throughout your lifetime.

The last major door I'm aware of opened in 2nd year, about five years ago. I say "door" but if its appearance depends on the impact it has on your life, then I should call it a portal. First semester of 2nd year we had a course about the British Empire. It was long and difficult because we had to learn about the simultaneous histories of Ireland, South-Africa, India and Canada (there was no Australian studies specialist at the time). That was my first glimpse into Canadian history.

During the same semester we had a literature class in which we studied Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, and Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World. We were all divided into groups for this class, and the teacher I ended with was Claire Omhovère -- the big Canadian studies specialist there (she wrote her thesis on Robert Kroetsch). She told us about art, about paintings, about words, about what it means to create, about the world you can see in just one work if you learn how to look. She planted so many questions, so many seeds in our little brains, that to this day I still feel the consequences of that class.

During the second semester, my friend Chloé and I received an email by that teacher, telling us she had invited a Canadian author for a reading, and he'd make an appearance in her 3rd year class before the reading, and would we be interested to come? We naive little students couldn't believe our luck. The teacher we admired so had remembered us, and we would get to meet a Canadian author. So of course we went to the 3rd year class, whose students didn't seem much impressed or enthusiastic. Or maybe that's just because we were insanely impressed and enthusiastic. Anyway that's how we "met" Thomas Wharton, whom I hope now we didn't scare. Thankfully we were way too shy to speak and talk nonsense. The reading was great too, he first talked about the process of writing Icefields, and then he read the first pages of Salamander. Both novels I read as soon as I could.

A couple of weeks later Claire Omhovère invited us to a colloquium where PhD students presented papers on their research. All in Canadian studies, of course. It was a very small group, and I think I was the only student who had come to just listen (Chloé was in England). I had lunch with them, and yet again, I couldn't believe my luck. They were all grown-ups to me, and I had no clue why the teacher would want me there. It is very clear now that she was simply making sure some of those seeds she had planted in my brain would have a chance to burgeon.

So the door that opened in 2nd year led me to choose Mme Omhovère's 3rd year class without a second thought. The name of the class was "Inarticulate Arctic." It was about explorers in Canada, Franklin's expeditions, travel writing, clichés in Robert Service's poems, Wiebe's A Discovery of Strangers, appropriating voices, Canadian postmodernism, and so on.

And see now the plant of research is slowly growing in that brain of mine.

Grog-gy

2006-10-18T03:52:00.000-07:00

Highlight of my day so far:
Hot water, thyme (from my mother's garden), lemon, honey (from my grandmother's hives), green tea, and a twist of marsala (that I brought back from Italy in August). It tastes like heaven!

All is well...

2006-10-17T05:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday night, 9 pm, as Chloé and I were having dinner:
D "oh"
C "oh what?"
D "oh, my throat is slightly sore on one side."
C "and that means...?"
D "that means I may come down with a pharyngitis or something"
C "oh that so wouldn't be the right time!"
D "well it would be typical of me: the week I have to work both on the "agreg" and on my research, I have to fall ill. I mean with all the work I have to do, it wouldn't be half as fun if I didn't end up stuck in bed, would it? Anyway I hope it's not going to happen."
C "you should take care of it right away"

Right now: I have a sore throat (all of it), I'm aching all over, and my head feels heavier than the rest of my body. Stuck in bed, I am. Chloé called and said "take care of it right away. If you don't it'll get worse and worse and I'll have to carry you to the conference next week. Sleep at least all day today and all day tomorrow." And I promised I would.

She will give me the third degree when she finds out I took the time to write this post.

I think my IQ is back to what it was in 1983:

1575-2006

2006-10-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

The highlight of my day is related to a bishop who lived in France from 1513 to 1593: Messire Iacqves Amyot, Evesqve d'Avxerre. He was not just a bishop, he translated the works of Plutarch from ancient Greek to French (the man must have gotten up very early every day...). The "morals and philosophy" part of the works was published in 1572 and again in 1575.

Not four hundred years later, an original copy of the second edition found its way - almost by accident - into my family on my mother's side. It is a huge, thick, leatherbound book in a fairly good state. It is gorgeous.

And today, during my first class about Shakespeare's Coriolanus, the teacher told us how Jacques Amyot's translations - though not the same part, actually - are the main source of the play, through the English translator North, who used the French version. You have no idea what it felt like, hearing the teacher and thinking "God, one of these books is in my family, it's an heirloom!" Next time I open it, I'll be thinking "Shakespeare was eleven when this was published."

Somehow I didn't expect to feel strongly connected to the sixteenth century today when I got out of bed this morning.

Autumnal Nancy

2006-10-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

My father took this picture last April. He was standing on the place Stanislas outside the Musée des Beaux Arts bookstore, and I was inside, looking out. I "autumnized" the picture with Photoshop. I love the reflection on the window.

The place Stanislas webcam.

Carrot purée

2006-10-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Several things I feel happy about right now:

- my big - and only - brother has a job. A job he likes, after three years of unemployment. He is an engineer.

- I love what I do. Even linguistics and phonology. I only hate that it is a competitive exam and so few of us will pass.

- Tomorrow I'll be working all day on a paper about Atanarjuat, Van Dyke's Eskimo and Inuit orality. My friend Chloé will be working on "Echoing Inuit voices: the indigenization in Postmodern Canadian Arctic Literature." -- We're taking part in the 15th International Inuit Studies Conference. Quite intimidating for two little, inexperienced students like us, I can tell you.

- I went to the local "Shopi" today after class, so tomorrow I can cook pasta and a chicken curry. Maybe I'll make cookies, too. I love my kitchen. I used to love carrot purée as well:

A.I.

2006-10-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

The logic of amazon's response to an unsuccessful search bemuses (and amuses, which used to be the same) me. I am desperately looking for this film :

which is apparently not even out yet, or not in DVD anyway. I ask amazon.com for "ten canoes" and it suggests two things: a dvd of Nine Lives and a book called Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own. I pictured myself going for the dvd solely because its title is grammatically similar to the one I was looking for, and buying the book because I need something canoe-related to do while watching the film-with-the-nearly-right-name.

I suppose artificially intelligent devices are not ready to take over the world just yet.

Blog name

2006-10-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've realized that I never explained where the title of my blog comes from. Besides, as I borrowed it from a novel without permission, maybe it could get me in trouble. I really don't know much about copyrights and ownership and all that. I'll add quotation marks to the title.

So, "from one lifetime to the next" comes from the first sentence of A Discovery of Strangers by Albertan writer Rudy Wiebe. The full sentence is "The land is so long, and the people travelling in it so few, the curious animals barely notice them from one lifetime to the next."

Wiebe's style is so fluid that you feel literally swept along. It is like a river of words. And like a river, it has depth, and rapids and falls. In this first sentence, there are at least three concepts borrowed from northern indigenous populations: the idea that the land is long -- and not wide --, as well as the animals' point of view, and the belief in several lifetimes.

To the Inuit, traditionally, elements are defined as being either linear or areal. Motionless objects or small expanses of land are areal because mentally you easily grasp their limits, and moving objects or vast expanses of land are linear because then what matters is the track the moving objects make. A vast territory is conceptualized as a sum of potential tracks and paths that link you to other objects. Therefore it is long.

As for the animal's viewpoint, it is simply the belief that there is no impervious boundary between earth and animals and human beings... so an animal has thoughts and a soul can travel from one species to the next, and it can do so from one lifetime to the next.

I don't know if it is clear or if I'm just carried away by my own enthusiasm!

Apollinaire et la guerre

2006-10-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

14 juin 1915

On ne peut rien dire
Rien de ce qui se passe
Mais on change de Secteur
Ah ! voyageur égaré
Pas de lettres
Mais l'espoir
Mais un journal
Le glaive antique de la Marseillaise de Rude
S'est changé en constellation
Il combat pour nous au ciel
Mais cela signifie surtout
Qu'il faut être de ce temps
Pas de glaive antique
Pas de Glaive
Mais l'Espoir

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 - 1918)

En haut c'est une photo du monument de la Butte de Chalmont, sculpté par Paul Landowski. On l'appelle communément "Les Fantômes". La photo est prise par beau temps, mais la pluie et le vent conviennent mieux à l'atmosphère du lieu.

Pour mieux comprendre le poème: la Marseillaise, de Rude.

Mailbox delivered books

2006-10-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

Today I received two books. It made my day.
I knew they would arrive today and I paid for them, but really, a new book is always like a Christmas gift to me. I open the mailbox, standing on tiptoe because it is the top row of mailboxes, which always makes me feel like a kid. And there it is: the ugly, battered cardboard parcel waiting for me. It always looks as if it was dragged through the whole country, but all I care about is that the books are safe inside. I start tearing at it on my way back up, in the elevator. Usually, by the fourth floor -- where my appartment is -- the cardboard is nearly in shreds. My attitude would make more sense with, say a long-awaited letter from a friend. But books I ordered ?

Add-on

2006-10-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

I re-read yesterday's post. It is... completely self-righteous! I won't erase it because I still mean what I said about the need for perspective, but I am aware that what each individual feels is personal and not always rational. I won't modify it either, because the process of calling oneself into question should be an end, not a means. So, mea culpa.

Much ado

2006-10-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

People seem to have an extremely low pain tolerance when it comes to relationships.
Apparently, a break-up is necessarily traumatic, and it can only go from sad at best to violent and unbearable at worst. And wherever you end up on that scale, building a true friendship and thinking of the separation as a positive experience is simply not something a human being is able to do - along with growing wings and flying away or breathing underwater.
The only two options, it seems, are either hating and despising your ex, or spending your time worshipping an icon of him/her, both until you are "ready to move on," weeks, months, or years afterwards.

My aim is not to dwell on the specifics of my experiences, but I am starting to wonder which planet I come from. To me things happen when they must, and everything is always good, in the end.
It can be hard for several days, the time it takes you to "readjust" yourself to a new situation, to question what you thought to be true. But really, every single experience makes you learn about yourself, about others, so what is it with all the bitterness ? Why do so many people think that forgiving an ex is either weird or courageous ? It is nothing but the most relieving thing, it frees you from pain and anxiety and fear. It is a favor you do to yourself.

I suppose all the people who tell me that's impossible sacralize either their relationship or themselves. Or maybe it is plain fear of being alone. But come on, death, illness, accidents, loss, violence: there is more than enough to worry about in this world, without waiting for years before "moving on" after a relationship. Life is not going to wait, is it ?

Someone even told me once I was emotionless (!). I think maybe I just come from Planet Perspective...

Ben Akeeagok

2006-10-11T04:54:00.000-07:00

The picture is staring at me.
But I know it isn’t. The subject who once (whenever) posed for that picture (wherever) is now somewhere living his life, unaware of my scrutiny/me.

I find that a photograph inescapably entails a dislocation of time and place. Somehow the continuum is shattered by representation, for it does feel like the subject will be looking forever into the lens, straight at me, when in fact I am the one looking. Such a reversal. And does not feeling something make that “something” real? I know that's a bit far-fetched, and the meditation could go on forever.
The truth behind it all is that the beholder that I am feels comforted in her loneliness by the delusional feeling of reciprocity the portrait affords. Self-deception is a mighty drug.

[The picture: Karim Rholem. Uvattinnit: le peuple du Grand Nord = The People of the Far North. Trans. Donald Smith and Brigitte Vincent-Smith. Montréal: Alain Stanké, 2001. 53.]

What the w-

2006-10-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

the wondering,

the wandering,

the wending,

the winding

Canoeda

2006-10-09T02:53:00.000-07:00

What do you do, when you live in France and you have a deep spiritual attachment to Canada? You hang on to such events as Canadian Thanksgiving. So tonight we are organizing a humble meal that will imitate - but not mimic - Thanksgiving in Canada. We are exiled from a country we never lived in! Not that France isn't my home, but Canada is a part of me, now. That part of me is certainly a biased, distorted Canada : after all the first and last time I went there was during a 9 day long canoe trip, and the only people I met were two rangers I came across in the middle of the woods while carrying a canoe on my head. Mosquitoes, loons, eagles and squirrels, lakes and rocks and woods are my Canada.

Et pis stolaire

2006-10-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

J'ai enfin retrouvé le mail que j'avais envoyé à un ami il y a quelques années. Comme je m'étais donné du mal, je décide - arbitrairement, mais c'est mon blog - qu'il a sa place ici. Trois quatrins en alexandrins, rimes en AABB, et question formée par les majuscules...

Si vous avez tenté de me faire plaisir,
Ou bien plus simplement provoquer un sourire;
Remerciements mon cher et félicitations,
Sans la moindre ironie je vous donne raison:

Toute peine envolée, et l'ego satisfait,
Une vive réponse j'ébauche d'un trait,
Car enfin je me sais quelque peu endettée
Et ne saurais ma foi ne point m'en acquitter.

Si donc au Mediéval ou tout autre commerce
Où l'on trouve à trinquer, sans aller jusqu'en Perse,
Il se peut, ce soir même, que vous me rejoigniez;
Relisez cette lettre et veuillez m'appeler.

Beware: impious utterance ahead

2006-10-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

*reading an essay in Imaginary Homelands*

*sigh*
You know, Salman Rushdie is one of the senior gods in my own secret personal religion - whose dogma is mainly the belief in the almightiness of wit.

Quand on parle du loup...

2006-10-08T02:59:00.000-07:00

Voici l'extrait d'un article paru dans un numéro spécial de L'Histoire, "Dieu au Moyen Age"... Attention, c'est passionant!!

--- Au XIIe siècle, comme l'a montré Jacques Le Goff, surgit une littérature populaire portée par l'expansion de la petite chevalerie. Parviennent à l'écrit des récits auparavant occultés, des mots jusque-là déshonnêtes. Ainsi se fixèrent les traces du "voyage" dans la culture populaire et dans la langue du Moyen Age classique, comme par exemple la fée Mélusine. Elles dessinent l'ombre des rituels anciens.
Dans la culture, l'empreinte la plus surprenante est la comptine Am stramgram, venue du nord-est de l'Europe. Elle était si évidente qu'elle a échappé aux inquisiteurs. On y entend pourtant le rythme saccadé du tambour chamanique :"Emstrang Gram, Bigà bigà ic calle Gram, Bure bure ic raede tan, Emstrang Gram", avec le cri final, "Mos!" Elle porte l'incantation qui fait venir le loup sorcier :"Toujours-fort Grain, Viens donc viens, j'appelle Grain, Surviens car je mande au brin, Toujours-fort Grain. A manger ! ". Le brin (tan), c'est la baguette des sorts à qui la tourneuse commande. La nourriture, c'est la voyante elle-même qui s'offre. Grain, en norois Gram ou ManaGarm, c'est "Grain de la Lune", le loup céleste, étoile du soir qui poursuit l'astre au crépuscule. L'ancêtre de notre loup des fabliaux, Isengrin, brutal et glouton.
La suite du loup, l'armée volante des morts, on la voyait passer dans les cieux d'orage : en France du Nord-Est, voici la mesnie Hellequin, "le parent de Helle", le loup; dans le Jura, la chasse d'Hérode, Herrad, "la chevauchée de l'Armée"; dans l'Ouest, la chasse Gallery, Wal-here, "l'armée du Wal". Croyances, mais aussi dangereux charivaris des mâchurés qui se grimaient de suie en criant "haro", "hourvari", Here, Horwere, "Armée", "Garde au Gris" !
Des traces du vieux vocabulaire du voyage s'attardaient dans la langue avant que la Renaissance ne la relativise. Le chasseur trollait, il allait çà et là en cherchant la trace, comme l'avide troll scandinave ou la voyante en chasse dans les airs ; trollier était aussi "charmer" et troille "illusion", magie de troll. L'anglais avait trollop/troll-hlaup, "saute-troll" qu'on traduit "une salope", la tourneuse qui appelle le loup pour qu'il la mange et fait d'hystériques galipettes. ---

(Jean-Pierre Poly. "'Am stram gram...' La chevauchée des chamanes." L'Histoire - Spécial : Dieu au Moyen Age 205 (Janvier 2006): 60-63.)

L'autre jour je disais qu'on n'a pas de contes dignes de ce nom, mais evidemment c'est faux. Ce qu'il nous manque, c'est l'habitude de conter et de re-conter. Du coup on oublie jusqu'à l'existence même de la mine d'histoires qui a animé l'imaginaire de nos "ancêtres" (ancêtres pour désigner très largement les hommes qui ont vécu ici avant nous... pas "nos ancêtres les gaulois"). Ce n'est pas une expression de nostalgie ou de défaitisme que de dire ça, après tout nous avons notre propre folklore aussi riche, je suis persuadée, que n'importe quel autre. Mais rien n'empêche de récupérer plus souvent des croyances/contes/fantaisies, quitte à les transformer. Après tout les histoires sont aussi malléables que de l'argile. Et puis il nous reste plus qu'on ne le pense: avec Am stram gram c'est frappant - tout le monde connait ce chant, tout le monde l'a rangé quelque part dans sa tête, et soudain on prend conscience que c'est quelque chose qui nous lie à un temps et à un savoir populaire "passé", et qui nous lie entre nous (nous tous qui partageons cette incantation).

En somme le pouvoir des mots n'est pas perdu (du tout), mais nous n'en avons plus conscience, et notre mémoire collective flanche, sans doute parce qu'on la met toute entière à contribution pour apprendre "quand le pape truc a excommunié le roi machin" (en quatrième), "quel général commandait les troupes lors de je ne sais quelle bataille" (en terminale), "comment se déroule la reproduction des écrevisses" (en cinquième).
Durant toute la scolarité, on nous mâche et prédigère des masses hétérogènes de détails qu'on oublie au fur et à mesure, la conséquence logique du gavage étant la régurgitation. Mais quand nous enseigne-t-on que chaque mot a une histoire qui peut nous en apprendre plus sur nous-même et sur notre façon de penser le monde que n'importe quel compilation de faits ? Jamais, ou alors bien plus tard en fac pour les spécialistes du langage (c'est à dire pas grand monde).
Donc comme des oies gavées, on n'apprend ni l'intérêt du débat d'idées ni celui de la curiosité intellectuelle. D'où le nombre d'étudiants qui, à force d'attendre le bec grand ouvert leur grain habituel, protestent et s'indignent dès qu'il est question de reflexion pure.

Alors que tout est là, à portée de mots.

Not the usual hobby

2006-10-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

Today is saturday, and I had no "agrégation" class planned, so I should have been doing homework all day, or at the very least, rested at home. Instead I spent it on campus in a seminar for Master students - not the usual hobby, mind you. I know I should postpone anything related to research for when I am a teacher in a year or so, but I can't help myself. A six-hour-long seminar on orientalism and postcolonialism called Tropes and territories, supervised by my "coach-teacher" Mrs Claire Omhovère, is simply not something I can ignore.
So I went, and it was... entrancing. Well, very challenging and very entrancing. And I realized that research is quite like mountain hiking: it's long, arduous, sometimes nearly unbearable and you wonder if you are ever going to make it to the top, but you invariably have the unbounded satisfaction to know that no one else could have done it for you.

Did I mention that I miss it very much?

Self-whatever

2006-10-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

Today a very good friend of mine casually asked if I am okay "because you have looked somewhat down lately." First I was quite puzzled, since I actually feel quite good, apart from, maybe, a general lack of sleep. But even then, it could be a lot worse. So that's what I replied of course. And my friend said "fine, then, if you're sure you're ok. It was just an impression I had but I guess I was wrong."

But then - and I know it's going to sound silly - I truly started wondering whether I did feel good, and after a few minutes of introspection I came to the rather satisfying conclusion that I do. But it also means that I am so self-doubting that I can't even help taking into account the general impressions of friends (however close they may be) about my own state of mind. And then, pouring it all out on my blog like it was some significant thought may very well mean that I am also completely self-centered!

Or maybe I just like compound words with "self-," because we don't have those in french.

La création du soleil et de la lune

2006-10-06T00:55:00.000-07:00

Donc voilà la petite histoire qui va avec cette image. C'est un des mythes de création de la lumière céleste chez les Inuit. Accord parental indispensable.

Il y a longtemps, un frère et sa soeur vivaient dans un grand village où il y avait une maison où l'on se rassemblait pour chanter et jouer, et chaque nuit la soeur et ses camarades de jeu s'amusaient dans cette maison. Alors que les lampes de la maison de jeu avaient été éteintes, quelqu'un entra et outragea la soeur. Elle ne put reconnaitre l'agresseur, mais elle noircit ses mains avec de la suie et lorsque l'agression se reproduisit, elle barbouilla de suie le dos de l'homme.
Quand on ralluma les lampes, elle vit que l'agresseur était son frère. En grande colère, elle affûta un couteau et se trancha les seins qu'elle lui offrit en disant: "Puisque tu sembles avoir du goût pour moi, mange." Le frère devint furieux, s'enfuit, en courant ici et là dans la pièce. Elle s'empara d'un morceau de bois (utilisé pour entretenir les lampes) qui brûlait vivement et se précipita hors de la maison. Le frère prit un autre morceau de bois, mais il chuta et sa lumière vacilla, ne continuant à luire que faiblement.
Petit à petit, le frère et la soeur s'élevèrent et continuèrent leur course dans le ciel, la soeur étant devenue Soleil et le frère Lune.

(Pour les habitués des références: Bordin, Guy. "A propos de la cosmogonie inuit." La Grande Oreille 22 (Dec. 2004) 31-36.)

Le soleil et la lune dans une course infinie! Et je viens de penser que la suie sur le dos du frère peut expliquer la face cachée de la lune... pourquoi on n'a pas des mythes comme ça, nous? "Dieu créa ceci", "Dieu créa cela".... pas franchement original. Pour nous, tout était organisé à l'avance, programmé, notre création du monde c'est de l'automatique. Chez les peuples "premiers" tout est accidentel: le monde, les animaux, la lumière, les hommes. Ils savent embrasser le chaos, eux!! Nous on pédale à contre-courant... c'est un autre style.

Bon évidemment c'est du traduit et c'est de l'écrit, donc ça transforme pas mal le produit en fin de chaîne, mais en l'occurence, le conditionnement sert à le rendre utilisable par les consommateurs ciblés: des occidentaux francophones... [hum, je me demande si le mélange anthropologie/ post-colonialisme/ marketing n'est pas pousser l'interdisciplinarité un peu TROP loin.]
Si un jour le temps est mis en vente, et je ne désespère pas, j'en achèterai pour faire des exercices de style à la Queneau avec des contes comme celui-là... J'en achèterai aussi pour faire de la cuisine, et du théatre. Mais c'est tout, parce que ça ne sera pas donné, et je ne veux pas acheter du temps pour travailler plus pour pouvoir en racheter plus. Après, si on m'en offre à Noël, je le garderai pour les voyages.