Local Gods

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.

If we talk literature – et j’adore la littérature américaine – I think we all agree to say that we try to find the best writers… according to our tastes, opinions, style, and so on. Criterias.

Well, I love to read Faulkner and Jünger. I was amazed by Giono and Bouvier, and Chekhov makes me cry. Etc.

I think we live our tastes the same way. Painters. Architects. Photographs. Musicians,  whatever. I love Royksopp and Blonde Redhead because of their sound, and the way they compose music. I am fascinated by Puccini and Brahms. And I know exactly why.

I noticed that for sports, it’s different. In baseball, or football, people don’t like teams according to criterias, like style, energy or intelligence, or strategy.

People like the LOCAL team.

If you live in Boston, you support the Red Sox. I you live in Lille, like me, you support Le Losc, which is the local football team.

And I don’t understand why.

Lalo is a composer born in Lille. I should love his music, maybe, then ? Nope, sorry. I prefer Prokofiev.

I supppose that if I watched football I would watch closely the way they play, and THEN choose (criterias !) my best choice, the team I love, and I’ll buy tee-shirts, and flags to put here and there. Voilà !

Evidently, I suppose, in this case, that there’s another element. We like the local sports teams because… Efff… I don’t know. To make friends ? Nope. OK, I give up.

What about religion ?

There are many Gods to love, and many different specific religions. This is a bit complicated. But mainly, people act like in sports. They pray the local one. Why ? Wouldn’t it be more…

OK, I stop. Cheers !

Rainy

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“Keep 100 books”, or the impossible cure of Bibliopathie…

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.

Imagine one day you could fall in love with a human being afflicted with a strange funny disease I call Bibliopathie – which is of course the “too many books syndrome”. Noooo not to the point of bibliomania…

You love, OK. You sea the disease (or, err, you sea the symptoms, which are causing a mess in your eyes and spirit : THERE ARE BOOKS EVERYWHERE IN THIS PLACE !). You wanna help.

Good to you.

Talk to him (or to her, but let’s say it’s a “him”), and try to find a way to get rid of… some of them. Observe. He’ll think. He’ll say “You are sooo right”. He will give three books to friends… and buy four.

He will probably sell a whole lot of Napoleonic Wars books of eBay, and buy biographies of Bartok, Brahms and Debussy with the money. Plus this little pocket hardcover of Witches of Shup, which was so cute you know ?

So you invent the magic Lever : “Just think, and keep 100 books !”. Tadaa ! Easy !

He will agree, fascinated. And you will see him plonger dans cette idée stupéfiante et magique.

Great ! OK !

Then, he begins. These Faulkner ? I keep. These Thomas Bernhard ? I keep them all, right ? This bios (Losey, Kazan, Mike Oldfield, Marianne Faithfull and Churchill and Abraham Lincoln), well, I just need them. Etc… Of COURSE etc !

You just discovered this : there is no cure for bibliopathie. Just let go.

Buy new shelves.

 

Paris attack : who are the victims ?

Who are the victims ?

Une Américaine à Paris…

OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.

I was once in Paris with an American lady, who seemed constantly amazed by the pace of the city, the taste of la baguette (is French bread really that better ?), cheeses and saucisson, the light on the roofs of Paris, the open skies over La Seine and the way kids are running laughing playing together after school in a warm evening, after school, in le Parc Monceau.

There wasn’t a day without me saying “You knowwwww…”, the only way I found to tell her that, errr, we are cool, we don’t play the rules that much, we like to do nothing, the french wine is cheaper than in California, and we love the word “promenade”…

Woody Allen explained this a little in his movie Midnight in Paris. Owen Wilson was a bit like my friend : American, but fascinated by the douceur de vivre of France.

I would like to thank John Oliver for his little hilarious speech about France : http://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/vive-john-oliver

“France is going to endure. And I’ll tell you why. If you are in a war of culture and life style with France, good fucking luck!” – good example with the croquembouche “That is a French freedom tower!”.

Yum.

What’s up ? The Sky. So don’t #prayforparis : just come, breathe, venez visiter la France !