So the Tour de France started yesterday! The course looks exciting. I’ve only been to three or four towns that they are cycling through, but hell, what difference does it make? I’ve seen enough to know that France is fucking gorgeous.
I can’t tell you much more about that, because I’m not very invested in the race this year. I used to watch the Tour every year with my dad, who is an avid cyclist, and I still dream of going to watch one of the mountain races with him one day. But since Lance Armstrong quit, Tyler Hamilton got busted for drugs, Alberto Contador is a douche, and Jan Ullrich is long gone, I don’t know any of the names anymore, and I’m much less invested in the whole thing.
However, I do have a way to celebrate the occasion. And I will have more music when the whole thing is over.
If you’ve never seen the movie “The Triplets of Belleville,” you should go do so now.
Watch the trailer here (the synopsis is under the video):
This movie has everything: A dog, elderly women singing, a woman tuning the spokes of a bike wheel to get the best sound from them, heartache, the mafia, some tropical beach, the Tour de France, more heartache… It’s a really haunting movie. Incredible soundtrack and animation (for all I know about animation), but it gets dark, and there is very little dialogue. Honestly, it’s a little chilling. But… it’s set in Paris. It’s the city of lights! How depressing can it be?
Well… actually, it can be intensely depressing. Especially in some neighborhoods (ahem, quartiers).
I imagine it’s difficult for a director to pull of heart-wrenching and heart-warming simultaneously, but Sylvain Chomet does so.
He also teams up with well known French director and screenwriter Jacques Tati for “L’Illusioniste,” (umm, “The Illusionist”), which is also an impressive animated film with little dialogue. But maybe I’ll cover that later.
Right now there’s a debate going on on TESCTalk, our school’s community discussion board carried out via email, about gender, transphobia, and the origins and connotations of the word “mother,” especially in reference to Mother Earth.
The discussion blows my mind because it’s opening me up to many diverse thoughts that I don’t normally come into contact with. I’m enjoying sitting back and watching it unfold.
I would like to reply, but I have several reservations about doing so, and the only thing I would have to contribute is the following anecdote. Please note (if you are from Evergreen or have any invested interest in such a discussion) that I mean this in every positive way possible and only in good humor. It is going on my blog right now rather than the forum because I am worried that some people would not recognize the humor in it that I do. The timing may be wrong for the larger discussion. But it’s all I can think about and I have to add it somehow!
This is taken from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.”
REG: Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man–
STAN: Or woman.
REG: Why don’t you shut up about women, Stan. You’re putting us off.
STAN: Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.
FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN: I want to be one.
REG: What?
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It’s my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But… you can’t have babies.
LORETTA: Don’t you oppress me.
REG: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: crying
JUDITH: Here! I– I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What’s the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
I’m working on compiling all of the quotes (“gobbits” :) that are used in the movie “The History Boys.” This is one of my favorite all-time movies, and I highly recommend it to anyone, especially if you’re a girl (um, eye candy) or have a fascination with history, literature, poetry (the good, 19th century kind), music, or other similar academic topics. If you love spending time in libraries, have a fascination with Europe, are trying to get into college, secretly like taking tests and just love the word “exam” for some reason, or speak French, I encourage you to see “The History Boys” ASAP.
That said, If you haven’t seen the movie you might want to stop reading this blog post. It contains no spoilers, but I think you’d do better to experience these quotes in their context of the movie rather than this drier list. I have tried to include quotes, poems, excerpts from any text, and titles of songs. They mostly go chronologically through the movie.
I’ll keep adding to this and if you have suggestions please let me know!
________________________________
“Wish Me Luck” (song) — Gracie Fields
“The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.” – King Henry IV, Shakespeare
“All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.” — A.E. Housman
“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now…” — A.E. Housman
“Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me.” – Keats
“L’achordioniste” (song) — Orig. Edith Piaf
“Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
…
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word—the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.” — Philip Larkin, “MCMXIV”
“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” (song) — Orig. Ella Fitzgerald
“Now Voyager” (movie, 1942)
“The untold want, by life and land ne’er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.” — Walt Whitman, “Untold Want,” from “Leaves of Grass”
“The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window.” — W. H. Auden
“Breaking bread with the dead” — W.H. Auden (Full quote: “Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.”)
“England, you have been here tooo long,
And the songs you sing are the songs you sung
On a braver day. Now they are wrong.” – Stevie Smith, “Voices Against England in the Night”
“Brief Encounter” (movie, 1946)
“All literature is consolation.” — This was said by Dakin in the film, but my research has shown that it may have originated or been inspired by Boethius.
“Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” — Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
“The tree of man was never quiet:
Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.” – A.E. Housman, “On Wenlock Edge the Wood’s In Trouble”
“They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined — just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around:
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.
Young Hodge the drummer never knew –
Fresh from his Wessex home –
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.
Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.” — Thomas Hardy, “Drummer Hodge”
“That there’s some corner of a foreign field …
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;” — Rupert Brooke, “The Soldier”
“When I’m Cleaning Windows” (song) — George Thornby
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
“The world is everything that is the case” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
“The open road, the dusty highway … Travel, change, interest, excitement! Poop poop!” — The Toad, from “The Wind in the Willows,” by Kenneth Grahame
“Bye Bye Blackbird” (song) — Mort Dixon, 1926
“Tu comprendras ce tu pas donné.” — Rudge says this twice, and I still can’t find its original context. I’ll keep looking!
As part of my procrastination efforts, I have developed a list of things that I would like to see on Glee:
1) A Coldplay song.
2) Gay role models for Kurt. Helloooo, where are Rachel’s dads?!
3) Something substantial to happen with Will and Emma. Rather, nothing to happen with either of them and any potential significant others.
4) Deal with lesbianism. Kurt confronts his sexuality every day, but then we see Santana and Brittany making out and nothing actually goes down with that sitch?!
5) Also, along the same lines: one of the other guys in Glee (or secondary characters) needs to confront his confused sexuality (preferably Sam, because well, come on). He doesn’t need to be gay; he just needs to be confused.
6) Kurt and Blaine need to make out. Again, come on.
7) There needs to be a breakup. Preferably Rachel and Finn. Or Emma and Carl. Also, Rachel hasn’t threatened to quit Glee in a while; when’s that going to happen again?
8) Alright, don’t even get me started on Sue. Is she gay? Is she straight? She’s done some dudes on the show and maybe had some girl crushes? But really, let’s get serious on this shit. Here’s my ideal Plan (yes, with a capital P): There’s a really hot guest star. Ellen De(wait for it…)generes. Sue falls in love at first sight. Ellen is a talk show host and she has come to do an episode on the cheerleaders, but then finds out about the glee club. Sue immediately realizes she’s a threat– not because she’s recognizing the glee club but because (gasp!) Will clearly has a crush on her too. So Sue has to impress Ellen by liking the glee club, but also has to work her hardest to tear Ellen away from Will and still make Will’s life a living hell. In short, Sue is emotionally tormented like we’ve never seen her before. She writes in her journal constantly, wails to sad music alone in her dark office, et cetera.
Don’t tell me that’s far-fetched. That’s sitcom, darling.
9) More political involvement. I know this threatens the show’s reputation like no other, but seriously, these kids are growing up and they need a long-term life involvement besides vapid showgirl dreams.
(haha, that was so Sue.)
10) A new Glist.
11) Can we talk costumes? I don’t mean changing them or anything; I literally mean talking about them. Maybe I just wish this show was a little more like The Office, where there was just a camera on the everyday boring monotony. I’d like to see a little more behind the scenes. Who is the piano guy?! I want his story! What do all the musicians feel? Why aren’t they technically part of the club? Do they get any say in the music? How does the crew pick costumes? Where are all the dance rehearsals?
12) Perform outside of school. The mattress ad episode was great– I want more performances for places like nursing homes (they should sing for Sue’s sister!) or fundraisers or something.
13) If they aren’t spying for Sue anymore, why doesn’t she try to get her Cheerios off the glee club?
14) Fresh blood. I was pretty excited about that Asian girl at the beginning of season 2, but she got dragged off to Vocal Adrenaline. Where are these people?! That’s a pretty big school– there have got to be more than 12 voices for glee.
15) Where is the regular choir? Where are they performing? With what budget? Who’s the director? Why doesn’t Sue try to cut them? Why aren’t they the bottom rung of the social ladder instead of glee?
16) Guest stars. They need another GaGa episode and they need GaGa for it. Also, Josh Groban comes in and then doesn’t sing! What’s up with that? I’m thinking Julie Andrews, Ellen (as I’ve said), and maybe Sean Hayes of Will & Grace fame. Of course I would say that.
17) Homework! These kids are in high school, albeit a huge lame public school, not a challenging one like mine was, but still, where are their academic interests and struggles?
18) Rachel’s mom and Quinn’s baby. Where are they?
19) Animals. Let’s get some pets up in this show.
20) Vocal lessons? Don’t they ever struggle with their range, try to improve their voice, anything? I want to hear their voices crack. It sounds mean, but I just want some reality.
21) A song in a foreign language!
22) A wedding. I don’t know whose, but someone has got to tie the knot and someone has to get insanely jealous. Emma’s wedding didn’t happen, and someone’s should.
Honestly, all I’m saying is that the show has become kind of predictable. Frankly, I think this most recent episode with Gwyneth Paltrow was really weak. There was hardly any singing and hardly any acting, even from the kids who are usually most present!
Tonight’s procrastination is not like any other night of procrastination.
Ok, I kind of take that back. Most nights of serious procrastination end up about the same: It’s midnight, I’ve written about 300 words of a 2000-word paper, and all I can do is listen to the Beatles and cry.
I don’t know if that makes you want to feel sorry for me, but please don’t. Not only do I bring this upon myself, but I also don’t actually have any reasons to be crying.
But tonight seems different. I’ve gotten into a major Glee phase lately (maybe later we can go into details about what a “major phase” is), and I’m finally caught up on all the episodes… all except one. For some reason, the third episode of season 2 was the only video that I couldn’t find anywhere online, so that’s the one I skipped, moving on to the latest 3 episodes.
Then I downloaded all of the Glee music I could find from FrostWire.
Then I heard “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” sung by Glee’s Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer). It’s a version close to what Prudence did in “Across the Universe,” and I love it. The really strong bass line, the anguish in the progression of the lyrics… It’s all there. So I would have remembered Kurt singing it, and I didn’t. Of course it was from the one episode I missed.
I found it on YouTube, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. It will probably be removed soon, but I’d still encourage you to look it up.
I’m really not sure why Glee strikes me so much now. It’s pretty cheesy, it doesn’t really apply to me, all it does is make me wish I was back in high school with my jazz ensemble and that I could sing better. But lately it’s kind of what gets me out of bed. I know that’s an awful thing to say, but my class feels dead-end and inserting myself into fictional musical storylines just seems like what I need.
By now I managed to find episode 3 of the second season, and it might just be my favorite episode so far. It’s almost undoubtedly the most powerful episode ever of Glee, and it also is the one that hit most home for me. One reason is because of the Beatles song, another reason is because it had me choked up the whole second half, another is because it featured Kurt, my favorite Glee clubber, heavily, and it also reminded me most of some of my experiences in high school. You can’t sum up all of life’s questions and whether or not you have answers in one episode of a tv show, but I think it’s admirable that at least those issues are being brought up on national television.
And now maybe I’ll try to tackle some of them in my school paper.
I watched another French movie tonight. It wasn’t quite as much of a mind-fuck as the last one I mentioned, but it did have some delicious bits of intelligencia. For instance, one woman who was supposed to be a spiritual sort of guide for the main character, smoked a cigarette and the shadow of the cigarette in her fingers made a cross on her face. Delicious! The plot (which was a bit more Hollywood than the other movie I talked about) was so-so. The soundtrack was quite good (Patsy Cline, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Billy Joel) and so was the acting. My only complaint might be that the story was slightly predictable. Unlike most French films, it didn’t ever cause me to claw at my scalp in an attempt to understand it.
The movie is called C.R.A.Z.Y., if this has peaked your interest at all.
Hey, I found a new song with which I am in love.
This is by Mumford & Sons; it is called “Little Lion Man”
Weep for yourself, my man,
you’ll never be what is in your heart
weep little lion man,
you’re not as brave as you were at the start
rate yourself and rake yourself,
take all the courage you have left
wasted on fixing all the problems
that you made in your own headbut it was not your fault but mine
and it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
didn’t I, my dear?
didn’t I, my…tremble for yourself, my man,
you know that you have seen this all before
tremble little lion man,
you’ll never settle for any of your scores
your grace is wasted in your face,
your boldness stands alone among the wreck
learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neckbut it was not your fault but mine
and it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
didn’t I, my dear?
I wrote a paper in French! It’s really short, and it’s about a play/playwright of whom you’ve probably never heard, but I’m posting it anyway.
This is about the element of the absurd in Eugene Ionesco’s “La cancatrice chauve.”
At the end, there’s a sort of “blague” (in French, that’s like an inside joke) about the English, because at the beginning of the play the characters make a huge deal about being English. They’re French, obviously.
—-
Depuis que je suis au Paris et vois <<La cancatrice chauve>> en scène, je me demande, qiu dit les mensonges, et qui dit la vérité ? Par exemple, qui sonne à la porte quand Mme Smith a ouvert la porte trois fois ? Est-ce que c’est le pompier, ou est-ce que c’est personne ? Si l’histoire marche logicalement, Mme Smith ou le pompier doit mentir. C’est impossible (ou c’est absurd) pour l’histoire marcher sans des mensonges. Tous les vérités ne marchent pas ensembles.
Il y a trop des situations possibles, et on doit analyser chaque situation comme une problème des mathématiques.
Les constantes sont :
Mme Smith ouvre la porte trois fois,
Le pompier se présente le quatrième fois.
Les variables sont :
Mme Smith dit qu’il n’y était personne à la porte les prémières trois fois,
Le pompier dit qu’il était près de la porte pour trois quarts d’heure,
Il dit qu’il n’avez vu personne,
Il dit qu’il n’a pas sonné.
Si Mme Smith dit la vérité et, en actualité, elle n’a vu personne, c’est certain que le pompier a dit au moins qu’un mensonge : il n’était près de la porte depuis trois quarts d’heure, OU il a vu quelqu’un, OU il a sonné à la porte. Si Mme Smith ment, si elle a vu quelqu’un, le pompier aussie doit dire au moins qu’un mensonge.
Si les deux ne mentent pas, l’histoire ne march pas logicalement. L’absurd est difficile pour moi, parce que je veux que les histoires sont sensibles. Quand je dois faire les maths et élaborer beaucoup des situations possibles afin de le comprendre, ça me rend fou ! Mais enfin je crois que les personnages sont fous, pas moi. Ils sont anglais, non ?
A couple things:
First, I StumbledUpon this story, and loved it:
One day an old Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson. He said, “There are two wolves fighting inside all of us - the wolf of fear and hate, and the wolf of love and peace.”
The grandson listened, then looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Which one will win?”
The grandfather replied, “The one we feed.”
Second, this video merits the next 7 minutes you have free. It’s called “Haiti’s Enduring Creativity.” There are some amazing quotes about music in there, plus some great live performance clips and lots of great Haitian accents and dialects! (The video opens in a new window.)
Theme: Shocking Blue Green. Blog at WordPress.com.
