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Name: Nick
Country: United States
State: Missouri
Metro: St. Joseph
Birthday: 1/23/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: You. Probably.
Expertise: Microfiche.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
Member Since:
9/14/2005
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| "In short, a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammelled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires of his revolver as the fancy takes him." ["New York Journal," April 23, 1900] | | |
| This weekend, I went to a ska festival in Strasbourg with my wonderful girlfriend.
I think I have mentioned this before, but ska is pretty popular over here. Well, of course there are loads of wannabe gangstas who blast bad American rap and even worse French rap out of cellphones with external speakers (don't know if those things have made it to the US yet, but they sure are chiant, a French word for really stinkin' annoying). And there is the usual vanilla pop music in both English and French. But the ska festival in Strasbourg is the musical event of the year. There must have been six or seven thousand people at the main stage for the final act.
One of the cool things i noticed during the festival is how "la chanson française" (traditional French music) influences contemporary French groups much the way blues and country continue to influence American acts. When the French bands bust out the accordeon, they are reaching into the past a bit. And, contrary to popular opinion, accordeon can be cool.
Another thing I noticed is that French bands know how to put on a stage show. One of the earlier bands really blew my mind. Four performers, all muliti-instrumentalists, changing instruments for each song. The highlight of the show was when an enormous tuba was lowered out of the sky and played by a really tiny girl in the band. Then the violinist mounted the tuba a rode it around the stage. You can't get entertainment like that in the US!
The final band was one of the most beloved French bands, Marcel et son orchestre. The purpose of the band: wear stupid clothes, sing silly songs and act sillw on stage while playing danceable fun music. Check 'em out on the net, the pictures are pretty hilarious.
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| An exerpt from "Politics and the English Language," for your enjoyment: "A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writesm will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is unavoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing open your mind and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you--even think you thoughts for you, to a certain extent--and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your message even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.... "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japanm can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." The whole essay is worth reading, and pleasantly short in the manner of the best English authors. And even though it was written sixty years ago, it is still remarkably relevant. | | |
| I know I haven't updated in a while, and I hope to have a really cool post coming in the next few days, but I ran across an article on WebMD that I totally agree with and just want to share it. It is about French food and why there are fewer obese people in France, even though everyone knows that the French are way more gourmand than Americans. http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/the-french-diet However, I should mention that there are downsides to the French diet. Red wine consumption can be good for you, but in excess it can lead to heart problems. Furthermore, alcoholism is a pretty big problem over here. I should also mention that while obesity is less of a problem here than in the US, the area of France where I live is known for it's ham and porc as well as for having lots of people with heart and cholestrol problems. Maybe a lame post, but interesting for someone who has seen how French people eat. | | |
| ...hung over? I went to a ska concert this weekend. One thing that I would have never expected myself to do...and it was awesome! One of the better things I have seen in my life. Many Americans think that French people can't dance. Okay, to be fair, Americans think Europeans can't dance and most peope in Europe think the French can't dance. But at the concert I discovered something. Foreign impressions of the French dancing prowess are based largely on the experience at discos. And while I have had rather limited experience with French discos, and less with American ones (remember, I am from Savannah, Missouri and went to college in Kirksville), I will go ahead and support the hypothesis. However, my experience this weekend totally blew that theory out of the water. I have never danced so hard, and I was accompanied by a good two or three hundred French guys and gals. And the quality of the music was good enough to balance out the quantity of terrible techno and bad American rap music that gets played at most discos over here. The concert was like a three-hour-long, indoor parade, without candy throwing and floats, including oddly dressed people, and adding dancing. People don't usually dance at parades where I'm from anyway. The music wasn't so much "ska" as I think of it (early to middle nineties music that all had the same beat) as much as marching band music adapted to rocking out. And rock out we did. My night left me with three conclusions: 1. Tubas are sweet. 2. Ska isn't dead, it's just French. 3. There is no rock star in the world that rivals a tuba player in sheer coolness. | | |
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