La Vie En Rose

a true biopic in the grand Hollywood tradition of the genre, La Vie En Rose tells the story of legendary French singer Edith Piaf, and gives the younger generations an opportunity to learn more about the amazing fate of this true French icon. Edith Piaf is considered by many to be a larger than life, not only because of her persona and accomplishments, but also because of the many tragedies that littered her life. From her impoverished childhood and abandonment by her mother, to her famous love-affair with (married) world champion-boxer Marcel Cerdan, the film manages to give a good overview of the many chapters of her life, without feeling too scholarly. Through it all, Marion Cotillard plays the role with touching honesty and an incredible depth of emotion. There is no show-offness on her part, and the evolution of Piaf as she gets sicker and sicker toward the end of her life is made totally believable (although the makeup was amazingly done as well) by her bravura performance. The emotional weight of the music scenes increases as the movie progresses and we learn about her life, which culminates in an exceptional scene of Piaf singing her most famous song Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien at the Olympia.
As often in this genre, the movie is far from perfect, at times felt longish, and some parts of her life are forgotten entirely (for example her role in the resistance during WWII) while others get a passing mention. Then again the point of a biopic isn't to cram everything about a person's life in 2h+, but to give the audience an idea of what that person stood for. And in that sense this movie is a success, with a particularly thrilling last 20 minutes.

sidetracked

with already agreed-upon plans to visit a museum with a friend on Sunday, all that was left to do was decide which one we'd go to. Having done most of the classics in the past few months, I decided yesterday to text her a meetup time and let her decide which establishment we would call on. Her pick was the Science Museum, which was great news as I hadn't been to one of those in a while, probably not since I've stopped playing with Lego (just to be clear: a long time ago). And I had great memories of the one in Hong-Kong, where the space section in particular was always one of my favorites.

Sunny skies, 21° weather. Winter in Sydney? Nope, July in London

nice use of the question mark. This is why I could never be a graphic designer. Stuff like this is probably kiddie stuff to them, brilliance to me

a revolutionnary new exhibit on families' eating habits, or museum cafeteria, I forget

first up, space. Since being a kid I've always loved stuff about space and the exploration of it, and this section contained a few interesting exhibits

like this replica of an Appolo lunar module

or this huge one of a satellite-launching rocket

speaking of satellites, this animation showed how many orbit the earth, including quite a few "dead" ones. Each little speck represents a satellite, and that's the earth in the middle (no really, it is, I swear)

one cool thing about science museums is they've always got random things lying around. Cars, planes, shampoo bottles...

"YAY!" Um, I mean, "sure, let's go to the 'Plastics and other polymers exhibit' "

then there was the Launchpad, a room filled with fun contraptions designed to teach kids about basic scientific phenomena. We thought that one can never know enough about science and decided to try out most of them

MY HAND, IT CONTROLS THE ELECTRICITY, MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

honestly, apart from the space room (and the Launchpad) most of the museum was pretty underwhelming, with exhibits that looked like they hadn't been updated since John Major was in power, so we chose to head to a slightly-less brainy place, the temple of consumerism: Harrod's

because the walk from the Science Museum to Harrod's is such a long one, we stopped on the way for a well-deserved snack break, where I was lucky enough to watch a few games of the insanely good Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal. Seriously, some of those shots were out of this world

and what says Wimbledon more than strawberries and cream?

finally at Harrod's, in the food hall

there is no such thing as too much mustard, and you can quote me on that

feeling slightly out of place in the handbag section

yes, that is indeed a £400 fanny pack, or, as I like to call it, the answer to the age-old question "will the wonders never cease?" I hovered in the area for a few minutes to see if anyone would buy it, but amazingly no one did

H&M after Harrod's, guess at which store I spent money?

making our way back through Hyde Park, checking out the lake

the duck-equivalent of a golddigger. This little guy would only come over to you if you held some food out in your hand. I swear, ducks are so cynical about human nature

the remnants of yesterday's Tour de France first stage. Still doesn't make anymore sense why they held it in London, but I guess Hyde Park can always use some more heavily-marketed events, it's really too peaceful as it is

the usual crowds and weird rants in Speaker's Corner

I guess a full day of sunshine would be too much to ask. Oh well, at least it didn't rain

intervention

despite being a big fan of non-rural rock festivals, I tried to resist Rock en Seine this year, I really did. When the programme initially came out I found a heap of reasons why I wouldn't go: I'd already seen Arcade Fire (ReS 2004), I'd heard the Shins were crap live, there weren't any interesting bands on the smaller stage, blablablabla. But hearing AF's (Antichrist Television Blues) in the HMV and 1h later having a seemingly innocuous messenger chat with a friend about his plans in Paris for that weekend made me throw away all pre-existing qualms and book a ticket for the big show. I'll just be going to the Friday part of the festival, since that's the day with the most artists I like, but it looks like I'l be making a fourth consecutive trip to the Parc National de St Cloud. And if the day is even half as much fun as last year's Broken Social Scene set was, it'll be more than worth it.

good manners

today I learned that here, if people are staying late at the office to finish some stuff up and dinner plans start getting made, when someone suggests opening a wine bottle it's not a joke, it's actually an invitation to go rummage through various drawers in order to find the perfect pair of scissors to open said bottle of wine. Also, it is pretty customary for people to order beer along with their takeaway order. And I'm not one to disoblige with tradition, hence:Excel had never seemed this fun before, let's just hope waking up tomorrow will feel as festive.

back to school

photo by bystrouska on flickr

just found out that Kevin Drew, frontman for the best band in the whole damn land Broken Social Scene, is playing a one-off gig at La Scala on September 5. As they say in Papua New Guinea: I.am.so.there.

Coincidentally, my song obsession of the past week is the first cut from the Drewster's forthcoming LP, Spirit if... The song is called Tbtf, listen to it below to find out what the cryptic title means (first Lover's Spit, now this-that Kevin, always the jokester)

get on with it

It is midnight on Sunday, temperature is currently at 14° in London (and not a very warm 14°), pretty much the same it was two days ago when I left for work with a backpack, my camera and an empty memory card. Here are some images of what happened in between:

The weather wasn't the only thing cold and depressing about that morning in London. The news being unfortunately full of car-bombs and renewed terror alerts, my decision to go away for a couple of days seemed like an even better idea

Sitting on the Gatwick Express, mentally preparing myself for two grueling days off work.

The small HMV store in the departure terminal was nice enough to offer £5 PSP movies, and I promptly obliged. "Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?"

"Hey, ho, let's go"

A nice view of Marseille from the plane. My uncle lives in the Luberon region, and I hadn't been there since he moved from Paris. My cousin now lives with him, and it was great to see her too.

Speaking of views, this was the one from my uncle's house. "Oh well, it'll have to do" thought I.

How to feel at home in 4.3 seconds.

A typical house in my uncle's village.

I got my first taste of the local lake, it was tremendously refreshing.

This little fella was chilling out in the lake, he didn't seem to mind my presence too much.

On Saturday morning I played my first game of tennis of the year, needless to say I was a tad rusty.

The lake was about 30 meters from the tennis courts. As Borat would say, "I liiike" (no, Borat jokes are still not played-out).

Apparently, when you leave your sunglasses and car keys on the roof of your car, you can look for them for 10 minutes in the trunk without figuring out where they are. Like mother, like son it seems.

La Tour D'Aigues' old castle, which burned during the revolution and was never rebuilt, although they renovated the old entrance, which dates from the mid-XVIth century.

Lakes are great and all, but if you're a water-enthusiast, the sea is where it's at. Although I'm partial to the Indian Ocean myself, the Mediterranean is pretty cool. Literally, since the water was at no more than 18° on that day. Which is where the 30° temperature comes in handy.

Not having been to this part of France before, it was nice to go on a small-scale pilgrimage of some of my dad's family history. This was the site of the house (Captain Obvious: now destroyed) where they lived for a year in the late 50s.

And the old Martigues cemetary, where ancestors on my (Italian) grandmother's side are buried

As always, the time to leave came all too soon, so back to Marseille it was. Which is where I learned that different countries have different items on their banned-from-airplane-cabins lists. In France, that includes spreads, which means I had to throw away a brand new mega-size jar of Nutella. It didn't put a damper on the weekend, but I did have to buy two packs of Regal'ad to make up for the emotional loss.

Oh, intermittently-functioning Tube system, I almost missed you.

life is just moments strung together

at 10pm, after a long day at work fueled by half a skimpy meal, a few small things can make a nice difference:

- as I hit the logoff button, a friend from work who I hadn't talked to since she finished her internship two weeks ago IMs and we catch up for a couple of minutes: good for the morale
- exiting the building, I go to the corner pub out of habit, but the place is mostly empty: good for the liver
- during my 1 min stay in the pub the bus doesn't come, in fact it pulls up to the stop just as I get back: good for the nerves

Tomorrow means having to be at work at 7:30am, but at 11am I'll be on my way to Gatwick, and then on a plane to the South of France to spend the weekend. If that's not something worth rejoicing about, I really don't know what is.

summer water

as has now been custom for the past few weeks, we went to play football with a few of the guys from the office after work. Oddly enough what was originally a contingent of 14 (based on yesterday's response to the email asking for participants) soon turned into 10 as the weather got uncooperative this afternoon, until finally it was 6 of us in the lobby at 6:40pm. Which isn't nearly enough to organize a football game, so we quickly found another bunch of guys who were playing near our usual Speaker's Corner area. As soon as we started our game a torrential downpour started, and we thus found ourselves playing in conditions reminiscent of mid-November Northern Scotland weather. Which is actually pretty damn fun, once you get past the first 5 minutes and your shirt has become like a soggy second skin. The other guys were pretty good too, so there was a bit of a challenge compared to our usual intra-office matchups. And you know how us guys like our competition. So there were plenty of sliding tackles, wild shots and even several made passes. The score was kept, but that wasn't really the point.
And when we finished playing, and the skies opened up for some much-deserved sunshine, a massive rainbow appeared in the Hyde Park horizon, as fitting an ending as ever could be. Well actually not technically an ending, since I then went back to work to finish some things up. But at least for 90 minutes all the tedious stuff was forgotten, just a bunch of grown-up kids in the park, playing footy in the rain.

watershed

we're barely halfway through the year but already it looks like it's gonna be a tremendous one for rock. I was recently ordering my iTunes library and noticed how many great albums I have listened to this annum (in no particular order):
The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Editors - An End Has A Start
Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
The National - Boxer
Explosions In The Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
Loney, Dear - Loney, Noir
Eluvium - Copia
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future
The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns And Fifteen Winters
Paramore - Riot!
Kings Of Leon - Because Of The Times

And that's before giving a thorough listen to Ryan Adams' and Interpol's latest efforts. Looks like the annual top ten's gonna be a tough one to make this year.

a couple of doorsteps away

while the UK does not have quite the level of coziness found in French vacation laws, the paid leave regimes are still more than decent here, especially compared to countries like the US or worse, Japan. I once met two Japanese girls on the train to Versailles who explained to me without any sort of resentment that they had six days off per year, so in effect their three-day weekend to "visit" Paris represented half of their yearly allotment. Yikes indeed. At my current job I get a yearly equivalent of a little less than 4 weeks (having joined mid-year I obviously will not get my full due in 2007), which is plenty enough in my present lifestyle.
Still, this summer will be the first time since graduation that I won't be taking some sort of extended vacation. For one I feel I'm still in a learning stage at work, and would rather soak up as much of it right now as I can. And secondly even should I have the potential for more time off, I don't have any interesting trip ideas anyway at least with travel-mates involved. I've traveled solo in the past, and it's fine, but I'd like the next sojourn abroad to be a shared experience, which means some measure of planning that wouldn't allow for a last minute decision. There might be a road trip of some sort next year, but for 2007 I will probably keep things close to these shores.
To that effect I've booked 3 weekends (an average of 3 days each) to spend in various locales and with different family members this summer:
- next week in the South at my uncle's, aka the official first beach outing of the year, aka AWESOME
- mid-August at my parents' in Brittany, aka I like change, but not too much
- late August at my grandma's in Brittany, aka crepes-r-us

These trips might not have too great of an effect on my British Airways mileage count but I wouldn't exchange them for a trip to a more tropical destination for anything. Sometimes the simple choice really is enough.

it's never over

after three months at my new job I managed yesterday to accomplish a feat I hadn't even come close to doing since starting work: go straight home on Friday night without stopping by the pub for "a quick one". Hanging out at the pub on Thursday (which I did do this week) and Friday has been a great way to get to know people at my company, and I've definitely been active on that front since joining the company. But yesterday I just felt like I needed an early exit, and try for some peace and quiet. So I left a little after 6, went home, called up a few friends/family, watched some Planet Earth while eating seedless grape and had an all-around most excellent evening. I love my new working environment and the people I've met, but I have to admit a mellow evening can be the best thing in the universe once in a while.

However because I hadn't finished all the stuff I wanted to do this week I had to go back for a few hours today. Just like going to the corner pub, clocking in on Saturday is a thing I've done pretty much every week since starting, mostly because when time comes to leave on Friday evening I always feel there's a few things I would like to finish up. And Saturdays offer up the perfect opportunity to do them, what with the central location (I'd be less motivated if the office were in Canary Wharf, that's for sure), an office that's uncharacteristically quiet and my actual bona fide excitement for the job. Oh, and on my desk I've got this:


Which means I can do this:
The real connoisseurs will recognize that this is, in fact, a French jar of Nutella, not one of the clearly inferior local products. Don't ask me why, but it just tastes better. And that's not just my arrogant French side talking, I've put other world experts to the test, and my claim won hands down, Pepsi challenge-style.

Anyway as scheduled I went into work around lunchtime today, but on my way there got a little sidetracked as I kept remembering stuff I had to buy. Thus did I end up making one of the most eclectic unplanned shopping errands in human history. Check out the booty:
- The Guardian
- guitar strings and a capo (now if I could actually learn to play the damn thing)
- a tennis racket
- a shirt from Gap
- a nice bottle of single malt whiskey for my dad (delivered to Paris so he can have it on his birthday)
- a DVD (Heat, bought for the third time)

All this in the span of about 45 minutes, now that's some pretty efficient, if random, buying.
After these numerous stops I finally made my way to mi segundo casa, armed with some oh-so delicious EAT soup (discovery of the month, for sure) and worked until 5:30pm, when I took the bus home like it was any other weekday. Now the only problem is that whenever I get home from work on the weekend I tend to be a little sapped of energy, if only mentally. I've got drinks in Soho semi-planned in a few hours, but I don't know if I'll make my way there yet. Which is where the Thursday night corner pub habit comes in handy: even if I stop going for some pints on Friday evenings as much as before, there's always the previous night. So I'm calling it now: Thursday's the new Friday.

first impressions

despite being pretty open-minded when it comes to my music tastes, classical music is never a genre I have ever delved into very much. I like a few random tracks (Das Rheingold's Vorspiel, the 1812 overture, Barber's Adagio For Strings), and from time to time I'll put on France Inter's classical music program as I get back from work, and leave it on for 10-15 minutes to unwind, but that's the extent of it. Part of it is due to an already crowded listening schedule, but it also might be due to hearing so much of it at home growing up that I might have soured on it at an early age. I do know that because of this, I will never be able to hear harpsichord and truly relax, as it will always be the epitome of cloying to me. And I've heard plenty of tracks where I totally couldn't relate to the melody, which is a non-negotiable breaking point for me.
But maybe what I need is to go see a performance to gain a better appreciation for the genre. After all I really got into rock once I started going to concerts, and I haven't looked back since. The problem is I tend to be lazy when it comes to pushing myself into entirely new cultural forms. I have the same issue with theater, where I tend to enjoy it when I go, but I would never think of it, while I could go to the movie theater on the smallest of whims. So until a friend forces me/provides support to go to a classical concert, I'll probably stay on the sidelines, wondering what all the fuss is about. That is, whenever I'm not busy listening to one of the 127 other music styles I try to keep up with in my leisure time.

such a scene

because Sunday night often ends up movie nite for me, I thought I'd post some scenes from my favorite movies. Mild spoilers included, naturally.

heartbreaking: Ben Chaplin gets a letter from his wife in The Thin Red Line


inspired: the dance scene in Bande A Part


cringe-worthy/hilarious: Jon Favreau being answering machine-challenged in Swingers (something most guys know all too well)


thrilling: the shootout scene in Heat, as shown in countless home-theater sections in electronics stores


deep (or not): the opening scene from Contact