2013/05/04

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  Boulevard St-Laurent (dans le/in) Chinatown – 2013.05.02
  Scènes de Montréal – Montreal Scenes
  

  Canadian intestinal tract

  After having muzzled environmental scientists working for the federal government and after having cut funds to most scientific organisations not in tune with this government’s claim that global climate change is an act of God, not of humans, when not denying its very existence, this week they pushed it even further by saying that tar sands are a renewable ressource. These people are mad. And they run Canada.

  

  About to turn 63 and having to put up with this

  I am now apparently at the stage where I have to strenghten my left hand. For this I was told to buy one of those yellow rubber balls with a smiley printed on them. They didn’t have any at the dollar store but they had others for kids with pictures of video games space heroes or something like The Avengers. Could be a movie, for all I care. Anyways, there’s a limit to how much I’m willing to stoop to get better. They did however have a larger air-filled ball which still the same involves some stooping, but much less. Stoop for stoop, I’d rather be seen squeezing some weird orange than some comic book space traveler.

  

  

  Bang Bang You’re Dead

  When I was young, many kids had fake revolvers in which you inserted what I think were called caps. It was a roll of red paper tape on which, every inch or so, were inserted tiny spots of powder which made pow when you hit them. They advanced in the revolver like real bullets advance in a real revolver. With those fake ones, they played “cops and robbers” or “cowboys and indians” and for those who didn’t get it that they had been shot, the one holding the revolver would yell “Bang Bang you’re dead” to him (this was not a girl’s game ).

  Well, things have surely changed. In the U.S. at least. A few days ago, a five-year-old toddler shot and killed his two-years-old sister with a .22 rifle. Now, you’re going to say, wasn’t that irresponsible of his parents to have let such a lethal weapon unsecured? Wait… the rifle didn’t belong to his parents. It belonged to the kid. A birthday gift. In the U.S., I learned, it’s legal to give a working rifle to a toddler. They also have a wide range of weapons specially designed for children. Apparently, stupidity is also legal. I wonder if the kid’s father will attend the 70,000 strong NRA pow-wow held in Houston this week-end.

  What makes me fume is that all those concerned talk of an accidental death. There is nothing accidental in giving a toddler a real gun and his using it. It is all programmed in advance, in-waiting of the triggering factor.

  

  Rebirth

  For the International Workers Day, on May 1, Angela Merkel had nothing better to say that she is in favor of eliminating the minimum wage. Maggie would have been proud of her. She’s also pretty much in tune with Maggie in not giving a damn about its neighbours as long as her turf is blooming.

  

  Scandal?

  Mythical (cult) French pop-rock group Indochine has released this Spring a song about bullying in schools. They asked the very talented and young (and openly gay) Quebec film director Xavier Dolan (two times shown at Cannes Festival) to do a video for it. Technically, it measures up to his talent. However, it rocks the boat for the rest, so much that France has banned it from some of its airwaves. Some want to limit its viewing to those over 16 or 18 (hey, this is internet days, how in the hell do you do that?), and here our own Music channel also banned it. I viewed it on Youtube. On the first viewing, I thought that maybe it was a little bit too audicious. Then on second viewing, I passed from the first to the second degree and had a totally different opinion about it.

  This video is what you call a wedge issue, especially in France which recovers from a nasty period surrounding the gay marriage issue. There are those totally against it, and others who say it’s absolutely necessary. Of what I understand, on this side of the Atlantic, it’s much less wedgy, so to speak. Besides our French language music channel, of what I know which ain’t all, not many people here took the microphone to complain about the video.

  The canvas revolves around a high-end school where a young guy, never told if he is gay or not, is subjected to an incremental rise in being bullied, until being crucified in the end. It’s all symbolism of course, even if it is violent. All the while, others including the police wear bands over their eyes, playing dead. Some here say that this video covers any type of bullying, and that those usual slick public messages against bullying simply don’t work. I heard someone point out that while bleeding hearts criticize the video, others, by the hundreds of thousands, can see stuff like this either on location or in their own homes with kids of any age, yelling and foaming at the mouth, waiting for game number 2 of the series, crying for vengeance. In this latter case, it’s not at all symbolism.

  The more and more I watch this video, the more I appreciate it. And besides, of what I remember of my religious childhood, what happens in the final sequences of this video is a modernized copy-paste of what happened to someone else 2000 years ago, and no one seems to think it should not be told to children. At the very end, the crucified says “Merci” (Thank you). I may stretch things a bit but I equate this with the “Father, pardon them because they don’t know what they are doing”.

  Addendum: Damn censorships, financial or moral, especially that in this case only the U.S. is targeted.. One of these four might work in the US, if so please let me know. The last one is an upload of mine in my Xanga’s video section.

  http://youtu.be/9OB2kb-MoVU
  http://youtu.be/2U3gExpjknA
  http://youtu.be/Q9wtLJmjDAQ
  

  Indochine had many top hits in the eighties, then the group was deemed dead in the nineties before making a smashing comeback in the 2000s. In 1982, they released the song “L’Aventurier” (The Adventurer) which is about Bob Morane, a pocket book and then comic strip hero created by Belgian Henri Vernes and whose books have been read by just about every early-teen French-speaking boy on this planet, at least in my times. And Indochine’s lead singer and songwriter also, it seems. They gave a mega-concert some years ago at the beautiful Stade de France in the suburbs of Paris. This stadium was designed by Roger Taillbert, the same one who designed Montreal’s Olympic Stadium with its slanted tower.

  If the above video is blocked, this Xanganized one below should work. Gone the panoramic format but it works so that’s better than nothing.

  On June 6, 2006, the group celebrated its 25th anniversary by giving a once only concert at the Hanoi Opera House, which is apparently a replica of the Paris Opéra Garnier. They were accompanied by the Hanoi Symphonic Orchestra for most of the concert. Rock and Symphony orchestras were made to be together. The video is not good, the uploader saying he was limited to 100 Megs (I remember those days, frustrating) but the sound is good. And it’s not every day that you see an Asian Symphony getting all hell loose with their instruments.

  I was introduced to Indochine by Friend in the nineties, who was a fan of theirs.

  

  Dreams

  I wonder what this guy is dreaming about…

  
  Photo by Brother – circa late September 2012

  «On est peu de chose (We are not much facing destiny)» : Friend, after seeing the pic.

  He, like others from my family, were there daily for weeks, hoping I’d pull this through. Brother says he took the pics (there are six) to “ward off bad luck” (conjurer le sort).

  

  • 23:45
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