2013/07/12

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  Arbre humain – Jour de la Terre / Human tree – Day of the Earth
  Avenue du Parc / Parc Avenue — 2012.04.22
  Scènes de Montréal – Montreal Scenes
  

  Oh well…

  This was supposed to be my Xanga “swan song” post. Monday, they said that two more weeks have been added before turning the key into the lock. Oh well, if Monday was a sample of what’s in store until the end, with all those delays even for logging in, it’s just like it was already down so I think I’ll keep my planned course. Besides I must cater to that other thing mentioned next. Note: I saw Fauquet could upload. I checked and the function is back for me also.

  

  What’s to come

  I opened an account on WordPress. After weeks of brainstormings, I finally settled on a new username. It’s a portmanteau word made with yul which are the call letters of the Montreal international airport and gilberto which is the Spanish version of the name of someone I know quite well . So yulberto it will be. It can be pronounced literally in any of the three languages I speak (French, English and Spanish) although in French that “u” would sound better ‘à l’espagnole’, that is “ou”.

  I still have to figure out how that site works so the extra two weeks on Xanga are welcome. Of course, if Xanga remains free… oh never mind.

  

  Precision

  I should have explained my previous header. The Gay Pride week was only a pretext for this cartoon. What it underlines is the terrible state our streets and highways are in in Montreal, and as soon as winter ends, orange construction cones pop up everywhere, driving motorists (and cyclists and pedestrians) crazy, and this has been the case for some years and will be for many years to come. People are so fed up that the situation has turned into a running gag.

  

  Hope and despair, or the other way around

  It’s no secret that the so-called natural catastrophes that have been hitting this planet as of late are largely due to human activity, and often an irresponsible one at that. And this will continue because those who have the control, governments, big business, either deny their involvement in the problem or fail to act to straighten things up. The survival of humanity, a long term occurence, is superseded by a more immediate concern, profit. We have witnessed a nice example of this no later than a few days ago in Lac-Mégantic. All this is quite despairing.

  On the other hand, on an individual level, we see more and more people wanting to and doing their part in trying to give the planet a break. There are more and more of them, and they often regroup in organisations that at some point can become influential enough to, if not make the powerful change their course, at least spread the word in the population in general in such a way that after a critical mass has been attained, those people can force those poweful to finally act, by the magic of voting. This is often a dream more than anything else, but it still remains what we can call hope.

  In 2008, for the grand finale show of the Francofolies Festival, Diane Dufresne was asked to stage a show adressing those issues which can be put under the umbrella term of “environment”. The name of the show was Terre planète bleue (Earth Blue Planet) . That was before the new Place des Festivals was completed, so the main stage was located where it was before, on Ste-Catherine at the intersection of Jeanne-Mance. It is facing east, the Place des Arts complex is immediately to the left and the Gay Village (now with its overhanging pink balls) starts about 1 Km straight ahead from the stage. There seems to be people up to St-Laurent (in the video below) so my guess is a crowd of at least 150 000, probably more.

  This was the show’s description on the Francofolies site at the time (translated):

  Conceived, directed and hosted by the great Diane Dufresne , the closing show of the Francos will be themed around the environment. Surrounded among others by Richard Séguin, Daniel Lavoie, Michel Pagliaro and Richard Desjardins, the Quebec diva will sing the love of the Earth. Scattered with interventions – among which those of Jean Lemire ^[*] and Hubert Reeves ^[**] on video – this hymn to the planet was designed to unite creative energy to conscience awareness, scenic virtuosity to science, by the marriage of several artistic domains combining many cultures.

  During the whole show, large screens on the stage were displaying photos taken by the public, photos that Dufresne had priorily asked the public to send her, and based on the theme of the beauty of the planet. The photo’s author was displayed along with the pic.

  ^[*] Jean Lemire is the Québécois equivalent of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Biologist and cinematographer, he conducted four voyages in the Arctic and especially the Antarctic (one of 430 days) with the Sedna IV schooner. On April 18 2012, he left on a 1000-day mission onboard the Sedna IV to make the public discover the fragile beauty of our planet and its inhabitants. From the French Wikipedia for the Sedna IV: The Sedna IV is a steel three mast schooner reinforced for ice conditions, used for scientific oeanographic expeditions and the production of documentary film. [..] It was equipped in 2001 with a cinema studio, an editing room, and high definition filming equipment. The crew also uses high precision scientific equipment to collect, compile and analyse data from their research expeditions. The ship is also linked to Internet via satellite. The Sedna IV is based in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine, in the Gulf of St-Lawrence.

  ^[**] Hubert Reeves is a world renowned astrophysicst, author and vulgarizer. Born and having studied in Quebec, he now lives in France. Of his numerous books, the most famous has to be “Patience dans l’azur”, a pure marvel which has been translated in German, English, Brazilian, Catalan, Egyptian, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Persian and Portuguese. For Americans, think of a fatherly and smiling Carl Sagan. The name of the show comes from a poetic text written by Reeves, but I don’t know if it was before or for the show itself.

  For the segment of the Terre Planète Bleue show shown in the video, Diane was dressed like some survivor of an hypothetical future world war. The first song is Le monde est fou (The World is Mad [nuts, crazy, gone berserk? - hard to translate]) It is a song which she sang live and only once in 1981 and had never sung again before this concert, 27 years later. Because of its dark side, I would fit it in the ‘despair’ category. The second song is Hymne à la beauté du monde (Hymn to the beauty of the world) which I think I already posted about here and which in my view fits, if not in the ‘hope’ category, at least in the ‘reasons to hope’ one. When the song is over, she asks the public to sing with her, also thanking them for all the beautiful pics they had sent. In the end she says: But the world… it’s you. Magnificient. This latest song is known by anyone who speaks French in Québec.

  2008 – Terre Planète Bleue, downtown Montreal. Translated lyrics after the video:

  
  Diane Dufresne Le monde est fou 2008 par blitz3

  
  LE MONDE EST FOU (THE WORLD IS MAD) – circa 1980
  Lyrics : Luc Plamondon
  Music : Christian St-Roch

  The world is mad
  The world is mad
  Wher’we heading to? [3x]

  My feet are aching
  In my shoes
  I walked too much
  On the concrete

  [2x]
  Undress me
  Liberate me
  Take me with you

  Take me
  To run naked
  In the fields

  My eyes ache
  I can’t see anything
  The sun is far away
  Give me your hand

  Take me
  Far in the woods
  Or anywhere

  I have the feeling
  Of having reached
  The end of everything

  The world is mad
  The world is mad
  Where’we heading to?
  The world is mad

  I feel nausea
  I am earthsick
  I need water
  I need air

  Undress me
  Liberate me
  Take me
  To the middle of the sea

  I ache of me
  I ache of you
  I ache of us

  I ache of me
  I ache of you
  I ache of you all

  Let us stop !
  Let us stop !
  Let us stop…!

  HYMNE À LA BEAUTÉ DU MONDE (HYMN TO THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD) – 1973
  Lyrics : Luc Plamondon
  Music : Christian St-Roch

  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world

  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
  Each flower, each tree that we kill
  Comes back to kill us in turn

  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
  Let’s not kill the singing of the birds
  Let’s not kill the blue of the day

  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world

  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
  Earth’s last chance
  It’s now that it’s being played

  Let’s not kill the beauty of the world
  Let’s make of the Earth a large garden
  For those who will come after us
  After us

  I don’t know where he took it, but the guy who posted this video also posted the original [June 24] 1981 performance, with a much younger Diane Dufresne singing at the Fête Nationale concert which that year was held at the Old Port. He says they were 300 000 there, which I have all reasons to believe it was indeed the case since it was the year following the lost 1980 referendum on sovereignty. In those days, there was a giant bonfire that night (June 23 or 24), a custom which was abandoned in Montreal for some reason but which was reinstated recently (this year it was on the plaza at one end of the Olympic Stadium). In Quebec City and elsewhere in Quebec, the custom, which dates back to pagan times, was not interrupted (that I know of).

  What I find interesting in this video is Diane Dufresne herself. This was 1981, years before Madonna started to give ‘concept’ shows, and years before others like Lady Gaga were even born. Cone-shaped breasts were not a Madonna/Gaultier invention. As one critic says, name it, Diane Dufresne has done it before. Including her 1980 concert at the Montreal Forum, the first ever by a Québécois female singer in that temple or Anglo-Saxon music, and where she sang the whole 45-minute first part with one breast in the nude, emerging from a cloud of white ballons at the start of the show (9m33s in link) and after a long strip-tease in reverse, ended the show with that incredible pink crinoline dress and clownish doll costume for the singing of her two last songs, “Laissez passer les clowns” and yes, “Hymne à la beauté du monde”. A few months earlier, after almost two years in France, she had given at Le Palace Theater in Paris a show to celebrate Québec’s Fête Nationale and where she rocked the boat, and also had one nude breast and the other covered (?) with a blue Québec Lily. Said she (my words): I wanted to show them what a real Quebecer was.

  I won’t even mention the 1984 concert at the Olympic Stadium ending with her dressed as a pink Liberty and crossing the whole stadium on a pink runway , a runway which was the same never-ending trail of her dress when she entered the stadium in the opposite direction, with hundreds of hands unrolling and carrying that trail as she advanced towards the stage.

  Another thing I find interesting is that these two songs, dating as far back as the mid to late seventies, show that as per environmental awareness goes, we are not trailing behind the train, so to speak. Another facet of this ‘distinct society’.

  1981 – Fête Nationale, Old Port:

  
  Diane Dufresne Le monde est fou par blitz3

  Video of 1982 (‘Hollywood’ show) version here (at 6m30s) -> http://dai.ly/xqs7lw. It is of course totally different, as Dufresne always does from one show to the other.

  A wink to craziness – or hope, it’s the same – Stade Olympique: Magie Rose, 1984

  
  Diane Dufresne La vie en rose par blitz3

  Diane Dufresne is the greatest French-language singer alive. It’s my opinion, I share it, and that’s final. In the 20th century, she was only dwarfed by Édith Piaf. She is totally unique. But what makes her even more special is the also unique bond there is and has always been between her and her public. For most of her shows, which were all theme shows and of which most were once-only performances, she asked them to wear something related to the show. That’s why in the videos we see many of them with make-up or elaborate costumes. Hollywood, in 1982, saw them dressed as stars, 1984′s Magie Rose saw the Olympic stadium invaded by a sea of pink, Top Secret in 1986, incorporating kabuki (Japanese drama dance), saw the hall full of detectives, spies, sunglasses, and Japanese costumes galore. Around a decade ago, she gave a series of concerts called “Liberté conditionnelle”. A fine example of this special bond uniting both the artist and her public, and which has nothing to do with the groupie sort of thing, is expressed in this last video where she sings the last song of that show. She is aging. They are aging. I am aging. But for all of those like me who had the chance to meet her in person, it will remain a wonderful souvenir.

  Un souvenir heureux
  Est plus vrai bien souvent que le bonheur
  Plus vrai que tous les mots du fond du cœur
  L’oubli est un affreux voleur

  A happy souvenir
  Is quite often more real than happiness
  More real than all the words coming from the heart
  Forgetting is a dreadful thief

  
  Diane Dufresne – Les grands succès sur scène (4/4) par manuel_Champagne

  note: The song Top Secret from the eponym show (1986) is at 8m32s of same video.

  Below: «Hymne à la beauté du monde» – photos from the 1980 show at the Montreal Forum, which I took off my computer monitor with DVD of original captured on video for television show playing. Each pic has a larger version on click.

  
  

  That’s it.

  

  UPDATE:

  1- I found a much better quality photo of that 1973 record cover of Diane Dufresne topless in a Montreal back alley and which was the header of my June 29 post. I uploaded the new one.

  2- I have already created my WordPress account but for now there’s no post. It’s at http://yulberto.wordpress.com.

  

  UPDATE 14 JUILLET:

  Bonne Fête Nationale à tous les Français.

  

  • 17:06
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