Leadbelly - Goodnight Irene

It's a slow start this morning after an evening celebrating a birthday with friends. We met a lovely couple from Halifax a few years back when they were subletting a flat upstairs for vacation and now, they've become like neighbors. They're semi-retired so only pass through Paris once a year but we always pick up things as though it was just last week.

The past year involved a number of personal challenges for our friends, including the death of their mother (he was an only child), cancer treatment, a detached retina and a broken hip. Just one of those events in a year would be a lot but the couple experienced all of those events. This year they came back to Paris for a birthday celebration. They booked a big table on top of the Montparnasse Tower and we all kicked off a new year for our friend. It was a good reminder for us to all enjoy the moment. Read the rest of this post...

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Kiss Them For Me

Siouxsie Sioux had the pleasure of tagging along with the Pistols on the infamous Bill Grundy Today show that brought the band into the media spotlight. That must have been a fun day.

This is Canada weekend for us. We met up with good friends visiting from Toronto last night and tonight, it's friends visiting from Halifax. All of this means way too much eating and not enough time for exercise, but hey, everyone needs a bit of fun. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Montreal public swing set makes music when you swing together

What a neat idea.  The thing makes music when you swing, and then different kinds of music if you get a lot of people cooperating and swinging together.  In America, we call this socialism.

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Los Saicos - Demolición

The Guardian had an article about Los Saicos yesterday. Some suggest they were the first punk band in the world, forming in the early 1960s in Peru. Perhaps. For me they sound like a harder version of The Trashmen. For me, I'm inclined to stick with Iggy Pop as the Godfather of punk but it's still fun hearing such a unique sound out of South America. Read the rest of this post...

Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut

Cats are still the top story over here for us after yet another visit to the vet. Sushi had a thyroid problem earlier this year but he seems to be on the mend following one week at the vet hospital and special treatment. In fact, he eats and eats like never before after dropping a few pounds at the start of the year.

More recently it's been our slightly older cat girl, Nasdaq. She had two tumors removed recently and the test results for one were quite serious. The old girl has been moving around slower than normal because of the surgery and now she is scheduled to start chemotherapy at the local vet hospital in one week.

Our vet believes that it was caught early enough and the surgery may have removed all of it but it's a very aggressive cancer, so we don't know for sure. Fingers (and paws) crossed that the week of chemo does the trick. Read the rest of this post...

The Pogues - Dirty Old Town

I've had my coffee and after a very long day of travel from Charlotte back to Paris, I'm finally home again. Even better, it's actually sunny and warm here though not miserably muggy as it was in Charlotte.

Compared to the 2008 DNC in Denver, Charlotte did a nice job of organizing. It was relatively easy to get around and everyone was friendly and helpful. The weather was extremely unpleasant (unless you like heat and disgustingly high humidity) but that happens at this time of the year. They had police support from all over the country (lots from Chicago) yet the coordination appeared to be pretty good. Unlike Denver, where you had to walk forever due to the security fortresses, Charlotte was a breeze.

On the downside, Charlotte isn't my kind of city and I found it to be like an overgrown suburb and with the soul and character of a suburb. Nothing really defines the city from what I could see and it was too generic for my liking. Austin, which is somewhat similar in size, has much more character in various neighborhoods, including close to downtown. But hey, there aren't many Austin-like cities out there.

Above and beyond just Charlotte, I was reminded again of the American fixation with police on the street. Compared to the UK or Europe, you see police everywhere in the US. One morning I saw five police cars on the highway during the 30 minute drive. I did wonder if this was South Carolina's local hospitality to the Democrats (our hotel was in SC) but that's another subject. During my ten hour drive from the south this summer in France, I saw one patrol car. For whatever reason, we seem to love seeing police everywhere in the US. Read the rest of this post...

Blondie from TOTP 1979

It's travel day for me as I fly over to Charlotte for the DNC. By the time I reach the hotel I'm going to be a zombie and then I'll be up at a ridiculous hour on Monday morning. I haven't been through Charlotte in maybe 15 years so am curious how it has changed.

Our visit to the vet yesterday was a success and cat girl is healing nicely after surgery. We both gasped a bit at the size of the incisions and really see why she's been so slow to move around the last few days. Read the rest of this post...

The Specials - Monkey Man & Blank Expression

This summer has been the cat summer for us. Sushi had to be treated for his hyper-thyroid before our summer vacation and our cat girl (Nasdaq) had surgery just after our vacation. She's now recovering but has the dreaded collar, not to mention bandages on her neck and back.

We have a checkup with the vet later today to see how the healing process is going but she really dislikes the collar and is still a bit unstable walking around with it on. I initially thought that she couldn't properly eat with it on so we took turns feeding her by hand. Then I walked into the room and saw her gorging herself on Sushi's food, the smelly soft food that he now has to eat because of yet another health issue.

The two cats are getting up there (14 and almost 15) so health issues are a fact of life at this point. Fortunately vet costs are a lot less expensive here than in the US but even so, the costs this year have been high. Fingers crossed for a healthy rest of the year. Read the rest of this post...

John Lennon - Instant Karma

Anyone want to take a guess how many Republicans will talk about the vengeful god who sent a storm yet again towards the GOP convention? Maybe god only is vengeful with Democrats, in their pea-sized brains.

Parisians will start rolling into town today, as the peak vacation season is mostly over. Vacation towns around the country will start shifting back to normal. Next week is likely to still be a slow working week for most, as they pick up the pieces from a few weeks away from the office. The first week of September is when people realize that the December holidays are not that far off and they need to get cracking to wrap everything up for the year.

This year though, there's bound to be plenty of stress due to the recession that is hovering overhead. There's a very high likelihood that the unemployment rate will head up as the year goes on, plus there's the general concern over the state of the eurozone. The markets have been calm this summer and the euro has even gained a few points against the dollar but September may be a different story. Read the rest of this post...

Squeeze - Cool for Cats

This week was cat week over here. Sushi needed a checkup after his recent intervention for his thyroid problem. The results look good so far so everyone is happy about that. Cat girl (Nasdaq) also needed a visit but she was not being cooperative. She bolted in the morning and went into the garden and kept running when I tried approaching her.

She's generally the easy one but the day we arrived back home, I had picked her up and was walking on the terrace when I slipped on algae that was growing on the stone. (This year has been wet, so the algae never went away.) During the fall, she scrambled as I fell into a chair. She then was convinced that after almost 15 years, I was now on a mission to throw her. (Cat logic is never very simple.)

I eventually rounded her up, squeezed her into the cat carrier and transported her across town to see the vet. Looks like the old girl has a small tumor on her neck so she's back for surgery on Tuesday. The potentially positive news is that she's lost around 2.5 pounds in the last year, so her diet does seem to be working some. Read the rest of this post...

Billy Stewart - Summertime

Though I still prefer the Zombies version a year earlier Billy Stewart's version is lots of fun.

Our plans to escape the heat yesterday never materialized, as the trains were all booked solid. At one point there were more than 600 kilometers of traffic jams in France due to summer travel, so everyone and their mother was on the road or rail. Instead, we melted a bit and eventually rounded up enough energy in the late afternoon to head across town to find some gardening stuff and then a gelato. It was simply too hot to muster up any more energy. The forecast for today is again 100F.

One of the worst parts of returning from summer vacation (besides not being on vacation) is realizing just how flavorless fruits and vegetables can be in the city. Though we have had some decent apricots and nectarines in town this year, figs, peppers, tomatoes don't even come close. My simple summer salad that includes red peppers and figs is still OK in Paris, but it was fantastic with the local food in the south.

I'm also missing local, fresh garlic that is everywhere in the south. The taste is much, much better than what is typically available in Paris. Oh well, there has to be a long weekend sometime soon when I can get back into the country. Read the rest of this post...

Lovin' Spoonful - Summer in the City

We're just getting settled in back home and until today, the weather has been typical Paris in August. A bit warm but not very hot. Everything changes today when we're due to hit 100F with more of the same tomorrow. Paris is a city that's not very familiar with hot weather (no A/C, for example) so when it's hot, you either look for a fan (which I prefer anyway) or you get the heck out of town if it's the weekend.

Since it's a Saturday, we're going to jump on the next train out of the city that gets us anywhere that might be a bit cooler. With a bit of luck we will find something that gets us to the seaside in about two hours that won't dent the wallet too much after a month away. Normandy, here we come. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Eva Cassidy's 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'

An amazing version if you've never heard it before.  Eva Cassidy was little known until after her death at 33 of skin cancer.  By random chance her version of this was played on the BBC and folks went wild. Then, I think this actual video was played on another BBC TV show, and her international fame was sealed. From what I can glean from Wikipedia, this video, below, was taken at Blues Alley in DC in January of 1996, the same year that she died (I believe it's the same video shown by the BBC).  Seriously, watch this video.

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T Rex - Get it on

Last weekend while running to catch the bus in London for Netroots UK, I looked d up and saw on a house near the bus stop. My friend lives a few blocks away, closer to Clapton station. One of the fun things about visiting cities like London (or Paris or any old city) is discovering the local history.

In my own neighborhood, we have a number of plaques for artists (Man Ray, Gauguin, Fujita, Kandinsky) who lived in the neighborhood. When Montmartre became too expensive, they all moved down here because it was cheap and new. (A detail that was incorrectly portrayed in Woody Allen's otherwise fantastic Midnight in Paris film.) For me it's always fun to look up and see the markers and read who lived where. Read the rest of this post...

Leadbelly - House of the Rising Sun

Over here in waterlogged Paris, signs of summer are here. No, not the weather,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif because it's especially lousy this season with rain, rain, rain and for an added bonus, more rain. It's the autoroute becoming a parking lot with Dutch, Belgian, British, Danish and other drivers. This weekend is the first big travel weekend of the year when Europe comes to spend summer holidays in France.

Our little cat boy is about one month away from his radio iodine treatment and is making a strong recovery. After losing a lot of weight from his sickness (hyperactive thyroid) he's now gained back about one pound and is eating with a passion. We've had to switch him over to soft food because we also discovered that he has painful cystitis. Our little 18 pound cat girl Nasdaq (who John busted last summer) is going crazy because she's eager to dive into his food rather than her diet food. Ahhh, cats. Read the rest of this post...

Barbecue Bob - It's a Funny Little Thing

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Music: James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy

Posting this for Fourth of July fun.

James Cagney was one of the great actors of the golden age of film, but not many know him as a singer and dancer. At both he was excellent.

Two videos: The first is the song-and-dance number "Yankee Doodle Boy" from the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) about the quintessential Broadway showman, George M. Cohan.

We could go on about Cohan and this movie, but won't. Just enjoy the song.

(Er, you have to click to enjoy; the property rights freaks won't allow embeds from any long scene of that film.)

Some context — The scene is a play within a play. Because Cohan was an actor, the movie contains many of his stage performances (as seen through the Hollywood lens). In this scene Cohan, played by Cagney, is an American jockey who goes to England to ride (and win) in a famous British horserace.

To spite the property rights freaks (in my totally minimalist and ineffective way), here's another version of the same song, by Spike Jones and his orchestra:



By the way, that "cocky American" theme was everywhere in that period. For a treat, watch A Yank at Oxford (1938).

Second video: At the end of the film, Cohan, now elderly, is invited to see the president — FDR, played by a very good impersonator. It's WWII, remember, and the president needs Cohan to do his Yankee-Doodle optimistic thing again.

In the scene, we learn they both love America, and we realize that the whole movie was Cohan's life story, as narrated to FDR. At the end, FDR gives Cohan/Cagney the "Congressional Medal of Honor" [but see here], and Cohan leaves the Oval Office, feeling pretty good.

Here's Cohan dancing down the staircase after the meeting. The limberness, lightness, of Cagney the dancer is a delight to watch:



For the full lead-up to this moment, play the whole scene. It's pretty good. (Can't embed; same control-freak reason.)

I know — the film is loaded with war fever. We'll talk about that later. Remember this was 1942, and we weren't winning yet.

Happy Fourth all. Long may we wave, all of us. (Except for the property rights freaks; they can rot.)

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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The Pogues - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

It's a sunny day here in London which is always a pleasant surprise. Apparently recent weather here has been as miserable as our recent weather back home in Paris. Yesterday's Netroots UK event was lots of fun and well done. I especially enjoyed the morning hands on tech sessions, but there were a lot of great sessions. The event wrapped up with a great speech from the young writer and activist, Owen Jones. He's young, but he's an old school firebrand and hell of a speaker. (Here's his new book, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class.) Read the rest of this post...

The Clash - London Calling

I'm over in London today for Netroots UK. It's a one day event in central London for progressives. I'll be heading over in a bit and am looking forward to meeting up with people and seeing what UK bloggers are doing and talking about. Healthcare is also a big issue these days in the UK as the Conservatives are scheming to unravel the current system and make it more like the disaster that we know of in the US. This is odd since despite the bashing, the NHS (the UK's national health care system) ranks substantially higher than the US system according to the WHO and it's not even close. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Damien Saez' rousing political anthem to Resistance: "Sons of France"

"Fils de France" (Sons of France) is one of the most powerful political anthems I've heard, and it's modern. Its composer, Damien Saez, is a man to watch. He's one of the best of this generation's singer-songwriters, and a powerful political voice.

I'll have more of his work in future posts.

"Fils de France" was written during the French 2002 presidential election, when Jean-Marie Le Pen (the far-far-right candidate) defeated the center-left candidate, Lionel Jospin, in the first round to enter the final round against Jacques Chirac, who won.

The victory by the racist Le Pen in reaching the second round shocked France and the world.

Couple that with the fact that 40% of French youth didn't vote — 40% — and you can see why Saez is upset. Saez is one of them, of that generation. The song opens with a reference to that lack of engagement by youth (a constant Saez theme).

Saez is always trying to engage the youth politically — something we should be doing here as well. In my own personal and most humble opinion, of course.

Notice please the emphasis on la Resistance (resistance!), with the raised fist. If you come here often, you know I'm a big fan of raising a ruckus, exerting your will, getting in the way of the machine — being effective, in other words.

But maybe that's just me and my "playing to win" fetish.

Listen and watch as Damien Saez performs "Fils de France" live at the Zenith in Paris in 2002. After that, a taste of the lyrics, to get you started.

Enjoy the music. Every time I listen, I can't get the song out of my head.



A taste of the lyrics:

Fils De France
Sons of France

Announcer: "40% of 18–25-year-olds didn't vote. Unimaginable!"

J'ai lu, les larmes aux yeux,
les nouvelles ce matin
    I read, with tears in my eyes,
    the news this morning.

20% pour l'horreur,
20% pour la peur.
    20% voted for horror
    20% voted for fear

Ivre d'inconscience,
tous, Fils de France.
    Drunk with unawareness,
    all of them, Sons of France.

Au pays des lumières,
amnésie suicidaire.
    In the land of the Enlightenment
    suicidal forgetfulness.

Non Non Non Non.

Nous sommes, nous sommes la Nation des Droits de l'Homme.
    We are the Nation of the Rights of Man [a document]
Nous sommes, nous sommes la Nation de la Tolérance.
    We are the nation of Tolerance.
Nous sommes, nous sommes la Nation des Lumières.
    We are the nation of the Enlightenment.
Nous sommes, nous sommes à l'heure de la Résistance.
    We are at the hour of Resistance.

Pour les rêves qu'on a fait, et pour ceux qu'on fera.
    For the dreams that we have done,
    and the dreaming we will do.
Pour le poing qu'on a levé, pour celui qu'on lèvera.
    For the fist that we have lifted,
    and the fist we're going to raise.
Pour un idéal, pour une utopie.
    For an ideal, for utopia.
Allons marchons ensemble enfants de la Patrie,
Fils de France.
    Let us march together, children of the country,
    Sons of France.

[The last is a quote from La Marseillaise, the French national anthem: "Allons enfants de la Patrie..."]

...

Y a ces ombres derrière nous, y a ces idées vendues,
    Behind us there are shadows,
    the traitors and their plots,
y a ces drapeaux qui flottent et des hymnes dessus,
    the banners that they fly,
    their anthems and their shouts,
et puis y a toi mon frère, oui toi qui n'y croit plus
    and then there is you, my brother,
    yes, you who have lost your faith
et puis y a nos prières et nos causes perdues.
    and then there are all our prayers
    and all lost causes too.

Honte a notre pays, honte à notre Patrie,
    Shame on our country, shame on us,
Honte à nous la jeunesse, honte à la tyrannie,
    Shame on us the young, shame on the tyranny,
Honte à notre pays, revoilà l'ennemi,
    Shame on our country; look, the old enemy,
Allons marchons ensemble enfants de la Patrie,
Fils de France.
    Let us march together, children of the country,
    Sons of France.

"The old enemy" is a revolutionary France–era reference to being surrounded by kings who wanted the French Republic to go away — threat as it was to their "divine right" doctrine. They put armies in the field to say so.

We know how that ended (they lost to the Republican army), but it always comes back, that battle. The "old enemy" is rule by elites, as Saez obviously knows. He's quite the rebel, one I really like.

Nous sommes à l'heure de la Resistance. We're at the hour of Resistance.

If you think, as I do, that we're at a global tipping point — true that in spades.

À la Resistance, fils du Monde — Resist, children of the world. It really will be your world soon enough.

Remembering Saez' words: "You who have lost your faith" — do not lose your faith yet.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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