"Balm of hurt minds" - Angels at the table

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

(Shakespeare, Macbeth, 2.2.35-39).

A reminder from my lovely infirmiere

I envy her ability to sleep through the loudest noises. The main drawback about this place is that the bedroom is on the road side and the men emptying the rubbish bins do so at about 5.30 am. I had fought against my resulting tiredness, struggling with drowsiness during the day, in the hope that if I didn't take a nap I'd sleep through the noise the next morning. But it didn't work. Eventually I gave in to Montserrat's suggestion and got some (apparently non-addictive) sleeping tablets. While they haven't completely sloved the problem, I do tend to sleep better and feel more energetic through the day. I recommend them to other sleep-deprived, stubborn males. But some stubbornness is appropriate, for example, M rejected my idea that I might take half a tablet if I woke up at 5.30 am. But I got her to ask the doctor, and what do you know, he said that would be OK.

Second opinion

Another visit to a dentist; the bad news is I have to lose a tooth, the good news is that contrary to the opinion of a dentist in Paris, I don't have to lose a different tooth, nor will there have to be any ssurgery on my jaw - huge relief - and it underlines the the importance of getting a second opinion (and also of going to the dentist regularly).

Angels at the table



We then had a stroll round the Etoile shopping centre, and I foolishly suggested we look round a shop with a variety of things for the house. Montserrat pounced on some plates with angels (her favourite motif). At first it was just eight dinner plates and I said that might be a bit heavy - pas de problem - I was assured.

But then it became ten dinner plates and 16 small plates ! - requiring three strong bags. Of course I carried the two heaviest and I nearly cut off my fingers by the time we got back. But then she did tell me that the plates were almost one tenth of the price of ones she'd liked in Galerie Lafayette - which made the little angels considerably more appealing to me !

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Version Francaise

J'envie sa capacité de dormir malgré les bruits les plus forts. L'inconvénient principal de cet appartement consiste en ce que la chambre donne sur la rue et on entend les éboueurs à environ 5 h 30. Je m'étais battu contre la fatigue résultante, luttant avec la somnolence pendant le jour, dans l'espoir que si je n'ai pas fait un petit somme, je dormirais, malgré le bruit le matin suivant. Mais cela n'a pas marché.

Finalement, j'ai cédé à la suggestion de Montserrat et ai obtenu des somnifères (apparemment ne créant pas une dépendance). Bien que le resultat ne soit pas parfait, j'ai vraiment tendance à dormir mieux et me sentir plus énergique pendant le jour. Je les recommande à d'autres mâles têtus qui ont des problemes de sommeil. Mais une certaine obstination est appropriée, par exemple Montserrat a rejeté mon idée que je pourrais prendre la moitié d'un comprimé si je me réveille à 5 h 30. Mais le docteur m'a donné raison.

Nous nous promenions autour du centre commercial Étoile et j'ai sottement suggéré que nous entrions dans un magasin avec une variété de choses pour la maison. Montserrat a sauté sur quelques assiettes avec des anges (son motif favori). D'abord, c'était juste huit assiettes et j'ai suggéré qu'elles seraient un peu lourdes a transporter - "Pas de problème" - m'a t'elle assuré.

Du coup nous sommes revenus avec dix grandes et 16 petites assiettes ! - disposées dans trois grands sacs. Bien sûr j'ai porté les deux plus lourds qui m'ont presque coupé les doigts - c'est alors qu'elle m'a dit que les assiettes étaient presque un dixième du prix de celles qu'elle avait aimé dans Les Galeries Lafayette - ce qui m'a rendu les petits anges considérablement plus attirants !

Traduit avec l'assistance de www.reverso.net, Antidote Prisme's "correcteur" et d'un ange.

Media future - more control ?

The corporate drones have successfully taken over the Sundance festival, that attempt at a showcase for alternatives to Hollywood junk:




'At one point, ‘back in the day,” Sundance was an alternative to Hollywood and these values. But those days are long gone. Today, the pass to have is marked Industry, as buyers get the red carpet far more than actors.

While there are some strong documentaries, their prospects for distribution are not given much hope. Sundance director Geoffrey Gilmore is ready to blame the audience for that, not the risk-adverse media companies and theater owners who would rather promote avaricious Hollywood fare, “people might be suffering fatigue with films that are serious.”

While there still are serious films on important topics at Sundance on subjects like Abu Ghraib and Darfur, it seems like Gilmore and his team of programmers now believe in a new kind of activist filmmaking—less political, less ideological about what he calls “social evolution—a set of issues related to individual lifestyle. “ This is exactly the attitude of many in the movie biz who only want character driven storytelling, not contextualized long form dissenting argument or analysis . This logic and prejudice leads to suppressing more outspoken fare and softer movie-making driven by commercial values and appeal.'

http://www.newsdissector.com/blog/2007/01/22/reporting-from-the-sundance-festival

Now they aim to take over the new media too:


"... decisions are being made today about our country’s digital future by the biggest media companies, advertisers, technology manufacturers, lobbyists, and politicians. The U.S. public, sadly, has not been invited to participate, even though these decisions will affect everyone here and – since the United States is so dominant – around the rest of the world.

The corporate media know where they wish to take us. If they are successful, we are likely to live with a communications system that offers us dazzling entertainment and seeks to fulfill our every consumer desire. Yet it will not meaningfully contribute to improving our lives or our democracy. We run the risk of merely serving as observers while special interests determine America’s “digital destiny.”
...
Now they have their sights on the foremost digital prize: the Internet. A few wish to be lords of the digital domain, able to control – and greatly profit from – what should be our public communications highway. They hope to hijack what should be a public resource and treasure. They want to transform the Internet into a digital tollbooth that will send us gaming, gambling, more movies on demand, and interactive advertising. If they succeed, we will travel over a corporate-run piece of electronic real estate where we are numbered, digitally shadowed,and evaluated based on income, race, and class. All so we can be better around-the-clock consumers in virtual spaces and off-line (the real world). Media and telecommunications industry lobbyists are now using their practically unlimited power and checkbooks to have Congress, the White House, the courts, and the FCC help them transform the Internet from what a federal court termed in a landmark decision “the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed” into a system of corporate-controlled private 'pipes.' "

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/01/22/communications-at-the-crossroads

Death a la mode

Snejana Onopka

With the local paper, Nice Matin, one gets a magazine - Femina. I was appalled to see that their main fashion article had photos of very skinny models - despite recent reports such as this:

Model's Death from Anorexia Spurs Warnings

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 17, 2006 By Stephen M. Silverman Ana Carolina

The death Tuesday of anorexic model Ana Carolina Reston has those close to her hoping the fashion industry will finally wake up to the dangers of the eating disorder.

Reston, 21, a Brazilian model who weighed only 88 pounds at the time of her death, succumbed to a generalized infection caused by anorexia nervosa, officials at Sao Paulo's Servior Publico Hospital said.

Reston's mother, Miriam, told the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper she'd pleaded with her 5-ft., 8-in. daughter to eat more, the Associated Press reports. "She would say: 'Mom, please don't fight with me. There is nothing wrong with me, I'm fine.' "

Also speaking out is the mother of Reston's model boyfriend, Bruno Setti, 19. "Ana's death should serve as a wake-up call to modeling agencies about the danger of anorexia," Setti's mother Viviane said, according to the London Times. "There's nothing glamorous about an ending like hers."

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,26334,1560633,00.html

It's true that in general French women aren't fat (cf: "French women don't get fat" -
http://www.mireilleguiliano.com ) and many are very elegant (like Montserrat). But I have noticed that many women on French TV are tending more towards skinny than slim.

But then some French men are macho idiots, like the head of the French couture federation:

'The shape and size of fashion models cannot be regulated, the head of the French couture federation has said, after models deemed too skinny were reportedly banned from the catwalk in Spain [and were banned in Milan - so he's just wrong].

Didier Grumbach, president of the couture federation and chamber of haute couture, told AFP ... that "everyone would laugh" if France attempted to follow suit." '

What a pathetically stupid comment, used against so many sensible changes in the past.


'Excessively-thin models have been barred from a major Madrid fashion show later this month for fear they could send the wrong message to young Spanish girls, local media reported last week.

Madrid's regional government, which is co-financing the Pasarela Cibeles, has vetoed around a third of the models who took part in last year's show because they weigh too little.

"That worries me," Grumbach commented: "We are not going to regulate in tastes and colours." '

As if it were a mere question of taste and not the health and possible death of young women.

' "If Jean Paul Gaultier wants to take fat people for his catwalk shows, we are not going to stop him.'

Obviously this is not the general trend.

"When (John) Galliano puts on the catwalk people who are not pretty pretty, no one thinks to reproach him," he added.

"It's for the designer to decide what type of model he needs... that cannot be regulated," Grumbach added.'

Of course it can, idiot, and the Italians have done it.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/15/060915111446.lxkagac8.html

From a fashion insider:

"Dawn,
I am well aware that many people have very fast metabolisms and are unable to keep on weight, but I worked behind the scenes in the fashion industry for ten years, and sadly the "high metabolism" model is the exception not the rule. Most models maintain their thinness through drugs, exercise, cigarettes, and extreme dieting. Putting on a few pounds with medical help, if necessary, may allow the competition to be more fierce, but I know of MANY unpublicised deaths that have been swept under the rug. Eating disorders are not something that anyone generally broadcasts. And while I wouldn't say that the fashion industry is the only industry that perpetuates an unhealthy body ideal; but any industry who is glamorizing a certain image has to take a certain amount of responsibility for its message."

http://www.fashionologie.com/fashionologie/2006/12/a_license_to_mo.html

Top gear - Gorges du Verdon

I watched "Top Gear" highlights on BBCWorld this pm - I don't like their speed-freakery (Richard Hammond nearly paid with his life in a recent crash at about 300 mph !) - but they are quite imaginative and funny. Today they had the piece where Clarkson races two climbers; they go straight up the side of a gorge in France, while he drives a new Audi 60 miles on winding roads. The climb normally takes 6-7 hours, with star climber Leo Houlding leading, they did it in one hour 57 minutes ! Crazy young guys:



I was curious about where the spectacular gorge was. It turns out to be only about 50 miles from us ! What a great area this is.

Sun and drag

Friday and another great day in Nice - an afternoon on the Promenade des Anglais:



Wonderful sunset:



and a cabaret with drag artists at "Chez Fanny" - Toulouse-Lautrec would have loved it:

Eze - in Nietzsche's footseps

In the French Riviera, Nietzsche writes:

"Here, I grow in the sun as the plants grow." In a letter to Peter Gast he adds: "This splendid plenitude of light has a miraculous effect on me."



We had a lovely day in Eze, and, it being January, almost as much peace as Nietzsche must have found here, yet the weather was fine, though a bit more chilly than down on the coast, with romantic mist in the hills when we arrived. What views



no wonder Nietzsche liked it:



M wanted to follow Nietzsche's path all the way down to the beach



- I decided that about a third of the way down was quite enough for us not very fit people. Later I read that it's about one hour down and about one and half hours up - so we'd have risked getting a parking ticket as well as exhaustion. Some guy in a tee-shirt with "security" on it passed us - running - UP ! It was supposed to be a nice stroll for us - not an SAS entry test.

We went to the terrace bar of a smart hotel and had expensive drinks, but it was worth it for the views and having the upper terrace to ourselves.

Later we ate at the much more reasonable Auberge du Cheval Blanc. M. appreciated the old accordianist and, as in Venice, she was serenaded, while a little girl watched with the unabashed curiosity of kids:



More recent famous people - Bono and Edge both own homes on the beach - right next to each other. Also, Edge and his wife, Morleigh Steinberg, were married at the Exotic Gardens and stayed at the Chateau de Chevre d'Or in the village (in June 2002).

online in Nice

Online again, at last - but now living in Nice (see previous blog: http://now-in-paris.blogspot.com) and life is very good. I'm now living in an apartment near the port and the old town - with the lovely one.



In Paris I lived at number 14 in a road where Lenin lived for 6 months, here I live at number 14, in a road a few hundred yards from where Nietzsche lived during his first visit (of about 6) here. Nearby there is a hillside where the first fortified castle was built and which now has Nietzsche's Terrace, from which there are spectacular views of Nice and the sea.



The weather here is wonderful, blue skies most of the time and warm; apparently it's the warmest winter so far since 1950.

The city is in temporary chaos as work on the new tramway blocks many of the main roads and sqaures, but it should be very good when it's finished - catching up with Montpellier's already established tram system.