Beirut captures my sentimentality

And im talking about the band, not the Lebanese capital. (which i'd love to visit some day)

Nantes is the second track on Beirut's second album The Flying Club Cup, a great new album. While I generally make a point of strongly disliking people who are my age or younger and more successful than me, I'll make an exception for Beirut's lead singer.

The music in this album is an eclectic- mixing folk, french chanson, brass band, even lounge sounds and other influences into a sweet lyrical and graceful expression. There are many french references in the music and title, which is kinda fun (for me anyway). The greatest song on the album is the sublime Mausoleum, but this is less of a album review and more of a personal note, so im not going to dive into any detail, so just trust me.... its good.

Nantes, the song makes no references to my city in its lyrics (its MY city now days), but just that title is enough to capture my attention, and the beauty of the song taps into my nostalgia for last year and my idle life as un etudiant etranger en france.

But the place (though beautiful and charming as it is) i miss a lot less than my friends i left.

An Ethnomusicological Moment

Did you know that the Chicken Dance of french origin? INDEED IT IS. It even has words too. In french, however, it is called the Duck Dance (Le Dance des Canards)

Regardez:

Back in beautiful, beautiful Embrun, France

Sometimes i really love france. Im leaving here in a week, unfortunately... but i'll be back at somepoint in the future.

un chat compositeur

Et Voila.

Il a l'air d'etre un grand musician.

kinda like those cat playing piano videos Alex Ross posted, but this one is my favorite.

So sarko won

No surprises here. lets just hope he's just not crazy. also some cars are apparently burning in the banlieu. its become a "fashon" here to burn cars, the french are not impressed anyway.

What else.

well, on the 14th im headed to Rome, then Napoli to see Pompeii and Herculanium, and then Paestum as well. Then on the 22nd im headed to see my sister who is living with a family in marocco. I'll be in marrakech, plus ou moins, for the week or so. Im really excited for my trip, and marocco in particular.

Im speaking french every day, and comfortable, generally, in doing so. its chiant, as i would say, that right now when im getting to the point of "fluency" that im soon going to leave.

Saw Rigoletto last night here in Nantes. Nice opera house. Have to say, didn’t get anything in terms of a coherent plot. The scenery didn’t exactly explain much to an opera novice like myself. It appeared at first to be set in a 17th century anatomy lecture hall, and never really changed too much after that. Sure there were fog machines and a boat in the end, but nothing ever really appeared different, they were always in that strange round room. Essentially it appeared like a series of tableaux of various contrasting melodramas without any kind of connection between it. Im not quite sure what happened, there was a kidnapping, and several people singing and then the lead lady dies laying down in the end by throwing her arms up and saying "bleaah!"

ok, the last bit i made up, but that’s what it seemed like, and there was definite arm moving going on. Anyway, the music was lovely, i want to get a CD of it, even if i couldn’t discern any kind of message or story. It was a pleasant exercise in abstracted contrasting histrionics.

And it reminded me of that euro-trash question on the recent meme i filled out.

Dolmen Music

Went to Karnag (carnac in french) today in brittany. This was my birthday present.

And exactly what i wanted.











































Sarah here is posing for a perspective of the size....

uh, more pictures. N'importe quoi.















Embrun, Jardins De Luxembourg (paris), Lyon, Annecy, Lyon, Paris

So i went to Lyon last weekend. Nice town, the weather was great. I didnt go inside but i liked the design of the contemporary remodel of the opera house. (above)

The roman ruins and the museum for them were the highlight of my time there. The art museum came in second. Two fine museums... even if the design of the museum of roman ruins was evocative of a parking structure. really, the interior looks like the ramps of a concrete car park stuffed with ancient statues and mosaics. The town itself is elegant, the old town even reminded me a little of prague.


Berlioz had this to say about lyon...














"I was born in the visage (face) of this great city" (unless dans has another meaning here im missing out on)

Recently I went to Normandy with my group of other American students in a big bus. It took a long while. It was interesting to go back to these places I hadn’t seen for 8 years or so, and I ended up crying like a baby, but it was a good experience.

The museum of peace near Caen is a poignant and moving chronology of the history leading up to, during and after WWII. Im not very good with the subject of WWII, I usually cant hold up in one piece for too long when theres a lot of discussion on the subject. Thankfully the museum was not nearly as depressing as it could have been, and it was really well done. There was a fascinating german propaganda film, which was made using stock footage, on the subject of D-day, which clearly tried to portray the germans as victorious. None of the footage was actually from Normandy, of course.

Anyway, in the museum there were many interesting war artifacts one in particular was a page from shostakovich’s 7th symphony. The symphony even accompanied a film on the subject of the invasion of lenningrad.

Later there was another film which I watched in the theatre there which was sort of an amalgamation of a lot of war and peace images. The construction of the berlin wall, the rebellion in the Czech republic, the tearing down of the berlin wall, the war in Vietnam, images of the peace movement, of peace accords etc, etc. Anyway they used film from Koyyanisqatsi and Naqqoisqatsi in the film, it was fun to see footage I knew… but accompanied to much less interesting music.

In this picture: mozart, bach, chopin, meyerbeer and whole bunch of now-obscure composers that obviously appealed to Charles Garnier. They're all golden and shiny too.

I am once again sick.

and i hate, with a burning passion, all things that are viral in this world.

Debussy is comforting me today. I have always loved those languid and unresolving augmented chords in Nuages, but they seem all the more poignant in times when everything sucks and your head hurts. I couldnt really do much but sit with a fever and listen to debussy....i couldnt read because my headache, so the music was all i had for comfort, but it worked well. I hear that my two favorites, the above mentioned mr. D and his friend mr. R, are not as favored here in france as they are elsewhere. I think the academics still prefer d'indy, franck and saint saens.


pretty sad. Also, there are no pianos here, making m. keiser very grouchy. Pianos make me a happier person, and i'd have to audition to get into the conservatory to take a class to get to a piano (which i dont want to do anyway) but i cant do that because id have to learn or relearn something on a non-existant piano, thus i'd have to have a piano to get a piano. No piano, so, life sucks.

correction: the line from berio's symphonia is "i must have said this before since i say it now" which is said, of course, two times. the first time false, the second time true. "well so there is an audience!" and what would post-modernism be if it didnt address the audience directly.

It is disappointing to report from this land of berlioz and boulez that the modernist "grande homme" mentality towards art and classical music is still very strong here. classical music is much higher here, much loftier, much worse off. I heard a new piece of "contemporary" music here recently. Some violin concerto, which could have easily been written in 1940. extended tonality, passages of atonality, vaguely romantic and absolutely, fucking academic. Cadenzas et al.

Absurd.

It was built, still under that old modernist assumption that a lack of repetition forces the audience do more thinking, that its much more high-minded to minimalize the repetition of note patterns, of which only the opposite is true. it was built with the idea that there was something more to be said in a 300 year old formula and a 200 year old orchestra.... There is not.

Im In nantes

... and blogger is currently in french. I spent the last two days on the coast in Bretagne and built a pretty sweet sandcastle. Pictures may come at some point, but probably not too soon. Had fun with friends. it was actually pretty strange, right now and earlier this week when i met up with the "nantais" group (read: american students) because i havent been surrounded by so much english since i left the states. I have a nice dorm room, single person with a bathroom, but internet access is not often available in the building and certainly not available in my room. It was very warm here the first few days. French food IS better -the French seem to have higher food standards. My laptop monitor has not faired so well on this trip, and i have to buy a seperate monitor to hook it up... meaning, i have no idea when i can post pictures again. France is a beautiful country and Nantes is quite attractive.

Improvisation on a broken piano string

I recorded this a while ago (obviously before i left) and it was because one of my favorite notes, a low A string broke on my piano. Well, when life gives you lemons.... I FINALLY got it hosted (no thanks to ourmedia, which seems to be having technical problems and a nasty habit of completely wasting my time. Anyway, it was fun to play, hopefully when i get back i can get it fixed. There are actually two broken strings. The A flat plays sustained without pedal. I tried to eploit this here as well- and the sonority has changed, but i doubt that comes though in my shitty recordings. Anyway, more pictures of france!


Chateau Querais, Les Hautes-Alpes and Aix again.

Aix-En-Provence et plus des images des les Hautes-Alpes

l

Aix's cathedral interior...




After Le corbusier?

Embrun's square and Cathedral

Embrun 2

Im currently re-discovering late beatles while touring and hiking around (and speaking french) This is the nerdiest thing to admit, ever, but the reason why i decided to learn french was because my favorite piano music was french, and written with elaborate french descriptions. "comme un cloche qui sonne lointain"err... something like that (like a bell that rings far away) and titles like "reflets dans l'eau" Ultimately, you could say, Debussy's and Ravels music drove me here, but that was the reason for starting, not continuing my studies.

Anyway, im currently debating on if i should just let this become a temporary travel blog. You, my 3 or 4 viewers wouldnt mind, right? if i just rambled on and posted a ton of pictures for a few weeks? Once i get settled in nantes normal programming should resume.

Embrun 1