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Idle ramblings...

walks through nature, culture, and my mind

Under the sea...

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Spent the day at Océanopolis, the Brest aquarium,
a good place to stay warm in winter and dream a little.



Isn't she lovely?

Stalking the poppies...

Hi folks!

Sorry I've been away so long, but as Sam Beckett would have it, "You're on earth, there's no cure for that"...:devil:

Now, this time last year, I was knee deep in wild mushrooms.
No such luck this year, we're having a seriously dry Indian summer with gorgeous colors, fairly warm temperatures, and not a fungus in sight.
However, the Halloween fairy (if there is such a being) had a rather lovely surprise in store for me.

All summer, I've been meaning to grab some close ups of poppies. I love poppies - adore them, really.
But you know how it is. What with Murphy's law and all, a nice patch of poppies would catch me without a camera, and then, the rain would destroy them. All summer, I'd been stalking poppies with dramatic ill luck. When I emerged at last from under a pile of work to see the light of day and take a breather, I'd quite resigned myself to leaving the poppies until next summer...

And then, I took a walk on november 1st to see a whole field of poppies waiting for me by one of my favorite footpaths. Have a look! :yes:

Back from a wedding...

Was at a wedding this week-end.
A very good and long lost friend,
once more than a friend,
was marrying his son.
Beautiful.
Sun shining bright.
More old friends and memories.
Sweet music.
Live!
Lovely young couple,
so alive!

Here is the bride's bouquet...




Strange thing, though...
So many people after pictures,
jostling for a good angle,
even in church...

Sad really when you think.
Busy, busy, snapping away,
they weren't really there at all.
They will have photos to show for,
but no memories.

Harry Potter and I - episode 5 and grand finale!

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Now we’ve got to the end and book seven. Although I might later produce a few codas as films arrive, it will soon be all for the time being, bear with me a while yet.

This last volume is ace, and I’m not giving anything away — except for my favourite killer sentence: “If we die for them, I’ll kill you, Harry!” Now, that’s a real beauty! :cool:
Rowlings has done it and more, hats off to her. Depth and introspection, those kids really did grow up, and each one has developed a consistent personality. There’s drama and action, time for thought and humour - yes! The drawn out camping trip on the run is a bit too reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, specially with the ring at Frodo’s neck effect, but no matter. She’s tied it up, added more to the quest and tied that up too. You get some interesting surprises, learn a lot about wands, and she plays some magnificent tricks with them, a true magician of wand logic. Plus she gives you back some of what she’d taken away. A master storyteller. But believe me, it’s bagged for good and sealed tight, there won’t be a sequel. She’s made sure of that and can move on to other thing — or retire.
The lady has earned my respect - for what it’s worth.
Amazingly, though, when all is said and done, behind the fantastical window dressing as sorcery, the series is profoundly Christian in both ethics and symbolism. It is, after all, a tale of love, faith and hope, of generosity, sacrifice and redemption, of courage, death and rebirth, in which one can be saved turning the other cheek. And maybe, just maybe, beyond the hype and on top of the brilliant storytelling, the fact that it has roots so deep in the subconscious mind of our Western cultures is the hidden key to its success. Possibly even a lasting one. Strange though it may be, I haven’t read or heard a word about this. But then, “serious people” don’t read that sort of stuff... :wink:

Harry Potter and I - Variations on a theme

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Harry Potter and the Halfway fan


We’re slowly getting there...
Last June or thereabouts, I needed some books from Amazon and placed an order for HP7 while at it, to save me some mileage and petrol later on - where I live, finding an English copy is not that easily achieved. On the very night they released the flood on the world, kind Amazon sent me an e-mail: “You will be happy to know that your order has been sent...” A real fetishist would have kept it. Not I.
The book arrived and remained unread for nearly a month. I was repeatedly pestered by the kids around me: have you read it yet? Does he die? Does Dumbledore come back? Why don’t you read it? You’re not a real fan!
Now, that’s a serious accusation! According to them, I’m not, I can’t be, not really since I can sit on the last volume for weeks without opening it after all the suspense, since I only possess the last three volumes. Gave away both copies, French and English, of the first book, and read borrowed ones of the others. Does that stops me enjoying the series? Not in the least.
Like everybody else, I’ve waited for two years, since july 2005 and The Half-blood Prince, what’s another month? What’s the big hurry, anyway? Why do people have to get their hands on some kind of a pirate copy to put it on the web? Who wants to download a half baked PDF and read it on screen two weeks ahead of time? One-upmanship. Getting revenge on the secrecy hype. Getting it free... to buy it later anyway, a real fan’s got to have a hard copy to show off. Grab, grab, grab and devour. Rat race. Get to the end and get there first.
What do you win? What do you gain?
Waiting a bit is not going to change the ending. The book comes out eventually. Once there, it’s most unlikely to run away. Whatever happened to the notion of anticipated pleasure?
I like thinking about reading a book once I have it. Finding the appropriate moment to start it and get involved, to savour it in peace, in my own good time. Why rush ahead?
We all get to the same place in the end, and we know where that is. Those in too much of a hurry, always rushing to an end, are missing out on the landscape with their eyes fixed on the outcome. Missing out on the only life they’ve got. They might as well breathe once, and breathe their last. Call it a day and get there first.

Art by Maeva who has just published her first album :smile:
See Lucius full size on her site!

Intermission cont'd - Dustriders!

While HP7 is cooking,
while album is cooking,
just a peek at my famous dustbath...




Not very feminine perhaps...
Childhood memory...
Long story...
I'm hooked!







... Something the cat brought in!

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Let's put the HP series on hold for a moment.

Tea break.
Event.


I have this lady cat called Tygrane.
She's the fastest cat in the West (and the Wicked Witch too...).
Anything that moves fast, she's got to catch.
The faster, the better.

Yesterday morning, as usual, I let her out, got the coffee going, had a shower and dressed, came down for my coffee, then out to drink it outside in the sun. But I stopped short.

There was a present left for me on the doorstep.
A rather interesting one...






Pop goes the weasel...


I'm not the morbid sort, not one to take pictures of dead things, but there was a chance to get a closer look at a little creature it would take months to stalk and capture with a camera.

Still life (very still indeed).
Just look at the delicate little ear - it's a treat :smile:






And here's a close up of the paws...sweet, really.





Sad, but that's life. Thank you cat, anyway. :smile:

Harry Potter and I - episode 4: growing up

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HP inkjet

The volumes are now getting fatter, and better. She’s done it!
There is real plot intricacy, psychological depth, and even philosophy in books five and six. In fact, I’d say that if parents took the trouble to read HP and the Order of the Phoenix, they might be able to navigate their kids through the dreaded adolescence crisis by discussing Harry’s behaviour with them...
The film, I just saw. I was wondering how they would deal with so much material and so much important talk - not the best thing on screen, talk, specially when a major part of the audience is expecting action. Well, happy surprise, it is a most excellent visual transposition. What the book spells out through well managed iteration translates as atmosphere and intensity; good use has been made of know-it-all Hermione who explains to silly Ron what might escape those in the audience who haven’t read the book. Real narrative talent there.
And we’re back to something English, hurray! Suitably oppressive and claustrophobic. The headquarters of the Order in London is a masterpiece of Victorian gothic. Love it.
Umbridge, nasty incarnation or fascism, is a rather lovely surprise too. All pink and plump, all smiles, she revels in her own sadism, relishes it with perverse pleasure. Wonderful stuff. Somehow, consistently seeing the candy look on screen makes her seem even more poisonous. Snape the “occlumencer” is darker, more rigid and inscrutable than ever. Sirius less than black, totally loveable, a shame he had to die... Harry won’t be the only one to mourn and miss him.
There’s fireworks and pyrotechnics galore but the special effects here serve the story well. The kids look tired, worried, and well they may be... OK, so they twisted the story a bit, who cares? They always do. “Lost in translation” is the name of the game.
Don’t know what the next screen instalment will bring, we’ll see in due course, hope it matches this one for the book deserves it. There’s a lot of depth there too... and the plot has become so intricate that, well, I was wondering until very recently how Rowling would manage to tie it all up in one single volume. With what she has laid out in way of loose ends, it’s got to be a feat of narrative achievement.
Of HP and the Half-Blood Prince, I’ll just say that I won the “spoilers contest” by guessing correctly which important character would die and who the Half-Blood Prince of the title was before I read the book (no big deal for an old hand like me)... And that, contrary to many of my annoyed young friends, I am an absolute fan of the ending and Dumbledore’s funeral. That poor and lovely Dumb Old Door (excuse the pun, comes from reading too much Pratchett).

Harry Potter and I - Incidental music

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Boasting...

I happen to own, quite by accident, one of the first ten or so copies of volume five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, sold in France. For a laugh, I even kept the ticket from W.H. Smith.
What does it change? Except that it made a lot of kids around me very jealous at the time, nothing much. Furthermore, it doesn’t even show - not like it was printed on the book or anything. And besides, nobody remembers the date when the thing was released. An apocryphal distinction of sorts.
However, there lies a story.
Blissfully unaware that the (long awaited) latest instalment of Hot-cakes Potter was due out, I had come to Paris to meet and spend some time with one of “my” American authors and his wife who have become friends. A serious author, Pulitzer prize, no less. On this bright Sunday morning, he wanted to buy some books. He was learning French and needed my help and advice to choose a few items, easy enough to read but “real literature”, and maybe one or two collections of short stories in bilingual edition. So, off we go to W.H. Smith which is, he has been told, open on Sundays.
What he has not been told is that the shop only opens at 1.30. When we get there, it’s closed, but frightfully busy inside - a swarm of shop assistants are buzzing around huge pallets. As we’ve got some two hours to kill, we go for a walk in the Tuileries Gardens, have a sit and a chat while watching the kids play, and repair to W.H. Smith with some fifteen minutes to spare. They’re still busy in there, stacking books like mad. And there’s a sizeable queue, which surprises us... until we get a good look at what is now displayed in the window. Pottermania hadn’t quite reached its peak in France, not as far as the original version was concerned anyway, so it wasn’t a riot. But there were quite a few English and American families, with flocks of kids rearing to go.
It was too irresistible. The minute the shop opened, I grabbed a copy of HP5 and paid for it before I did anything else. Though I’m not much of a trophy hunter, this one, acquired by fluke, I treasure in a way for its added ironical value.

Harry Potter and I - episode three

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Out of the witches cauldron,
In translation lost and found


I really enjoyed book three. HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban is distinctly less juvenile. The plot thickens. And blackens. And I like Black (Sirius). p:
I like the fact that the content matures with the heroes (and readership). Rowling is keeping her promise, pulling it off, good for her.
Now, for the movie... The horror, the horror!
If the director has had an uncanny intuition of what was to transpire in the then unwritten book seven - so said Rowling in some interview - I doubt I’ll check on it and watch the film again.
Here is one I am glad to have seen dubbed in French. The translation from print to screen is pure cultural treason. The whole thing has gone so darn American that the wonderful English accents would have seemed totally out of place.
And that ridiculous bus ride that goes on for ever - a dragged out fairground attraction, a pointless waste of valuable narrative time... And, and, and... Well, to sum it all up, I have a distinct feeling that special effects have taken over and much content has been lost in the process. Read the book, folks, if you want to retrieve important plot bits that went missing.

Strangely enough, my reaction to the fourth instalment of the saga went the exact opposite way.
Mirror effect.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the book, I didn’t quite take to, found it rather boring in parts. Still, it’s useful to the developing plot which. Dropping it halfway through out of irritation would have been a mistake...
On the other hand, though still American in feeling, the film worked for me. Great visuals, and not only special effects but some spectacular photography. Not bored for a minute at the movie. Through necessary contraction, it concentrates the best and gets rid of the annoying puppy fat.
October 2008
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