galanga 的博客

Reçu ce matin dans ma boîte mail:

Avis à tous les gourmands, La Poste émet un nouveau bloc de 10 timbres parfumés sur l'histoire du chocolat ! Un bloc à croquer,... ou presque !

Vous pouvez l'acheter ainsi que les autres timbres de La Poste (sauf TOM ) sur le site officiel.

Received this morning in my webmail box:

Notice to everyone who's got a sweet tooth, the [French] Post Office issues a new block of 10 scented stamps on the history of chocolate! A block to crunch, ... or almost!

You can buy these French stamps an others on the official website.

One of my favorite broadcast on French TV, "Die Nacht/La Nuit" [the night], is freely available as streaming on the web, until June 2th 2009.
But it is available only if you (and your computer) are in France, Germany, Belgium, and maybe Luxembourg.
Nevertheless, with an adequate French/German proxy, you should be able to watch that broadcast on the website Arte+7.
If you don't understand what you are watching, it is not a problem. It is normal. Just make your brain work and all the mighty will appear.
Surrealism is not died, Die Nacht/La Nuit is a good piece of evidence.

Die Nacht/La Nuit est l'une de mes émissions préférées à la télévision; elle passe sur Arte le dernier mardi de chaque mois vers 1h du mat'.
L'émission du mois de mai est disponible 24h/24h sur le site Arte+7 jusqu'au Mardi 2 Juin dans la nuit.

Le thème de l'émission est cette fois: "De l'art de la table". Elle présente des plans-séquences de repas chez les gens.

Ce numéro est génial. C'est même "extrèmement génial". C'est invraisemblable toutes les charactéristiques de notre société qui apparaissent ainsi, du status de la femme (toujours pas gagné), aux différences flagrantes entre les générations, de l'état de retraité, de l'état (déliquescent) de mariage, etc.

NE RATER PAS CELA, ça vaut vraiment la peine, même si (ou plutôt parce que) cela demande un effort intellectuel de la part du téléspectateur.

With this extension, select a word or text on a webpage, and you will have short Chinese or English translation from Dict.cn and optionally from BabelFish and/or Google, with pronunciation sounds of selected word (English or Chinese pinyin) and example sentences. It can also give Google translation in your preferred language (Korean, French, Finnish...).
Download / 下载 : Opera DictCN v0.6.4 (zip file) or directly : Opera DictCN v0.6.4 (script file, 236.7 Kb)
Please note I consider this as a BETA version (but it works fine on most webpages ; see Limitations below).

要是您看不太懂英文的话，您能去Opera 应用交流，在那里有用中文的说明（谢谢fengshi11/555 ! ).

Read more...

The Catholic Pope Rocky VI Benedict XVI was in France from 12 to 15 September. The French president Nikolââss Säarközy welcome him with great deference. With too much deference. France is today used to be a Laïc state (in case you don't know that : Sarkozy wants to destroy the French Laïcité. ). The french website @rret Sur Images (@SI, "pause on image"; it analyses media) had made a short video to show how many times Säarközy pronounced the words "TRES SAINT PERE" (literally : VERY HOLY FATHER), which is the official polite way (I guess) to call the chief of the Catholic Church in France. In the original speech, as it was initially written, there were only 5 "TRES SAINT PERE". In the official transcript of the speech, there are only 9 "TRES SAINT PERE". So, let's count how many there were in his real speech... (Please play the Dalymotion video below)

Le pape Benoît XVI était en France du 12 au 15 septembre. Notre cher Président Nikolââss Säarközy ("lumière du XXIème siècle" selon la terminologie officielle) l'a reçu soit disant en tant que chef d'état (Le Vatican), et assurément avec beaucoup de déférence. Mais la réalité est que notre Kaiser Säarközy l'a accueilli comme chef religieux : il suffit de savoir compter, comme le montre le montage vidéo réalisé par le site @rret sur images... Le canard Enchaîné a indiqué que le discours original ne contenait que 5 "TRES SAINT PERE". La retranscription officielle du discours, sur le site de l'Elysée, en contient 9. Voyons donc combien il y en a vraiment eu...

Please read the part 1 (China), part 2 (Korea) and the part 3 before, if you want to be able to understand this part of my small journey in Paris, in April 2008. The whole journey is on Google maps.

Part 4 : Java (Jawa)

The cinema is "Espace Saint-Michel" (website in French, Google Maps), an "art-et-essai" cinema like "Sept Parnassiens" (see part 1), settled right on the side of the place Saint-Michel; this place has a very beautiful fountain. But it is quite always invade by a noisy crowd (it's a good place for appointments).

So, the cinema "Espace Saint-Michel" only has two screens, but they often have exclusive or rare movies on screen. It seems to me that since a few years ago, they often have asian movies (but of course not modern kung-fu movies or blockbusters).

The tickets were old style, small and colorful, torn up by hand. The ticket buyer is often a student, he or she reads books in a small glass-cage. That day it was a nice asian young women. I remember the smile on her face.

The movie is "Opera Jawa", from the name of Java Island ("Jawa" is the indonesian spelling).


Title : "Opera Jawa" (french official website : http://www.operajawa-lefilm.com/)
Informations : Indonesian movie (with Austrian and French production) - musical drama - 2h - 2006
Director : Garin Nugroho
characteristics (from my point of view) :

• There's a lot of wonderful dance sequences, some of the most beautiful I ever seen. On this french website, you can see 4 teasers (the list is at bottom right).
  
• I really like the music : it's played with a traditional instrument called "gamelan" (see below).
  
• story : The BAD point. I didn't understand anything, except what stands in this sentence : "two men love a women". The story is based on a traditional "legend" (or is it a religion story ?), the Rāmāyaṇa, but I don't know that legend, and it's quite clear that the audience of that movie was expected to know it. But maybe even by knowing the legend, it's difficult... The movie lacks narrative links between the sequences.
  
• direction : very good, I like the camera movements and compositions.
  
• incredible dancers, full of strength and soft as a leaf at the same time.
  
• The things that keeps in my mind : the first sequence, with the human "big worm"; the "mother and son" scene; the red tissue in the garden.
  
• I want to watch that movie again (and again, I guess). I hope I can find it on DVD.
  
  

"Gamelan" is a kind of traditional orchestra, a musical ensemble with a lot of drums and percussions with melodic sounds. On the French "Cité de la musique" website (City of Music), you can download a program to play a gamelan off-line (click on the small green name of your operating system at the bottom) or you can play or let play online the gamelan (direct link, you need Shockwave Player). I find the interface isn't very good, you must try by yourself, to know what each button or slider does.


When I got out of the cinema, there were crowd in front of the door to enter for the following seance. I walk quietly to the RER (suburban railway) ; of course the main entrance was closed, then I went to the entry just in front of Notre-Dame de Paris. The sky was bright.

"China, Korea, Nutella and Java" : Voilà. On My Opera.