Monday, August 28, 2006

The log lady diaries 2

Sometimes ideas, like men, jump up and say 'hello'.
They introduce themselves, these ideas, with words.
Are they words? These ideas speaks so strangely.

All that we see in this world is based on someone's ideas. Some ideas are destructive, some ideas are constructive.
Some ideas can arrive in the form of a dream.
I can say it again: Some ideas can arrive in the form of a dream.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

NASA News

This week a demotion, a new name and did we really go to the moon?

D'oh! Sad news for our fellow plutonians, and I know there are lot of them out there reading this blog, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. To be even consider a planet, under the new definition, one has to be "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit" which de facto restrict the membership in our solar system to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Orion is the new name of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (it's a bit more sexy than CEV) which will replace the aging space shuttle as the new manned spacecraft to get us back to the moon and beyond. The name was leaked to the press during a transmission between the International Space Station and Earth. Still I would have preferred a name like... Serenity...

Finally, 'cause I've been asked by a few people, no I didn't steal the original tapes (which are 4 time better quality than the pictures we know) of the moon landing for my own private collection. They're merely... lost/misplaced somewhere in the huge warehouses at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. And by the way for all those of you conspiracy theoricist, yes once and for all: we've been to the moon ;-)

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Jeff Buckley - Lover you should've come over



My favorite Jeff Buckley song. Effortlessly beautiful. Recorded live in Chicago (1995)

"...Sometimes a man gets carried away,
When he feels like he should be having his fun
Much too blind to see the damage he's done
Sometimes a man must awake to find that, really,
He has no-one..."

Monday, August 21, 2006

Sunday, August 20, 2006

The log lady diaries 1

I carry a log - yes. Is it funny to you?
It is not to me.
Behind all things are reasons. Reasons can even explain the absurd.
Do we have the time to learn the reasons behind the human being's varied behavior?
I think not. Some take the time. Are they called detectives?

Watch - and see what life teaches.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Scene on a New York subway train

Friday evening, 1 train downtown, on the seats face to me:

Girl #1 (listening to Ipod #1 really loud): (loud) hey that's,like, a new Ipod you have there!
Girl #2 (listening to Ipod #2 really loud): (loud)What?
Girl #1: (louder) What?
Girl #2: (louder) what??
Girl #1 (removing one earpiece, almost screaming): I said that's, like, a new Ipod right? (put the earpice back in her ear)
Girl #2: what?
Girl #1: what?

It's like, whatever, you know?

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Freedom fries no more...

So as it turns out, as of august 2nd, 2006, freedom fries and freedom toast are now called again french fries and french toast!

What was in my humble opionion the House of Representatives greatest achievement under the Bush administration has been turned into ashes... fried ashes that is.

Ohio Representative Bob Ney and North Carolina Representative Walter Jones (both republicans) devised back in 2003 (when tensions between the US and french governments were at their highest) the important legislation to change food products names in the House Cafeteria from french fries and french toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

Michigan Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers (a republican too) took it upon himself to overturn the legislature and to make fries and toast officialy french again.

A few years ago back in LA, an... agitated republican guy asked me if I wasn't pissed off that french fries and toasts had now to be called something else. I just replied him that if the only synonymous word they could find to replace "french" was "freedom"... well that was fine by me.

(by the way french fries are actually from Belgium and the first time I had french toast was in the US... interestingly enough french kissing is really french).

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Monday, August 14, 2006

So why do you create these strong female characters?


or why I love Joss Whedon.

A rabbit? A frakkin' rabbit???

So I discovered this week-end that my chinese zodiacal sign was "rabbit". I always thought (being born in 1976) that I was a dragon. See, dragon is cool. Rabbit, meh... not so much. On the other hand, being a rabbit might now explain a few things...

Friday, August 11, 2006

Trying to... curb... my.... enthusiasm...

... but I can't!!! "Curb your enthusiasm" the best comedy on american TV has just been renewed for a sixth season! More of Larry David's nevroses. Good. Pretty Good. Pretty, pretty good.

My summer '06 soundtrack

Mmmh... two of the best albums created these past few years released on the samed day (in the US), a coincidence? Probably, but a good one as I was desperately looking for my summer '06 soundtrack. Two great albums to listen to at different times of the day ("The Eraser" works better in the middle of the night when I can't seem to find sleep).

"The Eraser" is the first "solo" project from Radiohead leader Thom Yorke. "Solo" because most of the sample sounds and bits of electronic he used on it come from the Radiohead library that his regular bandmates created during the "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" sessions, kind of "Kid B" when you come to think of it. For once, Thom's voice is at the foreground, pure and beautiful as usual and sings of his usual demons and fears: "the fences that you cannot climb/the sentences that do not rhyme/in all that you can ever change/the one you're looking for/it gets you down" (Analyse). Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire is notable for being the place where the body of Dr David Kelly, a british weapon expert who opposed the Iraq war, was found in 2003. Apparently a suicide. Apparently. Yorke said that Harrowdown Hill is "the most angry song I've ever written in my life. [it] was kicking around during Hail to the Thief, but there was no way that was going to work with the band." Those expecting a Radiohead album might be disappointed. Instead, Thom invites us inside his personal bubble, a sometime nice, sometime scarry place.
Favorite tracks: Analyse, The Clock, Black Swan, Harrodown Hill and Cymbal Rush


"Black Holes & Revelations" is Muse's fourth album. Where the first three album were "pure" rock, Muse succesfully incorporates some electronic bits here and there, kind of their own "Kid B" in fact ;-p So, passed the first surprise, from the very political opening song Take a bow ("Corrupt, You're corrupt, Bring corruption to all that you touch/Hold, You behold, And beholden for all that you've done/And spin, Cast a spell, Cast a spell on the country you run/And risk, You will risk, You will risk all their lives and their souls" hmmm, I'm wondering who he's talking about... S or G?) to the very Prince-like Supermassive Blackhole, the inspiring Invicible, the western-like Knights of Cydonia and the radio-friendly Starlight, Matthew Bellamy (please stop the comparisons with Thom Yorke or Jeff Buckley, Muse's leader has definitely earned the right to not being compared to other people) covers a lot of different musical styles with his sometime powerful sometime touching voice and weaves once again a very epic in scope tapestry, an heroic rock album (heroic rock? heroick? I have to copyright that!). It's refreshing to see a band evolve as they do. I saw them live for their first concert in Paris back in 99 (they were really young and totally unknown at the time) but they totally rocked da house. Fast forward 7 years and four albums later on the other side of the Atlantic: last week in Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, a little bit less young, more experienced but still the same amazing energy on both old and new material (Butterfly and Hurricane is still one of the best piece of opera rock ever written and watching it live is a pure joy).
Favorite tracks: all!! (with a special mention for Map of the Problematique and Invincible)

Both albums need to be played a few times. After that, it gets really difficult to listen to something else... (hopefully not until my Summer '07 Soundtrack).

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Jeff Buckley - Dido's Lament



I thought I knew and had every Jeff Buckley songs and live perfomances but I just discovered this amazing cover 2 weeks ago!!!

This is a piece, for a soprano voice, from "Dido and Aeneas", an opera composed by Henry Purcell in 1681. Jeff performed it live at Meltdown festival, London, on july 1, 1995.

Dido's lament
Thy hand, belinda, darkness shades me.
On thy bosom let me rest.
More I would, but death invades me.
Death is now a welcome guest.

When I am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
No trouble in thy breast.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

Jeff had the voice of an angel. Hopefully, he's singing for them now.

The following are on notice this week


To make your own Stephen Colbert "on notice" board, go to: www.shipbrook.com/onnotice/

Tony

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

One year in the Big Apple!

Friday will mark my first year in NY, and it went like the city is, very fast.
I have to say I'm getting pretty addicted to this city.

Sure I miss Paris, my family and friends there, the (sometime rude) parisians and the smell of croissants being baked at 4 in the morning when I come back home.

Sure I miss LA and the friends that I left there. The beach life, being shirtless on the beach in january, Joshua Tree and the waves.

But overall I have to say that NY and I... we pretty much fell in love really fast (well except for the $1.5 billion you have to pay at the end of each month to live in your own private shoebox). This city is just... unique. You have to spend a lot of energy to keep the pace, but that's worth it.

My californian friends warned me that new-yorkers were rude and cold. Nothing further from the truth. I made a lot of great new friends here. And sure you can meet some assholes from time to time but so can you in Paris, LA or everywhere on planet Earth.

I started last week my new permanent position here in NY which is a good indication to me I'll spend the next 2-3 years in the neighbourhood. After that, who knows? ;-)

Thanks, NY, that was a great year.
Here's to many more :-)
Tony

Welcome to my world!

Hello/salut and welcome to my brand new blog!
If you're here it's either that:

a) I know you and I sent you the link

or

b) you were just browsing and found this by luck(?) (oh and btw you have too much time on your hands)

I started this blog because a lot of my friends back in France were asking me to describe what life's like in New York City. So I'll try my best to keep you up-to-date to the latest trends in the Big Apple lifestyle. I'll probably also use this space to review my favorite new albums, movies, restaurants or just for rants ;-p

Anyway, old (a) or new (b) friends, make yourself here at home, help yourself in the fridge, let me know what you think or just say hello and let's just enjoy the ride together!

Tony