I FINALLY (FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!) got Tim Exile's album, Listening Tree. Yeah, remember, I posted the video of Family Galaxy here. OK, I'll just post it again:
It's a very good album. First, the music is genius, worked out to the finest detail, and stuff. It's normal, it comes from Warp. The asynchronous loops of Family Galaxy keep driving me cray. You have to know that the guy creates his own instruments! By the way, a little demo of one of his lives with a joystick:
At the end of the record, I Saw The Weak Hand Fall is more ambient then IDM, and even reminds of classical music. (Time Exile only does electronic music but he's been classically trained - he can play violin.)
The lyrics too are interesting. If several titles address, sometimes in a clumsy way, critics towards consumer's society (such as Pay Tomorrow or Carouselle), others are so abstract you can associate anything with them and quickly identify. In the title-song Listening Tree, it gives:
The Listening Tree has a message for you:
All you need to be is here
You can then think of how you sometimes pressure yourself to be the best, the most handsome, the most intelligent, the purest, the most perfect although you may need to be all that.
His lyrics can sometimes as well be more cynical. Love songs say that a couple make one person, hippies as well but in a more global fashion. Exile starts the album with Don't Think We're One, ah ah ah!
The fact he writes interesting lyrics may come from the fact that he completed a degree in philosophy. (Maybe!)
In a nutshell, Tim Exile is not only a musician, he's also the best, the most handsome, the most intelligent, the purest, the most perfect...
I don't protest that often so I'm trying to make some noise about it...
Last September 4th, the Human Rights League launched a protest that many organisations took part of, against the "scapegoat politics" led by the government. These policies have by the way been heavily criticised around the world.
I hadn't found anybody to come with me so I want alone to Place de la République, without anything, and I started following the march. I saw the president of the Left Party Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the region's socialist president Jean-Paul Huchon, ex-first lady Danielle Mitterrand, green MP Noël Mamère, and so on. SO A-list.
At some point, I found Act-Up and I started walking with them. They even gave me posters and stuff. I could chant stuff such as "A racist State is a murderous State".
We still managed to gather between 77,000 and 100,000 people. It is, however, much less than the 900,000 to 3 million protesters against the retirement reform last Saturday.
- 05 October 2010 at 08:39
- Diary
I mean, that's true, how come the first gay homo sapiens thought "Hey, I desire him so much, I'll just take him this way"?! I know some other animals are gay as well but how come Man had the idea, the concept, the notion? And then, straight people do it that end as well, but they have the choice.
- 04 October 2010 at 21:25
- Diary
So, I found a flat in the end. I moved in on August, 31st, with help from my parents who parked very badly on the sidewalks.
I had to wash some places difficult to access.
(I was talking about the mezzanine, what did you imagine?)
It's very cute.
A neighbour left some furniture and a mattress in the court, which triggerred some angry reactions.
I got a futon and put on the red bedsheets.
Nevertheless, given the price I pay for this flat, it's a shame using these bedsheets alone. So my mission is to find a man. But I might have to go to the hairdresser first.
I'm against the principle of book burning...
...but some people look like they have it coming.
The French can't wait for 2012! After three years of Sarkozy, they can't take it anymore. But nobody knows who to give his seat to.
The prevalent theory until March was that he would get re-elected, but it was before the huge defeat his party suffered at the regional elections. Since then, the Left thinks it's got its chances and the Right doubts. The recent Woerth-Bettencourt scandal and then the security measures announced last July (the President decided to oust the Roma and take away the citizenship of French people "of foreign origin" who would try to kill a cop) just made things worse. Yet, it is still very possible that he wins.
And if he doesn't win, someone else from the Right could. Former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin presents himself as "the anti-Sarkozy", even if it means ignoring his own record regarding Roma. He's the one who made the speech of France's opposition to the Iraq war in 2003. If Sarkozy didn't run this time or fell at the first round of the election, Villepin could easily win against the Left as leader of the humanist Right, as Chirac did in 1995 with what he then called the "social breaking". Fillon as well could be a candidate.
It will be a very difficult one for the Left, who is in bad shape, despite the crisis of neoliberalism.
The legitimacy of the Socialist Party, who is strongly competed by the Greens, inside the Left is getting weaker, even though the regional elections seem to have stopped the votes hemorrhage. Nevertheless, the Greens are about to play a bet by choosing Eva Joly as their candidate. A bet because she's still quite unfamous, she's little of a speaker but she's got a very good CV: she's been an iron independent judge, she fought very hard against corruption and particularly Elf, everybody knows she's a honest and determined person. And after all of the scandals suffered by the main political parties, people will like that a lot. However, I don't think she'll get elected. I think she's absolutely great and I would be proud to have her for President but her political positions are unknown, she's got little experience in politics and then, after seeing her against right-wing commentator Eric Zemmour, I thought she wasn't capable of defending her convictions properly, and this can be very, very bad in a presidential debate.
Besides, the state of the economy is still very unstable, and a new crisis, with a tough plan de rigueur (economic drastic plan), would give wings to the radical Left. After the bank bailout, people started wondering about the economic system. It looks like they already forgot though, but if the crisis came again, despite the efforts we would have had to make, the economic situation would be a disaster, and radical Left Mélenchon could make it make to the second round of the Presidential election, because nobody would like a greek-style story: when socialist Prime Minister Papandreou, also President of the Socialist International, got elected, he realised the previous government hid the real accountacy and had to reveal the true state of greek finances and he got forced by his greedy European mates, as well as the IMF, to execute the most antisocial agenda ever applied in history!
Much will depend on the Socialist Party, its candidate and its program. Right now, it looks like it will either be current IMF director (!) Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Martine Aubry. DSK is given a winner in every poll, despite being at the head of the IMF, proving, to me, that the French don't really want the Left. DSK would also have a major asset: his part at the IMF give him international credibility and the French will be sure, or at least believe, that with him would come back the markets trust. Regarding Martine Aubry, it's quite unclear. She seems a risky choice for the Socialists as the Right has always accused her of damaging the French economy with her 35-hour week law. But indeed, if their rights are too much attacked under Sarkozy, the French may want someone who is attached to social rights. But even more important, is the strategy that the socialist candidate will commit to in the case of another economic meltdown. Greek-style plan or revolutionary plan? Will this question even be mentioned?
The biggest fear actually for 2012 is not the reelection of Sarkozy, it's that the real questions may get avoided: the economic crisis and the political crisis.
Far-right National Front also is going to play an important part, with Marine Le Pen who seems softer than father and current leader Jean-Marie Le Pen who shocked France by making it to the second round of the Presidential election in 2002. She might make a big score and reedit her father's 2002 success. In that case, it is very likely that she will make a better score on the second round than her father who had to compete with Chirac for the Presidency, whoever she will stand against, given the current gloomy political landscape. If Sarkozy faces her, the Left will have a hard time to vote for him. Likewise, if the Left faces her, quite a few right-wing voters might consider voting for her. We may then have to face a political crash.
2012 is going to be a very important year. Many important elections will happen, particularly in the USA, and France will probably have to make tough decisions, but once again, the real questions might not get discussed at all.
- 30 August 2010 at 17:20
- Diary
It's been a year and a half since I've last had a winter, because last year, I cheated, I left to South America and I could dodge it!
But yesterday, I felt the cold outside, the cold in my bed, the cold in my head!
It makes me anxious.
I should have gone to Spain.
In the comments of my post on gay porn's new generation, I was joking about how porn would get included in soap operas. I also said that soon you'd have to be a sexy beast as well as a good boyfriend, and even maybe an intellectual. Well, here, it's not a soap opera, but a small budget movie, that is not even finished, that tells the story of a gay guy in San Francisco and sometimes there's sex, and you can see everything! It's called I Want Your Love and you can already watch the scene on the movie's website. Go and have a look, it's worth it.
OK, you've seen it?
So, it's interesting, it starts like a mainstream movie, with two people talking and then they have sex, like a mainstream movie, except that you see everything. First, in many movies, you have people having sex, it's just that the actors are not really doing it. Then, there have already been movies in which actors were really fycking, like In The Realm of the Senses or Catherine Breillat's movies. So it's nothing new, but what I find strange, is that most movies are only erotic. The characters should be fully fucking, it's part of the story, and then it's a bit hypocritical these movies where you can see the actors are moaning of pleasure but not their genitals.
In this movie, you can feel the character's intimacy (it's actually a very strong acting performance), so much that you wonder whether you're watching an actual couple, or amateur porn. The whispered words, the laughters, the hairs stuck in the mouth after the blowjob, everything that happens when you fuck with someone and however never happens in porn, where everything is choregraphed and overacted. It's the first time I see that on screen and somehow it reassures me. I thought I was the only idiot making jokes during sex.
I was reading the comments on porn actor Colby Keller's blog and a reader was saying he felt depressed after watching the movie, because it reminded him how lonely he is as a long-term single. I wondered whethere, when we were looking for a one-night stand, are we not looking, as well, for some intimacy with someone? That may indeed be the limit between porn and romantic comedy. Rom-coms are supposed to make you dream and idealise the great love and stuff, whereas porn only excites you. So the best thing is to get both! But I think it's a bit worrying as well. A study claims that people addicted to rom-coms have a very bad love life. Why? Because they would idealise too much what they see in movies, and would then get let down in life. I guess then that if porn was added to rom-coms, where perfect people with perfect bodies have perfect sex in a perfect house, blah blah blah, we would reach an idealisation level even higher, so an unreachable ideal. I think that if I Want Your Love ever ends on a perfect love relationship where the guys have a simultaneous orgasm, I'm gonna feel very lonely myself.
Anyway, I find it very interesting and I starts reading all the articles on what is already called "cuddle porn". I would have called it, after romantic comedy, romantic sodomy.
The Woerth-Bettencourt affair made the French suspect corruption inside the government and, as the spiral of revelations wouldn't stop, Sarkozy couldn't find any better than blaming immigrants and, just to make sure he's made enough noise, the "French of foreign origin". So, now hundreds of Roma are being deported (even though they're European!), parents whose children miss school could be financially penalised and go to jail, but it is also said that french people of foreign origin would be stripped of the french nationality if they try to kill policemen. I don't see how that would increase security in France. Since then, the UN condemned Nicolas Sarkozy's policies, the international press condemned Nicolas Sarkozy's policies, even the Pope condemned Nicolas Sarkozy's policies!
The masks have fallen. Nicolas Sarkozy is ready to dangerously stir xenophobia in France, and to attack the basic principle of republican equality, just to get re-elected in the next presidential election. It's just revolting and I will be on Saturday September 4, on the Place de la République at 2pm to protest with the Human Rights League.
Sarkozy is still very low in the polls and since the huge defeat of his party last March for the regional elections, it now appears possible to beat him in the 2012 presidential election. Moreover, the economy is not going well and he's about to cut public spending and social rights, but not the "tax shield" (a law he implemented, that prevents very rich people from paying too much taxes). However, people could very well re-elect him if he keeps stirring tensions as he's doing right now. Yes, we found our George W. Bush, our own worst President of the Republic!
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