In the big rock candy mountains

Today, I am going to tell you about country music. Because the more I hear of it, the more I like it, and I think it is dreadfully underrepresented in my home country. And my sister thought it was a good post idea. Thanks (again) Marion!

Country music comes from the Appalachian mountains, and is a mix of folk music brought by Irish and Scottish immigrants, and other types of music like blues, polka etc. It has been mocked a lot, in France, for being typically white and conservative, old fashioned and dated, a music played only by stinky slobs in lonely dirty bars, deserted by all their friends but their out-of-tune guitar (damn, reader, I think I should write a country song myself!! I write rimes without even noticing, and I am a lonely slob...).

You want to sell a country album in France? Call it blue-grass, it's your only chance, because people don't know what it means.

And yet, look at me! I thought the same way too, until I went to the movies and saw O'Brother, the Joel and Ethan Cohen movie, and I really loved the soundtrack, which I subsequently got as a present. And then, I realised country could also have the cumulated charm of rock music and folk music and gospel. I think movie soundtracks are actually doing a great deal for the rehabilitation of country music in Europe, for example the "Elizabethtown" soundtrack, which made me discover Eastmountainsouth, which is really nice to listen to once in a while, or the "Walk the line" soundtrack, of course, without which I would never ever have listened to anything by Johnny Cash, if not at gun point.

Besides, the lyrics are often quite funny, and you do have country music for all your moods: You can cry to Alison Krauss, relax to Eastmountainsouth, be happy to Keith Urban, all your moods can be suited by country music, provided you know which artist to listen to.

Which, sadly enough, is not my case: I researched country music on Wikipedia, to have a little something to tell you which would not be just my opinion, and I found out that I did not know more than 2 of the listed artists. Isn't that sad, reader? How about you give me your suggestions? Maybe you're a country music fan, as well as a hockey-lover, what do I know??

Here are two links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhsO7LnwyBI

This one is a music video to a Keith Urban song. I personally think the video is lousy, but I really like the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SpD0TJZYas

This one is to an Eastmountainsouth song. The images have got nothing whatsoever to do with country music, it is a fan video for Alias, the TV serial. I enjoyed the pictures ;) but only the soundtrack is relevant to this article...

Slováci ožijú

Dobre Djienn, reader! (that's a rough phonetic translation of the Slovak Hello, please do not use it in public, as it might as well mean something bad, if you pronounce it the wrong way, which I very likely do... )

I had a great time in Bratislava, which is a really pretty city!! I was a little worried about how it would look like, and if we were going to have enough things to see with my sister, but I really had a nice and interesting week end!!

The churches and squares are really beautiful, the people very welcoming, and we were so lucky as to have very good weather too, which was nice. We could stay outdoors all day, and it really felt like holidays. We walked all through the historical center of the city, and I was quite surprised at the great number of tourists over there, I mean, I did not think that Slovakia would be such a big touristic destination... But it's a very nice city, it's really worth visiting, especially for a flash week-end like that.

I liked the funny statues of people all over town, as well as the churches and buildings, freshly painted! It was a little more recent than I thought, as well, apart from the old medieval castle (Pressburg) on top of the hill in the center of town... the other buildings did not look mediaeval at all, more like Graz, somehow, or Vienna, but in more modest, maybe, and I liked the atmosphere better. But then again, I was there just for fun, so maybe this made a big difference.

It was also quite strange to see the big contrast between the nice and flowery city centre and the run down streets in some places, with broken windows and old bricks showing under the paint... but this had a certain odd charm as well.

What was less pleasing about the place was the fact that I could not understand a single word of what they were saying. Nothing at ALL! That felt strange, because I never was in a country where I did not understant the language before. I mean, I only travelled to either English or German speaking countries, so it was not too difficult to cope, but in Slovakia... Not a single word!! We got a flash course from my ex-roommate Petra, who taught us how to say "thank you" (sounds like dyakoo-yem), but I was too busy asking for news from Dublin to bother with a full language crash course.

Anyway. Bratislava is really a great city, I was very happy to see my sister, and I had a great time, though my feet are of a different opinion. But they are just being mean, really, because I treated them ill... And so are my shoulders, very itchy, complaining that they were in the sun all week end... I do hope they will forgive me overnight, because I'm getting slightly annoyed, to tell you the truth... But tomorrow I'll have to make up for this all-fun no-work week-end, so I guess I'll stay in the shade, and rest my feet!! Make my brain work a little, for a change... :)

On the road again....

Ahoy!

I'm off reader!! Going to Bratislava with my sister Marion this week end! I can't wait to see what it's going to be like! I don't know if I told you, but my room-mate in Dublin came from there, and it sounded like a cool place to visit, so here we go! I split! Bye Graz! I'll be back on Sunday evening!

Besides, I got a mail from the said Slovak room-mate today, and she will, per chance, be in Bratislava tomorrow as well, so I'll get to see her again, which I thought would never happen! I'm very happy about that as well.

Well, there is not much to say about my trip to Bratislava yet, I guess, so I'll say good night for now, have a very nice week end, reader!! Hope it will be sunny, wherever you are, and hope you'll get some rest! I'll be back on Sunday (or Monday, if I arrive too late on Sunday evening) with an account of my journey and photos, as well, supposedly!!

We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way...

Flash post again, reader!

Here is the link to the interesting article I talked about during my presentation today, in case you're interested!! It's about pro-Bush country and punk rock singers...

By the way, thanks for participating so much!! I did not feel lonely at all up there, thanks to you!!! :)

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Sept2004/macdougall0904.html

I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

Beuh, reader, I'm in a very very bad mood.

I read Tina's post about language learning this morning, and realized there was something seriously wrong with my German. I don't have a pattern. I don't have a plan. I thought, with German, it would go just as it went with English, I would read books, speak with people, try never to be shy, watch movies, and try to speak german to myself, think in German, and then, little by little, I would start being able to have interesting conversations, and write interesting stuff, and have good results. Obviously, it's a failure.

My French to German translation teacher handed our works in this morning, and I got a "nicht Genügend". OK, I guess I could live with that, no big deal. But I read the text over and over again, I thought very hard, tried to have a little bit of style, even though it was in German, tried not to translate stuff literally, I really tried to be a good translator. I thought I had actually made it! But no! Nicht Genügend!

I've been in Graz for what... about three months now, and still: Nicht bloody Genügend!! I'm so angry at myself!! I really do think that my German is getting better day by day, but obviouly it's not true!!! It's just so disappointing!! I mean, she told me "if your grammar was bad, I would try to give you a good mark because of your syntax and your style. If that was bad, I'd try to give you a good mark because of your grammar. But both your grammar and your style are hopeless, so what can I do?"... Imagine my face, reader!! I was not alone, which was good, she said that to all of us poor French Erasmus students taking this course, but still...

It would be pretty easy to blame it on the teacher I guess, saying she's mean, and stuff, but she isn't, she is only telling me the dreadful truth: My German sucks, after 3 months abroad and about 10 years of dreary studies.


There we go. I thought I'd open up to my beloved reader, because I'm feeling bad, and also write that down, so that I can't pretend it did not happen tomorrow. Anybody have an idea concerning what I can do? Appart from giving up on being a translator and just start casting for American Idol?


Well, reader, I guess I'll just leave it at that for today, and go fetch something very sweet to eat. And then I'll keep on learning my vocabulary for tonight's test, instead of feeling sorry for myself!

Tonight, we dine in Heeeeeeeeell!!!

Harrrrrrrrrrrghrhargh Reader!!!

I usually just say hi, but I recently went to see 300 with a friend, and I though it was time for me to barbarize my blog a little. Enough sweet posts about romantic comedies and handsome actors, time for Blood and Bruises and Cuts and Pieces of Flesh flying all around!

Well, surprisingly enough, reader, although I am a little sissy, I really liked the movie. It reminded me of all those old peplums, insofar as the dialogues were really old fashioned, just like the images and ideas defended. I don't actually like peplums usually, because I find them very ugly, with all those guys running around, sweating a lot, and making cheesy tirades every 2 minutes.

"But why, oh why did you like 300, then, oh Queen of this Blog?" asks my reader, heart in his throat?


Well, I can state several reasons, really. First of all, it's an ABSOLUTE backside must. Second, I found all the actors and actresses somehow convincing, and that's saying a lot, because I'm a cheat, reader, I went and saw the movie in German, (I was with an Autrian friend, who doesn't understand English, so the Royal English Cinema without subtitles would have been difficult). Even dubbed, and in German, I managed to believe in the characters nearly all the time.

And when you compare it to really bad failures such as Troy, for example (Yes. I plead guilty. I went and saw Troy too. Come on reader, you know me, how could I possibly resist Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana in the same movie???) it's so much prettier! (Incredible how they managed to make it prettier, now that I come to think of it :)

I like all those new movies they are making where the images look like they come out of your imagination, or straight from a book, and not from an actual camera. Like Sin City (didn't like the movie, but liked the pictures) or Captain Sky and the World of Tomorrow, things like that. Because it also gives the writer, somehow, a licence to pretend he is writing a book instead of making a movie: then it's OK to have dialogues which sound as if they were directly taken from the Odyssey, you don't need to try to be unnecessary funny, or adapt to your audience. Which, guess what, is not so thick as not to be able to understand the dialogues of the Odyssey, and comes to the cinema because they'd like a change of scenery!


So yes, in general, I must say, I like the movie very much. I wouldn't go and see it twice, but on the whole, I thought it really was respectable. Oh, yes, just one thing to finish, if anyone has seen it too, could they please give me their opinion about the music? That was reaaaaally bad, honestly, it screamed "come to me, young-gothic-punk-I've-got-piercings-all-over-because-I-am-a-big-rebel-person, and give me your money"... But of course, I'd be interested in the opinion of anyone who disagrees!! I don't actually know this type of music too well, but this one sounded really bad and cheap to me... Did I mortally insult a mythic hard rock group, or did I make new friends? Tell me reader!

On the beach...

Yeah!! I finally found an expat blog worth talking about!!!

It's written by a Canadian guy who has moved to Australia 2 years ago apparently, and he seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot there. I like his blog because it's very funny and entertaining to read, very well written obviously, since the writer's mother tongue is English, and it gives you quite a lot informations about Autralia, because he seems to be very fond of visiting different places in the country.

I must say I have not read all of his posts since I only just found the adress (by the way, the http://www.expat-blog.com/ site is really really handy!) but so far what I read was really good. He seems to be fascinated by Australia's scary wilderness and dangerous animals, so he writes a lot about shark attacks and stuff. And also, obviously, being Canadian, he writes about hockey a bit... Which doesn't interest me all that much, but who know's maybe you are a hard core hockey fan, reader, how should I know??

Anyway, I really like his style, and he actually has one post about language, which I find nice.

Here is the link! http://www.a-reminder.org/notes/ Check it out (if you want...)

Anyway, I have to run... let me just tell you, as a conclusion, how much I hate the stoopid qwertz keyboards!!! They are driving me craaaazy! Actually, I think I should be angry about French Azerty keyboard, which have led to my taking bad habits and typing twice as slowly as usual when I am in a foreign cournty...