Billy's Lines Of Gibberish

The Place de la Concorde in Paris

Our paths crossed on that day. You were ravishing, smooth blonde hair and preppy look. The light strip of a pearl necklace, above your peach-coloured cashmere sweater, was slightly iridescent in the first beams of this sunny morning of spring. I had the shadow of a doubt: weren't you notorious, Rebecca... something?

Under the pelisse on the back seat (mornings were still a little chilly), caught in a glimpse through the rear window of your tiny Parisian car, I could make out your mother's Grace Kelly purse, near the birds-patterned Carré Hermès you had left there, skilfully undone. Everything in your appearance indicated this special sense of sophistication passed down through several generations of strong economic power. I felt spellbound.

There was a frenzy of traffic on the Place de la Concorde. Young and innocent, you did not yield to me — I was just the wrong man at the wrong place. I confess I had the ghost of a frown, barely the mark of minor annoyance. A beautiful manicured hand with a fine golden ring and a topaz let go of the blond wood steering wheel. You gave me the finger.

People who still believe in elegance and refinement never drove a car.

Portrait of a young woman (1536) Oil on canvas, 96 x 75 cm State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

It is funny when you recognize somebody you 'know' in a painting.
I told previously how it happened to me in Oslo two years ago: I was amazed to recognize Edvard Munch's painting Madonna in the young woman portrayed in The day after.

I had the same experience at an exhibition called Titien, le pouvoir en face (Titian, power straight in the face) held last year in Paris at the Palais du Luxembourg, the museum of the French Senate. The portraits exhibited were essentially those of powerful men of the time, of which Titian was the official portraitist, such as several Doges of Venice, Dukes of Urbino, Kings of Spain Carlos V and Felipe II, King of France François I, and so forth.

A few portraits of women were also displayed though, among which I particularly loved the canvas displayed above. This young lady with an elegant feathered hat, who wears her coat on one shoulder in a very casual way, is showed before a dark background. Yet the whole picture is lightened by her brilliant skin and white shirt.

The Venus of Urbino (1538). Oil on canvas, 119 x 165 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Watching at the portrait of this young woman, I progressively had a weird feeling, that I knew her in person. I realized it was almost the case indeed, a few minutes only after I left the exhibition: the woman portrayed here was also the sitter of the Venus of Urbino, one of the most famous paintings by Titian.

I'll probably write here some day about how Titian took the topic of the Venus of Urbino from a painting by Giorgione, the Sleeping Venus (also called the Venus of Dresde), that Titian finished after his master died in 1510, and how his painting in turn inspired Édouard Manet when he painted Olympia, more than three hundred years later.

In fact, I had just hoped to see this wonderful painting in the exhibition, but it was not there. Probably it does not leave the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence more than the Mona Lisa ever leaves the Musée du Louvre in Paris...

Well, at least I saw the face of Venus on that day, if not her whole naked body.

On the Padlock Wall — Pécs, July 2007

If you ever go to the city of Pécs with your lover, don't forget to bring a padlock!
Several decades ago, a student left his padlock and its key on a grate in the center of this city of Southern Hungary, in a street close to the cathedral. It was his last day of school before summer holidays, and there was no need for him to bring such an old padlock back home.
A few days later, a couple of lovers saw the padlock on the grate. They engraved their names on another padlock, then locked it beside the first one. Other couples did the same. The tradition was born that lovers who lock a padlock to these grates get hitched forever themselves.
Thousands of padlocks are now locked on the grates of the padlock wall in Pécs. No doubt, it certainly means that the spell works.

Camille Dalmais, who goes by the stage name Camille, is a French songwriter and singer unlike anyone: most of the sounds in her records come from the human body. Clicks, slaps, rubs, purr... and many more sounds, including her voice of course.

Ta douleur (Your pain) was the second song in Camille's second album Le fil (The Thread), released 2005.

Camille – Ta douleur

Here are the French lyrics of the song and their translation into English. It is noteworthy that the word 'douleur' (pain) is feminine in French, which allows Camille a poetic licence: she speaks of pain as if it were a female... a female rival? Hence the use of 'she' instead of 'it' in the translation below, so that it renders the ambiguity of French lyrics... of which the meaning is probably obvious for their author only anyway.

Lève-toi, c'est décidé Laisse moi te remplacer Je vais prendre ta douleur Doucement, sans faire de bruit Comme on réveille la pluie Je vais prendre ta douleur Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur Elle lutte elle se débat Mais ne résistera pas Je vais bloquer l'ascenseur... Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur Saboter l'interrupteur Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur Mais c'est qui cette incrustée Cet orage avant l'été Sale chipie de petite soeur ? Je vais tout lui confisquer Ses fléchettes et son sifflet J'vais lui donner la fessée... Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur La virer de la récré Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur Mais c'est qui cette héritière Qui se baigne qui se terre Dans l'eau tiède de tes reins ? J'vais la priver de dessert Lui faire mordre la poussière De tous ceux qui n'ont plus faim... Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur De tous ceux qui n'ont plus rien Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur Dites moi que fout la science A quand ce pont entre nos panses ? Si tu as mal là où t'as peur Tu n'as pas mal là où je pense ! Qu'est-ce-qu'elle veut cette connasse Le beurre ou l'argent du beurre? Que tu vives ou que tu meures ? Faut qu'elle crève de bonheur Ou qu'elle change de godasses Faut qu'elle croule sous les fleurs Change de couleur... Je vais prendre ta douleur Je vais jouer au docteur Prendre ta douleur Je vais prendre ta douleur Dites moi que fout la science A quand ce pont entre nos panses ? Si tu as mal là où t'as peur Tu n'as pas mal là où je chante ! Lève-toi lève-toi lève-toi Elle a envie de toi ta douleur Elle a envie de toi ta douleur Elle a envie de ttt ttt tt…

Get up, it's a done deal Let me take your place I'm going to take your pain Gradually, without a noise As one wakes up the rain I'm going to take your pain Take your pain I'm going to take your pain She fights, she struggles, But she won't overcome I am going to stop the lift... Take your pain I'm going to take your pain Mess up the switch Take your pain I'm going to take your pain Well, who is she, settled down, Such a storm before summer Such a brat little sister? I'm going to seize her everything Her darts and whistle I am going to spank her… Take your pain I'm going to take your pain Kick her out of the break Take your pain I'm going to take your pain Well, who is that heiress, Who has a bath, who goes to earth In the warm water of your back? I'm going to deprive her of dessert Make her bite the dust Of those who are not hungry any more... Take your pain I'm going to take your pain Of those who don't have anything left Take your pain I'm going to take your pain Tell me what the hell science is up to When for a bridge between our bellies? If you're aching where you're scared You're not aching where I think! What does she want, that bitch? Your cake or she eats it? You living or you dying? She must be full of happiness Or change her shoes She must be snowed under with flowers Change your colour… I'm going to take your pain I'm going to play at doctors Take your pain I'm going to take your pain Tell me what the hell science is up to When for a bridge between our bellies? If you're aching where you're scared You're not aching where I sing! Get up get up get up She wants you, your pain She wants you, your pain She wants…

"I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world" (Sadako Sasaki)

"Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs it would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them? " Leo Szilard, father of the US atomic bomb.

I was chatting the other day with a US friend about the trip I had in New-York a few months ago. As it happens often when you chat, our conversation turned, from Manhattan, the movie by Woody Allen I blogged about at the time, to the Manhattan project and atomic bombs. I was very surprised when he genuinely said that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "good things" because they actually "saved lives".

Although I know it is the way the whole story is usually told and taught in the USA, I wondered how a smart and articulate guy could seriously think that killing more than 200,000 civilians "actually saved lives". The whole bloody fighting in the Pacific killed about 40,000 US soldiers 'only'... When the US President Harry S. Truman ordered to drop Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, then Fat Man over Nagasaki three days later, the point was certainly not about saving lives then, but saving lives of US soldiers, at the expense of much more lives of foreign civilians.

Little Boy and Fat Man had killed about 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, of which about half within the first days after the bombings. Several ten thousands more people died from radiation-induced diseases in the following years. In both cities, the overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians. These are to date the only nuclear bombings in history. Yet, as the historian and Pulitzer prize winner Gary Wills wrote once: "Only the winners decide what were war crimes".

Sadako Sasaki lived in Hiroshima. She was two year-old when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on her city. Although she lived close to ground zero, she was not harmed. Nine years later, she was a healthy 11 year-old girl practicing running. After the end of a race, she fainted, was hospitalised and diagnosed radiation-induced leukaemia.

There's a legend in Japan, the country of origami. It says that if you can fold a thousand paper cranes, the Gods will make your first wish become true. Sadako decided she would fold one thousand origami and wish to be cured. She folded 654 cranes before she died, in October, 1955. Yet, she was buried with one thousand paper cranes, because her classmates had finished her uncompleted vow.

After her death, her friends and schoolmates raised funds to build a memorial to her and all of the children who had died from the effects of the atomic bomb. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. At its base a plaque reads: "This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world." Every year, on August 6, the statue is decorated with thousands of paper cranes sent by children from all over the world.