I attended Placebo’s gig yesterday night. They certainly aren’t the best band in the world, and the recent Black Market Music isn’t the best album out this year. But they are the most francophone and they do have a lot of class, especially Brian Molko. And I had a revenge to take : two years ago I had the most horrible flu when they played in Paris, and my ticket went straight to the garbage.

Anyway the show had real great moments, such as 36 degrees, Special K, Every you every me, or Teenage Angst, the ultimate Placebo song as far as I’m concerned (a track in my 90s top ten, sure !), played acoustic in a midly disturbing but seducing way.

Back on duty

• The Bidule Corporation now has its website, stamped with the same bitterness than the TV show. For fellow fans of Le Vrai Journal.
• A gallery of beautiful and feminist luscious lesbians. I love that.
• Lycéenne : a french role-playing game about the life of teenage girls in high school (teachers, love stories, jealousy, volley-ball…), inspired by those japanese mangas. For free on the internet. A nice idea ; if anybody tries it, let me know what you think.

More seriously, Klaus Barbie’s Trial is broadcasted on cable & satellite TV, and on the internet (follow « Les émissions »), for french-speaking people. Klaus Barbie was the nazi officer responsible for the deportation of the Jews and the members of the Resistance in the area of Lyon during WWII. He tortured and killed Jean Moulin, among many others (including children). He was eventually judged in 1987 for « crime against humanity », and sentenced to penal servitude for life.

An abridged (35 hours !) filming of the trial is showed to the public for the first time, with the extremely moving testimonies of the survivors. To actually see this old man, called long ago « the butcher of Lyon », casually say his name and address to the judge is a very disturbing introduction to an exemplary trial of the dark side of the human nature ; a too familiar absurdity that you will only begin to understand by reading Primo Levi, Robert Antelme, Claude Lanzmann and Hannah Arendt, in my opinion.