Everybody's Weird

It has been the most glorious week.
Sunday, I saw Dancer in the Dark. When movies are a whole senses experiment. Von Trier is a sick genius.
Monday, I tasted what probably is the best wine I’ve ever drunk : a St-Estephe Cru Bourgeois 1995.
Tuesday, one year of happiness.
Wednesday, seen a couple of great friends, but most of all : Nick is now a proud father. Don’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl. Gotta call back…

Some links for you people:

Conversations about « good » and « bad » popular music generally have two productive aspects, at most. One is that, as in any conversation which contains the names of bands, some of them may be new to you, so somebody’s indefensible pro or con assertion might lead you to discover music that changes your life. The other is that people in the conversation, about whom you haven’t made up your mind, may prove themselves to be smug jackasses, which is a better thing to discover in a casual debate about Radiohead than it is in a screaming argument about whether your first child ought to be named Spartacus.

This is the first sentences of this week’s issue of the war against silence. Glenn then backs the new U2 album, which is brave in a way. I have « easy » albums I truly like too, so I understand that need. Anyway, it’s a wonderful reading as always, and it ends up with a reference to my so-called life that definitely moves me. I have to say a few words about this show someday.

A deep analysis about the Smurfs. Anyone can tell me if this guy is serious about it ?
Ever wondered what was #1 in the charts in uk and usa on your birthday ? (If so, you’ve got to read High Fidelity, man.)

I had to catch up the gossips. The whole blogger community can’t stop talking about this romance. Lovely.

I tried to type my first name in the location bar today. A bit disappointing : emmanuel.com and emmanuel.org are proselytizing christian pages. Did I ever mention my christian name means « God is with us » ?

New funny hits from google : aiwa mm-vx100 help, radiohead ring tone (!) and one armed scissor lyrics, which is cool…

Last but not least, a french one : Disques de l’annee. Records of the year : come and vote for your favorite album of the year, and consult previous years results (very typical of french taste, despite a few lame CDs from times to times). I voted for Grandaddy. Plus a database of the annual lists from the french, british, european and american musical press.
As an extra bonus, the mega poll for your five favorite albums of the decade. Those things are totally heart-breaking for me, but here’s my final and obviously dissatisfying list :
1. Jeff Buckley, Grace
2. dEUS, The Ideal Crash
3. Radiohead, OK Computer
4. Chemical Brothers, Exit Planet Dust
5. Björk, Post
There’s no LP from this year in my list. Do you think there’s a Y2K release worth outrunning one of these ?? Sad.

Ooooops when will this stop ? Now a search with « john lennon » « jealous guy » mp3 download brings you here too (’cause of this entry about Elliott Smith who played the song live…). This is the most funny day.

Ok, now, just to try : > penis enhancement <. THIS will bring me a bunch of new readers through google !!

By the way, if you search « everybody weird » on Google, you will find this page first too. I even appears *before* the lyrics of the dEUS songs that gave this blog his name…

(I’m just a child but) This is great

Have you ever tried to use Google with the « weird pokemons » search expression ? Guess who’s the first response in the list ?!!.. Yeah…

I was checking my stats, and it seems somebody did this search and ended up here 🙂 The funny part is that I couldn’t name you any other Pokemon than Pikachu…

So I have to thank a few people for this major achievement in the field of electronic personal publishing : first BlogStart, the weblogs portal through which I was actually linked by Google, and Wolfgang, who showed me the web page I subsequently linked here in an entry that included the word « Pokemon ». Isn’t all this completely weird ?!

A frightening Cambodian news, about the customs of some women there… [via the Cambodia-News portal, a daily updated log where you will find links to Cambodia related news on the Internet (soon to be on the sidebar)].

Crazy american news : the Witches are back (what is the kkk doing ?) and Why chatting on your workplace in not safe (what about blogging ?).

To cheer you up, you poor american boy eager to know who’s your next emperor :

Voters in Mendocino County [California] decided Tuesday to legalize the cultivation and use of marijuana for personal use — the first move of its ind in the country.[link]

This genetic study is fascinating AND scaring. I mean it.

The ILoveBacon.com lads have a truly uplifting (for a monday) gallery of girls showing their tits, mostly at rock concerts. Miam.

And following one of their links leaded me there, which is an adorable place, and should be even more enjoyable if you’re an american comics fan (i’m not).

Venus are releasing their live album with an orchestra at the end of this month. I’m so impatient !

And, oh, I’ve got a *scanner* ! Prepare for some surprises, friends…

Amazing Link

While the futile American Election is on the first page of every newspaper in the world (Bush or Gore ? What’s the difference, anyway ?), really important events often remain unnoticed.

Since last summer, a 15 km-long bridge links Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmö in Sweden. Actually, there’s a 3,5 km immersed tunnel first (to let large ships navigate through the Channel ?) and the rest is a bridge stricly-speaking. Hence the denomination « Fixed Link » for the whole thing, and this is what I call an amazing link. Check the 3D video simulation and this impressive pictures gallery.

[via the very nice cut-and-paste webzine]

Check also the indie rock KickBright zine, especially the At the Drive-In wig affair. [via the best of us: kempa]

An outburst of post-situationnism ; <french>

Le post-situationnisme attaque, donc. Sous les pavés, enfin la plage présente pour ceux qui veulent rattraper leur retard, un admirable travail de recherche de liens vers des publications on-line de Debord, Vaneigem (mon préféré des deux, pour son lyrisme en sus de la critique), l’Internationale Situationniste, et des sites consacrés à Bataille, Bourdieu, Deleuze, Foucault, Chomsky etc etc… Une référence.

Vous serez peut-être intéressé par l’Ecologie Révolutionnaire de JZ, et son énorme contenu. Si tu ne t’occupe pas de politique, elle s’occupera de toi…

Quant au côté « post-« , la sensation underground (pour combien de temps ??) du moment, c’est Tiqqun, et leur intransigeance bien de mise. Cela vaut le détour pour la beauté théorique de la réflexion.

En ce qui me concerne, j’ai longtemps cru que j’étais situ, avant de revenir à plus de modestie. Aujourd’hui je suis un rebelle quand j’écris mon blog au travail, comme maintenant…

Plus sérieusement, il est possible que ces gens-là nous sauvent, peut-être. Restons donc à l’affut.

</french>

The Society of The Spectacle, by Guy Debord, in English, online. Just read it or leave it.

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.

« We invented Canada », they claim. At least this indie rock zine (Pandomag) provides quality record reviews. They even liked Kid A, a rare sign of humble and trustable people.

By the way, did anyone else noticed how *hype* it is to despise Radiohead these days ? A whole herd of sheeps wouldn’t go in the same direction more mindlessly than all our egomaniac obsessed-by-hype elitist internet music writers… Come on, guys, if you don’t like it, shut up or talk about one of the billion others record out this fall. It’s not like mass-marketing and hammer-radio-broadcasting Celine Dion-like would keep pressuring on us to buy it. There isn’t even a single or a video !!

Wonderful digital-age art at Exploding Dog (don’t ask ; click). Beauty doesn’t require 32 million colors. [thanks to nanette]

Sign #4532 that I’m getting older

I truly enjoyed AC/DC’s motherfucking mega-show. And I was seated.

A hell of a party Friday night to celebrate Maly’s success at the lawyer’s school admission exam (Maly is Nita’s cousin). Chinese restaurant first, where my lucky cookie foresaw me a « quiet and happy life », which put me in a hell of a good mood ; I can behave like that sometimes.

Then we headed towards a small club downtown on the Champs Elysées, for the weekly ‘Asia Folies’. I had never heard about it before : Asians from Paris seem to gather here to party on a mid-90s house music, plus occasionally a Far-East anthem. The irresistible appeal of the madison on my Asiatic friends was once more confirmed ! (As Nicolas, Maly’s boyfriend and the other white boy of our group, said, there’s was a flavor of Bangkok-like sexual tourism all over the place…) Nita and I are exhausted, we definitely agree that we’re « too old » for this now, but anyway we had a great fun.

PS: The Lucky-Cookies factory can manufacture a set of cookies with your own personalized message(s) inside. A nice idea for parties.

Next Tuesday : AC/DC in Paris… I know, I know… But I’m sure it’s gonna be a great gig in the old-fashioned rock-n’-roll way. I ought to see it once in my life !