Street musicians

Street musicians, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

Street musicians

Save the Temple Cowley Pool!

Fascinating discussion

at work with our Arabic Tutor who told me that Oum Kalsoum is more considered as evening music, and Fairuz, as morning music... so here we go... as I still think we are in the morning... and I very much hope that, like me, you will appreciate the beauty of the quarter of tones in the melody:

cat lost

For people of East Oxford Cowley Rd near Cazbar

Don't like movies much but love films! :-)

Libraries at the Movies: 'No one should be forbidden to consult these books...: The monastery librarian. For some reason, books are always returned by their due date The Name of the Rose (1986)   What's it about? ...

My answer (as it seems I'm unable to put in on that "Libraries at the Movies" blog):

 
Film not great and with mistakes? I found it pretty good, and yes perhaps many mistakes but there are also mistakes in the book... if I was able to detect one (a gregorian chant on the wrong day) there must be several others...

The motto of Oxford is "Dieu m'illumine" (in Latin, sorry I do not know this language), surely it is not: "grumpy always" in Cambridge? I don't understand why one has do to negative reviews, surely one must think positive? (I always do when I write reviews
http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/search/reviews.php?user_id=23834)
And perhaps also write outside planet Hollywood films? You know, films that are sometimes not in English? There are many portraitures of librarians there, and many of them positive.

Lucile

Ouch... when I read "Umberto Eco's first novel tranformed a relatively obscure Italian professor of semiotics into an international poststructuralist superstar. Unlike Derrida, here was a European prof whose books you could actually read. Unlike Foucault, he didn't say awkward things about madness, imprisonment and sex, and unlike Deleuze his name was easy to pronounce and his ideas weren't so obviously loony." but hopefully this is humour from your part... hopefully. (in case not, do read the beautiful and moving book from my friend Joe
http://www.oxfordparis.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/seeing-invisible-kai-mansberger.html which uses a lot of Foucault's ideas and I can tell you from my own experience in psychiatric hospital that yes, some of what Foucault said -that is the Foucault I managed to understand!- is very true)

my first book!

now on sale at Brookes book fair :-)

First book of poetry!

So yes first book of poetry will be on sale at the Oxford Guild's at Oxford Brookes on 13 October  for the cheap (?) price of 7 pounds.
 It is published by my friends Alison and Paul, proud owners of Strawberry Press  
Several poems of mine, in English, all printed by hand (mine! Pfew! That was something!), with a wood-engraving from one of my Dad's drawings :-)

Papa's art stuff

It is a bit difficult to speak about one's father, but I will try, briefly. Papa's started drawing from an early age, probably influenced by his grand-father, André Deslignères (see wikipedia article, in French sorry!) and like him, has very much been a countryside painter, mostly of our village in Burgundy, Balleray (which is now in Google map, miracle!) but I don't really want to speak about his painting as I am more intrested in his drawings and engravings. As his name is also André Deslignères, he sometimes signs his work with "Deslignères jeune" (Deslignères the young)
Papa, like many autodidacts I know who never made it to high-school, has read extensively, and you can find many references to world litterature, such as
 Don Quichotte de la Mancha, a book he's very fond of,











or the Greek mythology,here it is the passage of the Styx, the river between life and death, with the "lovely" Charon in charge, described by Lucian (I think, though let me know if I'm wrong! But I remember studying a text in Greek class that my father read, and here is the result!). You can see also on that one, especially with Charon's head, Japanese influence.

Dad's always been very fond of the art of Japanese printmaking: Okusai in particular but many others and I'm sorry I do not have my Dad's culture and do not know many names!

 The Greeks again or rather the people living in Crete, and a smidgen of Picasso I suppose.

For my book, of course, there won't be any images of hell, or fantastic landscapes, there will only be... well I don't know yet, but very probably a real landscape (si tant est que cela veuille dire quelque chose!) or clouds

Autoportrait http://t.co/FLiKZoGg -- Lucile Deslignères (@LucileDeslignes)

Dear Readers

I have to admit at the moment I am mainly writing in my other blog, the "I learn Russian" blog where I am trying at the moment to write poetry. If you do not know Russian, paste the text and go to Bing Translate or Google Translate... those are not great, but better than nothing...

artistic cat

Oxford

New College

Je ne suis pas un ange

Je suis tombée
Dans le dos la brûlure
J'ai vécu en jouant
du violon ou de la trompette
Certains m'ont dit là bas
avec un trémolo dans la voix
"Ah! Votre manière de jouer Brahms!"
Ou peut être étais-je celle qui jouait
les préludes de Bach au violoncelle
devant le four qui se remplissait
J'ai vécu
Dans le dos la brûlure
J'erre dans les temps
Je pleure beaucoup
Les innocents brûlent toujours

Roasting

I feel very Spanish today
roasting in the sun waiting
for a bus that does not come
I try not to show fear
when I walked on the road
the dynosaurs are passing by
as long as I am not in their way.
How long have I waited now?
One hour maybe? Not cigarettes left.
I'll be cranky. Americans are passing by,
doing their hobbies, dressed up to "work out"
Oh I'm working it out just fine here.

In the country

In the country of my ancestors
I feel nothing but difference
Maybe I should be like those surfers
Looking at our lands with indifference

Please sign this petition!

I find it very important to stop the extradition of Richard to the United States!

(more information on the BBC News website)

Roses reaching the sky

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A la recherche du temps perdu (sans se casser la gueule a Venise)

Oxford race, the other!

Oxford race

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Cornmarket, Oxford

Cornmarket, Oxford, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

Cornmarket, Oxford

#radiolondres

#radiolondres sur twitter was full of absolute pearls today: prix du Gouda, lancer de main, température à Amsterdam et à Budapest, et même des citations, changées bien-sûr, des chansons de Carla Bruni: "quelqu'un m'a DIY que tu chaussais du 47" ... Et surtout "quelqu'un m'a dit que tu avais perdu"...

The Half Moon

Needs its guitar back. Come on!

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Lettres de Jeanne Moreau

Lettre envoyée à une journaliste (?) du Monde

Cet article sur Assange, recrue de la "télé Poutine" m'a vraiment déçu, alors j'ai envoyé un courriel à la journaliste. Le voici :

Madame,

Votre article m’a beaucoup déçu. Je suis d’accord pour dire qu’il y a de la propagande sur Russia Today et plus que sur d’autres chaînes de télévision c’est vrai, mais seulement c’était une bonne chaîne pour regarder les élections russes avec beaucoup d’invités en table ronde, des universitaires du monde entier, on se serait cru sur ARTE. Quelquefois d’autres chaînes de télévision déçoivent, comme par exemple la BBC -je dois avouer que c’est bien rare mais il faut comprendre qu’il y a toujours la guerre froide et qu’un programme comme « Poutin and the West » à la BBC ne parlait pas évidemment des actions de la CIA dans les anciens territoires soviétiques, comme la Georgie ou l’Ukraine (je me trompe peut-être ceci dit je suis sûre que la CIA a eu un rôle à jouer dans la naissance de ces nations). La BBC, très bonne d’habitude, ne pouvait pas parler de cela, puisque la Grande Bretagne est trop liée avec les Etats-Unis d’Amérique.

Il y a de la propagande partout… surtout lorsqu’on parle de la Russie, par exemple on a souvent plus parlé des manifestations avec rubans blancs (contre Poutine) que des manifestations qui se passaient en même temps pro-Poutine (Le Guardian n’a pas été très fort là-dessus). Je peux comprendre la méfiance de Poutine vis-à-vis de l’Ouest.

Je vous conseille peut-être d’apprendre les langues étrangères, comme cela vous seriez en mesure de lire le monde, le vrai !

http://www.netvibes.com/languagelibrary#General

(les Russes aussi sont extrèmement actifs sur la Toile, faîtes des recherches, l’un des meilleurs moteurs de recherche étant http://www.yandex.ru/ )

Je ne vous salue pas Madame,

Lucile

Lettres envoyée à une journaliste (?) du Monde

Cet article sur Assange, recrue de la "télé Poutine" m'a vraiment déçu, alors j'ai envoyé un courriel à la journaliste. Le voici :

Madame,

Votre article m’a beaucoup déçu. Je suis d’accord pour dire qu’il y a de la propagande sur RT et plus que sur d’autres chaînes de télévisions c’est vrai, mais seulement c’était une bonne chaîne pour regarder les élections russes avec beaucoup d’invités en table ronde, des universitaires du monde entier, on se serait cru sur ARTE. Quelquefois d’autres chaînes de télévision déçoivent, comme par exemple la BBC -je dois avouer que c’est bien rare mais il faut comprendre qu’il y a toujours la guerre froide et qu’un programme comme « Poutin and the West » à la BBC ne parlait pas évidemment des actions de la CIA dans les anciens territoires soviétiques, comme la Georgie ou l’Ukraine (je me trompe peut-être ceci dit je suis sûre que la CIA a eu un rôle à jouer dans la naissance de ces nations). La BBC, très bonne d’habitude, ne pouvait pas parler de cela, puisque la Grande Bretagne est trop liée avec les Etats-Unis d’Amérique.

Il y a de la propagande partout… surtout lorsqu’on parle de la Russie, par exemple on a souvent plus parlé des manifestations avec rubans blancs (contre Poutine) que des manifestations qui se passaient en même temps pro-Poutine (Le Guardian n’a pas été très fort là-dessus). Je peux comprendre la méfiance de Poutine vis-à-vis de l’Ouest.

Je vous conseille peut-être d’apprendre les langues étrangères, comme cela vous seriez en mesure de lire le monde, le vrai !

http://www.netvibes.com/languagelibrary#General

(les Russes aussi sont extrèmement actifs sur la Toile, faîtes des recherches, l’un des meilleurs moteurs de recherche étant http://www.yandex.ru/ )

Je ne vous salue pas Madame,

Lucile

on education (and getting lost in what I want to say)

I have started reading this book called "The Two Culture" by C.P.Snow. I am far from having finished writing it but already I would like to speak about it. The main point the author makes (so far in my reading) is that there is an immense gap between the world of letters, the "writers" he calls them, and the scientists, that the scientists hardly read and that the writers hardly know about the b.a. ba (maybe a French expression there sorry) of science. This is true, and perhaps maybe more true in the Anglo-Saxon world that separates both from an early age, contrary to the French system, where, it is almost de rigueur (unless really you are doing classics) to get a scientific baccalaureat (and where, of course, French and Philosophy are also taught). Having said that, when the author mentions the second law of thermodynamics being the equivalent of a work of Shakespeare for scientists, I haven't a clue. I am French, and I have no idea of what the second law of thermodynamics is... I don't know the first law either, and I don't even know what thermodynamics is! From my poor knowledge of Ancient Greek, I would understand that thermo has something to do with temperature (?!) and dnynamics, no sure, can't remember, a dynamo is like a box with some sort of power in it, God knows where from... so yes the scientists are allowed to laugh at me!

This lecture dates from 1959, a while ago, I would perhaps argue that it is even worse today, probably there is a bigger gap between scientists themselves given the advance of many different fields of knowledge, and same for the writers, this can be reflected perhaps even in France: twenty years ago, you had two main baccalaureat, the scientific one, the literary one, now you have three: the scientific, the literary, and economical and social sciences ...today, if you study film studies or sociology, would you understand a classicist much? And I would go further, if you do a PhD, you do not necessarily know much else other than your subject. I went to a music conference once, and I was horrified at the lack of general knowledge of some of the speakers who had been so heavily involved in their subject that they knew nothing of the next door subjects, but perhaps I have been lucky enough to have received some general music education at the Paris Conservatoire (history of music).

There is the dream of course of being a Pantagruel, an ogre of knowledge, who makes sure his son, Gargantua, gets an education, and that meant, in the humanist sense of the term:
religion, astronomy, philosophy, sport, biology, arithmetic and reading books in the original: Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and quite a few others, as the letter from Pantagruel to Gargantua illustrates:
« l'entenz et veulx que tu apprenes les langues parfaictement : premièrement la grecque, comme le veut Quintilien ; secondement la latine, et puis l'hebraicque pour les sainctes lettres, et la chaldaicque et arabicque pareillement. Puis soigneusement reuisite les livres des medicins grecz, arabes et latins, sans contemner les thalmudistes et cabalistes. »
An extract, in French, illustrates also the spirit of the learning, which is a happy spirit.
Learning a lot is great, and I can see, living and working at Oxford University, the best of students enjoying their time in my place of work, just for the pleasure to learn something more than their "usual" studies at Oxford. But how many people are being stuffed with knowledge without pleasure? (if they are being stuffed with knowledge that is!)
I met an old friend yesterday, he's a French primary school teacher in Danmark, he said to me, his key point is to teach the kids how to be happy. How to be happpy. That's all. He then explained that in Danmark, most people have a decent salary, even if they have not made long studies. He's against giving marks, against a society that encourages ferocious competition... but we cannot do much about this I'm afraid, the elite will always be made of people who went to the good institutions and most of them will also have had an education at home (I cannot claim I am part of the elite, and I spent most of my studies sleeping at the end of the class, but at least I was in good schools, and both my parents were interested in art, literature and films), all of this helps and one cannot expect kids, living in deprivate areas -with sometimes parents who do not even speak the language of the country well- to do so well in school where, anyway, it is sometimes -if not all the time- a challenge to hear the teacher. Perhaps, and it was a point made by many librarians at Oxford in a survey, it is now important for the elite not to be elitiste.
There are some efforts being made, Oxford and Cambridge get regularly attacked by the media for not including enough kids from non-public schools and they really do try their best. In France, la cour des comptes just released a report about the geographical inequality of spendings between schools; monsieur Sollers, on French television, defends the study of the "classics", how important it is to know Latin and Greek; in Germany, Latin is still a language that can be taught in school from the age of 11 (at least in Swabia where I was last week) and in Russia and Ukraine... well I cannot speak about those countries much but the few Russians and Ukrainians I have done a language exchange with were mostly scientists and were all reading literature books and loving poetry and learning other languages, on top of learning English that is...(the other Russian speaking friends I have are doing theology so language learning is de rigueur for them: Old Slavonic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, German, French, English, Modern Hebrew... but one must remember that theology, "speaking of God" was the highest of all knowledge in medieval times and that one couldn't start learning this field without having a previous degree in another field... do please correct me if I am wrong there!) Languages, at least the living ones, and especially English, are pretty much on the agenda on the "continent" as the British call our lands and in many other countries... in Great Britain, this is another matter. Shame really, because the European Union is craving for British graduates with multilingual skills.
If we were to live in a perfect world, yes, it would be great to get an equivalent of the baccalauréat (or as whatever people want to call it) in most countries, which would mean that all high school students would study as many discipline as possible till the age of 18. As for the joy of learning... hm... I have had teachers who made me want to learn, but others who kept me asleep in my corner and a big part of my education has come from my surroundings, not a suburb, but Paris, difficult then not to go out and see exhibitions, concerts, films etc... and make friends, speak with them, learn from them... a Russian short-story goes even further (I'm sorry I do not remember who wrote that) with this woman, in an hotel, educating herself with the men she sleeps with... I have to admit one of the most cultured people I met where working in la FNAC, were autodidacts or people who had gone to the "professional baccalauréat" as we used to call them then. They would get a better pay in Danmark I suppose...
Derrida, I think, wrote some interesting things about the education of the future, if I recall it well, there was an interview with him in les Inrock : the university of the future will change dramatically (I must read more on that sorry, in particular L'Université sans condition).
"La culture, c'est ce qui reste quand on a tout oublié"... Sagan is right, and the more disciplines you learn the better it is... but Sagan is wrong too, la culture, and la connaissance, should be, for those interested, a perpetual need and thirst of knowledge. Perhaps also this links with the "learning society" we are in (and in which librarians, and many other chartered professions, need to continuously upgrade their knowledge) but I very very much hope one learns for the pleasure and enlightenment of learning rather than just for money.

je n'ai pas porté plainte

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rain

Rain in Oxford

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near my workplace

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dentelle

dentelle, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

dentelle

en allant au boulot

en allant au boulot, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

en allant au boulot

en attendant le bus

en attendant le bus, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

en attendant le bus

Sheldonian theatre

Sheldonian theatre, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

Sheldonian theatre

dust...

dust..., a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

dust...

beer can

beer can, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

beer can

Dans ma rue

Dans ma rue, a photo by lucile.desligneres2009 on Flickr.

If...

So far so good... only six times

if...

If I think about you more than ten times today, I'm going to... see a shrink, get an exorcism, take the blue pill of the matrix, exchange my brain for a cat's one, go back in time using the time machine, move in to the planet of the apes., I'm about as bad as the guy in Virtigo, losing it every time there was a blond about.

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