tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219774132009-12-04T17:42:06.636-05:00littérature // musique // cinéma // technologie <br> la vie au Canada // l'europe vue d'iciThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.comBlogger642625tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-70373466722908365112008-03-22T13:35:00.002-04:002008-03-22T14:10:32.314-04:00

After a brief hiatus of nine months — brought about by the new version of Blogger that not only linked my Blogger account to the wrong Google account and then wouldn't allow me to de-link it, but also completely messed up my template and sidebar — I'm finally back. Let's see if I can keep it up for more than a couple of months this time, shall we?

Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-69868076569490233552007-06-09T19:07:00.000-04:002007-06-09T19:31:39.961-04:00

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I've started a blog about book design.After reading a piece in Publishers Weekly about book design bloggers, featuring Christopher Papasadero and Joseph Sullivan, and then reading a post about French book design written by the latter, I decided to launch my own book design blog, putting my own knowledge of French books to particular use.Première de couverture, or the

Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-49183701205990362262007-06-08T01:17:00.000-04:002007-06-09T19:01:01.208-04:00

Here it is, folks. The book that's had germanists and germanophiles all over the world salivating with anticipation for the past several years finally has a confirmed release date. After years of delays and one cancellation, I am pleased to report that the momumental Dictionnaire du monde germanique -- a 1000 page encyclopaedia covering historical, cultural, artistic, economic, political,

Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-59669911312761154222007-05-27T23:24:00.000-04:002007-05-27T23:24:19.330-04:00

"I think my g/f is cheating on me". Thus begins this strangely compelling tale of raw human drama that turns out to be nothing more than the backdrop to a most benign of technical inquiries at the MiniDisc Community Forums.I'm not sure if this is real or not, but I couldn't control my laughter after reading the technical question that is posed in the final sentence of the narrative, with no

Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-86157938312955117022007-05-24T22:50:00.000-04:002007-05-24T22:54:00.544-04:00

France's universities could be first test for Sarkozy. From Marco Chown Oved of the Associated Press, via the International Herald Tribune:The Sorbonne, France's most renowned university, has no cafeteria, no student newspaper [and] no varsity sports. [....] It also costs next-to-nothing to attend, and admission is open to everyone who has finished high school. [....] The Sorbonne also has no

Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-40867923852467108742007-05-20T13:59:00.000-04:002007-05-20T15:02:43.063-04:00

Le Tout Chirac: A life at the top: From John Lichfield in yesterday's Independent, a brilliantly succinct A-to-Z summary of Chirac's political career. Truly an essential read.Choice excerpts:In the 1980s, M. Laumond says, the procession of women into M. Chirac's office was so constant that women staffers would joke: "Chirac? Three minutes. Shower included."[....]In 1979 he campaigned as a

Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-19577208527906358972007-05-20T13:35:00.000-04:002007-05-20T13:39:32.816-04:00

Winnipeg mayor launches seniors council: "Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz announced plans Friday to appoint seniors to an advisory council to offer recommendations about how the city can better serve its aging population."*yawn* How about a plan to keep educated young people (who continue to flee in record numbers) in Winnipeg? Just a thought... While the NDP builds Waverly West, the mayor cancels

Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00749726553784119972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1166243154104139662006-12-15T21:37:00.001-05:002009-02-12T22:18:02.492-05:00

As a young up-and-coming amateur germanist, I was thrilled this week to stumble upon Christian Brandstätter Verlag's publishing programme, and more specifically Wien um 1900 | Kunst und Kultur – Fokus der europäischen Moderne (October 2005) and Berlin | Die 20er Jahre (September 2006). Lavishly illustrated and featuring authoratative essays, these two books brilliantly capture the spirit of these

Thosnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1164948545826706782006-11-30T22:41:00.000-05:002007-03-25T00:54:31.008-04:00

Over the past few years, as I've extolled the virtues of Montreal while languishing in Winnipeg, exasperated interlocutors have often exlaimed 'what don't they have in Montreal?!'. Now that I've been here for a few months, I can start to answer that question. Rapid transit, film festivals, bike lanes and a general European feel are all well and good, but there are a few things missing:Old Dutch

Thosnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1164776552912816872006-11-28T23:40:00.000-05:002007-03-25T01:08:43.850-04:00

Well, here we are once again. After an absence of almost four months, I've decided to come back and do some blogging again. While I wasn't blogging I was moving my life 2000km east, and am now comfortably installed in Montreal, the land of film festivals, bike lanes, bookshops and rapid transit. Having been born and raised in Winnipeg, it was not an easy decision to leave, but after nearly 25

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1154795381805040912006-08-05T12:00:00.000-04:002007-03-25T01:07:01.405-04:00

Parmi les commentaires suscités par ce billet de blog au sujet de la qualité du français au Québec, retenons les phrases suivantes :Au Québec, parler un français hexagonal, digne d'une page éditoriale du Monde Diplomatique, c'est s'exposer dangereusement à de lourdes représailles qui peuvent aller jusqu'aux coups.[Permalien] Je me demande bien sur quoi, nous les québécois francophones, appuyons

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1153262942553462722006-07-18T18:49:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:59:36.931-04:00

This morning I was greeted with the following bit of wonderful news in the Nouvel observateur:29,8% des Espagnols juge que le soulèvement militaire du général Franco, point de départ de la guerre civile espagnole, était 'justifié'Yes indeed. Nearly a third of Spaniards still believe that Franco's uprising was justified. Good on them. When I wrote earlier this month that I thought that there

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1153105677468218112006-07-16T20:06:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:59:36.931-04:00

With temperatures surpassing 35°C this week, it is safe to say that summer has definitely arrived on plains of central Canada. From -35°C in the winter to 35°C in the summer, the continental climate continues to do its thing.It's times like this that you wish Canada were just a bit smaller, to facilitate travel, and that it had a Côte d'Azur, so you would have somewhere to go. I suppose I've

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1153079841353599922006-07-16T15:00:00.000-04:002006-07-16T15:57:21.366-04:00

It's been a full week since the end of the Fußball-WM, so I've purged all of the frivilous sporting content from the right-hand sidebar. In its place, I've added a new feature that I'm calling The Literary Supplement. It will always have links to the ten most recent (the rest can be found here) literature-related bits of content published by the sources I most regularly consult. This is also

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1153071596693590032006-07-16T12:48:00.000-04:002007-03-25T01:05:09.018-04:00

Le grand public pense que les livres, comme les oeufs, gagnent à être consommés frais. C'est pour cette raison qu'il choisit toujours la nouveauté. -Goethe (via Heileen)Goethe is saying that the general public thinks that books, like eggs, should be consumed fresh. For this reason, the average punter tends to choose new releases. Of course the average punter these days isn't likely to choose a

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1152891563687591862006-07-14T11:25:00.000-04:002007-03-25T01:04:01.934-04:00

Interroggée sur l'antenne de France 2 dans le cadre du 14 juillet, Michèle Alliot-Marie, la ministre française de la défense, a dit:L'armée a réagi avec beaucoup de réactivitéCan you say langue de bois?

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1152837770370560052006-07-13T20:29:00.000-04:002007-03-25T01:03:25.134-04:00

The newest feature of this blog is the tried and tested Quote of the Day. This, the inaugural entry, comes courtesy of Lucas Armati writing in Télérama's Blog Télévision:Marre de ces [....] documentaires dont le seul suspense consiste à savoir s'il s'agit d'une coproduction franco-allemande ou germano-française ?Lamenting the state of summertime telly in France, he asks: 'Aren't you sick of

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1152769246396211142006-07-13T01:21:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:59:36.932-04:00

There's a wonderful article by John Lichfield in today's Independent about the new Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, and more generally about the history of bridges in Paris.Choice extracts:The bridge is both chaotically modern, and graceful, preserving a long tradition of epoch-defining but beautiful Parisian bridges going back for 400 years.[....]Paris has more river bridges than any other

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1152754778788426872006-07-12T21:06:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:59:36.932-04:00

It could be my small-town naïveté, but I have never heard of anything like this. Paris has just inaugurated (slideshow) its 35th municipal public baths. Nothing too extraordinary in that, except that this swimming pool floats on the Seine. It's called the Piscine Joséphine Baker and is moored on the Left Bank, just opposite the Bibliothèque Françcois-Mitterrand. On board this floating marvel, in

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1152483225497275412006-07-09T16:57:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:51:02.588-04:00

Amy Lawrence had it spot on exactly one week ago today: Genius always comes with a dark side. Neverterless, Zidane remains the greatest footballer that I will have seen in my lifetime. Merci Zizou!In the end, it came down to a single, narrowly missed penalty by Trezeguet. He'd hardly been given a kick at the ball the whole tournament, and to go from virtual inactivity to then be thown into

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1152203258423979322006-07-06T12:05:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:51:02.589-04:00

Well, here we are. At the beginning of this whole affair, nobody thought France would be anywhere near the final. The 2004-2005 qualifying campaign was turning into a nightmare; although they hadn't lost a single match, France drew with Israel and Switzerland twice, and Ireland once, and were in danger of not qualifying. In the end the old guard came back and France ended up winning the group,

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1152046022164259952006-07-04T16:32:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:51:02.590-04:00

If you were to read the following, would you think that terrorism had struck again?The police are still not certain if all the balls are out of circulation, and have asked Berliners to report any suspicious looking footballs immediately.Rest assured, it hasn't. I couldn't help finding this somewhat amusing, malgré moi.*Update: It turns out that 'twas but a harmless Austrian art project.The

Thosnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1151387001681055342006-06-27T01:25:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:51:02.590-04:00

I should have set this up earlier, but have been too lazy and/or busy to do so. In any case, for the rest of the World Cup, you'll find all the latest from Germany in the sidebar via my hand-crafted World Cup podcast channel and reading list. You too can drown in the sea of content that has already swallowed me whole...Subscription options:RSS Feed for the World Cup Podcast ChannelAtom Feed for

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1150863663625151622006-06-20T22:46:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:59:36.933-04:00

Hooray! I've finally found someone in Winnipeg that sells Orangina in a nice, big 1750mL bottle. Much better than paying $2 for a tiny little bottle on Osborne, Corydon or Provencher. You know Orangina, right? That wonderful little French drink that's not much more than carbonated water and orange juice, the Orangensaft mit Sodawasser that I so enjoyed during my boyhood trip to Europe. But it's

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21977413.post-1150592920480894822006-06-17T20:45:00.000-04:002007-03-25T00:51:02.591-04:00

Ghana is the nameWe wish to proclaimWe will be jolly, merry and gayThe sixth of March Independence DayBeing the essentially ignorant occidental person that I am, I don't really know too much about Ghana. Aside from having had my coiffure handled by a Ghanaian chap back when I used to have hair, the only thing evoked by the former Gold Coast was Lord Kitchener's seminal 1956 Calypso Birth of Ghana

Thosnoreply@blogger.com0