Billy's Lines Of Gibberish

Art in San Diego

2009-11-12T09:02:00.006+01:00

The twin-towered Louis Bank of Commerce

The annual conference of the ASN, the American Society of Nephrology, was held in San Diego two weeks ago.

There was a lot of interesting stuff for a nephrologist there. No topic for this blog though. Rather than blogging about work, I will rather show photos taken while I strolled around in the city's streets and museums, either on the day before the Convention began this year, either during a previous stay in 2006, when another ASN Renal Week was held there.

Architecture. There are beautiful buildings in San Diego. In Gaslamp quarter especially, many houses are remarkable. The twin-towered building above is located at 837 Fifth Avenue. Its top floor used to be a house of prostitution and the first floor an Oyster Bar where Wyatt Earp operated for a time.

From inside the Convention Centre

The Convention Centre itself is beautiful work, and many skyscrapers are beautiful as well. In Balboa Park on the contrary, buildings are essentially 20th century pitiful attempts to reproduce Spanish mostly, Tuscan sometimes, buildings of the baroque style... with stucco. The California Tower of the Museum of Man is nice though.

Marriott Hotel

California Tower

Sculpture. French sculptor Niki de Saint-Phalle lived in San Diego from 1994 to 2002. She had solvent-related emphysema, and enjoyed the paradise weather of the area. Yet it did not prevent her from dying of pulmonary failure.

Two sculptures by her are exhibited in Balboa Park, in front of the Mingei International Museum: Poet/Muse and Nikigator. Children love the latter especially, some kind of dragon they are often brave enough to sit astride.

Poet and Muse

Nikigator

Bergen (2006)

San Diego (2009)

Another French Sculptor, Bernar Venet, was much in evidence in several places in the city, although temporarily only. You know what? I believe this guy is following me: everywhere I go, I see his iron arcs.

When I had vacation in Norway in 2006, they were exhibited in Bergen. When I attended the annual conference of the French Society of Nephrology in Bordeaux two years ago, they were exhibited there. And at present they are exhibited in San Diego too!

Sorry Bernar, but you'll have to resign yourself: I will never buy any, my kitchen is too small.

Painting. Close to the Mingei Museum in Balboa Park, the San Diego Museum of Art displayed artworks by Picasso and Miró especially, in a temporary exhibition. I liked a couple, essentially a drawing by Picasso of a Minotaur stroking a sleeping woman. There was an exhibition of Calder Jewelry too. I don't like Calder's mobiles that much. I didn't like his massive earrings, tiaras and necklace either.

Anyway, the main reason why I went to Balboa park was the Museum of Art permanent exhibition, with several Renaissance paintings I had been longing for three years to see again. There are paintings by Rogier Van Der Weyden, Giotto, Titian, and others, Flemish and Italian. Here come a few words about my three favourite.

Giorgione — Portrait of a Man
Oil on panel, 1506

Portrait of a Man, by Giorgione.
This painting is one of the greatest Renaissance portraits in my opinion. The composition is closely cropped around the head of the sitter. The setting or props often used at the time to animate portraits are absent, yet the man's turning gaze and ambiguous expression make the portrait wholly engaging and alive.

Giorgione was the master of Titian (who finished his Sleeping Venus after his death, a painting that foreshadowed my beloved Venus of Urbino — see a previous blog). He was unprecedented in his ability to describe warm flesh and soft hair. Quoting Georgio Vasari, Giorgione's 'modern manner' sought to paint 'living and natural things', several years before Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese arrived on the Italian scene.

Hieronymus Bosch — Arrest of Christ
Oil on panel, ca. 1516

The Arrest of Christ, by H. Bosch.
The painting depicts Jesus's arrest outside of Gethsemane. To the right, Peter raises a sword in defence of Jesus. He has just cut the ear from the High Priest's servant, who bites his arm and thrusts a lantern in his face. The grotesque figures of his tormenters contrast with the serene image of Jesus himself.

I love the way Bosch, in this painting, distorts the characters into something like caricature. Can you believe this was painted 500 years ago?

B. Luini — The Conversion of the Magdalene
Oil on panel, ca. 1520

The Conversion of the Magdalene,
by Bernardino Luini. This is the moment when Mary Magdalene, the attractive and fashionable woman on the right, decides to put aside her finery (like the necklace on the table) and old life, and follow Jesus, like her sister Martha (on the left) previously. She holds an unguent jar, a symbol of her act of anointing Jesus's feet.

Bernardino Luini was among Leonardo da Vinci's closest followers in Milan. One can find a lot of Leonardo typical features in this painting: the characteristic figure types especially, with the mysterious, seductive smile of Magdalene, and the distinctive gesturing hands that animate the narrative.

So... after one day in the streets and museums of the city, I had my eyes and camera full of pictures. It was just time to go to the Convention Centre and attend the Conference.

Peter Fechter

2009-11-09T11:35:00.000+01:00

Memorial for Peter Fechter
before the Berlin Wall (June 1988)

In life, he was a bricklayer.
He would build walls.
Yet, on August 17, 1962, nothing would have made Peter Fechter happier than to tear down the wall that tore him and his city apart.

While his friend Helmut Kulbeik escaped from Eastern guards' fire and jumped safe to freedom over the Wall, 18-year-old Peter was shot in the back. He struggled to climb the wall and managed to reach the top, but was unable to lift his body over the barbed wire. He fell back on the Eastern side of the wall into the death zone.

West Berliners who had seen Peter on top of the wall rushed to the area. Only a few meters away, from the other side of the wall, they shouted Murderers! at the Eastern soldiers who had shot him.

"He only wanted Freedom"

Peter Fechter was not yet dead though. Lying in the sand, he shouted ''Hilfe! Hilfe!’ for about one hour until he had no breath left to shout for Help! with. He slowly bled screaming to death while they shouted, being prevented at gunpoint by Western soldiers to rescue him.

Twenty-seven years would still pass before the Fall of the Wall, twenty years ago. Happy Anniversary to any German reader.

Tobacco Kills Slowly

2009-11-07T10:25:00.002+01:00

Gallic Helmet by Marcel Jacno
(Logo of Gauloises cigarettes)

It's an old joke:
— Tobacco kills slowly!
— Never mind, we are in no hurry.

Denis Quilliard and Elli Medeiros turned famous in France in 1976 when they set up Les Stinky Toys, one of the first French Punk Rock bands. Both have remained well known as artists and producer.

Quilliard was such a heavy smoker that he was essentially known by his nickname Jacno, he had been given in high school after graphic designer Marcel Jacno who designed the Gallic helmet logo on the packets of Gauloises cigarettes.

Jacno sings Sentimental Bourreau
by Bobby Lapointe

Jacno probably was not in any hurry.
Yet he died from cancer past Friday, aged 52.
R.I.P.

Ethnicity

2009-10-24T18:41:00.000+02:00

Leonardo da Vinci – Vitruvian Man (ca. 1492)
Ink on paper. 34,4 × 25,5 cm
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.

I don't usually blog about my occupation and readings as a nephrologist. Yet I'll make an exception with the present blog, that deals with a topic I have discussed for years with colleagues from the USA: the concept of 'human races'.

I read an article today in the medical review Kidney International that expresses a feeling shared by many European doctors: discomfort at seeing the word 'race' used with such a light heart in the international medical literature in English.

The average people will not use the term 'race' in Europe as they commonly do in the USA. In the mind of everyone, for obvious historical reasons, the notion of 'human races' is closely linked to racism, slavery, and the Shoah.

In medical literature though, particularly in articles from the United States, the word is still of current use.

I was very pleased then to read an editorial by Eberhard Ritz from Heidelberg and Sarala Naicker from Johannesburg, entitled "Race: A call to change nomenclature", in which the authors provide strong argumentation for making a systematic change in all scientific communications from 'race' to 'ethnicity'.
[Kidney Int 2009; 76: 807-808. doi:10.1038/ki.2009.356]

Here are some lines of their article:

In scientific meetings and literature, the term ‘race’ is still widely used to characterize the genetic background of specific cohorts. This term has become completely anachronistic with modern genetic insights and should therefore be abandoned.
[...]
It makes no sense to categorize individuals according to skin colour — the density of the skin melanocortin receptor, likely selected to provide protection against skin damage induced by ultraviolet light, bears little relation to the diversity of the genetic codes of respective individuals. Dark skin is seen in populations as diverse as African populations and Australian Aboriginals, the latter of whom have a quite different genetic background.

The use of terms that refer to distinguishing traits such as skin colour, body shape, and hair texture leads the scientific community to magnify differences and ignore similarities between groups of people. Also, these traits are no more accurate in making distinctions between human groups than any other genetically inherited characteristics. We are an extremely homogenous species genetically; all humans today are 99.9% genetically identical.
[...]
The concept of ethnicity is related to the Greek concept of ethnos, which refers to the people of a nation or tribe, and ethnikos, which stands for national. Hence, ethnicity refers to the ethnic quality or affiliation of a group, which is normally characterized in terms of culture.
[...]
The International Society of Nephrology is a global professional society of nephrologists and renal research scientists with a multicultural and multiethnic constituency. Its goals include the development of nephrology and prevention of chronic kidney disease through education, training, research, and public awareness in both the developing and the developed world. In view of the above facts, the executive council of our society finds it is appropriate to use the term ‘ethnicity’ rather than ‘race’ in our scientific communications.

Some will think this is nothing but political correctness. I disagree. Words matter. Besides, it certainly is not merely coincidental that the article was written by citizens of Germany and South Africa, two countries where History has shown that 'race' is not an innocent word.

Thirteen at the Table

2009-10-21T21:25:00.000+02:00

Il Cenacolo (The Last Supper)
by Leonardo Da Vinci (1495-1498)

Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan).

Last may, I went to Italy twice. I spent five days of vacation in Florence, then attended a Conference in Milan. Due to lack of time, I wrote one blog in Florence only, and one in Milan.

I do love Italy, and Italians. There is a lightness, a Joie de Vivre in the air of most Italian towns, you will hardly find anywhere else. Also, Art is everywhere.

In Florence first, then in Milan, I was stunned by frescoes. There's always a difference between looking at a reproduction and seeing an artwork for real. Walter Benjamin named aura this specificity of artwork, which is unique, linked to a special place, and part of history.

Il Cenacolo by Ghirlandaio (1448)

Frescoes certainly have an aura, because they are part of the place on which they were painted. Also, frescoes are impressive because they are very large. Characters painted are taller than you sometimes. You may feel as if you were a witness of the scene.

It was the case in particular in Florence — the city with 70 museums — with frescoes by Filipino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio, in Santa Maria Novella Church and the Church of Ognissanti, famous for the great Last Supper fresco, Ghirlandaio painted in 1488.

Santa Maria Delle Grazie (Milan)

It was the case also in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, a red brick church and monastery built in the 15th century where Leonardo da Vinci painted his Last Supper, Il Cenacolo, in the refectory of the monastery from 1495 to 1498.

Because it was a long-term work, Leonardo did not paint on wet plaster but on a dry wall. Strictly speaking, the painting is not a fresco then. It is a mural painting. Unfortunately, because of the method used, the work deteriorated quickly and its restoration has been a never-ending task.

If you want to see the painting, you must book in advance, and arrive on time. You will then be admitted among a small group of visitors (around 25 people), one group at a time, every 15 minutes. You must go through a double entrance door first, for sake of constant temperature and humidity. You wait there a few minutes, then you enter the refectory at last.

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (click on the picture for a larger scale)

Here it is, painted on the wall on the right side of the refectory. Awesome, huge — about nine meters wide — painted with a perspective that continues the walls of the refectory

The characters are approximately life-sized, a little taller. Although the work is damaged,you feel as if you were there, standing at about eight meters from the table. All 13 character are in front of you, on the same side of the table. Unlike Ghirlandaio and others, Leonardo did not paint Judas apart from his colleagues.

Jesus has just announced that one of those sitting at the table will betray him. The twelve apostles react with various degrees of shock, denial, and anger.

Jesus is in the middle of the painting. Precisely in the middle. In fact, a small hole in his right temple was used by Leonardo to help define the vanishing point of the whole perspective of the painting. Around him, on his right and left sides, the apostles are grouped in four groups of three, and each of the three figures in each group reacts its own way.

On the left side, Bartholomew, James the Younger and Andrew appear stunned by Jesus’ declaration. They look at him with stupefaction. Andrew raises his hands before him in a gesture of horror and incredulity — yet an apostle can hardly be incredulous, can he ?

In the second group, a knife in hand, Peter is ready to punish the traitor. He leans towards John, the boyish, almost feminine apostle seated beside Jesus: "Ask the Master, John! Who is it?" He pushes Judas forward, who holds a purse with thirty pieces of silver inside.

On Jesus left-hand side, Thomas, James the Elder and Philip are assuring Jesus of their obedience. James the Elder expresses his indignation, and we can almost hear Philip protesting his loyalty: "You know me, Master, you know I did not do that".

The last group on the right is made up of Matthew, Jude Thaddeus and Simon. They are involved in an animated discussion, and don't look at Jesus. "One of us? How is it possible?" Matthews asks Simon, while Jude Thaddeus seems to be about to clap his hands in a "didn't I tell you?"

-:-:-:-:-:-

[BbN #13]

Note: You cannot fully appreciate such a masterpiece in less than 15 minutes. There's so little time, you must hurry, you can hardly have a look at every character. It is frustrating. If you ever go to Santa Maria delle Grazie and see The Last Supper by Leonardo, here is my advice then: book for it twice, half an hour apart. I will do that, the next time I go to Milan.

The Twelve Labours of Hercules

2009-10-16T22:53:00.000+02:00

Amasis – Heracles entering Olympus
Attic black-figure olpe — ca. 550-530 BC

I have been an affiliate of Les Amis du Louvre (Friends of Le Louvre) for years. It is a patron of the arts foundations, which aims at increasing art collections in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Also, it gives free access to the Museum, permanent collection and temporary exhibitions as well.

I probably visited the Museum more than a hundred times, I have not yet explored the whole of it though. In particular, I visited the department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities on rare occasions only.

Because I read an article about Attic pottery lately, I decided to follow two Thematic Trails in that department of Le Louvre: Hercules trail and Greek pottery trail. More than 2500 years after they were made, Greek pottery pieces are still fascinating. I especially valued so-called black-figure paintings on Attic vases.

A couple of vases displayed Hercules (Herakles in Greek), one of which is displayed above. After I followed both trails, I enjoyed myself seeking on the Internet twelve Greek ceramic that illustrate the twelve labours of Hercules.

Here they are (click on the pictures for bigger view and more details).

The Nemean Lion

The Lernean Hydra

The Cerynean Hind

The Erymanthian Boar

The Augean Stables

The Stymphalian Birds

The Cretan Bull

The Mares of Diomedes

The Belt of Hippolyte

The Cattle of Geryon

Apples of the Hesperides

Cerberus

[BbN #12]

Panem et Circenses

2009-09-27T15:52:00.000+02:00

Diego Maradona illegally sticks the ball with his left hand in the Argentina vs. England 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter final.
Maradona was not penalised for the cheat, called The Hand of God Goal. He was later awarded the golden ball for best player in the tournament.

I'd certainly rather write about what I love than about what I dislike, but it will not be possible today because, according to the Blogging by Numbers constraint, this blog has to deal with number eleven…. From Brazil to England, from France to Korea, this number immediately conjures up one thing only: football, because eleven is the number of players in a team.

When I was a child, I would play football in the playground during the breaks, as every boy does. It is just normal that children play. Later, I played handball (as a goalkeeper, my thumbs remember it well), then rugby that I loved. Sport as a recreational activity is great thing. Playing in teams is an experience besides the sport itself: it has you learn to socialize, and respect people. Theoretically.

Professional football appears to be just the opposite of this theory. Granted, beautiful play may happen. Dribbles by Zinedine Zidane were pure art sometimes. Yet Zidane was also the man who head butted an Italian player, Marco Materazzi, in the final of the 2006 FIFA World Cup (one of my first blogs dealt with it), probably as an over-reaction to racist callings.

In my eyes, this event summed up professional football: it includes manoeuvre and pretension, racism, insults, and violence. The hidden part of the iceberg is of the same kind: doping, cheats, refereeing 'errors' and corruption, and that's not all.

Such flaws are inherent to many professional sports nowadays, not only football. The reason is always the same: money. It's especially obvious in football though, because it is by far the most popular sport in the world.

[BbN #11]

Famous football players are millionaires who usually grew up in poverty. Their success makes young poor people dream of a better future. Also, people don't think of economical issues when they look at a match.

Nothing new here. 'Panem et Circenses', the Roman emperors would already say, 2000 years ago, about what a leader should provide to the masses to have them remain quiet: bread and games.

Primidi, 1 Vendémiaire CCXVIII, day of Grapes

2009-09-22T18:14:00.001+02:00

The French Republican Calendar – Year III

Today, September 22, is the day of the September Equinox, when Autumn begins in the Northern (and Spring in the Southern) hemisphere. It was also the first day of the French Republican Calendar. On September 22, 1792 in France, the First Republic was born, and the new calendar (although it was fully conceived some months later only) started on this very same Equinox day.

The new calendar was part of a plan of rationalizing, standardizing, and secularizing systems of measurements named the Metric System, then the Système International (S.I.). At the time in Europe, you would not have a same value for a French, British, Spanish or Italian league, mile, pound, ounce, gallon, whatever. Values would even change between counties or cities in a same country sometimes. A few years earlier then, French King Louis XVI had commissioned a group of scientists headed by Antoine Lavoisier to create a unified and rational system of measures. The Revolutionary Government intensified it.

French scientists decided modern values should be based as much as possible on number 10. Their work led to the present unification and rationalization of measurements, with the development of meter, kilogram, then the second, kelvin, ampere, candela, mole, etc. The metric system/S.I. is of widespread use in science, and it has been progressively adopted in ordinary life by every country in the world but three: Liberia, Myanmar and the USA.

One attempt was a failure though: the Revolutionary Calendar, that lasted for about 13 years only (plus 18 days in 1871 during the Paris Commune) and never spread outside France. Every year was written in Roman letters (year CCXVIII begins today). It had twelve months of 30 days each, that were given new names based on seasons and nature, principally having to do with the prevailing weather in and around Paris. For instance, Vendémiaire that begins today, means "the month of Winds". It obviously made the calendar pretty inaccurate in most countries, and especially in the Southern hemisphere.

Every months was divided into three decades, 'weeks' of 10 days called Primidi (first day), Duodi (second day), Tridi (third day) and so on. One Decadi every ten days instead of one Sunday every seven days was certainly another good reason for the new calendar to fail. Instead of Saints as in the Christian calendar, every day in the year was associated to a plant or a tool (Grape today for example).

[BbN #10]

At the end of the year, 5 or 6 Complementary Days (or Sansculotides) were respectively called Celebration Day of Virtue, Talent, Labour, Convictions, Honours, and on lap years, Celebration of the Revolution.

Today is Primidi, 1er Vendémiaire CCXVIII, day of Grapes. Happy New Republican Year, everyone.

Nine by nine

2009-09-09T09:09:00.000+02:00

Cover of the Nine by Nine 45 rpm record (1970)

I confess that I deliberately waited for nine days since my previous blog, because I wanted to post this entry today 9/9/9, at 9:9 am.

Nine by nine by The
John Dummer Famous Music Band

[BbN #9]

This piece was a huge hit in France in the 1970s. I still find it great now.

Otto e Mezzo

2009-08-30T22:55:00.000+02:00

I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves. Instead, I'm the one without the courage to bury anything at all. When did I go wrong?
I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same.

Guido, in 8½ by F. Fellini)

The present blog certainly comes as a joke, located as it is between 8 and 9 in the Blogging by Numbers series of blogs I have been unwinding for several weeks. Yet 8½ by Federico Fellini was a movie that remains worth seeing, almost half a century later, far from the usual hyped-up blockbusters now released every week. Also, the music by Nino Rota is justly famous.

The movie depicts the crisis of a creative mind, the despondency of an artist who doesn't succeed in creating any more.

[BbN #8.5]

Guido, played by Marcello Mastroianni — and a transparent alter ego of Fellini himself — has lost inspiration. He is overwhelmed by an uncontrolled flood of dreams, fantasies, and hallucinations.
From this movie on, Federico Fellini took up a style of Realistic Fantasy, where extravagance is more real than reality, filled up with humanity, fantasizing and imagination.

Paris in August

2009-08-17T18:29:00.000+02:00

Taking a Sunbath in Paris

I love Paris in August. Because many people have the month of August off in France, several hundred thousand Parisians then leave the city for weeks. Fewer Parisians, many tourists, warm and sunny weather usually, there is a special atmosphere. The air is filled with tranquillity, like a Sunday that would last for one month.

You must go and work every day as usual; you feel as if you were in vacation though. For lunch, you will improvise a picnic with colleagues, in the Jardins du Luxembourg or the Buttes-Chaumont. On the evening, you will stroll around, have a beer at the terrace of a café. You will sit on the grass in a garden perhaps, to take a nap or read a book.

It's August. The eighth month in the year, and a blessed month in Paris, when the City of Lights gets rid of its usual frenzy. Traffic jams, subway's crowd, all that makes it a hard place to live in sometimes, has disappeared for a while. The city reveals itself, warm and cheerful. It has put on its leisure clothes, for the sake of tourists, most of whom don't realize how special the atmosphere is.

Paris-Plages, on the banks
of the Seine River

Paris is weightless in August. It's culture without stress, moving around without hurry. No more queues in front of movie theatres. No more traffic jams on the Boulevard Périphérique. You will find a parking space anywhere at once, and it's free! You can sit in the bus. Metro cars are empty.

You can take a Vélib' (Paris' self-service bike-hire system) safely and bike everywhere, even on the Champs-Élysées.

[BbN #8]

You may decide to go to Paris-Plages ('Paris-Beaches', eighth occurrence this year) and have a sunbath on the banks of the Seine River or Bassin de la Villette, why not? You feel as if you were a tourist yourself.

In August, Parisians rediscover space in a city that misses it so much during the rest of the year. La Joie de Vivre is back, it is almost Italy. Oh yes. I do love Paris in August.

Warning: Slides

2009-08-09T14:17:00.003+02:00

(Adapted from PresentationZen by Garr Reynolds)

Let there be an end to incredibly boring speakers! They are not sophisticated, erudite scientists speaking above our intellectual capability; they are arrogant, thoughtless individuals who insult our very presence by their lack of concern for our desire to benefit from a meeting which we chose to attend.

Let There be Stoning

by Jay H. Lehr

Like most specialists, I will attend conferences and symposiums several times a month, either as a delegate or a speaker. Doing a lecture is usually a little stressful, but it is a challenge I have always loved, as I loved to teach medical students at the University, back in the 1990s.

No doctor I know has ever been taught by a professional about how to do a lecture though. In my first years of practice then, my presentations were very classical, based on slides with a lot of text and bullet lists. In particular, I used to follow the so-called golden rule of seven "do not use more than seven words per line, and not more than seven lines per slide", because the lesser text in one slide, the better. Yet, as I realized soon, seven lines of seven words are still a lot of text to be read. I cannot read slides and listen to the lecturer at the same time myself. There is no reason other people will succeed where I fail, is it?

G. Reynolds' advice in his last blog: "this should be posted outside many meeting rooms".

For long time then, I have done my best to have presentations mainly based on my talk, with slides used as a visual help for memorization, and a medium where to display references of related articles, when needed.

Many speakers don't do that. Very often, their lecture ends up in bored people who will not remember anything of the talk. Even, there are speakers I remember only because their presentation was so mediocre and boring that I felt enraged because I lost my time, coming from far to hear a lame talk by a speaker without respect for their audience. "Let there be stoning", Jay H. Lehr once wrote about such speakers. Agreed!

A few days ago, I have been given a book entitled Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds, a lecturer, designer consultant and assistant professor in management. He has beautifully put into words what I have felt and tried to apply for years, and he has done so with much more expertise I could show. If you happen to do presentations, this book is essential reading.

[BbN #7]

During my spare time in the last couple of days, I have done nothing else but read Garr Reynolds' book and blog, and related links. Today, I feel as if I had found a treasure. I have been asked to do several lectures on different kidney-related topics in the next months. I will prepare them with Reynolds's philosophy in mind from now.

Visiting Paris with your Sixth Sense

2009-08-06T07:55:00.003+02:00

A door was open on a courtyard…

Rue de Grenelle, Paris — October 2006

Sometimes, I wonder in which city I would choose to live if I had to leave Paris some day. Despite it is crowded by even more tourists than Paris, relatively to its size, I would probably choose Venice, in Italy.
Each time I return there, I am filled with wonder at its splendid situation and gorgeous monuments, I savour the absence of cars, and enjoy Venetians' kindness. In particular, I love to be constantly lost in that city. Being lost is a treat when there is no threat.

Every day in Venice, you take a street you have taken the day before, then a bridge over a canal you recognize, another street you think you know, you turn the corner... and you're lost again. Now, you can only rely on your sixth sense to find your way.

Sixth sense: a sense of direction that migratory birds seem to possess. Actually a combination of different factors — such as landmarks, earth's magnetic field, sun and stars — they have learned to interpret throughout the evolutionary process.

Adapted from Hannah Mueller

As for me, born and raised in the City of Lights, I can hardly get lost any more in Paris — unfortunately. It is something I do love though. When I have time, I will manage to go through streets and places of the city in an unusual way, so that their appear new to me. I once described a few tricks I use sometimes to delude myself and feel lost in my native town.

Indeed, the best way to discover most cities is to get lost in them. It is especially the best way in Paris. Downtown Paris is safe, and it has human size. Everything here is reasonably near. You can walk through the city in less than two hours, and if you feel tired, there is always a metro station around the corner.

Unlike many cities, in the USA particularly, that are essentially a succession of suburbs, Paris is a centralized city, made up with several areas that were different villages once, unified during hundreds years of history. Books and guides can be necessary to decide which area in Paris you shall visit today, yet as soon as you have reached it, you would better have them back in your bag or pocket, and let your intuition — your sixth sense rather — decide where to go, what to see, what to do.

Sixth sense: a power of perception like but not one of the five senses : a keen intuitive power.

Merriam-Webster dictionary

Join the crowd in the streets in Montmartre or the Quartier Latin. Wander here and there. Look at people and shop windows. Have a break in a café for a beer or a cappuccino. Start off again, take another street, turn right, turn left, take the wrong street, retrace your steps. Trust to your luck and intuition to pace a quarter and discover its soul. You will never 'know Paris' in one stay only, will you? Build yourself memories then!

An ancient Roman temple, hidden at the far end of the courtyard of an apartment building in a little street; the gorgeous sight of sunset above Trocadéro Palace; the way Les Parisiennes master trends, and integrate them into their own style,

[BbN #6]

being quite aware of which shape and colour will fit better with their hair, eyes, skin; the sound of the accordion played by a blind musician at the terrace of this old café; the scent of a rose purchased from a street hawker; the taste of the dinner in this tiny hotel. The touch of his/her hand on your skin...

Your sixth sense will enable your other ones to work, and create a lot of memories.

N°5

2009-08-01T21:51:00.000+02:00

"What do I wear to bed? Why, Chanel N°5, of course" (Marilyn Monroe)

Since my entry entitled Blogging by Numbers, I have written blogs under the constraint stated as 'Write blogs on topics one can associate with successive ascending numbers' — and still am I now. It was not the first time I assigned myself a constraint as a challenge, and a help to my inspiration as well: I did the same two years ago with a constraint of writing about the 5 senses and Paris. It ended up in blogs about Sight, Hearing, Touch, Taste, and Smell.

When you talk about the five senses, it is but logical to name sight and hearing first, because they are the most important senses in humans. Taste, and essentially smell, on the contrary, will be named last, because they are of much lesser use in humans than many animals.

It is the same when it comes to arts. Arts are usually based on one sense only, and arts based on a sense that acts from a distance — sight or hearing — are seen as noble arts. Painters, sculptors, composers, musicians, are undisputed artists. On the opposite, few people will spontaneously consider that chefs, wine experts and perfumers are artists as well. There is a hierarchy among senses: senses that need closeness are trivial. Touch, taste, and smell, especially.

Every art needs education and practice. It is the case especially with arts that rely upon underused senses. It is probably not only coincidental then that France, a country where even body smell has traditionally been considered a normal feature of men and women, is especially famous for its cuisine, cheeses, wines, and perfumes.

Everybody knows Leonardo, Picasso, Rodin, Mozart, and so many other artists relying on sight or hearing. Few people, on the opposite, have heard of Giovanni Marina Farina, who invented the Eau de Cologne and served as a model for the character of César Birotteau in the novel by Honoré de Balzac, or Ernest Beaux, who created Chanel n°5, probably the most famous perfume ever.

I want to give women an artificial perfume. Yes, I really do mean artificial, like a dress, something that has been made. I am a fashion craft worker. I don’t want any rose or lily of the valley, I want a perfume that is a composition.

Coco Chanel

When Mademoiselle Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel commissioned Ernest Beaux to make several perfumes for her choosing, she was already a famous fashion designer who had imposed her conception of elegance, with modern women feeling free because they wore simple and comfortable clothing.

At the time though, fashion and perfumes were distinct areas, and the idea of creating a perfume that would be an image of the brand was new. Beaux produced two series of samples numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24. Chanel chose the bottle labelled as N°5 and decided to keep the name, probably for superstitious reasons.

[BbN #5]

The new perfume was introduced on May 5, 1921, on the 5th day of the 5th month of the year. In the light of what its destiny has been for more than 80 years, Coco Chanel was undoubtedly right in thinking that 5 was her lucky number.

Scrambled Eggs

2009-07-25T19:23:00.000+02:00

John, Paul, Ringo and George

(Cover of Let it Be – 1970)

Paul McCartney had only just woke up in his room in London, one morning in 1964, when he hurried to the piano and turned on a tape recorder. During the night, he had dreamed of a melody he did not want to let slip into the recesses of his mind.

In order not to lose it then, he played it with temporary lyrics inspired by the breakfast he was just about to take with his girlfriend: 'Scrambled Eggs… Oh, baby, you've got so lovely legs'.

The music was here, the whole of its melody so precisely composed that McCartney was not sure at first it was truly a creation of his own. He feared it might be involuntary plagiarism, that he subconsciously remembered a music composed by someone else. 'For about a month', he told later, 'I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it.'

Beatlemania was as its peaks at the time. The group of four boys from Liverpool — whose name was a pun made of The Beetles (one among their many first names, and a tribute to Buddy Holly's group The Crickets) and 'to beat' — had turned into the world's most famous band in the history of popular music in the 20th century. Even, first dissensions had appeared, that would make the band break in 1970.

In 1964 though, John, Paul, George and Ringo would always sing together. John Lennon and Paul McCartney composed most of the songs, they would always sign together — Lennon/McCartney. It was the case also with Scrambled Eggs when McCartney succeeded at last to add real lyrics to the music composed during his sleep. Yet, for the first time, the song was not sung by the whole Beatles but Paul alone, accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar, with a string quartet on the background.

Yesterday has become one of the world's most popular songs ever, with more than 3,000 recorded versions. In a poll of British music experts and listeners in 1999, it was even voted the best song of the 20th century. I do love the song, but I somewhat regret it has not remained an Ode to Scrambled Eggs, just for the sake of fun and originality.

[BbN #4]

A Story of Three Friends

2009-07-20T09:17:00.001+02:00

Forensics for Dummies
by B.T. Kidney and G. Grissom

I used to have an old friend, who was a reputable doctor. Nobody would have asked him about their symptoms or small complaints though, because with him, you would never know where such questions could lead you.

You should not think he was a dangerous doctor or a charlatan though. He was not at risk to be struck off the medical register, although his career was punctuated with a lot of death: my friend was an expert in forensics. He was even a leading expert in his field, among the best in the world.

A specialist in difficult diagnoses, death in suspicious circumstances, questionable suicides and unequivocal murders, he would find the diagnosis that explained the inexplicable. He was able to turn the irrational into the rational, and bring mysterious death back to normality.

You will not be surprised then that he was often asked for a diagnosis about victims from all over the globe. He was always between two planes, always in a hurry. A globe-trotting doctor, although he did not have the look. Several years older than me, he was a very unobtrusive person, with a quiet elegance and temperate language. He looked like a man of law, a solicitor, a judge, rather than a doctor.

For that matter, his area of specialisation required frequent contacts with men of law because his offices would often come to settlement of complex inheritance issues, sometimes in a way quite unexpected by the heirs of the dear departed, when coveted legacies turned into sentences of life imprisonment.

I had another very dear friend, who was quite different. About ten years younger than me, she was a very beautiful woman and a talented nude dancer at a famous Parisian cabaret.

I had followed her career and supported her for long. We were very hopeful she would become the first dancer soon.

My two friends met for the first time at a reception I gave on the occasion of my birthday. Between them, it was love at first sight. A few months later, my old friend divorced his wife, and mother of three grown-up children, and married her.

Yet aging persons are possessive sometimes. He made her interrupt her career. The young bride suffered a great deal, I can tell you. Her husband thanked her with long travels abroad rather than tokens of his affection. Soon, she only thought of keeping boredom at bay, and succeeded in this purpose in the most pleasant and Parisian way... I can surely tell you too.

Murder is always a mistake — one should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner.

Oscar Wilde

My friend died shortly after their third anniversary. Nobody found the cause of his death, despite two autopsies: the first one performed at the request of his children, the other one by letters rogatory demanded by his insurance company, obviously reluctant to pay his young widow a premium that amounted to three million euros.

"No one will ever know why my poor husband died", she used to moan. "He was the only one who could find it out, but he cannot do it any more. He was the only one who knew how to kill your fellow man so that nobody can prove it." She would burst into tears then, and I comforted her in her grief the best I could.

She wanted to publish his fascinating last book, that was almost finished when he passed on. When he was away from home, we both used to read the manuscript during our long evenings alone together. She deemed it her duty towards the deceased to publish the book — a last way to show him how grateful she was.

The book was truly of utmost scientific importance: in particular, it revealed the formula of a new toxic substance, unknown to the most eminent of specialists, that anyone could easily extract from the stamens of a common wild flower, thanks to a clever and innovative process.

If the book was to be published, no doubt that the plant poison would be called by my friend's name, giving him post-mortem fame, and immortality, sort of.

Anyway, at the end, my old friend's widow bowed to my reasons. Hardly silencing her scruples, with a lot of tears in her eyes, she burned the manuscript in the bonfire we lit in our home's hearth, the very day we received the check from the insurance company.

[BbN #3]

-:-:-:-:-:-

I first published this short story a couple of years ago in a previous blog, now deleted. My friend Vanessa was kind enough at the time to read it and point out several English errors. Thank you again, Vanessa.

2 Lovers —> 1 Couple

2009-07-16T08:41:00.000+02:00

— 2A — At the beginning

Kyss [The Kiss] by Edvard Munch (ca. 1895)
Oil on wood, 38.7 x 32.5 cm — Munch-museet, Oslo.

Önceleyin [At First] by Cemal Süreya

Önce bir ellerin vardı Yalnızlığımla benim aramda Sonra birden kapılar açılıverdi Ardına kadar, Sonra yüzün onun ardından Gözlerın Dudakların Sonra her şey çıkıp geldi.	At first there were your hands Between me and my loneliness Then the doors opened Suddenly all through, Then your face, Your eyes, Your lips Then everything came up.
Bir korkusuzluk aldı yürüdü çevremizde Sen çıkardın utancını Duvara astın Ben masanın üstüne kodum kuralları Her şey işte böyle oldu önce.	A fearlessness surrounded us You took off your embarrassment And hang it on the wall I left the rules on the table Everything happened this way at first.

-:-:-:-:-:-

— 2B — I Don't Want to Be a Couple

Woodstock by Burk Uzzle (1969)
[This photo has become famous as the cover of the first Woodstock album]

I don't want to be a couple.
Couples are stupid.
Couple kiss all the time.
Couple moan.
Couple fight.

I want to kiss you when I want.
I want to leave you when I want.
I want to come back when I want.
I want to be free.

I don't want to spoil everything.
I don't want to be a couple.

-:-:-:-:-:-

— 2C — Looking Together in the Same Direction

Der Kuss [The Kiss] by Gustav Klimt (1907)
Oil and Gold Leaf on canvas, 180 x 180 cm

Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna

Years pass.

S'aimer, ce n'est pas se regarder l'un l'autre, c'est regarder ensemble dans la même direction.
[Loving is not looking at each other, it's looking together in the same direction.]

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in Terre des Hommes [Wind, Sand and Stars]

-:-:-:-:-:-

— 2D — Old Lovers

La chanson des vieux amants [Song of Old Lovers] by Jacques Brel

[...] But finally, finally,
It took us a lot of talent
To be old without being adult.

Oh my love
My sweet, my tender, my marvellous love
From bright dawn until the end of day,
I still love you, you know,
I love you.

And more the time marches on
The more time torments us.
But isn't it the worst trap
For lovers to live in peace?

[BbN: #2]

Being the First, at any Price

2009-07-12T07:59:00.010+02:00

Le Maillot Jaune

It is in the very nature of sport that competitors do as much as they can to win. For an athlete though, searching for the first place should not apply to the results of the competition only, but dignity, human excellence, and fair-play as well.

In other words, 'being the first at any price' is not defensible. There's a gap between being the first, thanks to your efforts, perseverance and biological aptitudes, and winning because you cheated.

Many people think that 'the end justifies the means' though. According to this logic, being the first is not the main goal in itself. It is a way to get honours, please a government, make money, and have many other people around make money also.

When I was a child, the Tour de France punctuated July. I would spent hours watching it on TV. I undoubtedly learned a lot of French geography by writing down every stage, with distances, intermediate towns, passes to get over, etc. I would read every day in the local newspaper about the day's winner and the jersey holders: the white, spotted, green, and of course, yellow jersey — Le Maillot Jaune.

Tom Simpson
Mont Ventoux, July 13, 1967

And then... on July 13, 1967, British cyclist Tom Simpson died climbing Mont Ventoux. Millions people saw it live on TV. I did. "Heat exhaustion" they say. That's right, blame the heat... Even the child I was at the time understood it could not be related to heat only. We heard later that Simpson's autopsy found amphetamines and alcohol in his blood. Police also discovered amphetamine tablets in the pocket of his jersey and in a team support car.

As year passed, we heard of steroids, androgens, the 'pot belge', erythropoietin, and so on. We learned that, besides training, willpower, capacity for overcoming pain, that are still necessary in a crazy competition that aims at putting back the limits of human resistance to pain and effort, doping substances were and are still essential.

Richard Virenque, Marco Pantani, Jan Ullrich, Bjarne Riis, Floyd Landis… and dozens other 'champions'. Dozens of cheats and liars who had sworn for years they were 'clean', until they were convicted of doping, and then cried and apologized. Many cyclists have not been caught yet, or have miraculously been put in the clear, scientifically guilty but not guilty on juridical grounds… What a farce.

Anyway. A lot of people still love the Tour de France… people outside France especially. Among the people who watch Le Tour on the French roads every year in July, there are a lot of fans from all over the world, bikers or not, who come to France especially to see it. Good for them.

Yet, as for me and millions of French people, I don't follow the Tour de France any more. I watch the News of the Tour sometimes though. Not because I want to hear about who won the stage or who leads the race. Only, I am a little interested in hearing which cheats will be unmasked this time.

[BbN: #1]

A Void

2009-07-08T12:28:00.004+02:00

Georges Perec's portrait as a jigsaw puzzle
Puzzle pour un portrait de Georges Perec
La Poésie dans un jardin — Festival d'Avignon 1988

Born in Paris in 1936, Georges Perec was the only son of two recent Jewish immigrants from Poland, Icek and Cyrla Peretz. His father volunteered for French Army during World War II, and was killed in 1940. His mother was deported by the Nazis and died in Auschwitz in 1943.

Georges survived because his mother had previously sent him by train to a little town in the Alps mountains, where relatives took charge of him. They had him baptized Catholic and his name frenchified to Perec. They adopted him formally after the war.

Disappearance of his parents when he was a child, disappearance of his Jewish roots, there is nothing so surprising that Perec was haunted by absence, loss, erasing, disappearance. “I have no memory of childhood” are the first words of his novel W or the Memory of Childhood, an admission that he remembers almost nothing of his early life as a Jew in Nazi-occupied France.

In 1969, Georges Perec published a novel named La disparition, a phrase that means ‘the disappearance’ in English. A word for word translation of the title into English had to be replaced by A Void (Gilbert Adair) or A Vanishing (Ian Monk) though, because the letter E appears three times in ‘the disappearance’, and the whole novel is a 300 pages lipogram written without ever using a E.

La disparition tells the story of the disappearance of a man, whose name is Anton Voyl (in French) or Vowl (in English), in a strange world from which an enigmatic part five of 26 has disappeared as well.

It implicitly talks of its own lipogrammatic limitation, starting with the name of the missing person — Voyelle in French, Vowel in English, after the E's have been lost. Characters in the novel work out what is missing, but they risk fatal injury if their though gets too close to that taboo “circular symbol with a horizontal bar across it”.

The constraint that underlies the story induces endless tricks and distortions of language, and describes how a world can be built that fills that void. Besides the amazing lexicographic feats of writing a whole novel with zero occurrence of the most frequent letter in French and English though, the silent disappearance of the letter is a metaphor of loss, and suffering it causes.

In French, E is the only vowel in père [father] and mère [mother], and sans E [without E] sounds very much like sans eux [without them]. Furthermore, since the name Georges Perec is full of E's, the disappearance of the letter also ensures the author's own disappearance.

The absence of a sign is always the sign of an absence, and the absence of the E in A Void announces a broader, cannily coded discourse on loss, catastrophe, and mourning […] Each "void" in the novel is abundantly furnished with meaning, and each points toward the existential void that Perec grappled with throughout his youth and early adulthood. A strange and compelling parable of survival becomes apparent in the novel, too, if one is willing to reflect on the struggles of a Holocaust orphan trying to make sense out of absence, and those of a young writer who has chosen to do without the letter that is the beginning and end of 'écriture' [writing]. — Warren Motte

-:-:-:-:-

Postscript: When I challenged myself with the Blogging by numbers constraint, I decided the first entry in the series would be related to Number 0 — not 1 — and dedicated to A Void. It seemed fair enough because the very idea of the constraint was inspired in particular by the works of Georges Perec and Oulipo.

I did not know though that another void was just about to occur, when my I had my laptop fell from a table three weeks ago and its hard drive broke. Another aching void and a lot of work to do again, because I had not performed any save for a month or so. Anyway, I am back now.

[BbN: #0]

Blogging by Numbers

2009-06-13T18:48:00.003+02:00

1988 Poster of Drowning by Numbers
by Peter Greenaway
(With number 44 in the background)

In his 1988 movie 'Drowning by Numbers', British Director Peter Greenaway tells the strange story of three women belonging to three generations in a same family, who bear the same name and cause their husbands to drown, one in a bath, one in the sea, one in a swimming-pool.

The result is a fascinating, intriguing, weird black comedy. The local coroner is drawn into a plot to disguise the murders. As the plot progresses, his son explains the rules of various games played by the characters as if they were ancient traditions, while the numbers 1 to 100 successively appear in ascending order, either seen in the background or spoken by the characters.

Most of the games played in the film were invented for its purpose, using rules that are so complex that Greenaway later published a whole book dedicated to explaining them, entitled 'Fear of Drowning by Numbers'. That a whole book was needed to explain rules of a movie built all around constraints reminded me of the works by OuLiPo members, especially 'La Vie Mode d'Emploi' (Life: A User Manual) by Georges Perec.

OuLiPo, the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Workshop of Potential Literature), is a group of writers and mathematicians who seek to create literary works using constrained writing techniques. They use constraints as a means of triggering their ideas and inspiration.

Quand tout est permis, rien n'est possible.
If everything is allowed, nothing is possible. (Jean Ricardou)

Georges Perec especially, certainly the most famous OuLiPo member with Raymond Queneau and Italo Calvino, wrote the best part of his work using lipograms, palindromes and various kinds of constrained writing. His masterly book, 'La Vie Mode d'Emploi' (Life: A User Manual) is a complex (patch)work built according to a complex plan of constraints.

This fascinating book tells the lives and thoughts of the inhabitants of a fictitious building in Paris. Although it is a book that can be read and enjoyed without being concerned with the constraints, one quickly discovers that there are complicated games going on all over the place, and try to find the constraints like a detective. You will only find a small part of them anyway: here also, a whole dedicated book had to been published, that contains their inventory.

Unlike 'Fear of Drowning by numbers' though, the 'Cahier des charges de La Vie Mode d'Emploi' — the title means 'Specifications of Life: a User Manual', yet the book has not been translated into English — has not been published by its author, but exegetes after he died.

I have blogged using constraints myself in a couple of occasions, for fun and as a help at times of lack of inspiration. I assigned myself the thematic constraint 'Write about the 5 senses and Paris' once. It ended up in five blogs about Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Touch. Another time, it was 'Use the names of at least 10 movies by Alfred Hitchcock'. I am not sure anyone noticed the titles hidden in this story despite several clues, but I enjoyed writing it.

From now on, I will obey the constraint 'Write blogs on topics one can associate with successive ascending numbers'. Hopefully, this constraint will stimulate my imagination. We'll see until what number I succeed in following the rule, be it agreed that I will probably interpolate 'normal' blogs between the 'blogs by numbers' sometimes, in particular in response to a special event or for an anniversary.

Blogging in English

2009-06-08T19:54:00.000+02:00

When you have been blogging for years, sometimes you wonder what's the use. You often feel unsatisfied with what you have written, and guilty about what you have not. It takes a lot of time, especially when you are weird enough to write in a foreign language. Furthermore, you know that few people will read your prose, which is quite fair because, if you don't close your eyes to the truth, what you write is not of any special interest.

You began blogging for some reason. Over the years, you thought of giving up several times. After all, what the heck! You stopped blogging then, a couple of times, but you always resumed, when withdrawal symptoms appeared. At the end, you are still here. You keep on writing about topics you are interested in, you write down thoughts of yours, or something someone else once said. Most often in fact, what you publish is not dedicated any more to the few people who will read it. It is just something you need to do, "because".

Writing in English was a constraint I put on myself when I began blogging, because I then used an English-speaking network (Yahoo! 360°) where most people would not understand French. Also, I wanted to improve my skills in a language I have never liked, but is nowadays a necessity, the lingua franca of our times. My best friends here, beside a couple of native speakers friendly enough to tell me about my mistakes, have been an electronic dictionary and Google, as an online checker for idiomaticity.

I thought of switching to French several times, but never did. Not only because I did not want to disappoint my public (hah) but also, funnily enough, because I have come to realise that I write blogs more comfortably in this foreign language I don't fully master than in my native language. When I write in French, I cannot help from rebuilding every sentence indefinitely, because I am a never satisfied perfectionist. I cannot have such a problem in English. I know there are certainly errors in every blog of mine. I hardly deal with the past tenses. Some sentences are certainly clumsy. Yet I am not able to see it.

Contrary to what I wrote a few weeks ago, I cannot be a real stickler in English, because I just cannot feel the English language. And you know what? It is great.

Historic Pictures

2009-06-05T13:55:00.000+02:00

Several years ago, I was given a book entitled Chronique du vingtième siècle (The 20th Century Saga), edited by Le Monde newspaper.

It is a huge book (1350 pages, A4 size) that contains excerpts of most relevant articles published in French newspapers in the 20th century. 'Sarajevo: Archduke shot dead' (June, 1914); 'Lindbergh flies over the Atlantic' (May, 1927); 'Paris is now free' (August, 1944); 'Explorers on the Moon' (July, 1969), and so on.

You have a strange feeling when you read articles written many decades ago, on the very day historic events happened. They fill in a gap between personal experience and what you have been told. Obviously, the journalists who wrote the articles could not know about a future that is part of a well-known past for present readers. Yet, paradoxically, such a lack of knowledge adds a lot. When an event happened long time ago, before you were born, or able to understand it, you see it as a piece of History; almost an abstraction. On the opposite, when you can remember a event, how you heard of it, what you thought about it at the time, it is part of *your* history. Quite not the same.

When you read articles in such a book, you feel as if this gap has been filled in. Past events become more real, because you hear about them happening 'live'. Furthermore, beside words, you see pictures, some of which are known throughout the world: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in Yalta. Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin on the moon, photographed by Neil Armstrong who appears also as a reflection on the visor of Aldrin's helmet. Vietnamese girl Kim Phúc, badly burnt, running down a road after a Napalm attack...

It works with articles, it works with photos. It works also with films. I remember the year 1989 very well: resistance and demonstrations in communist countries, protesters in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin wall. The youngest cannot remember how hopeful we Westerners felt at the time, and how sad and angry after the massacre in Beijing. Yet, thanks to the movie below — that I have displayed several time on my successive blogs — they can feel the same as we did, 20 years ago exactly, when the desperate action of the Unknown Rebel testified about what the courage of a unique human being can be.

The Unknown Rebel

Klotho

2009-05-31T17:24:00.002+02:00

The Triumph of Death or The Three Fates
Flemish Mille fleurs tapestry (ca. 1510-1520).

The three spinning goddesses on the left were named Moirae in Greek Mythology. Later, the Romans called them Parcae. Now, we call them the Fates. They were the daughters of Nyx, the primordial goddess of the Night, also the mother of Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death)

Klotho, the spinner, would spin the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle; Lachesis, the drawer of lots, would measure it with her rod; and Atropos, the inexorable, would cut the thread of life with her abhorred shears.

Several papers and posters dealt with Klotho last week, at the World Congress of Nephrology in Milan, Italy. As you will guess though, kidney specialists have not experienced a sudden interest in Greek mythology, even in a place that once was part of the Roman Empire. The many scientists who have written hundreds of articles about Klotho in medical journals for a couple of years have not either. Only, a blood protein, and the gene that codes for it, have been given that name, Klotho, because of their striking properties.

I will not go into details of the specialised topics discussed during the Congress about relations between Klotho, bone and kidney. Yet everyone will probably be interested in hearing that blood levels of Klotho protein lower with age in humans, and that Klotho-deficient mice suffer a disease that simulates fast ageing. Even more noteworthy, in experimental studies, mice had their life span extended by more than 30 percent when their Klotho gene was over-expressed.

In short, Klotho protein acts as a hormone that extends life span by about 30 per cent... in mice at least. Klotho could be shown to be an anti-ageing hormone in humans some day. I bet you we will hear a lot of it in the next future then. We should be cautious though, and learn from the wild hopes put lately on DHEA and HGH. Essentially, let us keep a critical mind when New-Agers and charlatans will talk of Youth Hormone or Youth Gene again. A little bird told me it could happen soon.

Morning Newspaper

2009-05-24T22:07:00.005+02:00

9:00 am, New-York
(Jean-Jacques Sempé)

I have hardly unfolded the newspaper over the small round table, between a butter dish and a plate with toasts and croissants. I hold a mug of Earl Grey in my left hand instead of putting it down, in order to see articles while I sip. There are essentially horrible things in a newspaper. Politics. Crime. War.

I am in a hotel room in Milan, Italy, reading yesterday evening's issue of Il Corriere della Sera. A newspaper is something different when you read it while having breakfast. It smells fried eggs and tea. Orange juice, also. And apricot jam. And butter. War tales cannot touch you when you are wrapped in such fragrances, can they?

News are written in Italian today, it adds some distance. Also, I am not at home. Under the headlines' durability, today's disasters turn relative. "European Parliament: one week only until the Election". Well, I'll read about it later maybe. "What do Milanese think of 'La Liga Norte'?" Bah. "Twenty-six alleged US spies will be judged in absentia by an Italian court, for kidnapping and torturing an Egyptian Imam". Aw. Not today, please. "Georges Prêtre will return to La Scala tomorrow and conduct the Fifth Symphony by Gustav Mahler". Ah, let's read this article... Next, I'll have a look to sports. And I'll read weather forecast also.

Seven o'clock. It is still early... I'll go to the Milan International Convention Centre a bit later. This Sunday of work is not in a hurry to begin.

Venus of Urbino

2009-05-17T13:40:00.000+02:00

Venus of Urbino by Titian (1538)
Oil on canvas, 119 x 165 cm — Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

I had known her for years, we had never meet though. About two years ago, I had hoped we would, at an exhibition dedicated to Tiziano Vecellio, aka Titian, held in the Palais du Luxembourg, the Museum of French Senate in Paris.

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

Yet, she stood me up. Well, as a matter of fact, she came, but she came on disguise, dressed as the young lady with an elegant feathered hat on the right side. I once wrote a blog about our quasi-meeting.

Because she was not allowed to travel to Paris, I had to go to Florence, the city where she has lived for about four centuries. I am just back from a five-day vacation trip there. As you can imagine, my eyes are still full of a lot of wonderful images: paintings, frescoes, statues, by Botticelli, Giotto, Lippi, Fra Angelico, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and so forth, displayed in many places in the city. I am going to blog about them soon, yet on my first day in Florence the main thing was: I went to the Uffizi Gallery and I have met her at last!

Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." (Walter Benjamin)

In 'Little History of Photography' first, then in his famous essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Marxist philosopher Walter Benjamin used the word aura to describe the specificity of the work of art, which is unique, linked to a special place, and is part of history. According to him, and without going into details, mechanical reproduction of artworks by means of modern techniques such as photo and cinema frees them from place and ritual, and results in a loss of their aura. Although I don't agree with many developments of Benjamin's theories in terms of mass culture, I did fell Venus' aura in the Uffizi Gallery in a much deeper way than when I looked at her reproductions.

Thousands of pages have been written about this great painting. There have been endless commentaries and discussions about the meaning of Venus' open eyes that look directly at us, her left hand location, the bouquet in her right hand, the dog asleep at her feet, the two handmaidens in the background rummaging in what seems to be a wedding chest, the plant pot near a column on the window ledge, and many other details in the painting.

Sleeping Venus by Giorgione & Titian (1510)

Oil on canvas, 108 x 175 cm — Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

I won't add to so many erudite works. To me, the Venus of Urbino is simply one among the most beautiful pieces of arts ever, as well as a big step towards modernity in painting. There is little doubt that Titian took the topic of the Venus of Urbino from a painting by Giorgione, the Sleeping Venus (also known as the Venus of Dresden), he himself finished after his friend and master died.

Venus by Palma Vecchio (ca 1520)

Oil on canvas, 113 x 186 cm — Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Perhaps he knew also of the Venus by Palma Vecchio, where the nude woman, who lies in the country like in the canvas by Giorgione, gets the Venus of Urbino's wide open eyes.

Titian's Venus of Urbino in turn inspired countless painters over the centuries in one of major topics of Western Art: the reclining female nude. It includes such huge painters as Francisco de Goya and, especially, Édouard Manet when he painted Olympia, more than three hundred years later.

Venus by Lambert Sustris (1558)

Oil on canvas, 116 x 186 cm — Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Venus and Cupid by Johann Rottenhammer (ca 1610)

Oil on canvas — Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

La maja desnuda by Francisco Goya (1805)

Oil on canvas, 87 x 190 cm — Museo del Prado, Madrid

Olympia by Edgard Manet (1863)

Oil on canvas, 130 x 190 cm — Musée d'Orsay, Paris