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And now for something completely different – yesterday was the 108th birthday of Fernand Contandin, aka Fernandel. Yesterday would have been his 108th birthday.
Le visage ne va pas avec la voix, mais si seulement je pourrais m’exprimer ainsi. They don’t make such guys at American Hero.
One of his movies was Topaze, written and directed by Marcel Pagnol.
The Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy was apparently a reaction to the United Nations-sponsored Durban Conference in 2009. But it has since become a regular event.
On March 15 this year, Dechen Pemba, possibly most widely known for having been expelled from China in summer 2008 for “splittist activities”, gave a talk there. She described her stay in China from 2006 to 2008, travels to Tibet, and her learning the Chinese language at the Minzu University of China in Beijing. She gave a short account of developments in Tibet since 2008, including some information about a non-violent initiative for strategic nonviolent resistance called Lhakar.
Adam Cathcart‘s blog hosts a guest post by Kristiana Henderson of Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA), with questions about a supposed invisible, or not so invisible, Chinese hand in Tibetan everyday culture, and yet more questions about a specific video.
I have no idea myself, but maybe someone can add some info there.
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Related
“Cold and Detached Gloating”, March 18, 2011
UN “Racism Conference” – Cui Bono, Tai De, March 14, 2009
This video demonstrates what Boney M‘s short operas usually looked and sounded like.
Our sports teacher was their biggest fan. We were obliged to do Aerobic dances to the Daddy-Cool song in elementary school. We coped.
One of the band’s four singers (and frontman) was Roberto Alfonso Farrell, better known as Bobby Farrell. He probably wasn’t really a singer. The band’s producer Frank Farian is said to have lent him his voice. In the 1970s, that spelled innovation. In later decades, it was considered shanzhai.
Farrell performed in St. Petersburg on Wednesday night, despite feeling unwell. During the past year, an ambulance had frequently been called after his shows, as he had cardiac problems, VoR quotes RIA Novosti. He was found dead on Thursday morning.
Eduard Khil wants your lyrics. Anything that’s better than
“I’m riding my stallion on a prairie, so-and-so mustang, and my beloved Mary is thousand miles away knitting a stocking for me”,
and something that would be compatible with this tune.
Not necessarily for the whole song – one verse or a couplet will do.
Khil either didn’t like those lyrics, back in 1976, or he didn’t like the author of those lyrics at the time, or maybe it was because the text was to “western” to make it on Soviet television then. Whatever.
The Voice of Russia collects all the librettos by email, trololo@ruvr.ru.
Update
Closing date: August 15, 2010
… because need it never.
This is probably the only piece of real music they’ll hear on the Grand Prix d’Eurovision in Oslo tonight.
Exhilarating Nights in the Opera
Comrades:
I know that you have become somewhat decadent and politically unconscious, and that worries me. Us old Ganbus are old and unflinching revolutionaries who will never forget the bitter past and the crimes of the imperialists, and you should listen to our experience.
On Friday night, my Lao Po and I went to the China Grand Theater (北京中国剧院) and watched an excellent performance by the Korean People’s Army Concert Troupe (朝鲜人民军协奏团) there. We saw and listened to a carefully prepared version of The Image of the Hero (英雄的形象), the anthem of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (中国人民解放军军歌), and other Chinese and Korean songs and dances which aroused our enthusiastic applause. It showed how our two nations, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder and side by side, wish to build a beautiful future together. Chinese folk song “Reed Flower” (芦花) and the dance “Our Friendship is Everlasting” (我们的友谊万古长青) were also very impressive.
Dancing Me and My Heavy Machine Gun (舞蹈《我的重机枪》)
But of course, the most impressive one was “My Heavy Machine Gun”, full of revolutionary spirit and ecstasy! Magnificent!
So, Comrades, my recommendation is that you should go to these international performances frequently. Also very recommendable of course are the Dance Troupe of the General Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army (人民解放军总政治部歌舞团, the long name of which implies long, enjoyable evenings in the opera) and, if you are really so much into Western stuff, try the Alexander Red-Flag Song and Dance Troupe of the Russian Armed Forces (亚历山大红旗歌舞团). I’m sure they will be back soon, although they already performed here in China this year, on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of China-Russia Diplomatic Ties. Their history is also very glorious. It’s just that the Russians are not so reliable friends of the Chinese people as the Koreans.
Our friendship with the People of Korea, on the other hand, Is Forever!
Exhilarated Greetings:
Hao Ganbu
Inventions: A Special Day in History
The discotheque was invented in China Germany 50oo years and five days ago. This is good news about China, and bad news about Germany. Maybe China did nothing right on October 19th, 1959, but it didn’t invent the discotheque either. That was my country. American soldiers stationed in West Germany took our latest civilizational accomplishment home to their country, writes Wikipedia. In addition to the dance and fashion aspects of the disco club scene, there was also a thriving drug subculture, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud music and the flashing lights, such as cocaine (nicknamed “blow”), amyl nitrite “poppers”, and the “…other quintessential 1970s club drug Quaalude, which suspended motor coordination and turned one’s arms and legs to Jell-O”.
I’ve never been to a discotheque because I wanted to – rather, because friends insisted that it was a good place – or, when I was younger and in a mood of protest against the false bourgeois world, on christmas, just for desecrating the holidays. In a way, I found it natural that a lot of people there used drugs. If I had had to be there every Friday and Saturday night, I’d have used drugs, too. How else can you stand such a packed and noisy place?
Not to forget the bouncers. I wouldn’t feel offended if a bouncer refused me entry, but I feel that something must be wrong with the institution of bouncers. Don’t know why. I like pubs, where people go in and out as they like, so long as they stirr no trouble. A pub, no matter how rough it may be, is civilized. Discotheques are vulgar venues.
P.S.: Before you are asking, JR hasn’t tried to get into a discotheque last night. He’s only pointing out that October 19 is a special day in history.
That’s what Vera Lynn sings, and she must know.
