I live in the U.S. where there are mass shootings in schools and the government saves its outage for climate scientists. In terms of “health risks” – I’ll trade you our GOP-led government, if you give us the Châteauneuf du Pape.
I joke, of course. I love France too much to offer her the Trump Cartel. Read more of this in French Local story on wine, below.
– Pas de Merde
Should wine be given special treatment over other alcohols when it comes to health? France’s outspoken health minister said ‘no’, but then came the backlash.
To stop using drugs, twenty-two-year-old Thomas joins an isolated community in the mountains. Run by former drug addicts, the members overcome their addiction through prayer and work. Here Thomas discovers friendship, rules, love, and faith. | uniFrance
The season of resolutions is now well under way. Instead of signing up to a gym or taking a drastic and unrealistic vow of abstinence, like cutting out French cheese you could just get in shape by following the daily example of Parisians [ . . . ]
NPR 2/24/18
Two years ago, France introduced a law to force supermarkets to donate unsold food to charities and food banks. Skeptics called it unworkable at the time, but there are signs the effort is succeeding.
SCREENDAILY
A fearless, powerhouse performance by Laetitia Dosch infuses every frame of Montparnasse Bienvenue (Jeune Femme), the kinetic, incident-packed portrait of rudderless yet resilient Paula, a 31-year-old woman in emotional free-fall. This first film by writer-director Léona Serraille is full of snap and surprises as energetic scatterbrain Paula ricochets from situation to situation after getting dumped by a lover — her former teacher and prominent photographer Joachim (Gregoire Monsaingeon) — with whom she lived for a decade. Following its debut in Cannes (Un Certain Regard) this should travel.
We meet Paula pounding on a door — first with her fist and then with her forehead — demanding to be let in. In a sequence at the hospital where the resulting gash is treated, we witness Paula’s manic gift for navel-centered gab and her oblivious knack for casually insulting the very people trying to help her. She’s a walking train wreck who manages to lurch from station to station as we look on. There’s literally never a dull moment. [ . . . ] READ FULL REVIEW
A singular spoken-sung that imposes an intoxicating presence and maintains its music in a state of weightlessness. An ecstatic blues rock and loops with hypnotic reverb, the textual cut-up stowed with saturated and saturated riffs, the guitar considered as one of the fine arts
For thirty years, Rodolphe Burger has written one of the most beautiful pages of popular and literary music. A music that could even qualify as “philosophical pop.” The name seems odd however for the one who led one of the best formations in France with the group Kat Onoma (1986-2002), before continuing his musical adventure solo. The name seems curious for the founder of the festival C’est dans la vallée, who writes for both Alain Bashung and Jacques Higelin, playing with the same spirit in the company of bluesman James Blood Ulmer or singer Rachid Taha.
A philosophical pop music, in spite of everything, because, as Gilles Deleuze said, who launched the formula and wanted to “do a course in philosophy as Dylan organizes a song,” Rodolphe Burger composes albums as books of images and sounds. With Good , his latest album (Last Band, 2017), he mixes this time the acoustics and electronics, thanks to the rhythm of Christophe Calpini.
The texts ? Poetry uttered. On the phrasing of the German romantics (Goethe for “An Lili” or Büchner for “Lenz”), on the grain of the voice of English-speaking authors of the last century (from Samuel Beckett for “Good” to TS Eliot for “Waste Land”) without forgetting the contemporary French writers, Michel Deguy ( “Nothing and nobody”) to Olivier Cadiot ( “golden Poem” and “Providence”) or Pierre Alféri ( “Happy Hour”), Rodolphe Burger made a direct album and learned, sensitive and thinking.
An irresistible pulsation
Good immediately sets the tone and sets the ambition high. An organic scansion, an irresistible pulsation, a Beckettian voice from beyond the grave leaning against a sublime rise of copper-plated strings. In “Cummings”, the guitarist’s voice is intertwined with a recording of that of the poet E. E. Cummings, whose variations and melodic lines he follows. The charm operates and the archive provides immense vertigo [ . . . ]
