Au clair de la lune
Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta lume,* pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu.
Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit
Je n'ai pas de lume, je suis dans mon lit.
Va chez la voisine, je crois qu'elle y est
Car dans sa cuisine, on bat le briquet.
Au clair de la lune, l'aimable Lubin
Frappe chez la brune, elle répond soudain
"Qui frappe de la sorte ? ", il dit à son tour
"Ouvrez votre porte pour le Dieu d'Amour"
Au clair de la lune, on n'y voit qu'un peu
On chercha la lume, on chercha du feu
En cherchant d'la sorte je n'sais c'qu'on trouva
Mais je sais qu'la porte sur eux se ferma.
English
Under the moonlight, my friend Pierrot,
Lend me your light, so I could write a word.
My candle is out, I've no more light.
Open your door for me, for the love of God.
Under the moonlight, Pierrot replied,
I've no light; I'm in my bed.
Go next door, I believe that she is in,
For in the kitchen, someone lit a match.
Under the moonlight, friendly Lubin
Knocks at the brunette's door, she suddenly replies
"Who's knocking this way", he says in his turn
"Open your door, for the god of love."
Under the moonlight, little can be seen
The light was looked for, fire was looked for
Searching this way, I don't know what was found
But I do know that the door, on them was shut.
*In modern versions, this word is "plume", meaning pen. "Lume" is derived from "lumière", meaning "light".
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_clair_de
( Cut for photo )
I think I mentioned in my last post, too, that I'd gone to the Novello Theatre Saturday night, which was the closing night, to see whether I could get a return ticket for Hamlet, but there were none to be had by the time I arrived. So, I wandered around central London fairly aimlessly on Saturday night (coffee shop, bookstore, etc), but returned to the Novello Theatre, which really was on my way back to the hotel anyway, at the time the play was due to be over.
( Read more about chasing David Tennant )
If there is anyone reading this who might like to see Hamlet on DVD, please sign this petition. (For those on Facebook, joining the group on Facebook isn't the same as signing the petition. I think the Facebook group is mainly for updates. According to the latest update there, though, Michael Boyd, the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has been in contact with the petition's author and is reading the petition with interest.)
Sunday, which was my last full day in London, I went to see Twelfth Night. This is the story of a twin brother and sister who are shipwrecked and find themselves in an unfamiliar land, each thinking the other is dead. The sister, Viola, passes herself off as a boy to work for the local duke, Orsino, and is sent on his behalf to court Olivia. Unfortunately, Olivia falls in love with Viola (as the boy, Cesario) while Viola falls in love with Orsino. There are several other characters in the households of Orsino and Cesario involved in side storylines, one of which involves making Olivia's steward, Malvolio, believe that Olivia is actually in love with him. (A mean trick, I thought, but I guess it would have played well to people who were victims of a class system.) It turned out that my ticket for Twelfth Night was very good, row K in the stalls, and I really enjoyed it.
( Read more about Twelfth Night )
Overall, the Shakespeare audience seems tougher than the musical theatre audience. Neither of the 2 Shakespearean plays got a full standing ovation, but Oliver! did.
Sunday evening, I was sent to a French restaurant at the Covent Garden Market for dinner by the hotel's concierge, who was French. As I was looking around the Market area for the restaurant, I came across a sextet who were performing in an open area of the Market near a pub. (Some of the pub's patrons were actually eating and drinking outside, despite the cold.) I sat and watched them for a few pieces (something by Mozart, "The Can-can", and the opening of Carmen) and gave them a couple of pounds. I also took a picture:
( Cut for photos )
- localisation:TV Room
- humeur:
content - musique:CNN
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jaderabbit and her husband gave me to borrow when I visited them in November. (I'd have gotten to it sooner, but I was reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and was very busy with the holidays. So, I'm about 150 pages into it and was interested to see that lunas_ceiling just posted her thoughts on it. I don't want to read what she wrote until I'm finished with it, though. Unlike cynodd, I never skip to the end! *lol*)( Read more... )
- localisation:Hotel in London
- humeur:
lethargic - musique:CNN
We didn't watch the following episode, "Partners in Crime", which was shown immediately after because my Mom always watches Suze Orman at the time it was on. My Dad, who had the remote control, actually left it on Doctor Who for the first 10-minutes of "Partners in Crime" until, after a couple of comments like, "God, this is so stupid," my Mom reminded him that Suze Orman was on. I liked "Partners in Crime", though. I thought it was cute and funny! :)
After getting home, I was able to track down the video for the first 2-minutes of the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas Special that was recently broadcast to raise money for Children in Need. ( It looks like it will be fun! )
- localisation:TV Room
- humeur:
good - musique:Detroit Lions at Carolina Panthers
I was surprised to find this book in the literature section of Borders instead of the sci-fi section, but on reading it, that really makes sense. It's about time travel, but not about the mechanics of time travel. It's about the effect on a man, Henry, who spontaneously time travels, controlling neither when it happens nor when/where he ends up, and on his relationship with his wife, Clare. It's a fantastic love story.
(Not that there isn't any science in it - there's a very small amount. I was skeptical about the idea of time travel being controlled by a person's genes, but this was more than compensated by my amusement at the idea of making transgenic time traveling mice to study the time travel genes. *lol*)
When Clare first meets Henry, she's 6 and he's 36. By that time, Henry has known Clare for 8 years and been married to her for 6 years. When Henry first meets Clare, he's 28 and she's 20. By that time, Clare has known Henry for 14 years, but they won't marry for another 2 years. (Older!Henry has been very careful to tell young!Clare nothing of his everyday life, so it may be complete coincidence when he meets her; though, in general, the story seems strongly to support predestination.) I really liked Henry's response to his first meeting with her at the beginning of the book:
( Read more... )
So, overall, I really loved this book. It often read like a bunch of short stories, but isn't that what our lives are made of? A series of events, like short stories? And, the individual events all fit together perfectly to make the lives of Henry and Clare complete.
Oh, and a bonus for me is that Clare is from Michigan with much of the story taking place there. :)
Has anyone else read it? I would very much like to discuss it.
On a related topic, I saw this news story tonight about David Tennant having announced...( Read more... )
- localisation:Office
- humeur:
melancholy - musique:silence
( Cut for Journey's End and possible Torchwood series 3 spoilers... )
- localisation:Office
- humeur:
contemplative - musique:Anderson Cooper 360
As there seems to be a great demand to see David Tennant performing Shakespeare these days, this video of him performing a scene from Measure for Measure for a documentary on Shakespeare has popped up on YouTube (via http://www.david-tennant.com/):
As described at the beginning of the video, the camera work in this piece was improvisational and (not described at the beginning of the video) subsequently not very good. Still, it was interesting to see Tennant playing a slimeball. I understand that he has a fairly good-sized body of work playing slimeballs, but I haven't seen any of those performances, except for Barty Crouch, Jr.
For something completely different, check out this film short: ( Behind the cut )
- localisation:Bedroom
- humeur:
exhausted - musique:Steve McQueen by Sheryl Crow
“I was in the shower on Saturday morning (you may avert your eyes), thinking about how much I'd enjoyed that last Harry Potter book, how I'd love to write something like that, remembering that, back in 2004, I asked J.K.Rowling to write an episode of Doctor Who, though she politely declined, and reflecting that we can't possibly get someone to star in next year's Christmas Special who's as famous as Kylie [Minogue]... when all those things coalesced.
“BAM! I thought, don't ask J.K. to write a Doctor Who, ask her to be in a Doctor Who! Imagine it. A cold Edinburgh Christmas Eve. J.K. Rowling walking through the snow, pursued by a journalist. ‘What are you going to write after Harry Potter?' Later, J.K. sits down to write. At the same time, a Space Bug, probably put there by the Rita Skeeter-type journalist [a character in Harry Potter], leaps on to her back. ZAP! J.K.'s imagination becomes real! A world of Victorian magic replaces the present-day world. The Doctor arrives and has to battle through a world of witches and wizards, with wands and spells and CGI wonders, to reach J.K. Rowling at the heart of it all.”
It was not to be, however. In an e-mail three weeks later, Davies says that [David] Tennant has other ideas. “David doesn't like the J.K. idea,” he writes. “He thinks it sounds like a spoof, so we've paused slightly, wondering whether to win him round or just abandon something that he's not going to be happy with. We've got to keep him happy. He keeps us happy. Plus, he might be right. So that idea has parked.”
Er...just on the off-chance that someone reading this doesn't know who David Tennant is, he's the actor who currently plays the lead role of the Doctor in Doctor Who. :)
- localisation:TV Room
- humeur:
amused - musique:Local News at 10 pm
First, I found this in Thursday's news edition of
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
who_daily. It's about David Tennant's fashion sense. I found the photos and the commentary accompanying the photos in the main post to be quite amusing...if that's any indication of how boring dictating actually is. I have to say that I'm not an admirer of most of those suits (although, I like the bronze velvet jacket with jeans), but I have to admire him for wearing them. He must be fearless, like norbertha, not caring one whit about what others might think. (Note: This is not a comment at all about my opinion of norbertha's fashion sense - she's just generally fearless and that's excellent. :) )Second, as I was staring at my Friends Page full of Doctor Who news, I got to wondering: if the British spell "color" as "colour" and "honor" as "honour", etc, why isn't their "Doctor" spelled "Doctour"?
Oh, and my Mom just distracted me for 3 minutes when she called to tell me how excited she was about the new backyard shed she and my Dad had installed today. That's all. Back to dictating. :-/
- localisation:Office at Work
- humeur:
bored - musique:space heater
First, if it wasn’t obvious from my other post, I loved it! I wish I could see it again so that I could really solidify my thoughts about it. As
cynodd knows, I usually watch the things I love over and over so that I can pick up new details each time I see them. Often, I enjoy something more the second time because I feel tense the first time I see it, if I don’t know what’s going to happen – a second viewing is more relaxing and I can take in more. Obviously, that’s not such a problem for Hamlet. What native English speaker isn’t already at least a little familiar with what happens in the play? Also, before seeing the performance, I prepared by reading Hamlet in my college text, The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. But, really, it’s an entirely different experience to see it performed than it is to read it! I was hanging on every word; although, part of that was because the language, which is naturally difficult in structure and vocabulary, was being rattled off by the actors at a rapid pace…and they had accents. ;-) All of that contributed to me having to use a lot of concentration to get as much out of it as possible. Still, I loved every second of it!The following is my own take on the performance along with some questions about the characters and their motives.( Read more... )
ETA: After finishing my summary, I went back to find another review I'd seen by a non-professional critic here. (I hadn't read it when I wrote this post.) Overall, he seems more familiar with the play than I was while seeing it, so he was able to notice more. He places Hamlet's interaction with Polonius, ending with "except my life," after the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, which is probably correct. It seems that he saw it the day after I did, so there may have been some differences - I doubt there would be anything as drastic as changing the order of speeches, though.
ETA (10-3-08): Here is a link to the review from FlickFilosopher.
- localisation:TV Room
- humeur:
accomplished - musique:Bent by Matchbox Twenty
Directly after reporting my luggage missing, I headed off to a cousin's house for a family reunion, which was fun. There were a few relatives from out-of-town who I always enjoy seeing. My grandmother even went, which was an accomplishment - we couldn't get her to leave her apartment for the family Christmas party last year.
After the reunion picnic, I returned to my parents' house to visit awhile and, of course, get caught up on Doctor Who, which my Dad had taped while I was gone. :-D We watched "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End". I already knew that my Dad had really liked these episodes because when I'd called him from the Edinburgh airport to get the details on the family reunion, he had to tease me by saying, "Doctor Who was really good last night!" So, anyway, I liked it, but I think I need to watch it again when I'm less tired to get everything. Also, I might need
d_84 or cjmr to explain the history of Davros in relation to Sarah Jane Smith. If I'm remembering correctly (I was awfully tired), "The Stolen Earth" is mainly set-up...moving all the pieces into place. I was pleased that Rose's presence in "Turn Left" was partly explained by these episodes, although I'm still not clear on how she knows what she does. ( Cut for more significant spoilers )- localisation:In Bed
- humeur: exhausted
- musique:Orphans by Beck
I'll write more later, since
alisel_kat is about to pass out from fatigue...- localisation:Hotel Room, Stratford-upon-Avon
- humeur:
bouncy - musique:the sound of silence
I just finished watching the latest Doctor Who episode, Midnight. (Ok, now not so "just" - it took me a long time to write up my thoughts. *lol*) If anyone hasn't seen it and wants to know what the above quote is about, you can see the quote in context here. I'm pretty much in awe of David Tennant at this point, mainly because in the few interviews with him that I've seen, his personality seems nothing like that of the Doctor - in other words, he doesn't seem to be playing a version of himself. And, yet he does his version of the Doctor so well, it's so believable, that I wonder where it comes from...I bring this up because I thought this part of tonight's episode was superbly played by Tennant. It made me hold my breath as I was watching it.
( Cut for spoilers )
ETA: I forgot to put this in last night. Here are the lines from Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti recited in the episode:
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?
Given the mood of the episode, it was extremely creepy and well chosen.
- localisation:Office
- humeur:
sleepy - musique:27 Jennifers by Mike Doughty
cynodd and I were always really fascinated by Robin Hood stories. That was in high school, but it might as well have been only yesterday.There was no new Doctor Who on this week for us over here in the US, but I think I heard the essential part of the cliffhanger from "The Stolen Earth" that made
fullmoon_dreams say, "OMG-OMG-OMG," last week. So, with no spoilers, a question for her: were you happy with the outcome in last night's episode? It's taking all my willpower not to try finding the rest of the series on YouTube to watch it all right now, since I don't want to wait until I get back from the UK in August to find out what happens! I really hope they have Doctor Who available for download on iTunes over there.Anyway, I finally finished signing everything I could sign sometime after 10 pm last night. And, as I'd left the TV on after Doctor Who, it was The Graham Norton Show that happened to be on at that time. I've seen this show once or twice before, though the only time I made a specific effort to watch it was when David Tennant appeared as a guest. They used to have a little clip at the beginning of the show explaining how to turn on the closed captioning for those of us Americans who couldn't understand the heavy accents. *lol* They don't appear to be doing that anymore - perhaps people were offended? I mean, chances are people who can't understand British accents aren't going to be watching BBC America anyway.
So, one of Graham Norton's guests last night was Nigella Lawson of cookbook and cooking show fame. Apparently, they thought it would be really funny to have a member of the audience make a dish, as if they were on a cooking show, with some truly disgusting food. They chose surströmming, which is some kind of fermented herring in a can that is eaten in Sweden. As demonstrated on the show, the stench of it is overpowering. They also had, in the audience, the guy from this video who demonstrated what it's like to actually eat* surströmming:
I'm very suggestible and have a weak stomach for this sort of thing, so I seriously can't watch this video without gagging along, but it's also kind of funny. At the end of the video, the guy announces that he doesn't even like fish. What would possess a person who doesn't like fish to eat a fermented herring, I have no idea! I hate seafood, too, and would you ever catch me eating something like that? I don't think so!
*That's a deliberate split infinitive. *geek*
- localisation:Porch
- humeur:
curious - musique:pond fountain, birds
--The Doctor, Silence in the Library
Silence in the Library was the episode of Doctor Who broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel last night. It was about an enormous library in the 51st century taking up an entire planet. Nothing else was on the planet except the library - it wasn't clear to me whether it was a man-made planet created for the purpose of being a library or a pre-existing planet upon which the library was built. Anyway, as the Doctor is always drawn to trouble, it turns out that everyone in the library has disappeared, hence the silence, and there is a mysterious warning about keeping track of the shadows. I really liked it! :)
( Cut for spoilers )
- localisation:TV Room
- humeur:
hungry - musique:Doctor Who on BBC America
Although my background is primarily scientific, one of my favorite college courses was in Shakespeare (the other was population genetics). The professor actually had a very scientific approach to literature, which I appreciated. On the first day, he talked about such-and-such being a theme in whatever play (I think it might have been false versus true nature and The Merchant of Venice, but it's been a long time). Of course, more than half the class being pre-med and not believing in themes (*lol*), we all scoffed and he proceeded to point out example after example of the same thing in the play - so, we couldn't ignore it - it couldn't have been coincidence! This professor was really interesting and I could have listened to him lecture all day long instead of only the 1-hour each class was scheduled. :)
So, a few years ago, I made my first trip to the UK and one of my ambitions has been to see a production of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). They've come to Ann Arbor a few times, but I never got my act together enough to actually get tickets for any of the performances. I did manage to tour Shakespeare's house in Stratford-upon-Avon during my 2005 trip to England. I'll be going to England again in July 2008 and thought it would be fun to see the RSC. Also, as many of you know, I've become an obsessed Doctor Who fan over the past several months. When I found out that the RSC would be doing Hamlet this summer and that it would star, not only Patrick Stewart who was in Ann Arbor, but David Tennant, I had to get tickets. The main problem with this plan was that I only formulated it last month and tickets for Hamlet have been sold out since last fall. I did what any other crazed fan might do - I went to eBay. :-D
Poll #1198401
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5
Does anyone think I should be worried about this?
View Answers
Yes, technically the ticket is void and they probably keep track.
0 (0.0%)
No, it would take too much effort to keep track. 3 (60.0%)
No, most tickets say that, but no one pays attention anyway. 2 (40.0%)
No, the seller said he was selling it because it conflicted with his holiday, not because he was trying to make a profit. 0 (0.0%)
- localisation:Hotel Room
- humeur:
anxious - musique:weird mechanical hotel sounds
Of these songs, I imagine that "Red Right Hand" would be the least known. One of my classmates once had to leave our office because it was playing on my computer and he found it too disturbing. *lol* (He didn't ask me to turn it off, but just announced he was leaving because of it.) Anyway, here is the song:
This version features scenes from the TV show, Profit, which I have never seen. However, I know this song because it was used in The X-Files and is on the CD from the show, Songs in the Key of X. It's used in the episode, "Ascension", and is the song Duane Barry hears on the radio while driving, after he's kidnapped Scully and has her locked in the trunk of his car. ( Read more about The X-Files )
Going back to what I said in my last post about how I think David Tennant would have been good for Snape, here are a couple of screencaps from GoF that show him as Barty Crouch, Jr.( Cut for pictures )
- localisation:Hotel Room
- humeur: hungry
- musique:sirens & other city noises
cynodd, crabbydragon, and I watch Doctor Who together, we turn on the subtitles. This started because their daughter, HRT, who often plays in the same room while we're watching it, is very noisy (like all 3-year-old children). But, now we do it even when she's taking her nap or gone to bed for the night. The thing that we've learned to appreciate about the subtitles done by the BBC is that they also tell you what song is playing in the background and who the recording artist is. Obviously, this is very convenient, if you've always wondered what a particular song is called ("Moonlight Serenade" by Glenn Miller, for example) or hear a new song that you particularly like. So, last night, we watched "The Runaway Bride", which is the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas special, and heard the song "Love Don't Roam". I thought the song was catchy (obviously, or why would I still be thinking about it today?) and it seemed like something I should already know. Strangely, though, the subtitles only identified the name of the song and not the artist. And, today I went searching for it.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
I'm somewhat abashed to find myself so captivated by the story of the Doctor and Rose, but there it is. :-D
- localisation:Office
- humeur:
satisfied - musique:"Love Don't Roam" by Neil Hannon
by MadameDeVideoland
ETA: The above video seems to have been removed, but it can be found re-posted here.
Apparently, this clip has been used a lot. There are other versions with subtitles that feature Hitler yelling about the Vancouver Canuck's not getting into the playoffs, the Dallas Cowboys not making it to the Superbowl, being banned from "Microsoft Live", and somebody stealing his car, among many others.
I have no complaints about the Torchwood series 2 finale, though - I liked it once I got past the shock. :)
- localisation:Office
- humeur: amused
- musique:whirring of the computer fan
cynodd and I actually planned well enough in advance that we, along with crabbydragon, were able to watch 2-1/2 episodes of Doctor Who during Her Royal Tininess's nap! :-D They were, from series 2 (still cjmr's and d_84's DVDs): "Tooth and Claw", "School Reunion", and "The Girl in the Fireplace". HRT woke up during "The Girl in the Fireplace", but it worked out because it's about a pretty female French aristocrat in the 18th century whom the Doctor saves after making a dramatic entrance on a white stallion. HRT is in her Princess Phase, of course! (Last night, she was lamenting that they couldn't live in a pink house, while she sat in her little pink & purple chair wearing a pink T-shirt with flashing red lights that had a picture of Disney's Cinderella, Belle, & Ariel on it... *lol*)( Read more... )I'll end with this blurb from Neil Gaiman's blog. In anticipation of David Tennant's portrayal of Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, he has written this spoof of the Doctor doing Hamlet:
"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?"
- localisation:TV Room
- humeur: amused
- musique:This Week with George Stephanopoulis
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