Archive for December, 2006
December 31, 2006 at 10:03 pm
· Filed under france
“… Parce que j’aime passionnément la France…”
We just turned on the television to listent to the news and to see what was going on in France on New Year’s Eve. At 8pm Chirac came on and gave a short address to the nation. He has a very distinct speaking style. He speaks slowly and with frequent pauses but also speaks very clearly, announciating each word, and with a lot of expression.
Apparently he’s given an address each year on New Year’s Eve entitled Vœux aux français: allocution du Président de la République.
“…Vive la République! Vive la France!”
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December 30, 2006 at 4:24 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
“Ce matin Saddam Hussien a été pendu.”
After long ago running out of corners to turn, Bush called his execution a “milestone”. Milestone… Hmm, how far is this journey anyways? How many milestones have we passed? 2998 (as of Dec. 30th, 2006)? Or 52,139?
But wait, didn’t things used to be different? Donald Rumsfeld, seen above shaking hands with the notorious dictator in 1983, would later say that his greatest achievement was the normalization of relations with Iraq, even after the knowledge that Iraq had been using chemical weapons against Iran. Of course the image above was captured after Saddam ordered the executions of 148 in Dujail in 1982, for which he tried, found guilty, and was hanged. You see, in the 80’s doing that kind of thing actually earned you the support of the U.S. (see top ten ways U.S. enabled Saddam) Anything to make sure that Iraq didn’t fall into the hands of the dirty commies, I suppose…
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December 29, 2006 at 11:57 pm
· Filed under france
Only two more days before New Year’s eve… Where to go? Recommendations? The Champs-Elysées?
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December 28, 2006 at 11:59 am
· Filed under food, france
Besides turkey, around this time of year (Noël) the French typically like to eat foie gras with pain épicé for starters and Bûche de Noël for desert. Oh and of course they must drink wine.
We had some bûchettes (a single bûche was a bit too big, so we picked out two different kinds of bûchette) and foie gras with a type of pain épicé (spiced bread, not pain) made from fruits, and Alsatian wine.
… leaving aside how they make foie gras it is actually surprisingly good with the pain épicé.
こちらは妻はもうこれについてブログを書いた。
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December 27, 2006 at 11:58 pm
· Filed under france, musuems, paris
Today was Wednesday. Wednesday evenings the Louvre is open until 10 pm and after 6pm is reduced admission. Why not go? We hadn’t been to the Louvre in a while and by no means had we explored all of it. Besides we had been seeing posters in the métro stations advertising an exhibition of Hogarth at the Louvre and had been wanting to see it. So we went.
It was worth it. Hogarth broke away from a lot of tradition at the time. He liked to make engravings and paintings in a series progression, usually leading to a moral statement from the conclusion of the final piece. Particularly interesting were his grande œuvre Marriage à la mode and his “Before” and “After” sets.
The temporary exhibition also included a nice collection of Rembrandt sketches and a series of interesting and satirical photos by an artist named Yinka Shonibare in the style of Hogarth. After seeing the temporary exhibition we went up to the French paintings section to see La Tour’s paintings that we had missed the last time around.
It was only just this morning that we decided to go to the Louvre this evening, on somewhat of a whim. Is that what it is to live in Paris, La vie Parisienne?
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December 26, 2006 at 12:06 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
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December 25, 2006 at 2:44 am
· Filed under france
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December 22, 2006 at 1:29 am
· Filed under france, paris, sightseeing
The scene along the Champs-Elysées a few nights ago after the concert. It’s all decked out in lights!
On one side, looking West, there is the Arc de Triomphe.
On the other side, looking East, is a giant ferris wheel at Place de la Concorde.
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December 20, 2006 at 6:56 pm
· Filed under france, paris
Hier soir, nous avons écouté à un concert de Chopin et Liszt d’Ingrid Fuzjko V. Georgii-Hemming（フジコヘミング）. Ça fait longtemps depuis nous sommes allé à un concert de la musique classique!
Being half-Japanese, she attracted quite a lot of Japanese, approximately 2/3 of the audience. We haven’t seen such a large concentration of Japanese in all of Paris. A documentary on NHK in 1999 drove interest in her unusual circumstances and her eccentric sytle and interpretation of Chopin.
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December 18, 2006 at 12:59 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
A paper that I co-authored was just accepted for publication in one of the top journals. I’m only second author on this one but that’s OK. Most of the work was done by a very smart master’s student who is deservedly first author.
Now I’m writing some publicity for the paper. I’ve never done that before and it is not as easy as one might think.
There’s another paper submitted to the same journal that we’re waiting to hear from. This also looks like it will go through (it got reasonable reviews).
僕が参加した論文をトップジャーナル で認めた。僕が第二筆者だけど構わない。第一筆者は大変頑張った頭いい東大の修士である。
今論文を広告するために概要を書いている。正式的（メディアに送るものなど）なのを書いたことはなくてわりと難しい。
後投稿している論文はもう一つがあるのでそれにも待っている。だが、それも認められそうだ（レビューは悪くはなかった）。
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