Oscar Plays Rock N' Roll (Holiday Workshop)

Paul on Children TV Show 29th November 2011 talking about his work with Bill

Gross und Klein mit Cate Blanchett in Sydney Theatre

I was once again privileged and happily surprised to be drawn to a wonderful venue.

I booked my ticket a bit out of the blue during a CargoWise working trip in Sydney, and I was happily surprised to read in the program that one of my friend was sitting among the Sydney Theatre Councillors - I must have been really bored reading the fine prints while waiting for the curtain to be lift in order to come across such information. For all these fateful odd reasons, I felt immediately at home.

It was «the» Acting Performance from Australia National Actress, Cate Blanchett !

I don't know how she did it. She could only get this energy from energy she was renewing tough the passionate act of « acting »,

a display of multicolored, multi complexe e..motions

She could feel everything !

a real «tour de force», a one woman show, an acting prowess ... and much more

Gross und Klein is a postmodernist play by Botho Strauss which follows the character Lotte (Cate B.) as she journeys from location to location, seeking to understand modern life and her place within it. She deals with abandonment and alienation in fragmented worlds loosely sketched though a series of tableaux, each unique but recognizable by the modern spectator.

The scenes therefore were presented in a unconventional manner; all the best so that you cannot think 'comfortably' eh eh !!

She feels, they don't.

She is the only one sane... but she does not know it

The Blue Feather in Binna Burra

Binna Burra - Lamington National Park, Queensland, Australia

This week end, we decided to spend one night in Binna Burra Lodge. This used to be a favourite hub for bush walking before we had the children, but now that they are big enough, why not ?

One week computing around the clock + Brisbane Summer Heat lurking = Wotif.com Binna Burra. I found a last minute great deal, all inclusive, no cooking, and 5C cooler temperature, heaven!

We spent the night in a cabin entirely made of wood, including the roof tiles, and you could breathe it. We opened all windows equipped with mosquito nets. It had a strange alpine - tropical feeling.

As we arrived, we saw ... our neighbours there playing with their kids :) ... small world.

We started with the Cave walk - 7 kms, and the following day, we booked Abseiling and Flying Fox (see pictures) lessons. Our instructor was fantastic with kids, and guided us through overcoming any possible fear of height. He would talk each person through the whole descent, reassuringly. Both Josie and Oscar managed the 10 meters cliff descent in the National Park.

After that, we decided to continue on our own, cutting through the bush, back to the Lodge, following a nice path he had recommended. We stopped in a river bed to eat our pack lunches, then walk along ridges with breath-taking views, and Oscar found a Blue feather.

Back in the Lodge, as Paul was getting some water in the toilets for the road to Brisbane, I was heading towards the reception to ask if anyone would know where this feather come from? On my way, I saw the abseiling instructor, who was heading towards his motorbike going back home to his family as well. He said it was a Crimson Rosella Tail feather. As we walked along the car park, he said, wait ... I will show you something you can show your family.

He showed me a Bower Bird nest: quite unique ... the Bower bird collects blue bits and create a pattern on a 50 square centimetre nesting area on the ground. The purpose is to attract females ... as many as 10-12 per season that way.

Then, he left on his motorbike and told me: just as I like the bush being my office, I love riding a bike, because 'I can feel the elements'! ... better not think too much about such luxurious idea.

When Paul got the water, I called the kids and Paul, and we all went to see the Bower Bird nesting area... and lucky us: the Bower bird showed up !

I got a picture of him in the slide show below, you MAY be able to notice the blue metallic reflexion on his black feathers, quite unique.

My very last action was to put Oscar's blue feather behind a tree, with Oscar's permission, not far from the Bower bird nesting area, but hidden from the main track where a tourist may steel the feather.

Hopefully, the Bower Bird will find it.

True meaning in history, like in translation work ... takes time.

Simone de Beauvoir's Translation Revisited

Last night, I was privileged to be invited by AUSIT (National Australian Translators Association) to listen to two inspiring translators: Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier (French translators/lecturers from Science PÔ, France, US born) at the Unversity of Queensland.

They re-translated the Second Sex (Le Deuxième Sexe).

The Second Sex was published in 1949, and was highly instrumental to what Simone & Constance call the biggest revolution of this century: the Gender Revolution.

I insist in the word «Gender» because this is the whole point, and this is what the first attempt to translate Le Deuxième Sexe missed out !!!

Beauvoir's formulation that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman",  distinguishes the terms 'sex' and 'gender', with 'gender' being a cultural aspect of identity which is "gradually acquired", as opposed to "sex" you are born with.

The first translation of the book in English in the US was marketed and sold as a book about sex, and therefore the translation is missing out the message entirely. In the context of the 50's, for the general US public, it was a chance to finally buy a socially acceptable book about sex (bemol - the book is forbidden by the Vatican).

It has been commented in wiki that the 1953 English translation of The Second Sex is poor.
The delicate vocabulary of philosophical concepts is frequently mistranslated. Sheila and Constance explained last night that it was because in 1953, the public was expecting a book about Sex, not Gender, and even less Philosophy - they added 'especially coming from a woman'. For example, the word 'authentic' in the book is a philosophical term, and in English, it was plainly translated without philosophical meaning. The verb 'se poser' had been plainly translated as 'posed' instead of 'posit' (philosophical terminology).

Some plain mistakes had to be corrected: «la jeune fille» had been translated «the young girl» (colloquialism), when it should have been translated «a girl» (in general).

The translators respected the prose which according to them «has a grammar of its own and this grammar has a logic of its own» to be respected. Duty of care at its best.

They explained they also stripped out the over political correctness of some Gender expressions in later versions. They argue that it was in order to be more faithful to the text. I would argue that this 'as well' is a trend, but never mind, it is not easy.

In addition, 15 to 20% of the text had been cut by publisher's order, including Beauvoir's accounts of more than seventy historical figures, which goes precisely against the overall book message.

Some of the text had been 'mis-rendered' during the transcription: the translators found out that some words like « Comme » instead of « Contre » had been mis-transferred from the original document (poor hand writing apparently) to the typed version.

Although the publishers had been made aware of the problems with the English text, they long insisted that there was really no need for a new translation.

Simone de Beauvoir herself explicitly requested one in a 1985 interview: "I would like very much for another translation of The Second Sex to be done, one that is much more faithful; more complete and more faithful."

Like Jean-Paul & Simone, Sheila and Constance mirrors a long intellectual friendship that bore its fruits for us all to enjoy. The two US translators met in collège, taught alongside in Sciences Pô, Paris, and have now travelled around the world to explain and present their work of humanistic scope and consequences.

They explained they TOOK CARE of spending 4 years, researching and immersing themselves in the life of the philosopher, reading what Simone de Beauvoir was reading - some of these books very obscure and hard to find nowadays, they studied and/or met the influential people of her life, all in the sole purpose to understand her reference system and make to right translation decision!!! Brilliant!

They dispelled any chance of the audience showing scepticism about such endeavour. They said: this was the most enriching experience of our life.

She says:

...to carry off this supreme victory, men and women must, among other things and beyond their natural differentiations, unequivocally affirm their brotherhood (I like the word brotherhood, and I would KEEP it).

I am also so pleased to see efforts of being 'faithful translation' rather than 'audience based translation'. It is a highly discussable subject, but thanks God there are still academics not enslaved to publishers to make it even possible.

A great evening!!! More please ...

School Sailing Club News

Email received: Sunday, 23 October 2011 5:40 PM
Subject: Pacers racing and a mile of smiles

Greetings from the wind swept shores of Moreton Bay,

Breaking news with this mornings first week of Term 4 Schools Fleet Racing.

From the pictures, the girls were up for the challenge, easily beating rivals to the ramp to launch and even having time to mull over their departure, before the ensuing battle with 44 other Pacers!

There were some anecdotal reports of boy sailors being displeased with superior sailing from the girls :-)

Modern Day Renaisssance

The key development that led to the first Renaissance was not just a wider accessibility of ideas contained in ancient texts, but that technology is not simply an invention but a revolution unto itself, which exerts "a gravitational effect on cognition which in turn affects social organisation and perceptual habits".

Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)

The first Renaissance was the invention of the mechanised Gutenberg printing press.

Modern day Renaissance is the digital Gutenberg - and has done so with more democratic universality than the original.

Josie 15th Bday at Kingston Park Kart Racing with her friends

22 October 2011, my little girl is now 15!


We had a nice day getting to know her friends and them, enjoying themselves trying out, for most of them, kart racing, for the first time. They were put on the intermediary track, available from 14 years old.

Of course, they wanted to collect their time sheets and they averaged 50 kms/hour. One of them* (I keep their privacy) said she did not remember when she pushed the brake pedal once! Yes, she did get a good score :)

Back home, Paul & I were amazed how talented they all were, playing AND SINGING on the piano. One of them even ventured playing the guitar: he explained he had a two weeks crash course in China! ... but he COULD play in front of all this friends. His courage was contagious: shortly after that, someone we did not know who could play, took over the guitar, played and sang magnificently.
So beautiful to see them GROW together.

Rainbow County, Northern NSW, Sept Holiday

Roaming in Byron Bay

The US poet Tamsin Smith wrote after visiting Byron Bay: 

"Like an antipodean, "true north' Byron Bay resets the compass, pointing us back towards our better selves ... we quite simply see and feel the beauty around us".

The first slide show is about Byron Bay streets, candle making at the market for the kids, tandem riding, surfing, seascape photographic attempts, and sunsets.

Byron Bay

Seachangers, treechangers, corporate-burnouts, babyboomers, artists, lifestyle junkies, shortboarders, longboarders, body boarders, goatboarders, neo-hippies, post-hippy-hippies, a sanctuary for emotional refugees, a black hole dreamland for party-heads, a time-quake for surfers, an elusive gold mine for property developers, a hot scene for backpackers ... a magnetic field.

The place is still bearing the impact of the Aquarius Festival in Nimbim in the 70s and the hippies that never left. Now, they all say the place has been ruined, rental prices have escalated ... it is still for me one of the best place I have ever been: people's spirit is there 'environmentally driven' by the sheer beauty of the place... and my children love it ...

The second slide-show is about Nimbin ... the place which inspired Byron Bay,

you will understand straight away... 'not everyone's cup of tea' for sure,

and not without 'a darker side' 

(you can see video cameras in the main street, quite an extreme security measure for NSW)

The area is home to the Nightcap National Park, with tree ferns and ancient rainforests growing on fertile volcanic soil. The park was given World Heritage status in 1989. 

It is also known for the fierce protests which took place between environmentalists and tree loggers in recent history. We visited the spectacular Protestors' Falls where I experimented with my camera lenses - see below.

More traditionally, Nimbin's surrounding is a bountiful countryside - always makes me think of teletubbies' rolling greens meadows.

If you have one more minute on this page, let me share something I read while on holiday in Byron Bay, from Tamsin Smith 
(I just loved it)

"For me, writing is an cat of discovery akin to traveling - and so, when I have the luxury of time, I wander with words. I may not set out a specific destination in mind, but this random patterning of thoughts tends to lead me closer to what I need to see. I wonder if we all don't have a chest full of mysterious maps inside of us, each waiting to be unscrolled, when the time is right.

Do you think you have opened all the maps within you yet? There are plenty of manufactured charts out there that try to tell us how to see the world. I suspect you have grown tired of following these off-the-shelf instructionals.

Dare I begin with a disgression ? In my experience, it is the off-road ramble that usually becomes the unexpected high point of any journey. Thus, I roam".

Lakmé - Sydney Opera House on the 24th of August 2011

Sydney Opera House

(for Shikha who asked me today to write it)

19h30 - 24th of August 2011

Her majesty sailing in Sydney Night Sky

Like a Sail opening to absorb the Crowds

Sydney Harbour Bridge opposite

Mi-Sail Mi-Pyramid shapes

My ticket that night

Sydney was my first port of call in Australia. I spent two years living and working there when I was 25, so it felt very special coming back to this familiar place. Yet, I was far from being a local: when my colleagues took me for lunch and I had to quickly order a cold beer, I did not remember which beer, and made a huge faux pas: I said a 'XXXX' as I could not recall quickly enough the name of the local beer. I knew that second I had offended. The barmaid looked at me and said: what ? ... no, we don't have any...quickly I corrected: 'a Toohey', but I knew I still had it wrong, the one I really liked was a VB (Melbourne beer Victoria Bitter), but it came back to me 25 seconds too late!

My colleague smiled at me: 'it has been a while since you have not come back to Sydney'

Correct: 15 years,

(except for a short one night business trip in Alexandria suburb a month ago to present myself to the new company I would be working for over the next six months on an international trade software localisation project)

So I had to make this exceptional visit taking me out of the private sphere special

And I did

As I quickly checked the web, I found out an Opera was being sung in French at the Sydney Opera House, what a nice coincidence.
 I thought, 'no excuse' ...

I decided to try my luck and I managed to secure a reasonably priced ticket. I was placed on the second row, so close to the scene, I could see the musicians in a room under the theatre scene. They were tuning their instruments in semi intimacy, not many people could see them. 

I was close enough to see the opera singers and I could appreciate their acting performance fully, not missing out on their craft for facial expressions. I could see them breathing as they projected their voices not unlike an athlete, in a very controlled manner, yet, still able to project crafted emotions.

As I was watching the musicians, listening to Delibes' music and listening to Lakmé and Frederic's humble voices, I decided right then:

the human voice is the most beautiful instrument in the world.

Lakmé is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes, inspired from Pierre Loti's novel Le mariage de Loti (1882). First performed in Opera comique in Paris in 1883, it was now performed in the Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House for the first time that day.

It is a love story between a semi-goddess, Lakmé, whose purity is central to her community, whose religious beliefs represent a defiance to colonial occupation, and a romantic British soldier, Frederic, engaged to be married. It is meant to go wrong before it started, and as they see the abyss, they go straight for it.

I loved it when Frederic answered Lakmé. As the strange fever was burning in her own heart, she asks what God gives him such courage, and his reply-- 'Le Dieu de la jeunesse, le Dieu du Printemps, le Dieu de l'amour' / 'the God of Youth, the God of Spring, the God of Love'

It is mostly famous through the 'Bell Song' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju-oCQxZ9hs with not a word spoken, pure VOICE !!!, an incredible moment for me when one can pause for a moment on voice without language, and 'Viens Mallika' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuEcleIFPlw that I recognised from my childhood and which came as a surprise to me. It was a nice moment, because coming from so far away in my memory, and so familiar yet in an unfamiliar place.

It has been commented that this is British imperialism seen through a particularly mischievous French sensibility.

There is definitely traces of misplaced perceptions of exoticism straight out of the XIX's century, but fortunately, this is not central to the play.

It has been commented that Delibes reserved his most involving music for the central love story and the moments of local colour.

I was particular sensitive to the fact that it was sung by non native speakers, and I had reservation they would be able to reach my emotions for that reason but they did - this again was a surprise, and I liked it all the more that they could do such an incredible job

In my mind, they were going to sing the French words mechanically. Far from it, it was heightened because you could size the extra effort they had to put in it.

From the height (?) of the XXIst century perspective, the author Michel Parouty concludes : "This tale of eternal love still makes Auntie Meg reach for her hankie; and who's complaining?"

Lakmé

Children Painting Exhibition - Simply the Best !!!

Primary School Paintings Exhibition

Enjoy !

This one is my favourite. It is my impression that kids have very lateral thinking, like hiding the car keys in the fridge, or THIS ONE, extraordinary in my opionion, I just love it ! I may even keep it as a screen saver.

and they are Kings or Queens of their Imaginary Kingdom, and we are at their service, aren't we :) ?

Fascination with sky scrapers structures

Very sophisticated Clock?Bird

Oscar's class work below, we bid for it, but lost

Australian flowers

Textures x 2

Density, Colour and diverse Impressions Techniques, a Little Scientists' work :)

A Japanese touch

Finally, our hope, our biggest asset

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Un jour une jeune femme buvait du thé avec sa mère.
Elles parlaient de la vie, du mariage, des responsabilités dans la vie et des obligations dues à l'âge adulte.

La mère pensive, disait à sa fille :
N'oublie pas tes soeurs.
Elles deviendront plus importantes au fur et à mesure que tu prendras de l'âge.
Même si tu aimes profondément ton mari et les enfants que tu auras peut-être,
tu auras toujours besoin de tes soeurs.
Penses à les accompagner ou faire des choses avec elles de temps en temps.
Et n'oublies pas que 'soeurs' veut dire toutes les femmes.
Tes amies, tes filles, tes collègues et tous les membres féminins de ta famille.
Tu as besoin d'elles.

Quel drôle de conseil pensait la jeune femme.
Je suis jeune mariée. Mon mari et la famille que nous allons créer ensemble,
sera sûrement ce qui donnera tout le sens à ma vie.
Mais elle suivait quand même les conseils de sa mère.
Elle gardait le contact avec ses soeurs, et se faisait chaque année plus d'amies.

Petit à petit, le temps passant, elle se rendait compte que sa mère savait ce dont elle parlait.
Quand des mystères et des changements se produisaient dans sa vie, ses
"soeurs" étaient des piliers dans sa vie.
Le temps passe, la vie se vit, la distance sépare, les enfants grandissent,

l'amour grandit et disparaît.
Les êtres aimés se meurent, les coeurs se brisent, les parents décèdent et les
carrières se terminent.

Mais.... il reste les soeurs, le temps et la distance n'y changeant rien.
Une amie est toujours à portée de main quand tu as besoin d'elle.
Quand tu dois traverser la vallée solitaire, il y aura des femmes dans ta vie, qui
se trouveront au bord pour t'encourager, prier pour toi, intervenir pour
toi, et à la fin : t'accueillir dans leur bras.


Parfois elles se foutent des règles, et marchent à tes côtés. Ou alors elles
viennent te sortir de l'ornière
Amies,
filles, petites-filles, belles-filles, soeurs, belle-soeurs, mères,
grand-mères, tantes, nièces, voisines...
toutes elles bénissent ta vie.

Le monde ne serait pas pareil sans cette complicité entre femmes.
Quand nous avons commencé cette aventure "être femme",
nous n'avions aucune idée des joies et peines incroyables qui nous attendaient.
Ni ne savions combien nous aurions besoin les unes des autres, encore
aujourd'hui.

Possum Box Project and our Surrounding Wild Life

                                                               

In a sub-tropical house - you are never alone ...

During the school holidays, the kids went to Fleas Zoo on the Gold Coast with their Dad and came back with a booklet on how to make possum houses, a house with precise specifications !

Someone was watching :) !

And someone else wanted to join in on the deck !

Flock of cockatoos whose path has been carefully diverted from the neighbours' house since they are away on holidays ... Leonie, you will be please to see they have been looked after.

Mr Possum and all of his friends who make a racket on the roof at night

An Australian frog near our pond - collected from an evening walk after the rain.

Possum Box Painted

with ochre collected on a Noosa Heads walk, grinded, mixed with egg white and water 

Finished product (we got enthusiastic about Aboriginal Patterns on a children book)

And up in a tree for the new tenant tonight

Someone is bemused !