Sting has reopened the Bataclan

We shall always remember the
victims of 13 November 2015.

#Bataclan

La culture sera la plus forte !

Click to enlarge slightly

For whom is this blog written?

That’s a good question, and I thank you very much for asking it. On Saturday, 9 December 2006, my very first blog post asked a similar question.

Why have I created this blog?

I often find myself saying more or less the same everyday things in e-mails to several friends. Consequently, this blog could be a good way of avoiding such repetition. This doesn't mean that I intend to abandon the idea of sending e-mails to friends. It merely means that certain stuff can be outlined here publicly in my blog, and I can then talk about specific behind-the-scenes things in my personal e-mails. Another down-to-earth reason for this blog is that some of my friends have faulty e-mail systems, which often block my messages because they're judged to be spam. [This is notably the case for Australian customers of Big Pond.] Finally, another good reason for this blog is the possibility of my being able to express freely my feelings in domains that some of my friends judge to be taboo: for example, Aussie politics. So, I'm hoping that this new vector of expression (new for me, that is) will prove to be effective and pleasant to use.

Alas, I didn't have the courage at that time to provide my forthcoming readers with the proverbial truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It's not easy for me to reply, but let's see if I can be a little more honest today. First, I'll give you a hint. A few nights ago, I was intrigued by an unexpected early-morning dream. I found myself informing my readers that the name of my Antipodes blog would be replaced by a new title : The Notebook of William de Gamone. Readers who know me well will recognize instantly what's behind this choice.

• It's pure Rilke, associated with The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge.

• The author's name has been mildly Frenchified in a noble fashion by the addition of "de Gamone".

Let's no longer beat around the bush. Right from the start, ten years ago, my Antipodes blog has always been written primarily for myself. It's simply my on-screen notebook, for saving various ideas, and testing my ability to say various things in certain ways. Readers may have noticed that I've rarely gone out of my way to attract readers and their comments. Often they annoyed me, especially when I found them quarrelsome.

So, let me be perfectly clear. For whom is this blog written? Primarily, for a French-speaking fellow named William who lives at Gamone. Who has always been enchanted by the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke.

You merely wanted to catch a plane

In fact, you ended up catching a nasty bacterial infection at the level of your tail end. According to a study conducted by researchers of the University Hospital of Münster, that kind of affliction is a likely possibility in the toilets of 136 airports in 59 countries. Traces of Staphylococcus aureus were found on 5.5 % of samples from 400 door handles of toilets. To put it bluntly, disgusting data like that is enough to give you the shits.

Cohen song that's hard to understand

Leonard Cohen, 1976, in France

                                                           [photo Istvan Bajzat/Alliances]

The Cohen song Hallelujah was started in 1980, but wasn’t finally written until 1984. Naive listeners might fail to understand that it’s a highly erotic song.

An explicitly sensual version was brought out by Jeff Buckley.
Switch to YouTube to access the original Buckley's performance.

It's a song inspired by the singer's sexual relationship with a lady.

Democracy is leaving the USA

It's weird that Leonard Cohen should leave us at a moment when US democracy seems to be heading in the wrong direction. It's weird, too, that I'm celebrating memories of this great man on a public holiday in France: the 11th day of the 11th month, Armistice Day.

Towards the end of my Israel-inspired novel All the Earth is Mine [lookup in Amazon], I included an excerpt from Cohen's song. In my tale, the entire land of Israel is transformed by modern technology into a gigantic floating island, which spends its new existence sailing around the planet Earth.

Sail on, sail on, oh mighty ship of state

To the shores of need, past the reefs of greed


Though the squalls of hate


Sail on, sail on, sail on...

     

— Leonard Cohen, Democracy

Two angels and a holy man

The holy man has just left us in painful solitude.

Many years ago, in a Paris concert hall, I had the privilege of seeing
blonde Julie Christensen and dark Pearla Batella

accompanying Leonard Cohen.

They appeared to me as a pair of female angels surrounding a holy man.

Leonard Cohen on Chelsea Hotel

Like a bird in the sky

Leonard Cohen [1934-2016]

We were waiting to say farewell, dear Leonard.

We knew you were ready to leave.

You left us so elegantly, in your usual style, with no more

than a few words... for those who had already gone.

Presidential duration

I don’t like to behave like an old fortune-teller who reads magic stuff from all around him.

Over the last day or so, my mind has been invaded constantly by a conviction that President Trump will not last for very long. My imagination comes to a halt well before the New Year, probably even before Christmas… but my mind balks on what might happen to him.

Meanwhile, let me turn to an old friend, Noam Chomsky. A journalist asked him: What effect would electing Donald Trump have?

CHOMSKY: It’s hard to say because we don’t really know what he thinks. And I’m not sure he knows what he thinks. He’s perfectly capable of saying contradictory things at the same time. But there are some pretty stable elements of his ideology, if you can even grant him that concept. One of them is: “Climate change is not taking place.” As he puts it: “Forget it.” And that’s almost a death knell for the species. Not tomorrow... but the decisions we take now are going to affect things in a couple of decades. In a couple of generations, it could be catastrophic.

How is Trump going to deal with US technological giants?

The new president dreams of a friendly relationship with the smart guys in charge of Google, Apple, Facebook... who would tell him how to catch Islamic terrorists. It’s a nice idea, but those fellows might not necessarily rush out rapidly to assist Trump. Why would they? Up until now, they’ve never manifested any enthusiasm for Trump's “ideas”. In any case, computing and the Internet are such intricate phenomena that the reptilean brain of Trump would encounter huge problems in trying to understand them. Obama was smart enough to oversee correctly the elimination of Osama bin Laden. We’ll see if Trump is smart enough to catch devils that remain at large. I hope he is (with a little help from his friends), but I have my doubts.