Circles
I've recently started using WatchThat Page to track the blogs I'm interested in - blame TU120 with its relentless "you-will-try-new-tools" mantra! A leftover entry from my ECA topic was the Guardian Unlimited Books Blog... don't normally have time for that sort of reading, but hadn't got round to trimming the watch list....
Anyway, today this item caught my eye: Boris Vian: Still spitting from beyond the grave. I hadn't given Boris Vian a thought since about 1970, when I first came across his anti-war song Le Déserteur while I was staying with a French family on an exchange visit, heard it on the radio, borrowed my exchange partner's book of Vian poems & learned it by heart. It played a part in crystallising my vague intention to study French at university & thus helped shape my life... What's strange, given how poor my memory is these days, is that the song came straight back into my head & I knew I had to track it down. Google found me this page all about it. (It's one of those pages that breaks all the rules about good website design with glorious panache, but you don't care, because it's the work of an enthusiast & has the content you're looking for - even if it is mostly in Italian!)
Minutes later, I was enjoying this: YouTube image montage with the original 1954, banned from radio, recording. Musially, it has dated, but the sentiments are as fresh as ever.
The other, bigger circle is that we have a daughter, our last to fly the nest, planning to go to the same university we attended, to study - languages. Last week we attended an open day there & it was an odd mixture of nostalgia & sobering realisation of the passage of time.
She's the same age I was when I first heard Vian.
Anyway, today this item caught my eye: Boris Vian: Still spitting from beyond the grave. I hadn't given Boris Vian a thought since about 1970, when I first came across his anti-war song Le Déserteur while I was staying with a French family on an exchange visit, heard it on the radio, borrowed my exchange partner's book of Vian poems & learned it by heart. It played a part in crystallising my vague intention to study French at university & thus helped shape my life... What's strange, given how poor my memory is these days, is that the song came straight back into my head & I knew I had to track it down. Google found me this page all about it. (It's one of those pages that breaks all the rules about good website design with glorious panache, but you don't care, because it's the work of an enthusiast & has the content you're looking for - even if it is mostly in Italian!)
Minutes later, I was enjoying this: YouTube image montage with the original 1954, banned from radio, recording. Musially, it has dated, but the sentiments are as fresh as ever.
The other, bigger circle is that we have a daughter, our last to fly the nest, planning to go to the same university we attended, to study - languages. Last week we attended an open day there & it was an odd mixture of nostalgia & sobering realisation of the passage of time.
She's the same age I was when I first heard Vian.
posted by bluefluff @ 2:53 AM
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