spring cleaning.

I'm sick for the...oh...hundredth time this semester. I have to admit that I ask for it every time though...too much partying, not enough sleeping, blah blah blah. So I'm doing a bit of a spring cleanse...no coffee, no alcohol, no fun.

This week was just not the best time to get sick. On top of the exam tomorrow morning at 8, and the two presentations today and tomorrow, I also have to do an analysis of a book. The book in question is unreadable. Picture your high school math textbook, but instead of algebra and trig, it's pages and pages of in-depth analysis of the CIA: the history, the institution, the links with the executive... What's worse is that the authors deceive you into thinking that it's going to be an exciting read, with chapters like "A World of Secrets" and "The Origins and Expansion of CIA Covert Operations". Oh my!

The truth is that I have had this book for a week and have fallen asleep every time I've tried to progress. And I'm starting to panic because this presentation is on Thursday and all I've learned is that the CIA is a bureaucratic monster with a superiority complex that abhors communicating with other agencies. So...has anyone read The Central Intelligence Agency: Security under scrutiny? Of course you haven't. The book was meant to be a door-stop.

Lady Sov goes Britney on Brooklyn

Another victim of the music industry. Lady Sovereign was supposed to do a special late-night performance in Brooklyn after opening for Gwen Stefani earlier this week. Instead, she made it through two songs and then launched into a long tirade about how she is broke, depressed, tired of touring, about to get evicted and unable to write new songs. Here's the video.



Personally I think this is a far classier way to announce that you've reached rock bottom than by shaving your head and attacking an SUV with a baseball bat. The audience reaction was pretty terrible. I half expected someone to scream out "FREEBIRD!!!"...but I guess "HOW 'BOUT A LITTLE SHUT THE F*** UP!!" will do.

this could be interesting.

Today I got accepted to take part in a 6-day seminar in Strasbourg, put on by l'Institut des Hautes Etudes de Defense Nationale, at the end of June. I had sent in my application after hearing about it from a guy who was evesdropping on my conversation with my friend, a few weeks back at La Palette. Essentially I will be spending 6 days studying any and all subjects pertaining to strategic studies and geopolitics...and mostly from either experts or officers in the army. At the end of the week we have to hand in a group research project. Not exactly the post-exam debauchery I had envisioned, but this will definitely look good on my resume. And really, how hard can spending a week surrounded by boys from the military academy be?

do something different

In celebration of the fact that it's the Cannes Festival, but mostly because we've been having pretty terrible weather, I've been taking in a lot of movies lately. A couple of nights ago Sasha and I checked out Zodiac, the movie about the Zodiac killer told from the point of view of Robert Graysmith, who worked at the San Francisco Chronicle at the time that the murders (and creepy letters and cryptograms) started. I had pretty high expectations for this movie, because I enjoyed David Fincher's previous stuff (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club...), but I wasn't overly impressed this time around. To be fair, it can't be easy to make a film about one of the most famous unsolved murder cases ever - I mean, the audience already knows how the story ends. Yes, the acting was great, and I was entertained for most of the 2 1/2 hours, but had I read up about the Zodiac murders beforehand, I would have probably been bored as hell.

I also watched Scarface for the third time. But more importantly, I discovered Lord of War. Where was I when this movie came out and why did it not even register on my radar? The only possible explanation for this oversight is that I saw Nicolas Cage on the movie poster and immediately decided it wasn't worth my time - which I realize is a little unfair since I was very pleasantly surprised by his performances in Adaptation and Matchstick Men. This movie was recommended by one of my professors when we were studying the demilitarization of societies after the fall of the Soviet Union. Cage's character in the movie is said to be losely based on the life of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is suspected to have supplied arms to most of the African continent. Name any armed conflict of the 1990s, and there's a good chance Bout supplied arms for either side, sometimes both. Several warrants have been issued for his arrest, but he has managed to build such a solid network of business partners that he is protected by friends in very high places.

Perhaps I enjoyed this movie so much because it's directly related to what I study. I also liked it because it spoke to the realist in me. Instead of taking a moralistic approach, in which the arms dealer is portrayed as a heartless bastard who takes pleasure in knowing that his goods are used to decimate entire populations, the main message of the film is that the people who work in this business are despicable yet necessary. How else do you think our governments supply friendly rebel movements when they don't want the world to know about it? And in the grand scheme of things, they're making peanuts compared to what the US, the UK, China, France and Russia make on a daily basis in the arms trade.

I didn't spend my whole weekend in front of a movie screen. Last night we ventured further than I've ever been before without a car, into Zone 5 of the regional transport network, for a pool party. It's always scary to leave the comfort of Paris' fantastic night bus and metro system, especially when you're going to a house party where you know no one. There was a moment of panic when we turned onto the street the party was supposedly on and heard only the chirping of crickets... but in the end we had a pretty good time. And we discovered that when you're that far out of Paris, the normal night bus is actually a cushy Greyhound.

This weekend I also became addicted to two songs; the Boys Noize's remix of Feist's My Moon My Man, and this:

manic monday

Mondays are always very long and hectic days from me, but yesterday especially. But not necessarily in a bad way. My ten o'clock class was buzzing, because our teacher just got offered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the new President. He has already held the position, under socialist president Francois Mitterand. Sarkozy is definitely not socialist, but this is part of his plan to put together the most competent cabinet possible. Hubert Vedrine (my prof) is a logical choice because he is widely respected both in France and abroad, is a pragmatist and has a lifetime of experience. The Ministry has also been offered to Medecins Sans Frontieres founder Bernand Kouchner...and I suspect he will get it for reasons that I wouldn't want to bore you with on this blog. Needless to say, most of our class was spent listening to Vedrine explain the circumstances under which he would take the job. There may or may not have been some Segolene Royal trash-talking in there too...which is always funny coming from the mouth of a respected Socialist.

Then I finished the day off with what has got to be the most boring class of the year. No wait. Not only is it boring, but the teacher is completely out of touch with reality. I should have known it would get this bad. In our first class of the semester he tried to explain "Terrorism" to us by using the Chaos theory. Yesterday he taught us that decriminalizing soft drugs is based on questionable and faulty reasoning. I'm starting to think he is confusing decriminalization with legalization. I have come THIS close to sprinting out of the room on two occasions because I could barely keep in the fits of laughter that took over when I looked at the expressions on my classmates' faces. This course is devastatingly boring.

But thankfully my day did not finish on that sour note. My friend had an extra ticket to Grizzly Bear at La Boule Noire. I hadn't realised it had been so long since I had seen a concert in Paris. I had heard this band's name kicking around but I had never actually listened to their stuff. Their music is so meticulously crafted...very haunting at times, almost as if their songs were made for a David Lynch movie. Their cover of Carol King's "He Hit Me (And it fell like a kiss)" is particularly eerie...and wonderful. You can listen to it here (along with two other songs). Despite some technical difficulties, the boys put on a fantastic show. You could literally hear a pin drop, the audience was so captivated.

Here's a clip of the boys doing an a cappella version of The Knife in the streets of Paris.



At the end of the show, the good people from La Blogotheque had a little surprise planned. A contest had been organised on their website inviting anyone who was interested to send in simple lyrics. Grizzly Bear quickly threw a melody together and sang the song live. Their accents were terrible, but I'm pretty sure the song was about how springtime is coming.

Here are some of my pictures from the show.

this is the remix.

Short video of MSTRKRFT remix of D.A.N.C.E live at Coachella. The only reason I miss living on the west coast of the North American continent is because I can't go to Coachella anymore.

ouuuuffff!

It's been a very busy week. I'm going to start with the most recent events and see how far back I can remember.

Today, I got an internship for next semester. This is a big deal for several reasons. It means that I no longer have to stress about finding an internship. PHEW. (instead of doing a thesis we do an internship, it's meant to prepare us for the real world and allow us to network in our field of study) This is also a big deal because I'm pretty sure my internship is going to be awesome. First of all, I'll be working at l'Ecole Militaire, which is a stone's throw from my apartment, in a research centre that is affiliated with the military. Secondly, I'll be doing research on exciting topics like nukes, terrorism, strategy... And finally, one of my papers will get published.

Speaking of published, the book that my class published about Kosovo last semester is finally out on Amazon.fr for 14 bones. Not that any of my readership would want to buy it, but I'm just sayin'...

Now that I've finally sat down to update my blog, I've come to the realisation that most of the stuff that I did this week that I found particularly interesting does not make for good blog material. So I'll skip back a few days and mention that I went to the Palais de Tokyo, one of my favourite galleries here, and saw a couple of really great exhibits. It would be very difficult for me to describe in detail what the exhibits were about without boring you to death but all I will say is that if you ever come to Paris, this museum is a must-see.

Onto more concrete things: today, while surfing this webpage - started by a couple of journalists, and for which a classmate of mine writes - I found this video of Arcade Fire performing in an elevator. The concept of Concert A Emporter is pretty simple: "You meet a band. You take them outside, in the streets, and ask them to play there, shoot the movie in one unique shot, whatever happens." I haven't had a chance to see them all, but in the Shins video you can watch the boys get led all around Montmartre with their gear in hand.

Finally, how much fun would this be?

Dj Mehdi Breakaway
Uploaded by viensboire

DJ Mehdi - Breakaway.

that's how you make it right.

Justice video for the first single!!



Quiet weekend in Paris. Everyone goes back to their hometowns to vote...Come Sunday, Sarkozy will be the new president and the shit will hit the fan very shortly afterwards.

stomach pains and communists

Never underestimate the powerful ties that bind the mind and the stomach. That is the lesson (re)learned this week. I was supposed to spend my monday night dancing until dawn to the sounds of Sebastian, Kavinsky and Surkin, but instead I spent most of it trying to pretend that I wasn't having excruciating stomach pains. I only lasted an hour or so. Stress, exhaustion, too much food at the family dinner...whatever the cause, it ruined my night. I heard Surkin tore the place up.

So the next day was a holiday. I spent it walking around, checking out the various rallies going on. Le Pen was having his rally in northern Paris, but I decided to pass on the Skinhead gathering. Instead I headed to Bastille and Republique and inadvertedly ran into a massive left-wing demonstration. At first I thought it was a Socialist party thing, then I realised that it was an anti-Sarkozy rally...until I hit Place de la Republique, which was literally a (cess)-pool of communists and other anti-free market ralliers. I perched myself and observed. And I got to thinking...what is it about communism that makes it so much less repulsive to us than fascism? Millions upon millions of people died under various communist rulers in the 20th century, and entire countries are still suffering, yet the Communist party remains accepted as a valid political entity. Whatever the reason, I was truly astounded at the sheer size of the crowd gathered at Place de la Republique...and of course, all of the usual crap that goes along with a communist rally: red clothes, Che Guevarra t-shirts, hammer and sickle flags, and those annoying 15 year old hippies who say they love Sartre and wish they could move to Cuba to live in a communist utopia. Strangely enough, there was also a large contingency of Kurds and Tamils...

Tonight is the big debate between the two candidates. My money's on Sarkozy. Also, Jim Lehrer from PBS Newshour recently did a piece on the French elections and came to my school. Check out the story here. Some of the info is slightly misleading though, namely that Sarkozy graduated from Sciences-Po. The real story as I've heard it from family friends who were in the same year as him is that he never showed up for class (he was already working for Chirac at the time), he was told by one teacher that he wouldn't go far in life with his attitude, and he eventually dropped out because he had better things to do. I guess things worked out for him in the end.