I live in a neighbourhood named Belleville.
Here are some exciting Belleville facts:
Belleville is on the second highest hill in Paris next to the famous Montmartre.
The name, Belleville (beautiful town), is most likely derived from Belle vue, or beautiful view.
Belleville is historically a working-class neighbourhood. The village of Belleville played a large role in establishing the "Second French Republic" in 1848 -- which is to say it played a large part in the French Revolution. In 1871 the people of Belleville were some of the strongest supporters of the Paris Commune, and when the Versaille army moved in that May, it's toughest opposition was in Belleville where the last baricade stood.
To this day Belleville is leftist and votes accordingly for either the Parti Socialiste (the French Socialist Party), the Parti Communiste Français (the French Communist Party) or the Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle). Communist Party headquarters is just outside Colonel Fabien station, between Belleville and its northern neighbor La Villette.
Starting in the early 1900s many immigrants settled in Belleville: from Armenians and Greeks in the first 30 years of the century, to German Jews and Spaniards in the 30s, and Algerians and Tunisian Jews in the 60s. I've noticed, in my area of the neighbourhood, many North African families and businesses. If only I had family or friends in North Africa: I can get great deals on phone cards to countires in the aforementioned region.
One of Paris's 2 China towns is located in Belleville.
Edith Piaf was born and grew up in Belleville and was famous for singing with a Belleville accent: the French equivalent of a Cockney accent. The accent is rarely heard these days. (Personal interlude: there was an old French man who helped me find my apartent when I first arrived here. He spoke with Juliette who later said that he had a strange accent. We now think, especially since he was quite old, that it might have been a Belleville accent.)
So there are my fun Belleville facts.
In more personal news, I just bought a second hand guitar. It's lovely. We have great fun together.
In related news, I have just learned to play Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." I am very happy with my ears right now, and even more happy with my old pal Leonard. I've decided that he's an absolutely brilliant lyricist (I know, I'm not exactly the first to come to the conclusion, but this is special because it's my epiphany), and that Hallelujah especially is an extrordinary work of song-writing/lyrical genius. I've already ranted extensively to Tala about this, but I beg you all to listen to whichever version of the song you can get your hands on, and also to read this fascinating article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(song)
Make sure to check out the links to Lyrics that it provides.
Of course, I have piles of news that I could dump hap-hazardly upon you, but that would just be rude. Or messy. So, until next time, my necessarily fragmented life and I bid you all adieu,
Erin
ps. I just pulled out the dictionary because I realized that I don't know how to spell "necessarily", and my spell-check on this program doesn't work (yep, same old Erin, unable to spell, although, upon checking, I did spell necessarily correctly the first time around). When I pulled the dictionary off the shelf it fell open to, and the first thing I saw, at the top of the page, was "megadeath." It was perfect. Who knew that Megadeath was a real word?! Apparently it can be defined as: a unit used in quantifying the casualties of nuclear war, equal to the deaths of one million people.
How morbid. And clearly developed during the 1950s: total Cold War jingoism. "War on Terror," anyone?
Because, you know, there's no point in having a term like "megadeath" except to rile people up. Is it really any easier to say "there will be five megathdeaths" than to say "there will be five million deaths?"
At least a name was invented for the band Megadeath.
Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Megadeath.
There were 3 bands and three awesome names to go around.
If the concept of "Megadeath" had never been developed there would have only been two names to go around. It would be like duck-duck-goose: one band would be the odd band out; nameless. They would've have to choose some crappy and inappropriate name, and would almost certainly have spent all of eternity languishing in their parents' basements. The course of rock'n'roll history would be altered utterly.
So, I just gave you the dictionary definition of "megadeath," but, because I changed dictionary pages to find "necessarily," I had to reopen the dictionary to find the definition of megadeath all over again. When I opened the dictionary the second time, guess what word popped out at me first thing?: "minuteman."
I swear this thing is rigged.
Here, let's try again:
..."bloomer?"
What a let-down.
Probably because I was trying too hard.
Here are some exciting Belleville facts:
Belleville is on the second highest hill in Paris next to the famous Montmartre.
The name, Belleville (beautiful town), is most likely derived from Belle vue, or beautiful view.
Belleville is historically a working-class neighbourhood. The village of Belleville played a large role in establishing the "Second French Republic" in 1848 -- which is to say it played a large part in the French Revolution. In 1871 the people of Belleville were some of the strongest supporters of the Paris Commune, and when the Versaille army moved in that May, it's toughest opposition was in Belleville where the last baricade stood.
To this day Belleville is leftist and votes accordingly for either the Parti Socialiste (the French Socialist Party), the Parti Communiste Français (the French Communist Party) or the Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle). Communist Party headquarters is just outside Colonel Fabien station, between Belleville and its northern neighbor La Villette.
Starting in the early 1900s many immigrants settled in Belleville: from Armenians and Greeks in the first 30 years of the century, to German Jews and Spaniards in the 30s, and Algerians and Tunisian Jews in the 60s. I've noticed, in my area of the neighbourhood, many North African families and businesses. If only I had family or friends in North Africa: I can get great deals on phone cards to countires in the aforementioned region.
One of Paris's 2 China towns is located in Belleville.
Edith Piaf was born and grew up in Belleville and was famous for singing with a Belleville accent: the French equivalent of a Cockney accent. The accent is rarely heard these days. (Personal interlude: there was an old French man who helped me find my apartent when I first arrived here. He spoke with Juliette who later said that he had a strange accent. We now think, especially since he was quite old, that it might have been a Belleville accent.)
So there are my fun Belleville facts.
In more personal news, I just bought a second hand guitar. It's lovely. We have great fun together.
In related news, I have just learned to play Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." I am very happy with my ears right now, and even more happy with my old pal Leonard. I've decided that he's an absolutely brilliant lyricist (I know, I'm not exactly the first to come to the conclusion, but this is special because it's my epiphany), and that Hallelujah especially is an extrordinary work of song-writing/lyrical genius. I've already ranted extensively to Tala about this, but I beg you all to listen to whichever version of the song you can get your hands on, and also to read this fascinating article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(song)
Make sure to check out the links to Lyrics that it provides.
Of course, I have piles of news that I could dump hap-hazardly upon you, but that would just be rude. Or messy. So, until next time, my necessarily fragmented life and I bid you all adieu,
Erin
ps. I just pulled out the dictionary because I realized that I don't know how to spell "necessarily", and my spell-check on this program doesn't work (yep, same old Erin, unable to spell, although, upon checking, I did spell necessarily correctly the first time around). When I pulled the dictionary off the shelf it fell open to, and the first thing I saw, at the top of the page, was "megadeath." It was perfect. Who knew that Megadeath was a real word?! Apparently it can be defined as: a unit used in quantifying the casualties of nuclear war, equal to the deaths of one million people.
How morbid. And clearly developed during the 1950s: total Cold War jingoism. "War on Terror," anyone?
Because, you know, there's no point in having a term like "megadeath" except to rile people up. Is it really any easier to say "there will be five megathdeaths" than to say "there will be five million deaths?"
At least a name was invented for the band Megadeath.
Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Megadeath.
There were 3 bands and three awesome names to go around.
If the concept of "Megadeath" had never been developed there would have only been two names to go around. It would be like duck-duck-goose: one band would be the odd band out; nameless. They would've have to choose some crappy and inappropriate name, and would almost certainly have spent all of eternity languishing in their parents' basements. The course of rock'n'roll history would be altered utterly.
So, I just gave you the dictionary definition of "megadeath," but, because I changed dictionary pages to find "necessarily," I had to reopen the dictionary to find the definition of megadeath all over again. When I opened the dictionary the second time, guess what word popped out at me first thing?: "minuteman."
I swear this thing is rigged.
Here, let's try again:
..."bloomer?"
What a let-down.
Probably because I was trying too hard.
posted by ErinCW at 10:52 PM
1 Comments:
Erin, I fully appreciate the breakdown you gave me of "Hallelujah". I quite enjoy your long rants about random subjects, and I imagine you could make them much longer if you had the time and desire. This is just to let you know that should you continue to provide such commentaries, I will continue to read them with interest when I find myself with adequate time on hand.
I miss you!
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