French Language Blog

Archive for 'Art'

Top 10 Funniest French “Rage” Comics!

Posted on 14. Apr, 2012 by Hichem in Art, Culture, News, People, Vocabulary

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in outer space for the past two years, there’s no way on Earth you’ve never seen this!

This weekend, The French Blog features the Top 10 Funniest French “Rage” Comics…

Alors attention,
attachez vos ceintures,
c’est parti !

(So watch out,

fasten your seatbelts,

here we go!)

•

Does this ever happen to you when you try to do tes devoirs (your homework)?

- “Facebook, please, let me study!”
- “Come on, get connected!”

•

Whenever you get something new, you take super care of it, but of course, one day comes when le voyage de noce (the honeymoon) is over:

“When you buy a new cellphone: The first month, you put it gently.
After a year, you throw it on your bed.
2 years later, you toss it up everywhere!”

•

“In English class:

Student: Teacher, can I go to the bathroom?

Teacher: I don’t understand French

Student: Can je pisser?

Teacher: I don’t understand!

Student: I need uriner!

Teacher: I don’t understand!

Student: Pisser! I WANT to pee.

Teacher: I don’t understand!

Student finally explodes: Oh go ahead, screw you!

Teacher, horrified: What, are you mad? Carnet, you’re expelled!

Student: So, teacher, you learned French?

•

How ennuyeuse (boring) would classroom life be if we didn’t have at least one student among us pour faire le pitre (to play the clown)?

“The student in the middle is acting silly.
- Fred, tell me, what do you want to become later?
- I’d like to be a doctor.
- With such results? Let me laugh!
If I come to your office, you’ll treat me for free?
- I said I wanted to be a doctor, not a vet!“

Oh, snap…

•

Clearly, some fathers have a “deux poids, deux mesures” (double standard) policy towards their children’s education: It all depends on whether they are des garçons (boys) or des filles (girls):

“Un mec (a dude): Daddy, I got a girlfriend

Daddy reacts: …That’s nice, son.

Une meuf (a chick): Daddy, I got a boyfriend…”

And daddy goes like…

•

You don’t have to know the lyrics of the Macarena par cœur (ny heart) to sing it along:

•

Nothing spells love on the Internet like the name Justin Bieber…

- I bought the album of Michael Jackson

- Michael Jackson is dead…

- I bought the album of Slipknot

- Paul Gray is dead…

- I bought an iPhone

- Steve Jobs is dead…

- …?!…

- Tomorrow I’ll buy the album of Justin Bieber…

•

More Justin Bieber love:

- Well… What are your last wishes?

- Let me listen one last time to the CD of Justin Bieber… !

- And you?

- Kill me first!

•

And just when you thought that one Youtube video was finally ready to play, switching to “Full Screen” turns out to be une mauvaise idée (a bad idea)!

•

- Upscale people: Here is a work of art like one rarely sees!

- What a masterpiece!

- Me (Poker face on): It’s a 5-year-old kid who did this?

•

And here are some more “BONUS” rage comics:

Poor Yoshi, Super Mario finds him so conveniently expandable sometimes:

•

“The Ring”: Samara “rings” Chuck Norris on the phone by mistake…

- You will die in 7 days

- Yes? It’s Churck Norris here!

- Oh! Sorry, Sir. I think I dialed the wrong number!

•

Tout seul pour toujours (Forver alone)!

•

* * *

French Canadians going: “FFFUUU”

Abracadabra—Victor Hugo Unleashes “Les Djinns”

Posted on 05. Apr, 2012 by Hichem in Art, Culture, Literature, Music, People, Vocabulary

Once upon a time, Victor Hugo found une lampe magique (a magic lamp.)
Curious as its contenu (content), he eventually opened it. But instead of a nice helping génie à la Aladdin granting him his every wishes, Monsieur Hugo was in for quelques surprises…

“Les Djinns” is a French poem by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), from his recueil (compendium) entitled “Les Orientales.”
Read by Loïc Ollier. Musique of Gabriel Fauré (1841-1924), “Pavane.“

VICTOR HUGO’S “LES DJINNS“:
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY E. H. AND A. M. BLACKMORE

Les Djinns

Murs, ville
Et port,
Asile
De mort,
Mer grise
Où brise
La brise
Tout dort.

Dans la plaine
Naît un bruit.
C’est l’haleine
De la nuit.
Elle brame
Comme une âme
Qu’une flamme
Toujours suit.

La voix plus haute
Semble un grelot.
D’un nain qui saute
C’est le galop.
Il fuit, s’élance,
Puis en cadence
Sur un pied danse
Au bout d’un flot.

La rumeur approche,
L’écho la redit.
C’est comme la cloche
D’un couvent maudit,
Comme un bruit de foule
Qui tonne et qui roule
Et tantôt s’écroule
Et tantôt grandit.

Dieu! La voix sépulcrale
Des Djinns!… – Quel bruit ils font!
Fuyons sous la spirale
De l’escalier profond!
Déjà s’éteint ma lampe,
Et l’ombre de la rampe..
Qui le long du mur rampe,
Monte jusqu’au plafond.

C’est l’essaim des Djinns qui passe,
Et tourbillonne en sifflant.
Les ifs, que leur vol fracasse,
Craquent comme un pin brûlant.
Leur troupeau lourd et rapide,
Volant dans l’espace vide,
Semble un nuage livide
Qui porte un éclair au flanc.

Ils sont tout près! – Tenons fermée
Cette salle ou nous les narguons
Quel bruit dehors! Hideuse armée
De vampires et de dragons!
La poutre du toit descellée
Ploie ainsi qu’une herbe mouillée,
Et la vieille porte rouillée,
Tremble, à déraciner ses gonds.

Cris de l’enfer! voix qui hurle et qui pleure!
L’horrible essaim, poussé par l’aquillon,
Sans doute, o ciel! s’abat sur ma demeure.
Le mur fléchit sous le noir bataillon.
La maison crie et chancelle penchée,
Et l’on dirait que, du sol arrachée,
Ainsi qu’il chasse une feuille séchée,
Le vent la roule avec leur tourbillon!

Prophète! Si ta main me sauve
De ces impurs démons des soirs,
J’irai prosterner mon front chauve
Devant tes sacrés encensoirs!
Fais que sur ces portes fidèles
Meure leur souffle d’étincelles,
Et qu’en vain l’ongle de leurs ailes
Grince et crie à ces vitraux noirs!

Ils sont passés! – Leur cohorte
S’envole et fuit, et leurs pieds
Cessent de battre ma porte
De leurs coups multipliés.
L’air est plein d’un bruit de chaînes,
Et dans les forêts prochaines
Frissonnent tous les grands chênes,
Sous leur vol de feu pliés!

De leurs ailes lointaines
Le battement décroît.
Si confus dans les plaines,
Si faible, que l’on croit
Ouïr la sauterelle
Crier d’une voix grêle
Ou pétiller la grêle
Sur le plomb d’un vieux toit.

D’étranges syllabes
Nous viennent encor.
Ainsi, des Arabes
Quand sonne le cor,
Un chant sur la grève
Par instants s’élève,
Et l’enfant qui rêve
Fait des rêves d’or.

Les Djinns funèbres,
Fils du trépas,
Dans les ténèbres
Pressent leur pas;
Leur essaim gronde;
Ainsi, profonde,
Murmure une onde
Qu’on ne voit pas.

Ce bruit vague
Qui s’endort,
C’est la vague
Sur le bord;
C’est la plainte
Presque éteinte
D’une sainte
Pour un mort.

On doute
La nuit…
J’écoute: -
Tout fuit,
Tout passe;
L’espace
Efface
Le bruit.

The Djinns

¯
Port, walls
And keeps
Death’s Halls
And deeps,
Grey seas
Where breeze
Now flees:
All sleeps.

From the verge
Of the flow
Sighs emerge—
Night-airs blow—
And they toll
Like a soul
On patrol
With a glow.

The loudest sounds
Are like a sleigh—
An elf who bounds
And skins away.
He leaps and flows,
In rhythmic throes
Springs on his toes
Across the spray.

Echoes and entwines
Like the bells we hear
At accursed shrines.
Like a noisy crowd
Thundering and proud,
Sometimes it grows loud,
Sometimes it declines.

O God! the ghostly sound
Of Djinns!—and how they blare!
Quick! let’s escape around
The sunken spiral stair!
Oh, I have lost my light!
The shadow of the flight
Covers the wall—goes right
Up to the open air.

Swarm of Djinns are going past,
And they swirl and whirl and whine
Yew-trees, shattered by the blast,
Crackle like a blazing pine.
In a huddle, quick and wide,
Through the empty space they glide,
Like a pale cloud at whose side
Sudden bolts of lightning shine.

They are so close!—Let’s keep the place
Shut tight, and we’ll defy them all.
The noise out there! A dreadful race,
Vampires and dragons—how they bawl
And the broken roof-beam heaves
Sags like a mass of sodden leaves,
While the old rusty door-frame reaves
Its hinges, quaking, from the wall!

Infernal cries! voices that weep and roar!
The horrible swarm, driven by the gale,
Heavens! is surely beating at my door
The walls, before their black batallions, quail!
The bent house shudders with a hideous sound
As if it’s been uprooted from the ground
And some great wind is tossing it around
Like a dry leaf, so much they swirl and flail

Prophet, if your hand saves me now
From all these unclean friends of the night,
I shall prostrate my naked brow
Before your holy censers’ sight!
Ordain it that this faithful door
Withstands the blast of sparks they pour
And that in vain their wing and claw
On the dark windows shriek and smite!

They are past!—Their mighty ranks
Flee; no longer do their feet
Buffet on the door’s old planks
With a multifarious beat.
Sounds of schackles fill the sky;
Great oaks in the woods nearby
Wilt and waver, as they fly
Past with such a fiery heat!

The beatings of their wings
Distantly faint and fail—
Such far-off feeble things,
You’d think that in the vale
You heard grasshoppers stir
And purr their spindly purr,
Or that old lead roofs were
Spattered with sprays of hail.

Still they come and go,
Those strange murmurings;
So, when Arabs blow
Horn-calls, music sings
Out across the stream’s
Furthermost extremes,
While babes in the dreams
Dream of golden things.

Djinns of the tomb
Sons of the dead,
In the deep gloom
Quicken their tread,
And cry and keen:
So, from serene
Waters, unseen
Whispers are shed.

This dim knell
Is a wave
Of calm swell
In a cave,
Or the plaint,
Very faint,
Of a saint
At a grave.

So dark
A place!
Yet hark:—
No trace,
None found;
The sound
Is drowned
In space.

ÉDITH PIAF: A Unique French Voice Among “La Foule” (“The Crowd”)

Posted on 29. Mar, 2012 by Hichem in Art, Culture, Music, People, Vocabulary

Who said that la culture française rarely opened itself to cross-border influences and inspirations, and that the French always lived secluded within the stone walls of their village gaulois ?

With her outstanding song “La Foule” (“the Crowd”), Édith Piaf dispels such prevaling misconceptions about her country, by interpreting a Peruvian Waltz titled “Que nadie sepa mi sufrir” (“Let no one know my suffering”), originally conceived by two Argentinian-born songwriters…

Et quelle interprétation (and what an interpretation) delivered by Madame Édith Piaf!

* * *

First, the original Piaf – “La Foule” (“The Crowd”)…

… then a Guitar reprise (cover) by MattRach, which you may wish to discover!

* La Foule		* The Crowd
Je revois la ville en fête et en délire Suffoquant sous le soleil et sous la joie Et j’entends dans la musique les cris, les rires Qui éclatent et rebondissent autour de moiEt perdue parmi ces gens qui me bousculent Étourdie, désemparée, je reste là Quand soudain je me retourne, il se recule Et la foule vient me jeter entre ses bras

Emportés par la foule qui nous traîne
Nous entraîne
Écrasés l’un contre l’autre
Nous ne formons qu’un seul corps

Et le flot sans effort
Nous pousse, enchaînés l’un et l’autre
Et nous laisse tous deux
Épanouis, enivrés, et heureux

Entraînés par la foule qui s’élance
Et qui danse
Une folle farandole
Nos deux mains restent soudées

Et parfois soulevés
Nos deux corps enlacés s’envolent
Et retombent tous deux
Épanouis, enivrés et heureux

Et la joie éclaboussée par son sourire
Me transperce et rejaillit au fond de moi
Mais soudain je pousse un cri parmi les rires
Quand la foule vient l’arracher d’entre mes bras

Emportés par la foule qui nous traîne
Nous entraîne
Nous éloigne l’un de l’autre.
Je lutte et je me débats

Mais le son de sa voix
S’étouffe dans les rires des autres
Et je crie de douleur, de fureur et de rage
Et je pleure

Entraînée par la foule qui s’élance
Et qui danse
Une folle farandole
Je suis emportée au loin

Et je crispe mes poings
Maudissant la foule qui me vole
L’homme qu’elle m’avait donné
Et que je n’ai jamais retrouvé I still can see again the town, festive and in a frenzy
Joyfully suffocating beneath the sun
And I hear amid the music the shouts, the laughters
That burst and resound around meAnd lost amongst these people that push me around
Dazed and confused, I stay there
When all of a sudden I turn around, he moves back
And the crowd threw me into his arms

Carried by the crowd that drags us along
Carries us away
Crushed against each other
We are but one body

And the stream easily
Pushes us, chained to each other
And leaves us bith
Beaming, exhilarated, and happy

Carried away by the crowd that goes on
And that dances
A crazy farandole
Our two hands are firmly joined

And sometimes lifted up
Our two intertwined bodies fly off
And both fall back
Beaming, exhilarated and happy

And the joy splashed by his smile
Pierces me and gushes within me
But suddenly I scream in the midst of the laughters
When the crowd came to pull him off my arms

Carried by the crowd that drags us along
Carries us away
Move us away from each other
I wrestle and struggle

But the sound of his voice
Is muffled by the laughters of the others
And I scream out of pain, fury and rage
And I cry

Carried away by the crowd that goes on
And that dances
A crazy farandole
I am carried far away

And I clench my fists
Cursing the crowd that robs me
Of the man that it gave me
And that I never found again

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