Bing Crosby Singing in French
Bing Crosby (1903-1977) sings mainly in French about Paris in this wonderful album. Crosby recorded the album in Paris on May 16, 1953. The orchestrations were by Paul Durand (1907-1977) who wrote Je suis seule ce soir which is in the soundtrack of Midnight in Paris. Crosby’s accent isn’t great but it really doesn’t matter. The love comes through.
We Must Not Forget the Lessons of the Holocaust
Christopher J. Dodd served in the United States Senate from 1981 to 2011. His father, Thomas J. Dodd (1959 - 1971) also served in the United States Senate. Earlier in his career, Thomas Dodd served as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. He held the number two position on prosecutorial team which was led by Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892 - 1954).1
In a letter to the editor of The New York Times former Senator Dodd marks the 75th anniversary of The Nuremberg War Crimes trials and explains that the “lessons of Nuremberg must be continually relearned and that the work of protecting dignity and promoting justice are the responsibility of each generation.”
He adds that at this moment, human rights, “the rule of law and even truth itself are threatened by continuing violence, resurgent authoritarianism, racism and anti-Semitism, and rampant conspiracy theories, propaganda and disinformation.”
Dodd reminds us that we have not yet learned the lessons of the Holocaust and that we ignore these lessons at our peril.
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Imagine a sitting Justice of the United States Supreme Court traveling to Germany to serve as a criminal prosecutor. ↩︎
Flickr Explore: A Peak Behind the Curtain
I am a long time Pro member of FIickr. I wondered how photos are selected for Flickr Explore. The photos featured there inspire me.
In a 2020 blog post, Flickr explains that Explore uses an algorithm to display a rotating array of about 500 images from Flickr members every day. Flickr also explained what really matters in the selection process “is the amount of authentic, organic interactions in the form of comments, faves, and views your photo gets after being posted, regardless of how many followers you have.” Pro members are not prioritized.
You can see recent photos featured on Explore here.
‘The Bureau’: A Superb French TV Series
“The Bureau” is a French spy TV series (“Le Bureau des Légendes”) on Canal+ created by Éric Rochant1. The series concerns the daily life and missions of spies within the French Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure or DGSE. The DGSE is the French equivalent of the CIA. Its head office is in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. Variety reports that the creators of the series had the cooperation of the DGSE and that the DGSE liked the series. The series won Best TV Series from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics.
The series begins with the return to Paris of French intelligence officer Guillaume “Malotru” Debailly (Mathieu Kassovitz) after six years as an undercover agent in Syria. Guillaume struggles to reconnect with his former life. But after learning that his lover in Syria (Nadia, played by Zineb Triki), is in Paris, Guillaume breaks agency rules and approaches her as the man he was in Damascus: Paul Lefebvre. As Guillaume begins living a double life, he opens himself up (and the DGSE) to serious dangers.
Henri Duflot (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) portrays the head of the French clandestine service. He’s never himself been an undercover agent and this bothers him because he fears he lacks the respect of his operatives. At the same time, he’s very likable and down-to-earth. He wears garish neckties, which makes him seem more normal.
The beautiful Léa Drucker plays a DGSE psychiatrist with a top secret clearance. Marina Loiseau (Sara Girardeau) portrays a naïve but determined young undercover operative.
The acting is first-rate and the spying seems realistic. This is among the best espionage stories I have seen on TV or in the cinema.
The series concluded after five magnificent seasons. It’s available on Sundance Now including the Sundance Now channel on Amazon.
JungleDragon: Sharing Wildlife Photos
JungleDragon is a social wildlife community for fans of nature. It’s mission is to facilitate the creation of the largest resource of nature imagery on the planet. The site offers an engaging, social and friendly way to find and contribute images and other content.
The site was created by Ferdy Christant, a talented photographer who also publishes trip reports and other interesting content on Medium.
The site is free to use. I just signed up and am enjoying it. If you’re interested you can follow me there.
Audrey Hepburn's Poignant Reaction to Anne Frank's Diary
Audrey Hepburn describing her reaction to reading the Anne Frank’s diary in 1946:
I was exactly the same age as Anne Frank. We were both 10 when war broke out and 15 when the war finished. I was given the book in Dutch, in galley form, in 1946 by a friend. I read it—and it destroyed me. It does this to many people when they first read it. But I was not reading it as a book, as printed pages. This was my life. I didn’t know what I was going to read. I’ve never been the same again, it affected me so deeply. We saw reprisals. We saw young men put up against the wall and shot, and they’d close the street and then open it, and you could pass by again. If you read the diary, I’ve marked one place where she says, ‘Five hostages shot today.’ That was the day my uncle was shot. And in this child’s words I was reading about what was inside me and is still there. It was a catharsis for me. This child who was locked up in four walls had written a full report of everything I’d experienced and felt.
Blogging Myths
Julia Evans, a Canadian software developer, offers eight blogging myths that discourage people from blogging:
- myth: you need to be original
- myth: you need to be an expert
- myth: posts need to be 100% correct
- myth: writing boring posts is bad
- myth: you need to explain every concept
- myth: page views matter
- myth: more material is always better
- myth: everyone should blog
I found this list and her explanations helpful. In the end, it’s the author’s blog and it can be whatever the author wants.
‘ What Makes You Come Alive’
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”
— Harold Whitman
Robert Clary (1926-2022)
Robert Clary, a French-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II who played a feisty prisoner of war in the improbable 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” died Nov. 16 [, 2022] at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 96.
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Mr. Clary was the last surviving original star of the sitcom that included Bob Crane, Richard Dawson, Larry Hovis and Ivan Dixon as the prisoners. Werner Klemperer and John Banner, who played their captors, were European Jews who fled Nazi persecution before the war.
Mr. Clary remained publicly silent about his own wartime experience until 1980 when, Mr. Clary said, he was provoked to speak out by those who denied or diminished the orchestrated effort by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews. Twelve of his immediate family members — his parents and 10 siblings — were killed under the Nazis . . .
Clary was liberated from Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. Clary was the only family member to survive.
Hogan’s Heroes ran for 168 episodes (six seasons) from 1965-1971, on the CBS network. It was the longest broadcast run for an American television series inspired by WWII.
Although the show was completely unrealistic, I loved it. It made me laugh then and does so now.
TV Series: ‘The Americans’
There aren’t many TV shows I miss long after they end. The Americans is one of them. Even though the series ended in 2018, I still miss the anticipation of the next episode.
The Americans is an American television period drama series created and produced by former CIA officer Joe Weisberg. It premiered in the United States in 2013 on the FX network and concluded after six seasons and 75 wonderful episodes.
The Americans is about the marriage of two KGB spies posing as Americans in suburban Washington D.C. shortly after Ronald Reagan is elected President. The series centers around the arranged marriage of Philip (Matthew Rhysand Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell), who have two children – 14-year-old Paige (Holly Taylor) and 12-year-old Henry (Keidrich Sellati). The children don’t know about the true identity of their parents. The spies live next door to Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), an FBI agent working in counterintelligence. From there it gets complicated.
This is one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. What makes it special is the interplay between the spying and what’s going in the family of the Russian spies and the family of the FBI agent next door. In the end, I am interested in the personal relationships more than I am the spying. I easily connected with the relationship issues.
The relationship between the more practical Philip and the rule-following Elizabeth makes for some fascinating issues. Keri Russell’s beauty enters the plot in many different ways. The spying was just plain fun to watch, partly because of the now dated technology of the the era (the 1980s) in which the series takes place.
The New York Times said “The Americans” is “one of those rare series that actually has gotten better every season.”
If you want insider information about the show, Slate has a podcast about the show featuring cast, crew and creators.
Lara Fabian
Lara Fabian sings beautifully. Fabian is best known for the dance pop song “I Will Love Again,” which was released in 2000 and peaked at number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Fabian was born in Belgium in 1970 to a Flemish father and an Italian mother. She speaks four languages: French, Spanish, Italian and English. I especially love her French music.
In 2018, I saw her perform in Washington, DC in at the Warner Theater. Her voice knocked my socks off.
Fabian’s music is in the same genre as Laura Pausini with whom she has performed. Together they are an exceptional treat.
You can hear her passion for life — and her fluent English — in this interview.
Laura Pausini
Laura Pausini is an Italian singer who rose to fame in 1993 with her debut single “La solitudine", which became an Italian standard and an international hit.
Pausini’s music releases include fourteen studio albums, two international greatest hits albums and two compilation albums. She mostly performs in Italian and Spanish, but she has also recorded songs in English, French, Portuguese and Catalan.
She has a powerful, beautiful voice. My favorite Laura Pausini song is “Un’emergenza d’amore”, released in 1998.
Michel LeGrand (1932-2019)
Ever since I was a boy, my ambition has been to live completely surrounded by music. My dream is not to miss out anything. That’s why I’ve never settled on one musical discipline. I love playing, conducting, singing and writing, and in all styles. So I turn my hand to everything - not just a bit of everything. Quite the opposite. I do all these activities at once, seriously, sincerely and with deep commitment.
Michel LeGrand (1932-2019) wrote the scores for more than 250 films including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) starring Catherine Deneuve and Yentl (1983), a creation of Barbra Streisand.
He recorded more than 100 albums, with Maurice Chevalier, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne among others . Others who recorded his music included Frank Sinatra and Sting.
He died on January 26, 2019. He was 86 years old. He was laid to rest at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Om on Instagram
Om explains why he no longer posts on Instagram:
And then there is Instagram, which I have given up for Lent. I must say, it is quite a relief to not be looking at all those other photos and perfect lives. It is great to not think about where I could be, and instead be grateful for where I am. I have been walking around town looking for images and then sharing them on my own blog or with friends over iMessage. There have been discussions on the relative merits and demerits of certain photos. It is incredibly refreshing to actually get a conversation instead of a “heart.”
But the best part of not being on IG is the absence of influencers and ads selling me substandard shit. I’ll admit that I have fallen prey to ads promising gold (actually, no-show socks and joggers) that turned out to be utter crap. I have ended up ordering USB cables that are just horrible. But I’ve learned my lesson: I don’t trust anything being advertised on Instagram and peddled by influencers. And I’m glad to be rid of them.
Om still has an Instagram account but explained on June 1, 2020 that he is “out” of Instagram.
George Will: Holocaust Museum Showcases Lessons for Today
George Will writing in The Washington Post on the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington:
Nothing — nothing — is unthinkable, and political institutions by themselves provide no permanent safety from barbarism, which permanently lurks beneath civilization’s thin, brittle crust.
This is why the Holocaust is the dark sun into which this democracy should peer.
Why Blog? - ‘You just might want to say hello’
The late Nora Ephron writing on HuffPost in 2006 explained that:
getting heard outside the world of blogs occasionally requires that you have something to say. And one of the most delicious things about the profoundly parasitical world of blogs is that you don’t have to have anything much to say. Or you just have to have a little tiny thing to say. You just might want to say hello. I’m here. And by the way. On the other hand. Nevertheless. Did you see this? Whatever. A blog is sort of like an exhale. What you hope is that whatever you’re saying is true for about as long as you’re saying it. Even if it’s not much.
Among her many accomplishments, Ephron wrote the script for the lovely romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. She died in 2012.
Chicago at Night
Jim Hill is a Chicago photographer worth getting to know. He became fascinated by Chicago’s nighttime alleys and back streets during the pandemic:
I submerged myself in studies of how artificial lights penetrate the darkness of an urban environment. That darkness provided me comfort and cover from the events going on around me. The artificial lights transformed what is bland and ugly in the daylight into a beautiful hidden world, which is visible to those willing to risk the unknown, the shadows.
During the pandemic, fear and death seemed to permeate everything. Roaming forgotten places in the darkness to capture the hope of the light allowed me to confront the panic around me and gave me the strength to carry on. Ultimately, my work is about confronting fear and finding the beauty, which can emerge from the unknown, the darkness.
You can follow Jim Hill’s thought provoking photographs on Flickr and Instagram.
‘The Intern’: A Charming Comedy
I enjoyed watching The Intern (2015).
Robert De Niro plays a healthy but lonely 70-year-old retired widower named Ben Whittaker. Ben worked as an accomplished executive who ran a company selling telephone books. Ben wants to connect and be useful to other people. He starts by going to Starbucks each day but that doesn’t get him the human interaction he craves. One day, Ben sees an ad from an online women’s clothing vendor seeking to hire “senior interns.” The firm is loosely based on Google. Ben applies by uploading a video and gets the job. He’s assigned to work directly for the CEO Jules Ostin played by Anne Hathaway. The interaction between the two characters is charming.
The film was written and directed by Nancy Meyers, who also wrote and directed Something’s Gotta Give, a 2003 film starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. That film is about a man (Jack Nicholson) approaching senior citizen status who has a taste for younger women. I also enjoyed that film so I guess I have a taste for Meyers’s work.
Manolhla Dargis, writing for The New York Times explains in magnificent prose that:
The director Nancy Meyers doesn’t just make movies, she makes the kind of lifestyle fantasies you sink into like eiderdown. Her movies are frothy, playful, homogeneous, routinely maddening and generally pretty irresistible even when they’re not all that good. Her most notable visual signature is the immaculate, luxuriously appointed interiors she’s known to fuss over personally - they inevitably feature throw pillows that look as if they’ve been arranged with a measuring tape. These interiors are fetishized by moviegoers and Architectural Digest alike, ready-made for Pinterest and comment threads peppered with questions like, “Where do I get that hat?”
Although I wish I could write the way Ms. Dargis writes, I think the film has something meaningful to say about the way older and younger people can relate to one another in the workplace and elsewhere.
It seems that the film was a hit in South Korea for just this reason (WSJ). South Korean viewers appreciated the healthy and positive energy emanating from Ben, the character ably played by Robert DeNiro.
I did too. And besides, what’s wrong with some eiderdown in one’s life?
The film has a 59% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Audiobook: ‘Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations’
Retired Admiral William H. McRaven was involved in high profile special operations missions, including the capture of Saddam Hussein, the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, and the raid to kill Osama bin Laden.
Admiral McRaven narrates his audiobook entitled Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations skillfully. I felt as though I was sitting in my living room hearing a brave, articulate person telling a story. His tales made me feel proud to be an American.
You can get a sense of the author in this podcast.
Audiobook: ‘The Liberation of Paris: How Eisenhower, de Gaulle, and von Choltitz Saved the City of Light’
The Liberation of Paris is a gripping book that is packed full of interesting details about Nazi-occupied Paris and its last commander Dietrich von Choltitz.
At the end of WWII, Adolf Hitler ordered Choltitz to hold Paris, but if that wasn’t possible, to destroy it. Although General Choltitz had been very loyal to Hitler, he could not bring himself to obliterate the City of Light. He ultimately surrendered Paris to French forces on August 25, 1944. He’s been called the “Saviour of Paris” for preventing the destruction Paris.
After his surrender, Choltitz was held for the remainder of the war in London and the United States and was ultimately released from captivity in 1947. He died in Baden-Baden in 1966.
The author of this exceptional book was the distinguished political scientist and biographer Jean Edward Smith. Smith’s work includes highly regarded biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower. He died on September 1, 2019 at the age of 86.
The audiobook is ably narrated by Fred Sanders, who has narrated many fine audiobooks including Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance.