Merry Christmas from euzicasa! Post Card: Saddle-back Mountain from Huntington Beach Municipal Pier – December 2011-2014©

Merry Christmas from euzicasa!  Post Card: Saddle-back Mountain from Huntington Beach Municipal Pier – December 2011-2014©

No Apology, But Acknowledgement of Failings from Facebook (facebook Q: on a scale from 1-10… how emotional are you today?

No Apology, But Acknowledgement of Failings from Facebook

Facebook faced widespread backlash earlier this year, after admitting that it had, without consent, manipulated the news feeds of hundreds of thousands of users in an experiment on human emotion. It has since been several months, and Facebook has apparently ruminated on the matter. While stopping short of apologizing for its actions, the social media giant has acknowledged failings in the way it carried out the research and released the results. More… Discuss

Netiquette

Had early 20th-century etiquette expert Emily Post had access to the Internet, she certainly would have had some choice words for today’s Web users—and they would not have included profanity. The idea that cussing on the Net is poor form is just one part of “netiquette“—the Internet’s informal code of manners. Typing ENTIRELY IN UPPER CASE is also generally frowned upon, as it is considered akin to shouting. A good rule of thumb is “Think before you post.” What is the Eternal September? More… Discuss

NEWS: HELPING OTHERS FIND LOVE INCREASES HAPPINESS

Helping Others Find Love Increases Happiness

Matching people up in love and in life is a particularly rewarding pastime. Researchers found that “matchmakers”—people who arrange romantic, social, and professional relationships between others—derive a great deal of satisfaction from doing so. Those who frequently arrange successful matches tend to be happier and have a greater sense of well-being. The most emotionally rewarding matches for matchmakers are the ones that are most unlikely. Simply arranging a match appears to be reward enough; external rewards, like payment, actually diminish the motivation to engage inmatchmaking. More… Discuss

 

Léo FERRE (2/10) : Vingt ans / La chambre / Le scaphandrier

Léo Ferré (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a Monegasque poet, composer and a dynamic and controversial live performer whose career in France dominated the years after the Second World Waruntil his death. He released some forty albums over this period, composing the music and the majority of the lyrics. He released many hit singles, particularly between 1960 and the mid-seventies. Some of his songs have become classics of the French chanson repertoire, such as Avec le temps, C’est extra or Jolie Môme.

Along with Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg, he is considered one of the greatest French singer-songwriters of all times, but unlike Brel and Gainsbourg, or even Charles Aznavour, his songs are very little known in the English-speaking world. Ferré was an anarchist; he may be the greatest French protest singer ever.

Ferré’s lyrics were extremely incisive and tuned in to the issues of the day, but also astonishingly poetic. He mixed revolt with love and melancholy, sophisticated lyricism with slang and shouts, rhyming verse with prose monologues. He moved from music-hall to symphonic music, breaking free from the traditional song structure, inventing his own musical territory, powerfully dramatic and unique. He also popularized the French poètes maudits, such as François Villon, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud, as well as great French poets from the 20th century like Guillaume Apollinaire and Louis Aragon, by setting into music many of their poems.

Related articles

• The best French mood music: Our picks
• Jacques Brel meets 2014
• Huddersfield Giants star Brett Ferres poised to face Hull KR in Super League pre-season test
• 10 of the best: Serge Gainsbourg
• The Poems of François Villon
• The Health Hazards of Sitting – In picture form!