Lyon

I went to Lyon for the last weekend. There was this big city-wide party called "La Fête des Lumières," in which all the old squares and façades of old churches are lit up with multi-colored lights all over the buildings. People mill about shoulder-to-shoulder sipping vin chaud - hot red wine - and watching all the lights change. There was this one display in front of one of the oldest churches in France, in which tons of lights would change colors, light up and suddenly go out so that the entire square was pitch black, and all the meanwhile you hear these sound effects from enormous speakers: animal and "springtime" sounds like birds and insects, then suddenly you hear people breathing loudly and yelling and the clanging of stone hammers and chains; then the sounds of a choir, with real old choir music of these monks chanting in Latin, all the while the lights changing. You start to realiwe it's the history of the church: you hear the church being built, then the monks singing, and then it closed with this eerie WWII sound effect of air raid sirens, glass breaking, and the lights changing to spotlights searching all of the church façade. Very impressive.

I'll post pics of it later.

I've been really getting into Jacques Prévert, a poet. His poems are not just easy to read, but they're really powerful at the same time. Maybe powerful in their simplicity. Here's one I really like, with my rough translation:

I Am as I Am

I am as I am

I'm made like this

When I want to laugh

Yes, I cry out in laughter

I love the one who loves me,

It's my fault

If it's not the same one

That I love each time

I am as I am

I'm made like this

What more do you want

What do you want from me

I'm made to please

And there is nothing left to change

My heels are too high

My hips too wide

My breasts much too hard

And my eyes too tired

And after -

What is there for you to do

I am as I am

I please those who I please

What is there for you to do

What has happened to me, you may ask?

Yes, I loved someone

Yes, someone loved me,

We were like children, who

Simply know how to love,

to love, to love . . . .

Why question me like this?

I'm here to please you,

And there's nothing left to change.