Street Art

I saw these photos of art on Facebook on a page called Street Art and I think they are quite amazing!
The participants discussed whether or not one could call art made by artists payed by the town or community street art or not or if this term should be reserved only for those amateurs that 'illegally' display their works.
This is of course an interesting question in itself but I content myself by displaying these photos:

La Clique

A friend of mine, living in Australia asked me if I've seen La Clique when they visited Paris but unfortunatealy not!
I have though seen the number with the man trying to get out of the tennis rackets he got into!
Enjoy!

:D

La Châtre de A à Z

At the same time as I'm reading about the life lead by Franz Kafka during his last year, as depicted in his diaries, continuing to read about Scandinavian literature, I also try to combine these readings by taking a look in the above book written by Solange Dalot, among other things a member of L'Academie du Berry.
As I very much would like to work with promoting the cultural life in La Châtre, Berry and Le Centre - as one call the central parts of France - I've penetrated some books about different aspects of the history of this town.

Earlier I've - among other books - read 'Les racines de George Sand' (below) telling the story about the family roots of George Sand.
It was an interesting book giving me insight into some parts of the French history and the importance some of Sands relatives played in the shaping of France.

(Picture taken from: http://livre.fnac.com/a2409943/Solange-Dalot-La-Chatre-de-A-a-Z)

(Picture taken from: http://www.amisdegeorgesand.info/jouve1.html)

Franz Kafka Dagböcker/Diaries 1914-1923

Svenska (English below):

Det var längesedan jag skrev något om den litteratur jag läser, det har mer handlat om annat.
Just nu är jag dock i färd med att penetrera Franz Kafkas 'Dagböcker 1914-1923', som i Sverige utgivits på Bakhålls förlag.

Detta utgör den tredje delen i denna utgivning av Kafkas dagböcker och jag har tyvärr inte läst de första två.
Många menar dock att denna den sista delen, skildrande de sista åren av hans liv, är den viktigaste och kanske mest intressanta.
Om detta kan jag inget säga men det är en blandning av väsentligt och oväsentligt, som i alla dagböcker.
Det viktiga är att den dels ger en inblick i personen Kafkas innersta tankar - i den mån en person skriver för sig själv, utgivandes sig själv på ett ärligt sätt eller skriver med tanke på eftervärlden - dels ger en inblick i livet i Prag och övriga städer vid den aktuella tidpunkten.
Där blandas i det yttre samhällsstrukturerna gammalt och nytt, i de inre tankestrukturerna tradition och nytänkande.
Detta gör boken till ett intressant vittnesmål om det liv Kafka, hans vänner och ovänner förde, samhällsutvecklingen och de historiska händelserna i sig, allt självfallet filtrerat via Kakfas subjektiva titthål.

English:

It's long since I wrote anything about the literature I read, I have mostly dealt with other subjects.

Rignt now I'm in the act of reading Franz Kafka's 'Diaries 1914-1923', in Sweden published by the publishing house Bakhåll.
This book constitutes the third part in this publication of Kafka's Diaries and unfortunately I haven't read the two first ones.
Many people say that this third part, depicting the last years of his life, is the most important and maybe also the most interesting of the three.
I have nothing to say about this but it's a mixture of essential and inessential, as in all diaries.
The most important thing is that it partly gives us an insight into the inner thoughts of the person Kafka - insofar as a person writes for him-/herself, exposing him-/herself in an honest way or actually writes for the after world - partly gives us an insight into the life of Prag and other towns at the actual moment.
In this we find a mixture of new and old in the exterior societal structures and tradition and new thinking in the inner pattern of thoughts.
This makes the book an interesting testimony about the life Kafka, his friends and enemies lead, the development of society and historical events per se, everything filtered through the subjective viewport of Kafka himself of course.

(Photo Franz Kafka copied from: http://www.focusdep.com/images/Franz_Kafka_1173256340030717.jpg)

Revival of Islamic Research

For all of you who judges Islam after the most extreme followers, it might be interesting to read about and discover other voices in the Islamic world e.g. Shaykh-ul-Islam Pr. Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri (the link in the name).

"Shaykh-ul-Islam Pr. Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri is the founding leader of Minhaj-ul-Qur’an International (MQI), an organization with branches and centres in more than 90 countries around the globe, working for the promotion of peace and harmony between communities and the revival of spiritual endeavour based on the true teachings of Islam", as it says on his homepage.

This is a Pakistani born man who tries to emphasize the peaceful and more 'sensible' sides of Islam, displaying that it's fully compatible with a life in the world of today, not necessarily needing a theocratic society.

As in all religions, political ideologies and so forth there are representatives who, for different reasons, can't accept the existence of other faiths or beliefe systems and this leads to a form of extreme fundamentalism.

Some people I've met in my earlier work within the Church of Sweden, often used to say that being a fundamentalist is only standing on the foundation of the belief system, that is to say the Torah (Tanakh), the Bible, the Qur'an or any political document like Das Kapital.
This is of course lingustically correct but most fundamentalists not only base their view on their own interpretation of the 'holy scripture' - or the interpretation accepted within a certain social context - they fight others who interpret the same text in another way and even more so people who does not accept their belief system at all.

Some would say that the 'holy texts' mentioned above are never subject to interpretation as they are given to us, humans, in its entirety by Jahve/God/Allah, faultless, for us to follow to the letter.

Of course this is not true as the will of a supreme being never can be deducted from these texts and history shows that different believers tend to interpret the texts differently.

Using arguments implying that "I have understood the text correctly but not them..." is of course not at all a valid argument.

These scriptures are documents expressing the belief in a supreme being and documents expressing how this supreme being is supposed to have acted with humans, will act and what is the outermost will of this supreme being. It's not "the Word of God" - ipsissima verba, as one say.
How can I know that?

Of course I can't know that this is the case but neither can anyone other human know that it's the opposite.

We can believe in one way or another but the very truth about the mysteries of life, can't be revealed in this life, at least as long as no supreme being reveal it to us, physically here and now.

I do however accept that people believe in these scriptures in this very direct form but likewise I want them to respect my view and others.

Take a look at what mister Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has to say on these issues through the link above.

(Photo Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri copied from: http://img.youtube.com/vi/yWhB3Xo7JK0/0.jpg)
(Photo Quran copied from:https://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/understanding-islam/how-do-we-know-that-the-quran-is-from-god-5-proofs/)

About Swedish and Scandinavian literature in French

I continue to read the book below about Swedish and Scandinavian literature, written by Régis Boyer.

Rather interesting as there are names in the history of Scandinavian literature that I've forgotten, or maybe authors not so often mentioned today.

I've borrowed this book from my wife, Aurore, who read it before she moved to Sweden in 2004.

Now back in France it's my turn to penetrate it.

Dracula dans la forteresse de Cluis-Dessous

In the fortress of Cluis-Dessous, an old beautiful ruin, the amateur theatre group - or association - called Le Manteau d'Arlequin, staged the classical story about the blood sucking Dracula, first and foremost known through the book by Bram Stoker.

Briefly about the group: They were founded in 1920 under the name of Société Musicale et Lyrique, changed the name to le Cercle Lyrique before taking the name they now use.

They have won several competitions for amateur theatre groups, held in Montluçon and Vichy.

The performance of the evening kept itself very much to the book by Stoker but it also had references to the film by Francis Ford Coppola, who in turn is very loyal to the original book.
The night and all its shadows and the castle ruins, of course created an ambience worthy the content.
No microphones were used wherefore the actors sometimes had to spek out more loudly than the situation demanded, taking in to consideration the content of the story.
On the other hand music interleaved the change of scenes and prerecorded sound was used in a very comic way. E.g. when someone dropped a cup the sound was amplified making it sound as if a whole store of porcelains were knocked about.
On the whole a well staged performance ending at one o'clock in the night.

I apologize for the bad quality of the photos, taken with an iPhone without zoom.


























































(Photo poster copied from: http://a34.idata.over-blog.com/314x500/2/79/27/64/FINAL-AFFICHE-DRACULA-4.jpg)