What is rock 'n' roll ?

Rock 'n' Roll. These words can make you shake your head expectantly or frown with disdain.
It means many things to many people.
Here, I'll try a futile attempt to give my own definition of it. It may not be yours, it may be close to something you feel as well. Anyway, it is my vision. The sense I put behind Rock'n'Roll.

To me, Rock'n'Roll ain't noise pollution. Yeah, AC/DC told the world that before I did, I know.
Yes, Rock (to make it shorter) is music. Music. With a BIG m.
Where Jazz had "the swing", this mysterious thing you couldn't define but that made you move your feet and snap your fingers, Rock has "the groove".
It doesn't make you snap your fingers.
It makes you want to move your head in any direction possible, it makes you want to jump around, it makes you want to kick the air, it makes you want to scream your guts out. It makes you high, somehow.

To me, Rock includes bands like the Doors or even Pink Floyd, even though Pink Floyd is based on another kind of effect, a little more laid back. Yet, when I listen to Pink Floyd, I *do* feel like screaming, and I sure feel kinda high.
But Rock goes as far as Heavy Metal is concerned, it goes through the whole 70's Hard Rock movement with AC/DC or Deep Purple, and takes in its stride some fusion bands like Rage Against The Machine or Red Hot Chili Peppers. It goes as far as some Death Metal, but to me it still needs some "finesse". Take Children of Bodom.
I will not mention all the bands I consider Rock. There's too much, and there are many i just don't know.

But Rock just has to move my guts.
And that is why I have a problem with what they call Rock lately, all these brit-like bands, who sound kinda old.
Most of them just don't make my big toe wiggle. Not even.
Is it just me ? I don't know. But I don't judge. I just express a feeling. And to have the Rock, you need a little magic...

As to the lifestyle involved, there's none. The point with Rock is not how much you display your Rockness. The point with Rock is how much you enjoy the Music. And besides music, how much you enjoy life.
Rock may make you scream your guts out, but you have to love this feeling somehow.

The Monkey and The Butterfly

This short story is based on an idea we had with my friend Naomi this summer. A starlight sky can inspire a lot of things, eh ?

The Monkey and The Butterfly

Everyone knows what the World looks like. A big blue ball lost in the Universe. On this big blue ball, various creatures live together with various degrees of Harmony.

Among all these creatures, a very few can dream.
Among these very few are monkeys, similar to the one we know. Among all these monkeys, at this very moment, some are sleeping. And among these sleeping monkeys, one does a very special dream. This monkey is The Monkey.

In its dream, it imagines creatures that would be similar to it. Since it fell asleep, it has seen these monkeys change, lose their hair, stand on their back limbs, grow, communicate with a complete language… and end up calling themselves “Humans”.

It has seen these Humans waging war and making peace. It has seen these Humans creating mad things. It has seen these Humans being the worst and the best of creatures.
It has seen these Humans organising sounds and making from them what they have called “Music”. And it has seen Music evolve in its own way to become what they named “Heavy Metal”.

The Monkey, in his sleep, slowly headbangs in rythm with the Music the Humans are playing.

These humans think they live, love and die. But they are merely creatures imagined by The Monkey in his sleep.

Everyone knows what the World looks like. A big blue ball lost in the Universe. On this big blue ball, various creatures live together with various degrees of Harmony.

Among all these creatures, only one can dream.
This creature is a butterfly. No one knows what this butterfly looks like, for no one ever saw it. This butterfly has many fellow butterflies, but it is the only one which can dream. It is The Butterfly.

One day, he landed on an opium poppy flowering, and drank the nectar from it, as he would on a any flower. Instantly, it began to dream, his feeding tube still linked to the flower, continuously feeding itself with nectar.

And it dreamt of a world where a monkey, The Monkey, dreams of humans while headbanging. It also dreamt that one day, The Monkey would awaken. And that, stimulated by Heavy Metal, it would take two stones and hit them strongly against each other to find this rhythm which got lost when it woke up.

And from these stones would burst some sparks. And The Monkey would create Fire. Then, monkeys would follow it, lose their hair, stand on their back limbs, and grow, and communicate, and call themselves Humans…

All this is dreamt of by The Butterfly…

But who dreams of The Butterfly ?

I'm not dead. Not quite.

Sorry for the quite long time between last note and this one, I had some connection problems with Bugger.com.
"Blogger", you say ? Is it really a coincidence if both sound so close anyway ?
Whatever.

My point here is not to spit on Blogger.com, for even though it seems to be impossible to get connected to it on Firefox, MS Internet Explorer works fine.
My point here is... Hey, what is my point here ?
What could I write about ?

Let's see...
- Karate : I ain't no Chuck Norris nor am I a Jean-Claude Van Damme fan, I don't feel like looking like a martial arts nerd, and I wrote something about it on my French blog. Consider you're not missing anything.
- Watching sports live : No sir. The only exception I do to my usual motto (Watching Sports is bad, doing Sports is barely more acceptable) is some Karate practice for I have some energy to evacuate, and, I confess, watching Ice Hockey games when I have the occasion... It happened once (Finland-Sweden, in Finland), it is actually going to happen a second time (French Cup finals, wednesday). But what can I say that haven't been said a dozen thousand times ?
- Cultural differences between the French and the British : Well, for one, Frog legs are tasty. Either you can admit this opinion, then you're open-minded and I don't have to tell you about Culture Shock, or you just love French Bashing, and there's nothing I can do for you. OK, it is not that simple, and I probably could do better but I don't have much inspiration about it right now.
- Heavy Metal : well, I sure love the genre (by the way, I love the way you English-speaking people pronounce that word), but what can I say about it without making a fool of myself ? If I praise the technicalities, rocketing solos, baffling rythms, I'll sound like a snob. If I just let my guts talk about the feelings I experience from the raspy vocals, the crazed riffs... I'll sound like some kind of dope fiend.

So I'll do what many bloggers do : I'll write to say nothing.
I'll actually express Nothingness through my writings. The Nature of the Void will flow in my hollow words.
Thus, I'll be quite a poser in the Nihilist category. I can even quote Nietzsche to make myself look more nihilistic and smarter in the same time.

Praise whoever you'll feel like praising for the existence of The Blog, my friends.

And stay tuned, next time I will talk about Guinea pig's migrations through Siberia in the late VIIth century.
Or about just anything else.