Mais pourquoi, pourquoi ils n’ont pas pu s’inspirer de �a quand ils ont r�nov� l’horrible station de m�tro Mont-Royal? J’aurais l’impression d’�tre une reine s’y j’entrais par l� tous les matins.

En passant, jusqu’� tout r�cemment, j’habitais � droite, juste derri�re le gros b�timent gris qui abrite une des succursales de la biblioth�que. Plut�t pratique, j’en conviens…

Wired News tells us today about this crazy project conducted by scientists in Ireland: “A range of connected furniture for awareness of daily routines and rhythms between distant family members”. It’s a strange system involving two kitchen tables, radio tag readers, projectors and computers. The idea is to help people who are far away from their loved ones feel a little closer by creating a mirror effect between two tables.

Let’s say your boyfriend is off somewhere in Spain having a great time eating paella, and you’re at home depressed and hungry, smoking one cigarette after the other. On your table, you see your pack of cigarettes, but you also see a projected image of your boyfriend’s paella and glass of wine. On his table, he sees your ashtray getting fuller and fuller.

The appearance of an image of a book at one table may suggest that someone is enjoying a day off from work. The sight of a pack of cigarettes, however, could mean the same person is feeling stressed out and might appreciate a phone call from a friend. […] Objects removed from one table cause their corresponding images on the other table to lose their color, and then to fade slowly away. Conversely, the longer objects remain on the sending table, the larger the images on the receiving table grow.

“We hope that the couples will develop their own symbolic language using the objects, knowing that the images represent subtler messages,” said Dipak Patel, a researcher working on the Habitat project.

So let me get this straight: you get rid of the guy (or the girl), but you still have to deal with his mess, or at least projected images of them? While I find the whole idea very poetic and I love it when science gets a little mad, I can just hear the so-called subtler messages couples would be exchanging using that system…

What’s up with those Irish scientists? Too much Guinness?

Dehors Novembre! Est-ce qu’il va finir, ce fichu mois? Il faudra bien que j’aille vivre en Australie un jour, juste pour faire l’exp�rience d’un autre novembre.

Contre la grisaille, la musique! Cette fin de semaine-ci en sera pleine. J’�coute � r�p�tition le nouveau CD de Lhasa de Sela, The Living Road, superbe et m�lancolique � souhait. J’ai aussi fait l’achat hier de KiKi BBQ, de Martin L�on, �trange m�lange de styles, dr�le et planant. J’ai craqu� pour C’est �a qui est �a, entendue � la radio cette semaine.

Tant qu’� d�penser pour des CDs, ce que je n’avais pas fait depuis longtemps, j’ai aussi achet� l’album de Stefie Shock, Le D�cor et pour un dr�le de retour en arri�re, j’ai trouv� Cargo de Men at Work chez un disquaire d’occasion. J’avais obtenu ce disque en 1982 en collectionant l’envers des bo�tes de Pique, mon g�teau Vachon pr�f�r�. J’ai d� l’�couter des centaines et des centaines de fois! � l’�poque, mes amies ne partageaient pas n�cessairement cet engouement pour mon band pr�f�r�… Ce n’est que 10 ans plus tard, quand j’ai rencontr� ma grande amie australienne Jackie, que j’ai pu enfin partager cette appr�ciation musicale avec quelqu’un d’autre. Ah, rouler ensemble � travers le parc de Joshua Tree (beaux Quicktime VRs) en plein mois d’ao�t, � 116F, et faire peur aux serpents � sonnette en chantant du Men at Work et du Crowded House � plein poumons! Le bonheur!

La fin de semaine sera aussi remplie de concerts - il y en a des tonnes � Montr�al ces jours-ci. D’abord, samedi soir, le band de A.J., Koo Starck (il a fallu que B. m’explique l’origine du nom de ce groupe), donne son premier spectacle au Sablo Kaf�. Et puis dimanche soir, j’irai entendre Guster au Cabaret, une salle qui sera parfaite pour eux!

C’est la journ�e du Thanksgiving aux �tats-Unis, une f�te aussi importante pour les am�ricains que la f�te de No�l. Mes amis californiens m’�crivent: “Happy Thanksgiving, Martine! I’m going to Sonoma for the long weekend”. Or “I’m going to spend 3 days in Mendocino”. “We’re celebrating. Come and join us!”.

Sonoma, Mendocino… Sans le savoir, ils me torturent � coups de r�ves. J’ai des souvenirs d’il y a 10 ans, quand notre groupe d’amis (souvent des �tudiants �trangers), tous loin de leur famille, d�cidaient de f�ter le Thanksgiving ensemble. Nous louions une des magnifiques propri�t�s de Sea Ranch sur la c�te nord de la Californie (les redwoods, les plages d�sertes, l’odeur de l’oc�an…) et allions passer du temps loin de la ville en compagnie de cette “chosen family”, comme nous aimions bien le dire. Nous �tions jeunes, fauch�s, stress�s par rapport � notre futur mais encore un peu naifs et plein d’�nergie. Avec le temps la plupart de ces amis sont rentr�s chez eux. Maintenant nous sommes prof, monteur, cam�raman, ch�meurs, pigistes. Nous sommes loin.

Il me prend parfois des envie de repartir, pour la Californie ou ailleurs, m�me si je sais que je ne retrouverai jamais l’intensit� de cette vingtaine pass�e � l’�tranger. J’ai h�sit� avant de revenir vivre au Qu�bec parce que je savais qu’en vieillissant, il me serait difficile de redevenir mobile. Je savais qu’en revenant ici j’allais me faire des attaches, profondes, moi qui ai si besoin de stabilit� mais qui ne semble jamais la conna�tre v�ritablement.

Aurai-je l’occasion de vivre � l’�tranger � nouveau? Est-ce que j’arriverai � faire le choix de dire aurevoir � la famille, d’abandonner la maison, le chat, les amis, d’apprendre une nouvelle langue, de me refaire un cercle social? Ou est-ce que je ne conna�trai plus dor�navant de nouveaux lieux que par les voyages de courte dur�e?

What’s going on? Why is my blog showing up all weird in IE 6? And I haven’t made a single change to the template… Maybe I’ll just have to join the haters.

17H00, mise � jour: C’est r�par�! Merci � Michel pour ses pr�cieux conseils!

Salon reviews Les Invasions Barbares. And they didn’t like it very much. Strangely, even though I enjoyed the movie, I agree with most of the comments made by Salon’s reporter.

In the world of Quebecois filmmaker Denys Arcand, baby-boomer intellectuals are fascinating people, particularly to themselves. In fact, they’re their own best audience. (…) As I see it, though, the characters may be older, but they still haven’t grown up. (…) Spending money is how S�bastien shows love. That may be anathema to overeducated boomers like the ones in “The Barbarian Invasions,” people who claim to value ideas over money. The problem is that even though he’s emotionally remote, S�bastien seems more engaged with the world than they do. Even when R�my and his friends are discussing important historical or social events, they seem much more interested in the sound of their own voices than in the universe around them. The noise of their faux-intellectual yakking is deafening. Money talks, and sometimes, unfortunately, so do people.

The producers probably won’t enjoy this review, but they can at least be glad that the reporter got the accents right on the names.

It is a well-known fact: writers often hang out with cats and cats like to be around writers. When my boyfriend and his cat became my roommates recently, I thought: “Cool, I’ll have a cat hanging around my desk all day. He’ll keep me company and I’ll become this very prolific writer”. Yeah, right (on both counts).

Spiff le chat does not seem to care about my writing at all. My old cat used to sleep on top of my 512K Mac, but now I have an LCD flat screen so there’s not much room or heat to attract the kitty. I tried to put his bed next to my chair, I’ve put a cushion on the corner of my desk, I’ve even tried a pile of papers for him to climb on: forget it. He’s not interested, unless I let him sleep over my wrists while I type. I think he’s secretly planning on giving me carpal tunnel syndrome. Just for fun.

He spends most of the day on the couch, looking bummed out like he does in this picture, and once in a while he likes to freak me out by chasing an invisible creature around the basement. Or better yet, he opens all the closet doors, knowing that it will spook me once I come downstairs for lunch.

I would liek to finiz`sh this post1i2 but the cat i?s on my wr90ists again.

To all the geeks out there: Your apartment is messy? Can’t seem to gain control over all that clutter? Here’s a solution: Think about your living space as a user interface.

Bon, voil� le Capitaine qui me g�che mon lundi et bien des lundis � venir, s’il ne se d�p�che pas de d�marrer un autre projet sur le Web. Je ne m’en suis jamais cach�e: le Capitaine faisait partie de mes lectures pr�f�r�es et sans lui, ma petite routine blogosph�rique ne sera plus aussi agr�able. Zut.

Un carnetier favori qui ferme boutique, c’est comme un ami qui nous annonce “ah tiens, je quitte le pays ind�finiment”. Tu fais quoi? Tu l’engueules ou t’es content pour lui?

When I arrived at my hair salon last Thursday, I was surprised to see the place invaded with lights and cameras. They were shooting an episode of M�tamorphose, a Montreal produced makeover type of tv show.

I am used to crews taking over when they film on location, so I wasn’t too excited about having them around . Let’s just say that with all the noise they made, they ruined my relaxing head massage experience. The whole thing was making the hairdressers a little more nervous than usual - even though they were trying to act cool and detached, it is a hip salon, after all - and people on the street would stop to look in, probably hoping to catch sight of a famous personality.

My hairdresser is a guy in his early twenties with a strong appreciation of male models (he often shows me the hottest shots from magazines), who watches tons of movies on video and a fair bit of tv. We started talking about M�tamorphose and he said that he was surprised to see how fake the whole thing is. They had forced the featured hairdresser to say lines like “how do you like it?” while turning the chair to reveal the new haircut to the woman getting the makeover. “I’m sure they don’t stage things like that in What not to Wear, it’s so much more natural”, he said. Even though I admitted that the hosts tend to be a lot more “natural” on these big American productions, I know everybody is just faking it.

It still amazes me how television can be good at pretending to be natural and how most people won’t notice the difference between a true “cin�ma v�rit�” technique and a staged shot or a heavily edited sequence. Hell, even “cin�ma v�rit�”, by the sole presence of the camera, interfered with reality and influenced the course of events. Bring a camera somewhere and it becomes the focus of all the attention. People who are usually spontaneous start acting strange and self-consciousness kicks in big time.

My first tv job brought me both behind and in front of the camera (as a reporter and co-host). While it is still somewhat painful to see myself on tv, the first few times were by far the toughest. I thought I just needed to be myself to appear likeable and not phony. Ha! Was I wrong! My voice hardly registered in the microphone and I looked so serious I should have been reading the news (but only the bad ones). I sounded and looked like someone who wanted to excuse herself for being there. I had to learn to project my voice (like in theater, but only a bit less), I had to learn to smile even when it had no connection to what I was saying (just don’t smile too much) and I had to learn to stare at the camera as if it were some kind of lover I was trying to convince of something. All of this for a tv show about technology!

I felt ridiculous and very artificial at first, like the kind of girls I hated in high school. After the takes, I would ask: “Wasn’t this a bit much?”. The director answered: “No, that was it. You got it.” We would view the take together and I would be surprised to see how normal I sounded, even though I felt like I was doing too much during the shoot. The camera takes who you are and makes it very very flat and bland, while adding a few pounds in the process. You have to be yourself, yes, but also bigger, perkier and with a little more makeup, to be an interesting tv personality. I’m still not quite there and that’s why I tend to be happier behind the camera.

It is the biggest paradox about television but it’s true: it takes very good actors to make things look natural. Most tv show hosts that you see and appreciate have a bit of that actor in them, which allows them to look friendly and close to the viewers. That’s why a lot of them are annoying in real life, where they can’t seem to get back to their non-performing selves…