Trio, by Mark Jane

Hi Charlie !

I need to talk to you about a play I’ve seen and that is just wonderful. Actually, it will more be about a comedian because he’s English and the play was in France but we’ll not be staged anymore I guess as he went back to England. Anyway. Here is what I have to tell you :

A few days ago, I went at the Divaldo théâtre, that I hope you know, for an evening outing with two shows. The first one was on relationships between men and women, and the second one was called “Trio”, and it’s the one I want to talk to you about.

Basically, the main actor, who is also the playwright, explains you that he has chosen two people, a man and a woman, to come with him on stage, to act in the play. At that moment, when he is still solo, you just expect not to be chosen at all because it’s very comfortable to stay in your seat.

But once he has chosen these two people, the show starts. He asks the audience which subject we want the show to be about (yes, because it’s an improvisation show – I forgot to mention and I apologize Charlie !) and when we have selected the title, it starts !

When I saw it, the chosen topic was “L’affaire du talon aiguille”, and it was extremely well narrated, especially because it could deal with whatever happened and interact very well with every fact that was done either by the audience or by the two people on stage with him. It was really an incredible experience and I would love to see such a show again !

The actor’s name is Mark Jane.

Here is the show’s poster :

And if you look his name up on the internet, you can see that he did several improvisation shows in French and in English.

And by the way, little wink to our lit teachers, when he asked the genre we wanted the play to be about, someone said “dystopia” (well “dystopie” actually but anyway) and he replied “you’re strange here in Marseille, what’s a “dys-to-pie” ?”

But even if he did not know what it is, it was an incredibly nice and interesting show which could also learn you some things about how to deal with others, et cetera.

I’m sure he’ll be back one day and I’m sure anyone would enjoy to go and see his show, so feel free to follow him : Mark Jane !

Well, Charlie, I’ll see you later ! (I have loads of ideas of what to write about ! so I’ll be back.) 

T

The most useful language (it is not English)

Hi Charlie,
Today I am publishing my first article on the blog and it is about the most useful language I have ever studied : Latin.
(I think you noticed that my last sentence was ironic)

Some of my classmates ask me why did I choosed to study latin and I never know what to answer to this question. Indeed, I have been studied this language for four years now and I still do not know why I choosed to continue latin this year. Already at collège the first, second and third declinations traumatized me, without talking about the parisyllabic and imparisyllabic exceptions.
So to explain my choice (which is maybe a bad choice, or not), I present you five reasons to study latin and five reasons to not study it.

Reasons to NOT STUDY latin:

1. It is a dead language  Latin professors can say what they like, latin is a dead language which is not spoken by anyone, except few crazy people of Roman mythology. 
2. It is a lot of additionnal work   If you are in OIB, (even if you are not) you have a lot of work when you go back to home, so with this mountain of work, essays and books to read; the rosa,ae declination is not really welcome. 
3. You study it when all your classmates are at home   Finish at 6 P.M. every mondays and tuesdays,when your other classmates finish at 4 P.M. is psychologicly very hard, espacially when you know you will sleep at 2 A.M. because you have to learn by heart how to conjugate the five groups of conjugation at passive form for the next day. 
4. Exceptions and complexcity   Latin is a complex language, add to the many conjugations, the words have declinations, which means that they do not have the same form according to their place on the sentence. Moreover, there are a lot of exceptions, maybe more than regular words.
5. A travel which will never take place   When you have to choose if you want to study latin, teachers always talk about this famous travel at Rome which is supposed to take place the year after but which never takes place.    

Reasons to STUDY latin:

1. It brings culture   By studying always the same texts by Ovide, Tite-Live, Suetone or Homere you become a expert in greek and roman mythology but also in the Antiquity in general.
2. If you want to do medicine studies   A whole part of the complex vocabulary you will study in medecine is in latin.
3. Understand Harry Potter's magic formulas    A lot of magic formulas in Harry Potter are in latin but there are also others puns in latin, like the names of the Black family.
4. Discover another aspect of literature   The latin literature is very rich and it may be interesting to compare elegy with lyric poetry in an essay for example.
5. Have good marks    To be honest, it is (I think) one of the most important reasons which can influence someone to study latin. Latin teatchers are very happy to work with us : courageaous students who choosed to study latin, so they are in general very nice on the notation. In addition, the new baccalauréat advantages the latinists, there is any latin test, we just have added points at the continuous control like for the DNB.

I hope you enjoyed my article, if you are a latinist I hope it gave you courage and motivation to continue latin lessons.

Good holidays everyone, hope you enjoy them (if you do not have too much homework ;-) )

Inès LOUCIF (aka ILRDM for those who understand)

PS: here is the first declination if it interests someone 

       

             SG          PL
NOM    rosa       rosae

VOC     rosa       rosae

ACC    rosam     rosas

GEN    rosae      rosarum

DAT    rosae      rosis

ABL    rosa        rosis

  

We dance?

Hey Charlie! I hope you’re good!

Today I need to talk to you about an exhibition I’ve seen and that I recommend you to see as well.

It’s called “On danse ?”, and it’s at the Mucem.

I’m sure you must have heard about it already, but...

It’s an exhibition I really loved. You are actually in a very big room; and you watch a movie.

But what is interesting is that you can watch it many different ways!

Indeed, there are many different types of screens. Some are TVs, some are video projectors, others videos are projected on the ground or on paper ribbons for example.

You have many places to watch different videos, that can be very very short or a bit longer. 

They are all very interesting and it is always nice to try and analyse them.

And to watch these videos, what is nice is that you have lots of different places. You have nice seats, seesaws, carpet mountains you can go on and just lie, and other things like that. There is carpet everywhere on the ground, and it is very nice. 

It’s very clever I think, and I advise you go and see it! It ends on May, 20. But as the end of the year is close and as you have some exams if you’re in seconde or terminale, you should go now, so that you’re free then, reinsured because you have seen it!

It is a bit complicated to tell you more, because it is a very subjective exhibition.

Indeed, your appreciation of it will depend on what you feel when you look at the videos, in which position and where you are sitting.

But… it also depends a lot on the video you are watching!

You know, I stayed there for one hour I’d say and I have seen many and many videos. Hopefully, the one that was being play when I entered in the room was very nice and I really enjoyed it! And so I guess it is why I really enjoyed my experience. Other videos were very nice, but still, for some others… I liked them less. 

This is also very subjective! But I mean… If you don’t like right from the beginning, try and sit somewhere and wait until a one you like is played and you will see that you will like the exhibition!

Well… I think I’ve said everything I had to tell you Charlie!

But I’ll come back soon!

Toàn

The fantastic European Heritage Days

Hello Charlie!

Today, I'm going to talk about the European Heritage Days. It is a moment I really like because we can visit many different places we find interesting. Sometimes we just visit for the beauty of the building or the monument or sometimes there is a guided tour that is often free.

This year, I visited some monuments I wanted to visit and that I had not been able to visit last year, as we were celebrating my Mum's birthday.

So, this year, I have been able to visit:

• the City Hall and its extensions,
• the Palais du Pharo,
• the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica secret patios,
• the Civil Court (Palais Monthyon),
• the Palais de la Bourse,
• and the Saint-Victor abbey's crypts.

I will not speak about everything because it would be too long and too annoying and thus no one would read my article, even if at the moment, I'm not sure of the number of potential readers I could have...

I'm not sure anyone matters… but anyway, let's continue!

First of all, the City Hall. It was a great building and as there was a free guided tour, so I joined it and I learnt many things! Indeed, I didn't know that it was absolutely no staircase between the ground floor and the first floor of the old building that we can see from the Vieux-Port.

A few centuries ago, it was representing the separation between the economical and executive powers.

Nowadays, there is still no staircase, and to access the first level, we have to use a footbridge between the original building and the first extension.

The interior of the buildings is really beautiful and majestic. Actually, the architects invested everything inside the buildings, especially for the 1rst extension. This is the main staircase, a beautiful one:

The visitors were also allowed to visit Mr The Mayor - Jean-Claude Gaudin's office. I was a bit surprised by the size of his office, I was expecting it to be really bigger! Especially for the Mayor of a such important city!

Here is a photo of it that I found on internet because mine were not that nice…

And finally, we visited the new extension, that hosts the new hemicycle. The design of this extension was very modern and was making a true difference between the original building and the one designed by Mr Franck Hamoutène.

The new deliberation room is really bigger, more modern and has electronic devices such as computer for each desk that allow the council members to vote easily and to write messages to their colleagues.

Here is another photo I found on internet because mine were still not really nice…

That's it for the City Hall.

As I said before, I have also visited many other buildings but I will only present the Civil Court, as it was my favourite and as I really like the judicial domain.

So, the Civil Court of Marseille is hosted by the Palais Monthyon, a wonderful building. It has been renovated for years and is today greater than it was before. There are audience rooms, all very nicely designed and with many different equipments judges can be in need of during the audiences.

Here is a photo of an audience room I had already visited but that I still find great, that I have found on internet:

Audience rooms are beautiful, but the Hall of Lost causes is also very nice, with its huge glass roof:

This visit was great for the building, first, but was also great for the information and the discussion I had with a student who wanted to become a Magistrate, who was studying at the Law College and who was here to answer questions and to give information about French Justice. We spoke together for a long time about the job of Magistrate, how do we enter the ENM, the École Nationale de la Magistrature, etc. even I already knew some of the things he told me, I really enjoyed that time! It is always nice to find some people we can talk with about topics we like…

I hope that having read that, some of you will go to monuments they like during the next European Heritage Days, because it is really great, for architecture and for the things we can learn there!

I also hope this article was interesting, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Well… See you at the Next Heritage Days, Charlie!

Toàn

By the way, my feelings trying to post my article while my computer crashes:

What a great time... 😂