Monday, November 2, 2009

"La Valse à Mille Temps" and a Month with 30 Posts

I just learned, courtesy of Jaime at Surplus, that November is NaBloPoMo--and because I unintentionally got things off to a good start by posting something yesterday, why shouldn't I make it official and try to write a post a day? Yes, I tried and failed at NaPlWriMo (National Playwriting Month, for you acronym-averse) two years in a row--that's why I'm not participating in it this year--but one blog post per day doesn't sound too hard. And I won't lack for subjects: the theater season is in full swing, movies are opening, I've been meaning to post about several books I've read this year...

But because it is 11:30 PM, I'm going to fulfill today's requirement by posting a video: Jacques Brel singing "La Valse à Mille Temps."


I discovered this song thanks to Youtube (it doesn't appear on my Brel greatest hits CD) and now I am obsessed with it. It starts out as a very sweet, sentimental waltz about Paris and young love and the springtime (not that there's anything wrong with that!), but then the lyrics get much more intricate and punning and impossible-to-translate than you'd expect for a typical song of that genre, and it crescendos and speeds up, till at the end the great Monsieur Brel is just spitting out the words as fast as he can... you must see and hear it. Enjoy!
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4 comments:

  1. DLNovember 3, 2009 at 11:11 AM

    If it makes you feel better, I created Naplwrimo and have not succeeded once! :)
    I do hope you'll join us again in the future and good luck with Nablopomo!

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  2. Marissa SkudlarekNovember 3, 2009 at 11:55 PM

    Thanks Boo! I should note that I am still going to do some playwriting this month--but what's best for me right now is to revise some pieces and finish some other half-completed drafts, rather than start something from scratch. And yeah, there's always next year!

    Best wishes to you and all of this year's writers.

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  3. Durward DiscussionJuly 24, 2010 at 8:34 AM

    Stumbled across your blog article while looking for an exact translation of La Valse à Mille Temps. Amanda McBroom sings the English version (She appeared in the original Alive and Well etc) and sings several Brel songs on her album Chasson.

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  4. Marissa SkudlarekJuly 24, 2010 at 9:59 AM

    Thanks for visiting, Jamie!

    ReplyDelete