Daddies and their little girls

Terry Zwigoff – Robert Crumb and his daughter Sophie, in Crumb
Terry Zwigoff – Robert Crumb and his daughter Sophie, in Crumb (1994) – from IMDB

In my post Thank Heaven For Little Girls, I presented several renderings of the song and ended with its use to accompany a stage dance between mature men and little girls. I stressed the symbolic nature of this reinterpretation of a song that lauded little girls for growing up into delightful young women: men love little girls as they are now, not only for their future beauty after puberty.

Now I found another video of a stage dance of adult men with little girls, but this one is much more romantic, the men lift the girls up, take them in their arms, and kiss them several times (at 1’05”, 3’00” and 3’29”): CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Childhood nostalgia in Ernest Dowson’s Praeterita

Jules-Alexis Muenier - La ronde des enfants
Jules-Alexis Muenier – La ronde des enfants (1902) – from Tutt’Art

Ernest Dowson kept in a drawer a booklet of poems written in his youth, which was published posthumously under the title Poésie Schublade (‘drawer poetry’ in a mix of French and German). These poems are not widely available on the web. However, they shine with freshness and evoke nostalgia for childhood, two qualities partially lost in the more polished verse of his maturity. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Les personnes âgées et l’amour

Couverture de Strasbourg Magazine, n° 226, Octobre 2011

Cette photo, extraite de la couverture d’un magazine distribué gratuitement par la municipalité de Strasbourg, montre des enfants âgés de 11 ou 12 ans s’avançant pour donner chacun une fleur à une vieille dame, la gratifiant de leur plus beau sourire. L’enthousiasme de ces personnes âgées saute aux yeux. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Catholic School Girls Rule, by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Cover of the LP Freaky Styley by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Cover of the LP Freaky Styley by Red Hot Chili Peppers – from Amazon

The American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers released their second studio album Freaky Styley in August 1985. Its 11th track, the song “Catholic School Girls Rule,” is inspired by an event in the life of the band’s singer Anthony Kiedis, which he told in his 2004 autobiography Scar Tissue (written with Larry Sloman, and published by Hyperion). A 14 years old girl who attended a local Catholic school met Kiedis backstage, and he slept with her while on tour before and after discovering her age. Genius quotes the book about their first meeting: CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Mille sarabandes, par Jean-Michel Caradec

Jean-Michel Caradec - pochette de l'album Mords la vie (1973)
Jean-Michel Caradec – pochette de l’album Mords la vie (1973), verso – repris de jeanmichelcaradec.com

L’album 33 tours Mords la vie (1973) de Jean-Michel Caradec reçoit son titre de sa première chanson. Ce petit chef d’œuvre poétique respire l’esprit libertaire des années suivant mai 68. J’ai consacré un précédent article est à sa 5e chanson, « Tendre Garance ». Aujourd’hui je présenterai son 11e titre, une belle chanson d’amour intitulée « Mille sarabandes ». CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Unhappy Girl, by The Doors

Dorothea Lange - Resettled farm child from Taos Junction to Bosque Farms project
Dorothea Lange – Resettled farm child from Taos Junction to Bosque Farms project, New Mexico. Photograph for the Farm Security Administration (December 1935) – from Wikimedia Commons

I have recently presented “You’re Lost Little Girl,” the second track of the album Strange Days by The Doors, and I said that this song probably refers to William Blake’s poem “A Little Girl Lost” in Songs of Experience (1794). Commenting the repeated line “You’re lost little girl” in the song’s lyrics, Genius says about Blake’s poem “A Little Girl Lost:” CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Deux sonnets de Nicolas Boileau sur la mort d’une parente

Dead girl
Dead girl – provient de mourningportraits.blogspot.com (11 août 2010)

Le poète, écrivain et critique français Nicolas Boileau, dit aussi Boileau-Despréaux, né le 1er novembre 1636 et mort le 13 mars 1711, est connu pour ses Satires et ses Épîtres. Théoricien de la littérature, il défendit l’esthétique classique et fut dès lors considéré comme le « législateur du Parnasse ». On lui doit les célèbres deux vers : CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…