Girl Walk All Day - go to 4:26

Green Army - Johnny B

Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir visited Nelson Algren in Chicago in 19.. They were lovers.  In de Beauvoir's novel "The Mandarins"......

Frank Sinatra starred in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_the_Golden_Arm

Nelson Algren

Author of "Ipso Facto" and "A Walk on the wild side"

Simone de Beauvoir author 

of "The Mandarins"

Cocophone - Glory Shoes

Holbrook is off to see "Love in Dublin" tonight.  "Love in Dublin" is two plays by Paul Kennedy showing at the newly re-opened Focus Theatre.  I recently found out that there will be music by Cocophone.  I downloaded their "Special Offers" EP from their Bandcamp site.  Please support the band and download their music.  In the meantime, you can watch an unofficial video by GroundskeeperXI for their song "Glory Shoes"

Blaise Pascal 2

This snippet of Blaise's life or la vie de Blaise (all corrections to my French are welcome) I learnt from 'A Slice of Pi' by Liz Stracham.  Apparently Blaise's father wanted him to learn Latin and Greek before he tackled maths, but one day he found him writing with coal on a garden wall, writing out a proof that all angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees. So after that, the father let his son study maths and he went on to great heights in mathematics including lots of work on the Theory of Probability.

Buddhas of Bamyan

So, the Taliban, you've heard of them right?  They don't like the USA and all that stuff alright, but what a crap thing to do to blow up these statues.... stoopid.

And then there is this band, unrelated, except in my mind now, as I listen to them...

check them out here.

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand. Clermont-Ferrand is in the Auvergne region of France. It's looks close enough to being smack bang in the middle of France.

Pascal has stuck in my head for years. I have this vision of making a short film in France that would feature Blaise Pascal transporting a barometer over the brow of a rural hill. A few tufts of grass and a worn track of dried light brown mud and two men carrying a glass tube on either side with a third and fourth on hand to help. Pascal carried out an experiment with quicksilver in glass tubes to test his theories on vacuums and air pressure.

It's a nice portrait.  I think he looks like a kindly, happy man, wide open friendly eyes and the hint of smile at the edge of his lips.  I don't know who painted the portrait.