Blogging in Paris » Guest posters

Dancing in Paris

Claude — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:44:40 +0000

Please welcome Toli from Absolutely Awesome, my guest poster.

I'm A Poser, Take My Picture" align="left" border="0" height="240" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="192" /> And now for something totally different! Have you ever heard of t.c.k.? The latest French dance craze spreading quicker than a ray of light among teenagers. T.c.k. for Tecktonik. A mix of hip hop, break dancing, techno and a touch of je-ne-sais-quoi! An absolute phenomenon. TV shows, newspaper articles, YouTube and Dailymotion videos are growing fast. Tecktonik appeared in France in 2000 in nightclubs. And it invaded the 2007 Paris Techno Parade, which took place last month. As I just love taking photos, I decided to attend this annual dance music street carnival without imagining I would witness such a trend : futuristic haircuts, slim-fit jeans, arms moving super energetically and quick foot movements. I took over 500 photos : a mix of young people from different backgrounds, from the suburbs, from middle classes and beyond.
Here is my favourite photo in the album:
this old couple on a bench just watching the party-people go by. I was getting ready to take a photo of them, when the teenagers jumped on the bench and started dancing. I just had time to take one photo. Here it is.
Don’t you just love it?

Younger/Older Dance Party" border="0" height="375" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="500" />

(Note from Claude: I wish I had taken that photo)

Techno Parade Paris 2007, Sept. 15
Over 300 photos of tecktonik boys and girls invading the streets of Paris

Jey-Jey’s video on Youtube seen over 2.7 million times! A must-see to understand tck

A Cause des garçons, Yelle

So, next time you’re in the heart of Paris, near the Pompidou Centre or Les Halles; if you spot groups of teenagers dancing in teams, you’ll know what it is all about. Tecktonik Killers!

Tecktonik Killer" border="0" height="180" width="240" />

My 347 photos on Flickr

The Official Tecktonik site

Thanks to Claude for inviting me on her blog.
Toli, at Absolutely Awesome

Singin’ in the rain

Claude — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:00:52 +0000

You can read this post in French at Absolutely Awesome, where I was invited as a guest poster.

One of my favourite movies ever, Singin’ in the rain, is sure to put me in a great mood if I am feeling down. I remember walking down the Champs-Elysées in 1954, with a girl friend, humming Good morning, good morning,… at a time when it took a couple of years for new movies to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
I’ve owned the cassette and now the DVD and have watched it so many times that I have some of the songs memorised. A great musical in which the plot is woven with the history of cinema. The story takes place at the time when the cinema industry moves from silent movies to talkies.

One of my favourite sequences, is the one in which Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor dance and sing a stunning trio, tapdancing and whirling around.

Another sequence I love is the Moses supposes scene.

Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
Moses he knowses his toeses aren’t roses,
As Moses supposes his toeses to be!
Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
A mose is a mose!
A rose is a rose!
A toes is a toes!
Hooptie doodie doodle

Gene Kelly is wonderful of course, but my favourite actor in the movie is definitely Donald O’Connor.
Great dancing, great music and great fun altogether!

Happy days

Claude — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 12:43:15 +0000

Guest poster, my cousin Léo.
His father, Victor, married Ruth Rathaus, my aunt whose parents and eldest sister are proudly posing in this photo, outside their Leipzig (Germany) shop circa 1920.
Léo reports

Rathaus family, From left to right, Friedel Rathaus, my aunt,
Moses Rathaus, my grandfather, Rifka née Schmarak, my grandmother.

The window reads
Downtown Ironing – Clothes Repair Shop – Men and Women’s Cloakroom – Phone 10270

Family background
Originally from Tarnopol/Ternopol, Ukraine, Opa (Grandpa) and Oma (Grandma) were “Galizianer�?. They came from Galicia, that south-eastern region of Poland that once belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. This is why Opa served, much to his discontent, as level-crossing guard in the Austrian army during World War I.
Opa and Oma’s story
In 1933 when Hitler “urged�? foreign Jews to leave, they fled to France leaving all their belongings behind, but two cases. As refugees they rented a miserable apartment at 16 rue Pascal in the 13th arrondissement (district) of Paris. When France was invaded in 1940, a neighbor of theirs, a truck driver, offered to drive them as far down south as possible. This part of French history is known as “l’exode�? (the exodus). When they found themselves blocked with thousands of other refugees, relief organizations dispatched them into villages.
They were welcomed at Le Pescher, a remote village of Corrèze, in central France, which happened to become one of the strongholds of French resistance.
Until the end of the war, they lived there, under false identities with forged documents made out for them. They even received refugee allowances. Above all they enjoyed the protection and loving care of the village “mayor�? and of all the villagers.
After the war they returned to Paris, but in 1961 my Oma managed to see her lifelong dream come true and they emigrated to the United States to live in Forest Hills, New York, next to their second daughter Henni. Alas! Oma soon died. In 1965, Opa, who was homesick about France, had come to visit his youngest daughter, Ruth (my mother) in Deauville. I was an exchange student in the States at the time and Opa wanted to get back to NYC for Easter so that we could meet up over the school vacation. He never made it: he had a stroke, and died at Caen University Hospital.
As he wanted to lie by his wife’s side, his body was flown back to NYC and a cemetery in Queens was Moses and Rifka’s terminus.