person:billy

  • L’Opéra de Hongrie annule « Billy Elliot » pour éviter de transformer les petits garçons en « homosexuels » - Les Inrocks

    La descente aux enfer en Hongrie

    https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/06/25/actualite/monde/lopera-de-hongrie-annule-billy-elliot-pour-eviter-de-transformer-les-pet

    En Hongrie, une campagne homophobe fait supprimer des représentations du spectacle Billy Elliot à l’opéra.

    L’opéra national de Hongrie a annoncé jeudi dernier l’annulation de quinze représentations de la comédie musicale Billy Elliot à Budapest après une campagne médiatique homophobe.

    La comédie musicale « Billy Elliot » victime d’une campagne homophobe en Hongrie. L’Opéra national hongrois a supprimé 15 représentations de la comédie musicale.

    https://t.co/3hptE5Z061 pic.twitter.com/NF9vqMNydD

    — France Musique (@francemusique) 22 juin 2018

    La production a en effet été accusée de faire de la "propagande gay" par le site web d’actualités Magyar Idok qui soutient ouvertement Viktor Orbán, le très conservateur Premier ministre hongrois. Le journal est considéré comme un organe officieux de son gouvernement nationaliste et a pour habitude de stigmatiser les personnalités publiques qui s’opposent au gouvernement.

  • La leçon de cinéma de John Boorman | ARTE
    Disponible du 01/08/2017 au 03/08/2020
    https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/073343-006-A/la-lecon-de-cinema-de-john-boorman

    Rencontre avec le cinéaste John Boorman animée par Michel Ciment et Bernard Benoliel, captée le 3 juin 2017 à la Cinémathèque Française à la suite de la projection du film « Deliverance » (1971).

    ““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
    Dueling Banjos
    Defensa (Deliverance ; John Boorman, 1972)
    José Vicedo by José Vicedo
    17 julio 2018

    ¿Recordáis ese estupendo clásico que es Deliverance (Defensa en su título español)?
    En esta película de culto protagonizada por Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty y Ronny Cox, hay una escena mítica en la cual un joven redneck interpretado por Billy Redden toca el banjo, mientras el personaje encarnado por Cox intenta seguirle con la guitarra (podéis ver toda la -magistral- escena en el vídeo de arriba).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=326&v=5s73flj1t38

    Pues bien, lo que se escucha es nada menos que Dueling Banjos, una composición instrumental de Arthur «Guitar Boogie» Smith compuesta en 1955 para banjo bajo el título Feudin’ Banjos, y que incorpora riffs de Yankee Doodle. Smith la grabó para un banjo de cuatro cuerdas acompañado por el músico Don Reno en el banjo bluegrass de cinco cuerdas.
    Los arreglos de Dueling Banjos para la película los realizaron Eric Weissberg y Steve Mandell y se incluyeron en su banda sonora.​ La versión de Weissberg y Mandell alcanzó la posición número dos durante cuatro semanas en el Hot 100 de 1973, en todas ellas detrás del Killing Me Softly With His Song de Roberta Flack, y la primera posición durante dos semanas en el mismo año en la lista de música contemporánea para adultos. (...)

  • " LE TESTAMENT DE MELVILLE " Penser le bien et le mal avec Billy Budd par Olivier Rey
    http://enuncombatdouteux.blogspot.com/2019/04/le-testament-de-melville-penser-le-bien.html

    Mais si, comme le pensait Simone Weil, « il est inévitable que le mal domine partout où la technique se trouve soit entièrement soit presque entièrement souveraine », on comprend qu’il soit à même de prospérer sous l’avalanche de programmes qu’on lui oppose. Finalement, peut-être l’incapacité criante des sociétés contemporaines à porter remède aux maux qui les accablent, au point qu’elles semblent devoir les subir comme une fatalité, alors même que la modernité entendait donner aux hommes la maîtrise de leur destin, trouve-t-elle sa source ultime dans la mise à l’écart de la question du mal. (...)

    Un autre aspect de l’œuvre, qu’une focalisation excessive sur le débat entre un Melville « acceptant » ou « résistant » empêche d’apprécier, est sa dimension esthétique. Melville s’est qualifié lui-même d’« homme méditatif » — et, de fait, ses ouvrages sont toujours profondément médités. Il n’en reste pas moins que Melville n’a pas écrit des essais, ou des traités philosophiques, mais des nouvelles et des romans. Près de son bureau, collé sur un pan de mur dissimulé, un papier portait la phrase de Schiller : « Reste fidèle aux rêves de ta jeunesse. »

  • Skattjakt
    http://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/schattenjacht/skattjakt

    artist - song

    richard steele - Folk Song for Michelle

    sandra bell - lost train

    Harmonia - Notre Dame

    Clark Hutchinson - Textures in 3-4

    Von Zamla - Tail of Antsong

    The Happy Dragon-Band - Disco American

    Keith Hudson - Darkest Night

    Caterina Barbieri - Pulchra

    Tonto’s Expanding Head Band - Beautiful You

    Minimal Compact - Statik Dancin’

    Charlie Haden & Carlos Paredes - Song for Ché

    Billy Bang & Dennis Charles - Air Traffic Control

    Clark Hutchinson - Acapulco gold

    David Mitchell & Denise Roughan - Jewel

    http://www.radiopanik.org/media/sounds/schattenjacht/skattjakt_06602__1.mp3

  • Relaxer
    https://www.nova-cinema.org/prog/2019/171-offscreen-12th-edition/offscreenings/article/relaxer

    Joël Potrykus, 2018, US, dcp, VO ST FR, 91’

    Abbie se voit lancer par son frère, tyrannique et persécuteur, le malhonnête défi de battre le record mythique de Billy Mitchell à Pac-Man : tant qu’il n’aura pas dépasser l’indépassable niveau 256, il ne pourra pas de lever de son siège. Seul, Abbie s’engage alors dans un périple post-survivaliste de plusieurs mois, en plein cœur de... son salon. Pour la première fois montré en Belgique, « Relaxer », film à petit budget tourné dans une cave entre amis, se révèle être une perle du cinéma indépendant où le désœuvrement rencontre l’obstination. Nous sommes plongés dans le corps contraint d’un jeune homme sans limite mentale, accompagné par la bande-son lancinante de ses jeux. Le film nous entraine avec inventivité dans un espace intemporel où fascination et (...)

  • Meet Francis Malofiy, the Philadelphia Lawyer Who Sued Led Zeppelin
    https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/02/11/francis-malofiy-led-zeppelin

    Francis Malofiy may be the most hated man in the Philadelphia legal community. He may also be on the cusp of getting the last laugh on rock’s golden gods.

    #droit_d_auteur #musique #plagiat

    • @sandburg Voillà

      Meet Francis Malofiy, the Philadelphia Lawyer Who Sued Led Zeppelin
      https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/02/11/francis-malofiy-led-zeppelin

      People Laughed When This Philly Lawyer Sued Led Zeppelin. Nobody’s Laughing Now.

      Francis Malofiy may be the most hated man in the Philadelphia legal community. He may also be on the cusp of getting the last laugh on rock’s golden gods.

      By Jonathan Valania· 2/11/2019


      Philadelphia-area attorney Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      The fact that Philadelphia barrister Francis Alexander Malofiy, Esquire, is suing Led Zeppelin over the authorship of “Stairway to Heaven” is, by any objective measure, only the fourth most interesting thing about him. Unfortunately for the reader, and the purposes of this story, the first, second and third most interesting things about Malofiy are bound and gagged in nondisclosure agreements, those legalistic dungeons where the First Amendment goes to die. So let’s start with number four and work our way backward.

      At the risk of stating the obvious, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let the record show that “Stairway to Heaven” is arguably the most famous song in all of rock-and-roll, perhaps in all of popular music. It’s also one of the most lucrative — it’s estimated that the song has netted north of $500 million in sales and royalties since its 1971 release. Malofiy’s lawsuit, cheekily printed in the same druidic font used for the liner notes of the album Led Zeppelin IV, alleges that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant — Zep’s elegantly wasted guitarist/producer/central songwriter and leonine, leather-lunged lead singer, respectively — stole the iconic descending acoustic-guitar arpeggios of the first two minutes of “Stairway” from “Taurus,” a song with a strikingly similar chord pattern by a long-forgotten ’60s band called Spirit. At the conclusion of a stormy, headline-grabbing trial in 2016 that peaked with testimony from Page and Plant, the jury decided in Zep’s favor.

      When the copyright infringement suit was first filed in Philadelphia by Malofiy (pronounced “MAL-uh-fee”) on behalf of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust — which represents the estate of Randy “California” Wolfe, the now-deceased member of Spirit who wrote “Taurus” — people laughed. Mostly at Malofiy. The breathless wall-to-wall media coverage the trial garnered often painted him as a loose-cannon legal beagle, one part Charlie Sheen, one part Johnnie Cochran. “Everybody kind of dismissed me as this brash young lawyer who didn’t really understand copyright law,” he says, well into the wee hours one night back in December, sitting behind a desk stacked four feet high with legal files in the dank, subterranean bunker that is his office.

      Hidden behind an unmarked door on the basement floor of a nondescript office building in Media, the law firm of Francis Alexander LLC is a pretty punk-rock operation. The neighbors are an anger management counselor and a medical marijuana dispensary. “I think of us as pirates sinking big ships,” Malofiy, who’s 41, brags. Given the sheer number of death threats he says he’s received from apoplectic Zep fans, the fact that mysterious cars seem to follow him in the night, and his claim to have found GPS trackers stuck to the bottom of his car, the precise location of his offices remains a closely guarded secret. Failing that, he has a license to carry, and most days, he leaves the house packing a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson.

      While most lawyers are sleeping, Malofiy is working through the night to defeat them, often until sunrise, fueled by an ever-present bottle of grape-flavored Fast Twitch as he chain-chews Wrigley’s Spearmint gum and huffs a never-ending string of Marlboro menthols. We’ve been talking on the record for going on eight hours, and Malofiy shows no signs of fading; in fact, he’s just announced the arrival of his third wind.

      He has a pretty good ‘fuck you’ attitude that comes from an inner confidence. He might have had a little too much early on,” attorney Jim Beasley Jr. says of Malofiy. “If you piss the judge off with your pirate act, the judge can make it difficult for you. Sometimes you could avoid all that by not swinging your pirate sword around.

      Talk turns to the distinctly pro-Zep tenor of the media coverage of the “Stairway” trial. “I was a punch line for jokes,” he says, spitting his gum into a yellow Post-it and banking it into the trash for, like, the 42nd time. Nobody’s laughing now, least of all Page and Plant. Nor, for that matter, is Usher. Back in October, at the conclusion of a dogged seven-year legal battle marked by a bruising string of dismissals and sanctions, Malofiy won a $44 million verdict — one of the largest in Pennsylvania in 2018 — for a Philadelphia songwriter named Daniel Marino who sued his co-writers after being cut out of the songwriting credits and royalties for the song “Bad Girl” from the R&B heartthrob’s 2004 breakout album, Confessions, which sold more than 10 million copies.

      Also, in late September of last year, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Malofiy’s appeal of the 2016 “Stairway to Heaven” verdict and ordered a new trial on the grounds that the court “abused its discretion” when the judge refused to allow Malofiy to play a recording of “Taurus” for the jury. (Members were only allowed to hear an acoustic-guitar rendition played from sheet music.) The retrial is expected to begin in the next year, and Page and Plant, along with bassist John Paul Jones, are again anticipated to take the stand. Copyright experts say Led Zeppelin — which has a long history of ripping off the ancient riffs and carnal incantations of wizened Delta bluesmen and only giving credit when caught — should be worried.

      Malofiy, who calls Zep “the greatest cover band in all of history,” will go to trial armed with reams of expert testimony pinpointing the damning similarities between the two songs — not just the nearly identical and atypical chord pattern, but the shared melodic figurations, choice of key and distinctive voicings. He’ll also show the jury that Page and Plant had ample opportunity to hear “Taurus” when Zep opened for Spirit on their first American tour in 1968, two years before they wrote and recorded “Stairway.”

      “Most big companies rely on the concept of wearing you down, forcing you to do so much work it literally drives you broke,” says Glen Kulik, a heavy-hitter L.A.-based copyright lawyer who signed on as Malofiy’s local counsel when the Zep case was moved to federal court in California. “If you have any chance of standing up to them, it’s going to require an incredible amount of persistence, confidence, and quite a bit of skill as well, and Francis has all those things in spades.” And Kulik would know, having successfully argued a landmark copyright infringement case before the Supreme Court in 2014 that paved the way for the Zeppelin suit.


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      Ultimately, Malofiy doesn’t have to prove Led Zeppelin stole Spirit’s song; he just has to convince a jury that’s what happened. Assuming the trial goes forward — and that this time, he’s allowed to play recordings of both songs for the jury — there will be blood. Because contrary to his hard-won rep as a bull in the china shop of civil litigation, Malofiy possesses a switchblade-sharp legal mind, an inexhaustible work ethic, and a relentless, rock-ribbed resolve to absorb more punches than his opponents can throw. He’s a ruthlessly effective courtroom tactician with a collection of six-, seven- and eight-figure verdicts, not to mention the scalps of opposing counsel who underestimated his prowess. “I don’t plink pigeons; I hunt lions and tigers and bears,” he says. The big game he’s targeted in the past decade include deep-pocketed transnational corporations like Volvo (an epic seven-year case that ended in an undisclosed settlement) and Hertz (against whom he won a $100,000 verdict).

      In the arena of civil litigation, where the odds are increasingly stacked against plaintiffs, Malofiy claims to have never lost a jury trial, and that appears to be true. “I have lost twice — in the Zeppelin case and a lawsuit against Volvo — but got both decisions reversed on appeals,” he says, unsheathing a fresh stick of Wrigley’s. “Now, the same people that were asking me for years why I’m doing it are asking me how I did it.”

      If Malofiy prevails in the coming “Stairway” retrial, he’ll completely shatter the Tolkien-esque legend of the song’s immaculate conception — that it was birthed nearly in toto during a mystical retreat at a remote Welsh mountain cottage called Bron-yr-aur, to which many a starry-eyed Zep disciple has made a pilgrimage once upon a midnight clear when the forests echo with laughter. It will be like proving that da Vinci didn’t paint the Mona Lisa, that Michelangelo didn’t sculpt David. Barring a last-minute settlement, many legal and copyright experts predict that Malofiy may well emerge victorious, and credit for the most famous rock song in the world will pass from the self-appointed Golden Gods of Led Zeppelin to some obscure, long-forgotten (and not even very good) West Coast psych band, along with tens of millions in royalties, effectively rewriting the sacred history of rock-and-roll. And the man who will have pulled off this fairly miraculous feat of judicial jujitsu is the enfant terrible of Philadelphia jurisprudence.

      Malofiy hates wearing a suit and tie. Outside the courtroom, he dresses like a rock star masquerading as a lawyer: a crushable black trilby perched at a jaunty angle atop a blue bandana, a collarless black and orange leather Harley jacket, and a pair of beat-to-fuck brown Wesco boots, unlaced. “I’m always in jeans and boots when I meet new clients,” he says. “I warn them up front: ‘If you want a fancy lawyer in a suit, you should go elsewhere.’”

      The barrier to entry for new clients at Francis Alexander LLC is steep, because Malofiy doesn’t take on new cases so much as he adopts new causes. A case has to register on a deeply personal level if he’s going to eat, sleep, and fight to the death for it for the next five to seven years.

      “Lawyers have an ethical responsibility to advocate zealously for their clients,” says attorney Max Kennerly, who’s worked with Malofiy on a number of cases. “But frankly, in this business, a lot of lawyers play the odds and just do a ‘good enough’ job on a bunch of cases. Sometimes they win, and sometimes they lose. Francis really throws himself into his cases.”

      After 10 years of struggle, things finally seem to be breaking Malofiy’s way. Fat checks from cases settled long ago are rolling in, alleviating some fairly crippling cash-flow issues, and big cases just keep falling out of the sky — more than his two-lawyer outfit can field. They need to staff up, stat. Malofiy wants to hire some young bucks fresh out of law school — preferably Temple — as force multipliers in his quest to hold the powerful accountable on behalf of the powerless. “Most kids in law school right now will never see the inside of a courtroom,” he says. “Law schools don’t want to teach you how to change the system; they want to load you up with debt so you have to go do grunt work for some corporate law firm that specializes in maintaining the status quo.”


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      Malofiy doesn’t have a website. He doesn’t do social media. He doesn’t trawl the watering holes of the rich and powerful. He doesn’t even have a business card. Thanks to the notoriety and name recognition that came with the Zeppelin trial, new clients chase him. He just got off the phone with a Brooklyn puppet maker who wants him to sue the band Fall Out Boy for alleged misuse of two llamas — Frosty and Royal Tea — that it created. Right now, he’s on a conference call with a trio of British songwriters who want Malofiy to sue the Weeknd for allegedly lifting a key section of their song “I Need to Love” for a track called “A Lonely Night” on his 2016 Starboy album, which has sold more than three million copies to date.

      “Why are you guys calling me?” he asks.

      “We’re looking for an honest person fighting for ordinary working people,” says Billy Smith, one of the Brit songwriters in question. Malofiy clearly likes the sound of that. After thinking it over for a few moments, he tells them he’ll take their case and gives them his standard new-client spiel. “I can’t promise we’ll win, but I can promise I won’t turn yellow when things turn bad. I won’t put my tail between my legs and run,” he says. “If there is any bad news, you will hear it from me first.”

      His teeth have been bothering him for days, and near the end of the call, one of his dental caps comes loose. He spits it out, and it skitters across his desk before he traps it under his palm. Most lawyers would be mortified. Malofiy thinks it’s hilarious. “I got teeth like you people,” he says to the Brits. Everybody laughs.

      Many people mistake Malofiy’s unconventionality as a design flaw when it’s actually a feature. “I think that’s an incredibly important part of what makes him so good as an attorney,” says A.J. Fluehr, 33, Malofiy’s right-hand man, co-counsel and, though eight years his boss’s junior, voice of reason. “Because he’s so unorthodox, I believe it causes a lot of other attorneys to underestimate him and think, ‘Oh, he’s not serious; he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’ All of sudden, there’s a massively serious case against them.”

      Even some of the defense lawyers who’ve done battle with Malofiy begrudgingly acknowledge his chops. “I’ve known Francis for four years now. He is difficult to deal with but a fierce advocate for his clients and his cause,” says Rudolph “Skip” DiMassa, a partner at Duane Morris. “Calling him ‘abrasive’ would be putting it mildly. But he wears it like a badge of honor that he is not like all the other lawyers in town.”

      When I read that and similar assessments from other lawyers back to Malofiy, he chalks them up to blowback for the heresy of Robin Hooding a corrupt status quo. “I have a target on my back because I sue big corporations, politicians, big law firms. Hell, I sued DA Seth Williams,” he says one night at the Irish Pub, as he’s nursing a screwdriver he’ll chase with a root beer. “When you start stepping on toes and suing the wrong people and get a few million shifted from those who have it to those who don’t — that’s where the change happens; that’s where you make a difference. And there is a price you have to pay for that.”

      According to family lore, Francis Malofiy’s maternal grandfather was murdered by Nazis in occupied Greece; his great-grandmother had to cut the body down from a tree and carry it home on the back of a mule. Concurrently, his paternal grandfather was murdered by Nazis in Ukraine, while his father and grandmother were frog-marched to camps in Germany. Some things can never be forgotten or forgiven. That’s why Malofiy is always kicking against the pricks. A slight child, he was often bullied at school, and after a brief experiment with turning the other cheek, he started fighting back. Hard. He recalls the day that a bully was picking on a girl half his size; young Francis cold-cocked him and threw him into a closet door. The kid had to be taken out on a stretcher. After that, the bullies moved on to easier prey. “I was always fighting for the little guy, even back then,” he says.

      In the third grade, friends turned him on to Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In and Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, indelibly imprinting the spandexed bikers-and-strippers aesthetic of ’80s hair-metal onto his psyche. He started channeling the energy he once put into beating back bullies into beating the drums. One day in the sixth grade, he came home to tell his dad about a band all the kids were into: “The Led Zeppelins.”

      “He said, ‘No, son, it’s just Led Zeppelin.’”

      “No, I’m pretty sure it’s the Led Zeppelins.”

      So his father, who’d seen the band at the Electric Factory, drove Francis to the record store at the Granite Run Mall, where the clerks set him straight. His father bought the four-cassette Zep box set that had just come out. On the way home, Malofiy heard “Whole Lotta Love” for the first time, and before the song even ended, it was official: Led Zeppelin was his favorite band. When he was in high school, his drum teacher gently broke the news that Zep didn’t exactly, um, write all their own music — that key parts of their iconic songs had been cherry-picked from old, obscure blues recordings. “I said, ‘C’mon, don’t talk shit about Jimmy Page!’” Malofiy recalls. Then his teacher played him the Willie Dixon-penned Muddy Waters track “You Need Love” — which is what “Whole Lotta Love” was called before Zep hijacked the lyrics and the riff and Frankensteined them into the gloriously scuzzy heavy-metal Viking porno movie for the ears we’ve come to know and love. It was hard for Francis to process, and even harder when he was tipped to the uncanny similarity between Spirit’s “Taurus” and “Stairway.” Still, the spell Zep cast over him remained unbroken.


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      As a young teenager, he built go-karts, dirt bikes and small-block Chevys. To make spending money for guitars and records, he started buying beater cars, fixing them up, and flipping them for quadruple what he paid for them. He almost didn’t graduate from high school because he’d played hooky too many times, to go fishing or work on cars or play guitar. When he finally got his high-school diploma, he raced home from school to show his mother in his Chevy S-10 lowrider. Tearing ass on the backcountry roads of Media, he blew past a cop who immediately lit up his cherry top and gave pursuit. Soon, one cop car became two, then three, until there were five cars tailing him.

      Much to his parents’ dismay, his run-ins with the law became common. They were never for anything all that serious, just the usual teen-rebel monkeyshines: fighting, speeding, the occasional high-speed car chase. He got a big wake-up call in 1998 when his beloved Uncle Nick — a.k.a. Nicholas “The Greek” Vasiliades — was handed a life sentence for running a high-volume meth lab in a warehouse in Manayunk that supplied the drug networks of the Pagans and the Mafia, as well as for his 50-gun arsenal of illegal weaponry. Malofiy was devastated. “I was going down a bad path,” he says. “My uncle pulled me aside and said, ‘You’re smart enough to do it the right way. You need to step away.’”

      Malofiy took the warning to heart and focused on getting a college education, graduating from Penn State in 2000 with a degree in finance. After college, he went back home to Media and his true loves: cars, girls and heavy metal. With a revolving cast of musicians, he formed multiple go-nowhere suburban hard-rock bands with cringe-y names like Prada G and Sluts ’n Slayers. Unimpressed, his parents urged him to enroll in law school. Eventually he relented, forging this pact: He would go to law school if he: a) could do whatever he wanted with the unfinished basement of his parents’ home (i.e., build a high-end recording-studio-cum-man-cave tricked out with a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom); and b) nobody hassled him about having long hair, rocking out and chasing girls. Deal. Malofiy took the LSATs and scored just south of 160 — hardly off the charts, but good enough to get into Temple, where he found himself drawn to copyright law.

      He graduated from law school in December of 2007 and took the bar exam the following July. On the night of August 16, 2008, he stopped into the Liberty Bar at 22nd and Market with his then-girlfriend. It was crowded, but they found a table in the back. After ordering drinks, they started getting static from a group of three young men in ball caps and white t-shirts. “Three drunken jerkoffs, white privilege out the ass,” says Malofiy. According to Malofiy’s testimony, the trio mocked his bandana and called him “cunt,” “pussy” and a “dirty spic.” (It was summer; Malofiy was tan.) According to Malofiy, at some point the men apologized and the situation seemed defused, but then one of them grabbed Malofiy’s girlfriend’s ass. “I said, ‘That’s it. Follow me out,’ and made for the door,” Malofiy says, but he was blocked by a member of the group. As they stood chest-to-chest, Malofiy says, the man struck him twice. Finally, Malofiy, who boxed in college, unloaded with a right cross that landed squarely on the guy’s left cheekbone, shattering the glass still clenched in Malofiy’s fist.

      The man suffered a deep gash in his cheek that would require 150 stitches and reconstructive surgery. Malofiy nearly severed the tendons in his thumb. Bleeding profusely, he had his girlfriend drive him to the emergency room at Penn Presby to get stitched up and then to Central Detectives to file a criminal complaint.

      Two months later, in October, notice came in the mail that he had passed the bar. His mother was ecstatic and insisted on driving him to the Pittsburgh office of the Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania immediately to obtain his law license rather than wait two weeks for the formal ceremony. When they got home the next day, Malofiy got a call from Central Detectives, who said they had a “body warrant” for his arrest on aggravated assault and related charges stemming from the Liberty Bar fight. The next day, he turned himself in and spent a night in jail awaiting a bail hearing. Had he not gone to Pittsburgh at his mother’s behest, it’s unlikely he’d have gotten his law license with a felony arrest on his record.

      Malofiy’s first case as a newly minted lawyer would involve defending a client staring down decades in prison if convicted: himself. Heeding the maxim that a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client, Malofiy hired Sam Stretton, one of the most respected criminal defense attorneys in the city. Malofiy took the stand and delivered an impassioned defense of his actions. “He had already hit me twice, blocked my exit-way,” he testified. “I was scared for my safety and my girlfriend’s safety, and his friends had just yelled ‘Fight!’ and came up to me with fists drawn. I thought I had no other option.” The jury found him not guilty on all charges.

      “Welcome to Hogwarts,” Malofiy jokes as he shows me around the vast oak and stained-glass room that houses the law library at the Beasley Firm, possibly the most fearsome and feared personal-injury law firm in the city, where he worked, in an of-counsel capacity, from 2012 to 2014.

      Fresh out of law school and still wet behind the ears, Malofiy showed up one day in search of mentoring. Granted an audience with Jim Beasley Jr., one of the most successful plaintiff’s attorney in the city, Malofiy ended up with a promise of rent-free office space, the phone extension 666, and a commitment to help finance some of the highly ambitious cases he was mounting — a product-liability suit against Volvo, and a breach-of-contract suit, against a marble manufacturer that had screwed his client out of an ownership share, that resulted in a $4.2 million verdict — not to mention the Usher case. “Jim was like, ‘I keep getting calls from defense lawyers saying That kid’s the fucking devil, so you must be doing something right,’” Malofiy recalls.

      During Malofiy’s tenure at Beasley, he took out a controversial full-page ad in this magazine that depicted him crashing through a courtroom in a hot rod, looking every bit James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Many members of Philadelphia’s uptight, buttoned-down legal community thought it was disrespectful. “Everyone was outraged, but I thought it was funny,” says Beasley. “He has a pretty good ‘fuck you’ attitude that comes from an inner confidence. He might have had a little too much of that early on, but I think he’s throttled back a bit. So many of a judge’s decisions are ties and jump-balls that are not reversible, and if you piss the judge off with your pirate act, the judge can make it difficult for you. Sometimes you could avoid all that by not swinging your pirate sword around.”

      Malofiy has learned this the hard way. In 2015, a three-judge panel voted to suspend his license to practice law in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for improper conduct in the Usher case — despite the fact that the special prosecutor recommended what amounted to a slap on the wrist: a reprimand.

      “It’s highly unusual that they would disregard the disciplinary recommendations of the special prosecutor after he has heard the facts,” says Stretton. The matter is currently on appeal before the Third Circuit.

      At Malofiy’s insistence, I’ve been tailing him for the better part of a month: from a big-dollar NDA’d settlement in a judge’s quarters, to a Port Richmond dive bar called Chuckles, to a Bucks County gun shop where he plunked down $1,729 for a handsome Benelli shotgun (a gift for his right-hand man Fluehr), to a back-alley strip bar in Center City and the disused factory under the Commodore Barry Bridge that he’s purchased and plans to renovate into office space, living quarters and a beer garden. I watched him hide his $82,000 Land Rover from the repo man (“It’s all a misunderstanding”) and then, days later, saw a pile of white letter-size envelopes stacked on his desk, each containing what looked to be thousands in cash. What I have come to learn is this: When you write about lawyers, there is so much you can’t write about lawyers.

      Malofiy slowly, methodically and unflinchingly parceled out the most personal details of his backstory — the good, the bad and the ugly — as I incrementally earned his trust. But always on his timetable, not mine. It could be exasperating, but by the end, I discovered the method to his madness: He’d been pacing his revelations as he would a trial presentation. And now we’re reaching the crescendo of his closing argument — the big reveal.


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      It’s a few clicks shy of midnight at Malofiy’s house in Media on a Sunday night shortly before Christmas. In the morning, he’s jetting off to an auction in London to bid on the Helios recording console that captured “Stairway to Heaven” for the ages. (Malofiy, true to form, won’t confirm that he won or lost the auction.) Though he’s been locked in a nasty four-year legal fight with Led Zeppelin, they’re still his favorite band.

      Malofiy called to insist that I come to his house tonight. “Why? What for?” I demanded. He said he wanted to show me something I could only see there. I begged off, explaining that this article was due in the morning and I already had more than I could use. But he insisted, promising it would be worth my while. He doesn’t disappoint. He tells me to open the freezer. There’s a bottle of Tito’s vodka, an ice tray, and half a lemon on a plate with a yellow plastic knife. “That’s the lemon Robert Plant squeezed into his tea when we deposed him in London back in 2016,” he claims. This is deeply ironic and, if you’re acquainted with the role lemons play in Plant’s legend, cosmically hilarious. One of Led Zeppelin’s most infamous tracks is “The Lemon Song,” a sultry blooze ramble from 1969’s deathless Led Zeppelin II stitched together from pieces of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” and Robert Johnson’s “Travelling Riverside Blues.” (Zep settled a 1972 copyright suit over the Howlin’ Wolf portion of the song.) In the fifth verse, Plant sings:

      Squeeze me baby, till the juice runs down my leg
      The way you squeeze my lemon, ah
      I’m gonna fall right out of bed

      By swiping that lemon rind at the deposition, Malofiy stole Robert Plant’s metaphoric penis the way Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Zep famously invoked the mythic “Hammer of the Gods” from Norse legend. For Jimmy Page, that hammer was his guitar, but for Plant it was his, um, mighty lemon tree.

      Incredible though it may seem, Malofiy says he’s kept the lemon on ice for the past three years and had it in his briefcase like a talisman when he gave oral arguments for what proved to be his successful appeal of the 2016 “Stairway” verdict. He has every intention of taking it to the retrial that will, barring unforeseen developments, commence in the next year.

      “Robert Plant is always going on about his lemon, and at the deposition he made a big deal out of slicing it up and squeezing it into his tea and then sucking on the rind,” he says with a cat-who-ate-the-canary grin. “Jimmy Page famously dabbled in black magic and was always going on about Aleister Crowley, and I said to myself, ‘If they are going to use black magic to try to beat me on technicalities — well, two can play at that game.’”

      Published as “The Devil’s Advocate” in the February 2019 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

  • Deconstructing The Fyre Festival Pitch Deck
    https://hackernoon.com/fyre-festival-pitch-deconstruct-91f24d73575b?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3-

    Supposedly one of the biggest things of the year - Reference: The VergeBy now most of us would have heard of the infamous Fyre Festival in 2017 where investors lost over $27.4 million dollars. The festival’s pitch deck has resurfaced online in 2019 and has been labeled as ‘beyond parody’.Founder Billy McFarland had an idea to host a ‘luxury musical festival’ which would help in the launch of their music booking app. It was meant to be something exclusive and unique and help create massive buzz.And it did…for the wrong reasons.The whole thing ended up falling apart quickly and cost investors millions of dollars of #investment money.But did the pitch deck help secure that funding or was it just a warning sign of the impending doom to follow?Let’s take a look.First Section: What is Fyre?The first (...)

    #pitch-deck #fyre-festival #influencer-marketing #venture-capital

  • The King of Kong : A Fistful of Quarters
    https://www.nova-cinema.org/prog/2019/171-offscreen-12th-edition/game-on/article/the-king-of-kong-a-fistful-of-quarters

    Seth Gordon, 2007, US, video_hd, VO FR ,79’

    2007, Wiebe, un père de famille tranquille, essaie de battre le record de "Donkey Kong" détenu depuis 1982 par Billy Mitchell, une sorte de Chuck Norris avec cravate USA, magnat de la sauce Tex-Mex, exécrable, patriote, narcissique, auto déclaré meilleur joueur de jeux vidéo du monde. Wiebe y arrive et c’est là que (heureusement) tout commence… Pas de bol, Mitchell fait partie du jury de « Twin Galaxies », temple de l’homologation des scores d’arcade depuis 1981 et le record n’est pas reconnu valable. Le film rebondit sans arrêt et dépeint parfaitement ces personnages fascinants de l’âge d’or du jeu d’arcade. Au delà de l’aspect "film sur le jeu vidéo", il y a des personnages terriblement humains, misérables, méprisables que l’on (...)

  • Je voulais en savoir un peu plus sur Junior Wells qui fait la couverture du dernier Soul Bag


    http://www.soulbag.fr/issue/issue

    Cerise sur le gâteau la « cigar box » est disponible sur #bandcamp avec pas moins de 66 morceaux, la grande classe quoi !

    Vingt ans après sa mort, la musique de #Junior_Wells est un peu oubliée, d’autant qu’une partie de sa discographie – les années Blues Rock, en particulier – n’est que difficilement accessible sur #disque et est absente des services de musique en ligne. Raison de plus pour saluer l’initiative de Cleopatra Records qui proposera à la fin du mois d’août un luxueux coffret de 6 CD partagés entre une sélection de faces studios de ses débuts aux années 1970, avec des classiques comme Messin’ with the kid ou Little by little, et trois disques d’enregistrements en public inédits, datant des années 1980 et 1990, qui viennent compléter les albums posthumes publiés par Delmark. Le tout est emballé dans un coffret en bois façon “cigar box” et accompagné d’un livret illustré de 48 pages… et d’un indispensable mini-harmonica ! Peut-être bien le cadeau de Noël idéal des fans de #blues.

    http://www.soulbag.fr/news/index/type/news/id/4243
    https://juniorwells.bandcamp.com/track/mystery-train


    https://juniorwells.bandcamp.com/track/just-to-be-with-you

    https://cleopatrablues.bandcamp.com


    https://www.discogs.com/fr/artist/328158-Junior-Wells

  • L’axe évangélique – Le grand continent
    https://legrandcontinent.eu/2019/01/17/laxe-evangelique
    https://i1.wp.com/legrandcontinent.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Capture-d’écran-2019-01-17-à-15.32.38.png?fit=1200%2C750&ssl=1

    Fin novembre, Eduardo Bolsonaro, le fils du futur président brésilien Jair Bolsonaro, était en visite à la Maison Blanche, pour une rencontre avec Jared Kushner, le gendre et conseiller du président Donald Trump. Les discussions, qui ont porté sur le déplacement de l’ambassade du Brésil à Jérusalem, ont illustré la convergence diplomatique en voie de renforcement entre ces deux grandes puissances continentales. Cette nouvelle entente entre les chefs d’État des deux pays n’est pas seulement le fait d’une coïncidence électorale. Elle est le produit d’une dynamique politico-religieuse continentale qui a conduit à l’émergence d’un axe évangélique, soit une convergence religieuse et idéologique caractérisée par son polycentrisme. Autrement dit, l’axe est l’émanation d’une même force diffusée à partir de centres géographiques distincts, il se caractérise par l’émergence d’un évangélisme politique à l’échelle continentale.

    Les États-Unis sont le foyer historique de cet axe : au cours des dernières décennies du vingtième siècle, l’évangélisme s’y est fortement intégré au tissu politique. À ce titre, l’élection présidentielle de 1960 constitue une étape charnière dans l’émergence du discours religieux employé à des fins politiques. Lors de la campagne, le candidat républicain Richard Nixon n’a pas hésité à invoquer les valeurs traditionnelles chrétiennes pour mobiliser catholiques et évangéliques contre John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Mais c’est surtout depuis les années 2000 que l’influence évangélique est devenue particulièrement visible au sein de la droite américaine. Le président G. W. Bush n’a jamais caché sa conversion au « Born again Christianism », un courant clef de l’évangélisme états-unien qui se caractérise par la redécouverte du Christ à l’âge adulte. Ce puissant sentiment religieux s’est largement répercuté dans la communication présidentielle et l’évangélisme est devenu un instrument de gouvernement comme un autre. Après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, le « pape des évangéliques », Billy Graham1, participe à l’apaisement national : il anime une messe de trois jours depuis la cathédrale nationale de Washington.

  • Bonne année, par Aretha Franklin :

    Auld Lang Syne est une chanson écossaise plus connue des francophones sous le nom de Ce n’est qu’un au revoir. Aux Etats-Unis, elle est souvent reprise pour la nouvelle année. Comme le dit l’adage, Aretha Franklin pourrait chanter le bottin et en faire un chef d’oeuvre d’émotion. La preuve :

    Le 31 décembre 1975 au Waldorf Astoria, à New-York :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNDGPj8uj3w

    Le 23 décembre 1986, à la télé américaine, avec Billy Preston :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI3Evr_TWHE

    Et le 1er janvier 2016, à Uncasville, dans le Connecticut :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zpk_ivkxNg

    Autres versions de « Auld Lang Syne »
    Jon Batiste (2018) :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HiBKSOeqvg

    Harris and His Christmas Avengers (2014) :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvPPhcWSO-g

    BB King (2000) :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeB1YLvwQPI

    The Black on White Affair (1970) :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkvjLkWly_g

    #Aretha_Franklin #Musique #Soul

  • Du haut de l’affiche au bas de la rue : l’incroyable parcours d’une championne
    https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/les-pieds-sur-terre/apres-la-boxe-le-smic


    Aujourd’hui je me réveille avec ce morceau de blues.
    Il est temps de mettre les pieds sur terre mon gars !
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGCKQDZ33VE


    My Baby She Rocks - Billy F Gibbons

    En regardant de quoi sa retourne sur franceculture.fr et les pieds sur terre par Sonia Kronlund :

    Huit fois championne du monde, Anne-Sophie Mathis est aujourd’hui agent de surveillance de la voie publique et distribue des PV dans les rues de Nancy. Elle raconte les combats de sa vie.

    Je n’ai pas encore écouté cette émission mais oui, la boxe et le blues sont comme 2 doigts de la main.
    #boxe #blues

  • Talks and Highlights From CppCon 2018!
    https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/C9-GoingNative/Talks-and-Highlights-From-CppCon-2018

    CppCon happened again this year in Bellevue, Washington! In this video, Steve Carroll chatted with Jon Kalb, the CppCon conference organizer, about the conference and where it’s going next, along with a number of speakers who participated. Links to the recordings of the talks are available below. [11:03]: Guy Davidson - Lightweight 2D graphics with io2d[13:10] Billy O’Neal - Inside Visual C++ Parallel Algorithms[14:45] Fabian Renn-Giles - A Semi Compile/Run-time Map with (Nearly) Zero Overhead Lookup[16:59] Matthias Gehre, Gabor Horvath - Implementing the C++ Core Guidelines’ Lifetime Safety Profile in Clang[19:05] Gabor Horvath - Dealing with aliasing using contracts[20:51] Patrice Roy - Pessimistic Programming[24:36] Anastasiia Kazakova - Debug C++ Without (...)

    #C++
    http://video.ch9.ms/ch9/5eb2/42a7cc82-ad11-4a25-8824-424750845eb2/CppCon2018-Fullshow-Final-v3.mp4

  • Arizona border residents speak out against Donald Trump’s deployment of troops

    Residents from Arizona borderland towns gathered Thursday outside the Arizona State Capitol to denounce President Donald Trump’s deployment of at least 5,200 U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

    The group of about a dozen traveled to Phoenix to hold the event on the Arizona State Capitol lawn. The press conference took place as a caravan of migrants seeking asylum continues to move north through Mexico toward the United States.

    “The U.S. government response to asylum seekers has turned to military confrontation,” said Amy Juan, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, who spoke at the event on the Arizona State Capitol lawn.

    “We demand an end to the rhetoric of dehumanization and the full protection of human rights for all migrants and refugees in our borderlands.”

    Juan and her group said many refugees confronted by military at the border will circumvent them by way of “dangerous foot crossings through remote areas.”

    “Already this year, hundreds of remains of migrants and refugees have been recovered in U.S. deserts,” Juan said. “As front-line border communities, we witness and respond to this tragedy firsthand.”

    While she spoke at a lectern, others held a sign saying, “Troops out now. Our communities are not war zones.”

    As the press conference unfolded, the Trump administration announced a plan to cut back immigrants’ ability to request asylum in the United States.

    Those from Arizona borderland towns are also concerned that border communities, such as Ajo, the Tohono O’odham Nation, Arivaca and others, may see an increased military presence.

    “I didn’t spend two years in Vietnam to be stopped every time I come and go in my own community,” said Dan Kelly, who lives in Arivaca, an unincorporated community in Pima County, 11 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

    A major daily hiccup

    Many border-community residents complain the current law enforcement presence, absent the new U.S. troops, creates a major hiccup in everyday life.

    “Residents of Arivaca, Ajo, the Tohono O’odham Nation, they are surrounded on all sides by checkpoints. They are surrounded on all sides by border patrol stations. Every time they go to the grocery store, they pass a border patrol vehicle,” said Billy Peard, an attorney for ACLU Arizona.

    Juan says she gets anxiety from these checkpoints because she has been stopped and forced to get out of her car while federal agents and a dog search for signs of drugs or human smuggling.

    Juan calls the fear of these type of situations “checkpoint trauma.”

    “It’s really based upon their suspicions,” she said of authorities at checkpoints. “Even though we are not doing anything wrong, there’s still that fear.”

    Many of those speaking at Thursday’s event accused the federal government of racial profiling, targeting Latino and tribal members. They said they are often subjected to prolonged questioning, searches, and at times, harassment.

    “A lot of people can sway this as a political thing,” Juan said. “But, ultimately, it’s about our quality of life.”


    https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2018/11/08/arizona-border-residents-speak-out-against-trumps-troop-deployment/1934976002
    #murs #barrières_frontalières #résistance #asile #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #USA #Etats-Unis

    • In South Texas, the Catholic Church vs. Trump’s Border Wall

      A charismatic priest and the local diocese hope to save a 120-year-old chapel near the Rio Grande.

      Around the Texas border town of Mission, Father Roy Snipes is known for his love of Lone Star beer, a propensity to swear freely and the menagerie of rescue dogs he’s rarely seen without. At 73, Father Roy, as he’s universally known, stays busy. He says around five masses a week at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in downtown Mission, and fields endless requests to preside over weddings and funerals. Lately, he’s taken on a side gig: a face of the resistance to Trump’s “big, beautiful” border wall.

      “It’ll be ugly as hell,” said Snipes. “And besides that, it’s a sick symbol, a countervalue. We don’t believe in hiding behind Neanderthal walls.”

      For Snipes, Trump’s wall is no abstraction. It’s set to steal something dear from him. Snipes is the priest in charge of the La Lomita chapel, a humble sandstone church that has stood for 120 years just a few hundred yards from the Rio Grande, at the southern outskirts of Mission. Inside its walls, votive candles burn, and guestbooks fill up with Spanish and English messages left by worshippers.

      Snipes belongs to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the congregation of priests that built the chapel in 1899. Nearly 40 years ago, he took his final vows at La Lomita, which was named for a nearby hillock. At sunset, he said, he often piles a couple canines into his van and drives the gravel levee road that leads to the chapel, where he prays and walks the dogs. Local residents worship at La Lomita every day, and as a state historical landmark, it draws tourists from around Texas. For Snipes, the diminutive sanctuary serves as a call to humility. “We come from a long line of hospitable, humble and kind people, and La Lomita is a reminder of that,” he said. “It’s the chapel of the people.”

      If Trump has his way, the people’s chapel will soon languish on the wrong side of a 30-foot border wall, or be destroyed entirely. Already, Border Patrol agents hover day and night at the entrance to the 8-acre La Lomita property, but Snipes thinks a wall would be another matter. Even if the chapel survives, and even if it remains accessible via an electronic gate in the wall, he thinks almost all use of the chapel would end. To prevent that, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, which owns La Lomita, is fighting in court to keep federal agents off the land — but it’s a Hail Mary effort. Border residents have tried, and failed, to halt the wall before.

      Here’s what the La Lomita stretch of wall would look like: As in other parts of Hidalgo County, the structure would be built on an existing earthen river levee. First, federal contractors working for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would cut away the levee’s sloped south half and replace it with a sheer concrete wall, about 15 feet high, then top the wall with 18-foot steel bollards. In total, the levee wall and metal fencing would reach more than three stories high. Longtime border activist Scott Nicol has called the proposed structure a “concrete and steel monstrosity.”

      And it doesn’t end there. The contractors would also clear a 150-foot “enforcement zone” to the south, a barren strip of land for patrol roads, sensors, camera towers and flood lights. Because La Lomita stands well within 150 feet of the existing levee, activists fear the historic structure could be razed. In an October online question-and-answer session, CBP responded vaguely: “It has not yet been decided how the La Lomita chapel will be accommodated.” The agency declined to answer questions for this story.

      This month, Congressional Democrats and Trump are feuding over further funding for the wall, but the administration already has the money it needs to build through La Lomita: $641 million was appropriated in March for 33 miles of wall in the Rio Grande Valley. In October, the Department of Homeland security also invoked its anti-terrorism authority to waive a raft of pesky environmental and historic preservation regulations for a portion of that mileage, including La Lomita’s segment. No contract has been awarded for the stretch that would endanger the chapel yet, so there’s no certain start date, but CBP plans to start construction elsewhere in Hidalgo County as soon as February.

      Unlike in Arizona and California, the land along the Rio Grande — Texas’ riverine border — is almost entirely owned by a collection of farmers, hobbyist ranchers, entrepreneurs and deeply rooted Hispanic families who can truly say the border crossed them. Ninety-five percent of Texas borderland is private. That includes #La_Lomita, whose owner, the diocese in #Brownsville, has decided to fight back.

      Multiple times this year, court filings show, federal agents pressed the diocese to let them access the property so they could survey it, a necessary step before using eminent domain to take land for the wall. But the diocese has repeatedly said “no,” forcing the government to file a lawsuit in October seeking access to the property. The diocese shot back with a public statement, declaring that “church property should not be used for the purposes of building a border wall” and calling the wall “a sign contrary to the Church’s mission.”

      The diocese is also challenging the government in court. In a pair of recent court filings responding to the lawsuit, the diocese argues that federal agents should not be allowed to enter its property, much less construct the border wall, because doing so would violate both federal law and the First Amendment. It’s a legalistic version of Snipes’ claim that the wall would deter worshippers.

      “The wall would have a chilling effect on people going there and using the chapel, so in fact, it’s infringing or denying them their right to freedom of religion,” said David Garza, the Brownsville attorney representing the diocese. “We also don’t believe the government has a compelling interest to put the wall there; if they wanted to put technology or sensors, that might be a different story.”

      It’s a long-shot challenge, to be sure. Bush and Obama already built 110 miles of wall in Texas between 2008 and 2010, over the protests of numerous landowners. But this may be the first time anyone’s challenged the border wall on freedom-of-religion grounds. “I’ve been looking for the needle in the haystack, but a case of this nature, I’m not aware of,” Garza said. A hearing in the case is set for early January.

      When I visited the Mission area in November, Father Snipes insisted that we conduct our interview out on the Rio Grande at sunset. Two of his dogs joined us in the motorboat.

      As we dawdled upriver, watching the sky bleed from to red to purple, Snipes told me the story behind something I’d seen earlier that day: a trio of wooden crosses protruding from the ground between La Lomita and the levee. There, he said, he’d buried a llama and a pair of donkeys, animals who’d participated in Palm Sunday processions from his downtown church to La Lomita, reenactments of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. The animals had carried Jesus. So close to the levee, the gravesites would likely be destroyed during wall construction.

      As the day’s last light faded, Snipes turned wistful. “I thought the government was supposed to protect our freedom to promote goodness and truth and beauty,” he lamented. “Even if they won’t promote it themselves.”

      https://www.texasobserver.org/in-south-texas-the-catholic-church-vs-trumps-border-wall
      #Eglise #Eglise_catholique

  • J’ai lu l’article de médiapart posté par @aude_v et je suis assez fatigué de toujours voir l’économie comme l’alpha et l’oméga de la montée des fascismes. Crise économique qui par extension ne parle que de la "réaction" de ceux qui sont les plus touchés par elle, les classes populaires et les pauvres.
    La Suède pays sous tension ne subit de crise économique.
    Je me pose la question du Brésil ,terre de colonisation et d’esclavage,et d’une tradition de la violence politique et raciale.
    La question aussi du poids américain sur les pressions exercées.
    Le PT peut représenter une avancée mais il reste un parti réformiste de pouvoir.

    La crise politique brésilienne : histoire et perspectives d’une ‘terre en transe’
    https://journals.openedition.org/bresils/2687

    Cet article cherche à interpréter la crise politique et sociale qui sévit au Brésil aujourd’hui à la lumière de son histoire, en essayant de dépasser les analyses conjoncturelles qui sont les plus fréquentes dans la presse d’opinion. Dans cette perspective, le texte examine l’impeachment de Dilma Rousseff et le conservatisme qui se fit jour durant ce processus comme produit des structures socio-politiques et des cultures politiques qui se rencontrèrent au moment de la formation de l’État national, du passé esclavagiste du Brésil et de la construction du régime républicain avec son projet de modernisation et d’exclusion. D’un manière synthétique, j’analyse le conflit entre le pouvoir législatif et l’exécutif comme étant l’une des caractéristiques du régime républicain brésilien, les interventions de type coups d’État dans les moments de crise politico-sociale et la présence de valeurs autoritaires qui s’inscrivent dans la longue durée de l’histoire brésilienne, en terminant par un examen rapide des impasses de la conjoncture présente.

    Racismes et antiracismes au Brésil-Démocratie raciale et blanchiment.
    https://www.persee.fr/doc/homig_1142-852x_1998_num_1213_1_3168

    Opinion Hitler in Brasilia : The U.S. Evangelicals and Nazi Political Theory Behind Brazil’s President-in-waiting

    Paywall-Mix up fascist geopolitics, Pat Robertson’s LGBT hate, Bannon’s nationalism and Putin’s shills and you get Jair Bolsonaro, who’s nostalgic for the U.S.-backed dictatorship that tortured and killed thousands of leftists - and he’s about to come to power
    https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-hitler-in-brasilia-the-u-s-evangelicals-and-nazi-political-theory-

    Les évangélistes en Amérique Latine : De l’expression religieuse à la mobilisation sociale et politique transnationale
    https://journals.openedition.org/conflits/201?lang=en

    Quelles transnationalités ? La transnationalité évangéliste est tributaire d’une dynamique de relations inter-individuelles et inter-organisationnelles structurée autour de multiples rencontres, de conférences et de colloques organisés à l’échelle régionale, nationale et mondiale. Comme nous l’avons souligné précédemment, les principaux acteurs de ces réunions sont des pasteurs dont l’importance est reconnue suivant l’appréciation de la taille de leur Eglise et de l’influence de celle-ci au sein de la société. La transnationalité, dans le cadre de la diffusion des évangélistes dans les sociétés latino-américaines, a pour fondement la reproduction d’un modèle que les groupes exportateurs ont pour vocation de proposer. Ainsi, se créent des espaces et des réseaux transnationaux construits autour d’un même modèle et d’une même dynamique. Les télé-évangélistes sont un exemple frappant de cette logique qui favorise une multiplication des acteurs à travers la transnationalité. Les télé-évangélistes, les pasteurs ayant accès aux médias et aux ressources économiques que ces médias permettent de collecter, étaient jusqu’à la fin des années 70 principalement nord-américains. Désormais, Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart ou Pat Robertson n’ont plus le monopole de la représentation religieuse évangéliste sur le sous-continent latino-américain. En l’espace de deux décennies, s’est créée une diplomatie religieuse autochtone, habituée aux rouages politiques et sociaux des bureaucraties locales. Cette diplomatie a été formée aux Etats-Unis et possède ses propres infrastructures dont le siège, bien souvent, se trouve dans ce pays du fait des conditions économiques et fiscales particulièrement favorable

    Le monopole étatique de la violence : le Brésil face à l´héritage occidental
    https://journals.openedition.org/conflits/1883

    Michel Wieviorka (2004) raises the hypothesis that Max Weber´s formulation of the legitimate monopoly of physical violence as the foundation of Modern State, in the western societies, is exhausted. Although one can agree with this proposition, we cannot accept it in absolute terms should we consider the societies of the Extreme Occident (Rouquié, 1986) as it is the case of Brazil. This paper explores the concept according to which, in contemporary Brazil, in spite of changes as result with globalization in its different aspects, the democratic control of violence and urban crime continues to challenge present double form: on the one hand, the social control of endemic violence within civil society; and on the other hand, the control both by civil and the government of the repressive forces of the State.

    Démocratie et Etat de non-droit au Brésil : analyse et témoignage
    https://journals.openedition.org/conflits/1887?lang=en

    Traces of autoritarism remain even in the founding moments – such as the two decades following 1985 – of the Brasilian democracy. I will discuss in this essay aspects related to the constitutional guarantees and in particular civil rights and the functionning of the judiciary power and the police. I will try to spot the light on the endemic violence and on systematical violations of human rights under the democratic constitutionnal governments, and in particular since the 1990s. I will also examine the efforts made by the Brasilian government and civil society aiming at enlarging the full enjoyment of individual rights to the whole population. Finally this essay also includes my personal account on my short stay at the Brasilian federal government.

    Le monopole étatique de la violence : le Brésil face à l´héritage ...
    PDF : https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=13&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjPgsHv6aH

    La récupération du « développement » par l’oligarchie dans le Nordeste brésilien ou la modernisation agraire détournée
    https://www.persee.fr/doc/tiers_0040-7356_1991_num_32_126_4612

  • visuelimage.com l’art en train de se faire - Chroniques d’un bibliomane mélancolique
    http://www.visuelimage.com/hebdo/index.php?ad=0&id_news=8902

    `Chronique par Gérard-Georges Lemaire

    Le Souffle de la révolte, Nicolas Bénies, « livre musical », C & F Editions, 236 p., 29 euros

    Il n’est pas aisé de trouver en librairie des ouvrages sur l’histoire du jazz par les temps qui courent. Celui-ci vient donc à point nommer combler un vide. L’histoire du jazz n’est pas tout fait simple à raconter car on ne sait même pas quand il est né. D’aucuns disent les premières années du XXe siècle à La Nouvelle Orléans. Possible, mais pas sûr. L’auteur songe qu’il est apparu simultanément dans plusieurs villes des Etats-Unis. A l’époque, il n’avait pas de nom. C’était ma musique sauvage, la musique du diable, qui plongeait ses racines dans le Negro Spiritual, le Blues et le ragtime, mais aussi était influencé par le duende espagnol, la musique klemzer, et par bien d’autres musiques d’origine européennes. Cet ouvrage est une vraie mine d’informations ; on découvre l’histoire du jazz depuis ses origines jusqu’à la fin des années 1930. Et pas seulement : l’auteur explique comment cette musique s’est diffusée par le disque, puis par la radio, comment elle a eu rapidement du succès après la Grande guerre (c’est d’ailleurs cette guerre que les Français l’on découverte grâce à l’orchestre que Jim Europe avait constitué pour partir sur le front et qui a conquis déjà le coeur des Français qui ont pu l’entendre alors. Nicolas Béniès nous fait rencontrer les grands créateurs dans ce domaine, les orchestres les plus célèbres, comment divers instruments ont été introduits dans les ensembles, quelle est leur histoire spécifique et quels ont été les musiciens qui leur ont donné leur lettre de noblesse. Et il nous présente aussi les grandes chanteuses, comme Billy Holiday, mais aussi les orchestres féminins, plus nombreux qu’on le pense. Il explique l’histoire des Minstrels qui interprétaient des parodies des Noirs comme spectacle d’amusement et aussi l’apparition d’orchestre de jazz avec des musiciens blancs (il était impossible alors de créer des orchestres mixtes). Il évoque trop rapidement à mon goût les danseurs de claquette, comme le génial Billy Robinson, qui a été le maître de Fred Astaire, qui lui a rendu un hommage vibrant dans un de ses films. De plus, il nous montre quels rapports ont eu les écrivains avec cette nouvelle musique, comme Francis Scott Fitzgerald et Ernest Hemingway, mais aussi E. Cadwell et Philippe Soupault, jusqu’à Michel Leiris et Jean-Paul Sartre. Il explique de quelle façon ces grands noms qui ont fait évoluer le jazz ont connu le succès à l’étranger, à Paris, à Londres, mais aussi en Russie. Bref, on découvre cet univers complexe, car on ignore pas mal de choses faute de documents, d’enregistrements, et témoignages crédibles (la légende, bien entendu, s’est vite imposée). Qu’aime ou non le jazz, ce livre (accompagné d’un CD avec certains des premiers disques diffusés aux Etats-Unis) est indispensable pour comprendre comment le monde afro-américain a fait entendre sa voix dans son propre vite, et très presque dans le monde entier et engendrer à l’échelle planétaire le Swing Time.

    #Nicolas_Beniès #Souffle_révolte #C&F_editions

  • STL Features and Fixes in VS 2017 15.8—Billy O’Neal
    http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2

    The latest update of Visual Studio 2017 includes many fixes and new features:

    STL Features and Fixes in VS 2017 15.8 by Billy O’Neal

    From the article:

    15.7 was our first feature complete C++17 library (except floating-point <charconv>), and in 15.8 we have addressed large numbers of outstanding bugs...

    #News,_Product_News,

  • std::string_view: The Duct Tape of String Types—Billy O’Neal
    http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2

    One of the most important features of C++17:

    std::string_view: The Duct Tape of String Types

    by Billy O’Neal

    From the article:

    Visual Studio 2017 contains support for std::string_view, a type added in C++17 to serve some of the roles previously served by const char * and const std::string& parameters...

    #News,Articles&_Books,

  • Les débuts

    Aretha Franklin 16 minutes à la télé dans sa période jazzy, mais déjà très bluesy en 1964 (je ne sais pas pourquoi, les 16 minutes sont répétées deux fois) :

    Aretha Franklin - Live on The Steve Allen Show (1964)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEIdwaXYNPc


    1) Lover Come Back To Me
    2) Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody (Aretha au piano)
    3) It Won’t Be Long (Aretha au piano)
    4) Skylark
    5) Evil Gal Blues (Aretha au piano)

    One Step Ahead, en 1965
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyWo7DaKQGU

    I’m Losing You, en 1965
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23zucJBZT3E

    La démo de Dr. Feelgood, fin 1966, avec basse, batterie, et Aretha au piano, du bonheur à l’état brut :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EYlHUubvTg

    Do Right Woman, en 1967
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1MW6xXjW8g

    Au congrès du Parti Démocrate en août 1968
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqVzfd_cHQ0

    A la télé américaine en 1968
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mppKQ2mY-kA

    Hollywood Palace, novembre 1968
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrpHsQ5hfFc


    1) I Say A Little Prayer
    2) Come Back Baby
    3) Medley avec Sammy Davis Jr, What Is Soul ?, Think, Respect et What’d I Say ?

    I Say A Little Prayer, en 1970
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKkWj2WpWM

    Les concert du Fillmore West les 5, 6 et 7 mars 1971 :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pjLJa45vjk


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzOKVInJ8vc

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyx34kgHGng

    Dont on peut extraire Dr. Feelgood, en 1971
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2x8zpoHkTU

    Mary Don’t You Weep, en 1972 (on attend toujours le film de Amazing Grace dont Aretha Franklin a toujours retardé la sortie...)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIX6btGIn8w

    Le dernier concert à Paris, en 1977
    https://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x1l0ad#video=xi2g4n
    =========================================
    Precious Lord

    Precious Lord aux obsèques de Martin Luther King, 1968
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FdFrtNacgU

    Precious Lord aux obsèques de Mahalia Jackson, 1972
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6etBsGEG88

    Precious Lord, en hommage à C.L. Franklin et à Martin Luther King, 1984
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b9qH6-IvEs

    Precious Lord, en hommage à Martin Luther King, 2011
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPiphFEtwyY


    =======================================
    Avec #Ray_Charles

    Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles - Things Go Better with Coke #1 (1969)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntn2XRfBGx0

    Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles - Things Go Better with Coke #2 (1969)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvz1Y2UdCGA

    Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles - Spirit In The Dark (Fillmore West 1971)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOXKr7wh1Ac

    Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles - Ain’t But The One (Duke Ellington Tribute 1973)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em4EXTa4lKg

    Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles - Two to Tango (Midnight Special 1975)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se3BqqaA2Fs


    ===================================
    Autres duos

    Aretha Franklin et Smokey Robinson - Ooo Baby Baby, 1979
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy75z0trlDk

    Aretha Franklin et Big Mama Thornton - Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, 1980
    https://vimeo.com/161253340

    Aretha Franklin et Billy Preston - Holy Night, 1986
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDgSQiUcVnM

    Aretha Franklin et Stevie Wonder - Until you come back to me, 2005
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTnCHP-9Wdo

    Aretha Franklin, Dennis Edwards et Ronald Isley - A Song For You, 2011
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJVyXBdPHCk


    ===========================================
    Reprises

    Everyday People, de Sly Stone, 1990
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyxJEVej9FQ

    At Last, de Etta James, 2014
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrNIwkhHkmY


    ====================================
    A la Maison Blanche

    Avril 2014 :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBdB32pQZ-M


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d53HDeborxw

    Avril 2015 :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ddYfaRuVGA


    ========================================
    Aretha retourne au piano :

    Dans une émission humoristique en 1991 :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vs1W5_hsYg

    You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman, en décembre 2015 (probablement sa dernière performance fantastique)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlGXwUz9vhc

    Rock of Ages, un classique de gospel de 8 minutes, en septembre 2016
    https://vimeo.com/234519390

    L’hymne national américain, en novembre 2016
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZLWHz8ekgw

    Son dernier concert gratuit à Detroit en juin 2017 :
    https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/aretha-franklin/2018/08/19/aretha-franklin-final-detroit-show/1025210002

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKERxJipceM

    ===========================================
    Son dernier concert à New York en novembre 2017 :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oMgRfQOUxw

    Une de ses dernières apparitions à la télé en avril 2018
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK4uJOxL_Sc

    #Aretha_Franklin #Musique #Soul

  • GoingNative 67: ISO C++ @ Rapperswil Debriefing—Steve Carroll
    http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2

    C++ is still getting better.

    GoingNative 67: ISO C++ @ Rapperswil Debriefing by Steve Carroll

    From the video:

    In this GoingNative episode, we go over the latest news from the ISO C++ Standards Committee meeting in Rapperswil, Switzerland! Steve Carroll chats with Gabriel Dos Reis and Billy O’Neal about the latest news!

    #News,Video&_On-Demand,_Standardization,

  • GoingNative 67: ISO C++ @ Rapperswil Debriefing
    https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/C9-GoingNative/GoingNative-67-ISO-C--Rapperswil-Debriefing

    In this GoingNative episode, we go over the latest news from the ISO C++ Standards Committee meeting in Rapperswil, Switzerland! Steve Carroll chats with Gabriel Dos Reis and Billy O’Neal about the latest news! Learn more about the latest C++ Standard news at https://isocpp.org.

    #C++ #Standard_C++
    http://video.ch9.ms/ch9/8a60/25045389-e8ac-4e46-bd6c-17a2b4eb8a60/GN67-FINAL.mp4

  • Bon, j’ai une question super facile pour les seenthisnautes mais elle me hante et je ne trouve pas la réponse : quel est ce film (en noir et blanc je crois) dont le début se situe, si je me souviens bien, dans un avion qui va atterrir à Berlin, juste après la guerre, qui est rempli de militaires (je crois) qui, très excités, regardent tous par la fenêtre, sauf une femme qui range méthodiquement toutes ses affaires dans son sac ? Merci d’avance !

    #Opening_scene #Film #Berlin #avion

  • A Prayer Before Dawn
    http://www.nova-cinema.org/prog/2018/165-offscreen/offscreenings/article/a-prayer-before-dawn

    Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, 2017, US, DCP, VO ST FR NL, 116’

    Plongée dans l’enfer d’une prison Thailandaise d’un boxeur-heroïnomane qui trouvera le salut sur le ring. Adapté de l’autobiographie du vrai Billy Moore, « A Prayer Before Dawn » a tout d’un incroyable conte existentiel et violent. On pense à « Midnight Express » mais ici tout va plus loin : drogue, viol, suicide, VIH inoculé de force... Seule la pratique du Muay Thai et la victoire au championnat inter-prisons au péril de sa vie peut apporter le salut au héro déchu, blanc et ne parlant pas la langue du pays. Mention spéciale à la galerie de taulards aux dents d’aciers et aux magnifiques et authentiques tatouages intégraux, achevant de faire de ce film une fresque grouillante de détails d’un univers de survie au réalisme (...)