Melissa on the road

Journalist at RFI (ex-DW, BBC, CBC, F24...), writer (on art, music, culture...), I work in radio, podcasting, online, on films. As a writer, I also contributed to the New Arab, Art UK, Byline Times, the i Paper... Born in Paris, I was based in Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi (covering East Africa), Bangui, and in Bristol, UK. I also reported from Italy, Germany, Haiti, Tunisia, Liberia, Senegal, India, Mexico, Iraq, South Africa... This blog is to share my work, news and cultural discoveries.

11/03/2018

'This Mess Where In'

My true musical idol... PJ.

PJ Harvey feat. Thom Yorke - 'This Mess Where In'

Lyrics:

Can you hear them?
The helicopters
I'm in New York
No need for words now
We sit in silence

You look me
In the eye directly
You met me
I think it's Wednesday
The evening

The mess we're in
And ohh (the city sunset over me)
Ohh (the city sunset over me)

Night and day
I dream of
Making love
To you now baby
Love making on screen

Impossible dream
And I have seen
The sunrise over the river
The freeway
Reminding of

This mess we're in
And ohh (the city sunset over me)
Ohh (the city sunset over me)

And ohh (the city sunset over me)
Ohh (the city sunset over me)

What were you wanting? (What was that you wanted?)
I just wanna say (I just wanna say)
(Don't ever change) Don't ever change now baby
(And thank you) And thank you
(I don't think we will meet again) I don't think we will meet again

Before the sun rise (And the city landscape comes into view)
Over the skyscrapers (Sweat on my skin, oh)
The city

This mess we're in
And ohh (the city sunset over me)
Ohh (the city sunset over me)
Ohh (the city sunset over me)
Ohh (the city sunset over me)

Songwriters: Polly Harvey

This Mess We're In lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

10/03/2018

Magic Spell

Since there is no wizard...

The Wizard of Oz - "There's No Place Like Home" Magic Spell

Dorothy performs Glinda the Good Witch's simple magic spell: all she has to do is click the heels of her magic shoes and repeat, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..."

From "The Wizard of Oz," 1939

09/03/2018

Bristol dans Nouveau Projet

Ravie de faire partie de ce numéro! 13, lucky number!
Avec un texte - reportage sur la communauté antillaise de Bristol...

‏ @Nouveau_Projet

C’est le temps de dévoiler la couverture de @Nouveau_Projet 13, dont le dossier porte sur la qualité de vie. En vedette: Ricardo Lamour, alias @emrical. Photo: @maxymegdelisle. DA: @jfproulx

Sortie le 20 mars.

Abonnez-vous pour le recevoir en primeur! http://bit.ly/2f4gGSE 

1 reply6 retweets9 likes

À moins de deux semaines de son lancement, c’est le temps de vous dévoiler la couverture de Nouveau Projet 13, printemps-été 2018, dont le dossier porte sur la qualité de vie.

En vedette: Ricardo Lamour, alias Emrical, qui oeuvre depuis dix ans à la mise en place de mécanismes de planification concertés dans le domaine de la santé, de la mobilisation citoyenne et des espaces publics.

Une photo de Maxyme G. Delisle (Consulat), sous la direction artistique de Jean-François Proulx (Balistique).

Nouveau Projet 13 (papier)

Atelier 10

$15.95

On parle beaucoup de qualité de vie, en 2018. C’est ce que nous recherchons tous, et ce que tout le monde essaie de nous vendre, des tenanciers de spas estriens aux partis politiques, en passant par Marilou.

Mais de quoi parle-t-on, au juste? En existe-t-il une conception neutre, apoli- tique et universelle? Peut-on la mesurer, elle qui, par essence, devrait échap- per à la quantification? C’est le genre de questions que nous nous sommes posées.

Avec des contributions de Alain Deneault, Jonathan Durand Folco, Catherine Eve Groleau, Simon Lacroix, Aurélie Lanctôt et bien d’autres.

Comme à son habitude, Nouveau Projet cultive un éclectisme de tons et de sujets dans le reste de son édition. On en apprendra davantage sur les six derniers mois de la mairesse Valérie Plante, sur les principes qui guident Serge Bouchard au quotidien, sur les lectures de Josée Blanchette. On s’intéressera à l’esthétique Wabi-sabi japonaise, au bienêtre animal, au baseball et au «blingporn», on se questionnera sur ce qui transforme une ville en mecque de la musique indépendante.

On lira une nouvelle inédite de Véronique Côté et un poème du talentueux François Guerrette.

Livraison gratuite au Canada!

Le numéro sera disponible en librairie le 20 mars prochain.

#NP13

Nouveau Projet

Un magazine culture et société qui a pour raison d’être la publication de textes nouveaux, soignés et susceptibles de nous permettre de mieux comprendre les enjeux de notre époque et de mener une vie plus équilibrée, satisfaisante et signifiante.

Catalyseur et point de rassemblement des forces vives du Québec des années 2010, il cherche à susciter et à nourrir la discussion publique, tout en posant sur notre époque un regard curieux, sincère, approfondi.

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lien: http://edition.atelier10.ca/nouveau-projet/abonnements

From March 8 to all the other days

A bit sad as March 8 is transforming into one of the 364 days per year that is not a Women's Day.

A lot of NGOs and pseudo activists have been posting their words for "Women's Day" today. But March 8 is not Mother's Day or Femininity Day. It is a day to acknowledge if we have the same rights and treatment than the other part of humanity. Men. And this is a time to screen our rights, as written in the law, and the opportunities we are given as women, half of humanity, the creative and life-giving part.

Today is a sad day for me because it has always been an important day but there is not much to celebrate this year. March 8 was the day I successfully passed the test to get into my second master, at Sciences po, or IEP de Paris, aka the school of most of French Presidents. The history test was about "Women in 20th century French politics". I got 18 out of 20. I was chosen to enter.

This university when I arrived, in September 2002, had 0,5 percent of its student coming from working class parents. If you add to that the fact that I'm a "female" and "daughter of immigrants", I might have been the only one that year...

It is a lonely path.

Since 2000, I've walked on men's shoes. I wrote a dissertation about Frantz Kafka and Milan Kundera, I've become the only female student in my class in a place of male power, I've written about other male writers, conflicts and post-conflicts, then had male bosses and covered elections in which women candidates were considered flawed and were ridiculed, from 2007 in France to 2017 in America.

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Do men realise how hard it is? To always be the sidekick at best? To always see their opinion come first, their help be determining because our voice alone isn't considered big enough?

I know I'm an accomplished journalist and a good writer. But getting trusted is still a challenge when you carry with you female values though. Kindness, understanding, compassion.

Because these values are still treated as weaknesses by most men in a position of power. If you're kind, you're not strong. If you're understanding, you're weak.

Men have the ability to transform any discussion into a power struggle and most of the time choose to do so!

But why, oh why, sirs, do you feel so threatened by dialogue? By exchanging your views? Why do you need all women working with you to be the note takers and to send them back to their small office just to be sure that they won't say out loud that a good idea came from them and not from you?

Why do you always need to see us lose to feel you're winning?

This imbalance is killing life, it's killing joy, it's killing creativity.

I hope you're happy alone on your thrones without us. Like the Donald Trumps, you want to leave us behind or humiliate us to feel you're winning. And, as always, you'll complain a while later that you have no one to celebrate your greatness with, late at night, or at that award-winning ceremony.

Because you choose to!

The need to dominate others to feel in power, the need to be above the women you're working with and living with to feel strong is a need based on fear and self-hatred.

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When you're ready to shed fear, hatred, struggle, lack of communication, you can call me back.

When you feel secured by cooperation, communication, respect, dialogue, truth, trust, mutual success, you can have this back. Joy, happiness, generosity, balance, completeness. You can. It is still there. It will always be there. Choose love.

Lina Iris Viktor.

08/03/2018

'Oh Freedom!'

Fighting for liberty. Every single day of this life.

'Oh Freedom!' - The Golden Gospel Singers

Lyrics:

Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom, Oh freedom over me. And before I'd be a slave I'd be buried in my grave And go home to my Lord and be free. No more weepin,(don't you know), no more weepin, no more weepin over me. And before I'd be a slave I'd be buried in my grave And go home to my Lord and be free. Oh freedom, Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom, Oh freedom over me. And before I'd be a slave I'd be buried in my grave And go home to my Lord and be free. And before I'd be a slave I'd be buried in my grave And go home to my Lord and be free.

March 8, 2018

Women form 51 percent of the population of the Earth, they should be able to have access to the same level of education, knowledge and education than men.

How can we still be there stating this? In 2018...

They should be paid equally and involved equally when working together with men. And they should be able to feel protected from pressure and any form of verbal or physical violence at any point of their day.

Of course, as a firm believe that fear should never control us, I always found that courage starts from within. We need to concentrate on the goal, the path, not the obstacles or the dark streets ahead. But sometimes, violence arises in unexpected circonstances or corners.

My plea today is just for mutual respect. And a higher level of consciousness in our interactions and exchanges.

With a soundtrack:

Björk - 'Undo'

Lyrics:

It's not meant to be a strife
It's not meant to be a struggle uphill

You're trying too hard
Surrender
Give yourself in
You're trying too hard
You're trying too hard

It's not meant to be a strife
It's not meant to be a struggle uphill
Sweetly
It's not meant to be a strife
To enjoy
It's not meant to be a struggle uphill

It's warmer now lean into it
Unfold in a generous way
Surrender
Surrender
Undo
Undo

It's not meant to be a strife
It's not meant to be a struggle uphill

I'm praying
To be
In a generous mode
The kindness kind
The kindness kind
To share me
Quietly ecstatic

It's not meant to be a strife
It's not meant to be a struggle uphill

Undo
Undo if you're bleeding
Undo if you're sweating
Undo if you're crying

Undo
Undo

Songwriters: Bjork Gudmundsdottir / Thomas Knak

Undo lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Publishing Group

Artist: Björk

Album: Vespertine

Released: 2001

07/03/2018

Toussaint Louverture in London

At the British Museum:

The Asahi Shimbun Displays

A revolutionary legacy
Haiti and Toussaint Louverture

22 February – 22 April 2018

Free

Room 3

Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), General Toussaint L'Ouverture from the series The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture. Screenprint, 1986. © Estate of Jacob Lawrence. ARS, NY and DACS, London 2017.

This display features a selection of objects, artworks and poetry from the 18th century to the present. Together, they explore the legacy of the Haitian Revolution and its leader Toussaint Louverture.

Louverture was one of the leading figures in the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 as an uprising of enslaved men and women in what was then the French sugar colony of Saint-Domingue. It culminated with the outlawing of slavery there and the establishment of the Republic of Haiti.

The display features representations of Toussaint Louverture, including a work by African American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), showing Louverture as a powerful revolutionary general. For Lawrence and his contemporaries in 1930s America, the radical history of Haiti became an important reference point in debates about rights, race and ethnicity.

The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. During this period, Vodou – a religion practised by people in the African diaspora, and sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘voodoo’ – was suppressed. Vodou had played an important role in the Revolution of 1791, uniting communities and helping enslaved people to organise themselves against injustice. Another key object in the show is a Haitian Vodou boula drum, seized by US Marines during the occupation, and on display in the Museum for the first time. Haitian-born artist and anthropologist Gina Athena Ulysse’s contemporary juxtaposition of Vodou chant with words of anti-imperial protest provides an audio accompaniment.

The legacy of the Revolution is showcased through objects made at the time and centuries later – a banknote featuring female revolutionary Sanité Bélair, William Blake’s illuminated poetry celebrating slave revolution, a coin commemorating the abolition of slavery, and C L R James’s influential account of the Revolution, Black Jacobins, reissued during the US Civil Rights movement.

Together, this wide variety of objects highlights the reach of the Haitian Revolution across both time and space, and this display reminds us that the struggles first begun in Haiti are still crucial in our world today.

Related events

March 2018

Friday 16 March

18.30

Remixed ode to rebel’s spirit: lyrical meditations on Haiti and Toussaint Louverture

Wednesday 21 March

13.15

A revolutionary legacy: Haiti and Toussaint Louverture

Free / Gallery talk / Room 3

April 2018

Tuesday 3 April

13.15

A Haitian Vodou drum at the British Museum

Free / Gallery talk / Room 3

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Link: http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/a_revolutionary_legacy.aspx

The Wizard, the Humbug... and Real Power.

This was one of my favourite stories all along... I realise I had the power all along, like Dorothy.
Now I'll find my own way home, thanks.

The Wizard of Oz: "Pay No Attention"...

"Pay no attention... Pay no attention...to that man behind the curtain."

1939. But timeless.

"They can try to stop us but they cannot stop our minds!"

"They can try to stop us but they cannot stop our minds!" - Quote.

This film is out in France, Belgium, Poland, Germany, in the US now, and will be in Italy from April 5, and - eventually, despite the current climate of fear and mental block - in the United Kingdom.
I've been working on it since 2006 and I'm really proud of its message. All humans are free and deserve equal rights.
Believe in yourself.

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THE YOUNG KARL MARX is now available to watch in the United States on Digital Platforms & On Demand.

Watch now: http://radi.al/TheYoungKarlMarx

06/03/2018

From Bristol... to Bristol. "Nouveau Projet".

Hello...

I'm very sorry to have to announce this, and I first need to say it is completely against my will... But the English version of this book will not be released this spring.

In the autumn maybe...

In the meantime, you can still find the French version here:
https://www.amazon.fr/dehors-confort-massive-Attack-Bansky/product-reviews/2843378095/ref=dpx_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1

Or here if you're in the U.K.:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dehors-zone-confort-lhistoire-révolutions/dp/2843378095/ref=oosr

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This is obviously very disappointing - as all plans were ready, but it is not the most important.

I'll keep you posted if you're interested.

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Meanwhile, I wrote a long article in French about Bristol and especially its Caribbean population, and this will be published in a semestral magazine in Quebec, Canada, by the end of this month of March.