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First off a belated happy birthday to comova.

I haven't been on LJ much lately and it will be even quieter in the upcoming days for I found out on Firday that I was summoned to mark Baccalauréat papers for the September session (it's for students who were too ill in June to attend their final exam). I have to retrieve the papers on Tuesday afternoon in the suburb, and will hand them back on the 25th. So I'll have only 6 days to mark them...while going about my usual work in school. Marking Bac' papers beside teaching is a crazy thing...

I am not released from my teaching duty during that marking but I'll have to attend the jury on the 1st of October so I will miss classes then. And on the 4th there will be oral exams for those who nearly failed.

It's a pain in the ass, screwing up with my plans. Not only did I schedule tests for my students this week but I also intended to go back to the library on Tuesday afternoons and to do some thesis writing at home on Thursdays. But with this Bac' marking surprise I have to postpone the tests, and I can't work on my thesis until the whole thing is over.

When I saw the note on Friday I think my face turned green, honest. And later I had a difficult group to teach in the afternoon so I was pretty wrecked in the evening.

On the upside, I received Tom McRae's CD so now I can enjoy listening to his new album, From The Lowlands, on the stereo, which is always much better than listening on the computer or on the ipod. It's a lovely album; Tom's best since All Maps Welcome, although very melancholy and dark.

And I went to the movies and saw Killer Joe which was a lot of fun (in a dark and twisted way).

Also, I'm VERY pleased with John Edward Williams. I'm so glad that Daniel Mendelshon recommended Augustus on twitter and that herself_nyc  told me to read Stoner too. When I finished Augustus I wanted to start reading it again (yeah it's that good!), and earlier today I read the first chapter of Stoner in my bath – I have to say that kindle makes reading in the bath quite easy!– and was already under the spell.

That's about it. Tomorrow I have a big day of teaching ahead (from 9 am to 6.30 pm) and I'm not sure that I'll get to see Copper and Boardwalk Empire in the evening.

Think of me while I'm in Marking Hell!

In the last couple of days I sought advice from people around me, regarding the thesis dilemma, and everybody came up with their own piece of course, so I decided to let it "rest" and put my mind off the issue for a while (not too long because the Summer holidays are upon us so if I want to make my move and get in touch with Orléans prof I guess I must do it before the 14th of July)...

So I've been reading Michael Connelly's The Reversal, featuring both Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller, and it's fun. I got the copy from a colleague who got it from her son who bought it in the U.S so I'm reading it in English. It's an easy read and I'm almost finished. Every time I read Connelly in English it reminds me that he isn't a great writer, at least style-wise. But he's a good storyteller and I like the tapestry, or rather the painting, he has created, through all his recurring characters whose paths cross in L.A. And there's Bosch of course who remains his best creation, no matter how entertaining the others are. Haller, the Lincoln lawyer, makes for good stories but he can't compete with Harry's charisma. In the novel, every other chapter is from Haller's point of view (and written with the first person singular) while when it's Bosch' s chapter we come back to the omniscient point of view (although we often get to know what's ging on in Harry's mind) so Bosch remains more mysterious in a way. He is the only character that Connelly keeps protecting from Hollywood sirens while he lets movies borrow his other characters (that said the recent film based on The Lincoln Lawyer wasn't bad, and I also enjoyed Blood Work starring Clint Eastwood as Terry McCaleb years). Harry Bosch is one of a kind.

I also went and saw My Little Princess, my second French film, after the excellent yet  very unusual Pater (who received a 17 minute standing ovatin in Cannes and is impossible to review) in 8 days!

Very disturbing movie. First, the topic is disturbing. The film takes place in the 70's and the" little princess" is a 10 years old girl, raised by her great-great mother, and whose quirky and instable mother, whose love she's desperate to get, decides to involve her into her artistic lifestyle and turns her into a model. The mother becomes a famous photographer thanks to her little muse...except that the pictures she takes are quite erotic and morbid so scandal ensues (to the point that the little girl is called a whore by her classmates and nicknamed "porn baby" by the media). It's the story of a stolen childhood and of a dysfonctional and yet passionate relationship between a mother and her daughter. The mother kind of loves her daughter but she's immature and displays more art (gothic and decadent) than heart, and the fact that she's from Romania adds to the vampire-vibe. Isabelle Hupper who loves twisted roles plays the mother (she's very histrionic, quite Drusilla-esque, something between a crazy woman and a self-centred diva to our eyes, and to her daughter's eyes between a fairy and a witch), but it's the young actress (twelve) playing Violetta who is really amazing on screen.

The film is disturbing because it shows how it all begins like a game for a girl who was neglected and is trilled to suddenly be her mother's favourite model, the only object of her attention, and also because all the little girls like to dress up, but then she slowly becomes the character she plays on the photographs, outside the shooting room, looking like her mother in parties and exhibition's previews; following the model her mother loves, she changes her looks in "the real world" (she wears make-up, tiaras and eccentric princess-like clothes at school, and later is dressed like a poptart with high heels and expensive clothes) and her behaviour evolves (playing the femme fatale with journalists, with boys) as if the photo sessions had some shaman power changing her! Violetta get caught up and becomes a freak which causes troubles and makes her a pariah in society, and eventually the desire to fit in, for "a normal life", wins and she rejects the role and her mother's world, looking for her lost self.

The most disturbing thing is that the film is quite autobiographical for it is the story of the filmaker, Eva Ionesco. Her mother, Irina Ionesco was a famous photographer in the 70's and actually the true story is "worst" than what is showed on screen for Eva's role as a sexualized model began when she was 4 years old and not 10 (and the film suggests things but of course doesn't show the girl in the nude).

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