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editor
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 Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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Hot Water
Hardcover
The Autograph Edition
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | The Hotel des Etrangers is not far from the Casino Municipale. In fact, it is so close that a good sprinter can lose his money at the tables, rush over to get some more at the desk, and dash back and lose that all in a few minutes. St. Rocque is proud of the Hotel des Etrangers, and justly. It has all the latest improvements, including a garden for the convenience of guests wishing to commit suicide, a first-class orchestra and cuisine, telephones in the bedrooms, and on the ground floor an up-to-date cocktail bar presided over by Gustave, late of Chez Jimmy, Paris.
The bar at the moment of the tough man's arrival was empty except for a dark, slender, beautifully dressed person of refined and distinguished appearance who was reading the Contental edition of the New York Herald. It was as he lowered the paper for an instant to knock the ash off his cigarette that the tough man uttered the pleased whoop of one who has sighted a familiar face.
"Oily!" he cried.
"Soup!" exclaimed the other.
They shook hands warmly. In their native America they had perhaps been more acquaintances than firends, but there is always enthusiasm when exiles meet in a foreign land.
"Well, you darned old horse-thief!" said the tough man.
In describing his companion thus, he had spoken figuratively, Gordon Carlisle did not steal horses. A specialist in the Confidence Trick, he would have considered such behavior low.
"You old dog-stealer!" he replied.
This, too, was mere playful imagery. Soup Slattery had never stolen dogs. He was an expert safe-blower. (From Chapter 3 at p.13) |
Link to this entry
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editor
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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A Parisian Bourgeois' Sundays
and other stories
Hardcover
By Guy de Maupassant
| Quote: | The Countess Samoris is one of those flashy foreigners, hundreds of whom pour into Paris every year. A Hungarian or a Wallachian countess, or I don't know what, she appeared one winter in an apartment on the Champs-Elysees, the adventurer's quarter, and opened her salon to all comers, anyone and everyone.
I went there. Why? you ask. I don't really know. I went there as we all do, because there is gaming, because the women are easy and the men dishonest. You know this world of swindlers with their assortment of decorations, all noble, all titled, all unknown to their embassies, except for the spies. All of them talk about honour at the drop of a hat, refer to their ancestors, tell their life story - braggarts, liars, cheats, as treacherous as their cards, as deceptive as their names, the aristocracy of the clink, in fact.
I love those people... (From Yveline Samoris at pgs. 105-106) |
Just an average day at the Roll & Shuffle offices. |
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editor
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| Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:44 am Post subject: |
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Maisons Cote Ouest
Magazine Subscription
Fantaisies "50" a Royan
Par Noelle Bittner
Photos Christophe Dugied
Mai, 2006
| Quote: | | Dans les années 1950, Royan fut la ville balnéaire la plus moderne de France. Le style connut une période de désamour ; on le redécouvre aujourd’hui, étincelant de modernité, jeu de cubes et de spirales. (Beginning at p. 172) |
Lavishly illustrated feature on the magnificent Cubist and Art Deco architecture of the region especially evident in the magnficent seaside resort, le casino de Royan. |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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Irish Times
Daily Newspaper
Royal's rivals accused of
humiliating her.
Segolene Royal endured a bruising
two hours at the Socialist Party's
fourth primary debate on Thursday
night.
By Lara Marlowe in Paris
Oct. 28/06
p. 10
| Quote: | | Never a great orator, Ms. Royal was so shaken by the mixed reception from the 6,000-strong crowd that she never got beyond platitudes and generalities: "This is the century of intelligence, and the Socialist Party is gambling on intelligence"; "Socialism cannot close its eyes to the democratic crisis, because only socialism can meet the challenge"; "It is only staring reality in the face that we find the real solutions"; "Let us not be afraid of the people." |
You tell 'em, Seg... sort of... |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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Irish Times
Top Daily Trombone
Private enterprise cannot
tackle world's problems.
The ideological choice is not between
unbridled capitalism or an overbearing,
rapacious state. Successful governance,
particularly for major, global problems,
needs a mixture of both.
By Tony Kinsella
Oct. 28/06
p. 15
| Quote: | Next month, the embryo of our new world order - China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the U.S. - will effectively hand over a cheque for five billion euros to build a 20,000-tonne experiment at Cadarache, near Aix-en-Provence in southeastern France. A further five billion euros will follow to operate the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) over the next 20 years.
If Iter works, we will have managed to harnass nuclear fusion, the energy source of our sun, offering abundant electricity with almost no radioactive waste, no carbon emissions, and no weapons material - and all from seawater. Scientists have been working on nuclear fusion since the 1940s. By the mid-1980s they knew they needed a bigger experimental 'tokamak" reactor and that given the costs, our world could only afford to build one of them. They finished its design in 2001.
It has taken 30 governments a mere five years to agree on the budget, the distribution of task and costs, and location.
Iter remains a scientific and engineering gamble - a 10-billion-euros bet. If it works we can look forward to abundant and sustainable electricity by the middle of the century, with significant quantities of hydrogen for fuel cells as a by-product.
It is an educated, even indispensable gamble. A wager only governments can afford. No private corporation, however wealthy, could convince its shareholders to invest two billion euros a year for 20 years in something that might or might not work. |
More on Iter.
More on the author at TASC, a think tank for action on social change. |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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36 Quai des Orfevres
DVD
| Quote: | Hugo Silien: (Handing Camille an envelope filled with money) There's 20 grand for you. You and your daughter. Until Leo's out.
Camille: I should say thanks.
Silien: My letter explains things. I can't do more. If they nab me, I'll get life.
Camille: How long is Leo in for?
Silien: Those are the rules. He took a gamble and he lost. |
This was a perfectly adequate French thriller but one cannot help wondering if there are any talented male leads in France beyond Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil, who seem to be in just about everything we see from France these days. Someone attractive, perhaps? |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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Balzac
A Life of Passion
DVD
| Quote: | Novelist Honore Balzac: (Arriving at his first assignation with the woman who is to become his next mistress, the great man gazes at the roulette tables in dismay). Here I am.
Laure: You've shown up at the appointed hour to save me. Tonight I'll lose all I want.
Balzac: (rhetorically)This is a gambling house?
Laure: Mm-hmm.
B: Why did you ask me to come here on our fist rendez-vous?
L: You are here to bring me luck. You know the saying, 'Unlucky in love, lucky at cards.'
B: Unlucky in love? Must I deduce from you that you intend to make me suffer?
L: Have you ever heard of biribi?
B: Biribi? No.
Croupier: Nineteen.
L: Lend me some money.
B: (Emptying his pockets) That's all I have.
L: We'll make do with it. If the number comes up, we'll make 64 times more than we bet, and it will.
Croupier: Number eight wins.
L: What did I tell you? |
Here's one for the expectant mom in your circle. Focus attention on Jeanne Moreau. Watch and learn. This may be how you grow a genius - gulp. All in all, a magnificent production featuring actors who have been allowed to age not all that gracefully.
A sample of the master:
Cousin Bette
DVD
And a recent tribute to Balzac:
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
DVD
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2635#2635
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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Casablanca
DVD
| Quote: | Captain Louis Renault: There's a man arrived in Casablanca on his way to America. He will offer a fortune to anyone who'll furnish him with an exit visa.
Rick: Well, what's his name?
Louis: Victor Laszlo.
Rick: Victor Laszlo? (impressed)
Louis: Hmmm. Rick, that is the first time I've seen you so impressed.
Rick: Well, he's succeeded in impressing half the world.
Louis: It's my duty to see he doesn't impress the other half. Rick, Laszlo must never reach America. He stays in Casablanca.
Rick: I'll be interested to see how he manages.
Louis: Manages what?
Rick: His escape.
Louis: But I just told you...
Rick: Stop it. He escaped from a concentration camp. The Nazis have been chasing him all over Europe.
Louis: This is the end of the chase.
Rick: Twenty thousand francs says it isn't.
Louis: Is that a serious offer?
Rick: I just paid out 20. I'd like to get it back.
Louis: Make it 10. I'm only a poor corrupt official.
Rick: OK.
Louis: Done. |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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The Goebbels Experiment
Documentary based on the diary of
propagandameister Joseph Goebbels
Narrated by a tough but sensitive Kenneth Brannagh
DVD
| Quote: | | Oct. 19th, 1940. I travelled to Paris with Goering. What a wonderful place! The peacetime big city atmosphere is back again - lots of soldiers. I strolled through the streets with Goering, then I bought a few things in the shops. In the evening we went to the Casino de Paris, a variety theatre. Not as good as in Berlin but plenty of beautiful women and a lot of nudity. We would never dream of putting that on a Berlin stage. Ate at Maxim's. It's nice to be with Goering, who's being very kind to me. He has a fantastic lifestyle. The war seems a million miles away. Goering really is a nice chap. I went to bed late, dead tired. |
Film includes charming home movies of the Goebbels offspring swimming and pretending to play instruments to a recording of a German oompah-tune while London starved then burned. Goebbels' meticulous entries chart the soughs and swells of a relentless, well-nourished and probably well-earned depression, though he wasn't all bad. He apparently loathed competitor Leni Riefenstahl. |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 8:40 am Post subject: |
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Elle Quebec
Magazine Subscription
Dossier
La Fin d'une Epoque
Françoise Sagan
par Laurence Pivot
Fevrier 2005
| Quote: | | A l'age de 18 ans, en 1954, Francoise Sagan connait la gloire avec son premier roman, Bonjour tristesse. Jeune bourgeoise refusant les conventions et l'ennui, elle fait scandale dans la France d'apres-guerre et brule la chandelle par les deux bouts - cocaine, casinos, boites de nuit det voitures sport...Elle voulait faire de sa vie une fete, mais c'est seule et ruinee qu'elle meurt a 69 ans. Elle nous a laisse 30 romans. (-- p. 76) |
| Quote: | | ... and each a miracle of music, cocktails and everything chic and glamorous, prose that is never once vulgur or cloying. We miss her every day. |
Bonjour Tristesse
DVD
Featuring Jean Seberg, David Niven, of course, and a fruitful trip the casino
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2852#2852
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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Harper's
Magazine Subscription
The Discreet Charm of M. Sarkozy
From an interview with Nicolas Sarkozy by the philosopher Michel Onfray, published this spring in issue 8 of Philosophie Magazine. Sarkozy was elected president of France on May 6. Onfray is the author of thirty-two books, including Atheist Manifesto. Translated from the French by Tobias Grey.
July, 2007
| Quote: | SARKOZY: Take Céline , for example, who was capable of writing a phrase like "Love is a poodle's chance of attaining the infinite." Everything rings true in this phrase: love will make a poodle out of you, and yet it's an absolute infinity.
ONFRAY: Céline was a novelist who found an impassable, inimitable style, and at the same time could be read by everyone. It's not intellectualism on the Joyce scale, it's slap-bang in the people's tongue. He represents French genius - what is worst, too, like anti-Semitism. But he brings a language and a vision of the world that is at one with an era of mobs and crowds. (-- p. 24) |
Atheist Manifesto:
The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam
Hardcover
By Michel Onfray
Journey to the End of the Night
Paperback
Classic novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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Cup of Gold
A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, with Occasional Reference to History
Paperback
By John Steinbeck
| Quote: | "Could not a man who thought and planned carefully take a Spanish town?"
"Ho!" the cook laughed; "and are you going to be a buccaneer?"
"But if a man planned carefully?"
"Why, if there were such a buccaneer who could plan at all, carefully or otherwise, it might be done; but there are not such buccaneers. They are little children who can fight like hell and die very nicely - but fools. They will sink a ship for a cup of wine, when they might sell the ship."
"If a man considered carefully and weighed his chances and the men he had, he might --"
"Yes, I suppose he might."
"There was one called Pierre le Grand who was no fool."
"Ah, but Pierre took one rich ship and then ran home to France! He was a fearful gambler, not a wise man. And he may come back to the Coast and lose it all and his head, too."
"Still," said Henry with a grown finality, "still, I think it could be done, so only a man thought about it and considered it." (From Chapter Two, Part II, at p. 58) |
Link to this entry using
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2947#2947.
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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Modern French Poetry
Paperback
Selected and Translated by Martin Sorrell
| Quote: | Il était une feuille
Il était une feuille avec ses lignes
Ligne de vie
Ligne de chance
Ligne de cœur
Il était une branche au bout de la feuille
Ligne fourchue signe de vie
Signe de chance
Signe de cœur.
Il était un arbre au bout de la branche
Un arbre digne de vie
Digne de chance
Digne de cœur.
Cœur gravé, percé, transpercé
Un arbre que nul jamais ne vit.
Il était des racines au bout de l'arbre.
Racines vignes de vie
Vignes de chance
Vignes de cœur.
Au bout des racines il était la terre
La terre tout court
La terre toute ronde
La terre toute seule au travers du ciel
La terre.
There once was a leaf with all its lines
There once was a leaf with all its lines
Line of life
Line of fortune
Line of the heart
There was a branch at the end of the leaf
Forked line sign of life
Sign of fortune
Sign of the heart
There was a tree at the end of the branch
A tree worthy of life
Worthy of fortune
Worthy of heart
Engraved heart, pierced, transfixed,
A tree which no one ever saw.
There were roots at the end of the tree
Roots vines of life
Vines of fortune
Vines of the heart
At the end of the roots there was the earth
The earth quite simply
The earth quite round
The earth quite alone stretched across the sky
The earth.
-- Robert Desnos
(-- pgs. 56-57) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3005#3005
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:32 am Post subject: |
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Paris:
The Secret History
Hardcover
By Andrew Hussey
| Quote: | The wild speculation on international markets was matched in the backstreets of Paris by an equally fevered enthusiasm for gambling. The police easily tolerated the jeux de societe popular among the aristocracy and other people de qualite. What was rather less tolerable, and a clear threat to the social order, was the proliferation of illegal gaming tables that spread across the capital through the first years of the eighteenth century, and which indeed endured well into the Napoleonic era. One of the most notorious of these places in the back alleys of the Marais was L'Enfer (Hell) and was famed for a ruthlessness that left millions of all classes destitute. Police reports of the period note also that women of a certain age ('probably former whores,' according to one sergeant) were 'unduly excited' at these tables, gambling and wasting even larger sums than men.
The political philosopher Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, ever a keen and acid-tongued observer of public morality, pointed out that many of these women took up gambling 'expressly to ruin their husbands, and that they are of all ages, from tender youth to the most decrepit old age. I have often seen nine or ten women at table, showing fear, hope and fury and seeming never to be at peace. A husband who wants to control his wife is seen as a disturber of public joy.' These same women were unrepentantly promiscuous in his view. One such woman, found by her husband in the bed of his son's valet, fired a volley of abuse at the dumbfounded spouse. 'What do you expect, sir?' she shrieked with self-righteous venom. 'When I have no knight, I take his lackey.' Gambling obviously drove women mad, Montesquieu remarked gravely, and led inevitably to murder. (footnotes omitted) (From Secret City, Shadow and Stench, pgs. 169-170) |
| Quote: | | Editor's Note: Apparently, old Monte's liberal views on the separation of church and state did not extend to gender. How have so many of history's 'great minds' failed to take such an obvious, pedestrian step, one wonders, and at no cost to their recorded 'greatness'? |
Link to this entry
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Last edited by editor on Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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