Le Train Bleu - One of My Really Magical Early Experiences

Le Train Bleu Restaurant at Gare de Lyon

Le Train Bleu Restaurant in Paris for me represents one of the most exciting times of living in Europe for the first time as an adolescent.

It's name derives from the Blue Train that, between 1922 and 1938, transported the rich and famous in great style to the French Riviera - traveling between Calais through Paris to La Cote d'Azure. To the new freedoms 'la plage' (the beach) had to offer.

In Paris waiting to catch the train, I climbed stairs to Le Train Bleu restaurent ...


... and entered the still fin de siecle Baroque revival splendor of the restaurant ...




Seated, I watched the platform of the station below and saw the train being prepared for our journey ...



During the meal, I remember tasting the most beautiful looking drink I'd ever seen - an all cloudy and rosy pink standard from the original menu called an 'Eugenie', named after the French Empress and consisting of gin and pineapple and I guess other ingredients my inexperience didn't let me identify.

Today, I looked over the current menu of the restaurant online ...






Seriously yum! And I love the period ring of the names of the last two courses: The Indulgences and The Indiscretions!

After we finished our dinner, I remember the people who took me traveling paying the bill - and I asked to have it as a memento - and amazingly I still do ...


Finally, we were in the train and overnight headed south - to stay with French cousins at Cap d'Antibes ...

My cousin Jean-Louis and his mother Jacqueline


My cousin Jean-Louis and his wife Marie-Claire

Jacqueline at her Riviera home in Cap d'Antibes

The magic of the Riviera experience in the 1920s captured the imagination of so many people.

In 1924, Serge de Diaghilev commissioned a ballet for the Ballet Russe based on this new beach scene. It was called 'Le Train Bleu' ...

Original Ballet Russe Production of 'Le Train Bleu (1924)

... with a stage curtain by Picasso ...


... a libretto by Jean Cocteau, choreography by Bronislava Nijinska (Vaslav Nijinsky's sister), music by Darius Milhaud and costumes by Coco Chanel.

It's an athletic romp - not ballet in any way that's usually thought of. The beginning segment from the Paris Opera Ballet's workshop version is full of hot hot guys in bathing costumes doing cartwheels and other pretty watchable stuff.

Others were also interested in Le Train Bleu experience, such as Agatha Christie ...


As you can see from the menu, the prices are not mind-boggling - so if you're ever in Paris ... see you there!

Susan Boyle - The Inspiration!

Maybe I'm the last person in the known universe not to have heard about the gratifyingly quirky and true-to-herself Susan Boyle ...


... who at nearly 48 and unemployed auditioned this year for 'Britain's Got Talent' in Glasgow.

So if, like me, you missed it, here's the pre-performance interviewing stuff ...

... and the performance itself ...

Susan's joy in singing and her sweetness and optimism is the inspiration!

If this didn't move you - even a little bit - check for a pulse!

By the way, one of the You Tube postings on Susan's audition has (to date) registered over 47 million hits!!!

A Question of Isadora

Isadora Duncan c1914

Not sure whether to tempt fate with one more post on dance ... but then I remembered that Spanish saying 'Vivir con miedo, es como vivir a medias' ('a life lived in fear is a life only half lived')!

So why not!

And I'm after the answer to a niggling question.

So here goes.

From dancer friends, I thought the only footage of Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) dancing was a tiny fragment of her at an outdoor party in the 1920s, doing a few (abandoned) steps and taking the applause of those present.

... with one section, slightly clearer, repeated here ...

But then I found, on a French site, what was described as Isadora dancing at the Acropolis in Athens in the 1920s. Now, she'd been there at that time ...



... and she was free-spirited enough to dress 'scantily' (with respect to the time) ...


But when I looked at this new footage, I was just not sure if it's really her ...

Anyone know anything about this little film?

By the way, there is some footage of Isadora with her Russian husband Serguei Yesenin, traveling on board ship somewhere - which gives the tiniest glimpse of her personality ...

PS My fav photo of Isadora is one taken by Raymond Duncan in 1903 on the Lido in Venice ...

Isadora Duncan on the Lido in Venice in 1903

... where she seems so easy and natural and care-free!

Denis Matvienko - Ballerino at the Bolshoi

After posting on Angel Corella and getting various suggestions about other good dancers around at the moment, of course I did some of my own googling ... and came across Denis Matvienko, a ballerino at the Bolshoi Theatre. Funny - I hadn't noticed the term 'ballerino' sneak into usage - bit it seems to have.

As well as being able to create the right degree of Arabian exoticism for the role, Denis has a great jump and a lovely high floating 'ballon' ...


... quite amazing extensions ...



... a terrific sense of line and sculptural placement of the body in the space of the stage ...


... and - well, you know what this shot is all about ...


Being cute and blond and wearing nothing but pink silk harem pants and a feather is all good.

In the last sequence of the video I've put together, perhaps the menage around the stage needs a bit more 'ornamentation' - a double 'tour en l'air' would be good!

Picky picky picky!

An April Day in Our Garden

Was wandering round the garden - well, as much as you can in an 'in the sky' fourth floor terrace apartment garden, and was yet again compelled to get the camera out ...





.. to catch some of the pretty much unplanned radiant beauty there!

One of the Best Advertisements Ever

This must be one of most surprising and creative ads I've ever seen - the real test for me is do I still like it after the fifth viewing!

No further comment needed.

Like it?

You've probably seen it and loved it already!

Angel Corella - The Hottest Little Thing in Tights

If you don't think Madrid-born Angel Corella is the hottest thing (in tights), I'll wanna know what!

Even in an old creaky war horse like 'La Corsaire'!

Living in China and Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China (1906-1967)

Dragon rondel from a Chao Fu, the most formal court attire (1880) I bought in Hong Kong

I've probably posted before that I lived in China for a year - 1988. Just before the Tiananmen Square incident - so people were interested in and felt okay talking to foreigners. So I made lots of friends and was able to travel freely about the country.

And, as you do when you're living in the capital, I went to The Forbidden City - more than a number of times ...


... not only because of it's obvious historical interest, but because it's one of the few remaining parts of the old city that were not were not raised by the communist regime in the 1950s.

On one visit, workmen were throwing tiles down from the roof of the Hall of Central Harmony ...


... to smash on the stone square below - and be grabbed up by incredulous tourists and expats like myself ...


... who didn't understand the Chinese concept of preservation being to keep the exact form of things, rather than necessarily maintain the fabric itself.

About half way through my stay, an American friend, who also worked at Peking University (Beda), asked me if I wanted to join a group of people booking the whole of a famous but then low profile restaurant serving Chinese court dishes in an out-of-the-way hutong ...



The authenticity of the cuisine came from the fact that Miss Lili was the grand-daughter of the last cook of the Dowager Empress Cixi ...

Dowager Empress Ci-Xi on Flat-Bottomed Boat in the Lake of the Middle Sea at the Summer Palace outside Beijing

And of course Miss Lili made an apperance at the end of the 16 course meal - to be endlessly and respectfully photographed ...


There was calligraphy on the walls done by Aisin Gioro Puren, youngest brother of the last Emperor Aisin Gioro Puyi, seen here talking about his eldest brother ...

Even while still in the PRC, I became a bit interested in the last emperor ...

Prince Chun Tsai Feng with two sons - Puyi is standing

On the Dragon Throne at 3 in 1908

1922

Puyi on roof of the Imperial Apartments just before being driven out of the Forbidden City in the mid-1920s

Puyi as Emperor of Manchukuo (Manchuria) c1925

Puyi as Manzhouguo Emperor - In Japan with Emperor Hirohito in the 1930s

With the new skill of sewing - After undergoing re-education in the Fushun War Criminals Administrative Center in the 1950s

Seeing the footage of Puren, I began to wonder what Puyi himself was like - and finally tracked down this footage of him speaking at the War Crimes Tribunal, Tokyo in 1946 ...

The sound of a voice somehow really brings a person to life for me.

Puyi died in 1967 - at the height of the Cultural Revolution.

And, reading 'Son of the Revolution' (Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro) about this dangerous period from the point of view of a very young impressionable student, I've always suspected that the last emperor was murdered - like so many others of his class.

BTW, YouTube never ceases to amaze me - it's now considerably enlarged by own experience of China!