Printemps précoce ?

Cette semaine on a eut des températures avoisinant les 10 ℃ même si on est seulement à la fin février ! Aujourd'hui, malgré la pluie battante, j'ai pris ma marche de santé, ce qui m'a permis de voir des paysages étranges…





(iPhone 6s, Parc Champdoré et Parc Frédéric-Back, 2017-02-25)
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Cat-urday's picture

Spring indeed! / C'est le printemps !

(iPhone 6s, 2017-02-22)

Image du chat-medi

A cat (orange American shorthair), with a butterfly, looking into a pond (water hyacinth)
Un chat, avec un papillon, regardant dans un bassin (Jacinthe d'eau)

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda
See more of my wife's art in this Flickr album

Absurdité du jour (#02017054)

Je viens juste de réaliser, avec tout mes problèmes du changement de Vidéotron à Bell, que j'avais un meilleur téléphone quand j'étais avec la compagnie de cable et que maintenant j'ai un meilleur service télé avec la compagnie de téléphone! Go figure…

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Absurdity of the day (#02017053)

Yesterday, an Hydro-Québec press release announced that their “customers are increasingly satisfied”! Is that so? It is strange, because the customers are paying increasingly more (year after year) for the same damn service (on average each year more than the Canadian consumer price index). Why should they feel more satisfied with that, I ask you!

I guess the quality of the electricity is good (if anyone could quantify that), the service is more reliable, but hydro-electricity is amongst the cheapest energy, most of our infrastructure is already paid for and the company is already making huge profits (over $3-billion). So, where's the need to increase the rates? Of course, the argument for an increase is that customers from Quebec are paying one of the lowest rates in the country so they shouldn't complain if H-Q tries to bring them closer to the national average. Also, H-Q blames “an increase in supply costs and the costs resulting from the harsh temperatures of the past two winters” and the fact that production cost for wind energy is much higher. It sounds like corporate excuses.

The last couple of time I had to deal with their customer service I was quite disappointed. When they started installing the new “intelligent” meters, it took a good six months to arrange an appointment for the installation. And, with the next-generation meters, they promised customers would be able to track their daily electricity use and it took over TWO YEARS for that option to become available on their website through the “My Consumption Profile” page! So, no, it would be really absurd for me to be “increasingly satisfied” at all!

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Image du mer-fleuri

Black cat and butterfly with hydrangea under an oak
Un Chat noir et un papillon avec des Hortensia sous un chêne

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda
See more of my wife's art in this Flickr album
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Absurdité du jour (#02017052)

Après deux jours de beau temps et de température au dessus de zéro, que vois-je passer hier soir vers onze heure ou minuit? La déneigeuse de trottoir! L'arrondissement est pas capable de déneiger les trottoirs (ni près de chez moi, ni près de la bibliothèque) avant que je parte et arrive au travail le lendemain d'une tempête de neige, mais ils “nettoient” quand il n'y a rien à enlever? Cet arrondissement est vraiment mal géré (comme si on ne le savait pas déjà!). C'est ça que ça donne la sous-traitance!

Je viens tout juste de payer mes taxes municipales et je trouve ça honteux qu'on les gaspilles de la sorte. Nettoyez donc quand ça compte bande d'idiots!

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Image du chat-medi

An American shorthair and a butterfly in a meadow
Un “American shorthair” et un papillon dans un pré

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda
See more of my wife's art in this Flickr album

Absurdity of the day (#02017046)

I always did my best to be a good person, to help people whenever I could or at least to never intensionally hurt someone. Therefore, it hurts me deeply to see so many people lately who are either so mean that they really don't care about the wrong they are inflicting to others or that they are so stupid that they don't even realize the harm that they are inflicting. Isn't there any good will, any justice, any fairness, any common sense left in the world? It seems that today's world is governed only by the absurd! Has this farce lasted long enough?

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Image du mer-fleuri

Dog and butterfly with some narcissus
Un chien et un papillon avec des jonquilles

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda
See more of my wife's art in this Flickr album

March, Book 1: Civil Rights history in comics

“Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.” (…)

“March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.”

(Text from the publisher's website; see also the back cover)

Congressman John Lewis wanted to be a preacher. He grew up on his parents' farm in rural Alabama taking care of the family chickens (to whom he was practising preaching!). The story starts in his congressional office as he is preparing to go assist at Obama's inauguration. A black lady comes into the office with her children to show them up a place where history was made. Instead they meet with the Congressman himself who takes this opportunity to tell them a little about himself and the history of the civil rights movement. With the help of his uncle Otis and Martin Luther King, Jr., to whom he wrote a letter, he succeed to go to college in Nashville. There, he contributed to the Student Movement and, inspired by Gandhi's nonviolent protest, took many actions to fight against segregation.


The storytelling is excellent and the art is pretty good. It is a superb idea to bring back to life Congressman Lewis' memories, such as his actions of civil disobedience, for a new generation to understand what the civil rights movement was all about. It is very educational and it is probably even more relevant today than when it was first published (considering the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the fact that I discovered this book through a CNN report about President Trump insulting Congressman Lewis, saying he was “all talk and no action” !).

All in all, it's a nice way to teach the history of an important moment of our Western Civilization, but also an excellent occasion to talk about good moral values. The life of great role models like Congressman Lewis need to be recorded for the posterity, but not only in history books or museums but also as part of our popular culture. It's a good reading for the Black History Month and I cannot recommend it more strongly.

March: Book One, by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. Marietta GA: Top Shelf Productions, August 2013. 128 pg., Softcover, 6.5" x 9.5", 14.95 US / $19.99 Can. ISBN: 978-1-60309-300-2.

For more information you can check the following websites:

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40th Japan Academy Awards (2017) nominees

The nominees for the 40th Annual Japan Academy Prizes (第40回日本アカデミー賞) were announced on January 15th. The winners in each category will be revealed by the Japan Academy Prize Associations at a ceremony held at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo on March 3, 2017.

Here is the list of all the nominees (after the jump):

Décès de Jirô Taniguchi

C'est avec grande consternation que j'ai appris cet après-midi, via Facebook, le décès d'un des mangaka que je respectais le plus: Jirô Taniguchi est décédé samedi à l'âge de 69 ans! La cause du décès n'a pas été précisé. Il nous manquera terriblement. Toutes mes condoléances à sa famille, ses proches ainsi qu'à ses nombreux admirateurs qui, particulièrement en Europe, ont découvert et grandement apprécié la qualité de son travail. Requiesce in pace, mi magister!

[Sources: ANN, AnimeLand, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Variety, Yahoo]

Voir aussi: Google et The Manga Critic’s Guide to Jiro Taniguchi.

Lire la suite après le saut de page >>

Image du chat-medi

A cat and a butterfly in a meadow
Un chat et un papillon dans un pré

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda
See more of my wife's art in this Flickr album

Absurdity of the day (#02017040)

Everything Trump! That's the most absurd stuff I've seen in years!

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Image du mer-fleuri

Friends: Dog, bird and golden orange California Poppies
Amis: Un chien, un oiseau et des Pavots de Californie

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda
See more of my wife's art in this Flickr album

Découverte: De nouveaux “Classiques” chez Soleil

J'ai déjà beaucoup parlé de cette collection des “Classiques” de la littérature en manga publiée en français chez Soleil. Je croyais d'ailleurs qu'ils en avaient abandonné la publication, mais non: après un hiatus en 2015, Soleil a publié cinq titres à l'automne 2016 (Théorie de la Relativité par Albert Einstein, Du Contrat Social par Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra par Frederich Nietzsche, Orgueil et Préjugés par Jane Austen, ainsi que la réédition du Capital de Marx en un seul volume) et annonce trois nouveaux titres pour le printemps 2017 (Une Vie par Guy de Maupassant, Théorie de l'évolution par Charles Darwin et Discours de la Méthode par Descartes) !

Cette collection reprend en traduction quelques titres de l'impressionnante collection japonaise Manga de Dokuha (comportant jusqu'à maintenant plus de cent-cinquante titres!) illustrée par le Studio Variety Art Works et publiée par East Press, qui se consacre à adapter en manga des classiques de la littérature pour les rendre accessible à un plus large publique.

Découvrez plus de détails après le saut de page >>

Image du chat-medi

A Cat and ladybug under a blackberry bush
Un chat et une coccinelle sous un buisson de mûres

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda

Cat-urday's picture

Friendly cat at a nearby café
Chat amical devant un café du quartier

(iPhone 6s, 2017-01-21)

February turd

Le trois fait le moi ?
That's how I feel this month…

(actually the picture was taken on January 22nd,
but it cames from an idea I had during a walk on January 3rd…)

Image du mer-fleuri

Labrador retreiver in a meadow (with clover and ladybugs)
Labrador dans un pré (avec du trèfle et des coccinelles)

© 2017 Miyako Matsuda