discovery: Martial Bourdin

Ever heard of Martial Bourdin? He was a French Anarchist who on 15 February 1894 was killed. How was he killed? Bourdin, who had been living on Fitzroy Rd (also former residence of Sylvia Plath many many many years later) was killed by the bomb he was carrying as he walked through Greenwich park towards the Royal Observatory in London, UK.


( Royal Observatory, London. Photo credit: http://carolineld.blogspot.com/)

Exactly what he was going to do with this bomb, or where, is unknown, though most assume it was meant for the Royal Observatory.

The Art Council Collection has just acquired a new work concerning this event. Greenwich Degree Zero is an extensive multimedia work that invites the audience to piece together clues in order to discover the artists' interpretation of this event. When the audience is the detective and involved in the creation of the work, well this is the best kind of work. The piece by Rob Dickenson and Tom McCarthy is on display at the Longside Gallery on the grounds of the Yorkshire Sculpture Garden in Wakefeild, West Yorkshire, UK aka my old stomping ground.

train musing

During my 6 hour train ride to Montreal this evening (8 if you count the trip from Grimsby to Toronto), not much popped in and out of my head except for this one intelligible snippet.
something that's been bugging me for months in fact, since working at Polyvalente Marie-Rivier in Drummondville, QC.

Talking one day with one of my former colleagues, who had just rented an apartment by the St Lawrence river, I said and I quote in English "Oh is that the apartment by the river?" and she said "The fleuve."

And I didn't answer, though I should have with the following response.
"Fleuve and rivière have the same meaning in English and there is only one word to describe both of them and it is river."

I'm sure other readers out there, who have been learning, learned a little or a lot of another language, know all about the intricacies, delicacies and missings from one language to another. That is why it's called lost in translation. There are such wonderful nuances in every language that cannot be translated to another fully. That's part of the joy of learning and being able to speak another language. Not just speak it as you would your own language, but to speak it as if you inhabit it.

Et voilà.