Bambi's Thoughts
Bambi would like to thank Louis for sharing a True North interview chat between the courageous and clever Ms. Rupa Subramanya and her brilliant guest, Mr. Ari Goldking. What a refreshing discovery. Bambi encourages you to listen to this discussion about “the woke takeover” of the justice system of Canada, whether you believe it is a noble approach or not.
The late Dassin was known to be the most American French singer. Mainly famous for his superb French melodies, he recorded songs in several languages, including English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Greek.
When Bambi was eight-year-old, she and her family were on a trip to Russia and Ukraine when they were shocked, like the entire world, by the death of Mr. Joe Dassin. Of note, the hotel they were staying at kept playing his songs over and over, as a spontaneous tribute.
What happened to Mr. Joe Dassin? On that unforgettable August 20, 1980, he was only 41 years old when he died from a heart attack. The tragedy happened during his family vacation in Tahiti. Forty-three years later, his legacy remains as alive as ever.
Thanks to Mr. Joe Dassin for his INCREDIBLE talent and may his memory be eternal. Bravo to his two sons for contributing to keep his legacy alive. Same for all the talented singers who know how to melt our hearts with his unique songs.
Today, Bambi came across an excellent video by the Economist, which is basically about the following, as described on YouTube: “Ever wondered why it’s so hard to sound like a local when you go on holiday? Discover the pronunciation tips your teachers may have missed“.
Accents are very interesting for the excellent cross-cultural linguistic reasons explained above. Of course, we all have our unique way of speaking, often also influenced by the languages we have been exposed to since childhood. Bearing the latter in mind, how do you sound when you speak, even your own mother tongue? Do you speak fast or slowly, usually or under stress only? Do you “swallow your words” or do you take the time to pronounce them? And how do people react to your accent? Last but not least, are you amused by talented comedians, or friends, who know to imitate accents well?
In conclusion, following the the Economist very informative video on accents in foreign languages, please find the following: (1) a Team Coco brief interview in which Mr. El Maleh performs a song in nonsense or “gibberish-English” since “before Gad could speak English, he performed songs at a French piano bar in total gibberish-English“; and (2) a sweet French song entitled “Mon accent” [or My Accent] by Sangria Gratuite in which we are reminded that “accents are the spices of a language“.
Mr. Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. He was born on May 20, 1799 and he died on August 18, 1850 (https://shorturl.at/itJLZ; https://shorturl.at/nMNTZ). May his memory be eternal and long live the beautiful French language.
Balzac is the founder of realism, which depicts stories from everyday experiences, as they are in real life (https://shorturl.at/itJLZ). This means without any romanticizing, if Bambi recalls well from her French literature courses in high school. Of note, Mr. de Balzac is famous for his great daily writing self-discipline.
Bearing the above in mind, this post will end with some of Honoré de Balzac’s thoughts, which can be easily found in English on the internet. His quotes will be followed by two videos, both in French. The very brief first one features Balzac’s differentiation between friendship and love. It can perhaps be summarized in English with his following statement: “What makes friendship indissolute and what doubles its charms, is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude“. As for the second video, it is a musical celebration of the French language, thanks to Mr. Yves Duteil’s eternal song entitled “C’est une langue belle” [“It is a Beautiful Language“].
“Our greatest fears lie in anticipation.
When women love, they forgive everything, even our crimes; when they do not love, they cannot forgive anything, not even our virtues.
People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.
The more we judge, the less we love.
A husband and wife who have separate bedrooms have either drifted apart or found happiness.
Every moment of happiness requires a great amount of ignorance.
I am not deep, but I am very wide”.
Earlier today, when Bambi was out of town, she had a very legitimate reason to smile out of deep happiness upon receiving extremely good news. Of course, she will spare you this reason since it is a strictly private matter. However, this post is an opportunity for her to share with you a wonderful, and almost amusing, social experience related to that smile.
Indeed, the news, or her realization of the impact of the latter, put an instinctive smile on her face, which lasted for a LONG time. In fact, she just could not stop smiling for maybe one or two minutes while walking fast (almost jumping) on internal stairs and outdoors.
While walking in this state of internal happiness, expressed through a smile, she bumped into many strangers. They all seemed to be kindly receptive to the super “smiling” smile on her face. Indeed, each one of them smiled back at Bambi in a spontaneous, kind, and generous way. The more strangers smiled, the more sustainable her initial smile remained stuck on her face. The entire experience was too odd to the point of feeling like a happy, even funny, scene of a movie with lightness and contagious smiles. The scene felt even more amusing because people’s smiles seemed, at times, accompanied with a facial expression, which appeared to wonder: “what is the problem of this odd one :)”?
Why did the above experience of smiling contagion happen, you may perhaps wonder? Yes, Bambi lives in the Maritimes where strangers are friendly with each other on the streets. They often, if not always, smile, greet, and talk to each other. This is part of the enriching human communication in general. However, perhaps more specifically, psychiatric or neuropschological studies can help shed some light on the phenomenon of emotional contagion. For instance, a German study by Wild et al. (2003) investigated the neural correlates of facial reactions of participants when they were looking at pictures of faces expressing emotions, including happiness. The activation of certain brain regions (including the amygdala), was observed when participants smiled in response to pictures of smiling faces (https://shorturl.at/HLSU5).
In conclusion, Bambi allowed herself to share with you an anecdote related to smile. What about you? What made you smile lately? Would you like to share and maybe, by a virtual emotional contagion of some sort, contribute to make Bambi and this blog’s readers smile as well? Even if your day was tough with physical or emotional pain and you may lack the motivation to want to smile, just think of a certain happy moment of your life and maybe try to smile to your own former smile? Or smile to your future brighter days or… to life itself. As the old Arab saying goes, “smile and life will smile back at you“. Please, trust that this is Bambi’s wish for you, regardless of whom you are or where you are right now while reading this post or in your own life journey.
Bambi would like to share with you a musical treasure she discovered today by accident.
Today is not any day. In many places around the world, including Lebanon, it is a day off. There, the feast of Mary is highlighted or respected by all, regardless of their religion (i.e., not only those of Christian faith). If she may, Bambi would like to begin by sharing a nice Greek-Orthodox song-prayer (in Arabic), in the beautiful voice of Ms. Ribale Wehbé, which is meant to honour Jesus’ mother. May the latter keep an eye on very vulnerable places in the world, including Lebanon where a dear friend, called Mary, resides. May she protect and inspire her, along with her family, there and abroad. Talking about names, Happy name day also to all those called with variants of Maria, Marie, Mary, Maryam or Mariam, etc. [especially when they are either readers of this blog or related to them :)].
Following the first spiritual melody, you will find two Acadian songs by two most talented Canadian singers, Ms. Natasha St Pier and Ms. Isabelle Boulay. Of note, the second deep song, sub-titled in English, is inspired by a fictional heroine, called Évangeline, of Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem (1847), which tells the sad story of the deportation (or expulsion) of the Acadians (1755). “Bonne Quinzou à tous les acadiens!” Happy National Acadian Day to all Acadians and their friends!
Last but not least, a Happy Birthday song in Arabic is especially tailored for Fadi; thanks to the person who made it public on YouTube. It comes from Bambi, her spouse, and the “familia” in Beirut. Have fun with your lovely family, relatives, and friends. Thank you, DEAR Fadi, for being Bambi’s brother since her teenage years [are you smiling now :)?] ❤️!
This musical post aims to share a timely song about the “need to learn to live together”, especially with its chorus that includes lyrics from a famous speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Indeed, this song is entitled “We have a dream!”
The featured melody was written as part of an initiative, entitled “Chanson en création” [Song in Creation], by Mr. Nô with the CM1 classes of Ms. Chloé Margnoux and CM2 of Ms. Corinne Pothier from the elementary school of Villereau in France. From the YouTube video shared below, we learn the following additional information: Ms. Virginie Pinsard and Ms. Pascale Breton, pedagogical advisors in musical education, also played a key role in this meaningful project.
Before leaving you with the Enfantastiques [Fantastikids]’ lovely song, Bambi will share its translated lyrics, thanks to her beloved Mr. Google Translate. Have a good one, everyone!
WE HAVE A DREAM – by Les Enfantastiques
Chorus (lyrics from a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.):
We must learn to live together
Free and equal
Like brothers
Otherwise we will die together
Like idiots
Alone
1°
Never again hate
Which brings us so much pain
Let’s destroy the weapons
that make tears flow
Let’s hold hands
And let’s walk united towards tomorrow
Like Martin Luther King
Let’s sing “I HAVE A DREAM”
Chorus :
We must learn to live together
Free and equal
Like brothers
Otherwise we will die together
Like idiots
Alone
2°
No matter the flag
No matter the colour of the skin
women and men
All in solidarity
For the same rights
In the ledger of the law
Like Martin Luther King
Let’s sing “WE HAVE A DREAM”.
Bambi would like to thank Mr. Jad Sughayyar, from Lebanon, for having generously accepted to share his talent, along with his band, with the readers of this blog.
You may be perhaps familiar with the Muse‘s “Madness” love song (2012). Of note, the songwriter is Mr. Matthew James Bellamy (https://shorturl.at/gorzA) and the English lyrics are shared following the audio file (https://shorturl.at/bzK67).
In conclusion, for those of you who can understand Arabic, the family name “Sughayyar” means “small” in English. Ironically, Mr. Jad Sughayyar is anything but small when it comes to creativity and artistic talent. Highly impressed, Bambi urges him and his band to keep making Lebanon, and our world, a more loving place with music!
“I, I can’t get these memories out of my mind
And some kind of madness has started to evolve
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad) mm
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad)
And I, I tried so hard to let you go
But some kind of madness is swallowing me whole
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad) yeah
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad)
I have finally seen the light
And I have finally realized
What you mean
Ooh, oh-oh, oh-oh
And now, I need to know, is this real love
Or is it just madness keeping us afloat?
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad) mm
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad)
And when I look back at all the crazy fights we had
It’s like some kind of madness was taking control
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad) yeah
(M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m, mad, mad, mad)
And now I have finally seen the light
And I have finally realized
What you need
Mm, mm-mm, mm-mm-mm
But now I have finally seen the end (finally seen the end)
And I’m not expecting you to care, no (expecting you to care)
That I have finally seen the light (finally seen the light)
And I have finally realized (realized)
I need your love
I need your love
Come to me just in a dream
Come on and rescue me
Yes, I know, I can’t be wrong
And baby, you’re too headstrong
Our love is”.
This post is dedicated to Michael from Toronto. He knows why :). Of note, another “Michael”, a dear friend of Bambi and her spouse is now a resident of Montreal in the Canadian province of Québec. Their joint advice for him was to order a delivery of a Coq Lala flat grilled chicken, pre-soacked in lemon. Mmm (https://shorturl.at/jsCX8)!
Bambi is aware that this post sounds like an advertisement. Yet, she is NOT paid by the Lala Restaurant, neither of Canada, nor of Lebanon :). Indeed, when she believes in an idea, like its amazing chicken, she cannot help not to sell it to you on her Afkar‘s blog.
To introduce you to the original Farouj (or Chicken) Lala, she will now share a screenshot, which comes from an older post published from out of Beirut on December 19, 2019:
If you are curious about this restaurant’s history and art of preparing chicken, here is an English sub-titled video, which was found by Louis (thank you!), entitled “Lala Chicken. A secret Recipe to Success“. In addition to feeling hungry, Bambi was moved to watch it, as she recalled her childhood. She felt homesick, all of a sudden, for both Montreal and Beirut. Actually, this old business of the LaLa family is a monument of Saint-Louis Street just a few meters away from her dad’s store, Azar Electric, another monument, which was once featured in an older post (please see below, if you are interested).
In conclusion, bon appétit or “Sahtein” with a silly yet funny chicken song, hoping it will make you smile. Who knows? Maybe you happen to be vegan. Maybe chicken is not for you. As far as Bambi is concerned, she will end with the following thought: it would be amazing if a branch of this restaurant comes to New Brunswick one day (for those of you/us who live in the Maritimes or for our future guests). What are your thoughts?
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