Meet the Members (1)

Kay & Steve Attwell (pictured not in Brittany!)

We bought our house in Morlaix, in 2004, after I retired from the Fire Service after 30 years. I worked as a Crew Commander at Sunbury, Esher and Godstone. Kay is a self-employed stone mason and was the first female apprentice to enter the male dominated trade at the tender age of 16. Among her clients are the Duke of Devonshire and The National Trust. My only claim to fame is having played rugby at Twickenham and my Great Aunt is Mabel Lucie Attwell the children's book illustrator.
We chose Brittany for the varied countryside and rugged coastline. Our hobbies are diving and walking so for us it's ideal. We were fortunate enough to meet Wendy (Mewes) at Morlaix market and have enjoyed walking with her ever since. We both appreciate the very sociable outings with Brittany Walks and have discovered many stunning areas of Brittany by joining the guided walks. The homemade cakes are always scrumptious.

Quimper

Preparing for our Quimper event next week (Tuesday 23, 2.30pm by Tourist Office) when we will have a guided historical walk around this lovely city, taking in the riverside boulevards, the famous cathedral, bishop's palace, old medieval centre and fortifications, two interesting gardens and the pottery centre at Locmaria, also site of the oldest religious establishment. Quimper with its notable religious traditions, still retains the air of a rural centre, despite being the administrative capital of Finistere, with the green height of Mount Frugy above the city and flowery passerelles spanning the Odet.

How People Live In Moscow

Continue my virtual walk around Moskow with the photos of the persons living in the capital. These are some views on everyday events there.


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Many -most maybe- persons pass different hours every day to go to the work and to turn back. From the house of my sister for example, she needs about an hour and a half to reach her work. About 40 minutes with metro till the center of the city.


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When youngs meet their friends they want to show how they are free from the rules and near to the culture of US ecc. Sitting on the street, on the grass near the street. Interesting that they don't do it near the houses in the "sleeping parts" of the city, I noticed.


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But in the parks in center you can find often these scenes:
It comes from "capitalist culture" too. "A sign of freedom". It seems to me, that I've never seen something like this many years ago when we visited the capital. But I'm not sure.


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River Moscow alows you to go from one side to other with this river-tram. I don't know if there are tourist river tours, but I think they have to exist.


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Final Part Of "K" Music Review

Hi there everybody!
As promised, here is the third and final part of my "K" music review:

KLASSE KRIMINALE � �INTERNATIONAL SOLDIER�
When I was at the music store in Palmares, this album caught my attention straight off because of the doubling-up of K�s in the group�s name. It kept my attention when I noticed that many of the song titles were in Italian, and that the album seemed to have been produced in Germany. Hmm, could I have possibly stumbled on a bona-fide Fascist punk album tucked away in the middle of Central America? As it turns out, the album actually has a little badge on the back that says: �We support Cable Street Beat; Strictly Antifascist.� So, in terms of avoiding the moral implications that come with buying music that was literally made by Fascists, this was a good thing, but in terms of having interesting things to write about in a mock music review, this was a negative development.
Basically, this album appears to come from what seemed at first to me like a brilliant, unexplored genre: Continental-Eurotrash Punkrock! However, when I actually listened to the songs, I wasn�t as psyched. See, the songs actually are mostly in Italian, and I don�t know crap about Italian. If you couple that with the fact that I usually have trouble understanding song lyrics in any language, plus the fact that punk lyrics are nearly indecipherable anyhow, then you basically have a fairly loud album with a lot of unintelligible shouting.
The style is mainly a ska-ish style of punk; it�s not unlike an unpolished Ska-P, which is a Spanish ska band whose lyrics I also can�t understand. The songs on �International Soldier� are individually pretty decent, but after listening to 3 or 4 of them, it�s hard to tell if you�re still listening to �Me Wanna Change Le Monde,� or if you�ve moved on to �Tu Vieni Da Garageland.� By the end of the last track (�Oi! Fatti Una Risata��whatever the fuck that means), you just feel like putting on some good, old-fashioned Eurotrash Girliepop to cleanse the palate.
This album is best heard when played loudly over the speakers in a shitty Fiat on the way to an anti-fascist rally in Genoa featuring bad Clash cover bands and 1-Euro cups of grappa.

BEN KWELLER � �BEN KWELLER�
It has recently come to my attention that everyone named Ben is a good guy. Or, at least every Ben that I�ve ever heard of is. Maybe you have childhood stories about some asshole Ben who pinned you on the ground and dangled loogies over your face. If you do, I�ll thank you not to share them with me. But enough theoretical anecdotal evidence aside; let�s look at the facts:
-Ben Kingsley is a great actor, at least judging by �Gandhi� and �Sneakers,� the only two movies of his I�ve seen.
-Ben Schneider is a friend of mine, and he�s a great guy.
Good enough for me!
Also, on the musical front, Ben�s been kicking some ass. You�ve got Ben E. King, Ben Harper, Ben Folds, and Ben Kweller.
This self-titled album is actually Kweller�s third album, and it�s arguably his best. It�s also arguably his worst. How can this be, you ask? Well, Kweller�s style is all about putting out ditties that are solidly-enough rooted in rock to bring in the guys, but poppy and quirky enough to keep the girls from leaving mid-album. This has been the case for his three albums, and the resulting musical style seems to have remained consistent throughout. So, there are definitely songs that I like more than others, but they all generally fall into the category of �Sincerely Semi-Ironic Acoutsi-Pop� (Somebody get me a trademark for that term, stat!).
For evidence of this, just look at his album covers, and when you spy his curly brown mop-hair, you�ll know what I mean. For his first album, �Sha Sha� (a great album that my buddy Dustin turned me on to), Kweller�s wearing a Soviet-style fur cap with earflaps, and he�s even brushing his freaking teeth! To up the irony ante for album 2 (�On My Way�), Kweller had to actually be more subtle: He appears standing in the mountains, and he�s wearing cowboy boots and a sweater vest. Oh yeah, and he�s standing next to three wolves! (Or dogs that look like wolves�I�m not a freaking veterinarian). For the album �Ben Kweller,� his irony was already so thoroughly established that he just has a very simple torso-and-head shot. The only overtly ironic element is the red bandana around his neck, with the calculated effect being that it would be so lame that it would be cool again.
Wow, wasn�t I talking about music a minute ago?
OK, musically-speaking, this album is good. Unfortunately, I don�t think it�s quite as good as his first two albums. Of course, his style and playing has surely matured a bit, and maybe the lyrics on this one are as sophisticated as the ones on the others, if not more. But there are still a few songs that happily putter along without really shining, and there are also a few issues with his choice of lyrics.
The opening song, �Run,� begins with the words, �Over hills / over dales / I�ll run / to you.� This isn�t terribly enlightening to begin with, but in the song it actually sounds like he�s saying �Over here / over dere�� That may be a calculated cuteness, but it�s kinda stupid in the end. Also, the third song, �Sundress,� is just a downer to me for some reason. I know it picks up the tempo mid-song, but by then it�s too late. Sometimes, however, the goofy lyrics can work in Kweller�s�and the listener�s�favor, as in the song �Penny On The Train Track,� which opens with a bouncy, piano-infused beat and the line: �I�m-a just a penny on the train track, waiting for my Judgment Day / C�mon girl let me see those legs, before I get flattened away.�
All these critiques, however, overshadow the end result: this is definitely a good album that I would recommend to my friends. I just bring these points up to help. It�s called �Constructive Criticism.� Look it up.
If you see a Kweller album in the stores, grab it up. Also, I hear word that he�s got a new album called �Switching Horses� coming out, and if you happen upon it in that industrialized and audio-fied nation up north between Mexico and Canada, I�d be happy to hear what you think of it. He�s also great in concert (In the BK concert I went to, he opened with a solo, which was an acoustic guitar version of Vanilla Ice�s �Ice Ice Baby� with customized lyrics). And as a final note, many thanks to Bobby Majzler for giving me this album as a Christmas gift!

Well, folks, that�s about it for this edition. You don�t have to go home, but you can�t stay here. So in the meantime, listen to some music for me! --Ryan Sitzman

green ways

Canals have long provided easy long-distance walking paths across Brittany. Major projects in the last few years have now opened hundreds of kilometres of old railway tracks for walkers and cyclists. Routes from Roscoff to Concarneau and Carhaix to Le-Meen-Le-Grand provide a main axis in the west, with Carhaix taking its traditional place as the centre of a communications network. The concept is admirable, but there are drawbacks and the art of maintaining a balance between development and natural routes is always a fine one. Paths gravelled or even covered with tarmac make for ease of stride but do little to enhance the countryside, and fairly level standard width tracks often lined by tall trees cannot provide quite the same quality of walking experience as the coastal paths or chemins creux and open moorland trails of the infinitely varied Breton countryside. On the other hand, these green ways are a superb resource for straightforward physical exercise and for getting about Brittany, making forages into the wilder surroundings and settlements.
The association is preparing an up-to-date guide to the green ways now available - coming soon on the website (www.brittanywalks.com).

Politics, Part 2 of 2: The Elite

I remember that during the last couple of elections, one of the things that people were talking about when discussing the presidential candidates was the question of which candidate they thought was more genuine and �down to earth.� One expression of this thought was the question, �Which candidate would you rather sit down and have a beer with?� Now, to me, this question is patently absurd. That�s the kind of criterion that you examine when you�re looking for a drinking buddy, not when you're electing the president of your freaking country!
Basically, though, over the last few election cycles the prevailing sentiment was that George W. Bush would be a better drinking buddy than either Al Gore or John Kerry (Nevermind the fact that Bush is a reformed alcoholic and supposedly doesn't drink anyway). Still, Kerry was seen by many to be out of touch, and he was sometimes called an �elitist,� which is a term that has now been tossed at Barack Obama, as well. Now, call me an old-fashioned relic or an imperialist bastard or whatever, but I want my presidents to be elitists. If I wanted a �regular, everyday guy� to run my country, I�d vote for my mechanic. And about 20 minutes after his inauguration, all that would be left of the country would be a giant, smoking hole. No siree, I want someone who is incredibly capable to run my country.
I�m a pretty nice guy. If you don�t believe me, ask anyone who knows me. I�m not a genius, but I�m not really that stupid, either. I actually have an MA, and I can speak three or four languages with a degree of coherency and fluency (and English is one of them). Still, the fact that I�m a nice, smart guy says nothing about my ability to become a president. The way I see it, I�m selling my country short if I vote for anyone who isn�t freaking amazing. Sure, the person I vote for can be nice, but they better be so smart that they just about have brains coming out of their ears. They better make me feel like a freaking assbrain in comparison. And I don�t care if my presidents speak condescendingly to me or if they prefer doing crossword puzzles to watching NASCAR, as long as they are really, really, really smart. Oh yeah, and they can�t be a disgusting hypocrites, either.
I�ve never really understood the point of politicians who try to lower themselves to the level of society�s Lowest Common Denominator. Indeed, a president is the leader of every citizen, whether that citizen is a billionaire genius like Bill Gates or a dipshit societal mooch like Kevin Federline. But that doesn�t mean that a presidential candidate should have to try to appear �folksy� just to get votes. Obviously, it�s necessary to have support throughout the broad spectrum of society in order to win an election, but shouldn�t a president be somewhat above that? Wouldn�t the ideal president be such an amazing, upstanding, and intelligent person, that the whole country would be proud to refer to him or her as one of the finest examples of its citizenry?
These are all just my thoughts, but to finish these musings and wrap up my two-part political special, I�d like to give my opinion on the current candidates and whether I�d like to drink a beer with him or her (after all, I�m still part of that earlier-mentioned Lowest Common Denominator that talks about this crap). For the vice-presidential picks, it�s a hard race to call. I have a feeling that Sarah Palin would probably have some interesting stories about�well, ice, I guess�but I can�t imagine that she and I would have that much in common to talk about. In fact, she might be the Anti-Sitzman. Joe Biden seems like he'd be kind of friendly in the right kind of circumstances, and I can actually imagine drinking a couple of beers with him, mainly �cause he�d lose track of the time. Plus, when I�d go to have a whiz, I�d return to find that he�d already paid the bill.
As for our possible future presidents, I honestly can�t imagine drinking a beer with John McCain. The only circumstance in which I could see this happening is if I were still underage, and I tried to get him or any other sufficiently old person to buy me a six-pack at the liquor store. And Barack Obama? Well, I can�t actually imagine drinking a beer with him, either. In fact, after getting slightly trashed with Joe Biden, we�d probably call up Obama, and even though it�d be like 2 AM, we�d ask Obama to come and give us a ride home in his Celica. Sure, he�d be pissed, he�d get annoyed when Biden and I would shout while arguing about whether Use Your Illusion I or II is better, and in the end Barack would probably give us a lecture on how we needed to grow up and be more responsible in the future. But still, he�d probably come through when you really needed him.
Maybe I�ll vote for him.

(Comic credit: "Get Your War On," by David Rees. More available at www.mnftiu.com. Interestingly enough, this one is from 4 years ago.)

Continuation of "K" Music Review

Hi Everyone,
Well, my brother has his "D" music review finished, and it's up on his site. You can read it by clicking on this link. It's pretty good, despite the Celine Dion (ha ha!).
And, not that you're necessarily interested, but here is the second part of my latest music review, for the letter "K." The rest of it can be read at www.ryansitzman.com, or in a few days, when I post the final part.

KEANE � �HOPES & FEARS�
Of the four albums reviewed here, this is the second best. I�m pretty sure Keane is popular somewhere, but I�m also pretty sure that �somewhere� is not Costa Rica. So when I saw the CD in the store, I recognized the group�s name, but I didn�t know what type of music they sang. Interestingly enough, as I was putting this album onto my i-tunes, I realized that I already had an entire Keane album, �Under The Iron Sea.� I actually don�t know where that came from, but for some reason I think my brother Paul may have had the CD in Colorado, and I indiscriminately added it to my hard drive when I was there. As a result, the musical style sounded vaguely familiar the first time I listened to this CD.
In fact, �vaguely familiar� is a very good description of Keane. Ronny, the guy who owns the (only) music store in Palmares, described the group as �Britpop,� and said it was like Coldplay. Fortunately, it�s not too similar to Coldplay, because I don�t like Coldplay. There, I said it. I believe Paul and I talked about this before, but it seems like we agreed that both Coldplay and �hardcore� Coldplay fans are only slightly better than mediocre. That�s too bad, because basically everyone likes Coldplay (except me and my brother, it would seem). For me, Coldplay is like jazz: for some reason, you have to like both to be considered acceptable by the majority of poseurs in the western world, but in the end, both types of music will leave your ears as well as your musical soul feeling sonically underwhelmed. So, I suppose that if Coldplay ever releases a jazz album, I�ll be royally fucked.
But hey! This isn�t a Coldplay review. It�s a Keane review. Like I said, �Hopes & Fears� delivers the goods, and it does so in a relatively unpretentious way. And�I�m sorry, but I can�t resist drawing a comparison between Keane and yet another British band�it�s easy to sit back and relax while listening to this album, and to think, �Hey, Travis has still got it!� Because basically, Travis and Keane are just two different flavours of the same Limeypop. Not that that�s bad. When my votes are counted, �Under the Iron Sea� is better than �Hopes & Fears,� but both are better than most Travis albums. I guess that every Keane needs its Travis, just like every Nolte needs his Busey, and just like every Denzel needs a sad, sad Snipes. (A similar effect has been described in both the Malkovich/Lithgow Theorem and the Bateman/O�Connell Postulate).
Oh, and the last song on the album, �Bedshaped,� sounds like a song by a Pink Floyd that was trying to get in touch with its sensitive side.
So, I guess all British music is basically the same, yeah?
This CD is best listened to if you ever find yourself smack-dab in the middle of an emotional breakup scene in the second season of Smallville (or any TV show from the WB, for that matter).

KISS � �THE VERY BEST OF KISS�
Oh, freaking KISS. I have to admit that while I went into this review with a previous bias against KISS, I nevertheless tried to keep an open and positive mindset when listening to this album. After all, I did like a few KISS songs--like�Rock and Roll All Nite��when I was in high school. But remember, I went to high school in the late 1990s, and that was a time when people liked all sorts of shit from the 1970s, for whatever reason.
In college, however, I gradually moved into the anti-KISS camp, and my status there was solidified by conversations with my friend Andy Parsons about how much KISS sucked. I don�t really remember why he hated KISS so much, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
Generally-speaking, then, I remained contra-KISS until last Christmas, when I read Fargo Rock City and a few other great books by Chuck Klosterman, who is an adamant KISS lover. That sort of awakened my curiosity, since I admire Klosterman�s writing style and his musical opinions (He has a great snippet in one book about how a Radiohead album foretold the events of September 11th). Around that same time, I also noticed that there were strong societal undercurrents based on admiring and obsessing about KISS. This love is evidenced by the strange phenomenon of the �KISS Army.� You know, I�m just doing some impromptu thinking here, but Costa Rica hasn�t had an army since 1948, and many Americans--especially KISS fans�really like their guns�Let�s just hope that the KISS Army never goes in search of a defenseless country on which to perform a military coup and establish their new homeland.
Um�where was I? Oh yeah, so I thought, �Maybe KISS isn�t that bad.� Unfortunately, that thought was wrong. KISS kind of sucks, when it comes down to it. I know that the standard argument against them is that they�re basically a bunch of dumb, brutish S&M clowns that can�t play their instruments or write intelligent lyrics to save their lives. I also know that the standard counter-argument to this idea is that a viewpoint like that is elitist and snobbish, and that music isn�t about intelligence, it�s about evoking a feeling. My personal take on KISS is that they�re dumb, brutish S&M clowns that actually can play their instruments and write lyrics, but the songs and lyrics that they write, although supposedly rocking or shocking, are actually just dull. The two times that I tried slogging through this album while driving in my car gave me two of the most boring, mundane, and restless commutes that I�ve experienced in a long time.
Oh, by the way, here�s a brief commercial pause, paid for by one of our sponsors:
�KISS ALBUM FOR SALE! ONLY SLIGHTLY USED, GREAT CONDITION. PRICE NEGOTIABLE. CONTACT RYAN AT RYANSITZMAN.COM FOR DETAILS.�
So, we�re back. This album is best when listened to the volume turned really low, with some good music playing loudly to drown it out.