eyebrows    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My name is Jules Letambour posting on Gus Leonisky’s blog — and eyebrows have been raised. These hairy display do not a personality define, though men with bushy eyebrows can be intelligent — or stupid.

 

The Americans have had their Mark Twain, the German have had Nietzsche. The Russians had Brezhnev and Stalin, while the Australians were blessed with John Howard’s ridiculous never-ever-cut wing-fluffs. Meanwhile most (all) women, intelligent or not, pluck their eyebrows as to look as sexy as a Venus depilatus — avoiding looking industrial and more lovely humanitarianus. We should be grateful.

 

 

The French had their Georges Pompidou...

 

 

 

Jacques Chirac served as an aide to Prime Minister Pompidou and recalled:

 

 

The man gave the appearance of being secretive, wily, a little cunning – which he was, to a degree. However, it was primarily his intelligence, culture, and competence that conferred indisputable authority on him and commanded respect.... I remember his untamed eyebrows, his penetrating, very kindly gaze, his perceptive smile, full of humour and mischievousness, his voice with its wonderful low, warm, gravelly tone, and a figure that was both powerful and elegant. Naturally reserved, little given to emotional outbursts, Pompidou did not forge very close ties with his colleagues.[2]

 

 

He [GP] served as prime minister of France under de Gaulle after Michel Debré resigned, from 14 April 1962 to 10 July 1968, and to this day is the longest serving French prime minister under the Fifth Republic. His nomination was controversial because he was not a member of the National Assembly. In October 1962, he was defeated in a vote of no-confidence, but de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly. The Gaullists won the legislative election and Pompidou was reappointed as Prime Minister. In 1964, he was faced with a miners' strike. He led the 1967 legislative campaign of the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic to a narrow victory. Pompidou was widely regarded as being responsible for the peaceful resolution of the student uprising of May 1968. His strategy was to break the coalition of students and workers by negotiating with the trade-unions and employers (Grenelle conference).

 

 

However, during the events of May 1968, disagreements arose between Pompidou and de Gaulle. Pompidou did not understand why the President did not inform him of his departure to Baden-Baden on 29 May. Their relationship, until then very good, would be strained from then on. Pompidou led and won the 1968 legislative campaign, overseeing a tremendous victory of the Gaullist Party. He then resigned. Nevertheless, in part due to his actions during the May 1968 crisis, he appeared as the natural successor to de Gaulle. Pompidou announced his candidature for the Presidency in January 1969. Some weeks later, his wife's name was mentioned in the Markovic affair, thus appearing to confirm her husband's status as a cuckold. Pompidou was certain that de Gaulle's inner circle was responsible for this smear.

 

 

In social policy, Pompidou's tenure as prime minister witnessed the establishment of the National Employment Fund in 1963 to counter the negative effects on employment caused by industrial restructuring.[3]

 

 

Read more:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Pompidou

 

 

Wikipedia also tells us that :

 

 

After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended future Senegalese poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor, he attended the École Normale Supérieure, from which he graduated with a degree of agrégation in literature.

 

 

Khâgne (French pronunciation: ​[kaɲ]) is an informal French term for what are officially known as classes préparatoires littéraires, i.e. the classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles (CPGE), or classe prépa, dedicated to literature and the humanities. It contrasts with other CPGE majors such as Maths Sup [fr] in mathematics and engineering, or Prépa HEC [fr] in the business domain.

 

 

------------------

 

 

Pompidou was a poetry lover, a French poetry lover… Why? Léopold Sédar Senghor? In his Anthology of French Poetry, published in 1961, Pompidou writes:

 

 

Should we try to imagine, for example, what makes the charms of these exquisite La Fontaine verses:

 

 

Amants, heureux amants, voulez-vous voyager?

 

Que ce soit aux rives prochaines…

 

 

This is impossible to translate, adds Pompidou. He did not say  impossible to “translate with exactitude". He wrote you cannot translate this...

 

 

Strangely, Apollinaire, one of the most brilliant French poet, does not appear in Pompidou’s selection, unless my old first edition book is missing a few pages… As a French "Polish-Italian" man, Apollinaire was a keen observer of naked human nature. He died too young:

 

 

Au tournant d’une rue je vis des matelots

 

qui dansaient le cou nu au son d’un accordéon

 

J’ai tout donné au soleil

 

Tout sauf mon ombre

 

 

My translation would be:

 

 

I saw sailors around a street corner

 

Naked neck they were dancing to accordion music

 

I gave everything to the sun (i.e. I went completely naked)

 

everything except my shadow

 

 

This demands a Pompidou-esque explanation of what is poetry: No-one can tell us he tells us. What is the soul? The heart? Poetry is a shock, a dream, a trip outside our comfort zone of our destiny… Love, luck, misery are transformed into a languid beauty… while we do not weep anymore at Shakespeare or Euripides tragedies.

 

 

Over there in Australia, your Scumdog government is punishing humanities, the very things that made Pompidou such a great leader… And as far as poetry is elevating, Scotty from marketing is a bloody-hell con artist at work — in the great tradition of these useless hypocritical boganical dorks from the Liberal Party: the eyebrows of Menzies and John Howard were like Abbott's pubic hair… Cartoon courtesy of my friend, Gus Leonisky. Sucez ça...

 

 

My view.

 

 

Jules Letambour, Jurassic Park...