The Passadoc Gazette - No 195

The weekly 195

Hello!

Phone booths... They were 2.40 m tall, deep and wide more than 1 m. Today, a small case of 14 x 7 x 1 cm connects us to the whole earth!

Their great adventure began in 1885: telephone booths were opened on state networks and from 1889 on all French networks; They will be installed all over public places, post offices, cafes.

It is said that the first cabin phones were horizontal, placed on a tablet, causing problems for men hated in high form: they had to lean, crushing their head coverings on the wall. Unbearable! The position was changed by fixing the apparatus vertically.

October 1955. The first telephone booth on the highway* was inaugurated by Edward Bonnefous, then Minister of PTT. Gradually, the entire territory is equipped. Forty years later, when mobile phones appear, they are becoming less and less used and will disappear from urban and rural landscapes. Some are preserved and transformed into « Book boxes ».

However, they occupy an important place in some films: Death with Kits (A. Hitchcock, 1959), Birds (A. Hitchcock, 1962). And these images of Michel Blanc in Come home, I live with a girlfriend (P. Leconte, 1981):

– How? Hello? I don't hear anything! Speak up! I'm gonna have to hang up, I'm out!

Yes... To get the tone, you first had to drag a token or coin into the device!

Jeanne Monin

Research on several sites.
* Paris – Saint-Germain-des-Près.

Hello, hello, you hear me?Is it good weather?To Saint-Raphael?Here, even in the rainThe smell is chasing me.A little bit of Esterel...

The Echoes of the Week
Menton
Venice
The Pellis Valley
Quiz!
Oh! My boat!
Passadoc
Promenade Conference

Menton

André Abbe

Very present right now on our news channels, Menton – Mentan in chinese – has been a border town for a long time.

His bastion faces the ligure coast (photo). It belonged to the Principality of Monaco until the day when its inhabitants and those of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, after a conflict with the Prince, joined France. The Republic of Genoa was not far away, nor was the Duchy of Savoy.

Menton is also a linguistic crossroads where Monegasque, Vivaro-Alpin and Liguria speak. She's filling up on the lemon party.

It is good to walk around the old town, around the church of Saint Michael.

Venice

Currently, the streets of the Provencal metropolises under the waters, following heavy rains; Same Garda images, ardéchoises. The climate is changing, we will have to get used to it.

Marseille, Nice, Cannes take an example on Venice where several times a year are installed bridges on Saint Mark's Square. The Venetians have all their pairs of boots at hand because there are no bridges everywhere...

In Venice, the high waters are not only due to rain, the sea is for something too.

André Abbe

A few verses of a poem that Musset called « Venice »

In Venice the red,

Don't move a boat,

Not a fisherman in the water,

Not a falot.

[…]

Around him, in groups,

Ships and boats,

Same to herons

Sleeping in circles,

Sleeping on water that smokes

And cross in the mist

Light tourbillons

Their pavilions.

[…]

Everything is silent, for the guards

Long halls

To ensure slots

arsenals

Giselle Penat-Lorde

Periodic phenomenon well known in Venice, under the term « acqua alta » and/or « aqua alta » in Venetian dialect, translated by « High water » to designate floods that frequently occur in « Serenissimo » Since the night of time, when the Adriatic rises by a few steps and the tide generally exceeds the usual level of at least 90 cm.

The first flooded areas are St. Mark's Square and its surrounding streets, since it is the lowest area in Venice, so walkways and rigor boots... Hence the famous project to set up the system Moses (Mose in Italian), « cogité » by the local government for a few years, in order to avoid greater damage during these repeated floods, which have entered into the annals some years.

Moreover, this system has been questioned quite a few times, already by Unesco and because of all the corruption cases that have tainted this pharaonic work. Not certain moreover that this famous gigantic project of mobile dykes to control the water level is completely completed nor that it can one day be, with the risk of disfiguring from which more is the whole lagoon...

I think, however, that in the latest news, (reports often seen on Arte) and that after a lot of « brainstorming » (re-mining in good French!) and financial consolidation, the system Moses Finally, there would be less flooding.

So no more question « acqua alta » ? To be checked of course..

The Pellis Valley

With André Abbe, continue the journey to Italy.

In Provence, the language of Oc had French for « competitor », but elsewhere competition has been much stronger for her.

The best example comes, I believe, from the Pellice Valley (Pellis in Oc and French), in the province of Turin, Italy. In its Vivaro-Alpine dialect, the language of Oc was confronted with Italian, Piedmontese and French.

I had spoken with this lady in 1991, when we were doing a week of shows for France 3 in this valley.

Her name was Anne, spoke excellent French because teaching was done in French when she went to school. The Pellis Valley was classified « Francophone » until Mussolini came to power. Anne spoke her Vivaro-Alpine dialect in her daily life.

To be more complete, we should talk about the Vaud religion whose Bible is written in French.

[I see that I have embarked on a subject with extensions!]

Since 1991, Italian has become the dominant language, the language of school and administration, to the detriment of Piedmontese and French, but the language of Oc is still spoken in families.

That's what they said... I haven't been back in the Pellis Valley for a long time.

Claude Boyer
When I was a kid, we went to Piedmont quite often; My parents, not speaking Italian, were speaking Provençal and it was going very well... Of course, there was no question of a broken stick discussion, but if the interlocutors spoke slowly and articulate well, everyone understood each other.

Chantal Bain Taxil
No worries in Piedmont, Comboscure Valley: they speak the same Provençal as us.

Quiz!

Giselle Penat Laborde
« The house of the Fada » or « the house of the hundred glances »...

Medieval style architecture in reinforced concrete – house built in the 1950s in an area of pretty small pavilions.

There are, if my memories are good, some constructions enough « barred » on Montpellier, detonating and amazing... Think that a lot of architects are really inspired by Montpellier! For example, « White Tree » Japanese architect Sou Fujimotoa.

Jeanne Monin
The house of the Fada : c’est ainsi que les Marseillais ont également surnommé la « Cité radieuse de Marseille« , construite (1946-1952) par Le Corbusier. Une architecture moderne, « un village en hauteur », des appartements duplex, des rues intérieures. Aujourd’hui, classée au patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco.

Oh! My boat!

Chaque automne, le golfe de Saint-Tropez accueille les plus beaux vieux gréements, les yachts les plus chics.

Sous le nom de « voiliers », naviguent des bateaux très différents.

– La goélette est un deux mâts, celui de devant étant plus court que celui de derrière.

– Sur le ketch, celui de devant est plus long que celui de derrière. Ce nom bizarre viendrait du français « cache ».

– N’allez surtout pas confondre ketch et yawl dont le mât arrière est situé derrière le safran (gouvernail).

– Je ne dirai rien sur le sloop.

[Text and photo A. Abbe].

Promenade-Conférence dans Roquebrune-sur-Argens

Jean-Pierre Violino

J’y étais ! Superbe prestation dans un provençal compréhensible et avec la verve d’un André en pleine forme. Un grand merci pour ce moment.

Cited in The Gazette : André Abbe – Chantal Bain Taxil – Claude Boyer – Géraldine Lombard-Violino – Jeanne Monin – Giselle Penat-Laborde – Jean-Pierre Violino.
Rédactrice en chef : Jeanne Monin