iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 11h

Today may be Giuseppe Verdi's birthday (or was it yesterday?), so here is one of his greatest achievements, the Council Chamber scene from Simon Boccanegra. The cast is unsurpassed (although I have never been a fan of Martinelli).

youtu.be

Simon Boccanegra, IGV 27, Atto I: "Plebe! Patrizi! Popolo!" (Doge, Amelia, Pietro, Paolo,...

YouTube video by Orchestra del Teatro Metropolitan - Topic

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 11h

If it happens in France, it will be a very pleasant surprise. The current trajectory is pretty scary.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 11h

I hear you, but don't think it works like that. You forget how incredibly self-centred most people are.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 11h

No, I do mean France. We are definitely on the brink. I hope you are right, but it is a hairy situation right now, and I see Britain making the very same mistakes that got us here.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 22h

It's depressing to see British politics go down the same road as France. The end result can only be disastrous.

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Michael Stambolis @mstambolis.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Motion votée par l'AG de l'Association Française d'Études Américaines le 9 octobre 2026 L’AG de l’AFEA réunie le vendredi 9 octobre 2026 apporte son soutien au mouvement porté par les lycéen·nes.

Motion votée par l'AG de l'AFEA le 9 octobre 2026

L’AG de l’AFEA réunie le vendredi 9 octobre 2026 apporte son soutien au mouvement porté par les lycéen·nes et désormais relayé dans de nombreuses universités pour dénoncer le manque de moyens chronique dont souffre le secteur public de l’éducation en France.

Parce que cette évidence est constamment ignorée, l’AG tient à rappeler que la réussite des élèves et des étudiant·es dépend de leurs conditions d’étude. Il est donc urgent que l’État déploie les moyens financiers et humains qui permettent vraiment de garantir à toutes et tous un accès le plus large possible aux études supérieures qui doit rester un droit fondamental sans distinction de nationalité.

L’AG dénonce également les nombreux cas avérés d’utilisation d’une force policière excessive en réponse aux légitimes protestations actuelles et les incursions sur les campus en dépit des franchises universitaires.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This is a cropped version of the picture I posted before. I don't want the person holding up the sign to get into trouble on my account, which apparently was a possibility as the police have been doing the rounds of social media.

The picture shows a handwritten sign held up by a protester at last weekend's student demonstration in Paris. The sign is a pun: "J'aime pas trop les fachos" = "I hate fascists"; "Trotro" is the name of a popular children's cartoon character (pictured below).

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

J'ai vu Antigone dans la traduction de Carson à Edimbourg il y a quelques années, avec Juliette Binoche dans le rôle-titre. Je me souvenais du texte grec (à cet endroit...) mais je découvrais la traduction, et je me souviens avoir été ébahi en entendant ce passage: "Elle a osé!..."

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The word "uncanny" uncannily creeps in the second time around. (The adjectives all translate the single Greek word ἀμήχανος.)

many things strange/ terrible/ clever/ wondrous/ monstrous/ marvellous/ dreadful/ awful/ and/ weird/ there are in the world/ but none more/ strange/ terrible/ clever/ uncanny/ wondrous/ monstrous/ marvellous/ dreadful/ awful/ and/ weird/ than/ Man" (from Anne Carson's translation of Antigone by Sophocles)

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

...are somehow supposed to believe that Fiordiligi falls deeply in love with Ferrando and agrees to marry him without even noticing that he strangely resembles her sister's boyfriend.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This is a priceless document and (from what I have seen so far) a lovely performance, but it makes me wonder why people insist on describing Cosi as an opera about our common humanity, the world we all live in, etc. Of all major operas, this is by far the one with the most extravagant plot. We...

youtu.be

Teresa Bergamza "Cosí fan tutte", Mozart. Aix en Provence, 1965

YouTube video by Lola Alvarez

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I was at the Paris march today. It was peaceful and joyous. People were smiling. The slogans were funny. There were lots of teenagers, but also much older people, the kids' parents and, yes, their grandparents as well. I felt a tiny glimmer of optimism, the first in a long time. It was great.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

...bruising heatwaves, and the only prospect seems to be survival under a L* P*n government. Are they upset? You bet. At some point, it was inevitable that there would be an uprising and that people would take things into their own hands, because that is the way we do things here. So here we are.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

...government, the creeping authoritarianism, the brutalisation of every aspect of public life. It's also the inability of our 2,354 presidential candidates to offer anything like a plausible alternative. Kids have been through Covid, lockdown, the dismantling of the school system, and several...

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I see that the foreign press has finally taken notice of the French situation (better late than never). It bears mentioning that the "unrest" is not new and that trouble has been brewing *at least* since the 2024 snap election. It isn't just schools, it's the whole unholy mess, the unelected...

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Organiser un "temps de démocratie interne", c'est entériner le fait qu'il n'y a pas du tout de démocratie le reste du temps. Sur le principe des "espaces de convivialité" et autres "espaces détente". La démocratie est partout ou bien elle n'est pas.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Tr*mp is what we call in French a compass that points south (une boussole qui indique le sud): he can be relied upon to get *everything* laughably, ridiculously wrong.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The French media pretending to discover that Bordello is an antisemitic POS.

youtu.be

Casablanca Shocked

YouTube video by Rick Francona

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The perfect opponent: noble, pugnacious, clever, just strong enough for victory against him to be truly flattering. The minute he is gone, the book ends. The final section (written by someone else after Caesar's death) is historically informative but artistically tasteless.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Whatever else Vercingetorix may have been irl, he is a great literary character and one of Caesar's major achievements as a writer. The same story told in indifferent prose by a mediocre storyteller would hardly have had the same impact.

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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Remembering Wallace Stevens on his birthday 🎂 📷 Walter Sanders for Life Magazine, 1950 The caption read: "Poet and Vice President of Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., Wallace Stevens." "The imperfect is our paradise."

Stevens walks out from between the columns of his impressive insurance company building, hands behind his back. He turns to the camera & smiles.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Is it Ludovico or Lodovico? I have seen both spellings.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Caravaggio's Conversion hands in the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo, next to an altarpiece by Annibale Carracci, Ludovico's cousin (Annibale moved to Rome, Ludovico stayed in Bologna). Small world.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Lodovico Carracci's Conversione di San Paolo is even more chaotic.

Lodovico Carracci's Conversione di San Paolo (1587-88). This dramatic, crowded painting shows Saul (in the foreground) just after falling from his rearing horse; a parting in the clouds above them suggests the presence of the divine. Shocked onlookers are filled with surprise and confusion.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I once went to Rome specifically on purpose to see this painting.

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Tomás Murray @tomasjmurray.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Caravaggio, Painter, #BornOnThisDay in 1571, in Milan ‘The Taking of Christ’, National Gallery of Ireland

Caravaggio’s ‘The Taking of Christ’, National Gallery of Ireland

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The hypocrisy of a culture that urges people to feed their children AI-generated word salads, but cries out in mock horror when a prize-winning author is suspected of doing the same to his readers. It's *almost* as if AI isn't what's causing the problem.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

...writer? Groundbreaking, to quote Miranda Priestly. She is also a celebrity in Haiti and among the Haitian diaspora, and not someone I would *plagarise* if I expected to be widely read there/in those circles.

static.klipy.com

Miranda Priestly: Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.

Alt: Miranda Priestly: Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

One poster accuses him of plagiarising Edwige Danticat, then admits that they haven't read any of her work and that the accusation is based on hearsay. It so happens that Danticat is a Haitian-American author and that Orélien is Haitian-Canadian. A Haitian writer referencing another Haitian...

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If I write a variation on a Shakespeare sonnet in such a way that the original can be recognised, and fail to acknowledge it in a footnote, is this plagiarism? Only someone who hasn't read Shakespeare could ever be misled. Would you trust that reader's judgement?

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

...expected to recognise, and whose works are echoed in a great deal of later literature without an intent to deceive precisely because they are so famous and influential. This is very, very shaky ground on which to base such accusations.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

...immediately suspect. But a poem can rewrite another poem without this automatically constituting plagiarism. I have seen posts accusing him of plagiarising classics ranging from Yeats to famous Japanese haiku. But Yeats is precisely the sort of author that an educated reader can be reasonably...

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

...make them more difficult to defend (everyone agrees that plagiarism is bad). Maybe it bears mentioning that literary plagiarism is a whole different kettle of fish from academic plagiarism. In an academic article, everything must be clearly and precisely sourced; failure to do so is...

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The example of Jason Arday shows that the target is chosen in such cases *because* they are not blameless: it is best if they can be shown to have messed up before as it lends credibility to the more serious charges against them. The other, unrelated accusations are used to muddy the waters; they...

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Fred Lebreton @fredcolby.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Une désolante première : le ministère de la Santé et Santé publique France annulent la campagne nationale de prévention du VIH autour du 1er décembre. La rédaction de Remaides relaie la lettre ouverte des acteurs-rices de la lutte contre le sida : www.aides.org/actualite/la...

aides.org

L’Actu vue par Remaides : « Pas de campagne officielle du 1er décembre : tollé dans la lutte contre le sida »

Cette année, le ministère de la Santé et la Direction générale de Santé publique France (SpF) ont décidé d’annuler la campagne nationale annuelle de prévention du VIH autour du 1er décembre. Une désol...

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Reposted by Mathieu Duplay 🌈

Philippa @gingerworrier.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Good ol’ Ebith Pitf… Still slightly regret not buying this for any of my Jo friends (and think I only didn’t because I have 3 and wouldn’t have known which one to give it to 🙃).

Black and white striped jumper on a clothing rail reads: Non, jo ne regrette rien - attributed to Ebith Pitf.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I love this scene where Tom Ewell is haunted by a ghostly Julie London (born #OTD in 1926) singing Cry Me A River in a variety of extravagant outfits.

youtu.be

Julie London - Cry Me A River (HD) | Film: The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)

YouTube video by New Wave Films

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I used to think the phrase originated with Ann Richards, but it turns out that Ronald Reagan used it too, which surely means something.

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I don't see her doing anything backwards. In high heels, perhaps, but the long skirt seems to be more of an encumbrance.

youtu.be

SWING TIME ('36): “Pick Yourself Up”

YouTube video by Turner Classic Movies

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Mathieu Duplay 🌈 @mathieuduplay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Love is not love/ Which alters when it alteration finds,/ Or bends with the remover to remove?

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