Post by davidhr on Oct 18, 2011 8:24:17 GMT -5
A number of current and upcoming minor events concerning Lara in the news, with a potentially major event still awaited…
Lara has become a ‘person of interest’ for the station Radio TopAwards which serves the France/Belgian French speaking community with “Pop Rock Disco soul Dance Groove Rap RnB Jazz” hits. She has been one of the participants in the fans top award category - to vote, go to
Hit And Vote (Top Fans Radio TopAwards)
www.hitandvote.com
plus they’ve re just played the TLFM concert recorded on March 8, 2010. In addition, Eric Capelle (associated with the station) has become the new administrator of the ‘Lara Fabian est ton autre' website. And a special devoted to Lara will be rebroadcast on Wednesday at 2100 local time. The station can be found at:
radio.topawards.org/
On October 21, Arthur, a favorite performer of Lara’s will have his one man show at the Forest National and two hours later it will be broadcast on RTL TVI. Lara reportedly will be present at the event.
‘Lara Fabian est ton autre’ reported that Belgian fans will have a nice article on Lara Fabian in a well-known weekly magazine (they won’t reveal the name) on October 27. “It will be a special edition and you will see a gorgeous Lara, slightly golden, curly hair, bare shoulders and wearing a beige robe sublime..."
It’s nice Lara is continuing to get this publicity for no current apparent reason in Belgium. However, the big ‘waiting game’ regards the possible broadcast of the teaser promo for the Mlle. Zhivago movie in Russia. Alan Badoev said it would appear by the 20th. We’ll see – there is (warranted) skepticism on the Russian fan web site. If it does appear, then the movie may well follow within a few months. You may remember it is reportedly to appear on the channel:
www.youtube.com/user/ello
Obviously, by this time next week we’ll know whether the project has taken its next step…
In case you missed it, the Lara Fabian Romanian channel has finished adding English subtitles to the 6 part presentation of “Pendant la pub” from 1998, an extremely intelligent interview with Lara. As with all their work, it is available on youtube, and can be accessed from their channel:
www.youtube.com/user/LaraFabianRomanianFC#p/u/6/Pj-14mKH7_k
And now for the last segment of the Biography of Lara, pp. 237-245:
**The last portion of the text consists of an Epilogue, in which the author makes the point that Lara sings like she does everything else in life: strongly. He writes, “Lara Fabian is before all a Latin. Her golden skin, her generous body and her voice burning like the land of Sicily evokes the warmth of the south and the passion of the volcano before it blows…”
**And he follows by noting that while her fierceness in pursuing her dreams does seem to go over the top sometimes, her excesses are those of a woman getting the most out of life, whether it is loving, or crying, or eating, or singing, she is indeed fulfilling her passions. He quotes Lara saying “One knows one has succeeded in something when one is loved or detested for the same reason.” In that light, the excesses of her critics go hand-in-hand with Lara’s own.
**However, and as we know very well, the author also notes that behind her “voluble attire”, Lara is actually very timid and hyper-sensitive, “which is both her charm and her weakness”. In his opinion she is actually “closer to herself in her fragility than she is in her excesses”. She has had to take that into account, to reconcile herself to it, and to re-enforce herself by gathering a stable support group, her “family”.
**Today, at 40 (when the book was written), he believes she has found an equilibrium by simplifying her daily life, with her career activities the only aspect that is outside of the ‘norm’. After the storms of the past two decades, she now has a safe harbor, complete with roots.
These conclusions are perceptive, and help explain what we so often see – the combination of ambition and talent forging ahead, and then the pulling back, and failing to capitalize… We are all complicated beings.
**The ‘bonus’ after the epilogue consists in giving Lara’s answers to the set of “If I Were…” questions that she has been asked. The Lara Fabian Romanian channel recently provided English subtitles for many of Lara’s answers, but they didn’t cover all of them. Here are some of the additional ones:
**Her favorite woman is her mother, who is also her best friend and confidant. She hopes to be half the mother to her child that her mother has been to her…
**Her favorite painter is Magritte, for his humor and cynicism.
**Her favorite clothing items are sleeveless turtleneck sweaters, in black, marine, beige or white – she doesn’t like lively colors. She also likes flannel or felt pajamas. And Miu Miu boots.
**Her favorite perfume: “Musc femme” by Reminiscence.
**Favorite writer: Amelie Nothomb, she has all of her books, and is never without one.
**Favorite actress: Romy Schneider yesterday, and Mathilde Seigneur today – for their integrity and fragility.
**Favorite instrument: the piano, on which she writes her songs, and has been playing since she was 8 years old.
**Favorite object: a stone crystal, which she found in the street in Lyon immediately after saying that she needed a charm.
**Favorite auto: a Volkswagon Ladybug, blue, which was her first car, given to her by her grandfather. Today she has an Audi A6.
**Favorite meals in favorite Pariaisn restaurants: “Mont Blanc” with vanilla in a tea house, and lemongrass soup with sticky rice in a Thai restaurant.
**Favorite proverb: Carpe Diem (obviously). She says, “it is my therapy against insecurity”.
The book closes with sources/websites, and a listing of Lara’s sales of albums and singles. Most of the numbers appear to come from ‘Charts in France” (which includes other countries), and give totals of 8.3 million albums plus 3+ million singles – and many of the singles are listed as “unknown” (including I Will Love Again, Love by Grace, all the early Canadian ones…). Hence the oft-quoted number of 12 million discs (although recently people have been saying as many as 18 million ‘discs’). [Note – from ‘Charts in France’ – Lara’s “Best of” has sold 80,000 copies, which is not bad (gold in France, platinum in Belgium)]. The rounded numbers for all the albums/singles makes one think that these are very approximate, at best.
And, finally, my brief review of the book:
When the biography of Lara by Jeremy Patinier came out, the reaction by Lara’s fans was largely dismissive, saying it contained nothing new, and was full of mistakes. Obviously the fact that we spent 10 months slowly going through it implies that I thought it did have something to offer, if not for Lara’s most ‘obsessive’ fans, then for those who do not necessarily have access to French language publications. It is this summarizing of available material that is the book’s greatest strength, and I hope you learned something along the way – I certainly did.
Nevertheless, the initial comments made by fans were not really wrong. There is nothing truly ‘new’ here, because the author made no effort to investigate anything. He simply reviews what Lara or others have said publicly. As an unauthorized biography, he did not have access to Lara or her intimate friends, which would make getting answers difficult, but it doesn’t appear as if he even considered approaching other people who might be in positions to fill in the gaps. He basically took the path of least resistance. In his sources he claims he also used various fan websites (where fans often do make the effort to investigate, as much as they can), but it’s hard to think of much that came from them.
At least he organized the material that was available. He also included youtube links to illustrate various points, and especially for those reading down-loaded editions, I’m sure that's a plus.
This book is certainly an improvement over the earlier biography written by ‘Kathy’, which primarily consisted of “then Lara did this, then Lara did that”. Relative to that book this goes about half-way toward what a biography of Lara really should be. However, it’s not clear that we will ever get the ideal book – Lara says she does not look back, has been burned by revealing her innermost feelings and is probably hesitant to do so, and despite her name recognition, is she an important enough figure for anyone to make the effort? Maybe this book is the best we’ll ever get…if so, at least we’ve given it a full airing.
David
Lara has become a ‘person of interest’ for the station Radio TopAwards which serves the France/Belgian French speaking community with “Pop Rock Disco soul Dance Groove Rap RnB Jazz” hits. She has been one of the participants in the fans top award category - to vote, go to
Hit And Vote (Top Fans Radio TopAwards)
www.hitandvote.com
plus they’ve re just played the TLFM concert recorded on March 8, 2010. In addition, Eric Capelle (associated with the station) has become the new administrator of the ‘Lara Fabian est ton autre' website. And a special devoted to Lara will be rebroadcast on Wednesday at 2100 local time. The station can be found at:
radio.topawards.org/
On October 21, Arthur, a favorite performer of Lara’s will have his one man show at the Forest National and two hours later it will be broadcast on RTL TVI. Lara reportedly will be present at the event.
‘Lara Fabian est ton autre’ reported that Belgian fans will have a nice article on Lara Fabian in a well-known weekly magazine (they won’t reveal the name) on October 27. “It will be a special edition and you will see a gorgeous Lara, slightly golden, curly hair, bare shoulders and wearing a beige robe sublime..."
It’s nice Lara is continuing to get this publicity for no current apparent reason in Belgium. However, the big ‘waiting game’ regards the possible broadcast of the teaser promo for the Mlle. Zhivago movie in Russia. Alan Badoev said it would appear by the 20th. We’ll see – there is (warranted) skepticism on the Russian fan web site. If it does appear, then the movie may well follow within a few months. You may remember it is reportedly to appear on the channel:
www.youtube.com/user/ello
Obviously, by this time next week we’ll know whether the project has taken its next step…
In case you missed it, the Lara Fabian Romanian channel has finished adding English subtitles to the 6 part presentation of “Pendant la pub” from 1998, an extremely intelligent interview with Lara. As with all their work, it is available on youtube, and can be accessed from their channel:
www.youtube.com/user/LaraFabianRomanianFC#p/u/6/Pj-14mKH7_k
And now for the last segment of the Biography of Lara, pp. 237-245:
**The last portion of the text consists of an Epilogue, in which the author makes the point that Lara sings like she does everything else in life: strongly. He writes, “Lara Fabian is before all a Latin. Her golden skin, her generous body and her voice burning like the land of Sicily evokes the warmth of the south and the passion of the volcano before it blows…”
**And he follows by noting that while her fierceness in pursuing her dreams does seem to go over the top sometimes, her excesses are those of a woman getting the most out of life, whether it is loving, or crying, or eating, or singing, she is indeed fulfilling her passions. He quotes Lara saying “One knows one has succeeded in something when one is loved or detested for the same reason.” In that light, the excesses of her critics go hand-in-hand with Lara’s own.
**However, and as we know very well, the author also notes that behind her “voluble attire”, Lara is actually very timid and hyper-sensitive, “which is both her charm and her weakness”. In his opinion she is actually “closer to herself in her fragility than she is in her excesses”. She has had to take that into account, to reconcile herself to it, and to re-enforce herself by gathering a stable support group, her “family”.
**Today, at 40 (when the book was written), he believes she has found an equilibrium by simplifying her daily life, with her career activities the only aspect that is outside of the ‘norm’. After the storms of the past two decades, she now has a safe harbor, complete with roots.
These conclusions are perceptive, and help explain what we so often see – the combination of ambition and talent forging ahead, and then the pulling back, and failing to capitalize… We are all complicated beings.
**The ‘bonus’ after the epilogue consists in giving Lara’s answers to the set of “If I Were…” questions that she has been asked. The Lara Fabian Romanian channel recently provided English subtitles for many of Lara’s answers, but they didn’t cover all of them. Here are some of the additional ones:
**Her favorite woman is her mother, who is also her best friend and confidant. She hopes to be half the mother to her child that her mother has been to her…
**Her favorite painter is Magritte, for his humor and cynicism.
**Her favorite clothing items are sleeveless turtleneck sweaters, in black, marine, beige or white – she doesn’t like lively colors. She also likes flannel or felt pajamas. And Miu Miu boots.
**Her favorite perfume: “Musc femme” by Reminiscence.
**Favorite writer: Amelie Nothomb, she has all of her books, and is never without one.
**Favorite actress: Romy Schneider yesterday, and Mathilde Seigneur today – for their integrity and fragility.
**Favorite instrument: the piano, on which she writes her songs, and has been playing since she was 8 years old.
**Favorite object: a stone crystal, which she found in the street in Lyon immediately after saying that she needed a charm.
**Favorite auto: a Volkswagon Ladybug, blue, which was her first car, given to her by her grandfather. Today she has an Audi A6.
**Favorite meals in favorite Pariaisn restaurants: “Mont Blanc” with vanilla in a tea house, and lemongrass soup with sticky rice in a Thai restaurant.
**Favorite proverb: Carpe Diem (obviously). She says, “it is my therapy against insecurity”.
The book closes with sources/websites, and a listing of Lara’s sales of albums and singles. Most of the numbers appear to come from ‘Charts in France” (which includes other countries), and give totals of 8.3 million albums plus 3+ million singles – and many of the singles are listed as “unknown” (including I Will Love Again, Love by Grace, all the early Canadian ones…). Hence the oft-quoted number of 12 million discs (although recently people have been saying as many as 18 million ‘discs’). [Note – from ‘Charts in France’ – Lara’s “Best of” has sold 80,000 copies, which is not bad (gold in France, platinum in Belgium)]. The rounded numbers for all the albums/singles makes one think that these are very approximate, at best.
And, finally, my brief review of the book:
When the biography of Lara by Jeremy Patinier came out, the reaction by Lara’s fans was largely dismissive, saying it contained nothing new, and was full of mistakes. Obviously the fact that we spent 10 months slowly going through it implies that I thought it did have something to offer, if not for Lara’s most ‘obsessive’ fans, then for those who do not necessarily have access to French language publications. It is this summarizing of available material that is the book’s greatest strength, and I hope you learned something along the way – I certainly did.
Nevertheless, the initial comments made by fans were not really wrong. There is nothing truly ‘new’ here, because the author made no effort to investigate anything. He simply reviews what Lara or others have said publicly. As an unauthorized biography, he did not have access to Lara or her intimate friends, which would make getting answers difficult, but it doesn’t appear as if he even considered approaching other people who might be in positions to fill in the gaps. He basically took the path of least resistance. In his sources he claims he also used various fan websites (where fans often do make the effort to investigate, as much as they can), but it’s hard to think of much that came from them.
At least he organized the material that was available. He also included youtube links to illustrate various points, and especially for those reading down-loaded editions, I’m sure that's a plus.
This book is certainly an improvement over the earlier biography written by ‘Kathy’, which primarily consisted of “then Lara did this, then Lara did that”. Relative to that book this goes about half-way toward what a biography of Lara really should be. However, it’s not clear that we will ever get the ideal book – Lara says she does not look back, has been burned by revealing her innermost feelings and is probably hesitant to do so, and despite her name recognition, is she an important enough figure for anyone to make the effort? Maybe this book is the best we’ll ever get…if so, at least we’ve given it a full airing.
David