The examination season soon to end

All the lectures of the semester 2 were finished about a week ago, and I submitted one dissertation and one mini-mémoire barely in time. Last Friday I had to take an oral examination for the first time. Needless to say, it was tough because of the language problem but also because I could not finish reviewing all the courses. I had to spend most of the time writing mémoires. In a way, this is also due to my inadequate language efficiency. In the oral exam, the word in question is widely used even in the daily settings so that it had to be explained precisely as a philosophical term. What I did however was to explain things around this word and never get to the heart of it, unfortunately. I did not understand fully the real philosophical meaning of it. I'll have to study this course once again.

A week from now, there will be another oral examination and that will end the examination session of master 1. For this exam, I'll have to have some ideas about what 14 philosophers have expressed in about 150 pages of references. This is also a challenging thing to do. And after that? Four months of summer vacation! I think this is the first time in my life to spend the summer time like this. I have not decided yet how to spend it, but most of the time will be devoted to finishing up the mémoire for master 1.

HAÏKU au début d'été

　　　　蔦青きカフェ「エル・グレコ」静まりて　　　　ミコ

　　　　　le lierre étant vert
　　　　　　le café "El Greco"
　　　　　　　reste dans sa tranquillité
　　
　　　　　　(Miko; traduit par paul ailleurs)


　　　　　　枇杷むけば父母ゐし刻へ還りけり　　　　　ミコ

　　　　　　　pelant une bibasse
　　　　　　　　je me suis senti transporté
　　　　　　　　　dans le temps avec mes parents

　　　　　　　　(Miko; traduit par paul ailleurs)

Kim Sterelny talked about "Evolvability"

Today I attended a seminar by Prof Kim Sterelny (Australian National University, Camberra, Australia & Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand). The title of his seminar was "Evolvability reconsidered". Without backgroud in evolutionary biology, it was hard to grasp the problems raised and debated now in the field. On top of that, the terminology used in the talk was different from that used in biology so that I had to translate them into ones found in my vocabulary. Naturally, I was very frustrated.

First of all, what is evolvability? According to Wiki, that is the ability to produce enough advantageous variation to allow adaptive evolution to occur. Prof Sterelny said there is a consensus in the concept of evolvability. What he was trying to do was to pick up the problems in that consensus and to reexamine them. His take-home massage was that lineages (population) evolve but not individuals. The evolutionary plasticity is not a simple reflection of individual traits. In other words, evolvability is not a trait of individual organisms.

There is also an interesting correlation between plasticity and evolvability.

　Plasticity is:
　　+ a precondition of phenotypic complexity
　　+ an amplifier of genetic change
　　+ a critical source of selectable novelty

He introduced a hypothesis proposed by Mary Jane West-Eberhard. According to this hypothesis, plasticity indirectly generates variations in the following manner:
　+ E changes to E*, in response, P --> P*　
　+ Initially, P --> P* is mediated by plasticity, but no genetic change.
　+ But if change to E* persists, there will be genetic accomodation to P*.

At first sight, I thought phenotypic pressure affects genetic expression and found it hard to swallow. But before evaluating her hypothesis, I'll have to understand the meaning of genetic "accomodation". I am totally open to this theory now.

At the end of his talk, I asked him to leave a take-home message for the people outside of this field, like myself. It is unusual for me to do this kind of things, but I thought I am now in the position to do it. Listening to my request, he first looked a little surprised but tried to explain his thoughts in layman's term, but it was still difficult to follow. After summer vacation, I'll have to return to my memo to see whether some of the words will talk to me in a meaningful way. In any case, today's talk was a stimulating one for two reasons. First of all, I was able to be exposed to a dynamically moving field, and secondly, I could gather informations to be reconsidered in the future.

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evolvability
phenotypic plasticity

Lee Morgan plays "I remember Clifford"

"I remember Clifford" by Benny Golson

Tp : Lee Morgan
Ts : Benny Golson
P : Bobby Timmons
B : Jymie Merritt
Ds : Art Blakey

C'était la première musique de jazz que j'ai joué à l'université (pas cette fois-ci, bien entendu), ce qui est devenu mon meilleur souvenir.

Rutebeuf -- Leo Ferré et Gantz

L'autre jour j'ai reçu un commentaire de F qui aimait ce poète de Moyen Âge et François Villon. Il m'introduit de temps en temps des gens intéressants dans l'hisotire française.

　　Rutebeuf (v.1230 - v.1285)

Il ne reste presque plus d'information sur la vie de Rutebeuf. Selon "Œuvres complètes" publiées en 1874, le premier mention de son nom était dans "Origine de la langue et poésie françoises" publiée en 1581. Trois siècles après ! "Rutebeuf" même peut être le nom de guerre qui dérive de "rude bœuf" ou "rude œuvre". Son œuvre, très diversifiée, comprend la poésie courtoise des trouvères, des hagiographies, du théâtre, des poèmes polémiques et satiriques envers les puissants de son temps.

Les poèmes de Rutebeuf ont inspiré Georges Brassens ou Léo Ferré. Par exemple,

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Pauvre Ruteboeuf -- Leo Ferré

Que sont mes amis devenus
Que j'avais de si près tenus
Et tant aimés
Ils ont été trop clairsemés
Je crois le vent les a ôtés
L'amour est morte
Ce sont amis que vent me porte
Et il ventait devant ma porte
Les emporta

Avec le temps qu'arbre défeuille
Quand il ne reste en branche feuille
Qui n'aille à terre
Avec pauvreté qui m'atterre
Qui de partout me fait la guerre
Au temps d'hiver
Ne convient pas que vous raconte
Comment je me suis mis à honte
En quelle manière

Que sont mes amis devenus
Que j'avais de si près tenus
Et tant aimés
Ils ont été trop clairsemés
Je crois le vent les a ôtés
L'amour est morte
Le mal ne sait pas seul venir
Tout ce qui m'était à venir
M'est advenu

Pauvre sens et pauvre mémoire
M'a Dieu donné, le roi de gloire
Et pauvre rente
Et droit au cul quand bise vente
Le vent me vient, le vent m'évente
L'amour est morte
Ce sont amis que vent emporte
Et il ventait devant ma porte
Les emporta

Rutebeuf
Adaptation en Français moderne de la Griesche d'Hiver.
------------------------------------


Cette fois-ci, F m'a envoyé un autre "music clip" de Gantz, un jeune groupe français, que F avait rencontré au Japon. Cette version est un peu (?) différente de Leo Ferré. Son message était "A ECOUTER TRES FORT !". Donc écoutons bien ensemble.

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La complainte de Rutebeuf --- Gantz

Un malheur n’arrive jamais seul
Tous ceux qui devaient m’arriver
Me sont advenus. Que sont mes amis devenus ?
Que j’avais si près tenu. Et tant aimé
Je crois qu’ils ne furent pas bien semés
Ils furent trop clairsemés. Et ainsi sont disparus.
De tels amis m’ont mis en mauvaise situation
Car jamais aussi en moins côté
Je n’en vis un seul en ma maison
Je crois le vent les m’a ôté

L’amor est morte. Ce sont amis que vent emporte
Et il ventait devant ma porte. Ainsi emporta
Nul ne me conforta. Ni du sien ne m’apporta
Ceci m’apprend ! Qui a des biens en privé les prend
Et s’il trop tard se repend de son avoir. Pour faire amis.
Qu’il ne les trouve à moitié à lui porter secours

Or laisserai donc fortune aider
M’entendrais à moi, secourir. Si je puis faire
Il me faut aller trouver mes bons seigneurs
Qui sont courtois et débonnaires. Et m’ont nourris
Mes autres amis sont tous pourris
Je les envoie à maître vidangeur et les lui laisse
On en doit bien faire son lais

En tels gens laissés en relais sans réclamer
Il n’y a rien en eux à aimer
Que l’on doive à amour clamer !

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Hélène Schmitt, violoniste française

L'autre jour je suis allé à la bibliothèque de ma ville pour emprunter des livres et de CD. Depuis que j'ai commencé une vie de l'étudiant, j'ai essayé d'utiliser des services publics. C'est un des exemples et je le trouve très intéressant, probablement parce que je n'ai pas ce point de vue pendant que j'étais au Japon. Cette fois, j'ai emprunté 6 CD différents de la musique de Bach jouée par le violon ou d'autres instruments comme le luth. Parce que je n'ai pas suivi le monde de la musique classique pendant long temps, je ne savais pas du tout de musiciens. Cependant, j'ai trouvé l'interprétation de cette musicienne française attrayante. C'est comme si elle parlait lentement ses histoires, avec courtoisie et parfois avec énergie séduisante. Plus je l'écoute sa performance, plus je l'aime.

　　　Hélène Schmitt (violon)

JS Bach "Sei Solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato - I, II"
(I: BWV 1001, 1002, 1004; II: 1003, 1006, 1005)

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The other day I went to the public library of my town to borrow books and CDs. Since I started a student life, I have tried to take advantage of public services. This is one of the examples and I found it very interesting probably because I did not have this perspective while I was in Japan. This time I borrowed 6 different CDs of Bach's violin music played by the violin or other instruments like the lute. Because I have not followed the classical music world for a long time, I did not know any of the musicians. However, I found the performance of this French musician attractive. It is as if she talked her stories slowly, courteously and sometimes energetically and sometimes seductively. The more I listen her play, the more I love it.

The summer is just around the corner !

Last night, I finally finished the first mini-mémoire for the second semester. It is on the concepts of health and disease. I am really relieved. This morning I went to the course of modern French philosophy but happily it was cancelled. The street was filled with people in their summer clothes. I was the only one in a winter jacket. La Place de la Sorbonne was also in a relaxed mood. We are already in summer, or almost.


I stopped by at Vrin, a store for philosophy books, bought "Lectures at the College de France by Foucault" and started to read it at a café in front.


I then walked around le jardin du Luxembourg. It is a season of marronniers (horse chesnuts) in Paris.








　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　It was a beautiful day !

La nature se dévoilant devant la science -- Nature unveiling herself to science --

Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905)

Since I came here in Paris, I have met this Nature statue many times. It is placed in the hall of University of Paris V. On the way to the medical library on the second floor, I passed by in the beginning without realizing this is the famous statue of Nature. If you look round closely, there must be many interesting things around us in this city. The following is the explanation from the site of Musée d'Orsay.

-----------------------------
The statue was commissioned in 1889 to decorate the new medical school in Bordeaux. A young woman, the allegory of nature, is slowly lifting the veils she is wrapped in. When he had finished the first version in white marble for the school, Barrias designed a second statue in polychrome, for the ceremonial staircase of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, in Paris. He used marble and onyx from the newly reopened quarries in Algeria.

Carefully carved to enhance the decorative qualities of the materials, the various parts of the statue play on the veins in the ribboned onyx for the veil, the mottled effect of the red marble for the robe, the preciousness of lapis lazuli for the eyes and malachite for the scarab and coral for the mouth and lips.

The overall effect is surprisingly rich. The work belongs to a major revival of polychrome sculpture launched by archaeological discoveries and illustrated fifty years earlier by Cordier. The statue was very popular and many copies were made.
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For the statue at Musée d'Orsay.