Indochine

Besides being, obviously, the name of former French colony Indochina, Indochine is the name of a French 80s band. In 1982, the quartet of teenagers, with no previous musical experience, gets on stage and find almost immediate fame, after a single concert, followed by a tour where they surpassed the band they were opening for, and finally albums that cemented their style. With catchy lyrics, simple music and a new-wave style that made them cousins of Depeche Mode and The Cure, they found success... or at least for a while.

When their musical style became less popular and other bands like Noir Désir emerged, band members started leaving. The sudden death of Stéphane Sirkis leaves brother Nicola as the only remaining band member, but in 2002 Indochine makes an unexpected come-back with Paradize, an almost immediate popular success and critically acclaimed album.
Somehow, the childish simplicity survived, and will remain Indochine's trademark. Some of their famous tracks include:

• L'aventurier (The adventurer)
• Trois nuits par semaine (Three nights a week)
• 3ème sexe (3rd sex)
• Salômbo
• J'ai demandé à la lune (I asked the moon)

Sing with me:

"Et soudain surgit face au vent
Le vrai heros de tous les temps
Bob Morane contre tout chacal
L'aventurier contre tout guerrier"
L'aventurier

Amazon.fr has an audio sample of this song, and others.

And now, the French Word of the Day takes a two week vacation, so the email and blog archives will have to do in the meanwhile...

Madeleine

(une) madeleine is a shell-shaped French cookie, made famous by author Marcel Proust in A la recherche du temps perdu ("In search of lost time"), where he tells how the simple taste of a madeleine made him relive moments of his childhood.

Here is a recipe for those interested.

La semaine

To follow on Friday's word, here's the complete list of les jours de la semaine (days of the week):
Lundi - Monday
Mardi - Tuesday
Mercredi - Wednesday
Jeudi - Thursday
Vendredi - Friday
Samedi - Saturday
Dimanche - Sunday

Vendredi Treize

Vendredi = Friday
Vendredi si also the name of a character in Michel Tournier's novel Vendredi ou la vie sauvage (Friday - the primitive life). Robinson, the hero, finds himself stranded on a desert island after his boat sinks, and names a young indian he meets on the island after this day of the week.

Treize (pronounced treyz) = thirteen. Also the title of a long-running French comic book that started in the 80s, telling the story of a man who is found amnesic with a "XIII" tattoo. His investigation into his past is a web of murder and conspiracies suspiciously similar to the Bourne movie franchise. Official site here

Monsieur-Madame

Monsieur (pronounced something like mer-ss- yer) is both used as a title, to mean Sir:
Bonjour Monsieur = Hello Sir
and as a noun, to mean man:
un vieux monsieur = an old man

The femine equivalent is madame.

In French cuisine, worth mentioning is the croque-monsieur, grilled sandwich with ham, cheese and béchamel sauce, and croque-madame, its variant topped with a fried egg. Recipes here

Klapisch

Cédric Klapisch is a French movie director who, over the past 10 years, has had significant impact on the French movie industry and landscape.


After various short movies (including Ce qui me meut (what moves me, pronounced ce-ki-me-me), whose funny title became the name of his production company), Klapisch finds his first success with Péril Jeune (jeune = young, or youth), a comedy about a group of Parisian teenagers in the 70s. The humor, lovable characters and nostalgia contributed to making this title a cult movie, and launched the career of Romain Duris, who would quickly become Klapisch's favorite actor.
Both worked again together in 1996 for Chacun cherche son chat (everyone is looking for his cat, which of course fails to translate its intriguing alliteration). This story of how a young woman desperately looks for her cat (and love) in the 11th district of Paris was released in the US under the title "When the cat's away" and is apparently available on VHS only.

Klapisch's recent successes include Un air de famille in 1996, starring actor/writer/director husband-and-wife duo Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui, about a disastrous family reunion, L'Auberge espagnole (Spanish apartment, available on DVD in the US) and its recent sequel Les poupées russes (Russian dolls, literally - available on DVD in France only). The latter two follow the adventures of Xavier (played, again, by Romain Duris) as he travels to Spain (in the first movie) then Russia (in the second) in a quest for friendship and love.

Netflix has a smallish selection of Klapisch movies for US residents out there. Otherwise, amazon.fr carries a pack of all 8 available Klapisch DVDs.

Chandail

(un) chandail (pronounced sh - an - d'ah - y) = well it depends who you ask.
In France, it is a sweater, in Canada a shirt or jersey (un maillot in France)

Bourré

More slang today.
bourré(e) (pronounced boo - ray) = full, packed, and by extension drunk
c'était bourré de monde = it was packed
il est bourré de fric = he's stinking rich
il est bourré = he's drunk

la bourrée, on the other hand, is a traditional dance from the Auvergne region.

La pige

(la) pige (pronounced peej), in journalism jargon, refers to freelance work:
travailller à la pige , faire des piges = to do freelance work

Also, slang for a year:
il a quarante piges = he's forty years-old

The verb piger is slang for to understand
Tu as pigé? = Did you get it?
Je n'y pige rien = I haven't got a clue, I'm clueless

La galette

(une) galette is a round flat cake or pancake.

In particular, galette des Rois (King's galette) is a puffy pastry eaten at the beginning of January to celebrate the epiphany. Plain or filled with frangipane (an almond-flavored paste), it contains a lucky charm (une fève) which originally was a bean, then more elaborate figurines made of china.
After the galette is cut, the youngest person in the family hides under the table, selects pieces of cake one by one, asks who should be given it and passes them from under the table. The person who finds the fève in their slice of galette becomes the King or Queen for the day, and is given a golden paper crown. The King or Queen then has to choose his Queen or her King, and (in my family at least) is allowed to boss other members of the family around for the whole day.


More on the history of galette here.