#Vincent Ponsot

[redwineconversation]

Vincent Ponsot Le Progres Article (May 9, 2024)

Ponsot is definitely not without faults but he does know Lyon and will defend them, and that's something this club actually needs.

TL:DR version of Ponsot's interview: fuck the playoffs and fuck the federation for doing everything possible to screw Lyon over. He raises a good point that it basically feels like the playoffs were created to punish Lyon for winning so much. It circles back a little as to why the league isn't competitive, and poses something which I feel very strongly about: why should Lyon be punished for having invested? Other clubs could have but didn't, they shouldn't have the right to complain that Lyon wins too much.

Blah blah standard disclaimers apply; @OL Comms Dept the AC bill is expensive pls save me; I hope stans will get hit by a bus on their way to stalking players but that's assuming they step outside in the first place; y'all know the speech by now.

VINCENT PONSOT LE PROGRES ARTICLE

Vincent Ponsot: "Do they want Olympique Lyonnais Féminin to not win the league?"

Three days from the the start of the first playoffs in the history of [French] women's football, the CEO of Olympique Lyonnais Féminin speaks out: he regrets putting everything back in play over two games and calls out the unfairness in the scheduling.

What is your position on the playoffs, a novelty in [French] women's football?

I can maybe understand that it must be different to swallow to see Lyon win the league every year. But I don't think the best solution is to install playoffs. It goes against the culture and it's unfair in terms of meritocracy. Lyon has an 11 point lead over the second [placed team], 26 on the fourth, and not only can Lyon lose the league but also not qualify for the UWCL next season if they lose both playoff games, which is a total travesty. There are solutions than putting everything back into play over two games to make the French league more competitive.

Do you feel people resent Lyon?

Considering the sequence of events put in place to put Lyon at a disadvantage that is a legitimate question. Both semifinals had been scheduled for the same day for months. Then they move the PSG game up a day to play on Saturday. We asked if we could also play on Saturday to have the same recovery time and it was refused. We proposed another solution, move the final from Friday [May 17] to the following Saturday since the Ligue 1 [men's league] was pushed back to Sunday, and that was also denied. We're starting to ask ourselves if they are not doing everything possible so that Lyon doesn't win the league.

You're the only one out of the four teams involved to complain. Aren't you worried about coming across as a victim?

I understand your question, but they denied our request to move the game to Saturday whereas it was done for Paris. And they denied our request to push the final back a day. After a while it starts to add up. But the best response would be to become champions. And I think we can do it.

You obviously explained your concerns to the [French] Federation?

Of course. There was a workshop this year where a large majority of the clubs came out against the playoffs. There are changes scheduled for next season, especially in terms of UWCL qualification. But the playoffs remain in place. So the clubs' positions weren't enough.

Have you talked about it with Jean-Michel Aulas, whom you've worked with for years?

Yes, but he has new responsibilities. He defends his position as president of the women's league. His current position is that the playoffs are the best way to increase the attraction of the sport. That's not what I think. The creation of the D3 for the reserve, the funding of academy centers are good initiatives from the Federation. That's how women's football should be more focused on and not fictional sporting aspects.

[alexlacquemanne]

Février MMXXIV

Films

Maigret voit rouge (1963) de Gilles Grangier avec Jean Gabin, Michel Constantin, Vittorio Sanipoli, Paul Frankeur, Guy Decomble, Françoise Fabian, Paulette Dubost, Laurence Badie, Roland Armontel et Jacques Dynam

L’Étau (Topaz) (1969) d'Alfred Hitchcock avec Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, Claude Jade, Michel Subor, Karin Dor, John Vernon, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret et John Forsythe

Flic Story (1975) de Jacques Deray avec Alain Delon, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Renato Salvatori, Claudine Auger, Maurice Biraud, André Pousse, Mario David et Paul Crauchet

Poupoupidou (2011) de Gérald Hustache-Mathieu avec Jean-Paul Rouve, Sophie Quinton, Guillaume Gouix, Olivier Rabourdin, Joséphine de Meaux, Arsinée Khanjian, Clara Ponsot et Éric Ruf

Air Force One (1997) de Wolfgang Petersen avec Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson, Liesel Matthews, Paul Guilfoyle, William H. Macy et Dean Stockwell

Bob Marley: One Love (2024) de Reinaldo Marcus Green avec Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Henry Douthwaite, Sevana, Hector Lewis et Tosin Cole

Sister Act (1992) d'Emile Ardolino avec Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy, Wendy Makkena, Mary Wickes, Harvey Keitel, Bill Nunn et Robert Miranda

Astérix : Le Domaine des dieux (2014) d'Alexandre Astier et Louis Clichy avec Roger Carel, Lorànt Deutsch, Guillaume Briat, Alexandre Astier, Alain Chabat, Élie Semoun, Géraldine Nakache, Artus de Penguern, Lionnel Astier et François Morel

Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia (2024) de Stefano Mordini avec Riccardo Scamarcio, Daniel Brühl, Volker Bruch, Katie Clarkson-Hill, Esther Garrel, Gianmaria Martini : Hannu Mikkola et Haley Bennett

Buster (1988) de David Green avec Phil Collins, Julie Walters, Larry Lamb, Stephanie Lawrence, Ellie Beaven, Michael Attwell, Ralph Brown et Anthony Quayle

Laura (1944) d'Otto Preminger avec Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, Dorothy Adams et Lane Chandler

Séries

Affaires sensibles

Présidentielle de 1995 : un scandale d'Etat - Michèle Mouton, le Groupe B et les Finlandais volants - Les Ecoutes de la République - La secte du temple solaire, le drame d’une société secrète - Munich 1972 : destin tragique d'un rêve olympique - Les révoltés des Jeux olympiques - Le crash de la Germanwings - Alexandre Litvinenko, victime d’un permis de tuer - Martin Luther King : la naissance d’une icône - Martin Luther King : du rêve au cauchemar - Dans l'ombre de Gérard Lebovici - Macron 2017, le traitre méthodique - Kurt Cobain, portrait d’une génération - Crash au mont Saint Odile

Maguy Saison 1

Rose et Marguerite, c'est le bouquet - Babar et Bécassine se mènent en bateau - Docteur j'abuse - L'union fait le divorce - L'annonce faite à Maguy - Le coupe-Georges - Amoral, morale et demie - Cinquante bougies, ça vous éteint ! - A visage redécouvert'' - Le serment d'hypocrite - Tu me trompes ou je me trompe ? - Comment boire sans déboires - Un veuf brouillé - Le père Noël dans ses petits souliers - L'emprunt ruse - Tous les couples sont permis - L'amant de la famille - Travail, famille, pas triste - Blague de fiançailles - Macho, boulot, dodo - Mi-flic, mi-raisin - Trop polyvalent pour être honnête - La traîtresse de maison - Les trois font la paire - Un grain peut en cacher un autre - La quittance déloyale - Belle-mère, tel fils - Manège à quatre - Comme un neveu sur la soupe - Toutou, mais pas ça ! - A corde et à cri - Jamais deux sans quatre - L'amant comme il respire - Le chômage, ça vous travaille ? - La faillite nous voilà ! - Le divin divan - Toubib or not toubib - L'écolo est fini - Loto, route du bonheur

La croisière s'amuse Saison 2

Un contrat en or - Le Magicien - Copie confuse - Un travail d'équipe - Accrochez-vous au bastingage - Le Célèbre Triangle - Joyeux Anniversaire : première partie - Il y a si longtemps déjà - Passion - Un coup de roulis - Docteur, vous êtes fou - La Petite Illusion - Donne moi ma chance - Qui vivra verra - Réunion de travail : deuxième partie - Méfiez vous de votre meilleure amie - Vague à l'âme - L'amour est aveugle - Chassé croisé

Downton Abbey Saison 6

À l'aube d'un nouveau monde - Le Piège des émotions - En pleine effervescence - Une histoire moderne - Plus de peur que de mal - En toute franchise - Aller de l'avant - Les Sœurs ennemies - Le Plus Beau des cadeaux

Kaamelott Livre IV

Le Jeu de la guerre - Le Rêve d’Ygerne - Les Chaperons - L’Habitué - Le Camp romain - L’Usurpateur - Loth et le Graal - Le Paladin - Perceval fait ritournelle - La Dame et le Lac - Beaucoup de bruit pour rien - L’Ultimatum - Le Oud II - La Répétition - Le Discours - Le Choix de Gauvain - Fluctuat nec mergitur - Le Face-à-face : première partie - Le Face-à-face : deuxième partie - L’Entente cordiale - L’Approbation - Alone in the Dark II - La Blessure d’Yvain - Corpore sano II - L’Enchanteur - Les Bien Nommés - La Prisonnière - Les Paris III - Les Plaques de dissimulation - Le Vice de forme - Le Renoncement première partie - Le Renoncement deuxième partie - L’Inspiration - Les Endettés - Double Dragon - Le Sauvetage - Le Désordre et la Nuit

Coffre à Catch

#153 : Finlay, le retour ! - #154 : Gloire aux Heels ! - #155 : Les débuts historiques de Sheamus ! - #156 : Les Bella Twins arrivent à la ECW ! - #18 ; CM Punk continue d'impressionner & quelqu'un fait du vélo ! - #12 : Le Push de CM Punk + Bsahtek le Bikini !

Castle Saison 4

Sexpionnage - Jeux de pouvoir - Une vie de chien - Le Papillon Blue - Pandore, première partie - Pandore, deuxième partie - Il était une fois un crime - Danse avec la mort - 47 secondes - Au service de sa majesté - Chasseurs de têtes - Mort vivant - Jusqu'à la mort s'il le faut

Les Brigades du Tigre Saison 1

Ce siècle avait sept ans… - Nez de chien - Les Vautours - Visite incognito - La Confrérie des loups - La Main noire

Alfred Hitchcock présente Saison 2, 6

Incident de parcours - Pièce de musée - Reconnaissance

The Grand Tour Saison 5

Trop de sable

La ville Noire

Première partie - Deuxième partie

Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie Saison 3

Mortel Karma

Spectacles

Monsieur chasse (1978) de Alain Feydeau avec Michel Roux, William Sabatier, Françoise Fleury, Yvonne Gaudeau, Pierre Mirat, Xavier Vanderberghe, Michel Mayou, Bernard Durand et Roland Oberlin

La Bagatelle (1977) de Jean Meyer avec Amarande, Patrick Préjean, Jacques Balutin, Brigitte Chamarande Bel, René Lefevre, Pierre Aufrey et Didier Roussel

Femmes en colère (2023) de Stéphane Hillel avec Lisa Martino, Gilles Kneusé, Hugo Lebreton, Nathalie Boutefeu, Fabrice de la Villehervé, Sophie Artur, Clément Koch, Magali Lange, Aude Thirion et Béatrice Michel

La Pélerine écossaise (1972) de Sacha Guitry avec Jean Piat, Geneviève Casile, Philippe Etesse, Robert Manuel, Raymond Baillet, Françoise Petit, Alain Souchères, Janine Roux et Ly Sary

Livres

Piège de chaleur de Richard Castle

Spirou et Fantasio, tome 15 : Z comme Zorglub de André Franquin, Jidéhem et Greg

Kaamelott, tome 1 : L'Armée du Nécromant d'Alexandre Astier, Benoît Bekaert et Steven Dupré

OSS 117 : Tactique Arctique de Jean Bruce

Astérix, tome 17 : Le Domaine des dieux de René Goscinny et Albert Uderzo

[wiwsport]

Dakar Sacré-Coeur prolonge son partenariat avec Lyon jusqu’en juin 2025 Signé pour la première fois en 2015, l...

[olplus]

Vincent Ponsot sur les décisions de la LFP après OM-OL : « Un choix politique incompréhensible » L'Équipe

[skillstopallmedia]

Anger of supporters in Lyon

Les Bad Gones and Lyon 1950, two flagship associations of Lyon supporters, expressed their dissatisfaction this Sunday on the forecourt of Groupama Stadium. Armed with signs hostile to the management – ​​to the director of football Vincent Ponsot and to the director of the recruitment unit Bruno Cheyrou in particular – the Rhone ultras have thus demanded a restructuring of the sports center of…

[gregor-samsung]

Peur de rien [Parisienne] (Danielle Arbid - 2015)

[luthienne]

Hi dear, do you have any good words on emotional courage?

hi my love, you can check out this post and this post; here are a few more:

“I know a lot about pain… and I know it is bad for people, eats away the spirit, but how about courage, what is it for if not to use when needed?”

Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters 

“This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet 

“You don’t realize it, perhaps, but you are turning these delusions and illusions of the past into criminal things. Relinquish everything. Stay in bed until you feel so shock full of energy, hope, courage that you bounce out of abed. You can only aid the world–if you still believe the world needs our individual aid–by retaining your faith in life. Your body may be weak, but I know you still have wings.”

Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller

“I… want to inherit the witch in my women ancestors—the willfulness, the passion, ay, the passion where all good art comes from as women, the perseverance, the survivor skills, the courage, the strength of las mujeres bravas, peleoneras, necias, berrrinchudas. I want to be una brava, una peleonera, necia, nerrinchuda. I want to be bad if bad means I must go against society—el Papá, el Pápa, the boyfriend, lover, husband, girlfriend, comadres—and listen to my own heart, that incredible witch’s broom that will take me where I need to go.”

Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“In the winter I am writing about, there was much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of the spirit. The sprawling darkness of not knowing. We speak of the light of reason. I would speak here of the darkness of the world, and the light of———. But I don’t know what to call it. Maybe hope. Maybe faith, but not a shaped faith—only, say, a gesture, or a continuum of gestures. But probably it is closer to hope, that is more active, and far messier than faith must be. Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words. Hope, I know is a fighter and a screamer.”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“There is always some miracle left; and though miracles do not happen, they might happen. Who knows? Perhaps our intelligence, our instinct, our senses, in spite of their daylight clearness, are leading us astray. Perhaps the one thing needful is just that unreasoning courage which follows hope’s will-o’-the-wisp as it burns…”

Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

“But if the deepest loss, […] / can be, not just survived, but made into the matter / of hope, made into song, not into a hatchet / to cut off the offending parts, made into poems / then blessed be the end of things, the loss of whatever / secures us blindly and mutely to our lives.”

Julia Alvarez, The Other Side/El Otro Lado

“I run / stumbling, expectant. / Impatience is hopelessly / desperate. Hope / takes time.”

Marie Ponsot, Springing: New and Selected Poems

“How lightly we learn to hold hope, / as if it were an animal that could turn around / and bite your hand. And still we carry it / the way a mother would, carefully, / from one day to the next.”

Danusha Laméris, The Moons of August

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Representative John Lewis

“Where does such a force come from? What does it mean? A voice very faint, and inside me, offers a possibility: how shall there be redemption and resurrection unless there has been a great sorrow? And isn’t struggle and rising the real work of our lives?”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“Don’t forget that apparent impossibility of something is the first sign of its naturalness—in a different world, obviously.

Marina Tsvetaeva, from a letter to Anatoly Steiger

“Grieve. Have / hope.”

Jorie Graham, Swarm

John Berryman, “The Heart is Strange”

“Skin had hope, that what’s skin does. / Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.”

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Two Countries”

“I am quite troubled in the depths of my soul. But that will pass,”

George Sand, in a letter to Gustave Flaubert

“Let’s dance a little before we go home to hell.”

Muriel Rukeyser, A Muriel Rukeyser Reader

Hélène Cixous, Hyperdream (tr. Beverly Bie Brahic)

“That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different.”

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

Ada Limón, “Dead Stars”

“Listen, everyone has a chance. Is it spring, is it morning? Are there trees near you, and does your own soul need comforting? Quick, then — open the door and fly on your heavy feet…”

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

“Get to the bottom of this intensity and have faith in what is most horrible, instead of fighting it off—it reveals itself for those who can trust it, in spite of its overwhelming and dire appearance, as a kind of initiation. By way of loss, by way of such vast and immeasurable experiences of loss, we are quite powerfully introduced to the whole.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Countess Alexandrine Schwerin, June 16, 1922

“…only one thing is urgently needed: to attach oneself with unconditional purpose somewhere to nature, to what is strong, striving and bright, and to move forward without guile, even if that means in the least important, daily matters. Each time we tackle something with joy, each time we open our eyes toward a yet untouched distance we transform not only this and the next moment, but we also rearrange and gradually assimilate the past inside of us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Adelheid von der Marwitz, September 11, 1919

“Continue to believe that with your feeling and with your work you take part in what is the greatest. The more strongly you cultivate this belief inside of you, the more it will give rise to reality and world.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Elisabeth Freiin Schenk zu Schweinsberg, September 23, 1908

“…I have known with certainty that the worst things, and even despair, are only a kind of abundance and an onslaught of existence that one decision of the heart could turn into its opposite. Where things become truly difficult and unbearable, we find ourselves in a place already very close to its transformation.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Anita Forrer, February 14, 1920

“…he says, it will be all right.

“It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child ... and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”

Madeline Miller, Circe

“Right then she knows herself even less than she knows the sea. Her courage comes from not knowing herself, but going ahead nevertheless. Not knowing yourself is inevitable, and not knowing yourself demands courage.

Clarice Lispector, Complete Stories; “The Waters of the World”

“Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view. I do not say “seeing things as they are” and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say “seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them”—as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness. Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention, perceiving their likeness and unlikeness: that they are faces, and yet unique faces.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, from his essay On Fairy-Stories

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems

“Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“I have the fervour of myself for a presence / and my own spirit for light; / and my spirit with its loss / knows this; though small against the black, / small against the formless rocks, / hell must break before I am lost;”

H.D. from Collected Poems; “Eurydice”

Denise Levertov, “Epilogue”

“The days go numb, the wind / sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves. // Through the empty branches the sky remains. / It is what you have. / Be earth now, and evensong. / Be the ground lying under that sky. / Be modest now, like a thing / ripened until it is real…”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Rilke’s Book of Hours (tr. Anita Barrows, Joanna Macy)

“I know your sorrow and I know that for the likes of us there is not ease for the heart to be had from words of reason and that in the very assurance of sorrow’s fading there is more sorrow. So I offer you only my deeply affectionate and compassionate thoughts and wish for you only that the strange thing may never fail you, whatever it is, that gives us the strength to live on and on with our wounds.”

Samuel Beckett’s words of consolation to his friend, Alan Schneider

“What matters is not to allow my whole life to be dominated by what is going on inside me. That has to be kept subordinate one way or another. What I mean is: one must not let oneself be completely disabled by just one thing, however bad; don’t let it impede the great stream of life that flows through you. I have the feeling of something secret deep inside me that no one knows about.”

Etty Hillesum, from a diary entry featured in An Interrupted Life

“You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. / This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. / To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. / To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.”

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Try to keep what is beautiful to you and what you can use for today and now — You must not let things you cannot help destroy you —”

Georgia O’Keeffe, from Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters

“What we love, shapely and pure, / is not to be held, / but to be believed in.”

Mary Oliver, from Evidence; “Swans”

“In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all our need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. We call up, with all the strength of summoning we have, our fullness. And then we turn; for it is a turning that we have prepared; and act. The time of turning may be very long. It may hardly exist.”

Muriel Rukeyser, from A Muriel Rukeyser Reader, “The Life of Poetry”

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 

Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

“But don’t lose heart, dear ones—don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.”

James Baldwin, from Another Country

“You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves. / Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile, the world goes on.”

Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

[citylightsbooks]

A Women’s History of City Lights: Interview with Nancy J. Peters

We'll be celebrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 102nd birthday on March 24, and what better way to remember his legacy AND to mark Women’s History Month, than to honor Nancy J. Peters, Lawrence’s business partner, friend, and longtime comrade at City Lights Books. While Ferlinghetti certainly deserves all of the accolades he’s received, the fact of the matter is there would literally be no City Lights without Nancy Peters. Beyond shepherding City Lights through various fiscal crises and providing the steady anchor that allowed Ferlinghetti to travel the world as a poet and activist, Nancy's vision as an editor and acumen as a publisher were a vital key to the success and longevity of City Lights Publishers.

 ***

City Lights: How did you come to know what City Lights was? How did you meet Lawrence Ferlinghetti?

Nancy Peters: In Greece in the early 1960s, I became friends with Nanos Valaoritis and Marie Wilson who were at the center of an international bohemian/surrealist community. They had a large home which was always full of traveling writers and artists whom they made welcome. The Beat writers were among their guests, and City Lights was frequently talked about as a place everyone would meet up someday. I met Philip Lamantia there and in 1965 he introduced me to Lawrence in Paris at one of Jean-Jacque Lebel’s anarcho-surrealist festivals of free expression.  Before a riotous crowd Lawrence gave a show-stopping rendition of his “Lord’s Prayer.” I was impressed by his powerful stage presence. Later that year, when Philip and I were living in Andalusia, Lawrence wrote Philip, asking for a selection of poems for a Pocket Poets Series volume. We corresponded some while we were putting the book together, but I didn’t see him again until 1971 when I moved to San Francisco.

I’d been working as an executive-trainee librarian at the Library of Congress in the fall of 1968. In April, Martin Luther King was assassinated and the impassioned protests that ensued left Washington neighborhoods in ruins. There was shockingly little assistance to residents from the government and my part of the city was under military surveillance, helicopters hovering over my apartment through the night. A Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam took place in Washington the following year. Over 750,000 people peacefully demonstrated. In a small way, I was involved in the planning and, during the protests, my apartment was crammed with fellow activists.

The Library of Congress was an amazing, fascinating place with compatible co-workers from all over the world—thousands of book people all in one place. However, the mission of the Library is to serve Congress, and the institution was a huge conservative bureaucracy serving a conservative and ineffective Congress as I saw it. I believed that if I stayed there I would have little contact with actual books or opportunities for civic activism.

So I moved to San Francisco, where Philip was living and urging me to come, and spent an enormous amount of time at City Lights while I was job hunting. It seemed like paradise, such a stimulating atmosphere where people could sit down to read, share ideas, and have conversations about books, politics, art. One day in early 1971 when I was walking down the street in North Beach, Lawrence hailed me and asked if I would like to help him with a bibliography of Allen Ginsberg’s writings.  After just a brief meeting at the publishing office, Lawrence went to Europe and his editorial assistant Jan Herman suddenly decided to move to Germany. Jan showed me how all the editorial work was done in the office, told me Lawrence “wouldn’t mind,” and so I found myself beginning an exciting new career in publishing.

 What was your experience taking over as executive director and co-owner in 1984?

The store back then employed seven people: six men at the bookstore and one (me) at the publishing branch. So “executive director” is far too grand a title. City Lights was a small, failing organization by 1982. The store was not founded to make profits for the owners and it never did make a profit. Breaking even was the goal. But every year the losses mounted and there came a time when there were very few books left on the shelves. No one had seen a customer venture downstairs to the lower part of the store for many months.  

At the time, Lawrence was immensely popular and in great demand as a performer and a speaker, so he was traveling much of the time, visiting foreign colleagues, living abroad, finding new writers to translate. At this low point in the store’s history Lawrence told me in a frustrated moment that if I’d like to own City Lights, he would give it to me outright if I would run the business, freeing him to do all the other things he wanted to do. I declined, but told him I would be honored to be his partner. Theft was seriously addressed, and a protracted payment plan was agreed to by Book People, the East Bay employee-owned distributors who extended us credit for a generous period. Savvy booksellers Richard Berman and Paul Yamazaki headed the re-stocking plan. The three of us would go every week to Book People and Lou Swift Distributors to collect enough books to sell the following week. As time went on, everybody at the store consulted book catalogs and took on the responsibility for buying subject sections. I envisioned a participatory structure. If not a co-op, I wanted a bookstore where all the staff had responsibilities and power.

Why the decision not to have multiple bookstore locations around SF?

At one time we seriously considered additional locations. We explored sites in San Francisco’s Mission district and visited city officials in San Jose to talk about a second store there. But our resources were limited, and we were concerned about the time and money that would be required to create a sister store that would embody the same spirit and ethic as the original. During my time as director, the evolving challenges from chain stores and especially Amazon made beginning a new store a very risky enterprise. In retrospect, so many independents were closing that we decided to invest in our present, iconic location. In retrospect I think it was a good decision after watching attempts by other stores fail to duplicate their success elsewhere.

How has North Beach changed, how has it stayed the same? With the exodus of Big Tech and falling rents, how do you think that will affect North Beach and San Francisco in general in the future? Will there be “a rebirth of wonder”?

North Beach when I came to SF was a small bohemian village, where neighbors shared meals on their flat rooftops watching the sun set over the Bay. My rent was $125 a month, cheap even then. City Lights and the Discovery Bookstore (used books) next door to Vesuvio were key places to spend an evening. Two large Italian grocers delivered (no charge) bags of groceries up four flights of stairs to my apartment. The neighborhood was full of inexpensive Basque, Italian, and Chinese restaurants, and many cafes, many of which seemed unchanged since the 19th century. Change happens, and City Lights is well prepared for the future. It’s never easy to predict how things will develop, but the feeling of a lovely Mediterranean town persists, with the wooden buildings painted pastel colors, and the shimmering sea light on misty days. I feel certain that the light of City Lights will prevail for a long time to come.

 Do you feel that your gender had any impact on your experience during your 23 years as director? Do you have any comments about women in bookselling or publishing in general?

Gender always has an impact. The Beat movement was certainly male focused. Even though the undaunted Diane di Prima was recognized, she was never enthusiastically supported by the inner nucleus of Beat poets. It was a long time before the Beat women came into their own. From the start, Lawrence, who insisted he wasn’t a Beat, had eclectic tastes and was open to women’s poetry. He admired Marianne Moore and Edna St. Vincent Millay as much as he did T.S. Eliot, Jacques Prévert, and Allen Ginsberg. In the Pocket Poets Series, he’d published di Prima and, very early in the series, both Marie Ponsot and Denise Levertov.

Women’s rights and opportunities are always vulnerable and cyclic. The Women’s Movement of the 1970s was very powerful and widespread, its impact on women’s lives enormous. At City Lights we hired more women; we published more women. There have always been outstanding women in publishing and bookselling, and during that time increasingly more women writers were published, reviewed, and were given accolades and awards. Women opened general bookstores and women’s bookstores, founded feminist and lesbian presses. It was a thrilling development, to see so many marginalized writers, and not just women, finding established publishers or creating their own presses. Together they created a larger, much more diverse national literature.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many talented women at the bookstore. And in the publishing branch: Stella Levy, Kim McCloud, and Patricia Fujii. Gail Chiarello collected and edited our bestselling Bukowski stories. Annie Janowitz proposed the timely Unamerican Activities, and Amy Scholder brought us classics by Karen Finley, Rebecca Brown, and others. I’m happy to say that Amy Scholder is again working with City Lights as an editor.

When did you meet the now current publisher and executive director Elaine Katzenberger? What was her position at the bookstore? When did you know that she was the right person to take over as director?

Ah, Elaine, the woman who can do everything! Elaine began at the bookstore sales counter, then reorganized files and the store accounts, and very soon excelled as a book buyer. She had a great feeling for good writing, so I asked her to become an editor and she immediately began adding excellent books to City Lights’ list. She’s smart, witty, multitalented, and politically astute. We are very lucky to have her at the helm.

What is your understanding or vision of what of City Lights is and what it could be? How has Lawrence’s passing impacted this?

Lawrence’s democratic inclusiveness made him the best-selling poet in the U.S. His moral principles, his courage and resilience are a model to be emulated. He conceived City Lights as an educational institution that would open minds to explore and relate to the world through books. “One guy told me he’d got the equivalent of a Ph. D just sitting in the basement reading all our great books,” he often reminded us.

His “literary gathering place” was to be a fulcrum of San Francisco cultural experience, where our bookselling and publishing could amplify the voices of diverse experiences, connect with other creative communities, and serve as a center of dissent and, at the same time, a force for creating a better society.

Lawrence’s vision will continue to be our guiding light. An optimistic realist, he believed that City Lights would long endure as the co-creation of all the dedicated people who work here and make it what it is.

[aniss055]

At OL, everything was done to avoid a false start

At OL, everything was done to avoid a false start

Alexandre Lacazette surrounded by Bruno Cheyrou, Vincent Ponsot and Jean-Michel Aulas during his presentation (Photo by JEFF PACHOUD / AFP) With early recruitment and the absence of the European Cup, OL have, on paper, no excuse for not having a successful start to the season. By acceding to Peter Bosz’s demands, the Lyon management indirectly put pressure on him. As of July 6, the Lyon summer…

[redwineconversation]

Tabitha Chawinga Le Progrès Interview (September 8, 2024)

Chawinga, a player who has already played at the pro level and has actual ambition. See @Kang @Montemurro this is what Lyon needs, not a bunch of fucking academy kids who get playing time because they "showed something interesting in practice."

If y'all think I am not going to bitch about the lack of recruits and/or playing time the academy kids are getting for the entire season BOY do you not know this blog.

Blah blah standard disclaimers apply; @OL Comms Dept a PSL for my pain and suffering I beg of you; I survived the Great War the massive LA heatwave, only academy kids can break me now; @god if some of you are that incapable of pretending to have moral decency then maybe just read a book instead of publicly displaying your true colors; y'all know the speech by now.

TW: mentions of child abuse (the real kind, not me bitching about academy kids)

TABITHA CHAWINGA LE PROGRES INTERVIEW

TABITHA CHAWINGA: "I WANT TO WIN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE WITH LYON"

Last season's revelation and sought after by several European teams, Tabitha Chawinga chose Lyon where she arrived with as much ambition as humility. Always smiling, "Tabi" has already won everyone over.

Tignes, last August 27th. After an hour and a half of practice on the highest pitch in Europe, Tabitha Chawinga had two engagements with press outlets, one of which was with Le Progrès. It was not this young woman's favorite activity, who is rather shy and introverted.

The night before, she had already been subjected to another form of exercise for new recruits: singing in front of the team. She chose a song from Malawi, where she was born 28 years ago. One more step in her integration into this Lyon team, with whom she feels really good: "I was really welcomed and I get the impression of being in a family," she confirms.

A lot of teams wanted this player who broke out in France, and in Europe, last season: top scorer, most assists, and best D1 player with PSG, and named in the UWCL's team of the tournament. This competition is her main objective: "I want to play in a really big European team and obviously it's a dream to join the club who has won the most UWCLs. I was won over by Lyon's project [well that makes one of us...], the vision of women's football, the means put in place and the possibility of winning titles," she confirmed.

"The most important thing is the team"

She knows there are expectations, but almost tiptoed upon arrival into the club and especially in a line, the attack, which is completely stacked: "the competition is stimulating and pushes everyone to give their best. Beyond that, I'm not focused on being the top scorer or providing the most assists. I'm not here for my personal stats. The goals will come if I perform well but it's not the most important thing. I'm focused on the team. The most important thing is the team. We put in the work together and we will win together."

After a quiet match against CFF Madrid, she got her bearings on Saturday against Juventus, opening her scoring tally with her magical left foot after a deep pass, then by sending a wonderful cross towards Daniëlle Van de Donk to go up 4-0.

"She's a hard worker. She learns from each practice and she is so explosive and powerful on the field. Tabitha needs space to be Tabitha," explains her coach Joe Montemurro, who is delighted at how the player has integrated into the team: "she is easy to live with, funny. Everyone loves her smile. And she smiles all the time!"

At 28, does she feel like she is at the peak of her career? "It's what they say. And if you're at a good club, things can only go well," she confirms with an enormous amount of humility. "I still have a lot of room for improvement, be it in how I attack and defend, and in finishing."

She changed mentalities in Malawi

Other than her exceptional physical qualities, she also draws her strength and her desire to overcome each challenge from a single story, brought up in the media last season: her parents beat her because they didn't want her to play football, which is more of a boys' sport, instead of going to school. The little girl stood firm and was exiled overseas to pursue her dream as well as to help her very poor family.

She is nonetheless famous in her country: "In Malawi, people and the media talk a lot about what I was able to do in my career. I think I became a role model and my story helped changed mentalities. For a long time, lots of parents didn't allow their little girls to play football. There are still some problems, but things have really changed."

Vincent Ponsot : « Le projet lui a plu »

Each season, Lyon's objective is to maintain continuity while recruiting one or two top players, as explained by Olympique Lyonnais Féminin Director General Vincent Ponsot: "It's pretty natural to poach last season's top player. And she had certain characteristics for playing on the left which really interested us."

Even though PSG wanted to keep her and two English clubs were also pursuing her, Lyon closed the deal: "She wanted to win titles and the UWCL and felt that her best chances to do that was at Lyon. We weren't offering as much as the English clubs but it's important to note that players want to come here and the financial aspect isn't the determining factor," Vincent Ponsot confirmed.

Before adding: "Michele Kang played a quintessential role in the discussions. Her vision of women's football, the possibility given to a young girl to fulfill her dreams in the same way given to a young boy, I am sure those were things which spoke to Tabitha."

[olplus]

Vincent Ponsot : " On a l'impression que tout est de notre faute " Le Progrès

[theresabookforthat]

Friday Reads: Spring!

Current conditions to the contrary, Spring sprang this week! Or so our calendars tell us. We are readers, we are patient: It won’t be long before snow and rain yield to sun and blooms. To cultivate that feeling of renewal this weekend (one likely spent indoors), we invite you to enjoy the following books for children and adults, all under the auspices of “Spring”!

SPRING GARDEN by Tomoka Shibasaki

Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, part of our Japanese novella series, showcasing the best contemporary Japanese writing.

Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door.

 THE GREAT SPRING: WRITING, ZEN, AND THIS ZIGZAG LIFE by Natalie Goldberg

From beloved writing teacher and author of the best-selling Writing Down the Bones: a treasury of personal stories reflecting a life filled with journeys—inner and outer—zigzagging around the world and home again.

 SPRINGING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Marie Ponsot

From the award-winning poet of The Bird Catcher, this life-spanning volume offers the delight of both discovery and re-discovery, as Ponsot tends the unruly garden of her mind with her customary care and passion. The book opens with a group of new poems, including “What Would You Like to Be When You Grow Up?”—a question that has kept Ponsot’s work vital for more than five decades.

 THE LANGUAGE OF SPRING: POEMS FOR THE SEASON OF RENEWAL Selected by Robert Atwan; Introduction by Maxine Kumin

The Language of Spring collects some thirty of the most evocative English-language poems on the experience of spring. The poems range from the traditional and formal (Gerard Manley Hopkins’s "Spring" and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s "English Sparrows") to the contemporary, experimental, and diverse (Henry Reed"s "Naming of Parts," Marie Ponsot"s "Mauve," and William Carlos Williams"s "The Widow"s Lament in Springtime"). Each poem beautifully illuminates another small spot of time in the enthralling season of renewal.

 SPRING SNOW: THE SEA OF FERTILITY, 1 by Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow is the first novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Here we meet Shigekuni Honda, who narrates this epic tale of what he believes are the successive reincarnations of his friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae.

 THE FIRES OF SPRING: A NOVEL by James A. Michener

An intimate early novel from James A. Michener, now remembered as the beloved master of the historical epic, The Fires of Spring unfolds with the bittersweet drama of a boy’s perilous journey into manhood. Featuring autobiographical touches from Michener’s own life story, The Fires of Spring is more than a novel: It’s a rich slice of American life, brimming with wisdom, longing, and compassion.

 COMING IN MAY!

SPRING by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Spring follows a father and his newborn daughter through one day in April, from sunrise to sunset. A day filled with everyday routine, the beginnings of life and its light, but also its deep struggles and its darkness. Third in Knausgaard’s seasonal quartet, Spring is a deeply moving novel about family, our everyday lives, our joys and our struggles, beautifully illustrated by Anna Bjerger.

 FOR YOUNGER READERS

 WAITING FOR SPRING 1 by Anashin

Mizuki is a shy girl who’s about to enter high school, and vows to open herself up to new friendships. Of course, the four stars of the boys’ basketball team weren’t exactly the friends she had in mind! Yet, when they drop by the café where she works, the five quickly hit it off. Soon she’s been accidentally thrust into the spotlight, targeted by jealous girls. And will she expand her mission to include…love?

 THE PENDERWICKS IN SPRING by Jeanne Birdsall

Springtime is finally arriving on Gardam Street, and there are surprises in store for each member of the family. Some surprises are just wonderful, like neighbor Nick Geiger coming home from war. And some are ridiculous, like Batty’s new dog-walking business. Batty is saving up her dog-walking money for an extra-special surprise for her family, which she plans to present on her upcoming birthday. But when some unwelcome surprises make themselves known, the best-laid plans fall apart.

 CHERRY BLOSSOMS SAY SPRING by Jill Esbaum (National Geographic Kids)

Cherry Blossoms Say Spring looks at the life cycle of a cherry tree, the history behind the gift of the Japanese cherry trees to our nation's capital, and the association of cherry trees and spring. Vibrant scenes from the Cherry Blossom Festival and the flood of visitors to the Tidal Basin are balanced with shots of the natural beauty of these trees.

 SPRING BLOSSOMS by Carole Gerber, illustrated by Leslie Evans

During a stroll through the forest, two children come across the small and white flowers on a crab apple tree, the rich, red buds on a red maple, and many more. Along the way, readers learn that some trees have both male and female flowers—each with a distinctive appearance. Told in lyrical rhymes with beautiful linoleum-cut illustrations, Spring Blossoms offers a unique blend of science, poetry, and art studies.

  For even more on books about the season visit: SPRING READING

[gregor-samsung]

Peur de rien [Parisienne] (Danielle Arbid - 2015)

[snap221me]

OL : Vincent Ponsot nommé directeur du football Alors que le mercato est actuellement fermé en France, l'Olympique Lyonnais s'agite en coulisses. Directeur Général Adjoint, Vincent Ponsot aura de nouvelles responsabilités, lui qui a été nommé Directeur du Football sur l’activité core-business ont annoncé les pensionnaires du Groupama Stadium ce mardi.

[onmadridista]

The first words of Peter Bosz at OL

The first words of Peter Bosz at OL

Presented to the press this Sunday, Peter Bosz, the new OL coach, explained his style of play and the reasons why he joined Lyon. Aulas, on the coming of Bosz “With Vincent Ponsot and Juninho, we worked well and we are happy to come up with the most effective and important solution, which will allow us to reach the second stage of the rocket. The first was the arrival of Juninho two years ago…

[neovitae]

OL : Un nouveau directeur du football pour les Gones

... Vincent Ponsot occupait le poste de Directeur Général Adjoint, en charge des Ressources Humaines, Juridique et Administration Sportive, à l'OL. from Google Alert - "ressources humaines" -H/F https://ift.tt/3gpWAT2