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Alphonse Allais, né le  à Honfleur et mort le  à Paris, est un journaliste, écrivain et humoriste français.

Célèbre à la Belle Époque, reconnu pour sa plume acerbe et son humour absurde, il est notamment renommé pour ses calembours et ses vers holorimes. Il est parfois considéré comme l'un des plus grands conteurs de langue française.

Biographie

Alphonse Allais est le cadet d'une fratrie de cinq enfants, de Charles Auguste Allais (1825-1895), pharmacien, 6, place de la Grande-Fontaine de Honfleur (aujourd'hui place Hamelin) et d'Alphonsine Vivien (1830-1927).

Jusqu'à l'âge de trois ans, il ne prononce pas un mot, sa famille le croyait muet. À l'école, il semble plutôt se destiner à une carrière scientifique : il passe à seize ans son baccalauréat en sciences. Recalé à cause des oraux d'histoire et de géographie, il est finalement reçu l'année suivante. Il devient alors stagiaire dans la pharmacie de son père qui ambitionne pour lui une succession tranquille, mais qui goûte peu ses expériences et ses faux médicaments et l'envoie étudier à Paris. En fait d'études, Alphonse préfère passer son temps aux terrasses des cafés ou dans le jardin du Luxembourg, et ne se présente pas à l'un des examens de l'école de pharmacie. Son père, s'apercevant que les fréquentations extra-estudiantines de son fils ont pris le pas sur ses études, décide de lui couper les vivres.

Pour subsister, Alphonse Allais s'essaye d'abord à la photographie, sur les traces de son ami Charles Cros, mais ne connaît pas le succès. Il décide alors de s'essayer au métier de journaliste, publiant des chroniques loufoques dans diverses revues parisiennes. Avec ses amis du Quartier latin, il fait aussi partie de plusieurs groupes fantaisistes comme « les Fumistes », « les Hydropathes » ou « les Hirsutes ».

En 1881, après avoir terminé sans succès ses études de pharmacie, il devient collaborateur du journal Le Chat noir, dans lequel il signe pour la première fois en 1883. C'est grâce à ses écrits humoristiques et à ses nouvelles, écrites au jour le jour, qu'il connaît le succès. Il collabore à l'hebdomadaire Le Chat Noir à partir du numéro 4, daté du , (Feu de paille). En 1885, il fréquente le café-restaurant Au Tambourin au 62, boulevard de Clichy.

En 1886, il devient rédacteur en chef du Chat noir (, ). Sa dernière chronique dans ce périodique date du . Il continue à publier chaque jour des contes et d'autres œuvres courtes dans des journaux tels que le Gil Blas ou, à partir de 1892, Le Journal (La première chronique d'Alphonse Allais, Le Perroquet, parait dès le  numéro du . La dernière chronique d'Alphonse Allais, La Faillite des centenaires, est parue le , numéro 4768).

C'est à cette période qu'il sort ses premiers recueils : À se tordre (1891) et Vive la vie ! (1892). Au cœur de la Belle Époque, il devient célèbre et populaire grâce à son écriture légère et à son humour décalé, ses calembours et ses vers holorimes.

Le , il s'embarque au Havre sur le paquebot de luxe La Touraine, navire-amiral de la Compagnie générale transatlantique, à destination de New-York et du Canada, en compagnie de son ami Paul Fabre, le lieutenant Ernest Debiève et J. Berthier de Casaunau. À cette époque la traversée dure huit jours, qu'il passera agréablement entre cocktails, flirts, et invitations à la table de l'état-major. Il en a laissé un récit vivant dans une de ses chroniques, et arrivé à New-York, il note avec humour : « Les courses en voiture à New-York sont hors de prix. En allant à pied pendant une semaine on peut parfaitement économiser de quoi racheter l'Alsace et la Lorraine. » Il voyage ensuite au Canada (où il situera plusieurs de ses contes) et rentre en France en juillet.

En 1895, il épouse une jeune femme de vingt-six ans, Marguerite Marie Gouzée (1869-1914), fille d'un brasseur d'Anvers. En 1899, il devient rédacteur en chef d'un journal humoristique, Le Sourire, créé en  par Maurice Méry, pour rivaliser avec Le Rire. Il continue aussi à publier des recueils : Ne nous frappons pas sort en 1900 et Le Captain Cap, personnage qui incarne le goût de l'absurde caractéristique d'Alphonse Allais, paraît en 1902. Mais derrière son écriture légère et son style narquois, on sent dans les écrits d'Allais une sorte de déception ; ses critiques des militaires, des politiques et des curés sont toujours empreintes d'un certain pessimisme.

Il meurt frappé d'une embolie pulmonaire, consécutive à une phlébite. Une version des événements précédant immédiatement sa mort affirme que son médecin lui aurait ordonné de rester au lit pendant six mois, qu'Allais aurait négligé cette recommandation, qu'il se serait rendu au café, comme tous les jours et, qu'à un ami qui le raccompagnait à son domicile, où il habitait en l'absence de sa femme, il aurait fait cette dernière plaisanterie : . Cette histoire, racontée par Léon Treich dans L'Esprit français, et selon Anatole Jakovsky répandue par « un journaliste mal informé devant le micro de Radio Luxembourg », semble cependant fortement contredite par une lettre d'Alphonse Allais à sa mère du , dans laquelle il lui apprend qu'à la suite d'une phlébite il vient effectivement de passer « 40 jours sur le dos, sans même pouvoir travailler », obéissant ainsi scrupuleusement à son médecin, Bélin, et qu'il est maintenant en conséquence « mince comme un roseau et frais comme une rose. »

Quoi qu'il en soit, il meurt le  à  à l'hôtel Britannia, 24, rue d'Amsterdam. Il est enterré au cimetière parisien de Saint-Ouen. À la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, lors du bombardement du nord de Paris le 21 avril 1944, une bombe de la Royal Air Force pulvérise sa tombe. Ses cendres « virtuelles » sont transférées à Montmartre en 2005.

Il reste de lui l'image d'un homme à l'humour acide et d'un spécialiste de la théorie de l'absurde, mais il est aussi l'auteur, moins connu, de travaux scientifiques : recherches sur la photographie couleur, travaux très poussés sur la synthèse du caoutchouc, découverte, dès 1881, du café soluble lyophilisé dont il a déposé le brevet, le  sous le numéro , bien avant donc que Nestlé, grâce à son chimiste alimentaire , ne le reprenne en 1935 et lance le Nescafé.

L'univers d'Alphonse Allais

L'écrivain
Poète autant qu'humoriste, Alphonse Allais a cultivé entre autres le poème holorime, c'est-à-dire constitué de vers entièrement homophones. Ainsi par exemple :
Par les bois du djinn où s'entasse de l'effroi,
Parle et bois du gin, ou cent tasses de lait froid.
ou encore :
Alphonse Allais de l'âme erre et se f… à l'eau.
Ah ! l'fond salé de la mer ! Hé ! Ce fou ! Hallo.
Il pratique à l'occasion le double sens :
Ah ! Vois au pont du Loing : de là vogue en mer Dante.
Hâve oiseau pondu loin de la vogue ennuyeuse.
suivi du commentaire de bas de page :

Alphonse Allais précise par ailleurs, dans un texte qu'il date « Fantasio,  », qu'il a « l'honneur d'être l'auteur » du vers néo-alexandrin, qui

La mystification peut s'étendre à la dimension d'une nouvelle entière, comme l'a montré Umberto Eco dans son étude Lector in fabula, qui analyse la nouvelle d'Allais intitulée Un drame bien parisien.

Son art de « tirer à la ligne » était proverbial. Il est vrai qu'il faisait même cela avec esprit :  Il en fait même parfois un élément comique :

Mon sang ne fit pas cent tours.
Mon sang ne fit pas vingt tours.
Mon sang ne fit pas dix tours.… (j'abrège pour ne pas fatiguer le lecteur)
Non mesdames, non messieurs, mon sang ne fit qu'un tour.

Quelques personnages reviennent de façon récurrente dans le monde d'Alphonse Allais. Le Captain Cap, de son vrai nom Albert Caperon, est un personnage qui a son franc-parler et affirme :  Son apparition est prétexte à fournir des recettes de cocktails.

Francisque Sarcey, critique théâtral du journal le Temps et personnification du « gros bon sens » bourgeois, est souvent cité dans les contextes les plus loufoques. La « victime » ne s'en formalisait pas, et se réjouissait même d'être imitée  par un écrivain aussi spirituel. Un autre auteur lui ayant emprunté le procédé, Allais tint à mettre les choses au point :

Dans plusieurs nouvelles, Alphonse Allais s'amuse aux dépens de l'économiste Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, économiste libéral présenté facétieusement comme adepte du protectionnisme.

Il ne se prive pas de mettre en scène François Coppée, Paul Déroulède et d'autres gloires de la Belle Époque.

Chaque fois qu'il est question d'affaires relevant de près ou de loin du domaine économique, il en profite pour se moquer de l'économiste libéral Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, en mettant dans sa bouche des énormités, ou en caricaturant ses opinions jusqu'à leurs ultimes (et absurdes) conséquences et, quand une de ses chroniques aborde l'art militaire, même de la façon la plus loufoque, il ne manque pas de ridiculiser gentiment le général , autrement dit le très authentique Léon de Poiloüe de Saint Mars, le « Père du Soldat », très estimé de ses troupes pour son utile invention de la cuisine roulante.

 Un maître de la science-fiction pour rire

La Belle Époque est aussi celle de Jules Verne, des avancées scientifiques, du progrès technique, et de son exploitation économique par un capitalisme encore incertain.

Alphonse Allais, que le démon de l'invention habite, tout comme son ami Charles Cros, a, dans nombre de ses nouvelles, créé des inventions absurdes, délirantes, avec un imperturbable sérieux et un ton enthousiaste qui parodie le journalisme scientifique et technique des dernières années du . En voici un petit échantillon :
 la tour Eiffel et l'eau ferrugineuse. Jugée hideuse par nombre d'écrivains et d'intellectuels, des pétitions circulent pour exiger sa démolition : Alphonse Allais, par la voix du Captain Cap (son vieux complice Albert Caperon), propose de la revêtir de céramique étanche, puis de la retourner pointe en bas, tel un immense gobelet. Une fois remplie d'eau de pluie, le fer de la structure se dissoudra peu à peu, ce qui permettra de fortifier la population de Paris avec de l'eau ferrugineuse ;
 le lien fixe sur la Manche. Les projets de franchissement du pas de Calais foisonnent dans les journaux, on discute des mérites respectifs du pont ou du tunnel (qu'on a même commencé à creuser vers 1875). Des sociétés plus ou moins sérieuses ont tenté de lever des capitaux en bourse. Allais (à qui rien de ce qui était anglo-américain  n'était étranger) propose de réaliser un pont flottant sur des pontons réalisés en vieilles boîtes de sardines, car les restes d'huile adhérant aux boîtes permettront de garantir la sécurité de l'ouvrage en aplanissant les pires tempêtes par la technique du filage de l'huile, bien connue des marins ;
 la société d'exploitation du Meat-Land. Allais imagine la découverte d'une vallée perdue au cœur du Canada, où un accident géologique combiné à des incendies de forêt a créé une mine de viande d'antilopes, de cerfs, de lapins, etc. cuits à l'étouffée, parfumés par du thym et des herbes aromatiques qui poussaient là et protégés par leur propre graisse qui a figé en surface, comme dans un gigantesque pot de rillettes. Parodiant la littérature financière de l'époque, il propose l'exploitation de cette carrière de viande en conserve naturelle via une société par actions ;
 la belle-mère explosible. À cette époque belliqueuse où le service des poudres recherche sans relâche des explosifs de plus en plus performants comme la mélinite (avec des drames comme celui de l'explosion du cuirassé Liberté à Toulon), Alphonse Allais publie une lettre de confession émanant soi-disant d'un célèbre chimiste, membre de l'Académie des sciences (on peut penser à Marcellin Berthelot) affligé d'une belle-mère insupportable par ailleurs adepte des vêtements d'été en coton blanc et des siestes au soleil. Il subtilise ses vêtements à l'occasion d'une lessive et leur fait subir l'opération chimique qui transforme le paisible coton en terrible fulmicoton. Il ne lui reste plus qu'à se munir d'une forte loupe et à concentrer, tel Archimède au siège de Syracuse, les rayons du soleil sur sa détestée belle-mère qui se prélasse au soleil, et à déclencher le feu d'artifice mortel qui lui apportera le bonheur conjugal ;
 une invention patriotique, le fusil à aiguille. Alors que la revanche de la guerre de 1870 est dans toutes les têtes et que Paul Déroulède (une des têtes de Turc favorites d'Alphonse Allais) exhorte à garder les yeux fixés sur la ligne bleue des Vosges, Allais (ou plutôt son double, le lieutenant de chasseurs alpins Élie Coïdal) propose sa modeste contribution au futur effort de guerre : un fusil qui tire une aiguille au lieu d'une balle. Le chas de l'aiguille est au milieu et un fil de soie et d'acier se déroule derrière : le tireur peut ainsi transpercer une escouade entière de Prussiens (bien connus pour marcher en ligne dans un ordre impeccable). Une fois transpercé le dernier Prussien, l'aiguille se met en travers, ce qui permet au brave soldat français de remorquer la troupe entière, dûment empaquetée et ficelée, vers un camp de prisonniers, sans trop se compliquer la vie.

Les inventions guerrières d'Allais  sont en général commentées et approuvées (ou pas) par le général Poiloüe de Sainte Bellone, fine allusion d'Alphonse Allais au véritable Léon de Poilloüe de Saint Mars, historique inventeur de la cuisine roulante et autre tête de Turc récurrente d'Alphonse Allais.

 Patronymes et toponymes dans l'œuvre d'Allais : un feu d'artifice de calembours
 Alphonse Allais sacrifie à cette mode en donnant à ses personnages (vieux nobles décavés, jeunes inventeurs prometteurs, petites femmes délurées, lords anglais ou écossais, dames patronnesses un brin déjantées) une série de noms à double sens qui campent le personnage, une tradition comique qui va se poursuivre longtemps, certains personnages d'Hergé ayant des noms calembours en dialecte anversois ou bruxellois (par exemple le savant Mick Ezdanitoff, modelé sur Jacques Bergier, qui signifie « n'est ce pas génial ? » en flamand).

Au fil des nouvelles on rencontre ainsi (liste non exhaustive) :
 la baronne Patan de Rouspétance (une dame d'œuvres qui promeut la récupération des vieux bouts d'allumettes pour chauffer les foyers pauvres) ;
 le baron Labitte de Montripier, un admirateur du Captain Cap et amateur de cocktails qui débat doctement de l'âge des ours blancs ;
 le commandant Leboult de Montmachin, victime malgré lui des entreprises amoureuses du jeune soldat Gaston de Puyrâleux qui tente d'enlever une beauté foraine, la Belle Ardennaise en  volant la roulotte ou (croit-il) elle dort, mais où en fait elle reçoit en toute galanterie son supérieur hiérarchique ;
 Sir A. Kashtey (cire à cacheter), un lord anglais qui, capitaine d'un navire coulé, se sauve en ingérant du fer et de l'acide sulfurique, ce qui le transforme en aérostat à hydrogène  ;
 le lieutenant de chasseurs alpins Elie Coïdal, inventeur d'une « révolution dans la mousqueterie française » (cf. supra) ;
 Sarah Vigott, charmante jeune anglaise délurée et éprise de photographie, autrice malgré elle d'un cliché pornographique (Shocking in Vive la vie) ;
 mademoiselle Odile Crauck, charmante jeune femme qui se montre cruelle avec son amoureux transi ;
 l'abbé Kahn, curé vélocipédiste et l'abbé Chamel, fils illégitime de l'abbé Mouret d'Émile Zola et d'une cuisinère au grand cœur prénommée Rosalie, et leur collègue l'abbé Tumaine (Zola, encore) ;
 Mac Larinett, un amiral écossais qui avait embrassé la cause de la Commune de Paris, commandait le bateau-lavoir du pont Marie et dont les sept petites filles aussi charmantes que volcaniques épouseront toutes des dénommés Cliquot qu'elles épuiseront par l'amour, devenant ainsi des veuves Cliquot.

Les toponymes ne sont pas oubliés : une nouvelle narre le flirt d'Alphonse Allais avec la ravissante (et quelque peu vénale) demoiselle du télégraphe d'un village normand nommé Baisemoy-en-Cort.

 Autres formes d'art
Alphonse Allais est l'auteur de certaines des premières peintures monochromes. Inspiré par le tableau entièrement noir de son ami Paul Bilhaud, intitulé Combat de nègres pendant la nuit, présenté en 1882 au salon des Arts incohérents (qu'il reproduira avec un titre légèrement différent), il présente ses monochromes aux éditions suivantes de ce Salon. Parmi ces monochromes, Récolte de la tomate par des cardinaux apoplectiques au bord de la mer Rouge  (1884), ou encore Première communion de jeunes filles chlorotiques par temps de neige (1883), qui précèdent d'une génération le Carré blanc sur fond blanc de Kasimir Malevitch.

En 2018, le galeriste et expert Johann Naldi, spécialiste de l'art du , découvre parmi un ensemble inédit de dix-sept œuvres des Arts incohérents Des souteneurs encore dans la force de l'âge et le ventre dans l'herbe, consistant en un rideau de fiacre de couleur verte agrémenté d'un cartel avec intitulé. Exécutée avant 1897, date à laquelle Allais compulse ses expériences monochroïdales dans son Album primo-avrilesque, cette œuvre est le seul monochrome d'Alphonse Allais identifié à ce jour, classé Trésor National le  sur décision du ministère de la Culture.

Il est aussi, bien avant John Cage ou Erwin Schulhoff, mais sans jamais se prendre au sérieux, l'auteur de la première composition musicale minimaliste : sa Marche funèbre composée pour les funérailles d'un grand homme sourd est une page de composition vierge, parce que .

 Publications
 Œuvres anthumes
 .

 Pour lire en train de bestiaux, ouvrage en, (prétendument ?), préparation, signalé comme devant paraître aux éditions Lemerre dans le périodique La Lanterne japonaise, numéro 10, .
 Au Moulin de la Galette. Revue. Opérette en un acte représentée en 1889. En collaboration avec Jehan Sarrazin. Représentée pour la première fois au Divan Japonais, 75, rue des Martyrs à Paris, le vendredi .

 .
 Revue libre, production théâtrale, 1890.

 Vive la vie !, Librairie Marpon et Flammarion,1892, 290 p. Collection Les Auteurs gais. Réédition Le Chat rouge, 2014, 210 p. 29 chroniques inédites parues dans Le Chat noir.

 La Table, pièce en un acte écrite par Alphonse Allais et Raoul Ponchon, signalé dans le périodique Gil Blas, n°391; 26 octobre 1893.Signalé dans le périodique Le Journal, n°393, 25 octobre 1893.

 Les Gaîtés du Chat Noir, recueil de textes choisis par Alphonse Allais, selon François Caradec, préfacé par Jules Lemaître, Paul Ollendorff, 1894, 394 p.
 Innocent, inédit. En collaboration avec Alfred Capus. Vaudeville en trois actes. Ce vaudeville est joué pour la première fois au Théâtre des Nouveautés à Paris, le . Alphonse Allais en adapte un feuilleton quotidien qu'il publie dans Le Journal, du  au , en le titrant : L'Affaire Baliveau. En 1899, il publie ce feuilleton en librairie aux éditions de la Revue blanche, sous le titre L'Affaire Blaireau.

 Préface à Jehan Sarrazin, Chanson d'hiver, nouvelles et poésies. Simple mot pour servir de préface par Alphonse Allais. Jehan Sarrazin éditeur, 1895. 73 p. Couverture par Adolphe Willette. Dessins de Georges Auriol et de Duclos.
 Préface à Charles Leroy, Le Secret du sergent. [En collaboration avec Mme Jeanne Leroy], Paris, Librairie illustrée, 1896, XII-283 p., couv. en coul.
 On n'est pas des bœufs, Paul Ollendorff, 1896. 316 p. Réédition Le Chat rouge, 2015, 231 p., 44 chroniques parues dans Le Journal pour l'année 1895, sauf Dressage, chronique parue dans Le Journal à la date du .

 L'Arroseur, Félix Juven, 1897 et 1901, 123 p. Illustrations de Maurice Radiguet. Petite collection du RIRE ; 4. 26 chroniques.
 .

 Clara, drame lyrique en deux actes. Le Journal, .
 Silvérie ou les Fonds hollandais, pièce en un acte, en collaboration avec Tristan Bernard. Ernest Flammarion,[1898]. 32 p. 13 simili-gravures d'après les photographies de MM. Cautin et Berger. Collection Les pièces à succès, dirigée par Jules Lévy ; 8.
 .
 À la gare comme à la gare, Inédit. Revue théâtrale en un acte. En collaboration avec Albert René. Texte inédit. Revue représentée au Théâtre des Mathurins le .
 L'Affaire Blaireau, La Revue Blanche, 1899, 316 p.
 .
 L'Astiqueur, ou Patience et longueur de temps font plus que force ni que rage. Proverbe en un acte d'Albert René et Alphonse Allais, représenté au Théâtre du Gymnase, le .
 Durand et Durand. Inédit. Revue « Brèves », numéro 28, .
 Ne nous frappons pas, La Revue blanche, 1900. Réédition Le Chat Rouge, 2016, 262 p., 58 chroniques.
 Gardenia,1901.
 Les maitres chansonniers,1901.
 .
 Congé amiable, inédit, 1903.
La peur aux tubes.Errance.Texte inédit paru dans le périodique La Coupe aux Fruits, numéro daté du 3 Janvier 1904.Fonds Oulipo.
 Chat mauve revue, inédit. Alphonse Allais, Albert René et Paul Bonhomme, pièce de théâtre en un acte pour 24 personnages pouvant être joués par 21 personnages. 1904.
 Monsieur la Pudeur, Librairie théâtrale, 1904, 147 p., vaudeville en trois actes d'Alphonse Allais, Félix Galipaux et Paul Bonhomme, représenté pour la première fois au théâtre de Cluny le quatre .
 Aux consignés ! Fantaisie militaire. Texte inédit. Écrit en collaboration avec Henri Darsay. Manuscrit de 42 pages. Inspiré du conte « Aphasie » paru dans le Chat Noir, , et repris dans À se tordre en 1891.

 Œuvres posthumes
 Dans la peau d'un autre. Mystère parisien de réincarnation normande, Co-auteur Jehan (Emmanuel, dit…) Soudan (de Pierrefitte). Paris, F. Juven, 1907, VIII-319 p., couv. ill. en coul.
 La partie de dominos,1907. Écrit en collaboration avec Sacha Guitry, d'après Un drame bien parisien.
 Eh! placide, eh! généreux !, imprimerie Godefroy, 40p. Grande revue havraise en trente trois parties par MM. Albert René et Alphonse Allais représentée pour la première fois le  sur la scène du Théâtre-Concert des Folies-Bergère. Le Havre : Imprimerie Auguste Godefroy, 1908. 40 p., in-8.
 La belle-mère explosible, Flammarion, 1910, 32 p., 29 chroniques. Collection Les Histoires drôles, groupées par Max et Alex Fischer,
 Une vraie poire, Flammarion, 1910. 32 p. 11 chroniques. Collection Les Histoires drôles, groupées par Max et Alex Fischer, .
 Pas de bile !, Flammarion, 112 p., 35 chroniques, dont 17 issues de Vive la Vie, et 18 issues de Pas de Bile ! Illustrations de Lucien Métivet. Collection illustrée à 95 centimes, , 112 p.
 Le boomerang, ou Rien n'est mal qui finit bien, roman, Paris, Paul Ollendorff, s.d. (1912), in-18, 2f., 230p. et 1f., ill. de vignettes et de pl.
 L'Affaire Blaireau, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1913, 110 p., (1) f.(annonces). Ill. M. Dudouyt. Texte sur 2 colonnes, illustrations dans le texte en noir. Nouvelle collection illustrée ; 69.
 À l'œil (œuvre posthume), préface de Maurice Donnay, de l'Académie française, Flammarion, 1921, 260 p.
 La Nuit blanche d'un hussard rouge,réédition populaire, augmentée de 14 contes extraits de Pas de bile !, Flammarion, 1921, 64 p., collection « Une heure d'oubli », 73.
 Les Meilleurs Contes d'Alphonse Allais, présentés par Pierre Varenne. Illustrations de Pierre Le Trividic, Rouen, Henri Defontaine, 1934, 193 p.
 Les Meilleures chroniques d'Alphonse Allais,Rouen, Henri Defontaine, 1935, 200 p.
 Pages choisies, Paris, les Pharmaciens bibliophiles, 1935, in-8°, 303 p.
 La Vie drôle, Paris, éd. Fournier, 1946 (Bois originaux par Charles-Jean Hallo, 37 chroniques choisies et préfacées par Sacha Guitry).
 Les Templiers, Aux Quatre Vents, 1947. 45 contes choisis et présentés par André Frédérique. Collection Les Maîtres de l'humour ; 1.
 Cinquante Cinq Contes d'Alphonse Allais, Club des libraires de France, 1954, (rassemblés et précédés d'une préface bio-bibliographique par Anatole Jakovsky suivis de 7 lettres inédites et de poèmes illustrés à l'aide de 57 gravures extraites d'un traité de science amusante et d'une affiche électorale du Captain Cap).
 François Caradec a publié, de 1964 à 1970, les Œuvres Complètes d'Alphonse Allais, en 11 volumes, à La Table Ronde : Œuvres anthumes pour les trois premiers tomes, Œuvres posthumes pour les huit autres. Les Œuvres anthumes comprennent donc (l'expression est d'Allais lui-même) les recueils publiés du vivant de l'auteur, d'À se tordre au Captain Cap. Pour les Œuvres Posthumes, François Caradec a procédé chronologiquement et par revue (ou journal).
 Le Livre de Poche a publié trois anthologies illustrées par Siné, Allais…grement (1965, 82 chroniques et poèmes, présentation et choix de Claude Sohalat), À la une !, (1966, 43 chroniques, présentation et choix de Claude Soalhat), Plaisir d'humour (1966 40 chroniques, présentation et choix de André Frédérique).
 Chez le même éditeur : Plaisirs d'humour. Présentation et notes par Alain Gaudard, Paris, Librairie générale française, 2003, 93 p. Le livre de poche ; Libretti.
 François Caradec a réédité l'ensemble des Œuvres Anthumes en 1 volume, paru en 1989, dans la collection Bouquins, de Robert Laffont. Il a récidivé en 1990, même éditeur même collection, pour les Œuvres Posthumes, en un volume, non plus pour une intégrale, mais pour une anthologie, présentée par ordre chronologique. Il existe un coffret regroupant les deux volumes.
 Alphonse Allais et Honfleur, contes et chroniques rassemblés par Jean-Pierre Delaune,OREP-Éditions, 2021. 171p.

 Traduction en anglais
L'œuvre d'Allais a été traduite en anglais par John Crombie à partir de 1980.

En 2017, Doug Skinner entreprend de poursuivre la traduction en anglais de son œuvre.

 Postérité

 Académie Alphonse Allais, Association des amis d'Alphonse Allais, Institut Alphonse Allais
L'académie est née en 1934, à l'initiative de Jehan Soudan de Pierrefitte, ami d'Alphonse Allais. Vingt ans plus tard, à l'occasion du centenaire de la naissance d'Alphonse Allais en 1954, Henri Jeanson en reprendra le flambeau. Elle compte  du monde de l'art et de la culture. Elle est administrée depuis 2009 par l'Association des Amis d'Alphonse Allais. Elle est animée par une Chancellerie composée de trois membres : le Chancelier, le Camerlingue et le Garde du Sceau, détenteur de la Comète de Allais. L'Académie Alphonse Allais décerne et remet chaque année le prix Alphonse-Allais.

Le siège social de l'Association des amis d'Alphonse Allais (AAAA) est sis au cabaret La Crémaillère 1900, 15, place du Tertre, à Montmartre. Ses membres se sont réunis chaque premier dimanche du mois, en 2010 et 2011, au théâtre du Petit Hébertot à Paris où ils tinrent en public leurs séances dites « du dictionnaire ». Ce Dictionnaire ouvert jusqu'à 22 heures a été publié en  aux éditions Le Cherche midi, et réédité en 2013 dans la collection « Points » des Éditions du Seuil.

L'association publie une lettre confidentielle, L'Allaisienne (, -, janvier 2022).

L'Institut Alphonse Allais, association loi de 1901, créé en 2015, a pour but de « promouvoir la mémoire, l'esprit et l'œuvre d'Alphonse Allais, de concevoir et d'organiser des manifestations publiques ou privées pour développer l'humour hérité du maître ». Il publie son bulletin officiel intitulé Alphy, (n°23, janvier 2022).

En 1976, Jehan Le Povremoyne  publie "Mon Curé" aux éditions Alphonse Allais.

 Musée Alphonse-Allais à Honfleur

Créé en 1999 par Jean-Yves Loriot et inauguré par Raymond Devos, le Petit musée d'Alphonse est le plus petit musée de France (). Appelé aussi le préparatoire des potards Allais, il était situé au  étage de la pharmacie du Passocéan de Honfleur, lieu de naissance d'Alphonse Allais. À la suite de la vente de la pharmacie, le musée ferme le 30 septembre 2018 et rouvre le 26 octobre 2019 dans une ancienne maison au 12 rue des Petites boucheries. Il se visite sur rendez-vous.

 Allais et les surréalistes
Très populaires à la Belle Époque, les écrits d'Allais (en qui le public ne voulait voir qu'un amuseur) connurent une période d'oubli (correspondant grosso modo à la Première Guerre mondiale) avant d'être remis à l'honneur par les surréalistes, comme André Breton et Marcel Duchamp qui voulurent voir dans l'humour d'Allais une dimension subversive, ce faux candide s'attaquant au sens même des mots pour mieux souligner l'absurdité des maints aspects de la vie politique, économique et sociale. Ainsi se renouvela l'engouement des lecteurs pour Alphonse Allais, dont l'œuvre fut par la suite rééditée à maintes reprises en édition de poche sous l'impulsion notamment du critique littéraire François Caradec.

 Références à Allais
 En , le Premier ministre français Dominique de Villepin emploie, au cours d'une conférence de presse, l'expression . La paternité, ironique, en revient à Alphonse Allais.
 Allais proposa en 1905 de remplacer les fortifications entourant alors Paris par une grande plage de sable, un projet qu'il nomma… .
 Le film Ni vu, ni connu d'Yves Robert () est inspiré du roman L'Affaire Blaireau.
 Dans le film Touchez pas au grisbi de Jacques Becker (), Jean Gabin possède un appartement rue Alphonse-Allais à Paris, rue qui n'existe pas. Il existe aujourd'hui une place Alphonse-Allais dans le 20, créée en 1990, au moment de l'aménagement de la ZAC de Belleville.

 Notes et références

 Bibliographie
 D'Alphonse à Allais, ses facéties et mystifications, anthologie tricotée et présentée par Jean-Pierre Delaune, Bibliomnibus, 2014.
 François Caradec, Alphonse Allais, Paris, Belfond, 1997.
 Jean-Pierre Delaune, On ne badine pas avec l'humour d'Allais, préface de Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Omnibus, 2016.
 Claude Gagnière, Pour tout l'or des mots, Robert Laffont .
 Benoît Noël, « Alphonse Allais et l'absinthe à cinq galons », dans Le Pays d'Auge, , novembre-.
 Jeanne Leroy-Allais, Alphonse Allais, souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse, Ernest Flammarion, 1913.
 Jean-Yves Loriot, Le Génie du pote Allais, Montreuil-l'Argillé, Éditions Pierann, 2002. Illustrations de Piboi (les principales inventions insolites d'Alphonse Allais).
 Piboi, (Pierre Boiteau) Allais mystères et boules de gomme, Honfleur, Imprimerie Marie, 2005, 288p. (aCCFr), (textes d'Alphonse Allais commentés et illustrés par Piboi, avec une préface de l'artiste Eva Aeppli).
 Anatole JAKOVSKY : Alphonse Allais "Le Tueur à gags", Les quatre jeudis, 1955.

 Articles connexes
 Un drame bien parisien Gustave-Henri-Julien Baldaquin de Grandpieu
 Arts Incohérents
 Les Hydropathes
 Le Chat noir
 Cosmydor

 Liens externes

 Les amis d'Alphonse Allais
 Une bibliographie relativement complète des œuvres anthumes et posthumes d'Alphonse Allais
 « Alphonse Allais : fumisterie littéraire », par Jean-Marc Defays dans la revue Romantisme Textes en ligne
 À se tordre sur le site de l'ABU
 Projet Gutenberg Œuvres
 Ebooks livres libres et gratuits
 Bibliothèque électronique du Québec, collection « À tous les vents », À se tordre, Plaisirs d'humour, L'Affaire Blaireau, Faits divers, À la une !, Deux et deux font cinq, Pour cause de fin de bail, Vive la vie !''
 Bibliothèque électronique de Lisieux, nouvelles d'Alphonse Allais
 À se tordre, texte, concordances et liste de fréquences.

Bases de données et dictionnaires

Naissance à Honfleur
Écrivain normand
Écrivain français du XIXe siècle
Écrivain français du XXe siècle
Poète français du XIXe siècle
Humoriste français
Nouvelliste français du XIXe siècle
Nouvelliste français du XXe siècle
Montmartre
Collaborateur de Gil Blas
Collaborateur du Journal
Hydropathe
Naissance en octobre 1854
Décès en octobre 1905
Décès dans le 9e arrondissement de Paris
Décès à 51 ans
Personnalité inhumée au cimetière parisien de Saint-Ouen

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Tricks for losing pounds and keeping them off. More than likely, you are already aware some or all of the pursuing tips. If you do, then they might be a prompt to you and help get you back on track. If you, you will find in them easy ways to start out reducing your weight instantly.
Drink water – (such you never heard that one before: ) ) Many of us do not drink enough water and wonder why we feel tired, have headaches, gain weight, preserve fluids, and/or just ordinary don't feel well. Absence of a sufficient amount of water may be the cause of any of these and other symptoms you may have. Water aids in liberating stored fat and flushing it and those awful toxins out of your whole body. Dehydration causes the body to keep onto its current hydrant and fluid preservation is the result. And the fat cells stay just the way they can be — bloated and saving fat and toxins. Advice: Drink more water! Press Here for more info on water, its benefits and effects.
Take a walk every day. If you own a dog, great! You have a properly reputable excuse to go for a walk – stop telling the kids to do it. Okay, you say, I don't have a puppy and don't have time to go for a walk every day. First off, walks are enjoyable, calming to the soul, and just the thing for the heart, muscles, and health. But if you really do not think you can make this part of your routine at least a few times a week, do some form of exercise you are comfortable with daily. Biking, going swimming, treadmill, tennis, volleyball, kickboxing, heck, even Wii can increase your heart rate and help reduce fat!
Acquire and Do a cleaning program. Extra waste in your body should be eliminated of course, if you are not eating healthfully, this would be one of the first steps to removing unwanted toxins and waste material. The build up of toxins and waste in the body can make you feel bloated, tired, and irritable and make you venerable to illness and disease.
There are many types of cleanses to choose from. If get never done an internal cleansing program before, it is probably best to start with the one that is straightforward on the body. I've tried different colon cleanser and found some to be too difficult to incorporate into my daily routine and others to be downright yucky. The thing you need is a good cleanse that is not hard on the system and will detoxify the whole body. A internal cleansing program that I like is GNC's Complete Body system Cleansing Program. It's a 7-day program, thus i know I can stick with it for a week. Some are longer. You must not do two in a row – read all information in the program's materials before starting.
Have a full body massage. Worth it massage specialist will tell you that a massage releases harmful toxins from cells where they are hiding and fats cells which store them in your body. They will should also tell you to drink lots of water afterward to remove those toxins out as soon as they are released into your system. A great, full-body rub will also help you relax, reduce stress, and improve your energy as well.
Only a last note: Your body is ORGANIC and views anything that is not organic and natural as a contaminant. The more toxins you introduce to your system in the multitude of ways they get in these days, the more susceptible to disease and sick health we become. That they also deter your capability to lose weight. Excess weight loss really help some of them, like air pollution, unless you stay in a bubble, and there are loads of poisons around us every day from outside sources – too many to go into here.
And, last but not least, Re-lax. Consider a deep breath. Opt for one of the pursuing tips to get started on with today and offer it a day or more, a week, before adding another small change. It's your decision but I know you is designed for two in your first days.
But the ones you introduce to yourself such as OVER-THE-COUNTER medications and synthetic vitamin supplements, processed foods, alcohol, cigarettes, and so forth are the ones you do have control over. In the event that you smoke, quit. If perhaps you drink alcohol, may even think about it this week and do so lightly when you do in the future. Work together with me here and we'll have you pounds lighter right away.
Area note: I can't eat fast food hamburgers or Mexican food from a fast food place. Seeing that I have been offering my body good diet for years, I virtually get ill from those. I tried twice in a pinch in recent years and was my apologies I did. I obtained a stomachache and the best Deb both times. Coach anyone how to about two years since the last time I tried out. This is simply not a bad thing. My body reacted badly as its way of telling me it basically used to and won't like fast food.


This particular homeowner expressed interest in a solar installation, but he was unsure if the solar investment would make sense because his roofline is East-West. We asked for the opportunity to review his utility bills and come up with a strategy that would eliminate his utility bills, while also providing him with a stable investment. We were also tasked with making sure the project would look great, too. For this project, we installed "All Black" LG Solar panels and we were able to provide 100% of the home's electric needs.


Graphics press save icon to store the graphics for your computer. These are prepared for download, if you want and want to grab it, click save logo on the page, and it will be directly downloaded to your laptop.
Graphics Lets hope you will want it. That image over can be labelled with.


Structural effects of internucleotide linkage modification at mismatch site in DNA/RNA duplex: Raman study.
Vibrational Spectroscopy 48: 148-152, 2008.
A new linker for solid-phase synthesis of oligonucleotides with terminal phosphate group.
Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications 73: 32-43, 2008.


text:
'You will remember missing the school play, but you won't remember why'
by Nicola Kemp November 16, 2018
Having spent 20 years in PR for the creative industries, Veronique Rhys-Evans, global PR and marketing director at Stink, lifts the lid on the stories behind the headlines.
#TellHerStory is produced in partnership with Publicis Groupe and Stylist
Have you heard the one about the agency chief executive who regularly calls his PR director on a Sunday to bemoan the fact that a rival has appeared in the Sunday papers? Or the global chief executive who hired his own personal PR to ensure his personal brand was front and centre? If these were jokes, the punchline would be the predominantly female, usually invisible army of agency PR and marketing leaders who rarely make the headlines themselves.
It is the ultimate irony that, with so much campaigning going on for visible women in advertising at the moment, many of the most influential women in the industry remain invisible by design.
For an industry built on reputation, there is perhaps no more important force in the advertising business than the PR and new-business directors who propel agencies forward or lead damage-limitation exercises when business leaders go awry.
So, when looking back on 50 years of women in advertising, it would be remiss to ignore the women behind the headlines. Whether it's ghostwriting thought-leadership pieces or championing new agency brands, that great idea you just saw a chief executive take credit for may have its roots in PR.
Veronique Rhys Evans is global PR and marketing director at Stink with more than 20 years in the creative industries. She was previously head of PR at Grey London and also had stints at The Media Foundry and Red Dog. When it comes to the highs and lows of agency PR, there is little that Rhys Evans hasn't seen.
But while she has always been behind the headlines, Rhys Evans insists that good agency leaders always publicly recognise her work. "I've been visibly 'at the top table' and always invited to the key meetings, consulted on many of the big initiatives and decisions," she says. "Ghostwriting aside, they haven't taken the credit for my work or sidelined me. Even putting my name on creative awards because I earned it, when it certainly wasn't expected."
Certainly, she has never wanted to be the story. "I don't expect to be the one out front," she says. Yet neither does she expect to be in the firing line, declaring: "I've probably only worked for one out-and-out misogynist. But you don't read much about him any more. Shame. Coincidence? I don't think so."
Setting your boundaries
There is of course some truth to the common quip of "it's PR, not ER", but the reality of working in PR in the creative industries isn't always easy. After two decades in the industry, Rhys Evans is clear on the lines you need to draw. She says: "The CEO shouldn't be making passes at you. You shouldn't be crying at work. You shouldn't be worrying about a pitch when your child is in hospital. It's just advertising. Nothing we do will ever be worth making you this miserable."
We operate in a media ecosystem where "30 under 30" lists are seemingly endless and there's constant pressure to not just succeed in your job but also deliver some kind of creative side hustle in your spare time. However, Rhys Evans is honest about the fact that it took her many years to find success on her own terms.
It was some advice from friend and fellow agency PR leader Lara Leventhal that changed her creative path fundamentally. Leventhal told her: "You will remember missing the school play, but you won't remember the meeting you missed it for." It's a piece of advice that she didn't just listen to but used to fuel a different, more rewarding approach to work.
Rhys Evans explains: "When I finally took this piece of advice, everything changed. I became master of my own destiny. I found a home that respected parents and women. By giving less fucks whether I was employed or not and more fucks about my kids and my sanity, I found some balance and more respect."
Leventhal, director at Visible, remembers getting to know Rhys Evans when they pitched against each other at rival PR agencies: "She knows how to craft stories that the media in the creative sector want to talk about and, more importantly, how to amplify that work so it lives in the real world."
But it was shared experience of real life that forged their friendship. Leventhal explains: "I'd had an awful family tragedy, missed so much of my children growing up and was lost, and she helped me find my way back." Rhys Evans introduced Leventhal to Nils Leonard, who was at that point launching coffee brand Halo and Leventhal got involved in running PR for it, providing the launch pad for her to create Visible. Leventhal adds: "The remarkable thing about V was that she knew what she wanted – time with her children, to stay in an industry she loved, to work in-house using her skill set. She's done just that."
Care 10% less
So what advice would Rhys Evans give to women in the industry struggling to cope with its notorious long-hours culture? "I used to think my obsession with detail and deadlines and giving everything 100% was what made the difference. It was what clients and colleagues valued and proof of my unwavering commitment. I was always there for everyone, supporting my team and getting stuck in the trenches. Out with clients all night. Pitching first thing the next day. That was my professional DNA and I was proud of it," she admits. "But that level of commitment comes with way too much sacrifice."
One of Rhys Evans' children has a serious illness and she shares that, on several occasions, she has found herself by their bedside writing a strategy, pitch deck or even a press release. "My child is critically ill and, somehow, the twisted reality I live in makes this normal behaviour," she says. "This industry has a habit of making you totally lose perspective. I didn't say no. And no-one thought to stop me."
Be less loyal
Yet the revelation that no-one is coming to "save" her was a fundamentally liberating one. Rhys Evans declares: "Don't assume you'll be given your space, even if entitled to it. Take it and own it. You are the master of your boundaries. You must set them and stick to them. Only then will others respect your time. The more people do this, the more it will be normalised."
Pointing to the mantra "done is better than perfect", she continues: "I wish I'd taken a leaf out of this person's book years ago. Because it is possible to do a great job and do it within a reasonable time frame if you give yourself permission to be a little less than perfect."
With this in mind, Rhys Evans believes the next generation of talent should be less loyal: "Many of us have a tendency to think we're so needed that the world would fall apart without us. And that we'd be letting everyone down if we moved on. Bollocks. That's not because you're not important or valued or make a massive contribution; it's just that things can and will carry on just fine without you."
She urges women working in challenging environments not to deny themselves another experience and opportunity simply because they fear the consequences for others if they leave. She says simply: "If you're not happy or something more interesting comes along, leave." It's a strategy she also believes can sometimes be the easiest way to get a pay rise.
Find your angle
When asked for the best advice she has ever received, she recalls a Wacl keynote from Stevie Spring, who was chief executive of Clear Channel at the time: "You can't cry and whistle at the same time." Rhys Evans explains: "Until recently, this was one of the best pieces of professional advice I'd ever received. The rhetoric was not diversity and equality, but how to cope, to put on a brave face in a man's world. Not how to change things, but how to work your way through the status quo and survive."
Today, Rhys Evans believes times are changing. "Enduring such silent pain and sacrifice is no longer acceptable," she says. For young woman starting out now, Rhys Evans urges them to build self-belief and self-worth: "Even if you're still quite junior, don't assume your voice isn't worth hearing. Make friends with the PR person and put yourself forward. Especially now, everyone wants to hear young female voices. The time has never been better and opportunities so many." If you talk about something you care about and are honest about it, she believes the path to the top of everyone's hire list is not out of reach.
That path, however, might not always be a smooth one. The quest for the "perfect work/life balance" – attempting to "have it all" but also not miss out on important things – is always a work in progress.
During our correspondence for this interview, Rhys Evans sent me her thoughts while at a school sports day, on her birthday and on a day off. Meanwhile, I'm filing this copy at midnight. Like the rest of the industry, we need to try harder. But as Rhys Evans' courage and conviction show, trying your best is more than good enough.
Over the next five weeks, Campaign will be digging into its archives to rewrite the stories of some of the most trailblazing women in the industry successfully changing the narrative and achieving success on their own terms. Read more about #TellHerStory here.
Agencies Advertising Careers
Calling time on our long-hours culture
Lack of progress means the industry is losing female talent
Time to get female directors off the subs bench
Adland still led by privately educated white men, study finds
'She would be disappointed': How the ad industry still fails black talent
Brands that build female self-esteem are also building business
#TellHerStory: There's more to do
'If women want it all, they have to make arrangements to do it all'
From sexual harassment to suffocated self-confidence: learnings from BloomFest
Publicis Media UK plans flexible working culture
The truth about advertising's long-hours culture
The most creative people in town wear tweed jackets
Media's glamour puss is out to prove her mettle
Breaking up the boys' club: the next 50 years of women in advertising
Adland must call out 'dinosaur managers' in order to embrace flexible working
Majority of working mothers are sacrificing salary for flexiblity
Why flexible working drives creativity
How to stage a creative comeback

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


SYDNEY (Reuters/AFP) - The Australian authorities have detained seven young nationals as they were attempting to fly to the Middle East, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Thursday, over suspicions they wanted to join Islamist militant groups.
"We have stopped at the airport, seven young Australians who were planning to travel to the Middle East it seems to join terrorist groups over there," Mr Abbott told reporters in Canberra.
The Sydney Daily Telegraph said five of the men, aged in their 20s and 30s, all tried to leave through Sydney Airport together, on a flight initially to Malaysia, on Aug 12, triggering an alert due to the sums of money they were carrying.
Each of the five were found to be carrying about A$10,000 (S$10,300) when their luggage was searched, Australian Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton told reporters.
Another two men were stopped when they attempted to board a flight from Sydney over the weekend. Mr Dutton said those two had connections with the five men detained earlier.
Citing an intelligence source, the report said some of the suspects were known to the authorities and their passports were immediately suspended under new laws that came into effect this year.
Mr Abbott would not confirm the details, calling it an "operational matter".
He praised the border force and counter-terrorism units at airports for doing their jobs in this "particularly important and significant way".
Australia is on high alert for attacks by radicalised Muslims, including home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East, having raised its threat level to "high" and unleashed a series of high-profile raids in cities.
In addition to attempts to safeguard against any domestic attacks, Australian officials have intensified efforts to prevent radicalised citizens from joining organisations such as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
"We are concerned about the number of people presenting at airports, particularly younger people, who might be seeking to travel overseas for reasons that would horrify Australians and their parents and family and community no doubt as well," said Australian border Protection Minister Peter Dutton said on Thursday.
Mr Abbott has told Parliament at least 70 Australians were fighting in Iraq and Syria, backed by about 100 Australia-based "facilitators".


On Friday, I had the chance to meet with Laura Fisher and Jespal Rajdev, who with their co-founder Adrienne Ferguson, started an online marketplace called TreePress. I've known about TreePress since about this time last year, when the idea was in its initial stages. I've been watching the progression of the marketplace's offerings with interest, but my conversation with Laura and Jes really solidified in my mind that the entire concept behind their online presence is truly innovative and has the potential to shift the way theatrical collaborators find one other, particularly playwrights and producers and educators.
I would encourage you to visit the site and see for yourself, and watch how it develops over the next six months. That development and the articulation of their vision over time will do a far better job than I can at explaining exactly what will happen and how its happening. However, I do want to say that I'm #grateful to Laura and Jes for explaining the idea of RELEVANCE to me as a way to measure a play's worth, rather than simply relying on the play's quality, one of only several factors that might go into a play's selection for production. It's very easy for me or anyone else to dismiss a play based on my own impressions of what "quality" is, but there are lots of other reasons that a producer, school, or theatre might choose to do a play: cast size, distribution of lines, subject matter, message to the audience, etc. All of these factors play a role. "Of course they do," you might be saying to yourself, but I'm not sure that all of those reasons are necessary legible or conscious in the decision-making process about a play's quality. So I'm committing to thinking about a play's RELEVANCE rather than only about a play's quality, as that might help to create an overall clearer picture of why certain plays get produced and not others. There's power in making a gut reaction more legible. That's one of things I feel like TreePress is preparing to do really well.
For helping me to think differently and more openly about plays and their relevance, for sharing their ideas with me and asking me about mine, and for innovating in a field that desperately needs it (new play development), the founders of TreePress are the artists I admire for this week.
Older PostThinking about democracy--where does it go from here?


text:
My Love-Hate Relationship with Australia
October 14, 2017 February 7, 2012 by Tom Bartel
Sydney has quite an attractive bridge, especially at night.
First of all, there's a lot more to love about Australia than to hate. In fact, I really can't think of anything I truly hate about Australia. Mild disapproval, in the true tradition of Anglo temperament, is about as strong as it gets.
1. The people. The friendliest people ever encountered in all our travels. And, although they're as disgusted with American foreign policy as the next guys, they don't make it the basis for all conversations. They're usually more interested in where we come from, how we can live in such cold, and why we drink such weak ass beer. Then there's the ubiquitous, "mate." Love it.
2. The food. In general, some of the best food we've had in the past two years (and we've been to France, Italy, Spain, Bali and Peru in that time.) Not that it's exotic or anything. It's just fresh and good and well prepared. I eat steak about once per year, for example, and I'm going to make that even less frequent if I can't get back to Australia. Oysters, fish, pasta, salad. You name it, they do it well.
They have more scenery than most any place I've ever been. This is Cradle Mountain in Tasmania. We climbed it, but that's another story.
3. The scenery. It's everywhere, and it's easy to get to and crawl around in. It usually comes with wildlife, too. Wallabies and wombats are all over the place.
4. Tasmania. Think of it as a country within a country. An example: they have their own "national" parks. They are really state parks, administered by the state, but they call them national, because, well, they can. Also, whatever good you can say about Aussies in general, multiply it by at least two for Tassies. They remind me of Canadians–sort of like Americans, but more interesting and rugged somehow.
Have you ever seen anything as cute as a baby wombat?
5. The beer. It's good. Expensive but good. Same goes for the wine. For this year's Australia Day, Aussies were asked "What's the best thing about being Australian?" First answer was "freedom." Second answer was "beer."
6. Sydney. What a vibrant city. Something going on at all times in all quarters–at least the ones we visited. The Opera, the Circular Quai, the Festival, the restaurants, Bondi all have a lot to see, do and walk around. Extremely walkable city. And where you couldn't walk, the buses took you quickly and cleanly.
Oysters on the Circular Quai, Sydney. Yum!
7. Melbourne. See Sydney, except different. The city just vibrates with energy. We were there during the Australian Open Tennis, the Aussie Millions Poker Tournament, and a big Chinese New Year fest. The spirit of event just seemed everywhere. Another very walkable city.
8. Transport. Easy to move around the cities in buses and to rent a car to cover Tasmania from one end to the other. Don't forget the boats, which are everywhere, since almost all Aussies live within spitting distance of the ocean.
9. Brushes with fame. See Melbourne above. Saw Rafa Nadal and Phil Ivey up close and personal.
10. People watching with fashion. Both Melbourne and Sydney are fun to sit in and watch the people go by, especially after hiking around the back roads of the countries we've been to recently where dirty backpacks are the primary sartorial accessories.
Mild dislikes
1. The cost. Australia is by far the most expensive country we've been to. I can't really blame them though, because it's our money that's worthless. Beers are $8, a salad is $15 and a movie is $18.50. And that's Aussie dollars. Add seven percent to those prices to convert to USD. (Update, October 2017: the American dollar is much stronger now, so an American might find things a bit more affordable.)
2. Book prices. See above, and know that a Lonely Planet guide that they ship all the way to the US costs $24.95. The same book in its home country is $50. I realize this is just a corollary to the number 1 above, but sheesh.
3. The casinos. There are two complaints here. One is that 10 percent up to a max of $10 is raked out of the poker pots in Sydney and Melbourne, and up to $15 in Cairns. In contrast, the rake at most places in Vegas is maxed out at $5 (and you can find places where it's $4.) On top of that, you pay $10 per hour just to play. And, any drink other than tap water costs you. On the upside though, you don't tip dealers. (I was told it was illegal.) When I asked about the cost, all three of the dealers at all three casinos said, "It's a monopoly." And it was in each town I played in. As long as the government gets its rake, they're ok screwing you. All that said, I should probably mention that I won about $1000 while in Australia, so that makes up for some of the taxes I paid while there.
Friendly people don't say, "Don't climb on the rocks." They say, "That's inappropriate."
4. No tipping. Some might see this as a benefit. I see it as pretty much ensuring indifferent service in restaurants. I questioned a waiter once about why he let me order two salads when he could have made an alternate suggestion, such as, "Your main course comes with a salad, sir. Could I suggest something else as a first course?" He said I was blaming him for my own poor choice when all I was really doing was making a suggestion. Like I said, customer orientation is a foreign concept to most Aussie service types. Wasn't the only time something like this happened, either.
5. The internet ain't free. Nobody gives it away. Want it in your hotel? Gonna be somewhere between $10 per day and $15 for five hours. And, if you're in my business, that kind of sucks. See number 4 above re customer orientation. Just charge $5 more for the hotel room and give away the internet. It's the 21st Century, mate.
6. The nanny state thing. Cigs are more than $20 a pack. Booze is expensive as hell. A bottle of Aussie wine that costs $8 in the US is $35 here. They do random stops of drivers to check for drinking. They just want to make sure you don't hurt yourself–or in other words, they don't want you to be as stupid as Americans. I tried to explain there was little danger of that, but they won't listen.
7. They measure their pours precisely in bars. And when you look at the menu and think, oh well, $9 for a drink of whiskey isn't that bad in the Aussie scheme of things, that feeling lasts until the drink arrives and you realize that you've just paid $9 for a shot that wouldn't satisfy a mouse. So, if you're thinking you'd like an American sized drink, your budget is more like $18 or $27. But at least you don't have to tip.
So, as far as I can tell, the final score is 10-7, and I didn't even mention national obsessions with Aussie football and cricket.
All in all, a very nice place, mate.
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Categories Australia, Nature and Wildlife, Unesco World Heritage Sites Tags Sydney, Tasmania
6 thoughts on "My Love-Hate Relationship with Australia"
Bob Moffitt
"Cigs are more than $20 a pack"
You can blame my Aussie cousin Alfie "Bush Tucker" Moffitt for that. He's communications director for the Australian Lung Foundation. G'Day.
Tom Bartel
Well, if I were to meet Bush Tucker, I'd say, "Good on ya, mate."
I am wondering whether these prices are from tourist type or 'trendy' looking bars and restaurants. They are not typical beer prices at your local pub, and many brands of smokes, though expensive are under $20. At happy hour you should be getting schooners for under $4.00.
Should have spent more time shopping for beer, and limiting my time for drinking it, I guess.
Aussies wish that things were much more affordable too but I'm so glad you love our country. I returned to live in Australia around 12 years ago after a 30 year stint in the UK and I have to say, as much as I still love the UK, the Aussie lifestyle and climate is just so much more my thing. We took a quick hike to a local National Park near Sydney just yesterday and couldn't believe how many families of all nationalities and cultures were enjoying just getting out and into nature with no particular 'thing' to do but explore the shore and bushland. Loved your comment that most Aussies live within spitting distance of the ocean… so true! Hope you visit us again sometime soon :)
We'd love to come back, and hope to do it soon.
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Bernanrd "B.J." Calvi, deputy chief of the Agawam Fire Dept with Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno after being announced as the next Springfield Fire Commissioner.
A new leader has been announced for the largest fire department in western Massachusetts.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno has tapped Bernard "B.J." Calvi, a deputy chief with the Agawam Fire Department, to be the new Springfield Fire Commissioner.
Sarno described Calvi as a "go-getter" who rose to the top after a national search that produced almost 40 applicants.
Calvi, who began in the fire services in 1995, said leading the Springfield Fire Department will be a career-culminating job.
" Everybody wants to make it to the top of the ladder, but these jobs are few and far between," said Calvi. " I am fortunate that Mayor Sarno has placed his trust in me to lead the department into the future."
With more than 230 fulltime firefighters, Springfield's fire department is roughly four times the size of the Agawam department,which has 57 firefighters on staff.
"Leadership is leadership and if you can lead one group of people you can lead another group of people. It is all based on how you delegate authority and manage what is going on around you," said Calvi.
Calvi, who has signed a five-year contract with a starting salary of $145,000, will succeed Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant, who was appointed to the post in 2013.
Earlier this year, Sarno announced he would not renew Conant's five-year contract. Sarno never explained why, but his decision was announced shortly after the mayor publically criticized Conant for the handling of a disputed residency requirement for deputy fire chiefs.
Although employed in Agawam, Calvi said he has been a resident of Springfield for more than six years.
Sarno said six semifinalists for fire commissioner – two currently employed by the Springfield Fire Dept. and four who are not – were interviewed by a selection committee that consisted of the mayor, the city's Chief Administration and Finance Officer, Director of Human Resources, and the mayor's Chief of Staff.
The finalists were grilled in several areas including community relations, administration, and operations. They were also asked to describe responses to hypothetical scenarios.
" Commissioner Calvi answered those questions in a very succinct fashion, directly answered those questions and scenarios showing a very strong command and vision for our fire department to take it to the next level," said Sarno. " He is a go-getter. He is hands-on."
Sarno said Calvi will become commissioner on January 24, 2018, the day Conant's contract expires.
" I do expect a smooth transition to occur," said Sarno.
A formal swearing-in ceremony for Calvi is also planned.
There are clouds over the futures of the top public safety leaders in Springfield, Massachusetts.
There's fallout from the surprise move by the mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts to announce plans to hire a new fire chief.
The Massachusetts Department of Fire Services' new campus for the western part of the state is being dedicated tomorrow. The new facility took just a year to construct, but was decades in the making.
The $13.4 million project built on the site of the former Springfield Fire Training Center is a state-of-the-art facility for firefighters from the western part of the state, according to state Fire Marshall Stephen Coan.
Fire chiefs from western Massachusetts hosted state legislators and municipal officials at a breakfast this morning to lobby for a fire safety bill.
The gathering was highlighted by a dramatic demonstration in the parking lot of the Log Cabin and Banquet House in Holyoke, where fires were started in two identical rooms. One fire raged out of control and destroyed a sofa, table, and TV set.
The second fire was extinguished quickly by a water sprinkler that activated automatically.


text:
Oz: The Actual Prison is Your TV
One of my favorite TV series of all time is the short lived Canadian sitcom Twitch City. The show follows the life of a man named Curtis, who literally never leaves his apartment and watches TV all day. We're confronted with the infinity mirror of us sitting on a couch watching TV where a guy on a couch watches TV of another guy on a couch watching TV in the starkest terms imaginable.
In one of my favorite moments in the series, Curtis discusses an episode of Gilligan's Island. I've never actually seen the Gilligan episode, but apparently it involves a very fake looking octopus monster attacking the cast. Curtis points out that the thing trapping them all on the island isn't the fake looking monster. The reason they're acting afraid of the monster isn't the monster. The thing trapping them on the island is us. They act afraid for our benefit. So long as we keep watching, Gilligan can't leave the island.
And so it is with jumping the shark. Shark jumping can be accounted for in many ways-a change of writing staff, a budget cut, etc. But what we're ultimately looking at are fictional things a la Meseeks that have passed the point of wanting to please us, have no meaning to their existence, and want to disappear but can't because we won't let them.
No show ever jumped the shark as dramatically as Oz, which started out as one of the best and boldest things ever shown on TV and ends with the worst series finale I've ever seen after 2 1/2 seasons of the worst scripted TV I've ever seen.
But let's talk about the good stuff first.
Oz is noteworthy for many many reasons. It was the first hour long scripted drama that HBO ever aired and the first show to truly push the outer limits of what was allowed on premium cable vis a vis violence and sexual content. It was one of the only shows on TV at the time that spent a lot of time considering LGBTQ and black issues. It presented the most harshly critical indictment of US society seen on TV up to that point. Episodes have bizarre meandering structures uninhibited by advertisement-induced act breaks. All the innovations present in 90s cop shows like Homicide: Life on the Street are explored in a new sandbox without rules. No Oz means no Sopranos, no Wire, no Deadwood, basically TV in the 00s is an entirely different beast without Oz.
My interest in Oz is primarily due to this transitional status. The premium scripted cable drama didn't really come into its own until a year or two later with The Sopranos, so there are many points in Oz that stand as fascinating roads not taken-what 00s TV could've become in some alternate universe.
Foremost among these is the strangely stage-like monologing to the camera that bookends each episode. Prisoner Augustus Hill, confined to a wheelchair, talks about something that seems random but integrates itself into the themes of a given episode. These work, but its hard to imagine them becoming a trope of prestige TV at large even though Tony Soprano's therapy sessions often serve a similar function on The Sopranos. But even that trope was largely discarded, and the number of scenes of people talking to therapists even in shows that ostensibly about mental health are minimal. For example, Bojack Horseman is almost entirely about depression, but the only two times we see an actual therapy session are both just winking jokes about The Sopranos.
But back to Oz. Oz is an incredibly difficult show to talk about I guess because it does sit between so many contradictions and transitional points. It's stagey where the future of prestige TV was overwhelmingly cinematic, it's good for a while then its terrible, it makes bolder political points than any of the shows that followed it but often does so artlessly.
While the initial draw is its place in the HBO canon, the show it most reminds me of is Degrassi. Like Degrassi, the show thrives when showing long term changes in personality and character. Like Degrassi, it takes place in an institution where a wide cross section of society interacts directly because they have no choice but to be there. Like Degrassi, it loves controversial subjects-it goes there. Like Degrassi, the protagonist is a building, not a person. Like Degrassi, the cast shifts in and out all the time and there's no person you can presume is a permanent cast member.
It's what I guess you could call "an institution show". While many many shows take place in institutions, few of them are so fully confined to them. In Oz, this is exaggerated to the point that we never see the prisoners do any kind of outdoor recreation-it was a conscious choice at the outset. While Degrassi was never structured to have a star or primary protagonist, it didn't start placing 95% of the action in the high school until later on. However, like Oz leaving the prison, when Degrassi leaves the high school it suffers a drop in quality (the college storylines in season 5-6 of Degrassi: TNG are godawful.) Unlike Degrassi, which peaked early but has generally been very good in spurts for ~40 years now, when Oz jumps the shark in the middle of season 4, it never comes back.
Unlike somewhat more balanced shows that came later, pretty much everyone is awful except for the prison psychologist(played by the miraculously ageless EGOT-er Rita Moreno, who's 88 now and still regularly doing TV.) At a certain point, the lack of a foil mixed with the showrunner's stunned disbelief HBO would let him show (insert literally anything that ever happened on Oz here) create a perfect storm of awfulness. By the end, the characters may as well all be named Itchy or Scratchy-they exist in a pointless cycle of stabbing and/or maiming each other, but with soap opera elements Itchy and Scratchy smartly avoided.
I don't really blame writer/creator Tom Fontana (who wrote every single episode, a rarity for US TV) for that. He was handed a blank slate, and for 4 years his boundary pushing yielded results. He made a lot of the mistakes first, at least in this context. And they can be kinda fascinating for that reason-a mistake can carry a certain fascination in its freshness. Bad is bad, but most shows don't give us one year of great TV, much less four.
The characters show a less than hopeful view of US society. Sex-addicted, well meaning but ineffectual warden Tim McManus is both sympathetic (for the most part) but also an indictment of incremental reform, of running an inherently rotten system in a slightly more humane way. The enormous and imposing Simon Adebisi is pure ambition with seemingly nothing under it-he takes what he wants; he seems to have no god beyond his own sensory desires. Political activist Kareem Said, the only prisoner where we're never given a flashback to the crime he committed, exists as a foil to McManus-like McManus, he sees the way to make change as being through the inside, unlike McManus he's not stuck in a sea of bureaucracy and can't be distracted whatever female guards the prison hires. Said is as close as we get to an outright admirable character.
If it ended after the 8th episode of season 4, Oz would've been just the slightest step below the HBO trinity (Wire, Deadwood, Sopranos) in the TV canon. Its inherent structural deficiencies would've been less noticeable. But since they are, I'm just gonna end here with my number one complaint:
Whenever we see the correctional officers at their perch looking down on the prisoners, we see rows upon rows of Sony Trinitron monitors for a CCTV surveillance system. We see picture on these TVs. Yet somehow, somebody gets murdered almost every episode, sometimes multiple people, and there's never any video evidence or suggestion video evidence might exist.
Maybe the Trinitrons represent us?
This entry was posted in TV Shows and tagged hbo, oz, prison, sopranos, television on May 18, 2020 by DanLevine.
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The development and applications of biosensors in the food industry has had a rapid grown due to their sensitivity, specificity and simplicity of use with respect to classical analytical methods. In this study, glucose and ethanol amperometric biosensors integrated with a wireless telemetry system were developed and used for the monitoring of top and bottom fermentations in beer wort samples. The collected data were in good agreement with those obtained by reference methods. The simplicity of construction, the low cost and the short time of analysis, combined with easy interpretation of the results, suggest that these devices could be a valuable alternative to conventional methods for monitoring fermentation processes in the food industry.


This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 10:43 pm and is filed under Announcements, Blogroll, Computer Rescue, Magazine.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I intend to use your instructions to get rid of those 3 MS program. They have have previously been checked off in add remove programs, and I realize that they are still on the HD and runnable.
2 questions: My PC is a home brew pc which only rec'd WXP as a necesary evil. After the XP install and on first boot a blue screen announced that changes had been made to my PC and it gave a # to call an id to use before XP would run again. If I make add'l changes other than ram, I am required to repot again. Is'nt freedom wonderful. Do you think that your changes will cause the blue will cause this BS to reappear?
#2.How did you setup the GNU/Windows destop. The GNU addition is great.


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text:
Q: Android - How to restart a clean application instance I'm using the android Bluetooth library to connect to a remote desktop. When the connection with the desktop is lost, I'd like to restart a fresh instance of the application (that would highly facilitate the handling of my connection lost).
I tried this code :
Intent i = getBaseContext().getPackageManager()
                        .getLaunchIntentForPackage( getBaseContext().getPackageName() );
                i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY);
                i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
                startActivity(i);

But after that, I still have trouble reconnecting whereas if I manually kill and restart the application it works fine.

A: You can restart your Activity when you detect that you've lost and found again the connection. You can restart your activity with this code:
public void reload() {
    Intent intent = getIntent();
    overridePendingTransition(0, 0);
    intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_ANIMATION);
    finish();

    overridePendingTransition(0, 0);
    startActivity(intent);
}

A: Are you sure you want to be restarting the Activity? The user will see the transitions and it will be a more sluggish application. Also, restarting an Activity is very different from restarting the application.
There is probably an issue with how you connect to the remote and it may be beneficial to debug that. If you post your code maybe others can help.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange