Petite virée en début d’après-midi à moto. J’ai profité de cet après-midi printanier pour me laisser guider par mon application GPS moto en direction de Romont.

J’y ai découvert quelques petites routes nouvelles et agréables.

C’est ainsi que du côté de Le Saulgy, j’ai bénéficié d’un joli panorama sur la campagne près de Siviriez, de champs de pissenlits et d’une vue sur les Préalpes.

En rentrant, j’en apprends un peu plus sur Le Saulgy. Wikipedia m’informe que Le Saulgy formait autrefois un petit fief noble, acquis en 1536 par le gouvernement de Fribourg. Petite commune, le village comptait 57 habitants en 1811, 69 en 1850, 73 en 1900, 73 en 1950, 58 en 1970. Depuis 1978, Le Saulgy fait partie de la commune de Siviriez.

Une nouvelle fois, je suis parti léger avec mon vieil Sony A6000, muni de mon objectif Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary, à la polyvalence étonnante, Comme le dit le site de Sigma France, ce zoom à grande ouverture ne va jamais quitter votre appareil.

Le tout offre un combo exceptionnellement petit, léger et lumineux grâce à son zoom, objectif de référence par excellence. Et c’est encore plus particulièrement le cas pour voyager léger à moto.

Concernant le Sony A6000, sorti en 2014, il est étonnant à quel point ce boîtier fait encore le job en 2026. J’apprécie particulièrement son extrême compacité. Il dispose même du wifi pour transférer ses photos sur son smartphone ou sa tablette.

Tags : #AuCafe #roadbook #suisse #fribourg #lesaulgy #bmwf900r #sonya6000 #sigma1850mm28 #photographie

For my second MLB Game today I'll try to follow the Texas Rangers vs the Seattle Mariners. This game has a scheduled start time of 6:15 PM CDT and should fit quite comfortably into my Saturday night.

And the adventure continues.

Surely you’re aware of Ed McMahon, aren’t you? Americans of a certain age will be. I was vaguely aware of him in the way that any child of the 90’s was vaguely aware of people like Richard Nixon or, even, Richard Marx. Ed McMahon sat on the couch of the living room of America for 30 years, with a catchphrase, Heeere’s Johnny! That achieved immortality with a younger, but now older, generation via Homer Simpson’s insane ravings in a Treehouse of Horror episode in 1994.

Well, what happened to old Ed after the Tonight Show closed its final curtain? A lot of things, but one thing stands out as a cultural moment that seems to have slipped into oblivion, one that is asking to be brought forward again and examined, like a broken sand dollar, before we cast it out into the sea again. The Miracle Fryer. Do you remember that infomercial? I certainly don’t. As an avid 1990’s infomercial watcher, I remember “set it and forget it!” and food dehydrators and the slanted grill that “cuts the fat” and a British man in a red bow tie yelling about fresh salsa. But the Miracle Fryer existed, too, and it’s an astonishing look into peak America, before it crumbled, quickly, then slowly, then quickly again until we arrived at present day.

The Miracle Fryer, to be clear, is a mesh screen sitting on top of a tray. That’s the entire product. Supposedly, one can place a wide variety of different brown foods—chicken nuggets, french fries, onion rings, fish sticks, and more! onto the mesh-covered tray, insert it into your oven, and use your oven’s own thermal waves to cook your food while also cutting the fat, a particularly obsessive fixation of the late 1990s that has morphed repeatedly and now sits firmly into the protein supplementation of everything.

Now, little research was done for this essay beyond watching the infomercial and reading Ed McMahon’s Wikipedia page. But I think that’s enough. I don’t know what the Miracle Fryer is made out of, I don’t know how many units it sold, or if it’s still available outside of a single second hand store somewhere near Topeka. I don’t even know if it really works in the way that Nancy Nelson’s loud MMMMs and grinning countenance seem to imply, but I have my doubts.

There’s something startling about Ed McMahon’s appearance three minutes into the infomercial. We’ve been educated on the evils of deep frying and the unquestionable unwantedness of fat in our foods. We’ve already seen Nancy taking a crunchy bite of french fries that allegedly have had their calories cut by 83%. Then, she pivots. There’s a gentleman she needs to tell us about. A man who, as she describes, is “here to unveil a discovery of his.” A discovery. Ed McMahon was in his garage in the San Fernando Valley, as I imagine it, surrounded by tools and parts and prototypes, and late on a Saturday night, _discovered it. _And now, 18 months later, he strolls in—no, wanders in—after Nancy Nelson’s introduction. He’s dressed to the nines, pocket square and all, and he brings Nancy into a hug. He’s glad to be here. He’s here to talk about his discovery, and the technology. They’re big claims. Yet the man in front of us is Ed McMahon, who we mostly know for his hosting chops, his catchphrase, and his background laugh on the Tonight Show. We did not know about his engineering proficiency, and his tenacious inventive spirit. Now we do.

A YouTube commenter jokes that Ed “knocked a few back” before the infomercial. I will not speculate. But I also won’t judge. He’s probably at a sound stage in Burbank, it’s the middle of the day, he’s in his golden years—who wouldn’t knock a few back? I don’t hold it against him.

What unfolds after the introduction is something to behold. We watch Ed McMahon, in his suit, and in his genteelness, carefully load chicken strips and onion rings (Ed’s favorite), onto the mesh screen. He is fixed in place for the entire infomercial, where I imagine two yellow footprints have been painted on the floor, while Nancy runs to and fro, putting his creations into the oven, retrieving things that are ready to taste, and he’s just…there. He’s a professional, of course—you can’t not be after decades in showbiz. He has the enthusiasm in his voice about fish sticks. He even smiles. But there’s something else there, behind his eyes. There is an, “I’m completing my contractual obligations. I wonder if my driver is still out back, if he’s kept the car idling. I wonder if the Irish bar down the road has air conditioning,” all churning behind those big glasses.

At one point, they bring out and introduce a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef. He’s framed as the actual inventor, or perhaps the executor to Ed’s idea. The Saturday night garage vision evaporates. We recalibrate. Okay, it was this guy. Ed was the idea guy. Fine. But Nancy and Ed continue presenting, and the chef gets interrupted, and can’t seem to get a word in. He does manage a few key sentences about grease dripping or excess calories, or the crunch of the foods that have been cooked on the Miracle Fryer (a particular preoccupation of this infomercial), but otherwise he’s largely ignored. If he’s the inventor, shouldn’t he be the main presenter? What’s Ed doing here? It’s not that Ed was the one to actually sign the endorsement and licensing deal, was it? I will wonder this until the end.

When it ends, I’m left feeling uneasy. I have thoughts about how we treat our aging celebrities, what we do with our “beloved” entertainers, those who we welcomed into our living rooms every night, now that we’re done with them. I’m also happy that Ed got some money, though I imagine he was disappointed this product wasn’t a runaway success like the Foreman Grill. In fact, in some ways, this is a product ahead of its time. Air fryers are legitimately one of the most popular counter-top appliances in America now. Damnit, Ed, you were so close. In sum, I feel a bit sad.

The YouTube video ends and I’m treated to a post-roll ad for car insurance, and then a recommended music video for an artist whose video I accidentally clicked on two weeks ago. I’m on my phone now, searching “air fryer” on Amazon. Maybe I should see what all the hype is about. I’d like to cut the fat too, and tell my family to be quiet so they can all hear that satisfying crunch of my now-healthy french fry.

And what I see is stunning. Dozens of brands. Perhaps hundreds, all trying to sell their air fryers to me. And many of these brands, I’ve never heard of. Rivee. Ordai. Lyncia. Whatever. They don’t care about me. They’re all made in the same factory, and the brand name is changed, and really, the brand name doesn’t matter. No one’s actually trying to sell me anything. I’m just scrolling. Here’s a product. Here’s another. Buy it, or don’t. Who cares.

There’s no Nancy Nelson. There’s no Ed McMahon. There’s no gentleman, no pocket square, no trembling hand carefully maneuvering a chicken nugget. These people weren’t perfect, but they at least showed up to the studio that day. They learned their lines. Nancy performed her enthusiasm. I was told a price, and then the price was slashed in half with a red X and now I’m getting a deal. Now, I see the same list prices crossed out, and they’re always crossed out, and they always will be crossed out, and the price is calculated by the day by an algorithm, I’m sure. And I find myself missing the flawed, loose with the truth, anecdotal, reminiscent-about-boyhood-onion-rings charm of it all. And I wish Ed would try to sell me one more thing. I would buy it.

#essays

23h24. je n’arrive pas à rester assis.

Je me lève puis je me rassois, je me lève, je presse le pas puis je reviens à ma place. Mes pieds dans tous les sens.

Dans la nuit j’ouvre les yeux, sur ma montre il est 3h du matin. je ferme les yeux, j’essaie de me rendormir.

mon coeur bat fort.

Dans l’obscurité de la nuit. Dans le silence de ma chambre. Je ressens les palpitations de mon cœur jusque dans mes oreilles.

Ce tintamarre est assourdissant.

Je tourne et retourne dans mon lit. J’ouvre les yeux, il est 3h15.

Le lendemain, je m’empresse de prendre mon téléphone. j’agis, je réagis, je partage, je like, je commente. Je recherche tout ce qui entretient ma rage. Avec frénésie je réponds aux messages. je jongle entre plusieurs interlocuteurs. je rappelle les chiffres. Je fais des screenshots.

Rien d’autre n’a d’importance pour moi.

Un ami m’envoi une blague. Elle n’est pas drôle. en plus il me perd du temps. Un autre réagit à ma story, je m’empresse de lui partager l'article que je viens de lire.

Chez le boulanger, je vois Sonia Mabrouk dans l’édition du midi. Un invité rappelle la victoire idéologique de son parti.

Pourquoi tu te mets dans cet état? Je pense à lui, qui me dit que je vois le mal partout.

Je repense à l’étudiant que j’étais qui faisait la queue à partir de 5h du matin afin d’avoir le graal pour renouveler son titre de séjour. A qui on refusait de faire des visites parce qu’il avait un accent. Je pense à tous ceux qui pendant le confinement, alors que tout le monde était au chaud chez lui, sortait pour nous livrer nos colis amazon et sortir nos poubelles. Depuis hier soir je pense à la jeune fille qui se prostituera pour manger. je pense à tous ces étudiants poussés vers la précarité. Je pense à ces familles dans la rue qui ne pourront plus se loger. je pense à cet étudiant placé en garde à vue car son titre de séjour n’a pas été renouvelé. je pense à cette personne dite sans papier rendue main-d’œuvre volontaire et corvéable à merci.

Ils parlent d’améliorer l’attractivité de la France dans le monde. Ils peignent une France renfermée sur elle-même qui craint l’invasion.

L’étranger n’est pas un danger.

il disait que notre vote l’engageait. le bisou de la haine sur la joue, il nous dévisage.

l’étranger n’est pas un danger

Le feu de la division qui brûle a encore été attisé. La population se divise.

Autopsie de ma rage.

#slam

"Music is a spiritual thing." — Fela Kuti

Le slam, c'est l'art de sculpter la beauté.

Tisser des images, des émotions en liberté. Les mots sont pinceaux, forme noire sur la toile blanche. Créant sensations, expériences qui se partagent.

L'ordinaire se transforme, le brutal s'apaise. L'intellectuel se révèle et en vers, il s'exprime. Mais plus que des mots, c'est un cri du cœur sincère. Vulnérabilité, partage, créativité, une âme qui se libère.

Dans ce monde où les mots perdent leurs éclats, où l'émotion se tait, le slam est un combat. Il m'a appris à me dévoiler, à montrer mes blessures, à partager mes joies, sans peur, sans imposture.

Le slam, c'est comme se mettre à nu devant un miroir.

J'accepte l'angoisse de la scène, j'acquiesce le regard de mon auditoire. Bombe sur les plaies, main tendue vers l'inconnu. Le slam est un refuge où l'âme se sent nue.

Loin des discours masqués, des rôles qu'on endosse. C'est mon cœur qui s'exprime, c'est ma voix qui s'élève.

Catharsis, libération des émotions bouillantes. Mes tripes se tordent, mes mots deviennent brûlants. Oser partager ses failles, un saut dans le vide. Mais mon message est mon guide.

Le slam, comme un cri primal, jaillit de mes entrailles.

En décembre, une loi, un projet qui divise. Colère, indignation, honte, mon âme est en crise. Le stylo devient mon arme, une bouée de sauvetage. Mes mots coulent sur le papier, apaisant ma rage.

Ce texte, c'est mon histoire, mais aussi celle des autres. L'empathie nous unit, face au vent et aux averses. En partageant mes mots, j'ai touché les cœurs. Le pouvoir du slam, c'est de partager les pleurs.

Le slam, c'est bien plus qu'un art, c'est un chemin vers soi.

Guérison, rassemblement, une voix qui se déploie. Les mots prennent vie, dansent sur la scène nue. Invitation à la rencontre, ils nous dépouillent.

Alors, ose prendre ta plume, explore tes émotions. Partage-les avec le monde, sans peur, sans restriction. Laisse les mots jaillir, ta voix résonner.

Le slam est un pont pour se connecter, pour s'aimer. Le slam, ma voix. Ma catharsis.

Quand les mots font vibrer.

#slam

There are some kinds of love that do not live loudly most of the time. They live in the ordinary hours. They live in the way you look at someone when they are not paying attention. They live in the way your chest tightens when you realize how much of your life has been changed by one person simply being in it. They live in the quiet fear that the person you treasure most may never fully understand how deeply they are loved because the world is always so noisy and life is always moving and even sincere love can get buried under schedules and stress and unfinished conversations. A birthday has a way of bringing that fear to the surface. It is not because a birthday is grand in itself. It is because there are certain days when your heart refuses to let you stay casual. There are certain days when you feel the weight of what you would regret leaving unsaid. There are certain days when love will not let you speak in passing language. It asks for truth. It asks for tenderness. It asks for the kind of honesty that does not perform. It simply kneels down in front of the person it loves and says, before another year passes, I need you to know what your life means.

That is where this begins for me. Not in polished language. Not in some neat idea about romance. Not in a collection of sentimental phrases that sound pretty for a moment and then disappear. It begins in something quieter and more serious than that. It begins in the awareness that there is a woman in this world whose life carries a beauty that words will always struggle to hold. It begins in the recognition that some people are not just important to you. They become woven into the deepest parts of your gratitude. They change the emotional climate of your days. They alter the meaning of home. They become part of the way you understand mercy because through them you have seen gentleness in motion. They become part of the way you understand strength because through them you have seen endurance without spectacle. They become part of the way you understand grace because through them you have watched love continue in moments where lesser things would have folded.

When the world talks about love, it often talks about excitement first. It talks about attraction first. It talks about all the bright and visible parts first. There is nothing wrong with beauty, and there is nothing wrong with joy, and there is nothing wrong with celebrating what is lovely and bright. But there comes a point in real love where the deepest amazement is no longer that someone can make your heart race. The deepest amazement is that someone can make your soul feel steadier. It is that someone can carry a kind of goodness that becomes a refuge to the people around them. It is that someone can bring warmth without demanding attention for it. It is that someone can walk through the same hard world everybody else walks through and still keep tenderness alive in their spirit. That kind of beauty is not shallow enough to be measured by a room. It is the kind heaven notices. It is the kind that remains beautiful after long days and difficult seasons and private burdens. It is the kind that has roots.

There is something deeply moving about being close enough to someone to see what most people miss about them. The world often celebrates what is obvious. It notices what shines on the surface. It rewards what is easily displayed. But the deeper truths of a person are often hidden in plain sight. They are in the small sacrifices nobody claps for. They are in the patience it takes to keep loving when you are tired. They are in the choice to stay soft when life gives you plenty of reasons to harden. They are in the way someone carries pain without making pain the whole story of who they are. They are in the way someone continues to care even when they have their own reasons to pull inward. If you love someone closely enough, you begin to see those hidden places. You begin to understand that what makes them extraordinary is not one grand moment. It is the steady reality of who they are when nobody is turning their life into a speech.

That is the place from which this article is written. It is written from the ache of wanting a woman to truly know what she is in the sight of God and in the heart of the man who loves her. It is written from the understanding that birthdays can bring joy, but they can also carry a strange quietness underneath them. Another year has passed. Another year has been spent giving, carrying, enduring, hoping, smiling, pressing through, showing up, pouring out. Another year has added memories that are beautiful and some that are heavy. Another year has moved the soul through more than one face can show. When someone you love reaches that moment, the most meaningful thing you may be able to give is not a perfect gift and not a polished tribute. It may be the gift of being seen rightly. It may be the gift of saying I have watched your life closely enough to know that your worth is greater than you have probably allowed yourself to feel.

So many women live inside a quiet contradiction. They are deeply loved, but they do not always feel deeply known. They are appreciated, but not always in the places where appreciation would reach the parts of them that have grown tired. They are called beautiful, but often in ways that touch only the surface and leave the deeper woman untouched. They are thanked for what they do, but rarely spoken to with enough depth about who they are. The world trains people to speak in quick affirmations because quick affirmations are easy. They cost little. They move past the heart quickly. But real love sometimes has to slow down enough to make contact with the unseen places. It has to speak past appearance and performance and productivity. It has to say I see the hidden strain, I see the strength it takes for you to remain who you are, and I see the beauty in you that would still be there even if the whole world stopped applauding tomorrow.

There is a difference between being admired and being cherished. Admiration can stay at a distance. It can be sincere, but it can still remain outside the heart of the matter. Cherishing is different. Cherishing pays attention. Cherishing notices what is not being said. Cherishing values what the world overlooks. Cherishing does not reduce a person to what they produce, how they appear, or how easily they brighten a room. It holds them as precious in their whole humanity. It makes room for their tenderness and their weariness and their hope and their humanity and their soul. To be cherished is to be held with reverence, and every woman deserves to be spoken to at least sometimes from that place of reverence. Not because she is fragile in a lesser sense, but because human life is sacred, and the one you love should never have to guess whether you understand the sacredness of her life.

If a birthday means anything spiritually, maybe it means this. Maybe it is a yearly reminder that a human life did not arrive by accident. Maybe it is a yearly interruption to the lies of usefulness and exhaustion and comparison. Maybe it is a holy pause in which we remember that before this person was a helper to anybody, before she filled any role, before she carried any title, before she took on any responsibility, she was first a soul known by God. She was first a life spoken into existence by the One who does nothing casually. She was first someone seen by heaven before she was ever seen by the world. That matters because it changes the entire emotional weight of how we speak to someone on their birthday. We are not merely congratulating them for surviving another year. We are honoring a life that was intentionally formed by God and held by Him through every unseen mile.

Scripture does not speak about human worth as if it is something flimsy. It does not present people as valuable only when they are strong, useful, successful, or impressive. It gives us a deeper ground than that. We are made by God. We are known by God. We are loved by God. The psalmist writes about being fearfully and wonderfully made, and that phrase has been used so often that people can stop feeling the force of it. But pause for a moment and hear what it means beneath familiarity. It means human life bears the mark of deliberate divine workmanship. It means the person in front of you is not random. It means there are details in her soul that heaven placed there on purpose. It means the depth in her, the gentleness in her, the ways she loves, the way she notices, the shape of her compassion, the particular texture of her strength, none of that is casual. The hand of God is not careless. The life you love is not ordinary in His eyes.

When you love a woman through faith, you do not merely say she is wonderful because she makes your life better, though she may. You say she is precious because God’s breath gave life to her existence and His attention has never once turned away from her story. You say she matters because heaven has never treated her as background. You say she is deeply worthy of love because her being is rooted in the intention of God, not in the changing opinions of people. This matters in marriage, and it matters in personal love, because the human heart gets tired. Even the strong heart gets tired. Even the sincere person sometimes drifts into a quiet forgetfulness about their own worth. Life has a way of making people functional. It has a way of pushing them into role and duty and routine until they start relating to themselves mainly through what must be done next. In that kind of life, being reminded that you are beloved before you are useful becomes a form of healing.

There is also a quiet grief that can live inside long love, and not enough people talk about it honestly. When you truly love someone, you become aware over time of how inadequate language can feel. You think of all the days you have spent together, all the moments when you were grateful and perhaps did not say enough, all the times when you assumed your love was obvious, all the small ways your heart recognized her goodness without finding the words at the time. That is not necessarily failure. Life moves fast. Real love often lives in action as much as in language. But there are moments when the accumulated weight of unspoken gratitude becomes impossible to ignore. A birthday can become one of those moments. You look at the woman you love, and what rises in you is not merely celebration. It is an almost painful awareness that her life deserves more than ordinary acknowledgment.

What do you say to the woman whose presence has made your life gentler in places where you once felt rough and guarded. What do you say to the woman whose kindness has outlasted days when tiredness could have made her smaller. What do you say to the woman who has given warmth to rooms, peace to conversations, steadiness to ordinary life, and who may not even realize how much of the atmosphere around her changes because of who she is. How do you tell her that some of the most meaningful things in your life are not dramatic stories but daily realities she has shaped simply by being herself. How do you say thank you for the thousand invisible ways she has made your world more human.

Maybe you begin by telling the truth about the hidden things. You tell her that beauty is not only what can be photographed. Beauty is what remains when there is nothing to perform. Beauty is kindness that has not turned bitter. Beauty is patience that has survived pressure. Beauty is the choice to care after disappointment. Beauty is a heart that still knows how to love in a world that profits from cynicism. Beauty is a softness that does not come from weakness but from deep strength. Beauty is a soul that knows how to make others feel safe. Beauty is what God can plant in a person that no passing season can erase. A woman may hear about her beauty many times in life, but if she only hears it in shallow ways, something inside her remains thirsty. She needs to be told where her deepest beauty actually lives.

There is a quiet power in being loved by someone who sees your soul before your image. That kind of love feels different because it does not depend on the day being easy or the mood being bright or the appearance being polished. It does not disappear when life looks less cinematic. It is rooted in something steadier than mood and something deeper than chemistry. It is rooted in recognition. I know you. I know the way your heart bends toward care. I know the way your strength shows up in stillness. I know the depth of what you carry even when you do not name it. I know the places where you have had to be brave. I know the cost of some of your gentleness. I know enough of your life to understand that what makes you remarkable is not spectacle. It is truth. It is character. It is the fragrance of grace in your life.

And because this is faith-based love, it must go even deeper than personal admiration. It must speak the language of God’s regard. One of the most healing things a husband can ever do for his wife is to remind her that her value does not begin with his opinion of her, even at its best. It begins with God. Human love matters, and it matters deeply. A husband’s words can comfort or wound, strengthen or diminish. They are not small things. But even a husband’s love is strongest when it points beyond itself to the One whose love never fluctuates. There is a tenderness in telling the woman you love, I adore you, but even my love for you is only a dim reflection of how fully God has seen and cherished your life from the beginning. That is not reducing earthly love. It is grounding it. It is lifting it onto the only foundation strong enough to carry the full truth.

The world teaches women, often mercilessly, to look at themselves through mirrors that were never built to tell the truth. Some mirrors are made of comparison. Some are made of age. Some are made of usefulness. Some are made of beauty standards that shift like sand. Some are made of old wounds. Some are made of the careless words of other people that still echo years later. Some are made of their own silent disappointments. If a woman keeps looking into those mirrors long enough, she can begin to believe that her worth is unstable. She can begin to believe that she is falling behind some invisible standard, that she is not enough in the right ways, that the best parts of her are not the parts anyone sees. This is one reason a birthday can feel strangely emotional. It does not only remind a person that another year has passed. It can stir all the questions that gather around time. Am I still beautiful. Am I still enough. Am I still seen. Am I still wanted. Am I still becoming, or am I just trying to keep up.

Faith answers those questions in a different voice than the world does. Faith does not flatter. It tells the truth. It says your worth never came from youth. It never came from perfection. It never came from how effortlessly life fit you in one particular season. Your worth comes from the God who called you His. Your beauty is not a temporary arrangement of external things. It runs deeper than time can touch. The loveliness of a gentle and quiet spirit, Scripture says, is precious in the sight of God. That does not mean silent in the timid sense, and it does not mean a woman should disappear. It means there is an inward beauty, a settled beauty, a beauty of soul, that carries eternal value. The world undervalues it because it cannot monetize it well. Heaven recognizes it instantly because heaven sees clearly.

And maybe that is part of what a loving husband longs to do on his wife’s birthday. He longs to interrupt the false mirrors. He longs to place before her a truer reflection. He longs to say, not with shallow compliment but with reverent clarity, I need you to see yourself through a better light. I need you to know that the qualities in you that may have felt invisible on ordinary days are not invisible to God and they are not invisible to me. I see your tenderness. I see your endurance. I see the care that flows from you. I see the way your presence changes the emotional temperature of a room. I see how much good lives quietly in you. I see what you mean. I see what you carry. I see what makes you rare.

Some of the most beautiful women in the world are the women who have had to keep going while carrying things nobody fully knew. Their beauty is not simple. It has been deepened by reality. It has passed through disappointment and still remained open. It has walked through fatigue and still chosen love. It has stood in places where it could have turned cold and somehow stayed warm. This kind of beauty is impossible to produce artificially. It can only be formed through life with God, through inner surrender, through choices nobody else fully understands, through grace received in hidden places. When a husband sees that in his wife, he is seeing something sacred. He is looking at a life that has been worked on by God in the private rooms of the soul.

There is another thing that needs to be said plainly because many people feel it and almost nobody articulates it. The women who give much often have trouble receiving deeply. They know how to pour out. They know how to tend, encourage, help, steady, and hold together. But when it comes time for them to be honored, comforted, or deeply spoken to, something in them may hesitate. They may smile, but not fully receive. They may hear the words, but not let them all the way in. They may feel awkward with affection that goes beyond the surface because deep down they have trained themselves to keep moving rather than to sit still long enough to be nourished. If you love a woman like that, part of your tenderness must be patient. You do not simply say loving things. You say them in a way that invites rest. You say them with enough sincerity that she can stop resisting them for a moment. You say them in a way that lets her breathe.

A birthday can become a holy invitation to that kind of breathing. Not the rushed kind that happens between obligations. Not the polite kind that says thank you and moves on. The deeper kind. The kind where a woman sits still long enough to hear that her life is not merely being acknowledged. It is being treasured. Her story is being honored. Her presence is being received as gift. Her beauty is being spoken of in terms that do not shrink to the surface. Her soul is being addressed. There is something profoundly healing in that. It is not exaggerated to say that when someone you love is truly spoken to in the right way, it can break through layers of fatigue and self-forgetfulness that have quietly settled over them.

This is why a faith-based birthday message must not be reduced to sweet language alone. It must carry blessing. It must carry witness. It must carry truth strong enough to meet the hidden sadness that can sometimes live even in celebration. It must say more than you are wonderful. It must say I thank God for you because I know your life is His handiwork. It must say more than you are beautiful. It must say I have seen enough of your soul to know that your beauty is not fragile. It must say more than I love you. It must say your life is a gift, your presence has mattered more than you know, and I pray God deepens in you the ability to feel what has been true all along. You are cherished.

Sometimes I think one of the deepest forms of love is helping someone return to themselves in the presence of God. Not helping them become a self they have not yet earned. Not pushing them toward a better image. Not trying to manage them into some perfected version that is easier to celebrate. I mean helping them return to the truth of who they already are under the noise, under the pressure, under the expectations, under the endless doing. Helping them return to the belovedness that existed before all of those things took up so much space. When a husband speaks to his wife on her birthday with spiritual honesty, that is part of what he is doing if he does it well. He is not simply celebrating an event. He is gently escorting her heart back toward the truth that she is loved far more deeply than the world has trained her to expect.

And to do that well, he must himself slow down enough to remember. He must not write from convenience. He must not speak from habit. He must pay attention to the real woman before him. He must let gratitude become specific enough to be believable. He must let reverence deepen enough that his words carry weight. He must remember the moments that showed him who she is. He must remember the steadiness she brought into hard seasons. He must remember the grace she showed when life was not easy. He must remember the tenderness that came through in ordinary days. He must remember the way her life has become part of his own understanding of goodness.

Because in the end, this is not only about saying she is loved. It is about proving that you have noticed why she should be. Not because she has earned love through performance, but because love becomes more intimate when it is attentive. There is something holy about saying to the person you love, I have not lived beside you blindly. I have not passed over your hidden beauty. I have not mistaken your ordinariness for smallness. I have watched enough to know that your life carries a rare kind of grace. I have watched enough to know that your strength is not loud, but it is real. I have watched enough to know that your heart is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been allowed near.

That kind of truth cannot be rushed. It has to be unfolded carefully, the way one opens something fragile and precious. And maybe that is where the next part of this article belongs. It belongs in the deeper unfolding of what it means to tell a woman on her birthday not only that she is loved, but why, and not only by a husband who sees her closely, but by a God who has seen her perfectly from the beginning.

If love is going to tell the truth, then it has to go into the places where many women silently struggle. It has to go into the place where a woman wonders whether all the care she has given has made her invisible. It has to go into the place where tiredness makes her feel less radiant than she once was. It has to go into the place where time can feel like both a blessing and a thief. It has to go into the place where she has smiled through responsibilities while some part of her quietly wondered whether anyone still sees the person beneath them. A shallow message will never reach those rooms. Only truth wrapped in tenderness can do that. Only love that is patient enough to speak with reverence can meet a woman in the parts of herself she does not easily show.

That is why I think one of the most loving things a husband can say to his wife on her birthday is not simply that she is special, but that her specialness was never dependent on a season. It was never dependent on how easy life felt. It was never dependent on whether she felt full of energy or worn thin by what life demanded. It was never dependent on how often she was praised. It was never dependent on whether others understood her. It was never dependent on whether the world rewarded the hidden goodness in her. The deepest things about her were placed there by God, and the deepest things about her do not expire because a calendar turns another page. A woman may age through seasons, but she does not age out of preciousness. She does not age out of beauty in the sight of God. She does not age out of being deeply worthy of honor, tenderness, and wonder.

There is something deeply cruel in the way the world often ties a woman’s value to what can be quickly measured. It measures appearance with one set of eyes. It measures usefulness with another. It measures relevance with another. It keeps moving the standard and then quietly punishes women for feeling exhausted by the chase. But the love of God does not move like that. He does not look at a woman and ask whether she is keeping up with the vanity of the age. He looks at the heart. He sees the inward life. He sees the hidden choices that shaped her. He sees the tears no one else noticed. He sees the prayers spoken under breath. He sees the self-control it took not to answer pain with pain. He sees the mercy she showed when she had reason to be harsh. He sees the moments when she kept loving while carrying her own burden. He sees the formation of character. He sees what the world is too distracted to see. That is the gaze under which a woman becomes safe again. That is the gaze a husband should echo when he blesses his wife.

And what does it mean to echo that gaze. It means seeing her with steadiness. It means refusing to let the temporary definitions of the world become the deepest definitions in your home. It means calling out the qualities in her that heaven values. It means speaking to the woman she is beneath her roles. It means noticing what she may not know how to say about herself. A husband who sees this way begins to understand that one of his callings is not merely to love his wife privately in feeling. It is to help create an atmosphere in which her soul can remember what is true. It is to speak life over the places where the world has spoken noise. It is to make the home a place where she is not merely needed, but cherished. Not merely appreciated for her work, but treasured for her being. Not merely admired at her best, but loved in her humanity.

Sometimes I think the women who most need to hear that they are cherished are the women who rarely stop long enough to ask for it. They are used to being dependable. They are used to carrying emotional weight. They are used to helping life move forward. They are used to being the one who remembers what matters. And because of that, they can quietly begin to live as though their own heart should just endure in silence. They may not complain much. They may not even have language for the ache. But the ache is there. It is the ache of being strong for a long time. It is the ache of giving deeply and forgetting how to receive. It is the ache of wondering whether the hidden parts of their life are understood. It is the ache of not always feeling beautiful in the deepest sense, even if others speak kind words on the surface.

This is where a birthday can become more than a celebration. It can become restoration. It can become a day where love stops treating the woman at the center of it like someone who will always be fine and instead speaks to her like someone sacred. A birthday can become a day where the message is not hurry, smile, and enjoy yourself while everyone watches. It can become a day where the message is be still for a moment and let yourself be loved. Let yourself be honored. Let yourself be spoken to as someone whose life matters deeply. Let yourself feel what you have too often brushed aside. Let yourself hear that you are not just surviving time. You are a gift still unfolding inside it.

The longer a marriage lives, the more important this becomes. In the beginning of love, words often come easily because everything feels heightened. But maturity asks more from love than emotional intensity. It asks for attention. It asks for staying awake. It asks for the discipline of seeing the person in front of you freshly instead of assuming you already know all there is to know. It asks for gratitude that does not become lazy. It asks for language that grows deeper rather than thinner. In that sense, a birthday is a test of love’s depth. Can you still pause and see her. Can you still speak with wonder. Can you still tell the truth in a way that reaches her. Can you still honor the mystery of the person whose life has become joined with yours.

There is a form of neglect that can exist even in faithful relationships, and it is not always intentional. It happens when people stop translating their gratitude into words that nourish. It happens when appreciation becomes assumed instead of expressed. It happens when the routines of life become so familiar that the sacredness of a person begins to disappear behind the management of days. But no woman should have to live inside a love where her significance is felt only through logistics. She needs tenderness. She needs attention. She needs to hear what her life means. She needs to know that the one closest to her has not gone blind to her inward beauty.

If this article has a quiet burden in it, maybe that is the burden. It is the burden of not wanting a woman to reach another birthday with her deepest worth still under-spoken. It is the burden of wanting love to become brave enough to say what should not be left to implication. It is the burden of wanting a wife to hear from her husband not just that she is loved, but that she is marveled at in the truest ways. Not idolized. Not flattered. But genuinely revered for the grace that God has formed in her life.

And if we speak honestly, reverence is a word many modern people have lost. They know romance. They know attraction. They know companionship. They know chemistry. They know habit. But reverence is different. Reverence means you recognize that a human life is not something to handle casually. It means you understand that the person before you carries an eternal soul. It means you are aware that the one you love is someone God Himself formed and has walked with through every hidden year. A husband who reveres his wife does not worship her. He honors the sacredness of her life. He sees her as someone entrusted to his love, not someone absorbed into his convenience. He understands that tenderness is not weakness. It is a right response to something precious.

That kind of reverence changes the way you speak. It removes carelessness. It removes lazy compliment. It removes language that sounds nice but touches nothing. It makes you slower. Truer. Softer. It makes you say things like, I know there are parts of your life that no one sees the way I should. I know there are costs you have carried quietly. I know there are days when you have given more than you had. I know there are times when your heart has kept loving even when it would have been easier to pull back. I know enough of your journey to understand that what makes you so beautiful is not that life has been effortless for you. It is that grace has remained alive in you.

There is something very powerful in naming the fact that grace has remained alive. Many people can stay functional through hard years. Many can keep moving. Many can fulfill obligation. But not everyone stays warm. Not everyone stays kind. Not everyone stays capable of tenderness. Some people survive by closing down. Some survive by becoming sharper. Some survive by drifting into indifference. So when a woman has walked through real life and still carries compassion, still knows how to comfort, still knows how to love, still knows how to make space for others, that is not small. That is evidence of something holy at work. That is evidence that God has been shaping a soul more beautiful than many people know how to recognize.

A husband should never grow casual about that. He should never become so familiar with his wife’s goodness that he stops being moved by it. Familiarity can be one of love’s great dangers when it is not fought with gratitude. The very closeness that should produce wonder can drift into assumption if the heart is not guarded. But gratitude restores sight. Gratitude lets you look again. Gratitude lets you remember that the woman beside you is not merely part of your routine. She is a human life of astonishing worth. She is someone whose presence has altered the texture of your existence. She is someone whose kindness, patience, resilience, and love have entered your days so deeply that you may only fully understand their value if you pause long enough to imagine life without them. And when you do, you realize how much has been held together by the quiet beauty of her being.

This is why thankfulness should never stay generic. Not with a wife. Not with someone whose life has shaped yours so intimately. The more particular gratitude becomes, the more believable love becomes. Thank you for the way you bring softness into moments that could have turned hard. Thank you for the way your presence can settle a room. Thank you for the way you care without demanding credit. Thank you for the way your heart still opens after hard days. Thank you for the strength that does not need to announce itself. Thank you for being the kind of person whose love is felt not just in big declarations but in daily atmosphere. When a husband speaks this way, he is not just complimenting. He is testifying. He is bearing witness to the real effect of her life.

And that witnessing matters because women often underestimate their own impact. They may know they are busy. They may know they are trying. They may know they are holding things together. But they do not always know how deeply their presence changes the environment around them. They do not always know how much steadiness they bring. They do not always know how much comfort they carry into ordinary spaces. They do not always know that the love they are giving is being felt in ways they cannot measure. That is one reason a husband’s words matter so much. He gets to be the one who tells her what her own nearness has meant. He gets to name the beauty that has become normal to her because she lives inside it every day.

A faith-based birthday message should also bless the future, not just honor the past. It should look at the coming year and speak hope over it. Not shallow hope. Not the kind that assumes life will be easy. But the kind that calls down the goodness of God over whatever lies ahead. I pray peace over your heart. I pray refreshment over the places in you that have grown tired. I pray renewed joy over the parts of life that have felt heavy. I pray rest over the places where you have lived braced for too long. I pray that the next year does not merely ask more from you, but gives back to you in ways that feel unmistakably kind. I pray that God surrounds you with reminders of His love, His pleasure in you, His care for your story, and His delight in who you are.

There is something tender about praying those things over a woman because prayer says I know I am not enough by myself to carry all the blessing I want for you. Prayer says my love is real, but I want something deeper than my effort alone can provide. I want God Himself to hold you, refresh you, strengthen you, and fill you. That is one of the most beautiful things about faith-based love. It does not stop at human affection. It opens its hands and asks heaven to do what only heaven can do. It recognizes that the woman you love needs more than admiration. She needs grace. She needs peace that reaches beyond circumstance. She needs joy that is not dependent on whether every burden has lifted. She needs the touch of God in the inward places where no human voice can fully reach.

And perhaps one of the greatest gifts a husband can give his wife is not only the assurance that she is loved, but the assurance that she is not carrying life alone. God is with her. God has been with her. God will be with her in the year ahead. He has not lost sight of what she has poured out. He has not ignored the days when she felt stretched. He has not overlooked the sacrifices that disappeared into ordinary life. He has not missed the prayers she did not know how to finish. He has not misread the tears she tried to hide. He knows her fully, and He remains tender toward her. There is extraordinary comfort in that. The woman you love is not surviving on her own strength. She is being held, even when she does not always feel the holding.

That truth changes the emotional center of a birthday. It turns the day away from mere age and toward meaning. Another year is not merely another number. It is another year God has carried this precious life. Another year He has sustained her, formed her, taught her, comforted her, refined her, and kept her. Another year in which her story remained under His care. Another year in which the beauty He planted in her kept growing, even in ways invisible to the outside world. Another year in which her life remained a gift to others, even when she could not always see the full reach of it. When love speaks from that perspective, a birthday becomes more than celebration. It becomes holy gratitude.

And there is one more thing that must be said because it belongs at the center of all this. A woman should not have to be extraordinary in public ways to deserve this kind of love. She does not need a dramatic resume of visible greatness. She does not need to have conquered the world. She does not need to shine according to the measures of culture. She deserves this kind of love because she is a human soul made by God and because the ordinary faithfulness of her life is already more sacred than the world knows how to recognize. Some of the most beautiful lives are not the loudest lives. Some of the most beautiful women are not the ones the world would make famous. They are the ones whose goodness shows up in kitchens, conversations, car rides, hard seasons, prayers, late nights, small comforts, gentle responses, hidden endurance, and quiet acts of love. Heaven does not miss any of that. Neither should a husband.

So if I had to gather the heart of this article into one honest movement, it would be this. Tell her she is loved in a way that reaches past the surface. Tell her she is beautiful in the places time cannot cheapen. Tell her she is special in the ways the world often overlooks but God never does. Tell her that her life has made your world warmer, steadier, more human, and more full of grace. Tell her that who she is matters more than all the roles she fills. Tell her that you see enough of her soul to know that what makes her remarkable is not performance, but the quiet glory of the person she is. Tell her that God formed her on purpose. Tell her that heaven has never treated her as ordinary. Tell her that this next year is held in the same faithful hands that have carried every year before it.

And then say it simply too, because sometimes after all the depth, the heart still needs the directness. My love, happy birthday. You are one of the greatest gifts God has ever placed in my life. You are beautiful far beyond appearance. You are precious beyond words. You are strong in ways that move me. You are gentle in ways that heal more than you know. You are deeply loved by me, and even more deeply loved by God. Your life matters. Your presence matters. Your heart matters. Thank you for being who you are. Thank you for the grace you carry. Thank you for the love you have given. Thank you for the quiet beauty of your soul. I pray peace over you. I pray joy over you. I pray renewal over you. I pray that this year reminds you again and again that you are cherished, seen, held, and loved.

Because that is what she needs to know on her birthday. Not merely that the day is special, but that she is. Not merely that people are celebrating, but that heaven has always known her worth. Not merely that another year has passed, but that another year has revealed again the beauty of a life that never needed to become someone else to be deeply precious. And if she can feel even a little of that truth settling into her heart, then the words have done what they were meant to do. They have not just decorated a moment. They have honored a soul.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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Pourquoi l'audio, pas les écrans

Dans la maison de Médard Bourgault, l'objectif n'est pas d'ajouter de la technologie. C'est de préserver une expérience.

Une visite de qualité repose sur trois choses : une attention claire et continue, un déplacement libre dans l'espace, et une expérience partagée entre les visiteurs. Tout dispositif doit être évalué à partir de ces trois critères. Les écrans échouent sur les trois.

Pourquoi les écrans ne fonctionnent pas

Un écran attire le regard par nature — lumière, mouvement, contraste. Une sculpture demande une attention active. Les deux entrent en conflit. Le visiteur alterne entre l'écran et l'œuvre, et n'observe vraiment ni l'un ni l'autre.

Il y a aussi un problème de mouvement. Une sculpture se découvre en tournant autour, en changeant d'angle, en ajustant sa distance. Un écran impose un point fixe — il faut se placer devant. L'expérience devient frontale au lieu d'être spatiale.

Et dans un groupe, les problèmes s'accumulent. Un écran crée des attroupements, des blocages, une inégalité entre ceux qui voient bien et ceux qui sont trop loin. Si on distribue des QR codes ou des écouteurs individuels pour contourner ça, le problème empire : chacun déclenche le contenu à un moment différent, avance à son propre rythme, vit une version légèrement différente de la visite. Les gens sont dans la même pièce mais ils ne vivent plus la même expérience.

Un groupe équipé d'écouteurs individuels n'est plus un groupe. C'est une juxtaposition d'individus.

Pourquoi l'audio fonctionne

Le son se diffuse dans l'espace. Il n'utilise pas la vision — le visiteur peut observer les sculptures pleinement, se déplacer librement, s'arrêter quand il veut. Tous les visiteurs reçoivent la même information, au même moment, quelle que soit leur position dans la pièce. Le groupe reste un groupe.

Avec un montage bien construit, l'audio fait quelque chose qu'aucun écran ne peut faire : il structure le parcours sans signalisation visible. Une voix oriente l'attention, prépare un déplacement, laisse du temps pour observer avant de reprendre. Le visiteur n'est jamais en conflit entre écouter et regarder.

Ce qu'on envisage, c'est la voix d'André Médard — le fils de Médard, 85 ans — qui guide la visite. Pas une narration de musée. Une présence. Un homme qui parle de son père, de ses œuvres, de ce qu'elles représentaient. Cette voix ne donne pas seulement de l'information. Elle crée une présence dans le lieu.

L'audio respecte aussi le silence, la matière et le rythme du lieu. Et d'un point de vue pratique, il est plus robuste — moins de maintenance, moins de pannes visibles.

Conclusion

Les écrans fragmentent l'attention, créent des inégalités et perturbent l'expérience. Les dispositifs individuels détruisent la dynamique de groupe. L'audio libère le regard, respecte le mouvement, unifie les visiteurs, structure le parcours et crée une présence.

Ce n'est pas une option parmi d'autres. C'est la seule solution cohérente avec ce que ce lieu doit être.

Raphaël Maltais Bourgault

12 April 2026

Rosy day

My feet went surfing and found a dream beer a beer that juices the mouth and wets the gut that kicks history into a big blue sky and combs the skin. I brought news of this beer to my love room where I could bend it in private I warped it and kissed it and gave it long names then I plucked its pages and ground them into a clean face, which I wrapped in wax paper and left on the stoop jutting out from where my best friend used to live

Flexibility will be important as I choose which of this Saturday's many sporting events to follow. Scattered heavy rain and thunderstorms across Texas and much of the United States may impact not only the scheduled games but also my ability to pull in a strong enough signal to follow them.

That having been said, the MLB Game between the New York Yankees and the Kansas City Royals will be today's first game on my agenda. Its scheduled start time of 12:35 PM Central Time will leave plenty of time available if I need to make other choices.

And the adventure continues.

Certaines œuvres de Médard Bourgault portent des titres qui, lus aujourd'hui, peuvent provoquer une réaction. La naissance d'une race. L'ébauche d'une race. Le mot « race » accroche. C'est un fait réel, et il serait naïf de l'ignorer.

Mais la réaction que provoque un mot en 2025 ne dit rien sur ce que ce mot signifiait en 1930.

À l'époque de Médard Bourgault, l'expression « race canadienne-française » désignait un peuple, une continuité culturelle, une identité collective. Ce n'était pas un vocabulaire racial au sens contemporain du terme — c'était le vocabulaire ordinaire du nationalisme canadien-français de l'époque, utilisé par les écrivains, les curés, les politiciens, les journaux. Changer le titre d'une œuvre pour effacer ce mot, c'est substituer notre sensibilité à la réalité historique. Ce n'est pas une correction. C'est une falsification.

Un titre n'est pas une étiquette

Un titre n'est pas un élément secondaire qu'on peut ajuster sans conséquence. Il fait partie de l'œuvre au même titre que sa forme, son matériau, sa date. Il documente l'intention du créateur, son époque, son vocabulaire. Les historiens de l'art, les archivistes et les institutions muséales le traitent comme une donnée primaire — pas comme un texte promotionnel qu'on révise selon les circonstances.

Modifier un titre, ce n'est pas expliquer une œuvre. C'est en altérer le sens. L'œuvre qu'on consultera dans cinquante ans ne sera plus tout à fait celle que Médard Bourgault a créée — elle sera une version corrigée par des gens qui trouvaient l'original inconfortable.

Ce qu'on risque vraiment

L'argument le plus solide contre la modification des titres n'est pas moral — il est pratique.

Si on accepte le principe que les titres peuvent être changés quand ils dérangent, on n'a plus aucun critère stable pour décider où s'arrêter. Ce qui dérange aujourd'hui sera modifié. Ce qui dérangera demain le sera à son tour. Dans dix ans, dans vingt ans, d'autres sensibilités prévaudront — et elles s'appliqueront aux mêmes œuvres, avec la même logique. Le résultat n'est pas un patrimoine préservé. C'est un patrimoine en révision permanente, qui finit par ne plus refléter l'époque où il a été créé, mais les préoccupations successives des époques qui lui ont succédé.

C'est exactement l'opposé de ce que fait la conservation.

La solution existe déjà

Il ne s'agit pas de choisir entre préserver et expliquer. On peut faire les deux. Les institutions sérieuses le font constamment : elles maintiennent l'œuvre dans son état d'origine et elles fournissent le contexte nécessaire pour la comprendre. Un cartel, une note d'interprétation, un guide de visite — ce sont les outils qui existent précisément pour ça. Ils permettent d'aborder la complexité sans toucher à l'œuvre elle-même.

Expliquer un mot, c'est en restituer le sens. Le remplacer, c'est renoncer à le comprendre — et demander au public d'en faire autant.

Ce que ça dit d'une institution

Une institution qui modifie les titres d'œuvres pour éviter les questions difficiles ne protège pas son public. Elle lui retire la possibilité de comprendre. Elle traite les visiteurs comme des personnes incapables de recevoir une information contextualisée — comme s'il fallait filtrer le passé avant de le leur montrer.

C'est une posture condescendante. Et c'est une posture qui, appliquée au patrimoine, a des conséquences irréversibles.

Conclusion

Les titres des œuvres de Médard Bourgault doivent être maintenus dans leur forme originale. Non par indifférence au présent, mais parce que c'est la seule manière de transmettre fidèlement ce qui a été créé. Le rôle d'un lieu de mémoire n'est pas de rendre le passé confortable. C'est de le rendre compréhensible.

Ce sont deux choses très différentes.

Raphaël Maltais Bourgault

Pourquoi la question se pose aujourd'hui

On vit dans une époque où la représentation du corps féminin est devenue un terrain politique. #MeToo a changé la façon dont on regarde les rapports de pouvoir entre les hommes et les femmes. La publicité, le cinéma, les réseaux sociaux — partout, on a commencé à questionner qui représente le corps des femmes, comment, et dans quel intérêt. C'est un mouvement réel, et il a produit des prises de conscience nécessaires.

Dans ce contexte, entrer dans un lieu qui expose des sculptures de femmes nues, créées par un homme, au début du vingtième siècle — ça peut provoquer une réaction. C'est normal. Le regard qu'on pose sur une œuvre n'est jamais neutre. Il arrive chargé de tout ce qu'on a vécu, lu, appris.

Mais une réaction n'est pas une analyse. Et c'est là que ça devient important.

Parce que regarder les nus de Médard Bourgault avec les seules lunettes de 2025, c'est regarder le mauvais objet. Ce n'est pas une publicité. Ce n'est pas une image produite pour vendre quelque chose ou pour satisfaire un regard masculin. C'est l'œuvre d'un sculpteur autodidacte de Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, qui travaillait le bois dans un contexte où montrer ces sculptures lui coûtait quelque chose — socialement, religieusement. Il les cachait parfois. Il les faisait quand même.

Un anachronisme déguisé en progrès

Remettre en question les nus de Médard Bourgault à partir de critères contemporains, c'est juger une œuvre du passé comme si elle avait été créée aujourd'hui — et lui reprocher de ne pas s'y conformer. C'est un anachronisme. Il ne dit rien sur l'œuvre. Il dit quelque chose sur nous.

Le nu traverse toute l'histoire de l'art occidental et non-occidental. Il a servi à représenter la beauté, la dignité, la fragilité du corps humain, sa présence dans le monde. Réduire cette tradition à une logique d'objectification, c'est appauvrir radicalement ce qu'on regarde — et se priver de la capacité de le comprendre.

Chez Médard Bourgault, le nu relève d'une recherche formelle : l'équilibre, la masse, la vérité du corps sculpté dans le bois. Ce n'est pas une posture idéologique. C'est un travail de sculpteur.

Une forme d'art qui ne vieillit pas

Il y a aussi quelque chose qui dépasse Médard Bourgault, et qui dépasse son époque.

Le nu est peut-être la forme la plus ancienne et la plus constante de l'histoire de l'art. Des Vénus préhistoriques taillées il y a 30 000 ans aux sculptures grecques, de Michel-Ange à Rodin, d'Auguste Renoir à Louise Bourgeois — le corps humain nu a traversé tous les siècles, toutes les cultures, tous les courants artistiques sans jamais disparaître. Pas parce que les artistes cherchaient à choquer ou à provoquer. Parce que le corps est l'expérience humaine la plus universelle qui soit. Tout le monde en a un. Tout le monde vieillit dedans, souffre dedans, aime dedans. Le représenter, c'est parler de quelque chose que personne ne peut nier.

C'est pour ça que le nu résiste au temps d'une façon que peu d'autres sujets artistiques peuvent revendiquer. Les modes changent, les idéologies passent, les sensibilités se transforment — et le nu est encore là, toujours pertinent, toujours capable de toucher quelqu'un qui le regarde pour la première fois. Ce n'est pas de l'indécence qui a survécu malgré la censure. C'est une forme d'art qui a survécu précisément parce qu'elle dit quelque chose de vrai sur ce que c'est qu'être humain.

Ce qui est remarquable chez Médard Bourgault, c'est qu'il arrive à cette même vérité sans formation académique, sans avoir fréquenté les grandes écoles des beaux-arts, sans avoir vu de près les chefs-d'œuvre de la tradition occidentale. Un homme qui taille le bois dans un village du Québec au début du vingtième siècle, et qui aboutit au même endroit que les grands sculpteurs de l'histoire — le corps humain comme sujet fondamental, comme lieu de beauté et de vérité. Ça ne diminue pas son œuvre. Ça en révèle la portée.

Vouloir faire disparaître ces sculptures d'un lieu de mémoire, c'est couper ce lieu du courant le plus long et le plus profond de l'histoire de l'art.

Un détail qu'on oublie toujours

Médard Bourgault devait lui-même cacher certaines de ses sculptures. L'environnement religieux et social de son époque imposait des limites strictes à ce qui pouvait être montré. Ces nus existaient donc dans un espace de tension — parfois dissimulés, rarement assumés publiquement. Ce n'était pas de la provocation. C'était un espace de liberté, arraché à des contraintes réelles.

Il y a quelque chose d'autre à comprendre. La représentation du corps humain n'est pas un détail dans l'œuvre de Médard Bourgault — c'en est le fondement. C'est par le corps qu'il cherchait la beauté, l'équilibre, la vérité de la forme humaine. Retirer ces sculptures ou les cacher, ce n'est pas protéger qui que ce soit. C'est amputer l'œuvre de ce qui en constitue le cœur.

Et il y a une ironie là-dedans qu'on ne peut pas ignorer. Pour certaines personnes — des femmes en particulier — voir le corps féminin représenté avec dignité, avec soin, comme sujet d'une recherche artistique sérieuse et non comme objet de consommation, c'est précisément le contraire d'une offense. C'est une forme de reconnaissance. Effacer ces œuvres au nom de leur protection, c'est leur retirer quelque chose sans leur demander leur avis.

La censure ne protège pas tout le monde de la même façon. Elle choisit à la place des gens ce qu'ils sont capables de voir.

Aujourd'hui, au nom de sensibilités nouvelles, on propose de faire exactement la même chose que l'Église faisait à son époque : retirer ou atténuer ces œuvres. Le mécanisme est identique. Hier c'était la religion qui imposait le retrait. Aujourd'hui c'est une autre forme d'orthodoxie. Dans les deux cas, ce n'est pas l'œuvre qui change — c'est le regard qu'on cherche à lui imposer.

Censurer ces sculptures aujourd'hui n'est pas un progrès par rapport à ce que Médard a vécu. C'est une répétition.

Ce que ça coûte vraiment

Quand une institution retire ou atténue une œuvre pour éviter la controverse, elle ne protège pas son public. Elle lui retire quelque chose : la possibilité de rencontrer une réalité complexe et d'en sortir avec une compréhension plus fine du monde et de l'histoire.

Un lieu patrimonial n'est pas là pour rendre le passé confortable. Il est là pour le rendre compréhensible. Ce sont deux missions très différentes. La première consiste à filtrer. La seconde consiste à expliquer, à contextualiser, à fournir les outils pour comprendre ce qu'on regarde — sans toucher à l'œuvre elle-même.

Un cartel bien rédigé fait ce travail. Un guide de visite le fait. Une note d'interprétation le fait. Aucun de ces outils ne nécessite de modifier ou de cacher quoi que ce soit.

La règle qui s'applique à tout patrimoine

Un patrimoine qu'on a rendu inoffensif est souvent un patrimoine qu'on a vidé de son sens. Les œuvres qui dérangent encore après un siècle dérangent parce qu'elles touchent quelque chose de réel — une tension, une vérité, une complexité qui n'a pas disparu. C'est précisément pour ça qu'elles méritent d'être transmises intactes.

Si on accepte le principe qu'une œuvre peut être modifiée ou retirée quand elle provoque un inconfort, on n'a plus aucun critère stable. Ce qui dérange aujourd'hui sera censuré. Ce qui dérangera dans vingt ans le sera à son tour. Le résultat n'est pas un patrimoine protégé — c'est un patrimoine en révision permanente, qui finit par ne plus témoigner de l'époque où il a été créé, mais des sensibilités successives de ceux qui l'ont géré après coup.

Conclusion

Les nus de Médard Bourgault doivent être présentés dans leur forme originale. Pas parce que le confort du public est sans importance, mais parce que la mission d'un lieu de mémoire est la transmission — pas la gestion de l'inconfort.

Comprendre une œuvre demande un effort. Elle n'est pas tenue de se simplifier pour être acceptée. C'est au regard de s'ajuster pour en saisir le sens. Et c'est précisément le rôle d'un lieu patrimonial que de rendre cet ajustement possible — avec du contexte, de l'interprétation, de la rigueur.

Raphaël Maltais Bourgault

I had a rooftop barbecue and hot tub event with a friend, and L Brought her sister and her sister for some reason is just such a massive dick towards me specifically it feels like. There was only one other guy there, and that guy didn’t really interact with her but it felt like just disproportionately she was being very rude to me, like making comments about how people just must not have liked me for something completely unrelated, insulting the random playlist that was playing on my speaker saying that my music was elevator music, being excessively pedantic with rhetorical questions, when I jumped into the pool as I got up from the water I heard her calling me a fat ass, along with several other consistent just like negs it felt like. I don’t know what this girl’s problem is because her sister is nice, but she is just such a fucking dick it feels like and im pretty confident its not a signal towards me, like it is not a reflection on my behavior as much as it is on her. No one else not even her sister joined with her and other people kind of defended me at different points. But overall just fucking weird from her.

Lo que hace al presente significativo es tener el corazón abierto.

El compromiso es el primer paso del logro.

Hello Again. I Hope you had a good Easter or Passover or other religious celebration of your choice.

Since the start of the unprovoked war with Iran, POTUS has told the country the reason for the conflict was that Iran had intentions for nuclear weapons and that could not be allowed.

We know that the majority of the nuclear material that Iran needs to build bombs is at a place called Pickaxe Mountain. This is a facility so deep in the mountains of central Iran that no bunker buster bomb in the American arsenal is powerful enough to destroy the place. Inspite of claims by POTUS that Iran's ability to create a bomb was destroyed almost a year ago, nothing is further from the truth. Of course everyone knows that nothing could be further from POTUS than the truth.

While we know that Iran has the ability to deliver ordinance to its perceived enemies, as evidenced by its continued bombing of its neighbors, it does not need to construct an ICBM bomb to permanently damage our country. Nuclear material spread with a common construction site explosive could leave huge portions of this country permanently poisoned for hundreds of years and many of us dead.

Sooner or later the people will recognize that this POTUS is a major danger to the country and must be removed. We have a chance to begin that process on the first Tuesday in November by creating a congress that is not afraid to do the job. Let's work to make that happens.

POTUS Roaster

Thanks for reading these posts that I write for you. To read others in this series, go to write.as/potusroaster/archive. I hope you have a great weekend.