Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Avinash Meetoo

My favourite characters in The Young Pope and The New Pope

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Christina and I have just finished watching The New Pope, a TV series created and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, and I have to say that we both loved it. It is a continuation of the 2016 series The Young Pope, which we also loved. Both shows are very strange and explore subjects à la David Lynch. Many time, while watching the Popes talk, I was transported into an episode of Twin Peaks but at the Vatican…

Anyway, one of the great things about The Young and New Pope is the importance given to all characters. Some actors and actresses used the liberty they were provided with to really break barriers. Never have I seen popes, priests, nuns, communicators, wifes & mothers so depicted. It’s a treat for the eyes and the brain. And this is quite rare in 2020.

Here are my favourite characters (more or less) in order of awesomeness:

(1) Silvio Orlando as Cardinal Angelo Voiello, Camerlengo and Cardinal Secretary of State.

(2) Cécile de France as Sofia Dubois, in charge of marketing for the Holy See.

(3) Jude Law as Pope Pius XIII (born Lenny Belardo), the young then comatose pope.

(4) Nora Waldstätten as Sister Lisette, a cloister nun whose mother is ill and (5) Kiruna Stamell as the Abbess of the Monastery of Saint Therese, the head of the cloister nuns.

(6) Maurizio Lombardi as Cardinal Mario Assente

(7) Yuliya Snigir as Ewa Novak, Dr Helmer Lindegard’s wife and mother of a son with severe myotonic dystrophy.

(8) Kika Georgiou as the Woman in Red, the head of a constant vigil over comatose Pope Pius XIII in Venice.

(9) John Malkovich as Pope John Paul III (born John Brannox), the titular new pope.

(10) Ludivine Sagnier as Esther Aubry, former wife of a member of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.

(11) Daria Baykalova as Amber, the girlfriend of Bauer, the ambassador of the Holy See.

My feeling (and this is something I am realising just when writing this sentence) is that Silvio Orlando as Cardinal Angelo Voiello and Jude Law as Pope Pius XIII were mere ornaments for the ladies who, in fact, were the stars of the show. The actresses were extraordinary. Every scene they were in was mesmerising.

If you have not yet seen The Young Pope and The New Pope, lucky you! Stop whatever you are doing and go and watch all the episodes. I’m sure you’ll love them.

Libreoffice with Flatpak: Adding dictionaries for other languages

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I generally write in either English, French or Mauritian Kreol.

I also use Libreoffice when I need a word processor or a spreadsheet (or, even, sometimes, a drawing software). Lately, I have discovered Flatpak (“The Future of Apps on Linux”) and Flathub (“An App Store for Linux”) and I am sold. Installing the latest version of Libreoffice from Flathub using Flatpak is a simple:

$ flatpak install flathub org.libreoffice.LibreOffice

I have noticed though that this command tends to only install the English dictionaries for spellchecking. I didn’t know how to install more dictionaries to Libreoffice so I asked on the official Flathub forum. And, fortunately, someone from the community pointed me towards the solution. The idea is to get some information about the Libreoffice installation:

$ flatpak info org.libreoffice.LibreOffice

LibreOffice - The LibreOffice productivity suite

ID: org.libreoffice.LibreOffice
Ref: app/org.libreoffice.LibreOffice/x86_64/stable
Arch: x86_64
Branch: stable
Version: 6.4.3.2
License: MPL-2.0
Origin: flathub
Collection: org.flathub.Stable
Installation: system
Installed: 686.0MB
Runtime: org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/19.08
Sdk: org.freedesktop.Sdk/x86_64/19.08

Commit: ddcb114395acb30f633a06fd065598ace0fbe4330c49a784a50911b0222f5f95
Parent: fa891c405f685f7859e2bb623b29db5cdb3e9e1d80d8c31f30a5d21edcc9a3eb
Subject: Update to libreoffice-6.4.3.2 (5a34256e) Date: 2020-04-16 18:32:28 +0000

Notice that the runtime is org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/19.08 which implies that org.freedesktop.Platform.Locale/x86_64/19.08 contains all the dictionaries. But, as pointed out by stbergmann in the forum,

The *.Locale extensions are special, in that flatpak by default only downloads that part of such an extension that matches the users current system locale, while the –reinstall hack unconditionally downloads all of it. There obviously needs to be usability improvements here, as this appears to be a common issue for users.

And this is the –reinstall hack he is talking about:

$ flatpak install --reinstall flathub org.freedesktop.Platform.Locale/x86_64/19.08

and, after a few seconds, the dictionary issue is cured. Now, in addition to English, you have French plus all the other languages. Enjoy :-)

Nuggets of (mixing) wisdom from Chris Lord-Alge

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I have just finished watching an Open Mix Session with Chris Lord-Alge with Michael Pearson-Adams of Waves as interviewer.  I made some notes during the 1 hour long video which I would like to share with you:

  1. During COVID-19, rekindle relationships with people
  2. Clean list of plugins (and get rid of those which are not used)
  3. Multitracks (the Master) -> Mix (a mix is your opinion) -> Stems (different renders of the mix e.g. only vocals, only instruments, etc. for flexibility later)
  4. No need to “make space” for different instruments… there is space for everyone.
  5. On vocals (and synth), remove the low frequencies which contain rumble (up to say 150Hz)
  6. Drums: some in the middle, some on the hard right, some on the hard left (and the overheads will bring these to the middle anyway -> use overheads)
  7. Add samples to acoustic drums to increase excitement and punch
  8. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Use +15dB of EQ if it sounds good.
  9. Make it sound like a record.
  10. Be a painter. Use a bit of this analogue paint. Use a bit of that digital paint.
  11. Use free time to improve your setup, your choice of plugins, etc.
  12. The most important thing is your two ears (and your brain of course).
  13. Have a limited amount of things (plugins…)
  14. Engineer! (Me: Try. Build. Fail. Learn.)
  15. I know that a mix is finished when the client approves it (When I auto produce, who is the client?)
  16. There are no rules!
  17. Recording others: be well mannered and make people comfortable.
  18. Listen quietly (and the room will not matter).
  19. Take the records you like and use them as templates (reference tracks).
  20. Consider every tool that you buy as an investment in your future.
  21. It’s not a hobby. It’s your life.

Phew. There are some real nuggets of wisdom there.