December 19, 2005

• Interesting... I was in Montreal last week, and, while clicking through channels at the hotel came across this gentleman... Even though the act was in French (which is a struggle for me written, much less spoken), I sat and watched.....
• I knew him from when I was a kid. His show was put on TVO, imbetween segments of Readalong and Cucumber and whatnot -- yet it was mostly mime, with some basic English. None of this magically wordplay in French that he's (apparently) so well known for. But still, he was fascinating. Such a sad clown, the only clown I've ever felt any affinity for. As a kid, I was hyper-aware of happy clowns' bullshit, but Sol was the only one who had any sincerity to offer his audience. Only too rare in children's programming. He will be missed. Luckily, I'm sure he'll live in on reruns for a good long while yet.
• We used to watch "Parlez-Moi" in my high school French class. We'd pick on poor Sol, of course, because that's what snotty tenagers do. But we had a soft spot for him, too - he was so earnest and very sweet. I'll have that silly Moog-synthesizer theme song stuck in my head all day. Au revoir.
• Woah. I didn't expect Favreau's death to be on mofi's front page. To tell the truth, we kinda expected it.
• What a bad surprise that is. Sol had come to our school when I was in like 4th grade. Always loved him for his wordplay, he was without par to me. He definitely was one of the great french humorists/performers to me.
• I just saw this, and the link is down but this is truly sad. I used to love him in French class also. Au revoir, Monsieur Favreau.