27 April 2021

La glycine — et « Les glycines » de Serge Lama

Wisteria is called glycine in French. The term "wisteria" comes from the name of a Philadelphia dentist, Caspar Wistar (1761-1818), who later in life was an anatomist at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a friend of Thomas Jefferson's and at one point was the president of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery. The simple reason why we write and say "wisteria" instead of "wistaria" is a printer's typo that was never corrected.

The wisteria plant is native to Asia (China, Japan) and North America.

We planted this glycine at least a dozen years ago.

The French name for the plant, glycine, comes from ancient Greek and means "sweet" or "syrupy",
because the plant's sap is sugary and sticky.

A few years after we planted it, our glycine crashed to the ground one night during a windy, rainy storm.
The supports it climbed on weren't sturdy enough to hold its weight.

We managed to trim the plant, put up new support brackets and wires, and mount the plant back up on the wall.

I first learned the French word glycine in the 1970s from a popular song recorded by a man named Serge Lama.
You can listen to it here, in a live performance, or here, as it was recorded and played on the radio.
We attended a concert given by Serge Lama in April 2002 at the Olympia theatre in Paris.
His most famous song is titled Je suis malade (live or recorded version).
Lama is now 78 years old. I believe he wrote the lyrics for both songs.

19 comments:

  1. Superbe! La glycine, avec la pivoine et la rose, vient tout de suite après l'iris pour nes fleurs préférées.
    Les enfants ont glissé dans la piscine.
    Sony? Lumix? ou les deux?

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    1. Sony. Hier la quatrième et la sixième étaient prise avec l'appareil Sony. Les quatre autres avec le Lumix TZ18 que j'ai acheté en 2012.

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    2. Dans les photos d'hier, il semble qu'il n'y ait pas de différence de netteté des premiers plans entre le Sony et le Lumix, mais les arrière plans du Sony sont nettement flous. Question de champ?

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    3. Yes, it's about depth of field. The Sony is set at f/1.8, the Lumix at f/3.3. Those are maximum apertures for each camera. IIUC.

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    4. In some instances it might be interesting to have a sharp foreground and a fuzzy background for special effects. But in yesterday's photos, I like Lumix's best.

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  2. Sadly, the two recorded videos come up with the message: Video Unavailable. Anyway, the French is wasted on me.

    I love wisteria/glycene. Also, thanks for the history. I hadn't heard of Wistar and immediately wondered why it wasn't called Wistaria. All fun facts!

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    1. Judy, did you try the links to the French YouTube videos? Mitch said he couldn't view them. I wonder if you can view them in the U.S.

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  4. Link works very well here in Texas, Ken.

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  5. Here in Virginia, links 1 and 3 work, links 2 and 4, video not available ????

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  6. I had the same results as chm here in Florida. Beautiful wisteria, and thanks for the additional information.

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  7. Oh well, all four work here. Who knows why? Listening to and transcribing the lyrics of songs is one of the exercises that helped me learn French. And understand the culture.

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    1. As you said, oh well. At least I could watch the others. I too have used songs to improve my language skills. It worked well for Italian and I've finally started to work on it in Spanish.

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  8. They are beautiful. I never knew the name origin of wisteria, so thanks for that! I was able to see all the links to Serge Lama using Chrome. But for those who couldn't, here's the best version of La Vie en Rose, lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEM8TspcCBY

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    1. Compare this. My favorite Grace Jones song is Pars, also a French original. Haven't found a live version of that one on YouTube.

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    2. Yes Paif is wonderful...it's an anthem. Thanks for alerting me to Pars - I'd never heard of it. It's great!

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  9. The video worked for #1 and #2 but #3 had a screen noting "video unavailable". My french classes have many times included french songs and we transcribed and discussed the lyrics. I have advanced substantially as I listened to Serge Lama there were times he spoke too fast, but many of the words I understood (YEA!). I'll have to suggest we might go back once in a while to use the music for our comprehension and understanding!

    It will be difficult for me not to call it Wistaria from now on! Yours is really attractive and looking healthy. I loved the Iris photos yesterday - such fun to see them up close and personal.

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  10. Your wisteria is beautiful. We just planted a sprig in our backyard along a fence. It is happy so far;-)

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