Numbers
In the last 7 days, I turned 31 years and 31 days. I thrifted the perfect denim skirt for $4. I watched ‘The Hunt for Red October‘ for what must be the 15th time. I caught my first cold of the winter. I overslept my alarm twice. And according to this picture, I mixed patterns (stripes) once. Because my favourite warm scarves were both in the wash. Oh yes. I’ve been busy.
I said it
Fry: So I really am important? How I feel when I’m drunk is correct?
Nibbler: Yes. Except the Dave Matthews Band does not rock.
From my favourite episode of Futurama, that I have already gone on about. And the title is meant to be a pun – it’s taken from the only Dave Matthews Band song I know (vaguely) off. So I can’t actually confirm whether or not they rock. But I do laugh (and slightly snort) at that line anyway every time I watch the episode.
My little nature, and bread.
I was recently given a medical diagnosis and, simply stated, I won’t be allowed to eat bread for the rest of my life. Ever again. Or anything made with delicious pastry (adieu croissant, pain au chocolat, brioche…*). Please don’t anyone suggest there are plenty of alternatives, because I am freakishly gifted at detecting the taste of tapioca flour, and I am not ready in my mind to accept some grainy and squishy Frankenstein as the same thing as baguette. Or tartine.
Not to mention that in my own country, I am now a ‘little nature’: it’s not looked at with very much mercy not being able to eat everything. Let me tell you: the Frères Jacques sang about the difficulty of eating jam on a tartine. Not on a corn cake.
And by the way don’t be fooled by their black tights: I think that song is a cunning metaphor for how unpredictable and sticky life can get…
(*Says I in the spirit of Jean de la Fontaine).
(Image from here).
My father’s daughter, and the fruity oil lamp
We both blow our noses very loud (and have been known to wake people up doing so). We are both partial to the Barber of Séville which he took me to see when I was 12 (also both partial to its comical rendition by the Quatre Barbus). We love a good glass of wine or, even better, champagne – which neither of us can hold very well and which makes us giggly. Neither of us can lie. We both love our chocolate dark, our coffee black, and watching the Légion march. Neither of us is really handy…
Except… My father has an impressive skill which I do not share: if you give him a mandarine, he will eat it (so far, that I can do just fine as well). But he will eat it in such a way as to hollow out the peel and preserve the central tangle of fibres. And then he will turn the empty intact mandarine peel into an oil lamp.
I’ve only seen him do it a couple of times, and the rarity of the occasion and time gone by have just made the memory even more magical, bright and elusive.
But me, when I eat a mandarine it looks like this. And I haven’t tried but I’m pretty sure setting the random pieces of peel on fire wouldn’t look as impressive or magical…
La récitation: poetry as torture inflicted on little French school children
It is one of my most vivid memories from school (apart from the 7:50AM starts): standing at the black board and reciting poetry by heart, in front of the whole class.
I have a theory about this: I think it cracks the teachers up to listen to a 6 year old’s rendition of French Romanticism. Or a 13 year old’s rendition of French classical theatre. Or a 15 year old’s rendition of a Renaissance sonnet (with some old French thrown in). Or a 17 year old’s rendition of Baudelaire describing his perving on the seamstress workshop next door. All of which, you guessed right, I had to render.
And doing quick maths albeit with a glass of wine on board, I can confirm it’s been decades since my Alfred de Musset performance – my first récitation ever. And I can still feel my little 6 year old body shaking as I was trying to remember one verse after another – all about the damn moon: ‘Ballade à la Lune‘.
I never got it at the time – for me the days when we would recite were like the worst type of lottery: the one you don’t want to win but that you’re entered into anyway. But I think I get it now. Because when I look at the moon, I start to recite Alfred de Musset in my head. And boy, is the ‘Ballade à la Lune‘ beautifully written and strikingly imaginative (the man isn’t my idol for nothing…) And my love for him started there, during récitation, and has only grown stronger.
This aside, I still maintain the exercise is intentionally designed to torture and mock little school children, and petrify them by demanding they speak publicly in old French…
(The image is my 1959 copy of Alfred de Musset’s ‘Premières Poésies‘, which belonged to my mother – and which she gave me when I moved to Melbourne. The pages have yellowed to perfection, and it smells respectable like an old book should.)
The impostor with the two souls
If you have had a conversation with me, you would have found me saying words directly translated from French (which I do often) – then realise what I said did not make sense, curse, and try to substitute the right word with the right meaning. Like, say: ‘Syrup. No, crap! Cordial! Cordial!’.
It’s a funny thing living in a country where I don’t speak my native language day in, day out. Most of the time, I feel that the way I speak is wrong, or off. That I’m a fake. That I wasn’t born to speak this language (and it’s true: my first language is French – stating the obvious here). I may know enough words to communicate on a decent level, but my sentences are built according to French grammar and expression: long, long, long. Convoluted. Long.
I always worry I will say the wrong thing, or use a word which has a meaning I am not aware of. And insult someone unwittingly or come across as a pompous tit. I still put my head in my hands when I think of the time I qualified the seasons as ‘backward’ in Australia, when I meant ‘reversed’. Dang.
But I do love it for a few reasons, despite feeling daily like an impostor. I get a unique perspective on both languages: a foray into the economical qualities of ‘anglais‘, and a comparison of how we articulate our thoughts with such flourish and use some damn funny expressions in French.
Like ‘You are pumping my air‘ when someone is annoying you. Or ‘It’s pee in a violin‘ to dismiss something that’s unimportant. I wouldn’t want to trade the chuckles I get when I translate some of these into English.
So I may feel like an impostor, I may have two souls according to Charlemagne (read this article, I don’t have delusions of grandeur), it may be tricky to navigate and reconcile French brain and English brain, but it’s also kind of cool. Which by the way, translates to ‘cool‘ in French. Now that was easy.
(Image from here)
Memories from childhood: the amazing sugar domino effect
Some things etch themselves into your memory when you’re 6 years old. Like an ad with sugar cubes as far as the eye can see.
What are you looking at?
Me: Tell me what this is.
Christian: Easy, that’s Hitler.
Me: No! It’s a French man with a béret!
Christian: No way, that’s Hitler. See the moustache and the hair?
Please weigh in on this: I much prefer my interpretation, which is supported by the page I originally found it on.
Ludivine Sagnier is adorable
I don’t like François Ozon, but I forgive him for parts of 8 Femmes – particularly giving Ludivine Sagnier a platform for shaking her booty to a cheesy-yet-excellent 1960s French pop song.
This video was shot when the movie came out and shows her rehearsing her dance moves in front of her tv. Adorable I say.
Awe, awe, awe
I am not often lost for words (ask my husband). But when I first laid eyes on Lauren Farmer’s photographs that is exactly what happened. In fact, I didn’t say a word for a solid hour, that I spent blissfully looking through every single photo on her website. Then I spotted her blog: more photos. More silence. More clicking through her archives. I caught my breath around February 2010, and at that point squeaked out a ‘Oh my god, she is freaking cool!’. Not exactly doing her and her work justice, but a heartfelt sentiment born from sheer utter photographic awe.
The next day I had to go back to look again. And the day after that to look some more. The more I looked, the more I kept on wishing I’d taken every photo I saw. How is it that this girl can point her camera and make us see something beautiful, compelling, arresting, candid, disarming even, time after time after time? She makes it seem so… effortless.
And then I realised that actually, I was glad I hadn’t taken her pictures myself. Because if I had I’d probably be smug as hell about my talents right now (wouldn’t you be?). Instead I am inspired. And I can’t thank her enough for that.
See for yourself and visit Lauren here – she really is freaking cool (and read her blog, which is called ‘That’s what she said’ – why didn’t I think of that??).
Also visit-worthy: the pretty lady from the first image whose name is Lauren Zettler and who makes music. And the lovely man from the fourth picture, Rey Villalobos – also makes music aside from being photogenic in desolate surroundings.
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