létavice

The Enlightenment: L'age des Lumières. France: Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire. The power of reason and rational thought process, the triumph of knowledge and intellectual progress over traditional religious imperatives.


France is referred to as one of the founding pillars of the Enlightenment era: logic reigned supreme. Key word being reigned.




Yesterday's post was a first example of how logic has been literally thrown out the proverbial fenêtre in France. I gots anuvva one for youse. Behold, illogicality (trust me, the word exists), French style.

There's currently an ad for this month's Elle France magazine being displayed in the metro. On the left hand of the cover, the following is proudly stated:

50 ways to look beautiful and feel comfortable at any age.

On the RIGHT hand side of the cover, merely centimetres away from the first statement, is plastered the following:

110 ways to look and feel younger.



Uhm. What??

France sucks.


(France's redeeming quality: the President just married a chick he's known for 11 weeks. Yeehah! Love it.)

So, on my way home from school yesterday, I walked past a shop window in which was displayed a fluoro-vomit-coloured handbag with chunky-gold-chain straps, advertised as the "Cheap&Chic" handbag.

Intriguing, I thought, I do like a bit of Cheap&Chic myself...




I looked at the price. The bag costs €564.

I laughed.


That's loiiike, AUD$1000.

I do believe that's referred to as false advertising, TIMES TWO. No cheap, No chic.


[Sorry Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote, but I've been über busy getting top marks in public philosophy and falling in love with Argentina. You know how it is. More regular posts from now on, chaps!! Pwomiss.]

xx

Look at how she grows...






BEFORE







und AFTER

"Time doesn't click on and on at the stroke. It comes and goes in waves and folds like water; it flutters and sifts like dust, rises, billows, falls back on itself. When a wave breaks the water is not moving. The swell has travelled great distances but only the energy is moving, not the water. Perhaps time moves through us and not us through it. [...] The past is in us, not behind us. Things are never over." Tim Winton, Aquifer



Lovely. Lovely Lovely.

I got to spend nearly 5 hours in the Emergency ward of the Hopital Cochin on Thursday night. And as Damien so rightly pointed out to both myself and Aye Aye, as I lay on my disinfected death bed: "Cochin sounds like Cochon. Which means Pig".

I was there from 11pm till 3:30am, yessiree Bob, that's where you would have found me had you been looking for me at that time, oh yes indeed you would have.




I was tested and poked and prodded, and had stuff poured into me and stuff sucked out of me, and I even got a spinal tap!


And you wanna know the best part? It was all FREE! LOVELY LOVELY FREE! Courtesy of the French-State-That-Can't-Afford-It-Anymore.


Also a positive piece of information you might find interesting: I'm not dying of anything really horrible.

I always was fairly good at making light of unpleasant situations. But believe you me: Spinal taps...not fun.

This morning I woke up, and then Damien and I put matboard and a photo inside an 80x100 frame, kneeling on my bed with a kitchen knife and a 20€ Vodafone recharge card.


We also talked about some life stuff, I pressed my face against the covers on a few occasions. It made me feel like I was more in control, or sumfink like that.






It's important to make sure you've got it together, isn't it? It's important not to put parts of your life on hold, and to really try and live through and for all aspects of the "journey", isn't it??

But I'm really not very good at that kind of shite, and this makes me feel inferior, makes me feel bad. And yet, strangely enough, I'm so against normative terms like good and bad. And this contradiction/hypocrisy makes me feel, uhm...bad.


Excess and Obsession and Social Inappropriateness and Excessive Obsessive Inappropriate emotion are bad, eh?

I've been informed that it's good to be stable and well-rounded and complete and to understand things like direction and balance and "personality construction". And to be open and receptive and tolerant and aware and successful and upwardly mobile and enthousiastic and appropriate and welcoming and to have hobbies and to be active and to love in a normal and balanced manner and to communicate and maintain relationships and to look after yourself and to not cause damage and to not want to give yourself entirely away and to be honest and upfront and to not listen to the same music over and over again.



So, frankly, it's a bit of shame a bit of pity a bit of a shame that my own personal internal computer says "No" to all of those good things. And says yes to the bad.



On the other hand, things are good. School has started and I like it and we live in a nice apartment and it's sunny today. Bright side, maybe? Yes Yes!

My sister forwarded me this, and gee-whizz did I get a good 20 minutes of giggle time from it.


Call me what you will, these are the sort of things that make my day.

ach soooooo. hello from paris!



because THAT is where I live now folks, yes it is indeed, and by gum it's a strange old feeling.

partly familiar, partly new.

always expensive.
particularly parisian.



let's recap: I buy a baguette in the mornings and walk with it tucked under my left arm; I blast through those metro turnstiles with intent and purpose, leaving scared and struggling tourists in my wake; I pierce my outer ears with those tell-tale white calling cards; I stare (grumpily) out the window, or blankly at other travellers and get up (almost) subconsciously at my stop; I stride, I don't stroll; I have a swish phone; I wear a little blue velour second-hand vest.

what does that make me?

It's been a week and I've evidently settled in more quickly than I had planned, and would have liked. oh well, la vie continue, žeho?

{sometimes looking at old photos, or more specifically, photos of the recent past, can be a kick in the teeth. yesterday I was sifting through snaps from praha, trying to choose ones to print and adorn the walls of our new abode, and the experience was more equivalent to 1000 Kicks in the Kidneys / similarly-soft-and-vital-organ.}

perhaps it wouldn't be particularly wise to have them on display 24/7, unless someone's willing to offer up their entire being for donation should I so require. any takers?}

but it's been a "welcome home" en douceur {a sweet one}, or as much as it was ever going to be. there have been smiling faces and open arms and eager ears awaiting me in both vienna and paris, of which I am deeply grateful. the weather has been pleasant, the parisians have been alright, and despite one incident involving me and a fist and a counter at the bank (followed by my surreptitious hawking up of saliva outside the doors of said bank at 1am, to let them know my disgust), my administrative rehabilitation has been smooth.


I have also made 2 visits to Ikea, and this is enough to undo any amount of banking bullshit. such innovation! so scandinavian! they just think of everything, them Swedes they do...to the point where it becomes almost scary. but ooh I like it.


{lordy-me, do I miss Prague or what}

sorry for the delay.
x
Me.In.Paris.

Time really is like sand. You always think you have too bloody much of the stuff (especially in your undies), and that it will never run out, until you try and grab onto a bunch of it with your hands and it all slips straight through your fingers.


I'm not feeling very good.



Maybe one day I'll get back to posting proppah entries on this blog, like. Maybe so. Maybe I'll just start posting snippets of crap poetry. Maybe not.


But right now, I'm not feeling good. So that sorta interesting stuff will just have to wait.



Do I sound like an ungrateful, whingey, whiney brat? Probably. But thems the breaks, kiddies.








I'm sad. And nostalgia seems to be eating me from the inside.

I was pretty impressed this morning when I noticed that the one life guard on duty at the big swimming complex here in Prague was patently fast asleep. In plain view for all to see, at 11 in the morning.



These are the kind of things that will make it so damn hard to leave this country. And I'm serious when I say that.

There is a strong possibility that I may in fact explode. Actually explode.


Were this to occur, please know that I quite liked you all.







(P.S. I bet you guys are really enjoying my blog at the moment, eh? Eh? It's all melancoly/agression/nostalgia/stress...just what everyone wants to get a hit of in www format, and don't I know it! I'm here to serve the people!)

WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE GIVE ME SOME MONEY, DAMNIT???!


I promise I'll spend it wisely. Promise.

It’ll be OK, said she
A fork stabbed into the apple ahead.
Passive aggressivity is symptomatic, said he
For sure. Of something.

It’s windy today, and the gusts
Gust away the steamy dream.
And if you really look closely close,
You might see where the skin suffered

Its first puncture wound. For sure.


Or something.

P.S.

ThomasFromScotland and I ran around in circles at the Czech Senate on Monday night.

And VincentFromGermany had a taste of every single thing that the buffet had to offer.


It was one of those "When is this ever going to happen to us again? Running and eating MUST be accomplished, lest we regret it forever" kind of nights.

You know, one of those nights...

Some discoveries are purely and simply the Goods.




This one, for example.

Now I wouldn't want anyone to go drawing any unnecessary conclusions to what I'm about to say (save them for yourselves kiddies), but sometimes The Universe sends you a surefire sign that you're just slightly perturbed about something, and really not concentrating quite as much as you should be, mate.



=> Today, whilst drying my hair with an electrically powered hairdryer in my right hand, I turned the tap on and stuck my left hand under the flow of water to clean the sink at the same time.


[insert insulting expletives here, GO!]





Granted, it took me all of .003786 second to realise that this action was probably not my finest, nor most rational, and to turn off the tap. But still. Il faut que je me reprenne. A sharp whack up the side of the head with a not-quite-ripe banana should do the trick.


Especially since I really hate banana.

You wanna know what's supremely infuriating? Being subject to both nostalgia for things already lost, and nostalgia for those things you still have, but know you can't hold onto.



It's like not having any cake, and not eating it either. A double whammy. It's unfair and it sucks.






(Ooh, now isn't that moody and wanky-intellectual?)

On the TV5 Météo website, which I check religiously in order to prepare myself for the worst/best, it says that today in the world the maximum temperature is 60℃in a place called Sabine Pass in Texas, USA, and that the minimum temperature is -39℃ at the charmingly named Deadhorse Airport in, funnily enough, Deadhorse, USA.



Now, I don't know about you, but when reading this I had 2 immediate reactions.

*1, was that I highly doubt that it is 60℃ in Sabine Pass. Ok, it's Texas, and Texas is a haaawt kinda place, but it's also winter. Winter, people. Also, the nearest city to Sabine Pass, a place called Port Arthur, is experiencing 20℃ today and I do find it slightly difficult to believe that there is a 40℃ difference within a 24km distance ...TV5 are obviously big fat liars.

*2, was that it comes of no suprise to me that a place called Deadhorse is treated to the lowest temperature in the world today. They deserve it. No one calls a place Deadhorse and gets away with it. The Gods are bound to get angry one day.


EDIT! I was just having a look at some info on Deadhorse, everyone's favourite Alaskan town, and was gobsmacked to see that the longest night on record was 54 days, 22 hours and 51 minutes, and that people actually live in this woeful excuse for a place. WHY? (Ok, I'll admit that the population is actually only estimated at 26, and the number of families is limited to 2...but still, that's 26 more than there should be.)

I certainly think that most people would like me more had I been the author of these lyrics:


I know by now
that no-one cheers up when told to.
That it's more the arms that hold you
than whatever words are said.
Of course I know,
but you can't blame me for trying.
I could hardly hear you crying
for the traffic overhead.


I'd generally just be a better person, really.

Alas, 'twas not to be. That honour goes to The Lucksmiths.



And NO, this post was not simply an excuse to point out the fact that I have a new blog background-thingy majiggy.

But now that you mention it, I do have a new blog background-thingy majiggy.


Did you notice? Do you loooiiiike it?

Last night Mathieu, Léna and I went to see Buddha's Lost Children as part of the One World Documentary Film Festival, which is currently taking place in Prague. It's been all the rage around this neck of the woods, and well might it be, as it's been a real sock-rocking festival. I've loved it.




The film was truly excellent.

I had heard brilliant reviews from various sources, but was somewhat skeptical at the idea of such a huge, blockbuster-esque doco film about an easily ruined subject that I felt strangely protective of.


In an offensively small nutshell, it's the result of a Dutch documentary film director's year spent in the mountains of Thailand, near the Burmese border, following a travelling boxer-turned-monk and his young protegés on their travels. And by golly me, is it a fantastic result.



Aside from the mindblowing aesthetic success of the film, what resonated most with me was the sensitivity with which the children were treated by the camera. There was an overwhelming warmth in the approach taken by the director, and whilst I doubt it would be possible to portray these amazing children in a negative light, so much care was taken to highlight the humanity that lives inside them (and indeed within all of us), and that is gradually drawn out by their Buddhist training, to the point that these little people seem to ooze human warmth from every pore.



I was also struck by the importance and style of physical contact used within the community, a type of contact which so obviously was merely an extension of the heart and soul...your body is used as a mere tool for the expression of human sentiment. There was both spontaneity and purity in the gestures and body language, with hands and fingers used to complement words, and at times even to replace them. A total lack of any form of restraint, social convention or limitation, all of which are replaced by an obvious will to communicate with those around through touch, in the purest of senses. There was an honesty in their form of touch that I truly yearn for in Western social environment. Truly.

What's more, the film further strengthened my belief in the idea that spontaneous, liberated and soulful physical contact is one of the most fundamental human instincts, so inherently and naturally human, that I came out feeling all the more revolted with the lack of it around me.

(Oh, the repression, the sad sad repression.)

All I saw was a couple timidly brushing shoulders, a group of guys walking with their hands stuffed awkwardly into their pockets and a girl with her arms folded tightly across the back she had strung over her chest (fear of pickpockets? fear of judgment?). It's all bloody convention, damnit.





For your viewing pleasure, and just to further infuriate you if you aren't able to see this film wherever you may be, here's the trailer. IMPORTANT! Please ensure you ignore the dickhead doing the voiceover, lest you vomit on your keyboard. I hear carrot is hard to extract from in between the keys...enjoy!








Also, on a totally unrelated note: As far as names for household cleaning products go, I'd have to say that "Cilit Bang!" is pretty much a winner. Although I do find it has a slightly offensive ring to it...and don't tell me I'm the only one! Offensive sounding tile cleaner, we say Yes!