Pretty sure the Hitch would have loved this one

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Bertrand Russell, in Mortals and Others (1931-1935)

What Really Irritates Me In Men, Women and Poodles, and Other Sartorial Considerations Very Late at Night, Part 7

Dear readers,

I woke up a little while ago, and looking out the window makes one legitimately confused as to whether it's today or tomorrow, today or tonight. Technically, it is now, and more precisely today, albeit very early. Looking at my notes, I decided it was time to let some of the bile ooze out of the system, to rage quietly against the dying of the night. One has to run the risk of becoming cantankerous too early in one's career.

I previously addressed people picking their nose, but now another category has emerged, in which men seem to have a facetious upper hand: the ones who manage to successfully wring out, singlefingeredly, a reluctant-because-it-was-warm-up-there boogie while you're talking to them, then proceed to roll up and casually let the balled bogey fall. Yet the casualness needs to be dropped when the gob gets too gooey and persists like a sinful thought in the mind of a 12^th Century flagellating Carmelite monk. The innocuous “You don't happen to have a tissue, do you?” has, since I paid attention to the practise, been a test of my character, for I have rarely been able to keep a straight face. It's also a tell-tale reminder that Murphy and his Infallible Set of Laws watches over us mere mortified mortals...who also eat their cuticles. Also while talking to other people. The worst part of it all is when they gnash at the flake of skin and tear too much off it, and end up bleeding. Now that I have written this, I think the worst part is that I have become so used to people's eccentricities – actually just them being themselves – that I simply go on talking as if nothing were happening, while my soul shrivels and cringes and suffocates. I am a blend of weltschmerz and whateverism.

Speaking of German loan-words: Schadenfreude, primum motum of the humanverse. Probably the sole valid reason to remain on this godforsaken piece of mud that is Earth. The vindication of the statistics. The serendipitous theatre of chance dramedy. The habit you didn't know you shared with some mammals. The glint of light that brightens your day. Yes, all of this. The following anecdote be ample proof.

The weather has been nuts for some time now, and we have had almost constant rain or snow for the past two months – and people have the knack not to wipe their feet off the mat at the school's entrances. Students and colleagues alike. Some will even go to great lengths to avoid wiping their feet on the one metre by three brown mat, thereby muddying the corridor and especially the tiled floor right after the mat. Why they don't want to wipe their feet remains to be asserted with certainty. My wild guess is that they believe the mat to be dirtier than the sole of their shoes – which would fall short of so many logical properties pertaining to the existence and usage of the doormat. Anyway, I had warned people that it became slippery and increased the chances of somebody falling. They called me a killjoy...which is potentially what I was to them, but not to me. The Oh-so-pleasurable moment when I saw a colleague – who shan't be named for obvious reasons – throw his leg in a hubristic attempt to step over the mat, and slip on the slush – mind you, with a bang not a whimper. Grin I did, but I didn't sport the expected I-told-you-so look on my face, for it's a much less pleasurable facial expression to feel it than the I-was-so-waiting-for-this look. Schadenfreude, je t'aime.

The next phenomenon is not recent, but it has gathered momentum in the last five years. People who heard from somebody who heard from somebody who heard from somebody very knowledgeable that you shouldn't say stadiums but stadia, that you'd have to be a total moron to write octopuses instead of octopi – they get my goat because they think they are so much smarter than you because you don't know how to form plurals properly. Well. How am I going to put this. You insufferable piece of S...tadia is the plural for the Greek or Roman unit of length (i.e. circa 185 metres, what an average stadium would measure back in the day) which, retroactively (linguists style this as a 'backformation'), became an alternative form of stadiums. So please stop correcting people because both forms exist. Same thing with forum...when you so smartass-ly use fora, you describe the public square or marketplace in ancient Roman cities, not the web page where people post comments. Aquarium accepts both aquariums and aquaria. Octopus comes from the Greek, by the roundabout way, so stick to octopuses unless you want to use octopodes as scientists do.

There is no hard-and-fast rule about plural formation, as each word behaves according to the language from which it has been borrowed, and also because more importantly we speak bloody English, not Latin or Greek. Thus, considering how many people already struggle with simple syntax, grammar, and plurals, perhaps we should stick to regular forms in -s/-es...unless you all want to be ignoramuses (yep, it's a verb in Latin you numbnuts, not a noun). You're welcome, xox. (Now go back to the beginning of the paragraph and find the plural for the two underlined words in the first sentence...you'll probably infer why 'agendas' ought to be wrong).

A few weeks back I stumbled upon a French poodle into one of James Thurber's fables (The Owl Who Was a God – hilarious) who wasn't the smartest cookie in the jar. Made me wonder if he thought poodles were dumb (bull's eye?) or if he thought the French were dumb (ditto?), or even if adjoining the two would make the aptest personification of dumb (c'est la vie?).

On a different, but poodle-related note, the trend-scouting will undoubtedly have noticed the Rise of the Floodle (sounds like a 1950s sci-fi movie title). Otherwise known as the Flatdoodle, it is a cross between a Flatcoated Retriever and a poodle. I suspect that the people responsible for this atrocious mix have come across the various denotations for “floodle” on the Internet, one of which being the flaccid state of the penis during the sexual act (aka floppy noodle) – hence them frolicking casually back to Flatdoodle. For once, I can't seem to be able to find fault with that.

Quick side note: sure, I can't deny that poodle puppies are cute. That's because they are puppies. Puppihood, puppiness confers great advantages regardless of the breed and the end result. Puppies are meant to be heart-meltingly clumsy and stoopid. The fact that poodles remain so (replace 'heart-meltingly' with 'heart-burningly') is both evidence and motive to continue picking on them.

Apparently the latest sartorial fad in France is to wear an oversize jumper (aka “pull-over” in French, true story) and stuff it into your jeans. Only you don't ram the whole shebang in, you only jam the front, and even then you leave the sides near the hips out. Combine this with high-waisted pants and you might see some, granted unintended, comical effects. So much different than the cheek-peeking, thong-showing, navel-nagging low-rise pants we had a decade ago. “Whale tail” to this day remains a valid entry in Wikipedia, perhaps dormant in case fashion as it so often does needs to resurrect the practise, perhaps to prove to posterity (mmmhmmmh, that pun was intended) that ridicule doesn't kill as long as enough people join you in the same ridiculous action.

It is too cloudy for the sun to even peek through, but I can tell it's day. Or time to go about my day. I had other stories to tell yet they will have to wait, pouring as they are from the tap of human idiosyncrasies. I hope you enjoyed reading this gerondic jabber, the gruffness of which the act of telling has not abated, nor fuelled. But watching the snow gyre nimbly in powdery clouds, murmur like starlings at dusk between the building in its peculiar, hypnotising fashion, I somehow feel tranquil, appeased, unraving at the nascence of the light.

 

In Memoriam

"Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation's heart, the excision of its memory."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008). Nobel lecture in Literature 1970.

The entire lecture is available here, in both English and Russian

Responsage

""Si on lui parlait de son courage, Guillaumet hausserait les épaules. Mais on le trahirait aussi en célébrant sa modestie. Il se situe bien au-delà de cette qualité médiocre. S'il hausse les épaules, c'est par sagesse. Il sait qu'une fois pris dans l'événement, les hommes ne s'en effraient plus. Seul l'inconnu épouvante les hommes. Mais, pour quiconque l'affronte, il n'est déjà plus l'inconnu. Surtout si on l'observe avec cette gravité lucide. Le courage de Guillaumet, avant tout, est un effet de sa droiture."

Sa véritable qualité n'est point là. Sa grandeur, c'est de se sentir responsable. Responsable de lui, du courrier, des camarades qui espèrent. Il tient dans ses mains leur peine ou leur joie. Responsable de ce qui se bâtit de neuf, là-bas, chez les vivants, à quoi il doit participer. Responsable un peu du destin des hommes, dans la mesure de son travail.

Il fait partie des êtres larges qui acceptent de couvrir de larges horizons de leur feuillage. Être homme, c'est précisément être responsable. C'est connaître la honte en face d'une misère qui ne semblait pas dépendre de soi. C'est être fier d'une victoire que les camarades ont remportée. C'est sentir, en posant sa pierre, que l'on contribue à bâtir le monde."

Antoint de St-Exupéry, Terre des Hommes (1939).

Three days of rain

Three days of thrashing rain

the path glistens like mercury

dampness impossible to dry

cold tremors running up the spine

the days dwell in darkness

impenetrable to sunrays

to any sense of joy

trees and rocks coated in molten metal

yet all things colder to the touch

and older too, and more spiteful

those affronting the downpour

shoulders hunched as under yoke

head down and that forward thrust

of one ploughing the field of dark

the cows bored stiff, the sheep silent

the dogs shuffle from hearth to door

sniff the air from the slit and trot back

spin into a pungent bun on their mat

only the cat imperturbable

her silvery coat blending in

her yellow eyes like lit windows

pierce the deluge in a drowsy vigil

her ears poised for abating rain

even when cleaning her spotless paws

the torrent drumming in the gurgling drain

 

Histoires

Les histoires, on préfère les raconter qu'en faire

les écouter du bord du sommeil,

certains les écrivent au fer

rouge, d'autres à l'encre du soleil.

Certaines histoires ne vivent qu'un soir,

d'autres pour s'écrire attendent la veille,

pour d'autres, encore, on a besoin de boire.

Les histoires, il y en a autant que de gens,

même s'il n'y en a parfois qu'une qui compte.

Elles se créent toutes en se multipliant.

Certaines sont fières, d'autres nous font honte,

d'autres tiennent à l'oubli d'un gant,

d'autres s'effacent alors que l'eau monte,

et toujours, toujours une autre qui attend.

 
 

Insatiable

"The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is."

Nadine Gordimer, novelist, Nobel laureate (1923-2014)


The full essay, entitled "Leaving School - II", is available here.

No man's land

Dogs pacing to and fro in kennels

ears and tail hanging low, whimpering,

growling

the thick darkness

slowly cowling the broad daylight

not your typical summer storm

it seemed a spoonful

would be darker than

the darkest night we ever knew

the people stopped ploughing

hand on brow as a visor

soon the sun blanketed

a sense of dread like a clod underfoot

a finely-polished listlessness

imperative to avoid panic

and the clouds, the clouds

amassing like billowed fear

and the dogs barking, barking

gravity warped the mirror into smithereens

people fell to their knees, prayed,

called for shelter

ran away from the epiphany

it was too much reality

too much science

too much life in one sitting

the last starless night fell upon the earth

tucked us motherly in

whispered gently, gently,

“good night”.

 

Another morning

This morning I woke up thinking of sex

I didn't touch myself lest I be sad

as when I fantasize about an ex

I always end up dribbling an aubade

The half-hearted morn attempt in the shower

got thwarted by my sagging embonpoint

I try to lose but more come each winter

to the point I no longer see the point

Lunch had me push the chair back for some space

I felt tired of eating while eating

nap on the armchair, telly face-to-face

threaded clumps where my elbows were sitting

– mug of tea and biscuit plate tummy-topped

outside a prison, evasion daydream –

The only prospects of glee I have left

life to be seen solely at the seam

At midnight I dozed off thinking of sex

I didn't touch myself as I was sad

as I knew there would be nobody next

I'll never have the proper serenade.

 

We were expected

We were expected earlier than the rain.

The swollen river had snatched the bridge,

crawled a yard out every time the

church bells rang. We hurried and hurried.

We washed up a month later downstream

when the brambles let us go, at last,

when we no longer were expected.