mercoledì, giugno 14, 2006

Not quite a rant, more of a grump

Had dinner chez Luke Duke last night – bone tired before I got there, tireder by the time I left. I nearly gave the Wild Child, who I’m generally growing to love, the malocchio for no worse crime than being a six year old. Luke was looking transparent himself, with far more reason than I, what with his brood and being a teacher. Why in heaven’s name J*Fish wants to be a teacher is beyond me. Why I want to get a doctorate isn’t beyond me at all – my brain has totally jumped the reality gun to a fantastical day where I can make TA’s do my shit work while I ponder imponderables and have scandals with my sexually liberated boho colleagues in a remote holiday home à la Declin de l’empire américain. But I don’t understand what sort of reality gun your brain jumps to make high school teaching seem like a good idea.

This morning I’m breaking what seems to have been a marathon hair-unwashing; you could wring this shit on my head out and the price of petrol would plummet. The funny thing is that in France it probably wouldn’t even register in my consciousness that I was looking kinda slick. In terms of that phenomenon we’re not talking holdovers from war shortage years or the Depression or whaever either; my hairdressers there would get upset if I washed my hair more than once every four or five days. Of course, my hairdressers there were fucking cockbrains who did obscene things to me. This thing one beeyotch did once – ugh – when I think about it I still want to fucking blow up France.

“I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French." Five bucks worth of respect to anyone who can tell me who that’s attributed to without Googling. Ten bucks if anyone can confirm the source.

On the positive side of the Parisian esthetic arts, I got the two best wax jobs of my life there and no matter where I go here, I seem to get pain, ingrowth, and regrowth so rapid I might as well have hoiked it off with a garden scythe. And on a more general positive note, I'm really enjoying The Economy of Cities, by Jane Jacobs. It's written with graceful clarity; her ideas are well-explained. She's arguing for the rise of the city pre-dating the rise of agriculture and rural life, which she does convincingly; the over-arching argument comes out sound. I'm not 100% in agreement with her and think there are aspects of her argument that are as inflexible and unlikely as the accepted wisdom before her, that agriculture came first - why it couldn't have been a little of column A and a little of column B in different places in the world with different geographical imperatives is beyond me. But when her books first came out her ideas were so confrontational, so fresh; maybe she didn't feel like there was room for equivocation at the time.

7 commenti:

Melbine ha detto...

You won't be having any respect for me this morning - I have no idea who said that quote about the French.

However, you do have mucho respect from me. I don't know how people get wax jobs! Oh, I guess they go to Paris eh??

Anonimo ha detto...

I'd say Henry Miller... but I'm going to type it in Google in a bit to see.

Hoik is a great verb. Cheers to that.

Anonimo ha detto...

Wrooong! Not even close...

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Hey, it was a pretty good guess! It's a different man of outstanding arrogance . . .

I like hoik too. H and K combination words are fun, like hork and hark. I think that's what makes Finnish so fucking cute.

Lady ha detto...

i dunno who said that, but i do know that in this month's Fashion mag there's a list of Toronto's best waxing places. i'll have to copy it for you.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Pleeeeeeease do, my dear.

Melbine ha detto...

Aww, I respect you always too!
I am not a good tolerator of pain at all. I just can't take it in the name of vanity. Except eyebrow threading but that's soo minimal.

When it's for a good cause, you know, like producing a baby at the end of it all..that's a different story! Even then I can't take it. :)