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My favourite French word is 'arobase.' It's very pretty - it sounds pretty when they say it and calls something pretty to mind, maybe because it sounds like 'arabesque.' The thing it describes is not very exciting, but it turns out to have beautiful names in other languages too. The Dutch and Germans call it, respectively, "apestaartje" (little ape-tail) and "affenschwanz" (ape tail). In Italian, it's called a "chiocciola," or snail. In English, it's just 'at'. Boooo-ring.

This leads me to mention that a song from Benjamin Biolay's new album Trash yéyé, 'Dans ta bouche,' is the prettiest song I've ever heard about oral sex and I like it even better than 'Put the South in Your Mouth (Little Lady)' by White Cowbell Oklahoma. (Oh, NXNE. I wonder how you were this year. I need more music here, being bourgeious has made me remiss.)

Prettiest - except maybe 'Sugar Honey Iced Tea' by Kelis. That's an awfully pretty song too. And 'I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More' by Barry White. Okay, I'll qualify it and say 'Dans ta bouche' is the prettiest song I've ever heard a man sing about getting blown.

Oral sex is such a weird thing when you stop and think about it, isn't it? What a pack of naughty monkeys we are. I remember when I first found out people actually did that to each other and thinking it was the goofiest thing ever - not gross, just irretrievably goofy. And now remembering that is like looking back on not knowing how to read, but there's still something pretty goofy about it, in a nice way of course.

All a way of saying that Trash yéyé is growing on me, even the first half. It's not like Négatif, where one listen shocked me with the goodness of it all, but it's better and better in my ears. So deeply depressing, though! He makes me so sad. It's like when I was a teenage Curehead, except with fewer moments of fleeting humour. At least Trash yéyé is angry too. Helps me broaden my vicarious emotional range.

Anyways, tomorrow, Mel, I'll write about Amsterdam and stop nattering on about melancholy French wasters and vicarious fellatio. Except tonight we're getting high and watching Evil Dead, and I have a feeling I'll be enthusiastic about that . . . I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, here's a little Benjamin Biolay so you can see a bit of what I'm nattering on about.

This one is from the new album:



This one is from Négatif - it's one of my favourites, I suppose, but it's hard for me to pick and choose with that album:



This one is from A l'origine and while it's good the main thing I like about it is the title, which I'd translate as 'My Love Fucked Me (Over)':