I got a new girl now… and she’s a lot like you! Ok, so that gratuitous reference to Honeymoon Suite wasn’t meant as punishment. It’s just, well, I got a tumblr so that’s where you’ll see me. In the meantime, in case anyone needs their education in Canadian pop rock cheese of the 80s… off the leash The sun is out and the weather is warmer, baring shoulders and legs, or so the illusion of deep warmth in the light gives us after a rainy cool spring. I made ketchup from scratch, and it was easier than expected. Reading Tom Wolfe and disliking him immensely, despite the easy manner in which his prose spins before my eyes. The straining smiles of the eager and amused, the twinkling lady in her silver dress and manicured hair, her hands curled bonily at the table, somehow brings out the harsh edge of the glassware. My YSL scarf is tied correctly around my neck and my fringe is cut low. The dogs are running in the park, running happily, for the few moments they are off their leash. Hello old friend Today, as my ex-husband left the house to go to my ex-in-laws, I took advantage of the situation to launch a bomb. I told him that in all the years we’d been together, I’d always secretly hated Michel Sardou. He responded by bursting into tears and begging me to come back, that now that we’d been honest, Sardou would be put away forever. Ha! No, the real story was that I saw him leave, after he gave me a chaste peck on the cheek and a pain au chocolat, and as his fingers pulled the keychain off the hook, I noticed the extra set of keys. My mind, already racing, knew whose keys they were, what address to go to, and where to find a bottle of kerosene. Not that I’m angry really… it just seems appropriate to have violent fantasies at moments like these. Fantasies I will indulge in, for the moment, because it seems like the best thing to do. Other best things to do are taking hot showers, naps, reading great books, seeing friends, drinking, dancing and having a marvelous time. All of these are in short order. If I feel that I am suffering, perhaps it is appropriate. Perhaps one should go through a mourning period, to properly rid oneself of past emotions, past pain and past love, before moving forwards. There is a whole ton of me that giggles with delight at the outline of chimneys against a setting sun, or the fabulously structured castles of Bach in the air, or the charm in laughing out loud to yacht rock. These are my pleasures, no one elses. I just hope I don’t end up dating Hollywood Steve in pure desperation! Yay for humans! Boo for fish! My dear Rhino has decided that I should revive this here blog with a literary meme. So, after a long break chilling out on a digital beach with a double whiskey sour and a little Ozzy Lust(h) on the brain, here’s the deal: pg. 123, write down sentences 6-8. So, in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, Sebald’s tendency towards run-on sentences, and the large font and spacing, throws a wrench in the mechanics. My sentence six starts on the bottom of p.123 and runs on to p.124. Then, through the grille of a ventilation shaft that linked his bedchamber to one of the ground-floor living rooms and inadvertently functioned as a kind of communication channel, he could be heard calling on numerous different saints for hours on end, in particular, if I remember correctly, Saints Catherine and Elizabeth, who suffered the most cruel of martyrdoms, begging them to intercede for him in the contingency, as he put it, of his imminent appearance before the judgment seat of his Heavenly Lord. Unlike Uncle Evelyn, said Austerlitz after a while, taking from his jacket pocket a kind of folder containing several postcard-sized photographs, Great-Uncle Alphonso, who was about ten years older and continued the line of the naturalist Fitzpatricks, looked positively youthful. Always even-tempered, he spent most of his time out of doors, going on long expeditions even in the worst of weather, or when it was fine sitting on a camp stool somewhere near the house in his white smock, a straw hat on his head, painting watercolours. Rather intriguing in a melancholy and curmudgeonly fashion, I feel this entry is slightly beyond the limits of the criteria (and hopelessly useless to comment on). So, I’m taking a page out of Rhino’s Petit Anglais, hoping that in this chapter he makes it to the toilet before wetting his spanking new peg-legged Acne jeans, and have resorted to cheating. In my second book, Josh Wolk’s Cabin Pressure, these are the three sentences in question: “Big day at fishing this afternoon, when Rob Stilson caught a three-pound bass!” Yay for humans! Boo for fish! This should further enrage my recent militant vegan lurkers into a soy-powered frenzy, disproving the oft-held opinion that vegetarianism is linked to pacifism and good body odour. Don’t know who else to pass this to since it’s been a long time since I visited Blogtown. Kevin, my sister, and my cousin… will you please stand up! Can you dig it? No I can’t. It’s late at night, Paris time 6am, and I find myself dealing with horrible jetlag by staying up to watch coverage of Super Tuesday, those darn American elections. And, after sitting through the different speeches, Senator McCain’s victory speech was cut short by none other than Barack Obama. Call me a pessimist, but I have a deep fear of rhetoricians. So, it was lingering distaste that I sat through the beginning of his speech. It was speckled, in the beginning, with informal English, well employed to disarm the audience. It’s a nice trick, one that was of great use by that other great rhetorician, Bill Clinton. But, what threw me off was the slow, slightly dropping tonality of his utterances. If you could draw it in the air, the sound would arc down, as if the tape playback had slowed down, dropping the pitch. It reminded me of that satin dressing coat clad gang leader, Cyrus, from The Warriors. As he pontificated on, the utterances almost Baptist in demanding response, I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. Now, perhaps this is a false allusion, perhaps Obama will be able to tie the US together in some unprecedented display of bi-partisan unity. Somehow, I fear that is the same dream that haunted our dear Cyrus. “It’s all for the taking, if we want it.” But is it really? I got the poison. I got the remedy. Whatever ailment French football seems to suffer sporadically from, here is the remedy. Karim Benzema. He stands tall, shaved of head, with a slight tilt that harkens the ghost of a certain recently retired footballer. But, take the brilliant technical wizardry of Zidane, match it with the wooden legged Juninho and then the explosive sure-firedness of Thierry Henry, and you have what may be the greatest footballer of the future. Last night, against the Glasgow Rangers, he almost single handedly dismantled the Scottish sides’ defense, making it an ominous night for all those non-French. Keep in mind, he’s still just 19. Paired with Ben Arfa, the two are proving that Lyon’s ability to nurture young players is on its own level. I haven’t been excited about football since that disastrous night in July 2006. Right now, I’m pissing in my pants jumping up and down for a man who’s name reminds me of cough medicine. Inhibition Exhibition Neglect! Nothing but neglect! The rage of facebooking, using it to twitter, blog, scrabble, poke, pet and race among all the other useless things in life has led to neglect! My house is in disorder. My brain is turd supreme. But… in case you need more diversion, I invite you to visit a completely useless site. My favourite.   Material Girl Everybody knows I’m a nerd. A mad drinking, mini-skirt wearing, fancy-pants rager partying nerd. So, as this coming week looms, the last in my days in this the most maudlin’ of years, please remember that every good nerd likes one thing: a fat book between her hands. Do the girl a favour and buy her book, will ‘ya!   with love, for that is all "When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them." — Isak Dinesen Out of Africa, 1937 It’s hard to imagine death. Like love, it is a state that knows no other, knows neither past nor future. It is a fact of being that excludes all others. But we shouldn’t have to think of it that way. Like a tale well told, often the meaning of the climax eclipses us, seems to hold a seed of the unmentionable, the thing that excludes description nor understanding in words. He was a jolly old man, who told numerous bad jokes and played the trumpet. Always sitting at the head of the table, his eyes looked outwards at life with an egotism that was honest. That made him loveable. His body ressembled a basketball in life, round, tapering bluntly at the head and feet. In death, his skin was cool, like any other. The sky was piercingly blue the day he was lowered into the ground. There were many at the funeral, and there were many who really missed the old man. It is in those who continue to love him that straightens the graveyard, giving sense to the sharp lines of the branches and the blank thud of a rose hitting the wood. Au revoir, cher Roland. Exhumation I realize that this here blog is fast becoming a graveyard of obscure and depressing remarks. Bear with me. This station will resume its normal programming post-haste. In the meantime, I would like to remind everyone that for some people Halloween only comes once a year. Some people. The rest of you monsters like to wear your costumes all year round, and frankly, that’s why I love you! Mwah! Assassination, or what must be a very serious thing not to think about. And it’s supposed to get better. I know. Everybody says so, so it must be true. Except that I don’t know how anyone else lives. We don’t live anyone else’s lives, no matter how many stories we hear, read, and are told. In this present moment, everyone’s else’s reality is opaque as reason cannot sway a believer. In the Assassination of Jesse James, James knows that Robert Ford intends to kill him. One of them will surely kill the other, but in a moment of rare grace, James turns his back to his assassin, allowing him the liberty to shoot quickly, without danger. Grace and mercy. Grace and mercy, for all but the killer. And what of Ford? Forced through circumstance and blind desire to kill the object of his affection, the rest of his life is a quiet repetition of this moment. If Robert Ford goes to hell, he would have done double time. Better to be killed. What is liberty and love in these moments? People are like islands, drifting, barges, clouds, things that drift and can rot. That bump accidentally together and are doomed to separate, whether by death or distance. One boy said "it is the impossibility of being together that we are reminded of each day people are together." Somehow, all of it contradicts, makes no sense. Such extravagance, like an ornate gun with no future written on the handle. I have forgotten how to love. I have not forgotten how to suffer. If my head could keep any lower, if my heart could find peace, somehow the sun warmth would be more than just what creeps in through the window, lighting up the dust lifted as a person passes through.  The Mia Farrow Dining Club Well, before Rhino or Ryndex can get to it, let me just inform you that Mia Farrow ate with us last night at Pramil. It would of course had been more fabulous if I had actually recognized her. Hmmm, another reason to wear glasses. But, it takes a lot to distract me from the food there. Foie gras with delicately acidic pig’s ears, ficoides glaciales with shrimp, a stunning cauliflower cake with peppery jam, pumpkin and chestnut soup, rabbit with violet artichokes and figues, pigeon and chard, the menu is simply a merveille and everything is handled with such a deft touch. The menu can accommodate not only vegetarians but gluten-intolerants. The chef is all sweetness and good. Go now before reservations become impossible. The Wolf When I was younger, I used to think that monsters were under beds, in closets, stomping up the stairs or just outside the shower curtains. As I got older, I stopped thinking that monsters existed and just believed they were part of  childhood. For most of my twenties, I stopped thinking about monsters altogether. But, in my later twenties, I started to wonder if I was turning into a monster, and if monsters were what happened to those who weren’t careful enough. Now I know differently. There are monsters everywhere. Some of them are even my friends, beautiful and mad. But the monster I detest the most is the monster that hides under a facade of gentleness, only seeking pleasure out of its own sense of right, and heartless. Behind the salt tears is a pure hunger that changes course as it is sated. Always hunting. It is a kind of animal desire embodied, with little brain nor heart to support. But perhaps the beast is to be pitied. Who knows if, looking in the mirror, it can see itself for the monster it truly is. And how tiring it must be to always hunt. Or even worse, the fault would lie with me, blind to see under its soft pelt out of weakness. Or perhaps that even I, hiding under my smooth skin, am wolfishly fanged and has made a beast in my own image. Oh foolish child. Beware the beast. Do not fear it, but know that the wolf unveiled can be fled swiftly. Such is all I can understand of the wolf and this be my last word on the subject. "Whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent." Being Amused, Part 1 People have been asking me recently how I get into all these parties. The truth is, I don’t really know. Sometimes you luck out and you’re on the list, most of the time you make up something dumb to say. I think all writers should practice their craft by making up a story to tell to a recalcitrant morlock doorman. Things I have said that have gotten me into parties this week. "I’m not on the guest list." "I’m on the list plus seven."  "The other party sucked." "My name is *semi-famous actor who actually told me to use his name to get in.*" "My name is Sam." Not even saying a word.  All these have worked, and they didn’t require loads of imagination. Which only proves that I’m not any clearer than you as to how this whole thing works. It just does. And that’s what you get trawling the Internet for education. Rien. Guess who was at the Playboy party last night? Sport is… Sport is waking up at 7 in the morning to play tennis. … going back to bed at around 12 from sheer exhaustion. … waking up later and feeling blue enough not to change out of jammies. … running out the house late because sartorial choices were overwhelming. … repeated right arm lifting a champagne glass to the lips. … finger fatigue from rapid SMSing.  … cheek and mouth pain from multiple kissings. … repeated jabbing at name on list while girl with the fake tits pretends (or not) to be illiterate. … running very fast out of a party at the news of another party on the other side of town. … smoking on the Metro just because. … getting into a raging exclusive Colette party by telling the doorman the other party sucked. (He didn’t even bother looking at the list) … krunking and bopping for hours … body surfing the bar … jumping up and down and up and down off the runway. … practicing graceful falls on the dancefloor. … arm lifting glass to mouth filled with vodka. … both arms lifting glass to mouth filled with vodka. … arms in the air. arms swinging out. … falling ungracefully into bed. I’m covered in bruises from yesterday’s sports. It’s great to be a world class athlete.    Tara in Paris a now some self flagellation Even in the company of one of my oldest and sweetest friends, I can suffer from intense bouts of insecurity. A day spent in wandering blindly, eating melon ice-cream, and flopping lazily around bodies of water, was not enough to cure me from an attack of mad nervousness when I received the sad information that I had not only missed one but three fashion shows, and that I didn’t have an invite to another party that would be fun. This is retarded. Bosh. Even as the very cute long-haired 70s rocker gave me the once over, I felt inadequate and somehow annoyed at myself for such a brainless reaction. For goodness sakes, we can’t be everyone at once, and this fashion week anxiety needs to stop. In the long run, it is unimpressive, unattractive, and downright boring. The act of creation is far more powerful. Remember… "There is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought."  The Butterfly There are certain people who are beautiful and bright. They smile easily, make you laugh, and are fascinating. He was fascinating, keeping me up to the wee hours of the night as we chatted on and on. And then I looked through the window and saw the clouds streaming by, with the moon shining brightly, as if to light both of us up. I talked about how sometimes the cosmos scares me, the endlessness of infinity of darkness. If you were cut off from your lifeline, and floated, you could literally drift for millions of billions of years without ever touching anything. Suffering can be endless. But so can beauty. I closed my eyes and remembered. Soon he will be on plane, heading south to the warm and sunny streets where he says everything is sensual and dignified. I imagine him well, playing his little ghetto blaster, with lots of gorgeous girls sashaying around him, making delicious bum bum box music to get the bottoms swaying. There are some people you should never catch. But, what joy it is to be with them, if only for a moment. More Facebook Props I just found something I totally absolutely love, that’s useful, and easy, and once again underlines why Facebook is so much more superior to anything else out there when it comes to procrastination and socializing tools. It’s the send SMS application which allows you to SMS anyone for free! Cousin Tym is responsible for pointing out this brainchild. There’s only one crap thing, and it is rather crap, is that you can only make one SMS per day. Still, I’m holding out that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Good for buzzing your foreign friends and telling dirty jokes. Tolbiac and Train I was taking the fast train home and there was a seat open in a half empty cabin. A strange man sitting across from me. He had the eyes of someone in a lot of anguish and yet too tired to move. His face was solid and wide, like the curved end of a paddle, and he wore a grey and white jacket. At first I really did not pay much attention to him. I had a lot of work on my hands and was worrying about something. Then, and this is what happens when a wagon is half bare, I started to find myself unable to control myself. I stared at my opposite passenger. His eyes were glassy and his mouth half open. Shudder. After a short moment, still looking straight in front of him with that strange expression of glazed mania, he started to brush his nose a little. The brushing continued and descended into fondling. I was beginning to wonder if he something he was trying to get out. It’s terrible to watch someone fiddling with their nose when the thing you dread, the thing you most want to see, is for them to stick the finger right up. And then he did it. The finger went right in, the index, and came out. Still staring in front of him, maybe studiously avoiding my glance, he rubbed it between his index and thumb and moved his hand between his fat thighs. There, the hand disappeared and, I’m guessing, rubbed itself against the seat. And then he did it again. And this time the finger went it deep, plunging, scraping. Still, scarcely a glance in my direction. Suddenly, he uses his right hand to fumble in his jacket pocket. So now we have one finger up his nose and the other shakily moving inside his jacket. Just when I thought I couldn’t take it any longer, he pulled out a plum. At the same time a canteloupe rolled out from his side. He held the plum in his one hand, and slowly pulled the finger out of his nose and did the same wiping gesture on the chair. __________________________ Walking down the street around Tolbiac, the towers that rise out of the distance are suddenly close. They were concrete and tall, rising over the brightly lit basketball courts. The air smelled of autumn but the lushness of the concrete garden made you think of the Asian tropics. You round the corner, climb the hard grey steps, and suddenly you’re in a wide apartment complex, replete with geometric tiling and corrugated cement roofs. You take the elevator, through the brown seventies glassed in elevator and end up on the 29th floor. The view of south west Paris is before you, but you feel as if you’ve just been in a set for Clockwork Orange. Chabal, le Caveman This guy should be in the movies. He’s has a strong frontal brow and plays like a Hun. Half-way between the postured insouciance of Eric Cantona and hefting the same charisma as a Schwarzenegger, his second try during the Namibia game was something to behold. It’s not everyday that a mountain comes charging down the field 50 yards and shakes off four tackles! Apparently he’s already snagged a movie deal. In the meantime, I’ve left with you with two videos as homework. (It’s true, though that the music makes the second clip cheeseball soup) Gruesome Tuesdays It all started a bit early on, some time after noon when I was walking down the street on the way to the supermarket. Standing near the corner, next to a metal grill fence, was a rather fat older man with no teeth, his lips sucked back and bloated from bad dentures. He held, in his upturned hand, what I thought to be a bag containing crumbs. All along the grill were pigeons. Oddly enough, though, they didn’t seem to be fluttering around him in search of food. They just all seemed to be looking at him. As I got closer I noticed there was something red inside of the bag. In fact the bag was not a bag but a long piece of crumpled paper. The red things was longish, so I assumed they were sausages. Probably merguez. But then I finally got up next to him and saw what it was. It was the underside of a long beef tongue. Later on, I was trotting further down the hill on my way to a bar, when I spotted two men lying down in front of a Casino supermarket. They were lolling about next to a shopping cart. Inside the shopping cart were what I thought to be dirty clothes. There was cardboard blocking half the cart. As I got closer, I realised that there weren’t clothes inside the cart but something furry. Almost coming up to it, it was not a coat, or anything like that, but four very young puppies in a state of catatonia. There was nothing written on the sign. Finally, I turned on the television much later in the evening, and came across a television show where a man was gamboling with his pigs. He seemed to make much a fuss about where they slept and how his sty was a bucolic eden. I went to the bathroom and when I came out, he was chopping off the leg from the body. I might need glasses. Ay Carambar! Saturday night: nothing says chic like Carambar bonbons after a great dinner. Their wrappers really have the worst jokes in them. For example… Dilemma 1 Would you rather have gum between your fingers or mayonnaise between your bumcheeks? or even better… Q: Why do the Chinese use chopsticks? A: No idea. or, my personal favourite… Q: What is written inside Italian buses? A: Don’t talk to the bus driver. His hands are occupied. De Kooning The Louvre may be my Tiffany’s, but the Pompidou is my coffee. Whenever I need a slight jolt, a little kick in the pants, I run off to the Pompidou and wander. The beauty of living in a city where there is just so much art is that you can treat it like your own private collection, picking what to see and not being bothered with everything. So, privileged with the Pantagruel of hangovers, I dressed up chic and went to the Pompidou. Usually, I hunt out the Matisses, the Rothkos, and then just whatevers, but today I was floored. Floored with seconds of entering the gallery. There was simply this stunning painting and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was Untitled XX by Willem de Kooning. De Kooning is maligned in art history for his brutal and some say misogynistic depictions of women. I really don’t care. This painting is raw, powerful, the type of image that halts you with its magnificence, its boldness, it sheer play on colour, composition, all pointing to a rare rare gift in pure image making. This has nothing to do with irony, or wit, or borrowed power. This painting is its own source of power. This is why painting exists in the first place. Because it is something unbreakable into words. It is an essential knowing. Total Eclipse of the Heart Contrary to popular opinion, gay karaoke wasn’t just made for men to meet other men by crooning love tunes. Garaoke is, in this person’s humble opinion, the antidote to a wounded heart. What’s not to like when all your best GBs are in the house, splurging on liquor, and singing La Vie en Rose like it’s meant to be sung (in a threesome). Of course, besides the hilarity, there were moments of sinful pleasure. Yup. I’m talking about singing Bonnie Tyler’s best song with the dashing Rhino himself. I must have been out of my wits to pick that song but to be honest, I had just plain forgotten most of the lyrics. But suddenly, halfway through the song, I realized that every single word was my story. The second realization was that it was totally bearable with my lovely friends beside me. With Rhino by my side, nothing could stop us. Just have to wait now for our recording date. Happy Birthday Micke! Wikipedia and Radwanska Someone is definitely on top of Agnieszka Radwanska’s Wikipedia page. Just a couple of minutes after her sensational victory over Maria Sharapova in today’s third round match, I went onto her Wikipedia page, and found it already updated. Now… I say I couple of minutes because I didn’t calculate or time it. But, it was in between her winning the game, with enough time for Sharapova to walk off the court, and then I clicked… Maybe two minutes in total. Well, given the way she plays, I have to say she merits that kind of attention. Simply awesome! Roll Call After two weeks of intense work, I find myself watching television and surfing the internet on this Friday afternoon. It’s a little vacation before an intense flurry of social events in the following week. Not only is an old friend coming to visit, I have my aunt and cousin coming from Tuesday onwards, plus a wedding this weekend. It’s a rage of social activity, which will surely be coupled with the happy partying that accompanies La Rentrée. I’m unusually buoyant, even if Alison is leaving soon and it will be hard to say goodbye to yet another person from the Northwestern grad program that I have become good friends with. But, more than anything, I’m terribly hungover. After the last shot was called, we all burst into applause, some into tears, and hugs and kisses were exchanged. Then came the opening of many many bottles of bubbly. The night went on and on and I got home drunk enough not to remember opening my computer or any attachments. So it was not really a good present to wake up and find some very unflattering pictures, sent by Raphael, sitting on my desktop. Ah well. That’ll teach me to dress like a drama teacher from the seventies! The whole crew was a joy to work with and I will really miss them. Big shout out to Florent, Fanny, Manue, Aurelie and of course, my partner at the castle, Julien. Gros bisous à vous tous. Now back to books, movies, Scrabble and Facebook for the afternoon! Because it’s Sunday… oooo aaaa oooo I started out the day with Snowbird, and ended it with Elijah Kelley. In between that were moments of good jokes, practicing my Moonwalk, shepherding 60 people to crush one very voluptuous girl into a corner, and getting punchbacks from Julien. This was an excellent Sunday. And, last but not least, I’m wishing a certain Blarneyman the warmest and dearest wishes for his big adventure in Hollywood. May you always wear your Superman underpants with pride. (Just don’t show them off to the Donners by wearing them on the outside and please remember to wash them at least every other day) __________ Elijah Kelley plays Seaweed J. Stubbs in the 2007 version of Hairspray. I absolutely adored this movie, but my favourite part by a monster mile is his song “run and tell that.” The boy has talent and then some! Another reason to watch this movie? It was filmed in my ole hometown, Toronto. Word. Snowbird I talked to M last night, one of the few warm nights of this chilly summer. She said "sometimes it just dies. You get so tired of struggling and trying to figure it out and it dies." Looking at the neon signs around me, and the honking traffic, there seemed to be no escape. The ugly curled thing blowing around the ground was the withered remainder of what must have once been a beautiful thing. Time is on the side of those who can love because love is tolerating the weariness of time. And then I listened to Snowbird, over and over again, as I yearned to fly away, to find a place safe and bright, to take away the snows from my heart, and to remind me of the promise of young new green after the cold.   Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.                        William Shakespeare - Sonnet CXVI