HAI AGAIN

I´M IN TEH STUDY

POSTIN ON UR BLAG

AGAIN

 

pain au chocolat

sometimes, in the bakery, a real live french person comes in. the french are usually kind to the rest of us, by not resisting their frenchness, and being what we imagine them to be: french. like writers who wear turtle-necks to book launches. often they come to buy things with french names. they approach the counter and force out the english words: can i have one of…. (of course when the french force out words they force them out smoothly, like cream out of a piping bag) and then the french words dance out of them. pain au raisin, baguette, croissant (a word that explodes a little more than the rest). i’ve found though, that whenever a french person says pain au chocolat, before i even realise, i instinctively answer: oui. actually, i usually pronounce it way, the yeah of french. of course i don’t speak french. certainly not well enough to answer in it instinctively, and in casualised speech. but i do this, i’ve realised. i practice speaking in languages i don’t yet know. which if you’ve ever read anything that i’ve ever written, you might have already understood.

 

film news

today, i began what i’m hoping will ever-so-slowly become a foreign dvd collection for myself. my dvd drive is set to region 2, so i am only buying either open-coded or european-coded films. i started the collection with amores perros. (open)

the dude at the store gave me a flyer for the hola mexico film festival (kind of a lame name) at chauvel, from 21st – 26th november. should be enjoyable.
also, i excitedly figured out recently that not only is pedro almodóvar’s latest film volver opening in sydney soon, but there is gonna be a whole mini almodóvar festival, 24th – 27th november, with seven of his other films being shown as well as an advanced screening of volver, which is a really great film. the only down side is having to go to dendy opera quays (i really hate circular quay).

++++

two fuck yous: today i give a fuck you to whoever came up with the dvd region coding system. way to cripple the global pirating industry!!

also, that girl in my french class. every time she says something it’s like i’m listening to that i hate you so much right now track. except without the right now bit.

 

manquer

sometimes this ache is so much like feeling sick in the stomach, or having a sore throat, when you dread swallowing. and you see how long you can just let the saliva build up in your mouth, you dribble some of it out, and it dips away from you and breaks free, but eventually you just have to swallow, whether it’s reflex getting the better of you or necessity, and it hurts so that it closes your eyes and you think i don’t want to have to do that ever again, as the saliva starts building up and your throat starts itching to swill it down, as if it doesn’t know how swollen and red and raw it is. and the whole process starts over.

 

français

today i had a french listening test, so for the long trip in i loaded my mp3 with french music.

the mix included:

1) pat’s french rap mix (obtained some time ago through scott, but barely listened to)

2) noir desir – des visages et des figures (really fantastic band with girlfriend-killer front-man)

3) edith piaf mix (obtained through alice’s russian computer, some time more than no. 1)

4) java – safari croisière (hip-hop group seen in sydney just before departure, cd bought through fnac shortly after arrival in spain)

french classes are going well. my complaint with french for the day is the whole random-figuration-of-the-numbers-from-70-to-100 thing. the way that eighty is quatre-vingt (four-twenty) and the nineties are just extensions of that already complicated form ninety-two = quatre-vingt-douze (four-twenty-twelve). now what i don’t like about this is that it makes be do maths, when in the process of comprehending single integers. it’s not enough for me to understand four, twenty, twelve; for me to turn to that page in my book, i have to do this: 4 x 20 + 12. imagine if i actually had to add 97 and 94.

i would have to do this: 4 x 20 + 17 + 4 x 20 + 14

now, somebody with an understanding of the basque construction of numbers might accuse me of bias here, given that all their numbers between twenty and one hundred are formed along the pattern of:

30 = 20 + 10 (hogeita hamar)

40 = 2 x 20 (berrogei)

50 = 2 x 20 +10 (berrogeita hamar)

60 = 3 x 20 (hirurogei)

and so forth… however, basque has the advantage that it is the indisputable coolest language in the universe. french, on the other hand, has no such luxury.