Sorry for the long absence, but I've been staying with my parents, where the internet access is prohibitively slow, and they themselves are prohibitively stingey.
Currently sitting in a very friendly internet cafe in Scarborough with a lot of kids playing noisy shoot-'em-ups downstairs.
I have been working on my project on Clint Eastwood's adaptation of Mystic River and Jane Campion's adaptation of In the Cut (cutriver, see?), which is in danger of becoming two quite separate projects. The constant bending over my books has given me a bad back, which my mother has been treating with shiatsu. She says that when I lay on the floor, my rib cage sticks out prominently and I appear to have no belly. She interprets this jutting cage as being the shield that I project against the world in order to protect the soft underbelly of, y'know, my psyche. This, in slightly different terms, is the same thing I've been told my whole life. It always depresses me, but I don't know what to do about it.
Otherwise, it's a time of family obligations: last weekend a visit to my brother and his fiancee and the future in-laws; this weekend a visit from my obese second cousins. On this subject, once again, I am inclined to let Virginia Woolf do the talking for me:
'He wished only to be alone and to take up that book. He felt uncomfortable; he felt treacherous, that he could sit by her side and feel nothing for her. The truth was that he did not enjoy family life. It was in this sort of state that one asked oneself, What does one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these pains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? Are we attractive as a species? Not so very, he thought, looking at those rather untidy boys. His favourite, Cam, was in bed, he supposed. Foolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied. Is human life this? Is human life that? One never had time to think about it.'
- To the Lighthouse, chapter 17
My friend Rachel phones to say she's fallen in love with a married woman with kids from her tennis club. I repeat poweredsic's advice to me: the best thing about flirting with someone's mother is you know they put out. I empathise with Rachel and tell her I was momentarily in love with a Japanese Jehovah's Witness. We're a pair, Rachel and I: she hasn't been in love for five years; I haven't been in love for five minutes.
'Rester en vie
Ce n'est que de la bricole
Un peu de tuyauterie
Que l'on rafistole
En surveillant jour et nuit
Le coeur quand il s'affole.'
- Miossec, 'Rester en vie'
Are there any actual French people on this site, yo?
Currently sitting in a very friendly internet cafe in Scarborough with a lot of kids playing noisy shoot-'em-ups downstairs.
I have been working on my project on Clint Eastwood's adaptation of Mystic River and Jane Campion's adaptation of In the Cut (cutriver, see?), which is in danger of becoming two quite separate projects. The constant bending over my books has given me a bad back, which my mother has been treating with shiatsu. She says that when I lay on the floor, my rib cage sticks out prominently and I appear to have no belly. She interprets this jutting cage as being the shield that I project against the world in order to protect the soft underbelly of, y'know, my psyche. This, in slightly different terms, is the same thing I've been told my whole life. It always depresses me, but I don't know what to do about it.
Otherwise, it's a time of family obligations: last weekend a visit to my brother and his fiancee and the future in-laws; this weekend a visit from my obese second cousins. On this subject, once again, I am inclined to let Virginia Woolf do the talking for me:
'He wished only to be alone and to take up that book. He felt uncomfortable; he felt treacherous, that he could sit by her side and feel nothing for her. The truth was that he did not enjoy family life. It was in this sort of state that one asked oneself, What does one live for? Why, one asked oneself, does one take all these pains for the human race to go on? Is it so very desirable? Are we attractive as a species? Not so very, he thought, looking at those rather untidy boys. His favourite, Cam, was in bed, he supposed. Foolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied. Is human life this? Is human life that? One never had time to think about it.'
- To the Lighthouse, chapter 17
My friend Rachel phones to say she's fallen in love with a married woman with kids from her tennis club. I repeat poweredsic's advice to me: the best thing about flirting with someone's mother is you know they put out. I empathise with Rachel and tell her I was momentarily in love with a Japanese Jehovah's Witness. We're a pair, Rachel and I: she hasn't been in love for five years; I haven't been in love for five minutes.
'Rester en vie
Ce n'est que de la bricole
Un peu de tuyauterie
Que l'on rafistole
En surveillant jour et nuit
Le coeur quand il s'affole.'
- Miossec, 'Rester en vie'
Are there any actual French people on this site, yo?
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
thora:
The secret garden with the ocelot sanctuary is somewhere in Amsterdam. I have some advice about Paris, although it may apply more to someone who doesn't visit often: don't go to the movies too much. Anything you see there you can see or rent at home, but you can't visit the same places or live the same real-time experiences. I know the big screen is better, and loving film is GREAT. (I used to do screen work when I lived there - even stupid sitcoms and variety shows.) On the other hand, you can hobnob with the local film buffs and meet some really cool people.
ayres:
I love the smell of grass... all kinda of them... 
