Thursday, October 27, 2011

A la piscine ...

... a new joke shared on entering at opening time (7 a.m. weekdays). The lifeguard comes with a bunch of keys to unlock the gate leading to the changing cubicles.

"Bonjour, Saint Pierre" quips one old man. We laugh. And yet.

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Keep listening ...

... to the first track on Second Coming - the point when the rather formless intro section suddenly shifts into a funk groove. One of those transitions that gets you mid-way down the spine.

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Sense of loosening up ...

... that moment when you feel a class beginning to gel, you're in gear. What's called 'chemistry' I suppose.

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Whereas ...

... every sheath interposed between men in their transactions is felt as a disturbance to the functioning of the apparatus, in which they are not only objectively incorporated but with which they proudly identify themselves. That, instead of raising their hats, they greet each other with the hallos of indifference, that, instead of letters, they send each other inter-office communications without address or signature, are random symptoms of a sickness of contact. Estrangement shows itself precisely in the elimination of distance between people. (Minima Moralia, 41)

How Adorno would have loved e-mail & emoticons ...

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I mean to say ...

... "Which words come to mind when you think of this student?" (College Application Form)


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P.S. ...

Madame XXX established a piano in the Alps.

One of the great lines from Ashbery's Rimbaud translations.

(I notice that in the CD reading of the original French text, the actor simply leaves a blank for the "XXX". I'd been reading 'eeks-eeks-eeks' a more cartoony - indeed, Ashberyan - effect, than was perhaps intended.)


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