25/07/2010

Tooth and nail



Je vous lis en juillet, au bord de l'eau, quand il fait très chaud.
De temps à autre, je garde ma place avec un doigt,
planté sur un point comme un piquet de cerf volant,
ta phrase fait le tour de moi comme l'hirondelle fait le tour du ciel,
comme le vin fait le tour du palais
et quand je suis loin, très loin du point de départ, je reprends le fil de ma lecture,
mon regard re-penchant sur ta page comme un oiseau qui picore les signes, bibliophage sauvage, haletant entre les espaces et les paragraphes.
Parfois, ne trouvant rien, je cours, puis un mot me ralenti, et je te suis, et tuez moi.
Je vous ai lu en juillet, deux fois, autour de la cinquantaine.
Entre la première et la deuxième, vous avez oublié mon nom
C'est sans importance
On a le droit de n'exister pour personne
Être sans importance pour un autre…
Je vous lis, je vous ai lu en juillets,
l'écris vain jeté du lit, je vous le dis, jujitsu à ta virgule près ; lits crevants, juvénile jubilance,
vous, juillet, lu.


I bought a recording of Bach's Cello suites played by Yo Yo Ma on Itunes so I went to buy blank cds at the supermarket bookshop/multimedia outlet (which you may remember is called "l'espace temps").

As I waited for the sales attendant to finish her conversation with a friend and come and take my money, I noticed two copies of a book for sale, propped up on the counter, right in front of the cash register, some distance from the books. I noted the name of the author. BG.

In the evening I switched on the news and the main headline was that BG had died. The same day. I felt a sudden revulsion at the society we are living in. It couldn't be a coincidence. They put that book there because they knew it would have a good chance of selling because the author had just died. So we cash in on death. We are actually using death as a selling point. Do we have no scruples left? Or did we ever have any?


Amitiés bizarres…
The Heads of State and Government confirmed their determination to fight translational threats together.

I had never come across "nous" in English before...


A French question from a satisfied customer and an English sentence from the Guardian..
Ne vous ai-je pas encensée à la réception du document ?
Obama team 'incensed at being kept in the dark' as company denies underwater oil clouds

avoir les dents longues does not mean to be long in the tooth

Painting over the map.

People tattooed acupuncture pressure points on their bodies gazillions of years ago, but we have painted over them. The new layer hides the old layer which is eventually forgotten…