The Balcony Scene, Un-Star-Crossed

This afternoon I woke up to find that the Royal Wedding was already taking place rather than occurring in the early evening, as I had thought. The television was out in the corner room and I didn't want to suffer through the commentary and the length of the ceremony itself, so every now and then I read about it on the Guardian.

The more I read the more likeable and interesting the ceremony sounded. In the end, for strange reasons difficult to pinpoint, I became very fond of the wedding; as it turns out my critical faculties were melting into a species of naïve admiration.

The ceremonies had a fine balance between formality and informality, pomp and modesty, tradition and modernity; little things like the trees in Westminster Abbey, the fact that Kate Middleton's dress was neither fluffy nor too remote (as Karl Lagerfeld suggested), the red uniform of the groom instead of a rigid black suit or more gritty militaristic clothing (as it is the formally decorated and sculpted back of William's costume had a hint of the watchmen's attire in the Wizard of Oz — oh-wee-yo, oh-weeee-yo; etc. — about it), and the, er, creative exuberance of the ladies' hats were thoroughly pleasing.

What I did watch on television (where at least eight channels, including ARD, ZDF, CNN, BBC and TV Monde, were covering the ceremonies live) were the minutes on the balcony. It was rather fun to observe the dynamic between the actors, by which I mean the royal family.

As is well known, the kisses of the married pair were (as it was described on Le Monde's website) very English and not French. In that scenario — massive crowds, television, and the argus eyes of one's granny and other family, not to mention several centuries though not quite forty, contemplating them — an impetus of Heathcliffesque passion hardly seems proper or likely, so I found the absence of romantic fakery refreshing.

Besides the two of them have, to a degree (and in my opinion), slipped fairly suddenly into premature middle age and responsibility lately; it's clear that they have long and demanding careers ahead of them, whether as a rescue pilot or as a public figure or both, etc., so a certain pragmatism and sedateness is right.

What I really coveted was the wedding cake, a colossus of the genre, a veritably princely creation in beaded and flowered white, which I stared at in the monarchy's Flickr photostream. Cupiditas radix malorum est! In this type of crisis I remind myself of the time I read that fondant tastes lousy.

***

Anyway, otherwise weddings horrify me a little. First of all I tend to the opinion that love is egotistic and that weddings are generally self-seeking, secondly that the ceremonial form and public exhibitionism injures a relationship's private, unforced and sacrosanct nature. Thirdly the planning of them sounds nervewracking, for one's self and for any minions, and lastly I have the sense that the day of mine, if it occurs, will be a nightmare.

***

In the evening I made cucumber sandwiches; little rounds and hearts and an angel cut out of white bread, using cookie cutters, with dollops of cranberry on top; and a pot of chamomile tea. Together with the bags of winegums and licorice allsorts (since they were H***bo there were unfortunately far more gummies than licorice pieces) which Ge. had purchased they formed a repast in the corner room. The chamomile tea was intended to be fruit tea, and Mama howled in protest when she observed the switcheroo, but nobly drank a cup regardless.

In the past, and unrelated to current events, I have tried to make English teas, and the results have always been doubtful. The thing is that the sandwiches and tea are dainty but not very filling, and scones and clotted cream seem more rustic and besides a pain to prepare, and it is difficult to manufacture lemon curd which does not taste and look artificially enhanced and overly sugary; and even then these things are still not really filling. Besides the subtleties of the sandwiches are beyond me and the consequences are invariably plebeian.

Other than that I have been living the life of a slob, and the juxtaposition of that with the neat luxury of the wedding was highly enjoyable. Picture bare feet, clothing I've worn day and night perhaps even since the weekend, unwashed hair, a soupçon of perspiration in the air, and a fixation on the computer screen, and there you will have an unflattering but accurate portrait of me in a holiday mood. I did wash my hair in the evening and brush my teeth earlier, so it could be worse. What is sadly true, however, is that I am one of those commoners who looks to events of spurious significance, like the events of today, as a distraction from the plodding thoughts and minor feelings of inadequacy of everyday existence; a little opiate for the masses can help here and there . . .

Fitzinghurst and Susannah

An accounting of royalle nuptialles, undertakene in the yeare 1736 in the faire kingdome of Englande. Tho' loste to posteritee for a nonce, rediscovered by E.H. and transmitted thusely to a century newe.

***

28th of April 1736
London Towne.

Dear diary,

'Tis the eve of the wedding of Prince Fitzinghurst with Susannah Centreham, daughter of a Berkshire coachman, and the coffee-houses (when not brooding o'er the parlous state of our state's finances) are agog with interest in the preparations.

Westminster is all barred to the publick, save to those who there have their home, and the gawkeres from foreign shores must content themselves with the environnes of Tyburn and other lurid and comparatively unkingly spectackles.

The armes of state and pennant of England are aflutter everywhere, indeede one cannot enter a whitewashed roome without beholding before one's eye a faint shadow of blue and red in reverse, in shorte (as the scientists have wrote) a spectral green and gold. I deem it not treesonous though impolitick to admit that I have affected short sighte and worne tinted goggles since Tuesdaye to spare mine visual (and mentall) healthe.

On Sundaye I walked the side of the Thames to finde that it was a thoughte less stinkee than upon previous rapprochements. The reason to this Enigma was evidente enough when my Horse led me upstreame past a kind of dory in which men (who looked to be of ill repute and doubtless grateful of the groats' payment) were a-skimming the noctious waves of our noble river and removing a Menagerie's worth of deceased beasts, fishe, and Debris of urban life. Greenere of visage I spurred my horse and soone arrived at home.

There I found my trusty servant bearing my eventide repast to table as the hour had strucke. With customary loquacitee he told me of the strange happenings in the town. One quarter in Westminster had been cleaned with such rapiditee that its inhabitants, when returning from the day's labours, failed to recognize their streetes and piteefully strayed. Our pick-pockets profited therefrom and it is said that more than one earnest thanksgiving to His Highness and Her incipient Highness was offered up among the more devoute, but the tradesmen and fine folk did not offere parallel gratitude even when at last they arrived in their homes. 'Tis bruited besides that one lady swooned giddilee as she passed into the abruptly purified atmosphere, and berating her servants when she had regained consciousness, declared that if she wished to draw breath relatively unhindered she would be living in sight of a Tree and not in sight of a Smokestack.

As I write this I look out upon the street and forcibly recall that the Fashioun has run mad. There are old and young men who bear upon their pates wigs dyed in the colours of State; the ladies affecte ribbons around the crownes of their headgear, gownes, shoes, &c., in the style of Miss Centreham, to the extent that there are hundreds of Miss Centrehams to be found in every quarter of the city. The taske of the Royal Guard must be truly of Mammoth proporcions. My old friende in the wildes of Buckinghamshire informs me that the Plague has Spread beyond the urban limits.

The pondes within twenty leagues of London have all been fished clean of the species of troute which is intended for the nuptial Banquet. Most have been purloined by an army innumerable of gastronomick imitators. My correspondent (invited to too many a supper) cannot bear the sight or taste of this fish anymore, and goes about with a porcion of pickled eel in his pocket by way of Anti-dote. A couple of species of songbird, doomed by their edibility and grace and like rumours of their presence in the banquet, will in probability not be seen on these shores again either. 'Twill lighten the labours of Linnaeus.

In fine 'tis a relief that a marriage like this comes perchance once every three decades. When the present Fuss and Frivolitee is fizzled, the earnest of our finances, ills of societee, &c. will pull us once again down to the sublunary realities of English existence. And then my goggles may be layed aside for another thirty years!

Divers Pianistic Endeavours

On the piano I played the beginning of Schumann's a minor concerto, the first movement of Mendelssohn's d minor trio (may have finished the second, too), Chopin's "revolutionary étude," his "raindrop prélude," and maybe other things today. Afterwards I rummaged in our shelves, looking for Lizst's third "Liebestraum," and among other things unearthed Rachmaninoff's prelude in g minor again, to be revisited properly in future.

While the Haydn trios which I play with Papa and Pudel have been going beautifully, and the better things go the more imaginatively we render it and grasp the echoes of folkloric music and so on, I am not as happy about the way I am playing solo. Besides, due to the hot weather or something else two or so of the keys are sticking, which is a pain of in the neck for the romantic repertoire that roams over almost the entire range.

The problem is that now I mostly consider the way I want to play the music; it seems humbler and nicer to follow the old approach of inhabiting the atmosphere and of figuring out what the composer was thinking and hoping for when he wrote the score. It does seem reductive to play Haydn and Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and Mendelssohn and the others too idiosyncratically Haydnishly, Mozartishly, Bachishly, etc., but it indicates a certain respect for their work and stature, and I like doing justice to zeitgeisty and stylistic quirks, and faithfully embodying their moods instead of drawing attention to myself.

So that's why I have thought that it might be worthwhile to compose things myself. Encouragingly, and along the lines of Lady Catherine de Bourgh's pronouncement in Pride and Prejudice, I have the inkling that if I learned to compose music, I would be very good at it.

***

"What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is."

"We are speaking of music, madam," said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply.

"Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient."

(Quoted from Pride and Prejudice at Gutenberg.org)

***

Anyway, though I am presently completely ignorant of the laws and details of composition, I think it would be fun to find whether my style is old-fashioned, derivative, or a progression. When I am playing I tend to feel quite close to Beethoven's compositional thought processes, but when I dabble (badly) in writing little compositions myself they tend hypothetically to resemble Mozart's oeuvre at the age of two. So this is still a castle-in-the-air.

After tiring of the television I picked up a violin again with the most moderate imaginable success, and eventually went to sleep. Now I'm awake again.

Then, because it is Easter and bells are a symbol of the feast, I wanted to write about Schiller's poem "Das Lied von der Glocke" for the "Lighthouse." Since it isn't turning out the way I want, I will post it in Hermitologies as an unfinished fragment with no literary pretensions. I didn't consult a dictionary, either, so the translations are totally unreliable. Sorry for the lousiness.

***

"The Song of the Bell"

First published: 1798

WHEN I was twelve years old or so my grandfather taught my sister and me a little German grammar and literature. Among other things Opapa read Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke" with us, and I liked it very much. Now it feels didactic and a little consciously quaint, but it has a purity of language that is quite classical as well as an informality of subject and diction that already feel romantic.

It traces the casting of a church bell, and describes in poetic terms the manufacture and its purpose once it is finished and hung in the tower (and I think it is very suited to Easter because of the association of the feast with bells in Italy and France).

After a Latin epigraph whose emphases echo the ringing of the bells — toll . . . toll . . . — it begins,

Fest gemauert in der Erden
Steht die Form, aus Lehm gebrannt.
Heute muß die Glocke werden.

"Firmly walled within the earths there stands the mold of fired clay; on this day the bell must be."

The bronze is formed from liquid tin and copper, ash salts are added and the foam removed so that the bell will have a clear tone as the dry fir wood heats the whole, and the workers are sweating like pigs.

Schiller reminds us of the higher purpose of these proceedings:

Soll das Werk den Meister loben,
Doch der Segen kommt von oben.

In other words, the work should sound its master's praises, and yet the blessing comes from heaven.

If I understand the lines he idealizes manual labour in general, arguing that it invariably has a purpose and that any man who does not work meditatively is degraded. Schiller doesn't do much for the repute of poets as pragmatic individuals who understand the realities of the labour here.

A church bell is admittedly lofty in more than the physical sense. It will persist (if providence permits) for centuries, and

rühren vieler Menschen Ohr
Und wird mit dem Betrübten klagen
Und stimmen zu der Andacht Chor.
Was unten tief dem Erdensohne
Das wechselnde Verhängnis bringt,
Das schlägt an die metallne Krone,
Die es erbaulich weiterklingt.

"touch the ear of many men and lament with those who live in grief and sound with the choir to the prayer. What to the sons of earth below the varying fates and destiny brings, that beats against the metal crown which it most usefully further rings." ("Erbaulich" is much like the modern word "constructive" — though I put it as "usefully" — and similarly pedantic.)

Then the narrator follows the fate of an ideal baby whose arrival and every subsequent epochal moment of life is celebrated by the bell. Schiller is drippingly sappy when the baby grows into the age of romance:

herrlich, in der Jugend Prangen,
Wie ein Gebild aus Himmelshöhn,
Mit züchtigen, verschämten Wangen
Sieht er die Jungfrau vor sich stehn.

"Glorious in the pomp of youth, like a presentment from heavenly heights, with decorously shameful cheeks he sees the maiden before him stand."

Bleaugh.

After the nuptials we revisit the bell. You poke in a stick of wood; if it comes out of the liquid bronze with a glassy coat it is time to pour the bronze into the mold.

Then the metonymous baby marries, as Schiller declares that an alliance of feeble (femininity?) and strong (masculinity?) is the ideal. The family flourishes and is from the sounds of it painfully bourgeois, though as Schiller points out fortune is fickle and they may yet be poor.

As the bronze is poured into the mold, at last and amid anxieties about its propensities to break, Schiller philosophizes about fire. Fire is good for humanity if we tame it and bad if we do not, etc. Any retelling of the Prometheus myth, however simplified, already has this truism covered, I think.

In Schiller's case it appears to be a metaphor for human passions, and he admonishes the reader to keep a tight rein on it, be decorous all the time, and keep the will of heaven always in mind. Otherwise God will unleash destruction upon him:

Leergebrannt
Ist die Stätte,
Wilder Stürme rauhes Bette,
In den öden Fensterhöhlen
Wohnt das Grauen,
Und des Himmels Wolken schauen
Hoch hinein.

. . .

Needless to say, Schiller's conception of religion pretty much does nothing for me, and it seems consciously folksy and naïve.

. . .

A major charm of the poem — as the relevant article at a certain online encyclopaedia states — is that it has a clear narrative, so that even a grade-schooler like I was can like it; besides it is feels like an atmospheric vignette of German society in terms of the late 18th-century ideal as well as of the historical setting, which is particularly useful as a kind of verbal illustration if one lives as I did in relatively ahistorical und un-Teutonic places where churches with bell towers are rare birds. It is left to adults to speculate on the full and finer significance of the poet's thought.

Easter in Insufferably Trivial Detail

I was up before the Easter bunny today, not on the "early to bed and early to rise" principle but on the principle that I like to kick back my heels and stay up into outrageous hours and now that I am on holiday there is no duty for me to be spiritually hungover for.

This year the Easter brunch was particularly munificent. Despite cynical prognostications one of us did shop for Easter eggs and Papa had a secret stash which enriched the table greatly. So we had a little bunch of chocolate eggs, filled or not, and candy eggs with nougat or marzipan or other centres, and sugar eggs that looked like a sunny-side-up egg on our plates and decorating the white tablecloth; our trusty reddish clay pot of tea; two platters of cheese and Schinkenspeck and maybe blood sausage; baskets of soft pretzel sticks and croissants filled with nougat or marzipan or plain and raisin buns and ordinary buns; cold boiled eggs that had been painted red or orange or yellow or green or blue or lilac with watercolours; and fresh soft-boiled eggs. Then there is a large platter of further Easter eggs, and two chocolate bunnies stood at each plate, and chocolate ladybugs interspersed; the centrepiece is a jar with cherry twigs and a scarlet geranium and a yellow and violet pansy, with three of our handpainted hollow eggs hanging from it. Ge. heated milk and there was I think also a pot of hot coffee.

* * *

Before it began we watched the children's show Die Maus. It had a depressing story about the history of the Easter egg hunt; the heroine was a hen who wanted to lay white eggs and could only lay them in different colours. Aside from the quality of the short animation, it was first of all disconcerting that the hen was so conformist and secondly that she was fixated on white skin tones, even if the skin is a shell and belongs to a fictive egg. Mama also thought it was weird . . . Then there was a segment about milking eggs, which was where the real depression set in, because the actor just went in and milked a random cow out of an anonymous row without asking permission or anything, and I was already feeling Charlie Brownish enough when they then showed how the machine milks cows, and anything more loveless, mechanical, and disrespectful can hardly be imagined . . . So to progress further into the children's literary canon I felt like Eeyore at this point.

Then a film crew accompanied our Pope as he went about his daily activities in the Vatican, and it was incredibly boring. There are two cooks and two housekeepers or something in his household, conservatively and formally dressed women who look utterly devoid of cheer (note to self: do not work for Pope unless wish to look like life sucked out of self), and then a secretary and other people, a very closed circle which barely enlivens the minimalist though not modern rooms. He eats breakfast off of specially commissioned plate with his coat of arms on it, presumably eats lunch or dinner off the same, takes a short walk along the same old route to aid his digestion (TMI, I thought!), signs proclamations given to him in a portfolio by someone in a boring office with however a checkerboard pattern in the floor which I found superficially intriguing, and then watches television on one of a set of dusty olive armchairs whose velvety surface looks like it has been vacuumed within an inch of its life twice every day. And in the morning he can appear on the balcony and wave to people and say something in several languages, as the flag waves below him. And so on and so forth. Given the choice of being a mafioso or Catholic grandee the former seems far more fun, though the formal gardens of the Pope's summer palace are like a wormhole in time, and the patch of olive trees where the cows graze and the brood of chickens are endearing. The footage of the Pope himself was captured by the Vatican; our secular Maus production team was permitted to film on the palace grounds.

The short animation about a sheep who runs a farm for a day was far more fun, and I can't presently recall if there was anything else.

Anyway, even an innocuous children's show can apparently feed my cynicism.

* * *

Then Arte showed a production of Händel's Messiah. I missed most of it but it looked like utter tosh. From an environmental perspective it was however most congenial, because it lit only the bottom tenth of the stage, though in antiseptic white glare, everything else being plunged in darkness; an energy-saving measure if I ever saw one.

The action took place on a gigantic revolving stage, which failed to transcend the dignity of a Lazy Susan, and for some reason the thick and towering partitioning walls were given a classisistic flair which did not fit the modern hotel(?) environment.

Which leads me to the dramatis personae, who were all dressed in modern businesswear, grey and black and other dark skirts and tights and jackets, and white shirts for the gentlemen. How is this related to the Messiah? — The secret is shared between the director and god.

By the time I arrived they were stacking dark wood chairs onto a pile in the centre of the Lazy Susan on top of an airport-lounge or hotel-room-y wall-to-wall carpet, and then bending over as if they were all afflicted with stomach cramps or extreme somnolence only to get up again and wilt in subsequent scenes, and Mama mentioned that there was an earlier scene where someone had slit his wrists.

Then the scene shifted to a hotel room where a woman was undressing, going to a crib that clearly had nothing in it and the white curtain above it did nothing to convince me otherwise, and dropping her clothes carefully on the floor!, and then a man in his shirtsleeves who (so Mama informed me) was supposed to be Jesus entered the door quietly backwards like Mr. Bean enacting the world's worst ninja and sat down on the floor before joining the lady in bed after she had peeled off her black stockings for the titillation of the audience.

Being fed up I wandered away from the corner room. When I came back there was a faintly North Korean choreographed group thing where they waved their hands about and so on, and then a woman in a pale nightgown who was presumably something like an angel interpreted the lyrics in sign language. Eventually the stage light narrowed in on the angel, who was terribly obnoxious, and it was somehow over. Then everyone came to take a bow and the audience clapped enthusiastically.

As far as the production goes this could have been any play or opera or oratorio ever written, if you're going to reinvent the tale entirely. In the US this would have been more amusing or genuine, but in Europe these things always reek of trying so, so hard to be cool and avantgarde.

Anyway, didn't see all of it and don't want to set myself up as a critic, but that was my take on the affair. At least the stage lighting, aside from its ecological worth, supports the opthalmological and optometrical trades. Thank you for your contribution to our economy!

* * *

Happy Easter!

Rant About the Ivory Coast

Not a cheerful subject, but I'm becoming very angry about the role the UN has played in the Ivory Coast. It has given Alassane Ouattara and everyone fighting under him a carte blanche — simply because he won the elections by whichever margin — which will have to be revoked soon, and it has not acted as an impartial arbiter in any sense.

It is fanatical to believe that the outward form of democracy is the highest good, above the wellbeing of Ivorian citizens whom it is supposed to represent. In fact in this case the election seems to have resulted in a UN-approved hegemony, and now the parties are fighting over who is the hegemon over whom.

Even the rebels in Libya have been criticized far more for deciding to take up arms against a state which has been run by Muammar Gaddafi for 42 years — not by firing missiles into markets, assassinating statesmen, setting car bombs, or slaughtering civilian opponents, as far as I have heard, but by openly attacking military vehicles and installations — than Ouattara's supporters in Côte d'Ivoire. Now that (inevitably, given this course of action) several massacres have been ascribed to fighters on Ouattara's side it is quite clear that it almost never was about the people of Côte d'Ivoire.

I think the UN has allowed itself to be unduly influenced by the fact that Alassane Ouattara has cooperated with it whereas Laurent Gbagbo hasn't. That circumstance is too unrepresentative and insignificant to be the foundation of such wholesale approval and persistent benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of massacring, and I am guessing there will have to be a change of official position.

On Becoming a Warmonger

Yesterday and today I slept into the afternoon and woke to a rewarding plenitude of sunshine. Not that I should be rewarded as such for lollygagging, but rather perhaps for having overcome a tumultuous week with a modicum of cheer intact.

When the Security Council voted on Resolution 1973, the one about intervening in Libya, I watched it on the live broadcast at the UN's website, and by that point I was in favour of the no-fly zone. It's not a popular opinion in this household. What convinced me was the fear that as Gaddafi's army retook land it would destroy houses and fire on armed rebels and unarmed civilians indiscriminately, the hypocrisy of encouraging the rebels but doing nothing to help them when they are faced with being killed off in great numbers, the clause that there would be no ground invasion, the clear desire that the political future of Libya will be left entirely to the determination of the Libyans, and the fact that even if it is unlikely that anyone will help the protestors being shot at, though unarmed, with live ammunition in Bahrain or in Yemen, at least in one country they will receive a measure of support. As far as I heard the way the protests were handled in Tripoli was unusually cruel — for instance, that bodies of suspected fighters were reportedly taken from hospitals and not returned to their families at all or except under conditions — and governments of other countries (Morocco, Jordan, and even Egypt) reacted very differently to their own protests. Besides it is not fair to say that we may do our best to overthrow our government by casting votes against it in elections, but that people who have far acuter reasons to wish to do so may not, because they would be provoking violence from their government. Since I usually dislike revolution and instinctively dislike wars led by the European Union or the United States (though I was in favour of NATO's actions over Kosovo in 1999, which however seem much more equivocal than I thought at the time) the fact that I have changed my mind in this specific instance indicates that there is a good reason for it. On the other hand I do not like the tendency of the countries which are carrying out the military intervention to celebrate specific airstrikes at all.

Anyway I feel morally responsible for this opinion and so mixed in with the usual Weltschmerz there is the surface worry that I am terribly wrong. Secondly I do think that sincere mediation led by a state like China or India to bring about a political solution now — like a transitional government of Libya still headed by Gaddafi with impartial and rebel statesmen mixed in, with elections to be held three or four years from now so that there is enough time to become familiar with new figures and to adjust to the idea of no longer having a de facto dictatorship; and no presence of armed forces in the territory now held by the rebels — before the war grows intenser, would be a good idea.

On the personal level I've been reading portions of Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution, which I attempt often with temporary success, and playing the piano for short periods and working on a different blog, among other things. Then I've been thinking about university again, and since I provisionally intend to study sciences this time around I've been looking into a book on tensors and a physics textbook, Gravitation. J. was doing Latin homework and Mama was reading something by André Gide in the corner room as I was doing said looking.

English Literary History in a Nutshell

[More nonsense. This is likely Part I of II.]

Prehistory

Scratches in tree bark, soft stone and dried mud.

Roman Britain

Army ledgers. The poetry of names and strategy.

731 A.D. Ecclesiastical History of the English People

For the benefit of legions of young military-age men educated in monasteries and elsewhere, the Venerable Bede produces a history "textbook," a literary genre designed to bore school-persons into submission and in this case thereby to reduce resistance to Christianity.

1000 A.D. Beowulf

A baying wolf from Sweden goes on an epic rampage against an early teatotaller and his mother in Denmark, and decades later dies when he attempts in vain to remove a fire hazard from his kingdom. After this tragic incident, possibly pure fiction, Swedish children were taught to "stop, drop and roll" and the first fire trucks — wheelbarrows and rainwater — were constructed.

end of 14th cent. Canterbury Tales

In a court unsettled by the Hundred Years' War, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote bedtime stories for the beleaguered nobility much as Giovanni Boccaccio had done in his Decamerone in Florence.

1589-1613ish William Shakespeare's Plays and Sonnets

A cabal of English Literature professors at Oxford University decides to write plays plagiarized from ancient and newer sources to establish an authorship controversy whose resolution would procure funding for their successors in perpetuity. William Shakespeare is the hapless tool who must produce the plays and pretend to be the figurehead of the thing.

1611 King James Bible

As the head of the Anglican Church King James I considers it infra dignitas to have it known that he has read a Puritan translation of the Bible, and reading it in ancient Greek or Hebrew or the Vulgate is a drag, so he commissions his very own.

1667 Paradise Lost

"A smalle whyte dogge by the name of Paradys has been loste on the road twixt Southampton and Dover. Any kind sirs having knowleddge of his presente lodgynges please to despatche a messengere to J. Milton, 34 Hay Roade, Chalfont St. Giles Bucks."

1671 Paradise Regained

Hiding in hay-cart all along.

1712 Rape of the Lock

A consortium of millowners is highly wrought after the Leafley river is reconstituted into a canal and the old lock above the juncture to the Finch tributary is demolished. They turn to Alexander Pope to tear into the enterprise with a sarcastic editorial using his preferred weapon, heroic couplets.

1722 A Journal of the Plague Year

Six decades after an unspeakably horrid year in dress fashions, pamphleteer Daniel Defoe bravely broaches the collective trauma of English society and describes the monstrosities in lace and velvet which lurched and broddled through Whitehall.

1729 A Modest Proposal

After a bitter babysitting experience a young policy-maker in the Foreign Office advocates cannibalism, only to be sternly told that he must evince greater sensitivity to the public and obtain knowledge in the art of child care through apprenticeship in a nursery. Later in his career it transpires that it was he who (under the influence of hallucinogens) had anonymously published (1726) a highly spurious account of his travels in lands for example where horses reign (known afterwards by the name of hippocracy, sometimes spelled hypocrisy). It offends so many diplomatic missions who read it as ridicule of their own nations that the War of the Austrian Succession two decades after is but an extension of childish insults by other means. Yet the authorship has come as no surprise to his superiors in the Foreign Office, who have placed no great reliance upon his dispatches after the first; their initial panic after reports of Rose-coloured Pachyderms preying upon the docks of Marseilles proved greatly unfounded.

1794 The Mysteries of Udolpho

England discovers southern France and Italy only to be shocked by the depravity of the upper classes and surprised by the similarity of its scenery to paintings by Watteau and etchings by china-manufacturers. As Mrs. Ann Radcliffe reported in this and later works, Italian marquesses are greatly prone to killing off their families and conspiring with clergymen.

1813 Pride and Prejudice

A naive and unobservant young novelist, daughter of a rural parson, suggests that one should marry for love rather than rank, money, or suave manners. Her work unleashes a firestorm of denunciation which, particularly among women, inspires animosity against her and her works to this day.

1814-29 Waverley Novels

Sir Walter Scott uncovers a similar vein of depravity in England and Scotland. Brides stabbing unwanted husbands, Scots stabbing unwanted English, Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert trying not to execute unwanted love interests, etc., and everyone from astrologers to highlanders conspiring against everybody else.

1836-7 Pickwick Papers

An inventory of the finances of a small town outside of London by name of Pickwick. Followed by Oliver Twist, a monograph on an obscure Elizabethan poet; A Tale of Two Cities, contrasting the street waste disposal methods of Paris and London; Great Expectations, predicting a stark rise of the gross domestic product in London and outlying towns between 1862-5; Little Dorrit, a comparison of the types and quantities of fish which were caught off a tiny Dorsetshire port in 1857; and Nicholas Nickleby, a philosophical look at the relative merits of hempen and wood-fibre paper as described in the diary of a 17th-century scrivener. Charles Dickens was a minor and dry writer with a profoundly limited insight into the realities of human interaction and greater social problems, and so despite an impassioned reevaluation in the 20th century he never truly acquired influence.

1847 Jane Eyre

In an investigative report the Yorkshire freelance writer Charlotte Brontë concludes that it is best for well-born but poor women not to become governesses except if the surname of their employer is Rochester, and finds at the same time that any woman in an engagement should secure her footing in the eyes of the law before the ceremony by inspecting the betrothed gentleman's house from roof to cellar to ferret out concealed dependents.

1847-8 - Vanity Fair

Having consumed too much cotton candy, the writer William Makepeace Thackeray indicts a rambling denunciation of society and the sugar industry at large, and the sugar industry at street carnivals in particular, concluding that the brief surge of energy is in the end a hollow good.

1891 - Salome

The great playwright Oscar Wilde suffers fraught relations with other personages of high society. Pushed past the powers of endurance by one particular grande dame, he decides to spoil her appetite for dinner by putting in theatrical form a Biblical tale of a young lady who, on a momentous occasion, orders not a salad, not a soup, not a proper met of any sort, but the head of a prophet on a platter.

Et cetera.

The Hamster Ball

Yesterday evening, having gazed upon the latest offerings of the sartorial art in Milan, I watched the new season premiere of America's Next Top Model, having been forewarned by a certain blog (namely Jezebel) that it would be tremendously stupid.

So it was and yet not repellently so. This time the group of obligatorily shrieking girls who were anointed unto the "Top 13" were told at first by the cryptic medium of a blank piece of paper in an envelope that they were unanointed, so that their shrieks were muted into sobs amid the shrieking of, presumably, actresses, who it was pretended were the successful contestants. Tyra Banks magnanimously explained to the pseudo-rejected girls, as they meditated the ignoble heap of their suitcases in the staircase, that they were through after all, and that she had only been trying to give them the experience of rejection. Why she would consider that the girls had not encountered rejection yet, particularly those who had already worked as models, remained unexplained; so it must be surmised that this little trick was designed for the benefit of the television viewer. Anyway, she pulled away a curtain to reveal their home — perhaps due to the vagaries of the camera lens the atrium looked roughly the size of a high school gymnasium — and with piercing cries they revelled in their material surroundings.

The perennial circus of the contestant interviews was not broadcast this time, but Tyra exercised her actorly predilections by imitating three common contestant types. I consider it a little unprofessional to make fun of young people half your age who are guests on your television show, as it were, but the second impersonation was good.

The next morning, at least in terms of artistic compression, the girls were hailed out onto the lawn where they met Erin Wasson. Her status as supermodel and stylist and jewellery designer was elucidated; and I could have sworn that she also had a fashion line which showed during New York Fashion Week and which was discontinued due to fiscal pressures — this, at any rate, was not mentioned.

Erin and the fashion shoot director Jay Manuel announced a runway fashion show in one of Alexander Wang's lines and Erin Wasson's jewellery. So far, so good, I suppose. As a clincher, however, the models were to walk on a 12-inch-wide transparent strip jutting into a pond and they had to walk inside a plastic bubble where bits of reddish material would drift along the bottom like confetti in a hamster wheel. Why self-respecting designers would participate in a runway show set up to be more or less impossible, humiliating for the contestants, and too fussy or weirdly arranged to permit a good view of the fashion which the models are supposed to be modelling, remains another unanswered question. In the event two or three of the contestants fell, could have hit their heads on the edge of the runway and been knocked unconscious (a litigator's dream) but fortunately didn't, and had to crawl inside the sphere until it bobbed back to the runway where their feet could gain purchase. Idiocy, I say!

Behind the scenes the photographer Russell James staged what is called "beauty" photos at Style.com. I think it is a public relations invention intended to humanize the models and by extension the fashion industry, and to counter the nasty insinuations of cruelty (invented as it were by the rational people amongst us who don't think that fashion transcends the human right to comfort and dignity) against the latter. Models obligingly pose with a sandwich, a respectable book (no Harry Potter, though I guess that would be endearing), curling-irons, make-up brushes, mirrors and each other, and smile with the serenity which inevitably accompanies 12-hour-workdays, painful high heels, hair extensions which it will take hours to remove, and other stresses perfectly natural for people who are deracinated from their homes and not yet old enough to graduate from school.

Based on these backstage photos or on the desired narrative of the show's producers, the girl named Angelia was sent home. I was pleasantly surprised that some of the contestants did look like they could be models. This also means being as slender as possible; to the fashionable mind I don't think that models are ever too slender for the runway and only perhaps for print work it might be awkward to have the lateral dimensions of a piece of paper.

***

Last cycle was the first "high fashion cycle," where presumably by grace of André Leon Talley — a friendly giant of sorts — designers from Diane von Furstenberg (who was really impressive and a revisitation of the 1940s and 1930s, European-accented American high society) to Zac Posen were hooked into appearing. Karolina Kurkova made a slurried drink of healthy, healthy fruits and vegetables, which though it ended up tinted a respectable blueberryish lilac was greeted with muted enthusiasm, and evidently inspired less enjoyment than the batch of deep-fried Oreos with which the contestants were likewise regaled by one of their number.

Franca Sozzani made an appearance too as the editor of Italian Vogue; I think I would like her, but I do find it a bit tiresome how she is part of the handful of fashion industry members (also like Emmanuelle Alt, Carine Roitfeld and children, etc.) which is always photographed everywhere. Then there was a painful non-conversation between a model raised in rural America who was unable to decipher Gallic-accented English and the photographer Patrick Demarchelier, both bored and on edge. As high fashion television I thought the season was a bit of a bust, though a painful degree of ambition and kowtowing permeated it, which doubtless resonated with the target audience of 13-28-year-olds who are enduring or still able to recollect the vicissitudes of attracting the favours of the fashionable clique in their schools.

***

Lastly and somewhat unrelatedly, I've been keeping track of the fashion weeks in New York and London. New York's week was so excessively tasteful and at times boring that one or two years ago I would have made sage remarks about the Recession; and for once I looked to London for relief, eager for the heady dash of discombobulating vulgarity by way of contrast, only to find that here too was a sad dearth of offensiveness. In Milan so far some conspiracy is going on, too, because the shows I've seen so far tend to plunge into "jewel tones," which means intense and saturated cobalt, amethyst, emerald and so on and so forth. At least familiar model faces like Natasha Poly and Anna Selezhneva and Coco Rocha have reemerged there; they had not much appeared elsewhere and I didn't know whether they were superannuated, keeping out of the spotlight for a while on a publicist's advice so that their allure remains fresh, or bound by exclusive contracts to make Milan Fashion Week (which has been a trifle moribund) particularly attractive. By the way, I have not seen Anna Wintour anywhere. Maybe this means that Carine Roitfeld, so newly deposed by Emmanuelle Alt, will be at American Vogue after all, or maybe it means that I haven't been looking at the relevant front row photos. As for the season's fads, the one I've noticed most is the colour scarlet.

***

Anyway, despite the pretentiousness of my statements and the scarcity of qualifiers, I am evidently not inside the heads of the people who put on New York Fashion Week, London Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week, or American's Next Top Model, so the preceding may be pure invention.

Rambling about Tricherie

I am once again in the Throes of a Cold, this time with a sore throat throughout Sunday, then intermittent loss of voice on Monday and Tuesday. And my legs are weakish when I go to the bookshop and my head feels disproportionately hot. Yesterday, however, I discovered a miracle cure when I decided to roll around in the chair in the bookshop's office. Whether it is the cooling effect of the wind compounded with the cardiovascular perks of the exertion of pushing one's self around with the feet, or the release of endorphins, or a more complex explanation, it made me feel much better. But I also gargled a little chlorhexamed this morning.

When I came in this morning Mama summarized a TV discussion about our defence minister Guttenberg's (whom I somewhat dislike and therefore pronounce in English so that the name has "gut" at the beginning) plagiarism in university. I haven't read the details, but I have never really bought into the virulent denunciations of plagiarism. It's a ratty thing to do in itself, but I think it's more sad than depraved, because it means that one doesn't have the same pride in one's work and hasn't benefited by the same process of clarifying one's thought and preparations; so in the end it carries with it a hollow benefit. Besides not all essays and theses are written with love for the field, or written on a topic which is genuinely interesting and useful, so morally and spiritually I find them a hollow exercise at the outset. In this particular case one might guess that the denunciating party doth protest too much; certainly I think that neglecting a German citizen in Guantánamo or accidentally dropping a bomb on hundreds of civilians is more shameful.

The closest I came to plagiarism was probably during a group project for English 120(?) when we had to write an annotated bibliography for a poem by John Donne. It was the day of the Bush/Kerry elections when I had to finish it. In between hectically refreshing the election map at nytimes.com I tried to read the books, summarize them in three to fivish sentences, and gauge their usefulness given the subject as we were supposed to. But eventually my mind was overstuffed and I had to go to sleep; so with one of the books I just checked the index to see if the poem is mentioned, summarized the table of contents and propped it at the head of my bed and was trying to read it anyway when I went to sleep for two or three hours. It was quite clear that Kerry had lost by then and after that it was one of the worst days of my life. When the bibliographies were handed back a couple of weeks later the professor or teaching assistant or both first of all made a speech about plagiarism to the class, and I think I felt rather guilty. Then there was a little note on my bibliography in which the TA explained that she had checked the annotated books because the phrasing of my annotations sometimes seemed unlikely, and that I had squeaked by but should be more careful.

There were three cheating incidents in school: when I was in Grade 1 or 2 we had "minute drills," where we each received a piece of paper with math questions on it and we were supposed to solve them as many of them as possible within a minute or two. I disliked the pressure and was afraid of disgracing myself, so I surreptitiously answered a handful of questions beforehand. After a couple of times doing this I realized that it was unnecessary and stopped. And honestly I didn't feel that bad about it, firstly because I was good at math, secondly because I wasn't trying to do better than the others, and thirdly because I wasn't caught.

In Grade 9(?) we watched a film in Social Studies and were asked to answer a worksheet or write something about it. I thought then as now that watching films is really no substitute for substantive learning material, and besides it wasn't a big deal; so I didn't put up much resistance when a clique of classmates sitting around me asked to copy what I'd written. Somewhat to my surprise we were asked to hand our work in. I'd forgotten about it completely, when a couple of weeks or months later the student teacher asked us to step outside the door one by one and inquired whether we had copied things off of each other — said that, in fact, it was evident that this had happened — and asked me specifically whether I'd been put under pressure. I tried to remember but couldn't, and I detest tattle-tales, so I honestly said that I wasn't put under pressure and didn't remember. What did irk me was that I then received a 0 for the assignment. Later someone intermittently tried to copy off of me during the Spanish final exam, but as I said to her it was unlikely that I'd gotten everything right, besides which it would have been difficult for her to see what I'd written because she was across the aisle and my writing is tiny and somewhat indecipherable. I did find that rather obnoxious but maybe she needed the boost to her self-confidence as much as I had in Grade 2, and she was very good at spoken Spanish.

Lastly, and very ignominiously, I went to a provincial-level geography quiz during Grade 8, because I had misunderstood the teacher during the school-level finals and forewent answering a question which I should have answered and would have gotten wrong. I realized that I had misunderstood him when he prompted me to answer the next question. For the rest of the day I was in agonies of conscience, but was far too ashamed to tell the teacher and forfeit, which would now seem the sensible alternative. The third-place winner seemed cleverer than I was; in terms of the score I think I would have had one point less than him. Anyway, for these and many other reasons I am glad to be out of an academic environment.

It must be admitted, though, that this kind of competitiveness and artificial frames which almost coerce one into cheating are present outside of school — the job search, for instance, or work contracts, or writing competitions, and many other things. Competition is fun enough if one can win it fair and square, but otherwise it seems degrading.

What I like about not working is not that it's easier, which it isn't even after I was inoculated against serious depression two years ago, but that it gives me freedom. The material freedom of earning an income might be equivalent, but it likely does not encourage one to think and act independently, nor to strengthen and expand one's inner life. But since I have had that, I think it is worthwhile now not only to gather experiences and earn an income but also to profit by the raised threshold of physical and therefore mental activity. The work at the bookshop is quite invigorating that way already.

Le Lai de Rampal

One day a knight was wandering by a stream and as the water rushed over the curved stones so did a string of notes flow from his flute in an unbound and undirected manner. He was afflicted by melancholy, for he had ridden through a marsh where the sedge had shrivelled to such lifeless mouldering tangles that his tender sensibility had been affected sorely.

King Arthur beside had given him naught but a handful of groats wherewith to maintain his steed. One of his secrets most profound was the hairbrush with which he groomed his propre mount like a stable-boy, and another of his secrets most profound was the twice-daily surreptitious journey which he and his horse undertook to partake of the fodder of the richer knights. His parentage had died and could not further his glory; his lofty provenance, for French, availed him little in the honours of the court; for his sword he could but afford a silver-plated stick and (for he had tried this) that could not even skewer an ortolan; nor could he find the tongue of the simpering lasses of Caernarvon intelligible enough for courtly exchanges.

So the knight drowned his sorrows in the finest wine of Burgund, and tootled a disconsolate improvisory tune on the instrument besides, and his faithful steed followed (for the knight had the foresight to carry the equestrian provender). All of a nonce he saw under the bridge the fine glimmer and sheen of maidenly tresses, suspended over the rippling water's surface as the sun burst through the hawthorns and willows beyond the bridge at the banks. "'Tis a fairy!" exclaimed the knight in Anglo-Norman, as he started forward; then he paused, "Perchance a fairy wicked, for she lives aneath the bridge where dwelleth sombritee." But the hair sparkled again, alluringly, as the fresh and unassuming trees waved their leaves and the harmless water lightly trickled. "Nay! Where the sun fears not to shine her rays, surely a goodlie knight need not fear to followe."

He hied him to the bridge along the towpath, the steed following in distress as his provender strayed ever further away, at a run, and vaulted over the low wall and slid down the mud to the embankment. "Milady, here I have hastened and here I am arrived . . ." said he, but never said more mot, for he found only a glittering spider's web which clung softly to his face and tore in shreds to drift on the river wind.

[Another slight story departing from the Lai de Lanval. Written today; I might edit it.]

A Snowman on the Rampage

A story suggested by the length and Damoclesian implications of the icicles outside. It transpires in New England. A nod likewise to Calvin and Hobbes.

***

For five weeks the snow had covered the ground and grown to the height where the house's foundation met the weatherboarding.

Leafless beeches, elms, and ash trees grew in the forest round about, and if snow had not been caught in the broad mesh of the wire fence the territory belonging to the house would have seemed to go on forever.

Though the clouds were thick with snow and the air was hazy where the powdery flakes fell like cherry blossoms out of season, the sky was as dark as if it had been clear.

There was a quiet traffic in birds, owls, rabbits, mice, and greater predators.

The movement behind the trunk of the only locust tree was as furtive but very different.

It came from a rounded figure, whose head and spherical shoulder blotted out the background for an instant before melding back into the trunk's shadow.

A strange depression sank into the ground beside the tree, and a strange marking of white was left on the locust bark as a twigged hand slithered, scratchingly, across it.

It was the snowbeast.

*

One twigged hand still bore the scrapings of the tree bark, the other emerged, uplifted, not with a carrot, but with a colourless arm of a like shape.

That arm was an icicle.

It did not drip; it had not cracked; it was not ribbed with the marks of the twig.

In the residual light of the benighted countryside, it reflected an eerie whitish glow and a fleeting watery dissolution.

*

Closer the snowbeast came.

The water-darkened rock which served as its nose twitched.

Two half-rotted beechnut hulls which served as its eyes bristled.

Its mouth, a moribund locust bean, turned upside down.

The twigs were raised; the icicle fell.


*

A lantern sprang apart with a shattering clutter.

The bulb extinguished.

The rays on the snow vanished with the silhouettes of the trees.

A rabbit at the fenceline hobbled away in affright.

The owl hooted and left an elm with a virulent flap.

*

The icicle stabbed and stabbed at the windowpane.

It was double-glazed.

The snowbeast advanced to the door.

The fanlight was single-glazed.

Stab and crash.

*

A great shard of grass settled in the snowbeast's midsection.

Meltwater gurgled up through the snow-wound and dissolved the creature as it thrashed in violent throes.

A bird twittered.

*

In the morning the owner stepped outside to sweep up the glass.

His wife called, "Do phone the insurance people, dear."

FINIS.

Dec. 27, 2010

[It's a dumb story, but maybe amusing. The original title is "Rime of the Snowbeast."]

An Imaginary Banquet and Poetics

The snow still lies thick upon the ground, trodden likewise into café au lait tinged slush whose crumbly consistency is owing to its powdery quality and to the continuing frigidity, and from here I can see the deep paw-prints which a child made in the snowbank on the rear windshield of a car presumably on Monday. The trees are thickly clad, though the wind perturbingly wafts drifts of it to the ground, and in the courtyard the dusting against the solid dark ivy and the spades on the bicycle seats and the rampart along the top of the brick wall separating it from the next court have remained intact. The sky is as blank and greyish-white as an old computer screen, though of course unpixelated.

Yesterday Gi. did the first proper installment of our Christmas shopping: sugar, tomatoes, green beans, etc. I have daydreamed about baking Vanillekipferl, Dominosteine and maybe a chocolate or caramel brittle, to give as presents, but haven't found the time, leisure, or will to realize it. The dulce de leche coffee and the seasonal bowl of eggnog have yet to be made. An experiment with dissolved cream toffee, coffee, milk, cocoa powder, and plum liqueur produced reasonable results, and resembled a certain bottled Irish cream. I might make the eggnog today if a kind person would procure the ingredients. The recipe is from one of our Christmas books: you beat together egg yolks and sugar, add milk and heavy cream (I use whipping cream if we have it) and rum, and stir in beaten egg whites. The rum technically decimates germs; we never leave the eggnog sitting around long, though, but at least drink it straight away when it's fresh and before the egg white foam separates as it inevitably and annoyingly will. There might be vanilla extract in it too. In the New York Times food section I noted a butterscotch variant, but it might be too fiddly, whereas I have resolved upon a course of plain (if any) cooking.

As for the medieval repast, it is unlikely to be made but I've been thinking about it. If relevant Guardian articles and my recollection are correct it turns out that for a British Christmas the main dish was once boar or peacock, which became a swan in the 17th century up until the Victorian Age, when goose and turkey became popular. But I have been thinking more of the desserts. The question is whether anyone will eat apples and oranges and nuts if they are presented on the table. Watching another food documentary this time set in the Provence, I was thinking that the 13 Desserts seem somewhat medieval, so I could arrange a plate or two with raisins, nuts, dried apricots, prunes, figs, sliced nougat, etc., as the lady did, also with marzipan. I thought of making apple dumplings but they seem a lot of work, and straight roast apples with raisins in the middle are never accorded the affection which they deserve in my point of view, though to be fair the last round which I made was blackened (and in the case of exposed raisins, charred). I was thinking that it would be nice to press marzipan into a little cake or tart mould (we have two little ones), lined with ground or chopped almonds so the marzipan doesn't stick, and then to decorate it with pieces of glacé cherries or the like; or to make a Middle Eastern plate with halva, pistachios, dates, etc. Blancmange seems a little of a bother, but it is mentioned *pedantic cough* in the prologue of the Canterbury Tales. Besides, and of course not related to desserts, I have a hankering to make Yorkshire pudding once.

Unrelated to the Middle Ages and to British cuisine, I was thinking of putting together a fruit bowl as I did for my birthday, and which was much appreciated; the way it was special is that the fruit was more varied than ordinary, I washed and dried it very carefully, let it ripen in the early autumnal warmth for a day or two, took out our silver or pewter dish as well as a grand pottery dish to arrange it in, and of course spent much more time thinking how best to present it than customary. But what's nicer is the basket which we have every year on Christmas morning, most often containing a pineapple, a coconut, and a package of figs and of dates, besides the slew of mandarin oranges and apples.

Anyway, now I have had the enjoyment of imagining all this excellent food without having to shop for it, pay for it, wash dishes for it, prepare it, or dispose of any disasters (my rule of thumb is that if it's edible I must eat any remainders of my cooking, and I believe have only had to concede inedibility twice, though the improvised pumpkin pie I finished on this principle at the age of fourteen or thereabouts, with its hardbaked shell and stringy and savourless filling, will likely haunt me far into adulthood), so I am content.

As for the bookshop, three gentlemen have come to pick up their orders and one lady came in, first of all to point to the audiobook in the window and ask me if I knew what "On Civil Disobedience" was about. Whereupon I said, I think justly though maybe naming the date might have helped, that Thoreau was against the Spanish-American war and therefore refused to pay taxes, and was therefore locked up in prison, where he wrote this as a plea for non-violent resistance through non-cooperation with the government, and that it influenced among others Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. This disquisition comes courtesy, I believe, of an introduction to that essay, which is one of those cases where after reading the thorough and unobjectionable introduction the tiny flame of curiosity for the book proper has extinguished itself. She ended up buying a different philosophical work and intermittently commanding her little white-and-orangey-brown dog to staaayyy. As she paid and received a little bag for her purchase and I asked whether she would like a receipt, the dog growled here and there, and she cheerfully remarked to him in an aside how nice it was of him to protect her. Which is in retrospect kind of funny; at the time I was thinking absentmindedly that his growling sounded like mild disembodied thunder so that one couldn't really tell where the little dog left off and the noise beyond the shop began.

One of the ordered books was the Nicomachean Ethics, so I asked the customer whether he was reading it for a course, but he said just for leisure and seemed to genuinely enjoy looking forward to the prospect; he wondered why I was surprised at the purchase and I said that I'd tried to read the Poetics and found it very tough going, and mumbled something about laconic language. He said that he had to check the glossary for practically every page but otherwise it was fine. So I'll take his word for it and admire a better man than I.

In German translation and likewise in a R*** edition (I mention it culturally and not advertisingly, hence the asterisks) the Poetics weren't so bad, however, though I never finished it or indeed broached more than a fourth or so of it, and I think the point is mainly to describe what plays were like in Aristotle's time and a major point in reading it is to see which blueprints playwrights have followed or sworn off following ever since. The stuff about poetry being like dancing in rhythm, etc. and so forth, didn't seem all that interesting. The true ordeal was when Papa and I once started the beginning of his Metaphysics in the original, and despite our Greek courses had to look up terms constantly whilst my not so carefully cultivated grammatical knowledge unravelled at the critical junctures, and I still have no idea what the words with half a dozen definitions like thymos exactly mean. Doubtless it would be better today, but I still think that Aristotle dominates the fine art of making one feel that one has made no progress in grasping anything.

Anyway, the second pair of people has walked by with a Christmas tree, so on that note (also since Mama has come in) I will end this post!

A Winter's Peroration

Snow is falling again, but this time as a dust. The tree branches are still highlighted in white, curves of snow slide along the street lamps, icicles hang from the radiators of cars, and many cars bear a fleecy hood. Along the streets it has been threshed into grey lumps, and on the sidewalks either stomped into an uncomfortable hard carpet or marked sparingly in footprints and lone tire treads, or scraped and mixed with gravel and sand. It has slumped on the apartment roofs and left the topmost tiles half-bare, crowding at the gutters.

I've been here at the bookshop for an hour or so, and so far have had little to do except pull out a letter from the mail slot and record its arrival in my chronicle of events. There is a bag of gummy bears which accompanied a past shipment from the book delivery service which we use, and I have been profiting by that, and I read a small portion of The Age of Napoleon, lit a cone of incense, and began revising the beginning of a blog post about Persuasion. Altogether I have done a lot of draft work for the Lighthouse blog, but after spending much time over The Canterville Ghost yesterday decided that it would be best to write about it when I'm older, because my insights seemed neither very original nor very profound, I wasn't quite reading the story in the spirit in which it was written, and besides the draft post itself didn't correspond to my ideal of a book review. Whether rightly or wrongly I have had the sense in the past months of having to write anything I write ex cathedra, as it were, and not to publish anything which I wouldn't still find reasonably accurate, good and worthwhile in ten years. What this partly means is to write a good deal and follow trains of thought as far as they go before deciding to remove unimportant or imperfect passages and to boil down the rest, or to abandon it entirely as a sacrifice on the altar of literary judgment.

Where writing is concerned the historical tales are dormant. The newest incarnation of the one set in the time of Henry VIII began well, but I felt that I had reached not the 16th century but rather an odd intermediary point, and besides there were still a great many details to research and character traits to figure out. Only the plot could come on its own, since I have blatantly filched the outline from elsewhere and as for the rest have no reason not to think that the story will come of itself as I write, which has been the case in the past and is much more enjoyable through the element of surprise than most things my plodding brain could evolve. Recently I started a scientific book by Marat, in which he describes the origins of the modern understanding of electricity, and though not disposed to like him politically found myself liking the book. Other than that I have done precious little for the French Revolution research. The Age of Napoleon has reached the Age of Napoleon and mostly left behind the Revolution, so its continuing pertinence is slight.

Yesterday evening Ge. and Papa prepared a large dinner of Indonesian noodles, as it is termed in our family, and I helped cut up the leeks for it. My latest method is to remove the outermost layer or two, rinse the leek, chop off the stalk to be sliced, then to remove the outermost leaf or two, rinse it, chop off the stalk, and so on and so forth, and if it falls apart to "reconstitute" it. I was worried that the purple-silvered leaves would be tough, but they melted away. It was delicious and I had two large portions of it. Other than that I made carrot cake twice in the last week of November, once with a cream cheese, butter, and icing sugar frosting which was to my dismay yellow and fluid instead of white and stiff, and once with thick icing concocted of icing sugar, warm water, vanilla extract, and Cointreau. The second icing was fiendishly saccharine but I had no objection.

The next project I am meditating is a dulce de leche coffee: hot coffee, dulce de leche dissolved in it, kahlua, sugared whipping cream, and grated chocolate. I believe that would be called "moreish" in the British jargon. I found it on the website of a famous cooking blogger from, I think, Oklahoma, whose website is recommended on Jezebel quite often and which quite reliably has recipes for things my siblings would actually eat. Then there is a butterscotch eggnog recipe from the New York Times's food section. Besides I have been thinking of cooking a Scottish meal with a cranachan for dessert, and a medieval banquet with beer and things served on our wooden cutting boards (to be rechristened "trenchers"), and a French breakfast with croissants and delicate meats and brie and jams and hot cocoa (er, chocolat frappé) or tea or coffee or a combination thereof. But since the dishes have been piling up into a species of kitchen Mordor and I am still very antsy about washing the dishes in wintertime after the way my hands blew up and sprouted hives three or so winters ago, these may remain daydreams.

This year the Christmas season has been relaxed and low-key. St. Martin arrived quickly in the midst of other occupations, so I didn't even think of working on a lantern until the day had arrived and pretty much gone; the first Advent Sunday came in with some fanfare; and we celebrated St. Nicholas on the day before, which is to say that I slept in while some of the others had breakfast, and showed up in the early evening to find a lot of chocolate on my plate. When Papa was travelling in the U-Bahn a BVG Nicholas was on his rounds and so he ended up with a teddy bear key chain, and at work Mama received a package containing the Ferrero triumvirate of Rocher, Küsschen, and Mon Cheri. I've been thinking that maybe Christmas is more a holiday for children, which to put it baldly makes theological sense because of the "child" in Christ Child; but though in past years I have felt that I could hear the creaking and groaning of the industrial Christmas machine winding into gear around September and then cranking out a deluge of advertising into January, this year I am an insider at least in the book industry and therefore don't find it so artificial or overwhelming. So I'm not particularly grinchy and, though still inclined to be gloomy about selfconscious, intentional (the German word "vorsätzlich" popped into my head; can't think of the right English term for now) dogoodery and benicery, don't devote that much time to thinking about it.

On television in the past week there was another cooking documentary on Arte, one of my favourite genres. This time the protagonist was a French woman who hunts for truffles with her pig — quite a nice, tidy-looking pink pig as pigs go — and makes black truffle omelette, truffled boiled eggs, chicken stuffed with truffles, and rabbit, and serves the latter to a round of friends each in their own way carrying on a local tradition, for instance hunting truffles with hounds (more expensive than pigs, since they must be trained, and prone to distractions, whereas as long as there are no acorns nearby pigs are apparently exemplary in their devotion to the task at hand) and tending the rabbits.

On the piano I have been looking at Schumann's piano concerto again. I liked it and didn't love it at first, and maybe the same holds true now, but the more I work with it the more I like it and the deeper I dig into its substance. It is teaching me to take time with the music, to tie the notes together better in a legato and to tackle specific scales, and so on. Of course there is a value in playing it as slowly as I am, because it leaves me more time to notice things and because it is much easier to solve problems that crop up at a mild speed than at a furious one, though one can play absentmindedly as easily in one mode as in the other, and I think it is good mental exercise to find enough in the music that one isn't frustrated by the length. I think playing a passage quickly and discovering a macrorhythm or macrophrase is more of a trick than a true enrichment of the music, though of course it is often integral to the music, in composers like Liszt and Bach (where the melody is sometimes very well hidden amid the counterpoint, I think) the music is practically devoid of sense without it, and if one wants to play professionally people demand that one observe it.

I revisited Bach's Concerto in d minor recently, too, and enjoyed it much more than before, because though this is an undignified metaphor it feels like a very meat-and-potatoes sort of music, nourishing and strong and warm, though I still find the second movement desolate — and technical difficulties no longer interfere so much with this quality. Revisiting a Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt was not as uplifting, though the tedious clinkery of the Friska and so on went reasonably well for sightreading, and I didn't play through to the end. Then I came across the Satie "Gymnopédie" which I remember playing for an exam, and arrangements of The Nutcracker, and the Christmas songbook which I am playing through a couple of songs at a time. Besides there is a Haydn sonata, and anything else which recommends itself at least for a glance.

On the reading front I began to read romance novels on the internet again. It was much easier to do it bravely and cheekily when the only alternative was to do dutiful things, be bored, and become depressed again, and less easy to do it now. It was a little intimidating when we were forced to pay 500 Euros for bit-torrenting (which has also killed some of my enjoyment of YouTube, because I still fear the day when a long letter of twenty-something pages will come listing all of the films I've watched in violation of copyright and extorting a bullshit — pardon the language, but it is suited to the context — sum for each of them) and when a host of viruses, Trojan horses and rootkits and spy agents, ran riot on the computer where I mostly read them. On Sunday, I think, I copied our files onto a USB stick and then (also with Gi.'s help) reinstalled Windows on that computer, and since then there have been protracted searches for the CD required to install the network driver, the printer, and so on and so forth. The whole has inspired me to learn more about computers and the internet, though so far I have read only a measly handful of pages in a JavaScript textbook from 1997.

I have become so paranoid about the internet that it isn't funny, somewhat justified by a recent problem with Facebook in which my account was purportedly accessed from Munich and I'm not sure whether that is just indirectly our computer or not, and being shut out of my risky Gmail account (which is no longer my risky Gmail account since I used it for Facebook and don't want all those details getting out). I'm sure it takes all kinds to make a world, but I find it increasingly difficult to understand why hackers are willing to waste their time to waste the time of billions of others, in a very invasive way, and to endanger the livelihoods of people who must finish something on their computer for work in a given time, and so on. Even sociopolitical hackery like 4chan's on VISA or whoever in retaliation for barring donations to Wikileaks is in the end a pain in the hindquarters for everyone besides the executives who promulgate such decisions. I find it darnedly tedious to change passwords so often and can't be certain that information recovery, etc., isn't phishing. Besides I hate the laxity with which the sphere of internet privacy is regarded by governments and courts.

Reading the news, listening to music, drawing things, writing things, corresponding with friends and businesses and so on, commenting on things you see and hear or do, are all profoundly private things. Crime, politics, and the intentional offer of goods and services are public things, and even there one has more choices in real life — for example, if one has a shop one can choose its neighbourhood and therefore have a manageable category of customers whose seriousness one can gauge in person, instead of being open to any customer, spurious, honest, or otherwise. Though I admit that here at the bookshop there has been non-virtual spam, too, some of it well-meaning and some of it truly not kosher.

Anyway, this has become a long and fairly indiscriminate ramble despite the ex cathedra principle. But I'll call it stream of consciousness and send it.

*

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

(Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism)

The Sea-Gnarlies

Something I began to write last night. It is inspired by all the photos of Brittany which I've looked at for my research, specifically of the Abbey of St. Mathieu and the Baie des Trepassés. It's probably nonsense but I find it intriguing.

THE winter wind drove grey ridges of snowy-peaked waves against the cliffs, which thousands of summers had burnished into a dark clay red, and up in a fleeting mist which scattered furling to rain even onto the downtrodden heather at their edge. In every direction the rock was seamed, into and along every seam the brine and the wind ran, and the boulders in strange Neolithic forms which stood as towers in the bereft sands at low tide were now lightless houses on water-embowered islets.

A strange sound arose on the winds as they strafed the long-untenanted shell of an abbey, curved around the pillar of the lighthouse, sought the hollows among the gorse and the grasses, and whipped into a shiver the flexible twigs of dormant oaks and sombre pines. Even the river which ran into the bay was agitated as it swelled with a sudden cargo of rainwater.

Up from the shore crept the sea-gnarlies, the gnomes of sealskin pelts and tiny eyes buried in wrinkles and mighty tiny bodies, who sleep in the crevices in the sea floor and emerge only when a submarine tension and tremor signals a commotion on the surface. Then they hunt for their food: the stray corpse of fish or lobster or other creature which lands on the shore, oysterbeds and scallops and rope-encircled posts of mussels, unwary seabirds abroad on the same errand, and even a human. When they had scaled the cliffs with their fierce fingernails and toenails they brushed through the heather with a soft furtive sound, scratching here and there at patches of grass to bare the insects in the soil, and pinching or skewering or grabbing fistfuls of the resistant prey before swallowing them with grim joviality as amuse-bouches.

Down they crept to a swathe of boulders, gambolling through the surf and diving deep to the stone hidden by the winter tides, to pry the barnacles with their teeth and draw the crustacean innards into their mouths.

Through the abbey flitted the grey forms of the friars, not the ghosts of the dead friars but the ghosts of the living friars they had been eight hundred years since and as the eerie phantoms of their dream selves: amoral, unperceptive, yet arrested at moments into consciousness and intelligence. They copied Latin tales onto invisible scrolls, relived bawdy encounters, vituperated their head abbot and the bishop or some papal bull from Rome which had long since sunk into obscurity, complained about the rude and uncivilized folk among whom they unwillingly lived, cultivated vegetables or flowers or orchards which had long since withered and crumbled, or fought supernatural battles with angels and demons, dragons and selkies, and the wolves and boars and robbers which haunted the environs of the abbey or the regions of France from which they had once come.

In the nineteenth-century lighthouse which stood rooted in the land of the abbey but rose from it like a thriving sapling from a moribund trunk, the keepers’ dream selves, too, held vigils, each unaware of the other. And it was a peculiar contrast to see the automated beacon turning, beaming, flashing, turning, beaming, and flashing, as the weather station recorded the wind speeds and temperature and air pressure of its own accord, while the former tenants in their old-fashioned manner and dress employed antiquated invisible devices and measurements recorded in invisible ledgers, or sent radio messages to people who did not exist, and perceived and described eerily enough the weather conditions as they were in actuality. These mundane dreams alternated, too, with dreams of war, shipboard travails, imaginary fiends and adventures, and distant families and loves.

Oldest of all, the vague white shapes of Neolithic men and women mingled with the similar weak figures of tree-spirits and the solid stony outlines of Roman soldiers, who were for the most part not at ease and some of whom bore the bloody marks of axes and celts and spears on their persons. These were oddly pragmatic and therefore enacted the scenes of daily cooking, warfare, sailing, grave ceremonies around tumuli and dolmens, and gatherings among parades of stones across the heath, and still at times the Romans dreamed of their origins in the Mediterranean basin, and faintest wisps of almond trees, dolphins, the splashing of the wine-dark sea against a brighter shore, or the sirocco even manifested themselves in this adverse northern climate.

[. . .]

The sea-gnarlies were by no means, however, the only living beings abroad, even disregarding the gulls, cormorants, porpoises, and other animals. There were the Liths, boulder trolls who resembled the Romans in their grey girth but were far less anthropoid in form; the Liths sipped riverwater and ate sand from the shore and, having no need of alternative nourishment, they were singularly unaggressive and they rarely spoke so as to be heard except by their kinsmen. These Liths, in fact, were lumbering down to the shore then, leaving no prints in the sand as they waded through, for it settled again at once.

Slubbering Over the Trianon

At the risk of being tiresome, I have idly begun reading Horace Walpole's letters again, and rediscovered a passage describing Versailles and King Louis XIV which I partially quoted long ago and which I want to share at length now. Firstly I like the ingenious turns of phrase and secondly the sarcasm and thirdly the way he sounds like any enervated traveller who catches an unsatisfying glimpse of a popular place and instantly falls in grudge. It was written in 1739 to Richard West.

Stand by, clear the way, make room for the pompous appearance of Versailles le Grand!----But no: it fell so short of my idea of it, mine, that I have resigned to Gray the office of writing its panegyric. He likes it. They say I am to like it better next Sunday; when the sun is to shine, the king is to be fine, the water-works are to play, and the new knights of the Holy Ghost are to be installed! Ever since Wednesday, the day we were there, we have done nothing but dispute about it. They say, we did not see it to advantage, that we ran through the apartments, saw the garden _en passant_, and slubbered over Trianon. I say, we saw nothing. However, we had time to see that the great front is a lumber of littleness, composed of black brick, stuck full of bad old busts, and fringed with gold rails. The rooms are all small, except the great gallery, which is noble, but totally wainscoted with looking-glass. The garden is littered with statues and fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies and generals, and left to the pursuit of his own puerile ideas of glory.

(From Letters of Horace Walpole, edited by Charles Duke Yonge and published in 1890; at gutenberg.org)

Soccer's Golden Fleece

Given an interesting sleeping schedule I only watched a minute or so of Portugal vs. North Korea before nodding off on the sofa. Since I liked the Korean team in their first match, against Brazil,the seven goals against it would probably not have been an edifying spectacle anyway. Besides dancing on the grave of the vanquished has scanty charm; even Germany's 4-0 win against Australia was a little depressing for me.

When I woke up again Switzerland began its match against Chile, which I followed intently during the second half. I found myself hoping that the Swiss would win though the Chileans looked marginally better and, either because of the red card against the Swiss or for other reasons, the players in white kit were clearly on the defensive in a tacit admission of subordination. Even then the defense, though staunchly arrayed in its two rows every now and then, was not so agile and indeed dreadfully porous. Which may have been an "offside trap" (today's the first time I really took note of the term; I imagine it means that the defense loiters toward midfield so that any opposing players who break through are offside and may not attempt a goal). Either way the Swiss, even with one player down, doughtily preserved their 0-1 loss, as was the fate of the similarly disadvantaged Germans in their ridiculously, pedantically refereed game last week, so good for them. The Chilean team may be all right but I don't find it either very sympathetic nor brilliant, and the lovely fluent passing which distinguished its match against Honduras and was brilliant appeared to clash and vanish against the methodology of the Swiss, with the result that the game was a fairly unenlightening 90+overtime minutes of deconstructed brawling over a wide area.

***

Intermittently I played the final movement of Schubert's sonata D959 until 2-4 pages before the end. The theme is lovely but the rest of it is an example of what is commonly remarked, that Schubert can't bring himself to finish his sonatas at times. Why people don't say this more often of Beethoven compositions I can't fathom, and personally I haven't felt bored, precisely, by the three last sonatas of Schubert's. Besides I am unfairly inclined to grumble that whoever minds hearing out a Schubert sonata is deficient either in soul or in the elementary talent of tuning music out and daydreaming if you are bored. But in this case, considering that it was sightreading and therefore not the pinnacle of musical fluidity, I had to concede that enough is as good as a feast.

Three or four years ago I listened to Alfred Brendel's recordings and, though with the very last sonata Papa's and Clara Haskil's versions fortunately come to mind, and though at the time I liked his recordings, the memory of it in my ear is a tremendous obstacle to finding my own approach, and a hopefully characteristic approach, to Schubert. One thing that doesn't come out in recordings as much, I think, as in quotidian sightreading, is that Schubert can be immensely weird. The second movement of D959, which is in my view initially bitter and melancholic (I think that the saddest movements of Schubert are most faithfully rendered when they pluck at the heartstrings in a jarringly wrong and discordant way, though of course the composer resolves this with a happier movement or key soon afterward), but also uncomplicated and lovely, is tangled chaos by the second page.

* * *

Inspired by its match against Chile, and pending egregious displays of ineptitude or of poor sportsmanship, I have adopted Honduras as the World Cup team for whom to cheer. In the game against Spain, though they appeared overwhelmed at times, they gave a good battle. They passed well amongst each other and even did the billiard-like passes (which I love) where the ball deflects off the foot of one teammate to surely arrive at another's. Besides they were diligent and courageous about running for and through the ranks of Spanish defenders, and parrying for the ball with even multiple opponents, instead of just passing off the ball to a teammate in a freer position. And I have the impression that Honduras's goalkeeper is really quite good. Though evidently better than Honduras, I didn't think that Spain showed glimmerings of especial brilliance; yet its first goal was, to borrow from the British(?) vernacular, a corker. Fortunately the game was not sabotaged by silly refereeing, though the incident of the nose-stubbing of an Honduran by a Spanish player did suggest a yellow card, since neither player was near the ball and it was a disagreeable piece of aggression. But the nose didn't bleed, so the principal sanguinary spectacle was the split lip and spewing blood of a Spanish player.

It's not very saintly but I think that fouls have their place in soccer, if they aren't done with intent to inflict pain or debilitate (the jargon for debilitating fouls is evidently a "reducer"). It was funny in Spain vs. Honduras how the experienced players simply hopped over extended feet, etc., so that the shabby tricks were rendered ridiculous; what was even lovelier was the way the Hondurans and Chileans tumbled like acrobats during their game against each other, and gave as good as they got instead of one side victimizing the other. On the other hand it is simple to cause a nasty injury, so it's best not to tempt fate. And I really detest fouls as a risky, lazy shortcut in lieu of acquiring the ball through classic footwork and speed, and of running as quickly as possible to head off an opponent.

What I detest even more is the pretense of having been fouled. A little ankle-clutching now and then may have no further effects if the referee is unimpressed, and sometimes players who indulge in acting have really been fouled and are only seeking redress (though if the foul was really that bad they wouldn't have to act out suffering). And of course soccer players are genuinely injured and put at risk of losing their careers from time to time in a way which the casual television viewer cannot feel through the screen. But the dramatic facsimile of agonizing pain which would not look out of place in medieval paintings of inventive martyrdom — glass shards and heated iron grilles and all — is an insult to real injuries; it unfairly biases the game in favour of the ham; and depending on the circumstances it could give the other player involved a totally undeserved sense of guilt. Not to mention that it's unkind to deceive the referee and make him an accomplice to one's cheating.

Lastly, as a certain player who obtained the second yellow card which turned into a red card for Kaká proved, in the age of video and replays it is a stupid step, though it must be confessed that there are supposed fouls or handballs or so on which I watch over and over again and thereafter still don't know what happened.

* * *

Which brings me to the sorry quandary of France at the World Cup. The following may be entirely made up, partly because of the vagaries of reading comprehension and memory and partly because the press isn't always reliable, but here is a version of events:

Thanks to the gossip on the Guardian blogs I gather that Zinedine Zidane was really the coach for France during the last Cup here in Berlin, and that he and Raymond Domenech (who is himself sketchy as a coach also because he has used astrology to decide for instance which player is placed where on the line-up, like Louis XI in Quentin Durward, and in any case is not much respected by the team) are at loggerheads. Besides I'm guessing that it may have demoralized the team that they advanced into the World Cup because Thierry Henry's handball in the game against Ireland wasn't acted on by the referee. Before the game with Uruguay two players asked Domenech to change the formation to a different one and he agreed, only to find out that the formation had been suggested by Zidane, whereupon he rescinded. Then came the inglorious tie.

In the next match came the inglorious defeat against Mexico, in which Thierry Henry, punitively kept on the bench, sat in his thick dark blue jacket and crossed his arms in Achilles-like disgruntled exile from battle. So the France was deprived of a good striker and played with what I thought were flashes of genius and of effort for instance on the part of Franck Ribéry, but with a resignation to failure, middlingness, and a gaping lack of cooperation. I admit to feeling somewhat weepy after that game. And every time the camera went to Domenech, he just stood there, leaning against the pole and looking inscrutable, except for one time where he gestured in exasperation.

Afterwards, of course, it turns out that the striker Nicolas Anelka had flared up at the manager during halftime and indulged in a very rude sentence, which I imagine to be common if sadly unimaginative language in the sports milieu, even if directing it against a coach is unwise. For some reason French officials, though they hail from a nation which might be thought to view these things in blasé fashion, declared themselves shocked! and Anelka has been sent home. In the meanwhile, Patrice Evra, captain of the French team (I'm glad not to be in his shoes), professed himself understandably disappointed at the weak effort exemplified in the game against Mexico. Regarding Anelka's remarks both he and Zinedine Zidane stated to the press that they were out of place and that no one was seeking to defend them as proper behaviour, but that removing him from the French team was going too far.

And of course in the next training session the French team showed up but refused to train in support of their fallen banished comrade, leading to an altercation whereafter the field fitness coach (a self-appointed intermediary) stormed off in a huff and threw down his badge in the process. Then intervention of Sarkozy, and so on and so forth, and now they've trained again, though on an inauspiciously thunderous day where, according to the AP video footage I saw, the sky was about as lively in tint as the cellar of an Irish grey stone mansion. What is questionable is whether the team will appear in full number (aside from Anelka, of course) for the match against South Africa tomorrow. [Which, it seems, I'll have to mostly miss because of a summons to the bank. )c,: What rotten, rotten luck.]

*

Anyway, what I don't understand is the puritanical slant of the animosity against the French players. The World Cup is not a pristine event.

There is corruption and match-fixing, the betting around the game outcomes has its shadows like any other gambling, the staff are partly ill-paid, the funds expended on the stadium will hopefully bring joy to many South Africans but may also have deprived many others who live on welfare and so on, and it is to a great extent likewise a capitalist orgy of dubiously ethical companies seeking to put their brand on the "beautiful game." The fans are maybe serious devotees of the game; others seem like self-aggrandizers who expect people they've never met to live out their dreams, and some hound the players and deprive them of their right to privacy. Maybe they have enough money to buy tickets to the game without pain, maybe they are dipping into household funds or denying themselves better things for the privilege of taking chaotic transportation to an enormous arena and then taking their place on the hard and loveless benches of the modern amphitheatre. The soccer players themselves are on a strict training regimen, constricted in what they eat and what they do and where they go, and even if they are rich, wealth brings its own problems and I doubt if it is any substitute for freedom, uninterrupted schooling, and the time to develop other interests and skills. Besides they have to play so many games with their teams (Chelsea, Bayern München, Real Madrid, etc.) and then in regional competitions and then in the qualifiers and friendlies before the World Cup; after a while, why should they care? The commentators on the game may, like the fans, be serious devotees of the game; others are resentful pedants who are envious of the players or who look down on them as numbskulled pawns or who always believe that the players could and should have done something better.

If someone tires of the hypocrisy of the game, of their powerlessness to determine how they play even though they are the ones who must carry it out, or of the illusion that the Cup is of transcendent importance compared to different issues (even mundane ones of leading a reasonable life), I am glad that they have the courage to rebel, and I am glad if their teammates support them in this rebellion. I never thought I'd quote this approvingly, but after all the devise of France is Liberté, égalité, fraternité!