Tales of Two Cities

When is "un Canard" Not a Duck?

In conversation with our waitress at Le St Amour recently it came to light that she is from Normandy.  This led Charles to wax eloquent about how much he loves calvados and to recount our understanding of the meaning of "Le Trou Normand."  For those who don't know, le trou Normand refers to the hole in your stomach made by a shot of calvados when taken partway through a meal for the purpose of allowing you to eat more.  (I had a young French teacher from Lyon who told me it was a vulgar phrase.  Nonetheless, it appears on the menu of some dignified Parisian restaurants in its guise as a quite nice dessert consisting of green apple sorbet and calvados.)

At the end of our meal, Madame presented Charles with a snifter of calvados accompanied by two small pieces of brown sugar.  Intrigued, Charles asked what the the sugar was for.  She explained that you put a piece of sugar into the calvados then, once it is saturated, you take it out and eat it.  The saturated sugar cube is called "un canard."  I can testify that it is delicious.  So now you know!

A Little Ode

A LITTLE ODE

You fill my mouth with obscure thoughts,
Twist my tongue and take my breath away.
The prospect of your obscurity unveiled
Offers delights and tempts the prurient mind.
Alas, no more tactile joy of leather and thin sheets.
For, like pornography, a finger tap reveals all.
Oh, sesquipedalian, the mystery is gone.

The Threat of Distant Elephants

"Things get worse slowly.  People adjust.  The problem is assigning the correct degree of fear to distant elephants."  David D. Clark, MIT Senior Research Scientist and Chief Protocol Architect in the development of the Internet in the 1980's quoted in the December 2005/2006 Technology Review article by David Talbot: The Internet is Broken.  Read the article here.

The caution applies to areas other than the Internet, doesn't it?  I think we need to be more afraid of elephants.

Words Melting in my Mouth, Utterances Scattered about on my Teeth

"It is my desire,    it is my wish
    to set out to sing,    to begin to recite,
    to let a song of our clan glide on,    to sing a family lay.
    The words are melting in my mouth,    utterances dropping out,
    coming to my tongue,    being scattered about on my teeth."

Prologue to the Kalevala, the national epic of the Finns, compiled by Elias Lönnrot.  This lyrical translation is by Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., a World War I Ace who died in 1979.  It can be purchased in a reprinted paperback edition on Amazon.

When I read these words I hear in my mind the soaring sounds of Sibelius' Legends from the Kalevala and I am deeply moved. And delighted and inspired.  And, most of all, humbled.   

A Little French Lesson

Never mind what your dictionary may say.  You don't refer to an art exhibition  as "une exhibition."   We did and elicited polite giggles from our French friends.  The correct term is "une exposition."  It turns out that the word "exhibition" conjures up images of a flasher.  No doubt there are "des expositions" that can properly be referred to as "des exhibitions," but 'tis probably best to stay with the correct terminology.