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Dec-31-10
 | | Domdaniel: <Annie> Thanks. Years, huh? I suppose some people enjoy counting ellipses, but I don't really get it. Though of course I'm fond of both counting and ellipses, separately. |
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Dec-31-10
 | | Open Defence: every day is a new year depending on when you started counting, i stopped counting in the 4th grade but i still became an accountant HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! |
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| Dec-31-10 | | hms123: Yeah Pawn Prey!! |
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Dec-31-10
 | | chancho: Happy New Year <Dom>! |
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Dec-31-10
| | Domdaniel: <hms> Ye e-pawn harpy! |
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| Dec-31-10 | | WinKing: Happy New Year to you <Domdaniel>! |
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| Dec-31-10 | | twinlark: Happy New Year, Dom. Don't make any resolutions as it is only something that goes in one Year and out the other. |
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Dec-31-10
| | Domdaniel: Old year, new year, our improbable and obscure researches go on ... Think I've nailed the de Maupassant story: <Who Knows? / Qui Sait?> The narrator is my kinda guy:
<I have always been a recluse, a dreamer, a kind of isolated philosopher, easy-going, content with but little, harboring ill-feeling against no man, and without even a grudge against heaven. I have constantly lived alone; consequently, a kind of torture takes hold of me when I find myself in the presence of others. How is this to be explained? I do not know. I am not averse to going out into the world, to conversation, to dining with friends, but when they are near me for any length of time, even the most intimate of them, they bore me, fatigue me, enervate me, and I experience an overwhelming, torturing desire to see them get up and go, to take themselves away, and to leave me by myself.> I can see how this might ring Mr Cale's gong as well. And les meubles?
<. I could distinguish now an extraordinary pattering upon the steps of my grand staircase, on the waxed floors, on the carpets, not of boots, or of naked feet, but of iron and wooden crutches, which resounded like cymbals. Then I suddenly discerned, on the threshold of my door, an armchair, my large reading easy-chair, which set off waddling. It went away through my garden. Others followed it, those of my drawing-room, then my sofas, dragging themselves along like crocodiles on their short paws; then all my chairs, bounding like goats, and the little foot-stools, hopping like rabbits.> Sofa, so good. Ca suffit. But, vraiment, qui sait? At least Mr de Liberately Ob Scure isn't as bad as his relatives, Ob Tuse and Ob Scene. Ain't it just like furniture to play tricks when you're trying to be quiet? And what, exactly, was in the air of fin-de-siecle Paris, to produce de Maupassant, Jarry, de Nerval, Proust, Roussel, some good painters and a mathematician or three? http://www.classicallibrary.org/mau... |
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| Dec-31-10 | | izimbra: <Who Knows? / Qui Sait?> Good find. Beyond the galloping furniture, what else does it tell you about <Chinese Envoy>? |
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Dec-31-10
| | Domdaniel: <izimbra> Probably very little. Cale's songs are rarely autobiographical and have only tangential relations with their sources. Maybe the 'recluse/dreamer' narrator figure suggested a persona about whom a song might be built? I haven't a clue where the figure of the Chinese Envoy came from -- the one who could talk to the French and the Germans, but of course they'd never listen ... although it reminds me distantly of the narrator of the Borges story, 'The Garden of Forking Paths'. Qui sait? |
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Dec-31-10
| | Domdaniel: <twinlark> 'Resolution' is (1) a vessel in her majesty's navy, and (2) the degree of clarity with which images manifest themselves on my screen. Both may well be *sunk* soon, but neither is anything I would contemplate attempting on 1st Jan. Sorry to see MMX go, in one sense: there won't be another 3-letter year until MML, and if I last until 2050 we really will be living in a science-fictional universe ... But here's to MMXI anyhoo ... |
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Jan-01-11
 | | OhioChessFan: <Sofa, so good.>
Truly divan prose, free of vanity, couched in Ottoman images, and rising to a credenza of unvarnished beauty. |
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Jan-01-11
| | Domdaniel: Settee down at the back, please.
Merci. Here at Chez Zlong we serve the finest Franco-Chinese cuisine. |
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Jan-01-11
 | | Annie K.: Speakina French... I haven't done this for a while. ;) Posting blitz games here, I mean!
Terrible game, but fun (for me, anyway) ;p
[Event "FICS rated blitz game"]
[Date "2011.01.02"]
[White "AnnieK"]
[Black "NN"]
[WhiteElo "1451"]
[BlackElo "1337"]
[TimeControl "600+0"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Result "1-0"]
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Nge7 6. a3 Nf5 7. Bd3 Nfe7 8. dxc5 Ng6 9. b4 Ncxe5 10. O-O a5 11. Nxe5 Nxe5 12. Bc2 b6 13. Qe2 axb4 14. Qxe5 bxc5 15. cxb4 cxb4 16. axb4 Rxa1 17. Qxa1 Bxb4 18. Qa4+ 1-0 |
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Jan-01-11
 | | jessicafischerqueen: Hey did you celebrate New Year or are you holding out for the lunar version? I have to obey the lunar laws over here in Asia.
Did you get drunk? According to *you* that doesn't happen. However- is that because you only drink a bit, or because you can drink vast quantities and get more sober with each drink? I think <mack> said he was in the latter category. |
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Jan-01-11
| | jessicafischerqueen: Also to let you know- I really appreciated the various posts you made after I tried to start World War III two days before Christmas. My New Year Revolution is to copy you and Acirce on "method." The John Stuart Dark Satanic Mill method where you actually "talk" to people instead of trying to have them shot. |
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Jan-01-11
| | jessicafischerqueen: Or perhaps the Monty Python method.
The third prize winner in the <Find a Derogatory Term for the Belgians> was: "Let's just ignore them."
The second runner up was "The Phlegms."
The prize winner, of course, was
.......
You see, if I try to type the prize winner it will fail to the site's "auto censor." I could, however, have broadcast it at the BBC.
Back in the day. |
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| Jan-02-11 | | izimbra: Re: <Chinese Envoy> The song seems to be about a couple, real or possible, with lines about the "Chinese Envoy" referring to the male half who gets left in the end. I find it fun to keep guessing about the meaning, even knowing the guesses probably don't match the design. So here's another try with a historical couple. Meet Emmanuel-Armand de Richelieu, duc d'Aiguillon
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanu... ) and Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_... and http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked... ). They were lovers. Richelieu and his courtiers help break them up. In the end, Emmanuel-Armand becomes a career diplomat and Marie Anne goes off with the furniture (Louis XV). The Richelieu who has courtiers working for him in the story is not really the Cardinal, but his great nephew the Duke of Richeliu - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_... (the same guy noted for his many love affairs in Miss Harriet). Unfortunately, so far as I know, there is no significant connection to China in this story. |
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Jan-02-11
| | Domdaniel: <izimbra> Fascinating. Cale also wrote a piece entitled 'The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles' ... a purely instrumental composition which adds nothing much to our lyrical quest. Given King Looey's complicated love life, I'm tempted to add 'Bad Bad Leroy Brown' here. But the obvious contender, picking up this trail of 18th century intrigue, is 'Pompadour Swamp' by Captain Beefheart. China/Chinese can be a code word for opium and its derivatives, as in the Iggy/Bowie song 'China Girl' and Cale's own 'China Sea'. |
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Jan-02-11
| | Domdaniel: <Jess> There are now approx 14982 posts where the words 'drink' and 'mack' occur in close proximity. And, bless me, the lad hardly touches a drop at all, at all. But we all have our roles in this imaginary community. A Queen may indeed declare war, at any time of year. A cowardly Knight will murmur a few words of undying fealty and then hop it before he gets sacrificed. |
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Jan-02-11
| | Domdaniel: <Annie> That is no way to treat a defenceless Frog. Poor NN clearly has years of toil and suffering ahead of him before he masters the subtle art of survival. You killer cat, you. |
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Jan-02-11
| | Annie K.: I can has froggieburger...
Purr |
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| Jan-02-11 | | izimbra: An irrelevant, but funny thing I noticed while thinking about the words in <Chinese Envoy> is that <courtier immobilier> is the modern French term for a mortgage lender. That kind of writes it own joke. |
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Jan-02-11
| | Domdaniel: Sacré mère des meubles. C'est l'esprit véritable des grenouilles, ça. Kinda like being in *surreal estate*, I imagine ... |
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Jan-02-11
| | jessicafischerqueen: It's time!
<OFFICIAL VOTES>
1. BEST ANALYST <eyal> 2. BEST WRITTEN POST <domdaniel> "No doubt some tedious person will disagree" |
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