From 10:30 to noon Tuesdays I'm resolutely in-kitchen, with the radio on, listening to A la Vôtre. Jacques Santucci and whoever else is down at Falmouth Street run through an interesting playlist (see link), somedays featuring l'afrique francophone, somedays l'amerique francophone, and of course, l'europe francophone. If there is one thing about A la Vôtre I would like to see changed, its that Jacques and his guests reduce the amount of air-time given over to spoken English.
The coming Tuesday will see the fridge cleaned from stem to stern.
Yesterday Jonah and I went to the local mall, looking for a wall clock, time having stopped since MB attempted to re-hang the mystically-synchronized-with-the-atomic-clock time piece from BJ's some days ago. Having everything happen at 8:30 every day is sort of a nuisance, and time an elegant way of demultiplexing experienced events. We were not successful in our quest, but we had a nice walk, POA and A, hand-in-hand, through Sensory-Overload-Country, daringly in underwear. One of the things that we broght home that is-not-a-clock is the July edition of Le Monde diplomatique, and I read bits of it while Jonah (later joined by Sam and Gracie and Kezzie but with that many targets to track, my eyes fail to focus on text and my dwell-time on any target is sufficient for station-keeping only, not reading) played that he was being driven, or was driving, to Honolulu.
So I read the closing page essay, Vivre avec les Arabes, jumping over the subtitle and reading with growing interest, even excitement, the text of the essay. It was great, and a gazillion mental miles above the tripe John Kerry wrote last February and was published by a Brown University student group. Mid-essay, the author posed the core problem:
Il faut donc vivre avec les Arabes, bon gré mal gré. Et avec les Arabes non résignés. Alors comment faire?
It was so good, it felt like an Indian wrote it. Someone who didn't start with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, or Stout Cortez silent on the Peak at Darien, or Cristobal Columbo either profoundly lost or amongst una gente en dios, as something other than value-free, or worse, value-positive starting points for narratives of two peoples. When I read the opening lines of the concluding paragraph,
Nous somes en 1967. Il serait temps de rechercher l'accord des Arabs à qui cette terre fut enlevée. Non pas d'Arabes mythiques, d'Arabes souhaités, d'Arabes tels qu'on les voudrait convertis miraculeusement aux thèses israéliennes par les exhortations de pro-sionistes du monde, les leçons des professeurs de morale, la lecture de l'Ancien Testament ou des classiques du marxism-léninisme. Mais des Arabes tels qu'ils sont, refusant d'accepter sans contrepartie une conquête réalisée à leur détriment.
It was fucking brilliant. Of course we're still in 1967, the UN Resolution 242, the boarders, the alignments of all the parties to the conflict, nothing's really changed since the Six Day War. I got to the final sentance, the hope that builders and planters could chose a path other than distruction, and sat back and let the words hum in my head. Then I glanced back to the opening and read the subtitle and involuntarily cried out "Holy Shit!!!", which got Jonah's attention in the car. The essay originally appeared in Le Monde on June 4th and 5th, 1967. The day the months and weeks of increassing skirmishes, waterway closures, shoot-downs, and rhetoric, spilled over into the general conflict called the Six Day War.
I can't tell time. Or time has stopped. Or its the same time as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, n'est-ce pas?
Posted by: Plenty at July 12, 2004 02:06 PM