I took this photo at Pont Alexandre III. It was absolutely freezing as you can see from the photographer’s clothes.
No wonder those models are so skinny, just working in this kind of weather makes you lose calories!
Found at Autolycus, this “poem” about the English language, English is Tough Stuff, one of many, but I find them such fun.
And there I found my first word for today
Sward Not only did I have no idea how it is pronounced, but I didn’t know what it meant and when I looked it up, I had trouble believing I had never met this seemingly quite common word.
definr said
sward, n : surface layer of ground containing a matt of grass and grass roots [syn: turf, sod, greensward]
pronounced like a sword in which you WOULD pronounce the W
My second word was provided by Doris Lessing whose autobiography, Under My Skin, I am currently reading. As she spent her childhood first in Persia and later in Southern Rhodesia, there are lots of words to be learnt. As it’s quite a fascinating book, I usually just read on for pleasure, but was stopped at one point by the word karosses, which definitely looked like it was some sort of garment, in the context, made of some animal hide, but I really didn’t see which part of clothing it could be.
The sentence went:
My shoes –veldschoen– smelled of hide, like karosses. But I refused ever to have a kaross on my bed, for a kaross was too close to the beast it came from (…)
Wikipedia says:
A Kaross is a cloak made of sheepskin, or the hide of other animals, with the hair left on. It is properly confined to the coat of skin without sleeves and used to be worn by the Hottentots and Bushmen of South Africa. These karosses became replaced by a blanket. (…)
I also found a definition that described a kaross as a mantle or sleeveless jacket made of the skins of animals with the hair on, used by the Hottentots and other natives
So if I get this right, it something that can be either some sort of a bedcover or blanket or some sort of vest.
What an interesting word!
I’ll close this with the last four lines of English is Tough Stuff
Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
I certainly never will!
H
ow had I never heard of or read about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a book that was published in France in 1997 –Le Scaphandre et le Papillon, really surprises me. Some time ago, Joared at Along the Way, mentioned it to me and a couple of weeks later, I received a mail asking me if I had read it or seen the movie. So I looked it up and found that I was probably the only French person not having at least heard of it.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a memoir by French Elle magazine editor-in-chief, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who had a massive stroke and found himself with the locked-in syndrome, totally conscious of what was going on around him, but unable to communicate, except by blinking one of his eyelids.
And blinking one of his eyelids was the way he dictated The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Letter by letter.
When thinking of a possible stroke, most people immediately fear the idea of becoming a vegetable. But this is much worse as Bauby knows exactly what is happening to him.
While I have become something of a zombie father, Théophile and Célest are very much flesh and blood, energetic and noisy. I will never tire of seeing them walk alongside me, just walking, their confident expressions masking the unease weighing on their small shoulders. As he walks, Théophile dabs with a Kleenex at the thread of saliva escaping my closed lips. His movements are tentative, at once tender and fearful, as if he were dealing with an animal of unpredictable reactions. As soon as we slow down, Céleste cradles my head in her bare arms coers my forehead with noisy kisses and says over and over, “You’re my dad, you’re my dad,” as if in incantation.
And of course, you want to stop reading, you find it almost unbearable, and yet, this book is written with such gusto, such humour and self-derision that even though you know pretty much how it is going to end, you just read on.
Speech therapy is an art that deserves to be more widely know. You cannot imagine the acrobatics your tongue mechanically performs in order to produce all the sounds of a language. Just now I am struggling with the letter l , a pitiful admission for an editor in chief who cannot even pronounce the name of his own magazine. On good days, between coughing fits, I muster enough energy and wind to be able to puff one or two phonemes. On my birthday, Sandrine managed to get me to pronounce the whole alphabet more or less intelligibly. I could not have had a better present.
A movie, starring Mathieu Amalric, was made, by Arthur Schnalbel, a movie I missed when it was released in France, last June, but here’s the trailer
I’ll be looking for the DVD.
But do read the book. Incidentally, I read it in English and it’s an excellent translation by Jeremy Legatt.
This morning, I’ll open my Wednesday Window on one of Leo Reynolds‘ photos, time and tide
No, no, I am not referring to myself! I am still hopeless at manual things and to be perfectly honest, as I am hopeless, they tend to get on my nerves. BUT I am quite able to enjoy and admire the work of talented people.
One of my good friends, Fazou, is a wizard at lots of things –cooking, knitting, embroidery… you name it, she can do it– belongs to a quilting association and hree times a year, I attend her quilting meetings and take photographs. I really enjoy seeing all those wonderful hands at work.
Now last week was somewhat special as Paris Patch, Fazou’s quilting association held a public exhibition at Mairie du VIème, right across the street from Eglise Saint-Sulpice.
I took quite a few photos there, chose some with Fazou and did this slideshow. The music is Mussorgsky‘s Pictures at an Exhibition by Brigitte Ungerer.
Now, when I uploaded my photos on flickr, one of my flickr friends,
Nonie Vogue, who is a quilter herself, liked it and we exchanged several mails. Nonie Vogue, a Canadian 84-year-old artist, photographer and quilter, among other things that I don’t know about her 
said
A couple of years ago, I joined the quilt Guild in Langley, after seeing one of their shows…. but I was disappointed to see that 99% of the quilting was done by machine! … not by hand as I am accustomed to doing.
Right now I am working on a Double Irish Chain scrap quilt… all sewn together by hand. My sewing machine is sitting in my clothes cupboard… it is a portable, but I can’t lift it… and there really is no room to set it up on my dinette table… so I am doing it the way my Mom (and my Grandmother) did… all by hand.
My Grandma was a tailoress. (Not sure if there is such a word, but you will know what I mean).
Rose of Sharon Quilt by Nonie Vogue
Here’s a link to the photos Nonie Vogue took of her quilts.
On my French blog, I mentioned that a couple of my favourite quilts at the Paris exhibition were made by Georgette Meyer, a ninety-two year old quilter, who moved from painting to quilting and Nonie commented:
I went into an art material store a couple of years ago, where both my husband and I had dealt for years. John, the owner, asked if I saw the woman that had just left the store. When I said “yes”, he said:
“She’s in her eighties and still painting!” I said “John, how old do you think I am?” I was 82 at the time! I guess people think that when you get past 70 you are supposed to sit in a rocking chair and watch TV! Well, I have the new fangled TV, hanging on my wall… large size…. and I turn it on maybe two or three times a week for some news, and usually turn it off again after about half an hour!
This is so true! People always expect elders to sit back and do nothing.
And when we are active, people will tell us that we are not old, that we are different! But we aren’t! People are just afraid of growing old themselves, so they are in denial.
I so wish Nonie Vogue and Georgette Meyer could meet!
