Thursday, August 25, 2011

Je n’ai pas la plume de ma tante

...or, for that matter, de ma mère, mon père, ma soeur, mon frère, or even mon oncle. But I can still write a post, thanks to my trusty old computer and an ergonomically correct keyboard that I bought at a neighbor’s garage sale for ten dollars. It was still encased in its original sealed plastic wrapping, and it cost its original owner $39.00 American. I bought it to lessen the likelihood of my acquiring carpal tunnel syndrome. So far it has been doing its job well.

Why do people buy things and then never use them?

Recently I bought a pair of gray trousers that still had the original tags on them at a consignment shop for $5.00 (original price: $34.00). There was a lot of brand-new clothing in that store along with stuff the proprietors want customers to think has been “gently used” but some of which appeared to have been worn by every member of that huge family on 19 Kids and Counting. I don’t know what exactly it is that The Learning Channel and Mr. and Mrs. Jim Bob (Michelle) Duggar want us to learn from 19 Kids and Counting unless it is “Do as I say, don’t do as I do,” a teaching my father also tried to pass along to me, with little success. I believe a good case could be made that TLC wants us to learn the same lesson from programs like Hoarders and Sister Wives and Toddlers and Tiaras and My Strange Addiction and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Oh, wait, that last one isn’t on The Learning Channel. It was a horror movie starring the very-long-in-the-tooth actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis some years back. I lost my head.

Just like Marie Antoinette, who was executed by guillotine on October 16, 1793. Lest we forget, so was one Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre nine months later on July 28, 1794.

I am rambling.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprise, surprise!”

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for liberté, égalité, fraternité and all that. But I am very glad on this August 25, 2011 -- some 222 years, 1 month, and 11 days after the storming of the Bastille -- that l’ètat, ce n'est-ce pas moi.

I am gladder still that this film clip (3:04) exists.

If this post makes no sense at all, chalk it up to the guns heat of August.

Here is a picture of Robespierre in drag Marie Antoinette and friend on a bad day a couple of ladies you might recognize.

7 comments:

  1. I love your brain or rather the way it works! Yet another post that has brightened my my somewhat miserable day!
    Thank you! x

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  2. C'est magnifique, un tour de force. Merveilleux!

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  3. Emma, I left a comment here earlier for you but it seems to have disappeared. Je ne sais pas pourquoi (I don't know why). It is good to hear from you. I went over to your blog and read some of your recent posts; they are hilarious, especially the one about Things You Have Learnt. Also, I hope you have a very happy birthday on Sunday.

    M. Perroquets, la flatterie vous recevra partout! (flattery will get you everywhere!)

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  4. ANY movie with Davis and/or Crawford would qualify as a horror movie, and would most decidedly NOT be seen by me.

    I have an Apple computer but since Apple doesn't make an ergonomic keyboard, I use a Microsoft keyboard and love it. The only downsides are that some of the keys don't work the same way and that I tend to hunt and peck on those occasions--like at the library--when I have to use a regular keyboard.

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  5. Snowbrush, okay, so they're not Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie. Who is? It depends, I guess on whether you want to see people act beautifully or see beautiful people trying to act.

    My ergonomic keyboard is by Microsoft also. The only thing that really bugs me about it is that the numeral 6 is in the index finger of the left hand. When Mrs. Sue Shadix taught us how to type on those old manual Royal typewriters, the numeral 6 was in the index finger of the right hand. We also had to use a lowercase L for the numeral 1; typewriters didn't have 1's in those days.

    I guess I am really showing my age now.

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  6. "I guess on whether you want to see people act beautifully or see beautiful people trying to act."

    You assume that I only like to see beautiful actresses act, but this strikes me as a rather odd assumption. The simple truth is that I dislike the two in question. Even Bogart said that Betty Davis scared him. That's how those two are; they are only fit for horror movies. When Crawford's daughter came out with her book, I had no trouble at all believing her.

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  7. ROBERT Your brain seems to be working in overdrive! Slow down old chap! In the southern states life is meant to ease by like treacle.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

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