[lit-ideas] Re: Approl
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 13:00:01 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
Holed up the the faculty garret like one of the many characters from Dickens
whose name I have forgotten, I eat my curry and grumble over papers. (Our only
food option at PNCA are the offerings of a former student, who serves a Thai
curry or tofu, from a barbeque cart). 'umble folk takes pleasures where they
finds 'em.
What am I reading? Papers.
I bet you didn't know that sex took place in cafes in turn of the century
Paris: "In dealing with the elite nature of the Salon, Cafes became common
artistic breeding grounds." From the same author, "Towards the end of the 19th
century Paris was abudant of people of affluence and leisure. Both encouraged
the development of a wider arrange of entertainment." That's like a whiter
shade of pale, only different.
This evening's compensation will be a showing of "Casino Royale," which we now
own. How is this? I was greatly puzzled when my wife returned from Costco
with a copy of the DVD. We've all seen the movie. She's not a fan of James
Bond movies. She doesn't like to see movies twice or more. The solution was
soon revealed. She had gone shopping with two helpers, both of whom are great
fans of Bond films and neither of whom saw any ethical difficulty in placing
the movie in the cart in full view of Mother who, they reasoned, could remove
it if she objected. Since my wife does not suffer from male-pattern
fridge-and-supermarket blindness, their reasoning to them seemed both sound and
straightforward-ish. By some odd quirk of fate, the thing slipped under my
wife's scrutiny and so we are proud owners of a DVD that has, among the extras,
a third wave feminist-ish reading of Bond women.
What's with the "ish" move? It's a qualifier I've recently inserted into
family discourse, one of these accidental things that people take up. I think
it started with my wife's idea of time, which has always been a bit on the
"ish" side. When she says, "We'll leave at ten," she means ten-ish not, as I
mean, "ready at five to ten and off at ten." But there's more uses of "ish"
than this. Anything approximate can have an "ish" aspect. What are your
polical allegiances? Democrat-ish or Republican-ish? Do you like my dress?
Yes-ish. Which cat killed the bird? Jeeves-ish.
Come to think of it, most of life is lived in "ish." Perhaps I should start a
movement. Who's with me in the Alternative People for the Promulgation of
Reasonable Outside Limits?
David Ritchie
far from the Xystus in
Portland, Oregon
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