the value of literacy

today i was riding behind a minibus, whose drivers often like to paint witty slogans on the back. here was written:

ABAT LES JALOUX (butcher the jealous)

the passenger next to me noted that the artist was not well educated and likely meant to write

À BAS LES JALOUS (down with the jealous)

which is pronounced the same.

three laws of social inertia

1. those who are least equipped to prevent misfortune are also the least able to absorb its damage.

2. whoever needs friendship the most is an asshole.

3. the powerless are the most easily corrupted

no es propiamente carne

when i tell a story about a tour i made i like to puff myself up, saying then all the tourists were going here to this touristy place but i went here instead since i'm not a tourist, but something better

je suis sorti la nuit

word of mouth advertising:

-you know i heard that they make sausage, their own sausage over at that restaurant across the street, La Piscine
...
[me to the waitress at la piscine]
-yes madame, word has reached me that sausage is manufactured here. could it be true?
-sausage? no.

-well i like to alternate with my kids, one day cold lunch then hot lunch every other day, so today i gotta buy bread and make the kids' sandwiches.
-hot lunches?
-yeah, and i mean they're actually pretty good, a bit pricey, one five for a children's lunch, but it's the owner of the chinese restaurants
-i'll bet the kids like them
-oh they do, yeah, but i don't want them to get spoiled on a hot lunch every day. it's good to have variety
-for when they seldom come, they wish'd for come.
-so sometimes i get them a hamburger. so just the other day i was asking and i said no vegetables and the lady smiled, she's such a doll you know, and she showed me a bottle of bleach and said i wash them myself, have confidence. so i mean it's great, fresh hamburgers.
-they assemble them before your very eyes?
-mine eyes, yes, then put them in a sandwich iron.
...
[me to the lady at the rich people store]
-i will have two hamburgers please.
-yes, sir [with a dollish smile]


discussion with dr. njika on noun phrases:
-how about nyambe'
-let's see [humming the phrase to bring out tones]... no it's the same. you also have nyandia [more humming] ... yes, still the same
-how about besangale'
-[puzzled look] you mean asangale'?
-commoners, not cornmeal
-[more humming], yes see this vowel here has changed from [e] to [a]
-the genitive...
-tatia, cigarette
-what? ahh, tatia, that's an interesting case. the tone must have been attracted... i'd have to think about it.

this is a feature of the language that any illiterate grandmother has mastered, but no scientist has described fully.


this passage surges to mind:
"Historia de las tijeras para uñas, dos mil libros para adquirir la certidumbre de que hasta 1675 no se menciona este adminículo. De golpe en Maguncia alguien estampa la imagen de una señora cortándose una uña. No es exactamente un par de tijeras, pero se le parece. En el siglo XVIII un tal Philip McKinney patenta en Baltimore las primeras..."
(Rayuela)

10.05, and i could tell she wasn't lying

i was sitting at a table playing cards with some people. this type of winged ant would fly in, drunk on fluorescent light and writhe on the table. the table had a film of dried paste on it and snippets of magazines. looking for a way to finish the last collage off, i put a thick layer of paste between their faces and lined up the contents of the ashtray. it struck me this morning that i had transposed two words in the title of the collage. i haven't decided whether to leave it as is or fix it. the table this morning was covered with several types of luciductile insects.
we watched the butter melt in the pan and anyone could have pulled it out before it finished melting or taken the pan off of the heat but nothing happened. the butter melted until there was a half inch thick pool of butter in the pan. get dressed and stack the dirty dishes into neat piles. there was most of a lump of semolina fufu with tomato sauce.

si el cigarro se apaga
si el cigarro se apaga
si el cigarro se apaga
morena
me voy al río

open border anarchism

two business ideas:

1. private protest: for a decent living wage of $13/hour cash brokeass college students and jornaderos will be contracted to hold up a sign and quietly pace back in forth in front of the object of protest, holding the sign for all to see. the protest company will employ a sign designer and a person to negotiate contracts with protest mécènes. a third employee, in some versions of the business model, will accept payments from objects of protest to call off protests.

2. practical joke arbitrage: every week, a new entry of "it'd be funny if this would happen:" is posted. the funny thing would have a price tag, what it would cost to cause it to happen. people are then solicited to pledge, say, $10 each to cause the event to happen. there is a number of pledges below which the event does not happen. above this number, the event will happen for $10 or less per person. advertising revenues from the site could be reinvested.

exempli gratia: a full page classified in the Economist, (24 300 pounds sterling) is taken out to advertise Girls Gone Wild or a job opening for a dishwasher position at a Denny's in Cour d'Alene, Idaho. if 5000 people agree that they'd pay $10 to see that, we're in business.

altrius exempli gratia: the joke company has a working relationship with the protest company so that the protest company will have the occasional guaranteed contract and the joke company will have an idea for a relatively cheap joke.

the hidden war with Iran

For me, a party is above all an ardent apotheosis of the present, in the face of the uncertainty of the future; pleasant days calmly rolling by don't incite parties. But if, when surrounded by misfortune, hope is reborn, and you rediscover a perspective on the world and on time, the instant then begins to flame up, you can enclose yourself in it and be consumed by it. That's a party.

Pour moi, la fete est avant tout une ardente apothéose du présent, en face de l'inquiétude de l'avenir; un calme écoulement de jours heureux ne suscite pas de fete: mais si, au sein du malheur, l'espoir renait, si l'on retrouve une prise sur le monde et sur le temps, alors l'instant se met à flamber, on peut s'y enfermer et se consumer en lui: c'est fete.

Simone de Beauvoir, La force de l'age

if i had more

on wednesday the teachers sat in ndoga's office to fill out report cards. each sequence report needed five stamps and two signatures. one bamenda man, who noticed that he could stamp and sign faster than others, "massa, let me go until i reach yaoundé and i will show them something about documents"

approximate text of a notice (directed towards 12-17 year old children) from the last week of march:

Dear Students:
Please be advised that any student suspected of pregnancy may not return to class without a written certificate of non-pregnancy duly signed by the medical officer. This is the only acceptable proof.
Students are reminded that anyone having committed abortion will be immediately dismissed.

once we filled out all the report cards the principal bought us a beer. the next day some of us went to down to the coast for the term holidays. i spent all of friday and saturday in a chair looking at the waves, hearing Jay Z i used to mold snow flakes and sell 'em by the O-Z

bruno, an adult with no outstanding pregnancies, who is a traditional wheeler and dealer, gave me with pounded macabo snails with wild greens. when a child finds a snail he or she will either eat it or find an adult to buy it. in the afternoon i was in the market eating a piece of smoked meat that they call "fox" in pidgin, meaning it could be one of dozens of species of antelope or civet or who knows. bruno, sub rosa, handed me a black plastic bag with a chunk of boiled goat meat
shh... they said that i should kill the goat give them but may i not touch any one piece because if i do then i will have to enter their society so that i should just be patient and they will appreciate me with two bottles or some small thousand francs . . . but those people i know them they are just twisting twisting making politics how can seven old pa's like that chop one goat all? and you will see how smart i am when i go pass by their door at four o'clock they will take and offer me...

my organisation invited me to a conference in an expensive hotel in yaoundé with dinner buffets. you could eat your basil beef or civet d'agneau and steamed vegetables with rolls butter and passion fruit juice, pineapple slices artistically arranged and boiled eggs with aioli. it didn't taste as good as the snails or the goat. the tv's received about three french channels. one showed dubbed american cop shows whose syndication rights the network must have bought for next to nothing and another was music videos; the content is tailored to audiences in réunion and the antilles