Bon chic bon bio

In a recent post,

A fou-faraw in France

 we suggested above that the reporter’s somewhat “off”-sounding “the male demonstrators” might have been in part a crypto-Gallicism, unconsciously inspired by the special contemporary French political use of the ethnic codeword les jeunes (literally 'the young-folk', but that wouldn't render the flavor at all).  A similar apparent case of unconscious loan-translation appears in this morning’s New York Times, datelined Paris.   In prose reminiscent of a gourmand's menu, as gooey and thick as pâté de foie gras, we read of a state-subsidized (and rather louche-sounding) real-estate speculator, remaking the Marais section of Paris (“one of the city’s trendiest” districts, the reporter reassures us, lest some francophone-capable American readers hesitate to venture into a section whose name literally means ‘swamp, morass’) into an “Epicurean Village” (epicurean  not in the sense of the  ataraxia of Ἐπίκουρος,  but of self-indulgent sybarites):

“It’s going to be totally designed, with a library so people can think about the meat.”

(I blink.  Did the sentence really say that?  Let’s re-read it slowly:

It’s

going to be

totally designed,

with a library

so people can think

…
so people can think

…

so people can think

…

about the meat.

Yep, that’s what it says all right.)

Quoting the silk-scarf bedraped entrepreneur, our blithe and flighty reporter goes on:

“Over there will be the cheesemonger, where the cheese will be hidden in designer drawers, and taken out and explained.”

All right -- now I’ve lost the readers’ confidence;  you must think I’m making this up.  So here’s the link; go see for yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/world/europe/an-epicurean-village-is-too-rich-for-some-paris-appetites.html?ref=world

One pictures the scene:  “You, cheesemonger!  Explain that cheese!”   -- "Ahh, ma-dame.... Allou mee too extract heem, from zee deesigneur draweurs..."
(Actually, shouldn't 'designer drawers' refer to panties by Yves St-Laurant?  Strange place to stow the cheese...)

Our reporter continues, this time in her own prose, rather than that of the sleek little Frenchman:

Fashionably dressed butchers, …

(Actually we must pause here, overcome.  “Fashionably dressed butchers”, what an image.   Trendily attired plumbers;  dishwasher-repairmen in gay raiment …  -- Let’s try again.)

Fashionably dressed butchers, bakers, and restaurateurs  will work in an upscale collective  --

(No, sorry,  got to pause again for breath.  A “collective” -- shades of those olden times in Berkeley!  But -- faut préciser -- an upscale collective.   Très chic. -- Truly, today’s feminized-and-yuppified New York Times  is priceless.  And this is the news section, Gawwd help us; not the Gomorrah of "Style".  --- Let’s try one more time:)

Fashionably dressed butchers, bakers, and restaurateurs  will work in an upscale collective, dominated by the principal of zero waste, 

[ => “The  Principle   of  Zero   Waste”  <= ]

peddling [Is that really the verb you want? -- Copy editor] high-concept foods from mod spaces …

(“High-concept foods” -- “Mod spaces”.  Can’t make this stuff up.  -- Well, she can. -- To resume: )

… high-concept foods from mod spaces, using  biological products  sourced only from French farmers.

(We fall exhausted on our labors.)

Anyhow, en tant que philologue,  allow me to draw your attention to that phrase, “biological products”.   For the average American reader, I suspect, that does not have quite the effect that the gushing author intended.   To the ear of the anglo-saxon (as the French call us), that sounds suspiciously like a tissue sample, or an excretion, or something suspected in an ebola outbreak.   But what is really meant is what, in the preceding paragraph, she styled more idiomatically as “farm-fresh gastronomy” (semantically, there is a bit of an enallege adjectivi there, since what is “farm-fresh” here is not really the gastronomy, but the food which the gastronomes are shoving down their pie-holes, washed down with a nice chablis;  but let that pass).   The sense, surely, is an unconscious semantic loan-translation from French biologique: it means ‘natural, organic’, and (among the trendy) is usually abbreviated bio  (as in : des produits bio;  the modifier does not inflect for number or gender)

That word gastronomy, although correctly used (albeit modified askew), has perhaps a faint aura of Gallicism as well:  gastronomie is quite common in French, and has no untoward associations;  whereas, in its article gastronomy, Wikipedia feels obliged to caveat: “Not to be confused with Gastroenterology” (that’s the discipline that peers into those icky “biological products” deep in the unmentionable places of the anatomy).     Fate, though, does sometimes intervene, when the oleaginous or mycological excesses of the gastronomes (another word common in French, rare in English;  it means ‘food-fetishist’;  we generally employ the euphemism gourmet -- another French loan -- which means ‘narcissistic food-fetishist with too much unearned disposable income (sweated from the hides of the working class) and too much goddam time on their hands’)  does lead them into the operating-rooms of the gastroenterologists.

(Enough, enough.  Epicurean village delenda est.  Times, cancel my subscription.)

*

Si cela vous parle,

savourez la série noire

en argot authentique d’Amérique :

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justiceexcerptdivorce.html

*

[Update 1 July 2017]  And now this, a headline of a rare stupidity, even for the Saturday New York Times:
 

‘That First Crisp Bite Can Make or Break the Hot Dog Experience’

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/insider/that-first-crisp-bite-can-make-or-break-the-hot-dog-experience.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

.

ISIS/ISIL again

Now that this Administration is toying with the temptation of dragging us into yet a third war in (or against) Iraq,  we should pause  and once again set the record straight about the name of our new foe:  ISIS or ISIL?

We examined the matter from a linguistic perspective  at great length  here:

“ISIL” vs “ISIS”

Upshot:  “Levant”, rather than “Syria” (in its contemporary sense) is more accurate -- and indeed, in ways crucial to policy-making -- as a translation of the Arabic term in the group’s (former) official name, al-Shâm.  

Updated upshot:  Now that ISIL has morphed into plain IS, the “Islamic State” tout court (et tout grand), claiming the status of a Caliphate, the distinction between “Levant” and “(lesser, nation-state) Syria” falls moot.  They want it all.  At a minimum, de jure, the whole of the ummah, the Islamic oecumene;  long-term, the entire planet, since it is a settled point of Muslim doctrine that Islam is the natural, inborn  state of mankind (left to himself, Robinson Crusoe becomes a de facto Muslim);  only via parental manipulation does the child get twisted into becoming a Magian (or other sects we shall not mention).

[Herewith the original posting from 10 Aug 2014]

 

In her column this morning, after quoting some correct linguistic information from the BBC, Maureen Dowd goes on to get matters  exactly backwards:

It’s a bit odd that the administration is using “the Levant,” given that it conjures up a colonial association from the early 20th century, when Britain and France drew their maps, carving up Mesopotamia guided by economic gain rather than tribal allegiances. Unless it’s a nostalgic nod to a time when puppets were more malleable and grateful to their imperial overlords.

It was precisely to oppose the legitimacy of colonial arrangements, that ISIL chose the term al-Shâm ‘Levant’ rather than Sûrîa ‘modern Syria’.   The latter was a post-WWI colonial creation;  the Levant has been there since the beginning of time.  Additionally, the choice of the geographically more inclusive name  early signaled their outsized ambitions.

In quite the same fashion, jihadis regularly refuse to use the official terms for modern Muslim nation-states, substituting words with hoary historical associations:  instead of Egypt,  “the Land of Kinânah” (after an ancient tribe);  instead of Afghanistan or Pakistan, “Khurasân” (sort of “AfPak plus”); instead of Iraq, “the Nation of the Two Tributaries’ (Bilâd al-Râfidayn -- essentially the same metaphor as in Mesopotamia ‘[region between] two rivers’).   And most of all: ‘the Nation of the Two Sanctuaries’ (viz. Mecca and Medina), for the horrendous name Saudi Arabia.   That one really is offensive, though in ways that owe nothing to colonialism, since here a clique of despots have renamed the ancient nation after a family dynasty (as though Dubya had renamed America “Bushistan”, or FDR  "Rooseveltia").

~

So much for the linguistics.    Serious political analysis we must leave to wiser heads(** vide infra);  but we can at least offer an observation from our other credentialed specialty, irony.

There have been all sorts of dreadful events and developments in Iraq, these past couple of years (not to mention  in half the other nations of the Third World), which we wisely refrained from wading into.   The excuse this time is that the ISIL is so menacing, so evil, such an existential threat, that it warrants throwing caution to the winds.

Yet here is a fine irony.   Awhile back (a dim memory now, for most)  John McCain and his crew were egging America on to get militarily involved on the side of the anti-Bashar ‘Opposition’.  Well, the most powerful component of that ‘Opposition’ (a granfalloon; it is not a coalition and never was) turns out to be … ISIL (some of whom, one reads, may have received paramilitary training from the U.S.;  I have no idea whether that is true).  So:  Best buddies on the Syrian side of the border;  worst enemies over in Iraq.

Another irony:

Had we gone McCain’s route, we would have been the allies, “objectively” (as the Leninists used to say) of the ISIL, against the Syrian Christians, whose chief defender is Bashar.  (McCain himself did not understand this, which is why the alliance would have been objective, rather than subjective.)   And now, in ordering airstrikes to protect Kurds and Yezidis against the ISIL, the Administration is “objectively” allying itself with a group that includes the Kurdish PKK (which is on the State Department list of terrorist groups) and a sect widely slanged (and not only by the ISIL) as being “devil-worshippers”.  (I am deliberately stretching things now to the point of absurdity, simply indicating the sort of factoids that would be more than enough fodder for Tea Party fanatics to start ranting “Obama allies with terrorists and Satanists!!!”)

[Update 12 August 2014]  That allusion to the State-Department-proscribed PKK  was not just a random free-association prompted by the notion ‘Kurdish’;  they really are actively involved.   Headline in this morning’s Le Figaro:

Dans Makhmour repris aux combattants de l'État islamique

Les Pechmergas irakiens ont bénéficié de l'aide des militants kurdes turcs du PKK pour reprendre la petite ville du Kurdistan irakien.

 Americans, meet your new allies.

[Update 29 August 2014]  Wack-o, crack-o, Boko Haram, has released a rant on video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl4IgD--nKg

We mention it only because it was (mis)reported as the declaration of a Caliphate.   Since there can only be one of these at a time, that would have represented an open declaration of warfare against “Caliph Ibrahim” al-Baghdadi.   But as sagely noted by the Long War Journal, Shekau mentions neither the term ‘Caliphate’, nor the traditional caliphal title “amir al-mu’miniin”.

Scenic details:

(1) He brandishes a sort of scepter, or juju, or phallic symbol, or whatever it is, to emphasize his points;  and at one point he pauses and … cleans his teeth with it.

Not making this up.

(2) He begins speaking accented but grammatically correct Classical Arabic;  but eventually breaks into (presumably) Hausa;  the effect is jarring.

(3) An alert watcher comments:

I hate to sound like the usual conspiracy fuckwits, but something's wrong with this video. The cunt on the left and the cunt on the right don't move at all._

Check it out yourself.  Layer upon layer of bizarrerie.

~

“With-it”  Appendix

A young Arabist friend of mine, my advisor on media matters relating to this perplexing 21^st century (Twenty-first?  Have we gotten that far already?  Gracious…)  informs me that the * Next * * Big  * * Thing *,  which I cannot afford to ignore,  is something called … “Pinterest” or something.  (No, that doesn’t sound right.  What a strange word. "Pin-ups", maybe?  No, that's not it. Anyhow.)    And the only way, nowadays, anyone under the age of fifty will find my posts, will be if someone “Pins” them to “Pinterest”.  -- Well, meinetwegen, fine;  Pin away.   But there’s a catch.   The essay in question has to be festooned with a visual image.   Sheer text (unless you’re texting) is so …. Twentieth.

She also had the kindness to send me a lovely picture (called a “jay-peg” for some reason -- gotta get with the lingo) of a sleepy baby pangolin, which I promptly posted here.    And in principle I’d be amenable to posting it along with this essay as well, or perhaps one of my favorite penguins (never get tired of those guys), only … ideally, the illustration is supposed to actually illustrate what you are talking about;  and some random adorable baby penguin  could be perceived as lacking the necessary … gravitas,  for so sober a topic as the one at hand;  and “Gravitas” is our middle name (it’s what the “B.” stands for, somehow -- the birth-certificate says “David Bgravitas” -- the “B” is silent, like the “P” in “Psmith”).

Accordingly, after extended consultations with our Visual Gravitas Staff over at the World of Dr Justice (headquarters:  Geneva),  we came up with these:

شيخ وحاخام

(A sheikh and a rabbi walk into a bar ...)

Domino Effect

Pin away!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[**Footnote]  Wiser heads, such as these for instance:

"Let Iran Save Iraq"

Die USA taeten gut daran, dem Iran die Loesung der aktuellen Krise im Irak zu ueberlassen, meint Zachary Keck. Fuer diese Zurueckhaltung spraechen gleich mehrere Gruende: "The first reason the United States should not intervene in Iraq is because the situation is not nearly as dire as some have claimed. (...) ISIS has not transformed into a formidable conventional army, or a 'daunting military power' capable of waging 'jihadist blitzkrieg.' It most certainly doesn’t have any realistic prospect of toppling the Iraqi government and taking control of Baghdad. (...) The United States should also pass the buck to Iran so it doesn’t have to fight for one side in a sectarian conflict. (...) Another reason the United States should allow Iran to save Iraq is because it is even more committed to this goal than Washington is. (...) If the past is any guide (...) Iran will likely be more effective at propping up the Maliki government. (...) The major objection to allowing

  Iran to save Iraq is that it would strengthen Tehran’s influence in Baghdad. Perhaps. But Iran already exercises substantial control over Iraq’s government, and it’s hard to see what concrete gains any additional influence will bring Iran."

(The National Interest vom 17.06.2014)

http://kurz.bpb.de/3ha

"America’s Late Imperial Dilemma"

US-Praesident Obama werde sowohl von liberalen Interventionisten als auch von konservativen Falken vorgeworfen, "Schwaeche" auszustrahlen und einen internationalen Rueckzug der USA voranzutreiben, schreibt Ian Buruma in seinem kurz vor der aktuellen Irak-Krise veroeffentlichten Beitrag. Obamas Kritiker glaubten nach wie vor, dass es die Mission der USA sei, der Welt den amerikanischen Willen aufzuzwingen, sei es nun im Namen der Demokratie oder aufgrund von Machtinteressen. Obama selbst habe dagegen erkannt, dass die Reichweite der amerikanischen Macht in der neuen Weltordnung begrenzt sei. "At least he has recognized the limits of America’s power to impose a global order by force. His success as a president rests less on the good things he has done (although he has done plenty) than on the stupid things he has avoided, like getting into more unnecessary wars. This does not resolve the late imperial dilemma of how to reduce dependency on the hegemon without causing more tyranny and violence. But that painful and risky process will have to be launched eventually, and it will be better served by Obama’s brand of caution than by the tough talk of his critics."

(Project Syndicate vom 06.06.2014)

http://kurz.bpb.de/3hb

A cure for insomnia

Now!  From the mountaintop laboratories of the World of Dr Justice (headquarters: Geneva), a rapid and infallible cure for insomnia -- available without prescription.

Simply gaze at this image and, mm, and, ahhhh …..  ths ….. immmmmm-age …..

Warning: Do not operate heavy machinery after viewing this

Contraindications:

There are no contraindications.  The treatment is perfectly safe, even for expectant mothers.  It fact, it is recommended for expectant mothers.


[Thanks to J. Jerboa  for this image.]

Franco-semantics

Here is the latest update to our essay “Fou-faraw in France”.   [Explication de texte:  “Fou-faraw” is a blend of foofaraw, a word familiar in your grandpa’s day, and meaning ‘confused uproar’, and French fou ‘crazy’ (its etymon is related to our word folly.)]

For further politico-philological French delicacies, try these:

            allochthone;

            pov’con;

            Euro-Tartuffe;

            ultralaïcard

For the totality of our linguistic essays (not necessarily political) about French, try these:

La francophonie

For the whole of our political posts (not necessarily linguistic) about France, here you go:

L’Hexagone

~

As mentioned, in French media-speak, des jeunes is code for ‘misbehaving Maghrebis’ -- what the American media call “inner-city youth” -- except that, in France, they are rather ‘outer-city’ youth, since they live in what, topographically, Americans would call “the suburbs”, but which, sociographically, is quite other than that:  la banlieue, the barely-policeable belt around Paris -- think of it as the inner city turned inside out.  Within the banlieue, you will find the cités, referenced above.   And this morning, this new bit of French political semantics, courtesy of Le Figaro:

De la banlieue rouge à la banlieue «verte» ?

La banlieue du chanteur Renaud a disparu.

The rouge (‘Red’) refers to Communist (Stalinist) influence:  it is a metaphor that the whole world borrowed from the Bolsheviks, after the Russian use.   But the verte -- the ‘Green’?

My first thought was that it referred to les écolos -- and indeed, there are pockets of (let us call it) Ecocentrism out in the banlieue as well, mixed in with everything else.   That is the only sense now current in America (“Go Green!” -- in your grandfather’s day, it referred rather to greenhorns -- newbies to you).  But that is not it.

The headline goes on:

Les anciens bastions du PCF ont cédé  face à la montée du communautarisme musulman.

Ah…. ha!   The reference is actually to Muslim identity-politics, coded by the color made especially familiar by Gaddhafi  (he brandished his little  Green Book, a counterpart to Mao’s Little Red Book).    This is not an essentially French usage; it is being borrowed from another culture.   And while the association of green with Islam is widespread, it is not the only color-code in play:  Hizbollah uses (green on) yellow; al-Qaeda and ISIL use (white on) black.   So if you ever see a forest of green banners marching towards your cul-de-sacs, relax:  it might have been worse.

*

Si cela vous parle,

savourez la série noire

en argot authentique d’Amérique :

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justiceexcerptdivorce.html

*

[Update, one mug of fresh French roast  later]  The linguistically and culturally alert Le Figaro  this morning also offers this transAtlantic semantic observation, relevant to our remarks about the disparity between Green and verte:

Choisir un plat n'est pas aussi simple qu'on le croit

Une étude montre comment les restaurateurs peuvent rédiger un menu pour manger plus sain aux USA et plus «nature» en France.

Here the French word nature  (pron. na-TYOOR), originally a noun, is being used quasi-adverbially, like the adjective green in “Eat Green!”

[Update, in the wee hours of the morning, one mug (or more) of fine French claret later]   A remarkable post, relevant to this vert(e)/green business, which I have not had the leisure to assimilate:

Rien ne sert de se répandre en cérémonies mémorielles, en souvenir à n'en plus finir, en lois en monuments si c'est pour laisser se renouveller ailleurs ce qui vient de se produire.

Les Khmers Verts ont commencé leurs horreurs.

Quand aux lois, celles par exemple qui punissent le négationisme, elle s'arrêtent là où commencent leurs intérêts financiers ! Sur les bords du Bosphore, par exemple...

Pourtant, à partir de deux exemples historiques, il est facile d'observer ce qui mène au génocide.

Je vais m'appuyer sur deux exemples, les génocides arméniens et rwandais. Nous pouvons voir dans quelles conditions les génocides se produisent et pourquoi ces conditions sont réunis aujourd'hui, malheureusement contre les Arabes Chrétiens.

http://www.agoravox.fr/tribune-libre/article/iraq-les-khmers-verts-ont-commence-155297

The elegant reference to "Khmer verts"  is evidently to the ISIL.

Stay tuned.

Full Moon

I grow old;  I decline, I wane;

the seer, the yellow --

the amber,  --the russet,   -- the burnt-umber leaf.

Yet today -- Vim-filled and vital, and full of sap!

And not needing a nap!!

And this evening,

taking out the recyclables -- lo !

A full moon!

No wonder.

Yet one more unicorn

might I corral,

or ere  I yield  my shield…

A fou-faraw in France

In our earlier post, 

 

          F-Word of the Day: “fournée”

we offered a linguistic deconstruction of a recent incident in which which the éminence grise of the Front National, Le Pen père, uttered what was alleged  by his detractors  to be a Discouraging Word, disobliging to la gent israélite.  He denied this.  (In earlier times, this incident might have been settled among gentlemen, with swords, on the meadow at dawn;  nowadays, we slug it out on TV.)

This evening, there was an interesting update.

 “All Things Considered” just broadcast a useful report from France by Eleanor Beardsley. She asked a French rabbi whether he held the Front National responsible for the upsurge of (sometimes violent) antisemitism in France.  “He just laughed”:  The perps in the recent attacks, he explained, are overwhelmingly immigrant “Muslim, African, and North African” -- less FN than FLN, as it were.  As for the FN, it is more worried about precisely that population, than about long-assimilated Jews.

Politics-and-language note:

That piece, though it did not go deep, was somewhat startling in actually naming ethnicities, rather than just referring to “des jeunes”, which is the French media codeword when Maghrebis get out of line.   (Off course, this may have less to do with any courage on the part of NPR, than the fact that the roster of taboo topics  differs from country to country.) Additionally, Ms Beardsly added another bit of profiling, when she reported that, at the end of a recent demonstration, “the male protesters” broke loose can commited acts of vandalism.  Not:  “the protesters, who were mostly men” or what have you.   In fact, the detail added is in some ways so odd (particularly since the issues here, unlike those of the counter-demonstrations relating to the Mariage pour tous, are by no means gender-related) , that I wonder whether it was not so much a swipe at the masculine gender, as a crytpo-French reference to, precisely, “les jeunes” (al-shabaab), and thus covertly ethnic in reference.

[Update 9 August 2014]   As mentioned, in French media-speak, des jeunes is code for ‘misbehaving Maghrebis’ -- what the American media call “inner-city youth” -- except that, in France, they are rather ‘outer-city’ youth, since they live in what, topographically, Americans would call “the suburbs”, but which, sociographically, is quite other than that:  la banlieue, the barely-policeable belt around Paris -- think of it as the inner city turned inside out.  Within the banlieue, you will find the cités, referenced above.   And this morning, this new bit of French political semantics, courtesy of Le Figaro:

De la banlieue rouge à la banlieue «verte» ?

La banlieue du chanteur Renaud a disparu.

The rouge (‘Red’) refers to Communist (Stalinist) influence:  it is a metaphor that the whole world borrowed from the Bolsheviks, after the Russian use.   But the verte -- the ‘Green’?

My first thought was that it referred to les écolos -- and indeed, there are pockets of (let us call it) Ecocentrism out in the banlieue as well, mixed in with everything else.   That is the only sense now current in America (“Go Green!” -- in your grandfather’s day, it referred rather to greenhorns -- newbies to you).  But that is not it.

The headline goes on:

Les anciens bastions du PCF ont cédé face à la montée du communautarisme musulman.

Ah…. ha!   The reference is actually to Muslim identity-politics, coded by the color made especially familiar by Gaddhafi  (he brandished his little  Green Book, a counterpart to Mao’s Little Red Book).    This is not an essentially French usage; it is being borrowed from another culture.   And while the association of green with Islam is widespread, it is not the only color-code in play:  Hizbollah uses (green on) yellow; al-Qaeda and ISIL use (white on) black.   So if you ever see a forest of green banners marching towards your cul-de-sacs, relax:  it might have been worse.

[Update 10 August 2014]  We suggested above that the somewhat “off”-sounding “male demonstrators” might have been in part a crypto-Gallicism, unconsciously inspired by the special contemporary French political use of the codeword les jeunes.  A similar apparent case of unconscious loan-translation appears in this morning’s New York Times, datelined Paris.   In prose reminiscent of a high-end menu, as gooey and thick as pâté de foie gras, we read of a state-subsidized (and rather louche-sounding) real-estate speculator, remaking the Marais section of Paris (“one of the city’s trendiest” districts, the reporter reassures us, lest some francophone-capable American readers hesitate to venture into a section whose name literally means ‘swamp, morass’) into an “Epicurean Village” (epicurean  not in the sense of the  ataraxia of Ἐπίκουρος,  but of self-indulgent sybarites):

“It’s going to be totally designed, with a library so people can think about the meat.”

(I blink.  Did the sentence really say that?  Let’s re-read it slowly:

It’s

going to be

totally designed,

with a library

so people can think

…
so people can think

…

so people can think

…

about the meat.

Yep, that’s what it says all right.)

Quoting the silk-scarf bedraped entrepreneur, our blithe and flighty reporter goes on:

“Over there will be the cheesemonger, where the cheese will be hidden in designer drawers, and taken out and explained.”

All right -- now I’ve lost the readers’ confidence;  you must think I’m making this up.  So here’s the link; go see for yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/world/europe/an-epicurean-village-is-too-rich-for-some-paris-appetites.html?ref=world

One pictures the scene:  “You, cheesemonger!  Explain that cheese!”

Our reporter continue, this time in her own prose, rather than that of the sleek little Frenchman:

Fashionably dressed butchers, …

(Actually we must pause here, overcome.  “Fashionably dressed butchers”, what an image.   Trendily attired plumbers;  dishwasher-repairmen in gay raiment …  -- Let’s try again.)

Fashionably dressed butchers, bakers, and restaurateurs  will work in an upscale collective  --

(No, sorry,  got to pause again for breath.  A “collective” -- shades of those olden times in Berkeley!  But -- faut préciser -- an upscale collective.   Très chic. -- Truly, today’s feminized-and-yuppifed New York Times is priceless.  --- Let’s try one more time:)

Fashionably dressed butchers, bakers, and restaurateurs  will work in an upscale collective, dominated by the principal of zero waste, 

[ => “The  Principle   of  Zero   Waste”  <= ]

peddling [Is that really the verb you want? -- Copy editor] high-concept foods from mod spaces …

(“High-concept foods” -- “Mod spaces”.  Can’t make this stuff up.  -- Well, she can. -- To resume: )

… high-concept foods from mod spaces, using  biological products  sourced only from French farmers.

(We fall exhausted on our labors.)

Anyhow, en tant que philologue,  allow me to draw your attention to that phrase, “biological products”.   For the average American reader, I suspect, that does not have quite the effect that the gushing author intended.   To the ear of the anglo-saxon (as the French call us), that sounds suspiciously like a tissue sample, or an excretion, or something suspected in an ebola outbreak.   But what is really meant is what, in the preceding paragraph, she styled more idiomatically as “farm-fresh gastronomy” (semantically, there is a bit of an enallege adjectivi there, since what is “farm-fresh” here is not really the gastronomy, but the food which the gastronomes are shoving down their pie-holes, washed down with a nice chablis;  but let that pass).   The sense, surely, is an unconscious semantic loan-translation from French biologique: it means ‘natural, organic’, and (among the trendy) is usually abbreviated bio  (as in : des produits bio;  the modifier does not inflect for number or gender).

(Enough, enough.  Epicurean village delenda est.  Times, cancel my subscription.)

عزرائيل

"It is the evening of the day"

(words of a now-elderly philosopher)

Near the sunlit deck, towards sunset,

a butterfly  lands  on a leaf.

And I picture the Visitor

come set down beside me,

and give me a nod,

“It’s time.”

Smiling, I rise

and go with him.

[After dark, in the study, 

I was frightened  by a flying shadow,

which turned out to be a moth --

Michael versus Samael.]

[[ Foreshadowing  here. ]]

Reconciliation

In honor of today’s historic embrace of the leaders of France and Germany, on the much-contested soil of Alsatia, we re-post our meditation on the gunshot that launched it all.

Here is an account of today’s meeting:

14-18: une commémoration franco-allemande inédite en Alsace

 ~

For the warmongers, the assassination at Sarajevo  was a godsend, or rather:  a gift from Mars.

-- Martin Gilbert

 timeo Danaos  et dona ferentes

The centennial of the assassination of the Archduke, which ignited a powder-train which took thirty years of blood to extinguish, does not bulk large in an American perspective.  We did not enter the resulting conflict until three years later, when the first phase of the long hot-war was almost over;  CONUS itself suffered nothing;  what is left in the memory of  us Yankee Doodle Dandies is “Over There” and not much more.   Even the principals did not realize for some time that it was leading to a World War.

Yet it marked a powerful and permanent turn, of the groaning millwheel of History;  and on that day, Clio laid aside her pen, and wept.

Sic semper ...

For anyone who has, over the years, studied the history of England and of France, and of Mitteleuropa, and of the international workers movement, that day remains fateful.  The Russian revolution which had failed in 1905, now was forced to go through to the conclusion, will they or no.  And with that, the birth of hope for the class of toilers, and in time (turn, turn) its later dashing.   All that had been golden, and of a stately pace, in Western Europe, departed, never to return. 

~

Francis Ferdinand, on that day, was killed along with his “morganatic wife”.  A reader of Le Figaro comments:

Et dire que si François Ferdinand avait fait un mariage selon son rang, il aurait bénéficié d'une protection militaire bien plus importante pendant son déplacement et par là même, le cours de l'histoire en aurait été changé.

 ~

That mad act of the Servian nationalist  led to ruin for his nation;  yet not without a certain heroic poignancy at sunset.  Martin Gilbert tells it well:

Following the fall of Kragujevac, 

the King of Servia  recognized  that it was only a matter of time,

and of a relatively short time,

before the Austrian,

                           German,

                                    and Bulgarian forces

would overrun his kingdom.

On a visit to the frontline trenches,

where peasant soldiers were  holding the line,

their bayonets fixed to rifles 

for which they had little ammunition left,

he told them:

“Heroes,

ye have taken two oaths:

one to me, your king;

and one to your country.

From the first, I release you;

from the second   no man can release you.

But if you decide  to return to your home,

and if we should be victorious,

you shall not be made to suffer.

As for me and my sons,

we remain here.”

Not a single soldier  left his post.

-- A History of the Twentieth Century (1997), p. 382

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.

(I have set it as poetry;  for such it is indeed.  And archaized the spelling, just a bit.)

~

Coincidentally (or not):

The announcement of the caliphate's creation on the first day of Ramadan, which is the holiest month of the year for Muslims, was no doubt meant to invoke the religious significance of the event. But the Gregorian date has significance as well: The June 29 announcement came one day after the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, which marked the beginning of World War I.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/06/30/isis_is_dead_long_live_the_islamic_state_iraq_syria

[Update 20 July 2014]  A thoughtful radio-essay by Omar Saghi, on how the First World War resonates more than the Second, for the Middle East:

  1914-2014, Intifada orientale