Thursday, February 26, 2009

vive la bise


Have you ever experienced a very acute need to be touched?  As one of the fundamental human senses, touch is perhaps the only one for which I actively pine.  Some days it becomes a craving, and I pursue excuses to touch people.  I graze someone's hand as I pass them a pen or feign obliviousness so as to bump someone on the street - hopeful that they might offer an apologetic hand on the shoulder.  I feel as though I were living a Regina Spektor song, "I'm so lonely...I went to a protest just to rub up against strangers..."

It's funny how this absence of physical contact creates such a physical void within me.  It becomes so palpable sometimes that I think I feel it corporeally.  It's sort of like that horrible pang of heartache.  You know - the sort of heartache that actually feels like a solid weight?  The one that comes to be when all the loneliness you've ever felt manifests itself in your thoracic cavity?  
Yeah - that one.

It's strange how a lack of physical interaction can create such a corporeal pain, and yet I know I'm not the only one who feels it so viscerally.  I am, however, convinced that some have found a way of combating it.  Now that I've been in France an entire month, I have been witness to such a remedy on a daily basis.  I've even been the subject of it on occasion!  

So what is it exactly?  Well, it's that adorable little thing French people do when they greet friends - the double cheek kiss - and it's called the bise.  It's not really kissing so much as brushing cheeks, and yet it fulfills an inner need for human contact.  Feeling the warmth of another person so intimately is more rewarding than you might expect.  A simple gesture, and yet it can stave off even the most desperate longing.  Outside of Europe, people aren't comfortable with that sort of affection, and yet it is such a beautiful action.  Being so close to someone else, feeling another's presence mingling with your own - that is the sort of thing that makes us human.  And I, for one, find such familiarity refreshing in a day and age in which frigid glances and steel handshakes are becoming the only acceptable means of acknowledging fellow beings.  

Moral of the story:  Go forth and faire la bise!


(image came from this lovely website)

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Conan=Love






Conan had an ongoing joke on his show featuring the "Walker Texas Ranger Lever", which was surely one of his best recurring segments.  But there was one clip he showed that stood above the rest.

These photos from this blog.

Monday, February 23, 2009

tiny ghosts


Tiny ghosts is a sort of web "comic" I stumbled upon some time ago.  Sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's tragic.  But most of the time, it's very profound.  


Sunday, February 22, 2009

Sunday


There's nothing quite like that first cup of coffee on a Sunday morning.  Coupled with a little Bill Evans, it can't be beat.  

muddled murmurs


On the way to school each day, I pass through a graffiti-covered tunnel.  Walking through, I can see the eagerness- the panic even - in each drawing and proclamation.  Every layer is a message - a voice desperately seeking acknowledgment, validation, understanding.  In an effort to be heard, these fervent voice conflate, resulting in an incomprehensible mass.  Layer builds upon layer until the whole is incoherent. 

Though many are muffled, the stories persist.  We may never know the profundity that lies hidden beneath the build-up, but I'd like to believe that these anxious voices will not go completely unheard.  

There is always a chance that someone will come along- someone with patience and determination- someone who is willing to look and listen.  And when that person comes... maybe the voices will be satisfied.  Maybe their endless pursuit for validation will cease to be in vain, and maybe all the pain that has built up over the years will be washed away.  Maybe. 

Saturday, February 21, 2009

lovely noise


I love this cover by Sara Bareilles.  Good listening for those angsty days.  

Bebop


My mom has a BeBop action figure perched atop the medicine cabinet in her bathroom.  He stands amid soaps from Scotland and vintage Chanel perfume bottles.  I love juxtaposition.