Just added a Twitter feed to my blog. I’ve been resisting for a while now, but finally gave in. I like how I can just grab bits and pieces of conversations, emails, code, ideas, documentation and so on, and throw them into the mix. And the size is right. Let’s try to give it a few weeks before giving up again. That, or before I plug my randomizer into Twitter… hey there’s an idea.
To welcome me into my new role as an officially recognized Frenchman, my friend Julien sent me a list of clichés entitled « Ça, c’est la France ». All the regulars are there: the beret, a baguette, rosette, the rooster, brie, Yvette Horner and Serge Gainsbourg. And although I’ve never worn a beret, I adore Gainsbourg and will often eat smelly cheeses that “still evoke the scent of the goat’s piss trickling down its leg” (as my wife likes to put it). So, while I’m quite obviously not French in so many ways, I do appreciate a good stinky pleasure from time to time, if not once a day. And yes, I eat yogurt, although no, I do not drink, so no red wine (although I’ll make an exception for champagne). But a lack in oenology skills is apparently acceptable, given how many I’ve met here who do not appreciate red wine either, and even more who find the mere idea of smelly cheeses revolting. So the clichés only go so far.
But there are some things that only the French can truly appreciate, and that you have to have something French in you to even understand. I often cite, as an example, one of my favorite French expressions (and there are many) : « Il a le cul bordé de nouilles » which basically translates as « he’s got an ass full of noodles ». Since I am apparently someone abounding in luck, I have on many occasions been attributed with a noodly ass. Now for those that cannot stand them — for example, the English — this is probably yet another example of what is so profoundly wrong with the French. Indeed, saying that someone has noodles, or perhaps worms (it all depends on your point of view), coming out of their ass does not mean that they are sick, or unhygienic, or just plain out of luck — in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Saying « il a le cul bordé de nouilles » means that you are lucky, and even more, you are overflowing with luck, as in look at that mass of lucky worms pouring out from your underside! Now what does all this mean? How can, for the French, the idea of noodles, worms, hemorrhoids (oh yes), or perhaps (if we take slang into account) good old fashioned penises, evoke someone being lucky — even more, someone being abundantly full of luck? This, my friends, is one of the mysteries of being French, and the mere (moral, even logical) ambiguity of it all: the quite decisively indeterminable nature of what the hell that possibly means is also very much part of the definition of what it is to be French.
Accordeons:
Gainsbourg, the « vieux dégeulase qui pue »
Gainsbourg, patriotic version:
Gainsbourg, le classique :
And while we’re on the subject of kidneys, how about hips?
Leading us of course to Dalida:
Perhaps that’s all it is, this idea of France, une chanson d’amour? — ah now there’s a cliché :
But they do love their « chanson populaire ». Before American Idol, there was L’école des fans…and Claude François:
Oh, Claude François is not heady enough for you? Ha! Even Gilles Deleuze admired him. And let us not forget, in our nostalgic tour de France, the required selection of famous French intellectuals:
Ah, that’s it. Freedom. Existentialism. Mai ‘68. Vive la résistance! But what would all that be without José Bové’s moustache?
And what would France be, without it’s laches, it’s cowards, its smug pretention?
Or, perhaps, none of that matters, and it’s all just about Carla. That is probably one place where we can all agree, only in France:
Le jour de gloire est arrivé ! / Contre nous de la tyrannie, / L’étendard sanglant est levé, / L’étendard sanglant est levé, / Entendez-vous dans les campagnes / Mugir ces féroces soldats ? / Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras / Egorger vos fils, vos compagnes ! / Aux armes, citoyens / Formez vos bataillons / Marchons, marchons ! / Qu’un sang impur / Abreuve nos sillons !
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I received my French nationality papers today. Since a lot of people have been asking me, I should make it clear that I now have two national songs, as the French do not require you to renounce your previous citizenship to become French. Qu’un sang impur…
To continue my recent work on protocols, I made this little checksum mosaic software for my new national song : La marseillaise. I haven’t exactly figured out what to do with this checksum image yet.
I ran into the organizers of the Gamerz exhibit this evening on my way back from the workshop. They asked, « Did you see ? » « See what ? » « Your interview in Joystick magazine! » Cringe… Oh god, I’d forgotten about that. Then they really started to laugh as they realized that I hadn’t seen the picture they used. « Well, you’ve got a big picture in there with a funny helmet on your head ». Oh my. I forgot that anyone who wants to can grab my pictures off flickr, which is actually a pretty good thing for my ego now that I think about it. I’m going to have to learn to live with my mug one of these days.
The interview is okay. I talk a little about code, teaching, and games in no particular order. Pretty fluffy. It was nice to talk about a lot of young artists’ work though. If you don’t already read Joystick, it’s no use buying the magazine. The articles are pretty bad. They didn’t mangle my interview, so that’s very nice of them, but they didn’t put much in there to begin with so whatever. The article that it’s connected to (on experimental gaming) is pretty strange. The first half basically apologizes to the gamer fanboys for bothering them about some obscure subject they probably won’t care that much about. Kind of a strange way to write if you ask me. But what do I know? I write a blog.
Further blurings of my identity today. I’ve just gotten back from my last interview before becoming a true Frenchman, and now I’m about to get on a plane to head back to my home country for a few weeks. I’ll be in this national identity limbo for about a year, after which the paperwork will have gone through the system and returned with a big stamp. So I’m still not French yet. I.e. you still can’t call me a Frog, ask to see my beret, complain about my rude demeanor or whatever lingering Freedom Fry-esque hatreds you have yet to cure yourself of. Nope, for the moment I’ll just have to be another one of those bastard americans as far as you’re concerned. But around this time next year, I’ll be a more evenly distributed target for your bigoterie as I’ll be both an asshole imperialist pig and a pretentious frog all rolled up into one.
I’ll be in the Silicon Valley area for about a month (Los Altos Hills), with a weeklong stay near Santa Cruz in early August. If you can think of anything interesting going on, or just want to meet over a nice cup of hot tea, let me know.
(Image excerpt from The Signal)
While looking up some recent patents for my thesis, I stumbled upon what appears to be a new Google service, Google Patents. Now, the cliché about Google is that the first thing people do when they discover Google is they Google themselves. Well, I can’t really patent-Google myself, per se, but I can patent-Google my great grandfather William Stanley Jr. who generated over 100 patents, including the transformer and the Stanley Thermos, both of which are still in use today. In fact, all those white trashcans that litter telephone poles all over the world (and cause so many problems during heat waves) are more or less his fault. As with any invention, there are always more hands involved than those cited in the patent, but officially he does hold claim to the modern variant such as those found on telephone poles.
Now, for those of you thinking to yourselves that you can hit me up for money, neither I nor my family gain anything from this legacy other than the legacy — I’m a struggling artist after all, and haven’t even been paid yet for the last two gigs (you know who you are) — and in fact while we’re at it, I was actually going to ask you if you could spare a dime. Remember, these patents have long-since fallen into the public domain (my preferred distribution channel ;-). This is also the first time I’ve mentioned this in any public forum, mostly because I have been struggling with electricity for the past several years and have inherited none of those gifts that either William (or my father for that matter) possessed so naturally. So I’m a little embarassed to have such illustrious ancestors in a field for which I am so inept. In fact (oh, the shame of it all), I find digital circuits to be sooooo much easier to control than the type of electricity my great-grandfather used to manipulate, since in fact in a digital circuit you really aren’t concerned all that much with the actual properties of the electricity itself. It is mostly just a question of getting the right resistor in the right spot and then trying to program the controller to flip something on and off at the right moment, or of reading the state of some sensor that does most of the work for you. I.e. no physics required. But this paresse is also starting to show it’s limits, and I’ve been thinking about how best to provide myself with the means to move into more serious sensor work after the current job runs out.
It’s a real pleasure to finally have access to all these patents. I don’t have the time to scour them just this moment, but I had actually started the process of recovering his patents somewhat recently, only hadn’t found the time to uncover any more than the two or three well-known ones. I was planning on investigating the matter further in a few months. Now that Google, du jour au lendemain, has suddenly placed online over 70 accessible documents, it should make things a little easier.
And just look at these drawings. They’re exquisite:
Ok. So I’m out of the hospital now for those that have been asking.
And no, they didn’t have Wifi, or DSL, or anything like that there. All they had were big needles and of course, the wonderful “probe” that they placed in my penis when I couldn’t urinate by myself (it’s been “fire pee” ever since). Oh, and the fellow next to me had TF1 running all day (and night). He explained that he had paid for it, and that if I wanted it off I’d have to pay him. I think the logic (other than being an asshole) was that if you use it more, well, you sort of economise — and he was going to get his money’s worth. If I see the “Jeu de la boîte” once more…
Anyway, since I was such a good patient, they left me with a special bonus to take home with me…
Racing Stripes! Aren’t they pretty? I like the little bow they left poking out. I wish I could keep it.
Or maybe it’s a nietzschean mustache?
