Five European Faux Pas

1. Attending a charity bazaar at the French ambassador's residence in an army-surplus jacket from the Federal Republic of Germany, flag arm-patches and all. (In Dublin, no less; coincidentally, Eamon de Valera was the only head of state in the world to mourn Hitler's suicide in 1945 - he went to the German mission to offer his condolences in person.)
   
2. Asking a Volkswagen employee in Wolfsburg if a marketing strategy that relies on phrases like "Think small," "It's ugly but it gets there," "Nobody's perfect," and "Lemon" doesn't smack just a little bit of ressentiment and the twisted inversions of Judeo-Christian slave morality.
   
3. Laughing out loud at Sasha Cohen's crude skewering of Third-World anti-Semitism, during a viewing of Borat in Berlin. (Also, not laughing at loud at the rather puerile set-piece with out-of-shape, naked, hairy men brawling in a hotel.)
4. Playing the spoons, as Mephisto, to accompany an indie-folk cover of Gretchen's lament (auf Deutsch, natürlich). Fortunately, I was not called upon to sing back-up.
   
5. Not keeping in touch as often as I should like. I will soon be finished with my last Stanford finals ever, and perhaps will get the chance to be more reflective and/or communicative. Hugs and kisses for each and every one of you across the patient ether, across these piddling ponds that separate us.
   

down under

I just finished reading Jeanette Winterson's Weight. It's a retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracales. However unrelated to the major themes in the novella, Weight contains a bizarre metaphor for male arousal worth sharing:

Zeus knew nothing of this until Heracales opened the bedroom door and found his father on top of his stepmother. Hera turned her beautiful head towards Heracales and gave him that ironic look that he hated, while his prick went kangaroo. (90)