the shred head strikes

It might be hard for many Europeans to swallow this, but it is true. Last evening, during a mad bout of winter cleaning, for the first time in my life, I used the shredder.

I’m a shredder virgin. Was, actually. Now I’m a shredder addict.

The raw power, the hunger, the instant attraction, a pressing gravitation. Then the snatching and ripping away of hundreds of bullet points and thousands of excel simulations. I was stunned. Speechless. Close your mouth, Arti; M. Poppins would’ve smacked at me. We are not a codfish.

But such was my unabashed response and desire. I need more. I definitely need more.

Like the industrial shredder with superior cutting torque. Indelible technology that annihilates CDs, DVDs, credit cards, floppy disks and metal springs into the nothingness. This arbitrary power is heady; shut up and pray, ‘cuz there is blood everywhere.

Not to be confused with the commercial chess program, I allude to the one that shreds. Invented originally by Abbot Low in New York, it was eventually the German Adolf Ehinger who made better use of a pasta machine and went ahead & shredded, successfully, his anti-Nazi propaganda. Notice how there exists romance behind this raw potency. From pasta machine to the despoiler of the Third Reich – a small step for nourriture, giant leap for a fancy-retro-thingamomb.

But I need to run now. There’s some official for my eyes only documents lying on my desk. And down the corridor, a 4 horsepower shredder with my name on it.

iPod Swapping

A week of quarantine can make you start to despise your playlist.

Really, I mean H-A-T-E the bloody playlist.

It dawns upon you; for eons your music taste is stagnating. That you might be tripping through life with no inkling of what else might lie beyond the 8 gigs of your tiny black iPod.

So it got me wondering, is there anybody out there…?

…willing to swap iPods?

Think about it, we swap books, DVDs, recipes, travel stories all the time. Some of us even swap wives, or partners as it were, the more avant-garde European way of life, (heck, who am I to judge. Try everything once at least, I say).

That being so, why not iPods, replete avec playlist? Borrow it for a week, 2 weeks, maybe. Ask a friend to begin with. Be more adventurous, ask a cute stranger. Can you think of a more original way to break ice? There you go.

Every number you hear is unexpected. Almost like stepping into someone else’s shoes; like role playing even.

If music be the food of life, who knows how this totally unexpected, fresh diet will smack on you? A different swing in your step? New music, new feelings, a new cup of wine?

The world, here, can truly be your oyster. Or iPod for that matter.

Any takers?

missing conversations

forgotten memories

sunsets in villages and starry nights

that is new doesn't tally

the preciousness of the past

yet

a crying radio

dark rooms and spectrometers

magic of the woods

the terrace, the fields, the midnight walks

dreams and fortunes

they come alive, they are spent

i run, laugh, cry, jump

but where can i find my missing conversations

here & now

summer sunshine, blue skies
little girls in pink frocks
pink candy smudged everywhere

between the wet stones
and slippery surfaces
we fall
as we try to drift

slide
away into the deep waters
surrender
to music from who and where

forget what yesterday was
it matters not the breeze whispers

laugh with me today
and tomorrow will be yours

It smells like cookies

It smells like cookies.

What does? Other than cookies themselves, of course.

For starters, poo.

Yup. Six month old babies, their poo smells like cookies.

Don’t believe me? Well, you don’t have to; after all I’ve no proof, other than my meandering experience of hosting moms with six-month-old babies. They say so. And no, they’re not smoking anything they shouldn’t be while they’re breast-feeding. In fact the only one indulging in any form of intoxication was the glass bottle. It had been marinating in wine way too long.  Need to take the wine out of the bottle. 

By the way, did I tell you about the time when my penne had more alcohol than my glass of red wine.  I know I’m digressing, but it’s a story worth telling. As soon as I can recall more details about that night. Eventually, I guess.  But it did involve a lot of trampoline related activity at about 2 AM at the Lausanne Carnival.

So, coming back to my original announcement relating to aromas of the unmentionable necessities.  A fair number of young moms swear by it – since young babies only consume milk, their poo smells like, yes, you know now, cookies.  But as kids grow up, their daily aliment extends beyond this rich white fluid, and from then on, poo starts to smell like crap.

That for some reason sounds like the beginning of the end.

But I’d like this to be a more blithe-ish post. After a very long time, is the keyboard talking to me.  Teasing me, even. Words come in cascades but thoughts don’t seem to add up. In the last four months, my stabs at populating my blog resulted in – nada. Rien. Nothing that was remotely close to smelling like a six-month-old baby’s poo.

Consequently I banter comme ça today. Parce que je peux. I need to break this clot.

I need, ever so much, food for thought.