Des choses qui m'ont distraite, dans aucun ordre particulier

I try to avoid references to specific art or artists when I'm creating the autobiographical narrative that I use to make sense of my life (in fact if it were possible I might try not to create a narrative at all, and instead strive for some kind of universal, non-temporal meaning, but I digress). It seems to degrade both the art (in that attaching it to specific periods of my life suggests that what it meant for me in a given moment is somehow authoritative) and the narrative (I should come up with my own way of expressing what these moments mean). Nevertheless it seems unavoidable to incorporate some of the things that occupy my mind when I try to put everything in some kind of comprehensible order. I suppose that's what this is about, in part.

Yada yada.

But since I've been so lazy lately I thought I would show a few things that reflect the past few months of my life, in no particular order of course.

[Break]

The lovely Anna Karina, whom I came to know from Pierrot le fou.

" Unholy
I feel sick and unholy
My soul don't want to know me
I've been living like dirt
Hey lover
I've been touched by another
I guess I'm blowing my cover
I guess I'm blowing my life
Oh save me
Nothing's right for me lately
I was wrong but don't hate me
I've been doing it for myself "

[Break]

"Okay Gracie. Now do you think you could make the word 'went' for me? As in 'Gracie went home'?"

Gracie grabs her letter magnets and moves them into position. Three letters. W-E-T.

"Okay Gracie. But that says 'wet,' like 'the floor is wet.' I think you need one more letter in there."

Gracie giggles and reaches for her N. I know she has trouble pronouncing this word, so I'm impressed by her ability to sound it out, and I tell her so with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

"Good job, Gracie! Now do you think you can make the word 'tar'? Do you know what tar is?"

Gracie shakes her head. I don't exactly know what tar is either. How can I explain it to a six-year-old? I fumble over words as I try to describe a street-paving scene, a thick, gooey substance. I think I manage to convey a sense of it.

Next we have 'bar', then 'bark' (Gracie smiles, tells me about her cousin's dog, and demonstrates its bark for me), and finally, 'spark'.

She's a sweet kid, and completes her tasks without too much trouble.

[Break]

If Joanna were a character that I had invented, what would she be like? And what would she do? Would she have adventures in the vein of Tintin or Nancy Drew? Or would I take the more modern route and chronicle the excruciating minutiae of her life in the most pedestrian fashion? Would she write her own narrative with humor and energy or would the weight of listlessness flatten her prose? If she were anything like me... well, I hesitate to go down that road. Painfully meta.