Shop assistant at the bookshop (precisely, slowly): "You .. want discount .. on books, don't you? I can .. sign you up for .. discount on .. books. Give me your .. email address."
Later I met my partner by the door to the book shop. He too had been cajoled into signing up for their newsletter by a shop assistant doing the scary voice-thing. Gosh, what does the Borders chain do to their staff?
P.S. Surely it is also time to announce that the postmodern novel passed away some time ago?
Two questions: How do you say "I would like to buy six live chicken, please" in German? And if I were to say to you: "You look like a one-eyed pirate except you have two eyes," how would you interpret that?
I try to keep track of news in my erstwhile home country of Denmark. The more I read about government incentives, the happier I am that I chose to move to the UK where my being foreign isn't treated as a disease. It would have been far more difficult for my Scottish partner to move across and I dread to think what it would have been like if David had not had a very obvious Scottish surname. One day I'll reclaim Denmark from the people who annexed my nationality and turned it into something completely alien and repulsive. Right now I'll just sit here and wonder what on earth happened to Denmark.
Cooking experiment: Danish rice pudding cooked with coconut milk instead of regular milk and served with fresh raspberries = very, very yummy.
PS. "George W. Bush praises Tanzania" - a news headline from today which I find really quite amusing.
Last night I went into the kitchen and announced: "I really like Tanzania." My poor, deluded brain had been locked into dream-space whilst I had been battling it out on Puzzle Quest. While my fingers had been busy pairing up gems and fighting wyverns, another part of me had been in Tanzania on a veranda, er, playing Puzzle Quest. Needless to say, I was ordered to bed and slept until 1pm today. But I still really like Tanzania.
Saturday linkage:
Not All Men of the Future Wear Polyester Jumpsuits: "In The Antineutral Suit: Futurist Manifesto (1914), Balla railed against "neutral, 'nice,' [and] faded" colors, not to mention "stripes, checks, and diplomatic little dots." Instead, Futurist attire would be "Dynamic, with textiles of dynamic patterns and colors (triangles, cones, spirals . . .) that inspire the love of danger, speed, and assault, and loathing of peace and immobility.""
Speaking of fashion, do you have $8,901 to spare? If so, you might want to bid on an Elsa Schiraparelli item designed for and worn by Marlene Dietrich. I like the idea of a Schiraparelli gown - particularly one associated with Dietrich - it cannot get more arty decadence circa 1930 than that, surely?
Via my Other Half: Neil Gaiman on why books have genders. I could take or leave Gaiman, but it is an interesting idea. I might revisit that in a later entry.
Finally, Pictures of Walls. This site feeds into my preoccupation with public lettering/writing, of course. And funnily enough you also get pictures of walls there - which in turn have pictures on them. Gosh.
Sundays in February can be quite dreary - so why not dash into Mono here in Glasgow on Sunday at 8pm? Famous Scottish writers such as Alasdair Gray(!), Liz Lochhead, and Tom Leonard will be discussing the war in Iraq. As Mono also houses a record shop/informal gig venue, there will also be live music from local folk artists. Ticket is £5.
(An aside: last time I went to Mono, I ended up having dinner right next to a famous rock star, my word. And my vegan lasagna was rather bland.)
It's Valentine's Day today. I have already my present from my Significant Other: a facsimile of the Kelmscott Chaucer. Aww.
Equally geeky/sweet: Typecaster. "A Flash app [that] lets you drag two fonts from the left side into the stage area... to see how well the two types mix when dating (fonts available are Mistral, Papyrus, Comic Sans, Helvetica, Stencil, and American Typewriter)." I particularly like the type description of Papyrus.