Invisible catnip-cloak

Certain sentences can grind my brain to a halt, demanding attention and completely derailing the reading process, whether by tone, word choice, lyricism, or utter rhetorical madness. Witness:

This amalgamated aesthetic is catnip to a significant portion of American listeners but functions like an invisibility cloak against music writers.

This sentence, appearing in Jia Tolentino's "The Slippery Appeal of the Biggest New Band in America" in The New Yorker, compels further contemplation.

Partly I perform a readerly revel at the idea of an aesthetic which can simultaneously be catnip and and invisibility cloak. (Or at least, catnip which "functions like" an invisibility cloak. Is it worn? Eaten? Brandished?) Partly I cringe at this strangely not-quite-metaphor. Partly I am ready to accept any sentence beginning with the awesome and alliterative "amalgamated aesthetic".

But the biggest part, and the final one for me, is the sheer audacity of writing a sentence about "music writers" in an article about music; this is an incredible feat of non-self-recognition on the part of the author, who surely must be labelled as a music writer. And to whom this band is --- as the feature and focus of this article-let --- definitely visible.


This post's theme word is  eclose, "(of an insect) to emerge as an adult from the pupa or as a larva from the egg." Twenty One Pilots' hit song "Stressed Out" focuses on the difficulties and angst of eclosure.

Purple tree

I would later learn more about it, but for the moment, I remain charmed and baffled by the purple-painted tree, in its own separate zone and with accompanying bench, in the middle of this lawn.

That's no photosynthesis I know.

This post's theme word is senesce (v intr), "to grow old or decay." In their safe, slow sencescence, Swarthmore shrubs sometimes stain strange shades.

The tiniest steamroller

It doesn't run on steam, of course, but this tiny steamroller is just the width of a single sidewalk square, and fits through the adorable under-train-tracks tunnel on campus.

Itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow double-wheeled steamroller

Now in temperate zones, this may be the closest I get to seeing a sidewalk snowplow.


This post's theme word is rill (n), "a small stream; a narrow groove carved by erosion." The bottom of the rill was paved smooth and level.

Leave-taking

An era comes to a close with the end of the month. It's weird to experience a life event with the full awareness that, in the mythology of my life, it is significant. It feels like graduation. It feels like being a character in a novel. It puts me a bit on edge (what if a climactic supermonster is about to invade the city?) with a countercurrent of calm (ah, at last my life momentarily makes narrative sense).

I am anticipatorily sad, for in the future I will miss the view and the light and the fresh bread and the sphere-induced jump-start on the day (relative to North Americans) and many, many other things.

The neighborhood has been lovely.

The bakery is magnificent. I had a farewell croissant this morning.

But this is not a sunset on the most interesting, exciting period of my life so far. Because my life becomes ever more interesting and exciting as I progress!

This is, however, a sunset on the Seine, under the Pont des Arts, with the Louvre across the river and a glorious cloudbank illuminating everything like a Renaissance painting.

This post's theme word is attorn, "to turn over rent, goods, etc. to another," or "to agree to be a tenant of a new landlord of the same property." I do not attorn, I simply move.

Arts et Métiers

I'll probably never stop singing the praises of this museum, it is delightful and its subway stop is decorated to match.

Oh, the riveted faux-brass panels were not enough of a clue?

The entire thing gives the steampunkiest impression, and it is heightened by the fact that all the M11 trains that pass through the station carry the smell of burning sawdust. Mental associations to workshops, handmade items to solve technical problems.

Apparently I always take a photo from this exact location.

To go with the everything-is-gears theme today, I bring you this: a thrilling printing press, I believe in several colors, on display in the museum.

If ever I possess property, space, and money to spare (any eligible landed bachelors out there?), this will get a high priority. Although of course it comes after my Jacquard loom, which I'll be building from first principles (until it becomes ridiculous, then I'll look up historical examples).

This post's theme word is agglutinate, "(verb tr., intr.) to form words by combining words or word elements; to join or become joined as if by glue; to clump or cause to clump, as red blood cells" or "(adj.) joined or tending to join; relating to a language that makes complex words by joining words or word elements extensively. For example as in Turkish." What agglutinated monstrosities, what delightful conglomerations of gears and mechanisms you have!

Gendered bathrooms

Paris is notoriously dense. Building footprints and space in the (x,y) plane are coveted and extremely valuable. (Bear with me.) So it is curious and inventive that the city of Paris manages to squeeze a lot of public-accessible spaces in around the private, closed buildings --- a masterful but slow game of tetris to improve the quality of life of all the inhabitants. I had heard that there are many public swimming pools, but the only one I've seen is the Piscine Joséphine Baker, visible because it is floating, exposed, on a barge in the river.

The weather is hot and that swimming pool is currently closed, so I sought out a different one --- Piscine Georges Drigny, which I must have passed every day for several years without noticing. Density. Tetris. It's squeezed in underneath a high school, and the space-saving is extreme: an entry desk, a locker room, showers on the side of the pool. That's it.

One locker room. Just one. There is no gendered separation of spaces, there is hardly any division of spaces at all. The entire facility has only three toilets. There's no space wasted, and space-wastage is not possible.

As with all things, I observed how the locals were behaving and just went along with it. No one was nude in the locker room (there is a handful of private changing stalls in niches in the wall), and post-swim I saw a fair number of people reaching inside their bathing suits to wash what was covered from sight --- everyone washes with soap and shampoo, bathing-suited, out in the public area. The entire thing is a public area.

And it is not a big deal.

No one was creepy in the communal locker room. It was not weird. Everyone just wanted to swim and then go to work, so the entire process was businesslike and smooth. Huge illustrated signs everywhere reminded patrons of the rules (cleanliness, no running, etc.) and the lifeguards were reading newspapers.

This was completely practical and a simple way to ease the space requirements for a public pool. I'm in favor of this being implemented everywhere. I'm also in favor of French manners, politeness, and public rules-conformity being broadly implemented, as this attitude makes for a much more relaxing public experience than the brash, self-interested American style, IMHO.

I'm enjoying the calm rationality while I can, here in a member state of the EU, where civilization, and its concomitant steady supply of fresh bread year-round, still persist.


This post's theme word is parastatal (noun or adjective), "a company or agency owned wholly or partly by the government" or "relating to such an organization." The parastatal pool was packed, but the process ran placidly.

June retroblogging

Okay, so I have prescheduled this post and committed to automatically posting it at the end of the month. Woohoo!

• May's retroblogging post
• Video game art

This post's themeword is meed, "reward, recompense, wage." I receive no meed for blogging, hence my intermittent consistency.

Extremely first-world, privileged problem

Nothing comes out perfectly round in practice; observe, my residence in Paris will not be a number of months divisible by 12. Thus, my gym membership has run out, and I will be here for only ~2 more months. Renewing for a full year is unreasonably expensive when amortized over 2 months; paying per-entry is unreasonably expensive at 25€/day multiplied by my 5-6 day/week gym habit.

What to do?

It's summer, so of course I could just switch to outside/no-equipment exercising, but I find this dissatisfying and it also means zero swimming during the peak heat-relieving swimming months.

On the other hand, I live in a big city and there are many gyms. Most offer a one-time-only free pass (as an incentive to lure people to subscribe), so perhaps I can string together enough free gym visits, interspersed with 25€/day visits and swimming at public pools and running outside, to meet my needs without using up my budget for food and rent.

Problems of privilege --- irritating, but I'm glad that this is the kind of worry my brain has leisure to contemplate.


This post's theme word is sook, "a timid or cowardly person, a crybaby." Ignore that overprivileged sook, visibly-bulging triceps are SO last season.

A problem of translation

Can you spot it?

Yes, I realize this is an instance of "translated to preserve the sense", but I am amused to think that the literal translation of "Paris" is "New York". Just tickled pink.

This post's theme word is syncope, "the shortening of a word by omission of sounds or letters from its middle. (For example, did not to didn't or Worcester to Wooster)" or "fainting caused by insufficient blood flow to the brain." I saw such an extreme translational syncope that I succumbed to a medical syncope.

Overheard

"I thought that dessert was pretentious, and it couldn't decide what it was."

"I thought that comment was pretentious."

This eavesdropper gives the exchange 5 stars. Would overhear again!

This post's theme word is bombilate, "to make a humming or buzzing noise."