Good news: Our Mas des Brun rosé has made it to Los Angeles just before Easter! You can find it at Larchmont Village Wine, 223 N. Larchmont Blvd. Phone: 323 856 8699 — Call to make sure they have some in stock before going, and please say "Hi" to Simon from me (Jean-Marc). He has always supported my wines. Thanks for your support as well.
TODAY'S WORD : TOISER
: to measure
: to look at scornfully, to look somebody up and down
AUDIO FILE: click here to listen to the following sentence in French
La rage de vouloir conclure est une des manies les plus funestes et les plus stériles qui appartiennent à l'humanité. Chaque religion et chaque philosophie a prétendu avoir Dieu à elle, toiser l'infini et connaître la recette du bonheur. Quel orgueil et quel néant ! Je vois, au contraire, que les plus grands génies et les plus grandes œuvres n'ont jamais conclu. –Gustave Flaubert
The fury of wishing to conclude is one of the most disastrous and sterile manias that belong to mankind. Every religion and every philosophy has claimed to have God to itself, to measure the infinite and to know the recipe for happiness. What pride and what naught! I see, on the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded.
A NOTE ABOUT THE FOLLOWING STORY
The account you are about to read was written with the French words readers submitted here. The words appear in the exact order in which they were submitted in this comments box–leading the story forward along an unpredictable path! This unique collaboration (thank you very much for the words you sent in) was also the chance to practice fiction-writing (something I've tried before — at the Paris Catacombs or at the Barber Shop or in a parallel universe).
Amicalement,
Kristi
OUR STORY THAT NEEDS A NAME
(Please submit one in the comments box after you've read part one. Enjoy!)
This is the story of Plume, a two-ton hippopotame who was starved of life's most basic need, touch (la caresse). Neighbors pointed the finger of blame at Plume's only surviving parent, Olivia who, they say, spent her days watching Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.
Plume and Olivia lived in Toiser, named after the judgemental inhabitants who have the habit of looking outsiders up and down. When the Toisers caught hold of the mother hippos movie addiction, they deemed it choquant and sent in a social worker who hauled Olivia away. They did not bother to send an Interchangeable (the government's term for "surrogate mama hippo"). Therefore Plume, alone and désabusé, clung to her only companion, a doudou (a little stuffed Hippo) named Ronronner whose snoring helped drown out, and so adoucir, Plume's fears. Olivia taught Plume that all fear came from the Loup-Garou. "Pay no attention to it!"Olivia cautioned her daughter. Focus on La Douceur–the force of softness, gentleness, and kindness.
The Hippos of Toiser knew not this Love. They grabbed for échantillions of it at the quincaillerie, only to discard Love at the déchetterie (called DODU as it was plump with the city's rejects). Olivia and her daughter, the Toisers suspected, had an endless source of this foreign substance which, they guessed, came from Eolienne Field–so the mayor had all 7000 wind turbines destroyed, going as far as to have a notaire to draw up a legal contract forbidding windmills anywhere in Toiser and, by extension, the Agape (The Universe).
"C'est époustouflant!" Olivia told Plume (mother and daughter kept in touch via DORLOTER, a service similar to SMS–more than text, loved ones could emit cuddles–miettes that sustained Plume, who had never been starved of affection (as the Toisers insinuated) and who, thanks to Mama Hippo Olivia, knew the true meaning of Agape: more than the "The Universe," Agape was Love incarnate…)
"Love is sweet as ananas," Olivia murmured via DORLOTER to Plume and her little stuffed hippo, Ronronner, as they drifted off to sleep each night…
L'amour voyage
Love has no griffes, no claws
Love is l'intuition
Love is not malheureuse
Love knows not violence
Love looks over us, il nous surplombe
Love warms us like a good pair of pantoufles
Love refreshes us, like pamplemousses
Love is there when the sky darkens, au crépuscule
It's in a kinésintherapeute's hands, as he works
It appears in the strangest places, inattendu
It is as nourishing as a truckload of cacahuoètes
It is the source of la paix
Le truc, the thing about Love is:
You can't shut it up (tu ne peux pas fermez sa bouche!)
It won't crash or collapse (ça ne dégringole pas!)
It's truly a gift, un cadeau
Its longing–son envie–is for all to know Love
Love has no prickly points comme un chardon
It is one's true Petit Bijou
Love is une journée à la plage
C'est le sable qui effleure la peau pendant qu'on lézarde
Sand skimming over the skin while we bask in the sun
Hungry for love, some chase skirts (les coureurs de jupon…)
Others overeat–one hundred aubergines!
There are those who only ever flirter, or court love
Still others who are rendered crazy, folle in love's absense
But for those who want so much as to apercevoir Love
Who endeavor to see it from a panoramique viewpoint (un belvédère)
For a bird's eye view with les oiseaux, putting all bonne chance on their side…
They need only remove the thin tulle covering their vision
Quiet the lost monkeys–les ouistitis perdus–in their brains
Take a shovel to their hardened heart and let Love begin its enracinement….
"Jadis… Long ago…" Olivia whispered to Plume (for Ronronner, the littlest (stuffed) Hippo, had fallen asleep and was snoring softly), "when I met your father, mon coeur battait…." The Toisers accused me of mortal sin, l'Extase, said I was nothing but une coquine, and that I would be thrown into Le Machin-Chose where I would suffer until I reached le troisième age. That is how I ended up here, without electricity or l'eau courante. My cellmate, a jovial flâneuse, was arrested for growing roses called Cuisse de nymphe emue which she tossed into her yaourtière to make "Serrée" (a dessert that doubles as a thigh-thinner).
"Tombeaux! Tombeaux!" Ronronner shouted. Plume's little stuffed hippo was having a nightmare–evoqué by DORLOTER which sent out "mind slaps" (instead of cuddles) when it sensed non-conformist conversation.
"Mon Petit Chou," whispered Plume, "Mon petit ver de terre…hush…"
With Roni fell back to sleep, Olivia continued her story of life in prison: Le Robot patrols at night, when the corridors are lit by l'étoile du soir–the same star that's become, for Flâneuse and me, a great comforter, notre paraclet. And I am hopeful, once again, that I'll return home with you and Ronronner, to enjoy Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. Every time I see it, it reminds me of how I met your father, in the cinema's vestiaire! Your father can't remember the cloakroom, he says he was blinded by mes jambes! He called one Mouton and the other Bonbon! And I called him"L'Ecureuil."
PART II: L'IMPREVISIBLE (THE UNFORESEEABLE)
(to be continued…corrections, comments–and story title suggestions–welcome in the comments via the link at the end of post. You might also pose questions which could move the story forward. Merci beaucoup.)
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“A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi” 🙂
Nous sommes en train d’étudier Le Petit Prince.. your poem about love will be a great example as I ask my students to write an Ode to the Rose.. though theirs must be in French or Spanish (level 4 Fr and Spanish students study the book!..) merci for a wonderful website..
My Darling Kristi,
Once again your words have pulled me back into our past…my mind pulling up the memory of you at 8 years sitting in front of our tape recorder reciting your latest stories, my way of directing all of your energy as I slaved over creating another unremembered dinner in our cozy kitchen. I miss those days of past. You have ripened and I have aged. We must be together again soon. I love your mind my precious Kristi.
L’histoire est Brilliante, vraiment Géniale!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Le thème de l’Amour –quel poème!–souligne toujours tous tes oeuvres, Kristin!
Kristin, So very pleased (but not surprised!) that on this Good Friday you would choose to base the story on Love. My suggestion for the title: L’amour qui ne finite jambs
Be blessed.
Ce qui est l’amour ?
Ask a hippo 🙂
Joyeuses Pâques xoxo
💜 excellent! what a treat! of course, with your April Fools stories each year, we should have known you would excel at fiction!
Olivia’s dilemma or How to Love my Hippo. Only first thoughts but I love this story.
Dear Kristi. I am stunned by your creativity and virtuosity. This is an amazing achievement, and delightfully appealing and amusing. (The ridiculously difficult to spell cacahuètes have caught you out and turned into cacahuoètes, but who cares?)
As for a title, I wonder about something along the lines of La Plume de ma Tante – although the dictionary definition is rather uninspiring: “La plume de ma tante (French: “my aunt’s quill”) is a phrase in popular culture, attributed to elementary French language instruction (possibly as early as the 19th century and used as an example of grammatically correct phrases with limited practical application that are sometimes taught in introductory foreign language texts.”
This is very clever, Kristi! Fun to read while challenging, as some of your reader’s words were new to me. I found Olivia and Plume rather endearing and was reminded during the narrative of
1 Corinthians 13. As a picture is in the eyes of the beholder, so is the story in the mind of the reader. Such is the beauty of creative works!
A title suggestion?
~The Greatest of These is Love ~
L’Écureuil, le hippo et le meaning of life
My mistake, it should have read: L’amour qui ne finit jamais = Love that never ends
Blaming this on google translator!
Amour dans les libs folles Français
l’amour parmi les hippopotames
Bravo, Kristi!
A poet, writer of children’s books, and who knows what else! Bravo!!!
Magnifique! C’est amusant! Merci!
Well done!! Bravo!!
How clever you are !! Loved the way you have included so many of the words in the story.
“Love Come What May” (title ?)
Incroyable!! You are so creative. It was very, very enjoyable. Toujours l’amour – maman a la petite not sure how to say but what stand she out is a mothers love for her child. Well done, using all those words!!
How about a play on a famous book/movie title: “Love’s Story”?
“Love in the Life of a Hippo” – a children’s story
What a great and exciting and creative idea you’ve had, Kristin! Here’s my 2 cents, and thanks for letting your readers be a part of this.
Possible Title: Plume et La traverse (a shout out to one of my favorite French singers from Québec, Plume Latraverse)
And because I’m a sucker for a happy ending: How about if Plume gets a secret message from someone calling himself “L’Écureuil” via Dorloter from a not-so-dead Papa Hippo who’s on his way home but who has to first cross an ocean (la traverse) to get there (that would be pretty unforeseeable, wouldn’t it?). And when he does, L’Écureuil (who is an écureuil volant) and Plume (who finds he can also fly because “plume” means feather) build a giant wind turbine from the remnants of the older ones and the resulting wind blows a whirlwind of Love throughout the land. Once the inhabitants understand Love, they exonerate Olivia and send her back home to her family, where they sit and watch Les Parapluies de Cherbourg all cuddled up together on the couch.
Marie, now there is a writer with great imagination and understanding. Loved her story!
Marie, I love this. I say we call it a day and I copy and paste your ending into the story! Then again, my plan was to use every word from the list, in the order that they appear. Je verrai….
I certainly will say hello to Simon at Larchmont Village wine — he lives about three doors down from me! I’ll make sure he saves me a bottle of Mas de Brune!
La Mesure de l’Amour
Gustave Flaubert has used my word ! I have my few seconds of fame ! Merci !
Our dear Kristi,
Totally,utterly WONDERFUL!!!
Your gifted words and imagination know no bounds!!!
BRAVO!!!!!
(PS The only final line I can think of at this point is”And they all lived happily ever after”(!!)
Happy,blessed Easter!
Love
Natalia XO
And than you, Frank, for this word. I had never heard of it before!
Loved the story Kristi – cleverly done and also Marie, a great ending perhaps.
You.have.outdone.yourself. So very clever.
Kristi,
You are an amazing and very talented writer! How you wrote such an imaginative and beautiful story so quickly using all those random words is incredible. Thank you for using Les Parapluies de Cherbourg! As for a title, I loved Dave Kapsiak’s suggestion, l’amour parmi les hippopotames! Parfait!
Happy Easter, once again, your talent shows thu all thay you do, Bravo
Un titre: L’espoir, l’étoile du amour
God bless, C-Marie
I don’t think I could better Marie’s imaginative ending Lovely !!!
Perhaps a tip of the hat to St. Exupéry: Il faut chercher avec le coeur.
If you ever had any doubts about your creativity (as you so often write of unfounded insecurities), this post should erase all doubts. What a lovely, beautifully story!
Bonjour, Kristi, Voulez vous appeler votre histoire:Quelque Jour Au Futur Il Pleuvra La Douceur.?
One word: BRAVO!!! 🙂
A play on the words, “The measure of love is to love without measure.”
Hi Kristi, that was so clever of you to be able to write such a story using all the French words given, not an easy task!
L’amour est formidable!
Je vote pour votre titre. Bien fait, Val…