Orange Dwarf Shark : doesn't look like it, but beware! Enjolras.

Fish

What is a home without some fellow fish?

At home, there is an Orange Dwarf Shark and his friend the Soft Goldfish. The Shark is of course a rascal, but he's a beauty: that's why he's called Enjolras. Kico 14 was a beautiful fish too, and who strangely reminded me of Silverster Stalone. But Enjolras is different : he's a real rascal. Though now he may have become a bit wiser.
The Soft Goldfish is called Cajole. So very kind.
It's a joy to watch them. And often, instead of looking at the tv screen, my eyes fix themselves on the bright swimming flames that fishscales are.
The face of a fish is amazing. Fascinating. I could sit before a fishtank forever.

Kico 14 was a most marvelous one. But let's use the present tense. He is still marvelous and time won't change that. His tail is neat and small, his mouth huge. His scales brighter than lava. I will never forget the look of rebuke on his face when I moved my finger in front of the tank, taunting, withouth giving any food. He would interrupt his dance-on-the-tank-glass and shoot me that Kico-14ish glare of his.
Hurray for the 14, ioko doll!

Red traffic-light...closer sight...

Ravel

Ravel!
His music is so beautiful. The musical colours he uses for his pieces are amazing. I'm working on his "Sonatine" for piano. Delicious! This is...ah but this is music and no words can describe it.

A few months ago, I discovered a radio show about Ravel on an Icelandic radio. I should have saved it on the hard drive, but I didn't. There was a wonderful piece in that show, with harp, clarinet and violons. But as it was in Icelandic, I didn't understand the name of that piece. And just ten minutes ago I found out its name! Introduction and allegro for flute, harp, clarinet and sting quartet.
Something in that piece seems so familiar and unearthly...

Ends of Myth

Some things are said, and we hold them for true. When in fact they aren't true.
Phoenicians didn't make up the first alphabet.
And Inuits ("eskimos", though they don't really like being called thus) don't have loads of special words to mean different shades of white or kinds of snow or ice - well, not in the way we think they do.


Nunavut is a language spoken by the Inuits of Nunavut (beautiful flag they have), North-East of Canada. It is rather polysynthetic : that means that in one word, Inuktitut can express what would take a whole sentence in French or English.
So of course they have different words for crunchy snow, powdery snow, melting snow, ...but not because of the importance of snow in their life, but because it's a property of their language.

Nunavutmi!

Examples :
Salittutaq : 'snow thinned by warm wind'.
qaaraqtuq : 'white froth on waves'.
qunquq : 'white reflection on floating ice'.
qinu : 'sea about to freeze'.
ivujivik : 'where one can be caught by ice floes breaking up'.

The beautiful names that can be made up with such a language! I'd call my friends : "Light of the laughing evenings", and that would take only a word in Inuktitut.

Magic

"Magic, oh please, for heaven's sake, do not use that silly word! Magic is good for children and fantasy books. Do you have a clue how annoying it is to hear you say 'magic' so often?"
Aaaah...! Magic.
What is it? An old dream of humanity? Their helplessness embodied?

Magic brings to mind the old wizard waving a finger while uttering incantations to make a tree appear. Words, to create things from nothing? Words?!
Well, of course! When we speak, we use magic. Say 'blue', and blue will invade your eyes. Say : 'fish' and the bright delighting scales of a little finned one will swim in your iris. Like a special keyboard, words make things appear in minds. Magic in the old tales makes words even more powerful : it allows them to make things happen outside Humanity's minds.
Isn't it magic, when with a piano keyboard, fingers can create a whirling mist of music?

Little leaves, May. Yellow ocea.

Enjolras - the marble face of Justice

And with an imperious motion, the frail young man of twenty
years bent the thickset and sturdy porter like a reed, and brought him to his
knees in the mud.

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables.

In French, thus is that compelling sentence written :

"Et d'un mouvement souverain le frêle jeune homme de vingt ans plia comme un roseau le crocheteur trapu et et robuste et l'agenouilla dans la boue."