Duhbuh Duhbuh Duhbuh

I'm killing time before I go and transform my foolish mother's garage into a rental space. Reading some thriller, good reviews but so far just so-so. If you want to read a really surprising ending, go for Running Blind by Lee Child. One of the Jack Reacher books. I generally anticipate the twists, and I got the second-biggest one in this book -- but the big one, revealed at the same moment, was really well done. The set up was flawed, because too many professional people had to be stubborn and stupid, but it works to set up tension, so there's that. One of the things I figured out from listening to oldtime radio is that there is an economy of characters. With limited time and budged, everything has to have a purpose. So the guy who doesn't seem to have a purpose, is the guilty one. FYI.

Bethatasitmay, the hero in the current book makes a big deal about France Gall's 1965 EuroVision performance of Poupée de cire, poupée de son, "Wax Doll, Bran Doll" (son puns as "sound"; bran would be sawdust -- I'd translate it freely as sand, for the evocation.) The young Miss pulls it off through naive sincerity -- a pure but not quite polished voice, almost boyish at points, a touch mechanical in its adherence to meter. But very pretty, oui?

So of course I rifled through the archive, my heavy heels and greasy thumbs leaving their indelible imprints -- what I touch, I ruin ... where I tread, only destruction remains -- and came across Les sucettes -- "Lollipops", or, more bluntly, "Suckers". To be brutal, "Things to Suck On". I won't do all the lyrics. Enough to note that Annie likes to suck, and that anise [Annie, anus] suckers

Give her kisses / An aniseed [cf. anusy] taste. / When the barley ["orge", cf. orgy] sugar / flavored with anise / Slides down Annie's throat, / She's in paradise. ... / For a few "pennies" [cf. penis], / Annie has her anise suckers. / ... When on her tongue / All but the little stick is done, / Her legs take her body / Back to the "drugstore".

Now, it's rather subtle, the images in this 1966 television production, so let me explain. The elongated confections are phallic, and represent penises in a condition of sexual engorgement, tumescent with blood (during which state the male may penetrate the female's vagina with his erect, or turgid, penis). The young women in this video are then simulating the act of oral copulation, a form of sodomy. Get it? The four throbbing quivering dancing penises represent candy, about which the young woman is singing. The footlong cylinders that slowly plunge into the women's mouths, or linger on their lips and tongues, are in some manner meant to figure into the imagery. See? As I say, it's subtle.

Thing is, it really is clear that young Ms Gall did not understand the puns. So when we see Serge Gainsbourg, the lecher who wrote the song, give the most incredible smirk at second 48 of another performance ... well we can't help the shape of our nose, or our chin, or our ears -- but our character can be awfully ugly, non? Lot's of talk about how brilliant Gainsbourg is. No. Clever, the way an adolescent who discovers sarcasm before his peers is clever.

If anyone argues with me about this, or any other of my opinions, I have an unanswerable retort. I always do it. First I shout that they're wrong. Then I fart, really loud, and it sounds like this: duhbuh duhbuh duhbuh duhbuh -- and then I laugh. And everyone is all stupid with silence, and I say, that's right, sucka, and there's PLENTY more where THAT came from -- and I fart again to prove my point. Mess with me and that's what you get. Sucka.


J