March 22, 2004

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  mental meanderings of a sunday afternoon…

  
  

  

  
  

  Spring is finally here.

  
  

  At least it says so on my calendar…

  
  

  The Vernal Equinox has come and gone, and I feel no more balanced than I did before.

  
  

  An old superstition says you can blance an egg on one end at the moment of the equinox.

  
  

  Not that I would see why anyone would want to do that anyway.

  
  

  I would rather just make an omelette for breakfast.

  
  

  When I was in Paris a few years ago I practically lived on omelettes.

  
  

  Omelettes and fresh baguettes from the bakery on the corner.

  
  

  They were cheapest, and left more francs for museum admissions and Metro fares.

  
  

  I was there before the Euro, in January, alone.

  
  

  But I always wanted to experience Paris in the springtime.

  
  

  Maybe someday I will take my husband there.

  
  

  He doesn’t really have much interest, there’s no surf in Paris.

  
  

  But I think he’d enjoy the City of Lights if he’d give it a chance.

  
  

  On my calendar it also says March is Womens’ History Month.

  
  

  A good time to feature a woman songwriter (one of the best, too)

  
  

  this weekend’s adifrentdrumr’s choice song lyrics is a snapshot of Paris:

  
  

   

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  He met her in a French cafe
  She slipped in sideways like a cat
  Sidelong glances
  What a wary little stray!
  She sticks in his mind like that
  Saying “Avez-vous un allumette?”
  With her lips wrapped around a cigarette
  Yvette in English saying
  “Please have this
  Little bit of instant bliss”
  
  He’s fumbling with her foreign tongue
  Reaching for words and drawing blanks
  A loud mouth is stricken deaf and dumb
  In a bistro on the left bank
  “If I were a painter” Picasso said
  “I’d paint this girl from toe to head!”
  Yvette in English saying
  “Please have this
  Little bit of instant bliss”
  
  Burgundy nocturne tips and spills
  They trot along nicely in the spreading stain
  New chills new thrills
  For the old uphill battle
  How did he wind up here again?
  Walking and talking
  Touched and scared
  Uninsulated wires left bare
  Yvette in English going
  “Please have this
  Little bit of instant bliss”
  
  What blew her like a leaf his way?
  (Up in the air and down to Earth)
  First she flusters
  Then she frays
  So quick to question her own worth
  Her cigarette burns her fingertips
  As it falls like fireworks she curses it
  Then sweetly in English she says
  “Please have this
  Little bit of instant bliss”
  
  He sees her turn and walk away
  Skittering like a cat on stone
  Her high heels clicking
  What a wary little stray!
  She leaves him by the Seine alone
  With the black water and the amber lights
  And the bony bridge between left and right
  Yvette in English saying
  “Please have this
  Little bit of instant bliss”

  
  

  - Joni Mitchell “Yvette in English”
  

  
  

  

  
  

  ***update - Monday AM: I keep trying to add the Xangazon “currently playing” box to this post, but it isn’t cooperating, so since some of you wondered –

  
  

  This is a relatively new Joni Mitchell song, co-written with old friend and sometimes collaborator David Crosby. It appears on Joni’s “Turbulent Indigo” CD (1994) and also on one of David Crosby’s solo recordings from the same time period, which, incidentally, is where I first heard it.

  
  

  

  
  

   

  • 12:03 pm
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