A Dyke A Broad #105 The List Edition
A visit to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, plus sheep. And news.
There’s an on-and-off strike against the cost of living and a laundry list of other issues here in France, which in Paris means you never know if you’re going to have to wait five minutes, or five hours for a bus because the drivers often do slow-downs, and sometimes quit running altogether. Today, I was lucky, and I only stood at a stop ten minutes. I was also lucky that the mid-morning rain didn’t come. And while I know that means plenty of trees will be thirsty come spring, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I had an errand in the 19th near the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, and when I was finished, decided to venture in, partly because I thought I’d take some artsy photos and write something poetic and meaningful. It’s a beautiful place after all, designed for the World’s Fair I think in 1867 by Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, who filled it full of fake islands and cliffs and pavilions perched on top of tiny hidden meadows. On nice weekends it’s full of families, and the nice scrubbed couples who bear no resemblance to the gangs of angry teenagers, the occasional flasher I’d see when I lived in the neighborhood yonks ago, and used to go stare at the ducks. But once inside I just felt tired and a little depressed. So what you’ll get are random, unimportant facts.
Things I saw:
Six firemen jogging really fast up a really steep slope
Three non-firemen joggers
Seven walkers
97 dogs, both accompanied and alone, among them a golden retriever trailing a really long leash that it had tangled up in some bushes until its human came, chiding it, “What have you gotten into now?”
A group of Chinese ladies doing the Chinese equivalent of Jazzercise to really perky music at the top of one deserted hill
An abandoned book opened at the foot of a tree
No men whacking off in the more remote bushes as there usually are, maybe because of the early hour, or because of the previous night’s rain
Things I smelled:
Autumn leaves
Wet grass
Piss, quite a lot of piss
Things I didn’t think about:
How U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband just got brained by a hammer that was meant for her.
How kids were stampeded to death at a Halloween celebration in Seoul, South Korea.
How Ukrainians are suffering because of Russia’s imperialist ambitions, which, when thwarted, were transformed into war crimes galore, first rape, torture, and summary executions, now indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure which will make for a very cold, very dark, hungry winter there.
How the leftist politician and former president Lula da Silva squeaked past one-term far-right, rain forest deforesting incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who may or may not concede, casting doubt on the validity of the election even before votes were cast, following a very Trumpian blueprint.
How, not only is Britain stiffing several climate funds of approximately 300 million pounds but, after showing strong leadership at the climate conference in Scotland last year, won’t be repped at the upcoming one because last week’s prime minister, Liz Truss, told the king to stay out of it because she was going, but this week’s PM is staying home, and “COP26 President Alok Sharma was dropped from Sunak’s Cabinet, also ending his job as domestic climate czar. British Climate Minister Graham Stuart also left the Cabinet.”
Neither did I think about how joyful and brave women in Iran are.
Ditto for the women of Afghanistan
I didn’t think about any of that until I got home and turned on my screen, and even then, didn’t think but felt— a little sick—not just about some of the things I read, but how the reality of those people, places, events was distorted by the inadequacy of language, and made to seem so fake and faint there’s no real way to make sense of it.
In Other News…
There are sheep and rabbits in temporary residence in our neighborhood!
I had a video up on Instagram—the last thing I posted there—but apparently I’ve run afoul of community guidelines and had my account suspended, for… posting about sheep?
Disgruntledly yours,
xoxo K