I learned a poetic new German word just now at the little health food shop. The man behind me had put just one item on the counter, a carton of Folgemilch. I asked him, “What is… follow milk?” “Well,” he began, and something about his tired, slightly harassed, but ever willing to be helpful expression […]
Went for a long wander in the forest with a local acquaintance to guide me. We climbed Berlin’s highest peak, which sounds more dramatic than it is. The lake is called Muggelsee and I had to use actions rather than words to explain what is a muggins, or muggles, in English: the kind of affectionate […]
A German’s interpretation of my Australian pronunciation of flasher just yielded the phantom of the flesher: a guy who walks round with his coat open, flashing people with his flesh. Having cherished sundry other examples like “this cost fifty bugs” and “you have a great bump” I was reluctant to point out the error – […]
Pleased as Punch, in that resinous phrase, that in my first days in Spain I worked out how to say, spelling notwithstanding, “Cafe descafinado con leche, por favor – cafe machinata – muy calliente, y con miele.” This is my strenous coffee order, what Melbourne baristas sneeringly call “the why bother” – in order to […]
Making a pun in a foreign tongue: Lord, but it makes me feel smart. My friend is pfaffing about online & calls me over as I drift past. “Look! My unicorn name is: Soft Beautiful Erdbeerkaese.” Soft, beautiful, strawberry cheese. “Wow!” I say. And then lightning strikes. “So if you ever became King of the […]
@………….. Sister-in-law: “Yeah that was my uncle who used to be a beekeeper. But then he lost all his bees.” Brother (mournfully): “Yeah. ‘I used to be a beekeeper but now I’m just… a keeper.’” Mum: “But he didn’t keep them, he didn’t keep them at all!” Brother: “‘I used to be a beekeeper, but […]
Are ignorance & arrogance the same thing? I think they are. My friend and I argue. He says, ignorance goes inside, arrogance goes towards the outside. Yes I say; but as you destroy your ignorance, as you realize we are all connected and part of one another, it becomes impossible to be arrogant. (Arrogantly I […]
Eddie McGuire, prominent Australian broadcaster, compares Adam Goodes, respected Aboriginal footballer, to King Kong. The conversation, outraged on both sides, focuses on whether or not Eddie “is” racist. Thus it gets nowhere because no one can establish what lurks in the depths of his heart. If a child gets run over “by accident”, or because […]
Group of academics at the breakfast table, they are five women and one man. “So it involves all of my areas of interest,” says one, “gendered language, and… I’ll be doing some structural violence…” She rolls her hand to indicate these topics are known and need not be enumerated. “Oh, interesting,” says her nearest neighbour. […]
This cafe has changed its muserly, miserly, whispery music for Neil Young. He owns the business. His voice is quiet but sure and it penetrates. People gain confidence in such good musical hands, or seem to, and soon the hushed conversation level has risen like water roaring and the blond baby sitting on his mamma’s […]
On the first day of life-drawing class the teacher said, the mistake you all keep making is, you are trying to draw the outline. ‘The outline is an abstraction,’ he pointed out: ‘it doesn’t exist.’ One of the challenges in learning to draw for the first time, as an adult, is to see past your own expectation of what ‘a face’ looks like.