Category Archives: Digressions

Sometimes I feel like my ignorance knows no limites. Besides not speaking French, I am more than clumsy with numbers. Actually, I am a mathematic imbecile and suffer from math-phobia. My ignorance and idiocy were even further apparent when I just recently learned that the French don’t literally say “eighty” or “ninety” but rather “four, twenty” for 80 and “four twenty ten” for ninety.

My initial reaction upon learning this snippet of “culture” was one of utter ethnocentrism. In other words, I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. It was inefficient, pompous, antiquated, backwards, and alienating (it prejudices against the mathematically-challenged). Then I decided to be less harsh. I consulted with a few French speaking friends. I even brought up the matter with colleagues and discovered that the same numerical construct existed in Euskera as well. So after more calm and collected deliberation and an attempt at being more open minded and tolerant, I began to slowly accept the Francophones’ inalienable right to self expression.

Now I have accepted it, but that doesn’t mean that I am totally comfortable with it all. The reason why? It is a dangerous world, and besides being ignorant and mathematically challenged, I am also naive. Allow me to explain. Continue reading →

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

The first line of V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River is very provocative. Naipaul spares no one any pity or compassion in his portrayal of a brutal world. But, I am not sure that I would fully agree.

In Paris on Sunday, I was having a late lunch in a restaurant and was reminded of something I had noticed in Ibiza on my way to Formentera last year, life is better when you speak fewer languages:

At the port, I also learned another interesting piece of information about myself: I am perfectly happy to only speak English and Spanish. What I love is the sound of language. It is great to be able to listen to language and not understand the words. That way you can project any meaning onto the words that you choose or simply enjoy the words as if they were the sounds coming from musical instruments. What is worst of all is when you actually understand what is being said and are forced to follow someone else’s conversation. You learn that people have the most irrelevant, mundane, and even offensively simple-minded verbal exchanges. It is analogous to having someone fart on the elevator. They are sharing their innermost bodily stink with you, the doors are shut, and there is no where to go for fresh air. So, I sat and listened, mainly to Mallorquín being spoken, and loved every minute of it.

And when the person sitting next to you is from your own country and you overhear his conversation, especially when he is saying repeated, “I’m going to be totally honest with you,” you really want to puke! We often think of “prejudice” as a negative thing, but it is also an important defense mechanism that allows us to make split second decisions about how to react to certain stimuli. In other words, “prejudice” (and I am not talking about “racial prejudice” but the ability to make pre-determinations) keeps us from dealing with such incredible merde. Continue reading →

Sorry for going back to my poor quality, low-artisian videos, but sometimes I just can’t resist. Here is “Isn’t It a Lovely Day” by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald (which I have referenced before) to the view of Pont Neuf in Paris, first as the day is only gray and then as it turns to rain. Having known it was going to rain, I was all prepared for the view and for the song.

And yes, I know. It is time for a new camera.

This afternoon I set out for Barajas Airport in Madrid at 5:00pm for a 6:40pm flight to Paris. As always, I got into a very nice conversation with the taxi driver. Of course, the tax driver missed the Terminal 4 exit because we were chatting, and we got lost trying to weave our way back to right terminal. Luckily, I still made it to my gate on time.

After last Sunday night’s Barcelona to Madrid fiasco, where my flight landed in Madrid at 2:15am instead of 9:30pm due to an electrical storm, I spent all week checking Paris’ weather to make sure I didn’t have to repeat the same ordeal. Unfortunately, the forecasts all predicted storms for Friday night. And guess what? Continue reading →

I have recently noticed that the number of visits to Grave Error have diminished over the past two months. One option to increase visits may be to improve the quality and interest of the posts that I publish. But this option seems like a lot of effort without necessarily ensuring the desired result. Another option is to start writing about sex or introducing lewd terminology that is often searched for by “curious” Internet surfers. So, let’s begin with a simple reflection after reading Savage Love. Those easily scandalized should read a different post! Continue reading →

I don’t know what it is or what it means, but recently I have had really bad luck with flight delays. Last night, I had a flight from Barcelona at 8:30pm, expecting to land in Madrid around 9:30pm. But with my luck, there was an electrical storm in Madrid that forced the authorities to shut down the airport for three hours. The result was that my flight left Barcelona at 1:00am, and I arrived in Madrid at 2:15am. If that’s not bad enough, it took me another hour and a half in the taxi line to get back home. I finally got to bed at 4:00am.

Yes, there is a point to this. During my extended delays, I had little else to do but to watch people. And my conclusion was something like The Smiths‘ song “Some Girls are Bigger than Others.” Continue reading →