While You Were Sleeping

David Sedaris describes his problems with learning French:

‘Of all the stumbling blocks inherent in learning this language, the greatest for me is the principle that each noun has a corresponding sex that affects both its articles and its advjectives.

Because it is a female and lays eggs, a chicken is masculine. Vagina is masculine as well, while the word masculinity is feminine. Forced by the grammar to take a stand one way or the other, hermaphrodite is male and indecisiveness female.’

(David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day)

— From London (via Vienna).

indefensible:

We were talking this morning and we decided that a perfect night out would be to go to a bar, meet up with Anna and Jason Ras-Per prepared with a list of things that Anna and Erin could rant about while Jason and I sat there giggling like a couple of dopes.

It is 8:13 a.m. in Paris, I woke up about 20 minutes ago, I am scrolling through things, as you do, I read this and feel like someone just played Inception with me, while I was sleeping.

The dream: Erin, Ross, Jason and I are hanging out on lounge chairs in a park during one of those film nights out in the open. The guys are just lying there, drinking, Erin and I start whispering about something we hate in the movie, getting louder and more riled up… Provoking shushes left and right, and eventually, being asked to leave. We ragingly pick up bags and blankets, the guys pick up the bottles, and, Erin and I railing, Jason and Ross chuckling drunkenly, we walk away.

Spit it out, Ross, you and Erin are in Paris, just climbed into my room through the open window, and injected me with something. Right?

— SF, from Paris.

Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals for the U.S. at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, tells the story:

“When I passed the Chancellor, he arose, waved his hand at me and I waved back at him. Hitler didn’t snub me. It was Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram. When I came back to my native country, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus, I had to go to the back door. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I certainly wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either.”

Stephen Fry goes on:

“He had to use the goods lift of the Waldorf Astoria to get into the reception for returning U.S. athletes. He wasn’t allowed to use the front door.”

Story goes that on the first day, Hitler only congratulated the German athletes who won medals. Someone told him he either had to congratulate all winning athletes or none at all. He then decided to congratulate none, which is why he didn’t publicly salute Jesse Owens.

The things you learn in QI.

As an aside, I am reading - and recommending - The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. This book mentions, among other people, the Swedish economist and sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, who worked both in Germany and the American South in the 1930s and 1940s, and drew more than one parallel between Hitler’s Germany and the region that so happily kept segregation going. His findings were compiled in An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, an essay that heavily influenced the Supreme Court’s decision on Brown vs Board of Education.

— SF, from London this week.

statedept:

Today is Passport Day. U.S. passport agencies have extended hours, no appointment necessary. http://t.co/uEOm41jo @TravelGov

Late in the day, but there you go.

— From SF.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of idiotic job titles that were funny for about five minutes, have turned into sad clichés and, when they appear on a business card, make me quietly cringe at the person handing it to me and the organization they work for:

• Product “Evangelist”
• Productivity “Guru”
• Social Media “Champion”
• Tonsorial “Artist” (a hairstylist)
• Brand “Ambassador” (unless you are, in fact, a diplomat, or lend your face to UNICEF)
• Community “Rockstar”
• [repeat cycle] Brand “Missionary”
• Social Media “Expert”
• Online Presence “Optimizer”
• Virtual Word Developer
• Idea Inventor

None of these are funny. None of these are cute. None of these are creative. None of these are even, as you like to tell yourself, ironic. They are imbecilic and embarrassing to you, the company you represent, and those who have to do business with you. If you can unapologetically describe yourself as any of those things, please be aware that a great number of people in the real world will roll their eyes at you, at best, and at worst, not take you seriously, ever.

For your information, the Brits have much more accurate names for you, which you should feel free to use as titles instead. Here’s a quick selection, off the top of my head: fuck off, you self-important, tosser, wanker, twat.

— From SF, thanking you for your attention.