The Man Feet Conspiracy (for Marina the Nut)

Today, dear readers, we shall talk about shoes. It’s a light enough subject for everyone's hangover, and most important, if we don’t, we will receive a letter bomb from our cousin Marina. Marina thinks that every blogger is famous and powerful – which proves once again that you need more than a high IQ to understand the world – and therefore relies on us to “further” her “cause”.

Marina has “had it with shoe manufacturers, from Gucci to Gortz”. (Presumably the latter is a crappy German shoe manufacturer.)

Marina the Nut, you see, is a self-described “petite southern beauty” who lives in Germany. She wears a minute and permanently sold-out shoe size of “35 - and even a little smaller!” She claims, that she can have a fair chance to find a shoe that fits, only when she visits the children’s department.

And for years she has been buying “any relatively decent pair that fits” (including insoles) out of insecurity that it will take years before she finds another “decent pair that fits”. The availability situation got worse and worse year by year. Eventually there was not a single shop in her town that would sell adult shoes of size 35 (US 5.5?), “not even Gortz”. (“What do you expect when there are children’s shoes of size 47? What the hell are they feeding them? Is it the sausages?”) She was compelled to look for shoes every single time she traveled. When she went to France, she trusted that Paris would be the paradise of petite elegance. Oh how her hopes were shattered! Et tu, Printemps?

She was doomed to wear out her small, weird collection, having it perpetually repaired, till the end of time.

Until, that is, she discovered that Gucci had launched their on-line shop in Germany! Starting from size 34! Finally, her Visa Gold would be put to noble use! She ordered her first truely decent pair of shoes at exactly the right size (“34,5! Smaller than Kylie Minogue!”) as soon as the new winter collection came out – in the middle of a heat wave in July. Wise of her. The waiting list closed in the blink of an eye.

Alas, her dream shoes never arrived: three months later she was informed that her order was not available any more. Furious and frustrated, she went back online to discover that the “Absolute Average size 37” remained available in all models. Her high IQ could not conceive why any company – be it Gucci or Gortz – would produce too much of one size and too little of another and create such disparity of demand vs offer. Haven't their business strategists noticed the desperate market of little women out there who remain hungry and loaded?

And that’s how she turned paranoid – and very, very rude. In her words:

“I’m telling you, this is a conspiracy amongst those ugly, big, asexual towers of women, who are envious of their petite sisters. They want to destroy our looks. They are out for us. I Hate them and their ugly bony faces and their enormous lumberjack shoulders and their disgusting spider toes.”

She must have been in tears when she emailed us:

“I can take it from Gortz, but from Gucci? Do they really think it serves their image to produce shoes for my boss and her likes – and that includes Godzilla? She has man feet for chrissakes! Does Signora Giannini have man feet too?”

--

As a not-so-big woman with no man feet, Mimi (who is typing this, in case you're wondering), sympathizes by default. But Roufa (who is mumbling out his thoughts next to her), isn’t indifferent either. His wife’s little stiletto can stand on the palm of his hand. He can’t imagine there’s anything sensual about holding a freighter in your hand. And who would like to drink champagne out of a Viking’s clog? (He said that.)

In any case, we agreed to tell our cousin's story, and if anybody out there is reading, we would encourage you to write a few words of support for Marina. And who knows, if she is right and there are enough of you out there sharing her drama, maybe you can fight, impose your terms, turn the tables.

And if you have any tips for her, as to where, if at all, she can find shoes in Germany, in Europe, and neighborhood therof, you are welcome too. She isn't going to Singapore any time soon (a Burberry sales assistant in Frankfurt advised her to look there).

You Exhibitionist!

When WWII ended, in one of our grandparents' birthplace -- a spartan, battered mountain village in the Very Old World (now a ski resort) -- international help arrived in the form of powdered milk, chocolate, clothes, and other necessities. The children loved the chocolate, and our then-child grandparent (now a well-to-do retiree) still raves about it. The women of the village, on the other hand, were mesmerized by the clothes. Those beautiful garments had arrived, camisoles and 'combinaisons' in sleek fabrics and wonderful colors (donated by rich bourgeoisie from the city, who the black market had gracefully seen through the hard times). The tough village women were not immune to beauty. They had had a tough life, alright, but that doesn't mean that they did not produce marvelous embroidery or that they did not like to dress up on Sunday for church. The war was over! The women fought over the shiny underwear like the children over the chocolate – and made sure to show off every Sunday, wearing them above their normal clothes.

Superman has a similar approach to underwear.

--

Call us happily married, but we prefer to show our underwear to each other only. If you must show yours in public, as long as we don't have to put up with your crack, your vast derri`ere, your Hairy Monster, and/or naked flesh of butchershop-display texture, we will keep an open mind. In any case, you may end up immortalized in your grandchildren's blog.

--

Have a lovely weekend, our dear readers, and don't forget to air yourselves sufficiently. We won't be blogging, as usual.

I Want Candy

It is understandable. It was scandalous to show all that candy to the Atkins generation. But Marie Antoinette was not booed at Anorexics Anonymous, but rather at the Cannes Film Festival, the New York Times Readers Reviews Online and places frequented by the Cult of the European Beret. Come to think of it, there was probably not enough sex for them in the bloody movie. Hardly any, actually!

Loosen up, darlings, don't look like you've got candy stuck up your Arsch! It's a movie, not Au contraire: A Revisionist's disdain for the French Revolution.

(Well, it sounds like a volume that Nova Publishers should publish – a trilogy: Egalite', Fraternite', Sexualite'.)

--

We spent a few days in Paris recently. We stayed right at the Place Pigalle, a minute's walk from the Museum of Erotic Art on one direction and from the Dirty Dick Club on the other. Two minutes from the Moulin Rouge. We walked along a street with numerous sex shops every day. Inspiring as this setting was for our private life, it threatened our sense of reality. One morning we spotted this complicated bodice/belt in a shop window, in some dirty skin color, and complete with elaborate fastenings and buttons. Roufa's eyes twinkled, “Look how kinky!” he exclaimed. The shop was actually a pharmacist's. The belt was an orthopedic back support.

You didn't hear it from us

...but if you have invested in China, it is about time to start preparing your exit strategy. We know because when we don't watch movies we watch the news. And we are very considerate people, so we had to tell you.

--

Monday. We have to water Sven – or the tension on his angry prickles will grow extremely dangerous.

Blogging was not invented in France

The French railway workers are on strike, this time because the new government wants to strip them of several benefits; some of them retire at age 50. The German railway workers are on strike too; they retire at age 67. Who's got the fastest trains? The French! Vorsprung durch Technik! It is obvious to us that the Germans have something to learn from the French here. It is obvious to the Germans too, that's their struggle. But Americans and their likes are really baffled by the French, they are jealous of them and lovehate them, because the French appear to enjoy life -- even when they are not at work.


In the following we quote the new finance minister of France remembering her good old days at Baker & McKenzie with nostalgia:

"The more hours you worked, the more hours you billed, the more profit you could generate for yourself and your firm. That was the mantra."

Well, she's now in a position to work her frustrations on the French people. This Delphine-Roux-success-story – who still cannot argue with a cabdriver, let alone the French unionists -- went on to deliver the following punch-line and find her place in stand-up politics:

"What was really striking to me when I came back from Chicago in 2005 was that the law on the 35-hour week had passed and [...] had produced disastrous effects. [...] People did not really talk about their work. They talked about their long weekends."

Anyway, this week's Golden Banana goes to Christine Lagarde and Roger Cohen for this.

--

With this and with that we wish you a lovely weekend. Of course we won't be blogging during the weekend, we keep it for when we suffer the office bore-out. So here's your homework: recite ten times and upload to your blog the following Blackadder moment:

"I've no desire to hang around with a bunch of upper-class delinquents, do twenty minutes' work and then spend the rest of the day loafing about in Paris drinking gallons of champagne and having dozens of moist, pink, highly experienced French peasant girls galloping up and down my - hang on..."

Who's Afraid of Virgin Wool?

Do parallel universes exist? Of course! We get to peek into them when we watch movies! In the world we peeked into yesterday, genetically engineered sheep attacked and bit people, who in turn mutated instantly into carnivorous sheep and so on. That was in Black sheep from New Zealand. Tough place to suffer amnophobia. What an idea! Hilarious.

Not all movies are legitimate, though. Look at Babel. What promises! What premises! What pretenses! It's about prejudice, clashes of civilizations, illegal immigrants, terrorism... Well, LA crash was not a revelation and much less was Babel. Babel is not a movie. The characters do not have free will. They just do what the Masterplan says they should do. They don't even die when they bleed to death, for crying out loud, unless perhaps they happen to be Moroccan mountain boys and somewhat retarded. Spoiler! Ok, here's the real story: A deaf and very unhappy Japanese teenager (and volleyball player -- only her name is not Lynn and her father is not deaf, but he may still own a Samsung) goes about her business around Tokyo wearing a nano-mini pleated skirt (her school's uniform, presumably) and no panties. Now we got your attention.

The movie we still have to buy on DVD is Brick. And probably Little Miss Sunshine. And Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Now, those are worlds worth beholding.

--

Sheep, sharks, bats, teenagers... The mightiest beast of all is our cactus Sven. He is a dark-green ball with long, curved, yellow prickles. He looks like a tanned Viking, so we call him Sven. He lurks on the coffee table and attacks careless resting feet and coffee-picking hands that intrude on his territory. He deserves to be famous.

Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment

Hurrah! A new blog! You are delightfully welcome! This is actually a bblogg: whetever it is, it is maintained by two people. That’s myself, Mimi, and my husband, Roufa. And we are as silly as our names suggest.

What can you expect from our elaborations? Well, we can hardly predict. What do we expect? Ditto. So let's open a book at random:

--We practice a disoriented religion. We belong to an unholy disorder, we call ourselves “Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment.”--

There you go.

Let our motto for today be the teachings of Brian – the one with the Holy Sandal:

--You do not need people to tell you what to do! You are all individuals! --

To which we must reply aloud and in unison:

--Yes! We are all individuals! --

Hurrah!