Hiding dying birds in French

My step-mother is French-Canadian, from a small town a couple hours outside of Montreal. She left home before she was 20. I don't remember the exact order of her travels, but some of her early English adventures included traveling around the United States, and there are yellowy pictures of her in little 70s bikinis in Las Vegas or wherever.

Anyway, the Step-mommy had this little office in our new house, and one of my distinct memories is of sitting in there and her telling me about how she learned English. She used to read Agatha Christie books in French and in English, and another book she read to learn English was The Thornbirds. Or: The Birds Hide to Die.

That's what the French translation means. Les Oiseaux se cachent pour mourir. I always remembered because my stepmother thought it was such a stupid translation. (And it's not even accurate. It's really: The birds throw themselves upon a thorn and sing the sweetest song they've ever sung to die.)

I guess if it was an accurate translation of the actual term for a thornbird, it would be excusable, but apparently they're called "les synallaxes." (That's the French, not the Latin.)

So I was excited to come across The Hiding Birds today on TV in French! It's a fine family tradition to practice another language using The Thornbirds. I was even in time to watch Meggy and Ralph getting it on on the beach. Now she's telling off Luke in front of his macho friends. "...que je ne to revois pas jamais!"

McCullough is great. Like the other 80s writers Thornbirds was a multigenerational family saga full of trashy ups and downs, but she gets the psychology of the characters just right. The relationships between the mothers and daughters are really interesting, as well as the whole ambition theme.

My magical talking cat

This CVing is killing me. I'm procrastinating like I'm a student all over again! I must be having a psychological block. It's traumatic. I caught up on a few blogs yesterday, but not the Betties (69 unread posts!)

I just wrote ONE LINE. And felt I could reward myself by coming here to tell you that Minion has become so talkative! She wasn't very talkative when she first arrived here, but she's learned this is how one must communicate with the hu-mahns.

I looked at her just now and it was all "Squemreeemoewmeow!"

The other day Fernando woke up and came out and she ran to him and spoke for a good 30 seconds. I don't know if she was saying goodmorning or telling him everything she did since he went to bed.

And when I push her off somewhere she's not supposed to be it's never without a loooong protest.

When I picked her up from the vet recently I was wondering with the vet tech whether it was warm enough (considering that she was recovering from being ill) to take her on the bus home and save some money and suddenly she said: "Meowrowreeeeowrowrowmeowmeowrow!" I looked down at the cage in surprise and said: "Fine, I'll spring for the 20 bucks, geez!" And she replied with another indignant meow, and then was pretty quiet.

Apparently she chirruped EVERY time someone went past her cage too. The tech knew every time someone walked past cause she heard: "Brrrip?"

It's pretty amusing.

But amusing won't get the CV written.

whattoread

Sorry, I may have given a mistaken impression in my last posting when I said things were "peaceful." I didn't mean to imply that the cats were acting peaceful... just normal. Which is peaceful to me. In reality Minion is bugging the crap out of Haley. Meaning, life is back to normal. Re a reader comment, I'm not so sure Minion has really come face to face with the fact of her mortality. From the way she flings herself from to and from the furniture, I'm not convinced.

Just finished reading a novel, time to pick another. Better get back to a French book. Got to decide if I want something light or literary or what. I don't have as much Light in French. Harder to find, at least stuff that's inexpensive. May have to depend on the library, come to think of it. Even though I live in such an Anglophone community, my library carries a ton of French books--almost as much as the English, except there just isn't as much available in French as in English. I'm not sure if that's because there are more Francophones around here than I realize, or has something to do with government funding.

Anyway, decide tomorrow. Must go to bed. Here I am going to bed at a good hour (4 AM) but stupid daylight savings makes it seem like a naughty time (5 AM). I should be working for a jazz club, or for a rock star or something.

movies and les films and la télé

So after the horror of Le Nèg, the next day I watched a sort of romantic comedy called Les Crabes dans la tête (Soft Shell Man in English, but it's a French-Quebec movie). It was great. Yesterday I watched a translated Breakfast Club while picking out pictures for my collage. I was never a John Hughes fan because I didn't identify with any of his characters, but the scene where they're all sitting around admitting why they're really there was even better than I remembered. It's too bad their careers all got Hughes-stink on them and they ended up as silly extras in other people's comedies.

Today I watched another episode of Toute la vérité (exshellent) and started up Fortier again since it's something I can watch while doing other stuff (yet it's still SO GOOD!) Then Fernando and I watched Snow Walker and Nanny McPhee (in English.)

My current French problem: My dictionary widget is too good. Each definition has the kind of information you get in big fat heavy dictionaries that you only need at the university level. Not what you need when you're looking for a quickie 5-word definition. I'm trying to find another one...

Ho hum, that's about it. Life's been good this week since the cat came back. Peaceful and unremarkable. I'm back to my old self-adoodle.

My new favorite French phrase: "Hansel. Il est tellement tendance."

I have a very old fashioned cable setup, so if I'm taping something on digital cable, I can't watch something else. (This is how you live on a low income with no debt, my friends. No PVR in this household yet. Just sayin'.)

So if I'm taping something I don't want to watch yet, I put on a DVD. My new thing is to find which of my DVDs have French dubbing!

Tonight was Zoolander. Next I'm starting Angels in America.

Richard Dawkins Cites His Other Writings

Maewitch sent me this site: betterbooktitles. I found that the funniest ones were the ones for books I hadn't even read, because they were just true for a great number of books.

 

 

And then there's this book which bang on expresses the joy I felt at the end of this book (and it's a spoiler so you've been warned. The book is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.)

I don't think "Cicatrisé pour la vie" is a French expression, but what's the equivalent?? (sob sob sob)

"In the middle of the night, in the Quebec countryside, all hell breaks loose as a black teenager is caught smashing a racially denigrating lawn ornament. Together the neighbours attend to justice against the vandal. Thorough the night there is mounting racism, fueled by alcohol, and violence. Le Nèg' opens the morning after when the police investigators arrive at the scene to take depositions." 

I'm totally traumatized. For some reason my vague impression had always been that this movie was about racism in a small town, but a satirical/nonviolent approach to the topic. It's not. It's brutal. Excellent movie, but holy mother of an oh my God. Horrifying.

At one point there was a word I didn't understand, but that I was pretty sure I understood based on context. I paused the movie to check in the dictionary, and the whole time I was praying: "Please don't let it mean what I think it means, please don't let it mean what I think it means..." It did and now I feel scarred for life.