i just saw a disturbing and disturbingly bad movie, suspicious river. i didn’t know anything about it, just that it was in english. next time, more research.
on another note, i was reading saranwarp and whatever-whenever while dying my hair tonight, and it occurred to me that i’m really far from new york. it’s only been a month, but i’ve forgotten about the stifling heat, the dizzying cycle of trendy bars. though i’m not even close to being involved in any scenes here, everything seems a lot looser, slower kinda. i walk about twice as fast as anyone here, and i’ve never thought of myself as a particularly fast walker either.
i’m going to new york on wed for the weekend. i really don’t miss the city much. i wish my friends and my cat would just all come here for the weekend. i really miss my cat, it didn’t occur to me that i’d miss a pet so much. i didn’t used to miss her when i was away at school.. odd.
but i’m surprised myself. i don’t really want to walk around in the oppressive humidity, with the sidewalks practically seizing from the heat (yeah, i’m starting to remember now).
i am looking forward to being able to hold my own during the ordinary transactions of life, such as buying a mop. just thinking about how easy it will be to ask a question about something in a store kinda thrills me. darleen reccomeded i read “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris about his struggles with the french language while living in paris. notable quotable from the book via an amazon reviewer:
“It’s a pretty grim world when I can’t even feel superior to a toddler.”
you said it, brother!
while we’re at it, something else from the book i’m reading now Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian.
i thought this was nice:
People said trees have feelings and tree demons are sensitive just like people and don’t like being tickled. If you poked something into the hole of the trunk, the tree would shake all over laughing, just like when you tickled her under the arms and she immediately pulled away and laughed until she was out of breath.
it’s that kind of book.
nighty night now.
currently reading a good blog: gus via jami. even tho i am being charged 13 cents a minute for this connection by totally uninternational earthlink. and it’s a dialup.
you don’t really really have to refridgerate mustard after opening do you?
fridgeless (that’s kinda a cool word)
so it’s been a few days since the last post, and much has happened. well mostly i’ve just done a lot stuff. i do have a telephone line now, but no actual working telephone yet. which is okay since i only need the line for the internet. i also finally got a little table/desk at a flea market in the porte de montreuil today. it was a “bon marche” (which means cheap, but really directly translates to “good buy”. there is no word for cheap.. hmm telling?). if i feel really attached to it and to my home i’ll strip it and repaint it cause it really is quite cute. i’m really into the table, must be because i’ve been doing everything on the floor or on my couch/bed thing. tables are just so handy! i ordered that camera yesterday and am very excited. i’ll get to post pictures of my table and my cute little street and like notre dame and stuff to.
anyway the flea market was great. i gotta go back again and get other stuff. there’s a lotta old school used clothing shopping to done too. the kind where you dig through piles and piles of shit. i just didn’t have the stamina for it today though. i gotta really psych myself up for that. ya know carbo load.
i’m currently putting some bright red streaks in my hair. so i’m sitting here with one of these completely ridiculous dying caps on. these dying kits are so fucking funny. i don’t think the illustrations on the directions have changed a bit since the 50s. if i had a scanner i’d put em all over my site. also i am making progress on neille.com v3.0. stay tuned for updates.
so i tried to go out on my own to bastille, a hoppin part of the city on friday night. it was a total bust. i couldn’t get 5 steps without being hassled. it was quite unpleasant, you know, this is the one part of being a woman that is really unfair and really pisses me off. if you are a guy you can travel all over the damn planet and do what ever you want without giving it a second thought. as a chick, nasty guys make sure we have to be on our guard constantly. it isn’t nearly this bad in nyc. i guess it’s the latin culture here. everyone keeps telling me if i’m so out of sorts about it here i should definitely not go to italy. well i won’t go alone that’s for sure. i swear i’m not just being a culturally insensitive american. i mean it’s not like if a guy just talks to me i get all freaked. there’s just a lot of following and invading personal space involved, the kind where i can tell exactly what the guy just had for lunch. and usually it’s onions, bleh.
on saturday night i was far less ambitious and was actually not planning on doing anything but it was quite hot, and because no one uses screens here, the minute i open my windows all the bugs think i’m havin a party or somethin. the night before i killed half a dozen whose guts are currently the only art on my walls. lovely, no? so i just escaped with no bra and no plan and wandered into the first bumpin bar blasting daft punk. oh, did i mention i’m in the gay section of paris? so i had 2 “geeentoneeks” completely unbothered. there was one really hot girl and all the rest were big queens who’d rather eat dirt than talk to me. perfect!
one highlight of the weekend was when i was sitting on the bank of the seine watching the sunset, i got a call on my cell from my dad. so i was swingin my legs talking to him, looking quite parisian i suppose on account of this awesome summer hat i got at another flea market, les puces in porte de clingnacourt. and one of these big tourist boats came sailing by. a woman in a chador (an islamic veil) took a video of me. i threw down a peace sign – california style. now i’ll be in someone’s travel memories. that’s pretty cool. it’s a great hat. it’s gotten a lot of attention.
oops – time for a check on the hair…
i don’t have too much time today
tho unfortunatly i do have lots to say
(nice rhyme, eh?) i’m only at work for a coupla hours and then off to meet france telcom to install a phone line and dsl (if i can say that in french). then off to ikea. it’s open late tonight. so i can get myself a futon and a mirror. i know i will probably end up getting all sorts of other crap, but a girl can be hopeful…
i was perusing my log files this morning and was quite shocked to discover the absolutely nastyness that pulls up neille.com on the search engines. my mom was right, i realy ought to stop using such bad fucking language.
following are Top Search Phrases:
lukeworld.com
mouth fucking
nil
nil by mouth
denoument
heather havrilesky
evaluation for technical writing
picasso erotique two women on bed
shit in mouth picture (this one’s particularly nice)
fuelray
nil shah
stranger inside
suck mouth ass
www.areosmith.com videos
writing user requirements
design by chopping block
mouth fuck
ups-call-center
i need to come over and wash y’alls keyboards out with soap. pervs!
yes yes y’all
it’s a new section y’all
just to the right, as you can see
called AIM – bite. it’s like a sound bite, but from the wonderful world of instant messaging. hopefully i’ll update it more often than i do the picture. which, yes i know sorely needs to be replaced. i’d get on that a lot faster if someone would buy me a camera.
so if i wasn’t feeling disconnected enough my entire hosting service has gone kaput today. no web page no emails – it’s raining and i don’t feel like doing anything so i thought i’d try my luck at one of these internet cafes that’s all the rage with the kids these days.
I’ve finally moved in to my new place and i am begining to feel like a real person again.. sorta. these french keyboards are a bit weird which is also disconcerting. it takes me forever to do little things. funny that languge is so damn important. who’d a thunk it?! buying a mop this week has been quite a challenge. you can’t buy a whole mop here; you have to buy the stick; then the bottom piece; then the friggin cloth. i think i have evrything finally – all thats left is the assembly. jeez it would take less effort to get down on my hands and knees and lick the damn floor clean.
well the typing aggravation is too much here – and i cant even post this so i’m outta here.
i need a damn drink.
ok – advice to fellow websfroggers (yeah i jus made that shit up – i was going for something that sounded a bit like Robespierre and i was thinking of him.. god knows why). If yer gonna use a browser sniffer, make sure you’ve left room for more than just evil IE and narly netscape. there is a small but strong group of us who do things our own way. Let Us In!
I went and saw Apocalypse Now Redux (courtesy of the chopping block) at my local french art movie house. In France they are all art movie houses (rad). It has almost an hour of new footage and weighs in at apx three and half hours now. Luckily the seats in the theater are wayyyy comfy (rad). The thing cost me 25FRF (apx $3USD) owing to me being under 25 yrs (fucking rad). The last time i saw Apocalypse Now it was on video on a 14″ TV in a teeny and sweltering east village closet… err.. apt that i lived in one summer. Far different viewing experiences. But both were scary and claustrophobic in a way. This time was better, way better. Also when you’ve been struggling to communicate in a foreign language, seeing a film in good-ole-american is a breath of fresh air, kinda.
I think Apocalypse Now is brilliant. The new scenes are really perfect too. I thought since it had been nearly 5 years since i had last seen it i wouldn’t be able to distinguish the new stuff. But it’s a testament to how good it was the first time around that i remembered every part that i had seen before.
It was hard to not pay attention to the subtitles so i tried to use it as a french exercise. I learned a couple new words, which i have promptly forgotten. I was mostly struck by how shitty subtitles are. One particularly egregious example, when Robert Duvall asks how one of the gunners on his helicopters is feeling before they go out and blow a Vietnamese village to dust, he replies, “Like a mean mutherfucker, SIR!” The subtitle translation is “Ca Va!”
grr… it can only mean worse for English subtitles. I better light a fire under my french.
Anyway, it was a hard movie to see alone. Three and half hours and then no one to have a stiff drink and talk it over with. It was late Sunday night so i wasn’t inclined to take my chances alone somewhere. I like seeing movies alone usually, but this one was tough. It certainly is getting a bit lonely out here i must confess. I’ll leave the more artistic discussions of the film for a night out over a coupla stiff drinks. But on a personal note the film made me miss two things kind of poignantly. The first is Burning Man which i will be unable to attend this year due to severe distance. But to be frank, i was kind of waiting for an excuse to skip it because last year’s weather really took a toll on me, and i think i camped in a situation that was really less than ideal for me. The movie is, of course, like a big acid trip. Which makes sense since from what i’ve read, practically everyone involved was tripping balls the entire time. And anyway, sheeet, i wanna go play in the crazy scary trippy desert, wah!
The second is men. Lots of sweaty macho male bodies in this one obviously. It’s been a long time that I’ve been single now, actually the longest since I first started dating. And there’s something about guys really. The physical differences, i miss it. The square shoulders, the curve of biceps, an icing of chesthair… If only they weren’t such a goddamn pain!
On that note, a bietot! I might work a bit now. more later, mes amis.
well – i’ve been curiously absent here. partly because my thoughts have been kind of incoherent lately and partly because i have the urge to bitch a little bit, but pretty much everyone in my life reads this (even if just occasionally), and i am beginning to catch some heat from things i say. hmm it’s a hard one…
so obviously one of the biggest challenges here is the language. it’s totally changing my personality. the men here are fucking relentless. one particularly persistent creature followed me home on the bus the other day. he was sayin all sortsa stupid shit like, “i can see in your eyes you are a really romantic person.” and when i shot him my step-off look he said that my resistance was a cultural thing. ordinarily, i have a hundred and one snappy retorts for lines like this, but in my present language-impaired state, i was transformed into a mute. on the bus, he leaned in real close and asked me if i believed in god. obviously i start cracking up. he said, “is that a no?” me, speachless… oh let me also point out that he stank sooooo bad. fellas, if you’re gonna go out and shamelessly hit on a girl, it’s imperative that you bathe at least once that week. and eat a friggin breath mint! sheesh. also today at the bus stop this other stinky guy came over and started in with the “je te trouve tres charmante” bit. this is the standard line, i gather. this time i was prepared and told him i didn’t want to talk. after repeating that apx 6 times he wandered back into whatever hole he came from. am i sounding bitchy? i think i’m compensating for the sweet shy girl this country mistakes me for.
i miss smart-ass neille!
meanwhile, i have a renewed vigor for gnutella. did i mention i looooove the new aaliyah. also i found a bunch of tracks off the latest common album and also Talib Kweli who used to be in Blackstar. both got more bump than acne (tee hee). i have some samples in the downloads section. help yourself.
in the meanwhile – i’m going to drop some stuff at the new pad. i move tomorrow morning and i can not wait!
New Angeles Monthly, June 2008
Weekend America, March 30, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2008
Nil by Mouth is written by Neille Ilel. Neille is a writer, reporter and user interface specialist in Los Angeles. If you think that's a lot, she's also got a host of meandering sidelines including improv comedy, tennis, cooking, drawing and thinking about learning to play the guitar.
Nil is her given name. It's a long story.
E-mail her here:
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