2/21/2011

Tongue Tied Dream

I had a dream the other night that I walked out of the house I grew up in and just outside the door was the Zen teacher I saw for 6 or 7 years. He brought a crowd of people with him from Latin America and they smiled at me because they thought I could speak Spanish (and understand them I guess).

But I frantically tried to warn them that I only understood a little. I said

Lo siento, pero hablamos solamente palabras simplice


I was trying to say I only spoke in simple words, except I was horribly tongue tied and struggled to say palabras and it was like my tongue wouldn't work right. And of course in my dream I know simiplice is Italian for simple (or should it have been simplici?) and I was frustrated because I couldn't remember the Spanish word for “simple” but kept saying the Italian word. Which is all more strange since the English and Spanish words are basically the same thing...simple = simple

AND I don't know why I used hablamos (we speak) rather than hablo (I speak)

But the crowd of people with the Zen teacher in the foreground just smiled at me pleasantly and didn't say anything.

So I couldn't say words and could not remember anything simple

2/06/2011

The Only Way it Clicks!

The Thin ManThe Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

I always enjoyed the early Thin Man Movies and coming off reading The Maltese Falcon I went straight into Hammett's The Thin Man. I quite like it but in print the constant drinking is a little less charming than in the movie.

A pleasant read and for good and bad it shows it came from a different era. Even if it almost seems Hammett is making a parody of himself.

Prize lines:

Studsy returned alone. “Maybe I'm wrong,” he said as he sat down, “ but I think somebody could do something with that cluck if they took hold of her right.”

.....

After a while she asked: “Is Mamma in love with you?”

“Good God , No! She hates men more than any woman I've ever known who wasn't a Lesbian.”

......

“Then you're not sure he-”

“Stop saying that. Of course we're sure. That's the only way it clicks.”

.....

“But it seems so loose”

“When murders are committed by mathematicians, “ I said. “you can solve them by mathematics”

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