"I've got nothing against Irish people, but..."

So I was in the Kilberry—one of Reims's "Irish pubs"—last week, like every week, for a well-deserved pint after hours of mind-numbing lessons. My mate introduces me to this guy who goes to our classes. I haven't even noticed him before. Anyway, before drinking his pint, this bloke raises his glass, and says—remember that we're in an Irish pub— "God save the Queen" (in a terrible French accent, incidentally). I tell the guy that, being Irish, I can't join him in a toast to the Queen—not that I have anything personal against old Lizzy; as far as monarchs go she's not too bad; I just don't give toasts to anyone in positions of power— and my mate and I laugh it off. I mean the guy is only joking after all, right? Right? A few moments later my mate goes out for a smoke, and I'm left alone with the royalist, who turns to me and says "You're Irish? Oh well could be worse". I stare at him blankly. "I'm joking", he says, "but I'm pro-British". I shrug, trying to indicate that I'm more interested in my glass of Belgian ale than in his political views. But he forces me into a monarchy vs republic debate, which turns out to be rather interesting. I'm starting to warm up to the guy—or at least I'm beginning to thaw—but then he says: "You know, I've got nothing against Irish people, but..." Of course this one of the phrases most used by bigots. (Take the similar phrase: "I'm not..., but I don't like...", fill the blanks with: racist/Blacks, homophobic/gays, anti-feminist/women, etc. and you get the same general effect). He then draws a list of all the traditional vices that Victorians liked to ascribe to Irish people. He was extremely anti-Catholic (although I later learnt that his girlfriend was Polish and Catholic), and I pointed this out to him, while telling him that I myself came from a Protestant background and that I was born in Northern Ireland. His face cleared and he said something like "Oh that's not so bad then". He didn't seem too happy when I told him that I wasn't a unionist. And he then went on to say how Irish Protestants are just the same as Irish Catholics (not in the sense that we should forget our differences because we have more in common than we think, but in the sense that all Irish people are obscurantist medieval monkeys), but I wasn't listening anymore because my glass was empty, and my mate was coming back from his smoke anyway.
But it was a strange experience. French people usually love the Irish as much as Americans do (and almost as much as the Irish do themselves) and although I'm used to hearing silly stereotypes repeated over and over again (sheep, leprechauns, Guinness, Bono) I know that those are meant as compliments. But this guy came out with things which were borderline racist, and were definitely anti-Irish. He told me his mum had English ancestors, so maybe old prejudices have been passed down to him that way? It's only the second time in my life that I've heard a French person talk like that (the other time was at a St Patrick's party six years ago, when a drunk French soldier told me that the British army should have wiped out all the Irish decades ago, and that basically Bloody Sunday must have been heaps of fun. Man I loooove the military). In any case it was very, very bizarre, and quite disturbing.

Quill in Hand

While reading a friend's poetry blog, I realised that I've been neglecting my own for a while. I was working at my Masters thesis this year, and now I'm preparing for that oh-so-French ordeal, the agrégation, so I haven't had much time to publish anything lately. The last time I completed a poem was over a year ago. But I haven't been completely unproductive. At the beginning of the year, around February I think, I had an idea for a novel. It partly evolved from a different project which I was working at the year before (see here for a snippet) and which was much too ambitious for me at the time, but most of it is new. I've been thinking it over during the past six months, trying to come up with a few things. I wrote a few scenes here and there. I managed to (mentally) paint the setting. During the summer I concentrated on the characters quite a bit. They are taking shape, coming to life, becoming "fuller", which is a lot of fun. Thanks to that, I've been able to concentrate on the plot more in the past few weeks. Nothing is fixed or definitive yet, of course, but I have an idea of what I want to get at. I don't want to talk about it too much yet, but I suppose you could say that it's a sort of coming-of-age story set around a second-hand bookshop (nope it's not a Black Books rip-off, as fun as that would be!) in a fictitious town in France. I've no idea if I'll ever finish it, or ever dare show it to anyone, but still, it's something which I'm starting to get quite excited about!

PS: this is a small text I'd written with the story in mind, but I've no idea if I'll include it or not.

Stories

Stories. That's one thing I couldn't do without. Like music, wine and chocolate.
In fact, it's probably something noone can do without. Stories are everywhere. In the films we see at the cinema, in the soaps we watch on the telly. The best songs are stories put to music—or music put to a story. Paintings often bring stories to life. Why is Mona Lisa smiling ? What happened to Van Gogh's ear ? What was Piet Mondrian trying to put in order, with his rigid perpendicular lines and sober squares ?

Advertisers are aware of our interest in stories. Brands like to pretend that they are several decades or even several centuries old, and often on the packages of their products you can read their "story". One of the most important trends in clothing and decorating is the "vintage look": clothes and objects have to tell a story or at least have a history.

Oral storytelling is probably as old as humanity itself, and every culture's mythologies are based on stories—more so than theology. History is boring when it's presented as a list of dates, intriguing when it tells the story of the people that lived ten, a hundred, a thousand years ago. Philosophy, religion and science become dogmatic when they concentrate on the particulars and forget the story.

Heck, we all like to have some amount of drama going in our own, real lives ; we all want to have a story to tell.

It was my grandfather who first introduced me to the world of stories. I remember him sitting in his old dark green armchair, resting his hands on his generous belly. I would sit facing him, on the sofa, my toes barely touching the floor, looking out of the window at the semi-detached red brick houses which surrounded the street. The only way you could tell them apart was by looking at the drain pipes, which hugged the walls like ivy: they were all painted in different colours. Brown, blue, green, yellow, white, red. Granny would come in to the living room, bringing me a cup of fresh milk and a plate with a buttered scone or a jam bun. Grampa would only get a cup of tea. He would give Granny a sad puppy dog look, but she would never yield. He, however, would always get a bar of chocolate or a biscuit from somewhere—he must have had a hidden stash. He would give me one, take a bite of his an say: "Well-now." Then his story would begin. About musketeers, with their swords, capes, and moustaches. About pirates, with their eye-patches, parrots, and panache. He would tell me about James Bond—his gadgets, his girls, his martini—when I was still too young to be allowed to watch the films. Sometimes he would tell me one of his own stories: as a boy scout he had slept in a haunted castle and heard the banshee scream ; he had come across the terrible pooka-horse when cycling down the small Irish country roads as a young man, and it had made him ride into a dung hill in a field ; he had seen a faerie in the isle of Man and had caught a glimpse of a leprechaun in his own garden.
Grampa's stories sent be back in forth in time, they took me all over the world. They taught me how to daydream, how to fantasise, how to develop a rich inner life. They set my head firmly in the clouds. I've never come down since.

Belgie

Some photos from yesterday's daytrip to Brussels...

Fey Pride

This post may be a good deal more personal than usual, but it’s something that has been on my mind for quite some time now. So here goes.

This is the 21st century.
But if a guy doesn’t follow certain cultural conventions, supposed to be traditional masculine norms, he is depicted or perceived as being gay. (This is actually another stereotype. As if all gays were effeminate… But that’s another story, for another time.)
For example : traditionally, masculinity is associated with : being into sports (especially team sports), preferring beer or strong liquor to wine and cocktails, being aloof and reticent or reluctant to express one’s emotions, appreciating depictions of violence in literature, cinema, etc, being reluctant to commit or to start a family, being homosocial rather than heterosocial (ie preferring the company of men to the company of women, in a non-sexual way), being less sensitive, talkative, romantic and moody than women, caring less about one’s own outward appearance (though admittedly that is due to the fact that there is far more pressure on women to conform to certain norms of physical attractiveness ; however that is changing, as it has been reported that more and more men are starting to feel the pressure too.), being attracted to certain colours, not caring about interior design, not being interested in cooking or gastronomy, liking meat etc… This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many such conventions. They may vary slightly from one country to another, but most of them are firmly engrained in Western culture.

But they just don’t reflect reality.

I know heterosexual women who love beer, team sports, gory horror films, who are reticent, heterosocial and decidedly unromantic. But they’re still heterosexual and they’re still women.
I myself don’t eat meat, I can't stand graphically violent or gory films and am nonplussed by action films, I actually like some “chick flicks” (of the “intelligent” kind), I’m not into team sports (mostly because I hate competition ; playing for “funsies” is okay), I like the colours pink and purple, I hate confrontation, I’m over-sensitive (nooot a good thing), I think cooking is fun, I’m a bit mushy (in a tasteful manner, I like to think. Inasmuch as mushy can be tasteful), I think most beer is overrated (I did say most), I like things fey, I’d like to have kids someday… okay I’m not going to type out all my likes and dislikes and characteristics, and I’m not submitting them to anyone’s moral judgement. I’m just trying to prove a point here. These attributes are rarely considered ‘masculine’ in mainstream Western culture, yet last time I checked I was still a man, and to quote Stuart Murdoch “I’m straight to the point of boring myself” – “even when I feel like a girl”. And by the way, my mannerisms aren’t considered to be effeminate, as far as I know.

I don’t want to be seen as overreacting or as whining – it’s just that such stereotyping can be annoying on the long term. I have more or less come to terms with this ‘altermasculinity’ now, but it took time. Interestingly it’s usually not something that women have a problem with. Women have other battles to fight, they are probably aware of the dangers of stereotyping as they themselves are constantly subjected to stereotyping in this patriarchal society. And not all men are guilty of this reactionary behaviour. (I’ve had mates who felt more or less the same way as I did.) But many are. Religious people, and in my experience conservative Christians, are among the worst, and often tend to misapply misinterpreted verses from Scripture .

I have in the past tried to conform to more traditional, conventional masculine gender roles, but on most occasions it was an absolute disaster. (I actually enrolled in a football club and practised every week for a year in 1998, because I thought that was the thing boys were meant to do. I was so bad at it that I wasn’t even allowed to play one single game for the team. I’ve tried to watch gory movies but was either bored to death or just disgusted. And I’m not even going to talk about my short and disastrous experience with the boy scouts…)

It’s an issue which has sometimes been addressed in ‘out-of-the-mainstream’ literature, music and cinema, but very little in popular culture. There are, however, signs that things are slowly changing. A character like “JD” (Zach Braff) in the TV show Scrubs, while not always being depicted in an altogether positive light, allows the idea that a man can flout certain perceived masculine norms without necessarily being gay. This is also the case, but to a lesser extent, with character Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) in sitcom How I Met your Mother. It’s nice to see main characters like that on mainstream, widely popular, prime-time TV shows. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were many men out there who feel forced to conform to norms of conventional masculinity.

Now I’m not suggesting that all conventional masculine norms be traded for feminine ones or unconventional ones. Everyone is different. It’s just that people should cut us some slack and let us be who we are.

End of rant.

Of Bread and Frogs

Turning vegetarian - that was unforgivable for our French friends. Refusing to eat "le" meat ? How could we be such philistines ? (Yes, meat-eating is considered an art in France). Then it was choosing to get around on bikes.

But now we've given them another reason to label us as crazy arrogant foreign hipsters. We bought a bread machine. Now, our French friends don't know this yet. But I can already imagine their reaction. "What ? You don't like baguettes ? Food snobs !" Well, I guess baguette is okay now and then as a novelty, but it gets boring when you eat it 365 days a year - as many French people still do. Plus it isn't even healthy. There's no wholegrain in it. And if you drink water with it, it makes you bloat. Yes, like frogs.

It's part of a wider move. We're trying to buy less pre-packaged, processed and ready-made food, and cook/bake more ourselves. It takes much more time, but it's cheaper (no matter what people say), it's healthier, it's yummier, and it's more ethical.

So who cares what the French think ? I'd rather be arrogant and healthy any day than cynical and bloated.

PS. Don't miss the Age of Stupid drama-docu film about climate change when it comes out this Spring.

Ch... Ch.. Changes

Hmm, I haven't blogged in ages... For once I actually have a valid excuse. I've been really busy these past few weeks. I started the second year of my Masters course : it's supposed to be a year where I can concentrate on writing my Masters thesis, but I have as many classes and more coursework than any previous year.
People in uni aren't too optimistic about the future these days. Partly because of the recession's promise of a new wave of unemployment. But also because our neoliberal government has made job cuts in the French "Éducation Nationale" for the second year in a row. Now there's almost no prospects for jobs as teachers or professors in university-level education, at least not in the field of the humanities... Which leaves must of us no other option than to "reorientate"—or leave the country. Which is one of the plans we're currently considering.

Horse before the week ends

I've just received the strangest phone call ever.






Phone rings.
"Allô?"
"This is (so-and-so), do you need horse before the end of the week?"
"Huh... Sorry? And you are...?"
"This is (so-and-so). Do you need horse before the end of the week?"
"Horse?"
"Yes, don't you need any?"
"I... think you've got the wrong number."
"Is this not (some phone number)?"
"Nope."
"Oh, sorry sir. Bye!"

Hope she finds the right number or some unlucky person will not be getting horse before the end of the week. Whatever that means.

Let the Good Times Roll

A good friend of ours, Donna, stayed at our place for four nights. She lives in the Netherlands now and we hadn't seen her for almost a year, so it was great to spend time with her again. We really enjoyed the fellowship ("yea the fellowship!") and spent a lot of time talking, often till the wee hours of the morn, catching up orelse re-dreaming the world. Other highlights included getting in the champagne cellars (where L works) and sampling the wine free of charge, a disco night, beer, watching the Omen (1976), going to cafés, complaining about society, beer, introducing Donna to (our version of) tecktonik dance and more beer.

Parisienne Walkways

L was off work for three days last week, so on Wednesday we took our bikes and rode down the old tow-path by the canal, until we reached the end of the city. We continued a little until we found a small dirt track which we cycled down. Then we put down an old towel on the long, wild grass by a sunflower field and enjoyed a picknick under the burny midday sun. We later found a few trees and enjoyed the cool shade.
It wasn't exactly the open countryside — there was a village and a rather busy road not too far away — but it was good enough. When we looked to the North, all we could see was fields, woods and tiny little villages. It was nice to be away from the urban landscape, and, even if only for a few hours, be immersed in a more pastoral setting.

The following day we went to Paris. I don't have any pictures or film because we chose not to take our camera this time. It can be fun "documenting" trips but it can also be a hassle — I usally have more craic when I'm camera-free.
We started by visiting the Panthéon, which is right in the middle of the Latin Quarter, beside the Sorbonne university. Originally built as a church, the Panthéon is an impressive edifice which, since the revolution, has basically served as a temple to the French nation-state. All the "great men" of France are buried there. It's not the kind of thing I'm usually into, but it is a must-see. Also some of my favourite authors are buried there : Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. There are also the tombs of Voltaire, Rousseau, Jean Moulin (a famous French resistant), Victor Schoelcher (France's William Wilberforce), Louis Braille (the guy who invented the alphabet for blind people) and a host of other supposedly "great men" (most of whom I'd never even heard of, to be perfectly honest). Significantly, there is only one woman buried in the whole Panthéon : Marie Curie. It speaks loads about the place of women in society, even in a modern secular liberal democracy, where men and women are supposed to share equal rights... *sigh*

On a lighter note, I was almost entombed in the Panthéon myself . I went to the toilets, which are underground, and after hearing the door bang behind me, I realised that there was no knob on my side of the door. I had to phone L several times (you're supposed to turn your phone off in the place) before she answered. Eventually she set me free. Otherwise I might still be entombed in the Panthéon, alongside Voltaire and Zola.

After that, we strolled round the Latin Quarter and found an old 2,000 year old Roman arena which was dug up at the end of the 19th century. There were very few people around, it was incredibly quiet, which is really bizarre when you're right in the middle of Paris. It was as if we had been taken back in time for a few minutes.
Our tummies were rumbling by then and we went looking for a vegetarian restaurant that I'd read about on wikitravel.org, but it was nowhere to be found. Several of the joints in the area seem to have closed down, and it wouldn't surprise me if the vegetarian restaurant was one of the first to go, seeing that less that 1% of French people are vegetarians, and that they're basically seen as eccentric radicals, possibly even traitors to French-ness for refusing to eat meat, the base/staple of all French cuisine. (Thankfully we are tolerated — we're just a couple of eccentric foreigners, after all...) So we settled for an Indian restaurant which served great meat-free dishes. There was a menu at only 10€, which was great value, as the food was realy good, the quantities reasonable, and the restaurant was rather classy. Even the kama sutra picture hanging on the wall was rather tastefully drawn.

In the afternoon, we went to the "Musée du quai Branly". Now this is a museum which drew quite a lot of controversy when it opened in 2006. It's a tribal art museum , with artefacts from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas. It was originally called "Musée des arts premiers" (lit "Museum of First Arts", a euphemism for primitive art), which understandably caused uproar from some circles. Thankfully the term was dropped.
It's the biggest museum of its kind in Europe, and it's incredible to see all these objects and works of art from all around the world. What is really good is that they are treated as art, on the same level as the paintings you'd see in the Louvre. I expected the museum to be very patronising and condescending and... well, French, but it wasn't at all. What impressed me the most was the Americas section. It was the most colourful section in the museum. There was everything from headdresses to clay pots, from robes to combs... The other sections were great as well, of course. The African ceremonial masks and the Melanesian decorated skulls were fascinating (albeit in a freaky kind of way). My only disappointment was that the Asian section was rather small. There was very little from Nepal or India. But if you're ever in Paris, you should definitely check out this museum... it's really worth the visit!

In the evening we met a friend of L's who used to live in Marseilles, and who is currently an intern working for a famous French newspaper (L'Express). And it was that evening that I lost my Starbucks virginity. Yup, until then I'd been Starbucks free. Mostly because coffee makes me sick, but also because I'm not ready to pay to 5€ for a hot drink. So I took a kind of raspberry milkshake, which was way too sweet for me. American-style sweet. I know a lot of people get their kicks from Starbucks, but it didn't do anything to me. Maybe it's just because I'm coffiephobe.

Well, that was the end of our day.
And the end of this post, seeing that it's so long that it's getting out of hand.

France's Last Taboo

Violence is a terrible thing, and anyone that knows me will know that it is probably the thing that I abhor the most. There is worse, though : domestic violence (aka spouse abuse). As if dehumanising one's neighbour and oneself by giving in to violence wasn't bad enough, some people act in this way towards the very person they are supposed to love and care for : their partner or spouse.
Amnesty International campaigned to make more people aware of this in France last year, and it doesn't seem to have worked. This morning, while logging on to Yahoo to check my email, I noticed that this issue was making the headlines of Yahoo News France.

According to the article, a French governmental body which measures the country's crime rate (the OND) found that in 2007, spousal abuse had increased by over 30%. That year, 410,000 women reported having been abused in some way by their partner or ex-partner. This represents 2% of France's female population. Apparently 20% of cases of spousal abuse go unreported — and unpunished!
There also cases where men are the victims of spousal abuse : 0.7% of the male population in 2005 and 2006.

But the issue of domestic violence is terrible not only in itself, but also because of the fact that it such a taboo in France. Speak to anyone in France, and they will deny that it is a problem. At most they will say that it is something which only happens in Muslim or working class families (which isn't true, by the way. It happens in white and middle class families as well).

There is a fair chance that you personally know a woman who has been abused by her partner or ex-partner, but that you know nothing of it. It's very hard to know if the victim doesn't speak out : very often, the victim will keep it a secret for fear of reprisal or because she loves her partner nonetheless.

I know someone who told me that she was attacked several times by her boyfriend. She didn't seem alarmed by the fact, and when I suggested that she should break up with him or call the police if it happened again, she said she couldn't do it, because she loved him.
I'm not one to underestimate the strength of love. Love is patient ; love heals. But it's no excuse for keeping quiet about mindless (or premeditated!) acts of violence, especially when it happens within a couple — the relationship which is designed to be one of the only safe, trusting and nurturing havens on earth.

The taboo must be broken.

Bicycles

Découvrez Queen!

I'm just back in from a bicycle ride. Very refreshing! L and I each bought a city bike last week. So far, we've been used to going everywhere either with the bus or on foot. Now we can go to places that are not at a walkable distance and where buses don't go. We'd been hoping to get bikes for a long time now, and with the sales on and the summer here it was the best time to do it!
Here are a few reasons why using a bicycle is cool.

• It's fun!
• It's much healthier than taking the car or the bus. If like me you're not really into running/jogging, or team sports, cycling is a good alternative to keep you active and on the go.
  
• It's handy for groceries... I attached a basket to the front of my bike, which already attract a few strange looks. It's not considered a typically "masculine" thing to do in France, but people should get over it. In the Netherlands and Flanders, it's the norm!
• It's cheap! No need to pay the bus fare as often, and it's (literaly) costs nothing compared to all the money you have to put into a car... no petrol, no insurance, no MOT test...
  
• Last (and most importantly), it's eco-friendly. There's no CO² coming out of a bicycle! There are so many people over here that take the car just to drive a few hundred metres down to the bakery for their baguette. Worse, in our cities we have lots of SUVs and 4x4s roaring down our streets, driven by upper middle class mothers with fake tans and sunglasses driving their model kids to the local Conservatoire (the notoriously snobbish French music school). Maybe they are scared of leaving their enclaved suburban homes or snazzy city-centre dwellings for the urban jungle of ordinary people, and feel protected behind the wheel of their safari-style vehicles? I think those cars should be prohibited or severely restricted in urban areas. If you aren't a farmer or a forester, frankly, you don't need one, so give it up!
  

To beer or not to beer

We just had a small end-of-year, post-exam party Thursday night. Some of the people who were supposed to come weren't able to in the end, but it was still good craic, and it also meant that there was more punch for us (on top of that, a couple of the guests didn't drink because they had to drive home afterwards). One friend of mine, Manu, who was a teaching assistant for a year in Swansea (Wales) stayed at our place overnight. We drank beer and watched Flight of the Conchords until the wee small hours of the morning.
The next day, the girls went shopping (it's the sales here) so Manu and I waited for them in the Blackface, enjoying a pint. When the girls had finished, we met them in a café, for yet another pint. So basically Manu and I spent most of the day in pubs, or drinking beer, but it was great to catch up and just chit-chat — something I hadn't got doing for a long time.

Dark Night of the Soul

It's been over a year and a half that we haven't been part of any church or community. L works every Sunday so it's not even possible for her to attend anywhere, and I've long given up looking for a place of worship where I feel I can belong.

Yet I don't see my churchlessness as an entirely negative thing. After all, I had become tired of the fundamentalists and the crackpots ; tired of hearing the same old moralising sermons or congregation-pleasing rethoric over and over again ; tired of the criticism of anyone different or the promises of health and prosperity. Tired of church in general, at least the way it is done in this city. The only thing I really miss is the sense of community, the fellowship. But even that was never very profound. Superficiality is something we Christians major in.

Still, I don't see my churchlessness as an entirely negative thing. I have learnt more in these past two years than I have in all the previous years of my existence. I don't know if I've grown : I haven't started putting all these things into practise yet. But I've learnt.

But this process of discovery has come with a price. The more I search for the truth, the more I realise I have to leave my old mindset behind, like a dark - but warm - cocoon. I have never felt so liberated as I do now, yet at the same time, I have never felt as scared and doubt-ridden. In fact, sometimes the only thing I am sure of is Christ. Yet He has never felt as far away. I just can't feel his presence the way I used to. I have never felt as abandoned.

I think this might be my dark night of the soul.

The dark night of the soul is a period in one's spiritual life when one feels lonely and abandoned by God ; it can last for a few days or for most of one's lifetime. I wanted to look into the subject more. St John of the Cross, the 16th century Spanish Christian mystic, counter-reformer and poet, first coined the term, in a poem and later a commentary of the same name.
According to St John of the Cross, some of the symptoms are a feeling of abandonment, a fear of losing oneself on the road, of backsliding or of losing one's salvation ; an intense yearning for God while being unable to feel His presence ; a difficult and unsatisfying prayer life.

To explain the reasons why God puts us through this, the poet uses the analogy of a child nurtured by his mother. A day comes when the child, used to the sweetness of his mother's milk, has to let go of her breast, separate from her and learn to walk. The child's weaning is a very distressing period of its life, it loses all sense of security, yet it is essential if it is to grow. In the same way, when someone gets to know God, there is at first a sweetness and a sense of satisfaction when he or she prays or talks to Him. But this is sometimes taken away so that the believer may learn to rely on God without the pleasure of his senses, be it peace of mind or intellectual satisfaction ; so that he or she may learn to grow spiritually, and not to go to God simply to get something from Him, but to seek to serve Him and follow His will.

According to the mystic, it is something that happens to a large number of followers. The book reassured me a lot because it seems to correspond, more or less, to the period I've been going through. John tries to give an explanation for it, which, to me at least, seems rather satisfying. During the dark night of the soul, God tries to make us realise how lowly we are, and teach us to rely on Him even when our senses seem to indicate that we are alone and abandoned.

I just hope it doesn't last too long.

On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings—oh, happy chance!—
I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.

Evil Cymbal-banging Monkey

The other day I was speaking to a friend about things that used to freak us out as kids... you know, things like monsters under the bed, great aunt Martha or Father Christmas.
My childhood trauma - and one I shared with my brother - was linked to the evil cymbal-banging monkey toy. Yes. The evil monkey toy. Fear its wrath!

On my brother's 8th or 9th birthday - I can't quite remember - my Dad gave him a video cassette of a film, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders. It sounded like an innocent, child-friendly fantasy story. My brother watched it, alone. And was freaked out. He asked me to see it again with him - you know how fun it is to freak yourself out - so I watched it with him. It turned out to be more of a horror film than a kiddie's movie. The first part of the film (which is set in contemporay America) is the story of a sceptical journalist who borrows a book of spells from Merlin and ends up iniating himself in magic - only to find himself confronted with a zombie cat, his wife's blood, and a demon apparition.
The second part deals with a cymbal-banging monkey toy which is stolen from Merlin's shop, and ends up as a present for a young boy. Trouble is, the toy is haunted by an evil spirit, which tries to destroy the boy and his family. When left alone, its eyes light up red. Each time it bangs its cymbals, something dies. It sets the house on fire, withers all the plants in the home, kills the family dog, and almost causes the kid to die in a road accident. When the boy's father manages to bury it in a field far from home, it somehow manages to find its way back with the family. In the end Merlin comes to take it back, so there's a happy ending. But still... freaky film.
I was probably about 14 when I saw the film, so it didn't give me any nightmares... but it was pretty uncanny. Now the evil cymbal-banging monkey toy is a kind of inside joke between my brother and me. Someday I'd like to find the film and watch it again - for old time's sake. I wonder if any other unsuspecting kid was freaked out by Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders!

It's funny, though, how memories like that stick with you all your life - especially the unpleasant ones. It seems that we let our lives become much more affected by the negative things that happen to us than by the positive things. Maybe someday I'll learn to be less cynical and pessimistic, and begin reflecting on all the wonderful things that have happened to me, and - as they say in France - "see the world in pink".