#L'escalier

[yesterdaysprint]

Courier-News, Plainfield, New Jersey, November 10, 1936

[vizuart]

Pierre Roy - Danger dans l'escalier [Danger on the Stairs] (c. 1927-1928)

[malinaa]

L’ESPRIT DE L’ESCALIER by CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

[maggiecheungs]

Hideko Takamine as Keiko in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) dir. Mikio Naruse

[learningbluejaymentality]

At a red light, I pedaled up next to a driver who had recklessly endangered me earlier on the road. They had rolled down their window so they could lecture me. This person in a luxury sedan had nearly killed me on the road in a maneuver that ultimately saved them no time at all, and still they had the temerity and unshakeable arrogance to lecture me, who had been legally riding vehicular per state law, about how I should've been "in the bike lane". The bike lane which was in fact an unmaintained shoulder that dumped without transition into an auxiliary lane and unprotected intersection. And when I told them that the bike lane was unsafe they started yelling. Yelling about how the bike lane could not possibly be unsafe because it was a bike lane, whether or not it was maintained it is a bike lane. As the light turned green they screamed out that if we went to court I would lose. I didn't get to reply that if they had clipped me at that speed I wouldn't have survived to go to court.

Later I realized that this driver had no knowledge, experience, or sense to apply to this situation, but a person in a luxury sedan is going to be sure he's right anyway. In a vehicle like that you can be so insulated from the world outside that you don't even notice the condition of the road or how the lanes connect to each other. You have room for five people, and cargo space for all their experience, kindness, emotion, and empathy, but somehow drivers manage to leave all that behind when they step, alone, into their individuality and status machine.

This person never would've cared if they had killed me on the road. And the American justice system wouldn't have encouraged them to after the fact. After all, under current ordinances there just isn't enough room on the road for empathy.

[veraverorum]

I missed the opportunity of making the "you should have seen the other guy" joke about kisses this morning and I'm still burning in upsetti spaghetti at myself

[wileycap]

My one real skill is coming across an event from like, 6 months ago, and immediately thinking of an absolutely A+ banger of a joke that would have been really funny if I had made it back then when the event was relevant but would just be confusing and unfunny now.

I have this listed on my resume and am proud to say that I am still unemployed.

[aeide-thea]

the eternal, humiliating cycle of like. coming out of the gate too aggressive. talking yrself down. coming out of the gate too aggressive. talking yrself down. etc.

though frankly it's hard because i do actually think we normalize a lot of fucked up shit that is actually reasonable to get angry about! but like. what's the right balance with aggression. it's basically always more dignified not to get into things but is dignity always the most important thing. one suspects not but like. equally is one achieving anything with one's aggression that's worth the sacrifice of dignity. one also suspects not.

easy 2 conclude i should just never stick my oar in but like. if i don't participate in the world i might as well be dead so. idk idk! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[scrmnviking]

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Dinner

Had a bizarre experience yesterday.

I was driving my wife to dinner and we pulled up to a red light. The guy in the car on the passenger side started yelling to us:

"You look like you'd vote for Trump!"

He was a white male, 50s-60s, graying.

I am 51, but read late 30s and wear aloha shirts. My wife is also young looking. She has a partially shaved head and green hair. Think LoL Jinx, but shorter hair. I have an Obama sticker still on my car.

We're in Los Angeles.

"You gonna vote for Trump?"

I stared at him

"No, we're not idiots."

And then he just started to continue with "You're Trump voters!" and "Ha ha, green hair!" and other things generally G rated and... mocking, I guess?

We rolled up the window because life is too short to suffer fools.

The truly odd thing was it didn't seem mean. He was invested, sure, but like a salesman getting through the pitch to go on his smoke break. A perfume sprayer at the mall on Tuesday before closing. The unhoused guy with a mental issue having an argument with himself that he's lost a dozen times.

Yeah, he was a troll. Yeah, he just wanted a reaction which he got, even if it was small. But why bother? But what was his end game? Was he hoping I lost my shit and pulled him out of the car to wail on his ass? Get in a drag race (not the kind with mimosas)? Oh no, random stranger, please let me appease you by assuring I will vote for a convicted rapist and felon who steals from child cancer charities.

It's run in my head more than I'd like it too: other things I could have said. Devastating comebacks. L'esprit de l'escalier. Treppenwitz. Snappy comebacks to stupid questions. Insightful analysis. Glorious FPS violence.

My wife blew it off and told me something insightful.

"I think it just shows they're all scared."

So, my fellow Sane Americans, take heart and take heed. We've got a load of scared MAGAts out there losing their shit, desperate and scared because they can see themselves soaring into history as a wastepaper basketball three-pointer, nothin' but net. Although this goes against my Gen X soul, the best move is to be kind but firm. Their cult has told them we want to eliminate them (TBH, some truth in that), but the less we feed that, the less we get them strapping stump removers to their vests and going to a crowded place.

Get ready for the next 3 yrs or so, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

[basilepessoart]

Walking Wallets

One of the attributes of neo-leftism, except for some who often/always speak of LGBT stuff, is to systematically speak of money. The constant is "whites are racist, blacks and Arabs are oppressed".

As the right-wingers (the real ones, not the so-called "far-right"), they know the topic so well. Their life is a wallet. They are sooooo, so fucking boring.

Defend the assaulted, raped, murdered by Arabian terrorism ? Pensez-vous...defend the ones that the patrol said they couldn't be defended, the whites ? Pensez-vous...neo-leftism is a literal degeneracy.

To any person with balls and values, these résidus de fausse couche are a "remède à l'amour", which means that they can turn a hard cock into a shrimp, and have the effect that garlic has on vampires. Basile Pesso, Land of Somewhere, 24 July 2 024 Pink Floyd, Money

[malinaa]

[POINTS AT VALENTE’S L’ESPRIT DE L’ESCALIER] WHAT DO YOU MEAN VALENTE WROTE A STORY WHERE ORPHEUS SUCCEEDS, WHERE HE DIDN’T TURN AROUND. WHAT DO YOU MEAN VALENTE KNOWS THAT, BY DOING THAT, ORPHEUS IS NOT REALLY ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE IS NOT REALLY EURYDICE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN VALENTE REMINDS US, AGAIN AND AGAIN, THE REASON WE KNOW ORPHEUS TRULY LOVES EURYDICE IS BECAUSE HE TURNS AROUND. WHAT DO YOU MEAN.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Word List: Emotions

other words for some emotions

Anhedonia - a psychological condition characterized by inability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable acts.

Beatitude - a state of utmost bliss.

Chagrin - disquietude or distress of mind caused by humiliation, disappointment, or failure.

Compunctious - feeling remorse or regret.

Desiderium - an ardent desire or longing; especially: a feeling of loss or grief for something lost.

Dolorifuge - something that banishes or mitigates grief.

Espirit de l'escalier - wit of the staircase; repartee thought of only too late, on the way home. The stairs in question being those down which you leave a party or other gathering. The notion behind the phrase is that feeling when you think of the perfect response to another’s question or comment only once you’ve left the party and are on your way home. The French encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713-1784) is credited with introducing the notion of esprit de l’escalier. The sensitive man, he wrote, when absorbed by the words of another, tends to lose his mind “and recovers it only at the bottom of the stairs.”

Forlorn - bereft, forsaken; sad and lonely because of isolation or desertion.

Leucocholy - a state of feeling that accompanies preoccupation with trivial and insipid diversions.

Listless - characterized by lack of interest, energy, or spirit.

Mortification - the emotional state of being made self-consciously uncomfortable.

Paramnesia - a disorder of memory. It occurs when something you are experiencing for the first time feels as though it isn’t really new.

Sullen - gloomily or resentfully silent or repressed.

Trepidatious - feeling trepidation (i.e., a feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen).

Valor - strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness; personal bravery.

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!

More: Word Lists

[obeyfeline]

Little treats and gift ideas

Silk brocade waistcoat made in France of silk woven in Lyon, at https://poshmark.com/listing/Vintage-Lescalier-Dargent-Mens-Silk-Tuxedo-Vest-600ddb45633cfc6fcddce75b

[nemospecific]

God DAMN it, my final tweet should've been "wait, we can just leave"

[psikonauti]

Marc Chalmé (French, b. 1969)

L'escalier, 2023

Oil on canvas