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My brother came up this weekend, and we decided to watch one of our Lovefilm acquisitions—Lundi Matin. Mr. Bsag and I have both seen it before, but my brother hadn’t. I mentioned in my review of the film that it’s full of visual non sequiturs, but it became one long non sequitur because of the dreadful scratching on the disc. All the discs we’ve had from Lovefilm before have been in pretty good condition, but this one looked as if someone had taken wire wool to it. Worse still, the scratches were circumferential, giving the laser a really hard time.

Do you remember that piece that Tomorrows’ World did on CDs when they first came out? I remember distinctly that they covered a disc in jam, then wiped it off roughly before putting it in a CD player and announcing excitedly they they were almost indestructible. I hate to think that Judith Hann and Co. made a mistake (they knew everything!), but people seem to have been unduly influenced by that report. So remember—don’t clean your rental DVD and CD media with Brillo pads, wire wool or sandpaper, or use them as drinks coasters. If you get fingerprints on them (or—heaven forbid—jam) wipe them gently in a radial direction with one of those cloths for cleaning spectacles.

Two girls, chatting in a sandwich shop:

I don’t feel so guilty when I eat crisps, because they’re like… flat.

Excellent, the thickness-based diet—you can eat as many thin foods as you like. Crisps, crackers, After Eight mints, processed cheese slices and salami can all be eaten ad libitum, but apples, tomatoes and broccoli are right out the window.

When I read the Slashdot article, Things To Do Before You Die, one particular bit of information jumped out at me:

Lu Xun writes “A group of British scientists has brought some meaning to our lives by providing a list of 100 scientifically-oriented things to do before you die. The suggestions include ‘joining the 300 Club at the South Pole (they take a sauna to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, then run naked to the pole in minus 100 F) or learning Choctaw, a language with two past tenses - one for giving information which is definitely true, the other for passing on material taken without checking from someone else.’”

I had no idea if the bit about Choctaw languages was true—in fact I’m quite sceptical about this kind of broad statement when I see it on the net—but I really wished it was true. It would be incredibly useful to have a grammatical construct to distinguish fact from hearsay, without having to resort to phrases like, “or so I heard”, or “someone told me that”.

Digging through the comments, AhtirTano suggested that it was more complicated than the way it was presented: there are indeed two past tenses, but they indicate how long ago something happened (less than about a year ago, or longer than that). At the same time, suffixes called evidentials indicate whether the information was directly experienced by the speaker, or whether it was indirectly acquired. This account seems to be be supported by this page on Choctaw grammar. I find it really interesting that languages diversify in this way, and seem to have such different ways of encoding the world. I can understand that the environment you happen to be in might affect how finely you discriminate between certain kinds of things (like types of snow—that other linguistic chestnut), but when the differences are in distinguishing how you came by information, it’s difficult to see why that shouldn’t also be important to people in all language groups.

When I wrote about Sufjan Stevens’ later album Seven Swans, Shinsplints commented that I should also try Greetings From Michigan. I was very sceptical that I was going to like it as much as Seven Swans—which I love with a passion—but I was curious to see what it was like.

I’ve now listened to the album about three times in less than 24 hours, and I’m completely captivated. It has all the delicacy of his next album, but also a sense of loss, alienation and the slow decline of a once-great State. I’m sure that I’ve just made it sound depressing, but it’s anything but that. Even in the most quietly despairing songs, there’s a tiny hope that things might get better, and also that there are people around who care. From ‘For The Windows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilani’:

I was dressed in embarrassment I was dressed in wine. If you had a part of me, will you take your time? Even if I come back, even if I die Is there some idea to replace my life? Like a father to impress; Like a mother’s mourning dress If you ever make a mess, I’ll do anything for you.

Sufjan has a kind of quiet rhetorical fire, even though that seems like a contradiction. Actually, I think he is a contradiction. Many of the titles—such as ‘Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head (Restore! Rebuild! Reconsider!)’—read like the exhortations of a 1950s union leader, or one of the earnest, burning people who rage against the dying of the light at Speaker’s Corner in the rain.

I would find it almost impossible to single out a few tracks for special mention—they are all so strong. ‘The Upper Peninsula’ features a wonderful Hammond organ going on in the background and lyrics about the poor of America (“I live in America/with a pair of Payless shoes”. ‘They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black’ has a really odd time-signature, which reminds me a little of some of the work of Lalo Schifrin. It does amazing and beneficial things to my neurons, simultaneously lulling me and waking me up.

It’s a really superb album, and I highly recommend it, whether you have heard any of his work before or not.