That's the title of a book by Milan Kundera, which I tried to get interested in, as I tried to get interested in his The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Don't know much about the writings but I love his titles, especially the title The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
I'm laughing and trying to forget certain things. I succeeded in making myself laugh a little while ago when Rosie got up and left the room. There was a reason for her departure: a new CD I have was about ten minutes into the First Symphony of Darius Milhaud. He was French, one of Les Six (Groupe des Six). Everybody I know hates them but me: I love the music of Milhaud (I do not know the rules of pronunciation of French, but the jocks all pronounce his name "Me-YO" -- not MILL-howd, as I read it the first time, and as I'm sure it would be pronounced in Millhousen, Indiana). I also love the music of Francis Poulenc, one of the others who somehow got designated Les Six.
I was listening to this work on the radio the other day and looked it up in iTunes. They didn't have it so I went to Amazon.com and found all his symphonies. I clicked the wrong prompt (the right one really, heh, heh, heh) and bought a boxed set of all the symphonies of Milhaud, twelve in all. This will be a solitary pleasure, as I say, because everybody hates him, including present company. Rudy hasn't moved a muscle, didn't when I started the music and didn't when I was asked to turn it off and thanked for turning it off.
But I will go into my soundproof closet and listen, heh heh heh, laughing and forgetting the while.
Keep cool, my babies.
4 comments:
As Mark Twain said, the French pronounce words beautifully but they can't spell worth a damn.
You forgot to add that while you were listening to the fiddling, the USA burned. But I exaggerate. Just another piece of the Bill of Rights, this one being probable cause. The last chunk was habeas corpus. The terrorists are winning without firing a shot. And on the domestic-familial-provincial level everything is going to hell in a handcart for you too, right? But you wanted to laugh and forget, right?
The french would pronounce it approximately ME-HO, as the accent is the same on both syl-LOB-buls in fronch. It would have to have two "l"s to invoke the "y" sound if my understanding of french pronunskiation is correct.
Oh, yeah, headphones help sometimes.
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