Charles

Charles the Hermit?

I'm trying to strike a balance--I know that you guys aren't logging onto my blog to hear lectures about my views on current events.  But at the same, at this terrible time when peace is slipping through the fingers not only of Palestinians and Israelis but by extension much of the world, it's extremely hard to stay quiet about it.  In contrast with the widely-held view (which I share) that Hamas is committing heartless and futile terrorism, there is also the prevailing view (which I denounce) that Israel is not.  So, I've started to post quotes about the tragedy in the Gaza Strip, trying to focus on analyses of what I believe is the root of the problem--the inhuman living conditions in the strip and Israel's cynical attempt to "uproot" terrorism militarily.

Anyway, I'm posting these to the sidebar on the right, so they'll be there if you're interested, and if you're not, hopefully you'll still be interested in the less depressing things that I usually post.  In any case, this is the last I'll mention it in a regular post.

So with that out of the way, below is a little exercise (based on a fantastic section in Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red) to explain the picture above, taken the first day I visited one of my farther-flung schools.

• Charles is or isn't actually French.
  
• Charles, who may be French, either did or didn't grow up in his family's labyrinthine estate in Savon, largely sheltered from the upheaval of the 1960s, dithering feebly between a life in the political or military elite.
  
• If he did grow up in Savon, his leisure either was or wasn't disproportionately spent arguing with badminton referees.
  
• After he left for London in the early 1970s to pursue a degree in management, he either did or didn't become embroiled in an inter-crime ring dispute after drunkenly wandering into a hair salon one Saturday afternoon.
  
• If he was so embroiled, he was or wasn't aware at the time that this would later lead to a life-long fear of pomade.
  
• When he woke up from his coma, he did or didn't discover a Japanese nursing student named Chieko at his bedside, fiddling with his IV most distractedly.
  
• He then did or didn't wed her in a mass ceremony after being seized by a 24-hour motorcycle peripeteia.
  
• This mass wedding did or didn't take place in a Hamburg Holiday Inn and was or wasn't part of a travel package.
  
• After two blissful weeks of evading the police, the pair either did or didn't decide to return to Chieko's home town, nestled in the picturesque fastnesses of littoral southeastern Japan, to hoist (or not) the French flag on their new marital abode above an active woodcutting atelier, and never to condition their hair again.