Glór

Masculine cape made of green silk velvet with golden embroidery. Years 1651-1675.

Men in the Cities, Robert Longo

the first time I went in there I pointed at one of those extra-skinny baguettes and said “a flute, please” feeling pretty sure of myself, and the baker said “… that’s a ficelle” (you idiot) (was implied) “a flute is twice as large as a baguette.”

That’s insane, first of all, a flute is a skinny instrument. Call your fat baguette a bassoon, lady—I made some timid remark about how it would make more sense for a flute to be a skinny bread and the baker said, “In Paris it is. I thought you were from the South?”

oh, that hurt

I guess I’m from the part of the South that’s so close to Italy the bread’s waist size matters less than whether it’s got olives in it, but I left the bakery having an existential crisis over whether living in Paris had made me forget my roots

the Least Intimidating Bakery just had normal baguettes vs. seedy baguettes vs. horny baguettes (easy mode, some have seeds, some have horns), while the new bakery has breads that are only different on a molecular level—there’s a good old loaf and then another, identical loaf called a bastard? google told me a bastard is “halfway between a baguette and a bread” but denouncing them like “those are not regulation-sized bastards” would get me banned from the bakery for life

on my 2nd visit (while I stood in line discreetly googling baguette terminology) there was an English tourist who asked for a baguette while pointing at what was either a rustique or a sesame and I felt a bit worried for them, but the baker just clarified “this one?” to waive any responsibility if they found out later it wasn’t a classic baguette, then handed them the bread without educating them in a judgmental tone and I felt envious

I know it’s because she thinks the English are beyond saving but still it made me want to come back with a fake moustache and an English accent so I wouldn’t be expected to play bakery on expert mode just because I’m French. I asked for a pastry this time and the baker asked “no bread with that?” which felt cruel, like she wanted me to sprinkle myself with ashes and admit out loud that my level of bread proficiency isn’t as advanced as I once believed it was

The third time I went, I had lost all self-confidence and I hesitantly pointed at a bread and said “I’d like this, uh—what is it called?” and the baker looked at me in disbelief and said “That’s a baguette.”

God.

for the record, if that stupid bread had been flanked by a skinny bread (ficelle) and a fat one (flute) then yeah of course I would have known to call it a baguette, but in the absence of reference points I now felt lost and scared of being called a Parisian again

"THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE HERE" IS A RITE OF SPRING

You could also call it a Wicker Man, if that helps anything.

I think the game is a serious work of art, and that it's asking a serious question, which is why The Marrow Song? Why is this culture that's supposed to be so protestant and repressed so reliably turgid in the realm of agricultural double-entendre? I drove my tractor through your hedgerow last night; ooh-ar, as they say, ooh-ar. Is it simply that country girls make do? Or is there something deeper afoot?

TGYH dares to push this question into the realm of sexterror. Clive Barker is approaching you menacingly with a suggestive carrot in his overalls. Don't tell him you're milk shy; in due course, you'll be milk shy no more.

Barnsworth is Barnsley, sure, but it's also Summerisle. The church has been left for the rats, living their simulacrum of buttoned-up keep calm and carry on Britain in the asbestos-festooned crawl space above your local Price Shaggers. In the streets there's no law but that of the Big Truncheon. Everything's bursting out all over - endless fertility, ripened to the point of rot, a riot of flies and bugs and beasts and rampantly virile weeds. We find our ecclesiastic homilies not in scripture but in the soil and its produce. Guilt is in the meat, shame in the vegetables, agony and ecstasy in the normal milk. Baptism in the soup, for crying out loud! This is a town in the grip of Misrule, and Misrule needs its Lord, which is where you come in.

There are two ways for this to end. You may end up another Bobby Odd-Jobs, with his sad memorial in the city park. Or you may end up the Mayor. If you wait for him, you'll find he's your very spit and image. It all depends on whether you're willing to work.

It's better if you stay with us. What is there to be had outside of milk and meat and butter, big pies and tiny pies? You're not going vegan, are you? I'd rather shit bed. This dance goes on forever, dawn and dusk, every season in its turn, and this is the season where we bang, bang, bang. You have to bash on every beat. Chop the tatties, grind the meat.

The only misgiving one might have as one makes one's way through town is that - yes, it's been like this forever, even Christianity a blink in the eye of the green man, but isn't everything getting... y'know... a bit shit? Why aren't the bins getting emptied? Seems like there's more litter the more you pick up. Bottles of white shite everywhere. Cracks in the walls. I'm pretty sure that hallway with "ludonarrative pissonance" written on it has sick building syndrome. And where does all that chip oil drain to?