I'm going through the process of registering with the Antwerp municipality.
It begins with notifying the police that you are living in the area. They drop in to your place to make sure you live there. If, as in my case, you are in work at the time, they leave a note for you to come to the local police station.
It begins with notifying the police that you are living in the area. They drop in to your place to make sure you live there. If, as in my case, you are in work at the time, they leave a note for you to come to the local police station.
Mired as I am in pop-culture, I found myself thinking of any instance in a film where going into/dealing with continental police ended well... In Kiss of the Dragon and Taken the cops were crooked; in the Bourne films they were patsies/cat's paws.0 I can't think of cases where they've come off well.
Needful to say1, I was carried away with flights of fancy.2 What actually happened was a cursory glance at my papers and I was asked to sit in the waiting area until I was brought to have a quick chat with a pleasant middle-aged woman.3
As it happens, on the same day, I had my internet connected. The technician that turned up was, I must admit, good looking and stylishly dressed – sporting a fashionable square-faced, silver-framed wristwatch. Coming from Ireland it was rather incongruous, where technicians generally have jeans or overalls with the company logo. As usual, I was thinking "spy."
It reminds me of the holiday I took in Iceland a couple of years back. Two of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen were selling hot dogs at a tourist trap called the Blue Lagoon. These, these blonde goddesses selling hot dogs... it made no sense. If they were doing this job in a film, there would have been complaints about suspension of disbelief or lack thereof. As usual, Shakespeare and Hamlet got to it a couple of years before hand:
It reminds me of the holiday I took in Iceland a couple of years back. Two of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen were selling hot dogs at a tourist trap called the Blue Lagoon. These, these blonde goddesses selling hot dogs... it made no sense. If they were doing this job in a film, there would have been complaints about suspension of disbelief or lack thereof. As usual, Shakespeare and Hamlet got to it a couple of years before hand:
Hamlet: Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end [...] is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature [...]4
Hamlet was cautioning against hamming5 it up, but I think my anecdote illustrates the "ham" line is farther away than we actually think.
No doubt, everyone is having what amounts to the revelation at the end of The Usual Suspects with cup dropping and all when you pore back through your life and see these people that don't fit. But don't worry, it's normal.
No doubt, everyone is having what amounts to the revelation at the end of The Usual Suspects with cup dropping and all when you pore back through your life and see these people that don't fit. But don't worry, it's normal.
In other news, I feel settled enough to focus on learning Dutch. I have started listening to vocab on the way to and from work. And I have a handy pocket dictionary, which I take out now and again for key words. It was really useful on Friday morning when I arrive to see that my bus wasn't at its stop.... vakbondsactie - or trade union action - means I wait 40 minutes for a bus in the morning and 60 minutes in the evening.
Anyway, I really think I am getting the hang of it...
Gellukig Kerstfeest!
*****
0Imagine those poor unsuspecting cops trying to get some vagrant off of a park bench; they were just doing their jobs, and they get their asses kicked.
1I know that the phrase is needless, but that is an apparent contradiction, since I am writing and I have decided that it needed to be said. It's like that phrase - "it goes without saying." What is really being said is: "I do not trust you to figure this out on your own, so I am going to prelude the information with a lip service to my belief in your competence.... 'no offence'i."
1I know that the phrase is needless, but that is an apparent contradiction, since I am writing and I have decided that it needed to be said. It's like that phrase - "it goes without saying." What is really being said is: "I do not trust you to figure this out on your own, so I am going to prelude the information with a lip service to my belief in your competence.... 'no offence'i."
2"Sorry sir, your papers... they are no in order. I just have to make a call, if you will wait in this room." At which point two burley 6 footers in riot gear come in with tonfas/night sticks. But then I clean house, and someone walks by going,"are you a special forces guy or something?" And I am all like "I'm just the crystallization expert."
3One thing that has bothered me about English language films set in Europe is how native languages would be used intermittently for filler and minor developments. but plot-critical information is relayed in English, no matter what nationality the source is. A month living and working in Belgium has made this perfectly reasonable to me because I have yet to meet someone that could not tell me in clear English what I needed to know.
4Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 17–24 - granted my editing has ruined the iambic pentameter...
5The words are unrelated - hamming comes from the first syllable of amateur. [ORIGIN late 19th cent. : perhaps from the first syllable of amateur ; compare with the slang term hamfatter [inexpert performer.] Sense 2 dates from the early 20th cent. - from my Mac Dictionary]
*****
iWhich happens to be another doozy, for carte blanche insulting. I think the best outrage against these veiled maneuverings is Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) on Alias: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0qaIvb3bGAa
------------
aMy former "study buddy [one lab removed]", John, pointed out that I forgot about the gold standard in thinly veiled condescending insult: "With all due respect."
Stephen King once wrote "If you find a footnote, step on its head and kill it before it can breed" ;-)
ReplyDeleteVerily, tis more footnote than post!
ReplyDeleteAnd where is my promised Ikea trip report?
ReplyDeleteSoon enough, soon enough.
ReplyDelete