FIELD REPORT: THE MERINGUE OF THIS UMBRELLA IS A JUBILEE WITHIN MY COOL LAGOON

December 9, 2009

Donkeys are surrealists. Look at those ears. Gorgeous and preposterous.  Donkeys of France, I salute you!

Behind me (not pictured) envision a quite dashing French farmer – charmingly perplexed and desultorily amused to encounter me shortly after dawn one rainy Tuesday, deep in a portrait session with his donkeys.

The farmer had been standing there for quite some time in his very best stance (the saucy Lord of the Manner pose: a soupcon of Napoleon surveying Lithuania, a soupcon of Cardinal Richelieu surveying a strumpet, with a nonchalant homage to Serge Gainsbourg surveying a brassiere, and then a touch of Lady Chatterley’s groundskeeper tossed in just for good luck). Lots of manure, steaming up into the air with a fragrant morning bouquet any espresso would blush in jealousy just to consider.

My French has all been acquired from years spent translating surrealist French poetry, and thus I said to him:

The meringue of this umbrella is a jubilee within my cool lagoon.

Sad sweet king, I give to you permission for fire. Photograph!

Magnificent nevermind of creation insanity!

Absolute sorry gratitude, minus a little more beauty!

And according to my expert translation, his response was:

What? You delightful moron. I am so flattered!

You have travelled all the way from Africa to photograph my thistles.

What an honor I now experience. Oh my.

Please, continue without considering my duties or responsibilities.

Despite the frigid winter and your preposterous ensemble of clothing, you soldier on! Magnificent nevermind of creation insanity!

My darling idiot, my beloved fool –

Yes, you, you marvel of endearing pointlessness.

You amuse me! And my cows, who scream with milk you cannot, I fear, afford to drink!

Let the operation of my farm and livelihood cease to be any obstruction to the creation of this, your purported  donkey masterpiece.

Enter the wife, laden with an instrument intended to head inwards down a protesting out-bound orifice. Knee deep in the dirt of two thousand years, she achieved a command of native tongue the rest of us might kneel to hear.  Clearly, she had arranged for her husband to face a certain death in the mystery of the stables, which – given the amount of manure outside, seems more likely than the Hadron Collider to generate the black hole that will swallow us all.

If something is going to swallow us, why not a French dairy farm with a charming triad of donkeys, a sharp tongued milkmaid, and a bohemian cowherd in Wellingtons?

After a few minutes I realized the wife had a commanding grasp of regional colloquialisms  which I felt blessed not to understand. They involved spitting and glaring and the wild flailing of her pipette was beginning to unnerve me.

Regardless, her gutteral response seemed to indicate that a sardonic field study of preposterous African travelers served as a worthless alibi for her husband, who should be doing something highly foolhardy to the livestock that bellowed from within the barn.

I travelled on, but not after taking a few more portraits of my friends the donkeys. Why are these creatures so underappreciated? They had a kindness and a quiet cuddliness, and a way of trying to eat my hat that was really quite endearing.

French donkeys – until we meet again, may you eat your thistles in good health.

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