My neighborhood has more charm than its neon signs suggest. To the casual passerby, it may look like your typical, one-way busy Parisian street, but I've gotten to know the ins and outs by know, and I can't tell you: something strange is afoot on Odessa Street.
Today, for example, as I was calmly reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" (yes, I know it is on my book list, and yes, I know I have let the book list idea go, and yes, I know that the same three books have been on my "Currently Reading" list, but I told myself I have to update the page before I can update the list, so I'm in a bit of a bind. Being incredibly lazy, and all), a car drove down my street, blasting music.
This happens several times a day, of course, and most of these loud cars get stuck on Odessa Street for several minutes. I believe my neighborhood has an excessive amount of these blasting cars because Montparnasse is somewhat of a hot spot for banlieusards, who always feel the need to show their hipness with loud music (I still argue that nobody can look hip with their jogging suits stuck in their socks, but I'm no fashion guru). That's a-ok by me; I like feeling that we-live-in-the-middle-of-a-bustling-metropolis feeling, and I look fondly upon the youths displaying their taste in music for all to hear as I was once that way myself. The more blasting cars the merrier.
But today, yes, a car drove by playing - at a volume so loud that I could distinguish the intricacies of the drums and all the lyrics from my sixth (seventh, to Americans) floor window - "It's Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini."
It was sort of a Cuban/salsa-esque version of the song. Maybe it was the original, I don't know. I've only heard the song sung by annoying people who think that singing the song is funny, and I can't recall hearing a recorded version. So is it a salsa-ish song at base? That would surprise me. It rings of American dorkiness, really.
Still, I appreciated hearing several minutes of the song so much that I caught myself singing along. Just a tad. Nothing to worry about, really.
An English children's TV presenter called Timmy Mallet once assaulted the UK charts with his recorded version. He thought it was funny too. His weekend morning shows were called "Wackaday" and "The Wide-Awake Club". His trademark game was called "Mallet's Mallet", in which he was the referee for a game of word association. Any mistake was punished by whacking the kid over the head with a huge soft mallet and then sticking a big plaster (Bandaid) on them.
In Glasgow, the charming neds and bams wear their tracky-Bs tucked into their socks too. It's a gang thang. The shocking thing is, that quite a lot of the bams are lassies, and quite young 'uns at that.
I like the way domeheid writes. :)
If you like what you read, go get some more at http://domeheid.blogspot.com
More ego-massage welcome at any time.
okay if ya want