This is not just a Velociraptor Heart, this is a Madame Pamplemousse Velociraptor Heart in Red Wine...
Madame Pamplemousse and her Incredible Edibles - by Rupert Kingfisher, illustrated by Sue Hellard
A delicious little children's novel about the beauty of good cooking, true kindness and genuine personality, that's a bit like a warm, witty and slightly twisted mix-up between Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Patrick Suskind's Perfume. (Actually, it's not really like that at all, but I like the comparison anyway...and there is some truth to it.) A memorable read for those with big, inventive appetites and perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon, but not when you've got a rumbling tummy. In the city of Paris, on the banks of the river, tucked away from the main street down a narrow, winding alley, there is a shop. A small, rather shabby-looking shop with faded paintwork, a dusty awning and dark, smoky windows. The sign above the door reads ‘Edibles’, as it is a food shop selling all kinds of rare and exotic delicacies. They are not just rare and they are not just exotic, for this shop belongs to Madame Pamplemousse, and she sells the strangest, the rarest, the most delicious, the most extraordinary, the most incredible-tasting edibles in the world.
Inside, the shop is cool and musty-smelling, lit only by candlelight. In the flickering shadows, great bunches of sausages and dried herbs, strings of garlic and chilli peppers, and giant salted meats hang from the ceiling. Rows of cheeses are laid out on beds of dark green leaves and all around there are shelves winding up to the ceiling, crammed with bottles and strangely shaped jars.
But look closer and you’ll find these aren’t just plain sausages, they’re sausages of Bison and Black Pepper, Wild Boar and Red Wine, and Minotaur Salami with Sage and Wild Thyme. Among the dried meats there are Salt-Cured Raptor Tails, Pterodactyl Bacon, Smoked Sabre-Toothed Tiger and Rolled Tyrannosaurus Rex Tongue. The cheeses are of an unimaginable smelliness, some dating back to medieval times, and each of the pots and jars have their contents written in fine, purple letters: Scorpion Tails in Smoked Garlic Oil, Crocodile Kidneys in Blueberry Wine, Cobra Brains in Black Butter, Roast Piranha with Raspberry Coulis, Electric Eel Pate with Garlic and Prunes, Great White Shark Fin in Banana Liquor and Giant Squid Tentacle in Jasmine-Scented Jelly.
Underneath the shop, down a winding spiral staircase, at the end of a long, dark corridor, there is a door. A door that is forever kept locked. For it is behind this door that Madame Pamplemousse cooks her rarest delicacy, a delicacy sold in the tiniest little jar with a label upon which nothing is written. The label is blank and the ingredients are a secret, since it is the single most delicious, the most extraordinary, the most incredible-tasting edible of them all….
Lost Girls: Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Wendy Darling
When we meet Wendy Darling in the first volume of Lost Girls, this middle-aged woman is sexually repressed, frustrated and silent. Unlike Alice’s aristocratic sexual bohemianism, and Dorothy’s earthy blue-collar openness, Wendy is the epitome of middle-class repression and denial. However, whiles her equally unsatisfied husband Harold may affectionately refer to her as “old girl” as they arrive at the Himmelgarten Hotel, their bedroom tells a different story. A queasy art-nouveau parody of writhing bodies and breast-shaped drawers, with an erotic collection lurking in the room, acting as a substitute for the more usual Gideon’s Bible, their sleeping quarters are jam-packed with the reminders of the elephant in the room. While her husband furtively indulges in Beardsley’s depiction of the orgy in Venus and Tannhauser (more on this in a later post), Wendy is compelled to follow the handsome young bellboy into the gardens of the hotel. Hands pressed to her lips, she watches him undress, before disgusted with herself, she flees back to her hotel room. This is just the first of many acts of voyeurism and exhibitionism that Wendy will enact, enjoy and recall. Furthermore, the parodic reproduction of Venus and Tannhauser read secretly by Harold will come to mirror the sexual games of Alice, Dorothy and Wendy that are to follow. However, where as in the original Wagner opera of Tannhauser, the protagonist’s carnal devotion to Venus and the opening orgy is the point of sin from which the hero must attempt to redeem himself, it is only through sex, play, fantasy and storytelling that the characters in Lost Girls are redeemed.
Back in the hotel room, Wendy and Harold share a mundane, domestic conversation, but the shadows cast by their forms against the walls of their hotel room betray their latent desires. As they search the hotel room for Harold’s misplaced business papers, their silhouettes conspire, often improbably, to reflect the couple engaged in foreplay. As the shadow-Harold appears to enter his wife from behind, real-Harold benignly discusses work prospects;
“Of course, for me it’s the challenge that’s the thing: doing something you haven’t tried before. Realizing your opportunity and seizing the moment…”
For a moment, the grouping of text in one isolated speech bubble allows the reader to pretend that shadow and reality are finally aligning; that Harold and Wendy may one day find themselves sexually compatible…until Harold finishes with “Just imagine promotion, sales division manager…”, neatly placed in a separate frame. Eventually, sadly, gently, truth and fantasy marry up as Wendy rests her head on her husband’s shoulder, in both shadow and full-colour form.
That night, Wendy is tormented by the sounds of Alice and Dorothy enjoying uninhibited pleasure as she takes a bath in the hotel. Harold, meanwhile, dreams of orgies composed of the sounds he hears from next door and Venus and Tannhauser. Although both craving the same thing, they cannot bear to ask it of each other. While there may be tenderness and companionship in this marriage, there’s a helluva lot of sexual repression and dissatisfaction.
Wendy’s compulsion to watch the bellboy undress and her voyeuristic eavesdropping on Alice and Dorothy undermines her carefully composed image of the pure, “good” woman. But why is Wendy plagued with such guilt about her sexual desires and what stops her from sharing these with her husband?When Wendy is discovered spying on Dorothy and Alice, bent over eachother’s bodies like playing cards (check the Caroll ref) by the pool, she is brought to tears. As Alice berates her for being nothing more than “a common peeping Tom”, Wendy stammers her confession:
“I-I came to listen. I didn’t know you’d be…I overheard what you said at breakfast…a-and last night about dream worlds. When you were young… You see that’s my story. I’ve never told anyone else about it.”
Witnessing, watching their explicitly female sexuality returns Wendy to the turning point in her sexuality, her first voyeuristic experience, and gives her the courage and starting point from which to address her own sexual development. Perhaps most uncomfortably for readers, and as it turns out, the censors, this means retreating to fantasy worlds and returning to childhood.
When Alice invites Wendy to join her and Dorothy, she rediscovers these lost girls, and in unlocking Wendy, opens the entire book:
“Now then…Mrs. Potter, I am Lady Fairchild. My companion is Miss Gale. Fate, seemingly has brought us to the Himmelgarten for a reason. Therefore, I propose we devote this afternoon to storytelling. Just the three of us. Together.”
As we go marching, marching In the beauty of the day A million darkened kitchens A thousand mill lofts grey Are touched with all the radiance That a sudden sun discloses For the people hear us singing Bread and roses, bread and roses
As we go marching, marching We battle too for men For they are women’s children And we mother them again Our lives shall not be sweetened From birth until life closes Hearts starve as well as bodies Give us bread, but give us roses
As we go marching, marching We bring the greater days For the rising of the women Means the rising of the race No more the drudge and idler Ten that toil where one reposes But the sharing of life’s glories Bread and roses, bread and roses
Words by James Oppenheim
DV is writing her book and working on some lengthy Lost Girls posts, so expect lazy but well-meant posts like this one...
Like, duh. I had one of those stupid little eureka moments last weeks. It wasn’t especially groundbreaking, but it’s improved my quality of life beyond all measure. I “remembered” Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place. It sits quite innocently on the jukebox in a pub near my office but I always forget it’s there. Then last week while out drinking with my girlfriends, I remembered it’s existence, and now I’m listening to it at least three or four times a day, having rediscovered the best love song ever written.
So, where to start when discussing its all-round brilliance?
It’s so-called Naïve Melody, whereby the bass and guitar repeat the same phrase for the song’s entirety, restricts the melody to a very nursery-like G-A-B-A chord progression, binding the song into a gentle, repetitive lull. Its simplicity leaves room for David Byrne to overlay the song with a lyrical, understated but sincere vocal. Its childlike opening, which extends past a full minute, complete with keyboard-y clavinet-y riff is ripe for dancing shyly to and dozing off to. The effect is soothing, like when someone strokes your fringe away from your forehead. I don’t think it’s any surprise that The Spice Girls nicked the especially perky section of the keyboard riff for Mama (1:24) because This Must Be The Place epitomises naïve, safe and innocent. It also fails to go anywhere especially significant, happy to be thoughtlessly trapped in its own simple pattern. Consequently, it treads a fine line between sweetly straightforward and a little bit dull. However, this latent dullness works against the upbeat preppiness of the guitar and bass to deliver a song that, no matter how cute, retains a surprising and pleasing air of melancholy. In a song filled with promises of uniqueness and forever ever after, Talking Heads still succeed in creating a pop song that feels temporary and throwaway in its easiness. It’s perfect, and yet also, because it doesn’t quite go anywhere, just a little bit unfulfilling…hence why I want to hear it again, and again, again. So perhaps not that dissimilar to love.
Covers of this song, no matter how dreadful, still unwittingly reveal its uncomplicated beauty. Shawn Colvin strums her way through a sickly, syrupy version (it’s pretty icky), while MGMT ham up the cutesy keyboard skipping. Arcade Fire deliver an aching, slightly co-dependent hymn with skinny violin parts and tinny drums. None are as good as the original, but all pick up on the various strains lying dormant in its sound. Shawn Colvin does sentimentally slushy; MGMT do boppy, poppy, happy and Arcade Fire do lovestruck and desperate. No change there then.
I never think of this as a very Talking Heads kind of song. It’s them at their fluffiest, their most docile. There’s something drunkenly joyful and a little bit sleepy about it, until David Byrne lets loose with great big heart-bursting, wailing declarations of love. The lyrics are adorably optimistic, a little bit delusional, and stubbornly resist romantic clichés in favour of rather more understated ways of saying what every other love song insists on shouting at you. Its almost tinny, hollow poppiness works brilliantly with the elegantly spare lyrics. The euphoric, moaning tone that David Byrne’s drawl reaches with that most exquisite of chat-up lines, “And of all those kinds of people, you got a face with a view” is pure, infatuated, utterly nutso love. You’re beautiful, you’re unique, and he wants to be with you for ever and ever.
His quavering, blurry voice beefs up the melody with just the right amount of neediness, as behind this apparently transparent, innocent tune are terribly clingy, long-term-love kind of lyrics. The man singing this song isn’t just in love, but hell-bent on staying in it for the rest of his life. This little animal has found his home, taken off his shoes and coat, and intends to love you till he’s dead. And yet, in line with the song, there’s also just the right amount of maturity and level-headedness, honest commitment; a kind of give-and-take that’s echoed in the identical structure of the bass and guitar parts. The song’s melody mirrors the comfort that comes with being in love, or finding a “home”, or sharing “the same space for a minute or two”. It’s this easy-going but incredibly heartfelt combination of “feet on the ground” and “head in the sky” that makes This Must Be The Place so emotive. It uses a very simple musical structure and very basic, uncluttered lyrics to express a deep, quite complicated emotion and bring out a fundamental truth. Which is that love, when kept simple, is actually very simple. Not bad in 4:53.
Okay. I’ll stop getting all slushy and D&M on you. And even if you think that’s a load of old tosh, David Byrne’s final yelping swoon is divine (not to mention his lurve-dance with the lamp).
