Stop Hitting Yourself

As I write this I am watching television with a woman who I don't know who she is. The Ninja Turtles (of course?) are on. Ninja, ninja, she says to me. How else do I respond: turtle?

Now, she is watching a daft punk music video (I've never actually seen this video, they do a lot here I stopped doing a long time ago, like Super Mario and drinking milk, though I have taken shots to its beat at school). I don't understand. She looks really interested. I just figured out from her explanation that she is a teacher at the Lycee--that's right: she's an aunt, a science teacher at a prestigious school in the suburbs. Now, we're watching Tom and Jerry. (So what is she the science teacher doing? She is so nice to me; she keeps on serving me hot milk, which works so well for almost everything) Often, we're watching this Egyptian soap opera, which really looks so amateur, there's not really any dialogue, just close-ups and porno montage sequences showing this Westernized rich family poolside, in the bedroom, holding their head, just staring, blinking, alone in the kitchen, with some ridiculous choice of music like Soldja Boy playing (a popular American rapper, sort of).

And yesterday, during pastry fest, the all of us, like 8 people, gradually attuned to the television, where a flamboyant frenchman--no, first we watched the pale angry model walk to the flamboyant frenchman's house--and then there at the house the slick thin artist applied make-up to her, the PAM, explaining to us right into the camera (in shots filmed later) in french what he was doing to her, and it seemed like "normal" tv, but then it turned out he was making her into some sort of Vampire Chic, this like prettified purple and black bite mark being crated on her neck, her hair pulled back to show it (the anti-hickey!) and he was making another PAM into a "just-come" butterfly, and we all of us were riveted. The women here read make-up catalogs, too. They are into makeup.

And the television, I don't know. Mainly, PAM pictures perhaps not included, it is like television offers not content, but the experience of watching television (it really is another member of the family, and you don't hear a word of criticism re: this family memberness) and like among other aspects of this experience it isn't age specific; or actually no I think it is. I think television is more for older people, who are more readily captivated, institutionalized, owned, sat down and whatnot. Reda, my littlest 6 year-old brother, likes to make the Lion King stuffed animal a previous American student gave him dance on the screen when no one else is watching the television. Then, of course, when the Lion's done, Reda hits himself in the head with it/him until his father really hits him.

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