A practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general (with footnotes!)

It has been brought to my attention (by Quincy, lovingly) that some of the things I say in these postings may not be readily meaningful to all readers. You know, like when I riff, in French, on the opening lines of a Camus novel, or refer obliquely to some particular piece of ornate architecture, or make some obscure allusion to someone like T. S Eliot or Richie Brockelman. "Nobody's gonna get that reference," Quincy says, "Nobody's gonna know who that is." And when I assure her that there may be someone out there for whom those lines from Camus ring a distant but fondly-remembered bell, or who might actually recall that Richie Brockelman, Private Eye debuted on NBC in the spring of 1978 and ran for all of six episodes, she (Quincy) just looks and me and nods and says, "Uh-huh." And when I mention that it's all okay anyway because anybody reading this blog is just two mouse-clicks away from a full deciphering courtesy of websites like Wikipedia or IMDb or KnowYourMeme.com, she just closes her eyes and exhales slowly to show me how much it pains her when I insist on using words like "meme" [1] in ordinary household conversation.

"Maybe you need to add footnotes," she says. It's possible that is was a joke. I mean, I don't think Quincy really wants our blog to resemble some semiotics essay published in PMLA [2]. But still. Footnotes. Hmmm. Okay, I'll try it.

It turns out, though, that this Blogger interface doesn't make footnoting all that easy. Clearly, the software code wasn't written for T. S. Eliot [3]. So, okay, here's how I'm going to handle it. I'll indicate foonote numbers in square brackets like the ones you just ran into after "meme" and "PMLA" and "T.S. Eliot." The explanatory notes themselves will appear in separate post below. (That separate post will be titled, simply, "Footnotes," to distinguish it from the more prolix – but deceptively straightforward – title than this one has [4]). Got it? Okay, let's proceed.

But wait. There is one more issue that I'm struggling with here: The question of just what exactly needs a footnote. Does T. S Eliot really need a footnote? Does Camus? And if I worked in some timely allusion to Epic Beard Man [5], would I need a footnote there? And what about when I conclude this post with the words "Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih" – does that need a footnote too? Well, actually, that last one's easy. "Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih": That's pretty transparent stuff, isn't it; no explanation needed.

Whew, that's a long preamble. I'm exhausted. And I still have the footnotes to write. I'd better get the point of this post. The point is this: What, if anything, does any of this have to do with France? Why am I even posting this stuff here, on our blog about France, instead of on our blog about blogging about France? Well, smarty-pants, it's cross-posted. (See: Click here.) [6] So there.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih. [7]