#causerie

[clove-pinks]

Causerie by Paul Gavarni, July 11, 1833.

[uncanny-eldritch]

‘Conversation’, The Flowers of Evil (Baudelaire)

[whatihate]

[artdelivre]

Ne cherchez plus mon cœur ; les bêtes l’ont mangé.

Charles Baudelaire, “Causerie” − Les Fleurs du Mal

[clove-pinks]

Do you ever go on a stroll with your 1830s man and his slim little waist and luscious thighs and now you're overcome with lust? Paul Gavarni understands.

[iivocom]

Causerie: April, The Month That Hit Fast‑Forward

April didn’t pass — it whooshed. First Easter came and went then the rest of the month slipped on a pair of carbon‑fiber running shoes, muttered something about “personal bests,” and sprinted straight out of the calendar before I even had time to wave. I’m convinced the month had somewhere better to be. Probably a beach. Probably sipping something with a tiny umbrella in it.

Meanwhile, I was here, blinking at the calendar like a confused time traveler.

Because April is supposed to be the month where things slow down just enough for you to get your life together. You know — the mythical “spring reset.” The gentle, pastel‑colored promise that this is the moment you’ll finally:

start the summer fitness plan

map out the content strategy

organize the ideas that were definitely going to be organized

and maybe, just maybe, become the kind of person who owns a water bottle that isn’t lost behind the couch

But April had other plans. April said: “Oh, you wanted structure? That’s adorable. Here’s pollen instead.”

And spring — spring is out here singing. Literally. Birds are auditioning for The Voice: Garden Edition. Trees are throwing confetti like they’re celebrating something. The sun is suddenly staying up late like a teenager on school break. Everything is alive and buzzing and blooming and reminding you that summer is coming whether your abs are ready or not.

And me? I’m standing in the middle of it all, holding a notebook full of half‑formed ideas and a fitness plan that looks more like a philosophical suggestion than an actionable roadmap.

I had a slow, thoughtful plan for content. A beautiful plan. A plan with structure and phases and maybe even a color‑coded timeline. It was supposed to be the kind of plan that makes productivity YouTubers nod approvingly.

Instead, April looked at my plan and said: “Cute. Anyway, here’s a long weekend and a sudden craving for ice cream.”

But here’s the thing: even in the chaos, April has this way of nudging you forward. Not with discipline — no, April doesn’t do discipline — but with momentum. With the smell of fresh grass. With the first warm day that tricks you into thinking you’re a runner now. With the tiny spark of “maybe I could get in shape before summer” even though you know full well that summer is basically tomorrow.

And honestly? I kind of love it.

Because April is messy, but it’s hopeful. It’s fast, but it’s energizing. It’s the month that reminds you that life doesn’t wait for your perfect plan — it just keeps blooming, loudly, enthusiastically, and sometimes right in your face.

So yes, April ran off without warning. But it left the door open, and the air smells like possibility.

And maybe that’s enough.

[iivocom]

The Month That Slipped Behind the Couch

I don’t know what happened to March, really. One moment I was minding my own business, tinkering away in the lab on my secret projects — which are moving forward, while not quite on track, which is basically the project-management equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat — and the next moment the month had evaporated like a puddle in Dubai. Hopefully at least one of these projects will start to materialize soon. I’m excited. Or nervous. Or both. It’s hard to tell the difference at this point.

Meanwhile, the outside world has been doing its usual thing: spinning, wobbling, and occasionally catching fire.

Apparently Skydance ended up buying Warner Bros. Discovery, which is a sentence I didn’t expect to write in this timeline. Especially after weeks of “sources familiar with the matter” whispering that Netflix was swooping in to buy the WB part — only for it to turn out that the “regulatory concerns” around that deal were, allegedly, just Skydance’s PR machine doing its best impression of a fog machine at a middle-school disco. Which is exactly what I said would happen, but I’m not here to brag. I’m just here to quietly nod in the corner like a man who has seen this movie before and knows the twist.

I’m not going into politics, but there’s a strange definition of “not starting a war” floating around right now. I’m not naming names. I’m just saying that if this is what “not starting” looks like, I’d hate to see the warm‑up act. The Strait of Hormuz is tense, oil prices are doing their best impression of a SpaceX launch, and markets are reacting with the grace of a toddler who dropped their ice cream. Real estate is wobbling in places like Dubai, which is usually the global symbol of “everything is fine, look at our fountains.”

And then there’s spring forward.

Not the hour-jumping-ahead part — I’m fine with that. I can lose an hour. I lose hours all the time. I misplace them like socks. The real headache is dealing with different continents and their whimsical approach to time changes. Europe is usually six hours ahead of the US East Coast, except for those few weeks every year when the time zones decide to cosplay as quantum particles and refuse to be pinned down. For a brief period, nobody knows what time it is anywhere, and scheduling a meeting becomes a form of performance art.

But then, just when I’m about to declare the world officially unhinged, I step outside and see a few Easter lilies poking their heads toward the sun. Just quietly doing their thing. No mergers. No geopolitical tension. No time-zone drama. Just existing, beautifully and stubbornly, as if to say: “Relax. Touch some grass. Or at least look at us trying to.”

And honestly? In moments like that, life is good.

Even if March did run off somewhere without leaving a note.

[iivocom]

Three Things, One Causerie (Yes, I'm Back with another world view rant)

Where do we begin — the newest or the oldest? Frankly, after TikTok vanished from American phones for a full 24 hours and the republic somehow survived, my sense of chronology has never quite recovered. Let's start there.

TikTok US has changed its ownership structure. Note the precision: US subsidiary. Not the whole company — ByteDance didn't hand over the keys to the empire, merely agreed to let some new neighbours redecorate the garage. ByteDance retains a minority position, the rest is now safely in American hands, everyone got to shake their fists at the appropriate moments, and absolutely nothing has changed for the average user scrolling at two in the morning. Everyone declared victory. The algorithm remains unmoved.

ByteDance is, of course, still under scrutiny. This seems to happen reliably whenever a Chinese tech company does something better than its American counterparts — and this time the apparent offence is that their AI video software is too good. Alarming stuff. Truly.

Shifting continents, we stop briefly in Greenland — a landmass that has apparently become the most discussed real estate on Earth despite having no estate agents, very little land worth building on, and a population smaller than a mid-sized suburb. The jokes write themselves, so I'll leave that to you.

What's less funny — or perhaps more, depending on your disposition — is that NATO has had defence interests there for roughly sixty years. As Denmark rather dryly noted: you don't need to own something to have a base on it and protect your interests. This is an observation about how the world works, not a political position. I try to stay out of all that. Mostly succeeding.

Moving on.

Back in Europe, all eyes were on Italy for the Winter Olympics, and what a genuinely good time it was. Snowboard, curling, figure skating, and ski mountaineering making its debut — the full buffet. But if I had to single out one thing, it's snowboarding's culture. Where else in elite sport do competitors leap to their feet cheering when a rival lands a perfect run? No tactical poker face, no grudging nod — pure, instinctive joy for someone doing something brilliant. That's the Olympics to me. Not nations, not medal tables — athletes and their sports and a host country doing it properly.

There's a quiet sadness lurking beneath it: fewer and fewer places can host winter sports at a reasonable scale. The snow is getting stingy.

Speaking of which — we did have some, briefly. Enough to feel festive, not enough to cause any real trouble. And with that rather pleasant image, I find myself looking ahead to the year's first Steam NextFest.

More on that, presumably, when I've actually played something, but this is a good time to go subscribe to my twitch gaming channel