Et Alors, Babelfish

There is a reissue of Buster Keaton's silent feature, The General, that has been redone by a notable French company with an orchestral score composed by Joe Hisaishi.  It was cleaned frame by frame, eliminating the years of damage often overlooked by earlier outfits simply because the technology was not available.  In addition, the popular Hisaishi, who did the work for the Japanese animation, Spirited Away, has created a piece sure to dramatize and burnish Keaton's remarkable achievement in a distinct, complimentary glow.  The edition I now own plays "Teddy Bear's Picnic" during the scene in which Keaton climbs nimbly onto the cowcatcher of the moving train, in order to knock a loose rail off the track by hoisting another and smashing it down in a quick physics lesson of force and fulcrum.  Teddy Bear's Picnic, for heaven's sake.

Well, go to Amazon online, the seller of anything you think you might need.  The dvd is not available in the US, but Amazon UK or Amazon FR carry it, as well as some independent sellers using the Amazon storefront.  Whee!  I sign up and push buttons until a message appears, saying that there is a problem with my address in that neither entity wishes to ship this far out.  Now, I have ordered seashells from small dealers in China and gotten them safely within the month, (You lucky fine, come back, buy more), so what is the problem especially when it is as big a pickle jar as Amazon?  Is this not a global economy?  Mildly frustrated, I rise to the challenge.

The French title is Le Mecano de la General and I find a tidy website that lists a Collector's Edition as well as the usual.  The problem is, I don't speak a lick of French other than food names from cookbooks or Canadian road signs.  How do I convert to Euros, will they send it out over the ocean, do I know anybody in France?  What I do is go to Altavista's Babelfish, a translator of communication from one language to the next, and concoct a short message in simple American, push it through a French strainer, copy and paste it into their email link.  If anything, I learn that I know less about the language than I thought, for consonants get tacked onto the word in front sometimes, or words get mooshed together, letters get unpronounced.  I imagine somewhere in France a media store le clerk is wondering what on earth does this woman think she's going to get?  But, a missive came back this evening.

"He IS USELESS D' Y TO ANSWER, Did you consult our Fair with the questions? The answer s' there surely finds. Consult it while clicking on the following bond.  You know our service "Clara"?"  Well, yes.  Clara is a friendly looking virtual girl, who is available 24 hours a day to answer website questions.  In French.  I may go bother her tomorrow, after I arm myself with prepared phrases from Babelfish since getting this particular dvd has become a Quest, a mosquito bite intensifying the want, lurking just out of reach when all that is needed are the right words that will get a Gallic hand to slip it into a slim cardboard box and toss it in the mail.  My god, we get cheese from France, how can a movie be more problematic?  In addition, my dvd player is region-free, so I can run movies from Tibet if there were any.  

It is now 2 o'clock Saturday morning in France.  Deep in the French dark, a dvd is sitting next to a display of chocolat and stationnaire d'une manière amusante for All Occasions.  This dvd feels a slight pull from the West, a psychic kinesis creating a portal to American terra firma, a hypnotic whisper in a now sleeping employee's ear that sharing genius is important, necessary, and merciful.  Dream of me, Le Mecano de la General, as I dream of trains and bridges, of clarity defined by stringed instruments, of dedicated film preservationists.

Night is here as well as there, we are six hours before whatever is going on in the dark of France, a time traveling force of nature.  We could fly into the next day, and if the speed of light were achievable, into  years past simply as nonparticipating observers.  Travel ahead of the beam that left yesterday to a point in space it has not yet arrived at and fine-tune your telescopes to see it rehappen; get far enough out and theoretically, you could see dinosaurs, Vikings, or who ate the last piece of cake you were saving in the fridge.  A silent film presented by the cosmos, a memory of vision held in light from centuries ago.  I wish you success in your small victories.  Le sommeil profondément, dorment coffre-fort.  Alors.