I AMsterdam (part two)
Dave Says:
Keys
I have decided to title the paragraphs. The last literary affair rambled, so by now titling the paragraphs I’m hoping to give the reader a clue to the general thrust of the upcoming diatribe so easing the demands on my long, comma ridden sentences. In the long run, this will save us all time although it may be a while before that investment is realized. So, keys. I have them. They serve as a metaphor. They lock things up whilst reminding me I have things that need locking up. Locking my things up protects them from people who would like them for some nefarious gain of their own and so depriving me of my ever so important things. I have seven keys: bike front, bike rear, door up, door down, card key for work, key for the locker at work where my laptop lives and the ubiquitous mystery key. I’ve always had a mystery key. I don’t look for it, it just appears on the key-ring one day. Instantly I cannot remember quite what it (un)locks but I’m scared to dispose of it in case I can no longer (un)lock something I think is important. This too is a metaphor but of what I have yet to deduce.
Keys and their Role in my Life
Keys haven’t played much of a role in my life this year. I’m writing this to remind myself to not put so much importance on them in the future. Conditioning is a hard habit to break as I’ve always carried them and their meaning around with me. They bunch together nicely, all the keys to important things in one place. I suppose this is the best way - to carry them individually is just asinine and that is why key-rings make such fine presents for that awkward family gift exchange come the holiday season. To refuse the gift of a key-ring is to admit the desire to randomly spread one’s keys across one’s life and, by transference, implies one is also asinine. But, my life in Amsterdam is one where key mayhem is rife. Here’s my conundrum. Bike keys are only needed when cycling but when I do cycle the keys remain in one of the locks on the bike. They won’t come out. This is a safety feature designed to ensure you always lock your bike but is disconcerting because I always pat my pockets for my keys every-time I leave the house and every-time I get on the bike (or car, if I had one). My life of key conditioning has led to always expect the same volume of key in my pocket. But now, half the keys are missing (they’re in the bike lock, stupid) and I ever-so-mildly panic – every time. My work key card is a card not a key so it can’t live with the other key shaped keys but does carry with it a key shaped key to my locker and the mystery key (also fashioned in the shape of a key). BUT, they too must remain in the lock of locker, separate from the card key so adding to the mayhem. The worse case, is when I cycle to work – I need all my keys but only some for some of the journey and some of the time – throughout the whole commute to my desk, various keys come on and go off the key-ring at some quite confusing moments. And, that, I suppose, is yet another metaphor.
An Aside Of Keys, Please Waiter
Talking of bike locks, Sarah, a few weeks ago, locked her bike and left the keys in the lock. When she returned her trusty steed would have been nothing but thin air if it were not the brave action of my bike who, at the last moment and in total disregard for its own safety, threw its own lock around Sarah’s bike in a effort to save its friend from the black market. The cunning criminals stole her lock instead.
A Question
How is this whole paragraph titling malarkey working out for you? Its a device I suppose but its not a concise device. Oh well, onwards…
Lost in Translation
My Dutch is not all that. But then, the internet means it doesn’t have to be. Thanks to the babel fish translation service from Altavista, I can stuff words, sentences and whole websites into the mouth, but more likely up the ass, of this powerful little fish and out pops “translation”. I wouldn’t use it for anything where accuracy is even remotely important but then I’m trying to avoid such requirements in my life anyway. Here’s a few favorites from today:
When deciding what internet package to order: You want mail beside and surf sometimes a photograph send or music to download? Then UPC Internet Easy the subscription for you is!
Customer support pages when the internet doesn’t work: Krijg I have been possible subscription money if I by a cable crack not at?
When you need to find the hotel you’ll be staying in: The whaler lies in the village groin, what approximately between Midsland and Oosterend in lies.
When deciding to rent Star Wars in Dutch: When imperial troops arrive to destroy where the rebellen flights Han solo and Princess Leia to Cloud city, they caught are taken Darth father. Luke Skywalker set off to the planet Dagobah, where he by Jedi-meester are trained the Yoda in the Force.
And so on… There’s no doubt that laughing at a tool that stops people laughing at me is cruel. But even crueler is my insistence on reading the translation with a dutch accent, even when I’m reading it silently to myself. The Dutch speak wonderful English but babel fish just makes them look cheap. Well, it actually makes me look cheap for only knowing the Dutch for thank you. I will continue to laugh at babel fish and try to remember to say thank you to the good Dutch folk who make my life easier by interacting with me in my own language.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Keys…. it was pretty symbolic when you handed your keys over to me as we headed for the airport to see you guys off back in January. And now they’re my tangible connection to you, a reminder that you ~will~ come back and reclaim your keys and your lives here. Well that, plus they help me start your car every week or so.
What is it about that mystery key? We all seem to have at least one and you’re right - we’re afraid to throw them out because eventually we’ll come across the lock that was meant to mate with that key.
Titling the paragraphs worked for me!