I digress

It was 1953, and I was still at school. I'd borrowed a silent French film from the library for my 9.5mm projector. It was by Jean Epstein, and it was awful. So I rang the library and asked if they had anything else. They said they had 'Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution.' - Kevin Brownlow

I made beetroot soup today. Again. It’s winter here in Delhi. We’re in 2024. (We don’t know who has access to the cloud). While I rested for a bit and listened to Dorothy Ashby, I looked at my hand, as a normal person does. It had beet juice on it. Side thought - BeetJuice is a great take on Beetlejuice if anyone is looking for startup ideas. (It would fail miserably). Anyway, my hands are red-ish. Or is this pink? I am a design student, this is embarrassing. But hey, the point being - this colour looks like blood. And I thought - well, that’s how Lady Macbeth would have felt. “Out!”, I murmured. The song shifted to Celine Dion’s classic ‘Power of love’. How cinematic. I know. But Lady Macbeth wasn’t real. And even if she was, she didn’t know of Celine Dion. Shakespeare was though. He didn’t know of Celine Dion either. So he must’ve imagined this in his head. Does that make me Shakespeare? Meh. Who wants to be him? Did you know he was the bread mafia back in the day? Motherfucker, right? What was Taming Of The Shrew? Sit down, it’s preposterous. He is mid at best. Lady Macbeth however - what a play. He didn’t really write it. Look it up.

Beetroot juice has a lot of benefits. We now know that it is also a great prop for plays. Blood. I love blood. Not in a gory way - just in a very - well, cinematic way. “Blood is thicker than water.” Did you know that phrase is incomplete? It’s actually “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” Which is the COMPLETE opposite of what we make it to be. That is insane. Look at the things we believe in. Conformism. That word is borrowed from the French. Another anomaly. Because the French believe in blood. The French want revenge. There, blood again. How glorious. What if Lady Macbeth was French? What if she liked beetroot? That would be an interesting detail. “She liked beetroot. She was French.”

I will now, however, wash my hands and say the three magical words. “Out! damned spot!”. I would also like you to know that I am menstruating. Blood again. I am not French, though. Annastasia’s ‘Sunday’ is playing in the background. She isn’t French either. She is playing the saxophone. The saxophone was invented by Aldophe Sax. He was French. I am not sure if he liked blood. Or beetroot.

Love,

K.

The Sorrow of Telemachus by Angelika Kauffmann