About Regarde!

I’m Daniel.  Or Dan.  Take your pick.  You should know that most people who know me call me Daniel because I’m more of a Daniel than a Dan.  I guess that’s akin to being more like a spider than like a beaver.  Spiders are aptly named – whether as a function of extended association or as referring to something truly substantial, I don’t really care.  You can get excited about the difference, if you wish.  Either way, spiders are indeed spidery – creative, patient, quietly sinister, delicate.  Likewise, beavers are beavery, having their own well-known and strangely noble characteristics that Canadian nation-building types are so eager to push on an indifferent public (some beavery characteristics, like being easily trapped and good for making fashionable hats, are not so noble but are still appropriate to Canada, I think.).  Accordingly, Daniels are Daniely – often spectacled, slender, handsome (but not threatening), passive, confused by emotion (especially their own), and so on.  Dans tend to be more masculine than Daniels, they like small talk and keeping things light, they play cards and like throwing balls for fun, but can be fiercely competitive.  I’m more of a Daniel than a Dan. 

I’m married.  I have kids.  I teach, sometimes, but as a rule I choose not to work.  If you were to guess why I choose not to work, you’d likely be right.  I’ll keep it a secret for now, just for fun.  The rule, since it was mentioned, is family and sailing.

This blog is ultimately about me and things that motivate me.  Sometimes I think it will eventually approximate a tidy explosion of my brain.  The name, I think, reflects that idea, as in “Regarde! This is a tidy explosion of Daniel’s brain!”  It’s a French informal imperative, as you likely knew, for ‘Look (friend)!’ (instead of regardez, which is supposed to mean ‘Look (sir/madam)!’, but more often than not means ’Look (you bloated tit)!’).  It can also be a call for attention (‘watch me, I’m so cool!’) or shout of warning (‘open your eyes, idiot!’), both of which likely apply, and all the subtle distinctions between.  It often sounds (to my ears) like a threat, perhaps because it sounds like engarde.  It shares engarde’s root, garder, meaning ‘to keep,’ which is also smartly appropriate since the act of blogging is not only a ’bringing-to-attention’, but also a ‘keeping,’ and perhaps is truer to the word ‘blog’ (as a truncate of ‘web-log’).  The fact that it is a French word (even though I am anglophone) is significant as well, mostly because my tastes are overwhelmingly Gallic, most especially for cooking, baking, and wines.    Regarde also hints at the measurable influence French culture has had on me, particularly French-Canadian and Metis culture (having grown up on the Winnipeg River in eastern Manitoba).