I woke up the other morning at 4. No reason. Just got out of bed and flipped on the t.v. so I could ride my exercise bike. The only programming I could find was the freaky French instructional video that public television stations play. You know the one: the hottie French girl and her American boyfriend traipse about various locales in France while being shadowed by the Man In Black. The video’s narrative unfolds, oblivious to me because I don’t speak a word of French, and, as the plot thickens, so does the viewers mastery of the French language—at least that’s the theory.

If I show you a couple pictures, you’ll recognize the show immediately, if you haven’t already. It’s this one:

Well, this show has been on since I can remember. And I’ve always found it creepy. There’s nothing too outwardly strange about it, but, since I can’t understand a word, it’s more of a tone poem to me. I watch these two people interact and cruise around Paris, I make up my own version of what they are saying to each other, I theorize about the mysterious Man In Black who is always trailing them, and I try to pick out the sweetest examples of insidious Frogginess. And just when you get into “the zone,” this greasy old man wearing a chocolate brown blazer pops in like a late-breaking bulletin and starts repeating himself at the screen, acking and curling his voice around incomprehensible phrases, while the shot flashes backwards in time, or to a mime balancing a butcher knife on his finger, or a group of peasants thrashing wheat in a field—stuff that apparently makes sense, but I can’t find any sense in it.

It’s this guy who always pops up and starts the stream-of-consciousness freak zone:

His name is Pierre. Pierre Capretz of Yale University invented the “Capretz” method of hallucinatory images, non sequitur, and distracting, scary secret agent french instruction.

As for the woman. Her name is Valerie Alain (you can click to go to a fan site). Apparently, her decision to not wear any undergarments created eighty percent of the viewership for the program.