I left my journal in a cab

I left my joural in a cab. I'm not sure what's more upsetting: the fact that I lost loads of material for my blog or the fact that someone else found loads of material for my blog. Due to this (and also due to the fact that I'm moving around a lot and this is the first chance I've had to sit by myself in two weeks), it's going to be a bit before I can update this. Sorry!

Bathroom Humor

There is a little game I play with myself every time I am confronted with a new bathroom in Paris. It is not a game I have elected to play, rather one that I have been enlisted in against my will like a captive babysitter. I call this game “Find the light switch” and its objective should be easily deduced. “Find the light switch” is a game of few rules. In fact, there are only two: be alert and don’t panic.

It is in strategy where the intricacies and complications of the game lie. When approaching a foreign bathroom, one must always have a plan. (A spontaneous descent upon the bathroom will surely result in failure or, even worse, embarrassment.) I have found that it is best to feign confidence when making my initial approach, so as to discourage rubbernecking. “There is nothing to see here,” says my casual gait.

When greeted by a dark interior, anticipation is key. I am ready for any possible incarnation of the idea of “light switch.” It may be something that I flip, turn, pull or step on. (The same is true for the door latch, the toilet flush and the water faucet, but I don’t even want to go there.)
Opening the door to an already lit bathroom does not relieve you from the responsibility of ascertaining the whereabouts of the light switch. It was not the act of a well-wishing do-gooder that has left the bathroom is this brilliant state, but a mechanism of deceit. In this case, the light switch probably operates on a timer and if you let it go undiscovered, moments later you may find yourself beneath the shadow of an ignorant darkness in a most vulnerable position. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I begin my quest for light switch by checking all the places where one would traditionally find a light switch in a bathroom in the States. This is purely a formality just to get the ball rolling. I look to the wall adjacent to the door, for example. If my search ends here I call it a “freebie.”
In most cases the light switch will be too elusive to occupy such an obvious location beside the door and I turn my gaze elsewhere. I look to the ceiling and then to the floor. I scan all exposed surfaces. It is not a bad idea to check the wall outside the bathroom, but this should be done using the peripheral vision with limited body movement so as not to call attention to the farce I am carrying on.

If by this point, I still haven’t managed to illuminate the bathroom I examine the light fixture itself, hoping to find a chain to pull or a something to toggle. The most important thing is to observe the second rule of the game and stay calm.

Following these steps has helped me find even the most nefarious of light switches—the ones disguised beneath mirrors or behind soap dispensers. When the light goes on, I have beaten the game and like a video game addict who has just liberated the princess from the castle, I revel in my victory in solitary relief.

It's the end of the week as we know it

Just before the dawn of the millennium, Americans prepared themselves for the end of the world that would surely accompany the crash of the almighty computer. The most paranoid of Americans hoarded precious resources into makeshift shelters in anticipation of the post-Y2K apocalypse they were certain would strike.

I’m not sure what the French were doing at this time--at worst they probably feared their systems would become more efficient. What I do know is that the temporary pandemonium Americans endured in the months before everyone partied like it was 1999 for the last time was like an exaggerated version of what the French have traditionally experienced every Saturday. I say this because every Sunday something unheard of in America happens here in France; stores close. The fear of total deprivation of resources that never materialized in America is, in fact, and institutionalized reality in France.

This reality requires constant vigilance. By Saturday night, if you haven’t already shopped for your Sunday rations, then you’d better get over to the Monoprix before closing time. Easter added an extra challenge to last weekend's shopping because the French observe the holiday on Monday as well.

Jean Philippe and I found ourselves in the precarious position of having put off shopping until the last minute on the Saturday before Easter. There is always the temptation to assume (wrongfully) that you can make it through Sunday on the food already in the house. This is a decision most come to regret when they are spreading butter on the boiled remnants of two different kinds of pasta or tossing a salad of wilted lettuce and cocktail olives.

“Do you think we should maybe go grocery shopping and get some things?” Jean Philippe directed the question to me, laying down on my bed with my head propped on my elbow , reading my book. I was tired and didn’t feel like getting up, not to mention my long-harbored aversion to grocery shopping.
“I don’t know, should we?” I asked, my tone suggesting that I had already thought of my answer.
“Well, we have to be prepared to get through tomorrow.”

Then a look spread across Jean Philippe's face that I recognized from the many other times he had acted as voice of reason for me. A light had gone on somewhere in his mind and he remembered the Easter holiday. The situation quickly escalated to an emergency when we realized that it was 8:40 in the evening and the Monoprix would close in twenty minutes, leaving us bereft of groceries for the next two days. Both simultaneously sensing the urgency of the situation, Jean Philippe and I swung into action, grabbing tote bags and rushing out the door.

We managed to slip into the store with time to spare. The Monoprix was crowded with people on similar missions. We traversed the aisles, grabbing at random like contestants on Supermarket Sweep. We filled an entire basket with vegetables, cheese, milk and potato chips. We carried wine and beer in our arms. When we left the Monoprix 20 minutes later, our shoulders slung down from the weight of grocery bags, it was clear we had made the right decision in coming shopping.

The fact that in France, I can’t walk out the door and buy what I need at any hour of the day is not a concept that I have grown up with. As an American, I beleive that anything is possible. Behind every need is an inherent optimism leading me to instinctively pick up my keys, get into my car and drive to the place that will satisfy my need--and quickly. To not be able to go to the grocery store and buy toilet paper on a Sunday afternoon would be greeted by an American with sheer incredulity.

In the many discussions about Europe that I held in the months leading up to my trip, hours of operation always made it into the conversation. "What if American stores closed earlier?" is always a hot topic, often followed by an exultation of the 24-hour convenience store.

To inculcate a shop culture equal to that of France in the States would require much more than adjusting our hours of operation. The 24-hour culture is uncompromising. The French have never been introduced to the philosophy that convenience should reign supreme. The American who finds comfort knowing that the nearly-empty roll of TP on Saturday will no doubt be replaced tomorrow, maybe by hitting the store on the way home from church and picking up a 24 pack. The Frenchman finds comfort in a tradition of mutually assured inconvenience. Or at least, that tradition has taught him to be prepared; to stock his home for the day of rest and remain home on Sunday with no reason to go out.

I still don't know how to settle the debate between the 24-hour establishment and French business hours. It is easy to idealize France, when the reality is that there are some people who would prefer to be able to open their stores on Sunday and make more business. It's also hard to keep up a cynical view of American efficiency when it really is quite nice to be able to complete a successful beer run after midnight. Sitting in the Champs du Mars on a sunny Sunday afternoon drinking wine in the grass while families picnic together does sway my mind in one direction, though.

Joke

The following is a joke that my sister told me:

Q: How many French people does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: One. One to hold the light bulb and then wait for the world to revolve around him.

Update

I am trying to avoid this kind of "Today I did... It was so amazing" style. But some times you just have to. So here are some of the things I've been up to that have kept me from posting.

Jean Philippe helped me buy month pass for the Metro. I was going to try to do it myself, but he volunteered to come with me. If I had gone by myself, I’m sure I would have gotten the pass, but it would not have gone nearly as smoothly. After helping me buy the pass and take my picture for it, Jean Philippe even got scissors from the guy so that I could cut my photo out and put it on the pass. There’s no way I would have gotten that kind of treatment on my own. Turns out the French are really nice…to each other.

Emily and I went to the Cimitaire Pere Lechaise. It’s the cemetery where you can find the graves of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Moliere, and Parmentier (he brought the potato to France—see photo). It’s the cemetery where you can’t find Gertrude Stein’s grave (or at least we couldn’t), but supposedly she’s there.

Emily and I went to the Grande Epicerie at the Bon Marche. It’s a fancy, expensive international food market. The French label anything that comes from the States as “Tex Mex.” It’s awesome. We found wine in juice boxes, good pastries, and water for 30 Euros. Great!







Yesterday, Emily and I went to the Centre Pompidou. It’s the modern art museum people often refer to as being turned inside out.

(I think some people also refer to it as an eyesore, but I don’t agree. I think it’s pretty rad. See above.) The museum hosts the most bizarre collection of modern art that I have ever seen. I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense. It’s just true. Most of it was really awesome. Em and I got sucked into a crazy marionette film I can’t even begin to describe. We also liked the work of a Californian artist who had taken a series of about 50 black and white post cards of 100 black boots doing different things (like climbing the hills or crossing the street) in Southern California. There were two exhibitions going on. One featured different artists who specialized in cartoons/sketches who had created travel journals that were more like comic strips. There was also an exhibition about Samuel Beckett. I felt lame for having never read Waiting for Godot, but now it’s on my imaginary list of things to read. Original manuscripts and video recordings of original performances of the plays were on display. I think some Notre Dame Alumni Alan Rickman fan club members will be pleased to hear that Alan Rickman played a role in the exhibit. (Am I still in the club even though I deleted my Myspace account?)

Beckett exhibit...

Before the museum, Em and I bought ourselves vintage dresses. After, we bought ourselves Margaritas and nachos.

Today Em and I had a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens. It was really warm today and the French responded by dressing as they normally do, completely covered up by many layers. The picnic was awesome because the grass finally woke up. During the off-season, they fence off the grass so that no one will rest themselves on it while the grass itself is resting.

The Metro

In a station at the Metro
"The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough.”
--Ezra Pound

No matter how pretentious this may sound, this poem really does keep popping into my head when I step onto the platform of the Metro. I have read this poem in at least two English classes. Each time the professors introduced the poem in the same way, by reading the two lines aloud over and over again to the class.

I remember one evening when my sister and I still shared a bedroom. We stayed awake picking different words to say over and over again until they were no longer recognizable as English words. It wasn’t really that the words lost their meaning; we had just never examined the words in that way or been so forced to think about their meanings—to convince ourselves that what sounded like gibberish truly had meaning.

“In a station at the metro” requires the same thing of its reader and this is what my professors were trying to teach us. I think the point of the poem that we were supposed to question, as its meaning grew cloudier with each reading, was the “wet, black bough.” It took a few times through the poem to realize that my mind didn’t want to allow the word “black” entrance into what I wanted to be a poem about petals and light. It was even hard for me to accept that “wet” wasn’t “white.” Sparing the English lesson, my class eventually arrived at something that we thought was close to the intended meaning of the poem. We got there by straying as far as possible from one meaning to allow space for new ones to creep in.

In Paris, if I want to get anywhere, I take the Metro. I can’t help but love it. This romance, I imagine, eventually fades with time. My sister affirmed that at first she loved the Metro, too. Sometimes she still does. I would guess that many Parisians have conflicted feelings about the Metro. Sometimes you just want to get home and you don’t want to nudge your way through a crowd of shopping bags and big coats. Other times, you meander casually through an empty tunnel, down some stairs, onto a train and sit passively as the train whizzes through magic darkness.

The Metro operates like Pound’s poem. It seems to mean one thing at first, but standing in a station staring at the faces plastered against the walls, the “petals on a wet, black bough,” one starts to understand that ineffable, dynamic element of life that Pound captured somewhere in between two lines of verse. Some of the petals are weary. Some of them are lively. Some are laughing. Some are talking on the phone. Some are checking their watches, scrutinizing their route, strategically planning which car to board. Some are running to catch the train that emerges from the dark tunnel to carry them away.

Ernest Hemingway

Yesterday I went on a walking tour that took me to important historical sites pertaining to Ernest Hemingway. I followed this walk outlined in a guidebook (something I’m kind of embarrassed about). I had the whole day to myself, though, and wanted to give it some kind of structure. As it turns out, the map in this book kind of sucked. Though it told me which Metro stop to start at, it didn’t really tell me how to get from the stop to the first point of interest. I think I made about three circles around the Metro stop before finding Marche Mouffetard, an open-air street market Hemingway described in his autobiography.

The best part of the tour was seeing the different apartments that Hemingway lived in during his times of expatriation. Standing in the rainy street, I could only see the windows of the upper-floor apartments, but still I imagined the great American writer coming in and out of the building. Ernest Hemingway had to eat somewhere. Ernest Hemingway had to hang his clothes somewhere. The cuffs of Ernest Hemingway’s pants soaked up rain just as mine were doing then.

Random thoughts and facts about Hemingway made their way to the front of my mind. In a Farewell to Arms, Catherine hates the rain because she sees herself dead in it. When writing, Hemingway would be sure not to exhaust an idea; he would stop work with a few things left to say so that he would be guaranteed to have material to start with in the morning. When explaining how he began work on a new story, Hemingway said, “I try to write one true sentence.”

I walked along in the rain following roughly the path laid out for me for the rest of the afternoon. I wished that I could transport myself to that time when so many American writers came to Paris. I wanted to see what they saw and feel that same feeling, but I didn’t really know where to begin imagining.

The Louvre

Every Friday evening after six the museum is free to patrons under twenty-six. I am determined to conquer the Louvre over the course of several Friday evenings. Last Friday I made my first attempt.

The museum was busy at first, but by around seven people started to clear out, leaving behind them a totally chill atmosphere in which I would observe famous works of art.

My favorite section of the museum is the Greek Antiquities floor. Here you find Classical and Hellenistic sculpture and some of my favorite statues. What I appreciate most about these sculptures (aside from the things that anyone who’s taken basic art history can tell you about the idealization of the human form and depictions of mythological tales, etc.) is a quality of newness I can’t help but feel is being expressed in spite of their ancient origins. My imagination is directed to the time when Aristotle was first defining drama, Plato was creating democracy and Socrates was designing education.

My favorite sculpture of all is the Victory of Samothrace. I think it’s everyone’s favorite statue, but I don’t care. The statue is not with the rest of Greek sculpture; it’s displayed by itself at the top of a long stairway. There is no way to do it justice in words.

The Italian paintings floor inevitably leads you to the Mona Lisa. The problem with the Mona Lisa is not that bit about her mouth; it’s that it’s really hard to have an original thought while looking at the Mona Lisa. I found myself thinking things like, “Wow, that painting is really…famous.” I mean, what are you supposed to think?

I felt a great deal of pressure to have the proper reaction to the famous works of art in the Louvre. The only solution that I could find to this problem was to stand and stare at them until my mind went completely blank. At that point I could begin to see the piece for what it was then and what it was when it was first created. Then I thought about how amazing it was that someone could make a thing so unique and that over hundreds of years that thing can inspire people to make pilgrimages just to stand before it and take it in. Then I thought about how happy I was to be one of those pilgrims.

After the Italian paintings, I explored the French floor. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m in France, but the French paintings were incredibly intriguing. It’s like the guilty pleasure of looking at a map and seeing where you are in relationship to everything else, but with history instead of a map.

Then I went for something completely different, the really old stuff on the bottom floor of the museum.

I’m not going to lie—the Egyptians really freak me out. If I stumbled into ancient Greece, I could see myself hanging out and throwing a Frisbee and drinking some wine. Or if I landed in Mesopotamia I think it’d be chill to garden for a while with those people. But Egyptians are like the hipsters of the ancient world—not even just the fashionable ones, but the hard-core, coke-snorting ones. If an Egyptian came my way, I’d probably stay quiet and look at my feet. When the Egyptian spoke, I’d pretend I knew what the Egyptian was talking about. I’d act like I was so over the Pyramids. Egyptians probably didn’t dance at shows, they just stood they’re really stiff like the statues of the Pharoahs suggest. After standing in awe of the Sphinx and statues of Ramses II, there really wasn’t any where for me to go. Also, the museum was closing.