...and just like a baby saying her first word, I just gurgled out my first spontaneous, reactive, and completely unpremeditated "oh la la." It happened as I was cleaning up Baxter's pee from the floor. So tired of cleaning up pee, and seeing how very much there was, I inhaled the annoyed-French-girl inhale I'd already picked up (it's a vocalized inhale that sounds, basically, like you're surprised), started to exhale the annoyed-French-girl "ohhhh" that I'd already picked up, and then-- the tongue went into action and I found myself "lalalalalalala"ing over the pee.
it's amazing. I never once had a moment where I said consciously, oh, I like that oh la la thing they have going, I'm going to integrate that into my vocabulary. No. This is a case of being so surrounded by a new language that you pick it up completely organically, without making the slightest effort.
now that baby's learning to talk, we can expect next she'll learn to walk-- in 3-inch heels over cobblestones, like a real French girl. Then, who knows. I might learn to ride a bike-- provided the bike in question is a robin's egg-blue Vespa LX125...
hot child in the city!
4/28/2005
My name is Rachel...
Rachel Thaler, 16, blown up in a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall, February 2002. Rachel Levy, 17, blown up in a grocery store; Rachel Levi, 19, shot while waiting for the bus; Rachel Gavish, killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Pessah meal; Rachel Charhi, blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children; Rachel Shabo, murdered with her three sons aged 16, 13 and five, while at home.
--And those are just the Rachels who were murdered in Israel in the months surrounding Rachel Corrie's death in 2002. Since the Second intifada began in September 2000, there have been many more Rachels than those 6.
Some of you might remember Rachel Corrie as the 22- or 23-year old International Solidarity Movement worker who died when she threw herself in front of a bulldozer in Gaza. The Israeli army was razing a house suspected of covering a network of tunnels used for smuggling weapons. There is some disagreement about whether or not the driver actually saw Corrie.
Nevertheless, Rachel Corrie had a choice. She was instantly martyred (in both the Christian and the Islamic fundamentalist sense), her diaries published in The Guardian, and her memory sanctified by none other than Yasser Arafat. Now, her diaries have been turned into a play that is currently being performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London.
The play is getting the kind of reviews that indicate Corrie has been canonized beyond criticism, like the Mother Theresa of the radical flag-burning set.
Where is the play about the Rachels who had no choice? The Rachels who died in the way we all dread the most-- while doing nothing more radical than going about their daily lives?
I strongly urge you to read this article from today's Jerusalem Post, which details just how friendly the ISM (Corrie's "peace group") is with the Hamas and the Palestinian suicide bombers.
Clive David in the London Times is apparently the only British critic to call the play "unvarnished propaganda," citing, for example, Corrie's declaration: "The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance." As Davis notes, "Even the late Yasser Arafat might have blushed at that one."
The play is being produced by Katherine Viner, editor of the weekend magazine of The Guardian, and the actor Alan Rickman (Snape in "Harry Potter"; Sheriff of Nottingham to Kevin Costner's Robin Hood; most recently of "Love, Actually"). Normally I'm a big fan of Rickman-- there's something so sexy about his hollow cheeks and sonorous, British-accented voice. But apparently his critical thinking apparatus is missing.
And as for Rachel Corrie--it's funny it's an interesting dilemma [NDLR: to clarify, I didn't mean funny as in "amusing," I meant funny as in "odd"; I certainly don't think it's funny that the girl got run over by a bulldozer]. I was appalled by her death. I find the entire scenario disgusting. However, this is during wartime, and the Israeli army was doing what an army does, trying to protect its citizens and win the war. For Corrie to jump in front of an oncoming bulldozer-- well, you have to admit it's as stupid as jumping in front of an oncoming bus in midtown Manhattan to see if the driver will stop. He might, hopefully, but then again, he might not see you, and he might not. Definitely nowhere near on the level of Tiananman Square, although I surmise that's the image she was working off of.
But after reading her diaries I realized-- I would have absolutely hated this girl. I would have loathed her. If I had met her somewhere and then heard she died, I would have been relieved to hear that there was one less deluded, anti-Semitic, self-aggrandizing person on the earth. Isn't that a terrible thing to think about a person? But when I meet these self-important champions of the Palestinian people who call for the destruction of the state of Israel-- I mentally place them in the same category as the blood-thirsty Romans who destroyed the Second Temple of Jerusalem. These people are not the champions, but the enemies of the Palestinian people, who I would like nothing more than to see safely, securely installed in their own country, running it in such a way that they are so prosperous and happy that they no longer give a shit about their nieghbors, the Israelis.
I'm not excusing the deeds of the Israeli army. I do think, however, that no other army on earth is more concerned with its public relations and its world image, which certainly curbs any impulse they might have to act out of protocol. But I wear my Israeli army t-shirt with pride because I believe in the right of Israel to exist and to do what it has to do to defend its citizens. When dumb American girls named Rachel stop helping kill innocent Israeli girls named Rachel, then we'll be getting somewhere in the Ghandian non-violence. But not until then.
--And those are just the Rachels who were murdered in Israel in the months surrounding Rachel Corrie's death in 2002. Since the Second intifada began in September 2000, there have been many more Rachels than those 6.
Some of you might remember Rachel Corrie as the 22- or 23-year old International Solidarity Movement worker who died when she threw herself in front of a bulldozer in Gaza. The Israeli army was razing a house suspected of covering a network of tunnels used for smuggling weapons. There is some disagreement about whether or not the driver actually saw Corrie.
Nevertheless, Rachel Corrie had a choice. She was instantly martyred (in both the Christian and the Islamic fundamentalist sense), her diaries published in The Guardian, and her memory sanctified by none other than Yasser Arafat. Now, her diaries have been turned into a play that is currently being performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London.
The play is getting the kind of reviews that indicate Corrie has been canonized beyond criticism, like the Mother Theresa of the radical flag-burning set.
Where is the play about the Rachels who had no choice? The Rachels who died in the way we all dread the most-- while doing nothing more radical than going about their daily lives?
I strongly urge you to read this article from today's Jerusalem Post, which details just how friendly the ISM (Corrie's "peace group") is with the Hamas and the Palestinian suicide bombers.
Clive David in the London Times is apparently the only British critic to call the play "unvarnished propaganda," citing, for example, Corrie's declaration: "The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance." As Davis notes, "Even the late Yasser Arafat might have blushed at that one."
The play is being produced by Katherine Viner, editor of the weekend magazine of The Guardian, and the actor Alan Rickman (Snape in "Harry Potter"; Sheriff of Nottingham to Kevin Costner's Robin Hood; most recently of "Love, Actually"). Normally I'm a big fan of Rickman-- there's something so sexy about his hollow cheeks and sonorous, British-accented voice. But apparently his critical thinking apparatus is missing.
And as for Rachel Corrie--
But after reading her diaries I realized-- I would have absolutely hated this girl. I would have loathed her. If I had met her somewhere and then heard she died, I would have been relieved to hear that there was one less deluded, anti-Semitic, self-aggrandizing person on the earth. Isn't that a terrible thing to think about a person? But when I meet these self-important champions of the Palestinian people who call for the destruction of the state of Israel-- I mentally place them in the same category as the blood-thirsty Romans who destroyed the Second Temple of Jerusalem. These people are not the champions, but the enemies of the Palestinian people, who I would like nothing more than to see safely, securely installed in their own country, running it in such a way that they are so prosperous and happy that they no longer give a shit about their nieghbors, the Israelis.
I'm not excusing the deeds of the Israeli army. I do think, however, that no other army on earth is more concerned with its public relations and its world image, which certainly curbs any impulse they might have to act out of protocol. But I wear my Israeli army t-shirt with pride because I believe in the right of Israel to exist and to do what it has to do to defend its citizens. When dumb American girls named Rachel stop helping kill innocent Israeli girls named Rachel, then we'll be getting somewhere in the Ghandian non-violence. But not until then.
4/26/2005
Another New Yorker flies the coop
Judtih Regan, Publisher of ReganBooks (an imprint of HarperCollins) announced this week that she's moving her publishing company to Los Angeles.
Citing quality of life differences, she manages to get in a few snipes at New York that made my heart hurt-- with homesickness, yes, but also with agreement.
"I want my staff to be happy, to live in more affordable homes, to be able to raise their kids without permanently mortgaging their quality of life.... I thought we should change course for a while and build a creative community in a place where it's possible to afford just a little more time - and space - to rest and imagine," she tells the LA Times that New York has become a city of billionaire bankers and million-dollar one-bedroom apartments.
Yes, precisely. I left New York because there wasn't enough room for me. There was a tiny slot in a tiny apartment on the Upper West Side, and the nagging memory of gorgeous nineteenth century Haussmannian tree-lined avenues and apartment buildings with enormous windows and wrought-iron grills, and marble fireplaces, and evocative stairwells, and cobblestoned streets for my heels to get caught in. My leaving was partially to do with being in love with the lifestyle I knew was available in Paris, but also had to do with being disillusioned and unexcited about the life I could lead in New York.
In New York, I probably could eke out an existence for myself, as a grad student teaching lit courses at John Jay. But in Paris-- yes, I'm ekeing out an existence for myself, however I can, increasingly as a journalist, supplementarily as an English teacher. But I'm doing it against a backdrop of such beauty and history that I am inspired 99% of the time. My work is more interesting, my writing is more interesting, my life is more interesting. Even when I'm going through a rough time, bureaucratically, professionally, emotionally, financially (and there have been far too many of those), it ultimately doesn't seem to matter because I adore where I have found myself.
Regan writes, a propos of the opportunities to work from anywhere opened up by a globalizing world, "We've also got a lot to learn from what's happening on the Internet — the bloggers and graphic designers and entrepreneurs who have been busy shaking up the old media hierarchies. These people are the future — smart young people who love creating content and who know how to reach each other and share their ideas using every possible means, whether it's between hard covers, on the Web or on their cellphone screens. There are still talented people in New York who understand all that. But these days, with all the hassle and expense it takes to survive in that town, many of them are moving elsewhere."
Yes. Good riddence. And how heartbreaking at the same time.
Citing quality of life differences, she manages to get in a few snipes at New York that made my heart hurt-- with homesickness, yes, but also with agreement.
"I want my staff to be happy, to live in more affordable homes, to be able to raise their kids without permanently mortgaging their quality of life.... I thought we should change course for a while and build a creative community in a place where it's possible to afford just a little more time - and space - to rest and imagine," she tells the LA Times that New York has become a city of billionaire bankers and million-dollar one-bedroom apartments.
Yes, precisely. I left New York because there wasn't enough room for me. There was a tiny slot in a tiny apartment on the Upper West Side, and the nagging memory of gorgeous nineteenth century Haussmannian tree-lined avenues and apartment buildings with enormous windows and wrought-iron grills, and marble fireplaces, and evocative stairwells, and cobblestoned streets for my heels to get caught in. My leaving was partially to do with being in love with the lifestyle I knew was available in Paris, but also had to do with being disillusioned and unexcited about the life I could lead in New York.
In New York, I probably could eke out an existence for myself, as a grad student teaching lit courses at John Jay. But in Paris-- yes, I'm ekeing out an existence for myself, however I can, increasingly as a journalist, supplementarily as an English teacher. But I'm doing it against a backdrop of such beauty and history that I am inspired 99% of the time. My work is more interesting, my writing is more interesting, my life is more interesting. Even when I'm going through a rough time, bureaucratically, professionally, emotionally, financially (and there have been far too many of those), it ultimately doesn't seem to matter because I adore where I have found myself.
Regan writes, a propos of the opportunities to work from anywhere opened up by a globalizing world, "We've also got a lot to learn from what's happening on the Internet — the bloggers and graphic designers and entrepreneurs who have been busy shaking up the old media hierarchies. These people are the future — smart young people who love creating content and who know how to reach each other and share their ideas using every possible means, whether it's between hard covers, on the Web or on their cellphone screens. There are still talented people in New York who understand all that. But these days, with all the hassle and expense it takes to survive in that town, many of them are moving elsewhere."
Yes. Good riddence. And how heartbreaking at the same time.
animosity amongst the toys
I think Baxter is jealous of my laptop.
It is, after all, always in my lap. I give it my undivided attention. I'm always touching it, tapping away at the keys or stroking the touchpad for the mouse. I take it all over the apartment with me.
Baxter sits next to me when I'm working. I do occasionally pat, scratch, rub, kiss, or otherwise lavish attention on him. But he gets nowhere near the attention my laptop gets.
This would all be pure speculation, if Baxter didn't have a couple of curious habits toward the laptop. If I'm sitting on the couch and Baxter is walking around on the floor, he'll come over to the couch from time to time, stand on his hand legs, and start tapping me with his front paws. If I don't respond, he'll start hitting the laptop to get my attention. This invariably provokes a negative response from me, but I guess a negative response is better than no resposne at all- especially to a dog.
If he's sitting next to me on the couch (as he is now), he'll also come over to me to check on me or to solicit attention. No response from mommy? This is his cue to start tapping on the keyboard. While I appreciate Baxter's contributions to my JTA articles, they aren't as coherent as they would need to be, often consisting of things like "wawqqwqwQSAA."
If he has been pushed off the keyboard and told firmly to stop, he is sometimes undeterred, and will physically climb up onto the laptop and walk across it, closing programs and wreaking mayhem.
So. I don't know what to do but I feel rather like a mother trying to prove to the oldest child that although the baby gets a lot of attention, I love them both equally as much, and in different ways.
It is, after all, always in my lap. I give it my undivided attention. I'm always touching it, tapping away at the keys or stroking the touchpad for the mouse. I take it all over the apartment with me.
Baxter sits next to me when I'm working. I do occasionally pat, scratch, rub, kiss, or otherwise lavish attention on him. But he gets nowhere near the attention my laptop gets.
This would all be pure speculation, if Baxter didn't have a couple of curious habits toward the laptop. If I'm sitting on the couch and Baxter is walking around on the floor, he'll come over to the couch from time to time, stand on his hand legs, and start tapping me with his front paws. If I don't respond, he'll start hitting the laptop to get my attention. This invariably provokes a negative response from me, but I guess a negative response is better than no resposne at all- especially to a dog.
If he's sitting next to me on the couch (as he is now), he'll also come over to me to check on me or to solicit attention. No response from mommy? This is his cue to start tapping on the keyboard. While I appreciate Baxter's contributions to my JTA articles, they aren't as coherent as they would need to be, often consisting of things like "wawqqwqwQSAA."
If he has been pushed off the keyboard and told firmly to stop, he is sometimes undeterred, and will physically climb up onto the laptop and walk across it, closing programs and wreaking mayhem.
So. I don't know what to do but I feel rather like a mother trying to prove to the oldest child that although the baby gets a lot of attention, I love them both equally as much, and in different ways.
4/25/2005
help, I'm stuck in a dialectic
Thesis: boy number one
Antithesis: boy number two.
Thesis: boy number one, too young
Antithesis: boy number two, the right age, but too busy.
Thesis: boy number one, so sweet.
Antithesis: boy number two, so cool. and sweet. uh-oh, there's a flaw in my perfect antithesis...
Synthesis: although I swing back and forth between nostalgia for the former and sadness and frustration over the latter, neither guy seems currently to be available. However, my heart can't deal with breaking out of the dialectic with some new radical disruption, like, say, some hypothetical guy number three.
Solution: A month of cold-turkey, take-care-of-myself, I-don't-need-no-stinking-boy, alone time. Regardless of what kind of overdetermined state my emotions may be in, I don't actually have to worry because neither guy is breaking down my door at the moment. There's a song that I like by a group called Frou Frou that says "Let go...cause there's beauty in the breakdown." Ok. So here we go. Six more days of matzoh and three more weeks of cold turkey (the month began last week when I broke up with J).
Honestly. Sometimes you have to actively make the choice to concentrate on yourself and not be open to new people. I have enough people. I have enough complications. Time to simplify. Time for the breakdown.
Except: boy number two still has to come get his stuff from my apartment. Well-- maybe cold turkey is a little extreme... what about lukewarm turkey?
Antithesis: boy number two.
Thesis: boy number one, too young
Antithesis: boy number two, the right age, but too busy.
Thesis: boy number one, so sweet.
Antithesis: boy number two, so cool. and sweet. uh-oh, there's a flaw in my perfect antithesis...
Synthesis: although I swing back and forth between nostalgia for the former and sadness and frustration over the latter, neither guy seems currently to be available. However, my heart can't deal with breaking out of the dialectic with some new radical disruption, like, say, some hypothetical guy number three.
Solution: A month of cold-turkey, take-care-of-myself, I-don't-need-no-stinking-boy, alone time. Regardless of what kind of overdetermined state my emotions may be in, I don't actually have to worry because neither guy is breaking down my door at the moment. There's a song that I like by a group called Frou Frou that says "Let go...cause there's beauty in the breakdown." Ok. So here we go. Six more days of matzoh and three more weeks of cold turkey (the month began last week when I broke up with J).
Honestly. Sometimes you have to actively make the choice to concentrate on yourself and not be open to new people. I have enough people. I have enough complications. Time to simplify. Time for the breakdown.
Except: boy number two still has to come get his stuff from my apartment. Well-- maybe cold turkey is a little extreme... what about lukewarm turkey?
4/24/2005
more passover fun
Seder went well! Everyone came with something; everyone left with something. Some people learned that the Last Supper was actually a seder (helLO, I thought everyone knew that!). Some people learned what a seder was to begin with. Some were inspired to live more Jewishly; others found Judaism fascinating in a way they weren't formerly aware of. And every single Jew present (8 out of 15) felt proud of herself (and one himself) for attending a seder in this pagan land they call France.
There was enough food and enough wine. I ran through the haggadah like nobody's business. Nat asked a question no one could (or wanted to) answer (why do we need a Messiah if we can heal the world [tikkun olam] ourselves?). Actually I think it depends on your definition of "messiah," and what you expect him (or her, or it) to do.
But that's really not my theological bag, messianic theory. Much like American literature before 1880, I prefer to leave it alone and let the specialists handle it.
And now, a Slate article to fill you in on everything I can and can't eat this week. Looking forward to that matzoh pizza a la francaise... I'm not going crazy this year and eating only kosher for passover products, FYI. So my matzoh pizza is liable to feature goat cheese and arugula with a balsamic vinaigrette reduction. Bon appetit!
There was enough food and enough wine. I ran through the haggadah like nobody's business. Nat asked a question no one could (or wanted to) answer (why do we need a Messiah if we can heal the world [tikkun olam] ourselves?). Actually I think it depends on your definition of "messiah," and what you expect him (or her, or it) to do.
But that's really not my theological bag, messianic theory. Much like American literature before 1880, I prefer to leave it alone and let the specialists handle it.
And now, a Slate article to fill you in on everything I can and can't eat this week. Looking forward to that matzoh pizza a la francaise... I'm not going crazy this year and eating only kosher for passover products, FYI. So my matzoh pizza is liable to feature goat cheese and arugula with a balsamic vinaigrette reduction. Bon appetit!
4/22/2005
the first annual vegatarian/sephardic/non-traditional/over-crowded pesach extravaganza
... is about to begin. Am I crazy? Yes, I am.
First things first. My Emily is coming! and not alone: with Renee and Renee's roommate Corey! Fun. Fun fun fun. All-girl fun in Paris. Tonight: fondue and wine in baby bottles and TLC for your maitresse's still very sad little soul.
Then tomorrow: the deluge. I had this great idea: it's Passover in Paris and I've never thrown a seder before-- why not start now? Complicating factors: I don't know how to lead a seder, I've never done it before, I don't have any of my Judaica in Paris with my (no kiddush cups or matzoh covers or haggadot), and I have a fairly small living room with limited seating. What's more, I detest cooking meat, much less anything pesach-worthy like brisket or roasted chicken-- and besides, I don't have an oven.
So it's a vegetarian seder. Cool. Lots of hummus and tzatziki and some concoctions with artichokes and eggplant will be present.
Then there's the fact that the Jewish community in Paris is largely Sephardic. Which means all the pesach accoutrements I was able to find are a little non-traditional-- or at least, not within my Ashkenazi tradition. So I will be featuring orange-flavorzed Matzoh a vin (sounds decadent) on my seder table. We're veggie, remember, so instead of that nasty shank bone there will be a piece of radish or something. We're feminists, so yes, we will have an orange proudly in the middle of the seder plate and we will be trying something called "Miriam's Cup," to give the matriarchs some credit in the whole Exodus thing.
But-- there is no horseradish to be found in all of Paris. Seriously. I looked in the Marais, in Belleville, and in my local supermarket. Nada. So in place of horseradish: mustard! I know. Ew. But horseradish and the mustard seed are vaguely related, and anyway shut up, it's my seder.
As far as the haggadah goes-- I'm basically just cutting and pasting stuff off the internet and handing out photocopies. Most of my guests are not Jewish, so they won't know the difference, and my Jewish guests are not observant in the slightest. They're just happy to be attending a seder!
Finally, there are the guests themselves. I have a habit of doing this in Paris, when I have parties-- I feel like I know hardly anyone here, so on the couple of occasions where I've had get-togethers, I've invited almost everyone I do know, and ended up having way too many people. My birthday party in October took up two full rooms of a bar in the Marais. My housewarming, which began as an informal apero to which I did NOT invite everyone I knew, specifically to keep the numbers down, ended up spilling into all the rooms of my apartment.
The seder will be no different. Anxious to have those whom I care about in Paris around me, plus the people they care about, I already had an over-inflated list. Add to that my 3 visitors. Add to that a couple of random friends who I invited on the spur of the moment. Soon you have 15 people in a tiny little living room, sitting on the couch, the floor, and on the 3 chairs in the apartment.
Then there are the deletions, or the impossibles-- the people who I want to be there, but who won't be. The people I love more than anyone in the world-- my parents and my sister-- are too far away. My extended Jewish side of the family, who I adore, also in New York (even the ones who live in London). My ex, who I spent every passover with for the last 4 years, obviously won't be there (the ex-factor as well as the NY factor). Finally, there's my most recent ex, J, who I wanted to come so badly, but who has to work an event that night (obviously; thus the breakup). How can you reconcile the pain of the absences when there are so many presences? There's nothing I can do about that, except think of the people I miss and send them warm happy passover vibes.
I really don't know what we're going to eat for dinner, though. I've declared this a Sephardic zone, so there will be couscous involved, as well as something with tofu that Kaitlin promised to make. But I spent 70 euros on groceries and dessert-- and I still feel like there won't be enough food. Oy, oy, oy!
Chag sameyach, les enfants!
First things first. My Emily is coming! and not alone: with Renee and Renee's roommate Corey! Fun. Fun fun fun. All-girl fun in Paris. Tonight: fondue and wine in baby bottles and TLC for your maitresse's still very sad little soul.
Then tomorrow: the deluge. I had this great idea: it's Passover in Paris and I've never thrown a seder before-- why not start now? Complicating factors: I don't know how to lead a seder, I've never done it before, I don't have any of my Judaica in Paris with my (no kiddush cups or matzoh covers or haggadot), and I have a fairly small living room with limited seating. What's more, I detest cooking meat, much less anything pesach-worthy like brisket or roasted chicken-- and besides, I don't have an oven.
So it's a vegetarian seder. Cool. Lots of hummus and tzatziki and some concoctions with artichokes and eggplant will be present.
Then there's the fact that the Jewish community in Paris is largely Sephardic. Which means all the pesach accoutrements I was able to find are a little non-traditional-- or at least, not within my Ashkenazi tradition. So I will be featuring orange-flavorzed Matzoh a vin (sounds decadent) on my seder table. We're veggie, remember, so instead of that nasty shank bone there will be a piece of radish or something. We're feminists, so yes, we will have an orange proudly in the middle of the seder plate and we will be trying something called "Miriam's Cup," to give the matriarchs some credit in the whole Exodus thing.
But-- there is no horseradish to be found in all of Paris. Seriously. I looked in the Marais, in Belleville, and in my local supermarket. Nada. So in place of horseradish: mustard! I know. Ew. But horseradish and the mustard seed are vaguely related, and anyway shut up, it's my seder.
As far as the haggadah goes-- I'm basically just cutting and pasting stuff off the internet and handing out photocopies. Most of my guests are not Jewish, so they won't know the difference, and my Jewish guests are not observant in the slightest. They're just happy to be attending a seder!
Finally, there are the guests themselves. I have a habit of doing this in Paris, when I have parties-- I feel like I know hardly anyone here, so on the couple of occasions where I've had get-togethers, I've invited almost everyone I do know, and ended up having way too many people. My birthday party in October took up two full rooms of a bar in the Marais. My housewarming, which began as an informal apero to which I did NOT invite everyone I knew, specifically to keep the numbers down, ended up spilling into all the rooms of my apartment.
The seder will be no different. Anxious to have those whom I care about in Paris around me, plus the people they care about, I already had an over-inflated list. Add to that my 3 visitors. Add to that a couple of random friends who I invited on the spur of the moment. Soon you have 15 people in a tiny little living room, sitting on the couch, the floor, and on the 3 chairs in the apartment.
Then there are the deletions, or the impossibles-- the people who I want to be there, but who won't be. The people I love more than anyone in the world-- my parents and my sister-- are too far away. My extended Jewish side of the family, who I adore, also in New York (even the ones who live in London). My ex, who I spent every passover with for the last 4 years, obviously won't be there (the ex-factor as well as the NY factor). Finally, there's my most recent ex, J, who I wanted to come so badly, but who has to work an event that night (obviously; thus the breakup). How can you reconcile the pain of the absences when there are so many presences? There's nothing I can do about that, except think of the people I miss and send them warm happy passover vibes.
I really don't know what we're going to eat for dinner, though. I've declared this a Sephardic zone, so there will be couscous involved, as well as something with tofu that Kaitlin promised to make. But I spent 70 euros on groceries and dessert-- and I still feel like there won't be enough food. Oy, oy, oy!
Chag sameyach, les enfants!
4/19/2005
Benoit Seize
Hurrah, hurrah, there's a new pope!
The cardinals arrived at their decision rather quickly. I thought the little box on France 3 focused on the chimney of the Sistine Chapel for the past 2 days was a little extreme ("what, are they going to watch the chimney for a week??" I asked my roommate). But it is exciting that there's a new man in charge at the Vatican.
The last one was named Pope the same month that I was born (October 1978) and so for that pope to have died-- well let's just say I felt a litttle old to have lived out the entire length of a papacy-- and one who was elected YOUNG at that!
So Ratzinger-- sorry, Benoit XVI (because that's what he's called in my adopted country)-- has a fairly good record with the Jews. Apparently he said our wait for the Messiah is not in vain. Thanks for that confirmation. Now that he's the Pope, I'm sure he knows more about God than I do (even if he gets the details wrong).
But Rat-- I mean Benoit-- oh, he's nowhere near as cute and cuddly as JP II was. He's kind of moche, no?
I have to say, though, I think this whole pope thing has been extremely bizarre. First there was the outpouring of public grief in St Peter's Sqaure. People crying as if their own father had died. Now, I'm not Catholic but I know a lot of fairly observant Catholics, and I don't think they considered the Pope anywhere near in the same category as their fathers. So the wailing and the crying-- I don't know, kind of excessive.
Then there was the parading of the corpse around the square. Ew. Just ew. Kristeva, as I understand it, says the problem we have with corpses is that they are an expression of the abject-- the fact that we are all destined to the same fate. Yes that could be it. But dead bodies are just eerie and gross. Closed casket, anyone?? But I guess everyone has to see that he died naturally or something, that there was no foul play.
Then there was the wait by the chimney. They're reairing footage of the so-called "white" smoke being released. Is it me or does it look kind of grey, Good thing they rang the bells as well, because otherwise people would have just been like, "uhhhhh... grey somke? does that mean they elected someone and he said no?"
Finally, there's the cheering and screaming about the new Pope-- as if the Vatican had won the World Series, or there was a new American Idol. People chanting "Viva Papa, Viva Papa!" like their father was winning a spaghetti-eating contest at Puglia's in Little Italy.
So that's my snarky take on what's going on. I just feel like the whole thing should have been carried out with a bit more gravitas.
The cardinals arrived at their decision rather quickly. I thought the little box on France 3 focused on the chimney of the Sistine Chapel for the past 2 days was a little extreme ("what, are they going to watch the chimney for a week??" I asked my roommate). But it is exciting that there's a new man in charge at the Vatican.
The last one was named Pope the same month that I was born (October 1978) and so for that pope to have died-- well let's just say I felt a litttle old to have lived out the entire length of a papacy-- and one who was elected YOUNG at that!
So Ratzinger-- sorry, Benoit XVI (because that's what he's called in my adopted country)-- has a fairly good record with the Jews. Apparently he said our wait for the Messiah is not in vain. Thanks for that confirmation. Now that he's the Pope, I'm sure he knows more about God than I do (even if he gets the details wrong).
But Rat-- I mean Benoit-- oh, he's nowhere near as cute and cuddly as JP II was. He's kind of moche, no?
I have to say, though, I think this whole pope thing has been extremely bizarre. First there was the outpouring of public grief in St Peter's Sqaure. People crying as if their own father had died. Now, I'm not Catholic but I know a lot of fairly observant Catholics, and I don't think they considered the Pope anywhere near in the same category as their fathers. So the wailing and the crying-- I don't know, kind of excessive.
Then there was the parading of the corpse around the square. Ew. Just ew. Kristeva, as I understand it, says the problem we have with corpses is that they are an expression of the abject-- the fact that we are all destined to the same fate. Yes that could be it. But dead bodies are just eerie and gross. Closed casket, anyone?? But I guess everyone has to see that he died naturally or something, that there was no foul play.
Then there was the wait by the chimney. They're reairing footage of the so-called "white" smoke being released. Is it me or does it look kind of grey, Good thing they rang the bells as well, because otherwise people would have just been like, "uhhhhh... grey somke? does that mean they elected someone and he said no?"
Finally, there's the cheering and screaming about the new Pope-- as if the Vatican had won the World Series, or there was a new American Idol. People chanting "Viva Papa, Viva Papa!" like their father was winning a spaghetti-eating contest at Puglia's in Little Italy.
So that's my snarky take on what's going on. I just feel like the whole thing should have been carried out with a bit more gravitas.
4/16/2005
breaking news
-baxter got a haircut. he looks adorable and, more importantly, he is CLEAN. He got a new broccoli-shaped chew toy for being such a good boy at the groomer's.
-j, having temporarily regained his senses, has once again been deprived of them. the reason? he can't manage his workload and have a girlfriend at the same time, at least for the next six months. I officially understand the impossibility of the situation (honestly, I do, I've been through what he's going through), but unofficially I reject this explanation and am going to have to be content to write this one off as one of those bizarre things that can happen to you when you're not careful and let yourself fall for someone before you really know them and their issues.
-I saw the most amazing movie tonight-- "va, vis et deviens." I can't write much about it now because I'm still a little too upset about j to think rationally enough to write a film critique. suffice it to say: it's about a 9-year-old ethiopian refugee in israel, whose (christian) mother sent him there to escape the refugee camp in the sudan where he was sure to die, telling him to "va, vis et deviens" [go, live and become]. in order to survive, he has to pass as an ethiopian jew named schlomo. the film follows his life from the moment of separation from his mother to fatherhood and the relocation of his birth mother. there's a lacanian analysis to be written in there somewhere, but I'm not the one to write it. anyway-- as I was telling my friend Lis on the metro heading home after the film-- I don't know if it's better to see a comedy or a movie like this the day you get your heart broken. if you see a comedy, you get to laugh for two hours, but then when you leave you're faced with your misery again. at least with a movie like this, you have to admit that your own problems seem small in comparison. when you leave the theatre, they're still there, and you have to come to terms with them, but without a doubt you've been served a heaping portion of humble pie.
I should add I cried the entire movie, for various reasons:
-there was the simple heartbreak of watching a little boy leave his mother.
-then there was the loading of the El Al plane in the Sudan and the subsequent deplaning in Tel Aviv. this of course made me think of that time when I boarded an El Al place in the Sudan. No, just kidding. But it made me nostalgic about my own trip to Israel in 1999, and I felt a renewed sense of committment to Israel and to Judaism. However, I felt somewhat divided about and suspicious of those feelings-- I felt proud of Israel for basically saving Ethiopian and Soviety Jewry in the 80s, but I was/am conflicted about the problematics associated with welcoming a group of people into a country and turning away others on the basis of their religion. The film certainly touched on that, but didn't explore it in great length.
-there was my own weird relationship to judaism, and the fact that I've had it so deeply called into question because of all these freaking goys who keep screwing me over
-then when he found his mother at the end, I started bawling because I wanted MY mommy.
then at random times during the film, for no related reason, I would remember one of j's gestures or mannerisms or figures of speech, and I would remember that it was over with us, and I would cry again.
that's all for now. who was it who said life is a veil (vale?) of tears? I really, really want there to be fewer tears in my life, starting NOW. Genug! Merde, ca me fait chier, ce mec!
-j, having temporarily regained his senses, has once again been deprived of them. the reason? he can't manage his workload and have a girlfriend at the same time, at least for the next six months. I officially understand the impossibility of the situation (honestly, I do, I've been through what he's going through), but unofficially I reject this explanation and am going to have to be content to write this one off as one of those bizarre things that can happen to you when you're not careful and let yourself fall for someone before you really know them and their issues.
-I saw the most amazing movie tonight-- "va, vis et deviens." I can't write much about it now because I'm still a little too upset about j to think rationally enough to write a film critique. suffice it to say: it's about a 9-year-old ethiopian refugee in israel, whose (christian) mother sent him there to escape the refugee camp in the sudan where he was sure to die, telling him to "va, vis et deviens" [go, live and become]. in order to survive, he has to pass as an ethiopian jew named schlomo. the film follows his life from the moment of separation from his mother to fatherhood and the relocation of his birth mother. there's a lacanian analysis to be written in there somewhere, but I'm not the one to write it. anyway-- as I was telling my friend Lis on the metro heading home after the film-- I don't know if it's better to see a comedy or a movie like this the day you get your heart broken. if you see a comedy, you get to laugh for two hours, but then when you leave you're faced with your misery again. at least with a movie like this, you have to admit that your own problems seem small in comparison. when you leave the theatre, they're still there, and you have to come to terms with them, but without a doubt you've been served a heaping portion of humble pie.
I should add I cried the entire movie, for various reasons:
-there was the simple heartbreak of watching a little boy leave his mother.
-then there was the loading of the El Al plane in the Sudan and the subsequent deplaning in Tel Aviv. this of course made me think of that time when I boarded an El Al place in the Sudan. No, just kidding. But it made me nostalgic about my own trip to Israel in 1999, and I felt a renewed sense of committment to Israel and to Judaism. However, I felt somewhat divided about and suspicious of those feelings-- I felt proud of Israel for basically saving Ethiopian and Soviety Jewry in the 80s, but I was/am conflicted about the problematics associated with welcoming a group of people into a country and turning away others on the basis of their religion. The film certainly touched on that, but didn't explore it in great length.
-there was my own weird relationship to judaism, and the fact that I've had it so deeply called into question because of all these freaking goys who keep screwing me over
-then when he found his mother at the end, I started bawling because I wanted MY mommy.
then at random times during the film, for no related reason, I would remember one of j's gestures or mannerisms or figures of speech, and I would remember that it was over with us, and I would cry again.
that's all for now. who was it who said life is a veil (vale?) of tears? I really, really want there to be fewer tears in my life, starting NOW. Genug! Merde, ca me fait chier, ce mec!
4/14/2005
[exhaling slowly]
well, my meeting with my directeur actually went really well! Oh my lord I was petrified, sitting in the bibliotheque ascoli waiting for him to call me (the offices at the Sorbonne are adjacent to the library, which is reserved for the people who study french literature). I had my laptop, my notes from him class, several books, three of my journals (where I take research notes and brainstorm ideas), and two printouts of my outline. I was furiously reviewing and synthesizing and compiling questions to ask him. Luckily he was running very late, so I ended up having an hour and a half to wait, although by the end of that time I was slumped in my seat staring up at the ceiling wishing I could listen to my ipod.
finally he called me in, and we had a good talk. I feel like my paper is going in a good direction. and although initially I complained that the sorbonne is too conservative, now I just think they have an old-fashioned research methodology. that's not necessarily a bad thing. he suggested in a couple of places that I was answering my questions before I had even posed them (for example, titling one chapter "deconstruction de l'identite" in claude cahun's photography. what I meant was to pose as a hypothesis that cahun deconstructs a stable gender identity in her work. he didn't see that as a done deal, as a foregone conclusion, and thought I was presenting it as one. There were a few other instances of this, where, in my haste to break new ground in the way we write about artists who challenge gender, I was making a lot of theoretical assumptions that simply don't exist for the French.
so it goes without saying that my directeur finds me to be a curious specimen of american academic. I think today I proved that I can hold my own, or that I know what I'm talking about, or whatever. but on my way out, he told me a funny story. carrie, who is always railing against inductive reasoning, will appreciate this, though perhaps not its implications for american researchers. he said "the americans remind me of that story about the rabbi who goes all around the town saying 'I have answers, who's got questions?'"
finally he called me in, and we had a good talk. I feel like my paper is going in a good direction. and although initially I complained that the sorbonne is too conservative, now I just think they have an old-fashioned research methodology. that's not necessarily a bad thing. he suggested in a couple of places that I was answering my questions before I had even posed them (for example, titling one chapter "deconstruction de l'identite" in claude cahun's photography. what I meant was to pose as a hypothesis that cahun deconstructs a stable gender identity in her work. he didn't see that as a done deal, as a foregone conclusion, and thought I was presenting it as one. There were a few other instances of this, where, in my haste to break new ground in the way we write about artists who challenge gender, I was making a lot of theoretical assumptions that simply don't exist for the French.
so it goes without saying that my directeur finds me to be a curious specimen of american academic. I think today I proved that I can hold my own, or that I know what I'm talking about, or whatever. but on my way out, he told me a funny story. carrie, who is always railing against inductive reasoning, will appreciate this, though perhaps not its implications for american researchers. he said "the americans remind me of that story about the rabbi who goes all around the town saying 'I have answers, who's got questions?'"
the interpretation of dreams
Oh my god what a weird dream. I dreamt I was standing on a very narrow footbridge-- you know, the kind that’s made up of just planks linked together-- that went across the east river but somehow was still a suspension bridge. I was joined by a bunch of asian women. We were forming two parallel lines up and down the length of the bridge; I was standing somewhere in the middle. Well, not standing—I was sitting, as were a bunch of other people. But occasionally, everyone would start whispering that it was time to stand up. I didn’t want to stand up because I was so much taller than everybody else. But then I finally did get to my feet—and my full weight on my end of the bridge made the bridge tip out from under me! Luckily I was holding on to some of the suspension cords, but that forced me to swing out at a 45 degree angle to the bridge, out into the night, over the east river. Then when I swung back onto the bridge, I tried to catch hold, but was unsuccessful. I just tried not to panic and held on tight, figuring eventually I would lose momentum and wind up back on the bridge.
Here’s what I think is the source of this dream. Yesterday, I went to a seminar on non-fictional literary production at the Ecole Normale. Some interesting papers were presented, one challenging Genette’s assertion in Fiction and Diction that the only texts worthy of narratological attention were fictional ones, that all other kinds of “pedestrian” writing was simply “diction,” which basically reduces literary to a function of style; another one attempted to conflate or problematize the categories of historia and poeia as they are set down rather oppositionally in chapter 9 of Aristotle’s Poetics; and the third paper was about the literarization of scientific and naturalist travel writing in the 18th century. But at the end of the seminar, a debate erupted over the validness of these categories, “fiction” and “non-fiction.” I wasn’t able to follow the debate that closely because the people having it seemed propelled by a kind of nervous energy that made them speak really really really fast in French. So I was kind of hanging on for dear life in the debate. I didn’t really understand what the questions were that they were asking—they started talking about intertextuality, and I was with them; they meandered to the idea of the “reference” and I started to lose them, then they were debating the “real” and I was completely torn between disagreement with the way they were treating the category of the historically “real” and uncertainty as to whether I had actually understood them completely. I wanted to enter the debate, but I was in a room with 20 French doctoral students and was a. intimidated because of the French issue b. intimidated because of the number of people there.
The other thing was that I thought the theoretical framework a little funny. The first paper talked about the way that literature contributes to the formation of social institutions and civic rhetoric by menas of phenomenology and sociology. But I kept wondering why he didn’t draw the juxtaposition back the other way, to take the New Historicist line that literature (that is: fiction and non-fiction, everything that is a text, which is everything) is in fact the site where social forces converge and contribute to the text’s production. His aim was to treat “non-fictional” texts as literary texts and to examine how they are constituitive of the public as well as the literary sphere. My observation was more along the lines of, why do we have to persist in the division between fiction and non-fiction? They’re all texts—instead of serving as an organizational placeholder, such a counterfeit division leads to confusion and the “busy work” practiced by literary critics of moving texts back and forth over an invisible genre line, i.e. “Rousseau’s Confessions is non-fiction because that’s really what happened in his life!” “No, the Confessions are a literary construction and how reliable is Rousseau actually as a source on his own life, and anyway he made a lot of that stuff up!” The emphasis is not on the texts, but on the way we categorize them. I mean, I guess that’s genre studies for you, which I find vaguely interesting but am also wary of, because a lot of it seems designed just to keep academics working rather than being a worthwhile line of questioning.
I’m rambling and rushing this a bit because I have to prepare for a meeting I have today with my directeur de recherche. Would love to hear alternate interpretations of my dreams—but basically I think I need to stand up and do what I have to do and accept that that means occasionally I’m going to look like a fool or fall off the bridge.
Here’s what I think is the source of this dream. Yesterday, I went to a seminar on non-fictional literary production at the Ecole Normale. Some interesting papers were presented, one challenging Genette’s assertion in Fiction and Diction that the only texts worthy of narratological attention were fictional ones, that all other kinds of “pedestrian” writing was simply “diction,” which basically reduces literary to a function of style; another one attempted to conflate or problematize the categories of historia and poeia as they are set down rather oppositionally in chapter 9 of Aristotle’s Poetics; and the third paper was about the literarization of scientific and naturalist travel writing in the 18th century. But at the end of the seminar, a debate erupted over the validness of these categories, “fiction” and “non-fiction.” I wasn’t able to follow the debate that closely because the people having it seemed propelled by a kind of nervous energy that made them speak really really really fast in French. So I was kind of hanging on for dear life in the debate. I didn’t really understand what the questions were that they were asking—they started talking about intertextuality, and I was with them; they meandered to the idea of the “reference” and I started to lose them, then they were debating the “real” and I was completely torn between disagreement with the way they were treating the category of the historically “real” and uncertainty as to whether I had actually understood them completely. I wanted to enter the debate, but I was in a room with 20 French doctoral students and was a. intimidated because of the French issue b. intimidated because of the number of people there.
The other thing was that I thought the theoretical framework a little funny. The first paper talked about the way that literature contributes to the formation of social institutions and civic rhetoric by menas of phenomenology and sociology. But I kept wondering why he didn’t draw the juxtaposition back the other way, to take the New Historicist line that literature (that is: fiction and non-fiction, everything that is a text, which is everything) is in fact the site where social forces converge and contribute to the text’s production. His aim was to treat “non-fictional” texts as literary texts and to examine how they are constituitive of the public as well as the literary sphere. My observation was more along the lines of, why do we have to persist in the division between fiction and non-fiction? They’re all texts—instead of serving as an organizational placeholder, such a counterfeit division leads to confusion and the “busy work” practiced by literary critics of moving texts back and forth over an invisible genre line, i.e. “Rousseau’s Confessions is non-fiction because that’s really what happened in his life!” “No, the Confessions are a literary construction and how reliable is Rousseau actually as a source on his own life, and anyway he made a lot of that stuff up!” The emphasis is not on the texts, but on the way we categorize them. I mean, I guess that’s genre studies for you, which I find vaguely interesting but am also wary of, because a lot of it seems designed just to keep academics working rather than being a worthwhile line of questioning.
I’m rambling and rushing this a bit because I have to prepare for a meeting I have today with my directeur de recherche. Would love to hear alternate interpretations of my dreams—but basically I think I need to stand up and do what I have to do and accept that that means occasionally I’m going to look like a fool or fall off the bridge.
4/12/2005
magnetic poetry a la francaise
and now, to mitigate the foul aftertaste of yesterday's post, to postpone doing the phone interview I have to conduct in french, and to celebrate J coming to his senses, a sampling of magnetic poetry from my fridge.
the joy of magnetic poetry in french is that the utter randomness of the words you join up is compounded by the fact that I don't actually know what some of these words mean. and I don't know how to use accents on this blogger site, so the inanity will be inescapable. hopefully that won't detract from the charm.
this is what's currently on my fridge. see if you can figure out which one(s) I wrote and which one(s) my roommate(s) wrote:
-une caresse entre farouches
-vertiges desalteres a main
-j'explorateur
un fraicheur inonde
infiniment en tendresse
mais attachee du faim
il renverse la
destination
-m'supplice
tous enlasse
encore embrasse
levre et lisse
-j'aime ta fourrure
the joy of magnetic poetry in french is that the utter randomness of the words you join up is compounded by the fact that I don't actually know what some of these words mean. and I don't know how to use accents on this blogger site, so the inanity will be inescapable. hopefully that won't detract from the charm.
this is what's currently on my fridge. see if you can figure out which one(s) I wrote and which one(s) my roommate(s) wrote:
-une caresse entre farouches
-vertiges desalteres a main
-j'explorateur
un fraicheur inonde
infiniment en tendresse
mais attachee du faim
il renverse la
destination
-m'supplice
tous enlasse
encore embrasse
levre et lisse
-j'aime ta fourrure
4/11/2005
street violence
Today I was violated on a street in Paris around the corner from the rue d'Ulm in the 5th arrondissement at 11 o'clock am. I was coming from the metro at Place Monge and going to the Institut Curie, where I teach an English class at 11. I was running late and in a hurry.
I was wearing a knee-length pencil skirt, dark denim, of medium weight. This particulary skirt always rides up because it doesn't fit exactly right-- it's too big at the waist and maybe to small in the hips?-- so I'm perennially pulling it down. I had forgotten how uncomfortable this skirt is to walk in. However, it is neither short, nor tight. It just requires a lot of fixing.
Approaching nearer to the rue d'Ulm, I had just taken my headphones off and put them away in my bag. I was not as oblivious as I usually I when I walk down the street, but still, as I took a moment to stop and tug down the skirt, I had no idea anyone was coming up behind me until I felt the hand slip up and under the skirt and in between my legs.
Not to sound like a "loose woman" or anything, but that basic sensation in itself is not in itself particularly out of the ordinary. Except the only person with any right to have his hand there is my boyfriend, and he was across town, at work in La Defense. This was a delinquent hand, but it took like a split second before I realized this. It was a surreal split second, standing there being sexually assaulted in broad daylight in the most stuffy intellectual neighborhood in Paris.
But the split second evaporated; I whirled around and screamed "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!??!!" I forgot I was in France, I forgot to speak any language except the language of "fuck you you fucking cocksucker get your hand out of my crotch before I kick the shit out of you." All of which I hurled at him and more. He answered calmly, serenely, "Tu as des jolies fesses" ["you have a beautiful ass"]. He was looking at me for all the world as if he couldn't understand my outrage.
I slammed him on the arm with my bag full of books and photocopies. He sauntered away. I kept screaming at him in the foulest English I could summon. Then I set off, trembling, to go teach an English class.
What should I have done? I didn't think calling the police would do much, he was already halfway down the block. I don't remember what he looked like except he was white, about my age, and was kind of non descript.
I've been molested before on the subway in New York, and on the tram in Rome. But never like this. It leaves a terrible aftertaste, this does. There's no way to make it go away. It's just a memory of a moment of total impotence. I suppose I should be content that it was only as bad as it was, that it wasn't rape, it didn't hurt me, he didn't take my wallet. But still-- I feel so angry and there's nothing I can do about it.
I was wearing a knee-length pencil skirt, dark denim, of medium weight. This particulary skirt always rides up because it doesn't fit exactly right-- it's too big at the waist and maybe to small in the hips?-- so I'm perennially pulling it down. I had forgotten how uncomfortable this skirt is to walk in. However, it is neither short, nor tight. It just requires a lot of fixing.
Approaching nearer to the rue d'Ulm, I had just taken my headphones off and put them away in my bag. I was not as oblivious as I usually I when I walk down the street, but still, as I took a moment to stop and tug down the skirt, I had no idea anyone was coming up behind me until I felt the hand slip up and under the skirt and in between my legs.
Not to sound like a "loose woman" or anything, but that basic sensation in itself is not in itself particularly out of the ordinary. Except the only person with any right to have his hand there is my boyfriend, and he was across town, at work in La Defense. This was a delinquent hand, but it took like a split second before I realized this. It was a surreal split second, standing there being sexually assaulted in broad daylight in the most stuffy intellectual neighborhood in Paris.
But the split second evaporated; I whirled around and screamed "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!??!!" I forgot I was in France, I forgot to speak any language except the language of "fuck you you fucking cocksucker get your hand out of my crotch before I kick the shit out of you." All of which I hurled at him and more. He answered calmly, serenely, "Tu as des jolies fesses" ["you have a beautiful ass"]. He was looking at me for all the world as if he couldn't understand my outrage.
I slammed him on the arm with my bag full of books and photocopies. He sauntered away. I kept screaming at him in the foulest English I could summon. Then I set off, trembling, to go teach an English class.
What should I have done? I didn't think calling the police would do much, he was already halfway down the block. I don't remember what he looked like except he was white, about my age, and was kind of non descript.
I've been molested before on the subway in New York, and on the tram in Rome. But never like this. It leaves a terrible aftertaste, this does. There's no way to make it go away. It's just a memory of a moment of total impotence. I suppose I should be content that it was only as bad as it was, that it wasn't rape, it didn't hurt me, he didn't take my wallet. But still-- I feel so angry and there's nothing I can do about it.
4/08/2005
more music notes (har, har)
--I am absolutely obsessed with La Grande Sophie. Check her out NOW. Take a listen to "Bye Bye": "Tu sais je suis mechante...si tu crois que je ne suis pas comme ca, tu te trompes/Allez, pleures! oui pleures!/Allez, pleures, pleures, pleures!" So manic. So good.
--Then when you're done, if you want to feel like you're so very up on the hottest cheesy pop music pumping over the Parisian airwaves, listen to Amel Bent's "Ma philosophie."
That's all I got for now.
--Then when you're done, if you want to feel like you're so very up on the hottest cheesy pop music pumping over the Parisian airwaves, listen to Amel Bent's "Ma philosophie."
That's all I got for now.
4/07/2005
hybrid latin/hebrew
indulge me in another Tori Amos post, if you would be so kind.
I'm still listening to her new album, "The Beekeeper," with some regularity. But something in the song "Marys of the Sea" struck me as odd. The chorus slows down for Tori to croon something that sounded like "Eley-ison Melchim d'lamed." And I was like, excuse me? My Hebrew and my Latin are equally rudimentary (ok, I have no training in Latin except for junior high school chorus renditions of "Kyrie Eleison." or was that Starship I learned that from?). However, I can recognize Melchim as being some kind of Hebrew plural, and lamed is the letter that makes the L sound in the Hebrew alphabet.
What could this be about, I wondered? Had Tori latched on to the Kabbalah craze and was she, oh my god, coining her own latinate hebrew prayers?
I hit Google to find out. Want to know what she's really saying? I can't believe I didn't pick up on this. The song is called "Marys of the Sea," for god's sake, and she keeps referencing Gaul:
"Les Saintes Maries de la mer."
Well I feel like a fool. But Tori, your French sucks couilles.
I'm still listening to her new album, "The Beekeeper," with some regularity. But something in the song "Marys of the Sea" struck me as odd. The chorus slows down for Tori to croon something that sounded like "Eley-ison Melchim d'lamed." And I was like, excuse me? My Hebrew and my Latin are equally rudimentary (ok, I have no training in Latin except for junior high school chorus renditions of "Kyrie Eleison." or was that Starship I learned that from?). However, I can recognize Melchim as being some kind of Hebrew plural, and lamed is the letter that makes the L sound in the Hebrew alphabet.
What could this be about, I wondered? Had Tori latched on to the Kabbalah craze and was she, oh my god, coining her own latinate hebrew prayers?
I hit Google to find out. Want to know what she's really saying? I can't believe I didn't pick up on this. The song is called "Marys of the Sea," for god's sake, and she keeps referencing Gaul:
"Les Saintes Maries de la mer."
Well I feel like a fool. But Tori, your French sucks couilles.
4/04/2005
global weirdness
Are the planets out of alignment or what since this weekend? could someone who knows about astrology please tell me what's going on? first of all, the pope is, all of a sudden, dead. after years of doing not so well but hanging on, suddenly it all went downhill. it's been very strange to see the effect this has had in france, a very catholic and very non-religious country-- so everyone is in mourning for the pope but no one actually feels any religious attachment to him. it's strange. the flags are at half mast and the assemblee nationale had a debate today about whether oir not that was appropriate or if it violated the republican values of laicite. On France 2 tonight the reporters took a roadtrip with two cardinals from France to Rome. Try, if you can, to picture two very high up cardinals in their red habits driving a Peugeot on their way to Rome to sit in the Sistine Chapel and elect a new Pope. Having a hard time? I'm not suprised.
So while the entire world stopped for a moment to contemplate the mortality of even those whom our society accords god-like status, the relationship I've been in for the past 6 weeks that had been going happily, blissfully full steam ahead came to a screeching halt. I think I've got whiplash. All of a sudden, after being constantly at my side, 24/7, introducing me to his parents and furnishing me with a set of keys to his apartment, it occurred to J that he might not be ready for a relationship and he might need to be single for awhile. Happy about this, I am not. Freaking out, he is. Needs to relax, he does. Is this a "crise de conscience," as one friend put it, out of which we can build something stronger? Or is this the writing on the wall, as my mom would put it? Either way: your maitresse is drooping with sadness.
This morning, my wireless Wanadoo box abruptly stopped working. My roommate spent a half hour on the phone with France Telecom, who informed her that the box must be broken and we ought to exchange it for a new one. we hadn't touched the box in two months. why today, of all days, must it break? So I packed it up and headed out to the nearest France Telecom retail outlet, near Gare St Lazare.
On my way to the metro, I passed a scruffy-looking woman feeding the birds near Notre Dame de Lorette. Except-- she was doing it in such a manner that I actually stopped walking to stare at her. She was tearing off bites of a brioche and then spitting it out at the birds, who then rushed and crowded each other to get at the woman's pre-masticated contributions. She tore, chewed, and spat; tore, chewed, spat. I shook my head and descended into the Metro.
When I returned a half hour later from my errand, she was still standing there. She must have had an endless supply of brioches in her bag. I couldn't help but wonder: was this some kind of bizarre eating disorder?
Well. I leave you to ponder the mysteries of faith, wireless internet, and my (soon-to-be-ex?) boyfriend. I have to get back to work.
So while the entire world stopped for a moment to contemplate the mortality of even those whom our society accords god-like status, the relationship I've been in for the past 6 weeks that had been going happily, blissfully full steam ahead came to a screeching halt. I think I've got whiplash. All of a sudden, after being constantly at my side, 24/7, introducing me to his parents and furnishing me with a set of keys to his apartment, it occurred to J that he might not be ready for a relationship and he might need to be single for awhile. Happy about this, I am not. Freaking out, he is. Needs to relax, he does. Is this a "crise de conscience," as one friend put it, out of which we can build something stronger? Or is this the writing on the wall, as my mom would put it? Either way: your maitresse is drooping with sadness.
This morning, my wireless Wanadoo box abruptly stopped working. My roommate spent a half hour on the phone with France Telecom, who informed her that the box must be broken and we ought to exchange it for a new one. we hadn't touched the box in two months. why today, of all days, must it break? So I packed it up and headed out to the nearest France Telecom retail outlet, near Gare St Lazare.
On my way to the metro, I passed a scruffy-looking woman feeding the birds near Notre Dame de Lorette. Except-- she was doing it in such a manner that I actually stopped walking to stare at her. She was tearing off bites of a brioche and then spitting it out at the birds, who then rushed and crowded each other to get at the woman's pre-masticated contributions. She tore, chewed, and spat; tore, chewed, spat. I shook my head and descended into the Metro.
When I returned a half hour later from my errand, she was still standing there. She must have had an endless supply of brioches in her bag. I couldn't help but wonder: was this some kind of bizarre eating disorder?
Well. I leave you to ponder the mysteries of faith, wireless internet, and my (soon-to-be-ex?) boyfriend. I have to get back to work.
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