More on the crazy Italians. My roommate decided not to move out. I am pleased because this makes my life simpler in that it keeps me from having to find a new, more expensive apartment in the next month. I am somewhat displeased because now I am aware of the fact that I live with someone who has the potential to become completely irrational. Irrationality being one of my major pet peeves (as I explained to my new boyfriend the other night, in my opinion, flakiness is a minor form of psychosis), I will proceed with caution and hide the good china.
And in other crazy Italian news, my baby sister (who, like me, is one quarter bona fide southern Italian) sent me this link which radically underscores how different Italy is from France: in order to win re-election in April, President Berlusconi has taken a vow of sexual abstinence.
Now, I haven't watched the French news today (pas de télé dans mon appart) but I can imagine the collective gasp that must have gone across my adoptive land at the news. "Quoi? A president who doesn't have zee sex? Who does 'ee sink 'ee ees, ze Pope? Why would I want to vote for such a person? If 'ee cannot lead in zee bedroom, 'ee cannot lead in zee land!"
This might be a good time for me to mention that I'm currently investigating the possibility of becoming an Italian citizen myself; my father's mother was born there, and depending on how legally she and her family immigrated to the States, I may be able to repatriate this branch of the family back to Europe. If that happens, if I were to become Italian, I assume this gives me complete freedom to become erratic and tempestuous. Andiamo!
1/30/2006
1/27/2006
truth is stranger than fiction
Faaaaaascinating. I am fascinated by news that the mighty Oprah Winfrey took little old James Frey to task on her show for having fabricated many of the details and experiences he recounted in his "memoir," A Million Little Pieces. Oprah told James that she and the million of viewers who agree with everything she says felt "betrayed" upon learning, thanks to the website The Smoking Gun's exhaustive investigation, that he fictionalized his account of his addiction to drugs, his rehab at Hazelden, the amount of time he served in jail (in the book: 3 months; in reality: 3 hours), and the way his girlfriend died.
I suspect it maye have been The Smoking Gun's lede ("Oprah's been had") that got Oprah's ire up more than Frey's actual embellishments and ok, lies. Because I'm reading this article in the New York Times scratching my head. Shelley wrote that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, but unless I missed something, no one has updated that sentiment to make Oprah the unacknowledged legislator of the poets of the world.
I haven't read Frey's book (with all due respect it's not really my kind of read), but I have to say it: the Oprah has no clothes. What's the big freaking deal if a memoirist changes the events of his life around to make a more compelling narrative? The Times reports that Frey told Oprah that "he had developed a tough-guy image of himself as a 'coping mechanism' to help address his alcohol and drug addiction. 'And when I was writing the book,' he said, 'instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image.'"Seriously-- whatever happened to poetic license?
It's such a strange genre, memoir, difficult to distinguish (if at all) from its generic counterpart, autobiography. The difference between the two may be negligeable, something for literary critics to fight over, but both genres cover an enormous range of purposes. For example, there's the historic service provided by De Gaulle's war memoirs; every President of the US these days is expected to set down his view of his administration, providing historians with an irrefutable "he said" point of view. Did anyone think that Clinton's memoir, My Life, contained unadulterated truth, particularly with regard to his sexual hijinks? The ethics of the famous man memoir are always up for debate, but any autobiographical narrative is, even in the hands of the most meticulous life-writer, a subjective account at best. Simone de Beauvoir didn't tell half the truth of her life in her memoirs, leaving out most of the juicy bits about her arrangement with Sartre and her sapphic sexual encouters-- and it was her choice to do so. She explained later that she did so to protect the personal lives of the people involved.
But this is a different situation; Frey's book belongs to the genre of memoirs by unfamous people, people whose only reason for writing the book is kind of like some of the explanations I've heard for writing a blog: because they've lived through something interesting that other people might want to read about. So if it was his life, his experience, and not a life led in the public service, or a life that will form part of the history of famous men, what does it matter if Frey fudged the details? Will we, by which I mean the "millions of betrayed readers" that Oprah refers to, only read a memoir of someone no more famous or important than you or I if that memoirist tells the absolute truth about his particular experience? Why do we cry "no fair" if the little guy's account isn't absolutely factually accurate? Is it because we wish we had lived through something important enough to write about? Oprah, of course, has a different scenario at stake; in her own autobiography, as one of the major figures in millennial American culture, she has certain responsabilities to "truth" that Frey, as a nobody, doesn't have.
Or does it have something to do with the way our culture values a "true story," to the degree that movie posters will always include the tagline "Based on a True Story," if that is the case-- to remind the audience that strange things to happen in life, even if theirs is all about their kids' next soccer game. Or look at the early 21st century obsession with "reality television," which faded as soon as it became clear that the situations, even if they were played by non-actors, were thoroughly choreographed by the producers. Thus the return to the dramatic series-- because we can all agree on the fact that "Desperate Housewives" is pure fiction.
I'm writing this quickly because I have other work to get done today, so I feel I'm cutting rather a large swath across this question, but I would be interested to hear other points of view on this...
And in a vaguely related story, Alex Beam of the International Herald Tribune can't deal with BHL...
I suspect it maye have been The Smoking Gun's lede ("Oprah's been had") that got Oprah's ire up more than Frey's actual embellishments and ok, lies. Because I'm reading this article in the New York Times scratching my head. Shelley wrote that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, but unless I missed something, no one has updated that sentiment to make Oprah the unacknowledged legislator of the poets of the world.
I haven't read Frey's book (with all due respect it's not really my kind of read), but I have to say it: the Oprah has no clothes. What's the big freaking deal if a memoirist changes the events of his life around to make a more compelling narrative? The Times reports that Frey told Oprah that "he had developed a tough-guy image of himself as a 'coping mechanism' to help address his alcohol and drug addiction. 'And when I was writing the book,' he said, 'instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image.'"Seriously-- whatever happened to poetic license?
It's such a strange genre, memoir, difficult to distinguish (if at all) from its generic counterpart, autobiography. The difference between the two may be negligeable, something for literary critics to fight over, but both genres cover an enormous range of purposes. For example, there's the historic service provided by De Gaulle's war memoirs; every President of the US these days is expected to set down his view of his administration, providing historians with an irrefutable "he said" point of view. Did anyone think that Clinton's memoir, My Life, contained unadulterated truth, particularly with regard to his sexual hijinks? The ethics of the famous man memoir are always up for debate, but any autobiographical narrative is, even in the hands of the most meticulous life-writer, a subjective account at best. Simone de Beauvoir didn't tell half the truth of her life in her memoirs, leaving out most of the juicy bits about her arrangement with Sartre and her sapphic sexual encouters-- and it was her choice to do so. She explained later that she did so to protect the personal lives of the people involved.
But this is a different situation; Frey's book belongs to the genre of memoirs by unfamous people, people whose only reason for writing the book is kind of like some of the explanations I've heard for writing a blog: because they've lived through something interesting that other people might want to read about. So if it was his life, his experience, and not a life led in the public service, or a life that will form part of the history of famous men, what does it matter if Frey fudged the details? Will we, by which I mean the "millions of betrayed readers" that Oprah refers to, only read a memoir of someone no more famous or important than you or I if that memoirist tells the absolute truth about his particular experience? Why do we cry "no fair" if the little guy's account isn't absolutely factually accurate? Is it because we wish we had lived through something important enough to write about? Oprah, of course, has a different scenario at stake; in her own autobiography, as one of the major figures in millennial American culture, she has certain responsabilities to "truth" that Frey, as a nobody, doesn't have.
Or does it have something to do with the way our culture values a "true story," to the degree that movie posters will always include the tagline "Based on a True Story," if that is the case-- to remind the audience that strange things to happen in life, even if theirs is all about their kids' next soccer game. Or look at the early 21st century obsession with "reality television," which faded as soon as it became clear that the situations, even if they were played by non-actors, were thoroughly choreographed by the producers. Thus the return to the dramatic series-- because we can all agree on the fact that "Desperate Housewives" is pure fiction.
I'm writing this quickly because I have other work to get done today, so I feel I'm cutting rather a large swath across this question, but I would be interested to hear other points of view on this...
And in a vaguely related story, Alex Beam of the International Herald Tribune can't deal with BHL...
1/26/2006
flashback, 1999
Maitresse channels Gertrude Stein upon her return to New York from Paris, having spent a semester abroad:
We wanted to be there, with our eyes and our hearts and our hands and our minds and our hearts.
I did not want but to be there, and once there I did not want but to be more there, but here was still there and I had to return. But in the time between here and there and there and here (despite not being "more there"), such dreams would be won!
Yes, definitely we wanted to be there, not here.
I'm going through some of my old writing journals and am tickled by my susceptible prose, defenseless against the effects of reading too much high modernism!
We wanted to be there, with our eyes and our hearts and our hands and our minds and our hearts.
I did not want but to be there, and once there I did not want but to be more there, but here was still there and I had to return. But in the time between here and there and there and here (despite not being "more there"), such dreams would be won!
Yes, definitely we wanted to be there, not here.
I'm going through some of my old writing journals and am tickled by my susceptible prose, defenseless against the effects of reading too much high modernism!
1/24/2006
give maitresse a home
You know-- when I decided to take in my Italian roommate there was a little voice in my head warning me that there was a strong possibility she might flake out on me. I don't know what it was that tipped me off, but somehow I knew.
And lo and behold, she has informed me this evening that a 350 euro studio in the 6th arrondissement has fallen into her lap and she is moving out to go live there. Actually, she said she's deciding whether to take it and she'll let me know tomorrow. Which basically amounts to the same thing.
Keep in mind she moved in barely a month ago, and she will have been the third roommate I've had since moving in here a year ago. The first one left to move in with her boyfriend, fair enough. The second one left cause he found a job in Morocco, ok. But this-- cette histoire d'avoir trouvé quelque chose de moins cher au 6e-- ça me rend folle, quoi!
My options: A) stay put and find roommate number four. B) Find the impossible: a cute, sizable 1 bedroom (that's a 2 pieces, dear francophone readers) in a decent neighborhood in my price range. Say 750, charges comprises.
Please let me know if you hear of anything opening up or anyone nice looking for a place to live... thank you...
And lo and behold, she has informed me this evening that a 350 euro studio in the 6th arrondissement has fallen into her lap and she is moving out to go live there. Actually, she said she's deciding whether to take it and she'll let me know tomorrow. Which basically amounts to the same thing.
Keep in mind she moved in barely a month ago, and she will have been the third roommate I've had since moving in here a year ago. The first one left to move in with her boyfriend, fair enough. The second one left cause he found a job in Morocco, ok. But this-- cette histoire d'avoir trouvé quelque chose de moins cher au 6e-- ça me rend folle, quoi!
My options: A) stay put and find roommate number four. B) Find the impossible: a cute, sizable 1 bedroom (that's a 2 pieces, dear francophone readers) in a decent neighborhood in my price range. Say 750, charges comprises.
Please let me know if you hear of anything opening up or anyone nice looking for a place to live... thank you...
1/23/2006
my favo(u)rite hot chocolate ever
Julia over at Relookage has asked for everyone's favorite hot chocolate stories, after regaling us with a tale of how she valiantly sipped one down in the summer heat on the terrace of the Cafe de Flore, then chased it with kir and coffee, all to continue participate in that time-honored Parisian sport of people-watching in the place in Paris to watch the people, Saint Germain-des-Pres.
I've had some great hot chocolate in my day, and much of it has been consumed here in Paris-- most recently at Angelina's with my friend Wendy, visiting from New York; then there was another hot chocolate where I remember actually contemplating licking the inside of the porcelain pitcher when the chocolate ran out. Unfortunately I've forgotten which cafe that near-lapse of etiquette transpired in, maybe Les Editeurs.
But the most memorable cups of hot chocolate of my life had to be the ones my mom would make during the winters when I was growing up on Long Island. My parents would take my sister and I sledding on the hills at Indian Hollow, my elementary school, and after we tired ourselves out with scooting down what seemed to be the most enormous inclines in our green plastic sleds, they'd take us home, get us out of our ski suits, and my mom would make hot chocolate and put the big marshmallows in it, the kind that get all melty and fuzzy on the outside and lend a marshmallow aura to the top of the cocoa.
I believe my mom's method was to heat the milk on the stove and add Nestle Quick, the powdered kind, not the syrup. It was the best thing ever, and all the gourmet chocolat à l'ancienne I'll drink in Paris will never top it.
I've had some great hot chocolate in my day, and much of it has been consumed here in Paris-- most recently at Angelina's with my friend Wendy, visiting from New York; then there was another hot chocolate where I remember actually contemplating licking the inside of the porcelain pitcher when the chocolate ran out. Unfortunately I've forgotten which cafe that near-lapse of etiquette transpired in, maybe Les Editeurs.
But the most memorable cups of hot chocolate of my life had to be the ones my mom would make during the winters when I was growing up on Long Island. My parents would take my sister and I sledding on the hills at Indian Hollow, my elementary school, and after we tired ourselves out with scooting down what seemed to be the most enormous inclines in our green plastic sleds, they'd take us home, get us out of our ski suits, and my mom would make hot chocolate and put the big marshmallows in it, the kind that get all melty and fuzzy on the outside and lend a marshmallow aura to the top of the cocoa.
I believe my mom's method was to heat the milk on the stove and add Nestle Quick, the powdered kind, not the syrup. It was the best thing ever, and all the gourmet chocolat à l'ancienne I'll drink in Paris will never top it.
1/22/2006
brokeback. full stop.
Spent the weekend cookin' and lovin' and buildin' furniture with my new beau. Who, it happens, did find his way to this blog, but has inexplicably elected not to read it. Doesn't he understand I have conducted a fullscale Google operation to backcheck him, and combed through his blog and those of his cohorts to figure out who I'm dealing with, where he's been, what he's said and done before we met? As far as I'm concerned a blog is a gimme; a free-for-all of information about our intimates.
Besides that, there's a basic pride in creation at play here. A writer wants to be read! I'm kind of bummed that he won't get to admire the precision of my metaphors and [apparently intimidating] commentaries. Now I'm going to be reduced to shameless manoeuvers like accidentally leaving the blog open on his computer screen, turned to a particularly riveting page.
Later this afternoon, after my demure one went home, I caught up with Remy to see "Brokeback Mountain." I have to say, I enjoyed it greatly but I think all the buzz about it being a "gay cowboy" movie was a little overhyped, considering they were actually gay shepherds (clonk! that's the sound of the audience being knocked over the head with the religious subtext).
There are some peoplewho are crazy obsessed with the film, who are convinced that it is going to change the way gays are perceived in the United States... I wonder.
All in all I found it very beautiful, very sad, and unexpectedly poignant. I was only minorly distracted by the fact that Jen from "Dawson's Creek" didn't die at the end of the series, she just moved to Wyoming...
Besides that, there's a basic pride in creation at play here. A writer wants to be read! I'm kind of bummed that he won't get to admire the precision of my metaphors and [apparently intimidating] commentaries. Now I'm going to be reduced to shameless manoeuvers like accidentally leaving the blog open on his computer screen, turned to a particularly riveting page.
Later this afternoon, after my demure one went home, I caught up with Remy to see "Brokeback Mountain." I have to say, I enjoyed it greatly but I think all the buzz about it being a "gay cowboy" movie was a little overhyped, considering they were actually gay shepherds (clonk! that's the sound of the audience being knocked over the head with the religious subtext).
There are some peoplewho are crazy obsessed with the film, who are convinced that it is going to change the way gays are perceived in the United States... I wonder.
All in all I found it very beautiful, very sad, and unexpectedly poignant. I was only minorly distracted by the fact that Jen from "Dawson's Creek" didn't die at the end of the series, she just moved to Wyoming...
1/19/2006
starting at ground level
Well! After what started out innocuously enough in my head, my last post ended up posing THE question for the 21st century, why the heck do we blog... I loved all the responses I got, thank you for being so honest (and I'm sad that two of you have "gone dark," so to speak).
So why do I blog? Who knows. But the things that impelled me to write this evening are basically the same things that make me write in general, no matter what the medium-- because I'm so full of random thoughts and powerful impressions, fleeting feelings, things I want to put out there, because, for example, tonight I'm feeling fizzy and -- well-- effervescent. Thus pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.
So effervescent that on today's trip to Ikea, whereas I might normally have felt as if I were tackling a giant rugby player, negotiating the aisles with an unwieldy shopping cart loaded up with my new dresser, table, chairs, and whatever crap we threw on top of that stuff, today it was as if the shopping cart were the slightest of bubbles I nudged gently towards checkout. The damage to my credit card bill? Barely penetrated my haze. Good thing I can't drive a standard; I shudder to think how I would have handled Parisian traffic were I behind the wheel and not my roommate Camilla.
Why the haze? Oh... I don't know... nothing to do with an infatuation with an adorable person I recently started seeing... it's that amazing part that comes right after you meet someone absolutely amazing who stops you in your tracks and makes you understand, in spite of all the heartache you went through, why things ended with the last one: to make room for this one. As Camilla reminded me recently, it takes a nail to displace another nail. Thought I'm not sure what that makes me-- the hammer? I guess can live with that (wink wink).
Or at least that's what I'm telling myself-- that we go through these things in order to come out on the other side. But I don't know that I learned much from these past few searingly sad months-- except maybe how to put those unwelcome feelings aside to make room for new, bubbly, ones, to enjoy the moment and happily anticipate the possibilities for the future.
So why do I blog? Who knows. But the things that impelled me to write this evening are basically the same things that make me write in general, no matter what the medium-- because I'm so full of random thoughts and powerful impressions, fleeting feelings, things I want to put out there, because, for example, tonight I'm feeling fizzy and -- well-- effervescent. Thus pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.
So effervescent that on today's trip to Ikea, whereas I might normally have felt as if I were tackling a giant rugby player, negotiating the aisles with an unwieldy shopping cart loaded up with my new dresser, table, chairs, and whatever crap we threw on top of that stuff, today it was as if the shopping cart were the slightest of bubbles I nudged gently towards checkout. The damage to my credit card bill? Barely penetrated my haze. Good thing I can't drive a standard; I shudder to think how I would have handled Parisian traffic were I behind the wheel and not my roommate Camilla.
Why the haze? Oh... I don't know... nothing to do with an infatuation with an adorable person I recently started seeing... it's that amazing part that comes right after you meet someone absolutely amazing who stops you in your tracks and makes you understand, in spite of all the heartache you went through, why things ended with the last one: to make room for this one. As Camilla reminded me recently, it takes a nail to displace another nail. Thought I'm not sure what that makes me-- the hammer? I guess can live with that (wink wink).
Or at least that's what I'm telling myself-- that we go through these things in order to come out on the other side. But I don't know that I learned much from these past few searingly sad months-- except maybe how to put those unwelcome feelings aside to make room for new, bubbly, ones, to enjoy the moment and happily anticipate the possibilities for the future.
1/17/2006
surf's up
I've been grading papers all week, and you know what that means: logging hours surfing the internet in between reading mind-numbingly boring paragraphs about god knows what, cursing myself for assigning an essay question on the final exam, wishing I taught high school biology so that all the students would have to do is fill in those bubble cards and I could put them through the special bubble card machine and have 100 papers graded in a matter of minutes.
But no, I had to go and teach university, in France no less, which means I occasionally get interesting students who have two thoughts to rub together but mostly I'm stuck trying to explain the English past perfect tense in French.
So while surfing around the 'net, I've found a number of really great blogs, some of which I've added to my sidebar on this site, some of which I've simply bookmarked and might add later. And, I must say, I've read a whole lot of bullsh*t. So much bullsh*t is dumped onto the information highway every day that it makes me greatly call into question what I'm doing here. What makes me think my bullsh*t is any more interesting than other people's bullsh*t? Some of these people are really accomplished and still can't write for beans; some are very smart and decent writers but totally uninteresting.
Then there are some people you wish would write more, photograph more, just talk and talk and talk and tell more stories and let you in on their world, and I'm not sure if it's totally subjective, what sets this group apart from the former group...
It's a wholly knotty question, the quality of a blog, because it's all tied up in the positive values of the internet, the newness of it, the excitement of a new creative medium, the democracy of it, the mass accessibility of the means of communication. I have certain theories about the way radical new outbreaks of creativity quickly get subsumed into the mainstream that I won't get into here, but I do wonder where all this blogging is going and what could possibly come of it.
All I know for sure is that some of these monkeys need to be pried away from their keyboards. And I really hope nobody is reading this posting thinking I'm one of those monkeys!
But no, I had to go and teach university, in France no less, which means I occasionally get interesting students who have two thoughts to rub together but mostly I'm stuck trying to explain the English past perfect tense in French.
So while surfing around the 'net, I've found a number of really great blogs, some of which I've added to my sidebar on this site, some of which I've simply bookmarked and might add later. And, I must say, I've read a whole lot of bullsh*t. So much bullsh*t is dumped onto the information highway every day that it makes me greatly call into question what I'm doing here. What makes me think my bullsh*t is any more interesting than other people's bullsh*t? Some of these people are really accomplished and still can't write for beans; some are very smart and decent writers but totally uninteresting.
Then there are some people you wish would write more, photograph more, just talk and talk and talk and tell more stories and let you in on their world, and I'm not sure if it's totally subjective, what sets this group apart from the former group...
It's a wholly knotty question, the quality of a blog, because it's all tied up in the positive values of the internet, the newness of it, the excitement of a new creative medium, the democracy of it, the mass accessibility of the means of communication. I have certain theories about the way radical new outbreaks of creativity quickly get subsumed into the mainstream that I won't get into here, but I do wonder where all this blogging is going and what could possibly come of it.
All I know for sure is that some of these monkeys need to be pried away from their keyboards. And I really hope nobody is reading this posting thinking I'm one of those monkeys!
1/15/2006
breaking news
1. One of my college roommates just moved to Paris for six months! without telling me for sure in advance! she just surprised me today! surprise! welcome to Paris, Mini!
2. A recent study indicates that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the same four women. --does this mean we're all related? Good thing I'm dating outside of the tribe! Or the family, I guess I should say!
2. A recent study indicates that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the same four women. --does this mean we're all related? Good thing I'm dating outside of the tribe! Or the family, I guess I should say!
the leaning tower
You can start to build something with the best of intentions for its foundation and totally neglect to choose a site strong enough to support the structure.
Just as I was feeling uninspired in certain departments, paf, along comes inspiration.
I've met someone and he has a blog, of sorts, and I've been reading it while sipping my morning espresso and listening to the Beatles.
These things have a way of fizzling out and I'm hoping this one doesn't.
He knows I have a blog, and if he really cares he'll find his way here soon. It's almost a test...
Just imagine: a guy who writes the things he thinks.
[Speaking of which-- Schuey, what happened to your blog??]
Just as I was feeling uninspired in certain departments, paf, along comes inspiration.
I've met someone and he has a blog, of sorts, and I've been reading it while sipping my morning espresso and listening to the Beatles.
These things have a way of fizzling out and I'm hoping this one doesn't.
He knows I have a blog, and if he really cares he'll find his way here soon. It's almost a test...
Just imagine: a guy who writes the things he thinks.
[Speaking of which-- Schuey, what happened to your blog??]
1/13/2006
performing paris
I had a real "Paris day" on Thursday-- meaning I wandered around the city, a 21st century flaneuse with nowhere to be til 5, a bunch of errands to run, and work I could do in any seat at any table in any café I wanted. Which means I had one of those days where it's so ridiculous that I live here that I almost feel guilty about it. One of those days where it's so very Paris that I almost feel like I'm on vacation here. One of those days where I get out of my normal sphere of northern Paris and go hang out on the left bank to see what those nice folks are up to.
If I were one of those bloggers who's really keen on charts and graphs, I'd insert a little map of the city here with a red line tracing the way that I wended, with little dots to indicate where I did something of interest. However, as you've probably figured out, it's all I can do to get a picture on here from time to time, so you'll just have to imagine this in your head. (It's better that way anyway)
Took the 4 down from Barbes to St Sulpice (talk about two different worlds) to go to Jonak, where I had spied some promising camel-colored leather boots before Christmas. I sought them out yesterday because it was day 2 of the January sales, and alas-- they were out of my size. I tried on a couple of other pairs but they just weren't cool.
Next stop: the Gap, to fondle this amazing grey velvet-trimmed coat, to see how much it was marked down to (89 euros) and to see if I could justify buying it (I couldn't, and they didn't have my size again, damn).
On to Princesse Tam-Tam, in the rue Bonaparte, to exchange or return a camisole I bought for my sister for Christmas that fit neither her nor I. I had bought it in two sizes-- a 1 and a 2-- and the 1 fit both of us, so I gave that one to her and figured I'd find another 1 back in Paris. No such luck, and so I had decided to return the darn thing and get my money back.
Except the unpleasant woman behind the counter wouldn't do a return. It took all of my diplomacy to get her to take the thing back, but she wanted me to exchange it for something else in the store right then and there.
Not in the mood to go lingerie-shopping, as I'm presently feeling uninspired in that department, I slipped into annoyed arrogant Parisienne mode. This means I pout, shrug my shoulders, and say in a voice that sounds as if I could not possibly be more put out, "Madame, excusez-moi, je n'ai pas le temps de choisir autre chose en ce moment, je reviendrai en quelques semaines."
"But zere will be no-sing left by zen, Madame, eet ees zee soldes!" she cajoled.
"Alors je reviens apres les soldes!" I huffed. She gave me the dirtiest look, groused and grumbled, and scribbled "valable pour 3 mois" on the top of my receipt.
Sometimes I just can't deal with the effing French.
Leaving the store, I felt drawn toward Saint Sulpice. Yes that's right, the church. I went into the church for no apparent reason other than the irritating run-in with the woman at Princesse Tam-Tam. I went in, walked around a bit, stared at the candles, spent some time with Delacroix's Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, saw the impressive Crèche de Caltagirone, and then wandered back out into the daylight. I needed to be peaceful for a moment, and even for a nice Jewish girl like myself, there's just something about the atmosphere in a church that's so heavy and calming, like crawling under a really thick duvet.
I headed south through the desolate, wintry Jardin du Luxembourg and across to the neighborhood where I used to hang out when I was an undergraduate at Reid Hall, over by Montparnasse... spent a couple of hours rereading my mémoire de DEA (which has lain dormant for the past few months, exhausted, but must now be awakened to be worked somehow into my projet de these and several conference papers). The place was full of students and publishing types and I just sat in my little corner, reading, scribbling, and feeling generally content with my own company.
Five pm rolled around and I spent some quality time with my therapist, then off to the Village Voice for the Hazel Rowley reading (more on that to come), up to Chatelet to meet Remy for dinner at Oki, over to Comptoir du Marrakkech to meet the Argentinian for a drink or three, and then home in a cab, where Baxter greeted me at the door wailing where were you and then I crawled under my real duvet and passed out.
And that, my friends, is how we do it here in Paris.
If I were one of those bloggers who's really keen on charts and graphs, I'd insert a little map of the city here with a red line tracing the way that I wended, with little dots to indicate where I did something of interest. However, as you've probably figured out, it's all I can do to get a picture on here from time to time, so you'll just have to imagine this in your head. (It's better that way anyway)
Took the 4 down from Barbes to St Sulpice (talk about two different worlds) to go to Jonak, where I had spied some promising camel-colored leather boots before Christmas. I sought them out yesterday because it was day 2 of the January sales, and alas-- they were out of my size. I tried on a couple of other pairs but they just weren't cool.
Next stop: the Gap, to fondle this amazing grey velvet-trimmed coat, to see how much it was marked down to (89 euros) and to see if I could justify buying it (I couldn't, and they didn't have my size again, damn).
On to Princesse Tam-Tam, in the rue Bonaparte, to exchange or return a camisole I bought for my sister for Christmas that fit neither her nor I. I had bought it in two sizes-- a 1 and a 2-- and the 1 fit both of us, so I gave that one to her and figured I'd find another 1 back in Paris. No such luck, and so I had decided to return the darn thing and get my money back.
Except the unpleasant woman behind the counter wouldn't do a return. It took all of my diplomacy to get her to take the thing back, but she wanted me to exchange it for something else in the store right then and there.
Not in the mood to go lingerie-shopping, as I'm presently feeling uninspired in that department, I slipped into annoyed arrogant Parisienne mode. This means I pout, shrug my shoulders, and say in a voice that sounds as if I could not possibly be more put out, "Madame, excusez-moi, je n'ai pas le temps de choisir autre chose en ce moment, je reviendrai en quelques semaines."
"But zere will be no-sing left by zen, Madame, eet ees zee soldes!" she cajoled.
"Alors je reviens apres les soldes!" I huffed. She gave me the dirtiest look, groused and grumbled, and scribbled "valable pour 3 mois" on the top of my receipt.
Sometimes I just can't deal with the effing French.
Leaving the store, I felt drawn toward Saint Sulpice. Yes that's right, the church. I went into the church for no apparent reason other than the irritating run-in with the woman at Princesse Tam-Tam. I went in, walked around a bit, stared at the candles, spent some time with Delacroix's Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, saw the impressive Crèche de Caltagirone, and then wandered back out into the daylight. I needed to be peaceful for a moment, and even for a nice Jewish girl like myself, there's just something about the atmosphere in a church that's so heavy and calming, like crawling under a really thick duvet.
I headed south through the desolate, wintry Jardin du Luxembourg and across to the neighborhood where I used to hang out when I was an undergraduate at Reid Hall, over by Montparnasse... spent a couple of hours rereading my mémoire de DEA (which has lain dormant for the past few months, exhausted, but must now be awakened to be worked somehow into my projet de these and several conference papers). The place was full of students and publishing types and I just sat in my little corner, reading, scribbling, and feeling generally content with my own company.
Five pm rolled around and I spent some quality time with my therapist, then off to the Village Voice for the Hazel Rowley reading (more on that to come), up to Chatelet to meet Remy for dinner at Oki, over to Comptoir du Marrakkech to meet the Argentinian for a drink or three, and then home in a cab, where Baxter greeted me at the door wailing where were you and then I crawled under my real duvet and passed out.
And that, my friends, is how we do it here in Paris.
1/09/2006
petit à petit, l'oiseau fait son nid
Meet the newest members of my household:
a shiny new vacuum clearner, aka Mister President
A toaster oven/grill, aka Mini 4
You see, my roommate Rémi moved out at the end of December, taking most of his appliances with him, and my new roommate, l'Italienne, moved in on Saturday, bearing no appliances at all, being recently arrived from Venice. So a trip to Darty was in order!
It's kind of strange, owning home appliances in a foreign country-- or anywhere I can't just take them with me when I leave. Apart from my several stays in Paris, I've never lived anywhere that wasn't a car ride away from Kilometer Zero, that is, my parents' house on Long Island; no matter what the adventure-- summer in the Berkshires, various apartments in Manhattan, and one in Queens, way at the beginning, after I graduated from Barnard-- I would always load up one of my parents' cars and come home with all my stuff.
And there was no shortage of moving, back then. Eight apartments in four years: Astoria, 84th Street, 7e arrondissement, 20th Street, 81st Street, 108th St, 3rd arrondissement, 9th arrondissement. That's a lot of stuff.
But the things I amass here in France aren't going anywhere, and I have no idea how long I'll need them for. I think I've reached a point in my life where the future is so scary, the prospect of living the life I've carved out for myself so intimidating, that I can't let myself think about the long-term possibilities for my toaster oven. All I know is I need one now. Whether I stay in France for good or not is irrelevant-- toasters can be sold.
So I am making peace with my acquisitions, with my nesting here, with the fridge I bought in August, the desk I bought in October, the espresso machine I bought in December, trying not to worry about how the fact of my nesting in Paris will affect the people I love back home in New York. 2005 was a really tough year, but I'm not down. 2006 promises to be the year of the appliance, the year of building my own nest, the year when my apartment becomes home. I'm done with moving. I've been in the same place for one year, and that's incredible, something I haven't done since I was sixteen years old and living at home. Look at me now: eleven years later, and only now finally, stubbornly, settling down.
Future trips to Darty? you bet. I still need a telephone, a television/DVD player, and a set of hot rollers.
a shiny new vacuum clearner, aka Mister President
A toaster oven/grill, aka Mini 4You see, my roommate Rémi moved out at the end of December, taking most of his appliances with him, and my new roommate, l'Italienne, moved in on Saturday, bearing no appliances at all, being recently arrived from Venice. So a trip to Darty was in order!
It's kind of strange, owning home appliances in a foreign country-- or anywhere I can't just take them with me when I leave. Apart from my several stays in Paris, I've never lived anywhere that wasn't a car ride away from Kilometer Zero, that is, my parents' house on Long Island; no matter what the adventure-- summer in the Berkshires, various apartments in Manhattan, and one in Queens, way at the beginning, after I graduated from Barnard-- I would always load up one of my parents' cars and come home with all my stuff.
And there was no shortage of moving, back then. Eight apartments in four years: Astoria, 84th Street, 7e arrondissement, 20th Street, 81st Street, 108th St, 3rd arrondissement, 9th arrondissement. That's a lot of stuff.
But the things I amass here in France aren't going anywhere, and I have no idea how long I'll need them for. I think I've reached a point in my life where the future is so scary, the prospect of living the life I've carved out for myself so intimidating, that I can't let myself think about the long-term possibilities for my toaster oven. All I know is I need one now. Whether I stay in France for good or not is irrelevant-- toasters can be sold.
So I am making peace with my acquisitions, with my nesting here, with the fridge I bought in August, the desk I bought in October, the espresso machine I bought in December, trying not to worry about how the fact of my nesting in Paris will affect the people I love back home in New York. 2005 was a really tough year, but I'm not down. 2006 promises to be the year of the appliance, the year of building my own nest, the year when my apartment becomes home. I'm done with moving. I've been in the same place for one year, and that's incredible, something I haven't done since I was sixteen years old and living at home. Look at me now: eleven years later, and only now finally, stubbornly, settling down.
Future trips to Darty? you bet. I still need a telephone, a television/DVD player, and a set of hot rollers.
what if the goat gets tired?
...and other oddities of bomb-sniffing goats.
Apparently the Israeli Defense Force is trying to be more sensitive to Muslim culture by contemplating a replacement of their bomb-sniffing dogs and pigs (??) with goats.
That's a nice gesture, I suppose. I can think of other ways to be more respectful, but hey, goats are a good place to start.
Apparently the Israeli Defense Force is trying to be more sensitive to Muslim culture by contemplating a replacement of their bomb-sniffing dogs and pigs (??) with goats.
That's a nice gesture, I suppose. I can think of other ways to be more respectful, but hey, goats are a good place to start.
1/04/2006
department of how do they do it?
Here's why I'll never open up that independent bookshop I've always dreamed about.
That, and the fact that I'd have to sell a lot of crap books to make any money.
That, and the fact that I'd have to sell a lot of crap books to make any money.
1/03/2006
here we are again
Well, well, well, it's good to be back in Paris, surfing the internet and blogging from my white desk in my white room in my first floor apartment in the 9th arrondissement. There's not a whole lot to report: I went to New York to spend the holidays with my family and flew back to Paris for New Year's, where I had one of my oldest and dearest friends waiting with bated breath for my return; she had come to Paris not to meet me so much as to meet the Frenchman under whose spell she had fallen on MSN. No matter; we had a great time catching up, and I loved showing her Paris, fashion maven that she is. Our time together was short but gloriously oriented around Colette, Angelina's, the Place Vendome, and all the other wonders of the Rue St Honoré.
New year's eve was spent at an impressive party at someone's parents' apartment in the rue de l'Unicersité, near Les Invalides (and not far from my old apartment near the Eiffel Tower). It was a very drunk evening for everyone, and if I didn't hallucinate him, there was a cute French banker who took me home in his car service (who went forthwith back to his apartment in that same car service, thank you very much). Would that he would call, but alas, perhaps he was only a figment of my overactive imagination.
I have to say, though, the highlight of the last couple of weeks was the evening I spent with my family for my mother's birthday on the 27th: dinner in the Pool Room at the Four Seasons followed by Pinter one-acts in Chelsea. The Four Seasons was to die: Mies van der Rohe my architectural idol, apart from my father, who is a Mies disciple as well, so it's all in the family. I think the genius of Mies lies, for me anyway, in the weird ability his interior spaces have to make me feel like I'm 5 years old again, hanging out, poolside of all places, with my impeccable grandmother in swanky Palm Beach, pulling my yellow sundress down over my knees to look like more of a lady.
[These days, however, the Four Seasons puts me more in mind of a chic spring evening meeting some dashing man for drinks at the bar, looking out at Midtown Manhattan sparkling at dusk through the shimmering curtains.]
The food was delicious, but the best part of the meal was undoubtedly dessert. My well-intentioned father had asked the maitre d' to arrange a little something discreet for my mother's birthday; say, a piece of cake with a candle on it, and no singing waiters. What arrived was a singing waiter bearing a giant mount of violet-covered cotton candy. Underneath the mound lay a heart-shaped scoop of strawberry ice cream. The whole confection was topped off by little sugar violets.
My mother looked first confused, then horrified, and my sister and I died laughing. "Something small, I said, something small!" my father gently reprimanded the waiter, alarmed at the enormous purple cloud menacing my mother. Finally the parents were able to get past their embarrassment and enjoy the fact that this was the funniest, oddest, most interesting thing to come out of the kitchen and onto the table of once of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan.
Apparently Gwen Stefani got the same thing when it was her birthday at the Four Seasons. And that, I am happy to say, is the only thing she has in common with my mom.
New year's eve was spent at an impressive party at someone's parents' apartment in the rue de l'Unicersité, near Les Invalides (and not far from my old apartment near the Eiffel Tower). It was a very drunk evening for everyone, and if I didn't hallucinate him, there was a cute French banker who took me home in his car service (who went forthwith back to his apartment in that same car service, thank you very much). Would that he would call, but alas, perhaps he was only a figment of my overactive imagination.
I have to say, though, the highlight of the last couple of weeks was the evening I spent with my family for my mother's birthday on the 27th: dinner in the Pool Room at the Four Seasons followed by Pinter one-acts in Chelsea. The Four Seasons was to die: Mies van der Rohe my architectural idol, apart from my father, who is a Mies disciple as well, so it's all in the family. I think the genius of Mies lies, for me anyway, in the weird ability his interior spaces have to make me feel like I'm 5 years old again, hanging out, poolside of all places, with my impeccable grandmother in swanky Palm Beach, pulling my yellow sundress down over my knees to look like more of a lady.
[These days, however, the Four Seasons puts me more in mind of a chic spring evening meeting some dashing man for drinks at the bar, looking out at Midtown Manhattan sparkling at dusk through the shimmering curtains.]
The food was delicious, but the best part of the meal was undoubtedly dessert. My well-intentioned father had asked the maitre d' to arrange a little something discreet for my mother's birthday; say, a piece of cake with a candle on it, and no singing waiters. What arrived was a singing waiter bearing a giant mount of violet-covered cotton candy. Underneath the mound lay a heart-shaped scoop of strawberry ice cream. The whole confection was topped off by little sugar violets.
My mother looked first confused, then horrified, and my sister and I died laughing. "Something small, I said, something small!" my father gently reprimanded the waiter, alarmed at the enormous purple cloud menacing my mother. Finally the parents were able to get past their embarrassment and enjoy the fact that this was the funniest, oddest, most interesting thing to come out of the kitchen and onto the table of once of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan.
Apparently Gwen Stefani got the same thing when it was her birthday at the Four Seasons. And that, I am happy to say, is the only thing she has in common with my mom.
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