My boyfriend calls me by my first name.
Oddly, this bothers me.
I just got an email from him saying "See you tonight Lauren," and reading that made me sit back in my desk chair, frowning.
I can't think of a single person who calls me by my first name. My family call me a range of affectionate nicknames, as do my friends, generally some variation of "Laur." My students call me Madame. People I deal with professionally or administratively call my Mademoiselle. And I'm not even going to blame it on some lame Franco-American cultural gap-- because every single one of my ex-boyfriends, French and American alike, has called me things like kiddo, baby, chérie, ma puce.
So what's with the perverse insistance on calling me by my first name?? I rarely call him by his name-- it's "baby," "babe," or "chéri" all the way.
The impulse to nickname, it's true, is born of affection-- when the person's real name is too public for use between intimates. So I think I'm upset because I thought we were close enough to drop the formality. He'll occasionally use a term of endearment-- but when he's directly addressing me, never. Or at least, not yet.
In my opinion, it's basically the 21st century equivalent of calling me "vous" rather than "tu." And it's starting to bug me.
3/31/2006
3/29/2006
Total Eclipse of the Heart
We interrupt this regularly scheduled and vaguely overbearing discussion of France, the French, and their curious habits to bring you a special Astrology report.
Hello, my name is Maîtresse, and I am a staunch believer in the effects the mysterious patterns of the stars can have on us here on Earth. There are numerous events which I could cite to prove the veracity and authenticity of astrology. For example: today, March 29th, a total eclipse of the sun will occur at 11h30 French time. That's in just ten minutes, folks [as of the time of this writing]. As if in response, it is getting progressively darker and darker in my apartment, and I predict that at the moment the sun is totally blocked by the moon, there will be very little light at all in my apartment.
Coincidence? I think not.
I am not alone, either, in my starry beliefs. My cousin Elissa is an ace chart reader and introduced me to Astrodienst, a service that in my opinion provides the best daily horoscopes, which if they do get repetitive, at least aim to explain how the star positions affect your mood and therefore your actions. Elissa loads up the Free chart selection, sets it to "natal, transits, and progressions combined," in the House of Koch (whatever that means) and when you're done inputting all the info, you end up with something that looks like an mathematically and artistically inclined kindergartener got hold of a pie chart. I have no idea what it means til Elissa explains it to me-- and then I smack my head and feel like a fool for not seeing it myself.
I've had her do readings of my chart combined with those of my boyfriends' for the last few years and she's always right: she knows exactly what the issues are in our relationships before I've even told her a thing about the guy other than his date, time, and place of birth. The last few guys she's peered at the chart, squinted a little bit, and murmured to herself, before concluding "This is not him. This is not the guy for you."
Fast forward to the present. I think I've met him. I think I've met my guy. My inner judge nods approvingly and raps his gavel to indicate the case is closed. But the stars, what do the stars say? I sent an emergency email off to Elissa in London, who has promised to get back to me soon.
Until then I've contented myself with MSN's Astrology site, which lacks the nuance of a personal reading but is pretty much on target...
Libra & Scorpio
This unusual combination of Water and Air may spawn either the best or the worst. The Libran's intellectual grace thrives on the Scorpio's emotional profundity, and vice-versa. Libran eloquence may also draw Scorpio out of his silence, and facilitate the Scorpio's efforts to make new contacts, although the latter will still need periods of solitude in which to resume his old patterns. The Libran preoccupation with commitment is compatible with the Scorpio's possessiveness. Their journey through life together may be long and passionate. This is a union of light and dark.
(which sign am I, do you think??)
Hello, my name is Maîtresse, and I am a staunch believer in the effects the mysterious patterns of the stars can have on us here on Earth. There are numerous events which I could cite to prove the veracity and authenticity of astrology. For example: today, March 29th, a total eclipse of the sun will occur at 11h30 French time. That's in just ten minutes, folks [as of the time of this writing]. As if in response, it is getting progressively darker and darker in my apartment, and I predict that at the moment the sun is totally blocked by the moon, there will be very little light at all in my apartment.
Coincidence? I think not.
I am not alone, either, in my starry beliefs. My cousin Elissa is an ace chart reader and introduced me to Astrodienst, a service that in my opinion provides the best daily horoscopes, which if they do get repetitive, at least aim to explain how the star positions affect your mood and therefore your actions. Elissa loads up the Free chart selection, sets it to "natal, transits, and progressions combined," in the House of Koch (whatever that means) and when you're done inputting all the info, you end up with something that looks like an mathematically and artistically inclined kindergartener got hold of a pie chart. I have no idea what it means til Elissa explains it to me-- and then I smack my head and feel like a fool for not seeing it myself.
I've had her do readings of my chart combined with those of my boyfriends' for the last few years and she's always right: she knows exactly what the issues are in our relationships before I've even told her a thing about the guy other than his date, time, and place of birth. The last few guys she's peered at the chart, squinted a little bit, and murmured to herself, before concluding "This is not him. This is not the guy for you."
Fast forward to the present. I think I've met him. I think I've met my guy. My inner judge nods approvingly and raps his gavel to indicate the case is closed. But the stars, what do the stars say? I sent an emergency email off to Elissa in London, who has promised to get back to me soon.
Until then I've contented myself with MSN's Astrology site, which lacks the nuance of a personal reading but is pretty much on target...
Libra & Scorpio
This unusual combination of Water and Air may spawn either the best or the worst. The Libran's intellectual grace thrives on the Scorpio's emotional profundity, and vice-versa. Libran eloquence may also draw Scorpio out of his silence, and facilitate the Scorpio's efforts to make new contacts, although the latter will still need periods of solitude in which to resume his old patterns. The Libran preoccupation with commitment is compatible with the Scorpio's possessiveness. Their journey through life together may be long and passionate. This is a union of light and dark.
(which sign am I, do you think??)
3/25/2006
Fighting French
"The pugnacity of the French in a riot has to be seen to be recognized as a native strain in their character," Janet Flanner wrote in May 1968 in her "Letter from Paris" to the New Yorker. "Had the young French soldiers fought like rioters against the Germans in June, 1940, Paris might not have fallen," she added, sardonically.
They are very good at fighting, the French are. They have to be-- someone's always trying to screw them over, whether it's the bank or the butcher or the government. It's just that they're not so good at constructing viable systems after the fighting has calmed.
Looks like we're approaching a stalemate here, as the government refuses to withdraw the CPE and several student unions refuse to meet with the government to discuss other possibilites. The CPE is set to go into effect in April, which is rapidly approaching.
The university is going into its third week of closure. The two-week long Easter vacation begins April 8th, and it looks doubtful if it will reopen before then.
Flanner wrote that the students of '68 "have [...] stated that they do not believe in university examinations, since they are repressive."
The students are saying they'd rather have this semester invalidated than give in and go back to school.
Some professors are organizing online courses as ways of continuing this semesters' work. I've received several emails from study abroad programs looking for teachers to fill in part-time until the strikes are over, if ever.
But unlike in May 1968, there seems to be a destructive strain in these riots that the students insist has nothing to do with their cause, attributing the violence to anarchists and extremists of both the right and the left.
Research facilities have had ten years' worth of research destroyed. The military training grounds of les Invalides have been overcome by the casseurs [French for "people who break stuff"]. Numerous shops and cars have been trashed and burned.
The weird thing is: I haven't seen any of it firsthand, despite a fairly consistent pattern of movement between the 9th and the bottom of the 5th. I'm glad they've stayed away from my neighborhood(s), but I can't help noting how odd it is that all this can be going on in the center of my city, and if I didn't watch the news or read the papers and the blogs, I'd have no idea.
So I'm working from home, thinking about nineteenth century French social movements, 1830, 1848, 1871, debating with my boyfriend the extent to which the Communards were Communists, reading the emails I get from French graduate students who are attending the manifestations, and thinking how right Kristin Ross is in her book on the student uprisings of May 1968, where she argues (via Baudrillard, and excuse me for paraphrasing from memory) that an event is not an event until the media tell us it is. And until you tap into the media, you might not even know what's going on a hundred meters away from your apartment.
They are very good at fighting, the French are. They have to be-- someone's always trying to screw them over, whether it's the bank or the butcher or the government. It's just that they're not so good at constructing viable systems after the fighting has calmed.
Looks like we're approaching a stalemate here, as the government refuses to withdraw the CPE and several student unions refuse to meet with the government to discuss other possibilites. The CPE is set to go into effect in April, which is rapidly approaching.
The university is going into its third week of closure. The two-week long Easter vacation begins April 8th, and it looks doubtful if it will reopen before then.
Flanner wrote that the students of '68 "have [...] stated that they do not believe in university examinations, since they are repressive."
The students are saying they'd rather have this semester invalidated than give in and go back to school.
Some professors are organizing online courses as ways of continuing this semesters' work. I've received several emails from study abroad programs looking for teachers to fill in part-time until the strikes are over, if ever.
But unlike in May 1968, there seems to be a destructive strain in these riots that the students insist has nothing to do with their cause, attributing the violence to anarchists and extremists of both the right and the left.
Research facilities have had ten years' worth of research destroyed. The military training grounds of les Invalides have been overcome by the casseurs [French for "people who break stuff"]. Numerous shops and cars have been trashed and burned.
The weird thing is: I haven't seen any of it firsthand, despite a fairly consistent pattern of movement between the 9th and the bottom of the 5th. I'm glad they've stayed away from my neighborhood(s), but I can't help noting how odd it is that all this can be going on in the center of my city, and if I didn't watch the news or read the papers and the blogs, I'd have no idea.
So I'm working from home, thinking about nineteenth century French social movements, 1830, 1848, 1871, debating with my boyfriend the extent to which the Communards were Communists, reading the emails I get from French graduate students who are attending the manifestations, and thinking how right Kristin Ross is in her book on the student uprisings of May 1968, where she argues (via Baudrillard, and excuse me for paraphrasing from memory) that an event is not an event until the media tell us it is. And until you tap into the media, you might not even know what's going on a hundred meters away from your apartment.
3/22/2006
Channeling Stein, Redux
My roommate and I finally had a chance to pendre la crémaillère on Saturday night, which is franglais for we had a housewarming party to celebrate her arrival on the scene this past January.
It was, by all accounts, a raging success. Her friends mixed and mingled with my friends, and several of my friends found they knew each other independently of any association with yours truly.
One of the joys of blending your friends with someone else's is that you get to see them all try to hook up with each other. More than one young man was smitten with Gill (who isn't??), and one French fellow, in desperate need of her approval, confided that he knew the English terminology for several sex acts which are too naughty for me to refer to explicitly.
This self-same fellow earned my personal ire when he eavesdropped on my conversation with a fellow Anglophone. I was explaining, in English, that two of my friends had so kindly brought me some strawberry-flavored vodka in a tube that they had procured at the Bon Marché. Apparently the way I pronounced the name of that hallowed hall of commerce was "just too cute" and said Frog went on to prance merrily about the room speaking French with a pronounced American accent. I gritted my teeth and tried not to tell him what I thought of his English skills.
Several bloggers were in attendance, some meeting each other for the first time, and some non-bloggers had to be informed gently that the girls referred to as “coquette” and “petite” in their midst were actually minor celebrities. The Brits banded together and hunkered down til four in the morning, the actors traded shop stories, and at some point in the night my friend Joel decreed me the Gertrude Stein of my generation, “only without the dykey stuff."
To that charming distinction I humbly qualify that I cannot hope to rival Stein in terms of her girth, her modernist art collection, and her healthy disdain for punctuation.
It was, by all accounts, a raging success. Her friends mixed and mingled with my friends, and several of my friends found they knew each other independently of any association with yours truly.
One of the joys of blending your friends with someone else's is that you get to see them all try to hook up with each other. More than one young man was smitten with Gill (who isn't??), and one French fellow, in desperate need of her approval, confided that he knew the English terminology for several sex acts which are too naughty for me to refer to explicitly.
This self-same fellow earned my personal ire when he eavesdropped on my conversation with a fellow Anglophone. I was explaining, in English, that two of my friends had so kindly brought me some strawberry-flavored vodka in a tube that they had procured at the Bon Marché. Apparently the way I pronounced the name of that hallowed hall of commerce was "just too cute" and said Frog went on to prance merrily about the room speaking French with a pronounced American accent. I gritted my teeth and tried not to tell him what I thought of his English skills.
Several bloggers were in attendance, some meeting each other for the first time, and some non-bloggers had to be informed gently that the girls referred to as “coquette” and “petite” in their midst were actually minor celebrities. The Brits banded together and hunkered down til four in the morning, the actors traded shop stories, and at some point in the night my friend Joel decreed me the Gertrude Stein of my generation, “only without the dykey stuff."
To that charming distinction I humbly qualify that I cannot hope to rival Stein in terms of her girth, her modernist art collection, and her healthy disdain for punctuation.
3/20/2006
iPod arcana
A White Bear piqued my interest recently with her digital scatomancy... inspiring me to add a bit of mysticism to my apparently smug and self-satisfied usual commentary. The way it works is, you use your iPod as a divination device in conjunction with the Celtic Cross tarot configuration. Instead of tarot cards, you shuffle to the next song that comes up on your iPod! Voila, a very expensive Magic Eight Ball.
Come to think of it, I've actually been playing iPod divination ever since-- well, since I got my iPod in early 2004; I'd be walking down the street and I'd ask the iPod what I should do about a particular (boy) problem, or ask for a sign which could help with a particularly difficult decision. And the game itself is a descendant of the radio divination game I used to play in high school with my friends Renee, Noelle, and Kate: we would tune the radio to 99.9, "Love Songs at Night" and say "Ok, does so-and-so like me" and then Billy Joel's "Goodnight My Angel" would come on and we'd all go "awwwwwwww he likes you!"
Here's an explanation of what the difference cards in the Celtic Cross mean (taken from Byzant Mystical by way of Preposterous universe)
1 This covers you (or me, him, her or them, depending on who the reading is for)
2 This crosses you
3 The crowns you
4 This is beneath you
5 This is behind you
6 This is before you
7 Yourself
8 Your house
9 Your hopes and fears
10 What will come
So without further ado, I turn to my iPod and ask: am I stuck in the land of grevists for good?
1 The Covering: The important events, issues, attitudes or influences around the question or current situation: “Les Cactus” Jacques Dutronc. "Le monde entier est un cactus!" it's true, I feel totally buried by the prickliness of the French and their weird interpretation of democractic process (the minority disrupting the everyday life of the majority! the extremists overshadowing the moderates!)...
2 The Crossing: Current obstacles, problems, conflicts and opposition that the questioner must deal with: “Departure,” REM ...which makes me unsure if I should stay here
3 The Crown: The best that can be achieved or attained from current circumstances: Love Theme from “Romeo and Juliet” ...but at least I have my Romeo
4 The Root: Past events or influences that have played an important part in bringing about the current situation: “L’Amour,” Carla Bruni ...and it was love of France that brought me here to begin with
5 The Past: Events or influences from the more recent past that have influenced the present but are now passing away: “Cha cha cha” Jimmy Luxury ...was going through a sort of second adolescence, partying and hooking up, but that's calmed down over the last two months
6 The Future: Future events and fresh influences about to come into play that will operate in the near future: “Keeper of the Flame,” Nina Simone ...uh-oh. here's hoping this refers to my current flame.
7 The Questioner: The questioner's attitude and how they relate to the current situation: “Perfect Day”, Lou Reed
8 The House: How other people around the questioner affect and view matters in hand: “Lucha de gigantes” Nacha Pop ... "En un mundo descomunal/ siento tu fragilidad."
9 The Inside: The questioner's hopes, fears and expectations with regard to the question or the current situation: “Gigantic”, the Pixies ..."it's a big, big love"
10 The Outcome: The eventual outcome of events shown by the other cards: “Dolly Dagger”, Jimi Hendrix..."Been riding broomsticks since she was fifteen/ Blow out all the other witches on the scene."
(I must say I'm often suspicious of the iPod shuffle function's claim to randomness; can sheer chance determine the repetition of the term"gigantic" in numbers 8 and 9?)
Come to think of it, I've actually been playing iPod divination ever since-- well, since I got my iPod in early 2004; I'd be walking down the street and I'd ask the iPod what I should do about a particular (boy) problem, or ask for a sign which could help with a particularly difficult decision. And the game itself is a descendant of the radio divination game I used to play in high school with my friends Renee, Noelle, and Kate: we would tune the radio to 99.9, "Love Songs at Night" and say "Ok, does so-and-so like me" and then Billy Joel's "Goodnight My Angel" would come on and we'd all go "awwwwwwww he likes you!"
Here's an explanation of what the difference cards in the Celtic Cross mean (taken from Byzant Mystical by way of Preposterous universe)
1 This covers you (or me, him, her or them, depending on who the reading is for)
2 This crosses you
3 The crowns you
4 This is beneath you
5 This is behind you
6 This is before you
7 Yourself
8 Your house
9 Your hopes and fears
10 What will come
So without further ado, I turn to my iPod and ask: am I stuck in the land of grevists for good?
1 The Covering: The important events, issues, attitudes or influences around the question or current situation: “Les Cactus” Jacques Dutronc. "Le monde entier est un cactus!" it's true, I feel totally buried by the prickliness of the French and their weird interpretation of democractic process (the minority disrupting the everyday life of the majority! the extremists overshadowing the moderates!)...
2 The Crossing: Current obstacles, problems, conflicts and opposition that the questioner must deal with: “Departure,” REM ...which makes me unsure if I should stay here
3 The Crown: The best that can be achieved or attained from current circumstances: Love Theme from “Romeo and Juliet” ...but at least I have my Romeo
4 The Root: Past events or influences that have played an important part in bringing about the current situation: “L’Amour,” Carla Bruni ...and it was love of France that brought me here to begin with
5 The Past: Events or influences from the more recent past that have influenced the present but are now passing away: “Cha cha cha” Jimmy Luxury ...was going through a sort of second adolescence, partying and hooking up, but that's calmed down over the last two months
6 The Future: Future events and fresh influences about to come into play that will operate in the near future: “Keeper of the Flame,” Nina Simone ...uh-oh. here's hoping this refers to my current flame.
7 The Questioner: The questioner's attitude and how they relate to the current situation: “Perfect Day”, Lou Reed
8 The House: How other people around the questioner affect and view matters in hand: “Lucha de gigantes” Nacha Pop ... "En un mundo descomunal/ siento tu fragilidad."
9 The Inside: The questioner's hopes, fears and expectations with regard to the question or the current situation: “Gigantic”, the Pixies ..."it's a big, big love"
10 The Outcome: The eventual outcome of events shown by the other cards: “Dolly Dagger”, Jimi Hendrix..."Been riding broomsticks since she was fifteen/ Blow out all the other witches on the scene."
(I must say I'm often suspicious of the iPod shuffle function's claim to randomness; can sheer chance determine the repetition of the term"gigantic" in numbers 8 and 9?)
3/17/2006
a funny thing happened on my way to my therapist
So there I was, innocently taking the RER B to Port Royal from St Michel yesterday, when I found myself surrounded by screaming twentysomethings, all banging on whatever they could get their hands on-- the sides of the escalator, the metro turnstiles, each others' backs, their own heads, drums, and pots and pans clearly brought along for the express purpose of giving me a headache. Their voices resonated all around me, their shrill yelps bouncing off the tiled walls in the tight corridors. I gritted my teeth and turned up my iPod.
When I arrived at Port Royal I had to fight to get out of the station, and when I emerged into the daylight this is what I saw:
and this:
and this on the side of a bus stop:
(so scary!)
I also saw this:
and this
and I laughed at these people
and as I passed the police, who were standing around with nothing to do, one of them played with his shield and said to his partner gleefully "Je vais me déguiser!"
But my favorite was this:
When I arrived at Port Royal I had to fight to get out of the station, and when I emerged into the daylight this is what I saw:
and this:
and this on the side of a bus stop:
(so scary!)I also saw this:
and this
and I laughed at these people
and as I passed the police, who were standing around with nothing to do, one of them played with his shield and said to his partner gleefully "Je vais me déguiser!"
But my favorite was this:
3/16/2006
round 'em up
This was sent to me by my colleague Dan, who was apparently part of the crowd of protesters who got tear-gassed at the Sorbonne.
Makes me yearn for my tenure at that fine university, when tears ran down my face not from a chemical defense weapon but out of sheer and utter boredom in my cours de méthodologie...
And the counter-protestors are stepping up their actions as well. Apparently there's a big counter-protest scheduled for Sunday and we lecteurs are supposed to attend. According to their site:
"Pour le moment, nous organisons un sitting (sit-in) Dimanche 19 Mars à 13h et jusqu'à 15h sur le parvis de l'Hotel de Ville de Paris."
I love the way they use the English verb, to sit, but in a way that English speakers wouldn't use it in this context ("a sitting"). Then they give the correct English form so everyone's clear that the Franglais for "sit-in" is "un sitting."
Further down on the site they ask that anyone who attends on sunday come wearing a white t-shirt, to emphasize that they are not protesting in the name of any ideology or political (pseudo)philosophy.
Unfortunately, I may be on a plane for Seville that day to go cover this. Oh well. Protestors in Paris or Imams in Spain? I think my choice is clear.
Makes me yearn for my tenure at that fine university, when tears ran down my face not from a chemical defense weapon but out of sheer and utter boredom in my cours de méthodologie...
And the counter-protestors are stepping up their actions as well. Apparently there's a big counter-protest scheduled for Sunday and we lecteurs are supposed to attend. According to their site:
"Pour le moment, nous organisons un sitting (sit-in) Dimanche 19 Mars à 13h et jusqu'à 15h sur le parvis de l'Hotel de Ville de Paris."
I love the way they use the English verb, to sit, but in a way that English speakers wouldn't use it in this context ("a sitting"). Then they give the correct English form so everyone's clear that the Franglais for "sit-in" is "un sitting."
Further down on the site they ask that anyone who attends on sunday come wearing a white t-shirt, to emphasize that they are not protesting in the name of any ideology or political (pseudo)philosophy.
Unfortunately, I may be on a plane for Seville that day to go cover this. Oh well. Protestors in Paris or Imams in Spain? I think my choice is clear.
3/14/2006
University closed until further notice!
I was jubilant to find upon arriving at Nanterre yesterday that classes were suspended all day. But I learned very quickly how serious things have turned... A referendum scheduled for today in order for the students to vote whether or not to continue the strike was abruptly cancelled by the president of the University, apparently out of fear that violence similar to what happened at the Sorbonne would occur at Nanterre. I'm off to catch up with some of the ATERS in the English dept to find out if anyone has heard anything about when this will blow over. Not that I mind a little time off from those 8 am classes I've been blessed with this semester.
According to the Nouvel Observateur, the president has closed the university until security can be assured. The president told the paper that there are a number of students who wish to take back the university, and for classes, disrupted for the past three weeks, to resume. these students, he said, "are sometimes more numerous than the protesters." Last Thursday, security forces were called in over fifty times to curb physical aggressions which had kindled up between students.
This whole debacle makes more sense if you recall that the riots in May 1968 actually started at Nanterre. For weeks I've been saying "But this is not 1968, this is not Vietnam!" but it's true that there has been something boiling in France over the past year and I would argue that this has more to do with an underlying sense that thigns need to be shaken up than it has to do with the actual CPE. It's been a fascinating time to be in France, and I'm doing my best to keep track of the major issues that keep polarizing the country and which get frenetic media coverage what with the rejection of the referendum last May 29th, the riots in the suburbs last fall, the controversy over the cartoons of Mohammed, the anti-Semitic murder of 23 year-old Parisian Jew Ilan Halimi, and now this... am I leaving anything out?
In the meantime, I've located a number of Internet resources for information direct from the strikers. To wit:
Stop CPE 92, a blog where Nanterrians argue about the strike and some students propose that Sarkozy is worse than Hitler (I know, I know, but it's worth reading just for the comments) FR
Another blog on the strikes at Nanterre, with some nice photos
More photos
According to the Nouvel Observateur, the president has closed the university until security can be assured. The president told the paper that there are a number of students who wish to take back the university, and for classes, disrupted for the past three weeks, to resume. these students, he said, "are sometimes more numerous than the protesters." Last Thursday, security forces were called in over fifty times to curb physical aggressions which had kindled up between students.
This whole debacle makes more sense if you recall that the riots in May 1968 actually started at Nanterre. For weeks I've been saying "But this is not 1968, this is not Vietnam!" but it's true that there has been something boiling in France over the past year and I would argue that this has more to do with an underlying sense that thigns need to be shaken up than it has to do with the actual CPE. It's been a fascinating time to be in France, and I'm doing my best to keep track of the major issues that keep polarizing the country and which get frenetic media coverage what with the rejection of the referendum last May 29th, the riots in the suburbs last fall, the controversy over the cartoons of Mohammed, the anti-Semitic murder of 23 year-old Parisian Jew Ilan Halimi, and now this... am I leaving anything out?
In the meantime, I've located a number of Internet resources for information direct from the strikers. To wit:
Stop CPE 92, a blog where Nanterrians argue about the strike and some students propose that Sarkozy is worse than Hitler (I know, I know, but it's worth reading just for the comments) FR
Another blog on the strikes at Nanterre, with some nice photos
More photos
3/10/2006
Eureka!
This morning as I got off the RER at Nanterre-Université, my heart was pounding. I had heard, via the Nouvel Obs and some of my colleagues and students, that there was a university-wide strike planned for today. In other words, there was a possibility that I might get to turn right back around and go home!
As I climbed the stairs, two students were posted at the exit, handing out flyers: "1500 pour la greve!" they announced. "Ce qui prouve une chose: la mobilisation est effective, elle continue et s'accroit au sein de l'Université Paris X Nanterre." I dared to hope. "Come on kids, make me proud," I muttered under my breath as I neared F building.
Then I saw a sight to see. My colleague Dan walking in the opposite direction, away from F building, with a smile on his face, making a little turnaround gesture with his pointer finger. "Turn yourself right back around, Miss!" he announced. "No classes for you today!"
I callooed and callayed and thrust a fist into the air. "en greve! en greve! americans for the greve!" I cried, feeling like mounting a barricade for the first time in weeks.
Let freedom ring!
On a side note, look how freaking cute my genius boyfriend is. But don't leave him any embarrassing comments.
As I climbed the stairs, two students were posted at the exit, handing out flyers: "1500 pour la greve!" they announced. "Ce qui prouve une chose: la mobilisation est effective, elle continue et s'accroit au sein de l'Université Paris X Nanterre." I dared to hope. "Come on kids, make me proud," I muttered under my breath as I neared F building.
Then I saw a sight to see. My colleague Dan walking in the opposite direction, away from F building, with a smile on his face, making a little turnaround gesture with his pointer finger. "Turn yourself right back around, Miss!" he announced. "No classes for you today!"
I callooed and callayed and thrust a fist into the air. "en greve! en greve! americans for the greve!" I cried, feeling like mounting a barricade for the first time in weeks.
Let freedom ring!
On a side note, look how freaking cute my genius boyfriend is. But don't leave him any embarrassing comments.
3/09/2006
Strikes again
The universities continue to strike, at the Sorbonne , Nanterre (as I learned this morning by email from a fellow lecteur), Jussieu, and I'm told Tolbiac, Censier, and up to over thirty others around France.
The strikes are in response to the fact that the Assemblée Nationale voted in the loi sur l'égalité des chances yesterday, the law that (thanks, Amy) makes possible the CPE, but which also aims to "mettre le pied à l'étrier à des jeunes qui ne se voient rien offrir," according to the Prime Minister ["put the foot into the stirrup of young people (read: non-white people) who see no future for themselves"].
Yet again, the strikes at Nanterre occur on a day when I'm not teaching. Drat. I taught yesterday, however, and my students clamored to tell me about their experiences at the big manifestation on Tuesday. Apparently the protest took place calmly and peacefully, marching from Republique to Nation, with the only conflicts taking place between the police and the unions over how many people had been there (in Paris my students said the number was in the hundreds of thousands).
When I expressed my surprise that it went off so uneventfully, one student disagreed: "My friend had to go to the bathroom, and so she had to leave [the area cordoned off for] the protest, and before she could leave, the police made her take off all of her stickers," she reported with some annoyance.
"God forbid the protest should spread to the bathrooms of Paris," I replied, mock-seriously. "All hell would have broken loose."
Really, though, I wonder about all this protesting at the universities. It makes sense, because these are the kids the law will most directly affect, those who will graduate and seek their first jobs in the next few years. But we don't really hear so much about protests at the grands écoles, do we? Because those kids ostensibly will be on the job market around the same time as my students at the fac, so shouldn't they be equally worried about the threat of précarité, or precariousness, that comes with a contract that permits the employee in question to be--gasp--fired?
I tried to get some sense of the response to the CPE on the part of the elite French students by asking my boyfriend his opinion. N, a graduate of one of the grands écoles whose name I can never remember, as it's a melodious amalgam of French vowel sounds, hasn't articulated his opinion of the CPE; when I bring it up he just mocks the whole system. I get the feeling he's one of those Lawrentian revolutionaries who don't think it's any use modifies the system, better to blow it all up and start over-- or quit France and move to Denmark.
From what I can tell, the students at the grands écoles are reacting in the following way: at the Ecole Normale Supérieure they're striking because of inroads the government wants to make in allocations de recherche, at HEC they're making polls of the striking universities, at INSEE/ENSAE or whatever (I think that's where N went) they're studying the statistics of the strikes, at EHESS they're studying the sociology of the CPE. But none of these students is actually taking part: they're too busy studying.
It kind of reminds me of what my dad told me about his experience during May 1968. At a time when students at Berkeley and Columbia were chaining themselves to buildings, my father was studying architecture at Penn. Apparently some kids from Columbia went down to Philly to recruit their Ivy brethren to the cause. The architecture kids reportedly told the Columbia kids to hit the road: they were too busy working on their final projects to protest.
I always liked that story.
The strikes are in response to the fact that the Assemblée Nationale voted in the loi sur l'égalité des chances yesterday, the law that (thanks, Amy) makes possible the CPE, but which also aims to "mettre le pied à l'étrier à des jeunes qui ne se voient rien offrir," according to the Prime Minister ["put the foot into the stirrup of young people (read: non-white people) who see no future for themselves"].
Yet again, the strikes at Nanterre occur on a day when I'm not teaching. Drat. I taught yesterday, however, and my students clamored to tell me about their experiences at the big manifestation on Tuesday. Apparently the protest took place calmly and peacefully, marching from Republique to Nation, with the only conflicts taking place between the police and the unions over how many people had been there (in Paris my students said the number was in the hundreds of thousands).
When I expressed my surprise that it went off so uneventfully, one student disagreed: "My friend had to go to the bathroom, and so she had to leave [the area cordoned off for] the protest, and before she could leave, the police made her take off all of her stickers," she reported with some annoyance.
"God forbid the protest should spread to the bathrooms of Paris," I replied, mock-seriously. "All hell would have broken loose."
Really, though, I wonder about all this protesting at the universities. It makes sense, because these are the kids the law will most directly affect, those who will graduate and seek their first jobs in the next few years. But we don't really hear so much about protests at the grands écoles, do we? Because those kids ostensibly will be on the job market around the same time as my students at the fac, so shouldn't they be equally worried about the threat of précarité, or precariousness, that comes with a contract that permits the employee in question to be--gasp--fired?
I tried to get some sense of the response to the CPE on the part of the elite French students by asking my boyfriend his opinion. N, a graduate of one of the grands écoles whose name I can never remember, as it's a melodious amalgam of French vowel sounds, hasn't articulated his opinion of the CPE; when I bring it up he just mocks the whole system. I get the feeling he's one of those Lawrentian revolutionaries who don't think it's any use modifies the system, better to blow it all up and start over-- or quit France and move to Denmark.
From what I can tell, the students at the grands écoles are reacting in the following way: at the Ecole Normale Supérieure they're striking because of inroads the government wants to make in allocations de recherche, at HEC they're making polls of the striking universities, at INSEE/ENSAE or whatever (I think that's where N went) they're studying the statistics of the strikes, at EHESS they're studying the sociology of the CPE. But none of these students is actually taking part: they're too busy studying.
It kind of reminds me of what my dad told me about his experience during May 1968. At a time when students at Berkeley and Columbia were chaining themselves to buildings, my father was studying architecture at Penn. Apparently some kids from Columbia went down to Philly to recruit their Ivy brethren to the cause. The architecture kids reportedly told the Columbia kids to hit the road: they were too busy working on their final projects to protest.
I always liked that story.
3/08/2006
hackery
I have to admit, in my opinion, and don't bother contradicting me to be nice, the posts I’ve written on my blog of late have had a rather sub-par quality to them. Dashed off in haste (in an attempt to score a daily slot on The Paris Blog?) to comment on something that’s going on in Paris, to account for my whereabouts, to put something out there, anything at all, just not to leave stale copy up for weeks on end.
I’m of two minds about this. I don’t have enough time to craft the time of posts I would like to, this is a simple fact. Since classes started up again at Nanterre, I have much less free time than I did before. So I can either write nothing because it won’t be up to my standards, or I can post slapdash stuff in the hope that in the dreck there will be a kernel of something interesting.
The fact is, I haven’t been writing very much lately at all. I’ve written a lot of journalism, especially in the wake of Ilan Halimi’s murder and the impact that’s had on the Jewish community here, although to tell the truth I don't think I've been writing anything so hot in that department. I’ve been reading up a storm—in the last few weeks, researching for a paper I have to give in June at the Virginia Woolf conference in the UK, I’ve read (or reread, as the case may be) DH Lawrence’s The Tresspasser and Women in Love and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and The Voyage Out. I just started Sons and Lovers today (which I’ve never read and have been meaning to for ages). I’ve also been reading Hermione Lee’s and Julia Briggs’s biographies of Woolf, as well as Lawrence’s little [(misogynistic) incidentals that he published in newspapers to make a buck.
I spent all my free time with N, some of which he spends programming (yup, he’s a computer geek) and I spend reading, and we’ve been traveling every other weekend (this weekend we’re off to Dijon). I’ve been cooking like it’s my job (just made those banana empanadas, which came out ok, if I may say so!).
But writing? Not so much. I have to fit it in somehow. But in order to do that, something else has to get shuffled around. Ah well. Five weeks to April vacation.
I’m of two minds about this. I don’t have enough time to craft the time of posts I would like to, this is a simple fact. Since classes started up again at Nanterre, I have much less free time than I did before. So I can either write nothing because it won’t be up to my standards, or I can post slapdash stuff in the hope that in the dreck there will be a kernel of something interesting.
The fact is, I haven’t been writing very much lately at all. I’ve written a lot of journalism, especially in the wake of Ilan Halimi’s murder and the impact that’s had on the Jewish community here, although to tell the truth I don't think I've been writing anything so hot in that department. I’ve been reading up a storm—in the last few weeks, researching for a paper I have to give in June at the Virginia Woolf conference in the UK, I’ve read (or reread, as the case may be) DH Lawrence’s The Tresspasser and Women in Love and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and The Voyage Out. I just started Sons and Lovers today (which I’ve never read and have been meaning to for ages). I’ve also been reading Hermione Lee’s and Julia Briggs’s biographies of Woolf, as well as Lawrence’s little [(misogynistic) incidentals that he published in newspapers to make a buck.
I spent all my free time with N, some of which he spends programming (yup, he’s a computer geek) and I spend reading, and we’ve been traveling every other weekend (this weekend we’re off to Dijon). I’ve been cooking like it’s my job (just made those banana empanadas, which came out ok, if I may say so!).
But writing? Not so much. I have to fit it in somehow. But in order to do that, something else has to get shuffled around. Ah well. Five weeks to April vacation.
3/07/2006
I am stupefied
I am absolutely stupefied and deeply saddened to learn that Dana Reeve has died.
I spent a summer in the apprentice program at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1998, the very program where, once upon a time, Christopher Reeve himself began his acting career. I read his autobiography that summer and was thrilled to learn that it was through doing theatre there that he met his wife, the lovely Dana (then) Morosini. The way he wrote about her was so romantic, and the couple continued to have a strong association with the WTF. That summer I remember seeing Christopher wheeling around and watching Dana perform on the Main Stage.
What is it about him that was so universally adorable? I don't think it was just "Superman." When he died in 2004 I cried-- I loved him more for "Somewhere in Time" than for "Superman," but either way he was the epitome of masculine beauty for me, growing up in the 1980s, and I fancied Reeve as Clark Kent even looked a bit like my dad. I felt terrible for his wife, for his children, for his accident.
When I heard last year that Dana Reeve had lung cancer, despite never smoking, I was shocked, but assumed that, at 44, with today's medical miracles, she would be fine.
I can't believe I was wrong. I barely knew this woman and I'm shocked to my core.
I once heard her sing "Meadowlark," from The Baker's Wife at the WTF Cabaret. It's one of the most beautiful songs in musical theatre, and she was captivating.
My heartfelt condolences go out to her family.
I spent a summer in the apprentice program at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1998, the very program where, once upon a time, Christopher Reeve himself began his acting career. I read his autobiography that summer and was thrilled to learn that it was through doing theatre there that he met his wife, the lovely Dana (then) Morosini. The way he wrote about her was so romantic, and the couple continued to have a strong association with the WTF. That summer I remember seeing Christopher wheeling around and watching Dana perform on the Main Stage.
What is it about him that was so universally adorable? I don't think it was just "Superman." When he died in 2004 I cried-- I loved him more for "Somewhere in Time" than for "Superman," but either way he was the epitome of masculine beauty for me, growing up in the 1980s, and I fancied Reeve as Clark Kent even looked a bit like my dad. I felt terrible for his wife, for his children, for his accident.
When I heard last year that Dana Reeve had lung cancer, despite never smoking, I was shocked, but assumed that, at 44, with today's medical miracles, she would be fine.
I can't believe I was wrong. I barely knew this woman and I'm shocked to my core.
I once heard her sing "Meadowlark," from The Baker's Wife at the WTF Cabaret. It's one of the most beautiful songs in musical theatre, and she was captivating.
My heartfelt condolences go out to her family.
En grève!
Strikes at Jussieu. Photo (c) AFP 2006, Pierre AndrieuWell, my pesky Nanterre students are at it again today in full force, and they've managed to convince half the universities in France to join in, as well as airline workers, the post office, Radio France antenna workers, the unions FO, FSU, and Sud. Even the Sorbonne, bastion of conservative politics and research, was closed today [I say that with all possible affection as I do hold a degree from this fine institution].
They're protesting the CPE, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, but they're also protesting something called the law pour l'égalité des chances, which sounds maybe like a French form of affirmative action. I'm totally lost in the maze of French politics now, because I thought the left was in favor of affirmative action, and these are the same students who are always manifesting for the sans-papiers and discrimination against étudiants étrangers (and I can tell you, it isn't American students they're standing up for).
Luckily, the strikes do not appear to have caused any more chaos than is normal, and haven't particularly disrupted my life, which I appreciate. Actually, I wouldn't have minded a little disruption: couldn't they pick a day when I'm supposed to teach to have their massive strikes and demos? That way I'd get a definite day off, instead of unsure days where I have to go in early in the morning only to find buildings barricaded and have to teach anyway.
AFP said there's nothing to worry about, Le Figaro said they strikes were having "a serious effect on education and weak on transport."
I received an email from Paris VII, where I occasionally attend courses, advising me I would need to be equipped with student ID to get into the building and that most students were on strike except the agrégatifs.
This morning I took the number 7 subway home from Censier-Daubenton, and we crawled along under Jussieu, Sully-Morland, and Chatelet. Once we got out from under ground zero, we sped off at normal speed. Good thing I was listening to 1776 on my iPod; it got me into a little more revolutionary of a mood.
3/05/2006
counting
This was one of those weekends where things shift around almost imperceptibly under the surface of an otherwise ordinary couple of days.
What's shifted around is my ability to get outside of myself a bit more, stop being so sensitive and analytical, so in it, in order to be at peace with what's going on.
I have wonderful friends, a combination of new, less new, old, older, and oldest, a beautiful boy whose side I think I'll never leave, a loving family who I miss so much it hurts, who are all working on their French, especially my mom, gearing up for their trip here in mid-April, and people all around me who inspire me to work harder. I have a sound educational foundation on which to build my projects, a discerning mind. And I finally have my titre de sejour, at least until August, when I need to renew it again (because it took 6 months to get this one!).
So all the interference-- the insecurities, the doubts, the anxiety, the too-early classes, the haters, the ignorance-- somehow I managed to put a lid on it all, just by taking a couple of steps back. I feel better than I have in weeks.
What's shifted around is my ability to get outside of myself a bit more, stop being so sensitive and analytical, so in it, in order to be at peace with what's going on.
I have wonderful friends, a combination of new, less new, old, older, and oldest, a beautiful boy whose side I think I'll never leave, a loving family who I miss so much it hurts, who are all working on their French, especially my mom, gearing up for their trip here in mid-April, and people all around me who inspire me to work harder. I have a sound educational foundation on which to build my projects, a discerning mind. And I finally have my titre de sejour, at least until August, when I need to renew it again (because it took 6 months to get this one!).
So all the interference-- the insecurities, the doubts, the anxiety, the too-early classes, the haters, the ignorance-- somehow I managed to put a lid on it all, just by taking a couple of steps back. I feel better than I have in weeks.
3/02/2006
"back in business and ain't it grand/
let the good times roll." [daily défi: name the composer/lyricist!]
So, back in Paris after a weekend in Marseille. Pix are up on Flickr. Nanterre is still barricaded, and most classes are cancelled, except for mine, because they take place in the only building NOT barricaded, the Law/Economics/Applied Languages building (batiment F). At least they're letting teachers into the building where my office is (batiment E). My patience is wearing thin and I'm convinced I have the shit end of the stick on this greve-- my colleagues in the English dept have been getting a paid vacation because they don't teach in F building like I do. Plus the Applied Languages department is so incompetant that yesterday two of my classes didn't have classrooms and I had to lead my students around like Moses through the desert looking for an open room. I mean really, I feel like a room for every class is the least Nanterre can offer its students. I'm not asking for widespread Internet access or American-style student activities and clubs. Just classrooms. And maybe soap in the bathrooms. I'm thinking of starting my own personal strike in response.
Last night my hep cat boyfriend took me on a St Germain dream date... we met at La Hune, an excellent art bookstore at 170, Blvd St Germain, where I browed through Meyer Schapiro and bought the latest issue of Les Temps Modernes, the revue started by Simone De Beauvoir and her ugly boyfriend and N bought a book called La guerre sexuelle, about a man who finds his life so mediocre that he decides to kill his wife. (After reading the back of the book, I eyed him warily, and he laughed deviously.)
Then we headed next door to the Flore, Cafe de Flore, that is, where he had a 16 euro coupe de champagne, a Moet rose, and I had a Martini rouge and a whole dish of peanuts. The Flore is part of the triumvirate of storied cafes on the boulevard, including the Deux Magots and Brasserie Lipp, but no one except tourists goes to the Deux Magots and only politicians go to Lipp's. However, cool people who think it's cool to overpay for drinks go to the Flore-- it's apparently still a place to "see and be seen." So my boyfriend and I sat on the terrasse and let ourselves be "seen" making out like teenagers.
After N got drunk on his champagne (the boy has the lowest tolerance in the world, rivaling that of my father's), we went up the block to Le Bilboquet, a vaguely overpriced but very swishy jazz club in the Rue St-Benoit. Apparently the film "Paris Blues" was made there. I haven't seen "Paris Blues," but it definitely seemed like a good place to film a movie about blues. We had dinner on the very dim and very plush mezzanine, and at ten the performance started: the Monica Passos Trio, playing really cool Brazilian music that I don't totally remember because I had a bit too much wine. I remember thinking at the time that it was really groovy. So that's endorsement enough. (Monica et al will be there through the 5th of March.) N asked me if I knew of any places like that in New York. I couldn't think of any-- the only jazz clubs I've been to in NYC were tiny and smoky, but this place felt more of a combination of a gentleman's club and a cabaret... very fin de siecle, very Parisian, very... red.
We left just before eleven, cabbed it down to his apartment in the bottom of the 5th, and, well, that's the end of the St Germain date so that's as far as my narrative goes...
So, back in Paris after a weekend in Marseille. Pix are up on Flickr. Nanterre is still barricaded, and most classes are cancelled, except for mine, because they take place in the only building NOT barricaded, the Law/Economics/Applied Languages building (batiment F). At least they're letting teachers into the building where my office is (batiment E). My patience is wearing thin and I'm convinced I have the shit end of the stick on this greve-- my colleagues in the English dept have been getting a paid vacation because they don't teach in F building like I do. Plus the Applied Languages department is so incompetant that yesterday two of my classes didn't have classrooms and I had to lead my students around like Moses through the desert looking for an open room. I mean really, I feel like a room for every class is the least Nanterre can offer its students. I'm not asking for widespread Internet access or American-style student activities and clubs. Just classrooms. And maybe soap in the bathrooms. I'm thinking of starting my own personal strike in response.
Last night my hep cat boyfriend took me on a St Germain dream date... we met at La Hune, an excellent art bookstore at 170, Blvd St Germain, where I browed through Meyer Schapiro and bought the latest issue of Les Temps Modernes, the revue started by Simone De Beauvoir and her ugly boyfriend and N bought a book called La guerre sexuelle, about a man who finds his life so mediocre that he decides to kill his wife. (After reading the back of the book, I eyed him warily, and he laughed deviously.)
Then we headed next door to the Flore, Cafe de Flore, that is, where he had a 16 euro coupe de champagne, a Moet rose, and I had a Martini rouge and a whole dish of peanuts. The Flore is part of the triumvirate of storied cafes on the boulevard, including the Deux Magots and Brasserie Lipp, but no one except tourists goes to the Deux Magots and only politicians go to Lipp's. However, cool people who think it's cool to overpay for drinks go to the Flore-- it's apparently still a place to "see and be seen." So my boyfriend and I sat on the terrasse and let ourselves be "seen" making out like teenagers.
After N got drunk on his champagne (the boy has the lowest tolerance in the world, rivaling that of my father's), we went up the block to Le Bilboquet, a vaguely overpriced but very swishy jazz club in the Rue St-Benoit. Apparently the film "Paris Blues" was made there. I haven't seen "Paris Blues," but it definitely seemed like a good place to film a movie about blues. We had dinner on the very dim and very plush mezzanine, and at ten the performance started: the Monica Passos Trio, playing really cool Brazilian music that I don't totally remember because I had a bit too much wine. I remember thinking at the time that it was really groovy. So that's endorsement enough. (Monica et al will be there through the 5th of March.) N asked me if I knew of any places like that in New York. I couldn't think of any-- the only jazz clubs I've been to in NYC were tiny and smoky, but this place felt more of a combination of a gentleman's club and a cabaret... very fin de siecle, very Parisian, very... red.
We left just before eleven, cabbed it down to his apartment in the bottom of the 5th, and, well, that's the end of the St Germain date so that's as far as my narrative goes...
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