Flaner, Casser la jeune et etre la voisine de Sofia Coppola
Because my real classes aren't going to start until next Monday, I have a bit of in-between time this week. The "sept jours du septieme (arrondissement)", a local festival with lots of free events, tours of museums and the Assemble National, and discounted prices at cafes, is starting tomorrow, and I think I'll go to the kickoff parade and see whether I can rent a bike and participate in it. Also, I'm going to go to the first meeting of a course that's offered jointly by Academic Year Abroad and Tulane's Paris program, taught by Sorbonne professor and film director Pierre Samson. The course is on the intersection of French literature and cinema, and it covers the major issues of the last century in France. Basically, it's watching good French movies with some reading involved. It sounds great, and I think I can take it in addition to my normal four courses at the Sorbonne.
This morning, I woke up, text-messaged some people, and had no idea what to do. Since I didn't get any replies, I took my map, went to the nearest Metro station, and picked a stop. I wandered around from there, meaning to get to the Pantheon eventually but seeing where the route would take me. I walked around an outdoor market, bought three pieces of gourmet chocolate (specifically: raspberry, pistachio, and honey) from the Maison du chocolat, had a nice sandwich in a little park that was a bit sheltered from the rain, and took pictures of some funny little stores. One was called Mona Lisait (Mona Reads): I thought that was cute. I stumbled upon the Jardin des Plantes, a huge botanical garden, which, given my new knowledge of botany from the Biology Olympiad, was a delight. They had a solanaceae tree, all kinds of vines, three rows of asters, anything you could think of, all laid out in beautiful rows in front of the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution. Unfortunately, the Grande Galerie and the exhibit on dragons were closed. Jean-Marie Guichard says that French museums are all closed on Tuesdays, not Mondays. That's another small difference to remember; I guess I'll have to return. At the end of the gardens there's a huge statue, which you approach from the back. I thought I knew who I'd see, but I was wrong. It wasn't Darwin, but Lamarck! I realized that Darwin is English, and Lamarck is French; the French don't care that Lamarck's theory of evolution was wrong.
After that, I found my way to the Pantheon, and paid the student fare. (If I were just a few months younger I would be able to go to most of these places for free.) Paris is nice to its students: there are special cafes where you can get a good, really cheap lunch, special student metro cards, special apartment rates, and more. Also I just learned that even private schools in France are partly funded by the government: the rationalization is that all students have the right to some government money. As part of some kind of Paris art installation, pieces of contemporary art have been commissioned for public monuments for the duration of the fall. The Pantheon is covered by a really weird white thing that resembles nothing so much as slime mold, and it has the scent of various spices. I can't say how bizarre it is, with a huge thick spider web and drops of fabric filled with polystyrene hanging down almost to the floor, and it obscures the beautiful architecture and the paintings in the domes. I don't get it, and I overheard that the tour guide didn't either. It's called "Leviathan-Thoth", and the Brazilian artist who designed it said it's supposed to be a "monster" that "reminds us of the origins of society" and is "both strong and sensual, like a samba". Those Brazilians and their sambas. Despite the weirdness of the art piece, the paintings of ancient French legends (Jeanne d'Arc, St-Genevieve, St-Louis) were appropriately grand and inspiring, and the tombs and biographies of more modern French legends (Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, the Curies, and most recently Alexandre Dumas) were also appropriately inspiring, if not as grand.
After this I decided to walk all the way back in the rain, but as I didn't bring a raincoat I got pretty cold and decided to duck into a movie theater for a nice warm afternoon at the movies. I chose to see "Les Indigenes", a movie about French soldiers in WWII from les departements d'outre-mer (like Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Guadeloupe, and Martinique). Despite their patriotism and sacrifices, they weren't treated the same as soldiers from France: they got worse food, weren't respected and were not even given pensions after they returned. The movie was excellent; I don't know whether it's available in the U.S., but I would definitely recommend it, with the warning that it's pretty bloody. After seeing the movie, Jacques Chirac pushed through a law giving pensions to the Outre-mer veterans and their families.
It was strange, and a little lonely, going around by myself, but also freeing. I think I'll have more people to hang out with and less unstructured time once classes start.
I forgot to mention yesterday. I returned to the same synagogue, which is apparently pretty famous, and spent the afternoon of the very long fast day at Greg's tiny apartment in the Marais. (He's the Harvard student from AYA who I ran into the other night.) He let me use his computer, and played me some cool music: he runs an alternative-rock radio show at Harvard. When I came back for Neilah, the last part of the service, I sat next to a young woman, and we struck up a conversation. I discovered that women aren't supposed to sing along with the service: I don't know whether that's true in more places than this synagogue, but it really annoyed me, and created an atmosphere where you can't hear the service anyway because all the women are talking to each other. (What else is there to do? You can't see the service, you can't hear the service, you can't sing, and many people can't read Hebrew well enough to follow along.) She's very nice: her dad isn't Jewish, and she's the only practicing one of her immediate family, but she only comes to services on Yom Kippur. She thinks that Judaism is on the decline in France because of a lack of education. The rest of her extended family is more Orthodox, though, and she introduced me to her aunt. They invited me over for a break fast, and I decided to go with them. First we stopped at the apartment to pick everyone up, and then we gathered outside a different synagogue in the street under pouring rain and all (15 or 20 relatives) of us crowded under the grandfather's tallit until we heard the last shofar blast. Then everyone said a bracha and then did la bise (the cheek kisses) to everyone else in the family and all their friends in the surrounding families, wishing them a "bonne fete", and rushed home to eat. Everyone crowded around the dining room table of the little apartment for couscous and homemade pastries and lots of chicken and charcuteries, all kosher of course. (I had couscous and salad.) The family was very open to me; one 16-year-old cousin had visited family in Roslindale, near Forest Hills, to babysit for them over the summer, so we talked about Boston a bit. The family is a mix of Ashkenazi and Sephardi, but they all get along. I'm going to try to get together with Anais for lunch sometime.
The Guichards are really great: there are moments when everyone's talking at once, and everyone has an opinion. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with them, especially Jean-Marie. Yasmine and I exchange looks sometimes when we don't get something, but I've been able to ask for explanations and it's all worked out most of the time.
As a closing note, guess who lives in this apartment building? Sofia Coppola! She lives two floors beneath me! I can't believe it.
This morning, I woke up, text-messaged some people, and had no idea what to do. Since I didn't get any replies, I took my map, went to the nearest Metro station, and picked a stop. I wandered around from there, meaning to get to the Pantheon eventually but seeing where the route would take me. I walked around an outdoor market, bought three pieces of gourmet chocolate (specifically: raspberry, pistachio, and honey) from the Maison du chocolat, had a nice sandwich in a little park that was a bit sheltered from the rain, and took pictures of some funny little stores. One was called Mona Lisait (Mona Reads): I thought that was cute. I stumbled upon the Jardin des Plantes, a huge botanical garden, which, given my new knowledge of botany from the Biology Olympiad, was a delight. They had a solanaceae tree, all kinds of vines, three rows of asters, anything you could think of, all laid out in beautiful rows in front of the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution. Unfortunately, the Grande Galerie and the exhibit on dragons were closed. Jean-Marie Guichard says that French museums are all closed on Tuesdays, not Mondays. That's another small difference to remember; I guess I'll have to return. At the end of the gardens there's a huge statue, which you approach from the back. I thought I knew who I'd see, but I was wrong. It wasn't Darwin, but Lamarck! I realized that Darwin is English, and Lamarck is French; the French don't care that Lamarck's theory of evolution was wrong.
After that, I found my way to the Pantheon, and paid the student fare. (If I were just a few months younger I would be able to go to most of these places for free.) Paris is nice to its students: there are special cafes where you can get a good, really cheap lunch, special student metro cards, special apartment rates, and more. Also I just learned that even private schools in France are partly funded by the government: the rationalization is that all students have the right to some government money. As part of some kind of Paris art installation, pieces of contemporary art have been commissioned for public monuments for the duration of the fall. The Pantheon is covered by a really weird white thing that resembles nothing so much as slime mold, and it has the scent of various spices. I can't say how bizarre it is, with a huge thick spider web and drops of fabric filled with polystyrene hanging down almost to the floor, and it obscures the beautiful architecture and the paintings in the domes. I don't get it, and I overheard that the tour guide didn't either. It's called "Leviathan-Thoth", and the Brazilian artist who designed it said it's supposed to be a "monster" that "reminds us of the origins of society" and is "both strong and sensual, like a samba". Those Brazilians and their sambas. Despite the weirdness of the art piece, the paintings of ancient French legends (Jeanne d'Arc, St-Genevieve, St-Louis) were appropriately grand and inspiring, and the tombs and biographies of more modern French legends (Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, the Curies, and most recently Alexandre Dumas) were also appropriately inspiring, if not as grand.
After this I decided to walk all the way back in the rain, but as I didn't bring a raincoat I got pretty cold and decided to duck into a movie theater for a nice warm afternoon at the movies. I chose to see "Les Indigenes", a movie about French soldiers in WWII from les departements d'outre-mer (like Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Guadeloupe, and Martinique). Despite their patriotism and sacrifices, they weren't treated the same as soldiers from France: they got worse food, weren't respected and were not even given pensions after they returned. The movie was excellent; I don't know whether it's available in the U.S., but I would definitely recommend it, with the warning that it's pretty bloody. After seeing the movie, Jacques Chirac pushed through a law giving pensions to the Outre-mer veterans and their families.
It was strange, and a little lonely, going around by myself, but also freeing. I think I'll have more people to hang out with and less unstructured time once classes start.
I forgot to mention yesterday. I returned to the same synagogue, which is apparently pretty famous, and spent the afternoon of the very long fast day at Greg's tiny apartment in the Marais. (He's the Harvard student from AYA who I ran into the other night.) He let me use his computer, and played me some cool music: he runs an alternative-rock radio show at Harvard. When I came back for Neilah, the last part of the service, I sat next to a young woman, and we struck up a conversation. I discovered that women aren't supposed to sing along with the service: I don't know whether that's true in more places than this synagogue, but it really annoyed me, and created an atmosphere where you can't hear the service anyway because all the women are talking to each other. (What else is there to do? You can't see the service, you can't hear the service, you can't sing, and many people can't read Hebrew well enough to follow along.) She's very nice: her dad isn't Jewish, and she's the only practicing one of her immediate family, but she only comes to services on Yom Kippur. She thinks that Judaism is on the decline in France because of a lack of education. The rest of her extended family is more Orthodox, though, and she introduced me to her aunt. They invited me over for a break fast, and I decided to go with them. First we stopped at the apartment to pick everyone up, and then we gathered outside a different synagogue in the street under pouring rain and all (15 or 20 relatives) of us crowded under the grandfather's tallit until we heard the last shofar blast. Then everyone said a bracha and then did la bise (the cheek kisses) to everyone else in the family and all their friends in the surrounding families, wishing them a "bonne fete", and rushed home to eat. Everyone crowded around the dining room table of the little apartment for couscous and homemade pastries and lots of chicken and charcuteries, all kosher of course. (I had couscous and salad.) The family was very open to me; one 16-year-old cousin had visited family in Roslindale, near Forest Hills, to babysit for them over the summer, so we talked about Boston a bit. The family is a mix of Ashkenazi and Sephardi, but they all get along. I'm going to try to get together with Anais for lunch sometime.
The Guichards are really great: there are moments when everyone's talking at once, and everyone has an opinion. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with them, especially Jean-Marie. Yasmine and I exchange looks sometimes when we don't get something, but I've been able to ask for explanations and it's all worked out most of the time.
As a closing note, guess who lives in this apartment building? Sofia Coppola! She lives two floors beneath me! I can't believe it.
posted by Abby | 1:28 PM
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