tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80106448391450243312024-03-05T21:46:15.002+01:00The Paris Chronicles<center>Not Woody Allen's Paris</center>The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-5187622836307779172016-04-06T16:35:00.002+02:002018-03-01T15:48:06.690+01:00Paris Today<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">"Is it safe to travel to Paris?"</span></i><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It’s a question that many are asking
themselves right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Travelers planning
a summer trip to Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Business people
who’ve got Paris-based meetings on their agendas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>American students contemplating study abroad
options.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">2015 was a sad year for Parisians
as we witnessed the January 7<sup>th</sup> Charlie Hebdo shootings and the
November 13<sup>th</sup> Bataclan slaughter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>March 2016 brought more horror in nearby Brussels, with graphic coverage
of airport and subway bombs and a reinforcement of the perception that we are
not safe anywhere.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Because I live in Paris, I am frequently asked the “is it safe there?” question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>In the aftermath of the November
13<sup>th</sup> murders, my answer was no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wait a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let things calm
down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Paris you dream of seeing is
not the Paris we can show you right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Heck, the Eiffel Tower is closed!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">But some time has passed, and I reflect
more and more on this question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve
come to discover this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how we live
threat—be it a health threat, or a geo-political one-- most often mirrors how
we live in the absence of threat, in “normal” times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anxious people will be anxious,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>loonies hatching nefarious plots or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A subway line is down and they envision a
ricin attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A police siren wails in
the distance and their blood pressure rises.</span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">People born with calmer baselines live
these events as unfortunate, aberrant occurrences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
are the folks that know what the CDC knows: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>y</span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ou are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart
disease than from a terrorist attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
November 14th, we saw Parisians doing their thing :<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>shopping at the street market, sitting down to a
strong coffee at the corner café, getting a haircut , walking the dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Threat or not, the beautiful banalities of
normal living cycle on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As
the sad events of 2015 mounted up, I spent some time thinking about places,
safe and unsafe, that I might map out for visitors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Avoid the Louvre, I thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An obvious target, for the cultural destruction
an explosive device could cause and the thousands of people who would perish in
the confined space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add to this the
challenge of trying to exit the museum even under the best of conditions—let’s
not even think about under panicky circumstances—and the Louvre becomes a
perfect target for ill-intentioned screwballs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Don’t
go to Versailles, either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Security
measures have limited the entrances to one unique way in, and the bag-opening
and coat-patting-down of the thousands of daily visitors means a 2-hour wait in a holding
pen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another target for nutcases to
score an impressive number of deaths and destroy a vital symbol of France’s cultural heritage.</span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
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<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Don’t attend mass at Notre Dame, I thought of telling friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s gotta be on the fanatics’ list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One more glorious representation of everything
they’d want to crush, right in the center of the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And
then I started thinking a bit more deeply about this culture of terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I realized that there are few people that
alter their plans based on what the zealots may or may not do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because most people are like the Parisians on
the day following the Bataclan attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most people understand that these things happen, they’ve happened since
the beginning of time, and that it serves no purpose to stop doing what you
love to do (and what you need to do).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> I <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>know I have more chances
of dying from heart disease than becoming a terrorist’s victim, and still… Waiter,
I’ll have the foie gras and a glass of sauternes, please.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And
this truth probably infuriates the religious extremists more than a suicide
vest that fails to explode.</span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Albert
Camus devoted a good portion of his post WWII writings to the idea of the
absurd, and how in the aftermath of war, people sought ways to strive for
clarity in an unreasonable, unorganized world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Camus called this the « wild longing for clarity whose call echoes
in the human heart. » <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think this
is what we are seeing in today’s Paris, despite (or alongside) the heightened
presence of security forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our world
continues to be unreasonable and unorganized---there is little difference in
that regard between the years following WWII and now—but our clarity is sought
in the perpetuation of life’s rituals, both the poignant and the unremarkable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I
never did tell future visitors to stay out of the Louvre, or to forgo the
splendors of Versailles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I urged them to
partake in Notre Dame’s heart-filling (even for atheists) services at Notre
Dame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one—not even experts in risk assessment--
can predict what is safe and what is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But we <i>can </i>predict that living in fear will lead to a lesser life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So come to Paris. Have a croissant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guarantee it will add to your life, and
temper a world that appears </span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">at times </span>so very unreasonable. </span></div>
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The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-64272884147861794382014-10-20T17:36:00.002+02:002014-10-20T17:37:17.668+02:00Medieval Morocco now on at the LouvreSaturday morning I was up early in order to head to the Louvre to see the Maroc Médiéval
exhibit that had just opened the previous day. Normally I don't like to
see a "big" show near opening day as it usually means tons o' people,
but I just couldn't wait to see this show. I love Morocco and
was willing to endure the other people stampeding to the Louvre to see
this much-awaited collection. <br />
<br />
Paris is experiencing a freaky heat wave right now. It's like a greenhouse under that pyramid!<br />
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What
a surprise! Hardly any people lined up at the entrance for this exhibit. Am I the only Moroccophile in the City of Light? <br />
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Oh
well, more room for me to soak up all the wonderful treasures that I
can't show you because the guards refused to let me take photos. That's
stupid. I'm not using a flash for heaven's sake! I'm not going to
damage your Coran/ancient dinar/13th century bowl fragment.<br />
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I
managed to sneak in ONE shot before they caught me.<br />
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This is just a
mere suggestion of how lovely the installation was. The rooms are dark
rich purple with hints of latticework and Moorish arches. Oh, it was
all so beautiful and I can't even show you a speck of it.<br />
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Here
are two things I learned from this exhibit: 1) The Maghreb (Algeria,
Tunisia and Morocco) was named by the Arab conquerors who came here in
the 7th century. It was originally called "Maghreb al-Aqsa" which means
The most Western Point on Earth. (Or maybe it is the Westernmost point
on Earth. I can't even read my own notes!) 2) What I thought was
called a "Minibar" is actually called a Minbar. It's that step rampy
thing the Iman preaches from in the mosque. There were several minbars
on display and I kept reading "Minibar" on the little sign. I thought
"How clever! Even in 980 they had places to put all those little
bottles of Schweppes and tiny bags of nuts!"<br />
<br />
Afterwards I really wanted some tajine. I had to settle for some dates for my snack. Really, there should be some kind of Exhibit-Museum Cafeteria clause that states the whatever they are showing in the museum, they have to serve a representative menu related to the show in the museum cafeteria. Couscous for all!The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-90401410938779243312014-07-07T21:09:00.003+02:002014-07-07T21:11:15.276+02:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is a rare sighting. These light up panels, installed in the Paris métro stations back in the 1930s were known as PILIs, or<i> plans indicateurs lumineux d’itinéraires</i>. Users would push two buttons, one indicating the starting point of their journey, and a second one indicating their ultimate destination. A pathway would light up, showing the trip. If a change was involved, the lightpaths would be in different colors.<br />
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Now a relic, there are a few of these vintage displays present in a handful of métro stations (this one is at Ecole Militaire in the 7th arrondissement) but they are no longer functional. I guess they were hard to maintain, and, as such, fell into disrepair.<br />
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Still, I'm glad that they can be spotted from time to time, even if it they are merely decorative.The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-2261445350336134632013-12-23T16:42:00.000+01:002016-06-08T17:50:19.908+02:00No more geese except on my plateI knew the foie gras was coming 'round when there were no more geese padding about on his land.<br />
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All year long I watch these fowl friends, moving herdlike from the water to the mud to the shelter on Laurent Callebaut's property. Monsieur Callebaut is a master goose-raiser who oversees a gaggle of 1,000 <i>oies, </i>taking them from egg to table. His farm is right across the Route Nationale 12, and I pass it each weekend as I enter and exit my little village. Christmas is a busy time for him, selling his wares out of a little cabana right next to his house. Inside are shelves of <i>foie gras cuit</i>, goose <i>rillettes</i>, goose <i>pâtés </i>and other wonderful derivatives of all things geese.<br />
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This year he had a refrigerator that held the crown jewels of his production: the <i>foie gras mi-cuit</i> (more flavorful than the <i>cuit</i>) and my Christmas dinner: guinea fowl stuffed with <i>foie gras </i>and fig, infused with armagnac, vacuum-sealed and ready for a slow roast.<br />
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The for-and-against controversy surrounding the production and the consumption of foie gras notwithstanding (and I can soundly defend either side of the coin); it comes down to this: Foie gras is a cultural artifact on France's Christmas table. Whether you buy it at Aldi (low-cost) or Fauchon (pricey), this addition to the traditional menu is an expected component, opening the meal and setting the stage for the second act (smoked salmon and blinis). There are those Master Chefs who will trick it out-- recent embellishments include a lightly-fried slice 0f gingerbread upon which will rest the gloriously unctuous sliver of liver. Others might layer a spoonful of spicy Christmas chutney on top of the fatty spread, with a sprinkle of <i>fleur de sel</i> to set off that splendid savory-sweet note. But there are always the Traditionalists, those who keep the toaster right at the table so they can catch the plain baguette as it pops out, ready to be the warm bed upon which the foie gras will rest (and melt).<br />
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The absence of those fat and happy geese running around like crazy toddlers did make me a little sad when I passed by Monsieur Callebaut's farm earlier this month. But the promise of his delicate foie gras adorning my holiday table helped me override my moment of emotion. Joyeuses fêtes, tout le monde.<br />
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-81803020338522595772013-09-29T17:43:00.001+02:002013-10-04T19:01:13.010+02:00Les Berges<br />
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Paris Mayor Betrand Delanoë has been a trailblazer for several grand-scale urban projects during his mandate, but none annoyed me more than <i>Les Berges</i>, inaugurated earlier this year. To bring his 35 million euro <strike>folie</strike> green space dream to fruition, he closed off 2.3 kilometers of the <i>voie rapide,</i> a Left Bank expressway used by automobilistes to rapidly cross Paris from east to west. The <i>voie rapide </i>dips down from the main surface streets to run parallel to the Seine. There are no traffic lights, few entrances and exits, and was--until January 1st of this year,--a key part of my daily commute.<br />
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Delanoë has always been quite vocal of his dislike of cars in the capital. Other projects he spearheaded include the conversion of car lanes into bus and bike lanes, as well as the <i>Velib</i>', Paris' bike-scheme. His dream is to have a car-free Paris, a dream that irritates France's automotive industry for obvious reasons. While he would never say there is a connection, PSA (Peugeot- Citroën) is at this time forced to close down their plant in Aulnay, putting 3,000 workers on the unemployment rolls. So while it's good fun to rent a bike, or stroll along <i>Les Berges</i> during the 50 (and that's optimistic) rainfree days we have each year, those who backed Delanoë's projects should not now be crying that their payroll contributions to the unemployment coffers are increasing. <br />
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It isn't just that my formerly-speedy commute has been compromised by this urban promenade space. What irritates me is that <i>Les Berges</i> is yet another of those big, shiny, show-offy projects that has been rolled out with masses of fanfare, but that will undoubtedly fall into shambles in a few years. Look at what happened when they launced <i>Velib </i>in 2007: loads of press about how Paris will be the new Amsterdam, people will leave their cars at home and take up biking, and we will all be one big happy family of Lance Armstrongs. Six years later, 40% of the bikes have been either stolen or vandalized, and little funds are allocated to maintain the bikes that still have a seat on them. It is well-known that Paris has a habit of striking a budget line for any project created by a former government. I have no doubt that <i>Les Berges</i> will one day be a mess of splinters and grafitti-ed furnishings, so I urge you to go and see it now while this project enjoys its glory days.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #38761d;">This is where I used to exit the expressway at the Pont de l'Alma. Now a pedestrian path.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">facing west</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">facing east</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">This is cool. A series of floating gardens/lounging areas that were floated down the Seine from Le Havre (where they were constructed) and tethered. They move gently with the current of the river, which is kind of a surprise when you assume you are stepping out onto a fixed platform.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">There are these little squares of greenery bobbing up and down next to the five platforms.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Just one of the lounging areas (note no sun) moving back and forth with the water. The guy in the tie is a security agent. And working on a Sunday!!!! <span style="color: red;">Call the labor union!!!!</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2Rn0PAo6KR0PiCqkHhtX3L8w13wsV1Mm0DZtV3JGrAVlqIn9M7ExlighU20bC5L01l33QrciV0mpbJuI78Jhg8lGr_0tzpr67GxSurcV7RzfqAHvabrNSB5IgVs5UxsEzvUsnJKQ0Fie/s1600/bergesSeine+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2Rn0PAo6KR0PiCqkHhtX3L8w13wsV1Mm0DZtV3JGrAVlqIn9M7ExlighU20bC5L01l33QrciV0mpbJuI78Jhg8lGr_0tzpr67GxSurcV7RzfqAHvabrNSB5IgVs5UxsEzvUsnJKQ0Fie/s320/bergesSeine+007.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Here's another lounging area. You can't see it in the photo, but the blocks become greener in tint as they descend towards the river, to become "one with the water." Only France can wax philosophical about concrete seating.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5PKYpE6uznbafElX3W1VfYnXeE8wnOiG9hvgkjp7oFxU6fcPCpLB8dOdJ0Ksadr28iuvV-q2tX6dEvNqB1rDv1cjBiGGaCl368WrrLxbb_yOr7QwSP06y6yDGakyPx7Web7eCHesGP0S/s1600/bergesSeine+009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5PKYpE6uznbafElX3W1VfYnXeE8wnOiG9hvgkjp7oFxU6fcPCpLB8dOdJ0Ksadr28iuvV-q2tX6dEvNqB1rDv1cjBiGGaCl368WrrLxbb_yOr7QwSP06y6yDGakyPx7Web7eCHesGP0S/s320/bergesSeine+009.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Hooray! Something is handicapped-accessible here! </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">They reused the wood from the containers that carried the stuff down from Le Havre for seating (or stretching) all along the promenade.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlBWdbBqqHp1gcJQdKGKGUyIkLATzd2f4hJPSySsCSzkqQIJ-upq9-bG7j9uBYAT3oOsZ7WOqQ3SqsABRdjT2LUYGB8-sSz1Gzl1eetShPCFmeLeNpiQh4f3cuV13ayjSo88EtYakHI4g/s1600/bergesSeine+028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlBWdbBqqHp1gcJQdKGKGUyIkLATzd2f4hJPSySsCSzkqQIJ-upq9-bG7j9uBYAT3oOsZ7WOqQ3SqsABRdjT2LUYGB8-sSz1Gzl1eetShPCFmeLeNpiQh4f3cuV13ayjSo88EtYakHI4g/s320/bergesSeine+028.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXC65k_8-I5IJ6rl9zzDDfteE1QuYyU6zxl7Gb-vyjQU1LWfulgy3VQHjvmvR5kPxO2CdlDx5eeyk10NXe4zNcr3Q7M_lrV6QQ5If2frw_k_WweJ_oubXR5MNI6kIfVrUmTBbe1B71COre/s1600/bergesSeine+011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXC65k_8-I5IJ6rl9zzDDfteE1QuYyU6zxl7Gb-vyjQU1LWfulgy3VQHjvmvR5kPxO2CdlDx5eeyk10NXe4zNcr3Q7M_lrV6QQ5If2frw_k_WweJ_oubXR5MNI6kIfVrUmTBbe1B71COre/s320/bergesSeine+011.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">This zone, le verger (orchard), was <b>awesome</b>. It was funded not by my taxes but in partnership with a seed company, Truffaut. You can pick leaves and flowers and then make yourself a hot herbal tea using a solar device.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhypfFlCgUKOSX_KxMLm8MLezGl8ps50DlAUFkMusTEDKsY3ILEHxyHvWqFcZEw2FVYvOGxEE6UWUs1NpZ3GXV-6_45fNB0KsHAzDq32Tbp5F59HeO52w8ZjABmHVgDUbbJHG31Sb5bDK4/s1600/bergesSeine+013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhypfFlCgUKOSX_KxMLm8MLezGl8ps50DlAUFkMusTEDKsY3ILEHxyHvWqFcZEw2FVYvOGxEE6UWUs1NpZ3GXV-6_45fNB0KsHAzDq32Tbp5F59HeO52w8ZjABmHVgDUbbJHG31Sb5bDK4/s400/bergesSeine+013.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0IZ3SarTNAFXkLsIVYHq8srrm7tSsYolGghqhwyCHeT3CYNxnH-lvU3EcWn5oxxiUWPRFaciU11DxjqyoK5XxxVQgo4r_S94dFCecsQLpJVvEPDtZN_sttb8qLa4k3grM3K3XRgnlysMw/s1600/bergesSeine+014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0IZ3SarTNAFXkLsIVYHq8srrm7tSsYolGghqhwyCHeT3CYNxnH-lvU3EcWn5oxxiUWPRFaciU11DxjqyoK5XxxVQgo4r_S94dFCecsQLpJVvEPDtZN_sttb8qLa4k3grM3K3XRgnlysMw/s400/bergesSeine+014.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #38761d;">All the pots are tagged so you don't inadvertantly pick marijuana or something like that. Here we have some giant rhubarb and some prehistoric plant that I also saw at The Grove Shopping Center in LA last summer.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc8FIPI2uksmSo1jbhjsc5qZq0G1DET-yujXLnHx2fezQLDq4MZvZolZYB7HTBmo-50G0CcOHHPj2U9TxkAIbS2S291vOOgTVqGO37PSRjr3TcO29drumMK5Mz0k5hoUaOO55NcBfVaPjv/s1600/bergesSeine+015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc8FIPI2uksmSo1jbhjsc5qZq0G1DET-yujXLnHx2fezQLDq4MZvZolZYB7HTBmo-50G0CcOHHPj2U9TxkAIbS2S291vOOgTVqGO37PSRjr3TcO29drumMK5Mz0k5hoUaOO55NcBfVaPjv/s400/bergesSeine+015.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;">I loved the tags</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">You can do yoga class here, too. Who would do yoga with a scarf draped so gracefully around the neck? A Parisian!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">There are two mind-blowing elements in this photo, elements that go against the cultural grain. The first is the free water. The second is the restrooms.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb5-ZJdI-P9kpA04Ag4WNVrTv8L1gs83R12nRsqEGtMna5mGU-MUhUfKGPVucaCyUb-mHkgsuuu_olGNf-xg4cWdCCWI7LbRa0WmzUQTiWhhI1Bhx8N3tdSlMbdhaRsGudNtK9nmZeXOGR/s1600/bergesSeine+019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb5-ZJdI-P9kpA04Ag4WNVrTv8L1gs83R12nRsqEGtMna5mGU-MUhUfKGPVucaCyUb-mHkgsuuu_olGNf-xg4cWdCCWI7LbRa0WmzUQTiWhhI1Bhx8N3tdSlMbdhaRsGudNtK9nmZeXOGR/s320/bergesSeine+019.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Not only are there restrooms, but there is a handicapped restroom. Unbelievable. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Here's a dining option along the promenade. The French are just getting into food trucks (although the government is working hard to block the enterpreneurs' selling permits) and they really like Airstream trailers. For some reason this eatery is called "The Faust." Maybe eating there requires one to make a Faustian bargain. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Faust certainly doesn't offer a lot of choices. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">There's a board game area . And this one has a Sunday worker, too! This gives me an idea: perhaps all the salespeople who lost their jobs when the union forced Castorama and Leroy Merlin (France's Home Depots) to close on Sundays could be reconverted to cleaning people for the Berges, because for some <i>suspicious </i>reason, the workers here are allowed to hold jobs on Sunday. I suspect Delanoë paid off the CGT labor union.</span><br />
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-28207632663876007132013-09-26T18:02:00.001+02:002013-10-03T10:32:45.523+02:00Sephora and Chain Gang labor The labor unions have once again managed to irritate an entire spectrum of people, from workers to consumers, with their latest target : forcing the gorgeous and always-packed Sephora on the Champs-Elysées to close each night at 9pm, rather than midnight as it had been doing enjoyably for years.<br />
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The reason? Working "late" is bad for employees' health.<br />
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It's not as if working at Sephora is like mining (hazardous) or working a double shift at the cannery (tiresome). It's a department store, for goodness sake! The employees, many of whom are students, were thrilled to earn the extra 50% over their base salary as well as double vacation time. Sephora employees working this particular shift were not coerced; they had all specifically asked for these lucrative hours, and many had held this shift for years.<br />
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This anachronistic situation reminds me of another odd, labor union-related holdover that exists in France: the special compensation for SNCF (train) workers, called the "prime de charbon" literally a "coal bonus hazard pay" even though the trains haven't used coal since 1974. Still on the books, however, because once a union wins a benefit for a workers' group, it is impossible to rescind it. Look what happened when the government tried to update the retirement age--a legitimate crusade now that we all don't die at age 55. <i>What do you mean I can't retire at 52? </i> The French are still taking to the streets on that one.<br />
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This Sephora thing is but one example of the shortview here. 30% of under-25 year olds in France are unemployed and would be happy to find themselves filling in the extra-hours gap that nine to fivers don't want....<b>if those extra hours were available. </b>On the other hand, you have Eric Scherrer, the union leader who led the fight against Sephora's long day, saying how those poor workers will end up in the hospital and OMG....letting people work late might morph into something equally ghastly....shops opening on Sunday!!!! <br />
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Don't get me started on the 35-hour work week, legislated to provide more jobs. Right. We all know what happened with that: no new jobs were created. They just worked the existing workforce more to do in 35 hours what they had done in 37.5 hours/week previously. <br />
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And if you were a civil servant, that meant nothing changed. You just screwed off for 35 hours/week rather than 37.5.<br />
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There are plenty of businesses on the Champs-Elysées that work past midnight. The cinemas' last screenings are at 23h00; the Lido's final show begins then as well. Restaurants serve late into the evening, bars are open until 2am and the nightclubs don't get hopping until the wee hours of the morning. The Champs-Elysées is a beehive of beautiful people during these late hours, consumers willing and able to drop in and spend some money on perfume. Indeed, 20% of that store's revenue was made at night.<br />
It's just crazy to target Sephora.<br />
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Maybe Scherrer has some kind of lipstick phobia. Because "protecting workers" just doesn't make sense here.<br />
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-61315633492639397912013-07-05T17:48:00.000+02:002016-10-24T21:19:56.451+02:00Le 10There was a bar I frequented in the 90s when I was a student here called le 10. Situated on the rue de l'Odéon across the street from the original Shakespeare & Company, where Sylvia Beach published Joyce's <i>Ulysses </i>in 1922, I cannot now remember why I first started going to that bar or how I knew it was there. I wasn't at all a drinker so it amazes me now that I was even drawn to such a place with its small and unremarkable façade. Even back then it looked weather-worn and tired and not the kind of hangout which says "Come on in; good fun is to be had inside!" The picture below, taken recently, shows le 10 still looking very much as it looked when it was my Saturday night go-to spot, although in my grad school days it was painted dark green. <br />
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If you peered through the barred window 25 years ago, you'd get a glimpse of the cramped quarters, mosaic floor, and the jukebox, a jukebox whose favored offering seemed to be Louis Prima's "Just A Gigolo." Every hour, someone in the crowd would drop a franc into the slot and select that tune, provoking the room into a group-singing experience, with people up on their chairs waving napkins around, over and over into the late night. It was an early version of today's flashmob.<br />
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There was also a basement room for those who were willing to descend into this unventilated, hot and sticky cave. Again, no space to move about; once you grabbed a chair and sat down, you were stuck there for the evening. The servers had to pass the pitchers of the house sangria via the nearest person and count on them making their way down the table to the appropriate party. It was most certainly a fire trap.<br />
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Such a tiny and nondescript little place--the French would say <i>ça ne paie pas de mine</i>, "it doesn't look like much"--yet I've discovered it showing up in other people's lives like some kind of common Parisian touchstone. In Lily King's first novel <i>The Pleasing Hour</i>, her protagonist goes to meet up another au pair girl at le 10. The bar was in fact a haunt for many au pairs of my era; the Swedish girls were very loyal to it. Recently I was watching French TV and was surprised to see a little clip of Daniel Auteuil and a trio of other actors exiting le 10 after having been interviewed inside. And the other day I was talking about le 10 to a colleague (we were reminiscing about our youth) and she told me that she used to hang out there as well, when she came to Paris on a study abroad program.<br />
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It wasn't the potent sangria that drew me to le 10. I think what I liked about the place was the "Cheers" factor: I could drop in and always find someone interesting or fun to talk with. It wasn't chic, in fact it was rather homely, but it was safe and welcoming. And given that it has survived all these years, I suspect it must still be that way. <br />
<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-83626597617578452022013-05-30T15:29:00.002+02:002013-05-30T15:29:15.381+02:00Better Baccalauréats Through Pharmaceuticals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You can tell we are approaching the Baccalaureat, or "bac" examination period because the pharmacy windows are displaying all their "memory-enhancing" homeopathic granules, sublingual pills, topical salves and herbal tinctures. The French baccalauréat exam, which is actually a series of exams taken during the last two years of high school, dates back to the 13th century. At that time, four areas of expertise were evaluated: theology, law, medicine and the arts. Today's examiners will pose their questions to the entire nation of high school students in the areas of French language, philosophy, history, geography, mathematics, natural sciences, physical education, and two foreign languages. And that's just the base; depending on which <i>bac </i>the student chooses (literature, economics and social sciences, or science), other subject area exams are added to the mix.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYmF4KQF_9mXIYtARxC8RBsfVzW6-gUpxybUWDyvJ2cKh0XPD-PXGrj6rV53tZ_BCnTf0p2ORSsqppQ6ZYL2ezX9x_RtUtHdNdLYbgTnRwBiYPR2ieGBwjXZAtq89eqnNMSeKQrZPIepLL/s1600/memoboost-ginkgo-bacopa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYmF4KQF_9mXIYtARxC8RBsfVzW6-gUpxybUWDyvJ2cKh0XPD-PXGrj6rV53tZ_BCnTf0p2ORSsqppQ6ZYL2ezX9x_RtUtHdNdLYbgTnRwBiYPR2ieGBwjXZAtq89eqnNMSeKQrZPIepLL/s200/memoboost-ginkgo-bacopa.jpg" width="181" /></a>No wonder there is a brisk business in folklore remedies. "A couple of glasses of champagne each week" is my favorite one; something in the bubbles encourages retention in certain areas of the brain. This tip is most likely popularized by Veuve Cliquot.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCrFA1Aicq8fKRGCKQKD0QziQ1KBrV8snpCsRNVsFWJH1_FwV1z4YOMy3hJB7UJ8A81PBg60RzZU73E_l6t66hHvPoMjRK16uSMDNMW2zCZWBxiBgjqLcNMWhk2eAdSrsejcLbg1FkwhAp/s1600/memorex-forte-pharma-z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCrFA1Aicq8fKRGCKQKD0QziQ1KBrV8snpCsRNVsFWJH1_FwV1z4YOMy3hJB7UJ8A81PBg60RzZU73E_l6t66hHvPoMjRK16uSMDNMW2zCZWBxiBgjqLcNMWhk2eAdSrsejcLbg1FkwhAp/s200/memorex-forte-pharma-z.jpg" width="200" /></a>You'd think that France would have built up a huge ancillary industry around the Bac. I've watched what has happened to college admissions in the U.S.A. over the years and am astounded at the enormous amount of service providers ready to take your money, having replaced (more likely supplanted) college guidance counselors and good, old parental support. From "Educational Consultants" to "Application Coaches", these "experts" recognize a market that can be easily convinced to outsource what was, in my day, work traditionally undertaken by all college-bound high school students. Sure, it was tough to sort out where you wanted to spend your next four years, but reading over the (hard copy!) catalogues and typing up your personal statements contributed to the natural excitement inherent in playing a part in your own destiny. How sad for the family that thinks their child is not capable of doing this himself.<br />
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No, France has not yet caught on to this opportunity to separate French parents from their euros by convincing them that the schools aren't doing their jobs and <i>Academics R Us </i>can provide Bac Preparation for a fee. That said, there <i>are</i> a few shady entrepreneurs out there who have offered special intensive review sessions for these important exams. One of them, Acadomia, was sued in 2010, not only for hiring a non-diploma-holding staff of "Educators," but for keeping internal memos on their clients with irrelevant notations such as "father in prison," "mother of student stinks," or "adopted child." I don't think they are still in business.<br />
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So for now, French parents continue to rely on the "sweat of your brow" approach to test preparation, with <i>just a little</i> help from Arctic Root and Gingko Biloba. As the parent of a child heading into her Baccalauréat exams next month, you can be sure I'm stocking up.<br />
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-27157020963615452692013-05-27T22:05:00.002+02:002013-05-27T22:09:14.664+02:00More on languageI watched « The Interpreter » last night. A good, sophisticated story and I
was impressed that the crew was able to film in the real United
Nations. What really spoke to me in the movie was how the Nicole Kidman
character, who plays a UN translator, viewed the sanctity and power of
the languages she worked in. There were some quotable lines which,
sadly, I did not note down quickly enough to remember.<br />
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I work
primarily in one language—English—during my day job. But I have a
second job as a freelance translator where my brain toggles between
French and English (I translate both towards and away from the target
language) continually as I work. I translate in two specialty areas:
the pharmaceutical industry and technical manuals for software
(which is the height of irony, considering what a non-geek I am). Both
areas demand critical accuracy (if I were to mistake “voie rectale” for
“voie orale”, the patient would be in big trouble) although I would
opine that translating technical prose is a little less demanding, due to the amount of repetition these manuals consist of. <br />
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The
real challenge and satisfaction for any interpreter or translator is
when we are able to perform the language shift, in the Jakobson sense,
of manipulating not only the words (the signifiers) but (and more
importantly) the intent (the signified) that exists beneath, behind and
inside the logical and grammatical structures of the source language.
This is much more complex than it seems to the layperson, for it demands
a thorough knowledge of both the source and target culture’s history,
politics, and gender dynamics, to name only three domains any good translator has to be able to reference.<br />
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Take the example of a simple French word, <i>gare</i>.
Translated into English as “train station” what do those two words
signify? If you are an average American, “train station” will evoke
architecture of another century, of an earlier America. You might even
include, in your mental image, a station master checking a pocket watch and
shouting “all aboard!” If you are young, you may have never boarded a
train in your life, and therefore would have an even more-removed and
antiquated simulacrum of what a train station is, fed by media and Harry
Potter films.<br />
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But for the French, whose country’s arteries are made of steel, the word <i>gare</i>
connotes nothing but another of their daily objects. Its appearance in
a text is not remarkable and does not send the reader into a wistful daydream of a
bygone era. (Let me specify here that I am talking about veritable
train stations, and not subway or commuter train stations.) The meaning
of that simple word is something completely different when considered within the cultural context.<br />
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I don’t think sanctity of language is limited to the
fields of interpretation and translation. I know that even working in
the monolingual sphere, I often have difficulty making what I want to
say become what my listener hears. So when you are reading my blog and
thinking “what in the world could she possibly mean by <i>that</i>?” just
chalk it up to a grand misalignment of symbols, signs and referents. In
pop culture terms, I’m Venus and you might be Mars.The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-48438811763272615262013-05-12T16:29:00.000+02:002013-05-13T13:45:19.012+02:00Coffee Break<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm not sure why it is but I don't spend nearly enough time in any of Paris' 7,000 cafés. I'd venture to guess this is a result of my daily life, which, like that of most of my friends, is meted out to the beat of <i>métro-boulot-dodo </i>(subway-work-sleep) and doesn't allow me to include much sitting-around-in-a-café in the mix. Sadly, because these moments are really essential to feeling Parisian.<br />
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So last week, when I found myself having to visit the café near my work several times a day (our water has been turned off which meant the WC was out of service), I got to use this as an excuse to catch up on some café time. <br />
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Cafés have a three-tier system of pricing. Ordering at the bar, or "le zinc" is the cheapest way to eat or drink; sitting down inside the place is a little more expensive, and you'll pay the premium price if you eat or drink at a sidewalk table. So to reduce the expense of my toilet trips, I took my coffee at the bar. One euro was the price to pay but it was better than trying to sneak down the steps to the basement <i>toilettes</i> and risk being yelled at by the owner. In France, you have to order something in order to use the facilities in a café.<br />
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The great thing about drinking standing up is that you can watch and listen to the personnel as they multi-task. There is an entire symphony of café music: the combination of pulling the coffees, setting the saucers and small cups on the <i>zinc</i>, sliding the sugar cubes and spoon into place...all this is background to the friendly barking of orders<i>: un croissant pour le douze</i>!!! <i>un déca pour le sept!!!</i> I was lucky enough to be standing there as the proprietor phoned in his meat order for the day. Yummmm veal stew. <br />
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I spent a lot of my students days here in cafés. People were allowed to smoke back then, a "right" that did not get outlawed until January 2007. That perfume of tobacco and coffee was My Smell of Paris; something that, should I have caught a whiff of that elsewhere, always brought me back to the City of Light. Thankfully, cafés are now smokefree but the lovely scent of coffee and whatever the cook is preparing as the <i>plat du jour</i> still prevails and reminds me that I do really need to spend more time in these places, relaxing, people watching, and being part of this iconic Parisian institution.<br />
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-4811388531513985662013-05-05T22:15:00.001+02:002013-05-05T22:24:26.347+02:00Deconstructing the Oasis adThere's an ad campaign currently gracing the métro platforms that I just love. Not because of the product it's shilling (<i>Oasis</i>, a kind of Hawaiian Punch sugary "fruit" drink), but because it has a billion neat language layers to it. There's tons going on underneath the rather immature graphics but you have to be a local to get it. That's not really a good strategy for any ad campaign that's seen by loads of tourists, but I guess the Artistic Director didn't think beyond the native population during the strategy meetings.<br />
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Here's the ad:<br />
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"Paris, Ville Métropicale", or "Paris, A metrotropical city."...because Oasis is <b>Tropical</b>! And you have what I assume is a mango with a backpack and sleeproll waiting on a métro platform while the train is entering (or maybe exiting) the station.<br />
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I always like métro ads that feature people (or fruits, in this case) that are IN THE METRO. It<i> </i>gives the ad a sense of <i>mise-en-abyme</i>, or a fractal dimension that makes me think I'm in a Borges story. It's so exciting to ponder this while I wait for the number eight to come along. <br />
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Now this is really funny if you know your métro stations. "Cocomartin" is a play on words for the "Caumartin" station (actually Havre-Caumartin; you can just see a trace of the "re" in the ad). Because, well, you know <i>Oasis </i>is <b>TROPICAL</b>! and so are coconuts.<br />
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This is the crown jewel of the ad's jokes. Mr. Mango is holding a sign indicating that he wants to go to "Pere La Fraise" A "fraise" is a strawberry, which is a <b>TROPICAL </b>fruit! The Oasis people are, of course, refering to the famous Parisian cemetary <i>Pere Lachaise</i>. Although I'm mystified as to why this guy would be hitchhiking when he is in a métro station. Just take the train, Mr. Mango!</div>
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Lastly, Mr. Orange is sitting in front of a métro poster which displays a tenuous grasp of the English language. "What Fruit You Expect" is mocking a real ad for Schweppes in which Uma Thurman lounges around in a chiffon gown and says "What do you expect?" when her interviewer asks her something about what beverage she is drinking. (That Schweppes ad is actually terrible, come to think of it.) I guess the Oasis people thought "fruit" sounded like "do", and, perhaps if the speaker is French, they aren't wrong.<br />
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-83374896639929188422013-02-24T18:52:00.001+01:002016-06-17T15:07:12.632+02:00Man cannot live on fromage and baguette aloneWhen people hear (or read, as in this case) that I live in France, they automatically assume that all I feed my family is wonderfully runny cheeses and heavenly artisanal baguettes day in and day out.<br />
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Let me clear up this misconception right now. We are one of the few families I know that never puts bread out on the table (unless we have guests over, then it's a noblesse oblige kind of thing) and it's been awhile since I've brought home a good stinky <i>époisse</i>.<br />
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When I first moved to France, I was really gung-ho about doing everything like a native. I shopped uniquely at the <i>marché </i>(never a supermarket! That would be treason!) swinging my little net bag (your rarely see these anymore and that's a sad thing), and practicing my poor French with the vendors. It was one of the best immersion experiences you could get outside of a classroom.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Oh little net bag, how I miss ye. Although I don't miss people seeing what I've purchased.</span></div>
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That attitude lasted for years, probably a a couple of decades. By the time I got married and had a couple of franco-american kids, I figured I'd assimilated as much as I was ever going to, and could start being my bad American self, which meant (among other things) buying American products without hiding them from public view. It wasn't the taco shells that were going to betray my origins anyway; it was more likely that my less-than-svelte morphology and wild curly hair were going to scream AMERICAN as soon as I walked out my door.<br />
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You can tell an integrated expat by how they just don't give a damn anymore about passing for Parisian. It's like we've come full circle...one day I was all about the little blue and white striped marinière; flash forward 20 years and now I just pull on my big old college sweatshirt. Seriously, I'm never going to fool anyone into thinking I'm French (unless I take up smoking and wearing fur, and even then...).<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Avoid wearing this with a beret, unless you want to look like a mime.</span></span></div>
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So it was without one ounce of guilt or skulking about that I went to check out the new mall SoOuest. Which means SoWest. What a stupid name. This reminds me of a really-poorly named soup you can find at Picard* called SoSoup. What genius brander came up with that name? "Hmmm. This soup is really....soup. No! It's more than soup. It's SO SOUP!"<br />
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Anyway, SoOuest. That doesn't mean it's like a "western-themed mall" by the way. It just means it is situated in Levallois, which is a suburb in the (you guessed it) western part of the Paris region. <br />
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SoOuest houses one of the new Marks and Spencers, a department store that had been banished from France about 10 years ago due to declining sales but I suspect it was because they asked their French employees to actually work and that was against union rules so rather than try and negotiate this** the Brits pulled out of the French market. But now they are back HALLELUJAH so I took the girls out there and it was like a little slice of heaven.<br />
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SoOuest has an anglo-saxon feel to it. It's light and airy--there's a glass ceiling which gives you the impression you are in a lovely greenhouse--and all the employees have been trained to be nice and friendly. For a moment I thought I was back in the USA until we needed to go to the toilet and of course there was only one set of toilets on one floor of the mall, situated at the complete opposite end of where we were. Now that's just crazy because you often go to the mall with small children who always need to pee RIGHT NOW and the French are just setting themselves up here for children relieving themselves in the fountains, greenery, corner spaces, etc. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Don't complain, SoOuest, when people start using your potted plants as urinals. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">We were thrilled to see a number of American and British offerings amongst the food purveyors. We chose Pret-A-Manger which despite its name is English (we like to go there when we go to London). I fed the three of us for 30 euros, a bargain here. The girls enjoyed these muffins, and I had a slice of carrot cake with my sandwich. Carrot cake is something that freaks the French out in the same way that pumpkin pie or zucchini bread does, so you just can't pass it up when you see it for sale.</span></span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #38761d;"> Big muffins nicely served on a silver tray by really friendly people</span></span></div>
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Then it was on to Marks and Spencers where I descended into the food hall and decided I wanted to take up residence there. They bring the food over every.single.day on the earliest Eurostar (a freight one, not the one people ride in) and everything is just like it is in the UK down to the takeway curries and oddly-flavored crisps.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #38761d;"> I bow down to your anglo-greatness. And your cinnamon pecan rolls.</span></span></div>
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We stocked up on American-style cakes, breads, crackers, and mexican food and I can't wait to go back. It's not too far from us--we live on the western side of Paris, or should I say the SoWest side of Paris so it's a quick trip when we get tired of French food.</div>
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Which really doesn't happen that often.After all, there's a billion things you can do with horsemeat.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Wow. I thought you could only find horsemeat in frozen lasagne. But no, at SoOuest you can buy it freshly ground. Neigh!</span></span></div>
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*Purveryor of <strike>horsemeat </strike> frozen foods.<br />
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**See the recent brouhaha with Titan tires.The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-55258067870176459362013-01-16T10:22:00.002+01:002013-01-16T10:33:03.120+01:00Monoprix and the flow of food items. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I love pita bread. I average 1 pita bread/day, either as an embracer
for sandwich fixings, a base for low-cal pizza, or--my personal
favorite--pita chips. (Cut up a pita into quadrants, separate the
layers, spray with PAM and bake 8 minutes until crispy. Serve with
salsa and 4% crème fraîche. It's my standard starter course).<br />
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<img height="1" src="http://lagniappe.espm.berkeley.edu/b.gif" width="1" /><br />
But
a crisis has occurred at Monoprix. There is no longer any
pita to be found on the shelves. At first I thought it was an
inventory snafu; I was sure that during a future trip to the store,
I'd find my flatbread in its usual spot stocked between the <i>brioche </i>and
the <i>pain au lait</i>. But still no pita when I returned a week later!
Maybe they had moved the little round bread to a special head-of-aisle display; maybe there was some kind of "Highlight of the Foods of the
Mediterreanean" promotion going on? On my third trip--three weeks
into my quest--I asked the fellow stocking the breads: "What's going
on with the pita?" I inquired. "The what?" "The pita. You know, that
circular pocket bread that is usually placed <i>here</i> on your
shelves" "No idea. I am The Responsible for Harry's," he answered.
(Harry's is an ersatz-American line of what the French think sandwich
bread looks like.)<br />
<br />
Six weeks later, and I have now been to every
Monoprix within walking distance of home and work. Pita has become an
obsession. My colleagues, eager for the Pita Update, greet me with
"Find any yet?" each morning. "The pita problem persists," I scowl as I
put away my lunch in the office fridge. (A lunch lacking in sandwich
for obvious reasons.) I mull over possible reasons for the pita
shortage. "Maybe it is a boycott. Maybe it is France's response to the
crisis in Syria?" I asked a friend. "But pita is Greek, or at least
common to ALL mediterreanean countries. You still should be able to
find it, despite the Syrian situation," he countered. Hmmm. Pita
is not being used as a political pawn, I guess.<br />
<br />
Withdrawal was
setting in. I had to take desperate measures. I ventured into the
Franprix, another supermarket I detest. Not only is the food bad quality, but
the market itself is filthy. The only redeeming quality of a Franprix
is that it sometimes carries odd, off-the-beaten-track foods. Food no
Monoprix shopper would want.<br />
<br />
Yes, they had pita. Not a genuine
pita, mind you (this one is manufactured in a Paris suburb rather
than in the Mediterreanean basin) but a pita nonetheless. <br />
<br />
This pita incident is not an isolated one. Among the many things that drive me crazy about Monoprix is their Food Item Inventory Control Master Plan To Make Me Nuts. Items that in a normal world aren't rare, or even seasonal...yet they still can't get a handle on keeping them on the shelf at all times. It is not uncommon to go to the baking aisle and be unable to find something as mundane as vanilla extract. (In fact, vanilla extract seems to fly off the shelf at Monoprix at an alarming rate. I've taking to stocking up on it. That's a sad statement.) Same thing with something as run-of-the-mill as diet 7up. Diet 7up! It's not like it's a rare vodka imported from Russia that is only available during the holiday season! Who sells out of Diet 7up for weeks at a time? Monoprix, that's who.<br />
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Guess what else they can't manage to restock?<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Kidney beans. Not available because they just aren't in season at this time of year, or so they'd like us to believe</i></span>.</div>
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See that vast empty space next to the chickpeas? In a NORMAL store, that space would be occupied by kidney beans. But not at Monoprix. Kidney beans are now the rare food item, which, once sold, can never be replenished. No chili tonight, my friends.<br />
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They didn't even have the courtesy to put up their "UNAVAILABLE DUE TO CRISIS IN KIDNEY BEAN KINGDOM" sign, (Here it is indicating something gone wrong in green bean land.)<br />
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Don't believe that "momentarily out of stock" bit featured on the sign. If this is anything like the pita crisis, we won't be seeing green beans until summer.<br />
<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-31036471674998346172013-01-13T17:09:00.001+01:002013-01-13T17:09:11.557+01:00Bonne Année<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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How thoughtful of my local supermarket to position the alcohol breathalyzer tests next to the New Year's Eve party supplies. That's what I call one-stop shopping!The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-81696323710068693972012-12-20T22:05:00.001+01:002012-12-20T22:05:50.208+01:00Les EtrennesMy <i>concierge</i> has been making herself more and more visible lately which
can only mean one thing. Actually, two things: the building's lobby is
perpetually being cleaned, and it is the moment for the annual <i>étrennes</i>.
<i>Les étrennes</i>, or <i>strenae</i> as the Romans liked to call them, is cash
given at the end of the year to service personnel. My evenings are currently
interrupted by knocks on the door by the Firemen (who, in exchange for their
cash, gave me a sexy Firemen 2013 calendar), garbage collectors (no token
offering given, thankfully), the Postman (old <i>La Poste</i> calendars are seen
by some as collector's items) and sewer-cleaners (just take my money and go
away...please).<br /><br />The envelope given to the concierge (now called <i>la
gardienne</i>, a more politically-correct title) is a sizeable one. Although
fewer and fewer Parisian apartment buildings maintain a fulltime
<i>gardienne</i>, (the cost of her salary and housing is borne by the building's inhabitants and it is now cheaper to outsource her duties), those of us who have an onsite
gatekeeper know that it is in our interest to stay on her good side. Flowers,
wine, chocolates-- while nice gestures (and never refused throughout the
year)--these won't do it. You have to give her cash and a fat wad of it. If you
neglect to slip her these alms, you can be sure that your mail will go astray,
your guests will be directed to the wrong floor when they come to visit, your
garbage will not be taken out with the rest of the building's and your Fedex
deliveries refused. <i>Les gardiennes</i> are frequently uneducated and often
barely literate, but they are powerful players in the neighborhood. They know
everything--"être concierge" means to be a gossip--and will make your life
miserable if you don't pay them handsomely.<br /><br />Traditionally Portuguese,
with the job handed down through family or word-of-mouth, my <i>gardienne</i> is
French, which makes her a rarity. Still, she personifies the concierge
mentality, with her <i>loge</i>, or dwelling, filled with kitchy <i>bibelots</i>
and beaded curtains. She spends much of her time talking with the older people
in the complex, complaining about various building-related incidents (the latest
being fingerprints on the brass banisters). She seems to have
her eyes everywhere and holds on to potent information like an
embittered wife.<br /><br />Still, with the absolution offered by the annual giving
of the <i>étrennes</i>, the odometer gets set back to zero. That noisy party I
held over the summer? That cardboard box I neglected to flatten before putting
it in the garbage can? The joyful sounds my children make as they enter the lobby? A thick envelope of crisp new bills and all will be forgiven. For
this year, at least.<br /><br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-66404992090811567382012-12-20T21:52:00.001+01:002012-12-20T21:52:57.329+01:00Culture-specific dreams
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My youngest likes to tell us her dreams at the breakfast table. They are
complicated, as dreams tend to be, especially when recounted by a child. They
often feature castles. Today she spoke of a menacing <i>lavoir</i>, a communal
washing hut which was central social point of France's villages centuries ago.
There was one in the town where her grandparents' country house was, and the girls loved to
catch tadpoles in the stagnant water there. It still shows up in her dreams from
time to time.<br /><br />I also dreamt of castles as a child. But mine were castles
out of fairy tales, unseen in waking life. My children grew up in the shadow of
Versailles. They walk through the Louvre, touch the archways of the Palais du
Luxembourg as they rollerblade through its arcades. For them, there is nothing
unremoved about the markers of nobility. They live in its vestiges and its
archetypes appear, unremarkable, in their dreams.</div>
The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-67409287650010886312012-11-26T12:30:00.001+01:002012-11-26T12:30:20.527+01:00Note to self: Don't buy fromage blanc for the next couple of days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcdF4_rs7SRllc5eUss8IhL9llOP6A2GJDiH6wwCvCMqg5D-uCPNuXcDqIPRD-l63Yy65AxgOXWJNELStvJd14cFwF9ql2lzyUD5bUeX0fHC07yjgVSH9uKmLi7MwSsugQ7to770QEqfN/s1600/Photo0485.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcdF4_rs7SRllc5eUss8IhL9llOP6A2GJDiH6wwCvCMqg5D-uCPNuXcDqIPRD-l63Yy65AxgOXWJNELStvJd14cFwF9ql2lzyUD5bUeX0fHC07yjgVSH9uKmLi7MwSsugQ7to770QEqfN/s320/Photo0485.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-size: x-small;">Oh, Monoprix. You never fail to disappoint.</span></div>
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See that four-pack of <em>fromage blanc</em>? Some Monoprix shopper decided at the last minute that they didn't want it. So they took it out of their basket and placed it behind the cash register. Where it will sit for hours, days possibly, before someone returns it, spoiled, to the cold case.</div>
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-41322310440122208202012-11-22T15:41:00.001+01:002012-11-22T15:55:32.442+01:00Give us this day our daily, artisanale bread<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Bread lovers are well-served in France. Bakeries here are as ubiquitous as Starbucks are in the USA, and even if you were to find yourself in a <em>lieu-dit</em>--a town of fewer than 30 inhabitants--rest assured you'd still have access to the sacred baguette via the mobile baker who comes into the village a couple of times a day, announcing his arrival with several swift beeps to the horn on his truck.</div>
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It is possible, however, to find <em>bad</em> bread. Not only possible, but probable, as more and more bakeries turn to industrial sourcing of dough which arrives frozen and ready to pop in the oven. It's a cost thing. As rent, salaries and employee taxes rise, the older, artisanale bakeries shut down, to be replaced by these mediocre vendors. This morning I read with great sadness of the demise of <a href="http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2012/11/16/Paris-oldest-bakery-folds-after-202-years/UPI-85811353108309/">Paris oldest bakery</a>, forced to close its doors due to a huge rent increase.</div>
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Here's <a href="http://www.transgourmet.fr/grossiste-alimentaire/offres-services/boulangerie-patisserie-surgelee/pain.html">a company</a> which provides frozen baguettes, pain au chocolat and other baked goods to retail bakeries; they've got some "helpful hints" on how to make the goods look authentic: "Sprinkle flour over the finished baguette." That reminds me of a novel I read where the working mother, learning she must supply a cake for her children's next-morning school bake sale, took a hammer to the package of Mr. Bakewells and found herself frantically tapping the prepackaged tarts at midnight, in an attempt to make them look broken and homemade.</div>
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For those who wish to avoid the mass-produced bread and cakes, it's pretty simple. Don't buy your bread in a Monoprix. (Obviously.) Look for the words "Boulangerie Artisanale" on the bakery sign. A mere "Boulangerie" or (shudder) "Dépôt de Pain" means the bread is not baked on site but trucked in either frozen (for the former) or pre-baked (for the latter). Oh, and never buy bread in a gas station. That's a thousand ways of disgusting. </div>
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Not sure what you are getting is authentic? A baguette made from frozen dough is really straight and frequently the underside will be cracked. Speaking of undersides, an authentic artisanale baguette should still show the little dotted indentations from sitting on the linen fabric during its rising time; a frozen one won't bear those telltale marks.</div>
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If you are walking around and you see this going on, you'll know that boulangerie is making their own stuff:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi35so829YOenrl1TCtehGA8GORcrH3YP18B3tHXUXFbjuGWYPwQ06u0I7KU4lRhluo-M4ePOdQ6F1KsKcaIP5_ROUPkxcUKjIMQqQRovIRp65286Wp6sY8kU53LjNxczrvBWH6lqJJVUCp/s1600/Photo0481.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi35so829YOenrl1TCtehGA8GORcrH3YP18B3tHXUXFbjuGWYPwQ06u0I7KU4lRhluo-M4ePOdQ6F1KsKcaIP5_ROUPkxcUKjIMQqQRovIRp65286Wp6sY8kU53LjNxczrvBWH6lqJJVUCp/s320/Photo0481.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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See that white sleeve going from truck to the wall of the bakery? That's bringing in the flour to the basement of the shop...where all the magic is made. Nothing frozen going on in there!<br />
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Lastly, a real baguette will be a bit irregular. French law says it should weigh 250 grams exactly, but an artisanale one will vary--especially one make with a dense flour such as chestnut flour. And it will measure anywhere from 55 to 65 centimeters in length, whereas the imposter will always be 50 centimeters long <em>precisely</em>. Which brings to mind a hilarious ad campaign that we were treated to several years ago; something that would certainly be censored in the USA :<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7F9CmPlDafG4NKgu59hs5ME4FwPGLcSsoOfjs0HW1EEx3gxk67_W2ug3qNuD-i44ZRiimERj7-dzDCkdQvWngg9IIG1FfI-h1h8T3EBSB72tnk6mAtImMA1X85NnPTAT900MAJxP8awep/s1600/50-cm-de-plaisir_12785_w300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7F9CmPlDafG4NKgu59hs5ME4FwPGLcSsoOfjs0HW1EEx3gxk67_W2ug3qNuD-i44ZRiimERj7-dzDCkdQvWngg9IIG1FfI-h1h8T3EBSB72tnk6mAtImMA1X85NnPTAT900MAJxP8awep/s1600/50-cm-de-plaisir_12785_w300.jpg" /></a></div>
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I see they've sprinkled flour over that fake baguette. Must have read the website.The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-39378780959392835582012-11-22T10:28:00.000+01:002012-11-22T10:28:03.215+01:00Here's a new drinking game<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4anaNExbAIPI0r_LYISb6GODaCTzx6IHjYWmiM_j3yz2mpvKRI6MmWz9223DWt1QB17AFlwJy9vMRvG3wPND5je3qtC_w-JFFU2pjI2tALBmA4X-YqomRkeEBjiDaAz3U5DUAmbsW0EmI/s1600/Photo0486.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4anaNExbAIPI0r_LYISb6GODaCTzx6IHjYWmiM_j3yz2mpvKRI6MmWz9223DWt1QB17AFlwJy9vMRvG3wPND5je3qtC_w-JFFU2pjI2tALBmA4X-YqomRkeEBjiDaAz3U5DUAmbsW0EmI/s320/Photo0486.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #93c47d;">La Belle Hortense in the Marais</span></div>
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The only thing I like better than a wine bar/bookshop is a wine bar/bookshop/hopscotch area.<br />
<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-88164331845630740532012-10-26T12:10:00.000+02:002012-10-26T16:08:21.761+02:00Translation Thoughts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The first time I became aware of the difficulty and importance of translation (the art of, the nature of) was in 1985, when viewing the French film <i>Péril en la Demeure</i> (starring a very young Nicole Garcia and an even-younger Christophe Malavoy). There's a bedroom scene, of course, (it's a French film) and the Garcia character questions the Malavoy character about his peculiar pillowcases which feature a graphic of the letter O with a line across it. Something like this:<br />
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<i>C'est un "o" rayé</i>, he tells her. This gets a laugh; <i>O rayé</i> means O with a diagonal line strike, this in turn plays on the homophone <i>oreiller</i>, which means pillow.<br />
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I missed the rest of the film, too distracted by the idea of how one would move that wonderfully rich language-based joke into English should the film ever be exported to an anglophone market. I actually thought about this for quite some time, years possibly, and concluded that there was no true equivalent. Indeed, when the film eventually was subtitled in English, the subtitler deleted the moment completely.</div>
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The task of the translator (or subtitler) is immense. He or she is not only shifting words from one language to another, but (and this is more important), a huge basketful of message which rely on those words is being carried over from the source culture to the target culture . In that basket the translator needs to place intent, emotion, rhythm, rhymes (if he or she is good enough), connotations, jokes, puns (these are really challenging) as well as being mindful of a billion little details such as temporal context (I shudder at the thought of translating Shakespeare, for example, or L'il Wayne, to cite an extreme).</div>
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There came a time where I thought literary translations should be outlawed. I saw it as an impossible and futile endeavor. The Italians had a word for translators: <i>traduttore traditore</i>, or traitors, and I shared this sentiment as I couldn't see a way to be faithful and respectful to an original, to do the poem, the story, the instruction manual or the newspaper article <i>justice</i>. It was better just to have original texts and let the onus be on the reader to learn the language if he wanted to access it. (I'm a demanding person, I know.) I agreed with Borges when he said <i>a good poem is always untranslatable.</i><br />
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I thought about this recently when I went to see the movie <i>Moneyball</i> in Paris, and watched much of the audience (French) look bewildered as the story unfolded. How can you <i>deeply</i> enjoy a film about baseball when you have no cultural reference? How would you understand the notion of homeplate, designated hitter, farm teams and free agents? There is no equivalent sport in French so the language and visual references do not exist. No wonder the audience seemed perplexed. It would be like me watching a movie about cricket in Xhosa.<br />
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<span lang="FR-CA">Lydia Davis, a translator I'm ashamed to say I've never heard of, has come out with a <a href="http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/68712/">new translation</a> of <i>Madame Bovary</i>. I'm anxious to see what she's done with Flaubert's novel, as I've read some good translations and some mediocre translations of it. I remember one Really Outstandingly Bad translation, in which the translator (I forget who it was now) takes the famous green silk cigar <span style="font-family: inherit;">case which becomes a metaphor for all the romance and luxury that Emma Bovary has been deprived of in her life, (or so she perceives) and makes it a <i>green silk coinpurse.</i> A green silk coinpurse! It cannot possibly be a coinpurse for the metaphor to work! It needs to be a cigar case, because Emma returns time and</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> time again to <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i><span style="font-size: small;"><i>smell the scent of its lining- a blend of tobacco and verbena. (</i>The translation is mine.)<i> </i>Talk about <i>traduttore traditore</i>!</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="FR-CA"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Thanks, Mary Cassatt and Kurt Giambastiani</span></span></div>
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While I no longer think translations should be illegal (I'd miss being able to criticize the bad ones), I do think translations should be invisible. In other words, we should read a translated work as we read in our mother tongue; receiving in our mind the message hidden behind (or outside of) the words. (The <i>hors-texte </i>if we want to be all Derridian about this.) This is the real obstacle when setting down to move languages from one to another. It's a labor of love, certainly, with a massive dose of patience and a good dictionary or two.</div>
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The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-17337442233065585332012-10-14T10:14:00.002+02:002016-06-08T17:50:35.662+02:00MemoirsThe last two books I've read were memoirs written by women: <i>Title Deeds</i>,
by Liza Campbell<span class="ljuser i-ljuser "></span> and <i>Trail
of Crumbs</i>, by Kim Sunee. I picked up the latter as I'm always game for stories written by American expats; the former to remind me that I am not alone in having grown up in a <i>slightly </i>psychotic household. <br />
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Both works are categorized as memoirs,
but <i>Title Deeds</i> could be shelved under "European History" while <i>Trial of Crumbs </i>should
be placed in the "Self-Centered Literature by Spoiled Clueless Women" section of
your library. <i>Title Deeds</i> tells the story of Campbell's family growing up
in Macbeth's castle in Scotland. Her dad is crazy; there's violence, incest and
other horrible and mean acts which show up in these pages, but the story doesn't
center around his wacko nature exclusively. You actually don't get to the
"hook"--the fact he disinherited all his kids and left his huge estate to their
evil stepmother--until the very end of the book. In other words, <i>Title
Deeds</i> is not an instrument of vengence. Campbell writes to sort out and make
sense of her mentally ill father, and in the telling she provides the reader
with a thorough history lesson. It's clear that her prose was not being used to
skewer her dead father or sully his name. <br />
<br />
On the other hand, Kim Sunee's
memoir is 370 pages devoted to denigrating the French (an easy target) while at the same time
living in the upper echelon of their society. She never lets you forget that she
is young (23 or so when the story begins) and far more nubile than the French
women around her. There is not one description of any French woman she meets
which does not include "bitter," "face etched by anger," "dangling heavy
breasts" (at a nude camping site), or "old, wrinkled, veiny hands." Sunee's
currency is her youth and exotic beauty (she's a Korean-American) and she sleeps
her way across her ten years as an expatriate, the majority of those years spent as
Olivier Baussan's--the founder of that lovely soap store <i>L'Occitane</i>, as
well as the olive oil company <i>Olivier & Co</i>--much-younger
mistress.<br />
<br />
This is the tricky part about writing a memoir. You can't write
about your life without writing about others' lives. In Campbell's case, the
<i>other</i> was dead, so he couldn't have his say had she written anything
extemely defamatory (which she doesn't, plus her "other" was insane so he gets a
pass on his behavior). Sunee's tale treats the living and the sane, however, and
she does not seem to be mindful of the "others". Adding to the complexity is the
issue of being a famous figure's lover and the damage she could do to him and
his company's image in this quite public forum. (Indeed, I now hesitate to
purchase anything at <i>L'Occitane</i> after learning about Baussan's private
life and lovemaking techniques.) And this is where <i>Trail of Crumbs</i> comes
off more as an act of spite rather than a search for self. It is clear that the
writer hated the French and in particular French men, all of whom are described
as scheming philanderers (yet she never said no to the apartments or bookstore
Baussan bought for her, or the high-end vacations and the designer clothing).
It's a shame that the book turned out to be a platform for her to tell the world
what she thought of Baussan, because she really could have done something
terrific with her source material...something Peter Mayle-esque, for example.
There are some false starts, where she begins to describe the beauty of their
domaine in the Luberon, but it quickly reverts to her sitting by the pool in her
Missoni bathing suit and feeling lonely despite the charmed life she's earned by
virtue of her good looks and bedroom skills.<br />
<br />
All memoirs are going to
implicate others--you can neither live nor write in a vacuum. If I were to write
a memoir (which I wouldn't, unless you count my blog), I'd
hope to leave something as tasteful as possible. Campbell does this very well
and the reader closes the book with respect and admiration for her
circumstances. Sunee, though, comes off as a petulant child, forever sending
back the dessert she is served, hoping for a better piece of the pie.The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-55901979258140275232012-09-21T16:15:00.000+02:002012-09-21T17:02:29.625+02:00WednesdaysFrance is not a car culture, at least not in the American sense. Oh, it has a strong automotive industry, with the productive (and some years, even profitable) presence of Peugeot, Citroen and Renault, but the arteries of the country are made of steel--thanks to the fantastic SNCF railway system ---and not asphalt. 80% of Parisians don't even <i>have </i>a car, a figure I find astounding until I remind myself of how effectively the Paris métro is at moving people around.<br />
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One has to wonder how Parisian teens find a workaround to the absence of the car. I'm not talking about transportation---these city kids typically become metro-savvy in their early teens (or when mom gets tired of accompanying them everywhere), riding the subway with ease and skill. I'm refering to the universal adolescent need for a private space in which to experience that first kiss. (Or other.) With no backseat, where do they go?<br />
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Enter Wednesday afternoon. <br />
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French kids go to school on Saturday mornings. In exchange, they have Wednesday afternoons free. This rhythm dates back to the 19th century, when, under the Third Republic, the<i> loi du 28 mars 1882</i> was put into place, allowing for one day off from academics so that catecism could be taught outside the school. The "outside the school" part is essential, as it was during this same time that France declared a separation of church and state, driving religious instruction from the public domain to the private, where it sits--in theory, anyway--today. Why "in theory"? I still see some holdovers from catholicism present in the public schools in the form of Friday's school lunches which always feature fish. But the basic tenet of <i>laicité</i>, or secularism, is strongly enforced in France's public schools. You will never hear "One Nation, under God," or anything of that nature in a French public school classroom. <br />
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So Wednesday afternoons get taken up by extra-curriculars. For young schoolchildren, this time is often devoted to a sport, lunch with the grandparents, or an art class. There is catechism, of course, for those of that faith. For the high-schoolers, though, Wednesday is often the day they look forward to the most, especially if said high-schooler has working parents. They know that for that afternoon only, the apartment is theirs to do with as they wish. Heaven help the parent of a teenager who comes home unexpectedly on a Wednesday afternoon.<br />
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You can observe the importance of "Free Wednesday" in many sweet ways here. For little children, this is the traditional day for <i>les goûters d'anniversaire</i>s (birthday parties) to be held, which gives them the curious nature of never having any dads present (as they are working). Cakes and treats will be more plentiful in bakeries (since the children eat lunch at home on that day, rather than in the school cantine); pediatricians and other children's health professionals hold more office hours on Wednesdays to accommodate their patients. The American Embassy in Paris limits passport appointments on Wednesdays uniquely to those parents coming in with minors.<br />
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<i><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Wednesday is for birthday parties!</span></span></i></div>
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It's lovely, when you think about it, how an entire society shapes itself around this very old law. Oh, every time there's a new government the notion of "school rhythm" gets examined, and some tweaks are made here and there (Saturday classes were eliminated in the elementary schools a couple of years ago) but I hope the principal of "Wednesday afternoon off" remains untouched. As I'm sure my teenage daughters do, as well.<br />
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<br />The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-27756299663344271262012-09-02T15:36:00.000+02:002018-03-04T10:20:12.277+01:00Terminal M: A Postmodern masterpiece.Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport was still in its youth when I first arrived in the City of Light. Having opened to the public 15 years earlier, its eye-catching central cylindrical core, criss-crossed by clear diagonal tubes through which passengers moved not unlike gerbils in their habitats, struck me as futuristic and totally appropriate for this city, which I had imagined sleek and much more modern than my parochial hometown. I was awestruck. Not only was I in Paris, but I was in Spaceage Paris!<br />
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Sadly, the main building did not age well through subsequent decades and most travelers transiting through one of CDG's satellite gates would wonder how a city as refined and sophisticated as Paris could put up with an airport that had become such an eyesore. Arriving passengers would be greeted with long walks down dimly-lit arched hallways whose ceiling tiles had fallen or were in the process of same, floors whose carpet squares were water-stained and mismatched, and a sad assortment of shops, each manned by weary and disinterested salespeople who looked like all they wanted was to be put out of their misery. By the year 2000, Charles de Gaulle airport probably was thinking the same thing.<br />
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But Aéroports de Paris, the company that manages CDG (among other airports) decided to change all that several years ago. The lightfilled Terminal 2 opened in 2004 (unfortunately with a mishap occurring on May 23rd of that year, when a large part of the 2E ceiling caved in and killed some travelers) and, as of last July, the sumptuous terminal 2M was unveiled. This shiny new terminal is a real showcase, and is, in my opinion, one of the most attractive examples of airportolgy I've ever walked through. Talk about spaceage! From the postmodern furnishings in the public space to the infinity sinks in the restrooms, everything about 2M says "We Are French and We've Got Class." <br />
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Squiggly chairs in the main hall. </div>
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Jetson's seating </div>
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Prior to Terminal M opening, a hungry passenger's choices were limited to the pathetic cold offerings of chains such as "Paul". Now you can sample caviar or oysters, though the latter is probably not a good idea before a long and potentially turbulant transatlantic flight</div>
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Fushia and orange makes a statement in the women's restroom</div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Infinity sinks with motion sensor faucets. </span></div>
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After clearing security, there's a bench area for slipping back on one's shoes. The touch of French class? Each seat has an attached shoe horn.</div>
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<span style="color: black;">I didn't get pictures of the shopping opportunities, but trust me, all the big French names are there: Lancel, Longchamps, Hermès, La Maison du Chocolat, Ladurée and more. All gorgeously displayed and staffed by salespeople that don't look miserable.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Bravo Paris, for entering a solid contender in the "Word's Most Beautiful Airport" contest. Now, if you could just get Orly to look a little less like a third-world shack, we'd really have some bragging rights.</span></div>
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The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-29357562165153453502012-07-06T14:14:00.001+02:002012-07-06T14:42:50.770+02:00I'm writing it! No, wait. I write!<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Our
academic semester ended a month ago so I was surprised to have a student drop
by my office this morning. I asked her
if she had been traveling after her coursework had finished. “Non,
je suis en train d’aimer mon copain,” she answered. <i> </i><i>I’m loving my boyfriend.</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It was
clearly a grammatical error, but an adorable one. Her use of the present progressive
conjured up images of how one might dynamically and actively love one’s partner; I pictured her running
home and shampooing his hair, for example. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"> It’s odd that the student made this mistake in the first place, as
French does not have the distinction between the simple present and the present
progressive or continuous that the English language does. “Je marche” can mean <i>I walk</i> (as in <i>I walk all
the time for exercise</i>) or <i>I am</i> <i>walking</i> (as in <i>I am currently walking to the
store</i>) . I’m sure what she meant to say
was “Je suis encore là car j’aime mon copain.” <i>I am still here because I’m in
love</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">McDonald’s
runs an ad campaign which annoys me with its use of the present
progressive. “I’m lovin’ it” is what I
see in posters plastered all over Parisian bus shelters and billboards, usually
featuring a sundae or some McConcoction.
The immediacy of this exclamation
irritates me. What, you are loving a
sundae RIGHT NOW? Highly doubtful. If I were eating a sundae at this very moment,
that last thing I’d be doing is crowing about it. My mouth would be too full of ice cream to
utter anything more than a slurpy “yum!”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Students of
French can be perplexed by the apparent ambiguity of the simple present, with
no option for a –ing suffix. What’s the
workaround? they’ll wonder, when they want to express that “doing something
right now” aspect of a verb. My student
was correct in framing her phrase with the “en train de” modifier, which does
imply an action which is happening at this time.
(Although I’m sure she didn’t mean she was loving her boyfriend right
there in my office.) </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">The French <i>have </i>caught on to the use of the –ing suffix, as an add-on to an existing
noun. It’s a little thing they do when
they want to Anglicize a word and make is sound not only English, but cool English. So when you want to tell
someone you are a runner, you say you do “le jogging.” If you like to stretch, you do “le stretching.” The latest thing on the French culinary scene
is “le fooding.” If this linguistic
trend progresses in a logical fashion, my student will soon be able to come
full circle, and tell me that she is in Paris, still, for “le loving.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8010644839145024331.post-90736051418583746732012-06-09T18:33:00.001+02:002012-06-09T18:43:52.317+02:00<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<img align="left" alt="I" src="http://dailydropcap.com/images/I-10-cap.png" title="Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische" />t's been awhile since I've dedicated a post to my dislike for Monoprix. That doesn't mean that Monoprix has improved---in fact, today I saw something that was a 9.5 on the Stupid-Stuff-Monoprix-Does-Meter, but I'll get to that a bit further down.<br />
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Today's complaints will center once again on Monoprix's "logistics".<br />
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It's Saturday , which means that the Monoprix is swarming with shoppers--primarily mothers--during the morning hours . (Because we can't grocery shop on Sundays in
Paris, Saturday becomes a crowded nightmare in any foodstore. We can,
however, buy Adidas on the Champs-Elysees on a Sunday, because <i>those</i>
stores are not under the "must rest on the Lord's Day" law. And we all
know how desperately we need tennis shoes on Sundays--and not butter or milk-- so I am very
grateful to the French government for this particular law.) <br />
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Now if <i>I</i>
were the CEO of Monoprix, I'd be sure to make arrangements to have more
cashiers on the checkout lines on this particular day, and certainly
during the hours leading up to the French lunchtime (13h00). I'd <i>at least</i> arrange to keep the checkout stations open which accommodate shopping carts (some checkouts are for shoppers carrying handbaskets only) because it is Saturday and that is a day where many French people do a big big shop. Like a shop which necessitates a shopping cart! </div>
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Alas, there were neither extra cashiers on hand, nor more than 2 checkout stations open through which you could wheel a shopping cart . <br />
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One thing Monoprix does during the lunchhour on Saturdays is
restock. That's right: conditions are PERFECT for driving your
forklift into the already-too-narrow aisles and stocking bread products
(but not the one brand <i>I</i> need today of course). The store is so crowded it is a
fire-code violation, people are cranky because their blood sugar has
dropped, and you think it is a swell idea to fill in the shelves AT THIS
PRECISE MOMENT.<br />
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Idiots.<br />
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Oh, and then they do this: Every
single day I see tucked into some odd place a stray package of meat, or
chicken or something perishable which must be kept in the cold zone.
You know, stuff some shopper decided they didn't want but was TOO LAZY
to put back in its rightful (and health-preserving) area. Today there
was a pot of tarama tucked into the gum display near the checkout stand.
Because the checkout girls are not allowed, under their union rules
and regulations, to restock shelves (nor ask one of those fork-lift guys
to take the item to its proper location) the stuff just sits there
until some employee--working under the appropriate labor contract--will
see it, pick it up and put it in the cold-foods section. <br />
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They
may as well have a special aisle called "Food Which Has Sat Out Too Long
And Will Poison You With e.coli And samonella. Reduced price!"<br />
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(Note to self: don't buy any tarama for a couple of days)</div>
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But let me come back around to what rated a 9.5 on the Stupid-Stuff-Monoprix-Does-Meter today.</div>
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I'm used to Monoprix laying out their store in all kinds of crazy ways. Toothpaste on the upper level but toothbrushes on the ground floor. Shaving cream tucked way back amongst the lightbulbs, razors nowhere in that vicinity. When you shop at Monoprix, you have to <i>think </i>like a Monoprix "traffic flow engineer", that is to say never expect to find any related items grouped together. This insane layout is not to encourage the shoppers to wander through the entire space and make impulse purchases. That would be <b>way too American</b> in concept. No, the sole and unique reason that Monoprix shelves their products in the most obscure and illogical way possible is it drive me crazy.</div>
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Today's example will illustrate this point perfectly. I wanted to buy some little pots of creamer for my coffee. I spy several brands shelved here in the "Breakfast items" aisle. That makes sense, for a change. See that shelf with the little packs marked "Gloria"? That's where the creamers are. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzpLYe8M6HVYCsbRW_dOi3wQYylbDttmpmBJFHiEfm1zDNgz9wJRCHd17z5ESgQt629rzcFiSbsm4u0CAY0J9jfE6mWeaDGF6v2bpVt5AfMWyhzhTzBsVaDi-dAMV7EcGl53JbSJ5sw1JT/s1600/phone+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzpLYe8M6HVYCsbRW_dOi3wQYylbDttmpmBJFHiEfm1zDNgz9wJRCHd17z5ESgQt629rzcFiSbsm4u0CAY0J9jfE6mWeaDGF6v2bpVt5AfMWyhzhTzBsVaDi-dAMV7EcGl53JbSJ5sw1JT/s320/phone+002.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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But wait. My favorite brand isn't there! What happened to the "President" creamers? I ask a "Breakfast Items" stockguy, who, of course, is STOCKING THE AISLE during peak shopping hour. (You can see the edge of his forklift in the picture, in fact).</div>
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He indicates that this one brand of creamer--for reasons known only to Monoprix, is situated in the fresh milk/cheese aisle (even though it is not fresh; it is packaged in UHT tubs just as the other creamers are) at the complete opposite end of the store.</div>
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Rolling my eyes, I braced myself for battle as I make my way through the crowds towards the milk aisle, using my shopping cart as a ramming device.</div>
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And there it is...the Holy Grail of creamers, why, it's the President of creamers! Maybe that's why it gets special treatment.</div>
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At least there were no forklifts blocking my access to it.</div>
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<br /></div>The Paris Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02667503853760168339noreply@blogger.com1