Passage Brady is Bonk

One of my favorite areas of Paris is the few blocks between La Chapelle and Gare du Nord. The reason is simple; this is the "Little India" of Paris. The streets are lined with shops where I can buy all the essentials: mango pulp, tamarind pump, turmeric, cardamom, chai masala, kheer mix, hot peppers, brinjal, and more. Piles of 10 kilo sacks of rice spill out onto the sidewalks next to stalls selling the latest ripped bollywood DVDs and soundtracks. Sari-clad women crowd into sari shops. In my mind the streets smell of coriander, but that might be more fantasy than truth. The signs are mostly in Tamil with spatterings of Hindi, Bangla and Urdu. There are restaurants and then there are more restaurants, most advertising Sri Lankan specialities. My favorite, Ganesha, offers idli for 4 euro, curry for 2 euro, thali for 6 euro, and poori for 1 euro. These are as close to Indian prices as one will see in Paris. At least once per meal a man will appear at the table hawking jasmine garlands or roses. I am the only person I have ever seen buy one of their roses. Tall lanky trees rise from the sidewalks and overhang the streets creating a rugged canopy that gives the place an aura unlike anywhere else in Paris. On the whole it feels like a chilled out, sanitized version of India; India without the honking rickshaws, the beggars or the urine.

I was taken to La Chappelle months ago and have coveted it every since. Passage Brady I only heard about much later. A colleague mentioned the "Indian" area of Paris, and when I said "Oh right, La Chapelle," he said "No no, but it's near there. Passage Brady. It's lined with Indian shops; you'd love it." Being as I already loved La Chappelle I was pretty psyched; But wait! There's more!

Passage Brady is one of Paris's many quaint covered alleyways, and it is indeed lined with Indian shops of the same general profile as line the streets of La Chapelle. However, there is no room to breath in Passage Brady, no vantage point from which to enjoy the sights and sounds. The alley is so narrow the shops and outdoor restaurant tables encroach on both sides leaving room for barely two people to pass by shoulder to shoulder. The shops and restaurants are largely empty--never a good sign--particularly in contrast to the busy main streets on either end of the passage. A man stands outside each restaurant, intentionally blocking the way of passersby, entreating them to come in and enjoy an aperitif on the house before their meal. They act and sound desperate, and given the obvious lack of customers it's easy to see why. The passage truly feels deserted, abandoned, a film set in between takes, but the restaurant hawkers didn't hear the director yell "Cut!" There are elements of this Little India that ring true, particularly the shameless begging, but mostly it feels shallow, hollow, empty, especially in contrast to the canopied enclave a few blocks north.

If I ever get around to doing my ever-theorized never-realized research project on South Asian Paris I'll let you know what accounts for the difference. For now I'm pretty sure I'll go back to Ganesha and by me another rose.

French Kids Say the Darndest Things

Playing Taboo:

The word is "George W. Bush"

Kid: "Who iz ze master of ze world?"

The Supernatural Industry

Saul and I were walking through the Cimitière Montparnasse the other day (resting place of Sarte and Durkheim among others) when a colorful looking dude stepped into our path: "I couldn't help but notice that you're speaking English." We couldn't help but concur. He asked us if we knew where the entrance to the infamous Parisian catacombs was. We didn't BUT we had been discussing the very same catacombs the night before...creepy... As I pulled out my map to see if I could be of some help the dude started chatting us up. Turn out he's from Salem, Mass. "Ah cool," I said, "I heard that's a great place to be on Halloween."
"Yeah," he replied, "actually, I work in the supernatural industry." I noticed he was wearing a button-down shirt covered in skulls...creepy...
"So that's why you came to Paris then? To see all the cemeteries and the catacombs?" Saul asks.
"Nah," said the dude, "I just needed to get away from some stuff going on back home so I hopped on a plane to Paris. Never take Iceland Air by the way." Alrighty then, duly noted. "Hey, being as you guys seem to know the area pretty well, do you have any recommendation for other things I should check out while I'm here?" We started rattling off some classic tourist destinations as he copied them into a small notebook.
"What was that last one you said?" he asked.
"Le Marais," I repeated, "M-A-R-A-I-S."
"And what was the first word?"
"The first word? Oh, um, 'le,' L-E."
"Cool thanks, thanks a lot. Have a great day guys"
"Yeah you too, good luck with everything."
Saul and I went one way and he went the other, searching for the catacombs, and whatever else he was hoping Paris could offer him.

P.S.- Sartre's tomb was pretty plain, especially in contrast to that skull-checked shirt.

Ambition

According to the Census Bureau’s 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, most college freshmen in 1970 said their primary goal was to develop a meaningful life philosophy. In 2005, by contrast, most freshmen said their primary goal was to be comfortably rich.
-Jim Holt, "You Are What You Expect," The New York Times Magazine, 21 Jan. 2007.

Do you find this as troubling as I?

SAT LSE GRE KFC

I am surrounded by other people's acronymic aspirations. I've been helping this kid Jinhong prepare for his SSAT for admission to American private school. Then he asked me to edit his application essays. Then his sister, Doyen, a senior in high school, asked if I'd read over her Penn application. Now Jinhong is done with his SSATs but Doyeun is taking her just-one-S-ATs again so I'm back at the Kim's place three times a week demystifying multiple guess questions.

Antoine took the TOEFL three weeks ago, an exam which is shockingly difficult. My attempts to help him a bit with that mostly ended in embarassment when I, a native English speaker and American college graduate, got a couple questions wrong. In fact, I have spent a decent amount of time recently apologizing for shitty American test questions. For example, Following a lengthy and dull passage on microscopes, "The compound microscope is used most often ____" We narrowed it down to two plausible answers: A) for bacteriology, or D) by teachers. After pouring over the passage for far longer than the alloted time I eventually guessed (D). The TOEFL answer guide claims this phrase CLEARLY must be followed by the word "for," therefore, (A) is the right answer regardless of the contents of the passage. I emphatically object. I find nothing grammatically wrong with the statement "The compound microscope is used most often by teachers." You may disagree. In any case, I find this distinction so petty I can't believe they're testing foreigners on it.

Just when the TOEFL was over and done with Antoine realized he has to take the GMAT in about a month. So, we sat down to tackle some practice GMAT questions. Poor Antoine is unfamiliar with English mathematical jargon so I tried to help him by explaining things like "integer" and "prime number," admittedly no feat of genius, but still concepts I haven't thought about in oh, 5 years. Suffice it to say the GMAT writing section was arguably more petty than the TOEFL.

Then my friend Margot asks if I'll help her friend Anne with her application for the London School of Economics. Sure, why not. The following evening Anne shows up bearing the preposterous news that she speaks little to no English and thus would like me to translate her entire personal statement from French into English. In retrospect I should have refused outright being as this amounts to blatant lying and potentially injuring the chances of honest applicants. For some reason (I guess I liked the idea of being useful) I agreed to aid and abet her bullshit. I think I figured her chances of getting in were pretty nil anyways so why not be a nice guy. I gave her my name and email and asked her to send me the essay. The following day there was no essay in my inbox. I inquired as to the essay's whereabouts; she insisted she sent it. A brief investigation into her sent-mail revealed that Anne is not the sharpest tool in the shed. I had written my name and email on a scrap of paper like so:

ERIN- erin.silverstein@gmail.com.

She had sent the email to "erin-erin.silverstein@gmail.com." Seriously... She also managed to misread my cell number, (which she had written in her own handwriting,) lie on the app. about several things aside from her English ability, almost forget to pay the application fee, and so on. I am embarassed to have participated in such ineptitude.

The following evening I helped Antoine fill out a Bank of America summer internship app., all the while I have barely looked into what I'll be doing with myself this summer or next year...and forget about the GREs...

Mmm, I could go for some KFC.

Sylvester in Deutschland

As far as 14-hour periods of time go the overnight bus trip was entirely innocuous. Most of the time I felt I could have just as easily been on a bus from New York to Philly. Once in awhile I peeked out my upper-deck window to estimate how far we had traveled based on the ratio of French to German shop signs. My plan to teach myself German did not materialize, but I slept a decent amount, which is all one can really ask of an overnight bus trip I think.

I arrived on the outskirts of Berlin at precisely 9h30 as planned. I hopped on the S-bahn, Berlin’s above ground express-style metro network, and headed to Alexanderplatz station to meet Yvonne. I was immediately struck by the open space around me. In Paris narrow rues lined with immeubles anciens enclose you in a 19th century film set; wide open spaces appear periodically as a generous gift of Haussmann via one of his grand boulevards. Berlin sprawls, and monuments and parks seem to dominate an otherwise unassuming expanse of low-lying residential buildings.

Yvonne, her friend Ise and I spent the bulk of the day lazing around her chic former East Berlin apartment. I speak French to Yvonne and English to Ise; they speak German to each other. Conversations amongst all three of us proceed via periodic summaries to the linguistic odd-man-out of the moment.

Twice we watched an eccentric British comedy sketch called “Dinner for One,” which has somehow become a German New Years tradition. As such, it airs repeatedly on German TV. Further research is required to uncover how this has come to be…

Our evening plans started off at a flat in former West Berlin full of Yvonne’s university friends. My reflex in Paris has been to pronounce my name French-style and quite frankly, I prefer it that way (comparable to pronouncing Target ‘Tarjay’.) This proved immediately confusing for the Germans: “Ah, so you’re French? American? You just flew in from New York? Oh, from Paris, you visited Paris first. Ah, you’re living in Paris, I see.”

Admittedly it is unfair and unscientific to compare 3 months of living in Paris with one day in Berlin, or for that matter to generalize a roomful of people to the national character. Allow me to be unfair and unscientific for a moment. The Germans I met seemed actually much more like Americans than the French, not in the sense that they were more Americanized at all, but in the sense that they looked like “real people” rather than skinny, meticulously groomed and dressed aspiring runway models (that would be the French). The Germans also seemed less immediately interested in or impressed by my New York origins. Not that they should be, but I had gotten used to a moment of mild awe after introducing myself to most French people; the Germans were much more excited to here that Ise was from near their hometown. The French kiss, the Germans hug. There was no cheese.

Yvonne and her friends all study music at university, so there was an appropriately trendy collection of old American LPs playing on a turntable all night. My German sure wasn’t up to par for the evening, but I could belt out “Hang on Sloopy” and “If I Had a Hammer” with the best of ‘em. Johnny Cash and the Ronnettes filled up the last hour before midnight. Then, as amateur fireworks lit up the street outside we counted down. I managed to join in for about every other number: “…neun…seben…funf, fier…zwei, ein!” We made our obligatory rounds of the room, wishing each and every person “Frohes Neues!” and sealing it with a hug.

We continued the party at a nearby club. “Nearby” in Berlin is much further away than “nearby” in Paris, but I was in no position to complain. The club was free and incidentally continued the Anglophone musical repertoire of the evening. It was quite an excellent eclectic mix—The Chili Peppers, The Roots, The Jackson Five, The Beatles—and all English all the time. As much as I personally enjoyed rocking out to some sweet tunes, I found it simultaneously kind of sad for two complimentary reasons. 1) Because German kids don’t have enough native pop music and must rely largely on English imports. 2) Because American kids have so much native pop music we’re largely unfamiliar with imports. I suppose I see some ideal balance between native and foreign cultural production, and the balance seems skewed towards the native in the US and towards the foreign in Europe. One day I’ll flesh this theory out in a more nuanced and arguable form; ‘till then you can take it or leave it.

In any case, we danced our asses off at the club and finally dragged our exhausted selves home by around 5am. I think I fell asleep during every leg of the trip, waking up just long enough to transfer U-bahn lines. As far as New Years go this definitely beat playing Halo at Marc’s house, to say the least…

Noël

I feel incredibly blessed and lucky pretty much every day I'm here, but Christmas was overload on the blessings and luckiness. My friend Rach and I had planned to be alone in Paris on Christmas when our friends Luigi and Clement invited us to spend the holiday with their family in Paris. We were looking forward a good meal and some familial vibes. What we got was a full-out Christmas, complete with a walk down to the major department stores to see the holiday lights, presents--THEY GOT US PRESENTS!!, and a massive delicious home-cooked meal. And, as if things couldn't get any better, there was an adorable giant dog (and you know how I love giant dogs), we played French Taboo (and you know how I love Taboo at any time in any language), AND they gave us each a scratch-off instant-win lotto thing and I WON 100 EUROS! To top it all off we had an encore meal the following night complete with oysters (les huitres) and lamb (gigot d'agneau). It still sucks that I couldn't be home, but this was seriously the best possible surrogate Christmas imaginable.

Antoine Says...

He only studied French authors in high school. "Why would we study foreign authors in translation if there are so many good French ones?" A fair question, though I'd rather have a broad knowledge of world literature than a pinhole knowledge of American lit. I can shoot the shit on Twain, Dante AND Flaubert, he doesn't even know who Twain or Dante is...

Authorized Voyeurism

You may have wondered why I've stopped adorning my posts with lovely pictures of my exploits around Paris. Honestly I haven't taken that many post-worthy pictures believe it or not. Paris has already been photographed so thoroughly and artfully that for the most part I feel it a waste to take one more picture of Notre Dâme or Place de la Concorde. Sure one could argue that my own pictures carry significance beyond their mere aesthetic merit, that fact that I can find a superior picture of Notre Dâme on Google is besides the point. Fair enough. Admittedly at times I find that carrying my camera around compels me to pause and truly observe the picteuresque or dramatic qualities of my surroundings. At other times I find my camera to be a burden because I am constantly stopping to freeze-frame fragments of my life that will never add up to the sum of their parts. In college a friend of mine complained that people spend too much time recording their life and not enough time living it. After college people always complain that they didn't take enough pictures. This seems to be yet another case of finding a happy medium.

In any case, I had begun to fear that I was erring towards too much living and not enough recording, so I forced myself to document an average day in simple snapshots. After several hours spent warring with Facebook I managed to put them up there for those of you with Facebook access. The battle wounds are still fresh; I may not endeavor to put photos up there again for some time to come... I also played around with this map site called Community Walk, which is pretty similar to Google Earth. Basically I linked my pictures to a map of Paris, so you can follow me around Paris on normal, satellite, or hybrid view. Enjoy: http://www.communitywalk.com/map/40567

Just Desserts

Tonight Antoine tried cooking fondants au chocolat with creme anglaise. The creme came out great; the fondant was tasty (it's hard to make something out of melted chocolate and sugar not-tasty), but the texture wasn't quite right. This may have partially had to do with the fact that he hadn't bought the proper baking tins, so we made ersatz tins out of an empty beer can. In any case, I'd be lying if I didn't admit I got mild sadistic pleasure out of watching a Frenchman fail to cook perfect French pastries.

French lesson: Same but Different

American English (AE): I left my tooth for the tooth fairy.
French (F): I left my tooth for the tooth mouse.

AE: I feel like such a third wheel.
F: I feel like the fifth wheel of the carriage.

AE: I've really got a green thumb.
F: I've really got a green hand.

AE: The teacher uses a lot of pie charts.
F: The teacher uses a lot of camemberts.

French Kids Say the Darndest Things

Me: “Do you know what Spring Break is?”
(long pause; kids in deep thought)

Kid: “Is that like Prison Break?”

Antoine says...

French people don’t use credit cards. The idea of spending money you don’t have is perilously frightening to them. I tell him that many many Americans have accrued thousands of dollars of credit card debt, and that furthermore, credit cards, loans, and credit ratings are at the core of a good chunk of American’s personal finances (I qualify this assertion by noting that I am just beginning to understand my own personal finances). He says there is pretty much one kind of loan in France, and there are no credit ratings. If you have a good secure job you get a loan. However, many French bank accounts allow you to maintain a modest negative balance without interest or penalty.

Antoine says...

French people don’t invest in stock because they find it far too risky. “Who invests in the French stock market then?” I ask. Americans and Brits largely. “What do French people invest in?” Real estate.

44 rue du Docteur Roux

I have moved. Why? What was wrong with Emma and her perfect flat on Rue la Bruyère? Well, nothing was wrong with it per se. When I first showed up in Paris the idea was that I would crash with Emma for the first few weeks and then we’d discuss and see how things were going. That conversation was significantly delayed because of life getting in the way, but finally we did sit down and chat. Emma made the valid point that my American fresh-out-of-college lifestyle was on a somewhat different wavelength than what she is used to and perhaps I would have more fun having a place of my own. She also said, “It’s not your fault you’re loud, it’s just that you’re American.”

My reactions to this turn of events were many and varied. I didn’t disagree with her; I did often spend my days lazing around the flat and my nights out until the wee hours, and I can be loud (though I found it unnecessary to attribute this quality to my nationality).

I was however somewhat shocked to be flung into the impossible Parisian housing market without even a chance to redeem my ways. Life at Emma’s had generally been just that—life AT EMMA’S, so I was almost excited about the prospect of HAVING a place of my own. But I was not at all excited about the prospect of FINDING a place of my own. I had friends who had been looking for 6 weeks and still hadn’t found anything; Emma was giving me until the end of November; time to get a move on…

The details of searching for a flat are painful and uninteresting. If you’re familiar with the New York housing market, envision that but as a foreigner from a generally despised country. However, I can’t really complain, because in contrast to my many friends who were and are still searching nearly two months into our contracts, I found a place within 10 days.

I’m now living on the other side of town in the 15th arrondissement in a really cute flat with a French kid named Antoine. Antoine is 23, from Lille (a town near the Beligan border), and a business student. He’s spent summers working in California and London so his English is great, and he hopes to return to the US for more business school. So far he’s taught me a lot about French politics, economics and slang, I’ve tried to return the favor.

I would thus like to commence a regular feature of my blogging called “Antoine says…” Naturally Antoine is as fallible as any other mere mortal, and he’s always up for a good debate, so if you’ve heard conflicting opinions do let me know.

Turkey Day and Tequila

In almost all things food-related France beats American hands down. Thanksgiving is a notable exception. Not only is Thanksgiving a magnificent display of the few dishes Americans know how to cook well, it is also a significant milestone in the lead-up to Christmas. Many stores around Paris have had Christmas decorations up for two weeks now; it just doesn’t seem right. However, manually tearing down premature tinsel seems a bit dramatic, so I opt for a more civil protest—throwing my own Thanksgiving feast and making Europeans eat it.

The invitation is my first attempt at French poetry:

"Thanksgiving sera," un poème de E. Silverstein et S. Shimanoff

Thanksgiving sera
Ce jeudi, ooh la la la
Dinde dinde sur le plat

Samedi chez moi
Festoyez, n’oubliez pas
Tarte à la citrouille.

Translation:

Thanksgiving will be
This Thursday, ooh la la la
Turkey on the plate

Saturday, my place
Celebrate, do not forget
To eat pumpkin pie.

As anyone who has hosted a Thanksgiving knows, it requires considerable advanced preparation. Step one is acquiring my mother’s pumpkin pie recipe and my grandmother’s turkey and stuffing technique. Step two is finding a turkey. I am told that the best way to secure a good turkey is to order one in advance, so I go down to the market near my school on Wednesday to discuss turkey matters with the butcher. They butcher me a beautiful 4.3 kilo turkey, which I pick up Friday afternoon. Step three is waking up at 9am Saturday morning to begin the long haul to dinner. Early on I give up converting English measuring units into metric and am pretty much eyeballing everything. Therefore, the recipes from my mom and grandmother serve mostly as inspiration rather than true recipes. My grandmother had been extremely precise on the turkey-cooking process: 325 degrees for 15 minutes per pound. Much math ensues: 4.3 kilos = 9.5 lbs. x 15 minutes = 2.4 hours at 325 Farenheit = 163 Celsius. After seasoning and stuffing the turkey I turn to my oven to put my calculations into action. I am confronted with a temperature dial numbered 1 through 9. 1 through 9?? Grandma didn’t say anything about a 1 through 9. I am screwed… In my head I envision where 325 might be on an oven dial back home, turn the knob, stick the bird in, and pray. Saul and I then decide to head out for some last minute shopping, leaving the turkey alone to slowly cook on mystery temperature 6.

We head to one of the two American specialty stores in Paris, The Real McCoy, in search of fresh Ocean Spray cranberries. This store creeps me out big time. It has the feel of a 50s bomb shelter, lined with boxed and canned products that will never go bad, ever; mostly things I am glad to not be eating on a regular basis anymore: Doritos, Fluff, Jello, Shake and Bake, Goya Adobo. The prices are astronomical. 10 euro for a bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups, 7 euro for a box of Pop-tarts. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy me some Reese’s and Poptarts back home, but it seems absurd to spend so much money on products so obviously inferior to their French equivalents—chocolate and breakfast pastries that is. We buy the cranberries and flee.

As we head home I’m beginning to think it was a mistake leaving the turkey unsupervised on mystery setting 6. For all I know my flat is burning down. Turns out a Thanksgiving miracle has occurred. Not only is the flat not burning down, the turkey has beautiful golden crispy skin and moist white meat beneath. I might actually pull this Thanksgiving thing off…

Friends show up slowly but surely, in fashionably late French style. My French friend Catherine informs me that the oven settings are clearly meant to be multiplied by 30 degrees Celsius. Thus, setting 6 is equivalent to 180 degrees Celsius, or 356 Farenheit, close enough to Grandma’s recommended 325. ‘Twas a good guess.

I’d like to take a moment to parade my cosmopolitan guest-list before you:

Team US:
-East Coast: me (NY), my friend Henson (NJ, in Paris for the weekend)
-West Coast: Saul (OR), Keith (CA)
-South: Rachel (TX)
-North: Wayne (AK) and Dave (MN?)

Team Europe:
-La France: Fabien, Catherine (co-worker), Claire (Rachel’s roommate)
-Deutschland: Yvonne (my German counterpart at work)
-The United Kingdom: Raj (Fabien’s girlfriend), Emma and Anna

The 14 of us (delightfully split 50/50 US/Europe, no?) devour dinner and move on to devouring the tequila Henson graciously brought duty-free from the States. Europeans tend to savor their liquor; we Americans show them how to quickly down it with salt and lime. Incidentally, Henson had bought nice enough tequila that it was sort of a shame to contaminate it with such collegiate rituals, but old traditions die hard.

Voila, two American traditions imported to Europe in one night: Turkey Day and tequila.

Toussaint Part Deux

The post-Halloween portion of break begins with a mild sense of abandonment. Saul is in Tours visiting family, Rachel is in Cadiz, Spain, visiting a friend, Emma and Anna are both in London; I have the entire 9th arrondissement to myself. Aside from petty things like raiding the fridge and leaving my pajamas on the bathroom floor, I take advantage of my relative solitude by resuming activity during daylight hours and seeing some things. Such as:

Saint Sulpice: Yes, the “Rose Line” of Da Vinci Code fame is “marked” by an obelisk and a brass strip running through the church. No, the church is not happy about it. Signs posted on the wall next to the obelisk tactfully debunk the novel and insists there is no Rose Line. Evidently the gnomon, as it is properly termed, of Saint-Sulpice was created in order to observe Earth’s rotation. This was accomplished via a tiny hole in the facing wall that casts a beam of light on the obelisk at various astronomically significant times. Wikipedia’s two-cents: “Brown's novel confuses the Paris Meridian [or “Rose Line”] with a local meridian found in the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice, marked in the floor with a brass line (the Paris Meridian actually passes about 100 meters east of it).” So in Dan Brown’s fiction the two lines are one in the same, and in the church’s fiction the Rose Line doesn’t even exist (though to be fair the term “Rose Line” is fictional). Seems no one finds the truth particularly persuasive.

Exhibit of Disney art at the Grand Palais: This exhibit’s main purpose in life is to demonstrate the relationship between Disney’s early work and his immediate influences—19th century paintings and illustrations, and early 20th century films. In doing so the exhibit places Disney within a broader art historical framework and also conveniently highlights the European elements of Disney’s work. I spent two hours of intellectualized nostalgic bliss gazing at oh, say, the original animation cells of Alice in Wonderland side by side an 1865 first edition of the novel complete with John Tenniel’s illustrations. Tacked onto the end of the exhibit is a section on the subsequent influence of Disney on later art, specifically surrealism and pop. Apparently Dali and Disney spent years working on a joint film, which was never fully realized until after their deaths (at the hands of Roy Disney). Needless to say, the final project was pretty bizarre. But all melting clocks aside, this exhibit is great because it offers a new way to experience and appreciate the seemingly familiar.

Vaux le Vicomte (a.k.a. Erin and her friend Melanie get the hell out of Paris for the day): Back in the day Louis XIV’s finance minister, Nicholas Fouquet, hired the architect Le Vau, the painter Le Brun and the landscape architect Le Nôtre to design and build him a chateau on the outskirts of Paris. The resulting masterpiece was so impressive that before it was even completed Louis XIV threw Fouquet in jail and ordered Le Vau, Le Brun and Le Nôtre to build him something bigger and better. Thus was born the royal vanity project par excellence, le Chateau de Versailles. The musketeer, d’Antagnan, and the “man in the iron mask” also figure into this history in ways I would appreciate more had I ever read Dumas.

The chateau was of course gorgeous and dripping in luxury, though having been to Versailles, I couldn’t help but think it was pretty small (only a few dozen gilt ceilings). I am told the gardens are magnificent, but my appreciation of them was completely cock-blocked by the descent of the thickest fog I have ever seen. Visibility was perhaps 50 ft. A garden of grand geometric vistas and crystal clear reflecting pools was transformed into an episode of Scooby Doo. Statues had a habit of appearing out of nowhere; ponds stretched on interminably with the other side obscured in opaque white. Le Nôtre may have molded the natural landscape to his meticulous design, but nature had the last laugh. I supposed Melanie and I could have been pissed, but we mostly laughed right along with nature. Though we were robbed of the conventional garden experience we were offered quite a unique alternative.

After a day marching around in the cold and fog of the countryside we were ready to be back in the lights of Paris. Mission accomplished.

I'm sold

An "apple green" pouf !! - EUR10

---

Reply to: sale-230426247@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-11-05, 3:56PM CET


I don't have place anymore so I sell my funny "pouf" for 10€...

• This item has been posted by-owner.
  
• this is in or around Paris
  
• no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
  

230426247

Toussaint Part 1

We have become nocturnal. The vacation-loving French gave us 10 days off for All Saints Day…er…Week, and absolute lethargy ensued. Both the beauty and the tragedy of three people like me, Rach and Saul becoming friends/roommates/neighbors is that we all appreciate and enjoy the luxury of doing nothing. This does not define us—on the contrary, we have the capacity to be incredibly active people when the mood strikes us—but you can’t deny the allure of waking up around noon and lazing around until you motivate yourself to go buy enough wine, bread and cheese to last until 4am when you finally crash.

That’s pretty much been the past week of my life. Naturally things differed each day. One evening we cooked up a pretty decent curry-esque dish for all our French friends as a sort of “Thanks for being ridiculously friendly” gesture. Everyone seemed to appreciate it; I even got Saul to eat it Indian-style with his hands. Bolstered by the success of this culinary endeavor, the next morning I crafted a delicious French toast (no pun intended) seasoned with nutmeg, cardamom, and cinnamon, topped with a creamy apple-almond shebang and drizzled with honey. This was definitely the impromptu culinary achievement of my life.

The chronology of all this is beginning to escape me, but one night our friend Keith invited us out to the Champ de Mars, which is the big field in front of the Tour Eiffel, sort of like the mall in front of the Washington monument. Kids traditionally set up camp there for the evening and drink wine—not a bad tradition if you ask me. The Tour Eiffel is lit up dramatically at night and twinkles magically every hour on the hour (yes, magically). One of the more annoying Parisian habits is the metro closing at 12:30am. This often leads to long walks home late at night unless you feel like springing for a taxi (which I almost never do). Rachel had the foresight (and need for speed) to buy a bike off craigslist, but Saul and I are wheel-less, so our walk home from the Tour Eiffel took a good 2 hours. Luckily, Paris is a fabulous place to walk around at night. (In case you’re looking for a second opinion).

Sunday Saul and I went up to the marché aux puces (flea market) at Porte Clignancourt looking for nothing in particular (except maybe a bike) and finding nothing in particular (no bikes). Porte Clignancourt is at the very edge of Paris on the boulevard périphérique (ring road) and is somewhat more “urban” and less quaint than central Paris. The market was basically composed of three types of booths: 1. Marked down but still expensive designer clothing, 2. Marked up but still cheap imported Asian incense and wall-hangings, 3. Rap and hip-hop CDs and DVDs. This got a little old after awhile so we wandered a bit off the beaten track and found a cute alley full of antique books, prints, furniture, etc. Highlights included some random person’s daily planner from 1926 and a 19th century engraving of the smallish town Saul’s French family is from. Sadly, neither was cheap enough to justify buying. Apparently we only saw perhaps half of the marché and there are definitely several other ones as well, so I forsee plenty more opportunities to buy cheap crap (maybe a bike).

Fact 1: 5 beers fit in an upside-down Frisbee.
Fact 2: Rachel did not believe fact 1.
Fact 3: I proved her wrong.

Now, perhaps it sounds as if we have been doing some cool things with our break, but I swear we were mostly lazy as all hell. The one thing we DID put some modicum of effort into was Halloween.

I actually found some decent pumpkins at an alimentation (sort of like a bodega for those familiar with Spanish Harlem or Ghostwriter) for 7 euro a piece. Sunday night we took the pumpkins over to Fabien’s and had a little pumpkin-carving party. Considering the lack of authentic pumpkin-carving tools I think we did a damn good job. We displayed one on a ledge outside Fabien’s window, which looks out on a really busy boulevard. I hope people saw it and smiled, though they may have just scoffed. Fuck ‘em.I had promised my French and British friends not only an authentic jack ‘o lantern but also the authentic American delicacy of toasted pumpkin seeds. The combination of loads of time on my hands and residual French-toast-glory led me to dream up more than your average seeds. Inspired by an online recipe for “Pumpkin Seeds: Three Ways” I made one third regular salted seeds, one third curried seeds, and one third chai tea seeds. Honestly, I think they all taste pretty similar, but the Brits seemed to dig ‘em, especially the chai tea ones, which they claim taste like sausages. Go figure.

The biggest bummer of French Halloween is the costumes, or rather, the lack thereof. The French simply do not understand the fine art of crafting the perfect Halloween costume. They think it’s all about witches and ghosts, end of story. When Rachel explained to them that last year she and two friends went as Pink Floyd albums (with the real album art painted on their backs) our French friends seemed impressed but also a bit flabbergasted. It was pretty obvious from the get-go that we could easily get away with not dressing up at all, but I love Halloween far too much to stoop to lame French standards. I wanted to somehow keep it real while still keeping it French, so I ended up concocting this bizarre costume out of Camembert cheese containers. The upside of this was definitely getting to eat all the delicious Camembert (seriously, it’s divine). I crafted a Camembert cheese bra, necklace, and earrings, and entitled my costume ‘Mademoiselle Camembert.’

Our night started out late as usual. In fact, it seems the preceding week of late-nights was really just warm up for this, the latest night of all.

Another American assistant, Susie, had a Halloween gathering, which was quite pleasant and tame—kind of reminiscent of my 4th grade Halloween party put on by the class-moms. Indeed her mom had sent her honest-to-god American candy corn and fake spider web. There was a best costume prize, which I was told I WOULD HAVE WON had I showed up on time…oops. Turns out some girl dressed up as Hawaiian won (not nearly as deserving as Mademoiselle Camembert…)

We hadn’t gotten to Susie’s until around midnight, so by the time we had finished off all of Susie’s wine it was around 1:30am and thus, post-metro. Our French friends are chummy with the guy putting on this techno party on a barge in the Seine, so we had been promised free entrance (a 12 euro savings—whoever says the French aren’t friendly has just met the wrong French people). Naturally, the party barge was a good hour’s hike from Susie’s party. We finally showed up around 2:30/3am.

Turns out it was worth the hike. The party was packed, but there was still room to dance. NO ONE was in costume, so I quickly ripped off my Mademoiselle Camembert bra and stuffed it in my purse. I’m not much of a connoisseur of techno, so I can’t speak to the quality of the DJ’ing, but I think it’s fair to say it was solid without being ground-breaking. Knowing the guy throwing the party was money—we hadn’t managed to get in for free, but he made it up to us with several free drinks, and Rachel got to dance up on stage.

We finally headed home around 7am. The metro was up and running again, and we were just about Halloweened out. We mustered up enough energy to pick up some delicious buttery flaky pastries for a pre-sleep breakfast. The perfect end to a pretty decent Halloween all things considered. Though after three days defending why we carve jack ‘o lanterns, bake pumpkin seeds, and put effort into our costumes, I definitely missed a real American Halloween.

Phuler Dokaan (Flower Shop)

Back in the summer of ’06 I briefly considered applying for a Fullbright to study the South Asian immigrant population of Paris. I nixed this idea for numerous reasons; however, I remain interested in the topic. There are sizeable Tamil, Sri Lankan, and Bengali populations in Paris, none of which to my knowledge have been documented to any significant or useful extent. The other day I decided to wander towards the one Hindu temple in Paris (I'm almost positive there is only one, though I find this surprising), in search of I suppose some sort of ethnographic muse. I found the temple; it is crammed into a shabby building at the back of an alley. Signs anounce in French and Tamil that it is open to all, (which is not the case for many Hindu temples.) Inside it is filled with altars dedicated to different deities, each topped with gilded murtis (religious statues) and garlanded with flowers. It essentially has the feel of a typical Hindu home’s personal altar, yet on a larger scale. While I was there a few people came in and paid their respects to the deities, and a brahman (priest) hung out in the corner reading the paper until someone called on him to chant from the Vedas. The temple’s primary community is Tamil-speaking (from south-eastern India); as this is not a language or region with which I am particularly familiar I felt a bit out of my element, but the trip was worthwhile nonetheless.

On my way back from temple my eye caught a flower shop sign written in Bengali, (a language and region with which I am relatively familiar). I paused to decide whether or not to go in—I really had no need for flowers, but I could not just walk past a BENGALI shop in PARIS—for me this is like the intellectual equivalent of Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked ice cream, COOKIE DOUGH and DOUBLE FUDGE BROWNIE; how can you pass it up? I wandered in to find five guys cleaning and sorting through dozens upon dozens of roses. I stalled for time by staring at all the roses trying to “decide” which ones to buy; really I was trying desperately to recall how to say anything practical in Bengali. I ultimately had a mildly productive conversation in a language I like to call Frengalindi. I found out the rose guys are all from Bangladesh, there are around 10,000 Bangladeshis in Paris, and that they don’t appreciate people walking into their shop, looking around for 15 minutes and then asking to purchase a single rose. Go figure. I would love to head back there from time to time and see if I can strike up some sort of friendship with the rose guys, though I think it would be hard to do so, and I don’t know if it would be a completely self-indulgent effort or actually produce something of value/interest to the rest of the world. We’ll see how many roses I can fit into my weekly budget.