Beginning to Awake

Have I been awake the past two months? Have I really been here two months? I cannot be dreaming – I never would have dreamed that I would live in Paris. Period.

And yet I feel as if I am starting to rustle from my blissful sleep. Reality, seldom beautiful, is seeping in at the edges of my reverie.

A few weeks ago in class we read an essay by Julia Kristeva called “Toccata and Fugue for the Foreigner,” describing the ways in which we are all foreign, and how we must recognize that fact for xenophobia and its nasty siblings, genocide and racism, to disappear. The essay is an exploration of what it means to be foreign – feeling isolated from one’s mother country, residing in the silent land between two languages, basking in solitude and mutual hatred. When I first read it, I hated it. And in fact, I still hate it. Kristeva has a way of making ridiculous assumptions and using detestably melodramatic comparisons and imagery to get her point across. But – many of her points are very insightful. Maybe it’s finally starting to sink in for me that I’m just not welcome here. I feel eloigned from the United States on many levels – culturally, politically, physically – and yet, I feel little closer to these things in France. I will never be able to speak or understand French as well as the French can, as much as I would like to. And as for English, I use it with friends, but entire days have passed where I have only mumbled it to myself, and any other speaking I have done has been as The Bumbling Foreigner. As for mutual hatred, I’m remarkably ambivalent. I don’t like the word hate. I know I have that emotion, but I try to suppress it. The French certainly don’t try though. Or at least, the average Parisian does not. I remember coming into a restaurant back when I felt self-conscious of that fact that everyone looks at you when coming into restaurants here, and a friend of mine said, “I don’t like feeling hated when I go out to eat.” Me neither. Who does? I don’t like feeling hated on the subway, on the sidewalk, in a store, at the museum…and I can feel a nice hot glowing pinprick of resentment blooming in myself. Paris is spoiled by the Parisians, many say. Baudelaire himself wrote: “Paris, center and radiance of idiocy.” The other day an old man smacked me in the face with his bag as he was sitting down on the train. He didn’t say a word to me. He just looked at me like I had shoved my head at him while he was sitting. A woman practically tripped me as I was leaving the metro. Didn’t say a word. I was crossing the street and paused in the middle so a cyclist could go by. “Attention!” she screamed at me, and then felt it necessary to repeat it and sigh dramatically as she passed. I traded exasperated looks with a man smoking a cigarette, and I have no idea if he was making it at me or the woman. In a store, I gingerly began to pull a sweater off the (apparently) wrong shelf and a clerk quickly and curtly reminded me that the display was over there. What’s wrong with these people? What arrogance inspires them to these ends? A newspaper headline today read: “America: Why they don’t think like us.” Implicit in that title is the sense that the way “we” – the French – think is superior. I won’t argue whether or not America’s way of thinking is superior, but where do the French get the authority to make that claim? They have the Maginot Line, numerous bungled land wars in Asia, two horrendous Empires, and three failed revolutions under their belt. They played a large part in creating the colossal debacle that we call the Twentieth Century.

I’m bordering on nationalist rhetoric here, but I’m sure when it comes to the nitty-gritty I couldn’t say many better things about America. What we have over the French in military and economic conquest they have over us in high art and cooking. Still, it bothers me that these thoughts have come to me because of a headline in a newspaper and a few encounters with some surly Parisians. The sense of my own foreignness is becoming more and more apparent to me. It’s not just about people staring at you when you speak English in a restaurant.

And yet I still love Paris. On one particularly frustrating day, when I had all but given up at the idea of courtesy, I stopped in at my local bakery to buy a baguette. It was still hot in my hands as I left, and with the first bite I could only smile. Yesterday I went to the Viaduc des Arts – a rather phenomenal street where a viaduct was converted into a series of little art galleries and artisan shops. In many of these spaces I saw the artists hard at work themselves, painting or sewing or what have you. On top of the viaduct, an urban garden has been planted, creating a roof level park with an interesting view of the neighborhood around it. Where else could you find this sort of innovation and dedication to beauty and art?

Yesterday evening, though, things were slightly put in perspective for me. The photographer known simply as Reza came to speak at AUP, thanks to my French professor. He is known for photographing scenes of misery and conflict around the world since the late ‘70s. He grew up in Iran under the Shah, and at age 16 he began posting photos around public places showing the Shah’s despotic policies. At 22 he was captured and tortured for five months. Upon his release, he began photographing scenes from the Iran-Iraq War, then exiled himself in Paris. Since then, he has photographed the Russian and American conflicts in Afghanistan, street life in Egypt, social unrest in the Philippines, the genocide in Rwanda and countless other scenes from which the Western world has turned its collective eye. But he has done more than that, for he believes very strongly in the humanitarian cause – he established Afghanistan’s first free press and founded a charity organization to support the rehabilitation of culture in the post-Taliban Kabul. His photographs themselves have led many to action. His message is one of peace, understanding, and humanity. And he has one of the most kind, sparkling smiles of any one I’ve seen. I had to ask myself, looking at this man’s moving pictures, how has he retained his faith in humanity? He has been physically and psychologically tortured, shot at, wounded by shrapnel, and witness to innumerable tragedies. I’m pretty disillusioned, and I’ve never experienced any of these things. His view is a world view, yet one that is simultaneously outside the corrupt system of “humanitarian” aid offered by the West to third world nations. He believes that when one commits wrong against another, it is a wrong against the entire species. He told us stories that could make the most jaded (like myself) believe in some shred of fate. I was inspired, but also ashamed, because I know I am a part of the system that created the atrocities he has captured on film. And so are the French. I guess this is where I wrap things up with some nice little bow implying the world – we’re all human, nationality doesn’t matter, etc. I just don’t know if I can make things that tidy, though. I’ll leave it at this: if a man such as Reza can have hope and charity and kindness, I suppose I can too.

I’ve felt pretty disconnected from the world outside, from responsibility and the future, while I’ve been here in Paris. I just sip my espresso or my fantastic wine, and look at beautiful things and beautiful people. Would someone in Afghanistan believe that people do that? By being American, I was born into an enormous amount of privilege and freedom of all sorts even for the West – and while the lush life of Paris is great, maybe I should start thinking about using some of my privilege and freedom for the benefit of others.

A Sundry Assortment of Thoughts

One of the pleasures of just walking about Paris is musing on the names of the streets. Paris has the very oddest names for its boulevards and streets. Often they are history lessons. Generals, Presidents, dignitaries, scientists, writers, and thinkers of all nations are here – there is Avenue de President Wilson, much bigger and grander than the Boulevard Auguste Blanqui, who was President of the Third Republic. There is my street – Rue Abel Hovelacque, named after an anthropologist. There is the Avenue José Maria de Heredia, an obscure poet. Someday, if not already, Serge Gainsbourg will have his own street. I am sure of it. And then there are dates – the insidious Juin 1940, when Paris fell to the Germans. Aout 1944, when it was liberated. And there are the much more mysterious references – Rue de la Reine Blanche. Avenue des Gobelins. Who or what was the White Queen? What are Gobelins? The answer is obscured, and we stroll on ignorant of their significance, but intrigued nonetheless. Then there are the humorously mundane: Rue de la Boulangerie. Bakery Street. Rue des Moulins de Pres: Street of the Windmills in the Fields? There are no numbered avenues here – the implicit order of the grid required for such nomenclature is lost in the chaos of medieval cow paths and who knows what else the crucible of history has produced to create Paris.

No, I think we Anglo-Saxons could care less about what our streets are named. Fifth Avenue – how bland in sound, yet how grand in actuality! The French knew that a street was going to be grand, so they called it Les Champs Elysées: The Elysian Fields, the closest the ancient Greeks ever got to Heaven. We Anglo-Saxons usually get lazy, and leave the names from whatever the Native Americans had called the area – this does lead to some fantastically strange highways in the South in particular (drive through Alabama, Louisiana and Western Tennessee if you simply must see for yourself), but they mean nothing to us besides an occasional stumble in pronunciation. We do have streets named after famous people, but they are usually generals and conquerors with a nice tint of American nostalgia: Washington Avenue, Columbus Avenue, Lafayette Street. But! God forbid we honor those pesky intellectuals and artists, save the ones that are really, really famous. Walt Whitman has no street in Washington DC, nor does Henry Thoreau, nor does Ambrose Bierce. It’s not wrong or bad that things are this way, just different. We esteem our thinkers in different ways: impoverishing them, not teaching our children about them, putting their works on the discount rack in Barnes and Noble.

If I ever have any sort of power of suggestion in Washington (which means never), I’m giving Kurt Vonnegut, Henry Rollins, and Nathanael Parker Willis their own grand streets right away. And while I’m at it, I’ll throw in an April 1865 and a White Queen, just for fun.

Last night I watched Jean Luc Godard's film "Breathless" (A Bout de Souffle) at a little independent cinema in the Latin Quarter. The film was part of a repertory series called "Smoke Screens" (Les Ecrans de Fumee) - a focus on the role of smoking in cinema and in watching cinema. Imagine how well this series would go in America! The link between classic film and smoking is undeniable, but in the States we just seem to say "Oh, they didn't know back then..." Apparently they still don't know in France, though the cigarette packages all have SMOKING KILLS written on them in huge letters. As for Breathless, I don't think I've ever seen two people smoke more in a movie.

Before seeing the movie, I visited the Ile St. Louis. Notre Dame de Paris is on the Ile de la Cité, and the Ile St. Louis is the slightly less visited island right to it on the Seine. There were still a lot of tourists, but it was somehow quieter, calmer. The five or six streets on the island are all not much wider than alleyways, and ice cream shops, cafés, and art galleries - each of a distinct look - line the ground level from one end of the island to the other. The quays of the island are much less crowded than those along the Right or Left banks, though equally tranquil. And now, the highlight of my story: I bought my first piece of art there! Actually, I bought two pieces of art. Passing by a gallery, I saw the name "Tim Sale" written on the poster on the window. Tim Sale is a comic book artist, known for working on Batman: The Long Halloween, Spiderman Blue, Daredevil: Yellow, and doing the artwork for the show Heroes. Intrigued, I went inside and was privileged to see original panels from the above comics. Then I chanced across a series of 90 prints that Sale had done and signed himself. Each was numbered and everything. Knowing my good friend John is a much bigger fan of the artist than I was, I decided to buy one for him. And then I thought more, and decided it would be neat to have one for myself as well. I think it was meant to be: there were only 2 left. "Vous avez de la chance." the girl working the exhibition told me. Indeed.

I felt like I had really accomplished something as I left the gallery and carried my precious cargo home. I am the owner of a piece of art! By a semi-famous artist! Somehow I feel more complete, more like I have tasted a sublime aspect of life heretofore unattained, all the more because I bought it in Paris.

A quick note about AUP students: I expected, on coming to France, that I would meet a lot of open-minded Americans who wouldn't have the sense of entitlement that I have seen in an upsetting number of NU students. Well, I was wrong. Not 100% wrong, as I have met a few interesting and open-minded individuals, but nonetheless, I have been let down on several occasions. I don't know what causes this - AUP is pretty expensive, so maybe the students who come here are generally born with several spoons in their mouths? Or they like to pretend that they were? Then again, many AUP students are visiting, like myself, and come from less pretentious schools (with the exception of the bundle of NYU students here). And they too can give off this grating sense of entitlement. Since when did professors have to bend to your whims or give you good grades because you are paying money to go here? College is sink or swim, folks, or so I'd always believed.

A few days ago, I was by the Seine and a man rode by me on his bicycle with his child in one of those backpack carriers. As he passed, the child looked at me and said "Connard!" (Asshole!), very sweetly. The man pedalled away and didn't say a word. I stood, awestruck. French people, even children, can be very randomly mean.

Last night I was eating dinner next to an American couple who were arguing, in English of course, over what to name their child. They were drawing names from all over the place, including Shakespeare and classic Hollywood and Greek myth. I'm pretty sure no one else in the restaurant knew what they were talking about. I felt as if I should have reached out to them - "Claire is a pretty name. Or how about Desdemona?" But that would have been ridiculous. And I am relatively sure that, eventually, they knew I was at least English speaking, because I was sitting there reading Henry James' The American. And yet, for a solid hour we went on unacknowledging, both speaking to the waitress in French. It was a singularly bizarre experience; I felt as if I should talk to these people because I could, and yet, I should not have because they were just trying to have a nice dinner together - in a foreign country. I'm not even sure if I can describe how strange that was for me. If the same couple were having a conversation like that in Boston, I would not have thought twice.

I never really wanted to quote Gertrude Stein

Last weekend I visited Pere Lachaise Cemetery - most famous, I believe, for being the resting place of Jim Morrison. But, there are many more people buried there who were more than just burnt out rock stars: Moliere, the famous playwright of Louis XIV's court, for instance. Or Heloise and Abelard, the real life starcrossed lovers of medieval times. Marcel Proust, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Honore de Balzac, one of the greatest writers of the 19th century. Gertrude Stein - the woman I say the woman who was at the center of the Lost Generation. The cemetery's second most famous resident is probably Oscar Wilde, whose grave had a heartbreaking poem on the back. It wasn't far from what is called the Mur des Federes, the wall where many of the insurgents of the Paris Commune of 1871 were lined up and executed by the State. I stood there for a long time, trying to find the pock marks of bullets and thinking about the situation that Paris found itself in during that calamitous period of its history. The Franco-Prussian War had just ended with the months long Seige of Paris, wherein the city's residents were forced to eat the animals in the zoo to stay alive. Directly after the Germans marched through Paris (for the first time) as a ceremonial end to the peace proceedings, the humiliated working class revolted and for a brief time were in control of the city. What followed is known as La Semaine Sanglante - The Bloody Week - wherein the government systemically hunted down and executed about 30,000 people involved in this insurgence. The last stand of the Communards, as they were called, was in and about Pere Lachaise. I can't help but think of how dramatic this story is, and how nowadays people picnic next to this wall and in the Luxembourg Gardens where the rest of the Communards were shot. I can't help but feel, especially in Paris, how gleefully unaware we are of the blood and toil buried beneath all of us. It is not just in cemeteries that we have left our ancestors; it is below our streets, in our floorboards, basements, and cellars; it is in our manicured lawns and perfectly arranged parks. Tread carefully, for you tread on history.

I find it very interesting that The Mur des Federes is juxtaposed with several monuments to the Holocaust and the Resistance. I am constantly comparing the histories of France and America in my head, and this made me think how America had no Resistance, and the Jews living in our country that were victim to the Nazi concentration camps only came to America after World War II, already displaced from their original homes. This is not to say that our history lacks drama and tragedy, for that cannot be said of any nation, but I think in the specific case of America, it lacks the "fear of war" as Gertrude Stein said. We know the fear of war-time, but it has been generations since anyone in America has had to worry about foreign invasion. And despite the rasing of Washington DC in the War of 1812, our country has never known foreign occupation - the fear of that, is the fear of war. Gertrude Stein said this could be why we still think the world is flat - metaphorically speaking, that is.

Harmony

Rilke tried to describe it, in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge: the peculiar feeling one gets when loafing about Paris on a beautiful day. It's as if the whole city is some sort of painting, some sort of cohesive whole that harmonizes with itself brilliantly. Of course, the visiter to Paris is not a part of this marvel - he is just relegated to watching and observing. It's beautiful to do so, but it's more beautiful, I imagine, to be part of it all. I've had this feeling many times, especially on Sunday, when this sense is most obvious and acute.

Take, for instance, today: I wandered into the Place des Vosges and had my breath stolen from me by the vibrantly yellow trees surrounding the whole park. Families, teenagers, lovers relaxing on benches and in sunny patches of grass. Fountains gushing. Hardly a cloud in the big blue sky. I crossed through the park, underneath the little arbor in the center, and music came to my ears. Classical music. A 10 or 12 person symphony was performing in the gallery around the plaza. They chose popular, recognizable tunes, all of which seemed to coordinate perfectly with the vision of the park. When I left the plaza into the quaint streets of the Marais, I could only wonder how it was possible for a place to be so inclusively beautiful.

Marvels of Marseille

For one of my classes I am studying the unique city of Marseille, in the South of France. As part of the class, of course, we had to spend a few days there. Here is a little summary of some things I did and saw:

This is one of the first things I saw on the morning of the first day: The Church St. Victor, home of France's oldest abbey (dating back to the 3rd century BC). The structure and the relics inside were easily the oldest man-made creations I have seen. What I found most fascinating were the cabinet of relics, which included the front of a saint's skull, and this sarcophagus of another saint, which had a human skull built into the stone work!










Next we trekked up to Notre Dame de la Garde, Marseille's most famous church. The view from the top was incredible - all brilliant blues and jagged landscape.



















Later that day, we visited a little-known part of Marseille, guided by a specialist from a nearby university. Apparently in the 17 and 1800s it was the fashion to have what was called a "bastide" - a manor surrounded by a garden, not unlike the plantation we have in the States. However, due to the dry climate of Marseille, irrigation channels and a canal had to be built in order to create the lush landscapes that I attempted to capture in my photos:














These areas were right inside the city. We wandered in the forest and countryside for a good few hours, and the entire time it felt like I was in some sort of fantasy land. I felt very privileged to see a side of the city that even the residents themselves know very little about.

Exhausted after all of the walking, most of the group returned to the hotel or went out to dinner. The next day would prove to be even more interesting...
This is the Friche de la Belle de Mai. It was a cigarette factory, but now it is an artist hive that until very recently was funded by the state. All kinds of art are produced here: painting, graffiti, theatre, poetry, metalwork, radio transmissions...Many of the artists live on the site, and use the materials from the old factory to make their work. There are rooms for theatre rehearsal, welding, radio, and even a cafe in which all the furniture and installations were made by the artists on site. Being here I thought of all the factories one sees closed down along the East Coast and in the Midwest in America, and how a program like this could greatly benefit those areas. And to imagine, the state funded this program! The community supports it, and all of the productions become open to the public at the Friche. What's more, apparently these sites are all over Europe. Perhaps this is one of the many benefits of a culture that esteems art and intellectualism...

After the Friche, we walked along the Docks, where many of the old warehouses had been converted into business offices. The architecture was interesting here, but the area seemed sadly under-utilized. There were no restaurants, cafes, or apartments - just dull, depressing offices. It's important to see this part of Marseille to know its not all some Mediterranean melange of art and partying, but I was happy to move into the Pannier (the Basket), the oldest neighborhood of the city.

This is the area of Marseille that was founded by the Phoenicians, meaning the city actually pre-dates ancient Greece! It was all narrow, winding streets on inclines. Much as I imagine streets in Greece to be. It was an interesting change from the grand boulevards of Paris.

Saturday night, my professor took us all out to a concert of a Marseilleais folk legend. The atmosphere was very un-pretentious and laid back. Some people danced, some people just watched. There was no sense of judgment; merely enjoyment. How many concerts have I had ruined by the opposite atmosphere?

Moreover, I never imagined I'd go to a concert with my one of my college professors! She was dancing and drinking wine with the rest of us. I guess I just need to have a bigger imagination - France keeps stretching mine out of shape!

Sunday we all dragged ourselves out of bed to go on a boat tour of the calanques. Calanques are a geographic structure essentially unique to Marseille. They are very similar to fjords, though smaller. One can find them all around Marseille, each with a little port at the back. Leaving the Vieux Port of Marseille, I saw up close the Chateau d'If, made famous by being the place where Edmund Dantes is imprisoned in the Count of Monte Cristo:

And here is a typical calanque:

Hard to believe that people actually etch out a living amongst these rocks and shrubs; though maybe they come into Marseille and wonder the same thing about the city-folk. As for the city folk of Marseille, I have to say they reminded me a lot of Bostonians. That's to say, they have a very gruff, prickly exterior - but often they are nicer than they seem.

This wasn't always the case, though. My friend Sylvie was insulted at a restaurant because she asked for ketchup for her French fries. I believe the words of the waiter were "Oh you are an American! Bang bang John Wayne! Cowboy! Hot dog!" Luckily, Sylvie had the dignity and the cool to inform the man that he was being rude and to leave the restaurant without saying another word. Apparently the rest of the restaurant's patrons took her side, as well. Still, it's unfortunate that these things happen, and it's a reminder that while abroad, I represent something much more than just my own personal history - I represent an entire culture, nation, and, unfortunately, government. This is the downside of democracy - when the rest of the country votes against your preference, you have to foot the bill for their choice, because it was the choice of the majority...and the rest of the world knows that.

In any case, the last stop of our trip was La Cité Radieuse, a sort of urban utopia designed by the famous architect Le Corbusier. This skyscraper at the edge of Marseille was built to be a self-inclusive habitation with affordable and comfortable housing. There used to be stores, coiffures, restaurants, even a school and daycare inside. In the picture above, you can see what used to be the school on the right. Unfortunately, the space became chic and trendy, the bourgeois took over, and it was no longer so affordable. The shops disappeared, the school closed, and a hotel claimed part of the building. The community was gone, but the structure remained. It was absolutely fascinating to go inside and up to the roof, seeing this husk of a utopia amidst the decidedly avant-garde design of Le Corbusier. The roof was almost a concrete park, with plenty of places to sit or lay. And the view of Marseille was unparalleled. Unfortunately, my camera's battery was dying by this point in the trip, so my photographs are far too few.

After that, we returned to Paris, exhausted and happy to be going back. It was odd to long for a place that wasn't technically my home, to call it "home" only because it was slightly more comfortable and less foreign than where I had been. Last night I hung out on the Pont des Arts with a friend to watch the lights dance on the Seine because I missed them; it was an odd experience, really. I've missed Boston or even Atlanta before, but never in that way. I missed them because they were familiar, not because they were beautiful or intoxicating. Paris is rated an Alpha World City for this reason - you don't have to speak the language to be embraced by its charm and splendor.