Cake for Breakfast

One of the benefits of teaching French high schoolers is that I get to act as a sort of cultural ambassador when it comes to all things America. And since no one is around to supervise or check my facts, the full weight of the U.S.'s rich history falls on my broad, awkwardly hairy shoulders. 

At first, Thanksgiving came up almost by accident. I had extra time in the class period and decided to see how much my students knew about the tradition. Turkey, check. Indians, check. Mayflower, impressive, check. I found that my own knowledge of Thanksgiving wasn't too far off from theirs. 

"O were ze pilgrims?" What is this kid, a journalist? "Ummm." I racked my brains for something useful from A.P. American History... 

During my lunch break I printed out a short, digestible history of the pilgrim's voyage--which served as the very loose structure for my talk. Along the way I probably embellished some stuff. I'm still not even sure if the Puritans were leaving England or ruling it. What matters is that I said it with conviction. The following is an excerpt from my talk on Thanksgiving:

"OK. So the year is...Well, it's the 1600's. A hundred years earlier Christopher Columbus had discovered America on behalf of Spain and he was just rolling in the doubloons. Things are happening in England and there's a religious reformation under...ummm...King Charles...the...first. Let's say first. So this group of religious separatists flee on the Mayflower from Plymouth England. It's half Puritans and half people seeking land ownership. Do we understand that? People were basically telling themselves, 'there's this big old country that's full of land and I can just take a boat ride, put up a fence and bingo, I'm a home owner.' So 66 days later they land on the coast of Massachusetts by accident even though they were aiming for New York. Can you believe it took that long to cross the atlantic? That's two months!"

At this point I'm interrupted by a curious student who, reading along, asks, "Zo, zey named dis new place 'Plymouth' alzo?" 

"Yes. I know. It's really uncreative. They could have at least thrown a 'New' in front of it. But trust me, that's the tiniest mistake they made. For example, they arrive in the middle of winter and have to spend the next three months on the boat. Do we see what it says there? Half of them died! There's 54 left. It's like Game of Thrones. Can you imagine how depressing that must have been after two months at sea? So finally it's Spring and the pilgrims make contact with a Native American named Squanto who speaks English. Can anyone tell me what's weird about that interaction?" 

Silence. 

A girl finally speaks up, "ze knows english?"

"Yes! Isn't that crazy! Squanto was kidnapped by slave traders and brought to England, then he managed to learn English, and escape to London where he took an exploratory voyage back to America. It's nuts~! They should make a movie about it-"

[Time Out]. They did make a movie: It's very....90s. Also thanks to the magic of Disney films there was no need for Squanto to learn English, since, in the Magical Kingdom, all God's creatures speak Walt's language. 

"So he teaches them how to hunt and fish and grow corn and if you think about it, he's being pretty nice considering it was Europeans who originally kidnapped him. By that next season the crops come in and the mayor of Plymouth hosts a big celebration. This was basically one of the first and last alliances between Europeans and Native Americans. Things got pretty depressing like 50 years after that."

"What's it like now?  It's a lot like Christmas dinner here in France. You see all of your family whether you like it or not. It's also a pretty terrible time to be a Turkey since most families in America celebrate Thanksgiving. There's a lot of depressed Turkeys in November. You eat around 3 pm. Talk politics, watch football and then eat again. Then in the morning you have cake for breakfast. What's that? Yep, every family in American does that. It's tradition."

The 13th Tour

At the end of October there was an exhibition in Paris unlike any I'd heard of before. It was called "Tour Paris 13." Essentially, an old apartment building on the periphery of the 13th arrondissement was scheduled for demolition. In an imaginative twist of fate, a group of over 80 artists were assembled to individually design each abandoned room according to their own desires. 

The exhibit was free and soon became wildly popular. The caveat though: only 50 are allowed to enter the apartment per hour. And the exhibit is only open from 10am-5pm. This means that we had to get in line at 5:30 in the morning. I know, it's crazy. That's the kind of thing people do for for iPhone's or Beyonce tickets. Plus I was really sick. And it was raining. 

But, you know. I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, "Daniel. You're young. You're in Paris. And you've got the bone structure of a young Jay Leno. Get out there and enjoy some art."

So I did just that. The following are some photos I took. Because the work was ephemeral--literally in that it was soon to be demolished--the curators avidly encouraged photo taking. This was a strong, sort of postmodern twist on experiencing art that I really enjoyed. It made me reflect on the future of art, and how that future fits in to our growing dependency on handheld devices. 

What's also really interesting to think about is that people used to live in these rooms. At times, I couldn't tell if an artist was making a specific choice, or if some decorative element of the room was simply a vestige from the old inhabitant. It was weird!!

Since it was both a revelatory and silly experience I'm going to add commentary to the photos as such. Half will have sincere comments about the work of the artist, and the other half will be bad jokes in the voice of a hackie  Borscht Belt comedian circa the 1950's. Enjoy.

On line.

Facade

Facade 2

Interesting use of perspective and material. Impressive metal work.

This was the original poster for "The Parent Trap."

A piece entitled "Syria." Spray paint cans used to create missiles. The artists seems to be raising a parallel between war/art.

A wall made of doors that has no exit/entrance. Use of classic perspective focus.

When Drain-o simply won't get the job done...

"Dude. I don't think I'm feeling anything yet--woah!"

"Seriously Flubert, every time we play Poker your tell is really obvious."

This is something I would tattoo on my body if I didn't have severe buyer's regret

Awesome use of chalk. Self referential in depiction of urban decay.

My mom loves this show.

Pac-Man's cooler, French brother.

Great mix of mediums/textures.

This was runner up for back tattoo.

Die above your means

This is probably one of my favorite pieces in that it has a very succinct message. The use of soft colors clashed against the "noose-tie" is striking. 

"Can I haz contemporary art??"

This was in the basement as you exit and is just really fucking scary.

Hollow Ween

*The header of this post is also the working title of script I'm writing about a male, mall mannequin that comes to life and struggles with erectile dysfunction. 

So I thought, in light of the holiday, I would explain how the French do Halloween. First off, it's important to remember that Halloween is an export (from Scotland and Ireland). The only reason I know this is because I had my students read a handout. Apparently (I'm trusting the internet with this one) "the ancient Gaels believed that on October 31st, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops."* 

So yes, it's a cultural appropriation for the French, but it's much more of a geographic leap for the United States to embrace Halloween than the French so I don't know why they act so far removed from it.

And trust me, they're really fumbling when it comes to Halloween. See the following that I found in a costume store--

Bourreau Blanc means white hangman. I know...

It's like someone quickly explained to them the basics of the holiday and they ran with it. You can dress weird and eat sweets? Tell me more... And in fact, Halloween was quite en vogue 5-10 years ago (according to the woman I live with). 

The students I teach confirmed this lead. According to them, children stop trick-or-treating around age 12 and you only really dress up if you're going to a party. When I asked why Halloween wasn't popular anymore they gave a very mature answer for a group of individuals that collectively smell so bad. "It's too commercial" or "It's too much of an enterprise." I heard this same line of logic in three different classes and I can only imagine this rhetoric is deeply embedded in French culture. "What about Christmas" I countered. Surely they couldn't deny that Christmas is a money making machine no matter where you go. This caught them off guard. Something about Noel--they argued--perhaps the time of year, the color palette and the food, made Christmas O.K. with the French. Plus it's sort of in their historical past. 

The question that really threw me for a loop came as we were making a list of Halloween vocabulary. This is a neat trick for any uninspired teacher in that it allows you to pretty much do nothing for a couple of minutes while the chil'en think. We got through "pumpkin" and "skeleton" before falling on "candy." A boy in the front who hadn't yet participated raised his hand. His head was tilted the way puppies do when they hear a weird noise. "What does zat have to do with ze song Candy Shop." I was struck off-balance. 

"Like the song by 50 cent?" 

"Oui." 

"Well" I fumbled, "there was this really popular theme in rap music during the early 2000's where candy was used as a metaphor for...umm...sexy things." At least this was a topic I finally felt knowledgable on. "Do you guys know the song Laffy Taffy?" Blank stares. I guess that was kind of a stretch. 

"Oh! Like zat song, Lollipop!" 

"Exactly!" I beamed. "Like lollipop!" Finally it felt like we were getting each other. Like I was Jack Black in School of Rock. Another girl raised her hand. We're on a roll I thought. 

"What does that have to do with Halloween?"

Oh. Right.


I continued the lesson by asking what were popular costumes in France. This is where the French really flounder. So unimaginative. It's as if they wanted praise for knowing vocabulary like "ghost" and "vampire." Not going to cut it in my class. I explained that in America this year the most popular costumes where things like Miley Cyrus at the VMA's or Daft Punk or the dad from Malcolm in the Middle in an apron (they don't really know Breaking Bad so I improvised). 

Now it was their turn to look unamused. "Zat's so commercial" said one girl from behind a thin cigarette I imagined her smoking. 

And that's when I realized that America doesn't only embrace holidays as economic capital, holidays are almost exclusively just that. I was struck by my own innate reaction: Why would anyone question the commercial element of a holiday? Do they come any other way?

Who knows! Maybe Hershey was in cahoots with 50 Cent the whole time. In exchange for life saving surgery at the hands of the sexy green M&M after his bulletproof vest was pierced, 50 was obligated to make candy cool again (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory holds up, but Gene Wilder's more scary than sexy).

Anyway, I'll take a commercialized holiday over one that accidentally recycles stale racist imagery for euros any day. 

I dunno. Here's a picture of me dressed as Harry Potter for anyone who made it this far--

I was too cheap to buy a wand so I found that stick on the ground.



*http://www.halloweenhistory.org/

Sitting in Silence

I recently attended a dinner party with some young, French professionals. Twenty-something's milled about drinking wine from plastic cups and snacking on sausage with cheese as they discussed politics and operas they'd recently seen. It was surreal only because it wasn't what I expected when I was invited to have a dinner with a friend-of-a-friend and his cousin. 

What I imagined as a small, quiet affair was anything but. The passage of time was marked by food and conversation and it was all really charming. 

That said, I spent the majority of the time feeling anxious. While this group of established friends talked about climbing the job ladder and getting their Master's I tried to look really cool in the corner--hoping the red wine wasn't staining my teeth. And what's worse, I managed to exhaust the brunt of my go-to French phrases in the first 10 minutes. After that I was left with my backup tactic in instances of prolonged French speaking: offering superficial insight on a conversation at 45 second intervals to the effect of,  "well there you go," "I know!" "That's cute," "where's the toilet?" 

Everyone was extremely nice though, and my novelty as an American helped buoy me among the party guests. One conversation that struck me was with a charming fellow named Eloi who had studied for three years in America getting his Master's. He'd also spent time in Brooklyn (and had the red flannel to prove it). I asked him if he experienced any culture shock during his stay? He responded that only one social custom really caught him off guard. It took Eloi almost a full year to understand the concept of  "hanging out."  "People would invite me over and we'd sit on a couch and do nothing. I had no idea what was going on."

I looked back at him blankly. What's there to get?

That's the point. Eloi explained that in France there is always an occasion for getting together. Whether it be coffee/tea, aperitif, amuse-bouche (pre-dinner snacks) or a night cap. In fact, the French have partitioned happy-hour into so many distinct parts that you can always find an excuse to get together post 5pm. As he said this I reflected on my own time in France. And I was like, "WHOA!" Every time I'd met up with a French person it primarily revolved around eating or drinking. 

For the comparison, I thought back to the states. Sure we like to get together and do stuff, but just as often there will be no premise to socializing. In American we actively invite someone over and then continue to go about our day as if we were alone. The only difference being that we can enjoy that pleasant, social sensation of being with another human for a couple of hours. My social life in middle school revolved around going to my best friend's house while we took turns watching each other play video games. Yea I thought. Hanging out is sort of weird. And I love it! And apparently so does Eloi, who is a big convert to the custom. Sure, some might suggest that sitting in silence with your friends is the opposite of healthy, but I think it's quite romantic. Like Uma Thurman's line to John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction."

And even more interesting was the fact that here I was, at this harmless (dare I say delightful)  dinner party, and I was a wreck. These tiny, unspoken rules of society are so ingrained that you don't realize you've exited your comfort zone until someone offers you a plastic cup of red wine and asks your opinion on the opera of Aida. "She had things pretty rough. But boy could she sing."

My (exhaustive) List of French Things

In my first few weeks of living here I've noticed several differences between the United States and France. The first to strike me were the fact that France doesn't have the sexy green M&M and also Castle is very popular. Here's my extensive list (so far) of other peculiarities. Check back often:

*Everything is closed on Sunday. I asked a French friend if this was for religious reasons (I was under the assumption that France was a pretty godless country). "No" he replied. "The French are just very lazy." 

*Street signs in France are more of an afterthought than a signpost.

 It's as if the city itself is saying, "oh, you don't know where you're going? Too bad. Try harder." Street signs are small blue placards that are attached to the outside of buildings. And they're really small-

That is if you're even lucky enough to find a street sign amongst the pageantry of stimuli vying for your attention. Sometimes there's nothing there. It's special.

*Pharmacies, on the other hand, are incredibly easy to find. I don't know what medieval tradition this dates back to, but whenever you're in need of some european Advil or bandaids you simply have to look for the glowing plus-sign. The street signs could learn a lesson here...

*When you go to the gym you have to bring your own workout towel. This is a tiny detail, but still striking to me. Also gyms in France kind of have the ambiance of a gay club. Lots of flashing lights, bright colors, and electronic remixes of Kelly Clarkson. 

*Rollerblading is still cool here. So much so that I just happened to stumble upon literally hundreds of roller blades while walking along the Seine. This was reassuring to my 90's sensibilities--much like Mighty Ducks or Saved by the Bell.

*While the sexy green M&M is nowhere to be found, France still has Crispy M&M's. Which is huge in my book. I imagine they made a deal with Mars in the early 90's to keep the crispy M&M in exchange for giving up all peanut butter products. 

*At the Laundromat you pay a flat rate for the washing machine, but for some reason, to use the dryer you pay in increments of six minutes. This makes absolutely no sense to me. 

*Bagels are kind of popular-

They're also super expensive and bad. Extra demerit points for the grammatical error. 

*That said, the pizza is pretty good-

But you have to buy a whole pie. The idea of buying a "slice" is as foreign as pasteurizing the cheese that's on it. This is purely a cultural oddity since they obviously have the tools to sell slices. I mean they use heat lamps to keep the pastries warm! This is one American export that would make a killing.

*The French (and UK) equivalent of a drunk slice of pizza is a kebab--often lamb, beef or chicken. 

*They make up for the lack of drunk pizza with drunk-

massages. Seriously. It's a weird and thriving industry. If you can get past the fact that a stranger is gripping your thigh like a Shake Weight, it actually seems kind of nice.

*If you're looking for milk and eggs in the supermarket don't waste your time in the refrigerated section. More often then not they're chilling (figuratively) in the cereal aisle. This confuses my mother to no end.

*They do yogurt and pudding like a boss-

It's a thing of beauty.

*Butter is good. REALLY good. So good that most products proudly boast the quality (and quantity) of their butter-

This is just a small sample of the "pur beurre" crowd. They are a proud and gluttonous group. 

*I just thought this was beautiful. I apologize in advance.

This is America

While staying with Geoffrey and Arnaud I had the pleasure of visiting a French restaurant. Most of my experience in France has been with home cooked meals. That felt sort of right to me (i.e. very French) so I was excited to see what dining out was like. 

It looks like this:

And also a lot like this:

Since we wanted something quick, but didn't want to opt for fast food (MdDonald's has monopolized France, but the first Burger King is opening this month) we settled on a something both inexpensive, but with the amenities of fine dining (chairs and waiters). This idea, of course, is an American export.

Buffalo Grill is best described as the love child between T.G.I.Fridays and Applebee's--if the baby was conceived at a tailgate... on top of an indian burial ground. 

The restaurant as a whole is an effort to reduce "America" to its smallest, most essential parts. Obviously there's a lot of Native American imagery-

But also pinball-

It's like the founder of the restaurant watched a bunch of cowboy films and then accidentally popped in "Tommy."

All of that I can look past though. At least the chosen details--while anachronistic and tangential--are accurate. What really gets me is the dessert menu-

OK. They got the brownie with ice cream right. Fine. But that's like knowing that Eskimo's live in igloos (am I dating myself and being slightly racist? Who knows!). Pancakes on the dessert menu? Nice try but that's firmly a breakfast staple! Although I get why that my be confusing. It is basically a cake...But sorbet! Yogurt! 

Nice try Buffalo Grill but those aren't the makings of an American dessert. I'm calling you out!

But they really did get the brownie right. Seriously. It was delicious.