Neutral Mask and Greek Tragedy, Gaulier, The End of Part 1

"When I thought about it, I started to cry. He was right. I was pushing way too much. 'You push too much...' That wasn't just what was wrong with my performance. That's what had been going wrong in my life. I was pushing too much. And I'm so glad I asked him because he really will tell you and be honest. He will help you. Have you ever asked him to help you?"

"Uh...No. I guess not."

A month ago I met up with Charlotte, a friend of a man in my California mime class. She lives in Paris and is an alumna of the Philippe Gaulier School, which is why my mime friend, YT, recommended the place to me; he knew that his friend had gone through a life changing experience there and that the school was worth checking out. So Charlotte and I finally met for coffee on a Friday morning to talk about all of it.

"Really? You just leave the stage each time he says you're boring?"

"Yeah."

"You should really stay up there next time and ask him for help. He'll probably say no at first, but it's just what he does. Be insistent! He'll help you."

Yeah. Charlotte had a point. On stage a lot of the time here, I was too nice and polite. I wouldn't assert myself. Boring. And, just as Charlotte said, problems on stage and problems in life don't exist in separate vacuums. I have a tendency in certain situations to be so passive. I'm usually not a confrontational person. And this tendency would show from time to time on stage. And when the moment ended, and I received "it was boring, please leave the stage," without asking why or insisting on staying, the tendency revealed itself once more.

But I realized the difference; I never disagreed when Philippe said I was boring. I never disagreed when he said I wasn't having fun. He was right. So I didn't have a problem leaving because, like he says, when you're boring your time's up. Charlotte reminded me of something crucial though: learning and improvement require involvement and persistence. It's not enough to be there and do it. You have to throw yourself into it, and in this case, that means refusing to sit back down.

On the previous Monday we started the new class, Neutral Mask and Greek Tragedy, moving on from the more general and basic, but also scary and hilarious lessons of Le Jeu (The Game/Play) to incorporate Philippe's philosophy into this specific discipline. By the end of class that Monday I found myself in a familiar situation: I started off interestingly when moving with the neutral mask, and then when the teaching assistant removed the mask and I got to speak the text, I wasn't good. Myself and two other people on stage with me each got the classic "boreeng!"

This wasn't really a situation where I could challenge him, so at the end of the class, I went up to Philippe.

"Hey Philippe, so it's been several weeks since I've done anything interesting, and I was hoping you could help me understand why I've just been boring lately."

"Take your time."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Take your time. Slow down--"

"Cause I feel like I've been crushing something. It's just not happening."

"Slow down. You are not bad. You have no big problem like some people. You just need to take your time. You're open, don't worry, but take your time with this...take your time to find the pleasure, to understand this all, how it works...let it be slow. You've got time. You're close to something. You'll find something good soon."

Philippe was different than during class. He didn't look bitterly at me from over his spectacles like he tends to do to everyone during class. During class, Philippe is his own clown, and he puts on a show. He finds joy not in crushing people's feelings, which some misunderstand, but in making an art of blunt criticism. It's in the word choice and the delivery that he finds the joy of his clown, not in the resultant grimaces or occasional tears of his audience of students. But now that class was over, he was earnest. He spoke quietly and looked through his glasses right into my eyes, and I smiled. Charlotte was right.

"Thank you."

We both left the room. Then I came back because I realized I'd forgotten to take my sweater.

This neutral mask work contains a tad bit of a paradox. As we were reminded, total neutrality is impossible to attain. It doesn't exist. It's just a concept. But like our movement teacher says, just as we must strive to achieve the speed of light in our space travel capabilities so that along the way we can make great advancements and at least get close to the perfect ideal, so must we work towards neutrality. In working to be neutral, we eliminate the tics, mannerisms, and other speed bumps that get in the way of our clear expression, and when we've gotten as close as we can get to being neutral, we'll be left with what we'll never in our lives be able to discard: our selves. We'll see the core. We'll see what we've been covering for years, burying under acquired behavior and personal misperceptions. What we'll find is what makes us who we are as people and thus what we have to share as performers.

Many of the exercises in neutral mask are pretty much the same; we get up on stage in groups of four or five, put on the neutral masks, Philippe puts on some orchestral music, and we move. It was often walking slowly or starting on the ground, waking up, and standing and moving with the music. By the end of the first week, we started to incorporate text, but not before spending a few days with just the masks. A funny thing happens when you put on a neutral mask; as soon as your face is covered, it's like someone's turned the volume dial on your body way up. He slouches too much. Her back bends a bit in one direction. He sticks his chest out. She lets this sag, he lets this hang, she shuffles, he jerks. Every oddity and imperfection sings out loud and clear.

So come Friday, it was time to work in the Greek tragedy text. We all worked with the tale of Hector's final battle against Achilles from the Iliad in our respective languages. English Edward "Beautiful Mustache" Rapley went up and Portuguese Pedro followed, with Brazilians Juli and Joao rounding out the group. The men put on the white masks and lied down on the ground. Philippe banged his drum. Boom...boom...boom. Philippe fuddled with his iPod for a moment, settling on Verdi. Regal trumpets filled the air, and it wasn't long before the music's bombastic crescendos, soaring horns, and mighty strings surrounded us with Verdi's storm. Edward raised his long limbs and rose up from his feet slowly, his eyes wild.

"SOOOooooo SPEAKing, he drew the SHARP SWORD that hung long and heavy AT HIS SIDE, gathered himself, and SWOOOOOOOPED to atTACK, like a HIIIIIGH FLYYYYYING EAAAAAGLE darts down to the PLAINS through the dark clooOOUUUDS to seize a tender lamb or COWERING hare."

Edward was soaking in Verdi's magnificent, torrential downpour, riding on top of the cacophonous waves that slapped the walls of the room.

"Like the loveliest star set on its path amongst the the stars in the darkest of the night, so shone the brilliant gleam of the spear Achilles held quiver in HIS HAND as he purposed DEATH for GOOOODlike HEKTOR!"

It was as if the elements themselves could no longer do a thing to contain their explosive euphoria at the sight of these two exemplars of the human form, these two men so perfect in their ferocity, concentration, and bodily mastery about to battle, that the very sky exploded and the seas did, too. The gods themselves had to not just recognize that their brilliance had been approached by a man, but revel in the incomprehensible wonder that it had been attained by two men, and that one of these men would do the impossible: kill the other.

It was one of the most deeply moving, stirring, rousing performances I've ever seen, and it couldn't have happened with anyone else; it was totally, completely, and thoroughly Edward. Tall, mustachioed, fiery haired, English Edward was the conduit for this shocking eruption of passion and furor, the announcer to the greatest boxing match the universe had ever seen, in a way that was just so Edward! And I guess that's the goal of all this.

I couldn't stop smiling. I was shaking. In this moment, my classmate had found something fantastic that the neutral mask work had helped to unearth, to excavate. I so wanted to feel this kind of power run through me that I sprang up when it was time for another group to give it a shot. I put the white mask over my face and lay down on the ground. My body slowly started to gyrate with the rhythm of the new, gentler, music and I found myself moving over the floor, rolling backwards over my head, and sharply sitting up. The assistant took off my mask.

"So speaking...he drew the sharp sword...that hung long and heavy--"

And I was cut off so another classmate could have a chance to say the text. It all ended with "boreeng!" None of us would be given the chance to channel something like Edward did. And I couldn't disagree.

It took a few more weeks, but at the beginning of the end, something finally happened. I was working on one of Jason's speeches from Medea, when he curses her for killing their children and destroying his life. At this point we began without masks, doing movement on the ground as an element or a material until we felt the impulse to speak. I chose hot oil as my material and rock as my element.

My limbs began to shake and writhe and bounce, and my trunk, and my head, and then I started the text.

"You LOATHSOME creature, hateful beyond all other women, to ME, to the GODS, and to the WHOLE...HUMAN...RACE! You have had the RUTHLESSNESS to drive A SWORD into the CHILDREN WHOM YOU--"

"Sank you, zat eez enough," Philippe banged on his drum.

"Like ee just did, is zere a single woman een zis class, oo would fuck eem? Would anyone in ere fuck Avery de la sol [Philippe's nickname for me having to do with some region of France]? I'm not saying een life, but on stage? No? No...no. None, Avery. Sad. You see, like zat, you are unfuckable. You are too agressive, loud, eet is ugly. Not good. Bon. Go put on a suit like a banker and come back."

Bertrand happened to have a suit that happened to fit me (and became the go-to suit for everyone in the class and fit all of us for some reason even though we're different sized people) and I borrowed Ric's black turtleneck sweater and Tom's black shoes.

"Bon. Go to ze back of ze room. Now, slowly, walk towards us. Look een a mirror. Put on aftershave, while telleeng yourself, 'Avery de la sol, you are beautiful.' Smile at yourself. You want to seduce someone. When I bang ze drum, tell yourself you are beautiful."

Slowly, I walked towards the class, smiling at my imaginary reflection while rubbing aftershave into my face.

Boom.

"Avery, you are beautiful--"

"NO! I said 'Avery de la sol, you are beautiful!' Do as I say!"

"Sorry."

BOOM.

"Avery de la sol, you are beautiful."

"Now slowly, Avery de la sol, sing us cowboy song. When I heet drum, say you are beautiful."

I kept rubbing my face, smiling, and started to sing.

"Rocky Racoon...fell back in his room...only to find...Gideon's bible."

BOOM.

"Avery de la sol, you are beautiful...Rocky had come...equipped with a gun...to shoot off the legs...of his rival."

BOOM.

"Avery de la sol, you are beautiful...His rival it seems...had broken his dreams...by stealing the girl...of his fancy."

"Now slowly, say your text."

I fixed my gaze on Irene, the Italian from a German speaking town in Italy that was Austrian before World War I. The week before she had done an incredible Electra in the style of the fuhrer. It wasn't terribly hard to imagine her ruthlessly killing my children. My body was still and I looked her in the eyes, smiling.

"You loathsome creature, hateful beyond all other women--"

"Shut up."

...

"Speak."

"To the gods, to me--"

"Shut up."

...

"Speak."

"and to the whole human race."

"Now slowly put your 'and in your pocket. Keep looking at ze fascist [Philippe's nickname for Irene]. You 'ave a gun. Take eet out fast and aim."

I pulled my hand out of my pocket and aimed it, as a gun, at Irene.

"Speak."

"You have had the ruthlessness to drive a sword--"

BOOM.

"Avery de la sol, you are beautiful...into the children whom you bore."

"Shut up. You can shoot 'er, ten times, making a sound each time like ze gun. Zen talk a beet."

"You have destroyed me and left me childless! Psshhoo...pshoo...pshoo...pshoo...pshoo...pshoo......pshoo...pshoo......pshoo....pshoo...pshoo."

"Did I say eleven? Did I?"

"No."

"Zen why'd you shoot 'er eleven times?"

"I wanted to be sure."

"Good. Continue, still aiming ze gun. When I bang ze drum, sing a Frank Sinatra song."

"You have done these things, and you can you look upon the sun, and the earth, YOU, cruel perpetrator of the most unholy--"

BOOM.

"Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars. Let me see what Spring is like on, Jupiter and Mars."

"Speak."

"the most unholy of all deeds. My curse on you. Mind is clear now, but it was not clear when--"

BOOM.

"In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling kiss me."

"Speak slowly, and shoot 'er again."

"I took you from your home in a barbarian land...pshoo...pshoo...pshoo...pshooo...to a house in Greece...pshoo...pshoo...pshooo...disaster that you are, traitor to your father...pshoo...pshoo...pshoooo...and the land that nurtured you. The gods have launched on me the curse which should have punished you--"

BOOM.

"Fly me to the moon...and let me play among the stars...let me see what life is like on...Jupiter and Mars."

"Speak."

"Swooping down on me. It was after killing your brother at your hearth that you embarked on the Argo, the fair-prowed ship. That was how you began, and then, after you had--"

Boom.

"In other words...hold my hand. In other words...darling kiss me. Fill my heart with song and let me play forever more--"

"Shut up. Keep ze gun aimed......Look at 'er.......Slowly put down ze gun, and leave."

I did.

BOOM.

"Bon! Like zat, we love eem, no? Like zat, you are beautiful. It is gentle, you share wis us, you do not poosh. We love you like zat. Eet is not all ze way, but it eez a good start. Eef you start zere, you will be good. Yes."

Come Thursday it was time to audition for the showcase, in which chosen acts would perform for all the students of the school and whoever they invited to come see the show. Each student auditioned with either a monologue or a scene. The morning was off to a timid start, as there were over forty students since the two sections of the class were put together for the audition.

"Anyone want to go third? Come on, there's no point in waiting. You'll do it eventually."

Jaime, the assistant teacher, wasn't convincing anyone.

"I might just pick names from the list..."

I got up and walked to the back of the room, facing the crowd.

Walking forward slowly, I began to touch my face, choosing a focal point on the wall, above the crowd.

"You loathsome creature, hateful beyond all other women to me, to the GODS, and to the whole human RACE! You have had the ruthlessness--" I drew my gun"--to drive a SWORD into the children whom you bore. You have destroyed me and left me childless! Pshoo...pshoo...pshoo...pshoo...pshoo...pshoo....pshoo.....pshoo....pshoo....pshoo....."

I lost sensation in my abdomen as my core collapsed on itself a bit, and my arms started to tingle. Something very weird was happening.

"You have done these things, and yet can you look upon the SUN and the EARTH, YOUU, cruel perpetrator--"

BOOM.

"Sank you! Well, zat was orrible, no? Bad. What happened, Avery de la sol? Last time you were beautiful. We loved you. Zis time you poosh so hard, you crumple your face, your body looks terrible...A shame. Today, you deed not want to be beautiful. Goodbye."

This was the first time I auditioned for a show and didn't get in, and certainly the first time I wasn't allowed to finish a monologue during an audition. It felt bad. Because he was right. But at the same time, it was liberating.

Towards that end of that Thursday, after Philippe cut off another student, there was a little protest.

"I want to be good Philippe. I want to be beautiful, I really do."

"Sorry."

"I want to be good."

"Look, if you really want to be good, you are an ass-licker. If you want to take something around the space and discover something, whether it is good or bad, then you are honest...You are young. You have time to be bad. But be bad with panache, with something special."

That was my problem. I wanted to be good. I wanted to impress. And as a result, I closed off and rushed. I didn't explore. I failed, but without panache.

And that's what I love. That whether you're "good" or "bad" at the end of the performance, no matter what, you can still have panache, something special. And that's what's worth striving for.

I came here four months ago having never been out of the U.S. and knowing pretty much no one except for the family I was fortunate to have here. Tomorrow, I'm leaving with a passionate love for a new place, and incredible friends from all over the world.

It breaks my heart that when I come back to study again at L'École Philippe Gaulier, which I inevitably will when I finish college, my friends will have already moved on. But nevertheless, I can't wait to pick up another phase of this adventure. This place is so worth coming back for. The lessons and the people...I love them. I can totally see how this place changed Charlotte's life. It definitely changed mine.

France, America, Just Some Experiences

This morning as I was leaving the gym, a man who looked to be in his late fifties, maybe early sixties, looked at me and exclaimed "hey, you're an American!" I was confused for a moment until I realized that Hervé (the French equivalent of Avery!), the man who runs the gym, must have told him. I smiled at Hervé who was sitting behind his desk and looked back at the man.

"Yes, I'm American! Have you been to the U.S.?"

"Yeah I love it!" He high fived me and squeezed my hand, clearly thrilled to be touching the noble digits of an American.

"Where in America are you from?"

"I'm from right outside Boston."

"Oh Boston! What a lovely city! It's so beautiful. Beautiful. Very cultured people. Great. And the chicks! They are so beautiful!"

I laughed and smiled and the man, whose name I never got, laughed louder and smiled wider. He adjusted his wide brimmed hat and colorful scarf.

"I lived in Manhattan a long time. Loved it."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! You ever been?"

"Of course, I love New York!"

"Yeah, Washington Square. Great place. And the chicks! They are easy, eh? HA! American women, oh man. You know what I mean?"

He made a not quite so subtle humping motion towards Hervé's desk as he illustrated what he meant.

The guy seemed to have really enjoyed his time in the States.

"But America...it is sad now, is it not? People are unemployed. They travel a thousand miles to find a job and still can't get one. Your government is no good. The Republicans keep getting in Obama's way. He did nothing wrong and they're blaming him for their mistakes. It is bad. And the rich people get so much money! They look at the poor and walk away."

"Yeah it's definitely pretty unequal. I read that 1% of Americans have 24% of the wealth."

"Wow. Yeah I hope it gets better. Americans are good. A good people. They deserve good things."



A week ago, I met my friend Rachel at Place d'Italie to get dinner at a restaurant she'd said was great--Chez Gladines--and it was. We were walking by a commercial center when we saw an old man carrying several bags, dressed in heavy clothes, and walking with a cane. After a moment, his cane slipped, he dropped his bags, and he fell to the ground. He was still. Suddenly he began moaning and clutching his chest. His legs tensed slowly and released. A crowd formed around him. We asked him if he was ok and he was unresponsive for a few seconds. Then almost at the same time, everyone took out their cell phones to dial the police to get him help. In a mix of French and some words that to me sounded more like Italian or Spanish possibly, he loudly interjected.

"No! Don't call the police! Please! Don't call them. I'm Roma. They will lock me up and kick me in the head and send me away. Don't call."

Everyone lowered their phones and looked around at one another. After another moment, the man clutched his chest and moaned again. Then he was still and we asked him if he needed help. He started to try to get up off the ground. Some people walked away, but Rachel and I stayed, quickly looking between our phones, each other, and the man.

"Sir, do you need help? Are you ok?"

He didn't respond. Medical technicians came out from the commercial center and began to get him off the ground. He acquiesced. Once he was on his feet, they walked him into the building.



Several weeks ago, when my friends and I were getting on the RER train to head back into Paris after class at Gaulier, we were being perhaps a bit louder than usual. A man stared at us intensely with wide eyes.

"You speak English?!"

"Yes."

He continued to stare silently. I ventured a guess at why.

"You don't hear English too often on the train?"

"Never! Where are you from?"

"I'm from the U.S., he's from Australia, he's from Singapore, she's from Brazil, and she's from Italy."

"Ah. I used to live in the U.S."

I got up to sit across from the man, who was dressed in a suit and held a briefcase on his lap. He looked Russian to me and his accent wasn't quite like many French accents I'd heard.

"Where did you live?"

"Santa Barbara. I studied at UC Santa Barbara for two years. Got my master's there."

"Oh wow! It's beautiful there isn't it?"

"It is, yes."

"What did you study?"

"Environmental science. I worked in the oil industry for a long time."

"Oh, wow. But you don't anymore?"

"No. What did you think of the BP oil spill?"

"Uh, I was against it. Yeah."

He continued his intense gaze at me, unblinking. Not smiling. He didn't think it was funny.

"I think Obama waited way too long to respond and missed a real opportunity to do something about alternative, clean energies. He waited months! It was ridiculous."

Pause. He didn't respond.

"Where are you from?"

"France!"

Oh, that answered the question. Still, something sounded a bit bizarre, but what do I know.

"Where are you from in America?"

"I'm from right outside Boston."

"Oh, ok."

We chatted a bit about the States and he started to kind of avoid my gaze. The conversation came to a lull and he went back to reading his paper. I talked with my friends some more, when, after a few minutes, he interrupted me.

"Do you know what I think the world will resent America for for a long time?"

I hesitated. "No what's that?"

"Two things. The war in Iraq and the financial crisis."

"I agree with you. And to that I'd add Afghanistan, too."

His gaze started to get intense again, unwavering.

"But especially the financial crisis. Your country's problems have hurt the whole world."

"I agree."

He didn't really care that I agreed though. He had found an American to unload on.

"And I think it was so absurdly selfish."

"Yeah I agree with you. It's unbelievable how little the financial institutions cared about the effect what--"

"It wasn't just the financial institutions. It was your government."

"Yes."

"And it wasn't just the government. I think that every single American shares responsibility for this crisis. Every American."

Silence for a moment.

"Really?" I countered with.

"Yes." His death-stare continued.

"Why's that?"

"You all live in the system that created the crisis and did nothing to change it. You voted for the people who made it happen."

"But you really think every American is responsible?"

"Yes."

"But we had no say in what happened at AIG or Lehman Brothers or anywhere. And so many Americans were seriously screwed by this thing. How are we responsible?"

"Because you all did nothing."

This time, I started to feel uncomfortable and had trouble meeting his unflinching laser stare.

"And I think America is doomed."

"Doomed?"

"Yes. You're all in big trouble."

"I kind of agree with that a bit."

"I think within ten years, America will barely be a speck on the map to the rest of the world. You're falling. You'll be replaced."

"Who do you think will replace us? China? India?"

"No."

"Who?"

"France and Germany."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Wow, France and Germany?"

"Yes. And within fifteen years, I bet America will dissolve."

"Really. You think it won't exist anymore?"

"Yes. It will collapse. The country is too different everywhere you go in it. People can't agree on anything. Your government gets nothing done. Are you going back?"

"Yeah I'm going back in a bit over a month."

"You shouldn't go back."

"Well I already have my return ticket. And it's my home."

"Still you should stay in France. It makes more sense to stay in France or somewhere in Europe. You really shouldn't go back...America will collapse."

I looked in his eyes. We stayed there for a few quiet seconds.

"Wow. You really think so?"

"Yes. Believe me."

"Wow."

"I hope it doesn't, but it will."

He was so dead certain. The ride ended in silence. Then, when he got off, I extended my hand.

"Uh, nice meeting you sir. Good talking to you."

He mustered a polite smile and shook my hand. The laser gaze was gone, though.

Cultural Value? Or Odd Person? Or My Ignorance?

From the moment I got on the RER train at CDG Airport with my mom's cousin Jeffrey and his daughter Alice to head into Paris on Thursday, August 26th, it was clear that I had arrived in another land with a culture vastly different from the one that had sent me here. Every day since then I've tried to better understand this place and its values, as well as the differing and opposing views held by Paris's diverse populations.

However, it's hard. When I observe a majority of people behaving a certain way in certain situations, I feel as though I can consider that behavior a convention of their culture. But when I see several people behave a certain way or hear several people say a certain thing or talk a certain way, it's not as clear. Does this thing this person says or does reflect on the culture in which he/she lives, or is this just someone's own thing they do? Am I thinking too much in terms of "what does 'this culture' think or do?" No matter what, every day I'm faced with lots of questions in just trying to make sense of what's around me.

Take for example, my kung fu class. Every class we practice holding stances for a long time so that we internalize the form and build up muscular endurance. When my kung fu teacher has several fresh red dots decorating the crotch of the pants of her white uniform, does that represent a French aversion to tampons? Or does it reflect back on the Orthodox Pei Mei Nam Anh Kung Fu School? OR is it the expression of a broader mind-conquers-body value of the martial arts, rather than just Pei Mei? How does she not notice? Does she notice and not care? Aren't periods supposed to be uncomfortable? Or has she just so transcended the plane on which her body exists that she can objectively look down on menstrual cramps with little more than mild amusement, smile, and descend deeper into the stance of the tiger?

As I'm in France, I often encounter French people, especially on the metro, but sometimes in classes, too. On more than just a few occasions, some of these people have smelled. They've smelled bad. A handful of those bad smelling people have smelled bad enough that my mind needed to justify it. Is there a bloc of French society that looks down on what we consider "cleanliness?" Do they define it differently? Or is there a recessive allele in the French gene pool that codes for a life threatening allergy to the water that comes out of a shower head? An allergy so severe in its attack that its sufferers are immediately thrust into anaphylactic shock upon even entering a bathroom? If so, must they shower with an epipen? Is it fair of me to ascribe this in any way to their being French? Or am I just aware of the stereotype and looking for people who fulfill it? After all, there are plenty of smelly people in the U.S., and I've never thought twice about attributing their odor to anything other than their own personal ambivalence towards soap.

Almost every day I give some money to homeless people. I just feel so guilty that I have it and they don't that I need to. I know a euro or more won't save their lives, but I like to think it can at least help, if not slightly renew their faith in the capacity of fellow humans to care. But lately, I've noticed something. In the last week alone I've seen at least three homeless men, either camped out in the rain or in the metro, cradling sickeningly adorable puppies. Puppies cute enough that you'd think they had been plucked directly from the pages of an ASPCA calendar. This also makes my mind enter that justification process. If there is a question chemical, it floods my brain, and if there are question receptors, they hungrily bind it.

"How much do puppies go for in Paris? That puppy looks pretty new--when did he get it? Moreover, why did he get it? Does the companionship of a fresh puppy improve the loneliness of a homeless life? If he's struggling to stay alive, does adding a puppy to the mix represent a wise choice? Is this even his first puppy? If not, what happened to the others? How much in donations does he receive every day? Without the cost of sustaining the puppy, is it enough to feed himself? Including the cost of the puppy, can he sustain himself? By what percent does the cuteness of the puppy increase his donations? Does it at all? If it does, will the increase be enough to satisfy his and the puppy's needs? Or is the puppy actually so cost-effective that it pays for itself and yields a higher daily donation for this man's own costs? Is it pessimistic of him to have bought this puppy? That is, does he believe that people are uncaring enough about other people that they can't donate to a homeless man unless there are literally sad puppy eyes staring back at them? In his experience, is this really true? If I don't donate to this man, am I now also responsible for the possible starving death of a puppy? Or can the puppy actually feed itself? I consider myself a sensitive person, but am I being insensitive by detaching like this to wonder about his situation and his motives?"

Sometimes on the metro, especially line 1, musicians come on and play for five or ten minutes, solicit tips, then leave. Usually it's an accordion player with a prerecorded accompaniment amplified through a speaker, or a singer with similar accompaniment, or several horn players. Very often, except for the singers, the musicians are really good and I almost always give them money to share my appreciation for them sharing their music. I'm nearly always the only one on the train smiling, tapping his foot, and swaying with the music. And it really is good music. On Thursday I saw a pair of men, one on clarinet and one on sax, play a fantastic version of "When The Saints Go Marching In" and an exciting rendition of the great old Jewish classic, "Hava Nagila." To anyone observing the situation from elsewhere, it would've probably appeared as though everyone on the train, other than this slightly tired and foreign looking unshaven guy (me), got the memo that Sarkozy had recently outlawed public displays of enjoyment. The men played on, seeming to appreciate my enthusiasm, while every other person sat still, staring into nothing while appearing to contemplate their dear old grandmother's slow descent into irreversible dimentia and the inevitable tragedy when the family decided it was time to pull the plug. Again, the questions came.

"Are these people so used to hearing great, spontaneous music in public spaces that now, it's just annoying? Or do they just not like music? Does "Hava Nagila" bring back horrible, torturous, repressed memories of family holiday parties gone sickeningly awry? Or are they all secretly having the time of their lives? And they're just afraid to show it because they think everyone else will judge them? Why don't we have this kind of public performance on transportation in the U.S.? Wait...do we? And have I just missed it?! If we don't, can I somehow make it happen? Oh, wait I've seen people in the T stations and the NYC subway stations playing music! But not on the actual train. Can that happen? Does it happen? If it can happen, do I need a permit to do it? I know you need one to play in the station, but what about the train? Do these guys here need permits? Do you audition for one? If so, then why aren't lots of the singers any good? And why hasn't the accordion caught on in the U.S.?"

For some reason, almost every thing I see here I try to explain to myself through the lens of my being in France, but I just don't think that works. If there's one thing all cultures share, it's smelly people. We've all got em. That may be the main lesson I take away from these almost four months.

Clown at L'École Philippe Gaulier

Philippe Gaulier, founder, principal instructor, and all around guru of The Philippe Gaulier School, is the Dumbledore and Dr. House of the theatre.

The depth of his knowledge knows no ends; the man has been working for more than four decades and has taught and learned from some of the great artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. His former students include Emma Thompson, the founders of Chicago's 500 Clown Company, Sacha Baron Cohen, and countless other phenomenal practitioners of theatre arts. He is renowned as the best teacher of Clown and Bouffon in the world, and his faculty are brilliant (and incredibly limber).

However, Philippe Gaulier is also an asshole. He will not cure your ailment until he's insulted and ridiculed you and made everyone laugh at you for how "fuckeeng boreeng" or "fuckeeng idiote" you were.

Many of his exercises are designed to include an element of potentially huge embarrassment, and if they don't include embarrassment, the embarrassment comes when you receive your almost daily dose of scathing abuse.

On the first day we did one of his favorite exercises. We partnered into couples (there are twenty four of us in the class) and danced to whatever music Philippe chose to play from his iPod over the speaker system, and continued dancing until he saw someone look bored. He stopped the music.

"Which of you seenks your partner eez boreeng? Raise your and!"

Timidly, a few people raised their hands.

"Which of you seenks 'my partner eez like Adolf! My partner eez fascist! I want to kill my partner'?"

As we laughed, more people raised their hands and he began to single students out.

"You! You danced like you wanted a wheelchair!" he yelled at one girl. "It was awful. Awful."

"And you!" he pointed at me, "You dance like a gay man in one of zose gay clubs!" I started to consider taking this as a compliment since I think gay men generally move better than straight men until he brought it home with "eet was orreeble. Just so bad."

Philippe's insults very often demonstrate remarkable creativity. After a Portuguese girl performed an exercise, he posed the following question to the class:

"Does everyone ere know oo 'Salazar' was? Salazar? Salazar? No? Well years ago in Portugal zere was an orrible man named Salazar oo did orrible sings to peepul. Ee ad a secret police and zey would take peepul away in ze night and keel zem. Oo says 'Salazar's police did not keel enough; zey missed one'?" The point was taken.

Another one of Philippe's favorite exercises is his variation on "musical chairs" in which the person left out of a chair is given the chance to "save his/her life" by singing to everyone in a compelling and beautiful manner (while clearly having fun, the most important thing). After one student made a failed attempt to save her life, Philippe asked the rest of the class, "Do all of you know Pol Pot? Do you know oo Pol Pot was? No? Years ago zere was a man in Cambodge and ee did somesing orrible. But was what ee did nearly as orrible as what I just saw? NO!"

Philippe's working knowledge of genocidal dictators is impressive, and even more impressive is how frequently he draws on it when talking about poor performances. He also likes to compare quiet, powerless voices to a "leetle cat oo az lost iz balls and says [high voice] 'meow, meow, my balls, my balls!!'"

So how is it possible to learn anything from a man who so enjoys berating his students? How do I have fun? Well, honestly, his insults are usually hilarious, despite being sometimes borderline or full on racist and almost always really offensive, and personally, I find it refreshing to receive such horribly blunt criticism from a teacher, because that's something you pretty much never get in America, especially in the Arts. Part of what Philippe is teaching us is to laugh at ourselves and accept critiques without taking them personally, even if they're just incredibly harsh. And when he gives compliments, which is happening more and more frequently, they're very gratifying. "Not bad at all" is a good compliment from him, but to receive something like "you ad great fun, zere was a good complicité (I'll go into that)" is wonderful. And when he told one woman "zat was fantastic," we all clapped.

Classes are divided into two sections. The first hour and a half (2-3:30) is the movement/aerobics/acrobatics section, taught by Tomas, a Swiss-German dancer/acrobat/gymnast/unbelievably flexible and strong dude who is more sensitive than Philippe but is still very honest and quite a task master. For five or ten minutes we play games like six-square--like good old playground four-square only with six squares and one two-person team per square--or various "walk the space" theatrey things that make us run around and throw things to each other and jump and roll and generally just warm up. For the next forty-five minutes, Tom leads us through various stretches and aerobic exercises that loosen us up and make us sweat and tremble. He frequently introduces difficult stretches as "zis vun is a bit Nazi" or "zis vun is a Chinese-style exercise, so get ready, ya?" I've just accepted that in this place, things which people would consider "racist" or at least "culturally insensitive" aren't a big deal at all. At this point I know to expect pain whenever it's time for a Chinese stretch or exercise. Fair to the Chinese? Probably not. But hey, it is what it is. And for some reason the leg and back stretch we're supposed to do against a wall if we find ourselves in too much pain is called a "vegetarian cup." I don't know. It just is.

After we're all warm and loose, it's time for acrobatics. Day one we started working on handstands and headstands, and from there we've moved on to standing on people's shoulders, standing on people's hips, cartwheels, somersaults, backward somersaults, front flips, back flips, butt sits, airplanes, and handstands on chairs. The handstand is the building block of almost everything we do, so we work on them every day. I can do handstands and headstands against walls and against people, but getting up there on my own with no extra support still eludes me. However, I did successfully balance a chair handstand last week! That was one of the most incredible feelings I've ever had. Acrobatics has put my body in elements I've never experienced before and made my body do things I thought were impossible. The combination of mime, kung fu, and acrobatics is a phenomenal one and every day I find that something I did in one class helps me do something I'm doing in another. It's very exciting for me to see that so many physical limitations I thought I had are really psychological, and that through work, I can overcome them. It just takes work and patience and the humility to ask for help.

After Tom's class we have a fifteen minute break and then Philippe. We usually start Philippe's class with "Simon/Samuel Says" or the partner dancing kill boring people game, but lately it's mostly been Simon or Samuel Says. After we play the game for 45 seconds to a minute, Philippe stops and asks who has made an error. If you did something wrong, you have to ask for kisses from your classmates, however many you want, and if any of them say no, then you must walk to the front of the class to where Philippe stands, and he performs the torture ritual, where he grabs and twists your arm behind your back, then gives you a "French shampoo" which is just rubbing your hair, then "ze guillotine" with his hand, then "ze Guantanamo" which is him pushing your thumb down into your hand really hard. After one more round, we're usually done, but ONLY if he says "simon says ze game is over," otherwise all the students who prematurely moved to sit back down must line up against the wall to be either kissed or slapped by their more intelligent classmates.

Then, the exercises, which are really more games than exercises. All are geared towards establishing "complicité" or, complicity, with the scene partner, and having fun and sharing it with the audience. That is the basic thing of this school's philosophy, as can be seen in everything that Sacha Baron Cohen has ever done. Have fun, share it, and be willing to do anything. The complicity especially is huge. There needs to be connection with the scene partner. Or else, for all intents and purposes, you're alone. And if there's another person on stage but you're performing like you would if you were alone, ya look like a dumbass.

My two favorite exercises so far (partly because I got compliments from Philippe when I did them but mostly because I had lots of fun, which I guess is WHY I got compliments) were things we did last week. The first, which we did last Monday, was another complicité exercise, as well as a tool to work on "acting in major." Philippe talks a lot about how an actor can act in major or minor. An actor in major commands the stage and shares pleasure with all the spectators, while an actor in minor quietly and attentively listens and supports the actor in major. In this game, two actors walked to the stage. Each was given a scarf to tuck into the back of his/her pants like a tail, and the goal was to grab the other actor's scarf and keep your own. In playing the game there had to be complicité the whole time; the actors needed to be connected and grounded in each other's eyes and work off of each other without one person steamrolling the thing too much. Once an actor grabbed the other's scarf, it became his turn to act in major. He could sing a song, perform a poem, say nonsense syllables, pretty much do anything as long as it was compelling and fun. He also had to taunt his partner (who would play in minor) with the scarf until Philippe indicated that the partner could try to get the scarf back. If the partner got the scarf back, then it became his/her turn to play in major. I liked this game so much because it became incredibly physical. It's a sport. When I was done the first time, Philippe said "Zis one is a bit primative, no? But ee ad good complicité and ee was fun, wasn't he?" This felt awesome, even if he called me "primative" because I tended to try the same scarf-getting tactics again and again with lots of energy and not many new ideas. Then when I did it again later with another partner who was TONS of fun (my first one was fun too though don't worry) he said again "good complicité, and you ad great fun."

The second exercise I loved was the next day, when we mimicked our classmates. One person would take the stage and just truthfully respond to questions Philippe would ask, some vulgar, some almost mundane, others quite interesting. When an actor felt ready, he/she could go up and stand next to the subject and begin to mimic. I cried from laughter during this exercise! My classmates were so funny! I also had a ton of fun mimicking this Argentinian woman who speaks fluent French. She responded to Philippe in French, not English. Philippe and lots of others didn't know that I can speak French, so when I started mimicking her French with a correct accent, also trying to get a bit of her Argentinian accent in there, I got some good laughs, and I played up her physical mannerisms and just had fun. When I was done, Philippe said "Ze fun was good, yes. And where did you learn to speak French? You speak good French." I sat back down on the bench with the others, and he turned to me again and said "it was good." Then after class he came up to me and said "why do you speak French?" I told him that in school we were given the option to study French or Spanish starting in sixth grade, and I chose French because I thought it sounded nicer. Again, he told me "you speak good French, yes."

That was a great week. It was really gratifying to finally feel like I was internalizing and owning the lessons of this place; that is that to perform well, you MUST have fun, you must connect with your scene partner(s), and you must SHARE the fun! Also, to have him validate those things felt pretty damn nice.

A few days later he brought me back down, though. We were doing a Greek chorus exercise, in which one leader performs whatever movements he/she feels like performing to the music Philippe has selected, and four or 6 or 10 people behind him/her mimic the movements exactly. This way a spontaneous ensemble is created. Well my group was six ladies with me in the back. We didn't do so well. I didn't do so well.

Philippe, as usual, was ready.

"STOP! Zat was AWFUL!" He pointed at me. "You! You look like a terrorist oo az died and gone to Allah and received is 72 virgins but az NO idea what to do wis zem!"

You win some, you lose some. More often, he's Dr. House.

Little More on Kung Fu

I don't entirely understand why, but lots of people are shocked when I tell them about what goes on in my kung fu class, not entirely because of how brutal it seems, but because there are women in the class and the same (generally, I'll get into that) is expected of them. That is to say the women get punched in the stomach too, the women also have to do three minute planks, and the women are just subject to all of the same things that the men are.

Recently the schedule of my class changed a bit in that on Mondays, Yseult's instruction is replaced by that of a lovely fellow named Emmanuel and another guy a little older than me but who is a second degree black sash (Yseult and Emmanuel are third degree black sashes). Let it go on the record that Yseult, who is a short, pretty blond woman who appears as the stereotype of what men find completely lacking in menace, routinely punches harder than Emmanuel, drives us harder than Emmanuel, and executes the technique with more devoted and concentrated intensity than Emmanuel. Emmanuel's great don't get me wrong, but Yseult is very, very powerful. It's funny to me/bizarre that so many people are so surprised that women can be subjected to these kinds of physical challenges and rise to them without breaking themselves. Uh, they can.

Oddly, though, sometimes the instructors, including Yseult, say things like "the men can do the planks ___ way, and if necessary, the women can do them this [slightly easier] way." However, the women pretty much never do them the easier way, and neither does Yseult, who can do planks supporting herself on two bent index fingers. Seriously. Bruce Lee stuff here. So there's kind of this weird option of a double standard that actually, people don't accept. Contradictions, contradictions. Oh well. But yeah, in summary, there are women in my class, and they too get punched and hit and stuff. I know my friends who may read this wouldn't be surprised by that and I wasn't, but for some reason I've encountered people who are really surprised.

Wow. Music. I miss you.

I've got a few posts in the works right now, and unfortunately since I seem to want to make most of my posts into essays, they're taking a while and are frustrating to write. So I've got drafts and I'm still organizing my thoughts on these things, and one will be messy anyway, but meanwhile, I've got something I'm so ready to talk about.

I'm realizing every day the height of importance music holds in my life. I've played piano twice in the ten weeks I've been here and lately, I've felt as though a part of me is missing. This is by far the longest I've gone without touching a piano since I was three years old, and the separation just became excruciating.

Several weeks ago I went with some friends to see a one man show at the Irish Cultural Center. The show, called "Mimic," was the (fictional) life story of a man with a phenomenal talent for mimicry who eventually found himself alone, miserable, and dependent on artificial, impersonal pleasure in order to survive because of his own personal dysfunction as a human without his own identity and the overwhelming dissatisfaction of living in his futuristic, individuality-obliterating society. The text this performer created was absolutely beautiful poetry, and as he sat at the piano and scored his performance, I found myself impressed by his skills (and soothed by his fantastic Irish accent) but longing to be in his place. When the show ended and everyone left the room, I went up to the piano and sat down. A Steinway. Steinway grand, I noticed. I closed my eyes for a moment, straightened my back, and started to play "Willow, Weep For Me." The first, most superficial pleasure came in noticing that my hands still knew exactly what to do. But then the music washed through me and an incredible warmth consumed me. I felt as though I'd been powerfully embraced by the arms of an old friend or family member I hadn't seen in years and hadn't thought much about until that moment of reconnection, when all the memories came flooding back. A part of me I'd neglected was alive again, and the feeling was overwhelming; I realized just how much of me that part was.

The piano is my oldest, most supportive friend. I remember when I was a toddler, sitting on my grandmother's lap on Sunday afternoons at the piano, both of us laughing as we played the duet she'd taught me.

I remember my first piano lesson--April 27th, 1999--as my teacher told me "this key is Middle C. Play Middle C." I did. "This next one is D. Play D." I did. "Does that make this one E?" I asked. "Yes!" She said. "And this one F?" I asked, more excited. "Yes!!" She agreed. "And this one G?!" I exclaimed. "Yeah!! Right! But watch out, because the next one is not H. It's A. We start at A and end at G, but Middle C is in the middle of the piano, which is why you and I started there." "Oh, right."

If there's one thing I've never had to learn from any teacher, it's how to enjoy playing piano, how to play with love and sensitivity. To me, that's almost always been the clearest thing. Whether it's because the first few years I learned piano I nearly only played music I loved--Good Day Sunshine, Help!, We Can Work It Out, Ticket To Ride, Thriller, The Entertainer, the Ghostbusters theme, the Starwars theme, and You Are The Sunshine Of My Life come to mind--or something else entirely, I don't know, but I've always loved playing. Then learning jazz piano opened my mind more and gave me more freedom while also exposing me to an incredible variety of music I didn't know but came to deeply adore.

Even during the two and a half years I didn't take lessons, I played all the time and kept writing and learning music. Sometimes it was ten minutes a day, sometimes an hour a day, sometimes an hour in a week, sometimes five hours in a week, but I don't think I ever went a week without touching the piano. This past year studying classical piano and practicing at least an hour a day every day brought me to a level I hadn't been at before, and since I finally had the maturity and self-discipline to make a devoted habit of really working on it, I gained new skills, but loving it was not one of them. The piano was already a part of me and had been since a long time ago.

On Thursday I went to a bar with a friend from my clown school acting class. It was a piano bar, and there was a young Brazilian man playing accompaniment to a young French woman singing mostly American songs and a few French ones. The woman was not a very good singer and her attempt at the American "R" sound was far too hard and just made words sound harsher than they needed to sound, a shame considering that her native accent would have done just fine. The piano player was the one who got my attention though. Technically, he was not too bad. He had good dexterity and could play lots of notes fast. However, his touch was just stale. It was shallow. It was hollow. Watching them and listening to them, my hands started physically aching. My whole body had an itch to get up there. To hear someone playing for a bar full of people and sharing so little love and so little emotion while being given a gorgeous and out of this world opportunity broke my heart. After not very long, I asked the manager if there'd be a break in the set and if they'd let "other people," meaning me, go up and play. Of course, she said no. I asked again half an hour later and the answer was still, unsurprisingly, no.

My teacher at clown school, Philippe Gaulier, despises being bored. He absolutely hates it. And he hates when an actor isn't having fun, or just as bad, isn't sharing the fun with his or her scene partner(s), or also as bad, they aren't sharing the fun with the audience. So in the last few weeks my tolerance for boredom/lack of fun has been seriously depleted. Watching this pair play made me wish, cruelly, that Philippe Gaulier was in the bar so he could've shouted at them, as he does to everyone in the class several times a week, "Zat was fuckeeng boreeng! So awful. Sank you for sharing zat orrible moment. Now leave ze stage!"

Harsh? Yeah. Pretty harsh. But deserved, and not in a punishment way, but in a benevolent way, actually. Philippe teaches people never to accept mediocrity from themselves, partly because if they do, in their heads, they'll hear him scream "ZAT WAS FUCKEENG TERRIBLE!" but mostly because the pleasure of sharing a beautiful, vulnerable moment with people is one of the most profound joys anyone can experience, and can be revelatory for audience and performer alike, and to waste an opportunity for that, for whatever reason, is beyond shameful. Love what you do and share that love with me is his primary lesson, I think. Question his means all you want, but honestly his method works, and the last time I played piano I felt that lesson in action.

I miss the piano. A lot. And if there's one thing I've learned from this separation, it's that I'm never going this long without playing again. It's too god damn beautiful to stay away from.

Mime + Kung Fu = Great Combination Part I

Ok, this time I've really gone way too long without writing something, especially considering how cool this stuff I'm doing is. So what have I been doing?

Well since September 6th I've been taking kung fu classes twice a week, each class two hours long. On October 4th I began my corporeal mime classes, which are also twice a week, for three hours each class. This past Monday the 18th my clown classes started--five days a week, four hours each class yes it's intense and awesome--but those will get their own separate entry. They truly must.

I began studying kung fu this summer at Calvin Chin's Martial Arts Academy in Newton, which teaches the Hung Gar style. I only did it one hour a week so it was hard to really absorb a lot of it, but I got acquainted with some of the basic ideas and some of the basic techniques of the style and its forms (a piece of "choreography" or "movement" that mimics your contribution to a real, albeit beautiful fight if you were very good at fighting). I started studying corporeal mime last year at school, and when a friend of mine from my improv group sent me a piece Bruce Lee wrote about his philosophy of kung fu, relating it back to improv, I thought it seemed to apply to what I was learning in my mime class too, and so I thought it would be cool to study for that reason and also as just another random skill that would be good to have and fun and interesting to pursue. As the summer progressed I got very busy with my friends making a theatre piece, and though I kept going to kung fu it really wasn't a big priority for me. However, I was still really drawn to the internal focus and physical agility it cultivates, and I really liked the idea of working on this discipline that could give me a lifelong bodily goal, so I decided I'd find a place to continue studying in Paris.

What I found was the Orthodox Pei Mei Nam Anh Kung Fu School of Paris. The school was founded by Grand Master Nam Anh, a Vietnamese man born into a family of practitioners of the martial arts. The school teaches the Pei Mei style of kung fu, which was developed in southern Shaolin in the 18th century, and as it is an "orthodox school," its style of instruction is traditional and rigorous. We begin each class by saluting the shrine to the ancestors and then commence an hour of exercises designed to strengthen and loosen the muscles as well as drill correct form. We hold stances for extended periods of time, practice punching and kicking techniques, and focus extensively on the most efficient and effective ways of generating force with the body--collapsing the torso, rotating it, and unwinding a punch, all at the same time, is the Pei Mei technique of punching, and it is hard. Doing it for twenty minutes makes you sweat. That seems to be the goal of the first hour of the class, to make you sweat. We also do planks for three minutes every class, which were excruciating and impossible at first and now are becoming manageable, but are still far from enjoyable. Although there is a certain pleasure from that kind of pain you get from forcing yourself to do something your body will benefit from in the long run.

A big part of this conditioning which is necessary to achieve a body capable of sustaining the practice and performance of kung fu forms is learning to deal with pain. You either figure out a way to lessen it through certain physical methods and the practiced execution of correct technique, or you simply learn to perceive levels of pain as lesser than you once did, effectively creating a higher threshold for your own physical suffering. Both the former and the latter seem to be reasons that our teacher walks around and punches us all in the stomach three times each class. Yep. You read that right. Each class, part way through the first hour, she makes her way around the room punching everyone in the stomach.

Now, when I first saw this, I was surprised. Calvin Chin never punched me in the stomach. Maybe it was because I used to have playdates with his son Drew at their house in elementary school and so he just couldn't bring himself to hit me. But probably not. The Calvin Chin school is not an "orthodox" school, and Calvin and the other instructors would say themselves in class that when they studied when they were young, their instructors would do things like make them hold stances until they sweat and practice punches and kicks for half an hour, just crazy stuff! At Calvin Chin's Martial Arts Academy, they prefer to keep classes to an hour and devote them mostly to working on the forms with the understanding that serious students will practice the techniques more extensively on their own time, and will also show up for several classes at the school each week to round out their program of study, ultimately learning proper technique through correct practice of forms. Well at the Orthodox Pei Mei Nam Anh Kung Fu School of Paris, the teacher punches you in the stomach. Three times.

Having spent the last summer studying the Hung Gar style lightly, I was surprised to see this. The teacher, Yseult--pronounced "ee-suhl"--is smaller than probably all of the students in the class, but is quite skilled and thus very powerful. She would walk up to an experienced student, who would hold his stance but open his arms, and quickly deliver one loud punch, which the student would accept with a sharp exhalation and sometimes a very slight lurch as he flexed his abs in defense. Then another punch, and then one more. The punches are delivered while we hold the en garde stance; right leg back (it switches up too), knees bent, fists out in front of the body with elbows close together, and a very slightly collapsed torso. When she started punching the beginning students a few weeks ago, we got three pretty decent slaps on the tummy. I look forward to the day when I'm considered harmful enough to punch.

The second hour of the class is devoted partly to sustained, fluid application of kicking and punching technique through various exercises that bring us across the room and back many times, and partly to the practice of forms, or for the beginning students, the practice of the salute. In the last few minutes of the class we sit in a circle and discuss technique and philosophy. We end with a few minutes of silent meditation and then a salute to the shrine. And all this is in French, unless I don't understand it in which case Yseult says it to me in French accented English, which I prefer to American accented English anyway.

Pei Mei and Hung Gar are quite different, and the style of instruction at the two kung fu schools I've studied at thus far is also clearly very very different. It's hard to say which I "prefer" because I didn't study long enough at Calvin Chin's school nor frequently enough, and his school does offer conditioning classes anyway, which is just what we spend the first hour of our classes at the Pei Mei school doing, but man, I like kung fu. I'll write a separate entry for my mime class too and I'll compare kung fu and mime in that one, but I'll just say here that the crossover between the two disciplines is huge and very interesting, and that in my mime school in Paris we study with a dojo mentality similar to the Pei Mei school. In just the last week alone, my body has done things I'd thought were impossible for me to do, and they only happened because the instructors absolutely insisted that I did them whether or not I thought it was possible. For me, that kind of persistence in a teacher, which may be perceived more as insensitivity in America, is invaluable.

Oh, I almost forgot: I recently told someone in the class my name and got the following response: "Avery...you mean like 'Avery day?'"

It's not just you, Clemente.

My Newest, Shortest, Tightest Article of Clothing

As I looked around, I noticed something was different.

Huh. Well, I better go get a bathing cap and goggles from that weird vending machine up near the changing rooms, because everyone else is wearing them. Yeah. Oh well....

I walked back up the stairs to the changing rooms, wondering on the way why there was a little foot pool in front of the stairs. Odd.

Wait, 4 euros for the cap? Ok...and 2 euros for the goggles? Alright, Paris municipal pool, whatever you want. I'll play your game...

I brought the cap and the goggles back down to the pool level and sat near my belongings, which had mercifully remained where I left them. I donned the silly white cap, snapped my fancy new goggles into place, and prepared to enter the pool, to which I had just bought a blissfully cheap membership in order to finally resume the fitness regimen I put on hold two weeks ago to recover from sickness.

"Non, c'est interdit monsieur. Vous devez porter un des maillots de bains que nous vendons là!" said the man wearing a tight Speedo as he gestured to my bathing suit and then to the vending machines from whence came the goggles and the bathing cap.

Ok, so I can't wear my normal bathing suit to swim in the city pool, apparently. Sure.

I looked around at all of the men in the area and realized that I had ignored an important detail when observing the locals to figure out the public pool etiquette; in order to swim, I needed to wear a bathing suit tight enough to forever prevent blood from again gracing my testicles. It also needed to be short enough so that everyone would clearly see that yes, I too have pale upper thighs, and yes, like you, they get paler as they approach my pelvis.

I walked back up to the bizarre vending machine with a small sense of foreboding. I really like my bathing suit. It's a nice fit and it's a little shorter than most so that I show just enough thigh without being gratuitous. I've been told it makes me look like a "hot dad." It works. I certainly wasn't expecting to buy another bathing suit, let alone from a vending machine that only sells tight things.

Ok, what do we have here? There's the standard Speedo cut, which on me would just show way too much body hair which will only look darker and thicker when I get wet, so I'll go for the boxer cut. Huh, that actually doesn't look too bad. Alright I'll take the medium that should fit fine. "38/40?" What's that mean? My waist is 30 inches but that's probably not inches this is France. Ok whatever. 8 euros? Fine.

The little box containing my sleek new French bathing suit fell down into the receiving area, and I reached in and liberated it. I looked the thing over. On the part of the box that has the size information is a picture of a man wearing the bathing suit. He's standing to one side a bit, his knees awkwardly close together and his body facing slightly away from the camera. It seems as though during the photo shoot, the follow conversation took place:

PHOTOGRAPHER: Hey, Jean, can you like, try to look sexy a bit?
JEAN: Yeah I'm trying Georges, thank you.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Try harder, you look constipated.
JEAN: This bathing suit is fucking tight! Ok? Why don't you put it on and see how sexy you feel?
PHOTOGRAPHER: You're a MODEL!!! This is your job!
JEAN: That doesn't mean I don't get shrinkage when I wear--
PHOTOGRAPHER: Whatever I'm just going to keep taking pictures. Stop grimacing. Ok now lower your head a bit. Twist your body slightly to the side.
JEAN: Really?
PHOTOGRAPHER: I know what I'm doing. Now let your arms hang loosely by your sides. Not quite that loosely.
JEAN: Ok what if I bend my elbows really slightly?
PHOTOGRAPHER: Yeah that's great! Now raise your shoulders just a bit, so you look like you're saying "don't mess with me." Perfect.
JEAN (squinting slightly): I'm still kind of uncomf--
PHOTOGRAPHER: Don't care we're using this shot.

I found a changing room and put the thing on. Somehow, I managed to choose a bathing suit that, despite being a boxer cut, actually becomes the tightest speedo you've ever worn immediately after you put it on. All I could do was laugh because I had no idea if I'd bought the wrong size or if this is just what's normal to wear when swimming here, either option being chuckle-worthy. Americans and our comfort. And so I made the journey back down to the pool, receiving no unusual attention. I almost expected the guy from before to come over to me and say "No, sir, you cannot wear a bathing suit that small, you must buy another from the vending machine that sells tight things upstairs." But alas, this is France, where bodies are accepted as bodies. We've all got one, ain't nothing wrong with showcasing the form. I only hope that the suit becomes bigger as I eat less nutella and start exercising regularly again. Or if I ever need a tourniquet, I got it. And actually, it was a pretty nice swim. I may wear this thing every time I swim back in the states.

I still can't figure out why they had those little puddles in front of the stairs, though. It was weird.

New American Friends

"Avery, check this out. I've got it mounted on the wall so I'll always know where it is!" Ken gestured grandly towards his special, personally-installed wall-mounted corkscrew, a thing of true beauty for such a wine lover and an item of pure necessity for a home that hosts many gatherings for the wine loving friends of Ken and his wife Bonnie, two incredibly generous people who delight in sharing their home with friends, with friends of friends, with children of friends, and with friends of children of friends.

I met Ken and Bonnie through Julia Gibas, a friend from Pitzer, who was staying in their home immediately outside Paris for a few days before returning to her semester in Morocco. Julia's family is close with either Bonnie or Ken's uncle, I believe, and Julia and her mother had stayed with Bonnie and Ken several years ago.

As soon as we arrived Ken and Bonnie made me feel right at home, and it helped that Bonnie is from New York City and Ken from northern California. As it turns out, Ken went to Harvard and graduated about 4 years after my dad! Then Ken and Bonnie lived in Waltham for about 10 years before moving to Paris about 20 years ago.

"At my high school reunion recently, I won the 'farthest traveled' award. They gave me a bottle of Bordeaux wine. I said 'thanks, but you can keep this! I don't need it!'"

Ken's a joker. Ken also loves to give people food. And oh man, was there a lot of it.

The evening started when some friends of Bonnie and Ken's arrived. I confess, I don't know how to spell the man's name, (I think it's spelled 'Dijitte'), and I can't remember his wife's name but they were very interesting people. They're both artists; Dijitte works a lot in various media, and some of his beautiful paintings hang in the very living room in which we enjoyed phenomenal salami with sundried tomatoes, hearts of palm, and kalamata olives. A young sculptor from Ireland, Orlaith, was staying with Ken and Bonnie, too, and bonded with the man over their work. (She's having an exhibition tomorrow which I'm going to!) Dijitte's wife turned out to be the only French person at our little French party. She was very delightful and does work throwing pottery; a beautiful vase in the kitchen was her creation.

I was impressed to see when we moved to the dining room that we were moving to a second dining room, which had a second kitchen. The house is essentially two homes connected, one of which Ken and Bonnie usually rent out, or at least several rooms of it. Either way, they've got two kitchens, which excited me. As advertised to me by Julia, this was to be a wine and cheese party. And damn, was it a wine and cheese party. You know when you enter a room with a wall-mounted corkscrew what you're getting into. And so of course there was lots of wine. I played it pretty safe as I'd been sick the week before, and regardless, I'm cautious. But for anyone who so desired, the glass was never empty.

But what was for dinner? An endless feast of cheeses: camembert, roquefort, brie, gouda, cantal, chevre, and a sheep's milk cheese I believe. What else? A duck paté and a paté de campagne, which were two of the most transcendently delicious things I've ever tasted. As soon as I tried the duck paté all went silent in my mind and time slowed such that had an agent of the matrix tried to shoot me, I would've watched the bullet approach, slowly stepped aside, and resumed my position, a glass of wine in one hand and a fist full of duck paté in the other. I was in heaven. And all of this was accompanied by a variety of delicious breads.

The meal lasted several hours, conversations mostly taking place in English but dipping in and out of French intermittently. The cheese and paté feast was followed by salad and then an "American cheesecake" which Orlaith made using no American products; the normal Philadelphia cream cheese, seemingly impossible to find here, had been replaced by a combination of cottage cheese, fromage blanc, creme fraiche, and two other french cheeses. The standard graham cracker crust saw its french reincarnation in the form of crushed digestive biscuits, which I guess aren't entirely french, but hey, they were tasty either way. So what we had was a very tasty cheesecake that was not entirely American in that it relied on and succeeded through international cooperation.

The evening tapered out as people left, but not before Ken and I bonded over his stories of making theatre with friends in college and Dijitte told me about some of the best meals he's had at multiple-Michelin starred restaurants. I realized as we were talking that he was living my travel dreams: don't stay anywhere terribly fancy, don't splurge on foreign clothes or wares, but eat the best damn food in the world, every trip.

As I left, Ken let me know that if I got lost I could come back and I'd have a place to stay. "Don't worry about it. If you can't find the metro, head on back here and we'll watch Band of Brothers until 4 in the morning." I hope at some point I get to accept that offer!

Been a Little While

Why haven't I written anything in almost two weeks? Am I done with this whole thing? Is nothing interesting here anymore?

I was REAL sick for a little while and then still felt like crap or was too tired even after I wasn't sick anymore, so for about 10 days I just didn't feel up to it. Oh well. Not that I felt like crap for 10 days straight, but intermittently, and so I got lazy. But here I am.

Soo what am I up to?

Well I'm mostly spending up to 7 or 8 hours a day walking around looking at things, taking pictures, and eating. This does not get old at all. I'm serious. This city is filled with amazing things to marvel at for hours, which I do. However last Tuesday I went to a protest that was pretty exciting. Many people probably heard about the massive transportation strike that day which will apparently be a more common occurrence this fall, and just makes taking the metro a less pleasant and less efficient experience.

I got off the very very crowded metro at La République to find myself surrounded by many thousands of people, tons of vendors, great big balloons, news crews, and vans with amplifiers projecting anti-Sarkozy slogans and pro-worker messages. Many people came to watch the whole thing happen too and just stood on the sidewalk, but I wanted a closer view, so I stood in front of the head of one of the parades and took photographs right as the walking and chanting began. People here will passionately, passionately defend their right to retire at 60, let me tell you. There were groups from all sorts of different organizations, including the socialist and essentially communist parties as well as the nouveau parti anticapitaliste (new anti-capitalist party) which I'm told join forces for these big protests. The diversity in terms of age was pretty impressive; not surprisingly, there were many middle-aged people ardently defending their right to retire at 60, but there were many young people too and really, people from all over the whole spectrum carrying big banners in front of cars and vans with big speakers on their roofs and huge balloons naming their organization trailing behind.

I found it interesting how forcefully people were defending their legal retirement age considering that in America our retirement age is 65, but of course this is my perspective and not theirs and they don't give a shit when America wants to retire. Apparently one justification the government puts forth for its proposed new retirement age of 62 is that people are living longer today and can thus be expected to work longer and still enjoy more healthy years after a later retirement. The thing is, the people who would be most directly affected by this change are the factory workers, the farmers, the dock workers, the people who do hard manual labor, and their life expectancy has not gone up nearly as much as the government-cited study predicts for the average citizen, so for these people a raised retirement age would just mean less post-retirement life, plain and simple.

I walked along with one of the groups for a while and then found a man dressed not totally noncommittally as a clown, sporting a red nose and suspenders with slightly goofy pants. I noticed a sign he was holding which read "[symbol that means 'fuck'] La Peau Lisse!" which translated as written to "Fuck Smooth Skin" however, if read aloud, one would more likely hear it this way, "[Fuck] La Police!" or "Fuck The Police!" This clown was quite the instigator, and had no problem standing across the street from armed police with a sign essentially telling them what they should do with their afternoons instead of monitoring this protest. Of course, I took photos.

Unfortunately I started to feel very tired and not so healthy shortly after this and thus stopped following the protest, which ended at the Place de la Bastille. For me it ended at a piano shop where I sat and played for a half hour until I felt well enough to find something to eat.

I'll write more posts soon about some great times I had the last few days. They won't all be about food, although great food and great times often follow one another.

The Wine Is Shit, But This Bottle Is Great!

"2 euro?? 2 euro??"

Who is this strange little guy asking us if we want to buy a mostly empty bottle of wine for 2 euros?

As it turns out, this strange little guy was Clemente, a Spanish guy about my age studying Spanish at the Sorbonne. Pitzer folks Becky, Amy, and Ximena and I were hanging out at the Eiffel Tower a few nights ago, doing as Parisians do--eating bread with cheese and some wine at the Champs de Mars, or Marsfield, as I like to call it--when we heard the sound of beating hand drums from down the field. We got up and walked towards the drums when Clemente approached us in his shuffling gait, carrying a bottle of wine about 80 percent of which had been consumed, thrusting it towards us and asking "2 euro? 2 euro?" We were intrigued.

"Wait, you're trying to sell this?"
"Yes."
"You want us to buy this for 2 euros?"
"Yes."
"You're very funny."
"Thank you. Do you want to buy it?"
"No, not really, I think we're just fine, thank you."
"Want to hear a secret?"
"Yeah, sure."
"I bought the whole bottle for 1 euro 95. Ha HA!!!"

Needless to say, Clemente had won our hearts. We asked him where he was from and he told us that he was from the great country of Spain but that his mother was French which is partly why he was in the second rate country of France living in the partly decent city of Paris studying Spanish, the best language. We wanted to speak with him in French because hey, we're in Paris, but Clemente mostly wouldn't have it.

"I don't like French. It's so cold. It makes me shiver when I hear it or speak it."
"Well that's too bad we really want to talk with you in French, I mean English comes pretty easily to us."
"Yeah, English isn't much better than French, but that's ok."

Luckily for us Ximena speaks Spanish, which Clemente appreciated, but regardless, most of the conversation was in English. Clemente was really fond of the word "motherfucker." He loved it. He loved that most people around us at that moment had no idea what it meant, or so he insisted, and he had a great time shouting to people "Hey, motherfucker!!!" to which they would reply "hey!" He said that since people here don't really know what it means, they have only a vague idea, it's like a greeting. I'm not sure if he's right, but watching him yell "motherfucker!!!" was hilarious.

When we told him our names, he got a big kick out of mine.

"Your name is Avery? Like 'Avery day man I walk down the street?'"

Clemente just loved talking to people and messing with them. He introduced us to his group of friends, a bunch of people mostly our age sitting in a circle together playing drums and a guitar and singing. Ximena and Becky and Amy spoke to them a lot longer than I did because Clemente dragged me off pretty quickly.

"You see those girls, Avery day?"
"Yeah Clemente?"
"We're going to talk to them. I'm going to sell this bottle of wine."

And so we walked over to two girls sitting on the ground, me, Clemente, and one of his other friends, and Clemente started by asking what was his refrain for the night.

"2 euro?"

Which pretty much got exactly the same response from the Parisian girls as it did from us Americans. But Clemente wasn't really interested in selling the bottle; he just wanted to find a funny way of starting conversations with people.

"You see this guy I'm with?" he asked after a few minutes of talking with them about himself and about what they do in Paris.

"Yeah."
"He is American. He speaks no French."
"I do speak French!"
"You're American?"
"Yes I'm American."
"I assumed you were Spanish you look Spanish!"
"I'm not Spanish, I'm Jewish."

Clemente fell to the ground laughing.

"Avery day!! You can be both Spanish and Jewish! 'I'm Jewish.' You're funny!!"

I think what I was trying to communicate was that Jewish kind of is an ethnicity because many Jews really come from Poland or Russia which is where my Jewish family comes from, although now that I think about it those aren't the only places where Jews come from and there are Sephardic Jews, I guess, so you can't really place them in any one region, so it was silly. This amused Clemente terribly for a little while, and then we left, him stumbling and giggling and asking other people if they wanted his bottle of wine for 2 euros, me following in awe of his playful charm.

When we got back to the circle, Clemente let us in on another little secret.

"You see this bottle of wine?"
"Yeah."
"I'll tell you something about it."
"Yes?"
"It was worth much more than I bought it for."
"Really?"
"Oh yes."
"Why is that?"
"The wine is shit, but this bottle is great!"

And then Clemente suggested, partly joking but maybe not, that the bottle itself was worth buying for 2 euros. Even though he bought it for 1 euro 95. The guy was a true jester.

At that point we had to go and catch the metro before it stopped running.

So far, Paris has been filled with fun, sort of touristy but nonetheless beautiful adventures. On Saturday I hung out with good old pal Luke Pyenson and some of his friends from Tufts, who are awesome, at the Champs de Mars, also eating baguettes with amazing cheeses and patés and melon, then walking the Champs Élysées, enjoying tasty maccarons, taking in the Jardin des Tuileries, and just loving the sites. Suffice it to say I've eaten mouthwatering treasures and seen beautiful things with great, fun people over these last five days. I've enjoyed maccarons, falafel, éclairs, crêpes, escargot, transcendent gelato, and other tasty delights while marveling at this place's enduring beauty.

I should've written about these experiences as they happened, but now I've been forced to summarize, which is unfortunate, so I think from here on I'm just going to write posts when I have specific stories to share, because summary is not terribly interesting. Also, when it comes to the whole this place is so beautiful thing, I think I'll save that until I gain a more informed perspective on Paris and its people and its different neighborhoods and history, because right now I don't really know what I'm talking about too much and I'd rather save that discussion for when I do.

Ok, great. I'll write again soon I'm sure!

First Few Days

The first thing I thought as soon as I stepped out of the metro station was "Really, Paris? You're actually as beautiful as every cliché I've ever heard? Are you seriously going to make me reevaluate what's 'cliché' and what's just truth?" The first sound out of my mouth was a big laugh, which I think my cousin Alice found amusing or probably just odd, perhaps both, and my first words were "No, no, no. This is ridiculous." Also, I looked like a big old American tourist with my backpack, water bottle, and camera all ready for use.

My maiden voyage into what many people would consider "Classic Paris" was a visit to Notre Dame on Friday. I had barely acquainted myself with my own neighborhood at this point since I had arrived just the day before, unpacked and settled in with the help of Alice and Jeffrey—to clarify, Jeffrey is my mom's cousin. He moved to France in the 70's because he's the smartest person in the family, and then he had Alice in 1990. This is a very reduced history of Jeffrey's life, which is more interesting than moving to another country and having a daughter, but for now, it will do.

So Jeffrey and Alice helped me move in and did a ton of translating for me since my French was miserable that day, partly because of exhaustion and partly because I hadn't spoken regularly for a few months. French, that is. I spoke English a lot this summer, so don't worry about that.

It wasn't until Friday night that I went out on my own to explore my neighborhood, so Friday morning, I was still a bit confused—why can't I see the Eiffel Tower from here? Where's the Arc de Triomphe? The Louvre? The Champs Élysées? I see tons of places to get baguettes and fruit and vegetables and cheese right down my street, but I don't get it...

And I wouldn't until later—although I can't say now that "I get it." I don't think you can say that about any particular culture or neighborhood after living there for only five days, but I think I'm closer than I was.

Anyhow, when Alice and I walked up the Metro station stairs and onto the street, I was floored. We were surrounded by beautiful old, often soaring architecture, consumed by stone and flowers, the Seine, and for me, a feeling I can only describe as "I'm in Europe. Wow." We just don't have beauty of this kind in America, really, at least not in the concentration you find in Paris.

Why is that? I've been asking myself that question over the last few days again and again, and after seeing the Eiffel Tower at day and at night, the Palais-Royal, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Champs-Élysées, and just tons of beautiful, intimate, vibrant neighborhoods with bustling, stone streets, the curiosity this question breeds has only intensified. And it's not just the physical place, but this lifestyle--although I have to concede, not everyone living in Paris has the luxury to be as indulgent as I've been these last few days because most people work or study or do something, whereas I don't start my full studies until October really. But people here, regardless of work or study hours, appreciate things and take the necessary time to appreciate things. They stop by the Boulanger on the way home to pick up a fresh baguette and munch on it as they walk down the street. They take time to eat their food and really savor it--they don't eat to get it done or eat to fill themselves, they eat because taste is a beautiful thing, and here, beauty has a value at least as powerful as time or productivity, which don't have to take precedence over everything.

Why is it so beautiful here? I keep walking around wondering how any one place could contain so many incredible things. One short answer is unfathomable greed. France was ruled by monarchs for centuries, and although hundreds of years later we can appreciate the care they put into making the pride of their country a center of shocking splendor, at the time, resources and capital were spent with little regard for their subjects and with great attention to making my city prettier than yours so that when you visit it, you can think about how great I am and how massive my wealth is and know that if you mess with me, I have absolutely no qualms about sending all of my subjects to destroy you, and I don't give a shit if they die—take a look around you! I've spent unconscionable amounts of money to make my city this beautiful; it must be clear that I don't care about my people, I mean they're completely indispensable, wallowing in poverty, so if you mess with me, just know that I have no value for any life outside of Royalty and will do anything to maintain my power. Although it's not like we never had absolute disdain for human life in the United States, but I guess we sort of convinced ourselves that the use of slaves was to maintain our economy rather than beautify our cities? I don't know. But beauty just has a higher cultural value here and that's probably at least in part because of the tradition of monarchy.

And although Royalty has long since lost out to democracy—well, for white people, at least—the culture of taking time to appreciate beauty and pathos in various forms persists, as evidenced by French subsidies for the arts and the maintenance and preservation of this exquisite city.

I’ve started to ramble and completely lost track of any point, so I’m going to just go get things started and come back when I can write in specifics, which I could do now but this post is a bit long already without much substance, so I’ll save it for later. But for the moment I’ll say that my neighborhood is very very cool, food is delicious, I’ve met some hilarious and great people, and I’ve had a great time with fun folks from home.

The Beginning of This Thing

Well, huh. This morning marks my first morning in Paris and the beginning of the first full day of this roughly four month adventure.

As I sit here I don't really know what I want to write, but I have questions. How cool is it to be able to sit in my underwear at a nice little table, looking out double balcony windows without really worrying whether or not someone will see or care? Will this be a problem when my roommate moves back in a few weeks? Should I be concerned about it now? Will these four months feel like a long time? Or will they fly by? How am I going to find a gym so that the food doesn't conquer me? Will I meet interesting, soulful people in my classes? When will I make friends? How often will I be able to see my friends from the U.S. who are also studying abroad? What the hell am I doing?

Because of how busy and amazing this summer was for me, I spent very little time thinking about what this Autumn in Paris experience would be, and the time I did spend thinking about it was geared less towards thoughts like "it could be this or this" and more towards thoughts like "wow, I really have no idea what I'm getting into," which became clearer and clearer as I tried to obtain my visa.

For a variety of somewhat confusing reasons, it turns out I wouldn't have needed a visa if I had booked a ticket to leave Boston three weeks later, and I would still have had about three weeks to travel and explore once I got here before starting my mime class in October. However, we bought the nonrefundable August 25th ticket since I was convinced mime started September 1st, and then thus had to find another class in order to obtain my visa which I had to get because we couldn't return the ticket, etc, so I'm taking kung fu should be great blah blah.

But that leaves me with little class time in September and a ton of time to do_____. What is _____? I don't really know. I think it's seeing Paris, going all over France, visiting friends in other places, going to museums and theatres, and hopefully making friends. But I don't know. It's just so odd to be here on my own, and I don't regret it, but it's terrifying. All of my friends who are studying abroad are on programs where they're meeting people their age who speak their language, and I really have no guarantee of that in this situation, which is exciting, but also _____. I don't know what. Scary? Unreal? Lonely? Illuminating? Eye-opening? Beautiful? Choose any one of em and that's how I've already felt about this in the less than twenty-four hours I've been here.

I guess that's the theme right now. _____. What is _____? That's the thing for September, I think. Not letting blank time be blank time because hey, I'm in Paris. That's pretty damn cool. And on that note, I should probably shower and start the day!

Miss ya, U.S.
Avery