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.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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.
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.
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!
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!
Monday, September 13, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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!
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!
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