Many Apologies

Okay. I fully and completely acknowledge the fact that I am officially the worst blogger on the blogosphere. (Wowzah, Microsoft knows what the “blogosphere” is – hello 21^st century!) I haven’t updated this thing in far, far too long. Many thorough apologies to the three people that read this. However, I do have stories. I can’t remember if it was Garrison Keillor or Henry Rollins who said that if you want good stories, you can’t have someone working every day (my money is on Mr. Garrison “Lake Woebegone” Keillor). So, here be some stories and/or observations.

BUT FIRST, an explanation. My severe lapse in pseudo-biographical anecdotes is mostly due to a few preoccupations. Namely: a German Cinema paper, a Dante and Medieval Culture paper (which I believe ended up being complete shite), and preparations to leave Paris. Sadly, several financial and cultural factors preclude me from staying here for another semester. But c’est la vie. At least I won’t have to dodge Gilles anymore. I plan to continue this blog, though – readers or no. It’s a good way for me to organize the more interesting aspects of my life (and overdramatize the not-so-interesting ones).

Observation: by reading Alan Ginsberg’s (epic) poem “Howl” in any sort of East Coast American accent, you can cure a headache. This observation is, of course, based on first-hand experience. I recently downloaded the trailer for the James Franco film Howl, and it got me on a beat poetry kick, which extended into  reading On the Road and listening to a lot of 50’s jazz. But most important is “The Howl Cure,” to which I will refer (along with aspirin) for all subsequent headaches.

Story: I think I may have accidently given myself cyanide poisoning in some slight form. I only thought about it after reading Love in the Time of Cholera, in which there is a suicide by cyanide in the first few pages, indicated by the smell of bitter almonds. Cyanide is found naturally in peach pits. Peaches, almonds, and roses are all in the same family. Both times I have attempted to roast almonds in my apartment, the results have been mild auditory hallucinations and crippling headaches the next day, a couple symptoms of cyanide poisoning. Ipso facto, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ROAST YOUR OWN ALMONDS IN A SMALL SPACE. Or maybe it’s just me being a paranoid hypochondriac. Too much X-Files, perhaps.

Story: On Monday, a woman asked me for directions to the Champs de Mars, and I was able to provide them, turn by turn. This definitely raised my happiness level that day from a six to a twelve and a half for a few hours. Then in German Cinema, we watched part of Fassbinder’s “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul,” and part of his other film “The Third Generation.” I’m not sure how I felt about “Ali,” but I really liked “The Third Generation,” even though it was completely chaotic (but how else should a film about a revolutionary group be?). But it definitely wasn’t as fantastic and amazing as “The Marriage of Maria Braun.” We watched that last week, and I decided it’s one of my new favorite films, putting it in my list of over eighty other favorite films.

Sidenote: “The Third Generation” was dedicated, in the credits “to someone who truly loves, so no one probably.” I really, thoroughly enjoyed that. (The world as will and idea.)

Story/Observation: I love eavesdropping. It’s my pastime, like peoplewatching with a soundtrack. I’ve noticed that I tend to hear some interestingly strange conversations… like:

Man at the Reception Desk: [What if I’m wearing a metal shirt] and they build me into a skyscraper? Am I wearing the skyscraper?

[A little later]…Can I rub my sandwich on your arm?... A sandwich, you’re supposed to put it in your mouth, not rub it on your arm. But you don’t necessarily have to eat that which is edible.

And

Girl 1: “I just want to sit down and read my eight back-issues of Vogue.”

Girl 2: “I don’t. I wanna read Twilight again.”

Coming from two college students, conversation number two is, I believe, the harrowing of the end of civilization as we know it. But oh, well.

Story: I’ve been working a lot on my film list. According to that list, I have seen at least 1067 movies. A good way to spend about 2,134 hours, I think.

Observation: I sincerely believe that someone needs to teach the souvenir sellers (which I will now refer to as “souvenders,” as in “souvenir venders”) some basic principles of economics… for many reasons. Namely:

·         “Hello, Lady Gaga” and “Hey, Sexy” are not good ways to attract customers. Especially customers that look like me.

·         By clustering together in long strings, the souvenders do away with any kind of market competition. You’re just flooding the market with little jingly keychains.

·         Peeing in bushes and then immediately handling merchandise is not a good way to get ahead in any marketplace. Most people like things like hygiene and avoiding bacteria. I know I do.

·         Accosting people and blocking their path is not a good strategy. Especially when they’re late for an art class. Especially when they’re cranky. Especially when they just wish France would disappear for a while.

Story(/Observation?): I’m really excited for the new Jane Eyre film. Really, really excited. There’s nothing better. I’m especially happy that the requisite scene with Rochester screaming Jane’s name is included in the trailer. Anyone up for Jane Eyre in March? I’m planning ahead. Way ahead. So much ahead that I intend to be first (second, maybe) in line for tickets. It’s not obsession. It’s dedication.

And now, I must close. Time to sleep. Eh, who am I kidding? Time to drink several cups of chai, play several dozen games of spider solitaire, watch a little Jane Eyre, and avoid sleep while trying to brainstorm for an upcoming art project. I’ll close with a short letter and a few new drawings.

            Dear Stinky Man Who Uses the Bathroom,

I would really appreciate it if you would not stink up the bathroom. It makes me want to die a little inside. I sincerely believe that by trying to avoid your stink, I will end up with an exploded bladder. That’s no good for me.

               

                Thank you,

                Person With a Sense of Smell

Memento Mori

Where else would you spend your Halloween (and day before Halloween) but a cemetery? A party? Riddiculous. Trick-or-Treating? I wish.

Owing to the aforementioned costume fail and an X-Files-generated fear of the supernatural, my Halloween was destined to exist only in the daytime hours. So where does one go for a scare during the day? A cemetery. Duh.

The Cimetière Montparnasse isn’t really close to my house, but it’s close enough for me to walk, and spending money on a couple of metro tickets for (possibly) nothing was not an option. Plus, I really like walking in Paris. Sure there’s the occasional minefield of dog-leavings to navigate, but there’s really no better way to orient yourself.

Saturday (the day before Halloween) I set off for Montparnasse. My plan was to do some sketching, but as you very well may know, what is planned is not always what happens. So I ended up just walking around the cemetery, and ended up learning  few really interesting things about the French that made them a little more endearing.

French cemeteries are nothing like the ones in America. With little room to spare, families are buried together in the same plot in stone tombs built above ground. They more closely resemble cities than the American fields with crooked tombstone teeth. On Saturday, I went to Montparnasse expecting a quiet cemetery with only tourists and a few scattred families. What I saw was different, and much more beautiful.

For Toussaint, the French Day of the Dead, there is a sort of spring cleaning that goes on at cemeteries. In Montparnasse, the families came to sweep the dead leaves from their loved one’s graves, to clean the dirt and moss from their engravings, and to place flowers at their feet. Some people left little stones as a sort of remembrance. Others left candles and photos. There was a general air of quiet contemplation that came over the cemetery that not even car horns could penetrate. Instead of sketching, I drifted around for a while, eventually alighting on a bench in the center of the place. It was nice, after walking for so long, to just sit and watch.

An old woman walking by began to talk to me. She told me of the president in front of whose grave I was sitting. “He fell on a boat at sea,” she said. She asked me if I was visiting someone in particular. I wasn’t, I said, and she smiled. “A little of this, a little of that, huh?” Then she walked away, leaving me with the memory of one of the strangest conversations I’ve ever had with a stranger.

Sidenote: The French say “fallen” instead of “dead.” Sounds much more honorable and comforting, no?

On Halloween, I went back. I wanted to see more of the cemetery than just the main sections (and take pictures).

Some of the older graves, like this one, almost seemed forgotten. It was really sad to see the names all covered with moss, lost with the passage of time.

Almost all of the wreaths here were dedicated to "Ma Tante" (My Aunt).

"Do not cry for that which is immortal."

I think this was both the saddest monument and my favorite.

The memorial just to the right (with the yellow and orange flowers) was dedicated to a group of master printers. JSYK

A monument dedicated mostly to the memory of a young boy who died at three years.

Dedicated to the memory of a fallen infant.

This is the steet that splits the two parts of Montparnasse Cemetery. I thought it was really beautiful with all the trees.

My Messy Divorce from Sleep

My sleep schedule lately has been turned completely upside-down. Having classes at two in the afternoon means that I can stay up until five in the morning without feeling the effects – unless I want to wake up early or do anything before noon. So I tried to remedy that on Friday by staying up all Thursday night. I don’t recommend this to anyone who takes a class on medieval literature in the afternoon.

We’ve finished with Dante, and have now moved on to the “medieval culture” part of the class, starting with the works of Petrarch.

                Sidenote: I actually really like Petarch sofar. We’ve started reading from a collection of sonnets and letters he’s written, and I really, really love the sonnets. Most of them are about the pain of love and are addressed to “Laura” (in two sections: Laura alive, and Laura dead). They’re definitely better than Dante. He’s just too severe and political for me. I mean, does everyone who has ever done anything bad deserve to burn and suffer for all eternity? Probably not. Does Dante think so? Definitely. Petrarch is like a breath of fresh air blowing through hell.

I was totally fine in the morning and early on in the afternoon, but when 12 pm rolled around, my mind was gone. Completely. I could barely process anything, but somehow remembered two vital things: keep eyes open at all costs, and try to maintain eye contact. Both were easier said than done. It was, I imagine, similar to being on an acid trip. There were some moments of out-of-body experiences, and others when I realized my eyes seemed to roll back into my head a bit. It’s highly likely that my professor now thinks I have some kind of neurological disorder. Which is always good in an academic setting.

For some reason, all symptoms (neurological and otherwise) seemed to completely disappear by my next class. That’s not to say that the next class was more interesting. In fact, the opposite was true. While I like my psychology class, and find it really interesting, the subject of internet research and academic databases is not my idea of fun. On my own time, researching my own fancies: definitely, 100%. In a room full of a bunch of other people, researching their favorite topics (twin research, nature vs. nurture): not so much… not at all, really. I spent that class trying to illustrate a Tom Waits song, with okay results.

My bizarre sleep pattern has resulted in some seriously bizarre dreams, though. There was one with a man carrying his severed ham/leg in a plastic bag around the train station. There was another with a bus stop in the middle of a farm that sold psychedelic drugs (and psychedelic drug accessories). In another, I was Scully, and Mulder and I were investigating a haunted house in which I became possessed. There are several dreams from which I only remember small details: smashing through aquariums, throwing children down a hill, shouting at people for instant coffee (I don’t drink coffee). Graveyards, UFOs, government officials, frozen people, sporting goods stores: everything juxtaposed in weird circumstances. And then there’s the one main, recurring character in all this. I wonder if his ears are burning.

Hair. Costume. Failure.

I’ve been a very, very terrible person. I haven’t updated in at least two weeks. I’m sure I’ll find my place in Inferno along with all the rest of the very, very terrible people in history. But for now, I’ll continue where I left off…

I’m no big fan of staying out late (that’s staying out, not staying up). Nor am I a fan of big, drunken parties. “A party is a party,” creepy Mr. Elton once said, but a Halloween party: there’s something to look forward to. Don’t mind the Jane Austen reference. Let’s move along now, shall we?

Last Tuesday was the AUP Halloween party at Les Planches, and I planned to go as a 1960’s secretary, à la Mad Men. I’d been listening to the soundtrack a lot (a lot, a lot), and felt inspired. I had the shoes, the dress, the makeup (mostly), everything but the hair. I thought I could do that myself. How hard could a beehive be, I thought. Turns out, really, terribly hard.

After several dozen trials, and a lot of backcombing, I finally got the look I was going for. I threw in a few extra hairpins just to be safe, drowned myself in hairspray, and left. I felt a little strange on the metro – very anachronistic, and a bit stiff. I couldn’t move much. I was afraid of ruining my do after so much work. No matter how careful I was on the metro, though, that didn’t stop my beehive from becoming a mess. I wasn’t two minutes into the party when mutiny struck. Oh well. At least there were drinks.

It was very obvious that, for some people, their partying had started much earlier that night. I was surprised some of the girls there could walk in their ten-inch heels while so intoxicated. Years of practice, I guess. I on the other hand, stuck with my one free drink because a) it was free, and b) I can barely walk in heels sober. Zazu +tipsy + heels = nothing but disaster.

The club itself was interesting. Set up in a circle, with tables and booths fanning out around a small dance floor, it had a very party-friendly atmosphere. The lights were all a dark red, and with the dark red upholstery, it was easy to think of it as being hell (or the interior of someone’s left ventricle).

I was a little more disappointed in the costumes. The girls were mostly Slutty (Insert character/profession here)s, and the guys had very confused costumes. I guess I shouldn’t have expected much more from college students. Although, there were a few interesting getups. A couple of girls from my Firstbridge dressed as (a very convincing) Andy Warhol and his muse. One girl was Marilyn Monroe, and pulled it off quite well. One of the more interesting costumes was a guy in a banana suit with bling and a pitchfork. Go figure on that one. I saw one girl dressed as Lilu (I’m not really sure how it’s spelled), from The Fifth Element. There were the requisite devils and angels, and at least one Jack Sparrow. But there were a few costumes (like the banana) that just left me guessing: a (really, really attractive) guy in a dress shirt with suspenders like a Wall Street Broker; a girl in a flesh-colored body suit covered with glitter; a guy with pig ears, mouse makeup, and bling. Very strange.

I left early with one of my friends so I could catch the last metro, but it was too late. I missed my metro, and she missed her RER, so we spent the rest of the night (morning?) looking for a bus to my house before we decided to just walk.

Sidenote: Even though it’s probably completely unsafe, I really liked walking around Paris late at night. Just as I liked walking around Seattle in the early morning hours. You really get to know a city when it’s asleep. On the Champs Elysées, I saw men unloading giant movie posters in front of a theater. There were several couples, a few tourists, and groups of adolescents out. One group of guys I saw rented some bikes and just roamed the streets, riding with and against the theoretical traffic flow, generally having a good time.

We watched Pride and Prejudice until five, when the metros opened back up and my friend could catch the RER back home. I fell asleep not long after, and woke up just in time for my drawing class.

The class itself was completely uneventful. After sticky-tacking our midterm projects on the wall, we spent the whole time talking about them. The idea was to do something on family, and all of the pieces hit the target; some interestingly, some creatively, and some with great skill. In general though, the whole thing was terribly boring. It’s all well and good to point out a few things about a few pieces, but to analyze and talk about every single piece was more than I could handle. An hour into the critique, I was gone, off in a world of doodles about hypertrichosis and vampires. When we get our portfolios back, I’ll try to upload my attempt at capturing a family on paper.

Meh.

Winter is slowly descending upon this city of lights, and in my opinion, that makes it a thousand times better. Maybe it’s the smell of the metro, or the insane attempts to wear scarves in 80-degree weather, but summer in Paris is harsh. Now that it’s colder, my oh-so-French scarves and sweaters will be put to much better use.

After my Dante midterm on Friday, I was a bit morose. Even after studying all night (something very new to me), there was still one thing I didn’t know that was apparently quite important: always use pen. My lack of ink, combined with several little expressions of subtle disappointment and disapproval from the professor, was successful in making me feel my place at the university: new fish.

Sidenote: I’m pleased to note that this new fish aced the midterm with several notes on her essay as to its quality.

 Luckily, I had only that class for the day -- my psych class having been cancelled for a study trip I did not attend – and used the opportunity to finish reading Dracula and do a little sightseeing while I was at it. I left the school at 3:00 (15h00 for you Europeans) and walked for four hours. I started off on one street and followed it through three arrondissements, passing a group of protesting students along the way (more anti-retirement reform demonstrations, but no fires or rocks, as MSN.com reports). I sat for a while in Luxembourg gardens, reading, freezing, and tempting pigeons with my trail mix. I went walking through the gardens, having given up on Stoker for the day. Autumn in the Northwest has a very distinctive smell, and it was nice to smell the familiar odor of rotting leaves in the middle of a big city.

               

Sidenote: I recently received a care package of chai tea and trail mix. In a little less than a week, I’ve gone through three pounds of trail mix and endless cups of tea. I think it’s really helped me get through the days: the trail mix makes me more outdoorsy, and the tea makes me more English (if such a thing is possible).

Saturday, I met up with Gilles. I now have serious doubts as to his credibility and intentions, and will therefore definitely not be dining with him and his “family.” His creeper status after Saturday was put on Scarlet alert. (That’s the highest, for all you terrorism-buffs out there.)

Sunday was a day of hardcore sleeping and solitaire… as in the card game, not the state of being alone. I really love solitaire. Spider solitaire, actually. Nothing is better for clearing the brain of its important functions. Also: finished my research paper after much procrastination. How much procrastination? Too much proctastination. Specifically, this much procrastination:

Yes, that is trail mix. Yes, I did put everything in neat little rows... and if you must know, yes, all the M&M's are facing the same way. But this is a totally normal way to eat trail mix.

Monday was full of German cinema. We watched The Tin Drum, a film that is equal parts “oh my God, what is going on? There is a full-grown child in that woman’s prosthetic womb” and “dear cheesemuffins, that severed horse head is full of eels!” Needless to say, it’s a fantastic film, and you should definitely see it (if you’re not offended by bizarre sexual acts, loud, piercing screams, and the aforementioned horsehead/prosthetic womb). I liked it, even if it is a little like “Eraserhead” meets Nazis meets Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

In the spirit of good cheer anticipated by the impending holiday season, I’ve decided to become a fairy of good will, like an American Amelie. My goal is to orient tourists, to help the lost. My targets: English-speaking, obviously-bewildered couples/families. I’ve already helped two groups, and it felt really nice. It’s a completely selfish act, though. In helping them, I’m really just getting them to their destination so they won’t be standing in the way like daft cows. They look for the most bizarre things, too. One family asked me which way the Eiffel Tower was… A tough one… Step one to finding the Tower: look up. Step two: you found it. Good job. Here’s a cookie. Now go take some pictures and get solicited by a thousand illegal souvenir guys.

Sidenote: I didn’t know it was illegal for those guys to sell souvenirs when I first got here. Now it’s become really obvious, though, with the whole running-from-the-police-and-getting-chased-down thing. I actually saw a bicycle cop chasing a couple of these guys down. It was fascinating, exhilarating, terrifying, and funny all at the same time. The officer was actually hissing at the souvenir guys. Très bizarre, n’est pas? And even though it’s illegal, there are TONS of them. TONS! Walking by the Eiffel Tower, one becomes aware of a tinkling that fills the air like the buzz of cicadas; that’s the sound of a hundred guys with keychains jingling at passers-by. They are the triangles in the orchestra of Paris: noticeable in excess and a little annoying. If they added a chorus section, it would chant: “six, one; six, one.”

Other than the above, nothing important has happened. I await the school’s Halloween party with much anticipation. Now if I could just figure out how to fix a beehive hairdo…

I realized that I haven’t posted anything else from my drawing class up here yet. It’s not just fruits and vegetables. It’s also quick sketches, nude models and bread (how French). So, here goes:

Part of a still life. The art professor has a bunch of skulls. This is his illegal human skull. Her name is Barbara.

Another skull... sheep's skull...

Erm... it's supposed to be a croissant.

People are hard to draw. JSYK

One of the poses from our first nude model...

Another pose from first nude model...

We were supposed to take something small and blow it up. I blew up my ring. Poor thing. It never saw it coming.

Going to Hell

I realize how terrible I am.  A six-day lapse in updates is awful. But how am I to write about adventures if I don’t make time to have them?

The latest update: jazz clubs. I’ve decided/realized that the only way to meet actual real-life French people is in their natural habitat: anywhere outside the seventh arrondissement. So last week, I decided to look up some Parisian jazz clubs with the intention to actually go to one. They all seem to be in the fourth arrondissement, too. How quaint. Jews, gays, ex-pats, AND jazz? You’re the best arrondissement ever! There’s one I’m particularly interested in. It’s called “Le Slow Club.” Apparently, it’s in the basement of a building where they used to store and ripen bananas, and was a favorite hangout of Miles Davis or some other big jazz guy. (I think it was him.) And they have $4 drinks, which is good (even though I really only need about half of a drink of anything, and I’m set for the whole night). I just really, really, really hope they don’t play slow jazz/smooth jazz/elevator music. I might just have to go postal on some Frenchies if that happens. Or go to the blues club in the 14^th. I guess I could always do that.

German cinema has been rather intense these last couple weeks. Last week, we watched “Triumph of the Will,” a Hitler documentary directed by Leni Riefenstahl and produced by the führer himself. Very disturbing to see Hitler portrayed as this really great awesome guy – kissing babies and being greeted on the tarmac like The Beatles. Ugh. Then there was the uber-militaristic aspect of all the meetings they went to, and all the insano-Nazi speeches. It was shot just after Hitler came into power, and before they started their murderous rampage. I guess the film is especially horrifying knowing what all those people -- who are portrayed on screen as demi-gods, saviors, protectors of peace and love -- would end up doing just a little later on. Horrifying. I’d rather watch a marathon of “Saw” and “The Human Centipede” any day. I think.

Yesterday we watched “Young Törless,” one of the first films of the German New Wave in the 1960’s. It was about Törless, a young man in German military school in 1906 who watches idly as two of his fellow classmates physically and psychologically torture another student for stealing. The film was basically a microcosm of what happened during the Nazi reign, and tries to explain how something so horrifying could happen. The film’s conclusion: the combination of human weakness and human psychosis allows anything to be possible. A good film, but definitely not for the weak at heart, or stomach (stabbing/mouse killing/fly torture/etc.).

 My only real adventure for the week -- besides a horrible trip to McDonalds (which was a bit of a letdown – chicken nuggets are really only good to think about) – was a quest for Dracula, by which I mean the book, and not the person. For my German cinema research project, I’m going to do a comparison between Bram Stoker’s Dracula and F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” a silent film based on the novel (yet very different, since they couldn’t get the rights to adapt Dracula). They didn’t have it at the school’s library, so I set out for one of the only used English bookstores in Paris – by which I mean a store that sells used books written in English, not an English bookstore that’s been used like a prostitute and thrown into the back alleys somewhere (if that’s what you thought). I went to Tea and Tattered Pages in the sixth arrondissement. I’d heard of it before somewhere, and it proved very interesting.

The owner is a 60-something lady (American, I think) who sits on a bench behind a tall podium which serves as the front counter. There’s an orange cat that runs around, scratching the exposed beams and sleeping in the two-euro boxes of books. The owner pointed me in the direction of Stoker, and I was immediately followed by her feline companion, and as I stood in between second-hand shelves of second-hand books, it wound its way around my feet and through the shelves and back around my feet, so I bent down to pet it. I’m not sure why, but it was so comforting. I went back to searching, found my book, and continued to look through the store. It was so strange: 99% of the books on the shelves were published before the ‘80’s. I especially love the horrid cover art (like my Dracula).

Nowhere in the book does it say that Dracula has a unibrow, so is it really necessary on the cover? I argue that, since I feel ridiculous reading a book with such a bizarre, cartoonish cover in public, the answer is no. No, the unibrow is not necessary.

I paid, left (with the intention of returning, even if just to peruse), and started walking home. By that time, it was six o’clock and the sun was at the point in the sky where it’s just low enough to shine directly into one’s eyes, and just high enough to be above all the buildings. I took a different route, thinking it would be faster. It wasn’t. At all. Though I did see some strange things.

Strange Thing #1:

I passed by several high schools (lycées) which, at first glance, looked like prisons. I’m pretty sure they may have actually been prisons at one point in time. How fitting.

Strange Thing #2:

While walking, I looked at all the street signs I passed because a) I didn’t really know where I was, b) I wanted to know where I was in case I was there again, and c) sometimes there are really strange names for some of the streets – and I think I found the strangest one: L’Impasse de Bébé Jésus. The Impasse of Baby Jesus. The first thing I thought: My god, it’s Mary’s vagina.

And that is why I’m going to hell.

At least I’m taking a class about it… I’ll know who my roommates will be.