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.

My People

After four hours if indie music, 75 pages of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and enough tea to fill the bladder of a small whale, I find myself now (midnight, Tuesday the 5^th) in a very strange mood. I’ve only met a couple legitimate French people, but I’ve seen a few other unique individuals who I think merit a short spotlight here. I’ve been keeping track of all these people in my black book of wonder – a book where I store little writing ideas, and which smells just as a good book should (a bit like feet and paper).

#1: The Albino

I first saw this woman on my way to school. She reminded me a bit of the albino monk in “The Princess Diaries” – she even had the same haircut! She lumbered past me in a shabby sweater, mid-length skirt and big, muddy boots. She muttered to the ground, tilting her head from side to side with each person she passed walking. This was a sunny day. Apparently, the rain makes her very outgoing. A couple weeks later, on the same street, I passed her again. This time, standing under a bus stop shelter, she was yelling and cursing at everything – cars, passers-by, birds. But she did it with a smile. It was almost like she had a fantastic joke to tell everyone, but they didn’t get it.

#2: The Hat

I think it’s a widely-accepted fact that Paris is a very fashionable city. Walk one block in the First Arrondissement, and tell me that it’s not. The French are so chic, their country’s like a walking, talking fashion magazine (with tourists as the less-fashionable advertisements). There is one woman in particular, though who is either very, very behind the curve on what’s “hot” or so avant-garde that she’s dressing according to fashion rules sixty years in the future. I’ve seen this woman on two occasions, and she’s worn the exact same thing both times: yellow shoes, yellow dress, yellow jacket, yellow blouse, yellow jewelry, yellow purse – and a yellow hat. The hat is, I believe, the best part of the whole attire. It’s as if she went through a craft store, picked out everything yellow, and glued it onto a gigantic yellow hat. Ribbons, feathers, tulle, and, for some reason, something that looks like a rolled up piece of paper. She walks with so much confidence; you’d think she was unaware of the bird nest on her head.

#3: Metro Man

No, I don’t mean a superhero who dresses really well. Near the Eiffel tower, there’s a set of stairs that leads to nowhere, just a little place below street level – and there’s a man living there. He’s actually got quite a nice setup: mattress, cabinets. He even has multiple pairs of shoes and a few stuffed animals. The first few times I walked past, I thought it was just some storage area for the street cleaners. Then one day, I saw a jumbled up mess of blankets on the bed. I’m not sure how long he’s been living there, but I intend to tell him how cool he is if I ever see him leaving his den.

#4: Radio Head

This man is by far my favorite. He usually hangs out on Avenue La Motte-Piquet near one of the corner cafés. He’ll sit in the middle of the sidewalk with a portable radio held up to his ear, blasting French talk shows chatter and awful 1980’s hits. He once walked in front of me while crossing the street, and he started screaming at this woman, pointing his finger with his free hand while still clutching the radio. It was some program about dog grooming. Apparently, he thought that the woman really, really needed to get her act together when it came to grooming her dog. Radiohead’s probably a bit fuzzy upstairs, but he’s nonetheless absolutely fantastic.

#5: The White Pimp

While the other four people I’ve highlighted are “regulars,” and I see them every once in a while, the White Pimp was definitely a one-time thing. And what a time it was.

On my way back from my second IKEA trip, I found myself in what was probably the only car in the entire RER train system without seats. Too tired to look for a seat, I propped myself up against a wall and prayed to every god known to man for this to be the one single place in Paris without creeps. I didn’t get any creeps, but I did get a pimp.

Or at least I thought he was a pimp. I spotted him the second the train stopped at his station. Who wouldn’t notice a man in a white suit in a sea of black? Then, as my luck would have it, he got into my section of the train, but quickly moved to the section with seats. Pimp crisis averted? Nope. A few seconds later, he staggered against the movement of the train back to my section, where I stood with two other guys. I looked closer at his clothes, and realized that, what at first looked like crisp, new pimp attire, was just crinkled, old Goodwill attire. His white linen suit had more wrinkles than an episode of Golden Girls. His “fancy” shoes were missing a heel. The dark blue polo player on his shirt showed through the suit jacket, and the blue stripe on the collar peeked up from his crinkled lapels. He stood in front of the door for seven stops, staring at himself in the reflection of the graffiti-covered window, incessantly tugging at his jacket to get rid of the wrinkles. He was so bizarrely fascinating to watch, with his combination of self-assuredness and self-consciousness.

#6: Tom Waits

I would give my right leg and left hand to actually see Tom Waits. The closest I’ve gotten (so far) is a metro performer. I recently learned that it’s illegal for musicians to busk on the trains, but that hasn’t stopped anyone, and I’m glad it didn’t stop “Tom Waits.” When he stepped on the train with his guitar, I thought, Oh jeebus, here’s another person who’s going to sing something I can barely hear, and I’m going to have to avert my eyes as usual to avoid being mugged. But when “Tom Waits” started playing, it was fantastic. He sang a song in English about the life of riches he used to have, how he would buy champagne for all his friends, how everything sucks “when you’re broke.” From the gravelly voice to the sound of the guitar to the lyrics, he actually could have been Tom Waits. I stared out the window and wished he would keep singing the whole train ride. He got off two stops after his song ended, but it was amazing while it lasted.