You Know You’re in San Francisco—and Not in Paris—When…

…it’s a typically gray, foggy day and no one’s complaining about it.

…you walk past a local branch of your bank at 7pm and not only is it open, but there is a sizable line of customers inside.

…fleece and sneakers are acceptable fashion choices, even if you’re not “doing sport.”

…it’s OK to be gay, even outside of one sheltered neighborhood (I’m looking at you, Marais). What’s more, you can find a shop that sells KY and gay porn beside a quaint purveyor of antiques.

…big, burly, Beary men—and not fur-coat swathed, frail, elderly ladies—are trotting around their teeny-tiny pooches. And the dogs aren’t allowed into restaurants.

…restaurant patrons request a swap of ingredients in a dish because they’re vegan/ vegetarian/ pesco-ovo-lacto-tarian/ (or the mundane alternative) allergic, and servers don’t bat an eyelash.

…dishes with less fat content are considered more respectable, rather than less refined.

…people are taking their fair trade, organic, soy chai lattes TO GO in their reusable coffee mugs.

…Coca Cola isn’t loathed because it’s a symbol of American cultural imperialism, but rather because it’s essentially high-fructose corn syrup in a can.

…people over and under the age of 40 have actually heard of—or even seen—The Grateful Dead.

…the long, thin object under a pedestrian’s arm is a yoga mat and not a baguette.

Those are but some of the city-specific differences I’ve noted in the two months I’ve been back. If you can think of others, feel free to share in the comments.

Quelle Scandaleuse

It seems France’s First Couple is a legal force to be reckoned with these days. Now Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the First Lady, is involved in a lawsuit uncannily similar to her husband’s recent entanglement. The scoop is that a clothing company has designed a 3€ canvas tote shopping bag with a nude image of Carla silkscreened onto its side. The bag has been a popular item on the island of Réunion, a French overseas département; the company plans to start selling the product on mainland France soon. The First Lady apparently objects to her naked image being used for profit. The image, taken of Carla in ’93, sold for $91,000 at a recent auction. The situation begs the questions: 1) how did you think that photo would eventually be used? 2) how are there nude photos of a First Lady floating around in the first place?

While the first question is rhetorical, the second has a longer answer. If you’ve seen pictures of Carla, you may have wondered how such a beautiful, young woman is married to such an unattractive older man (it’s the power, stupid). Their romance was hardly conventional, either. Sarko and his first wife, Cecelia, were estranged even during his 2007 presidential campaign; she already had a lover in New York. Cecelia stuck by him until three months after he got elected and then ran off to be with her paramour. What’s a lonely Président to do? Start dating the most beautiful woman he meets, naturally. The couple made quite the media splash during their brief courtship, getting married only a couple months after they made it public they were dating.

And the French went wild. Many were disgusted with their new president’s apparent prioritization of his love life above all else, calling him a horny teenager (or worse). Others were caught up in this public soap opera, obsessing as much as the media, which came dangerously close to U.S. or U.K. tabloid-style coverage. Men across France eschewed Sarko’s actions to their friends, but secretly envied him for his prize beauty. Others weren’t so coy about their appreciation of Carla’s looks. Someone in my husband’s office sent a PowerPoint document of nude photos of her to at least a third of employees. (See, in France there is no such thing as sexual harassment, and apparently PowerPoint has some very interesting applications.)

Why the brouhaha over Carla? Yes, she’s a very attractive woman, but so what? Turns out her past is a bit checkered, what with her scandalous sex life. (And therein lies why the French are, in reality, swooning over her.) Here are some facts on Carla Bruni, as reported by the French and international media:

- She is a supermodel / actress / singer. Under supermodel, we can include posing nude. I guess by becoming First Lady, she wanted to add another slash to her business card.
- She cavorted with the likes of Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Kevin Costner, and Donald Trump. She has always been drawn to men with power. Or big lips / hair.
- It gets even juicier: Seven years ago, while living with her then-lover, an older man, she had an affair and fell in love with his married son, who was ten years her junior. He left his wife, she left his dad, and they married (only to eventually get divorced themselves). Yowza. That’s even more twisted than the film Damage, my former benchmark for romantic scandals in-family; in the movie, Jeremy Irons dallies with his son’s fiancée and things do not end well, surprise, surprise.
- Carla released a new pop album after becoming First Lady, in which she croons (allegedly about her new husband): "You are my junk. More deadly than Afghan heroin. More dangerous than Colombian white… My guy, I roll him up and smoke him." Uh-huh. Besides the obvious controversy, let’s just say that Colombian officials weren’t pleased. Her defense? It’s just a song about addiction to love. Carla, that’s nice and all, but it just got a whole lot ickier envisioning you feeling this way about Sarko. And there’s the provocative “'I am a child despite my 30 lovers,” although Carla claims she chose 30 arbitrarily, as it sounded better than 20 or 10 in lyrical form. I kind of admire her spunk and nonchalance—so what if I’m First Lady? I will not compromise my ART (quote marks imagined around that last word).
- But perhaps the biggest stir the Italian-born, French-raised Bruni caused was going on the record as saying she prefers Italy to France. Ouch. And with that, she hit the French right where it hurts the most: their national pride. I’m surprised her home wasn’t bombed with baguettes.

You’d think this would be a recipe for disaster, but the French have warmed to Carla, as have many other international figures. During the Sarkozys’ visit to England, the British press dubbed her “the new Diana.” Sarah Palin, during the infamous prank phone call perpetrated by a pair of Canadian comedians posing as Nicolas Sarkozy, gushed over his “beautiful wife. Oh my goodness, you've added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours.” (Palin either didn’t know how to respond or couldn’t comprehend the accent when “Sarko” later mentioned, “You know my wife is a popular singer and a former top model and she's so hot in bed.” Ha.) And last but not least, David Letterman was practically putty in her hands during her demure performance as a guest on his show:



Could you imagine any of these sordid qualities in an American First Lady? She wouldn’t be allowed through the White House gates. Well, maybe during the Clinton years—and that, folks, is why the French adore Bill Clinton.

President Is Prick(ed)

The latest “only in France” item to grace the news reads like a great Onion article. Only, it’s real.

Toy company produces voodoo doll of President. President sues company. Court rules in favor of toy company. Claims “right to humor.” But also, in keeping with French meticulousness, orders toy company to print the following on the doll’s box:

"It was ruled that the encouragement of the reader to poke the doll that comes with the needles in the kit, an activity whose subtext is physical harm, even if it is symbolic, constitutes an attack on the dignity of the person of Mr. Sarkozy."

Ouch. Was that a needle in your eye, Sarko? I’m sure record low presidential approval ratings (nearly as low as Bush’s lowest) would have made the doll a success on its own, but your office botched this one but good. Rather than let the doll appear on Lefties’ holiday shopping lists and run its course by the end of the year, you handed the toy company more publicity and thus the recent court ruling launched the doll straight to cult status. What’s more, you exposed your wounded dignity in the process (I guess the doll works?).

Apparently the toy company has also produced Bush and Hillary dolls. Which got me to thinking…aren’t there tons of Bush dolls (I mean, action figures, ahem) out there?

Yes, of course there are, and too many to list here at that. However, here are some choice gems:

The Dishonest Dubya Lying Action Figure Doll will run through W’s most notable verbal gaffes--or even make him choke on a pretzel! (how’s that for a throwback?)--powered by remote control. Plus it’s got double redundancy in its name! An apt mirror to W’s special brand of articulateness.

Turkey Dinner George W. Bush Doll reveals the ultimate political turkey: W serving a big, golden bird, presumably to the troops in Iraq. And that’s all he does. Yawn.

George W. Bush Toilet Paper: the perfect item when you really want to run a smear campaign. (Oh no, she di-in’t!)

Texas Homegrown Dope Seeds: Put this in your pipe and smoke it—you can grow your very own Shrub from magic dope (it’s a double entendre, get it? get it?) seeds.

It’s notable that the George W. Bush Punching Doll Bop Bag (a child’s punching bag toy in the likeness of one W) has been removed from its e-commerce site due to being sold out.

Well, well, well, France. You finally came up with a satirical doll for the man who has been President for 18 months. You have once again shown you can be clever, but unoriginal and late to the party.

Out of Order

Due to a recent development, I may have to renege on my irritation of late with obsequious American customer service.

To provide some background for this strange turn of events…N and I are currently residing in temporary housing until our shipping container is delivered to our new, permanent apartment. The shipping process takes about six to eight weeks, as the container travels by sea. We had been waiting patiently in a small yet fully equipped place for the past five-plus weeks, but now that we have the keys to our new fabulous home, our patience is starting to wear thin. We want outta here already so we can get settled and truly begin the next chapter of our lives.

Naturally, we have been on top of the moving company to get updates on our shipment status. And naturally, the moving company has been falling over itself to make sure we are satisfied with our move—there is a customer satisfaction survey in our future and they want a high rating. The latest news is that our shipping container has arrived at port and has cleared customs. Now the moving company is trying to overcome the final obstacle: obtaining a parking permit from the police for the moving truck, which will be parked on our street for half a day while the movers empty it of our belongings. I asked if there was anything the moving company could do to expedite the process, or at least ensure that the Thanksgiving holiday doesn’t cause any unforeseeable delays—implying that our satisfaction with the entire move depends on it, but in doing so, in no way anticipating what was to come.

Yes, that’s when the customer service magic happened. Our contact became a bit alarmed and showered us with all those niceties that just the other day had me rolling my eyes. He then stated—no, rather, insisted—that he send us a gift basket to make up for our troubles. Um, WHAT? You’re going to send us a present because we’re being a bit pushy and whining about what is a normal part of an intercontinental move? That left me speechless. Only in America would a heaping basket of wine arrive for something like this. (P.S. The day after we were offered this embarrassment of riches, we learned that our belongings will most likely arrive this coming Monday. We are thrilled we’ll have some bottles to uncork to celebrate.)

If such fawning customer service doesn’t impress you, let me draw a comparison to the utter lack thereof in France.

Again with some background…Our moving budget afforded us a hotel stay for our final two nights in Paris, as the movers had at that point packed our bed. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Paris on the basis of convenience alone (it was a five-minute walk from our Paris apartment). Turns out the Holiday Inn Paris is a four-star hotel—who knew?

Anyhow, we had a very early flight out of Paris, so the night before N called room service to pre-order breakfast. While this would be a perfectly normal maneuver on a hotel guest’s part in the States, it caused quite the stir. The room service employee who answered the phone was baffled by the concept of ordering food twelve hours ahead. “Mais, c’est pas normal, ça.” Well, obviously it’s not normal, but have they never had any other customers with a 6am hotel departure and in need of eating something before an eleven-hour flight?

After the initial shock wore off and the employee agreed to process our order, he proceeded to give N a very hard time about our culinary choices. N wanted an omelet, which was on the room service menu. “On ne cuisine pas des oeufs au matin.” WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T COOK EGGS IN THE MORNING? Now, I understand the French may like their omelets for dinner, but: 1) eggs were on the menu; 2) the menu made no indication of there being a time-of-day requirement for any food item; 3) isn’t this room service?; 4) isn’t this an American hotel, where eggs might readily be consumed in the morning? N tried his best, but was ultimately DENIED. He wound up with a ham sandwich, which is entirely unsurprising given it's France, but a little strange given the French don’t normally eat jambon crudité before noon.

Then N moved onto my order: smoked salmon and fruit salad. The latter posed no problem, but the employee actually mocked the former, guffawing and asking why anyone would want to eat that for breakfast. Again, I understand there’s a cultural difference at play here (smoked salmon is a typical appetizer on lunch and dinner menus in France), but are you really making fun of a customer’s order? Either the hotel doesn’t teach the value of tact to its employees, or this guy was absent that day. (Although I don’t know why I was so surprised—French servers and chefs do not accept any deviations from their menus and will flat out refuse any alterations, however small. Sucks to eat out as a diabetic or someone with food allergies in that country.) In the end, the employee did agree to providing the two items I requested. At least we didn’t fail twice.

What can we conclude here? First, the hotel kitchen clearly did not want to cook any hot food at 5am. Second, they probably put together our order when it was placed at 6pm. (So much for a fresh start to our new lives beyond Paris.) Third, a French branch of an American hotel will adhere to the customer service mores of the country in which it is located—in other words, ones that are totally abysmal or absent altogether.

And so, I’m eating my plate of crow and taking back my own mockery of American customer service. I’d take an unearned gift basket over unwarranted derision any day. Even the French themselves would.

English, English Everywhere

There have been a couple pieces in the media lately (here and here) about European governments eschewing their native languages’ inundation with English. I find this attitude persnickety and therefore funny; the phenomenon is also very real and simply inevitable. Wake up, people. English has been the lingua franca for some time—and its assimilation into world languages isn’t going to slow down in today’s globalized economy.

I knew that well before I started learning French a year and a half ago, but it didn’t prevent me from being amused with just how many English words were part of the everyday vernacular. Hearing the French speak full sentences in their own language with some random English words (in pitch-perfect French pronunciation) peppered in is hilarious. Nearly all the classes at my Parisian gym had English names. One day I took a class without knowing what it was, so at the end I asked the teacher for the class’ name. “Buh-dee baaah-laaahnce,” she informed me. Huh? “Ahhhh, tu veux dire bah-dee ba-lance [in full-on American accent],” I said nearly automatically. Incidentally, she looked at me a little strangely. Overhearing ladies in the locker room exclaiming that “Le Struh-tcheeeeeeeng—c’est top!” always made me smirk, but my all-time favorite was hearing the Body Pump (strength-training) instructor scream “Encore PUEHMP!!!!!!!!” throughout the class. I would nearly drop my dumbbell due to my own little, private laughing fit.

It gets even more humorous in the realm of business. The following are all common Frenglish expressions I’ve heard on the go or from my students:
• C’est dans le planning
• Je vais check-er ça
• Il faut wait-and-see
• Il est le top, top manager
• J’attends les feedbacks [also, note the plural!]

The French government has been slowly awakening to the reality that French has been permeated by its linguistic foe, but not without putting up a fight. The Cultural Ministry launched a huge campaign in the 90’s to create its own words for technological terms--for example, using courriel for email--but those newfangled words never stuck (except in Canada). Today, in the Paris Métro, one can see many ads sporting English phrases (some of which don’t make a whole lot of sense). However, there is a French law that requires a translation of any English text in any ad into French. Granted, the translation usually appears in tiny font at the bottom of the billboard.

The government’s resistant attitude has trickled down to its citizens, too. To understand why, it's important to examine the average French person's educational experience with English. Most French students start learning English in middle school, if not before. They take English for about three hours a week, until they reach high school, where they take it for about five to six hours a week. They might continue studying English at university, for yet again a few hours a week. Then they might proceed on a lifelong path of honing their English, or they might never speak English again…until their company demands that they take English lessons to boost job performance. Along the way, the French educational system places a high emphasis on accuracy, thus training its pupils to be scared of being incorrect—a feeling that persists into adulthood. As an English teacher of adults, I encountered a scale of attitudes towards English: total openness to complete resentment. I could tell where a student resided on this continuum—essentially determining their “type”—from the moment they uttered their first sentence in English in my presence. And so here they are:

The Happy-Go-Lucky: While he may not always have gotten his diction, grammar, or syntax right, that was never the point. HGL approached a lesson fearlessly, unfazed by his errors and ready to learn from them. One HGL student of mine had low proficiency, but put a lot of effort into telling me about the wonders of Bretagne right before my vacation there. He informed me that the coast is very sunny, but “the sun, he pushes the clowns to the interior. Yes, the interior is very clowny.” I stifled a giggle, but also a wince (I am irrationally afraid of clowns…I just find them very creepy), before explaining his mistake. He laughed at himself and repeated the word “cloud” several times before continuing his monologue about Bretagne. Très adorable.

The Steamroller: Ever the motormouth, she will race through her thoughts, often making errors—the same errors, over and over again, in fact. You, the teacher, will make limitless attempts to correct those errors, all to no avail, as it never sinks in. It’s kind of a take-no-prisoners approach to English. I called my Steamrollers out on their steamrollery behavior all the time, and they’d grin sheepishly, apologize, and say, “I know, I know…I’m bad.” However, at the end of the day, the Steamroller’s inclination to speak so quickly in English was a direct result of her enthusiasm for the language, albeit sloppily demonstrated.

The Faux Debutant: This is the student who stopped learning English after school and then finds himself in the unfortunate predicament of having to relearn it from scratch for his job. He is known in France (not just by me) as The Faux Debutant, or false beginner, as he has some foundation that has atrophied. FD therefore has a Complex about speaking English, causing you, the teacher, to evolve into a psychoanalyst of sorts. Does the student always try to get you to talk about your personal life? It’s an evasion strategy. Does she always crack jokes during the lesson? A natural comedienne, perhaps, but it’s a cover for feelings of inadequacy. I taught a group of three FD’s, all middle-aged assistants, who constantly made fun of each others’ developing English skills—and also viciously corrected each others’ errors. Ding, ding, ding! An opportunity to feel momentarily superior. The FD’s might as well be called the Defense Mechanists.

The Perfectionist / The Wallflower: These are separate types, but they are two sides of the same coin. As the French education system places such a high value on correctness, some English students, even as adults, tend to clam up and be too timid to speak (The Wallflowers) or are overly concerned about speaking absolutely correctly and thus browbeating themselves if they make a tiny error (The Perfectionists). As a teacher, it’s hard to win with either type. All the self-confidence boosting methods that I’d strengthened teaching teenagers fell flat with adults, as their low linguistic self-esteeem lay quite deep. In some one-on-one lessons the mood could get so awkward that I’d have to handhold the student all the way through the lesson, essentially doing a grade school-esque fill-in-the-blank oral exercise. I am not an intimidating person—the Wallflowers just can’t handle the humiliation. On the other hand, the Perfectionists were more interactive, but they could create just as awkward a vibe as the Wallflowers. If they made an error that I then corrected, the uptightness would explode in a tirade of cursing and violent smacks to the forehead. (Think Philip Seymour Hoffman’s grossly uncomfortable “Stupid idiot!” bit in “Boogie Nights.”) I tried to pump up their self-esteem with encouraging words, and all I would get in response was, “Oh, but you are such a positive American,” which roughly translates to: You are naïve and therefore your opinion is worthless to me. See? You can’t win.

The Defeatist: Speaking of not being able to win, there’s the Defeatist, a distant cousin (twice-removed) of the Perfectionist. The Defeatist crumbles at the slightest hint of any linguistic challenge. Prepositions were the breaking point for one of my Defeatists. Granted, prepositions are difficult, but my student’s cascade of agonized sighs and holdling her head in her hands was just over the top. Many Defeatists would often complain that there was no use to them learning the language, as they would never make progress. A foreign language is not a crushing weight that will squash the universe down into a tiny little speck of dust, but no dose of “positive American” or even teacherly tough love could convince them otherwise. I think they, like the French government, are still bitter that français never lived up to its promise as lingua franca all the world over.

Caring = Oversharing

In France, dealing with what we in America know as “customer service” is an Ordeal. Everyone knows about the inattentiveness of restaurant servers or the tendency to get frozen out by a shopkeeper. Well, it gets even worse when you really need something important, like getting your suddenly non-functioning Internet connection back up and running or information on how to close a bank account. One can never expect a walk in the park…or even a walk up to the top of the Sacre Coeur. It is, rather, like climbing the Alps: strenuous, dizzying, and deathwish-inducing.

First, when you call customer service, you’re put on hold endlessly, and then, when you finally get through to an agent, you have to pay for the privilege of talking to him—sometimes as much as 40 centimes (roughly 60¢) a minute. (It’s important to note that customers used to get charged for hold time. The law was changed only last year.)

And while you pay for that privilege, you must patiently explain your problem, only to be subjected to the most long-winded sighs imaginable. I swear, if an Olympic event for sighing is ever added to the roster, French customer-facing employees will rack up golds faster than you can say “Oh là là là là là là là là là.” It’s then inevitable that the agent will try to pass you off to another department (possibly from all the physical strain induced by the Olympian sighing), at which time you’ll be forced to start from square one and repeat your entire story. It’s not uncommon to experience this Mobius-strip sequence several times in the span of one phone call.

It’s of utmost importance to be vigilant, because French “customer service” has an acute “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy towards its customers. This roughly translates to, if a customer asks a question the agent will answer, but will not explain everything unless prompted. For example, when I got my infamously expensive pedicure, I asked the proprietress of the nail salon, “The pedicure will cost 15 euros [as advertised on the shop front], right?” And she said yes. Later on, I discovered that the 15-euro price only applies to salon members; I would have to pay 46. Why didn’t she explain in the first place? “You didn’t ask, Madame.” This phenomenon gets really fun when it’s your third trip to the Préfecture and your legal residency status is on the line. “I didn’t know I needed this form—the paper you gave me lists these other forms, X, Y, and Z.” “Well, you didn’t ask.”

You can see how this attitude could result in a customer getting a coronary or putting a fist through a wall. The French, however, are so accustomed to it that they don’t challenge it. They’ve become beaten down by the system. Which…just…doesn’t make sense, given the national propensity to protest the government. Do they just not feel comfortable making demands as consumers, in addition to as citizens? Doesn’t The Man extend to corporations? Oh là là, les français, how did your fiery élan get lost along the way? In America, when we are wronged as paying customers, we let our self-righteous indignation be known—to a fault, yes.

But that’s because we take so much for granted here. Customer service is a breeze in the U.S.! In our first few weeks back, N and I marveled at the absurd ease of opening our new mobile phone accounts and dealing with our new health insurance provider over the phone. Restaurant service was an even bigger pleasure after 14 months of apathetic French servers—so much so that N wanted to tip a whopping 25% on our first meal out in SF because he couldn’t get over how many times the waiter refilled our drinks voluntarily.

We even started to see the ironic downside of such attentiveness—it can get annoying. Like my French students who described their “stressful” dining experiences in American eateries, we found the cloyingness of servers working hard for their tips a bit too much. You know, the overeager “How’s everything? Can I get you anything else?” you struggle to respond to with a full mouth.

It happened with customer service agents on the phone, too. Yesterday I opened several utility company accounts for our new apartment, and found it difficult to disengage from some of the chatty customer care representatives. (Emphasis on “care” in America, because, as I learned, agents are our friends!) There was no sighing—only cheerfulness, rainbows, unicorns, hair-braiding, and gingerbread snap-making. One woman kept telling me how sweet I was and how golden my account status would be. Huh? When I asked another one a simple question, I got a nearly five-minute response, in which account management processes were saccharinely overexplained. Listen, lady, that’s helpful and all, but this isn’t my first time at the rodeo. N called our mobile provider the other day to change his account billing to his employer. When the agent found out who said employer is, he freaked out and kept N on the phone for an extra 10 minutes feverishly talking about his favorite video games made by N’s company. (It’s an occupational hazard N has often experienced.) At the end of the day, as a customer, I am courteous, but I have other things to do with my time. Is that so wrong?

If there’s a happy medium between outright customer abuse (per France) and creepy stalker fans (a.k.a. American customer service reps), I’d like to hear about it.

America, Ewe Could Do Better

Yesterday, I walked past what in America could pass for a “strike,” but was really just four people banging out their grievances in a funky rhythm on the bottoms of plastic buckets. As Nob Hill building attendants, they were protesting their working conditions (longer hours without getting more pay – hey, sounds a lot like the dotcom world). I was hauling three heavy grocery bags and had no free hands, yet the protesters insisted on slipping me a flier (I had to practically grab it with my chin). I felt sad for them and their J.V. display. Have I become a manif snob since living in France, the Promised Land of Protests?

I mean, just recently there was a farmers’ demonstration in Paris over falling incomes due to the global economic crisis (who isn’t hurting these days?), and it culminated in a herd of sheep getting trotted out under the Eiffel Tower. (Credit goes to my friend E-rock for alerting me to the fabulous photo pictured at left.) WOW! Now that’s a protest! Nothing says beleaguered workers filled with self-righteous indignation like a bunch of slack-eyed sheep. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. And here I thought America was the country with all the bells and whistles.

Shopaholics

The economy has been in a slump. Hiring freezes, cutbacks, layoffs, chapter 11 filings, you name it are plaguing our companies, even in so-called recession-proof industries. Foreclosures have been forcing interest rates up and preventing people from getting credit approval at all.

So then why is it that every time I walk down the hill to Union Square, the streets are flooded with shoppers? Not just window shoppers—I mean people laden with bags. And I’m not hearing all manner of European languages spoken, either (although I'm sure that was certainly the case as recently as a couple months ago). I don’t get it. Has the pinch not yet been felt? Are people starting to ramp up their holiday shopping? Sure, the entire world may appear to be on sale, but WTF? It seems the stereotype is true, isn’t it. We Americans do have a consumption addiction. We see XX% off and the spendthrift monster inside us takes control.

Not that I’m on a moral high horse, but I suppose I’m sensitive to it having just spent a year trying to rein in spending. Not only is Paris one of the most expensive cities in the world, but I also lived there for the duration of the worst dollar-to-euro ratio ever; of course the euro’s value started to drop almost immediately after N and I decided to move back to the States. Despite the daily temptations posed by the chic Marais boutiques, I managed to get by only buying necessities and keeping the splurging to a weekly meal out and the occasional vacation. I have to say, I felt pretty damn good about it.

I even kept away from the biannual soldes--the only sales that the government permits. (Stores are able to offer “promotions” such as buy-one-get-one-free throughout the year, but cannot offer deep discounts other than the countrywide, approved sales.) The soldes are national events! People go absolutely nuts, lining up to wait for stores to open on the first morning. Think Black Friday, yet extended for a six-week period (the intensity of shoppers tapers off successively each week). This was one occasion on which I could call bullshit to all French criticism of American’s compulsive consumption. Um, you guys kind of behave the same way…albeit just twice a year. Even with the 40% discounts the French sales provided, I still couldn’t really afford to buy anything—and it wasn’t like I couldn’t find the same types of things in America, anyway.

Anyhow, with Black Friday 2008 just around the corner, I shudder to think what Union Square will be like. If Wall Street is any indication, companies will be offering bigger discounts than ever. It’ll be the ultimate madhouse. I plan to stay far, far away.

The Obama Touch?

I find it interesting that the day after the President-Elect visited our Lame-Duck-in-Chief, the latter resorted to a string of mea culpas for his attitude toward the wars - the first ever sign of any remorse whatsoever throughout his eight-year reign. Coincidence? A strategy to garner sympathy in his final days? Did the Obama campaign's attacks on the W administration's tactics make an impression? Or did Barack put George in a headlock and make him promise to "Take it back, take it all back!"?? We'll never know.

I suppose it's good that W does feel some regret. I heard on Keith Olbermann today that a prominent journalist was informed by contacts at a government agency that once January 20 arrives, he (the journalist) should get in touch because then they could give full disclosure on breaches of justice (read: under the Patriot Act) the Bush administration has yet to be exposed for. Perhaps W and his cronies will be taken to task? In that case, he'll need all the sympathy he can get. Verrrrrrrry interesting times, indeed.

Reduce, Recycle, Re…Eh

I read today that NYC Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a six-cent surcharge for each plastic bag a consumer uses to carry off purchased goods. Critics say it’s a terrible time to start introducing more fees into consumers’ lives, but I say it’s about time. In fact, I think more communities should start up this initiative. It forces consumers to be more green-minded, and as for those who aren’t fazed by the nominal fee, the shame of having to buy a plastic bag under this model is theoretically enough persuasion (a great point made by the article linked above).

France has been doing this for years now. Of course, you pay more per bag, but the bags are rather sturdy and made from recyclable plastic. That is one aspect of reusable materials at which France has a leg up over the U.S. I’ve noticed since coming back to the States that 99% of the plastic food packaging and bags that have come into my possession aren’t recyclable. While I'd prefer paper--or better yet, something wholly resuable--over a recyclable plastic bag any day of the week, to this I say, "Tsk, tsk, America."

You know those reusable shopping bags made of hardy plastic or canvas now selling like hot cakes in most eco-conscious supermarkets? Again, France has us beat. All manner of French people, whether a frail octogenarian lady or a strapping twentysomething male, does their shopping with the aid of a caddy (see pictured). It’s the perfect wheely-bag solution for carting grocery purchases and more around the city. While to the American eye it looks “so grandma,” in France, it just is. There’s no cultural taboo. And it just so happens to be a very green solution. (I have to admit, I never went there as my canvas bag from Cole Hardware managed to do the trick. But, it was yet another reason I got stared at—having a shopping container other than a caddy! Jeez, the French do not like nonconformists.)

You may wonder what came first—the caddy or the green movement—and I can tell you with utmost confidence that it was certainly the caddy. The French like to boast about how “eco” they are, but on a micro scale, it’s not entirely true. Yes, they recycle, but in a rather slipshod manner. My former Parisian office—in which tons of photocopies were made and left for dead—only started recycling paper in September. Of 2008! OK, OK, it’s a tiny office, you might say in its defense, but I observed nary a recycling bin in the headquarters of one of France’s biggest banks, where I taught three days a week. In that same building, I once wanted to throw away a soda can during a lesson. I saw two identical-looking bins in the conference room where I was teaching. I asked my student which bin I should use, he looked at me quizzically, and I had to ask, “Which is regular trash and which is recycling?” He replied, “Come on, this is France—there is no difference.” The ugly truth is that businesses don't want to pay recycling fees. Blurgh. Don't get me started.

When recycling is done in France, it’s not very well thought out. Some Parisian residential buildings get big bins, while others get jack and tenants have to cart their mounds of recycling to public recycling depositories, intermittently located on sidewalks. You never know where you might find one. Our building was thankfully graced with bins; there were a couple large ones for “all recyclable stuff” and a tiny one for glass. I noticed that while our fellow tenants were avid recyclers, they didn’t always put recyclable items into the former bin, shoving in things such as non-recyclable plastic bags (a.k.a. the bane of my existence, aside from junk snail mail...all that wasted paper). Has no one taught them how to read for the proper recycling logo? And they call Americans lazy!

Consequently, the designated glass-only bin at our building was always overflowing, and thus tons of little (often non-recyclable plastic) bags of glass bottles were left scattered on the ground around it. Our poor super had to deal with that problem every week when it was time to take out the bin, and I’d venture to guess that those non-recyclable bags made their way into the recycling, too. You’d think that in a country where so many glass bottles of wine are consumed, there would be a better solution.

I know the U.S. is spotty on this issue, and maybe my experience is so filtered through the lens of the San Francisco bubble (my local waste collector provides compost bins, for crying out loud!), but it seems that urban Americans, at least, have more successfully built recycling into daily habits. Let’s see if New York’s new experiment will help keep more icky-for-the-planet plastic bags at bay.

Yes We Did!

On a Saturday afternoon in early September, N and I were watching Obama’s DNC speech on YouTube (yes, we were a bit behind schedule, but cut us some slack—we were living in France at the time). It was the same afternoon N was embarking on a crazy, tri-continental business trip that would also take him to SF, where he would have his final interview for the job that ultimately lured us back to the States. In the middle of Barack’s address, I said, “Imagine if this opportunity works out for you and we make it back to San Francisco in time for the election…and he wins.” We both agreed it would be a beautiful thing to share in the celebrations, as we spent the past two election port-mortems trudging through a very funereal SF.

I’d been such a nervous wreck in all the months, weeks, days leading up to November 4. Yet strangely when I woke up yesterday, I just felt in my gut that Obama was going to win. I somehow avoided checking the news all day (a defense-mechanism at work to keep me calm, no doubt), until my mom called at 5pm to update me on what had already transpired: CT, NJ, ME, VT, DC, many of the usual Northeast suspects had gone blue. Then I got on the Internet and saw that Obama had won PA. Holy East Coast, it was happening! Mom and I screamed excitedly, my heart started racing, and it never stopped for the rest of the evening. Thank goodness my friend was hosting an election watch party, as the group-therapy atmosphere / added stimulation prevented me from pacing in circles around our small temporary apartment.

When the networks and online pubs started to call it, I was suspicious. Huffington Post had “President-Elect Obama” on their home page as early as 7pm PST. MSNBC had been touting 200+ electoral votes for over an hour and it just seemed too early. West Coast polls had barely closed. The NYT had been conservative in its estimates all night; they weren’t calling it yet, and so I couldn’t believe. But then I had a strange thought—what was Fox News saying? I proceeded to their site, saw “President Obama” splashed across the home page, and that’s when I gave into the wave of elation.

WOW, AMERICA!!!!

McCain gave the most inspired speech of his campaign. Barack’s—and the ten-ton reality of what had just transpired—made me cry. Among many others, I loved his comment that the change we seek doesn’t lie in his getting elected; rather, we now have the chance to make that change happen. Indeed. The road ahead will be long and difficult, but we’re more united than ever to make good on the hope and promise that brought us to this historic moment. And Barack is making good on one promise right away—the Obama girls are getting a puppy, and thus all is right in the world.

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of “Yes we can…yes we did!” reverberating from coast to coast, from continent to continent as the world rejoices with us. It would have been fascinating to view this event through the eyes of the French, but I’m thrilled to be in the U.S. to experience this firsthand. And while I miss Paris, I’m glad I don’t have to high-tail it back there to hide out for four more years.

And one last thing—I love Tina Fey and I am happy that she has her “little comedy show” to attend to, because her calendar officially got lighter as of about 8:20pm PST last night.

Baracking the Vote

Spending an election year abroad is a strange thing. What’s even stranger is coming back two weeks before the election, essentially diving right into the fray.

On the surface, my world isn’t much different. Much like in San Francisco, Obama is the Complete Rock Star in Europe, bigger than Michael Jackson, bigger than the Beatles, bigger than (dare I say it) Jesus. You’ve seen the pictures of the enormous crowd attending Obama’s speech in Berlin. Perhaps you’ve seen the Economist’s global electoral map—if only the world could vote! To the French, Obama truly symbolizes hope. Many people confessed that for France’s foreseeable future, there’s no way a black man could make it so far in politics. Although the French have conflicted feelings about the American Dream, they can at least cut past their suspicion of capitalism to acknowledge that America truly is the Land of Possibility, in ways that reach far beyond the marketplace.

Bolstering the French fervor over Obama was the relative lack of knowledge of his opponent. “McCain who?” was rolling off every Parisian’s lips—including the media’s. I spent countless hours elaborating on the GOP hopeful to my English students, dispelling the overgeneralization that he's GWB #2 and arguing that although he wouldn’t be getting my vote, he wasn’t all that bad (well, that was until he announced his unfortunate choice of a running mate, the economy imploded, and the McCain campaign went haywire).

I talked about the election constantly—on a daily basis, in fact—with my students and with French and expat friends. I obsessed over the news coverage, my anxiety building. It wasn’t as bad as Larry David’s, but at one point my husband asked me to stop talking about the election with him, as his vote was already decided and my constant chatter was stressing him the hell out. What would happen to our collective anxiety once we moved back to the States in late October?

Well, here we now are, in one of the liberal, elite capitals of America—not “real America,” in the eyes of a certain Veep candidate—and the Obamania is palpable. SF is plastered in Obama posters and it all amounts to preaching to the converted, but it also gets one’s spirits up. I realized the other day that I don’t think I’ve seen a McCain sticker, poster, T-shirt, anything—ever. If I lived in a battleground state, the Obama button I’m sporting on my purse would make more of a statement, but I might be subject to vandalism a la Peter Frampton, or worse—fall victim to a faux robbery attempt. (This election keeps getting weirder and weirder.)

I’m one of those Dems who refuses to give into the power of positive thinking, buoyed as it may be by the imperfect science of pollsters. There’s too much at stake to rest on those laurels. While all the Tina Fey-induced catharsis has helped, the anxiety has definitely been increasing. It’s seeping into my dreams. So I decided to do something, given that I have more free time on my hands: I’m volunteering for the campaign, spending hours at the phone bank.

During the shifts I’ve worked, the volunteers were given the softball assignments of calling people in SF who expressed interest in volunteering for the campaign, and of calling absentee-ballot voters in OH who already pledged support for Obama (“Don’t forget to mail your ballot today!”). No arguing with angry Republicans, no strained conversations with those who believe Barack is a terrorist, no waxing poetic to the undecideds. And though it’s been like shooting fish in a barrel, the experience has provided me with moments—just a handful of small moments—that make me so glad to be back in America during these last crucial days:

- The 84-year-old man who adorably responded, “My, yes, dearie” when I asked him if he’d already sent off his ballot, and followed it with, “If those two [McCain and Palin] make it into the White House, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
- The elderly woman who told me that her sister had never voted in her life and was now casting her first ever ballot.
- The man in San Francisco who was worried that because he wasn’t a citizen, he wouldn’t be able to help the campaign’s volunteer efforts. When I told him that anyone could help, he exclaimed enthusiastically, “Anything for Barack! Anything!”
- Looking around the phone bank, smiling at the people around me, and feeling inspired by the community rallying around this important common cause. I’m proud of all the passion this election has inspired and how it’s drawn out record numbers of voter registrations. Even if the election results are not the ones I personally want, and despite all the usual BS and newfound levels of crazy seen this year, I’m still heartened by the energy and interest in the political process this election has evoked.

My husband has long since abandoned his ostrich-like resistance to election chatter—it’s impossible to hide from it. And we’ll both be at the phone bank, quelling our anxiety in small bursts before the Big Day arrives.

Ode to Paname

I reconnected with an old friend in SF last night, and one of the first things she said to me was, “I read your blog for a couple months when you first started it, and I thought, ‘Jess is miserable there. All she does is complain about it.’ So I stopped reading it altogether.”

Huh. I wasn’t so much offended by her remark as I was taken aback. Really? Did I “French out” and shout my complaints from the blogosphere rooftops? Yeah, maybe a little, but not constantly and always with humor. However, as a stereotypical “positive American,” this post is my proof to the world that I do not use the blog as a vehicle to kvetch. Because, truly, doesn’t everyone want to hear you gush when you’re inevitably asked, “How’s Paris?” And so here it is, my light and fluffy treatise on the things I’ll miss the most about "Paname."

When my sister visited during our last week in Paris, I realized that every time I uttered the phrase, “This is one of my favorite spots in the city,” I was standing in a garden or park. I’ve always been attracted to green spaces; part of the reason I love SF so much is that it marries the urban and the natural so well. But Paris takes the art of landscaping to a whole new level. Whether the simple symmetry of the 18th century buildings, arcades, and rows of shady trees forming the perimeter of the Place des Vosges; the cheerful flowers at Parc Monceau and the Tuileries; the multi-faceted wonderland of the Jardins du Luxembourg; or the red ivy spilling down the old walls of the Carnavalet gardens, I ache for the rare and hence overwhelmingly delicious bursts of color on the Paris landscape, manicured to breathtaking effect.

I will also miss the art of la table. I appreciate how much energy the French put into food preparation and presentation—it all matters and therefore if it takes time, it’s worth it. I loved strolling down the streets of Paris and gazing into the vitrines to find the latest work of patisserie perfection. How does Pierre Hermé manage to get that syrupy dew drop to stay flawlessly posed in the edible rose petal topping his raspberry crème pastry? What’s in Michel Cluizel’s secret sauce that makes gold-dusted chocolate even possible?! You know, people would say when I first moved to Paris, “You must be indulging in pastry 24-7.” In fact, I didn’t indulge in eating the pastry regularly, but rather I indulged in eye candy on a daily basis. That’s one thing that is absent from daily life in America. We do have excellent food, but that level of French elegance is hardly part of la vie quotidienne.

Speaking of food, there’s nothing like walking past a boulangerie, just for the smell of the best bread in the world baking to golden completion. Even the best French-style bakery in the States doesn’t come close. I am also sad to have said goodbye to the good folks at Chez Omar, our local cous cous joint celebré. Not only did we love the food and worship at the feet of their harissa (the only surefire spicy food to be found in Paris), but the restaurant was also kind of our Cheers—they all knew us there and loved to joke around with us and call N ‘l’arab’ because of his part-Syrian heritage. It’s the kind of convivial relationship with local merchants that’s not guaranteed in Paris.

However, that’s not to say we only experienced it over cous cous. Our butchers were jolly and kind, our greengrocer sweet and thoughtful, but no one made me smile as much as my local pharmacist. “Heeeeeeeeh-lllllloooooooooooooo, Miz Jessica Mordo!” he exclaimed every time I walked in to refill my allergy med prescription, followed by him belting out a random show tune (occasionally with jazz hands). We established early on that I was an American who lived in SF and grew up in NYC, and that he was an extra-fabulous, rabid Broadway musical/New York/Castro District fan. We instantly got along. Plus he was the only other person in my neighborhood aside from me who felt no compunction about wearing gym-style clothes in public. Without fail, every time I went into his shop, he was wearing basketball shorts and a tight, white tank top. I think he just wanted to show off his buff physique.

And another thing I’ll ache for? In America, we are in the shallow end of the pool in terms of living history. Europe is the deep end of the ocean by comparison. I’ll miss turning a corner and discovering yet another Gothic church or 18th –century hôtel. My personal favorite is the Église de St-Germain, which was built in 586 A.D. (I mean, COME ON!) and now stands beside a Christian Dior boutique. (How’s that for incongruity?) I’ll truly miss walking (always walking! I’ll also miss living car-free) around the narrow, cobbled streets of the Marais and imagining the centuries’ worth of characters, plot arcs, and changes in setting over the course of l’histoire.

The hardest part of leaving any place, though, is not the sights and smells and random acquaintances, but the deeper relationships you created that make it home. I already miss my lovely French and expat friends and hope to lure them over for a SF visit sometime before we make it back to France—which hopefully won’t be for too, too long.

Super Sized Shopping

Today I learned that I was out of the country long enough to have almost completely forgotten what the American supermarket experience is like. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t stepped foot inside a large supermarket in over a year; it’s just that it didn’t happen all too often in France, and there’s also truly nothing like an oversized, professionally merchandised American supermarket—so much so that I felt like an alien visiting Planet Earth for the first time.

I entered the surprisingly sparklingly renovated Safeway on Church and Market and immediately entered panic mode. The place felt cavernous, on a whole other scale than the cramped aisles of Parisian supermarkets (even the upper crust ones). And it was meticulous! This is Safeway, one of the biggest chain markets in California, hardly a paragon of the dreamy natural food market-type places that I prefer to frequent. I’ve seen Safeways with dirty floors and crap lying around in the aisles. I’ve seen this particular Safeway trashed from hordes of shoppers picking through Halloween candy and thronging the check-out aisles. This was a shinier, more soothing Safeway—and the squeaky-clean grandness kind of freaked me out.

I needed to grab lemons and tomatoes from the produce section, nothing more, but I wound up spending close to ten minutes wandering around because there was just.so.much stuff! Completely overwhelming! There was produce to last for weeks and weeks and weeks. The fruits were enormous (I was kind of scared of the oranges; don’t even get me started on the melons). I agonized over buying a five-pound bag of clementines, as I haven’t eaten them for a while and it seemed like a brilliant idea…but five pounds? Really? Can’t I just pick out a half dozen? (Not) surprisingly, that wasn’t an option at Safeway. I ultimately decided against the excess. Moving onto the veggies, I saw varieties of cauliflower I’ve never, ever seen in my life—green, orange, purple (ooh, pretty!)—which left me to wonder, have these always been around, or has there been some new, radical G-Mod breakthrough since I left America? In fact, there were nearly endless varieties of everything—“omnivore’s dilemma” indeed. At the fanciest Monoprix in Paris, you still get a tiny produce selection. All fruits, whether at the farmer’s market or at the hypermarket, are miniscule relative to here (and they taste soooooooooo much better, to boot).

Another strange phenomenon was occurring in the produce section. All the Safeway employees were saying hello and asking if I needed help finding anything. Imagine this level of service in France! You practically have to chase and then put employees in a headlock to get help. Well, I also suppose that considering the breadth of products in the produce section alone, it’s not an asinine assumption that one might need assistance locating something.

Speaking of finding things, it took me a while to wade through the double-wide aisles to get the rest of the items I needed—not just because the store is so incredibly huge, but also because of (you guessed it) the variety of products to choose from. Over 20 types of mustard? Pfft. This isn’t even France, where moutard is king. Indecision paralysis overcame me in the laundry detergent section. I think there were more types of detergent than there are of yogurt in France, and believe me, that is saying a lot (every market there, whether a hole in the wall or the Monoprix, has a dedicated yogurt AISLE). At that point, I had reached the end of my shopping list, not to mention the end of my rope. I berated myself for no longer being the speedy, efficient shopper I once was and just grabbed the first jumbo-sized (of course) jug I saw. That’s another thing that was a little hard to swallow—there’s not much super/economy-sized products in Paris. Apartments and fridges aren’t big enough to house the likes of Costco goods. I got used to buying enough of what I needed / could feasibly carry on a ten-minute walk home.

The check-out process was lightning fast and the checker was chatty and sunny and I lingered for an extra moment just to continue our conversation, he was so nice. (We can score two bonus points for America, there.) He reminded me that the paper towel six-pack (which filled nearly half my shopping cart) I bought was buy one, get one free. I did something absolutely shocking and turned down the free six-pack. It violated all the rules of my bargain-hunting cultural heritage, but my goodness, I just couldn’t stomach taking home a dozen bulging rolls of paper towels. It just felt too…too, you know? It seems living in France has heightened my awareness of American glut, but I’m back and so I’d better get reacquainted enough so that I don’t get paralyzed every time I go to the supermarket.

Little Differences Ain't So Little

It is wild and wonderful to be back in the States, for at least the following few phenomena we have experienced over the past 24 hours – things that just don’t really occur in France, not ever:

1. Around the clock convenience! We managed to discover a 24-hour grocery store and a café that opens at 5am on a Sunday, the latter of which was perfect for our early-rising, jet-lagged souls (although we rolled in for our lattes at a leisurely 6:30am).

2. Amazingly friendly repartee with random people, exemplified by the woman checking us out at the supermarket who, after making small talk and learning about our current status, warmly exclaimed, “Well, I am so happy for you that you’ve moved back to San Francisco!”

3. Spicy means spicy! We ate at a tacqueria last night. Our mouths burned throughout the meal and we loved every second of it.

Woohoo, America! Aside from the above, being here generally makes us so.freaking.happy. We are home.

I’ll write more when I’m semi-recovered from the jetlag. For now, my brain is rapidly being reduced to a bowl of oatmeal.

One Last Jab at Our Sanity?

In the 13 months we’ve lived in our lovely Marais apartment, we’ve never had any plumbing disasters—and luckily so, as I’ve heard tales of unspeakable frustration in getting a plumber to come over and deal with rapidly accumulating puddles in an efficient manner. So it was just our luck that on Saturday night, exactly one week before we’re vacating the premises and moving back to the States, our toilet promptly decided to not work. After some detective work, we applied a temporary fix until we could make it to the only hardware store open on Sunday in Paris (open until noon, at that).

Cut to Sunday morning, when we discover that we have no hot water in the apartment. No way could the two plumbing events be related, we surmised. One problem has to do with a broken part in the flushing mechanism that affects water flow. The other has to do with the water heater, not to mention the toilet pipes don’t even appear to be attached to the water heater. Not a chance, nuh-uh.

What to do? I called our landlord, who lives in the south of France and very rarely puts in an appearance in the city. I proceeded, in my much improved but still somewhat rough-around-the-edges French, to explain that we had an emergency situation with our water heater and needed some advice on how to deal.

“Bah, qu’est-ce que tu veux? Je suis pas plombier.” (What do you want? I’m not a plumber.)

His response stunned me so much I almost dropped the phone. I said I of course knew that, but could he please advise me on how to proceed? Did he have the phone number of a plumber on hand who could help?

It was like I’d said absolutely nothing, because he repeated exactly what he’d said before. We kept going back and forth until he said there was nothing for him to do. Um, WHAT??? I then handed over the phone to N, whose fluency could help tackle this impasse more effectively…or so I thought.

N repeated what I’d already said about five times and then was bowled over by a screaming tirade of several variations on the themes of “It’s Sunday morning! Sunday!” and “What do you expect me to do, you pushy, entitled, American ass? Fix it myself? It’s not my responsibility.” (Oh, really? It isn’t?) N fought back with a few good ones, such as “Yes, we invented this situation to inconvenience you,” “French law states that fixing household problems is the landlord’s responsibility and I’ll quote you the legal code to support that,” and “I find your attitude utterly lacking in niceness and therefore inexcusable” (well, I’m paraphrasing on that last one).

At one point N put the phone on speaker so I and our visiting sisters could hear the landlord’s sustained ranting. This continued for about 10 minutes until finally N threw off his boxing gloves in disgust and said we’d call a plumber ourselves the next day (as of course, plumbers don’t work on Sundays in France) and send the landlord the bill. He finally managed to hang up and was about to dash out the door to the hardware store for the wayward toilet part, when the phone rang. It was the landlord.

He laid on the passive-aggressive guilt-cum-spite tactic real thick: “Well, now that you’ve ruined my day, I’m canceling my trip to Belgium—which I’ve already begun, as you called me while I was driving on the highway—and coming to Paris to show you that I absolutely do not know how to fix your water heater.” Wow. What are you, 13 years old and angry at the world?

N talked him out of this absurd plan but the guy still would not calm down. N couldn’t take it anymore, not to mention was pressed for time due to the hardware store’s soon-to-be closed doors. He pawned the landlord off on his sister, whose French is perfect and who knows far better than us the nuances of national etiquette. She apologized profusely for our “ignorance” of how things “work” in France and for disturbing him on a Sunday. He was still sputtering a bit, but she managed to calm him down. Pfew.

Perhaps we are ignorant and could’ve been more apologetic about calling him on a Sunday at 11 a.m., but holy crow, man! You’re the landlord! You’re the responsible party! We never presumed he should drop everything and get his landlordy ass over here to fix our water heater, but rather very clearly asked for conseil. He seemed more pissed off that we bothered him on a Sunday than anything else, which is a typical French attitude. Le sigh. Well, we learned that our landlord is cranky and irrational and that ce mec là, il est un vrai con. At least we’re out of here in a couple days and so thus don’t have to care.

Oh, and P.S. It turned out that as soon as we fixed the toilet and the tank refilled, the water heater started to work again. The heater was never broken, and we can blame our ignorance of our apartment’s byzantine plumbing system for disgracing our landlord so. All’s well that ends well, or so the saying goes.

The Next Chapter

I’ve been neglecting the blog lately, as there’s been a whole lot going on. First, dear friends from L.A. were in town. Next, I spent a week in Tuscany for the wedding of SF friends. It was heavenly. Finally, and most importantly, my mind has been elsewhere as I’m moving back to the States in 10 days. It’s bittersweet, but mostly sweet. I miss my community, my homeland, and many efficiencies/conveniences that I always took for granted. There will be a lot to miss (plus a lot to not miss!) in France, and at the end of the day I spent 14 very enriching, opening, lovely months here. It’s comforting knowing that I can now call Paris home and that I’ll definitely be back to visit, as N’s extended family and our new friends are here.

In the coming days I’ll certainly slap together some reflections on my time in France, a.k.a. the good, the bad, and the smelly, but today I’m musing about the future of this here blog. What started as a means to keep friends and family updated on my life in Paris took on a life of its own as the nature of it evolved and the readership grew. The blog has provided a new medium for a lifelong passion and has been a cathartic tool for processing my impressions of what can at times be a strange and alienating culture. Plus, as my FIL poignantly noted recently, it’s been a file conducteur (connecting thread) in my life abroad, a kind of stabilizing element that carried through the less certain early months when I didn’t speak much French and thus benefited from creating a sort of dialogue with myself, and continued through the fullness of the latter months when my local network had expanded and my understanding of the culture had become sharper and more multi-dimensional.

And so, one of my preoccupations about Great Move Back has been deciding how the blog will evolve. I’ve got ideas. I, unlike Sarah Palin, do not read “all” news sources, but in the ones I do tend to read I think I noticed something about, like, $700 billion and some guys (and one lady) running for some sort of political office. It’s not at all an interesting time to move back to the States, armed with reverse culture shock and new bi-continental perspective on home to boot. So stick with me—if you dare!

Seeing Orange

This is N hijacking Jess’s blog. Apparently, I need to hit some kind of frustration threshold before I’m inspired to write anything.

My mobile phone provider, Orange, has recently made The List, in company with such French greats as banking and taxis. Yes, I realize that nobody loves their mobile phone provider back in the U.S. either, but what has transpired recently with Orange is definitely an order of magnitude more insufferable than the tales of woe I’ve heard from U.S. consumers, which generally seem to revolve around dropped calls and/or poor reception.

Any discussion of mobile phone service in France must begin with the discrepancy in cost between mobile phone services in the U.S. versus France. I was going to ballpark this part, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to get factual by looking up figures on the websites of Orange and AT&T. The results are shocking. Looking at comparable, fairly low-end calling plans at each site, I found that Orange’s cost per minute of talk time (about $0.51) is fifty times higher than AT&T ($0.01)! To be fair, I summed up AT&T’s 5000 nights and weekend minutes as well as the 450 minutes of peak talk time, but even when you exclude the nights and weekend minutes Orange is still nine times more expensive. Orange basically gives you two hours of talk time for $60, although you do get unlimited calls to three numbers. Anyway, you might chalk this up to the higher cost of living in France, until you consider that broadband/cable TV/VOIP telephony is available as a package for about $50, and the Internet is roughly 15 times faster than the speeds that are readily/affordably available in the U.S. (16 Mbps at my place!)

All this is a prelude to my iPhone story. When the iPhone 3G was announced, I decided to finally cave in and get it, having held out on the first generation. Orange, like AT&T in the U.S., is the exclusive iPhone carrier. Luckily for me, or so I thought, I was already an Orange subscriber. Thus, I was surprised to learn when I went to the Orange store to get the iPhone that I had not accumulated enough “points”, and so the iPhone would cost me about $600, versus the $300 advertised price (converting roughly from Euros here). However, they did inform me that if I were to cancel my current subscription, and join as a new customer, they could offer me the $300 price since I’d be a new customer acquisition that way. Go figure. The catch was that since I would be cancelling my subscription before my full year was up, I’d have to pay the remaining two months of subscription.

At this point, before having purchased the actual phone, I mentioned that I might be relocating out of the country soon, and asked whether I’d be able to take the phone with me and cancel my new subscription without any penalties. I would of course have not gotten the phone if the answer hadn’t been “oh sure, no problem.” I think there’s a law that prevents providers from charging cancellation fees in the event of an international move. In any case, they repeatedly told both Jess and I (in separate stores) that it would not be an issue. So we went ahead with it.

Fast forward four months – Jess and I are leaving the country soon. I begin the process of notifying Orange that I need to cancel my service due to the fact that we are leaving. During the half dozen attempts to reach the cancellation department at Orange over the course of a week, I experienced a distinct pattern of neglectful customer service which was, in fact, entirely circular, much like a mobius strip. It went like this:



Call
Navigate byzantine menu tree to indicate to the system that I am interested in cancelling my subscription
Wait on hold
Customer Service rep responds who has not been informed that I would like to cancel my subscription
Verbal explanation to CS rep that I would like to cancel my subscription
CS rep asks for my identifying information
CS rep then tells me that he actually can’t execute the cancellation, and that I need to speak with the cancellation department, which he puts me through to
Wait on hold
CS rep comes back on to tell me that the cancellation department is so busy (surprise surprise) that they can’t answer the phone, and to try back later
This happened over and over. I suppose denying your customers the ability to cancel your service can be called a retention strategy.

Eventually, I managed to speak with a cancellation rep and explained to him that I needed to cancel my service, as well as “unlock” my iPhone so it will work on other networks. Without the unlock, the phone would be useless back in the U.S. The rep informs me that the unlock will cost $150, since I have had the phone for less than six months, although this fee was never mentioned by the people who sold us the phones and told us it would be “no problem”. However, this is actually fair, since Orange heavily subsidizes the cost of the phone in exchange for a 1 or 2 year commitment by the customer, and we have only had the phone for three or four months. So I agreed to the fee, and told him to go ahead with the unlocking procedure, which actually needs to go through Apple. The rep informs me that all that is left for me to do is to send a letter requesting the cancellation along with proof of my employment abroad. Jess and I duly send in these letters, thinking that would be that.

A week later I get a voice message from an Orange cancellation rep. Apparently, they “just” need us to go into the Orange store where we purchased our phones (yes, the specific stores) and return the units. Upon handing in the phones we’ve now spent $450 each on, not counting monthly service fees of course, our accounts will be cancelled. All this after Jess and I were told, separately, on multiple non-consecutive occasions, that cancelling our service and unlocking our phone to take the abroad would be “no problem.”

Needless to say, I’m super displeased with Orange right now. However, this frustration does not compare with the prospects of again attempting to reach Orange’s customer support reps to set all of this straight.

Jheeking Out

“What is a…a…‘jheek’?”

This is the inevitable question from a student whenever reading one of my favorite English-lesson news articles, an Economist special report about how wireless technology has impacted society. The piece drops the words ‘geek’ and 'nerd' a couple times, and so reading it is always a game of waiting for the quizzical look and the mispronunciation of two of America’s most endearing insults and/or status labels, depending on how you look at it (or where you live).

It’s not as if hearing the correct pronunciation renders the words any more comprehensible to the French. The first problem is that there isn’t any translation in the French language. The closest French gets is intello, which really means ‘intellectual’—a term that’s far more Nietzsche, ethics seminar, and tweed than Star Trek, LAN party, and pocket protector.

The second problem runs deeper than language. The fact is the concepts of ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’ just don’t exist in this culture. And herein we can analyze the wide cultural gap between Euros and Americans. Europe has played host to centuries of ground-breaking thinkers. Intellectualism is as much a part of their history as is architecture or food. Educational achievement is of utmost importance in French society, yet the education system only awards the highest honors to a select few. French students are therefore pushed to the point of breaking, and only a few of them make it to the top. There has never been a celebration of the jock over the nerd, because football may reign supreme, but studies are way more important. You’d think some would rebel against the intellectual status quo, yet it seldom happens. As depressing as it could be, people still aspire to greatness even if they know they may never achieve it. In adult life, most people strive to know what’s happening in the world, present a solid analysis of it, and be right about it, to boot. Being smart (or at least appearing to be smart) isn’t just cool—it’s a survival skill.

Now, I’m not saying America is a polar opposite. We of course have had great minds, countless innovations, and many high-performing students. We have our bubble world of the educated elite. But we also tend to prize athletic achievement and strength over brains. (If you look back to our country’s origins, it was all about brawn—conquering the wilderness, the Manifest Destiny. Could this have something to do with it?) The jock vs. nerd rivalry codified in 1980’s teen comedies has faded, but not quite into obscurity. I worked in public schools for two years—the athletes still get all the glory, while it’s uncool to be so unabashedly, nerdily, in love with one’s studies. (“Don’t worry,” I’d tell my over-achieving students, “It won’t matter anymore in college.” Well, maybe except at a Big 10 university.) And in 2004, we experienced the triumph of someone who inexplicably bluffed his way through Yale (family money helps a lot!) over someone whom the American people felt was too much of a “European intellectual.” I wasn’t a fan of Kerry’s longwindedness either, but at the time I, like many others, was infuriated that a term celebrating smarts had been transformed into an insult.

However, we’ve turned a corner in American culture. Nerdiness may still be cause for mockery, but geekiness is another beast altogether. Living in the SF Bay Area for nearly a decade, I witnessed the ascension of the Geek firsthand. And now the word is less rooted in the realm of technology or educational achievement, and more casually tossed around to refer to anyone who’s an avid fan of just about anything. I could call myself a tea geek, my sister a Pilates geek, my angler student a fishing geek…etc.

But back to the French, the idea of nerdiness and geekiness just don’t translate. I have slaved away at trying to explain the words to many French friends and students, sometimes even aided by other Anglos, and it always fails to come across and really gel in a French person’s mind. To define geek, the best I can come up with is un fan (a fan). To define nerd, it gets a bit trickier. I usually have to resort to acting out the role of a stereotypical nerd, which involves talking in a high-pitched whiny voice, adopting a hunched posture, and pushing my invisible glasses up the ridge of my nose. Basically, it’s my rendition of the super-nerdy kid on “The Simpsons” who recruits Lisa into his league of nerds. It’s a pathetic impersonation and I think it leaves the French pitying my apparent mental disorder rather than experiencing the dawning light of realization.

Des Voleurs, Degagez-Vous

To start with a painfully clichéd phrase, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life”—because yesterday my entire post-adolescent life was robbed. Literally. Some asshole broke into my apartment and stole my laptop, which contains all my writing (and I’m not just talking blog posts, but articles, freelance copywriting, college and post-grad papers, original poetry), all the curriculum I’ve developed as a teacher (lesson plans, projects, notes, research), tons of emails, and a host of other important documents and information. Namely, I’ve lost my entire body of work to date, the groundwork for future work, and things I can’t even begin to recall. All gone. Game over.

It all begins with the living room window, with which N and I have fought an oftentimes losing battle for the past year. It’s extremely difficult to shut firmly, and doing so requires a team of at least two to three people. Sometimes it pops open after it’s been firmly (or semi-firmly) shut. To my knowledge, it was shut when I left the apartment yesterday morning, but one never truly knows.

Then there’s the scaffolding that’s lining both sides of my apartment building, as the property manager is finally renovating the facades after a 20 year lapse. For the past two months, there has been a team workers entering and exiting my building complex, working directly beside my apartment, waking me up with horrible banging and drilling, dusting up the stairwell—a constant nuisance, not to mention something that’s made me slightly uneasy. Who likes having lots of strangers hanging around near their home for a prolonged period?

You can probably put two and two together at this point. I came home yesterday from a full workday followed by gym workout (still in my sweaty workout clothes) to find that the window that I’d thought had been shut and the curtains that had most certainly been fully closed were open above a pile of dust on the cushions and carpet. I immediately knew my laptop was gone before I even looked toward its usual spot on my desk. Sure enough, gone it was, and it was the only thing taken. There were several other small, valuable items the culprit could have pinched, but a shiny white iBook seemed to do the trick. Plus, the thief needed a getaway bag so he dumped all the contents of my deskside trash and took the plastic garbage bag. Gee, thanks.

After feverishly checking and rechecking that nothing else had been taken, I called N, who as luck wouldn’t have it is away on business in the States, and he tried to talk me down. Everything that occurred afterwards was surreal and almost comical. I went downstairs to tell my super, and to enlist his help in calling the police, as my robbery-addled brain wasn’t operating at normal capacity and my French was coming out painfully wrong . He, his wife, and their daughter were very sympathetic and sweet and helped me without hesitation. The teenage daughter dialed the cops and what ensued was a family sitcom scenario of her speaking on the phone, the mom continuously yelling at her to ask for their exact address and Metro stop, and the dad continuously yelling at the mom to stop yelling at their kid. This went on for several minutes and at one point I did let out a little giggle that I had to stifle with a cough. Ahem. We determined that I would walk to the police station and in the meantime the super and his wife would alert my downstairs neighbor, who was a victim of the same crime exactly a week before (unbelievable, right?). They told me Mme G could give me useful information on how to proceed. Cool.

My mind was then racing with the multitude of things I had to immediately do: get the damn window shut, go to the police station, of course shower because in France walking around in one’s sweaty gym clothes automatically lowers one’s credibility, and uh oh, my friends visiting from SF (who thank goodness were spending the night) were due chez moi in two hours so I’d have to leave a note on my door instructing them to wait at the café downstairs while I tended to the emergency. I decided to tackle the window first, unaided (big mistake) and was getting so worked up emotionally that I absentmindedly placed one hand on a pane of glass in the window while putting pressure on the frame in order to get it closed. The next thing I knew, my hand had gone straight through the glass, without even so much as a crashing sound effect. Pffff, pop! was all I got. (This is so like me. I am the most closeted clumsy person in the world. I appear to have it all together, but every now and again I have a really bizarre or just plain foolish mishap—usually none involve injuring myself, though.) Don’t worry, I was super, super lucky to only sustain some shallow cuts on my hand, but at the time I was bleeding and in shock and so I just lost it. Explosions. Nuclear meltdowns. Call in the haz-mat crew, a.k.a. my beloved N, who could barely make out what I was saying, I was in such hysterics. He was attempting to talk me down yet again, when suddenly the doorbell rang. And this is when Mme G, the downstairs neighbor whose laptops were stolen last week, entered the picture and the fires started to get put out.

I first put her on the phone with N, because my French was becoming more and more second-grader by the moment. They exchanged stories. Hers was even worse! The workers had broken one of her windows in the course of their work and offered to help patch it up with cardboard. Two of them actually went into her apartment to apply the temporary fix. About a few days later, she left her apartment for two hours, only to return to the cardboard slashed, the window open, two computers gone, and a trail of dusty footprints leading to her front door (which is so cartoonish it’s almost funny…well, really, it’s just horrible).

Anyhow, I eventually said goodbye to N. Mme G took one look at my haggard expression and knew she had to take charge of the situation. And she did so in the kindest, most gracious way. We agreed I should wait until the next morning to go to the police given the additional fracas with the glass and my hand, plus the simple logic that it could wait until tomorrow. She called my household insurance company; she called the police. Finally, she insisted that she accompany me to the police station the following morning and gave me her numbers in case I needed anything.

Then more neighbors started showing up to express their sympathies and concerns. (Wow, news spreads fast in this building.) One neighbor and the super helped me finally get the window very firmly shut. I patched up the hole in the glass with cardboard and packing tape. Once the excitement died down, I was able to take a long shower and reflect. Yes, this is a terrible loss of something priceless. Yes, whoever did this is a real MF and has left me feeling violated and unsafe in my own home. Yes, I am such an idiot for not backing up my data despite knowing better, yet being too lazy to deal (believe me, I will probably beat myself up over this one for a long time to come). But really, despite all the negativity generated from this incident, I have to look on the bright side, because I’m a stereotypical positive American, dammit, and that’s how we do. So: I’ve learned an important lesson (always back up! wasn’t this a Sex and the City episode?), and now I have a fresh start. Tabula rasa. I will have to keep telling myself that when the sadness and anger seesaw back into play.

To help put things into perspective, I decided to read the news. Hurricane Hanna, Iraq, and Sarah Palin…yeah, my problems are pretty small. I eventually received my wonderful friends, whose presence calmed me down immensely—to the point that they were marveling at how calm I seemed (you should’ve seen me a couple hours ago, friends)—and in no time I was laughing and having a fun evening. As an extra precaution, they also helped me move the sofa in front of the windows, in effect blocking the windows from being opened. I don't like having a hole in the glass with scaffolding adjacent to my apartment, but moving the sofa made me feel better and I don’t think the jerk who broke in would be so bold as to attempt it again. (I’ll get a real glass replacement on Monday, anyhow.)

I had a semi-sleepless night, in part because I kept hearing fishy noises on the scaffolding outside my bedroom window. Paranoia started to get the better of me. (It’s him/them, he’s/they’re back with a crew of thieves and they’re going to clean the place out. Must…protect…Rock Band gear and Goonies DVD! Haha, just kidding.) Finally I worked up the nerve to take a peek. Pfew! Just a tarp attached to the scaffolding twisting and rasping in the wind. Girl, you’ve seen way too many scary movies.

My neighbor accompanied me to the police station this morning and I filed the report. It was a fairly painless procedure—I didn't need 14 documents, the police were nice, I managed fairly well with my French, and my neighbor picked up the slack when I couldn't. Then the police sent over a "police technique" (forensics) person, who arrived with his smart-looking forensics briefcase. I was expecting a little CSI action—dusting for fingerprints or at least some inspection of the premises—but he only asked me the same questions they did at the station, wrote down the same information I’d reported at the station, and explained there was nothing more he could do. DUUUUUUUUUUUH. Um, why did you come in the first place? (Ah, France. Such a high unemployment rate and therefore some pretty pointless jobs.) He did share one bit of interesting info: He said the police gets tons of these reports any time there's travaux (renovations) done on a building. In a way that makes me feel better, but in a way it’s even more infuriating.

Mme G and I returned to our building only to learn from the super that there had been a third incident, this time in the building across from mine. The workers have been painting and so an elderly resident left the windows open to air out the apartment, only to return home to find one of the workers standing in the apartment. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!! The resident is scared to report it to the cops in case the worker threatens or hurts him. Three incidents in one week? That’s it, these guys have to be fired. My downstairs neighbor, my landlord, and my super are all pressuring the building manager to crack some heads at the contractor’s. As the French would say, c’est insupportable.

Later, I went to the gym to channel my aggression and focus on something else. Pumping iron really works! I felt good and strong and sweaty and alive. Some comforting phone calls with family members, delicious white tea, and a hot shower later, I’ve managed to put a lot of the negativity behind me and I’m awaiting yet another set of visiting friends. (I’m quite grateful to not be spending the weekend alone in my apartment given the circumstances.) Moreover, I’ve returned to one of the most relaxing exercises I know: writing. I am rebuilding the temple, so to speak. So thank you for sticking it through this super long account; it’s been an important cathartic step.

Rentrée Sickness

Yesterday, the first of September, is known as la rentrée, or the return. It is a grand return indeed: everyone’s back from their lengthy August vacations, school is again in session, the city is coming back to life, office activity is picking up. And therefore, everyone is feeling down. Including me, except not for the same reasons most Parisians are.

It’s just that I’m sick of all the complaining. I’ve grinned and bared it and I’ve tried to be sympathetic in the face of it, but frankly, I’m over it.

Parisians complain all the time. It’s practically an academic exercise. The running philosophy goes that if a Frenchman finds something worth complaining about, he has analyzed the situation craftily enough to identify an obvious or, better yet, a hidden fault. If you don’t find any fault, you are mentally lazy. He is therefore smarter than you. To boil it down into simpler terms…Complacent = stupid. Happy = downright moronic. Maybe I’m looking at this from a limited point of view (or maybe I’m just dumb, since I’m often in a good mood), but what does it say about a culture that devotes all this mental energy to actively not being happy? It isn’t a shock, then, to discover that 20% of French adults are on antidepressants. French adults are also the world’s biggest consumers of tranquilizers. Holy smokes.

Combine an already pessimistic national character with a return to work after the summer and Paris starts to feel funereal. You can feel it on the Metro and watching the hordes of workers surge past in the business district. Every student I’ve seen since yesterday morning has complained about something or other. I asked one, whom I hadn’t seen in two months due to her sprawling summer holiday, how her trip went, smiling expectantly. She said it was fine and then immediately launched into a long and bitter diatribe about how shitty the public transportation system is. All this because she got to work 15 minutes late today. I think we’ve crossed over from glass half empty to can’t see anything in the glass at all.

I read a piece in the IHT yesterday that went beyond my small sample size. Apparently, this is a “particularly morose” return because people are hesitant about the slowing economy and decreased purchasing power. Well, these are legitimate causes for concern, but there are reasons the French economy is stagnant (beyond the ripple effect of the American market crisis) and part of it has to do with the lack of dynamism and resistance to change. It’s the French paradox of complaining about how bad things are but then complaining (translation: striking) when something is poised to change. In fact, there have been rumblings about a major strike coming to theaters near us this fall—which may succeed in slowing down the economy further if it causes a prolonged period of preventing people from getting to work.

Clearly, I’m a product of my own culture. Surely, no one likes coming back from vacation and financial woes are not trivial matters, but where I come from we pick ourselves up and get things done and don’t waste too much negative energy bitching about it. Because that’s just what we do. And if we don’t like the situation we’re in, we try our best to change it or something about ourselves in order to better deal with it. We don’t wait around for the other shoe to drop or for the state to come pick it up and put it back on the rack where we think it belongs. We’re certainly not perfect, and we’ve made plenty of mistakes, but we at least make an effort to control our own destinies. (Ooooooooooh, she took it there.) It’s strange how after a year of living outside America, I realize how much of an American I truly am.

Oh, but of course not all of the French are dark, dreary, and dour. And I adore France. Just not for the reasons outlined above.

Yes, this is my day to rant, people! And don’t think the irony is lost on me. I fully acknowledge that in my attempt to vent about the complaining that surrounds me, I am, in fact, complaining. Maybe this re-entry sickness is more powerful than I thought.

Rock en Seine

Although I missed out on a lot of the summer festival season due to various vacations and such (yes, life in France is tough), I did manage to catch one of the final big outdoor musical events of the season the other night, Rock en Seine. It was fantastic.

First, let me get my semi-sarcastic commentary out of the way. The #1 fashion item on display was not super-super-almost-painted-on-skinny jeans or a bold-colored keffiyeh, as one might have expected, but rather a “I♥NY” logo. It was plastered on T-shirts, hoodies, and tote bags. Apparently, it is what Parisians like. Because the French may be conflicted about Americans, but New York? New York, they love. Aw. On the contrary, something baffling was discovered at one of the food vendors, which sold “Specialités Libanaises” yet boasted an image on its stallfront of a large cactus sporting a sombrero and shaking maracas. Huh? Who did their marketing? Something else of note was the festival campgrounds, which were divided into two sections: Camping and Rock Camping. How cool do you, like, have to be to get into Rock Camping? Is there a guest list I can get on? Heh. OK, time for me to stop with the sarcasm and compliment the festival for its remarkably low drink prices, compared to at U.S. events (if you don’t factor in the exchange rate, natch). Glasses of wine for 3 euros and pints of beer for 5? Not bad.

And now, the music. We unfortunately couldn’t get to the all-day festival early enough to catch The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and The Roots, but we did see some greats. The Raconteurs played a ripping show. It was the perfect summertime rock-n-roll soundtrack. Plus, Jack White! Justice came on 45 minutes late, but then pumped out a tight set. I danced, danced, danced. I didn’t notice too many people around me dancing, which I thought was odd given Justice are FRENCH DJ’S, but maybe things were different closer up to the stage—you know, where all the hardcore fans are.

The big disappointment of the night was that Amy Winehouse canceled at the very last minute. The non-irony was that this was not unexpected. In fact, everyone I was with was joking about the probability throughout the evening. Apparently she pulled the same thing at Rock en Seine last year. Guess who’s not going to be invited back in ’09? Jeez, pull it together, woman. She is one very talented train wreck and I would’ve liked to see her perform, but alas. I wasn’t anywhere nearly as upset as the many people who had driven from all over the country to see her play at her only scheduled gig in France this year.

The Streets made up for it, though. They were purely fun and put on a surprisingly great live show. I used to find their frontman Mike Skinner annoying, but the band has grown on me and now I’m re-sold. Skinner was a bit humorous, making little Amy Winehouse cracks that got the entire audience laughing (he is British and spoke only English, so this is how I know people understood what he was saying). However, I kind of felt bad for him when he tried to get some audience participation going mid-show and failed miserably. First, he said (I’m paraphrasing), “I’m gonna count to 5 and when I say 5, I want you to turn toward someone you don’t know, look them in the eye, and say, ‘I love you!’” The crowd started tittering nervously. When he reached 5, I turned to a gaggle of French girls and threw an Iloveyou in their direction and they just continued to titter nervously. I tried. A few minutes later, Skinner tried for #2 (paraphrasing again): “Now when I say ‘go low,’ I want you to put your arm around the person you said ‘I love you’ to’s shoulders and go low [translation: crouch down to the ground].” Judging from the lack of reciprocity earlier, N and I opted to do this one together. Well, when the big moment to go low finally came, I think N and I were among only a handful of people who actually went for it. Let’s analyze the situation. Yes, it was cheesey as hell, and yes, I’m sure some people in the crowd had no idea what he was talking about due to language issues. But come on, what’s wrong with a little cheesey audience interaction? To me, it spoke to the French’s aversion to engaging with strangers and acting a little silly just for the hell of it. Where I come from, these are not barriers to entry. Skinner saw the audience’s reaction and said in a mock-defeated tone, “OK, OK, I get it. I won’t ask you do anything else.” It was an odd-yet-amusing little blip in the midst of a really upbeat performance.

Overall it was a great time. I need more outdoor music!