Faits divers #1: Wee, I learned a new word today!!!!!

I slept well last night, much better than the night before

...where I passed out at midnight before beginning my paper and after being on-and-off asleep, wrote it b/w 5 and 7:30 in the morning before starting my 9-17:30 school day (the military time's to make subtraction easier, how many hours is that? That's right, 8.5. Nothing several cappucinos and a Coke can't fix!)

As I said, much better than the night before. When I woke up, I was all like, hmm...that's a lot more sirens than I usually hear. Then I went back to sleep again.

Even though class was at 10:45, I found a way to be late. As I sped right in front of the Place de Clichy metro stop, I glanced at the line of white vans with the blue sirens blaring and making a fuss as they cut through the roundabout west to the boulevard des Batignolles.

"Damn, that's a lot of CRS vans..."

As everyone knows, the CRS are the most brutal of French riot police. Makes you wonder where they were headed, must be a pretty big deal if they have the sirens on...

Very pretty morning, all in all. Good times.

There are so many things i've been out of the loop on this week...

But first: This band was on YouTube, like they all are, they're called Vegastar, they make me think like they're the French version of the All-American Rejects. Fun stuff, I totally dig the Tetris-y synths that come up every now and then, creating a calm before those snarly pop-punk choruses, don't you think? I miss rocking out to poppy music...but isn't that what I always do?

Now then, the Sorbonne strike. Great job kids. Striking's cool and I'm all for whatever revolution you're launching today, but next time, i'd appreciate getting a memo before I abandon my lazy but fun hangout with my friends to go on an hour-long trek on the metro to the other side of the city, only to see empty classrooms everywhere. Not to mention that I had actually wracked my brain (and destroyed precious lead in anger) doing real work to prepare the philosophical text of the day. That...sucked...balls.

Apparently the strike was voted on by Paris I and Paris IV (the one I'm going to); unfortunately for me I had not read the news that day or listened to the radio. It seems about a 1000 or so students marched up from Bastille to the Latin Quarter protesting against the government reform of the day (there really is always something new when you go online) that would make the universities autonomous -- they seem to be against it because they believe it would invite corporations to take over the education system; on the other hand, there's other people who are arguing that the universities need more money and more restructuring to make graduates competitive with Grandes Ecoles graduates in the labour market. Hmm. Probably should have stuck around to listen to the protesters at Paris IV explain it. All I know is, I got home early yesterday, had an admittedly good nap.

Another thing:

The whole Stephen Colbert deal. Yes, I joined the Facebook group: nobody told me he was running for real! Or that Obama supporters put pressure on the South Carolina Democratic Party's Executive Council to prevent teh Colbertzorz from running on the Democratic ticket in the state just a few days ago, making him quit, to the detriment of the American people.

The Colbert candidacy, interestingly enough, has renewed my interest in this election, which thus far is still easy to ignore in France (it's not yet front-page fodder for the French papers, especially with President Sarkozy still running around at full speed to solve a new crisis each day). For starters, I think this is really the first time it dawns on me how distant the establishment is from us, the young people. I know Wikipedia isn't good at all for citing, but they put it so well:

Colbert's candidacy had met mixed reviews,^[26] and the growing realization that Colbert may be serious about his candidacy has risen the ire of the American political and media establishment.

When the Public Opinion Strategies poll put Colbert ahead of Bill Richardson, Richardson's spokesman responded: "This is a serious election with serious consequences and we are not going to comment on this ridiculous exercise".

Katon Dawson, South Carolina's Republican party chairman believed Colbert would be better off using the $35,000 entrance fee to "buy a sports car and get a girlfriend".^[27]

The high polling gave way to what New York called a "Stephen Colbert Backlash", as bloggers criticized Colbert for verging into legitimate political territory, that he has "crossed the line from lampooning the process to actively messing it up."^[28]

Several members of the committee expressed dismay over Colbert's apparent lack of serious intention, citing his failure to campaign nationally as a reason to doubt his viability; one member stated that Colbert would only get on the ballot "over my dead body."^[17]

I personally like John McCain's view the best:

"He can make them livelier and he can reach a wider audience than that narrow little sliver that watches his show."

When one million people join a Facebook group supporting a presidential candidate, all within a few days, while the established candidates have not yet gone anywhere close to that -- well, I'm sure it's more than just a sliver, and perhaps, perhaps, they shouldn't be dismissed so quickly. And truly, what is a "serious election"? Is all the infighting, the nitpicking, the vapid media poll-following and the pronouncement of the same vague promises to the same choir, can that be considered any more serious? Most of this ridiculously long primary is purely rhetoric, whether on the blogs or on a thirty-second TV soundbite; if that's what is to be serious, then maybe irony is a valid position to take after all. Fuck them for telling us how we should do politics! Wow, look at that, after three years, I'm in shape again, and better than ever!

Why not? If we say we want change, then perhaps we should be thinking of how we can start making it not just superficially, but completely, altering the entire system from its roots. Hard, I know, but maybe if we really start thinking about it, we might get somewhere, yes?

More on this lovely little spectacle:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/clinton-says-yes-to-peru/

I love these things, cos you can tell most of the people debating on the comments have no idea what they're talking about and just assume knee-jerk stances based on whatever sound-bytes their favorite politicians feeds them. Somehow, you notice it more when you haven't tuned in for a while.

Remember kids,

Blogs Are Lame.

;)

The Memory Game (1)

As Nick pointed out today, blogging is a useful way to help you remember what you did. Since I will never write entries about most of the stuff I do, I'll try to summarise the last two weeks as briefly as possible. It's a fun exercise in compression and memorization. And...go!

Monday, Sept.10: Arrive @ airport. Meet Alex, Nicole. Take shuttle with Alex to rue Biot. Greeted by Jacques. Meet Andrew for real. Introductions. Choose room -- I choose the one with the window with the view of the courtyard. Eat whatever we can find. Begin walk. Get lost several times attempting to go through rue des Abbesses and Montmartre. Reach Sacre-Coeur, but the magnificence of building is overshadowed by our fatigue and our sense of not-really-being-in-Paris. (Jet lag.) Head back to Pl. de Clichy, attempt to walk to Parc Monceau. Unaware we are heading towards Blvd. de Clichy and Pigalle until we pass the Moulin Rouge -- wrong way. Head to Parc Monceau. Rest at Parc Monceau. Kids playing: "Je suis un helicoptere!" Head towards Arc de Triomphe. Reach Arc de Triomphe, in time for the changing of the guard. Head back willy-nilly to rue Biot. Dinner: Jacques invites his son + his first student (a Swedish woman who works for the embassy in France). Dinner is nice, conversation is long; we sit there and occassionally throw in witty asides. Finish setting up and sleep.

Tuesday, Sept 11: First time on the metro: takes a while to figure out the tickets. Late for IES orientation @ noon. After, meet several people, incl. Josh, Ai, Mariel, Nick. Find the local boulangerie, head for Eiffel Tower, then Invalides, then wander for a while. Notre-Dame, then drink at a nearby cafe. Head home for rest. Dinner at 10 in the evening around Montparnasse-Alesia. Return from metro. Nighty-night.

Wednesday, Sept 12: IES orientation @ FIAP. Lunch. Meet more people. Head out; Latin Quarter + 1st arrondissement. Linger in front of Centre Pompidou. Return home. Waste time, read in terrace. Dinner w/ Jacques. As always, good.

Thursday, Sept 13: IES orientation @ FIAP. Propedeutique test. Lunch, heavily commented on. Propedeutique groups determined. Meet Gabi. Kill time in afternoon by walking to IES. Afternoon trip to an exhibition in Chateau des Sceaux w/ Jacques. Good times. Apres, on dine, mais ou?

Friday, Sept 14: First day of Propedeutique. Meet Yoko, who shows us an awesome creperie. Best guacamole ever. More IES stuff. Return to creperie w/ Andrew, Nicole, linger. Eat dinner at Resto U, Cite Universitaire. Nighttime: hang out at apartments, sample cheap wine.

Saturday, Sept 15: Miss Technoparade due to oversleeping. Spend noon chasing group. Trocadero, find bus ticket --> St. Michel-Auteuil --> St. Germain-des-Pres. Picnic on bridge, I forget which one exactly. Strawberries good. Head to Louvre. Alex drops camera. Appears broken. Just a problem w/ lens. Alex drops camera again. No problems. Go beyond Louvre, into the gardens. Ferris wheel. Return to rue Biot. Walk along Av. de Clichy. Buy Vegomatic CD, used. Night: dinner @ Gabi's, it is good. Linger till beyond midnite. Star cards.

Sunday, Sept 16: Need to find book, but all bookshops closed save for FNAC, Champs-Elysees. Waste time sampling music. Buy Keren Ann CD. FNAC books closed. Stroke of luck: Virgin has it. Eat hot dog on baguette + Coke. Too many tourists, too many French PDA'ing. Bloody French. Return to rue Biot, go walk along Parc Monceau. Stay at rue Biot for dinner.

Monday, Sept 17: Propedeutique. Travel agency, Greek food. Apres midi, re-linger with Nick, Gabi. Apple juice enjoyed by all. Tour of Marais. Return to rue Biot. Go to Montmartre/Sacre-Coeur, but caught by rain. Rush back to rue Biot. Dinner @ Jacques: steak, chips, salad, goat cheese is gooood.

Tuesday, Sept 18: Propedeutique. Linger @ IES, conscripted for an informative tour of the Arsenal. Urban planning. Drink at cafe along Gobelins. Wait out rain. Improvise dinner.

Wednesday, Sept 19: Propedeutique. More travel meetings. Housing meeting. Tour of Montmartre w/ Nicole. Walk to rue Biot, grab Andrew. Visit Nicole's posh place. Do not quite make it to Bois de Boulogne. Very early for boat trip. Spend till 9 waiting. Talk. Talk. Talk. Hungry. See Eiffel Tower do cool tricks. Boat. Exotic fruit juice. Good appetizers, melon soup; main course: lamb+potatoes. Dessert is good. Talk. Talk. Pictures.

Thursday, Sept 20: Propedeutique. Tired as hell. After lunch, go home. Nap. Nap, wake up for academic meeting. Courses OK, but it turns out I solved one conflict with another. Linger in Latin Quarter, head to that monstrosity, most people call it the Tour Montparnasse. Linger in mall. Return to rue Biot; grab chips as study aids. Waste time. Dinner w/ Jacques: damn good! Back to study, essay until 2.

Friday, Sept 21: Last day of Propedeutique. Test. Yoko suggests new boulangerie. Tuna sandwich -- what can I say, I'm conservative! More travel meetings. More wrangling, but we'll do. Return home, nap. Office Depot: these European notebooks take getting used to, but a decent planner. Call everyone for an attempted movie night. Timing goes way wrong, head to a pub, greeted by an English-speaking waiter. Linger too long for movie. Irish fans outside. French rugby support band plays in front of pub. Wander around Pigalle. Go to Latin Quarter pub for rugby match: France vs. Ireland. Good clean fun. Wander Latin Quarter briefly, go home.

Saturday, Sept. 22: Wake up, head to Louvre. Italian and French collections w/ Alex, Andrew, Nicole. Eat at 16eme, a place w/ menus written in French, Japanese. Good food, tea, but steep overspending on my part. Mariel arrives. Bois de Boulogne, walk around the Inferior Lake, head to FNAC. Waste time listening to more music. Buy Yelle CD at long last, + Martin Solveig, David Guetta. Go to St. Michel, Latin Quarter. Find an Egyptian restaurant, or rather, its greeter finds us. Food is nice, especially aperitif, and dessert. And hummus. Kebab is good too, but too full. Wander around Latin Quarter, follow Scottish marching band. Bagpipes. Go home. Tired.


Well, that was hard. As you can see, I like rugby, la FNAC, and tuna or camembert sandwiches on baguette bread. That and Yelle and/or Keren Ann. That's almost two weeks, isn' t it? We haven't been here very long, and yet, two weeks is a long time. Well, shows that its best to be out doing stuff, rather than waiting to write every detail. But we'll have time for that too.

Now I can get to the important stuff.

Tourist tip #1: Stay the hell away from the Champs Elysees!

Nah nah, mate, horrible horrible place. I had to go there cos I wasted last Friday and Saturday joyriding around ferris wheels and hanging out too long in people's apartments, drinking their wine; thus neglecting to buy my one book for class. As it turns out, most every establishment in Paris is closed on Sundays, including most of the FNAC's. This stupid country!

(haha, it'd make sense if people actually went to church, but you know...)

My saving grace, however, is the Champs-Elysees, Paris' main avenue running from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre or somewhere like that...well, whatever; luckily the avenue lies a few metro stops from my place, so it's just a matter of hopping in. Technically our teacher recommended the Gibert-Joseph bookstore, and our little guidebook had a few infos on some bookstores open on Sunday, but most of them were in the Latin Quarter, and after yesterday's debacle (whereby I woke up late for our group's meeting and ended up chasing them through most of the city, missing the Paris Technoparade in the process) I did not want to spend more time on the Metro...(OK WAIT! Now I'm really unhappy; it turns out my new favorite pop singer Yelle made a surprise performance @ Technoparade, at least that's what one of the MySpace comments says...triste) Luckily, our teacher also told us that we could probably find the books @ a FNAC. While most were closed, the one on Champs-Elysees is open Sundays.

I get off from the metro, and the first thing I notice in the beautiful but insufferable Parisian sun is that one of the earpieces on my sunglasses came off! My cool sunglasses! My cool $20 Ray-Ban-ripoff imitation sunglasses! Noooooo! How am I gonna look hip and retro and detached from the world?!

Things aren't so bad when I'm just walking by a small park (conveniently staffed with a small hot dog-and-crepes joint where food was going at 2-4 euro -- memo to self), but once the movie theatres, the tourist restaurants and the megastores, including Gap and Nike stores, come in, even I struggled with the crowds. Mind you, I was by myself so I could travel way faster ad I'm used to traveling through crowded city streets and shopping centres, but this is insane! Not to mention that the Champs-Elysees is like all Haussmannian streets ridiculously long, ridiculously wide, and ridiculously straight. Weaving my way through the crowds, I eventually found my way to a shopping centre filled with overpriced clothing shops and the blessed FNAC.

FNAC is basically a multimedia giant in France; their stores are kinda like Virgin Megastore, except they have that, too. They sell books, electronics, CDs, as well as creating promotional music events for French artists. Like Virgin, FNAC has listening stations all over, as well as a fairly diverse and broad selection of different genres, particularly Anglophone indie rock and French music (Admittedly, D'uh! on the latter). On that day, unfortunately the bookstore wasn't open, and I was pretty pissed off. Still, against my better judgment, I stuck around, being the music nerd that I am and tried out as many of the French music listening stations as I could:

• Most of me screams "eww..." at the mention of Manu Chao, mainly cos I think his fans are a Venn diagram of hippies and Eurotrash. Still, I've been hearing songs from his new album Radiolina everywhere, from the radio to the used CD store on Av. de Clichy, to the FNAC. It's good. Lame protest lyrics? Maybe a couple. But the music is undeniably catchy. Damn him (but mostly his fans.)

• Rose -- a random French adult contemporary-type acoustic pop singer with a folky style. For some reason, parts of the song "La liste" remind me of Camera Obscura, believe me she isn't that depressed -- reason to love this is her vocal inflections, not to mention the lyrics which ocassionally venture into quirky territory. Actually, she sounds more like Jenny Lewis, heh.

• Vanessa Paradis -- oh but I had such high hopes the first time I listened to her! She has such a perfect, high, pixie voice, like a French version of Amaia Montero of La Oreja de Van Gogh, a band I worship; even the style of the songs are similar (guitar-based pop-rock). After repeated MySpace listens, "Divine Idylle" disappoints a bit -- with such a voice, one ought to be a bit more adventurous, a bit more spunky, a bit more intense. On the other hand, "Chet Baker" shows precisely this kind of potential. I'm on the fence about her.

As for French R&B, I'm not a big fan of any R&B to begin with; just ask my friend Becky V. (who would probably be thrilled to be mentioned here), but one must know:

• Kenza Farah -- beats go from R&B sappy piano lines to crashing electronic drum-beats; her Arabic pop-influenced vocals wind through the songs and hold your attention for one extra second. The lyrics are personal and introspective enough to make you sympathise with her, rather than regard her as another in a line of generic love-song regurgitating pretty album face covers (my American prejudice). Besides, it's something you don't really get in America. Though to be honest, I know nothing of how the French run their R&B or where their inspirations come from.

• Amel Bent -- once again, know very little, though her music sounds more late 90s, more clean. She has a very smooth voice, is all I can say.

I found a bunch of France Gall compilations, most of them quite expensive (some ran as much as 22 euro!)...I'll have to be very careful about the way I search for ye-ye stuff...

Thankfully, I found Keren Ann's La Disparition for 7 euro, a deal even with the crap exchange rate factored in, compared to Virgin's Keren Ann CD's back home. I know I'm running out of euro, but maybe this once? Same I can't use the same reasoning with the Yelle CD.

Didn't find the book, though. I was on my way to take the nearest metro to the Latin Quarter when I figured, well, we can always try the Virgin Paris, so I did. One peculiarity: the security guy asked to see my FNAC bag, and stapled it shut, presumably to prevent me from shoplifting. Never mind that I can easily rip the staples apart, or even more that I had my shoulder bag with me, full of ample space to stuff books and CDs (as well as my FNAC bag) in, which they did not even take a look at. From a store security standpoint, I don't get it... Still, I did find the book at 15 euro (+ a 10 euro answer key I decided to buy just in case I'll need it), which while bad, was much less than I feared.

Odious, odious place -- the crowds were so packed in that walking was almost impossible. I figured it'd be better on the street but no luck. The sun blinding me, sweating, feeling for a moment about to faint from the sheer crowdness...bloody tourists! they're everywhere! (this coming from a guy who's been in Europe for less than a week). Then there's the bloody French and their rampant PDA'ing while I'm trying to eat my little 5 euro lunch of a hot dog on a baguette and a Coke. Annoyingness is shared by all today.

Moral of the story: Champs-Elysees is a shithole and you should never go there unless you really need to. As M. Hourriere said, French people don't ever really go there anymore. It's not chic. So there, a French person agrees with me.

Oh yeah, I didn't take any pictures.

On the use of the French language among English speakers, or the use of the English language in a French-speaking country

Wow. I've been procrastinating on writing anything on this thing for a while. "Later", I'd say. "Manana", "A demain", "some day", "I'm busy right now". Funny how a little bit of dinner wine can make all the difference. Believe me, I try to keep it down. But it does loosen the tongue a bit doesn't it? Goddamnit, this isn't just another of those "I am SOOOOOOOO tipsy!" posts. Cos those are asinine. Nah, nah, I'm perfectly good, totally sober. Gotta learn to control yourself, you know? Logically.

Give me a break; it's midnight here and I've been walking around all day. Well anyways, people speaking ze English man, I mean, yeah it's easy, and the first day nobody gave a crap, but the program people for orientation are really starting to crack down on that, aren' t they? I'll admit I've started out being lazy but it seems increasingly awkward to be the only ones speaking English really loudly. Well not the only ones. There's always the kilt-wearing hordes of Scottish fans running around the city. They're not shy about shouting out their allegiance to an entire subway station, or about much else really. They don't mind being labeled right away as foreigners, and that's cool. I wanna be like them, ya know, just be unabashedly American in a cool sorta way. Though how would that look like?

EDIT: And oh yeah, guess Scotland beat France. Damn, didn't see that one coming.

My sister on music (part 1)

Sophie Ellis Bextor ("Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)", "Murder on the Dancefloor"):
"This sounds pretty gay...This sounds like the music they would play at H&M; wait, this is the music they play at H&M! This is the kind of music they play to get people to buy stuff. It makes people think they're happy and that they're having fun shopping!"

(The) International Noise Conspiracy ("Smash it Up")
"Reminds me of 'My Sharona'."

AFI ("Love Like Winter", "Miss Murder")
"I love [Davey Havok]! It's all just wonderful: the eye makeup, the way he moves, the androgyny! Unlike most emos, he's more creative with his androgyny."

Eiffel 65 ("Voglia Di Dance All Night")
"Italian=Crap"

Architecture in Helsinki ("The Owls Go")
"This ISN'T music! What the hell is wrong with his voice?! The instruments sound like he's choosing between Mac computer alerts!"

Ash ("Burn Baby Burn")
"This is pretty immature. The only group more immature than this is thirty-year-olds-singing-about-rebelling-against-your-parents Latin boy-band/girl-group RBD."

Toddlers defying authority are so adorable!

On the subway...

Mum takes out cell phone: "Do you want to listen to some music"
"No."
"Here, you want to listen to this song?"
"No, look!"
"Let me just play this for you. Don't you want to listen? "
"No!"

...and it goes on like that.