Archives: December 2002
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I've been meaning to get a picture up of this year's Galeries Lafayette light display ever since I saw it two weeks ago. The picture, of course, in no way does it justice. Click on it anyway just to get a hint of how awesome it is.
I went back to Galeries Lafayette to do some last-minute shopping (aka all of it). They have set up moving-puppet window scenes for little kids all along the enormous storefront. Crowds of them stand entranced in front of each different scene while parents try to push them along to finish their Christmas shopping. Galeries Lafayette has put out kid-sized elevated walkways in front of the windows so that the little ones can press their noses against the glass watching the puppets at eye-level. Some parents, to avoid the crowds of enchanted kids, put their children up on their shoulders. Just like at a rock concert.
In general, the City of Lights becomes even more so at Christmas time. The Champs-Elysees is always guarenteed to look festive and - usually - beautiful (the exception was in '99, when somebody thought of putting what looked like mosquito nets over all the trees and then lighting them from the inside; the end effect was, well, a lit mosquito net-lined avenue). The department stores decorate in tune to the the Christmas carols and the Important Governmental Buildings show off their importance via their trees and light displays. The whole city is made over in a Parisian version of the friendly (?) competition between neighbors for Best Christmas Lights in American suburbs - particularly snowy ones.
But never have I been as impressed as I was by year's Galeries Lafayette. This isn't my picture. I was there again this morning (camera in tow) and you know what? Lights are more interesting at night. But the entire store is made into a church with stained-glass windows. It just doesn't come across on the screen. But if you want to see the full, complicated story - in pictures - of how they did it, go to galerieslafayette.com and click on the girl sitting on the moon. You can take it from there.
My sister has done it again.
Click on Snoop. Enter my site's URL. Enter any site, really. But if you enter mine, read the entry before this one. It will kill you. Especially when I start talking about the quail. But be patient...it's a little slow. Certainly worth the wait though.
Where does she find this stuff?
One. It was so foggy today that you could hardly see the top of the Montparnasse tower.
I brought my camera out at 9:00 am to take a picture, but I didn't have any battery left. I wasn't about to climb back up all 150+ stairs to charge the thing, so I ended up taking this one out my living room window around 17.00. I still like it, although the fog had cleared up considerably by then.
Two. You know how liberal, natural-foods-loving people are always talking about how much they hate how out of touch Americans have become with their food? And how animal rights people, and those that think about such issues, often argue that we are too disconnected from the fact that the meat we eat was once a living animal in part because it always comes in such neat little packages?
Well, I always agreed with that, and thought that it was great that in France you can still buy, if you want to, the whole pig - including his head. Or, if you like, the whole chicken, with his flimsy little broken neck. Nevertheless, I never managed to get myself to buy such things, and never really planned on it.
Today, I bought quail. Like a true American, I went to the big plastified meat section, instead of to the local butcher where you have to, ew...rip out the feathers and stuff. I always buy a certain brand, which actually requires a fair amount of feather plucking despite the plastic. But it was out, so I bought the next best kind. They had conveniently tucked the quail heads under fairly plucked bodies so that all looked normal. The tucking was obviously simplified by the cracked neck. Imagine my surprise when I pulled those little suckers out of their package and their little, feathered heads were dangling below with their innocent little eyes still hazy gray from the kill.
So I chopped 'em.
That's a big move for a former vegetarian.
Learning new languages is a fun and exciting experience. When the language-learner successfully asks "Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the nearest Big&Tall store?" or says "Oh, no, actually, I read somewhere that George Bush might just be playing dumb" there is a powerful feeling of triumph. As for the daily mistakes and goof-ups, a native speaker conversing with the struggling language learner more often finds them endearing than disturbing. The native speaker is often welcoming to anyone trying to spit out the most basic of utterances, and will willingly help the learner when he or she is at a loss for words.
The process of trying new words, new sentence structures, and new combinations of the two is a challenging yet ultimately rewarding and fullfilling experience when learning any new language, be it Arabic, Farsi, or German. Language, by nature, is playful, and the beginning processes of learning a new language serve as evidence of just how flexible and changeable language is.
A common new language - Computer - is the only exception. The moments of triumph are only achieved after posting questions in seventeen different forums, searching through 22 different code possibilites, drinking four cups of tea and avoiding one night's worth of sleep. The "cute" foreigner mistakes are in no way endearing, and the frustrated Computer-speaker will only spit out more complicated phrases and structures in an attempt to overwhelm and discourage the increasingly self-concious Computer-learner. Trying out new structures can only lead to disaster, and there is absolutely nothing playful about Computer. It is as rigid and ordered as a language can get.
Every language has its common words that everyone knows:
in English - "hello," "yeah," "ok," and "quarter pounder with cheese"
in French - "oui," "bonjour," and "voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?"
in Spanish - "hola," "gracias," and "yo quiero Taco Bell"
in Computer - "error"
Should I be worried that I dreamt last night that Jackie and Kelso, characters on "That 70's Show," were my neighbors?
And that I caught them kissing, and was excited about the gossip that would generate considering the fact that Jackie is dating Hyde - not Michael (on the TV show)?
And that I found that moment between dream-world and real-world, where I honestly couldn't remember if Jackie and Kelso were my neighbors or not, extremely pleasant?
Midnight, Wednesday December 4, 2002.
Two men sitting in the Chatelet metro station. One, unshaven, is bobbing his head in a drunken manner. He often sleeps behind the chairs that run along the wall of the station. A second, new to the station, is sitting two chairs down, calmly and righteously holding an opened umbrella above his head.
Two minutes later, once the train arrives on the platform of the opposing side, I get on. I glance out the window as the train passes by the two strangers. They are now sitting side-by-side, engrossed in conversation, crouching together under the shared umbrella's invisible shelter.
The other day, a fairly clean teenage girl was standing in the typical Parisian panhandling position at the halfway point along the metro steps. At first glance, she appeared not to be homeless, but the cup in front of her and the fact that she was standing on the outdoor metro steps on a cold December day indicated otherwise.
A young man, perhaps seventeen, approached the metro entrance. Dressed in a fashionable Nike get-up, complete with Frenchie-style scarf, he walked briskly while smoking a joint. As he came to the halfway point down the stairs, he turned abruptly to the young lady and held out remaining half of the joint. As she took it, he bowed his head, tipped his baseball hat, and went on his way. No words.
Oddly charming in its own little way.
