You’ll never know until you try

Recently, an advisee of mine wrote to tell me that he was toying with the idea of adding a French major to his already busy academic schedule. He said that his main hesitation was a few required literature survey courses. He said it really wasn’t his ‘thing’. I can certainly understand because that’s how I felt as a young undergrad. My response below is in French (so many of you may be ending your reading here… sorry!).


Bonjour !

Et moi aussi je trouve cette communication par email tellement efficace et facile. Tu sais, je n'ai pas grandi avec Internet comme toi alors je suis toujours ébloui par toutes les possibilités qu'il nous offre. Et maintenant, je ne sais pas ce que je ferais si j'étais privé de cette habitude.

Et voilà une réponse à ta question… enfin, c'est plutôt un exemple (le mien). C'est un peu long, alors prépare-toi !

A l'université, ma spécialisation en français était centrée sur la culture. Je n'ai pris qu'un seul cours de littérature parce que, comme toi, je ne m'y intéressais guère. Je me penchais plutôt vers le côté pratique et contemporain des choses dans ma vie. Quand j'ai commencé mes études de maîtrise en français, je voyais au début mes cours de littérature comme simplement des obstacles à surmonter parce que je savais que je voulais enseigner la langue plutôt, mais je savais en même temps que, si je voulais plus d'options à ma recherche d'un poste de prof, j'avais besoin d'une éducation traditionnelle et variée. Ainsi le choix de faire mon PhD à UW-Madison.

Mais au cours de mon premier semestre de maîtrise, j'ai commencé à mieux comprendre. Les professeurs m'ont ouvert les yeux à un monde que je ne connaissais pratiquement pas ou plutôt que j'avais ignoré complètement. C'est vrai que dans mes cours, c'était pour moi 75% de bla bla au début. Tout le monde voulait parler et se faire entendre. De plus, comme j'ai dit, je ne m'intéressais pas vraiment. ça a pris de la patience pendant un certain temps et je ne faisais que passer mon temps à l'étude, sachant qu'avec chaque jour, j'étais plus proche à mon objectif.

Et puis, peu à peu, je ne pouvais pas m'empêcher de m'y mettre de plus en plus. Je suis devenu vraiment accroché à ce que je faisais. Il faudrait admettre que si un texte, un poème, ou une pièce dure depuis des centaines d'années et se trouve sur nos étagères à la maison, chez nous aujourd'hui, il y a certainement quelque chose de magique là-dedans. A travers chaque période de la littérature française, j'ai pu trouver quelque chose qui me parlait et dont j'avais envie de parler moi-même.

Et en fait, je me suis concentré sur la littérature du XIXème et du XVIème siècle, le XIXème parce que c'est pendant cette période (pour moi) ou la psychologie de l'auteur et de ses personnages commençait à se dévoiler ouvertement dans le texte. Et le XVIème parce que c'était la période humaniste, ou l'être humain et sa condition ont occupé le centre de chaque page, de chaque idée. Et c'était aussi parce qu'au XVIème il y a des textes vraiment explosifs, bizarres et fantaisistes qui semblent prendre des risques en choquant le lecteur avec des gros mots, des scènes obscènes, et des situations impossibles mais qui, en fin de tout, résonnent à l'intérieur du lecteur et qui révèlent non seulement des secrets ou des désirs des personnages, mais aussi des secrets ou des désirs cachés en nous-mêmes.

Et bien oui, je dois avouer qu'il y a des périodes qui ne me parlent presque pas. Le XVIIème siècle, par exemple, devient obsédé de l'ordre et de la bienséance, tellement que lire (pour moi) devenait un devoir. Cependant, c'est en comparant cette période aux autres, le XVIème par exemple, que je développais encore une meilleure appréciation pour ce que je lisais et commentais.

Aujourd'hui, la littérature continue à me parler et je continue à en parler aussi. A cause de mes études, j'ai peut-être du mal à trouver de la lecture contemporaine dont j'ai vraiment envie de lire parce que j'ai été gâté par la splendeur que j'avais étudiée auparavant. Je dois vraiment chercher pour trouver quelque chose que j'aimerais lire jusqu'à la fin.

Pour l'instant, les auteurs français contemporains me fatiguent ; pour moi, ils sont trop pessimistes, trop noirs, trop concernés par l'effet qu'ils produisent, ou par l'effet de défoulement de leurs problèmes, qu'ils oublient de nous donner des sentiments, des intrigues, des personnages ou des idées auxquels nous les lecteurs aimerions nous attacher. J'ai probablement tort et je continue à chercher. En anglais, je me suis accroché à plusieurs auteurs qui continuent à me fasciner : John Irving, Gregory McGuire, Mark Haddon, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nick Hornby, T. Coraghessan Boyle. Il y a aussi un auteur japonais (traduit en anglais, bien sûr) qui est vraiment étonnant : Haruki Murakami. Si tu as le temps, jette un coud d'oeil sur son 'Kafka on the Shore'.

Pour des auteurs français qui pourront t'intéresser, et qui viennent des époques précédentes, il y en a des tonnes. Par exemple, au moyen âge, si tu comprends le contexte autour des récits, les horizons d'attentes des lecteurs, les capacités de ces lecteurs, et les moeurs et coutumes, tu trouveras des textes qui fascinent! Tout le monde lit Ronsard au XVIème et oublient trop facilement Louise Labbé, femme poète qui, en comparaison avec Ronsard, est beaucoup plus honnête et touchante avec ses vers. Au XVIIème, les pièces de Molière, Racine et Corneille sont incroyables une fois qu'on comprend ce qu'ils ont pu faire dans les contraintes qui existaient à l'époque. Bien sûr, le Marquis de Sade au XVIIIème, mais là, faut vraiment aimer son côté vilain. C'est les Liaisons Dangereuses au XVIIIéme pour ceux qui détestent la contrainte, ou bien il y a aussi les philosophes et les récits philosophiques, et surtout les racines de la démocratie moderne. Au XIXème, c'est l'intrigue qui (re)domine, les complots, les femmes adultères, les filles égoïstes, les meurtres et les crimes, et vers la fin du siècle, ce sont les fous qui occupent le centre du cirque. Et tout cela, ce n'est que des opinions vite faites pour te donner un petit goût de ce qui pourra t'attendre.

Alors voilà. Tout cela pour te dire qu'aimer ou ne pas aimer la littérature est une décision personnelle, mais pas une décision que l'on peut prendre sans avoir l'expérience de connaître cet art. Aimer ou ne pas aimer ce qu'on ne connaît pas n'est pas logique. Mais en même temps, ne te laisse pas être trop tenté par mon enthousiasme, et il ne faut surtout pas te sentir obligé d'aller plus loin dans tes études du français que tu aurais aimée. Je voulais tout simplement montrer que les portes sont ouvertes.

Ceci dit, si tu décides enfin de faire cette spécialisation et de prendre ces cours obligatoires, nous devrions quand même nous assurer que tu choisisses les professeurs qui, pour toi, seraient les meilleurs. Et pour cela, n'hésite pas à me demander des opinions ou des idées. Je suis là pour ça ! Bonne continuation de tes vacances!

I found myself dancing alone

I recently had a life-changing experience. Not a happy one, but one that certainly moves me from one chapter to the next. After a break up with my partner of over four years, I was not certain how I would fare. The same story has be lived and relived by many of us, or many of the ones that we know and love. What lead to this moment in our lives was, I had thought, incompatibility despite our best efforts to fit together, inability to connect on the deepest level, and the eventual frustration that comes from a friction that we both tried to quell. What really led to this moment was that he, like many men, always thought he was going to find something better, something shinier, something nicer to show off on the town. He found that, came up with an exit strategy, and pushed me to my limits so that I would be the bad guy and initiate the break up. He was guilt free and free to hook back up. Nice guy, huh?

In any event, what came next was uncertainty. For the next few weeks, I was convincing myself that I was going to be OK, that I was OK, that I was better off and that I will again find my happiness in love and life. I can be a very convincing person and so I listened to myself just as I listened to the words of encouragement and confirmations from my friends and family that I was, in fact, going to be OK. On one level, I believed myself and I believed my confidants. Yet there was this nagging suspicion knocking at my door that left a tinge of doubt in my mind. I shut it out, I never let it in, but it was there, patiently waiting outside.

I didn't go outside that much.

Outside was a relatively new city filled with new professional responsibilities, new challenges and new places to discover. Yet it's also a city where one's neighbors, colleagues, and cohorts in incidental conversation do not make that leap to become friends or acquaintances with whom you can catch a movie or have a drink. The French, once they become your friends, are the best friends in the world. Otherwise, they are polite passers-by; they have their world already choreographed around them and thus the friendship dance can take weeks, months, even years.

Although outgoing, talkative, engaging and fun-loving, I never enjoyed exploring on my own. As a student and a young professional, I spent plenty of time in Paris, very little money in my pocket, content to take walks by myself to soak in the city's architecture and atmosphere. Those were not my favorite moments in Paris. At 23, I explored Spain's Mediterranean coast for two weeks yet rarely had the chance to exercise my Spanish. Most recently, while my students split up in groups to investigate one of Brittany's coastal cities, I gave it my best and made a quick tour around the center only to find myself wanting to settle in one spot and wait for the time when we would regroup.

It's not the opinion of others who may spy a lonely traveler that bothers me. It's the idea that life is meant to be shared, and nothing in front of my eyes or under my feet really has any value unless there is someone there with whom to share it. Shared experiences resonate more; they give you glimpses into yourself and into your surroundings that you may not see otherwise. And they are reassuring in that, with your companion's expression and opinion, you have the confirmation or even the correction for what you yourself are seeing, feeling, and trying to understand. For me, exploring on my own would be far too much of an egocentric activity and I, unfortunately, try to stake claims to a more altruistic and less self-centered life.

Yet here I am, inside, spending hours and hours on a self-centered existence. It took well over a week before I could drag myself away from the computer, drop the remote from my hands, and finally do more than just tap my foot to keep the beat with my existence. Perhaps the louder I tapped, the quieter became that knocking at my door. But it was still there… until just a few minutes ago.

Working away the hours of this Sunday afternoon, planning a course for this summer and creating to-do lists for myself, I was listening to the radio as it played French remakes and vintage rock in the background. Typing away, unaware of my own body, I caught myself shimmying side to side in my chair, eventually bringing my arms into the movement, lifting my hands off the keyboard and putting a temporary stop to my work. I was smiling and bopping as I got up off my chair and away from my work. Heading for the kitchen to top off my coffee, I glanced at the door and for the first time in a few weeks, there was nothing on the other side. That suspicious knocking stopped.

I found myself dancing alone… and I liked it.

I find myself dancing alone... and I like it.

OSS 117

A friend in Madison just saw this film at the Wisconsin Film Festival and by chance I found a long snippet on line. I wish I could see the rest of this French spy spoof! Too bad this excerpt doesn't have subtitles but take a gander anyways and you'll love the esthetics. I can't wait to see the rest of the film!

oss 117 partie 1
Uploaded by ahmaduss

And again for you French speakers, here's my latest favoritest funniest French comedienne, Florence Foresti, doing her bit about the film (with the Film's star eventually seated next to her). The quality is pretty bad but she is still a riot. I wuvs her.

Brigitte - OSS 117
Uploaded by fire-kurt

I’m privileged

(pictures to come soon!!)

I'm privileged. This is my way of saying how lucky I am, but with a greater world vision. In a world where some have not enough to eat, or fear for their lives, or are just waiting until sickness makes its way to their home, I consider myself privileged to live in relative calm, to have a job that feeds my passion, to know that I can (almost) always be warm, eat well, share my life with others, and travel to worlds far away from my own.

It is when I travel – when I am confronted with change, when I am surrounded by foreigners, and far from reference points of my own culture – that I realize how privileged I really am. I'm not rich. I count my dollars… each and every one of them that has hit its 'all-time low' against the Euro time and time again in the last few weeks. Yet I am practically limitless when it comes to making my way around the world and experiencing the high life. Like these past few days in Interlaken, Switzerland.

Mark and I took a long Easter week-end trip to the other side of the Alps to visit our friends – two of the very best people in the world – Rolf and Susan. Rolf and Susan live in the quiet city of Interlaken, Switzerland, nestled between two lakes and surrounded by mountains for skiing, hiking, and even hang gliding (I don't hang glide, so get that out of your head). In a short few days, we had delicious meals 'at home', a heartwarming Easter brunch with their family, we took a few walks, enjoyed a drink at the "Happy Inn", watched two DVDs, shared stories and photos, and laughed a lot. On Saturday, I got to go skiing with Rolf. This is when I began to remember how privileged I really am.

The weather for Saturday was supposed to be hazy at best yet the sun (that seems to be following me around Rennes, a city that had its sunniest winter since 1950) poked its head over the mountains and continued to shine for most of the day. We jumped in Rolf's Fiat Punto early in the morning and made our way to Grunwald (?) just on the other side of the lake. Rolf, in his obsession to be too nice, purchased my ski lift for the day. I purchased my ski rental and at that very moment I began to realize again how very privileged I am. Let me explain how in the space of 2-3 seconds my mindset shifted miles away from where it was.

I'm standing at the cash register in the perfectly organized, runs like a machine, ski shop where I rented my skis and boots. I just learned that Rolf had discretely purchased my ski lift. I gave him a little punch in the arm and told him he shouldn't have. But to be honest, I wasn't surprised because he and Susan tend to do this generous sort of thing and really enjoy making their friends happy. For example, on Easter morning, we had to make a quick stop at Susan's hairstylist /friend's house so she could drop off an Easter basket. There were also two baskets for their niece and nephew, one for a god child, and a surprise of goodies from Rolf to Susan. Mark & Andrew got their Easter basket as well that morning, filled with tons delicious Swiss chocolate and hand painted Easter eggs. So of course I wasn't too surprised when Rolf forked over the Francs to pay for my day pass. But I was surprised to find out how much my rental was for the day: roughly $63. So in the space of time between the moment when I read the figure on the slip, and signed my name, I went from sticker shock, to resignation, to realization of how lucky I really am and how, in fact, I should feel thankful for how privileged I really am in this world. For $63…

I learned that I still can ski. It had been well over five years since my last descent down a mountain, I think it was a 'White' mountain in New Hampshire with my Aunt Maureen; that was one of my favorite days ever in my entire life, and you'll just have to believe me on that one 'cause I'm sure you'd want to kick me if I digressed again here. But before my skis hit the snow (we're back in Switzerland again), I was already reviewing in my head, listening to what my first ski instructor, Yannic, told me almost 20 years ago: how to bend at the knees, keep the skis parallel, and use the shoulders at each turn. I could also hear my friend Benoît telling me (about ten years ago?) how to negotiate the turns, set the pole and turn around it, place my weight on the outside ski, and push. So while I did my best to look calm and self assured (I didn't want Rolf thinking that he was going to spend a day waiting for me to get my ass out of the snow and back on my skis), I slid gingerly off the first ski lift and glided to the top of my first slope. It was red and I was white with fear, on the inside. Calm with optimistic confidence on the outside. With a few words of encouragement from Rolf, I headed down, made my first turn, got the wobbles out, and learned that I still can ski. And with more helpful hints from Rolf, I was able to follow him down almost every slope around (we never made it to the black slope because that was closed. Avalanches. Nuts. ) So I learned that I could still ski and it was already worth those $63. But that's not all I got for my money...

I learned that my body still can hold its own. I hadn't had much real exercise in months but that didn't stop me from remaining on my feet the whole day (well, almost… I had a few 'almost falls, but never took a tumble). I felt my thighs burning from being thrust into the role of shock absorbers for about 6 hours. And a few days later, those thighs are still reminding me that I pushed them further than they had planned. They hadn't planned on only taking only one break for lunch, another for a coffee with amaretto (danke Rolf!), and a few short rests as we ski lifted our way back up the mountains. The lazy side of me could have easily called it a day by noon, but the other side, the one that waited for its cues from Rolf, keep my in motion until about 4pm. So 6 or 7 hours for $63 ski and boot rental really wasn't that much, because with that $10-11 per hour…

I learned how privileged I really am. Skiing alongside me down those mountains I saw Brits and Americans, Swiss and Germans, French and Spaniards, and even Indians, Japanese, Koreans, and Pakistanis. They two are privileged. But having them with me made me scan the globe and envision the far off regions where it never snows, or where there are no coffees with Amaretto, or where there are no cars to jump into to get to the slopes. I see images from news reports of families fleeing genocide in Darfur, Tibetans trying make a living with a Chinese yoke over their shoulders, Iraqis still clinging to hopes of normalcy, Afghans struggling to build a one-room schoolhouse, Brazilians catching (?) fever at a rate of 2000 per day, and even Louisiana shell fishermen scared that if the delta doesn't rebuild itself soon their catch of the day will dwindle down to unsustainable levels.

So as I pried off my $63 boots, knowing very well that my dogs were gonna be sore and that climbing stairs would be a struggle for the next few days… and as I headed back to the ski shop, weaving in and out of an international parade of late afternoon quitters, I thought again about how lucky I really was to be hobbling down a little road, at the base of a mountain, in a quaint little town, in Switzerland. I thought about what Mark and Susan had done all day, and I knew that we would be returning 'home' to a home-cooked meal, plenty of anecdotes, a great mix of tunes on Rolf's iPod, and a nice bottle of wine from his cave.

I really don't take this life for granted. In the past few months, I crossed three international borders, I wandered through the same rooms and routes as kings and queens of France and England, I worked my way through the Swiss countryside where William Tell honed his archery skills, I skied down the same slopes as Body Miller, and I was blessed time and again with the company of amazing, witty people with hearts open wide and the promise of another get-together sometime in the future. It is a privilege to have friends such as these and to share with them a life that most of the world's population can't even conceive, let alone imagine.

So as I sit here in my train across France, working on my laptop, listening to my iPod, snacking on Swiss chocolates and sandwiches that Susan made with the greatest of care, I am asking myself what I can do, or what I do do already, to balance things out a bit. Do I spare more change on my way to school each day? Do I give to more charities or attend more fundraisers? Do I crusade for democracy? Do I save the whales? To be honest, I don't know if I can do much more except try to be more cognizant of my place in this world, try to appreciate more the gifts it brings me, and share this appreciation with others. Maybe I have a hidden agenda here. Maybe I secretively want to feel less guilty about living the high life. Or maybe I secretively want those who read these words to take a moment and realize how privileged they are too, privileged to be sitting at a computer, connected to the world, and knowing that life could be a heck of a lot worse. Don't you think?

A “Wicked Good” time

How often can you say the phrase "I spent the weekend in London?" For us Americans, it doesn't seem possible. But if you take the train from Lille, it's only an hour and a half (or so). So as you can tell from the last post, Mark and I spent the weekend in London visiting our friends Niall and Seamus. The food portion of the trip was both good and bad, and the entertainment portion cleverly danced around that idea of good and bad. Let's start with the food.

You know you can't judge a book by its cover. The "National Café" at the National Gallery overlooks Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Column, lots of other columns, sculptures, lots of tourists, and Canada House (hurrah for Niall who, while born in the UK, grew up waving the Maple Leaf flag and making lists of Canadian actors on American television). The service was pleasant but not proficient, shall we say. But for $50 per person, you'd expect the proficient as well. Service errors included reaching across my face to fill up my water and showing me an elbow; grabbing two steaks, not knowing which is medium rare and which is medium, then hoping the customer will sort it out; and carrying that huge oval tray around like a cocktail waitress and exposing diner's foreheads to near collisions with rubber coated plastic. Some of the food was just ok overall, yet other bits were not even digestible. I had a cèpe (mushroom) tartlet for a starter and the chicken for the main course (it's hard to screw up chicken). As a side on my plate was a round heap of "spelt" (yup) with barely any flavor, sitting on top of a slice of grapefruit. Odd combination. Mark and Niall's steaks were not even edible. Mark tried to be a trooper and grind down the gristle, yet Niall gave up all together. You know this is a common occurrence in this restaurant when at the passing request that it would be nice to remove the cost of the steaks from our bill, our waitress acquiesced and the bill showed up steakless… just like Niall's tummy.

Now, change gears completely. This next experience presents itself like an open book. Take a 15 minute taxi to a section of town only known for its empty warehouses. Take that taxi even further down a little alley and, without even a sign on the door, you find the entrance to the Bistrothèque. This was my kind of place. No need for any sort of pretention because it was all real. Interesting cocktails, excellent food, and down to earth yet impeccable service. This is a dining experience from the get-go. The smartest thing the designers did was to make the only passage to the dining room be through the kitchen. You have to carefully make your way around bustling waiters and waitresses while you catch a glimpse of the cooks who seem even more rushed, but happy to be there. The four of us had cocktails, then a starter course that we shared – crab cakes on one plate and a goat cheese salad on another – then our main dishes. I can't quite remember what we all had but I ordered the roasted chicken. I know what you're thinking: "he ordered the chicken again". But this time there was a reason; the place reminded me of Madison's Sardine restaurant where I always order the chicken and it's delicious. I wasn't disappointed. We gave in and ordered dessert as well! Here, the cost was about $85 per person but well worth it, as all memorable experiences are.

Our entertainment agenda for the weekend included two events: Sweeney Todd (the film) and Wicked (the musical). Both deal with the convergence of good and evil on one human being and how someone who is inherently good, innately good, can become evil. Let's do a quick résumé of both stories (and if you know this already, you can skip a few paragraphs).

Sweeney Todd was a barber, a husband, and a father. His only mistake up to this point in his life was being naïve and having a wife too pretty for words. A judge, wanting this wife as his own, had Sweeney Todd arrested on false premises and sent him to jail for 15 years, just enough time to woo his wife. But the wife, apparently too frail and too weak-minded to handle the stress, poisons herself. Fifteen years later, long story short, Sweeney Todd takes up barbering again but uses his chair and his blade to eventually get to the judge. Man after man who unexpectedly came up for a shave ended up with a slit throat and a two story drop into the basement, landing square on his head, where he was cut up and used for meat in pies. The barber gets his man (the judge) but in the excitement of it all, kills the neighborhood crazy old lady who , it turns out, is not just any old crazy old lady. She is Sweeney Todd's wife. You see, the key line is that she poisoned herself, she didn't kill herself. So in this bloodbath of a film, evil conquers good. That is, until you take into account that the cute little adorable singing shop boy, someone who grew up surrounded by evil, remained good through and through and eventually takes a swipe at Sweeney Todd himself. So yes, good conquers evil.

Wicked plays around with ideas of good and evil, but not to show that one conquers the other, but rather to explain that they exist together in us all. G(a)linda, the "Good" Witch, is also self serving, opportunistic, and not too smart. Nessa Rose (whom most of us know as the Witch of the East, the one with red and white striped stockings who gets a house dropped on her) uses her disability as a way to get attention and hold onto her adorable Munchkin husband, Bock. Elfalba, the supposed Wicked Witch of the West, is the one with the purest heart of them all. She dedicates her life to helping those who cannot help themselves, defying the Wizard, denouncing his fallacies, and she eventually accepts her fate of being banished forever. In the novel, where the author, Gregory McGuire, did not have to worry about offending the pleasant expectations of theater goers, good and evil are reversed even more. In fact, good becomes evil, and vice versa. Careful! Spoiler ahead! In the novel, Dorothy is depicted (only for a few short paragraphs) as a bitchy teenager, Elfalba's mother is a real whore, her love interest (Fiero) is beaten to death, and Elfalba herself really does die. In the sequel, if you dare, "Son of a Witch," there's a rape and a gay sex scene. Imagine that in OZ!

Wicked wasn't just good, it was great. I've been wanting to see that musical for a few years now, knowing all too well that it would be white washed of its grit, but still happy to see something like this on the stage, something that puts into question our ideas of good and evil, something that takes the victimizer and makes her the victim. Ever since I began reading books about Buddhism and compassion, I have been learning how to try, at least try, to sympathize with the evil one, to understand what would drive him or her to commit such evil acts, and to ask myself what I have contributed to allowing such evil to make its way through my society. It's not an easy question, and one that is certainly worth more than an Internet blog. But it's still a good question to ponder. Did I help get that judge elected? Did I 'ding dong the witch is dead' with the rest of them? How about you?

Eurotrash

Mark and I just boarded the Eurostar (Lille – London). Do you remember years ago, maybe the late 80s, when we started to hear of this tunnel through the English Channel, a.k.a the Chunnel (clever, huh?)? There were news reports, documentaries, images of Thatcher and Mitterrand shaking hands in the middle (or something like that). I remember this movie with Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible, and how classy it all was. The style of the French mixed with the practicality of the British. What could be better?

In the Lille "Europe" train station, everything is modern, clean, wide open spaces and carefully marked to keep both the English and the French speakers informed. Passport control was a breeze. Security? The nicest security experience I've had since well before 9/11. Shoes stayed on, belt stayed on, the security officers (kind, intelligent people with heads on their shoulders… nothing like the TSA drones in the US), helped us move through and down to the quay where we waited with the other border crossers. I was actually getting excited about getting on board the Eurostar and sitting where Tom sat, or nearby at least.

Time out: Pardon me as I add a quick little observation before we get on board the train. Mark and I were on the quay and realized that our car would be clear at the other end. So we had to roll our little bags for about 500 or so feet. We strolled past the business men in their matching pinstripes suits, their slightly generous girth, and their nonstop talk about business. We walked past the well dressed ladies with their silk scarves and designer eyeglasses. We walked past the families with their miss matched luggage and their plastic bags of food. We walked past French people, Brits, and a few other nationalities. But what was interesting to me – and I apologize as I now complain about the French for a bit (remember that I chose to dedicate my life to them so there's lots about the French that I love, but here's something I don't) – the Brits, almost obsessed with being polite, each stepped slightly back out of the way as Mark and I rolled our bags along the narrow quay. The French, on the other hand, remained either oblivious, or chose to stand their ground ('cause they were there first?). In any event, each time we had to squeeze by a French crowd, we had to carefully navigate a tiny passage between them and the 5 foot drop to the tracks.

I love the French, but I wish sometimes that they could pay just a little bit more attention to others when they're in public. Trying to navigate sidewalks, malls, train stations or airports in French cities is like those first few seconds after class in high school when 100s of kids would empty into the hallway and it would take a good 10 seconds for the crowds to even out. Take those 10 seconds, and that's most every time you are walking in a place where crowds of French man & women & children happen to come together. Of course, we Americans learned how to stay out of the way back in elementary school when we had to file in and out of every classroom, single file, and walk (don't run) to our next classroom, cafeteria, gym class, or recess. So by high school, everyone was used to following more or less the same rhythm, walking always on the right hand side of the hallway. And if you had to stop to tie your shoe or search through your bag, you dove into a doorway or behind a decorative concrete pillar so you didn't cause a five-person pileup on the way to the cafeteria.

I can't tell you how many times I've been walking down the sidewalk in France and there's this one person walking diagonals, side to side, coming towards me. I try to stand my ground, but end up hovering next to the wall to my right; eventually that person heads towards me, surprised to be almost crashing into me, and I have to stop, or move to my left, or prepare for the colliding of the elbows, the clash of the shopping bags, and the 'pardon'. I thought pardons where reserved for those unavoidable intrusions on one another, pardons are not green lights to ignore everyone around you and walk zigzag to and from your destinations.

Anyways…. here we were, ready to board the Eurostar. The train pulled into the station right on time. It was a bright yet dingy yellow. That should have been my first clue but I was still awestruck. We were in car #1. The train stopped. The door finally opened, we climbed aboard, and the first person we see is a passenger lurking in the entryway (someone with a ticket but not a reserved seat). He wore dark sunglasses not so cleverly hiding a beaten black eye and newly sewn stitches. He looked like one of the guys in Mission Impossible after Tom exited the train.

We head into our cabin by opening the sliding door and woosh! What's that odor? It smelled like dirty underwear, polyester, and cheese. Our seats were the very first ones, one to our right and one to our left, both occupied. So what was to be a quick and easy boarding of the Eurostar turned into a bumblefuck (sorry, that's the best word for it). Everyone else had to cram into the entry way as we tried to politely take our seats and boot the squatters out. I have to say, those oncoming passengers stuck in the bottleneck were very understanding… or maybe they too were put off by the smell and not looking forward to venturing forth.

Once finally seated, I began to think… This feeling reminds me of something…. I can't quite describe it yet… but I do remember when I've felt this before. Maybe you have too.

I went to Hollywood, got my share of Hollywood Boulevard, the stars in the sidewalk, the Chinese Theater, and thought… I almost wish I had never come here. The idea I had in my mind of what Hollywood was quickly vanished. Glamour lost in exchange for gum stuck to my heel. A sense of style squandered in favor of the stench of fast food fries and urine. The hope of stardom replaced with the hope of finding a parking spot or a table at a restaurant that wasn't overrun with a bus full of Japanese tourists.

I went to Disneyland (still in California). This is where my Mom and Dad went on their second honeymoon. They brought me back record album from the Magic Kingdom that I listened to hundreds of times. I stared at the album cover and imagined the Small World, the Pirates of the Caribbean, Cinderella's Castle and life-sized characters at every bend in the road, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy… we even had a photo of Mom being kissed by Goofy right on the lips! Wow how cool, how magical, how exciting. Then I went to Disneyland. There was a life-sized duck (a real duck) standing in the Three Pigs village in my Small World. There were Pirates of the Caribbean that were less animated and less life-like than the mechanical band members at Chucky Cheese. Cinderella's Castle was just a passage way, not a destination. And as for Mickey? You now had to stand in line and make your way through a cartoon village to eventually get a photo with the guy, all 4 feet 8 inches of him. When did Mickey get so small?

Umberto Ecco talked about this feeling in his book of essays: Travels in Hyperreality. It's what the French would call 'déception' and what we call disappointment. But Ecco places it in relation to travel and finding out that the real thing is much less interesting than the fake version in our heads. In that one word, déception, is the perfect mix of what I'm feeling now: disappointment and deception.

There's the disappointment of the Eurostar being more Eurotrash than anything; the carpets are dark grey and stained, the seats are ripped, the luggage hovering above our heads, straps hanging down, teasing us with their gravitational pull. Then there's the deception involved in all of this. The gal from the French SNCF who sold us our ticket and raised her eyebrows in awe as she uttered the word Eurostar; the huge Lille Europe train station, sleek, and modern, and kind to travelers. The shaking of hands in the 80s, the coming together of two countries, Tom Cruise and the simple pleasure of making it from one side of the Channel to the other without the risk of sea sickness or the annoyance of boarding a plane.

I guess it's about time I grew up and stopped staring at album covers. I don't really want to, though. I want to walk through the streets of France and not stress over keeping my head up to avoid collisions and keeping my head down to avoid stepping in dog doo. I want to be in a Hollywood where a director had cleaned up all the clutter and chose the perfect angle with which to view it. I want a Disneyland that takes me to the very same place I had imagined wither real fake pirates and finally something to see in Cinderella's Castle.

I'm a new soul

Hi Friends! This is just a quick little blog to share some more video clips with you.

In a country where Britney Spears just received the 'NJG'' Music Award (similar to our MTV award) for "Best International Artist" (I know! Tell me about it!), it is very comforting to know that the French also appreciate the more sane, intellectual, poetic and artistic side of music. Video clips are still very popular here (when's the last time you turned on MTV?) and they can be works of art.



New Soul: Yaël Naim

This one is particularly special for me because it describes someone who is moving into a new place and a new life. Like me, she's already happy, ready to put a bit of herself into what she's doing and where she's living, and what she gets in return is more than she ever imagined. You really have to watch it all the way to the end and finally everything makes sense. I was actually quite moved. I hope you will be to.





Happy Endings: Mika

Mika was also a winner at the NRJ awards (NRJ is pronounced "energy") but this time for Artist of the Year (or something like that). Well deserved.





Tais toi mon coeur: Dionysos

The refrain here is "Tais toi mon coeur" (be quiet my heart), and she replies "Je ne te reconnais pas" (I don't recognize you). This one I enjoy purely for the visual.