tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-308801642024-02-28T06:36:07.302-05:00A Short Man In A Wide WorldOne short man's blog about a bunch of different things - travels, reading, listening, and the world around us. Thanks for visiting!
(© Daniel Shvartsman, 2020).Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-68144214592462405482020-11-13T07:43:00.002-05:002020-11-13T07:44:13.738-05:00As For The Political Situation<p>We’re a little more than a week past the election. Over 153M votes have been counted, and there's a decent chunk left. The electoral decision is final, though the minimum viable coup President Trump and his supporters are a/b testing has dragged out the anxiety of the last few days/weeks/months/years. We will never be free of that anxiety, but the election provided both a step forward and an opportunity for a reckoning. There are many details and nuances yet to be fleshed out about voting patterns and the people’s preferences, but I think we’re far enough along to pull together some thoughts, as I tried to do almost <a href=" http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2017/01/fake-news-and-facebooks-true-problem.html">four years ago</a>. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qYvL-pnVu2M" width="320" youtube-src-id="qYvL-pnVu2M"></iframe></div><p>Before proceeding, here are my limited credentials and priors: I have a liberal arts background – History/Econ undergrad, Diplomacy/Conflict Resolution Master’s program – and have mostly lived in liberal communities, whether in Massachusetts growing up, in college in North Carolina's Research Triangle, or in expat communities in Europe and Israel. I’ve always voted Democrat, and am pretty far left socially. With respect to markets and finances, I was closer to the Obama/Clinton viewpoint, e.g. free trade is good, budgets should at least bend towards balancing. That stance has shifted left in part as a reaction to Trump’s 2016 victory and how I interpreted it. I voted for Elizabeth Warren in the primary and was very excited to do so. I donated more than I ever have to campaigns this year, and I phone banked for an unsuccessful House campaign once, my first time doing so. The last two relevant background points: I don’t use social media to talk about politics much, and my mindset as a person is to find compromise and something that works so we can move forward.<br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Politicians </h3><p>So, how to react to this election? I start with the President. Donald Trump deserves none of our empathy. He began his original presidential run with ugly rhetoric, building on a rise in politics that seized on racist rumors about his predecessor and that was littered with non-stop insults, a rise that itself was built on a lifetime of masquerading as a successful businessman. Even someone who had granted him the benefit of the doubt four years ago, buying that he might grow into the role of being President of the United States, was met with his first week in office – an inauguration speech decrying American Carnage, lies from his administration about how many people were there, and a travel ban of people from predominantly Muslim countries – a week proving that benefit of the doubt was wasted. He had previously discarded the respect owed to a president in his barrages against President Obama, and the idea that he would be entitled to a better reception after the way he behaved, well, I get that we all hold our views but that one is wrong.<br /><br />Elected Republican officials deserve no more of our empathy. Their behavior during our slow-moving farce of a constitutional crisis fits in line with the behavioral pattern of the last 4-5 years. Condoning, looking past, not hearing, or outright supporting the President’s behavior, for whatever the reason; I expect partisanship in the US, I’m not surprised by the behavior, but it’s still irredeemable. The few timid exceptions prove the rule and are hardly worth mentioning. Principles and norms no longer belong in our political discourse, it seems.<br /><br />The most obvious examples of two-faced behavior are budget deficits – which Republicans forgot about for the last four years after hammering on about them the six years prior, and which they have already begun to rediscover – and the Supreme Court and the Garland v. Barrett antics. The takeaway should be that Democrats will have to play just as tough in Congress and elsewhere, but without the Senate I’m not sure how much that matters. There are asymmetries that weaken the Democrat position, none bigger than the core incentives: Republicans are invested in less governance, Democrats in good governance. And as Leon Neyfakh <a href="https://twitter.com/leoncrawl/status/1320746384925089793">put it</a>, Republicans are not afraid of being hypocrites, just of losing. </p><p>The political tactics are among the less interesting implications of this election. They were going to be the same in any Biden victory, and the dictatorial tractor pull may have the positive effect of causing any remaining scales to fall from the Democrats’ eyes about whether a traditional bonhomie can be achieved. The Spanish term for polarization is <i>crispación</i>, and things are going to remain pretty crisp for the years to come.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The People</h3><p><br />But what of the 72M+ Americans who voted for President Trump? The failed repudiation of Trumpism, of the past four years, the fact that even though President-Elect Biden won what in these days might amount to a landslide, it was still an election decided by five-digit numbers, by several tense days?<br /><br />I start with the premise that we can’t write off the 47% the way Mitt Romney did. This was a high-turnout election, and while I understand that the on the ground work in Georgia, in Arizona, in Midwestern cities was exceptional, and should not have been exceptional, I still don’t know how many more votes there are out there from people who didn’t vote. It also seems wrong fundamentally to write off so many people; you start at a disadvantage if you never think about the other side. Again, I like to find compromises.<br /><br />That’s not to ignore that tons of voters hold views that are antithetical to what I believe in, and that they are never going to be won nor worth the time. There are people who not only identified with President Trump, and not only disliked the Democrat platform, but identified with the full explicit and implied MAGA agenda. I don’t know what the playbook is there. <br /><br />My dad is at least partly in this category. He voted for Trump both times. He likes that Trump talks shit to reporters. He has always voted Republican, and still views the Democrats as more aberrational than anything Trump is. I remember pleading with him to vote for Gary Johnson in 2016, and not getting anywhere. He probably enjoyed voting for Trump more than for Romney or McCain or either Bush. It’s one of the reasons I think the ‘<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/trump-proved-authoritarians-can-get-elected-america/617023/">there will be more competent authoritarians</a>’ line is not quite right; Trump forged a connection with his voters, a real one that a Mike Pence or a Tom Cotton seems unlikely to do. It’s a connection that I believe is built on a bullshit marketing image, but it’s a real connection nevertheless.<br /><br />There are people, I believe, who voted for President Trump or the Republican party who do not endorse his worst views and who do not explicitly identify with him. They may dislike the Democrats more, they may have focused on the economy at the expense of everything else – and mind you, the idea that Trump was the better pick for the economy to me because he ran a deficit-fueled 2-3% GDP growing economy with relatively low interest rates is, to me, nuts, but the perception is what it is. In any case, there is a part of the populace that enjoys spiting the left and 'political correctness' or, these days, wokeness to the point that they can overlook whatever it is they might dislike about the right.<br /><br />How to reach them? I’m not sure. What I see from people who are in the middle and who did vote for Biden but with their nose held or picking Republicans down ballot, is 1) economic self-interest and 2) fatigue with the piety they see from the left. I don’t mean to use piety as an accusation. But there is a sense that you have to be for the entire platform or you’re no good, and a sense that if you make a false step, you’ll get hounded. A lot of this is the online conversation, and I don't know how much this feeling of fatigue and spite resonates at large, but I think it's one of the bigger opportunities. (After writing this, I listened to Kara Swisher's <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2oTfRBsQF1P4Dz0S5Eo9cj?si=KaYLJBxPTf61YIO_8e1-OA">podcast</a> with John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor, and he used the word 'nuance' to make what a similar argument). <br /><br />The message of the Democrat’s platform resonates when the associations are removed, as seen in public opinion polls about individual issues, or in things like the Florida referendum on minimum wage. There are also arguments to address economic self-interest – I would make the case that higher taxes to help fund programs that will address inequality will pay huge dividends for the rich as well as the rest of the country over the next 50 years, e.g. Just as there are ways to open up to people who only agree with part of the game plan.<br /><br />The challenge is that there are so many deal-breaking issues. You can't compromise on climate change given the Earth isn’t really part of the negotiations. We can't ask people to continue to neglect our ongoing scars of foundational racial injustice. Our dumb (in all senses) approach towards immigration destroys the one exceptional competitive advantage America has had over the decades, and I’m not really sure what compromise can be struck there. <br /><br />And yet, there needs to be work done with some of those 72M+, to build a more durable constituency (at least until the electoral college is overturned, the Senate made more representative, the courts reformed, and all redistricting done by nonpartisan commissions; all of which, good luck, President Biden). The flipping of Georgia and Arizona is inspiring precisely because they support that ground can be won, both in persuading median voters and turning out more voters. Educating, taking policies out of identification and into common ground, making the case for how things can be better, those seem to me still feasible, even if they’re the stuff of old-school, door-to-door politicking.<br /><br />All of this is not to say that Democrats should play to the middle. I think the last four years have shown identity and emotion overtake rational assessments of policy and competency when we are voting or aligning ourselves politically. Tapping into that emotion includes solving real problems, not developing incremental ideas to placate sensibilities. Certainly not in a climate where neither side is predisposed to compromise. </p><p>It’s hard for me to watch someone like Katie Porter or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez speak in Congressional hearings and not be impressed, and not think they’re the future of the left. They are unabashedly progressive, but they do the work and they translate their policies into real human concerns. As far as I recall, Stacey Abrams is more centrist than those two women but she is similarly inspiring. I was in Athens, GA for a wedding in May 2018, and other wedding guests spoke about her as a hero. (There is some irony in the bounty of well-deserved praise she is getting now after the weird and negative response some people had to her openly wanting to be VP this summer). </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The Legacy </h3><p>There have been some positive outcomes from the past four years, and I believe those outcomes prepare us for the next four. The first is increased political engagement. I’m more engaged than ever before, as I mentioned, and am setting a personal goal to contribute in some way to the ground-level politicking in the next 2-4 years. I’m hardly alone, and both the % of eligible voters and what you see on the web and in the real world is a testament to that. That’s a good thing – democracy should reflect an engaged society. I hope the intensity of our engagement goes down in the Biden era – and again, this snowball of a coup effort makes it hard to take one’s foot of the gas – but consistent engagement should be a hallmark of our society, the same way it was in De Tocqueville’s famed observation of (a significantly less democratic) America in the 19th century. <br /><br />The flipside, of course, is that the other side is engaged. In a neutral sense, good, politics are better as a reflection of the country they take place in. But the politics that were reflected in this election were not good – and I’m sure Trump’s voters would agree, just from the opposite stance. The positive element out of all this? Any last illusions of American exceptionalism should have faded. This tension is an enduring fact of life in America, a <a href=" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/americas-two-souls/617062/">core point</a> of our history. I can argue that 2020 is actually a more just, more positive climate for the U.S. than almost any time in our history – the increasingly unlivable climate itself notwithstanding, of course – but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. My point is not to sell you a bill of goods about today, but to echo what Anna Lind-Guzik <a href=" https://medium.com/the-anti-nihilist-institute">has been saying</a> for the <a href="https://conversationalist.org/">last 4+ years</a>, what Monica Hesse wrote <a href=" https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/liberal-election-fantasy-loses-trumpism-wins/2020/11/04/ca79be4c-1e91-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html">here</a>, what Jelani Cobb wrote <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-black-history-should-already-have-taught-us-about-the-fragility-of-american-democracy">here</a>, what Maria Hinojosa wrote <a href="https://gen.medium.com/democrats-dont-deserve-latino-votes-just-because-they-re-the-less-racist-party-99eb761af7b6">here</a>. America is not an exception, and it never really has been, it’s just been more powerful. A clear-eyed understanding will allow us to fight towards that ever greater union.<br /><br />(My three points in favor of American exceptionalism would be that we have integrated immigrants better than any large country, that we have oceans to protect us from serious economic/military rivals, and that capitalism has provided a framework, however rapacious, to exploit our natural and human resources over time to economic growth. These do not add up to a ‘better’ model, and our current policies towards climate change and immigration have eroded two of those pillars). </p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">2016's Echoes<br /></h3><p>I’m reminded of the feeling four years ago, when Trump won. Of hearing how my wife’s colleagues were sleepwalking in the school hallway, furious and groggy at the same time. Of going out with friends that Friday to commiserate, and finding out Leonard Cohen died too. Of having dinner with a good friend that Saturday, and hearing she was going to leave Bulgaria that year, which meant almost everyone we cared about was leaving, so we were going to be too. There were a lot of feelings that week. Elections, like Olympic Games and the World Cup, provide a global landmark, a snapshot that captures our state of mind more than normal weeks do.<br /><br />I remember most of all meeting with my friend and Bulgarian teacher, Silva, at a café a day or two after the election. We had a lesson, but at this point our lessons were mostly just us talking. We started by rehashing how could this have happened – I believed the polls, I believed 538, and I put more weight on 70% than 30%. “How did this happen?” Silva asked me, and I didn’t know how to answer. <br /><br />But then, she said, “now you know what the rest of the world is like.” </p><p>Well, here we are. What are we going to do about it?<br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Leftover Notes</h3><p>1) One trend I do not like on Twitter is tweeting to express your disapproval for other people tweeting about things. Specifically, people who tweet to say ‘stop tweeting about politics’ or ‘why do people keep tweeting about politics?’ These people seem to tweet more about politics than the people who actually tweet about it, and to express their disapproval for other people’s interests.<br /><br />Now, I don’t tweet about politics much. I find Twitter and social media bad places to talk about complicated or identity driven things. But I also don’t give a shit about college football, or even people talking about their stocks going up or down day after day without adding analysis. The thing is, the internet is wonderful for choosing what you consume. It’s not like being in the US and running into cable news everywhere you go (one of the true blessings of living abroad). Muting works. Just don’t engage! <br /><br />This sticks in my craw because the implication is that politics isn’t important enough to be talked about on Twitter. Which, if politics aren’t important for you, I mean, congratulations. But it’s worth acknowledging that for a lot of people, national politics actually matter, whether they be refugees and immigrants or people still fighting for rights or just people who actually need federal government support to get by. You don’t have to even agree with them that it matters. You can just let them tweet or whatever they do in peace.<br /><br />2) I don’t have a strong take on the polling miss. I think Zeynep Tufnecki got it <a href=" https://zeynep.substack.com/p/stop-refreshing-that-forecast">more or less right</a>, which is that the polling-based models provide such a wide range of possible outcomes that they don’t actually provide real answers, and so their utility for every-other year events is limited. I will be taking less stock of them in the future, having given them my full attention this year even after 2016 (after all, 2018 played out pretty well). <br /></p><p>I respect how transparent Nate Silver/538 and a lot of the other polling aggregators/modelers are. They are public and they walk through their thought process regularly. Silver is overly defensive of his ‘mistakes’, and his <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-werent-great-but-thats-pretty-normal/">last post</a> read to me a little bit like ‘don’t listen to us so much’, which is right but also presumably against his self-interest. But whatever his Twitter persona, I find the criticism a little unfair; they do their work openly, it’s interesting, and the quantitative approach has value. For example, the quants’ analysis of the likely votes once the election ended and we were waiting for ballots to be counted was fairly accurate and informative. This went double once the various axes emerged for individual locations, Jon Ralston in Nevada being the top of mind example.<br /><br />3) On the flipside, I should confess that I viewed the Trafalgars of the world, whether pollsters or people on twitter who picked the sort of red map where Minnesota would flip, a little unfairly. I viewed the incentives as slanted – people on the left, still scarred by 2016, would be in the mood to hedge every prediction, while those on the right, emboldened by a fluke event, would misunderstand why they were right in 2016. I don’t know why this matters, but it riled me up. I considered them bad faith actors.<br /><br />The election was a good reminder that nobody knows everything, and that the range of outcomes should keep us all humble. They are just as likely to be trying to figure out what will happen in the election as anybody else. The stock market too is full of people trying to figure things out, and some of them are full of it and others or not. The market gives more regular feedback on whether you're right or wrong, but predictions about the future are hard no matter what.<br /><br />That said, at least one or two of those self-styled pundits have blamed their getting it wrong on fraud, so maybe I was right after all about their bad faith.<br /><br />4) Lastly, I think this election was a good reminder that Twitter isn’t real life. The people who talk about politics on Twitter are hyper engaged, and while they may be expanding the Overton window or foreshadowing where a given party is headed, they also might just be extremely online people. Twitter is an addicting and often informative service, and it’s a way for people to connect with others in their field. But expecting the conversation on Twitter to map to the offline world is a stretch, and perhaps an even bigger stretch when the President migrates to Parler (whether before Twitter bans him or after, tbd). My conclusions from my piece four years ago still hold up, even if a pandemic makes it ever harder to live offline.<br /><br /><br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-16039433173720013672020-11-09T05:30:00.004-05:002020-11-09T12:52:05.095-05:00The Books I Read September & October 2020<p style="text-align: left;">I got involved in a one-off project in September and October that kept me from updating this here blog. I enjoy keeping the blog going, and so I’m pleased to resume at least the monthly book reviews (with the monthly podcast reviews going up on my Shortman Studios blog later this week). I also have some election thoughts to share by the end of the week. <br /><br />I read seven books over the last two months, and they are presented here in mostly no order, except the book I want to talk about most is last. Here goes.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1. Larry McMurty, <i>Lonesome Dove </i></h3><p>I’m not usually a Western reader, and I was 5 or 6 when the acclaimed miniseries aired on TV. I may have heard this over the years, but I only read it after Christian Wallace mentioned it on Boomtown, a podcast I talked about <a href="https://shortmanstudios.com/podcasts-we-listened-to-july-2020/">here</a>. Something in the way he evoked the geography of West Texas, which he said was reflected in Lonesome Dove, made me want to try the book.<br /><br />Without a true western background – I probably read some stuff as a kid, including O. Henry stories – I didn’t have much in the field to compare Lonesome Dove to, so instead it really reminded me of Lord of the Rings. An epic journey with a motley, mostly male crew, moving through hardships, with bit and then key characters suffering tragedy, and a sweeping landscape behind it all. The biggest contrast is that the ambiguity here is sharper, with no character really better off than they were when the journey started, or at least without suffering meaningful damage; my memory of Lord of the Rings is a slightly more pat finish, at least for Pippin and Merry.<br /><br />The story was hard to put down – I read it over vacation and kept postponing when I turned out the lights to read another chapter. McMurty wrote the characters well, and their personality comes out on the page quickly. They also react to events in realistic ways throughout, even if it can be surprising or frustrating at times. I liked it more than the miniseries – Amy and I watched it afterwards – and the length of the book gave it space to stretch out. At the same time, when I learned that there were three more books in the series and other TV productions, I had no interest in reading more. One book was enough with these characters, in this world.<br /><br />The one note I have beyond that is the treatment of women and minority characters. I’m willing to extend some consideration to, say, Moby Dick for being well behind modern perspectives. Lonesome Dove was written in the 80s, and it’s ok about some things – the women are fairly round characters, even if they are confined to very few roles in the frontier society, which I can buy. I should acknowledge my own latent bias, perhaps; I thought Pea Eye was Black along with Deets, and I probably just mis-read the beginning and then lumped him in with Deets. In any case, the Mexican and Black characters were a bit of the ‘magic minority’ type or else cranks. Not a terrible job, but noticeable. I found the Native American characters to be the flattest, though a) one was the villain of the book, and b) perhaps that was coming from the perspective of the main characters, former Texas Rangers who fought the Native Americans.<br /></p><p><br /><img class="image-stretch-vertical" height="400" id="igImage" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61OuBZWtRCL.jpg" style="max-height: 500px; max-width: 333px;" width="266" /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">2. Samantha Schwieblin, <i>Distancia de Rescate</i></h3><p>Samantha Schwieblin has gotten some coverage in English-language press. Amy ordered this book – called Fever Dream in English – and I gave it a try. It’s a weird book but worth reading.<br /><br />This is a horror story. Amanda, a mother from the city, is on her deathbed in a small Argentinean town, talking to David, the son of a woman she met in that town. That effect – the story is told in a conversation between the two, with Amanda trying to find the link back to where her problems started and to find out what happened to her daughter – is very disorienting, and propulsive. <br /><br />It’s one of those books where I read in Spanish and feel like I missed something as far as the nuts and bolts of what happened, but not because of the language, but rather the way the book was written. I think this is one of those inscrutable books that doesn’t get wound up in the full explanation. It was good, nevertheless.<br /><br /><img class="image-stretch-vertical" height="400" id="igImage" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91wAXV5MenL.jpg" style="max-height: 2560px; max-width: 1502px;" width="235" /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">3. Nina Simone, <i>I Put A Spell On You</i> (Memoir)</h3><p><br />I’ve been thinking about Nina Simone a lot for the past few years, and read two biographies about her along with watching the Netflix documentary. I overlooked her memoir, purposefully, because I guess I had heard that it wasn’t accurate. Which is a strange reason to skip a memoir – the biographies and documentary already provide enough context, so reading the memoir isn’t about the accuracy, it’s about the feelings from the author. That’s how I overcame that initial hesitation.<br /><br />The book is a weird one all the same. It is accurate, I believe, in conveying Nina’s mindset – her frustrations, her excitement, the slights she suffered, and so on. But there’s a disjointedness and a distance to the writing. She has a co-writer, Stephen Cleary, and at times perhaps that layers on the disconnect. The book also races towards its finish, more or less overlooking the 80s, which wasn’t her best decade but was the most recent as of the writing. <br /><br />It’s still a firsthand story of the civil rights period, of her artistic career, of growing up in the segregated south, and it’s still Nina Simone. It’s worth the read. And I think anyone who has followed Nina Simone’s work and story before will understand that disjointed, weird feeling. It’s a part of her story, too.<br /></p><p><img class="image-stretch-vertical" height="400" id="igImage" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71aiHdWA5aL.jpg" style="max-height: 1360px; max-width: 907px;" width="266" /><br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">4. Dasa Drndic, <i>Trieste</i></h3><p>Trieste is an Italian city close to the border with Slovenia, and a stone’s throw from Croatia. I’ve never been, but the city has been in my mind for a long time. It’s one of those European cities that has traded hands and passed between empires and countries for centuries, with many overlapping identities and stories contained therein, like a Thessaloniki or an Istanbul or a Dubrovnik. Jessa Crispin wrote about it in the Dead Ladies’ Project, for example. We thought about squeezing in a trip there when we visited Venice in 2013, but it wasn’t practical. I spent a few years writing an (unpublished) novel set in Rijeka, some 75 kilometers away.<br /><br />Dasa Drndic has also been on my mind for some time, though a shorter period. She is a Croatian novelist and spent much of her life in Rijeka, dying in 2017. Trieste is one of her three books which have been translated to English, and it’s a thumper. The story is about Haya Tedeschi, an old women in Gorizia, on the Italian side of the border with Slovenia. She is Jewish – the last name means ‘German’ in Italian – and she was born in between the world wars. Her father assimilated to the point where he was a fascist, and somehow from moving around – to Naples, perhaps further from the Nazis, and then to occupied Albania – the family escaped persecution. Except that when they moved back to Italy before the end of the war, she fell in love with a Nazi, had a child with him, and that child was abducted before the war ended.<br /><br />It’s a fascinating book, weaving in testimonials from Holocaust victims and from Nazi trials. Drndic lists the names of 9000 or so Jews who were deported from Italy during the war. The spotlight on Trieste, not to my mind one of the principal settings of the war or the Holocaust, She weaves in Borges and Eliot quotes into the book. And this delivers heft – it’s true that the 50 pages of names aren’t meant to be read straight through, perhaps, but it adds to the punch of the book. Like when reading Angelika Schrobsdorff’s book, I’m reminded of the ease with which we adapt to the reality around us, or even more the ease with which we deny that reality, find a way to think ourselves different. <br /><br />The way she ties the plot back together towards the end for some reason doesn’t move me as much, but that doesn’t reduce the impact. Reading history and historically oriented fiction is a great way to regain context for our times, and this is a good one.<br /></p><p><img class="image-stretch-vertical" height="400" id="igImage" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71y4XZDkJqL.jpg" style="max-height: 1659px; max-width: 1083px;" width="261" /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">5. Jay Fingers, Orange Mound</h3><p style="text-align: left;">One of the last of my Memphis-inspired book purchases for now. This is a novel about Ant, an aspiring chef who is trying to leave the drug trade behind, and all the struggles that ensue. It’s a lighter read, comic though with dark twists (including the ending), and enjoyable. The characters are well drawn, and it’s a very digestible book. Another angle on Memphis. I don’t have a lot to say about the book, but was glad to have read it.<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><img class="image-stretch-vertical" height="400" id="igImage" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/715GwRuSOFL.jpg" style="max-height: 1360px; max-width: 880px;" width="259" /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">6. Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House (Memoir)</h3><p>I’m not sure if any book is really hyped these days, but I have been hearing about or coming across Sarah Broom’s memoir for a while. Or maybe Amazon knew to recommend it to me after I read Jesmyn Ward’s Sing the Bones. Or both. Anyway, it’s an acclaimed book and it’s set in New Orleans and so I read it.<br /><br />Broom is a precise writer, and her family story – starting from her grandmother and moving through generations in New Orleans, including a generation and a half or so worth of siblings before she is born – is epic. Not because they go on to change the world, or even because the family is full of strife or drama, but because any family story on a long enough timeline and told well enough becomes epic. <br /><br />The yellow house is the shotgun house she grew up in, that her parents owned (her father dying when she was six months old) in New Orleans East, an almost cordoned off part of New Orleans, on the other side of the canals from the main parts of the city. I loved her calling her block the short side of Wilson Avenue, and her adding of the history of New Orleans East as a promising development gone neglected to her own story.<br /><br />As with just about any modern New Orleans story, there is a Katrina section; the book is broken into ‘Movements’, and this one is titled Water. It’s the turning point in the book, moving from her family’s past and her childhood through young adulthood to an extended continuous present tense. The family members still in New Orleans – she has 11 siblings, and six of them and her mother and ailing grandmother are in the city – flee to various corners of the south and west of the United States while she tries to connect with everyone from New York, where she lives. And that exodus proves to be permanent for all but her mother and two of her brothers, and beyond permanent for her grandmother, who dies a month after Katrina hits.<br /><br />And yet, it pushes her to try to live in New Orleans again. Well, first it sends her to Burundi, a chapter I found really interesting, both because there are echoes of the life abroad I’ve led and of what I saw in Rwanda on a two-week visit, and because it was such a different experience for her in countless ways. Then it sends her to New Orleans for a first try, where she works as Mayor Ray Nagin’s speechwriter, though that doesn’t last long.<br /><br />She tries again a few years later, renting out an apartment in the French Quarter, rediscovering New Orleans from the inside out, posting up in the heart of the glamorized, touristified New Orleans, the only part most people know. She talked about the frustration she faced when locals asked her where she was from, said she didn’t sound like she was from New Orleans. She talked about trying to find archival footage of her father marching in parades, the father she never knew, and how her mother corrected her when she thought she had spotted him. <br /><br />There are sad moments throughout the memoir, and it’s a melancholy story overall. There is also a lot of beautiful notes on her relationships with her family, especially her older brothers Carl and Michael. I don’t have such a large family, but I can imagine that when you’re the youngest of 12, your relationships with the other 11 develop in irregular fashion, closer to some than others. I don’t know what makes me underline that, but it seems to me to exemplify the success of Broom’s writing, a success that builds momentum over the course of the book. Worth the hype, in the end.<br /></p><p><img class="image-stretch-vertical" height="400" id="igImage" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/611xFzV8uSL.jpg" style="max-height: 1000px; max-width: 617px;" width="247" /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">7. Walter Johnson, Broken Heart of America (History)</h3><p>There’s a meme that went around Twitter earlier this year, about what radicalized you. Like most things, some of the comments were serious, some were surprising but cutting, and a lot were jokes.<br /><br />The phrase, the idea came back to me when reading Broken Heart of America. I’ve read a decent amount of history this year; Rising Tide, Common Ground, Beale Street Dynasty; and politically infused non-fiction or fiction, like Bluest Eye or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, and even the memoirs I mentioned above. And of course there’s been a ton of writing ranging from Adam Serwer’s work to what Anna Lind-Guzik has done, and podcasts from Fiasco to Latino USA to Nice White Parents that has exposed more and more of our historical challenges to me, that has made it clear how constant those challenges have been.<br /><br />Broken Heart of America takes a specific lens – St. Louis’ history – to tie together Native American removal, Black oppression, white supremacy, activism, and the struggle that emerges from that. It shows how the 1848 revolutions led to a burgeoning socialist community in St. Louis (via Germans, which is also how I imagine Milwaukee came to elect three different socialist mayors, at least in part). It shows how Abraham Lincoln was afraid to free Blacks prematurely in the Civil War. And it pulls us through to Ferguson and the police brutality and subsequent protest movement. <br /><br />I found it very well written, a fluid narrative that was not impinged but aided by how well footnoted and documented it was. You could argue that Johnson writes a touch polemically, but I think he backs it up time and again. Specifically, he makes the argument that capitalism underpins much of this brutality and violence, that the logic of property ownership above all perpetuates our nation’s problems. That was the argument that was most challenging and eye-opening to me; I’ve long felt capitalism to be one of the answers to the ‘best system after you’ve tried everything else’ riddles, and I suppose I still do, but Johnson demonstrates again and again how its driving logic often reinforces or even causes some of our fundamental societal ills. <br /><br />To return to my earlier list, I’ve read a lot of great history books as well. I thought Rising Tide was fantastic, and Common Ground right behind it. Broken Heart of America is up on that tier as well, and very much worth reading. <br /></p><p><img class="image-stretch-vertical" height="400" id="igImage" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41DIAcduf+L.jpg" style="max-height: 500px; max-width: 322px;" width="258" /><br /><br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-20449646280365358122020-09-13T10:22:00.004-04:002020-09-13T10:22:35.581-04:00Books I Read - August 2020<p> I was hoping to write a little more regularly on here, but the one write-up I geared for the blog came out poorly so I need to work on it more. I'm hoping to finish the following posts before the end of the month:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ibiza visit</li><li>Being outside the US in Summer 2020</li><li>North of Spain visit</li></ul><p>But we'll see. My podcasts post will be available <a href="https://shortmanstudios.com/tag/favorite-podcasts/" target="_blank">here</a> tomorrow. I decided to post it directly on the work blog.</p><p>Ok, enough notes for myself and my few readers. Here's what I read in August.</p><p>1. Stuart Berman, <i>This Book is Broken</i> (History), </p><p>Broken Social Scene has been a source of periodic fascination for me since I got into music and heard about the band in college. I have seen them perform three times in two different countries - Boston in 2005, a small town in Spain in 2008, New Orleans in 2011 - and got to interview them at the Spain show. I have them in my mind sort of the way William Miller has Stillwater in <i>Almost Famous</i>, a band half a generation older than him through which he comes to understand music more widely. I didn't have any sense of disillusionment with Broken Social Scene, but they existed on a border between bigger-than-life rock stars and dudes (alas, mostly dudes) who you could see were full of shit but enjoyed anyway. It's been a long time since I've seen them, obviously, and I'm not following them uber closely, but it was a real joy to buy their most recent record, <i>Hug of Thunder</i>, even if it sounded like a new spin on the same record they had made three times before.</p><p>We're in a period of 00's nostalgia, and I am contributing to that with the first (and soon to be second) season of A Positive Jam, and that second season brought me to this book. Stuart Berman was living in Toronto as Broken Social Scene emerged, and knew the band as a friend, so he has good access to the many people involved. He took on the book as an oral history, with brief introductions leading to each of the chapters.</p><p>I'm a fan, so I like the subject. I also remember in my interview with the band, a year before this came out, a couple of the members pointed out that it was way too early to publish a retrospective on the band, one that dishes on their personal secrets (someone made a joke about how you should only talk about who's sleeping with who when you're old and unattractive). And I think, despite fascination that I and probably hundreds of other people had with the band, there's not quite enough here to stand for a full book. There aren't great revelations, and any revelations would not have mattered widely enough to be worth airing. It's a step above of a fanzine, and I liked it, but it's hard to recommend if you're not into the band, and even if you are, you probably remember a lot of this (the arrest of producer Dave Newfield in New York in 2005, I forgot about that until re-reading this, but yeah, that was an <i>event</i> at the time). </p><p>The question that prompts for me is whether this would have been better written, say, now, where there's that nostalgia element and some of these things are forgotten. I doubt it from a commercial element - there probably wouldn't be the wider interest in this now. From an informational and artistic perspective, it's interesting to wonder about.</p><p>(Also, I have a huge blind spot in not being Canadian or in Canada's cultural milieu. So caveat lector).<br /></p><p><img alt="This Book is Broken: A Broken Social Scene Story: Berman, Stuart, Canning, Brendan, Drew, Kevin: 9780887847967: Amazon.com: Books" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51s+EIDmztL.jpg" style="height: 500px; margin: 0px; width: 451px;" /></p><p><br />2. Preston Lauterbach, <i>Beale Street Dynasty</i> (History)</p><p>I believe this is the last of my Memphis specific books for the year. It focuses on the legendary Beale Street, but less so the music that emerged from there than the culture that allowed that music to emerge. The subject is the Church family dynasty, the Church family being Bob Church and Bob Church Jr.. They were a Black family, and their fortune was built on real estate around Beale Street, including bars, brothels, housing, and eventually a bank. The time period was the second half of the 18th century and the first third of the 20th, and the insight on what Black people had to go through in liberated, post-Civil War Memphis (and Memphis does appear to be relatively better than a lot of the country of the time). </p><p>I expected and would have liked to hear more about the music itself, but that most likely reflects my own lack of due diligence about what this book would cover. Like a few of the other histories I’ve read this year, it felt like he had to stretch his materials to pull together a cohesive story, but this flowed reasonably well and had a thesis on which it delivered. </p><p><img alt="Amazon.com: Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis eBook: Lauterbach, Preston: Kindle Store" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81SPIvhc6oL.__BG0,0,0,0_FMpng_AC_UL600_SR399,600_.jpg" style="height: 600px; margin: 0px; width: 399px;" /> <br /></p><p>3. Robert Kanigel, <i>Eyes on the Street</i> (Biography)</p><p>In last month's post, I <a href="http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2020/08/books-i-read-july-2020.html" target="_blank">proposed</a> a theory on biographies being either first biographies that compile all there is to know about a subject from primary sources, or second biographies that are more analytical and distant from the subject itself. </p><p>This book, a biography of Jane Jacobs, is a pretty good exemplar of what the first biography should look like. The sourcing is good and exhaustive, including letters, interviews with family and friends, and a thorough accounting of Jacobs's life and career, especially before <i>Death and Life of American Cities</i> came out. The picture is a little glossy, but there may be fewer skeletons in the close for Jacobs to be criticized with. Kanigel does call out the more legitimate criticisms that Jacobs received, including her blindspots on race and class and the gentrifying effect that her preferred city policies could have.</p><p> The writing itself felt 'hearty' to me, as if being read by an official mid-20th century broadcaster, with the mid-Atlantic neutral accent. And I think there was more room for 'ok, what does Jacobs mean now and where have her followers or critics taken city studies from her base?' but that may be appropriate for a different sort of book, rather than the stuff of biographies.</p><p><img alt="Eyes On The Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs: Amazon.es: Kanigel, Robert: Libros en idiomas extranjeros" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/516UhCzHZOL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="height: 499px; margin: 0px; width: 324px;" /> <br /></p><p>4. Toni Morrison, <i>The Bluest Eye </i>(fiction)<br /><i></i></p><p>I mentioned last time my poor effort in reading Toni Morrison's <i>Beloved</i> in high school. <i>The Bluest Eye </i>is my first effort to correct for that oversight. It's an effective story about how the weight of difficulty and history and disadvantage can crush someone’s spirits and hopes even before they become an adult. The interpolating histories of the Breedlove family members', how even the most villainous characters had a burden behind them, had context to them. <br /></p><p>It was interesting reading the foreword/afterword where Morrison comments on how she fell short, and her comments are fair, but I think she did better at conveying her point than the foreword/afterword might lead one to believe. They were also helpful at giving a window into her craft, and how she approached the theme of the story, why she made the choices she did, and what she hoped to achieve. This felt like a first novel in the sense that it was given a narrow scope, but it wasn't the typical bildungsroman that many authors begin their career with. </p><p></p><p><img alt="The Bluest Eye: Amazon.co.uk: Morrison, Toni: 0787721943389: Books" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51hO5BaEaSL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="height: 499px; margin: 0px; width: 326px;" /><br /><br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-69068063831009288162020-08-07T12:50:00.129-04:002020-08-07T13:06:58.309-04:00Books I Read - July 2020
<p>July was my first month of not working at Seeking Alpha in nearly eight years, and my wife went home to the states for the summer a week into the month. So, I had a lot of reading time. Here's what I got into in July, including more on my Memphis fascination, a couple curiously set books, and an American classic. <br /></p>
<p>1. Molly Caldwell Crosby, <i>The American Plague</i>
(History)</p>
<p>This falls into the Memphis category. The plague is yellow fever, and Crosby begins her story with the 1878 yellow fever outbreak in Memphis, before moving to Cuba in 1900, when Walter Reed and his team proved that yellow fever spread through mosquitos, both a controversial finding and one they found in a controversial manner.</p><p>Crosby's research is very solid, and I like how many details she provides on her process in the notes at the end of the book. She is transparent about when she has to add in shades of color to flesh out the narrative, and she does a good job explaining the scientific elements of the narrative, including how researchers disagreed over yellow fever's spread and how they resolved those disagreements.</p><p>The narrative itself didn't grab me as much as I expected, perhaps due to the limited degree of detail available in the source material. Once the story gets to Cuba, it gains momentum as we fall into an epidemiological whodunit. <br /></p><p>The applicability to 2020, whether in the scientific process and the errors made or, say, when Memphians argue over whether or not to impose a quarantine, is top of mind and obviously relevant. I didn't choose to read the book for that reason, but it provided for a mirror of sorts. It was not reassuring either for the current environment or a hypothetical new yellow fever outbreak.</p><p><br /><img alt="Cover of The American Plague by Molly Caldwell Crosby" class="a-dynamic-image a-stretch-vertical" data-a-dynamic-image="{"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51xMbuvtX0L._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[331,499],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51xMbuvtX0L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[230,346]}" id="imgBlkFront" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51xMbuvtX0L._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" title="The American Plague by Molly Caldwell Crosby" /></p><p>2.Tendai Huchu, <i>The Maestro, The Magistrate,
and The Mathematician</i> (novel)<br /></p>
<p>My wife ordered this and read it and liked it, so I was next to get it. The story is set in Edinburgh and follows the lives of three men who emigrated from Zimbabwe, and the action is in the mid to late '00s. The magistrate is a former judge who finds himself considered less qualified for work in Scotland, and also dislocated from his place in his family and community; the mathematician is a hotshot 20-something from a wealthy background and who trades commodities and stocks and drives fast cars; and the maestro is a loner who buries himself in his books, almost literally.<br /></p><p>I
liked the characters quite a bit, especially the first two I mentioned above. Both the Edinburgh setting and the look into the Zimbabwean emigre community were strengths of the book as well. Huchu could have spent more time on these characters - I would have been happy with a book just about the Magistrate, and didn't think the Maestro added much to the story. The plot was enjoyable, though the twist at the end felt a little unearned and thus not impactful. All in all a pleasant read. We both giggled at this section:</p><p><i>He envied the brave souls on Amazon, the dissenters hiding behind anonymous avatars, who gave War and Peace one star and told Tolstoy to go stuff it - too long, too slow, too many characters, what's with all the digressions, just get on with the story, Nikolayevich. One Casey Jones had asked if Tolstoy was taking the Mickey. Ms Jones wrote: I could not believe how many words there are in this book! It is just full of them. She felt it could have been a tenth of the size, and went on to say she had read The Count of Monte Cristo, which was a lot more readable. On a forum like that, Ms Jones was assailed by Tolstoyans, one of whom suggested she read Bridget Jones's Diary instead. But the fact remained that she was a brave nonconformist, one of the precious few.</i><br /></p><p><br /><img alt="The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician: A Novel (Modern African Writing Series) by [Tendai Huchu]" class="a-dynamic-image frontImage" data-a-dynamic-image="{"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Rb418m6hL.jpg":[333,500],"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Rb418m6hL._SY346_.jpg":[230,346]}" data-a-image-name="ebooksImageBlockFront" data-a-manual-replacement="true" id="ebooksImgBlkFront" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Rb418m6hL._SY346_.jpg" style="left: 0px; position: relative; top: 0px;" width="230px" /></p>
<p>3.Kiese Laymon, <i>Long Division </i>(novel)<br /><i></i></p>
<p> I will probably need to read this book to fully absorb it. The plot is a time travel story set in a small town in Mississippi, where Citoyen Coldson tries to rescue girls from the future and his grandfather from the past, while also sparring with his friendly rival LaVander Peeler in the "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence" competition. It's a funny book, and the echoes of injustice in Mississippi from 1964 to 1985 to 2013 are well drawn and land harder amidst all the humor. <br /></p><p>It could be the time travel and the loops that make this a confusing book, but I had more trouble tracking the characters' motivation. I think that's mostly because most of the characters were teenagers, and teenagers' motivations change three times a day, but I also may have rushed my reading of the book. I will revisit, because I think it's worth it.</p><p><br /><img alt="Long Division: Amazon.es: Laymon, Kiese: Libros en idiomas extranjeros" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mAbD8758L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="height: 499px; margin: 0px; width: 333px;" /></p><p>4. Holly George-Warren, <i>A Man Called Destruction</i>
(Biography)<br /></p>
<p>I have a basic theory on biographies. There are two types of biographies. First there are the first round of biographies, which come either when someone is near the end of their life - Sylvie Simmons' <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Im-Your-Man-Leonard-Cohen/dp/0061995002/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3OV4J9TRQ13CD&dchild=1&keywords=sylvie+simmons+i%27m+your+man&qid=1596731018&sprefix=sylvie+simmons%2Caps%2C248&sr=8-1"><i>I'm Your Man</i></a> about Leonard Cohen, e.g. - or shortly after they died, where the people who knew the subject are still around to talk about and provide context on his/her life. And then there are the biographies that are done at more of a remove, to place the subject in historical context. Both types are important, and the best biographies can bridge the gap between the two, and it's just a basic theory.</p><p> Holly George-Warren's biography on Alex Chilton is squarely in the first group, with all the good and some of the bad that can come with that. The good is that it is exhaustively reported, including interviews with almost everyone alive who knew Chilton, it seems. I'm not a Big Star junkie or anything, so this shouldn't be a surprise, but I learned a lot about both Chilton and the late 60s-80s, as well as Memphis (now you see why I read this!), and that is a credit to the work. I also thought the author did a very good job analyzing the music that Chilton produced over the years, and hit the right balance of how much to analyze the music vs. how much to tell about Chilton himself. I would have loved harder examples of how he became such a great rhythm guitarist, but that is certainly a smaller thing to point out.</p><p> The issues that come with a first round biography are reflected here. The story could have been shaped better; the author compiled so many facts but then rattled them off without a clear flow at times. For example, there were about 3-4 chapters that ended with 'this was the moment Alex realized he needed to clean himself up', but then his debauchery continued in the next chapter. I don't think the book should have been shorter, but there was a stop-start feel to his post Big Star, pre content in New Orleans days.</p><p>George-Warren knew Chilton, and her warm feelings for him slip into the story, even if she doesn't reveal her relationship with him until the epilogue. That's fine on its own, but her writing was very hands off about Chilton's numerous problems. It's a biography, not a moral stage, but among the things that went unexplored was his habit of pursuing high school girls well into his 20s, Wooderson style; his committing domestic violence; his homophobic and anti-Semitic behavior; and just his generally being kind of a dick, even when he finally cleaned up his drug and drinking habits. I know the author doesn't have to spoonfeed us, we can react our own way to Chilton's behavior, but there was something a little too clinical for my taste about how she presented his flaws.</p><p>For all that, I really enjoyed reading the book and love compelling biographies in general. Any recommended biographies that bridge those two categories I mentioned above?</p><p><br /><span><span><span> </span></span></span><img alt="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/515JDMo4aJL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/515JDMo4aJL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></p>
<p>5.Robert Penn Warren, <i>All The King’s Men</i> (novel)<br /></p>
<p>I took a two-trimester seminar on the Civil War in my senior year of high school. The first trimester covered the history of the war, and the second focused on the literature that emerged from it. It was a sign that I was missing the deeper passion for the classroom at the time that, on the first day of class, one of the two teachers co-teaching the course said something like, 'when we say Civil War history, we don't mean studying the battles or being a Civil War buff or anything,' and I felt called out. It was a bigger sign when, in the literature segment, I turned in a paper titled "Beloved: A Civil War Novel". That was an assignment where our teachers 'anonymously' reviewed each student's paper in front of the whole class, to give an idea of what they were looking for, and I put anonymously in quotes because when they got to mine and pointed out how dumb it was, I burst out laughing and couldn't regain my composure for the entirety of their review. I passed, but not with flying colors, let's say.</p><p> But the class stuck with me, evidently. I haven't read any Toni Morrison since, but I have<i> The Bluest Eye </i>sitting behind my desk; I remember how difficult Faulkner was, and the last line of "Absalom, Absalom" - "Why do you hate the South?" "I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!" - bewilders me to this day. I went to school in North Carolina and spent a month in New Orleans in my 20s and have been reading about the Delta and about the South recently and over the years.</p><p>One of the first books we read in that seminar, though I can't remember which trimester, was Robert Penn Warren's <i>The Legacy of The Civil War</i>. Beyond the fact of reading it, that book did not stick with me in any way. But it introduced me to Warren and to <i>All The King's Men</i>, which was showing up on all the best novels of the 20th century at the time. And, almost twenty years later, I got to the book.</p><p><i>All The King's Men</i> is usually billed as the story of Huey Long. Long was a populist Louisiana politician who rose to the Governor's office and then to the U.S. Senate. His policy views were left wing - he was a critic of FDR from the left - but his politics were a very 'ends justify the means' approach, and some call him an example of a 30's dictator in the U.S., ruling Louisiana via patronage and political muscle. Warren is on the record as protesting this comparison, but I read that as a protest along the lines of 'don't literally interpret every plot twist as derived from Long's life, and don't presume my views and the narrator's align, or anything else.' It's hard to track the rise of Willie Stark, the stand-in for Long, and not think of the real thing.</p><p>That said, I don't think the story of Willie Stark/Huey Long is the core of the book. Or maybe, Stark's rise/fall is the engine that keeps the book going, but it's not the key narrative. Politics are like the weather, elemental and eternal, but out of a normal person's control to a large degree. Instead, we can react to politics, prepare for politics, make choices with politics around us, and we can either do honor to ourselves or not.</p><p><i>All The King's Men</i> is set in the '20s and '30s in Louisiana, and I would argue it's the story of Jack Burden more than Willie Stark. Burden is a journalist from an upper-class family who becomes Stark's right-hand man, his get things done type - digging up dirt on rivals, persuading people to go along with 'the Boss', as he and most people call Stark, and so on. Burden is a compelling character, though full of flaws - he's a racist, if milder than some of the other characters, and black people are relegated to the sides of the stage throughout, dismissed and held in vague contempt (with the n word showing up on page 1); he's a misogynist, not able to accord women their fullness of motivation and character, even down to his mother and the woman he loves. Those are perhaps legacies of the time, but more specific to him is that he is aimless, a spoiled romantic who, having lost his hopes in this world is not interested in taking the reins on anything, which leaves him flirting with nihilism and ok with the 'ends justify the means' approach the Boss espouses. His facing up to what is goodness, what is his role and agency in the world, and how should he use his time and privilege (he's a man who never <i>really</i> needs to work, since his mother has money to share at most points in the book), is the true conflict of the book. Stark's end is foreseeable if you read up on the history, but also more of a typical tragic arc, hubris and reaching for the stars and doing all he could because his time was short and so on.</p><p> Into that mix, Warren introduces a number of entertaining or paragon-esque side characters. There's Sadie Burke, the secretary/fixer who believes she's the one who pulled all the strings to get the Boss into the governor's mansion, with a chip on her shoulder from having a smallpox scarred face; Tiny Duffy, a large political crony who becomes Lieutenant Governor because the Boss thinks he can handle him best at close range; Adam Stanton, the noble leading doctor leaving in a relative hovel, who bangs away at the piano to relieve his moral stress; and Sugar Boy, the Boss's driver who is slow to form a word but quick with a gun and lightning fast with a car. That's just a sampling, and they're all worth considering for how they react to Stark, how they exist in a world where he is the dominating, oxygen inhaling force. The tension between Stark and Stanton, for example, the closest to polar opposites that this book offers, at least in one axis, throws down the moral gauntlet for us all, while making clear we'll all stumble one way or another.</p><p> The book called to mind two main touchpoints for me - <i>Citizen Kane</i>, which came out a few years before <i>All The King's Men</i>, and which similarly follows an ambitious quasi-tyrant in his rise to fame and power and then his downfall. In this case, the longing for the rosebud, for the moment when everything went awry, is for Jack Burden to feel, and he has a more complex relationship with the past and with Anne Stanton, Adam's sister (both of them children of a famed governor who embodied high-minded uncaring towards the people that Stark stood in, well, stark contrast to), his dreamed of paramour turned confidant.</p><p>The book is also of a scope with the great Russian novels, and hits positively Dostoevskian notes. For example, when Stark is closing the agreement for Adam Stanton to head his new hospital, Stark's dreamed of pure end to all his wrangling about:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">"Yeah, one more thing. But look here, Doc - you know Hugh Miller?"</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">"Yes," Adam said, "yes, I know him."</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">"Well, he was in with me - yeah, Attorney General - and he resigned. And you know why?" But he went on without waiting for the answer. "He resigned because he wanted to keep his little hands clean. He wanted the bricks but he just didn't know somebody has to paddle in the mud to make 'em. He was like somebody that just loves beefsteak but just can't bear to go to a slaughter pen because there are some bad, rough men down there who aren't animal lovers and who ought to be reported to the S.P.C.A. Well, he resigned."</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">I watched Adam's face. It was white and stony, as though carved out of some slick stone. He was like a man braced to hear what the jury foreman was going to say. Or what the doctor was going to say. Adam must have seen a lot of faces like that in his time. He must have had to look into them and tell them what he had to tell.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">"Yeah," the Boss said, "he resigned. He was one of those guys wants everything and wants everything two ways at once. You know the kind, Doc?"</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">He flicked a look over at Adam, like a man flicking a fly over by the willows in the trout stream. But there wasn't any strike.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">"Yeah, old Hugh - he never learned that you can't have everything. That you can have mighty little. And you never have anything you don't make. Just because he inherited a little money and the name Miller he thought you could have everything. Yeah, and he wanted the one last damned thing you can't inherit. And you know what it is?" He stared at Adam's face.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">"What?" Adam said, after a long pause.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">"Goodness. Yeah, just plain, simple goodness. Well you can't inherit that from anybody. You got to make it, Doc. If you want it. And you got to make it out of badness. Badness. And you know why, Doc?" He raised his bulk up in the broken-down wreck of an overstuffed chair he was in, and leaned forward, his hands on his knees, his elbows cocked out, his head out-thrust and the hair coming down to his eyes, and stared into Adam's face. "Out of badness," he repeated. "And you know why? Because there isn't anything else to make it out of." Then sinking back into the wreck, he asked softly, "Did you know that, Doc?"</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Adam didn't say a word.</p><p></p><p>It could be Kirillov or Shatov ranting in <i>Demons</i>, or even Stavrogin at the monastery. Well, except for a couple things. First, Warren writes with the quintessential American self-centeredness, not for the author himself but for the characters. This hero plunging into the muck sensation is our country's biggest addition to the world canon, perhaps epitomized here by Jack Burden's sudden trip to Long Beach, California, when his personal and professional lives cross in just the wrong way.</p><p>And related to that, Warren writes the hell out of this story. At times it verges on too much, on a degree of detail that you imagine has died in our century, where it feels like he's not quite showing off but like Tolstoy above, a little too slow. It feels to me a little like <i>Grapes of Wrath</i>, where Steinbeck alternated plot chapters with descriptive setting chapters, except Warren writes in 10 long chapters so the pages and formats meld together. But it's also beautiful writing, and I'd rather he write it full than miss out on these moments. You can get a taste of it in the above, the simile about flyfishing for trout.<br /></p><p> I'm hardly the first to draw a connection between Russian writing and Southern US writing. A class I could have taken freshman year but did not talked about the parallels between either the Soviet Union and the south or the Soviet Union and the African-American south, or maybe just between the stereotype of the babushka and of the mammy, and I would love to learn where that class was going. I do know Carson McCullers loved the Russian novelists and had a bit of Chekhov to her approach. Writing all this, my grasp on American literature feels incomplete, my analytical ability rusty.</p><p>But reading a book like this re-sparks that desire and passion.</p><br /><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><img alt="All the King's Men | Landmark Booksellers" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://www.landmarkbooksellers.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/all-the-kings-men.jpg" style="height: 809px; margin: 0px; width: 528.512px;" /> <br /></p>
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<![endif]--><p></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-52861596473917246182020-08-03T07:30:00.003-04:002020-08-03T07:30:01.649-04:00My July 2020 Podcast Playlist<div>I've been spending more time on podcasts. In doing so, I've continued to find different approaches and formats for podcasting, which is one of the exciting aspects of the medium in general. It's still new enough that there are fewer rules and more styles. There are commonalities and there are 'standards', but also a lot of room to innovate. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>As I listen to more podcasts I want to share what I'm listening to and to review those podcasts. I'll highlight what I think is unique I wanted to review a few of the podcasts I've listened to this month. Some of them play up a more standard approach really well, and some show the variety available in podcasting.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3>Feist - Pleasure Studies</h3></div><div>Feist! I know Feist as a performer. I listened to her when Mushaboom became a thing, when her guesting on a Kings of Convenience record almost swallowed it up, saw her in New York as the start of my one all-nighter in the city as a new college grad. I started listening to <i>Pleasure, </i>her most recent album, a year or two after it came out, but I put it on a lot. It was an accompaniment on these lockdown spring nights on the terrace, <i>Pleasure </i>and then a couple Mountain Goats records, straining towards or idling under the skies and trying to stop the wondering.</div><div><br /></div><div>I came across <i><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pleasure-studies/id1468691296">Pleasure Studies</a> </i>in one of Apple's podcast app promo carousels, scanned the titles, saw they echoed the titles on her album, and thought 'oh, cool! Not so far from what we're doing on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0hWpBEJpnNsNpHajsKbZPx">our podcast</a>, going through an album track by track.'</div><div><br /></div><div>So I subscribed to it, and saw that the episodes were all a year old. And I put on the trailer, and it took me a minute to realize I was listening to the trailer and not a preview for a different podcast. Because instead of Feist's voice, it was a number of voices, beginning to tell their story. Then it clicked - that was what the podcast was.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pleasure Studies has nine episodes. All are under a half hour, and the shortest is 13 minutes and change. Feist introduces each episode's theme - the title is a track on <i>Pleasure</i> or in one case a 7'' with an additional phrase: "Young Up: Aspirational Bragging Rights," e.g. She then gives way to 3-4 guests, usually, who tell their stories that connect to that theme. Young Up is about people ignoring their age, and is among the lighter episodes I've listened to so far (I'm six episodes through), and introduces us to the <a href="https://twitter.com/thegrindmother">grindmother</a>. "I'm Not Running Away" was about facing challenges whether related to fear, immigration status, or gender. "Lost Dreams" is pretty self explanatory and, in its way, brutal.</div><div><br /></div><div>The format is like stage monologues, it feels like the theater. One imagines Feist strolling on, saying her piece, and then walking off, leaving each of the speakers in a different part on the stage, with the spotlight shining on them in alternating fashion. It's not light listening or entertaining in the way a good conversational podcast is, but it's fascinating and thought provoking. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Feist is still and always the best. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3>Strong Songs</h3></div><div>Since I'm co-hosting a music podcast, and will do more of it, I've been looking to see what else is out there. My co-host Mike Taylor turned me on to <a href="https://strongsongspodcast.com/">Strong Songs</a>. I've listened to two episodes so far - host Kirk Hamilton's <a href="https://strongsongspodcast.com/chicago-by-sufjan-stevens">breakdown</a> of Sufjan Stevens's "Chicago", and then his <a href="https://strongsongspodcast.com/last-goodbye-by-jeff-buckley">episode</a> on Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye". <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>They're really good.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kirk does a few things especially well. He conveys excitement for the music. He cares a lot for these songs (and I presume, the others he's unlocked), which makes it easy for the listener to get excited. I was already big fans of these songs, and I will eventually pick out an episode about a song I don't know well to see if this can bridge the gap for me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kirk also teaches the listener about the music, and in a way that requires little or no musical knowledge but also doesn't dumb things down. I believe he made reference to being a music teacher, and he comes across as the smart band teacher who can relate to you and help you go beyond the notes to a better understanding. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Lastly, he really makes sure the music is incorporated into the episode, so you can listen and appreciate the music while also getting his commentary.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The discussions take a little bit of wind-up to get past, but once beyond that his breakdowns are really enjoyable. I can quibble on a couple things because it's fun to do so - how do you talk about Stevens's lyrics and not mention his religiosity; and the strings on Last Goodbye have a South Asian element to them, what is that? But those are all in the realm of things to talk about, not musts.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In college I saw <i>School of Rock</i>, and there's that scene where Jack Black is breaking out the history of rock, the family tree of all its different branches. I always wanted to take a class on something like that. Then there's the idea of getting into the songs themselves and understanding what makes them work, both to add tools to a songwriting arsenal I dreamed of using and to just enjoy them more. I actually took a songwriter's class, with a one Robert Zimmerman (not the one who changed his name to Dylan), and it was useful. But this podcast goes way beyond that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, the man loves a good shaker to open up the musical space. You have to give him that.<br /></div><div></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Boomtown</h3></div><div>One of my other obsessions is finding podcasts about places. Something that can convey what it's like to be from a place, to live in a place, what makes it tick and hum, what makes it special or different, worth seeing or worth knowing about.</div><div><br /></div><div>I started listening to <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/boomtown/">Boomtown</a> without necessarily looking for that - I thought it might be a good story about the oil sector. And it is. But what I think makes it more worth hanging onto is the personal perspective Christian Wallace, the host, brings to it. He's from west Texas, he's worked on an oil rig (pronounced oll rig, apparently the accent out there), and he cares about the industry even as he's aware of the problems with oil and fracking. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Storytelling podcasts are the hardest to pull off, and not only did he and his team pull this off, they did it in a different way. This wasn't a serial story, with one narrative that brings things to a boil. Instead, the podcast goes into different corners of the oil patch - how tough it is to work there, how dangerous it is, what the sex economy surrounding an oil camp looks like, what the economics look like, and so on.</div><div><br /></div><div>The podcast was released over the winter, right before oil collapsed once and then again amidst the covid-19 issues. So the timing for talking about a boom was ironic, though the show is laced with both the downside of a boom and the inevitability that every boom begets the next bust. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>But the economics were the less interesting part of this to me, since I spend more time in that part of the internet anyway. Learning about the issues in West Texas and hearing from people, that was what stuck with me from this show.</div><div><h3>Servant of Pod</h3></div><div>Nicholas Quah has been writing the Hot Pod newsletter, a podcast industry write-up, for a while, and I've been reading it for a year or two, all told. He is immersed in podcasting, and I've learned a lot reading him, including some good recommendations - Welcome to LA is another great place-centered podcast, e.g.</div><div><br /></div><div>His new podcast, <a href="https://laist.com/podcasts/servant-of-pod.php">Servant of Pod</a>, builds on the newsletter format. He interviews podcast people of all sorts - people who make podcast music, leading hosts, industry types - and they're just good conversations. One thing interesting to me is that the theme music and the way he goes in and out of ads reminds me more of public radio than podcasting, though usually by the end of his interviews things have loosened up and fallen into the podcast flow. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 style="text-align: left;">There Goes The Neighborhood Miami</h3></div><div>One more place podcast. I found this when digging through the listings on Apple, I think. It's a three-part series - again, an example of a slightly different format - and I wish it was longer. A few different hosts - Kai Wright, Nadege Green, and Christopher Johnson - take us through Liberty City and Little Haiti. The angle is on how gentrification and pushing around minorities has gone in different directions, with the interstate displacing one population and now the irony that these neighborhoods are on the high ground, and thus more attractive as Miami sinks into the ocean. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know why certain cities attract me - New Orleans, Detroit, Memphis in the US e.g., - and others haven't grabbed my eye, including Miami. But hearing more about the history of the place has reminded me that there's a lot more to the city than South Beach. Some post pandemic day, I'll have to visit.<br /></div><div></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Land of The Giants</h3><div>And we end up in the business world, with Vox Media's <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/land-of-the-giants/id1465767420">Land of the Giants</a>. I have been listening to season 2, which covers Netflix's rise and current position. Peter Kafka and Rani Molla got a lot of great interviews with Netflix execs, industry experts, and directors, and they frame the story well. The consumer voice is missing, but I'm not sure how you would represent that here. <br /></div><br /></div><div>What I like most about the series is that it has fun with the narrative, and doesn't treat it as overly dour, titans of the industry sort of stuff. Business reporting is sometimes overly serious, exalting towards its subjects, or else scathing. This show praises Netflix where need be, but also points out where they got lucky and has fun with the story. This is about entertainment and media, and there's a lot of fortune and sliding doors that has come into effect. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So far in listening I've learned about the company's rise, been impressed with their focus and their fortune, and enjoyed the narration meanwhile. <br /><div><br /></div><div> <br /></div></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-71226471657380549732020-07-16T08:23:00.001-04:002020-07-16T08:23:23.193-04:00Books I Read - June 2020
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c6IxaI1_iYE" width="320" youtube-src-id="c6IxaI1_iYE"></iframe></div><p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">I'm restarting the blog in earnest with a monthly review of the books I've read. I've been keeping lists of the books I've read since my last years in college, with the loose goal of reading 50 books a year (it's been a long time since I've hit that mark). Recently, I've added at least a sentence or two about the book to my list, so that an impression lingers longer. This monthly post is, for now anyway, a way to expand that and to try to make connections or just share what I'm looking at. <span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">So, here goes - I read the following three books in June.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "times new roman";">
</span></span></span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Daphne
Brooks, <i>Grace</i> (Non-Fiction)</span></p><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"></span></span><div><br /></div><div>This is the first 33 1/3 book I've read in a while. The 33 1/3 series contains almost 200 books on music albums of all different sorts. The books are chapbooks, usually ~140 pages in length. I've read maybe 15-20 in total, and it's very tempting to just buy the whole series and go through them. The length of a given entry is short enough to devour in a day or two, and long enough to get to some interesting places. Usually, those places fall short of profundity because 140 pages on one album isn't <i>that </i>long, after all, but they are great all the same.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think Daphne Brooks's book on Jeff Buckley's <i>Grace</i> jumped to the top of my list because of something she said about Nina Simone, possibly in <a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/10073-nina-simone-her-art-and-life-in-33-songs/">this Pitchfork piece</a> but maybe elsewhere. I can't remember what it was, and it may just have been her describing how impressed she was by Buckley's performance of Simone's "Lilac Wine", which is track 4 on <i>Grace</i>. I have it in my head, apocryphally perhaps, that she was impressed that a white man could handle Simone's work so deeply. I like and own <i>Grace </i>on vinyl, but given my recent thinking on Simone, that would have caught my eye.</div><div><br /></div><div>Brooks is a professor and her approach in this book reflects that. She underlines a lot of themes, and then underlines them again - Buckley's feminism, his learning from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, his inversion of Led Zeppelin's power. Her breakdown of the music was a little modifier heavy, but it sheds new light on the structures of the songs and on the path Buckley took to get to <i>Grace</i>. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Writing or talking about music is tricky. It can be done - there are ways to draw out the power of music, even if much of that power is elemental or indescribable. The more common way is by illustrating the musician, talking about who they are to translate that to their music. The more challenging but, I think, rewarding way is to get into the notes and lines of a song, of an album. To explain why people like the popular parts, and to highlight the less noticed parts that make a song work.</div><div><br /></div><div>Brooks takes both paths here. I think she handles the background on Buckley better by not reducing everything to biography - I learned about his (non-)relationship with his father, about his views on the world, and the conscious way he approached the beginning of his career in New York, but this was not obsessive about his person, even as it was well-researched. The analysis of the songs ranges wider, though it still doubles back on some of those themes I mentioned above, but I learned quite a bit from her analysis there as well. I wouldn't have thought about Dream Brother as having a raga feel to it, for example. And she gets full credit for devoting relatively few pages to "Hallelujah", the best known track on the album (and when this was published, it was really in pop culture ascendancy).</div><div><br /></div><div>All in all, I think the goal of the 33 1/3 series, at least for me as a reader, is to learn more about the subject and to get excited about listening to the album a few times. This achieved that goal. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="Jeff Buckley's Grace (33 1/3 Book 23) (English Edition) eBook: Brooks, Daphne A.: Amazon.es: Tienda Kindle" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41W3zKnVOFL.jpg" style="height: 500px; margin: 0px; width: 365px;" /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "times new roman";">
</span></span></span>J. Anthony Lucas, <i>Common Ground</i>
(History)</p><div><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7pt "times new roman";"> </span></span></span>2020 has been a time for grappling with our privileges, for better or worse. I think about my time studying history in high school and college. I majored in history in college, but had 1/10 of my credits earned from high school, which also fulfilled all the US history I had to study - I took two medieval Europe courses but zero college US History courses. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>That credit carried over from AP US History, which I took my junior year in high school. I always loved learning about history, but somehow I was less than a serious student. Junior year required <i>the</i> grand research paper, which had to be at least six pages (I think I got a shorter requirement because I took a final exam as well). Showing no real curiosity, I wrote about Title IX enforcement since that was relevant to me as a wrestler. Dr. Quattlebaum rightly gave me a D on the paper, calling it a polemic (a word I learned then and there) and a C that term; when I checked if he would be open to writing me a college recommendation, he said it's a good idea sometimes to get a fuller picture on a student, even the classes that don't go well. I did not end up asking him for a recommendation.</div><div><br /></div><div>I grew up in a suburb of Boston, and was proud of the Boston history I knew - the city's role in the American Revolution, the number of presidents born there, the importance of our universities, even the fact that Martin Luther King, Jr. attended Boston University. And yet, despite growing up in the 90s and 00s, some 25-30 years after the events depicted in <i>Common Ground</i>, I had no real knowledge about the busing crisis in Boston. It was something in the air, maybe the <i>Boston Globe</i> would mention it time to time, maybe a knucklehead WEEI radio host would get in trouble for a related issue. But it was just a thing in the recent past of a place I wasn't curious about, and that I had the privilege to ignore.</div><div><br /></div><div>All of which is to say, <i>Common Ground </i>has a lot to teach me. The writing itself is cinematic, getting into the lives and heads of the three focus families, as well as seven key figures in Boston in the 70s. That approach - based on years of reporting with the families - allows for empathy in a situation that at least sounds as polarizing as our modern times. It's not a voice from nowhere, but a voices from specific places - the South End, Charlestown, Dorchester, Lexington, etc. - and while I might guess where Lukas's sympathies lie, it's only a guess. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>If one were to lazily assume based on the first chapters, the 'villain' of the book might be the working-class Irish McGoffs, who are resisting the integration of Charlestown and standing in the way of equality and progress; while the yuppie Yankee* Divers are putting their money where their mouth is, moving into an integrated neighborhood and working for inequality. The Twymons, the Black family studied in this book, would then be typecast in the victim role, held back from getting ahead.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>*Lukas uses Yankee as a term for patrician, old-money Bostonians and folks in the suburb, with general English descent. I didn't really hear that term as a kid, and I'm unclear if it's just a synonym for upper-class WASP (white anglo-saxon protestant) or something else.</i></div><div><i></i><br /></div><div>But that's not at all where Lukas goes, in part because he doesn't go anywhere, he lets the characters walk through their own stories. Which takes the Divers out of government work and to the point of hitting muggers with baseball bats on the South End streets, before they move back to the suburbs; the McGoffs to tentative acceptance and understanding; the Twymons holding on to their apartment and in a semi-reconciled family situation, even as a lot of tragedy took place. It was hard for me as a reader to not groan or cheer when different characters took the right or wrong step, and in the end more steps ended up being wrong than right, which reflected the twisted and stacked situation.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are direct echoes to our modern times, for example over the role of objectivity in the press. Of course the book also fits in with the issues of racial injustice, and is a potent testament of how deep those issues go and how wide they stretch - from housing to education to economic opportunity to health to justice and further.</div><div><br /></div><div>I did have one complaint in reading - the seesawing chronology made the narrative hard to follow, e.g. Colin Diver would leave the mayor's office, then we'd go back to a scene in 1970 with the Divers when he was still there. But it's a trivial complaint within the broader context.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been on a US city history kick, with certain cities specifically catching my attention - Detroit for a while, Chicago, New Orleans, and most recently Memphis (I'll throw in the Mississippi Delta from John M Barry's <i>Rising Tide</i> to this kick as well). It's odd that I didn't have the same desire to dive into Boston history, and came upon this sort of sideways. But it's a reminder that there are always problems close to home to solve.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families: Amazon.es: Lukas, J. Anthony: Libros en idiomas extranjeros" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51d9b57xb+L._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="height: 499px; margin: 0px; width: 334px;" /></div><div><br /></div><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "times new roman";">
</span></span></span>Angelika Schrobsdorff, <i>You Are Not Like Other
Mothers</i> <br /></p>
<div><br /></div><div>Europa Editions has been a source of good European books - usually translated novels - for me since college. I remember reading Elena Ferrante's <i>Days of Abandonment</i> in 2005, which was a total eye opener in a number of ways. Ferrante has become a big star, of course, and the publishing house has also put out authors like Muriel Barbery (<i>The Elegance of The Hedgehog)</i>, Alina Bronsky (<i>The Hottest Dishes Of The Tartar Cuisine)</i>, and Yishai Sarid (<i>Limassol</i>), among the authors I've read. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This book was recommended to us by a friend who lives in Sofia, Bulgaria, where the last section of this story takes place. The internet and print sources are ambiguous on whether this is a novel or a memoir, so I'm taking it as an exaggerated retelling of the truth, in the sense that Schrobsdorff uses novelistic techniques like writing from her mother's perspective, but most of what happened really did. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, this is a World War II, rise of the Nazis and escape from them memoir, and it's a tale of the limits of assimilation, of the Weimar Republic and the Roaring twenties in Berlin, of ignoring the rising reality of Hitler, of promiscuity and loyalty, of the pressures of wealth on normal relationships and of the greater pressures of losing wealth on those relationships, on how much of the sticks Sofia was like in the 40s, of an unsympathetic self-portrayal of the narrator, and really about history. The book races the rough the history, it's hard to put down and easy to breeze past, but like the great works of this style, it compresses life into some hundreds of pages (500 plus in this case), in a way that makes you feel like you've lived it all, the regrets and the rushes, and that now that it's over you're sorry and wish you could do it all again. Better to feel that regret and yen 'artificially', where we have a chance to then re-seize our day to day. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The book, as any honest one from people who lived through those events, asks important questions about the balance of freedom versus responsibility, and of how to recognize aberrations when we're seeking normalcy in our day to day lives. It is more a book about the run-up to the war than how to survive during that period, and really it's more about the mother who is the subject of the story, Else, and of Else's loving but fraught relationships with her children and, to a lesser degree, her men. Those sorts of stories, focused on characters amidst the times, are what resonate best with me.<br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>Again, I have a trivial nitpick, which is that outside of Else and the narrator, Angelika, the characters were a little pale. But there was plenty to cover with just those two characters.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="You Are Not Like Other Mothers - Angelika Schrobsdorff" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" height="554" src="https://www.europaeditions.com/spool/cover_9781609450755__id117_w600_t1443612160__1x.jpg" style="margin: 0px;" width="356" /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<![endif]--></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-14215891748851870442020-07-10T14:16:00.000-04:002020-07-10T14:16:43.215-04:00Breaking the Blog Back Out, Baby<div>Hi there.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's 2020, which among many other things is not, theoretically, an opportune time for blogging. We tweet, we podcast, we vlog, we watch things, and we text or tiktok or snapchat or whatever, but blogging feels like it belongs to another age. If we write regularly, we sell that as a newsletter, but a free to read, clunky user interface blog? It's like a time capsule.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>(It's possible I'll modernize by either refreshing the blogger layout or moving to a more up to date platform, but for now I kinda get a kick out of how ugly this is).</i><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> I launched this blog in 2006, when I was 21 and starting a trip to Europe that would lead into a 2-3 month stay in Moscow and which, effectively, kickstarted my life abroad. 2006 was a good time for blogging, for the broader internet and for where I was in life. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>But! 2020 is a convulsive time, globally and personally. The global stuff is apparent - COVID-19, the ways we have altered our day-to-day lives to protect ourselves from COVID-19, the rise of the far right around the world and the way that may or may not accelerate, the US election, the drumbeat of climate change and global warming in the background, the economic tumult around the world, and so on. I remember growing up in the 90s and sort of abstractly thinking the world was boring and wouldn't it be fun to live amidst history, and well, careful what you abstractly wish for.</div><div><br /></div><div>Personally, I'm blessed and privileged enough that the convulsions are mostly positive and mostly of my own doing. I stepped away from my job to try making it as an entrepreneur, starting with a podcast studio. There's some continuity there, and since I've worked at home the past 8 years, my day-to-day isn't shifting as much as it might. But it's a big change for me. I'm also likely to remain out of the US for the first time since 2010, which creates its own dynamics.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>One of the things these changes opened up for me is the space to start writing more. I've been journaling over the years - my brother bought me an Olivetti typewriter that I've used to track things since our move to Bulgaria, six years and a country ago. I wrote a novel that never got anywhere while I was in Bulgaria, and a handful of stories. And I wrote a lot at my job in a much more functional way. Public creative writing has not been a feature, though, a <a href="http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2019/02/nina-simones-it-is-finished-review-and.html">couple</a> of exceptions <a href="http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2017/01/fake-news-and-facebooks-true-problem.html">aside</a>. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I have a more visible public profile than I did when I was 21, and I have more free time than I did from the ages of 27-35, so here I am, breaking out the blog again.</div><div><br /></div><div>I plan to write about a few things on here, and I plan to write irregularly but not rarely - let's say at least a couple times a month. Here's what I expect to write about:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Things I'm reading - mostly books (I'm thinking of a monthly review of the books I read as a loose format).</li><li>Things I'm listening to - music and podcasts, though for podcasts it will be more on the personal side, since I have a blog on the Shortman Studios site for the business side of things</li><li>Places I'm visiting or thinking about - not super travel focused, since we can't travel much in 2020 and the 'here's what I saw on a trip' writing is not where I want to be focused, but nevertheless, I love places and that's the throughline to the start of this blog.</li><li>Things I'm thinking about - I expect this to be the least frequent category, but occasionally I'll have a 'take' on something outside of these other lanes.</li></ol><div>I don't expect to touch on investing here - I still have a Seeking Alpha account, and if that's not enough I'll probably set up something separate.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, I'm excited to start writing again. I plan to write up the three books I read in June as a next post. Let me know if you have any thoughts, and thanks for reading. <br /></div></div><div><br /></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-45080474463357453792019-02-06T04:23:00.001-05:002019-02-06T04:23:39.774-05:00Nina Simone's "It Is Finished": Review And Thoughts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
Nina Simone's "It Is Finished": Review And Thoughts</h2>
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">I’ve been thinking of Nina Simone
for a while. Maybe since the first time I heard her, exposed to ‘Sinnerman’ in
high school or college and quickly convinced song could do no more than what it
did. But for the present purpose, I’ve been thinking of her for the last year
and a half or two, since I bought </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">It Is
Finished,</i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> the last album of her prime performing years. I’ve been thinking
about her because I like the album, its music sticks with you. Because so
little is written about it on the web or in her biographies, because it is
pleasing and curious and a little challenging. And because in reading about
her, studying her, I found more to think about with less to conclude. Nina has
become relevant to me. I am wondering what that should mean.</span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
North Carolina And Philadelphia Goddam</h3>
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Nina Simone grew up in a small
town in North Carolina. She showed an early talent for piano, and soon started
to take lessons. She was a black girl and a preacher’s daughter, and her piano
teacher was a British woman, old and apparently kind and white. She would cross
over to the other side of town for her lessons. One anecdote is that when she
performed a concert at the age of eleven, she refused to play until her parents
were allowed to remain in their seats in the front, rather than be moved to the
back.</span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
Her dream was to become a
classical pianist, but she failed to get into the classical piano school in
Philadelphia that she dreamed of attending, a disappointment that hurt her for
the rest of her life. She gave piano lessons and started performing on the side
in Atlantic City, taking on the name Nina Simone rather than her birth name,
Eunice Waymon. She performed jazz and blues, and liked it well enough. A career
was born. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
According to <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/nina-simone-mn0000411761/discography">AllMusic</a>, she would
release more than 40 proper albums over the course of her life, running from
the age of 24 to 60. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It is Finished</i>
is 34<sup>th</sup>, coming out when she was 41. It marked the end of her pace
of releasing two albums a year – her next one would come out four years later.
I would say it sounds like nothing else in her discography, but I don’t know
that discography sufficiently to say. Based on the discs I know, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It Is Finished</i> sounds different in some
ways, but is still of a piece with her work. I’ll come back to that in a
moment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<img alt="Image result for nina simone it is finished" height="400" src="https://cdn-s3.allmusic.com/release-covers/500/0001/266/0001266033.jpg" width="400" /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<i>Source: AllMusic</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
On the front cover, Nina sits in a
pink and red floral-patterned dress on what looks like a pile of squash husks.
Her yellow straw hat with a flower pinned to it rests to her right, maybe just
touching her dress. She looks at the photographer emptily, devoid of the energy
to do anything but look. Maybe it’s too hot, or maybe she’s sick of this. In
the left corner of the cover, the title is written in whiteout, along with her
name and the year.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
The photo on the back cover
captures Nina in a more regal moment. She is standing with the straw hat on,
looking down at the photographer with just a hint of disdain, not quite
haughty. ‘I can do this without compromising,’ her look says, or maybe just,
‘here you go, now leave me alone.’ Her arms are crossed, her left hand resting
on her right shoulder. Behind her a thicket of trees, with a sandy path fading behind
her dress.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<img alt="Image result for nina simone it is finished" src="https://imagesaws.juno.co.uk/full/CS617788-01B-BIG.jpg" /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<i>Source: Juno Records</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">It’s not just the photo that stands
out. There are no details about the songs – who wrote them, where they were
recorded. Her longtime guitarist Al Schackman is called Avram here, the only
time he is listed that way in his career, per AllMusic. The other listed
musicians are Nadi Qamar on a variety of African instruments like the Guinee
Kuna, and her brother Sam singing on ‘Let It Be Me’, the one song Nina does not
get sole producing credit on. All of this may not be all that remarkable, but
the information reveals little. The other Nina Simone albums I have feature
liner notes, songwriting credits, fuller information on the band, and generally
illuminate the listening experience. </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">It
Is Finished’s</i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> cover obscures it. Incidentally, none of the other albums
feature two full-sized photos of Nina on them either.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
My exploration of Nina Simone’s
work since discovering ‘Sinnerman’ has been gradual and irregular. In a pre
Youtube and Spotify world, I didn’t seek her out explicitly. I was a Sinnerman
fan, happy to find that and put it on for 10 minutes while I showered and
shaved, and that was that. I was aware that there was more out there, songs I
recognized like ‘I Put A Spell On You’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,’ and
on planes I would listen to her greatest hits when the plane’s audio library
had them. But it wasn’t like with the other artists, where I bought CD after CD
to acquire all of their vital discography. I went step by step through Dylan
and the Beatles and Hendrix’s albums, I jumped straight to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">London Calling</i>, and I more or less stopped at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Horses</i>. But I didn’t have Nina in that category, the ‘must-have’
file.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
Why? It was probably just that, a
category error. It could have been my own – she was in ‘jazz’, a black woman
who I had not thought of as an auteur, as a creative force that I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> to understand. It could have been
the broader rock/indie blog culture of the time, grafting the established rock
canon onto the internet, the same culture I was trying to absorb on my own, to
catch up after a childhood of Russian music and classical, of album-oriented
hard rock from my brother, of grunge and 90s punk and then emo from my friends.
I was forging my own path in a way, but it was easier to tread where others had
trodden before. Or I don’t know, maybe I just didn’t think about Nina enough.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Children Go Where I Send You and The Connoisseur Chase</h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
In my late 20s I fully plunged
into LP buying. I had bought a few discs in college – I think, before it was a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thing </i>again – and had a record player at
my dad’s. But when we lived in Luxembourg, there was a built-in speaker system,
very old, which came with a broken record player. My wife bought me a new player
for my birthday. The apartment came with a row of records, including winners
like a Juliet Greco double album of greatest hits and two ‘Mysteries of the
Bulgarian Voice’ albums (we took those with us when we left, for Bulgaria of
all places). So I started collecting more aggressively.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
I bought my first Nina LP when
visiting my dad in Massachusetts. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">At The
Village Gate</i>. I remember that the record cost in the $20s, and the CD was
only five bucks. It’s a pleasant album from the first five years of her
recording career. It has a version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ on the first
side, a version that is fairly unremarkable when set against the Animals’ one
we all know. The second side features ‘Children Go Where I send You,’ which
hints at some of the life Nina could bring to her music. This was a live
recording, though it’s unclear whether it’s one show or several combined. Of
final relevance to our subject, Al Schackman (listed under that name) is her
guitarist, and ‘Zungo’ is performed both here and on the extra tracks of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It Is Finished</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Sometime after buying </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">It Is Finished </i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">– which I also bought at
the shrunk down Newbury Comics in the Burlington Mall – I bought </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Emergency Ward </i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">in Spain. Nina recorded
Side 1 at Fort Dix, and the 18-minute song may have been the whole performance.
She melds George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’ with a poem, ‘Today is a Killer’.
The album cover is filled with news clippings about Vietnam. I don’t think it
is hyperbole to say this is ‘Sinnerman’ updated for Nina’s modern world, and
also it is the promise of a work like ‘Sinnerman’ delivered. Nina always
aspired to a classical career, and this song is symphonic in its progression,
backed by a church choir to add a gospel grounding. The other side is fine, two
songs, ‘Poppies’ which is a mid-tempo song that I like listening to and don’t
particularly remember, and ‘Isn’t It</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">A
Pity’, another George Harrison song that she plays as a bluesy solo lament, a
showcase for the smoother side of her vocal range.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
Just last month I bought <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pastel Blues</i> while visiting my brother
in Nashville. My dad was there too and had no real interest in the city, and
the weather was bad. Record shopping was as good as it got. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pastel Blues</i> has ‘Sinnerman’ as its last track, but it sticks out
from the rest of the record. ‘Be My Husband’, written by Nina’s husband Andy
Stroud – I’ll come back to him shortly – is a tough, funky tune to lead the
record, and ‘Strange Fruit’ is the famous Billie Holiday tune, but the rest of
the record has not stuck with me yet. I’ll just add that Al Schackman played on
this, though not, apparently, on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Emergency
Ward</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
That’s a sporadic survey of Nina’s
production, and it’s anachronistic to my experience with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It Is Finished</i>. But I wanted to give some context to why it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this </i>record that has been on my mind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
There’s also the biographical
context for Nina. The album was mostly recorded in 1973, it seems – per Nadine
Cohodas, one of her biographers, a concert from that year provides all but
three tracks, and those come from a 1971 recording session – and released in
1974. Nina’s marriage to Stroud was largely broken by this point. He was her
manager but had abused her over the years, they fought throughout their
marriage (though they also swung to very affectionate terms at times). Nina was
beginning to have tax issues, in part related to the divorce with
Stroud and the fact that he wasn’t managing her money anymore. She had a
difficult relationship with her daughter Lisa, abusing her even as she brought
her around the world, on tour to Japan and Australia and in exile to Barbados –
where Nina had an affair with the Prime Minister – and Liberia. In one famous
anecdote, she started dancing in a Monrovia nightclub after having a few drinks
and ended up naked and the talk of the town.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<img alt="Image result for nina simone cohodas" src="https://d1xwerhqtnbyw0.cloudfront.net/resized/width-280/path-assets/covers/v3/9780807872437.jpg" /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<i>Source: UNC Press</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
I’m saying all this because this
is a period where Nina’s life seems to come unstuck. She is frustrated that she
hasn’t had the acclaim she deserves – she attributes it to her passion for
protest music, something both Cohodas and the documentary, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Happened, Nina Simone?</i> (which has an accompanying biography of
Nina with the same title) support to a degree. She is not happy being single,
and wants to be taken care of and loved. A few years later she’ll move to Switzerland
and then Paris, she will resort to playing dives and to living in tiny
apartments. The rest of her life will be uneasy, she will draw on support from
old friends only to lash out at them, she will see one of her first recordings
featured in a Chanel campaign and will write a memoir, her health will
vacillate, she will be diagnosed with multi-personality disorder and move from
city to country and back. She will experience luxury that most of us will not
know, but contentment will be fleeting, if I read her biography correctly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
The unhappy artist is hardly a
novelty. You could argue it’s an expectation, that anyone who achieves great
success for specializing in performance of some sort, who achieves fame, will
face great pressure from thereon. That a grounded, happy existence is the
exception. But that doesn’t make it less saddening to consider.<o:p></o:p><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Horizontal Support and Certain Privileges</h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
I want to be careful about
flattening her. The music will come in to give full depth and
roundness to Nina. But before I get there, I want to make a couple comparisons.
I saw Cat Power play a show in Greensboro, summer of 2006. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Greatest</i> had come out that year, and it was a resurgence. She
performed most of her concerts either prior to this show or in the year or so
afterward with a Memphis backing band, a soul and R&B sound. She was a
notoriously shy performer, one of those who might break off a show at any
point. The tour with the band was supposed to have been her coming out, her
leaving that shakiness behind. Her <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/arts/music/20cat.html">press</a> at the time was about how she was now
sober, and so more in her right mind to perform. She would have been 34 then,
the age I am as I write this. Perhaps she was realizing what did and didn’t
matter, or perhaps she just wanted to do a better job.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
She played that night alone. The
Flying Anvil, now <a href="https://triad-city-beat.com/one-hot-minute-an-oral-history-of-the-flying-anvil/">closed</a>, had a bar to the left as you walked in and an open
performance room to the right. I remember it fitting maybe 125 people, though the article linked above said capacity was 850. Cat Power played alone
both for her act and so far as no one opened for her. There was a piano on
stage and she played guitar some too. The audience mostly sat on the floor, I
think I stood at the edge of the room, near the door. I remember a few things
about the performance. The impression that every song had the same
rhythm, whether on guitar or piano. On the guitar, pluck with thumb and then
strum with the rest of her hand, on the piano play a note with the left hand
and then a chord with the right. 1-2, 1-2. The trouble with the
monitor. Monitor trouble is the perennial plague of the struggling performer,
and even though Cat was playing alone and the crowd was hushed and respectful,
she couldn’t get the speaker to her satisfaction. She would stop songs and try
again, she walked off at one point to give up on either the piano or the guitar
and try the other (maybe she did that on each instrument), and eventually,
after a more or less full set but without a conclusion, she gave up,
stopped playing, asked for a light, lit a cigarette, and took questions for
about 10 minutes. Which ties to the last thing I remember, which was that the
audience knew her reputation and was devoted to her and to help her finish the
show. I can’t remember if she had ties to the region or not, but there was that
‘horizontal support’ that Leonard Cohen talks about on the Isle of Wight
<a href="https://vimeo.com/56002315">concert recording</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
More directly, when thinking about
Nina Simone I think about Bob Dylan. I think about his famous turn away from
folk music and protest music, about his 1965-66 music that burned the bridge to
his past. I think it’s the greatest music made in the modern West, and I’ve
always sided in my mind with Dylan in his devotion to his art, at his choice
not to be subservient to political aims, even if noble ones.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
But then I think of Nina, of her
crossing to the white side of town for lessons and waiting until her parents
were sit in their appropriate seats of honor. Of how her music grew into being
political, of how ‘Mississippi Goddam’ knifed its protest. Nina was not an
observer, or even a supporter, she was a victim and participant in the
struggle. You can argue – I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would</i>
argue – that as a Jew Dylan had and has responsibility to take part in the
struggle for rights wherever it takes place, but in the context of 60s/70s
America, he could turn his back and even be right to do so. Nina did not have
that luxury. We call that white privilege now.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Slave To Your Mind, Slave To Your Race</h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It Is Finished</i> begins with applause, though the first track is from
the studio per Cohodas. ‘The Pusher’ is a Steppenwolf song from their first
album. It is on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Easy Rider </i>soundtrack,
though I don’t remember it from the movie and Nina’s version is the first I
heard it. She growls through the initial verses, pounds the piano through the
up and down riff. It’s a funky song, and it sounds like it could be her own.
Schackman’s guitar jangles on the fills and the bass walks with a languid tone
behind her voice. The language is anti-hard drugs, contrasting the drudge of
heroin with the sweet dreams of the dealer’s pot. It sounds like the 60s, but
the song itself could drop today. It’s all one verse repeating through and then
a breakdown at the end where Nina lets looser.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
From there the album goes to a
classic Nina repeating piano figure. One-handed and descending, backed only by
a hi-hat, it anchors the tune and opens up to the band before Nina sings. The AllMusic
credit calls this a traditional, and it sounds like a church confessional,
addressed to the Lord and with Nina’s less guarded voice. The piano sparkles in
our ears, and it’s a dancing tune really. After Schackman takes a guitar lead
in the break, Nina incites the crowd and picks up the momentum. What I love
about ‘Sinnerman’ is its elemental drive, which Nina’s piano playing and
singing amplify and layer, so that it builds from verse to verse to infinity.
‘Com’ By H’Yere – Good Lord’ doesn’t quite go that high, but is in this line. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
‘Funkier Than A Mosquito’s
Tweeter’ is a great title, and Nina plays and sings to its level. The
instrumentation sounds vaguely African – the hand drums galloping alongside,
the scoop of steel drums or xylophone-type instruments – and we’re back in the
studio for this. This is a fun song, an uptempo analogue to The Pusher. Ike
&Tina Turner sang it first, but their version feels overproduced and lacks
the drive of Nina’s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
I’m falling into the trap of
narrating the album instead of explaining it, though. And that might leave me
overselling it, too. I love this album, but it’s just a good album. Those three
songs capture Nina being able to hit high and low, the holy and the profane.
The rest of the album just has her on point. She plays ‘Mr. Bojangles’ and ‘I Want
A Little Sugar In My Bowl’ and plays with the crowd, teases the songs. It’s not
an epiphany, but it’s just good. Her brother Sam sings with her on the Everly
Brothers’ song ‘Let It Be Me’, and that song sticks less than all the others,
but it’s still well executed as a torch ballad.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I will allow myself to dwell on
the other two songs on the album, along with the bonus tracks on Spotify.
‘Dambala’ and ‘Obeah Woman’ both appear to be songs from Exuma, a Bahamian
musician. The first is a warning to slavers, and my god, I would fear a warning
from no one more than Nina. Thumb pianos pluck and a sitar twangs behind her,
and the slavers ‘will know, what it’s like to be a slave. Slave to your mind,
slave to your race.’ ‘Obeah Woman’ is groovier, peppier, Nina at her brightest
as she talks with the crowd (including Exuma himself), laughs with them or at
them, or preaches, or raps. She stays off the piano on this song, working the
crowd into a clapping backbeat and hollers, and she gets into the verse. Obeah
is a Caribbean/African religion in the area of Voodoo or Santeria, and one can
imagine Nina as its high priestess, as the leader we will follow to the
sunlight or directly of a cliff.<br />
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<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">The three bonus tracks – ‘Nina’,
‘Zungo’, and ‘Thandewye’ – all extend this African/Caribbean theme. The first
is a four-minute chant, either wordless or in another language. The version of
Zungo races, a cry from the open fields, ushered by minor key sitar playing and
jingling percussion. The last returns to classic instrumentation save for a
little of the thumb piano or similar in the mix. This is halfway between
‘Dambala’ and ‘Com’ By H’Yere,’ a spiritual but perhaps back to the Christian
Lord, with the uncertainty that her Afro Caribbean work is wrapped in.</span><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">What Was Left On The Table, What Was Finished Or Unfinished</span></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
This is a good record, as I’ve
said, and I love listening to it. Not much is written about it. If that was all
there was, I could write a review and be done with it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
But those last songs I mentioned
seem to me a path unexplored, a world untaken. This record came out in 1974,
two years before Dylan’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Desire</i>, with
its cartoonish and sort of offensive depiction of Africa (‘Mozambique’) and its
mild flourishes of Latin American inspiration (‘Durango’). It’s 12 years before
Paul Simon’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Graceland</i>, it’s eight
years before Orchestra Baobab’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pirate’s
Choice </i>and it’s contemporaneous with Fela Kuti’s rise. Nina once went as
the High Priestess of Soul, but this record shows how she could have been the
High Priestess of the World. She in a way no one else from the US could.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
That’s my projection of a desire
though, and categorically unimportant. I only say it to say just as Nina’s life
was coming unstuck, there were so many opportunities in front of her. With her
voice, her interests, her piano playing and her skill of interpretation, she
could do anything. Except for mental health challenges and people hurting her
and taking advantage of her, except that she had a child and obligations,
except for the money issues, and maybe most of all except she had been
performing all her life and maybe she was tired of it all.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
The point isn’t what she should
have or could have done, specifically. The point is that she was never granted
her second act, never able to reinvent herself and find a renewal. Or she never
took that second act. What is less American than that denial, that failure? I
can’t point a finger and say who was responsible, whether the people in her
life, the world, US society, or Nina herself. But after watching the
documentary and then reading biographies, I cannot escape that sense of
deprivation. Dylan was famous for reinventing himself again and again, and one
also gets the sense that he never really lost who he was. David Bowie, who met
Nina around the time of this album and struck up a friendship with her and even
counseled her, was famous for this reinvention. That sense is why I root for Cat
Power, because when you read the stories about her there’s a persistence, a
fall and then rise arc around each new album, and a hint of defensiveness, as
if she knows how easy it is to fall again. And I just want her to find that
calm, that satisfaction. Maybe it comes back to my mother, who died from 53 and
never got to enjoy her reinvention.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It Is Finished </i>is from the new testament, John 19:30, Jesus giving
up the ghost. Nina echoes it at the end of ‘Obeah Woman’, ‘Let’s finish it,’
she says, ending the record. Sometime in college, before my mother died I
think, there was a viral campaign on campus. People hung signs and fliers from
dorm room windows and in hallways throughout, asking ‘Is It Finished?’ I went
to Duke, in the south even if inflected with the northeast, and had not met
evangelical Christianity before college. I didn’t know what this was. But at a
point a few days later, the signs were replaced with ‘It Is Finished,’ and
everybody in the student group behind this, hundreds of students, wore orange
t-shirts on which the phrase was written. A friend of mine from my freshman
dorm was in this group. He and I shared a love for music, for the
punk/pop-punk/emo world, and I was surprised to see him in this group. I didn’t
know anything, I didn’t ask, but the overall display annoyed me. And I remember
teasing him on AOL instant messenger, sending him a message that said,
‘Remember, nothing is ever really finished.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .25in;">
But like most college kids, I was
wrong. The point of all this is that things do finish. Time runs out. Maybe
that’s what you learn at 34, or at 41, or maybe you never learn it until you’re
on your deathbed and time has finally come. When I think about Nina, and I have
been for a while, that’s what I end up thinking about. This record, and how
things did or didn’t finish for her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-759133359747014752017-01-16T03:07:00.002-05:002017-01-26T02:32:35.763-05:00Fake news and Facebook's True Problem <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Much has been made about the emergence of fake news in 2016 and its effect on the election. There’s also been much tsk-tsking of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for not doing an adequate job of alerting readers to what is real and what is fake. But the discussion seems to be missing the point, which is that the problem with Facebook goes much deeper than what gets shared on it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBM1kDrUzi9CjVtVClzMvOadeRrxQDfRKmo5jpthLt9wZHlHvEJcb7ERxk3cxicAGjHJuC0Y156bmNoKgT2_vHrnomk-vGF7AYytDznUYX6rSL4KOi5CN3ePMpeCoouZ0VXMVV/s1600/Thessaloniki+Graffit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBM1kDrUzi9CjVtVClzMvOadeRrxQDfRKmo5jpthLt9wZHlHvEJcb7ERxk3cxicAGjHJuC0Y156bmNoKgT2_vHrnomk-vGF7AYytDznUYX6rSL4KOi5CN3ePMpeCoouZ0VXMVV/s320/Thessaloniki+Graffit.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>A wall in Thessaloniki's Ano Poli</i><br />
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Fake news is not new. And it is not the problem. Propaganda, libel, and lies have been around forever, and certainly has affected history in more serious ways before – the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Protocols of the Elders of Zion</i> reverberated in this election still. More recently, each of us has an uncle or (alas) a parent who has been taken in by an email chain with the subject ‘Fwd: Fwd: Re: Fwd: You have got to SEE THIS’ that suggests Obama is an American-hating Muslim who won’t place a flag pin on his chest or his hand over his heart during the pledge of the allegiance. It’s always been there.</div>
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Fake news is not good, but it is a symptom of more troubling problems on Facebook and elsewhere. For example, our failure to think critically and distinguish competing viewpoints. </div>
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This summer I had a discussion with my father, a Russian-Jewish émigré who left the Soviet Union 35 years ago to enter the states, and is now an American. We got on the point about staying informed in the news or otherwise. He puts on the nightly news, and he gets those email chains, and who knows where else he pulls info from online. </div>
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‘It’s all crrrap!’ he said. Which, fine, if you grew up in the Soviet Union and were independent-minded enough to discern that communism is crrrap, you’re probably going to emerge with damaged critical thinking skills – everything is to be disbelieved, and so everything is crap, except for what you already believe and know. I can sort of give him a pass.</div>
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Americans don’t have the same inherent excuse, and our collective inability to assess what we receive from the media and discern what is true from what is false is troubling. So is the failure to accept subjective or supposedly subjective viewpoints from different sides as a way of cobbling together a fuller, more objective understanding of a given issue. The source of this inability goes beyond the scope of this article, except to say that Facebook doing our critical thinking for us misses the point.</div>
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The point is one that is much trickier for Facebook to solve, because it runs against their very purpose of existence, but here goes: the problem is that we’re all on Facebook too much, and we shouldn’t be. The reliance on Facebook and other social media networks for our consumption of the internet and the world is bad for us, and the fake news ‘epidemic’ is just a symptom of it.</div>
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I’ve held that view for a long time, in a crotchety old man sort of way, so this may be self-serving. My concern was about Facebook's effect on our social lives. In light of the recent election, though, and in light of the mania about fake news, it’s important to revisit this and its effect on our body politic. There are a number of reasons that Facebook is bad for our civic health, and there are things we can do to change it<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;">*</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=30880164#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""></a>.<br />
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*<i>(I’m using Facebook as a shorthand for modern internet consumption, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as shallow searches via Google to discover everything, while always staying plugged in via our phone and other devices. The aim is not to be all encompassing – I don’t know how this applies to Instagram or Snapchat, for example, though I expect it remains valid. And ‘we’ is primarily about the U.S. and the West more broadly, as witnessed in my 8 years living in Europe and Israel as well as still being in the American internet milieu.)</i> </div>
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The most obvious reason is that Facebook monopolizes our attention. We spend a lot of time on here and without much consequence – making and reading surface-level jokes and interactions and thoughts about politics and everything else. Combine this with mobile phones and people never leave their feeds; downtime is just an excuse to check what everything else is doing. </div>
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In theory, an attention monopoly wouldn’t be so bad if that which commanded our attention was providing a useful service. But there is a great deal of stress placed on that source, and we have to hope that we’re managing it well enough to get a healthy balance of information. Which no one does.</div>
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I’m not the first to point out that a print newspaper affords easy browsing in a way that most websites don’t. While the internet would seem to offer endless space and information, a screen is less likely to expose us passively to new ideas. But even a website that does its job well will surface some stories you might not have known to look for but can benefit from reading. A feed like Facebook’s might do this as well, but there is a much stronger chance that the feed is controlled to limit alternative viewpoints or cognitive dissonance; you will read an unexpected story, but one that makes an expected point.</div>
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Moving on, a more pointed and Facebook-specific problem is that it is ‘social’, and that we are ‘participating’ and ‘interacting’ with the content. As if we are really discussing the ideas passed along and skimmed over as we wait on the subway or prepare for bed. But we are not. We are typing and forgetting and not affecting anything. Before Facebook, we may not have done much either, but at least we didn’t fool ourselves. If nothing else, this election and the 2012 one where the right was sure it would win have proven how much we actually achieve on social media. Not much.</div>
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Lastly, the internet-wide problem that is only exacerbated on Facebook is the quest for speed and for clicks. I work at a website, so I don’t claim innocence here. But most times, we are not on a ‘need to know now’ basis about news, and yet news is reported that way. News is then further sensationalized and promoted. I learned about the October James Comey letter to Congress on the New York Times site, where they blasted it like it was a story of titanic significance. It’s not their fault to some degree – they would have looked bad if they weren’t keeping up with everybody else – but as we saw, the story was nothing. And while newspapers have always traded in sensationalist headlines, the business has gotten to the point where it depends on traffic and where news is a commodity, and so there’s a race to be first and loudest.</div>
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Facebook exacerbates this because it comes colored through the voices of our friends, who know how to trigger our emotions better - not in a Machiavellian way, but because they care and want to share their feelings. The articles in our feed trigger our sarcasm, our anger, our joy, our pride, or whatever else, which further reinforces that the information is not received and taken into proper context, and we are probably worse off and less informed for having consumed the information**.<br />
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<i>**I read <a href="http://observer.com/2016/11/want-to-really-make-america-great-again-stop-reading-the-news/">this article</a> this week and thought its theme echoed this point. </i></div>
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So where does that leave us? The most obvious thing would be to quit all these social media accounts. That’s not super realistic - Facebook has succeeded in working itself into our day to day lives, and it will be hard to unplug immediately, and not wholly necessary***.<br />
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<i>***Again, using Facebook as a shorthand for social media as a whole – I’m pretty sure Twitter could stop working tomorrow and society would be better off.</i> <br />
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There are things we can concretely do, though, to mitigate these problems:</div>
<ul>
<li>Limit our time on social media – use it for specific reasons, not to kill time or when we’re stuck in other places. Use social media purposefully, not mindlessly, and stay focused on that purpose.</li>
<li>Do not let social media crowd out other informational or social activities – reading, connecting with people one on one online, calling people, or getting out and seeing people, and really seeing them, not talking with them with one eye on the phone. Social media can shorten distance and speed up interaction and serve as a forum for reaching more people at once; it cannot substitute for thoughtful, personal activities. Don’t let it do so.</li>
<li>Do not confuse expressing opinions with acting on one’s beliefs – sharing an article is not getting involved. I honestly don’t know what is getting involved – I live abroad, so I’m not super well plugged in here or in the states. But volunteering, meeting people, sharing ideas, learning how one another thinks – all this has to happen, and it can’t happen on social media.</li>
</ul>
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I realize I’m a little late in writing this, and the fake news hysteria in and of itself passed about a month ago. Fake news has become another partisan term deployed on both sides to mean a number of different things. ‘Truth’ is still a real thing, and it is still important to assess, support, and discover. Fake news is a problem, and I don’t want to ignore it. </div>
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It’s important, however, not to let ourselves be distracted from the underlying issues that affect all of us. Namely, if we keep frittering our lives and our attention spans away on social media, we won’t ever be able to talk to one another, we won’t achieve anything, and we won’t have the context or depth of information to be able to tell what’s real from what’s fake. Then what the truth is won’t matter, because we won’t be able to handle it.</div>
</div>
Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-37149547246725584782012-08-22T15:40:00.000-04:002012-08-22T15:40:41.582-04:00Among the Modern Pilgrims<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>08/08</b><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><b>23:30<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Hotel in
Rennes</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJXBvykgQS2OznjlPDGa4hXHwUczS0fWvo8hVYaZGF36KmkYvkztBZn1uRNaa9WLdy307fDQQ91PEhAW3E8EqnR-5sVWqh0o1IVmpcpQmc57l2t3R1Q95qslIkI2jrbe17Db0F/s1600/MSM+in+all+its+glory.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJXBvykgQS2OznjlPDGa4hXHwUczS0fWvo8hVYaZGF36KmkYvkztBZn1uRNaa9WLdy307fDQQ91PEhAW3E8EqnR-5sVWqh0o1IVmpcpQmc57l2t3R1Q95qslIkI2jrbe17Db0F/s400/MSM+in+all+its+glory.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Mont St. Michel is the site of a millennium-old Benedictine
abbey in western France. In visiting, I thought of pilgrims.</div>
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Pilgrims are a logical object of thought when visiting an
abbey. Mont St. Michel has long been a site of pilgrimage, both as a
destination and as an early stopover on the way to Santiago de Compostela in
Spain. Key elements of the site have been built or altered with pilgrims in
mind.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6DP2bcD8sbE3rhOplu-DyrouB-oqDdUVc5Vf2u4OfnEkxZJSBE0uvx4krdEF6j_TQlyWwxCnyOImRhHe6X_52UT3HR5AGluLI-SUUzo0ah1McDOmT2WG5cb71ZoItGEx4KLrQ/s1600/Pilgrims,+MSM.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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I thought of pilgrims the day before when getting off the
train in Dol-de-Bretagne. Backpackers and sack-laden bikes were legion on that
train. One German my age stood out; he had a red goatee tufting off his chin
and a fedora-like hat, and he asked in English at the train station how to get
to Pontorson, one stop away on a different train or a short bus ride away, the
town closest to Mont St. Michel. He bore the burden of his green backpack well,
but not doubt grew tired of it at times.</div>
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I thought of pilgrims again at dinner that night. A table
away at the <span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">crêperie </span>sat a British family. The white-trimmed father plowed away
with his French in ordering for the table, dictionary in hand, while the two
university-age sons played an actor guessing game, and the mother and older
daughter looked on in faint bemusement. Much English was to be heard on the
train to Dol, as well as on the streets of the small town. I was now on the
north coast of Bretagne, hardly a ferry ride away from the UK, so it stood to
reason. The main site in the area, of course, was Mont St. Michel. Pilgrims.</div>
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Pilgrims came to mind on my bike ride to Mont St. Michel in
the morning. <span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">Gîtes</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"> and </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">chambres
d’Hôtes</span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"> </span>advertised
their proximity to the site. In one intersection, I passed a troop of
backpackers. “All their lives on their back and all their hopes in front of
them.” There were not many on my side path, but they could be found, in
German-plated cars or on bikes.</div>
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The historical pilgrims and the modern pilgrims share more
traits than it seems at first. Both come from distance, near and far to
experience a form of bliss and escape from everyday life. Both are inspired by
thick books with solid information and dull prose that speak of strange feats
and mystical places. Both get on the nerves of locals but also fuel the nearby
economy. Both pack away their lives and carry them as penance for the journey.
Both smell bad.</div>
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Pilgrims discomfort me. The historical ones are more
interesting and more honest in their faith, but the piety and closed-mindedness
that usually carried those pilgrims on their path would make me uneasy. The
modern pilgrims move like herds with their babble of languages and their
incessant memorialization of the present. The expectations for a site rise when
modern pilgrims are afoot, and fall because of the presene of those same
pilgrims. When I see the packs of modern pilgrims, a part of me tenses up. That
part twists over itself even more when I remember: I am one of them.</div>
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***</div>
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The French verb “<i>dominer</i>” is not quite a false
cognate with the English “dominate, but it doesn’t have quite the same meaning
either. <i>Dominer</i> is to look over, be higher than, or in a sports context,
to lead. There is not the strong sense of power and the judgment of force that
the English word holds. The French states a fact, plain and ungarnished. </div>
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Mont St. Michel <i>domine</i> and dominates the surrounding
area. I approached on bike from the southwest through <i>les polders</i>, open
wheat fields just short of the salt marshes in the Baie St. Michel. It was a
flat, peaceful route, with only the rare tractor, hiking family, or
foreign-plated car to be seen. Also a dog, whose sudden barging run startled me
enough to send me crashing in a ditch, head over handlebars, cursing furiously
in English and French. I hate dogs.</div>
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I made a turn east and now ahead of me the back of a sign.
“Great, I thought,” I can make sure I’m on the right path.” Then I by chance
looked up to my left and cried, “Oh!” I halted in my pedaling.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQR3lYE-s7omu7tFtAYkyeDmGsOtBwu0ilKpLPiDIHczV1zOqjuOTZLvLTmLIqMYyEcS11mt2PpSyJb0hu2BljgjH6azsOcVG-rgmk9IpXc1lEw04Oezit1nTKAXEiWQgbFFpG/s1600/Mont+St+Michel+First+Sight.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQR3lYE-s7omu7tFtAYkyeDmGsOtBwu0ilKpLPiDIHczV1zOqjuOTZLvLTmLIqMYyEcS11mt2PpSyJb0hu2BljgjH6azsOcVG-rgmk9IpXc1lEw04Oezit1nTKAXEiWQgbFFpG/s320/Mont+St+Michel+First+Sight.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>If you click on this picture, you can see MSM in the center backgronud.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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There past the fields stood Mont St. Michel, dominating the
landscape. The abbey stood like a bauble castle, on a rock in the bay and
fitting in with nothing, yet fitting with everything since it, the castle, the
fortress, the abbey, dominated the landscape. To come on it all of a sudden, to
witness its power and splendor in both comparative and absolute senses, is to
understand how, why Mont St. Michel is a site of pilgrimage. Awesome, that
much-abused word, fits this first sight, some 1300 years on.</div>
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Mont St. Michel was first conceived, the story goes, by
Bishop Aubert after the archangel Michael came to him in a dream and inspired
him to build a sanctuary on a rock standing out in the curve of the French
coast, on the modern-day border between the regions of Bretagne and Normandy.
This was in 708. In 966, it became a Benedictine abbey, though much of the
current structure dates from the 12<sup>th</sup> or 13<sup>th</sup> centuries.
The abbey was constructed with military might and held out during the English
sieges of the 100-year War, unlike the rest of north and west France. After the
French Revolution, the anti-ecclesiastical current turned the abbey into a
prison for about 70 years, before at last it became the historic monument it
remains today.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6DP2bcD8sbE3rhOplu-DyrouB-oqDdUVc5Vf2u4OfnEkxZJSBE0uvx4krdEF6j_TQlyWwxCnyOImRhHe6X_52UT3HR5AGluLI-SUUzo0ah1McDOmT2WG5cb71ZoItGEx4KLrQ/s1600/Pilgrims,+MSM.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6DP2bcD8sbE3rhOplu-DyrouB-oqDdUVc5Vf2u4OfnEkxZJSBE0uvx4krdEF6j_TQlyWwxCnyOImRhHe6X_52UT3HR5AGluLI-SUUzo0ah1McDOmT2WG5cb71ZoItGEx4KLrQ/s320/Pilgrims,+MSM.JPG" width="320" /></a>There is only one road leading to Mont St. Michel, leading
due North from Pontorson 10 kilometers away. One can also reach it by crossing
the bay when the tide is out, but bikes ride poorly on wet sand. I joined the
Pontorson road about halfway up, knowing I had arrived by the sight of my
fellow travelers, picnicking or walking north, undeniably from elsewhere.
French families and Spanish speakers, large tour buses of Asians and elderly,
bebaseballhatted Americans, German groups and Italian individuals, a few
Brasileiros, a melting pot of strangers seeking to behold the abbey, the
castle. Pilgrims.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqfR6eF0JrfjsMUzB4UHdWe2KezxVD2l-D0uVcYP-xwEo-pBlEQz6dlSoebUwNDXeSBrFCP0epLZHycmoFuSdQZ7AMV3MRVluQ43bSMGqUAYobdo1bY-SAzHUv8xoE00D4ge7/s1600/Causeway+to+MSM.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqfR6eF0JrfjsMUzB4UHdWe2KezxVD2l-D0uVcYP-xwEo-pBlEQz6dlSoebUwNDXeSBrFCP0epLZHycmoFuSdQZ7AMV3MRVluQ43bSMGqUAYobdo1bY-SAzHUv8xoE00D4ge7/s320/Causeway+to+MSM.JPG" width="240" /></a>The stream of people approaching the site could not diminish
its majesty. We walked on the 19<sup>th</sup> century causeway across the bay –
one the French are replacing with a bridge to allow the bay its traditional tide
and to flush out those salt marshes – and the abbey grew to its full might and
stature, a power pictures cannot capture. The hour or so I spent between first
espying the Mont and finally reaching the site was among the best parts of the
visit.</div>
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Indeed, once entering the little town at the foot of the
abbey, the majesty is shrouded. We came too close to see, and the pilgrim wave
overwhelmed. I walked through the street leading up to the abbey. The street
was narrow, four people wide, with the upward flow constant and slow, the
downward varied and hurried. Souvenir shops, hotels, and <span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">crêperies </span>lined the
street, seeking to ease and add to the pilgrim’s load in equal measure.</div>
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I arrived at the steps at 13:00. The line, or so I heard,
was shorter an hour or two before my arrival. When I left two hours later, it
was shorter. I waited, treading slowly up the stairs with limited achievement –
shade, indoors, at last a ticket – for about 45 minutes.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnAOcz2prHTbQjE3_bVoDo2mCzONlF0NvdB8zbZSkoxoPbToH9CSr6dp-qoS7qauFuuIU7Phs8iPs69EKF-e6I75G9wGCfqwGNu-Yo9cYszXOTL1PGRC5ip83f78KOAUzZDtDF/s1600/Tourists+Storming+Grand+Staircase.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnAOcz2prHTbQjE3_bVoDo2mCzONlF0NvdB8zbZSkoxoPbToH9CSr6dp-qoS7qauFuuIU7Phs8iPs69EKF-e6I75G9wGCfqwGNu-Yo9cYszXOTL1PGRC5ip83f78KOAUzZDtDF/s320/Tourists+Storming+Grand+Staircase.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbKuZ88-W9KsPW4FsSCuzfD6MRJ7Ajk_KFfVqSTWuJyZFGkyq00XkLA4QW0rBIAaMK6lLzE3cXjbtcRdpealFj8xOi8e1xxohAmZjgBzQIcR1Pqp28we8TBlht9CoAVC3WKCf/s1600/Cloister+Light.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbKuZ88-W9KsPW4FsSCuzfD6MRJ7Ajk_KFfVqSTWuJyZFGkyq00XkLA4QW0rBIAaMK6lLzE3cXjbtcRdpealFj8xOi8e1xxohAmZjgBzQIcR1Pqp28we8TBlht9CoAVC3WKCf/s320/Cloister+Light.JPG" width="320" /></a>And for all that, the abbey itself is the least impressive
part of the visit. Not that it lacks highlights: the first staircase is grand;
the terrace offers fine views of the dominated landscape; the oft-cited
cloister is pretty; the audio guide informs in a restrained manner; and a few
quiet corners of green or brownstone beauty can be found. It’s not that the
site isn’t impressive, but it is on the order of similar medieval churches,
abbeys, and the like. For example, I would rank Mont St. Michel’s abbey, known
as “La Merveille”, the wonder, higher than the monastery/castle in the Lisboa
suburb of Belem, but lower than the more bewitching, wondrous Alhambra in
Granada. What sets Mont St. Michel apart is its setting, and on the site that can
be perceived only in passing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwqfR6eF0JrfjsMUzB4UHdWe2KezxVD2l-D0uVcYP-xwEo-pBlEQz6dlSoebUwNDXeSBrFCP0epLZHycmoFuSdQZ7AMV3MRVluQ43bSMGqUAYobdo1bY-SAzHUv8xoE00D4ge7/s1600/Causeway+to+MSM.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIXSU-5WEI1pRYrVJnvs0vfojve65C3WReWHREhbOkLb3UMC_6G-JdIogmAWUkmNp1asuQD545BHJIgma7yGFCzJd6tb16hIzwgk6BhpX7p-Nv6NvBJ870a6UWDrpAXp3-J_K/s1600/Hidden+Greenery.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIXSU-5WEI1pRYrVJnvs0vfojve65C3WReWHREhbOkLb3UMC_6G-JdIogmAWUkmNp1asuQD545BHJIgma7yGFCzJd6tb16hIzwgk6BhpX7p-Nv6NvBJ870a6UWDrpAXp3-J_K/s320/Hidden+Greenery.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>One of those hidden green corners.</i></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQR3lYE-s7omu7tFtAYkyeDmGsOtBwu0ilKpLPiDIHczV1zOqjuOTZLvLTmLIqMYyEcS11mt2PpSyJb0hu2BljgjH6azsOcVG-rgmk9IpXc1lEw04Oezit1nTKAXEiWQgbFFpG/s1600/Mont+St+Michel+First+Sight.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnAOcz2prHTbQjE3_bVoDo2mCzONlF0NvdB8zbZSkoxoPbToH9CSr6dp-qoS7qauFuuIU7Phs8iPs69EKF-e6I75G9wGCfqwGNu-Yo9cYszXOTL1PGRC5ip83f78KOAUzZDtDF/s1600/Tourists+Storming+Grand+Staircase.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zVc2gS3ZQoHz6Di8_-uQtey9sfGIg71uMZFNIVQJcBxYJ64flRItr7nMFufGp3kYNKl7rniAwj05uMYwGTSvTLKwnL5JMb0mVJXim6psucBqWqCQ5fEw-ftmJHp6Oj2h0K0k/s1600/Abbey+from+the+North.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zVc2gS3ZQoHz6Di8_-uQtey9sfGIg71uMZFNIVQJcBxYJ64flRItr7nMFufGp3kYNKl7rniAwj05uMYwGTSvTLKwnL5JMb0mVJXim6psucBqWqCQ5fEw-ftmJHp6Oj2h0K0k/s320/Abbey+from+the+North.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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There is another way to appreciate the Mont and its setting:
encircling the rock on foot, when the tide is out. The tide was out when I
reached bottom. I stripped off my shirt, socks, and shoes, lathered on
sunscreen, and took off barefoot.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLzE3HblUAlXoxEFyzVmtXCVrINDwRpGD2uMR9bSt0CpKs2KevQC1mF5k0Q0XEXC7i_IbbukwtrBtE7QFVaCuXRnlcXm3EhNblPSBqKPI0upp6RyAF6Qj5eWzhmpw7lXzUnUlH/s1600/First+Shot+from+Walkaround.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLzE3HblUAlXoxEFyzVmtXCVrINDwRpGD2uMR9bSt0CpKs2KevQC1mF5k0Q0XEXC7i_IbbukwtrBtE7QFVaCuXRnlcXm3EhNblPSBqKPI0upp6RyAF6Qj5eWzhmpw7lXzUnUlH/s400/First+Shot+from+Walkaround.JPG" width="400" /></a>The dark gray tidal sand rippled beneath my feet, caking my
toes in mud, which left over puddles would wash. A small child played naked in
one of these puddles with his swimsuit-clad older siblings, parents not plainly
in site. Maybe a hundred people in total walked on the sand, including a large
group led by a guide and an Asian fellow my age, with glasses and a camera, mud
snaking up past his calves. He pointed out a piece of my bike helmet strap
which had fallen.</div>
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To the north of the Mont, a large rock or a small island
stuck out as an afterthought. Above us, the Mont regained its majesty, sundered
from the wider landscape by our limited perspective but mighty in its absolute
sense, alone. The bay offers one views from all sides, pictures dotted with
ant-like pilgrims, a final, sustaining image.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXmzf97VPAT4xcM7wo3OgljX6P5ndMmCAymSTzdkKUSYJGdLJPBXRDGiFt-5CxzqSBIXWbXYqSBBoXP4NiO5DMrGsCVo2rxk0Y4V0PTutHZIP9jlHaMeqDpmCb70UVYc0Tvey/s1600/Abbey+from+Southeast,+Gulls+on+Pool.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXmzf97VPAT4xcM7wo3OgljX6P5ndMmCAymSTzdkKUSYJGdLJPBXRDGiFt-5CxzqSBIXWbXYqSBBoXP4NiO5DMrGsCVo2rxk0Y4V0PTutHZIP9jlHaMeqDpmCb70UVYc0Tvey/s320/Abbey+from+Southeast,+Gulls+on+Pool.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The bay crossing comes with risks. My guidebook talks of the
massive tidal variation and the tidal return racing like a horse. I did not see
this, but I felt the sands shift beneath my feet. In crossing a large pool of
water to complete the circle round the Mont, I picked a path I thought shallow
and safe. Just shy of the “shore” I suddenly found no ground, my leg plunging
into water mid-thigh deep (only about mid-shin for most people, but still). I
worried for a moment of my backpack getting wet, even of quicksand, of becoming
an example for why one does not cross the bay alone and unguided. Another
foolhardy step, another mid-thigh plunge. I changed direction, kept relatively
calm, and found slightly faster than normal but not quite quicksand. I pulled
myself from the water, half my shorts damp but no further damage taken.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-pWuRWP07zZdQO40rTG79oe3janUcgTjTads1eAJXSdvGafJVHvgPlljo0a3TO7X_UX_RzcTLhUD0opltVuWwfmyj6lXqbEGGof1xyGYAVw1Ewy8Obg0Khgd0XOT0z_tGPrCF/s1600/Muddy+Feet.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-pWuRWP07zZdQO40rTG79oe3janUcgTjTads1eAJXSdvGafJVHvgPlljo0a3TO7X_UX_RzcTLhUD0opltVuWwfmyj6lXqbEGGof1xyGYAVw1Ewy8Obg0Khgd0XOT0z_tGPrCF/s320/Muddy+Feet.JPG" width="320" /></a>My feet were fully caked in mud now, and the mud snaked up
to my shin. I carried my shoes in hand and walked back on the causeway,
sneaking glances over my shoulder at the receding Mont. I smiled at passers-by
who gave my muddy feet once-overs ranging from sneering to curious. I heard
comments about them in several languages.</div>
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My day and, in most senses, my trip were at end. My bike, a
short flat ride, a brief train journey, and a hotel in Rennes awaited me. My
backpack dug into my bare shoulders and the afternoon sun worked from the South
to even my biker’s tan and dry my mud. I was tired, hungry, dirty, barefoot,
and mostly satisfied.</div>
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I was at journey’s end. I was a pilgrim, turning for home.</div>
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Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-89422487507151190682012-08-22T00:59:00.000-04:002012-08-22T00:59:22.561-04:00The People You Meet, Things You See - The Red Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 7<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>07/08<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>16:32<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Train to
Rennes</b></div>
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Distance biked since last checked: 109 km (45 km Friday, 7
km Saturday, 30 km Sunday, 27 km Tuesday)</div>
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Today marks my first directly eastward journey on the trip.
The meaning is clear: I’m almost home.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUR1pyFtVxRDsBK-62G6hShQdTyP-0QfBx5Ih_YibXr-s1NvQuF-V6_wmKmHsgKYD73kKsuWRRS2eVSXUYRMtrBaNng41KE73eZVZvsvxvC9Hgt0xsthELcEAsyelq4_cvrTIc/s1600/Brest+Along+the+Water.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUR1pyFtVxRDsBK-62G6hShQdTyP-0QfBx5Ih_YibXr-s1NvQuF-V6_wmKmHsgKYD73kKsuWRRS2eVSXUYRMtrBaNng41KE73eZVZvsvxvC9Hgt0xsthELcEAsyelq4_cvrTIc/s320/Brest+Along+the+Water.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A portside Rozd in Brest</span></i></td></tr>
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When it comes to traveling, I find the back half of a trip
or the last few days more relaxing. With the return home closer, I feel less
bad about thinking ahead to arrival and forgetting to enjoy today.
Paradoxically, I find it easier to focus on the trip at hand when there’s less
of it to think about. My last two days are all but planned, I have only one
more bike ride in front of me, and no tight time constraints except to get up
on time for my train home Thursday. This sense of comfort with endings contrasts
with how I enjoy books. In reading a good book, my favorite moment is the
halfway mark, when I know there’s as much joy ahead of me as that I’ve already
uncovered. After that, bittersweetness fills a reading that I know too soon
will end, even as desire to finish compels me to continue without undue delay.
Perhaps the physical effort that goes into traveling and the mental effort
required to plan and manage the trip blunts that bittersweetness, or maybe for
all my supposed adventurousness I am just a boring homebody who would be happy
reading, writing, and eating peanut butter all day without leaving the house.
One can rule nothing out.</div>
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In any case, I am on my way home, with room for one last big
detour. My trip as realized fell reasonably far from the details I imagined,
even as of two days ago. The structure of plans and reality matched, mostly.:
head west on the southern shore of Bretagne, then loop back east on the
Northern side, but instead of going to a festival on a peninsula that would
have required a 40 km bike trip each way with no sure thing on tickets or
lodging, I went to Lorient and the FIL for a couple hours; instead of working
my way through the northern shore of Bretagne over 2-3 days, I took a train to
Dol-de-Bretagne, whence I will make my one stop tomorrow; instead of visiting
St. Malo I stayed two nights on l’<span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">île d’Ouessant (I </span>realized only in the Rennes train station I
could have just as easily stayed in St. Malo tonight. Ah well, save something
for next time). </div>
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Anyway, I’m happy with how this has turned out. And now for
a few anecdotes about people I’ve met or seen along the way.</div>
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I’ve spent more time in bars on this trip than I might
usually. Actually, in Europe there are few cafes as we Americans think of them,
ala the local coffee shop or Starbucks. Of course there are Starbucks, but not
many. Otherwise, when waiting for a train, a travel partner, or a muse to roll
on through, I’m sitting in a bar cum salon de thé cum brasserie.</div>
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(The one main exception I can think of: Ghent, Belgium,
where they have cupcake shops. It should come as no shock that I like Ghent). </div>
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In Auray, a town of little note for me except its position
on two train lines, I had a beer and waited for my train to Lorient. Behind the
bad a woman with chestnut-brown hair and the wrinkles of the late 40s worked. A
man with a large backpack, a large dog, and both a grizzled voice and a
grizzled face stood at the bar and had a drink. A couple of old men sat at the
right of the bar. A couple of not quite as old women sat at a table to the
left. I sat at a table in the middle, against the wall facing the bar. Across
perched on a stool a girl with short dark hair and a turquoise shirt, cute,
more or less my age.</div>
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In to the bar came two men who sidled up next to the girl.
The one, older, bigger, with a bandana over his hair, exchanged kisses with
her. The other, wiry build and wired energy, talked with the barmaid about what
beers were available. His choices were not. His voice rose. He said something
choice to either the girl or the barmaid. His companion asked him to go wait
outside. This appeared to be a ritual for the duo.</div>
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The older of the two men continued to talk with the girl,
standing. The other recurred at the door, anger still on his breath and voice.
His only pause was to love up on the dog. The dog, at least, did not get upset
at him. The rest of us continued our activities as if all was well. The train
of life approached.</div>
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The man made a last sally to the bar. The diatribe renewed
in his tongue, he uttered a choice word at the barmaid (I missed it). A man
working at the bar appeared, furious, yelled at the man, it was about time to
stop talking and start punching.</div>
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Calmer heads prevailed. The older man banished his companion
again. The barman cooled off. I caught the eye of the barmaid, drying a glass
and shaking her head. “He was looking for it,” she said.</div>
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In a bar on Ouessant, a similar tale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sat at the bar and drank a Belle Kriek beer
(cherry, Belgian), reading my Polish book and watching the TV, the latter more
successfully. Around the curve of the bar to my right, a local drunk stood. A
green sweatshirt, shorts, thin graying hair, and a half-conscious, eerie smile
on his lips. A box of Kinder Bueno bars rested on the bar next to him. A couple
of kids came into the bar, about 14 years old, asking for fruit drinks
(earlier, walking, I heard the boys bragging about all this alcohol they had on
them – vodka, whisky, etc.). The drunk tut-tutted them but with no authority,
unheeded. Instead, he tried offering everyone within reach a candy – me, the
kids, and so on. Also to no avail.</div>
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Another man joined the first at the bar. This had wild gray
hair and a stubbled, attractive face. His yes held a spark and his look was, as
yet, sober. He ordered a drink and fell into banter with the first man. The two
rearranged chairs in the room, possibly with intentions of emulating the 3000
meter steeplechase shown on the screen behind them but most likely out of the
first’s impetuous inebriation). The second joined in the Kinder Bueno game,
buying one and putting it on his tab – he had a golden credit card with a
company name on it. Again, I turned down an offered candy bar.</div>
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The energy finally went sour as the bar staff decided the
first had to step outside (they may have picked up on the annoyed looks from me
and others at the bar). The second, after asking if he too had to leave and
hearing he didn’t, turned his liberated attention elsewhere. He was impressed
with my Kriek beer and asked, several times, for the name so he could order
one. He asked me about my reading before backing off when he either heard my
French or decided he might disturb me. After I moved to a table (in part to
avoid the first drunk) he again pointed to my book or my beer and offered to
buy me another, flashing his credit card. “<i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">Vous êtes très gentil</span></i>,” I told him,
“but I’m leaving after the race.”</div>
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Outside, a yell and a tumbling piece of furniture clattered
among the din. One of the hotel/bar staff ran outside. A few bar patrons
joined. I did not go and rubberneck. The second stayed at the bar, craning his
neck towards the door and perhaps finding his beer a little sweeter. A man with
a notepad entered a few minutes later.</div>
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Usain Bolt won the race, of course. I stepped out, thinking
of humanity’s highs and lows.</div>
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Outside of the bar, the train is a good place to catch sight
of our curious habits. On one train, from Lorient to Quimper, I sat in the
entry area with my bike. Across the entry way, a white-haired woman sat next to
the bathroom. Perhaps an inappropriate place.</div>
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A man in the car behind her came to use the bathroom. He was
bald and dressed in a Picasso-striped shirt. He tried the bathroom door. It
didn’t give. Once or twice more he tried before leaving, perplexed. The woman
said nothing.</div>
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A minute later a man left the bathroom; I had not been sure
someone was in there. A minute later, a young woman staggered into the
bathroom, looking not all there. Our striped-shirt man tried the door again
another minute after, again with no luck. He tried once more, then looked at
the woman. Only then did she tell him the bathroom was occupied.</div>
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<i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">Passons</span></i>…
the man, without ever changing his strategy by actually waiting for the
bathroom, finally got in. A young woman tried the door, found it locked, and
waited. The man left. She entered, did her bit, and exited. She left the door
half-open. The woman, not one to speak, stared at the girl with annoyance for a
few seconds, then rose from her seat and shut the door.</div>
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On a different train, from Brest to Rennes, a man struck up
a conversation with me about my bike. As with Jeff, it was another of those
French-English foreign conversations. This man congratulated me on my journey.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoljQnCGcGb_m3P7E4BklCEaVtW16pGia17W52hDYhN_naodMZj0YS4jXpm4lKChWtxJeRzgp5btsDe9mx0xZ3tG6yXaeOLTUV4WqpltF8evZ9FBR2_DPxWixDKShRI8DKeoEi/s1600/Quimper+Stream.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoljQnCGcGb_m3P7E4BklCEaVtW16pGia17W52hDYhN_naodMZj0YS4jXpm4lKChWtxJeRzgp5btsDe9mx0xZ3tG6yXaeOLTUV4WqpltF8evZ9FBR2_DPxWixDKShRI8DKeoEi/s320/Quimper+Stream.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The Picture I took</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In between trains in Quimper, before stopping in the African
bar, I walked around looking for an internet café (I traveled on this trip like
it was 2005). As I crossed over a bridge a couple blocks from the train
station, I stopped to take a picture. A black man with dreads approached me and
asked if I was Italian. He had a few teeth missing and a beer in his hand (it
was a little after noon). My answer that I was American excited him. He told me
he was from South Africa, where the last World Cup was, did I go? My negative
response did not dissuade him from giving me a big handshake as we parted.</div>
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Before capping this ramble, I’d like to mention something
about <span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">crêperies</span> that
I’ve observed after eating crepes an average of once a day since arriving in
Bretagne. That is: one cannot order two crepes at once. The waiters worry that
either the second crepe or your appetite will cool off too much for it to be
worth it. So one crepe at a time does one progress through one’s meal. Also,
when one switches from salty, buckwheat crepes (known as galettes) to sweet
white flour dessert crepes, the wait staff changes one’s silverware. This does
not (usually) happen going from galette to galette. This makes sense but still
amuses me.</div>
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On Sunday, I rode my bike to Le Conquet from Brest to catch
the ferry to Ouessant. Many dark clouds blew over the city, and the sky was
clear enough in its cloudy way that one could see the wind at work. Having a
fair amount of time to make my boat, and still tense from the night prior (of
the Aching Jaw), I decided to wait out the rain when I could (I avoided the two
bigger of the three rainclouds that passed over my head). </div>
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It was while waiting out the first, still in Brest, perched
under a bus stop with my legs folded under to evade the windblown drops, that a
woman joined. She had gray-brown hair to match a gray suit, and a faint blond
mustache that was all the same quite visible, and in 15 minutes or so, she told
me much about her life.</div>
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She has a cousin in the Bay Area who she learned about well
into adulthood; the cousin’s father left France before the war and, despite
aiding the war effort in the U.S., would have been tried as a deserter if he
returned. She lived in interior Bretagne before moving to Brest when she was
young and the city not yet rebuilt from the war. She finds native Brest folk
(Brestians?) standoffish and unhelpful, making it two people I met who moved to
another place in Bretagne and disliked the locals. She similarly dislikes
people from Luxembourg and that part of Germany, finding them cold, unlike
Germans from Munich. She also dislikes Russians and their difficult literature.</div>
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I learned that Mongols fought for Napoleon and then stayed in
France after the war, helping to build the Nantes-Brest canal. This woman had
Scottish and, she thought, Mongol blood in her. Almost every time she made a
reference to Mongols, she pulled her eyes thin.</div>
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Such are the people I’ve met and the interactions I’ve seen
on this trip.</div>
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Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-36872187839519245062012-08-16T12:30:00.002-04:002012-08-16T12:30:31.518-04:00On an Island - The Ride Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 6<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrZEeZiCaDVe-p0SwXDpRWf5oLnmQnL_xh39TiFkHVzJiw14Qh1mzWKQjtIuWjqTAJ6g85btMG7ZWfFx53U-8IWFT4T7Ng7avSVcnb9MORp4gPqpVAhuuHWUdBKofokLe8Zlu/s1600/Windmill,+Phare+du+Creach,+Bramble.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrZEeZiCaDVe-p0SwXDpRWf5oLnmQnL_xh39TiFkHVzJiw14Qh1mzWKQjtIuWjqTAJ6g85btMG7ZWfFx53U-8IWFT4T7Ng7avSVcnb9MORp4gPqpVAhuuHWUdBKofokLe8Zlu/s320/Windmill,+Phare+du+Creach,+Bramble.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>06/08</b><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><b>19:33<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>In front of Lampaul’s
Chapel</b></div>
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This piece centers on two main questions. The larger: why
does one go to an island? The more specific: What would one find on l’<span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">île d’Ouessant, </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">or what happens if one goes there?</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">One goes to an island to
escape. To vacate, hence an island vacation. The visitor seeks to escape the
daily rigors and horrors of mainland life, and to step off of those well-worn
ruts that continentals dig for ourselves. As if by leaving the actual ground
where one has dug those rooted ruts in a physical sense, one can find a way to
escape. And so it is.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMUbQWL-VsT224iuzJlSSBdgwSf5-NH47F69JrPCMCW4mpR144ahtVuxOOHrAdkeLgXrRBrl-4gizNhKcLOxYJj_dti2sF11bpWnNRX8O1zoprPYLB03sXSdK0Pi2W8cvHGOPp/s1600/Looking+Out+towards+Ouessant+%28Not+Ouessant%29.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMUbQWL-VsT224iuzJlSSBdgwSf5-NH47F69JrPCMCW4mpR144ahtVuxOOHrAdkeLgXrRBrl-4gizNhKcLOxYJj_dti2sF11bpWnNRX8O1zoprPYLB03sXSdK0Pi2W8cvHGOPp/s320/Looking+Out+towards+Ouessant+%28Not+Ouessant%29.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">Île d’Ouessant,
</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">“Isle of terror” in Breizh, sort of
the word for “Western Isle” in French, and Ushant in English, sits just off
continental France’s westernmost tip. Two hours by ferry from maritime capital
Brest (home to France’s nuclear submarine arsenal) and one hour from Le
Conquet, the town on that westernmost tip, </span>l’<span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">île </span>is an attractive, quiet, and
impressive destination. The island offers everything one can ask for on an
island. </div>
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As mentioned, one takes the ferry to arrive (or a 15-minute
plane ride if one is a philistine, or one’s own boat if extravagant). Imagine
leaving from Le Conquet, the westernmost tip of France and of the Finisterre
department. Finisterre means end of the world, though the region’s propaganda
reminds that in Breizh, “Penn Ar Bed” also means beginning of the world, one
sign so bold as to make the Promethean claim that man first had fire in his
hands here. One wonders what the Breizh words for “3<sup>rd</sup> degree burns”
are.</div>
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From this far-flung jumping point, the ferry ride is rather
calm. A half hour to a smaller island of Molene, another half hour to Ouessant.
If one is worried that French children are much better behaved than American
children or any other brand of children, this ride furnishes much evidence to
disprove that notion, but the ride is calm and easy all the same.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJYoO-Wwy_h1WPI1joCUKyF_qETnZz3B4HE0d_TFuBZ59DrmReNfjeNqkGmTm5y3vJXI2YcL_AwOD1wM7vTDXPamCB3qyCAj5tL5Xvhmypo91f_35T8J-GAdA7AwdgZo9-TGMw/s1600/Phare+du+Creach+and+Hiding+Goat+%28%21%29.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJYoO-Wwy_h1WPI1joCUKyF_qETnZz3B4HE0d_TFuBZ59DrmReNfjeNqkGmTm5y3vJXI2YcL_AwOD1wM7vTDXPamCB3qyCAj5tL5Xvhmypo91f_35T8J-GAdA7AwdgZo9-TGMw/s320/Phare+du+Creach+and+Hiding+Goat+%28%21%29.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The ferry arrives in Port
du Stiff, on the eastern side of the island. Most visitors stay in or near Lampaul,
the one “bourg” on the island, a little past the center, three or so kilometers
away from Stiff. Several bike rental options crowd the road leading from the
port, as well as a </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">crêperie “d’arrivée</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">”. Minibuses also run passengers to the city. The D81 road that traverses
the island starts off uphill before peaking halfway, making for an agreeable
coast into Lampaul. </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">Gîtes</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"> and </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">chambres
d’Hôtes</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"> – Bed and Breakfasts – idle
on the roadside, as well as a large campground and many sheep. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">On arrival in the town,
the visitor may well be hungry. If it is the first Sunday night in August, the
choices may be limited to two </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">crêperies. Crêperie du Stang </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">is well and good and serves Breizh cola, but the
open setting allows one to gather further evidence that French children are
just as big a set of misbehaving bastards as the rest of ‘em and that French
parents are no less indulgent than American ones. </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">Crêperie Ti a Dreuz,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">“the
slanting house” offers a cozier, friendlier ambience, better crepes with a
top-notch soubise (creamy onions) topping, and a great glass of lemonade.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4c1pwqO5dh6SX3rEPA64cddOd0MYnYVnBRlmzCtETnqaotGvOwA-t4qK_a4dbAuwKwwjWBe7Eshihk6uZGl6u694qT-eocw5DV2HKk5NTTm3M_pOidcZ9BEALdba2FOPNOrr3/s1600/Blue+Shutters+and+Black+Cat.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4c1pwqO5dh6SX3rEPA64cddOd0MYnYVnBRlmzCtETnqaotGvOwA-t4qK_a4dbAuwKwwjWBe7Eshihk6uZGl6u694qT-eocw5DV2HKk5NTTm3M_pOidcZ9BEALdba2FOPNOrr3/s320/Blue+Shutters+and+Black+Cat.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">On any given summer
night, one can wander along the nearby beaches and coasts, seeking sunset and
cool breezes: the island is unsurprisingly full of sunset and cool breezes. If
it is the first Sunday night </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">in August 2012 and one wants to watch Usain Bolt
run 100 meters, the only recourse is the Fromveur, a bar that serves Belgian
beers and Kinder Bueno chocolate bars. The local tippler may, when not spitting
vomit over his shoes, getting kicked out of the bar, or causing a ruckus
outside worthy of police attention after getting kicked out of the bar, obsess
over buying and giving away these chocolate bars to anyone within arm’s reach.
The bar rejoices over Bolt’s win, and also the Frenchman taking second in the
3000 meter steeplechase. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">In the daytime, one finds
the solitude needed from an island. The thing to do on </span>l’<span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">île d’Ouessant </span>is to hike the
coast.<span style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;"> </span>45 kilometers of rocky
shore, spongy short grass paths, decaying lighthouses, and goats. Bikers too,
but the population of the island is listed as 878 habitants, and if that many
people come and go each day in the summer, at most, there is still plenty of
open space to hide in. For example, while hiking, the cautious and watchful
visitor (at least the male ones) can pee up to three times in a five-hour
period without causing a stir or looking out of place, by feigning a dignified
attention to certain more sheltered rock formations or port landings.</div>
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The lighthouses are something to see, if perhaps not the
museum dedicated to them. Many a ship have wrecked of Ouessant’s shores on
their way to the English Channel or elsewhere. So the French built the Phare du
Creach, the world’s most powerful lighthouse. Actually quite ordinary in the
day, at night it sends two rotating beams every ten seconds with a power to
haunt one’s sleep, should one fear light. Other, older lighthouses loiter off
shore and offer better daytime visuals.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuHPKwoH2VxUN2OQUlYGqC_-hWVi-RoQoOs3EZwZq213JrVyLus921Hjyh-MVtUGrrziKbVdFGrkIQ1n_W4CwtbbwfTUHZpJwTT9g5wFhwf6jn2_sCfyPWxHPOyd6rbFCGU97u/s1600/Phare+Du+Creach+the+Other+Side.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuHPKwoH2VxUN2OQUlYGqC_-hWVi-RoQoOs3EZwZq213JrVyLus921Hjyh-MVtUGrrziKbVdFGrkIQ1n_W4CwtbbwfTUHZpJwTT9g5wFhwf6jn2_sCfyPWxHPOyd6rbFCGU97u/s320/Phare+Du+Creach+the+Other+Side.JPG" width="320" /></a>Bikers circle the island, and one hears Italian, a little
Spanish, but mostly French. And why not? l’<span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">île d’Ouessant </span>is quite far away from most of France – six hours
away from Paris, another two to three hours at least from the south and east of
the country by fast train. Ouessant’s town twin is not from another country but
merely the other side of France – Obenheim, next to the German border in the
Alsace.</div>
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To avoid the bikers, one heads for the grassier coastal
paths. Bikes are not allowed on these paths, though some still find their way
there. On these paths, solitude and stone surround the visitor. If one is
inclined to walk barefoot, theses paths offer a perfect bed for the soles, soft
and giving. Beware of muddy areas and little purple and lavender flowers whose
beauty is protected by fierce thorns.</div>
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Animals dot the island. Ouessant is known for its black
sheep and wool. Goats lurk in shrubby fields, barely seen but for their horns
and ear tags. Sea gulls of course gull out their lungs going to and from the
island. Horses can be found – according to a placard for one abandoned fog
siren, horses bred on the island in the 19<sup>th</sup> century tended to be
small, and few people had more than one of them. If one is staying at the
friendly Auberge de Jeunesse, there is the chance on the short walk into town
to peer into a yard were a coterie of cats hang out, six or seven, fully grown
and of several colors – white, black, gray, and mixed.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8amuXPEfH0Iii0cHBq2-WkSav7Yl_zRshqS3BF6g8b53OWv61rTegWapFjHxXOv0kZfKZXTcX6Rw9NcbiUS4Hq7k4LBWcsnPtKT5sIc-QVDCeR9YOltPi9B4Apzzp11rtmNS/s1600/Ile+Gym.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8amuXPEfH0Iii0cHBq2-WkSav7Yl_zRshqS3BF6g8b53OWv61rTegWapFjHxXOv0kZfKZXTcX6Rw9NcbiUS4Hq7k4LBWcsnPtKT5sIc-QVDCeR9YOltPi9B4Apzzp11rtmNS/s320/Ile+Gym.JPG" width="320" /></a>Weather on the island is predictably unpredictable. The
first Monday in August may feel like an October day, though the air is lighter.
Out on the path, one can get sun burnt and rained on in two, three, four
successive cycles. The sky changes quickly, and one can see the gulf stream
make its final push towards Europe, washing over the island inattentively. </div>
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At night on the first Monday in August, after eating again
crepes, one can attend a concert at the local church, a string and piano
quartet playing two pieces as part of the “les musiciennes d’Ouessant”
festival. The ladies play well and the well-trained crowd only claps after the
3<sup>rd</sup> and 4<sup>th</sup> movements of each piece. The stained glass
windows are adorned with French captions that may simplify Biblical language a
touch: “Jesus threatens the winds and tells the sea, “shut up!” The end of the
concert proves insufferable – the crowd of nearly 100 cheers and cheers,
demanding an encore, hoping to prove how sophisticated they are and how
non-rural, non-isolated the island can be. The quartet, an ad hoc group no
doubt, cannot do but to repeat a few choice parts of the second piece. The
crowd howls for more, clearly not having paid enough attention the first time
(or so starved for culture they cannot let go? Or just wanting full money’s
value for their 18 euro ticket?). One is advised to sneak out before a third
encore is possible.</div>
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If the truest adventure of our times is away from
technology, from phones, computers, the internet, connection, Ouessant provides
for this adventure as well. Not that those monsters do not reach the island;
one <i>can</i> be connected here. But with the small size of the island and its
limited population, there is no need for connecting. Everything one needs to
know about the island can be found out through the ancient search engine of
asking a local. And if one’s phone battery dies, depriving one of all
time-telling devices, the church offers a large clock face and an hourly bell
to keep one from becoming completely unstuck in time.</div>
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Yes, such is l’<span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">île d’Ouessant. </span>All one needs to escape the mainland, to
extricate oneself from normalcy, all that can be found on the island. On the
ferry to and from the island, one is as if entering a chamber of isolation,
preparing for the island and then again for the return. An hour to unshackle
the mind and another to reshackle it.</div>
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Ahh, but the one thing one cannot escape on an island ?
Oneself. All that solitude, space, and isolation forces one in on oneself. One
must dig through consciousness, through thought, to deal with the fact that in
solitude, one is with oneself. The freedom from other concerns becomes a
sentence to explore the base of one’s inner space. The island’s shores limit
physical movement but erase mental boundaries.</div>
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One can hide in daily life’s distractions. When going to an
island, one seeks to escape distractions and relocate oneself. True of all
travel, this tendency sharpens on an island. One goes to lose one’s quotidian
life and to find oneself.</div>
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Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-61329412790904263162012-08-15T05:20:00.000-04:002012-08-15T05:20:04.144-04:00The Long Night of the Aching Jaw - The Red Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 5<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>05/08<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>16:35<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Le Conquet Harbor</b></div>
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<i>My jaw hurt.</i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could not
sleep.</i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what’s
worse</i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to
pee.</i></div>
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I lie in the bed. I lied. I turned off the light when I
heard the door open and a foot on the stairs. A roommate in the hostel. I
feigned being asleep. My jaw hurt and I had no interest in talking. He saw
through my feint, asked me if he could close the shades and turn off the light.
“Of course,” I said, “whatever you want.”</div>
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The lights off, I lay in the bed. I was tired; I had wadded
toilet paper in my ears against the noises of this or the other roommate. The
other was still out and this one quiet, only curt sounds of springs groaning
emanating from his bed. The beds were aligned head to foot around the room, six
beds or five in total, all along the wall, encircling the room (an extra
mattress lay beneath my bed). The mattresses were narrow, rust-colored beds,
furnished with a round, long cylinder of a pillow; we slept on 1970s styled
(and aged) couches. But the beds were good enough, the room dark, the noise not
there, and I tired. I should have slept.</div>
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I laid myself down but could not put myself to sleep. My
mind was not in and of itself especially restless. It had been a day off for
me; I took my time getting from Lorient to Brest. I had a 2+ hour stop in
Quimper which<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>I spent in an
African bar run by a white, non-African Frenchman, waiting and watching 100
meter sprints. Once in Brest, I spent two hours in a café in the center,
waiting for check-in time and typing up diaries. I had a fine dinner, a drink
while I waited for the bus, and then arrived at the hostel at about 22:30, read
my Pole for an hour, and went to bed. It had been a fine day.</div>
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Actually, I lied a little. Or fairer, I skipped a point. My
trouble started after dinner. Immediately after dinner, my jaw started hurting.
Usually, my jaw is tense, tight; it hurt. I had eaten steak tartar. I always
eat steak tartar when I visit France. This was the first time my jaw hurt after
eating tartar (or ever, really, to this degree). </div>
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I can hear Amy (my, ahem, <i>wife</i>) responding. “Of
course your jaw hurts after eating raw cow! You just swallowed a red patty of
uncooked pain!” It never happened before like that, but then, why did my jaw
become so sore?</div>
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My mind and spirit exist in imbalance, exposed to different
levels of development. My mind is well-developed, well ahead of my spirit, so
far ahead of my spirit that my spiritual inklings are intellectually-based.
What I understand in my spirit comes from my mind. I think my way through life,
and through matters of the spirit too. Amy once accused me of having no
spirituality. In effect, she’s right, but it’s not from lack of trying. I just
can’t get at the spiritual world any way but by working it out.</div>
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(My heart steps in sometimes and clouds my judgment for
better or worse in individual cases, but for the good overall, preventing me
from becoming a cold rationalist). </div>
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There are two areas on my body that carry discomfort so
casually my mind cannot comprehend them. The first is a knot in my back, just
below my left shoulder blade and off my spine to the left. 5, 10, 15 times a
day (at least) I swing my torso right and left while standing still, or else
dip my left shoulder back, both movements intended to crack my back. I do this
on command and more frequently than I should (I just did it, while writing the
previous sentence, achieving a crack). I have been cracking my back like this
for at least five years, since I stopped wrestling full-time. I remember my
last tournament in high school, 10+ years ago, eagerly looking forward to
having a friend from my rival school crack my back. </div>
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The other area is my jaw. I learned at my first dentist
appointment in Israel that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep. My dentist, an
excitable South African Jew, seemed to be a specialist in diagnosing teeth
grinding and providing biteplates to protect the teeth; he bragged about giving
himself a plate, his daughter a plate, and so on. I didn’t know I had been
grinding my teeth, but for a long time I had been cracking my jaw in three
different places by rolling it clockwise away from my face. I asked him about
that, why I was grinding my teeth, and what I might do about it. He said don’t
crack your jaw or you might get lockjaw, he didn’t know, and go see a psychologist.</div>
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The back pain I can rationalize. I wrestled seriously for 15
years and 10-11 ½ months a year for the last eight of them. I am lucky to have
never suffered more serious injury than a sprained ankle or cauliflower ear,
and a knot in my back is small price to pay for long years of competition (I
also often crack my knees, neck, and each of my shoulders every time I roll
either one of them counterclockwise, but there’s no major discomfort associated
with these cracks). I remember thinking in my maximalist college training days
that I wanted to wake up sore everyday for the rest of my life – in college
from the intensity of my workouts, afterwards for the residual damage
willingly, eagerly suffered. This is one of those goals that I am now glad I did
not achieve. (Sometimes, my right knee fills with fluid, a remnant of a bursa
sac injury suffered my last year, and I have a small scar over my right eyebrow
from my final college tournament, but seeing those is like looking at my trophy
case, a reward from memory lane). </div>
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But the jaw pain cannot be thought through medically. The Temporomandibular
Joint Syndrome involves the jawbone coming out of its socket partially, leading
to the cracking and grinding symptoms. But why does it slip out? Can it be
fixed conventionally? I don’t know and I don’t think so. I’m open to rational
explanation, I’m downright seeking it in fact, but nothing has won me over yet.</div>
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Where forth I turn to spiritual answers. I have long agreed
with Amy that my grinding is related to unexcavated grief, mostly related to my
mother’s death almost eight (8!) years ago, and also to other, relatively minor
things stuffed away in my psyche (or my jaw). This premise centers on the fact
that I have not cried about my mother’s death, have only since then cried due
to wrestling, physical and mental exertion that could drive me out of my right
mind. So now, despite leading a relatively low-stress life and being as happy
as I’ve ever been, I still grind my teeth.</div>
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At the outset of this trip I decided that if my jaw
represents my unvoiced grief, my back must hold the knot of fear and self-doubt
that fight to hold me back. It’s a facile explanation, but it serves a purpose.
My back is irritable and maybe even more noticeable as a problem, but it and the
feelings it represents are easier to put off or confront. I can make my back
feel pretty good for a few minutes at a time. The jaw pain always barks.</div>
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Once we step off the rational plane and open ourselves to
spiritual explanations, there’s much less logic to deal with. So maybe this cow
did cry as it was slaughtered, maybe I stumbled on the wrong day to eat cow,
which I tend to eat about once a week on average. Maybe if I had gone with a
burger, I would have somehow been better off. Less in pain. Asleep.</div>
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No matter. As I lay lying in my bed, my jaw hurt. I worried
that I would not have teeth in the morning, that dust on my sheets would
represent the final remnants of my molars (it figures that I forgot my
biteplate in Michigan and was too cheap/low on time to buy another set). I
worried that my jaw might look up in my haunted reverie. And on top of my
worries, I kept having to pee.</div>
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The peeing thing, that’s anxiety. I’ve always been
apprehensive of falling asleep, since I was a conscious child. Not so much did
I fear my subconscious – I suffered not from night terrors or especially bad
dreams<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- but losing control spooked me,
spooks me. That second when the lights go out is hard for me to grapple with or
get my mind around. My freshman year in college, one of my worst years, I had a
night where I needed to pee every 15 seconds. Rather, I felt the need to pee
every 15 seconds; when I went to the bathroom directly across the hall from me,
I peed drops, maybe. It was all in my head. I panicked that night, called my
father, woke him up, and then stayed up reading until I couldn’t think, falling
asleep around five. Luckily, it was a weekend night and my roommate had gone
home.</div>
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(My mother was alive and not yet in her final, awful leg of
cancer, but my dad and I agreed she shouldn’t be bothered about this one). </div>
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I have learned to function, learned to fall asleep. Usually,
I pee twice or thrice between when I shut off the lights and when I fall
asleep. On my own or at home, this is not a big deal. A quirk, a mild nuisance,
but Amy and I are the only ones who have to deal with it, and I think she
sleeps ok through it.</div>
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In a hostel, it was a bigger nuisance and an embarrassment.
I lay on my couch bed, except when I got up to pee. Five times, six, I rose,
shuffled down the stairs, out the door, back in, up the stairs, and into bed. I
bumped into a water bottle once. I hoped I wasn’t too annoying. </div>
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All the while, my jaw hurt and I could not sleep. I tried to
address the problem. In my head, I addressed my mother. I told her I was
married, happy. I spoke in Russian and thought what a shame it was that I only
really invested my soul in mastering the language after taking a team trip to
Poland and the Baltics the summer after she died. A trip I paid for with life
insurance money. I told her I wished I could have talked to her in Russian like
an adult. That I could talk with her as an adult. I thought about how much she
would have liked Jeanie, my mother-in-law. I told her that. I could not find
her answers in my head.</div>
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I lay in my bed and tossed and turned to other techniques,
ones I use more regularly. I sang to myself. I sang Neutral Milk Hotel’s <i>In
the Aeroplane Over the Sea</i>. A cliché choice for my demographic, yes, but
still the most emotionally resonant work front-to-back I know (one I heard for
the first time exactly almost eight years ago), and I know it just about by
heart. I sang through the first three songs, interrupted by two or three pee
runs. The technique didn’t stick tonight.</div>
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I lie frustrated and worried and tried my last resort short
of getting up and reading, of giving up an hour of sleep or more. My most
spiritual effort. I reached out in my mind to the voice, the spirit that is
ever present in my ear. The spirit I can trust to wash love over my misshapen,
knotted and partially detached body, to soothe my woes and worries with warm
words and tender touches. I reached out and thought of her, of what she would
say, do if she was here. My mind calmed, slowed.</div>
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Sometime later I went to pee again, and the Beatles “Come
Together” floated through my head, the happy half-conscious moment when control
is not lost but forgotten about.</div>
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I woke up early. My teeth were still there. The extra
portion of pain in my jaw lingered until late afternoon.</div>
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Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-91858134071185233932012-08-14T04:42:00.000-04:002012-08-14T04:45:40.583-04:00The Dread of Destinations - The Red Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 4<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>04/08/12<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>12:55, Bar outside Quimper train station, en route to Brest</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY5N6wcaW-Ohw6bPABaNJ3zGQauqZ4TSSAu7stscIpBPukyN_J5fByxHhOQVURx0FoDOel4jmcyvXw8WFq7uQchUzVZjP9DlAAyzvIhyNY7ThHCLaTX0509N8ZBTg5I3nxNDb0/s1600/On+The+Tilt,+Coast.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY5N6wcaW-Ohw6bPABaNJ3zGQauqZ4TSSAu7stscIpBPukyN_J5fByxHhOQVURx0FoDOel4jmcyvXw8WFq7uQchUzVZjP9DlAAyzvIhyNY7ThHCLaTX0509N8ZBTg5I3nxNDb0/s320/On+The+Tilt,+Coast.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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For the first four days of my trip, the journey easily outweighed the destination. I saw a few sites and sights – the forest, the town, the small city, the beach – but mostly, I biked. My diary has reflected this, I think, focused more on how I move than what I see.</div>
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Yesterday that changed. I visited three veritable destinations, places that attract tourists, events that are known, items written up in my guidebook. It changed the tone of my trip: expectations about other things entered the picture. With expectations come fulfillment and disappointment. Indeed, yesterday had a bit of both.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6twby6AIheO6yk9B1OYpZ-xQQ4o-0fJdVj4bg1Ajtv29aeBrEEa_Zii-aOHZaBeeCyjSkdnueFRyCnk_MQ61Fv_Zb7oPKmwWZGYo9XvSBnW3iPU-uojwFJFPd6EAc6yQdAKSt/s1600/The+Track+to+Nowhere.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6twby6AIheO6yk9B1OYpZ-xQQ4o-0fJdVj4bg1Ajtv29aeBrEEa_Zii-aOHZaBeeCyjSkdnueFRyCnk_MQ61Fv_Zb7oPKmwWZGYo9XvSBnW3iPU-uojwFJFPd6EAc6yQdAKSt/s320/The+Track+to+Nowhere.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>People sometimes say I'm on the track to nowhere...</i></span></td></tr>
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The first site belonged to nature. Le Côte Sauvage<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">, the wild coast, marks the western edge of the Quiberon peninsula (peninsula, in French, at least for smaller ones, is “presqu’île” – almost island). </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Both a coastal road and a worn-in runners’ and bikers’ path mirror the water imperfectly. The coast begins on the Southern tip of the peninsula at Quiberon and runs 8-10 km, stopping just short of Penthièvre, where I was staying. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiwIeejrQYV2_jXFkrn-7giDBT4O1DVtDb7ZUZgjWj47lRHoMlhdFIYecLjbAmGtks184FCIRCobAW5hpL5RnWjTb6Rkh-MWrwmWMdK9M5Rej50UAh7OjnEouZPHZGi3Y_L9FM/s1600/The+Purple+Shrubbery.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiwIeejrQYV2_jXFkrn-7giDBT4O1DVtDb7ZUZgjWj47lRHoMlhdFIYecLjbAmGtks184FCIRCobAW5hpL5RnWjTb6Rkh-MWrwmWMdK9M5Rej50UAh7OjnEouZPHZGi3Y_L9FM/s320/The+Purple+Shrubbery.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I took the creaky peninsula train (<i>le tire bouchon</i> – the corkscrew) to Quiberon, loaded up with bread and an apple, and took off. The coast begins with a dramatic stone house or castle just past a roundabout. From there the dramatics continue: craggy clifflets and rocky shores; inlets and mini pools; stark changes in elevation on a small scale; clouds looming and evaporating on the horizon; tall grass and short shorn brush and shrubbery adorned with purple glowers off the coast; and the odd hosue or tourist couple breaking up the scenery. The ocean roars and gulls squawk, but there is no smell of seafood, seaweed, sea stink, just of moist, fresh air. Stone monuments loom on and off shore</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"> in all directions, whether ancient or imitative, and in the water a double-bumped “island” 50 meters off shore looks like a beached Loch Ness monster, trapped in shallow sand.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUuejZ09YGEHbIM98-tQ01RqZLbkLnuW0ilJfgqudnwxe6e54TwFtnYZisv7XOcpa5guyD03gLcysSGGpA9G65FL5xO_87d-5dmbKSSoXVVTavFuF3-GHEZljP8L4_FLmkLF3m/s1600/Coastal+Picture+Taking.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUuejZ09YGEHbIM98-tQ01RqZLbkLnuW0ilJfgqudnwxe6e54TwFtnYZisv7XOcpa5guyD03gLcysSGGpA9G65FL5xO_87d-5dmbKSSoXVVTavFuF3-GHEZljP8L4_FLmkLF3m/s320/Coastal+Picture+Taking.JPG" width="320" /></a>Le Côte Sauvage ends and I drift inland. Inland though a couple kilometers up the peninsula narrows to an isthmus no more than five football fields wide. Later, a small forest encloses the bike path. The peninsula is full of delights. Nature, even when predictable, not stunningly wilder than other natures, is worth it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJw8yBakLndl1-BhpYm062WYGa21fmha-HYx9nTbr4tivZdSOEWY1UvPAhzZvj2O2jeA_bQPb7qNV-Rf6DlEtn7G6pzXehE3Z7LPfDsYbO_WApuYQcJ1Fkawnu0XOGg8AAW57/s1600/A+bigger+Menhir.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJw8yBakLndl1-BhpYm062WYGa21fmha-HYx9nTbr4tivZdSOEWY1UvPAhzZvj2O2jeA_bQPb7qNV-Rf6DlEtn7G6pzXehE3Z7LPfDsYbO_WApuYQcJ1Fkawnu0XOGg8AAW57/s320/A+bigger+Menhir.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I’ve been reading that large book by the Pole nobody I know knows. It’s also a diary, and old Witold Gombrowicz entertains in his cantankerousness. One of his many targets for rhetorical attack was painting. “Painting is one great resignation from what cannot be painted. It is a cry: I would like to do more, but I cannot. This cry is oppressive.” He argues we only like paintings because everybody else does, and we fear looking stupid. Aspects of the artists’ biographies intrigue us too (he mentions Van Gogh as an example), but the painting itself is static, plastic, and thus of little value.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">This idea of liking something because everyone else does infects travel as well. Such is especially the fight with the guidebook. The guidebook is an indispensible source of ideas, phone numbers, and lame essays. One wants to travel to the best sites, but also to do it freely. Hence the struggle with even the best guidebooks; with those less than best, one suspects the must-sees are not quite musts.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">My guidebook’s top recommendation for Bretagne was to see the megaliths. Stone monuments dating back 5,000 years, to a time before any reasonably engineering – the wheel, e.g. – existed to help build or erect them. Grandeur on the order of Stonehenge, but less grand and with more stones.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4dOE6_q_qETcQA9PFj6rkFhENF3cidtUCyksad2XrCRYYlYoB1dTwUemJKPjCW9f3Hi29Ddf0xQBU4PCxKviI0nPP_upKhN6bnubgp7u-hBO0K8tKFCfH-zkvl-WgA3zOuRMR/s1600/Second+Best+Crepe+on+Trip+%28Bretagne+Meal%29.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4dOE6_q_qETcQA9PFj6rkFhENF3cidtUCyksad2XrCRYYlYoB1dTwUemJKPjCW9f3Hi29Ddf0xQBU4PCxKviI0nPP_upKhN6bnubgp7u-hBO0K8tKFCfH-zkvl-WgA3zOuRMR/s320/Second+Best+Crepe+on+Trip+%28Bretagne+Meal%29.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">After eating the best crepe I’ve had yet this trip (the compl</span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">ète</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"> with onions, ham, cheese, and egg) from a place <i>not</i> in the guide, I rode to the site in Carnac. In the summer, one is not allowed into the actual site without a guide, but can walk or bike around the alignments. I left the “Maison des </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Megaliths” next to a family of four Italians. The mother took photos and exhorted her children, the father biked eagerly, the teenage daughter fended off her younger brother, and the brother, when not teasing the sister, ripped off sarcasm-tinged lines: look ma, there are the stones. Wow.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">And not to be a child, but I empathized with the <i>ragazzo</i>. The site was full of stones. Granite stone monuments, some to a tall man’s height, others two or three times that high, set in long, precise lines, with tall wild grass growing among them. A few of the monuments were shaped differently or set one against the other. A small circular guard tower next to the middle alignment site offered a nice lookout point to see those lines.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieiUcjm0iNMqWT51GUAGa9vG_6vIGsN_TXkjcygh-sNft_P0Bc9I8IlCH130iqD-h7bbaYRwPdUifINhAet7TBk3GruWEqYZVO8CoVqlhxlcmkJZO_HiGiegB5ItRZM1ZurreY/s1600/Up+close+in+the+Fields.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieiUcjm0iNMqWT51GUAGa9vG_6vIGsN_TXkjcygh-sNft_P0Bc9I8IlCH130iqD-h7bbaYRwPdUifINhAet7TBk3GruWEqYZVO8CoVqlhxlcmkJZO_HiGiegB5ItRZM1ZurreY/s320/Up+close+in+the+Fields.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">My book asks how and why these were erected. How is a question for archaeologists and engineers, why seems obvious enough – with spiritual or religious purposes in mind. Further, this is not as bold a site as I imagine Stonehenge to be, or Easter Island (nor as comic as the version in <i>Spinal Tap</i>). It is a collection of tall granite stones in a grassy field with limited majesty.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Actually, the location excited me. The path led through forests and past ponds. The better question is why here? Presumably, the proximity to water matters, and the forest helps too – we imagine old druids chanting under a canopy, wearing bear skins as a designation of status. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4hQAwmxZW910xxqBaxBQvhuvVyFDrwdhVgjW9U6CHoKfvsVwGq3uwlucqN9mKeDNI3jcDDOk671PUW8r9uNcn553NyhcFAe4-5BqJcrDzpEfBUaD9II4hFUi2yqCA-Ro-aIPP/s400/Big+Head,+Alignments.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">There was also an amazingly life-like statue of an oversized head...</span></i></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhzlW7CrYb0aMNCCvnsdvcYzbXjmjLeol75r4hTyGtWn47AxeAO_rOrZToAM5Uwkd9p50IkYEILg65SdG9ojR0K6EtXaNfpUPZBJ3UlO9yypFE9pMg4A-n2rMw3askxcOT4Mi/s1600/Petit+Menec.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhzlW7CrYb0aMNCCvnsdvcYzbXjmjLeol75r4hTyGtWn47AxeAO_rOrZToAM5Uwkd9p50IkYEILg65SdG9ojR0K6EtXaNfpUPZBJ3UlO9yypFE9pMg4A-n2rMw3askxcOT4Mi/s320/Petit+Menec.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The best collection of megaliths at the Carnac site is “Le Petit Menec.” Just off the last main alignment heading east, this little row hides under trees. These monuments are smaller, shorter than me even. Where the rest of the megaliths stick out as slightly incongruous, like overgrown </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">cemeteries, these felt humble, understated, and in line with their surroundings. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I’m not sure I would recommend the site to other people. Maybe the guided visit would be better. Maybe you really <i>like</i> stones. I cannot confirm the consensus positivity, nor my guidebook’s affirmation of the site. But if one were to go, I would tell him/her to see the trip out to the end, where a little secret hides. Even in the (mild) disappointments, good surprises can be found. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Lorient was turning sour on me by the minute. The bus left me two minutes late. The rain doused and delayed me. The music did not deliver on its promise. A bus would leave for my hotel at 21:30, and I was ready to give up for the night, to go back to my room and read and write, such as I do every night.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Lorient was my first real deviation from plan. Instead of biking off the train some 20 kilometers to Concarneau, a small coastal town, I would stay in Lorient, a city big enough to have a first division football club, if one that barely survived relegation last season. The city also hosts the Festival InterCeltique Lorient (FIL), a large gathering of Celts from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Galicia in Spain, and, of course, Bretagne. My book claims 600K visitors descend on the city, though strangely Lorient receives no other mention.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Due to the crowds and my last-minute change in plans, I only found a room just outside the city, across an </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">étang. </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I stumbled into the center, where a genuine buzz emanated from the booths and stages along the port.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The sunshine and the ever-young late evening assured me that I had done well to come here, to change. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Less than two hours later, clouds loomed and I found that I had unwittingly missed the bus by two minutes. My legs had logged 45 kilometers on the bike that day, and 165 over the last three days, but I had not choice but to walk another four. The </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">étang </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">crossing, beautiful to the hotel with a lush forest and that sun, was bleak this time. Boats floated off the port to my right like toys in a dingy bathtub.</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">When the rain came, on the other side of the crossing, I at first pushed on, using the sidewalk trees for scant cover. After five minutes of dousing, I escaped under a bus stop. No bus, of course, and I twiddled my thumbs for ten minutes while the drops, as measured by their impact on the street puddles, slowed. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">My plan had been to take the 22:45 bus back after 2+ hours of Celtic fun, with the midnight bus as an option if I was having great Celtic fun. By the time I got to the center, it was about 20:40, I was wet and tired, and the festival had a lot of work to do to re-impress me.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I went to the Celtic tent to eat dinner and avoid drizzle. I bought an Estrella Galicia, a mediocre Spanish beer that would never be sold in France except for the festival. I exchanged seven Euros for plastic tokens and bought a(nother) crepe and fries. By the time I crammed the fries and their three attendant sauces – mayo, ketchup, and orange mystery – I felt ready to go home in a body bag.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Nothing about this distinguished FIL from a typical European festival, each with its own local flavors, except that the music over the loudspeakers often featured bagpipes, and the young folk acting like jackasses wore green hats and kilts.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAmiIpZ02fSeoAiNhM8iVvvBhTluUon04X3gq2eH_Qsw84EV7O7w5GdxH06y6d3xwy1FAhb6L9hIk2U42IDkZCQU0no3KhtecA0dweKFIu-zFX2YHTJ6-ks0Lz0iNrX7OE_kzO/s1600/Corny+Sailor+Band.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></i></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I left the tent. The rain had stopped, and only music could save my life. The first band I came across had blue-striped white sailor shirts – Picasso was photographed a few times wearing these – a nice, local uniform. Unfortunately, they played corny American music, New Orleans jazz and doo-wop and the like. The music was neither good nor appropriate, costumes aside. Another strike.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The 21:30 bus and the white flag loomed as a more and more tempting option. What can I do if the festival is disappointing, the weather dismal, and staying out late to me disagreeable? Such is me, and fighting my innate sense will only lead to later regrets.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I walked past the bus stop. I’d give another street a try. If no good, either a bus or a cab could get me closer to bed. One must validate one’s choice in destination, after all.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Around the corner, I heard a tone, a reedy sound, the tumult of a crowd. I turned. At the Porc de Lorient bar (or some such name – their emblem included a pig, and I learned French pigs say “groin-groin” instead of oink), a band played on the terrace. Six men from 30-50 years old, the band featured two guitarists, a drummer, a bald bespectacled dude on a wooden accordion/squeezebox, and two, of course, pipes players. These two would alternate, one between bagpipes (or uilleann pipes, I don’t quite know the difference) and a flute, the other between pipes and something like a mini-clarinet, with a tone similar to the pipes. None, by the way, wore costumes.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">This last was the leader of the band, calling on the crowd to join in and, when he could, waving a Bretagne flag at his side. The Bretagne flag is great – black and white stripes with triangular figures meant to represent the initial bishoprics in the corner. It looks like a bizarro, pirate version of the U.S.A. flag – I’m sure there’s no connection, though the U.S. flag came first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUQ8bcKe8PoRLrQE19L597o2gMr8-6LpW2qhTTbG4sXJ61czWE9obhvZtK_mQ5xDKRmitbYihk7cbZHTA33CFiKcurdKuvQFSpDG6246nMu5b_1VIBw04-r95gKn3c3zbFGJU/s1600/The+Crowd+Unites.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUQ8bcKe8PoRLrQE19L597o2gMr8-6LpW2qhTTbG4sXJ61czWE9obhvZtK_mQ5xDKRmitbYihk7cbZHTA33CFiKcurdKuvQFSpDG6246nMu5b_1VIBw04-r95gKn3c3zbFGJU/s320/The+Crowd+Unites.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The music was all well and good, traditional Celtic music with a modern rock backing, but what made me stay was the crowd. In front of the stage, 16-20 people danced the appropriate traditional dances, either in pairs or in a circle as called for by the song. None of the crowd was dressed up, and most looked like they were copying what everybody else did, but with joy and honest intent. The exception was a man no older than me with long blonde hair and a long gray kilt. He had a goatee and shining eyes, and when not leading a partner or a group, he danced alone, setting the example, investing his blood and <i>joie de vivre</i> into the mutual crowd/band performance. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I took a seat in the back of the crowd. The band flowed through the set industriously and with attentive joy. The songs were pleasant and evocative the way well-played folk music always is. In a different setting, or for a longer period of time, or with the band wearing costumes, this might have grown dull, tedious, or kitsch. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVVN-EIA9QhJGNDdRu_HsApQ7bTednavFygG6uxKdTixMyfQIwNiIllSodif6_Z21vcXThqtB9Sr1xWWew0XUss4T9bGem8DwfZsxiYdcCruOmhLvzcomgwiyU_t1J8OFLSg0/s1600/Celtic+Dancing.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVVN-EIA9QhJGNDdRu_HsApQ7bTednavFygG6uxKdTixMyfQIwNiIllSodif6_Z21vcXThqtB9Sr1xWWew0XUss4T9bGem8DwfZsxiYdcCruOmhLvzcomgwiyU_t1J8OFLSg0/s320/Celtic+Dancing.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Instead, the dancing crowd’s number swelled with each song. Around the crowd, an older drunk with a big backpack and a hat pestered the fun, trying to add to (or detract from) the music on a cheap recorder. The staff ushered him off the outdoor premises. The crowd continued; a pair of young women who had fended off the drunk danced together, then split up to dance with others for the next song. A bigger man with no hair struggled to time his claps right. Older couples sparkled in the culture of the moment. Blondie, who I called a “Viking Celt” in my head, sipped on his beer between songs, and disappeared for a song even, but returned to prance up and down the dancing space. The drunk returned through the back and, in moving one of the big parasols, drenched a group of onlookers. There’s always one. The music went on.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">***</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I don’t know. I’m loath to assign true, wide-spanning unity between vast numbers of people to any moment. I don’t believe the Olympics really bring us together; they just give us something to talk about amongst each other. I don’t believe nations on the scope of the U.S., France, India, even Luxembourg almost, make sense, not on a spiritual level; nation-states are convenient for wielding power, for administrative purposes, but not for identity. It makes just as much sense to build a nation out of the millions of people who own <i>Thriller</i> as out of people born or living in a 100,000 square mile area, say.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">But on a smaller, humbler level, there are things we all share, just as humans. We can share in moments, in temporary connections. Even as they dissolve, those connections become more real and satisfying than the connections forced on us.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Nothing is better than music and dance at drawing out those connections. Movement and sound, simple sound, can bring us down to our most basic urges – to react, to thrust and shake, to act like animals. Get on the floor and just freak out: there is no better one time cure-all. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Get on the floor called the bandleader as the band circled through two riffs over and over to close down the set. I sat and watched. I’m not shy about dancing, but I prefer to do it alone or for someone I know, to amuse or irritate or impress. I sat and watched.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The last remnants from the sitting crowd got up. The circle of dancers expanded. In the middle, a few bolder dancers, the two guitarists, and of course the whirling dervish of a Viking Celt, eyes lit and hair aflame. The music both hollowed out as the guitars lost bite in the crowd and heightened to a final crest. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3tWQGcw5Y-8zudSYfrFt004KbR6VCddCygZrxSEA1Qhv-TUSLztuEY_08ACKOPdugRwrO53h4TBlTyUAgSYTzjXr3PaxQaNAK_JmQoMARbsa6_-13FviBA1A1RwkC4Y9DxCED/s1600/Viking+Celtic+up+Close.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3tWQGcw5Y-8zudSYfrFt004KbR6VCddCygZrxSEA1Qhv-TUSLztuEY_08ACKOPdugRwrO53h4TBlTyUAgSYTzjXr3PaxQaNAK_JmQoMARbsa6_-13FviBA1A1RwkC4Y9DxCED/s400/Viking+Celtic+up+Close.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I put my bag down and walked to the front. The circle had no opening. I stood on its edge, tangent to the dance and clapping with the beat. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The song and the set ended a few seconds later. The crowd dispersed happily. The band went on a break. The tension of the moment eased.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I took the bus home 15 minutes later at 22:45. All in all, I was pleased, both with day and with night.</span></div>
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Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-68316374036563276462012-08-13T05:36:00.002-04:002012-08-13T05:36:51.038-04:00A Series of Ordinarily Extraordinary Events - The Red Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: 11pt;">02.08 23:00 Hostel Room in Quiberon</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>Weather: </b>The sun overcomes, the wind still blows
fierce</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>Distance biked: </b>75 km yesterday, 45-50km today</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Jeff was the 3<sup>rd</sup> most extraordinary thing
that happened to me today. He approached me as I sat at a table in a bar. The
bar was not crowded; five to seven locals joked around the bar, and I sat
alone, half a floor away. I sat crouched over this very journal, finishing
yesterday’s entry. My bike helmet sat on the table in front of my beer. I wore
my “civilian”, non-bike clothes, but no doubt still stank. Beneath me lay my
bursting backpack. As always, I must have cut a strange figure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“Where from?” he asked me. He had been walking back
from the bathroom. I told him, in French.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMhE8-Dd9Ccnt_2xVkD5CxAF3gG78L5DDq9KuupkTzub2rqU2U8Bi6xjifsBeRdFP8V-84NtsKc2pNb1AB1do7Ai8fKPOpJ1b7IKDds1bSV3ydjNB4IERhmDUbJHuOeMGm1ce5/s1600/Pony+Love.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMhE8-Dd9Ccnt_2xVkD5CxAF3gG78L5DDq9KuupkTzub2rqU2U8Bi6xjifsBeRdFP8V-84NtsKc2pNb1AB1do7Ai8fKPOpJ1b7IKDds1bSV3ydjNB4IERhmDUbJHuOeMGm1ce5/s320/Pony+Love.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>A simulation of our linguistic struggles</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“Who you?” he continued in English. I don’t mean to
brag in saying it, but I will: my French was better than his English. Certainly
more fluid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“<i>Je </i></span><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="font-size: 11pt;">m’appelle</span></i><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Daniel,” I said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“Oh, I’m Jeff.” We shook hands. He had long curly
brown hair and bright blue eyes and facial hair all over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">He asked me what I was doing, why I was in Bretagne,
and where I was staying. He stuck to the English. Rarely am I out-stubborned
over which language to use, but I had to hand it to him. I ended up throwing
some English in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“You’re going to Quiberon tonight? Do you have
number?” He meant phone. He proceeded to offer me a place to stay at his house.
He wouldn’t be there that night, but his girlfriend would. He then told me to
see the C</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">ôte Sauvage</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> and take pictures
(he mimed taking pictures with his hand). By the time we ended our
conversation, he had told me work was good in the tourist season – the summer –
but not for the rest of the year, that he was from Nantes, and the Breizh
(Breton) word for “see you soon” at our parting (Something like Quenavoohoo).
We also exchanged a second, more elaborate handshake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I don’t know why they always come to me, but they do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">(I was not bold enough to take Jeff up on his offer). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The fourth most extraordinary thing today was biking
through Elven. The town was nothing special, but its name is Elven! (An Elven
in Breizh. Vannes is Gwened in Breizh. Pretty cool). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">As I said, Bretagne has Celtic roots. Breizh is
related to old Celtic languages, with lots of gw, q, k, and ac sounds – the
most familiar Breton name to Americans I Kerouac (also Bretagne – Brittany in
English – is related to Grande Bretagne in French – you guessed it, Great
Britain). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">For me, Celtic roots mean nerdy fantasy worlds I ate
up as a kid. First Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, then of course
Tolkien’s books. I was not terribly sad about missing Merlin’s tomb, but if you
told me where the village Beren and Luthien passed the end of their days, I’d
be there yesterday (that’s a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Silmarillon</i>
reference, uber-nerdy Tolkien stuff). </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghle2wf4tmKXRl57wIKnkVAgQQANNaSw1lrcJ5aPRtUNEyQB3bVkYxcC4ZnSE1W7ZB6nK42hpTUSqaLjJbkiRLcPTSoWRlNdBM-CHg5nhS3r0nEVMD_xc6ix2qbp13P2QxsWrs/s1600/If+the+Shoe+Fits.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghle2wf4tmKXRl57wIKnkVAgQQANNaSw1lrcJ5aPRtUNEyQB3bVkYxcC4ZnSE1W7ZB6nK42hpTUSqaLjJbkiRLcPTSoWRlNdBM-CHg5nhS3r0nEVMD_xc6ix2qbp13P2QxsWrs/s400/If+the+Shoe+Fits.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">If the shoe fits...(though really, I'm more hobbit-like)</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Part of the excitement and majesty of this trip for me
is to explore a related setting. I trek through forests and wide wheat fields,
past mysterious ponds and quiet stone hosues, over hills and to windswept
coasts. The interior of Bretagne enchants, and towns named Elven only add to
the fun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Not all of Elven was fun, however…</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">***</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin5Z5pRHIHNFzFai_8r7ybZxT_JuaFaO6DFgIQDedAN-RiQjBB4UVPCFt5dwBodOw5Mhs9a855R1yZizfSrBGHzjY1eIFC3GUmKPDV2SKEjijGTnuEwLQxxYnEgeVghkOcZfKJ/s1600/Along+Nantes-Brest+Canal.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin5Z5pRHIHNFzFai_8r7ybZxT_JuaFaO6DFgIQDedAN-RiQjBB4UVPCFt5dwBodOw5Mhs9a855R1yZizfSrBGHzjY1eIFC3GUmKPDV2SKEjijGTnuEwLQxxYnEgeVghkOcZfKJ/s320/Along+Nantes-Brest+Canal.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The most dually frustrating and positive thing today
was that I bought a map. The map kept me on track – no zigzagging today. The
only diversion was when I found a bike path that took me along the canal
between Nantes and Brest. This was great, and I only wish it could have been
more on my way to Vannes. Biking on flat, quiet bike paths by water is hard to
beat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The frustration is twofold. First, when I have a map,
I look at it. A lot. Like every time I come to a significant intersection or a
new town. My memory is good but not for pictures, and doubt is strong in me.
Most often this is seen in the many photos of me traveling, with a backpack on
and my nose in a book. It’s usually a guidebook, and I’m usually checking a
map.</span></div>
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More physically frustrating was that my map showed no topography. I had no idea
when hills were coming. The ride through Elven felt like one long uphill with
brief flat pauses and the rarest of dips in the road. I pride myself on being
tough, but 100 km in two days and hill after hill is enough to knock the tough
out of me. One of my cycling maxims (I’ve at least two) is that every uphill is
rewarded and every downhill paid for. It sure didn’t feel like I was rewarded
today. Only on the last 10 kms did I rediscover my gumption and gut it out. A
few downhills helped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">A few pettily extraordinary things:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I’m staying
in a hostel. The only thing I don’t like about hostels is sharing my room with
strangers. I’ve not done so in a long time, maybe four years. Still, for this trip
I thought I could deal with it. What the hell, I want to go cheap. Them’s the
breaks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I showed up at
21:30, a half-hour before reception closed. I got placed in a room with four
beds. Alone. Hot damn.</span></div>
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</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I showed up
so late due to finally conceding on the train front. I had to take the train
one stop before transferring to a train for this peninsula. The earlier train
that went was a TGV, the one where you have to pay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I could have said
fuck it, snuck on, and hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with anybody for the ten minutes
before I changed. Instead? I took a ticket for a later regional train and went
for a drink and dinner in Vannes (meeting Jeff in the process). Maturity, I
guess.</span></div>
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</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">As
mentioned, the sun came out. Ruins my joke that the one thing in my backpack I
could do with out is the sunscreen. I did wear my long-sleeved shirt tonight. </span></div>
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</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I kept my
Olympics streak alive, watching the women’s gymnastics tonight in the common
room. I don’t think I’ve ever watched them so much, at least not since I was a
kid – in ’08 I had just moved to Israel (no tv), in ’04 I worked two jobs, etc.
Growing up, the Olympics were just about the only really-approved sports
programming in our house. My mother liked the gymnastics, swimming, skiing, and
figure skating. </span></div>
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</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">While writing
this, I finished my survival pack for the day – bread already gone, I ate an
apple and finished my bar of chocolate. The chocolate only had half a row left.
“Who’s been eating my chocolate?” I thought. I always eat it row by row, and
the only way I would have left it like that is if I had been interrupted. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I checked in my
back pack. There on the bottom was the rest of the chocolate, broken off. Good
thing I checked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The second most extraordinary thing I came across
today was the beach. I’m staying in a hostel just north of Quiberon, on a
narrow peninsula (Jeff described the people here as close-minded, “Quiberon for
Quiberon” types, saying that 15 km out in the water, the mentality is bizarre).
The beach is right there. So after checking in and claiming my room, I threw on
my long sleeves and walked over, hoping to catch a glorious sunset.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">There was no sun to be seen, though at 21:35 it was
still light out. Plenty of other things demanded attention. I reached the sand
and saw little white specks jumping all over. I thought at first that they were
specks of trash blown about that looked like bugs. On further inspection, they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">were</i> bugs. Leaping little whit erratic
maggots or something. They popped left and right and up and down like excited
gas molecules, with only rare periods of considered crawling. Barefoot and
otherwise, I found the buggers all over my feet and ankles. They covered the
whole dry sand area, especially congregating around seaweed and such clumps. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The wet sand area was the biggest I’ve seen. Wide as a
football filed, the smooth sand was covered with a slim layer of water, not
enough to stick up your nose or drown in. It represented a large tidal
variation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I walked barefoot out to the water’s edge. The water
chilled me though gulls braved it. I skipped a few stones before my weak
shoulder ached. The ocean roar drowned out my singing. Down to my left, on the
south of the peninsula, a few lights shone, Quiberon’s agglomeration. Two
couples sauntered on the wet sand. </span></div>
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And then I turned around. Rising above the tree line, not visible closer to the
shore, was the full moon. Orange and ripe like the whiffs of stinky cheese I
bumped into en route, the moon hung over as if ready to swallow the peninsula.
With such a narrow base and 15 kilometers out into the water, with all this as normal,
it’s hard to imagine how the locals could have anything but a bizarre
mentality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The most extraordinary thing today? That breath filled
my lungs, blessings my life, and that I was able to take part in all of it. And
that I have another day to tackle tomorrow.</span></div>
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Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-70041398464095897952012-08-12T06:42:00.000-04:002012-08-12T06:42:06.102-04:00All Lost in the Forest & The Trees - The Red Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">01.08<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">20:30<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Restaurant in Plo</span><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 11pt;">ë</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">rmel</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">“Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters,” a novella that makes up the first half of the last book J.D. Salinger published and my favorite of his books, though certainly not the best, begins with a fable of purportedly Buddhist or other East Asian religious origin (Salinger probably made it up). In the fable a man asks a religious figure for help picking a horse. The priest (or whatever) sends him to the local horse-picker. The man goes and gives the horse-picker details on what horse he wants: size, gender, color, etc. He returns to the priest and complains that the horse completely fails to meet his specifications. This delights the priest, who says, “I didn’t realize he was so far along.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The story, whether Salinger’s or authentic, is bullshit, implying that the true core overrides the details, but in a trivial manner. It’s irrepressible bullshit, irrepressible because intentional, Salinger serving all of his own indulgences and none of his readers’, already long in recoil from his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Catcher in the Rye</i> fame. His joy at frustrating us is a delight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Anyway, the story’s essence is about seeing past the details and to the core. Bullshit as I find it as a story, the moral is certainly worth remembering while traveling. Open to the possibilities and seeking the core experience, the traveler may find his/her trip fall far from the original plans and be all the better for it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Me, I’m a stickler for planning. Even on this trip, with nothing written down or paid for in advance for eight days of the ten, I have a plan, and it’s hell for me to break it. My travel experience thus emerges in a very Western, American twist on this Eastern idea: a goal is set, and then all the fun is in overcoming all the silly things that get in the way to achieve that goal. Never flexible, I fight for what I’ve planned and believe should be mine. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Stupid? For sure. But just as with that horse-picker, I often find exactly what I’m looking for, just in the complete opposite direction. I look and do not find. I do not look and find. I am farther along than I think, but I’ve no idea how I got there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">It all started in Rennes. Bretagne starts in its eastern capital. I started my trip there and the first ten hours were fine – I arrived close to midnight, found my hotel empty but with my name and room number written on a board, and that was that. I woke up just after 9, the earliest I’ve risen since I returned to the continent five days prior, I found reception, asked where the nearest boulangerie was, and all was well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Except the nearest boulangerie was closed, leading me on a 45-minute walk around our non-central neighborhood to find a mall with a supermarket and the chain bakery <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brioche Doree</i>. Ok, no big deal, I can do local another time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I got out of the hotel and then out of town at 12. My destination would be the For</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">êt de Paimpont, known as the Brocéliande.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> My guidebook reported that it is said to be the forest whence Arthur pulled Excalibur (though in the next phrase, the book says the story probably came from Celtic settlers and is thus a hoax). Also that it was enchanting. And about 40km southwest of Rennes. That was as good a direction to me as any, so I settled on that as my first stop. All I knew was to head west and then turn southwest. Seemed simple, enough so that I never looked directly as a map with sufficient detail to know where I was going.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKBqrIzrgAdvNUw1vNHwOA-XFkHhT9tpGuSkfMZAciqLLZ2LEiSvwlrmn0O-cxCWYQKJMHU0AVKnfKBbfZb2nNbSFagdu7PenJ2x4wHBNE6aHbpAFskYRhq3ooavqVIPrZ5WVp/s1600/Water+Mill+near+Rennes.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKBqrIzrgAdvNUw1vNHwOA-XFkHhT9tpGuSkfMZAciqLLZ2LEiSvwlrmn0O-cxCWYQKJMHU0AVKnfKBbfZb2nNbSFagdu7PenJ2x4wHBNE6aHbpAFskYRhq3ooavqVIPrZ5WVp/s320/Water+Mill+near+Rennes.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Water Mill along the <span lang="EN-GB">étang</span></i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">My first detour from the straight western track was along a stream, an </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">étang</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">, a pond. Quiet water flow, green bush, the grasshopper orchestra strumming, and I riding on a dirt path, unsure. The path ended once, but alongside another path continued. I came upon water mills and old stone houses, and eventually to a road again. The </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">étang path continued on the other side of the road, but I thought I should go west again. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">All signs west led to Le Rheu. Part of my plan was to find signs for the forest, a big deal around here, I imagined. Le Rheu, though, was not on my vague guidebook map. I found the village sleepy, the town hall closed. In the supermarket parking lot, an older man flagged me down. He was bald and short and round and shook constantly, and he needed money for something, I couldn’t understand why. I had only change that might go toward buying a map, and so told him I had none. “The third person who’s told me that,” and he flagged down somebody else.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">The next town was Cintré</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">. The last town connected to Rennes by the city bus system, </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Cintré had a center street with a tabac/bar shop and a church. I parked at the church and walked into the shop and asked for directions to the forest. A woman and a man pointed me to the next two towns on the way. I returned outside, had some of my baguette, and took off. I had covered about 15 km so far.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">The ride took me mostly through flat fields of wheat or corn in varying stages of ripeness: some had the grain already baled up, others were green or brown but unreaped, and I beheld one tractor harvesting. Cows, horses, and sheep made appearances, though not as often as in Luxembourg. There was not much in terms of people, no gas stations and few stores. This was hardly a typical tourist path. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">I biked through Talensac and my first big hill in Bretagne, than Montfort. At a key intersection, Montfort being the second of the two towns I needed, I asked a road worker for directions. He sent me to St. Meen, which I heard as “San Maw” thanks to French pronunciation rules. I turned onto a country road and biked through Montfort, a quiet town with a widely-advertised supermarket.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">In the center of Monfort, I found frustration. A map showed St. Meen de la Grand on it, but the direction was northwest. Further, Talensac was southeast of Monfort. That didn’t seem right. The sun hung behind the clouds, but it was already three and I had no idea where it should be by then. The wind howled in my face, slowing my meagre speed to a crawl. Fighting through wind to go the wrong way was not sustainable from a spiritual standpoint. I was lost.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">A crossroads. A sign with 11 written next to St. Meen de la Gd. 11 Km is a long way to go the wrong way. I got off the bike and stared at the signs, hoping to divine a direction through pure hope. I had my instincts and strangers’ directions to rely on; my directional instinct is poor and the strangers’ directions were either bad or misunderstood. I am great at following maps. I had no map that showed these towns, these St. Meens and Montaubans and Iffendics and Montforts. I was lost.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">A biker arrived at the crossroads. I called out to him, hiding my desperation. He was in his 60’s, bald with glasses and full biker’s gear – helmet, spandex top, and bottom. I had just the helmet. Even among weirdos, I stick out. Anyway, he pointed me to Iffendic. “Bof,” he said, “there’s a hill,” indicating with his hand how big it was. “Where are you from?” he asked, and then, “come to see the great interior of Bretagne?” with ironized pride. I praised the area reflexively and learned he was from Montauban. “Bonne route,” he wished me, and we parted.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Iffendic was another small town, but big enough to have a “centre commercial” – a supermarket, a bar, and a pharmacy. The supermarket had a little map of the region, and the bar had a bigger map on the wall, which the barmaid allowed me to study. Reoriented, I decided to discard the biker’s post-Iffendic directions with its grand hill and to light out for the D31. I trust maps, and so felt found.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">From there, the challenge transferred from finding oneself to fighting the wind. It may not have actually been blowing directly in my face, but it felt like it. I thrashed. A spandex-clad biker passed me and shouted, “It’s tough, isn’t it?” Nothing is worse than wind for biking. Rain encourages one to speed up to get “home” sooner, but wind tells you, “the harder you try, the more I’ll hurt you.” Wind and rain are, of course, the purest distillation of evil for the biker. But this wind did not let up until the forest.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">I came up to St. Malon and read a map: lo and behold, I was already in the Pays de Brocéliande and had been for a long time. I may not have reached the forest yet, but I was found.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Not the way to Excalibur, I think</i></span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">And found at last in the forest. Green trees on both sides of me, thickets and limited sunlight (the clouds did their part as well). Except for the rare car or caravan driving by (one driver asked me for directions unsuccessfully), no sound did I hear but my pedaling, grunting, and singing. The forest was achieved internally and externally. But I found neither Merlin’s tomb nor Excalibur’s former home, both said to be in this forest.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">The forest and its accompanying silence ended in the namesake town of Paimpont. Actually an abbey with a parking lot full of caravans ended my silence. It was 17:30. I had to decide on my destination for the night. My first choice in the area, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le Petit Keriquel</i>, did not answer or return my call. Campgrounds were bad options without a tent. I called the last phone number on my list, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le Thy</i> in Ploë</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">rmel. Beyond finding an available room, the phone call revealed two things: their reception closed at 20:00, and they did not tell me how far </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Ploë</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">rmel was from Paimpont. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I had a choice again. Push on or look for something here in the town. No doubt I could find a decent room at a reasonable enough price and end my day, 50+ km in. But any kilometers I covered today would be deducted from tomorrow’s requirement. And I knew it was only 50 euros for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le Thy</i>. And I had my plan set…</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLBdVQM-fwNbxv6AtsvRfJtEmPDSCzvnl4uyC9HLbIwEWb15AEs7-6Bt0XULmmLYhgXh_aWru9Q4z9bUOVFyKqN2z7m5XS_r8YbPyGptOyCMrNnc23WXqNhxfI_raZ-MMu6Ne_/s1600/Big+Hill+Ahead.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLBdVQM-fwNbxv6AtsvRfJtEmPDSCzvnl4uyC9HLbIwEWb15AEs7-6Bt0XULmmLYhgXh_aWru9Q4z9bUOVFyKqN2z7m5XS_r8YbPyGptOyCMrNnc23WXqNhxfI_raZ-MMu6Ne_/s320/Big+Hill+Ahead.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Thought process: "No," and "Way"</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Not long through Paimpont center, I saw the sign: 22 km to go to </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Ploë</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">rmel. Not looking for it, I finally found the hill the biker had warned me of – I walked it. My fourth wind came in time to get me through the next few hills and to steer out of the way of a tractor – the roads were, as Mr. Salinger might say, lousy with tractors. This last push, this last wind, could not help me against the rain, however.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I was wet, especially in Camp</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">énéac</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">. The last real town before </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">Ploë</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">rmel, about 10 kms away, had several hotels. I could have easily found a bed, a hot shower, and dinner. Instead, I thrust forward one last time. With well-advertised gas stations, help of two more strangers’ directions, and my cooperative, beleaguered bike, I made it.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghQ-l-AKJW3_XpPSCVIB-lROPe5gYa0jyh1EYqH2Vg4RTexkMyAAjO7w3IzEkQWPG44uPlGRjRNsq4_AzDqVXfb2gPs0S3IHpbcRRkwhYARfdRsusKQk61Eg-2_YXhRrjACZ7h/s1600/Strange+Mural+in+Camp%C3%A9n%C3%A9ac.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghQ-l-AKJW3_XpPSCVIB-lROPe5gYa0jyh1EYqH2Vg4RTexkMyAAjO7w3IzEkQWPG44uPlGRjRNsq4_AzDqVXfb2gPs0S3IHpbcRRkwhYARfdRsusKQk61Eg-2_YXhRrjACZ7h/s400/Strange+Mural+in+Camp%C3%A9n%C3%A9ac.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Mural in Campénéac. Almost enough to make me want to stay.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">And then, without looking for it, I found: a lively but quiet little city; an agreeable hotel with a lovely older couple as owners; an ATM I could get money from for free (not invaluable); a quality restaurant with crepes and Breizh cola and the Olympics on the TV; a pleasant set of bluestone-laid city streets to wander in; a store to buy a map from in the center, a sense of satisfaction; and even, most surprisingly, the sun, which didn’t go away until it set at 22:00. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">In other words, without looking for it, I found everything I wanted on this trip. Maybe there is something to that horse-picking story.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHs1xVUkPqpaf1M2upSe7TGNgyRoeQbmQFksf6WrlExqvXLsDQoyr2M-qTou6LyBdJLmN0T88exQkkx83J4CU5SQAWloBPAWrpBG9s3LppjB2GPmKB7jmi2Pp0ihJ__BUjuQw/s1600/Soaked+Plo%C3%ABrmel+Hotel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHs1xVUkPqpaf1M2upSe7TGNgyRoeQbmQFksf6WrlExqvXLsDQoyr2M-qTou6LyBdJLmN0T88exQkkx83J4CU5SQAWloBPAWrpBG9s3LppjB2GPmKB7jmi2Pp0ihJ__BUjuQw/s320/Soaked+Plo%C3%ABrmel+Hotel.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">That shirt is much lighter-colored when dry.</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">(Oh, and I slept like a king).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
</div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-55272268350762104792012-08-11T04:37:00.000-04:002012-08-11T04:37:20.344-04:00Fear And Biking In La France - The Red Bike Rides in Bretagne, Pt. 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>30/07 - 19:35, train to Paris</b><br />
<b>Weather </b>- Wind closer to mild than obnoxious<br />
Mostly cloudy, 3 drops fell on me in Thionville<br />
20 degrees - cool for summer, but sunless and fine for biking<br />
<b>Distance Biked</b> - 30km<br />
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Fear filled me as 16:00 approached. It filled me the way poisonous gases fill a
room, slowly and unremarkably, until it's too late to save oneself.<br />
<br />
I could not explain the fear. It surprised me. I arranged my backpack, cleaned
the kitchen, attended to the computer, and waited for my time of departure to
arrive, and while waiting, I noticed I was not alone, or not myself. I was with
fear. <br />
"Relax," I told myself, "it's just anxiety." As if renaming
it could diminish its power. One can call a hurricane a storm, but the winds
and rain hurl about all the same. <br />
"You're just anxious about going alone. You haven't done this in a
long time. You've never taken a trip like <i>this</i> before. You should be
anxious. It's fine."<br />
<br />
I remembered things I had not thought about. Maybe I should write directions
down for my first day riding in Bretagne. Won't I need at least a 4th pair of
underwear? Why did I forget to put money on my phone?<br />
<br />
Hemming, hawing, redoing, rechecking, fearing, I left behind schedule. Now
there was a chance I would miss my train, a 2-hour bike ride away. That, at
least, was a concrete thing to fear. The rest of it lingered in my soul,
unnamed and unknown, as I set off. It was about 16:20.<br />
<br />
***</div>
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The great thing about individual physical activity - like biking - is that it
must be done. In doing the activity, the actor may still think, may still fear
even, but feelings held earlier dissipate. Exertion, its required attention,
and its corresponding hormones flush the mind and the soul of all residue. The
feelings that fill this void can vary, can even recall the earlier feeling, but
only after new stimuli spike, only with a reason.<br />
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By the time I reach France, I feel good. It is about 17:30 and I have two hours
to ride to Thionville, one hour away. So far, the weather, my back, and my bike
are all holding up. The weather is gloomy and cool but has not burst. On my
back sits the fullest backpack I've ridden long distance with. Its contents
include: 3 notebooks, five pencils, one large guide book, two slim French
books, one huge book by an author nobody I know knows, four apples, 1 peanut
butter sandwich, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a pair of shoes, four pairs of
underwear, three pairs of socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, 4 train
ticket printouts, two bottles of water, a camera, a USB key, my wallet,
passport, phone, keys, and the lock for my bike, all to last me 10 days.
Writing this, I remember biking in Israel with notebooks, books, and a huge
canvas bag in my backpack on my commute to work and grad school. I'm in better
biking shape now, and this load is lighter.</div>
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And as for my bike? Let's leave off talking about it, in hopes that it doesn't
come up. It's hard to do a big bike trip without a bike, after all.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
My plan is to cruise around Bretagne for 8 days or so on my bike, riding where
the wind and the road take me (the other two days involve getting there). Why
Bretagne? No clear idea; maybe I've heard of the region before in some positive
light. The teacher who led my trip to Japan when I was 13 was named Mr. Breton,
so maybe I wanted to close as circle (How?). Maybe because its last region is
called "Finisterre," the end of the world. Or maybe because I grew
fond of the Rennes football team. It's not a must-see region like Provence, nor
a nearby one like Alsace, and Amy probably wouldn't choose it as a trip for the
two of us, so why not?<br />
<br />
As for why I decided to leave from Thionville, that's simpler. I'll say it's
because I wanted to warm up for my trip, having not biked during a 2-week
sojourn in the states. I might throw in the kid I saw, 8 or 10 years old,
walking with his friend. He had glasses and spiky hair and carried two
baguettes in his arms that, end-to-end, would have stood as tall as he. <br />
"Salut," he shouted, all wise ass attention seeking.<br />
"Salut," I mumbled.<br />
"Ca va?"<br />
"Ouais," I said, passing him by and hearing he and his friend chatter
to fill in our abbreviated conversation.<br />
Both of these elements - physical preparation and French charm - factored into
my decision to bike the first 30 KM instead of takin the train from Luxembourg,
but the main reason I made it harder on myself?<br />
It was 20 euros cheaper. Duh.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
My fear actualizes itself at the train station. As is often the case, its
embodiment takes the form of a grouchy Frenchman.<br />
"Bonjour," I say in intermediate French. "I'd like to add a
place for my bike on the train."<br />
"<i>Mais non</i>, you can't do that. You have to book the bike space when
you buy the ticket."<br />
"But I emailed someone from SNCF (the train company) and they told me I
could."<br />
"But that's not possible. <i>Non</i>."<br />
"What would you advise me to do?" I practically cry.<br />
"You can't do this."<br />
A long line has formed behind me and I recognize a man who will not be swayed.
Three hours into the trip, and already my first battle. I step away and
regroup.<br />
<br />
In the waiting hall I sit down on a bench. Across from me, a man with a pocked
face sleeps, his head drooping nearly to his crotch. A nicer-looking woman
seated the bench behind him eyes me suspiciously.<br />
<br />
I eat my sandwich and consult my guide. Indeed, it states that a bike place
must be reserved when buying a ticket for the TGV and other big trains, and
cannot be so reserved online. Did I misunderstand the email then? What am I to
do?<br />
<br />
The train leaves at 19:30, in 15 minutes. I go outside. I will attack my usual
way: directly. I will just try to get on the train, let the chips fall where
they may. If necessary, the "I'm a foreigner" ignorance card sits in
my back pocket, but I hate playing the dumb American.<br />
<br />
Around me, the sleeping neighbor ambles, clearly still half-awake. A conductor
approaches me, a station worker in tow. They don't want me to park my bike on
the stair rails.<br />
"I'm taking the bike," I say.<br />
"You can just put it over there," the conductor says, indicating.<br />
"But I'm taking it to Paris with me," I say unsubtly.<br />
"You can take it up the ass, just don't leave it here."<br />
"Oh, ok, gotcha. That'll be the last time."<br />
<br />
I smile and he smiles and I walk to the platform (did I mention my French is
intermediate? I might not have got all of that right). The train conductor was
decent to me. Train conductors are good, salt of the earth people. Not like
Monsieur Asshole inside.<br />
<br />
Still, I wait at the platform unsure. The sleeper floats by, makes a remark
about my bike, and I smile. I sit and wait. People fill the platform, and I
wonder how full this train might get. Can I fold my bike? I begin to unscrew
the central bolt and choke on the rust that floats up. Better not try it.<br />
The train arrives. I linger, not seeing the car with the bike stencil on it. Do
I look for that on the car my ticket is for? Why didn't I buy insurance for my
ticket? Should I just ditch the bike and make this a train tour? A walking on
my hands tour? A Russian Dance tour?<br />
A conductor approaches. "What car are you?"<br />
"13."<br />
"Did you reserve a place for your bike?" <br />
I turn to direct defense. "What I did is email someone who said..."<br />
"Got it," he interrupts. "We'll deal with it on the train. Go to
the last car, #11."<br />
"And hurry," says the conductor who talked to me earlier.<br />
I rush to that ultimate 11 car, not clear how this will turn out. Well, I'm on
the train, at least.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br />
On the car waiting for me was Mr. Sleeper. I sat, he sat. I moved my bike so he
could lay on the four adjacent seats. He ranted about something in a mumbling,
indecipherable French, gesturing with his hand on forearm to show how they done
him wrong too. He had neither all of his teeth nor, I suspect, all his marbles.
I think he was trying to sneak on the train until Paris, or at least Champagne
- he waited in the bathroom while the train stopped at Metz and then went down
the train when he saw our car filled up.<br />
<br />
I shuffled about guiltily and awkwardly among the other passengers, not yet
changed out of my bike clothes, worried about taking someone's seat or
otherwise encumbering on their voyage. My fate was still partly unknown no
less. I moved to the row of seats aside my bike. I wrote, and waited. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br />
At last, the conductor came. He punched everybody else's ticket in the car -
there were about 8 in the 12 allotted seats. He turned to me, scanned my
ticket. He said, "So, adding a bicycle, are we?" "Yes," I
squeaked. He punched keys on his scanner, waited, frowned, and then showed the
screen to me. 20 euros. <br />
Relieved, I gladly paid, even though a bike pre-reserved is supposed to cost 10
euros to add. I asked him if this was the best way to go about things.<br />
"Uh no." <br />
Well then. We chatted on the topic a bit, and then he moved on. I sat
patiently, wondering what price I'd have to pay to get out of doing the same
thing twice the next day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br />
One of the reasons for my trip is to speak French, to confirm my year of
studying the language. Another is to test myself alone again, to discover what <i>I
</i>want to do when I'm alone, and to try new things. So far, so ok.<br />
<br />
I got off the train in Paris at 21:30. The train conductor said goodbye. The
fear was mostly forgotten. And so I was off.</div>
</div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-75871064149386589672012-07-25T16:20:00.000-04:002012-07-25T16:20:43.352-04:00The Red Bike Rides: Vive La Voie de La Liberté!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>This is the second in a series of at least three posts about bike rides I've taken this summer. The first was <a href="http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2012/07/red-bike-rides-length-of-luxembourg.html">here</a>, with a bit more explanation.</i></span> </div>
<br />
07/July/2012<br />
<br />
As mentioned previously, Luxembourg is small. The city boasts about 90-100K residents, which almost puts it on par with Alphabet City in New York. On weekends, when all the commuters from France, Belgium, and Germany stay home, it can feel even lonelier.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, there are other places to visit a short train ride away. 20 minutes to the West, just past the IKEA on the Belgium side of the border, is Arlon, an old Roman outpost that recently hosted a high-quality <a href="http://www.aralunaires.be/">music series</a>. 45 minutes in the opposite direction, one crosses the Moselle River and reaches Trier, the oldest city in Germany and home of Karl Marx. There's no real city closer than two hours away in the north (see the first article in this series). But in the south, it takes 45 minutes to reach Metz, the closest French city to us.<br />
<br />
Naturally, if it takes 45 minutes to bike to Metz it can't take much longer to bike there. A couple of Saturdays ago, I tested out that axiom. The 60 Kms took me just over 4 hours and yielded the following photos and feelings:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Luxembourg,+Luxembourg&daddr=Metz,+France&hl=en&geocode=FWUD9QId35BdAClXLPOdzUiVRzEQbQXR1tEABA%3BFbKB7QIdiUBeACmptnRgG9yURzFpprs1tuRrWQ&aq=&sll=49.601755,6.140585&sspn=0.032375,0.084543&dirflg=w&mra=ltm&ie=UTF8&ll=49.365495,6.163705&spn=0.49243,0.06293&t=m&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=embed&saddr=Luxembourg,+Luxembourg&daddr=Metz,+France&hl=en&geocode=FWUD9QId35BdAClXLPOdzUiVRzEQbQXR1tEABA%3BFbKB7QIdiUBeACmptnRgG9yURzFpprs1tuRrWQ&aq=&sll=49.601755,6.140585&sspn=0.032375,0.084543&dirflg=w&mra=ltm&ie=UTF8&ll=49.365495,6.163705&spn=0.49243,0.06293&t=m" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWVHhfRyPp8j5f6qTqoEJhvQo3XhnUbpLMiROTgkXqiS-dAvQCUKDJ-LAhZO8jdm2cYCDgjgm7FmV__pEuzZRcHp9zrVqPPnB-EdwGK-YzhJzHTr5TbnNofH6zTPHNpWAAkxLJ/s1600/Border+Crossing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWVHhfRyPp8j5f6qTqoEJhvQo3XhnUbpLMiROTgkXqiS-dAvQCUKDJ-LAhZO8jdm2cYCDgjgm7FmV__pEuzZRcHp9zrVqPPnB-EdwGK-YzhJzHTr5TbnNofH6zTPHNpWAAkxLJ/s320/Border+Crossing.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Border Flag. Fairly Straightforward.</i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></td></tr>
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It took me about an hour to get out of the city and then the country. I took a highway that was also named Route de Thionville. Thionville is the town that marks the halfway point between Luxembourg and Metz.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijCNjI-OVCc35vKnGfD3rwsxkBXdBNH9GHO3ve0dANz7PxfbW3ue5NMWa09Cc7Zzc0vO8mTAtmerHRfiPbAcTRNnEyYgAjXnq5uDYQQr7uMyVN6tiayR87o8p6ue62ZHcbSKCa/s1600/Nuclear+Smokestacks+Faraway.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijCNjI-OVCc35vKnGfD3rwsxkBXdBNH9GHO3ve0dANz7PxfbW3ue5NMWa09Cc7Zzc0vO8mTAtmerHRfiPbAcTRNnEyYgAjXnq5uDYQQr7uMyVN6tiayR87o8p6ue62ZHcbSKCa/s320/Nuclear+Smokestacks+Faraway.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Look just to the left of the leaping deer sign for the smokestacks.</i></td></tr>
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When biking in the south of Luxembourg, I've noticed a nuclear plant on the far end of the horizon. Four smokestacks rise to the sky in hollowed out, hourglass fashion, defying the onlooker to ignore it. It turns out this is the <a href="http://www.republicain-lorrain.fr/fil-info/2012/06/27/accident-nucleaire-fictif-a-cattenom-la-grande-region-teste-ses-mesures-d-urgence">Cattenom plant</a>, which is either the 7th or 8th largest nuclear plant in the world by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattenom_Nuclear_Power_Plant">power produced</a>. The last time Amy and I visited Metz together in the spring, we stumbled upon a protest against nuclear power that most directly targeted the plant in question. In any case, the smokestacks' presence are largely inescapable when traveling through the surrounding, largely flat countryside.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqjvX3cTyileHPD2qZYdo0W2PF5Ct9yn054en61-zpWjGUqzWJMOkUiTK6ILEs3l8A6IL_nqZUgaWN0u4uAiaz3HDfL2F03EfCpNjeek_SOr2bIjRjAoakHn5OwG7I3_cKmaTl/s1600/French+Countryside.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqjvX3cTyileHPD2qZYdo0W2PF5Ct9yn054en61-zpWjGUqzWJMOkUiTK6ILEs3l8A6IL_nqZUgaWN0u4uAiaz3HDfL2F03EfCpNjeek_SOr2bIjRjAoakHn5OwG7I3_cKmaTl/s320/French+Countryside.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>An idyllic dip in said countryside.</i></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY1SPmsdcZRRhXEXo8ODAb8YY7ObsJbMOKu-aDYRaJq6fdV3Vv_Sq1t_s-VpsFtl0qH5fUBP6PyclqWXKusp754-A96pRNELVA5qgCldW_ZMU5a9KttBveS4_8UsoMBEmuRRTr/s1600/Voie+De+La+Liberte.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY1SPmsdcZRRhXEXo8ODAb8YY7ObsJbMOKu-aDYRaJq6fdV3Vv_Sq1t_s-VpsFtl0qH5fUBP6PyclqWXKusp754-A96pRNELVA5qgCldW_ZMU5a9KttBveS4_8UsoMBEmuRRTr/s400/Voie+De+La+Liberte.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
History, recent and ancient, is everywhere in Europe. Posts like the one pictured above lined the whole route from Luxembourg to Thionville, and probably continued along the road to Metz. The blue plaques back the words "Voie de La Liberté." This was the road the American army took in the fall of 1944 to liberate Northeast France and subsequently Luxembourg.<br />
It's a small thing, the commemoration of this feat, but I still enjoyed taking the road in the opposite direction.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7_YFbvrEzmSwfpWS11eBKTndllEN1iUdEuXAX_IXEWvO5-VhHWGGj96Jv4lrKicy_qxKuLR08RXlCVSY0ttEVQOWeFAc_0JgLDtO69-mVIvDFpnT0nhHRqrwLNbZFegPF5M2s/s1600/Moselle+in+Thionville.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7_YFbvrEzmSwfpWS11eBKTndllEN1iUdEuXAX_IXEWvO5-VhHWGGj96Jv4lrKicy_qxKuLR08RXlCVSY0ttEVQOWeFAc_0JgLDtO69-mVIvDFpnT0nhHRqrwLNbZFegPF5M2s/s320/Moselle+in+Thionville.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Thionville is situated on the Moselle. The Moselle is a helluva river for our area: starting in the Vosges mountain range in France, it winds through Metz, Thionville, and up to form the border between Luxembourg and Germany, before breaking off towards Trier and eventually feeding into the Rhine at Koblenz. Its namesake valleys in Luxembourg and Germany are famous for <i>cremant</i> (sparkling wine ala champagne, and just as good) and white wine, respectively. We took a river cruise along the German border with friends one day this spring, and I wondered about the history of the river, and if anybody fled across the river by cover of night to escape Germany in, say 1938. Above, in Thionville, I'm wondering if there's anywhere along the river bank where I can pee without getting arrested.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-cskD85faNl2MrC6EClBHsAtgTIfs15ansVJxUwO8o5eSEhsa2-a-QC_tUhSUgkK8L0jQwPG5XStpBg-3kY5Lw1m8xIk3Gs87QQHyR10cUnuT2WJkX4bW71jMwwpOA9Ias5XP/s1600/River+Boats.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-cskD85faNl2MrC6EClBHsAtgTIfs15ansVJxUwO8o5eSEhsa2-a-QC_tUhSUgkK8L0jQwPG5XStpBg-3kY5Lw1m8xIk3Gs87QQHyR10cUnuT2WJkX4bW71jMwwpOA9Ias5XP/s320/River+Boats.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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My route took a fortuitous turn at this point. Not only did I find a reasonably tree-filled area where I could relieve myself: the road also became a bike-only path along the Moselle for the next 20 kilometers. Riding along the quiet river with only a few people passing me and the verdant waterfront to guide me, I felt a fleeting, powerful on rush of joy. For about an hour along the river, I sang, I cried, "<i>Vive le vélo rouge! Vive la voie de la liberté!" </i>I thought about things to write, I thought about life, I thought about nothing.<br />
<br />
The thought process was especially liberating and meditative. When doing something meant to be meditative, like yoga or, well, meditation, I find my challenge is to harness my mind, to focus it on nothing or else on the task at hand. To reign in the "monkey mind". Usually, I fail at this on any objective scale, which is partly why I do yoga less than I should and meditate not at all. But when riding, when I have nobody to answer to and nothing to achieve, when I am exercising my physical energy and giving my testosterone and all the rest of it an outlet, I find my mind soaring, unshackled and unconcerned. On this day, with the weather a perfect sunny 70 degrees, riding along the river in a foreign country, thinking to myself in the language of the country (on about a 3rd grade level, but still), alone and free to strike out on my own path, I remembered my blessings, one mumbled French phrase at a time.<br />
<br />
(And anybody knows how liberating it is to relieve an overstretched bladder on top of anything else).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJaXDfJu2GKupJS6JRf3OgsIbrq8RjCSCXy9OZtXOv_WhDPRdum-tTQH4v64GULZpLjGg3MSem5zkwNf8JvdS43Mc6ElYOER2D8_bioeMw29uo19jojfwK83K7HHY-ZjgLHRnC/s1600/Spinny+Pillars.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJaXDfJu2GKupJS6JRf3OgsIbrq8RjCSCXy9OZtXOv_WhDPRdum-tTQH4v64GULZpLjGg3MSem5zkwNf8JvdS43Mc6ElYOER2D8_bioeMw29uo19jojfwK83K7HHY-ZjgLHRnC/s400/Spinny+Pillars.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>That pillar on the left with the circle and cross was some sort of strange windmill. One cannot capture its motion on a still-motion camera. Helas.</i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4CPkKDIanhfgZ0UWOZylHRu6Y8bAWflPKpVH_wbhnhVCD8iLZmCHiGHvgRVfGpYfIE7qCjy_giedACYdIzTP_84c-ehJcjyqQKR-1nIuUCeqBzqppKl6Zp7c7cbT7R-FHa5b5/s1600/Falling+Down+Sign.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4CPkKDIanhfgZ0UWOZylHRu6Y8bAWflPKpVH_wbhnhVCD8iLZmCHiGHvgRVfGpYfIE7qCjy_giedACYdIzTP_84c-ehJcjyqQKR-1nIuUCeqBzqppKl6Zp7c7cbT7R-FHa5b5/s320/Falling+Down+Sign.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Europe, or at least the corner I'm in, may be more progressive about bike paths, but that doesn't always mean they maintain them well. A crisis, indeed.</i></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOR_CUrP_W1eAhhNI1bF0kNIxzo3JozDK1w4HGjNXN_fvHbJQSYNMmHWrR4e3mD68JJFfV7fiDpCRNSB3GFcSnjspTSLs2Thyo6azISBGjZnt2gMTuTVTLjdf7qvsZLJECafn6/s1600/Traffic+and+Cows.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOR_CUrP_W1eAhhNI1bF0kNIxzo3JozDK1w4HGjNXN_fvHbJQSYNMmHWrR4e3mD68JJFfV7fiDpCRNSB3GFcSnjspTSLs2Thyo6azISBGjZnt2gMTuTVTLjdf7qvsZLJECafn6/s400/Traffic+and+Cows.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Not sure how clear it is, but two of my favorite things about biking in Europe are represented here. To the left: cows. To the center/right: slow-moving traffic, on a Saturday no less.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOcgwuNJf_l3CX_Ex_XML59dQPMys85UUcPLLJJ_m9sa71YhJRfSZW3VvyoqBHJpEiyrf33BETu-eT0r8xmebTO-IKdKn5ZKC4d_NNlLmjdIpPhVYh01Mjo-mOUmGB-QVx58p-/s1600/A+Day+Late.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOcgwuNJf_l3CX_Ex_XML59dQPMys85UUcPLLJJ_m9sa71YhJRfSZW3VvyoqBHJpEiyrf33BETu-eT0r8xmebTO-IKdKn5ZKC4d_NNlLmjdIpPhVYh01Mjo-mOUmGB-QVx58p-/s400/A+Day+Late.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A day late, half a meter short.</i></td></tr>
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As you might be able to read from that picture, the <i>Tour de France</i> beat me into town by a day. I actually had planned to bike to Metz the day before, but the rainy start to the day and my own laziness led me to postpone the trip for the day. While it would have been cool and of the moment to get to Metz for the Tour, it was probably for the best that I waited a day. Wouldn't want to show up those bikers in their tight clothing by making it clear that one can bike well with a loose t-shirt and shorts on. Not that I bike well.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXps5lANAZqlPvYb0J3Eyl6fHdWO-KoMlKM4_X2njIsWL5W87_7FVDODHRWoSyvJaIMNM5HupABladyBfNhRbHQ_bIQpTSWPOy018JX24Zt_aUrOCgY9fsenSvWbIm_iFfJa0/s1600/Profondite.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXps5lANAZqlPvYb0J3Eyl6fHdWO-KoMlKM4_X2njIsWL5W87_7FVDODHRWoSyvJaIMNM5HupABladyBfNhRbHQ_bIQpTSWPOy018JX24Zt_aUrOCgY9fsenSvWbIm_iFfJa0/s400/Profondite.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I'm not sure the installer of this sign realized its profundity: "You do not have the priority."</i></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKqrZ9vC4VdB9bcvwQKHPmhMMykrl_mJEhMHW2Jkw_eM1DXza_Jono2oJMQ5pDoXGGGs7R-epqpRieePnZ18OOSO_UuIG5bp38AlfFPMrPvrS1L0n8thxR9tyz8mUg8Mp6_AZm/s1600/Metz+Cathedral+less+Far.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKqrZ9vC4VdB9bcvwQKHPmhMMykrl_mJEhMHW2Jkw_eM1DXza_Jono2oJMQ5pDoXGGGs7R-epqpRieePnZ18OOSO_UuIG5bp38AlfFPMrPvrS1L0n8thxR9tyz8mUg8Mp6_AZm/s400/Metz+Cathedral+less+Far.JPG" width="300" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6kpCpN6JOivPV7p-qPFww4GmXqfRmWj3hpFjOP8svBO48kKjObGHNv-8R8pE5EKQlvV0Zd97N3x6lwpnWdy_Wpgv-lJ7KuXVM5GULK2MQqL6R6nzmkGh0vJbEfNfwqQjxuuBT/s1600/Thionville+Center.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div>
Metz is known for a few things. First, its name sounds German, and it was part of the Alsace-Lorraine region occupied by the Germans after the war in 1871, a wound that stuck in France's national consciousness the way, say, we shout "Remember the Alamo!" (Never mind that we won that war and never concede territory, for a second). The city also is home to the poet Paul Verlaine, a giant of 19th century French poetry. It hosts the first extension of the Centre Pompidou in a building that looks like a cross between an obese circus tent and a misshapen spaceship. Lastly, there is a huge cathedral there, replete with Chagall stained glass windows and Gothic grandeur. You can vaguely see the cathedral in the background here. Not my best photo.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4GRV0YtMep-HSXhg7f0wzvK15dVURTmhvT_zLvnrYvu0AQX1D7M8EkN8SCuknrhDw24Y_37FX6hoRc4eaK34O3KpF10Y5aSY5K16xvqn_k19QeUbTJnIXOEKuWp2NE1ngXveT/s1600/Metz+Gare.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4GRV0YtMep-HSXhg7f0wzvK15dVURTmhvT_zLvnrYvu0AQX1D7M8EkN8SCuknrhDw24Y_37FX6hoRc4eaK34O3KpF10Y5aSY5K16xvqn_k19QeUbTJnIXOEKuWp2NE1ngXveT/s320/Metz+Gare.JPG" width="240" /></a><br />
Lastly, the Metz train station. By this point, weary from weaving through the suburbs and the northern part of the city, and anxious about the 40 or so euros I spent on DVDs and a French book about being <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Je-suis-ronde-jaime-%C3%A7a/dp/2351640241/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343247044&sr=8-1&keywords=je+suis+ronde+et+j%27aime+ca">fat and loving it</a>, I felt drained of the earlier euphoria. In its place came the more lasting but more tenuous feeling of achievement.<br />
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What had I achieved? Nothing, really. Just a 4+ hour bike ride across a border and into France, a few transactions successfully managed in French, and a mild pain below my neck from wearing my backpack all day, including my computer to test out the weight.<br />
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Achievement is a funny thing. Take a big enough perspective, and all achievement is kind of silly. Take a small enough perspective, and the simplest task becomes a triumph over the gods. But the body, freed from thought and consciousness, knows when it has worked, and knows the feeling of satisfaction that accompanies fatigue. Whether or not that work and effort went to any end is up for the mind to waffle on.<br />
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Thinking back then, on the train, and now, a couple weeks later, I think of that hour along the river. Achieving that feeling is enough to keep going. On the bike or otherwise.<br />
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<i>Vive le vélo rouge! Vive la voie de la liberté!</i><br />
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(Ok, I'll stop now.)<i> </i><br />
</div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-50369141109835721162012-07-09T15:09:00.000-04:002012-07-25T16:21:15.047-04:00The Red Bike Rides: The Length of Luxembourg<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Perhaps inspired by <a href="http://divideby1.blogspot.com/">these</a> <a href="http://www.spokecount.com/">people</a>, and maybe also by living in a country where the only famous athletes are <a href="http://www.schleckfans.com/">cyclists</a>, or possibly just because there are an abundance of <a href="http://www.pch.public.lu/reseau_routier/pistes_cyclables/index.html">well-signed paths</a> that show off the natural beauty of the country, making this one of the best areas in the world to trail cycle (I imagine), I've done a lot of bike riding in the year since coming to Luxembourg. While riding on one of my day trips this week, I decided it might be fun to run some photo essays of the trips, possibly inspired by some of the sources above but also this <a href="http://places.designobserver.com/feature/tourist-snapshots/33668/">essay </a>. In any case, I hope whoever reads this enjoys it. </i></span></div>
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04/July/2012<br />
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Luxembourg is small. <br />
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I used that lead once in an article about Israel, but Luxembourg makes Israel look gigantic. Israel's got a big old desert for a gut, and Luxembourg's slim, hourglass figure leaves Israel regretting every extra trip it took to the sand bar. Israel is 8x larger than Luxembourg, a veritable Goliath to the puny European David (and no, that does not include the occupied territories).<br />
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Then again, Luxembourg leaves Rhode Island wondering if it should renew its gym membership (you're looking a little boxy, RI). <br />
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Anybody who can positively identify Luxembourg's status - not just a city-state, not a random town in Germany, but an independent country - knows it's small. The implications of its size are what's interesting. In this case, the implication that a reasonably fit person can cross the country the long way in less than a day.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Rue+de+la+Gare%2FN827&daddr=49.8690295,6.136181+to:49.85111,6.12628+to:Viaduc%2FN50&hl=ru&geocode=FYbY_QIdyNdaAA%3BFeXw-AIddaFdACmldDsZ5P2_RzGQpcyv1tEAEw%3BFeaq-AIdyHpdACmxpvMpAVaVRzHg97mDC2WVPg%3BFaLo9AIdGpddAA&sll=49.871019,6.130028&sspn=0.032306,0.084543&dirflg=w&mra=dpe&mrsp=1&sz=14&via=1,2&ie=UTF8&ll=49.871019,6.130028&spn=0.032306,0.084543&t=m&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=embed&saddr=Rue+de+la+Gare%2FN827&daddr=49.8690295,6.136181+to:49.85111,6.12628+to:Viaduc%2FN50&hl=ru&geocode=FYbY_QIdyNdaAA%3BFeXw-AIddaFdACmldDsZ5P2_RzGQpcyv1tEAEw%3BFeaq-AIdyHpdACmxpvMpAVaVRzHg97mDC2WVPg%3BFaLo9AIdGpddAA&sll=49.871019,6.130028&sspn=0.032306,0.084543&dirflg=w&mra=dpe&mrsp=1&sz=14&via=1,2&ie=UTF8&ll=49.871019,6.130028&spn=0.032306,0.084543&t=m" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">The Rough Outline of my trip (click to enlarge)</a></small><br />
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Last Wednesday, I took the train up to Belgium. There are two ways to take the train to Belgium from Luxembourg-Ville. The fast way is to go to Arlon on the way to Brussels, a 35 km ride that takes 20 minutes. The longer way is to go up to Gouvy, just across the northern border of Luxembourg. That train continues to Liege, and from there one can presumably head off to either Northwest Germany or Amsterdam. I took my red hybrid bike on the train, bought a ticket good up until the Luxembourg border, stayed on for one more stop, and got out an hour later in Belgium.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR53hwoQC4cmO_jBHBr7S9-lv7noEFNyODxi7CCuO4eY4OmhtnMN18kEAjXzRbkN90jYk9e-nQ6E536rfQVW4LWkev9w9vP47vDwLcX8_1d-X8qt_j2HstU_nyBeWPcdYCQwxF/s320/Gouvy+Train+Station.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The humble Gouvy train station.</i></td></tr>
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Gouvy is, as best as I could tell, a small town. Once, trains from several different routes ran through the town. Now, there's only the one between Luxembourg and Liege. Liege, for that matter, had the first international <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%C3%A8ge-Guillemins_railway_station">train station</a> in the world, and now boasts a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/16/liege-guillemins-train-station">modern marvel</a> or monstrosity, depending on your point of view.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnNKKTKVrQRq9RtWQkmsDrwrHghg7Nh7MbM4B1Qg_4RzoP90ijRGP9vN4bNeJpusTVkhEXLohA-kPJxfv5lDLfaJMnrJvmx6-iF0wTwM_Gz5PnEoOeLhV341cyUCZ-ps1mRtmu/s1600/Cafe+du+Luxembourg+in+Gouvy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnNKKTKVrQRq9RtWQkmsDrwrHghg7Nh7MbM4B1Qg_4RzoP90ijRGP9vN4bNeJpusTVkhEXLohA-kPJxfv5lDLfaJMnrJvmx6-iF0wTwM_Gz5PnEoOeLhV341cyUCZ-ps1mRtmu/s320/Cafe+du+Luxembourg+in+Gouvy.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>That is the Cafe du Luxembourg over the bike's front wheel. Gouvy boasting its cosmopolitan flair.</i></td></tr>
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I bought a few candy bars at the grocery store kitty corner to the train station and took off for the border. It's only a 6km ride or so to Luxembourg. There is little to mark the border: a gas station, mentioning its border status, a few road signs to let visitors know the changing rules, and a slight change in language, as the Luxembourg stores flash a bit of German or Luxembourgish in their signage. The humblest border I've seen was on a ride from Luxembourg to Arlon; I went on a rural road, and all that changed besides the signs were the color of the pavement, which grew lighter, and the quality of the housing, which grew poorer as I entered Belgium.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqNCWT3C5gyZMg_rvKsGftiQ4J93JDmATNnEZSnqexUKO4UOkBe9xS8sqAjudmKx6K2I0TZ8bYeAH7_2Tti97bCyWMHjuMtNsjXGfgPfeIxsYjgnYI4XddVSAK1dEd6nVAqY2/s1600/Friterie+past+the+Border.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqNCWT3C5gyZMg_rvKsGftiQ4J93JDmATNnEZSnqexUKO4UOkBe9xS8sqAjudmKx6K2I0TZ8bYeAH7_2Tti97bCyWMHjuMtNsjXGfgPfeIxsYjgnYI4XddVSAK1dEd6nVAqY2/s320/Friterie+past+the+Border.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Friteries are uncommon in Luxembourg, so this is a border hangover to welcome those funky Belgians.</i></td>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqCoipz2mMvsqfStrlmO_Vj3dFHab7iqYojtVoWCaFjqh9OJRwVyWUS0tyw3q3ZOn0vUZDKRCwgvDt3z2XQjIG3GM8nT9YEZLwxHtBfWudW9rzPb54YIl1ff95tIV20CBZpwTH/s1600/Customs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqCoipz2mMvsqfStrlmO_Vj3dFHab7iqYojtVoWCaFjqh9OJRwVyWUS0tyw3q3ZOn0vUZDKRCwgvDt3z2XQjIG3GM8nT9YEZLwxHtBfWudW9rzPb54YIl1ff95tIV20CBZpwTH/s400/Customs.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>To get by Customs, one only needs to offer the officers some grass.</i></td></tr>
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The northern half of Luxembourg is less populated and less cultivated. Luxembourg has a reputation, being lumped in with Belgium and Netherlands as BeneLux or the low countries, of being flat, but it's not really. The Ardennes mountain range run through this part of the country, and though it's really more like a series of hills, it still offers challenges. A few weeks ago I blundered through some especially difficult riding on the west side of the country. Fortunately, hidden all the way on the eastern spine, I didn't have major trouble biking down the country.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-NabvvXltRUf0JpbeZqhs5q0NZvmVQbzlDP8t3sR481-aRkR_1LST9Vnyhs-9N34gyvvnh2T4UPmHbK-Ul-Pe4NxpgnTJKBLyMjd_gmCY1A1lgNucVaOv3qfr4CCJXVvvGEYE/s1600/Fly+Filled+Arm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-NabvvXltRUf0JpbeZqhs5q0NZvmVQbzlDP8t3sR481-aRkR_1LST9Vnyhs-9N34gyvvnh2T4UPmHbK-Ul-Pe4NxpgnTJKBLyMjd_gmCY1A1lgNucVaOv3qfr4CCJXVvvGEYE/s400/Fly+Filled+Arm.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A detour through a wheat field left me with flies in my eyes and mouth, and on my arm.</i></td></tr>
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I've noticed while biking around Luxembourg the preponderance of bugs. In general, it's not so buggy here: in our apartment on these summer nights with the balcony door open, a few moths will come in, the occasional mosquito, and, if one leaves the door unattended in the morning, a bird. But bugs aren't a huge problem.
Except when biking, where midges and little gnats seem to drop from the air like, well, flies. I've swallowed at least two flies who unwittingly headed straight for my throat, and two or three other ones at least bounced off my craggy teeth. Considering my main form of entertainment while riding, besides looking at farm animals, is singing songs to myself - songs I've written, songs I'm writing, or songs I just made up involving rude drivers or what not - it becomes quite an occupational hazard.<br />
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<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtvQ2rvbtd7cVXSvuHV4JqcbW6Liye7A3duOE4G8lNxkmQSO3zGa7ed96_GJUNWmiAs5GQR9MwhJXIeUnVakBJ0aYOHOPoVZ42IWe-CyZCC7ZHPXXrasEe3lO9baBJ-6-FjRk/s1600/Memorial+in+North.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtvQ2rvbtd7cVXSvuHV4JqcbW6Liye7A3duOE4G8lNxkmQSO3zGa7ed96_GJUNWmiAs5GQR9MwhJXIeUnVakBJ0aYOHOPoVZ42IWe-CyZCC7ZHPXXrasEe3lO9baBJ-6-FjRk/s400/Memorial+in+North.JPG" width="400" /></a></i></div>
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One cool thing about riding in these parts is the recent history you come across. I imagine if anybody's eyes perked up when they read "the Ardennes" above, it had to do with history calling. The northern half of Luxembourg, as well as a contiguous section of Belgium, saw the last German thrust in World War II in what became known as the "<a href="http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_CONT.HTM">Battle of the Bulge</a>". The German attack caught the Allies off guard, creating a bulge in their lines. Regrouped, the Allies beat back the Germans, and the rest of the Western war was fought on German territory.
At least as far as monuments go, Luxembourg (and the bordering regions of France and Belgium, at least), remain grateful for the American-led efforts to liberate the country. This small monument is one of many that dot the country.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIu1z-WBndWQpcPsOqNCr_jGTM9An5aku6j4nwyy-V3evVNsBBUZNCdlfTCM00bkjM0LJtPmfUMvae9lAhVZybtxTYejKei7lvD9a_wAjFKvIlSIoObpyUCDEbC0cV5XRdhup/s1600/Tank+and+Flag.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIu1z-WBndWQpcPsOqNCr_jGTM9An5aku6j4nwyy-V3evVNsBBUZNCdlfTCM00bkjM0LJtPmfUMvae9lAhVZybtxTYejKei7lvD9a_wAjFKvIlSIoObpyUCDEbC0cV5XRdhup/s320/Tank+and+Flag.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The American most loved by the memorializing Luxembourgers is General Patton. The leader of the 3rd army died, ironically (or <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3869117/General-George-S.-Patton-was-assassinated-to-silence-his-criticism-of-allied-war-leaders-claims-new-book.html">controversially</a>), in the aftermath of a car accident suffered in Germany six months after the war in Europe ended. Per his request to be buried with his men, Patton's body lies about 10 km from where I type this, in the Luxembourg-American cemetery in Hamm. The photo above comes from a memorial to Patton outside the Patton museum in Ettelbruck, the biggest city in the center of Luxembourg (all of 7,600 residents). I somehow lost the photo of my bike beneath a statue of Patton, the General in his army uniform with binoculars in his hands, poised to look across the dangerous Luxembourg countryside.<br />
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It was mild coincidence that I happened across these memorials on the 4th of July. I had intended to go for a bike ride and knew it was the 4th, but didn't plan on seeing any memorials. It made for a nice connection though: on Thanksgiving last year, Ben and I visited the cemetery in Hamm on bikes. So I believe I've been as patriotic as one can be for not being in the country on the holidays in question and not spending much time with other Americans.<br />
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<i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ky44FCdGfZKPwmEzZhN_zJD9LGFa8ZtsJ_t2X6KMBOhemVZCdRmYohKGqSFmSEatm9LpPkeZq7CDbTFUH73_807VL3UmpnLN-533UCWrPEFYLkGJax7YOFoGy-j_WBYZBI_-/s1600/Sitting+Down+By+the+Riverside.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ky44FCdGfZKPwmEzZhN_zJD9LGFa8ZtsJ_t2X6KMBOhemVZCdRmYohKGqSFmSEatm9LpPkeZq7CDbTFUH73_807VL3UmpnLN-533UCWrPEFYLkGJax7YOFoGy-j_WBYZBI_-/s320/Sitting+Down+By+the+Riverside.JPG" width="320" /></a></i></div>
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This bike ride, almost the entire length of the country, was about 85km (roughly 50 miles). The big mental challenge for me was to make it to Ettelbruck, whence I had ridden from/to several times. Ettelbruck is a good center of the country location, and there's a very nice trail along the Alzette river that runs as meekly as the water below. So, satisfied with myself, I took my last photo for the day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8MQCcRkCD-bWfDFv9g5ZZ9XOp81ZZru_giFNpLJPSfxbO6OSnlxaNLlt4NzrnJIzmLR6o5exn7rA5LSg13bFYxCfe3fQj6Eb9PNqAXoY32es0DYl1ik6nIn7FIjpJHjK5arN8/s1600/Pinda+Saus+Shirt.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8MQCcRkCD-bWfDFv9g5ZZ9XOp81ZZru_giFNpLJPSfxbO6OSnlxaNLlt4NzrnJIzmLR6o5exn7rA5LSg13bFYxCfe3fQj6Eb9PNqAXoY32es0DYl1ik6nIn7FIjpJHjK5arN8/s320/Pinda+Saus+Shirt.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Me at the border at the beginning of the day. Already sweating. Maybe for the fries.</i></td></tr>
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<br /></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-9475156937285748812012-03-01T17:13:00.000-05:002012-03-01T17:54:03.868-05:00A Return to Spanish Time: Canary Islands Tour Diary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>A Return to Spanish Time</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjq9Z1Mb6iVNyTvhYTbieNnCuZAaKn6oQwCWNvvq2T6Rbj3ucRnDyxK5C-1Pp3-yiiRZxu5uV-reLo3u_4O5R2XOr5ruzQ8aUa-J5zJTI1RMWvs0zHW9eJkgYBhklwqKQwPPJN/s1600/Semi+Carnival.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjq9Z1Mb6iVNyTvhYTbieNnCuZAaKn6oQwCWNvvq2T6Rbj3ucRnDyxK5C-1Pp3-yiiRZxu5uV-reLo3u_4O5R2XOr5ruzQ8aUa-J5zJTI1RMWvs0zHW9eJkgYBhklwqKQwPPJN/s400/Semi+Carnival.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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Though we sit just north in the
tropics, it is not a very warm evening. Much warmer than where we came from,
but brisk nevertheless. I tug my blazer tighter over my shoulders and bring my
tea cup to my lips. Amy bears up under the cold relatively well, however. She
hates cold, which is why we’re here. We flew to Gran Canaria to escape
February’s dregs. An upgrade from daytime freezing to evening briskness makes
the briskness that much more bearable.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In the air another attraction floats
upon the breeze. The vacation we’re taking commemorates Carnival. Carnival
marks, hypothetically, the last gasp of hedonism before Lent and the aesthetic
run-up to the Catholic Easter. The U.S.A. only finds Carnival in full form in
New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but across the Caribbean, South America, Europe,
and scads of other places, it offers parades, street parties, dancing, booze,
and purported joy. I have never been through a Carnival (skipping out on New
Orleans a couple weeks before Mardi Gras hit last year), but Amy has years of
experience from her time in South America. I feel like I’ve been through
several of them myself, having heard Amy’s stories and (sometimes fuzzy)
recollections many times over. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We sit at a café in Parque San
Telmo in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, and wait for the Carnival to roll in. My
cell phone reads 8:30. The Parade is due to make its final turn at our corner
at 8:30, finishing just below the second-floor balcony of our hotel room. When
we checked in earlier that day, our initially taciturn receptionist could
hardly contain his excitement over how perfect our spot was, looking over the
park and the grand finale. We feel contained excitement as we sit and wait for
our waiter to bring us the bill; I am the retiring, boring type and so don’t
imagine I’ll make it through much of a Carnival if it goes late, and Amy is
conditioned to believe that Brazil > everywhere else, especially regarding
Carnival, the country’s finest annual celebration. The parade is tardy; Spanish
time is usually an approximate thing, biased towards the later side of any announced
time. The parade’s tardiness doesn’t surprise us so much as reassure us, the
warm embrace of an old friend.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We walk out to the corner. The
sound of synchronized drums draws us closer. The crowd at the corner is
relatively insignificant, no more than one or two deep at any given point on
the road. The first group marches through, a group of drummers and instrumentalists,
almost like a group from your small-town Memorial Day Parade, except all
dressed in green. After them came a few more dancing Krewes (the New Orleans
term, meaning the dancing group that marches in the parade), a few tawdry
floats carrying the Queen, 1<sup>st</sup> through 4<sup>th</sup> Ladies, Grand
Dame, and Drag Queen of the Carnival, respectively, and then a couple
semi-trucks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxQtqYthdE8R9zUfrTAUvFI86vZcx_R89Lv50SaJAbmNv35MrubPM6cAbox8fTnTSnaJF-xAbT5f64HWJsBhSgLXh_4PbRRX1TJn4B5mdNZUDaSR4CkXNk7mlwqy5YxD71Wuu/s1600/Carnival+Street.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxQtqYthdE8R9zUfrTAUvFI86vZcx_R89Lv50SaJAbmNv35MrubPM6cAbox8fTnTSnaJF-xAbT5f64HWJsBhSgLXh_4PbRRX1TJn4B5mdNZUDaSR4CkXNk7mlwqy5YxD71Wuu/s320/Carnival+Street.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
At last Amy feels excitement, as
the trucks recall Brazil’s Carnival. The trucks are probably an evolution from
the floats and walking krewes of yesteryear Carnivals. They operate like
themed-party buses, everybody on board dressed in a matching costume – Flintstones,
Superheroes, Cats – while a DJ bumps the tunes to a thundering level. Everybody
on the truck is meant to be dancing and merrymaking, though most of the truck
people are drinking and yelling instead. </div>
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<br /></div>
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A few trucks pass and at 9:15 a
lull sets in. We decide we’ve seen enough. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We return to our room, still dressed but at
least freed of the burden of other people. I stand out on the balcony and watch
the crowd of people below. Earlier, there was a preponderance of Superman and
Wonderwoman outfits, mostly of skimpy nature, as well as a lot of men dolled up
in women’s costumes, also of a skimpy nature. Now, I cannot pick out any specific
dominant theme, mostly just stragglers from the krewes and trucks that have
already passed.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnhX7jegyXyCZjp4NqKH2sMyM_jXVW4WOCOw42e4kQ25VaOHpert6R06zjCj03w7USdbxmosSYvq9nJc_1X3-Hz1ptrXgiKdOmeys52DFnfv97ks8tn8_KKRkZaELqD-KMDhvV/s1600/Red+Cow+Truck.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnhX7jegyXyCZjp4NqKH2sMyM_jXVW4WOCOw42e4kQ25VaOHpert6R06zjCj03w7USdbxmosSYvq9nJc_1X3-Hz1ptrXgiKdOmeys52DFnfv97ks8tn8_KKRkZaELqD-KMDhvV/s320/Red+Cow+Truck.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
As we stand out on our balcony,
Spanish time reasserts itself with a vengeance. The parade hit a lull, a delay,
but resumes beneath our eyes. The semis roll one or two down our street at a
time. The truck turns the corner 200 meters away from us, its melody reaches
our ears a truck length after that, and then the truck crawls past our balcony,
stopping at the intersection 50 meters to our left. If lucky, the truck can
soak in the spotlight and play its music for another 15-30 seconds, but as the
night wears on, the cops instructing them to cut the sub-woofers and move it
along get there quicker and quicker. Meanwhile, the next truck or two has
already reached our point on the street, the sound systems overlapping, waves
falling atop one another, us locked beneath those waves, struggling for air.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Or dancing. Mostly dancing. So we
dance. We dance along together, the most we’ve ever danced together, the most
Amy has ever allowed me to dance in her presence. That’s because my dancing is
rhythmic but uncoordinated, unreasonable and uncontrolled, imagined fluidity
replaced by spastic movements and rigid meandering over the 4/4 time
signatures. The sort of thing I’m not to do in public in her presence. But
here, it’s Spanish Time, it’s Carnival, we’re up on a balcony, and all we can
do is take pictures and laugh about it. No one can see us anyway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9aaDVuJ97RLoBon84WEGVPdL859fQxyPd-Vb8k_xga86X7LtN6lFmob4PbXnQusY3iIZGUyn2iKAMrmO2BU0yKUZp-mTRK_I8KYcgLb9XldMLaP9VniHnd3P7D4be1AKX5_bv/s1600/Canarias+Reina+de+Baile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9aaDVuJ97RLoBon84WEGVPdL859fQxyPd-Vb8k_xga86X7LtN6lFmob4PbXnQusY3iIZGUyn2iKAMrmO2BU0yKUZp-mTRK_I8KYcgLb9XldMLaP9VniHnd3P7D4be1AKX5_bv/s320/Canarias+Reina+de+Baile.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Except that some of the people on
the trucks are taking our photos. We’re creating quite the little scene, it
seems. Some of those drunks down there are cheering, waving, snapping. We wave
back. We dance. I add a bounce or two to my moves. We laugh. Carnival roars.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
This goes for an hour, and then it
things peter out again. No more semis. We stop dancing, stop sweating. The
noise in the street and in the park below persists but on a lower level,
without the foreground clamor of the music. We stay out on the balcony and
watch and glow. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
On the edge of the street below us,
a girl kicks a bottle. She is maybe 10 years old and dressed in what looks like
a “traditional” costume; long purple skirt and white shirt, her black hair
flows down her shoulders even as it is tied in a knot. She kicks the glass
bottle along the street curb. The bottle rolls, banks off the curb once or
twice, giving way to her soft power. She kicks it one time too many, and it
shatters.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The girl retreats across the
street. Her mother and other relatives are talking in a circle there. They
don’t pay much attention to her, don’t notice her. She flits in and out of the
group, walks behind a tree in the park, and then returns to our side of the
street. She’s found another glass bottle. She’s kicking it again. Predictably,
after a few paltry efforts, she breaks it again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We are too far away and too foreign
besides to say anything as the girl starts kicking her third bottle in the same
area. People stand on the other side of the curb railing with the glass
breaking just below them. At the 3<sup>rd</sup>, pattern-confirming bottle,
they speak up, sharing our shock. They tell the girl to stop kicking the
bottle. She stops. The bottle remains intact. The girl scurries back to her
mother’s circle. The mother stomps over to the scene of the crime and yells at
the people who spoke up to her daughter (the mother stands conspicuously closer
to the middle of the street, away from the broken glass). The people, an older
couple and another older man, yell back. The man peels off and finds a police
officer. The mother gives not an inch. Her husband, dressed in a washer woman’s
outfit with the top of a Christmas tree or a really funky hat on top of his
head, acts as a moderating presence and also speaks to the daughter. No one takes
him very seriously.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The police officer arrives. Some
sort of resolution is reached – your daughter can’t kick any more glass bottles
tonight, you need to leave this family alone, none of you can call one another
a stupid <i>puta</i>, etc. No arrests are to be made in this situation, and
there’s not much else to do. The plaintiffs, or else the street’s defenders,
leave their post along the curb to try to revivify their Carnival joy. The cop
and the girl’s parents continue to talk with much more laughter. The tumult
dies down. The night and the Carnival continue to flow, softly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0LvaUt9Sm89QhnqK0eKkSg_KTs-1fd9NBk2C-oaHiziU44mSR91YUlOF6Ry3vr9PQWyjTuIDP3QQ3yegdaG6_SpmsY0Ro1iczg-GTzev19R4hQ7NMxuOJS0QyXaiN0t0yU8H/s1600/Double+Semi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0LvaUt9Sm89QhnqK0eKkSg_KTs-1fd9NBk2C-oaHiziU44mSR91YUlOF6Ry3vr9PQWyjTuIDP3QQ3yegdaG6_SpmsY0Ro1iczg-GTzev19R4hQ7NMxuOJS0QyXaiN0t0yU8H/s320/Double+Semi.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
And then, as we sleep, Spanish Time
rears its head twice or thrice more; the semis circle back through the park
once and again, just as loud as the first time. The noise threatens our sleep.
I, exhausted from the flight, sleep through most of it, though I swear that at
quarter to 4 I’m awakened by the thumping tunes one last time. Amy sleeps
fitfully through the Carnival iterations, perhaps suffering for her
Brazil-based hubris. She says that I’m wrong about the last cycle taking place <i>that
</i>late. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Spanish time, ladies and gentlemen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>Beeping into the Blind on the GC-200</b> <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIycdF5qJXNPGllgfMS39Uh1E633LZsY3wdWVQbrIfIMceUm_l61LrjQkTt8HOIoM4IWrnRv3Bnd7L5BcbMn6ZAVLPC4RiA-0OJVFBmgSFuKo87R8BqEnL8sX-5Ppo9XAh8drI/s1600/Coastline+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIycdF5qJXNPGllgfMS39Uh1E633LZsY3wdWVQbrIfIMceUm_l61LrjQkTt8HOIoM4IWrnRv3Bnd7L5BcbMn6ZAVLPC4RiA-0OJVFBmgSFuKo87R8BqEnL8sX-5Ppo9XAh8drI/s320/Coastline+2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The thing about it is, the more dangerous something is, the
more thrilling. The more we have to risk to achieve something, the more it
appears worth it. Life is founded on the principle of efficiency, arbitrage,
and that idea; we will risk only as much as a reward merits. So, for a greater
reward, we will risk more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With risk come fear and a chance of failure. Amy – cowering
and half-hyperventilating in the passenger seat, picturing us crashing through
the fragile guard rail and plummeting over the cliff into more rocks and chasms
and eventually the ocean, telling me to go slower, laughing at my beeping, and
squeezing in dramatic scenery photos with her new camera all the while –
decided the mountain drive only deserved to be risked once.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“San
Nicolas isn’t much to see in and of itself, but this trip is about the journey,
not the destination. A 30km drive through the coastal mountains is one of the
prettiest settings you will ever go through.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So said our guide (I’m paraphrasing). The drive began at the
foot of the hill where we were staying in Agaete, on the Western coast of Gran
Canaria. We had been there for a day and already were succumbing to island
fever. With nothing else to do, a beautiful drive down to the touristy but
picturesque Puerto Mogan struck us as a winning proposition. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(San Nicolas is about the halfway point
between Agaete and Puerto Mogan). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We left around noon. Google Maps told us it would be a 1h20m
trip, which would have us in Puerto Mogan in time for a late lunch. Our car was
a Toyota Auris, a small 4-door with an incongruous 6 gear manual transmission.
On the highway driving to Agaete two days earlier, I hit 6<sup>th</sup> a
couple of times, coasting at 100 Km/Hr, until the dashboard light quickly
suggested I shift down to 5<sup>th</sup> as we hit a hill. There might be a use
for the Toyota Auris’s 6<sup>th</sup> gear on flat highways and long stretches,
but it would be completely unnecessary on this trip.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6S7QswWHBTnvarJ7WDpTsQ79yy4XtHrNR4a8Re2OhWe_BG6miIZUc7SATWNLKL4xgPlVkVhYwkhdnpe6y9wTy3uKVbCCTj2eiu1db8cGHMvYdML7-NoYTSm8UMXGEoz1Dxl5I/s1600/Coastline+and+Road.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6S7QswWHBTnvarJ7WDpTsQ79yy4XtHrNR4a8Re2OhWe_BG6miIZUc7SATWNLKL4xgPlVkVhYwkhdnpe6y9wTy3uKVbCCTj2eiu1db8cGHMvYdML7-NoYTSm8UMXGEoz1Dxl5I/s320/Coastline+and+Road.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We entered GC-200, the road that would take us the 65
kilometers to Puerto Mogan, unsuspectingly. The road began with a slight
incline and a few lazy bends. There was a white line dividing us from the other
side of the road. All was calm. Amy began taking photos out the window of
Agaete below, of the coastline coming into view, of the mountains in front of
us. Gran Canaria is considered something of a “mini-continent”, with a varied
landscape; the coastline features quaint towns and pebbly or coarsely sanded
beaches, while the interior has more of the rugged look, with mountains
stretching up to 5,000 feet and the reddish-brown visage of the barren hills
that can be found in Spain, Morocco, or New Mexico. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rugged mountains and narrow “highways”. After a few easy
kilometers, we were climbing up and down the mountain, driving through blind
curve after blind curve, and finding that there was no more dividing line
painted on the road. The beauty out the window, plentiful, was now obscured.
Blocking our beauty was not the scenery, not the mountains getting in the way
of anything else, but the fact that I was driving and couldn’t look too much at
the scenery, and Amy was panicking because I was driving.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKghzR34K5ZpEGFiofp9QkZl392eyARp0iqEW83jG85H17VFv3jxCRBBGCqmH_nyJQMHqd2syyVroqn_uj95Y0avSddQR2hMxzkZpRdC_eyReQwJeaHsncsVpZ7jtzYU7qXmd-/s1600/Town+in+the+foot.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKghzR34K5ZpEGFiofp9QkZl392eyARp0iqEW83jG85H17VFv3jxCRBBGCqmH_nyJQMHqd2syyVroqn_uj95Y0avSddQR2hMxzkZpRdC_eyReQwJeaHsncsVpZ7jtzYU7qXmd-/s320/Town+in+the+foot.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The GC-200 offers an ideal setting for car commercials.
There are car commercials that take place in green rolling hills on roads with
hairpin turns and endless switchbacks; there are car commercials that emphasize
the open road and the plains and the thrill of adventure – the GC-200 offers
neither of these. It provides a third possible setting: rugged coastal mountains
with frequent turns and undulations, with the promised land of water and sun
and fun just around the next (blind) corner. It is really a beautiful drive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is that I am no car commercial driver, and no
commercial for the Toyota Auris will feature such driving. I have never been
confused for a good driver. Amy has never been confused for a person who relinquishes
control in such crucial circumstances easily. The Toyota Auris does not handle
uphills very well, and on this drive I rarely achieved even 4<sup>th</sup>
gear, let alone 6<sup>th</sup>. We were also tourists, and obvious ones, not
sure where we were going and ignorant of which way the road would curve when.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp6Kwj4k74wuaJcAz_dIL9M6MOh98E4RMVXvETLMQZVFVCg4Ivqc5Tn0lr84pERyXgPiSdlwDsnxMZGWDhNv__uOj7-DdIg_YlbiCpDrc4uvBGD27QxCqjL3yEWh697xsyc5mt/s1600/A+Man+and+an+Ocean.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp6Kwj4k74wuaJcAz_dIL9M6MOh98E4RMVXvETLMQZVFVCg4Ivqc5Tn0lr84pERyXgPiSdlwDsnxMZGWDhNv__uOj7-DdIg_YlbiCpDrc4uvBGD27QxCqjL3yEWh697xsyc5mt/s320/A+Man+and+an+Ocean.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"At least if we crashed, the ocean would douse the flames..."</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All of which led to the scene I began with: Amy panicking at
my side while I tried to maintain a balance between cool consideration and
competence. When going up, I would get the car up to about 40-50 km/h (roughly
25-30 mph) in 2<sup>nd</sup> or 3<sup>rd</sup> gear; when going down, I would
let the car coast at about 50-60 km/h, riding heavy on the brakes. As we were
tourists, and timid ones, we would often get passed. Passing on a narrow
mountain road isn’t easy; there’s hardly space for two cars on the road as is,
and then if a foolhardy driver tries to do it on a curve, they risk getting
smashed by a car coming the other way. We found a way to be passed, though,
because there are few trivial things worse than having someone riding on your
ass on a narrow road where you can’t help but feel sorry for them since after
all you’re the one going half as fast as everybody else: I would pull on to the
rare shoulders or to the little bubbles on the road where a car might stop to
get a picture of the view, or else edge towards the right on a stretch of road
where we could see no one was coming the other way and wave my hand so that the
car tailing me started heading me instead. We were passed by bolder tourists,
by eye-rolling locals, and even by runaway buses who handled the curves like
they were so many city streets, with abandon. “Those poor bus passengers,” said
Amy time and again, thinking of how bad she felt just sitting in our car.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwigcPtqONKwyX9ntw4ULFtCGqvdtaOtLSMKi74_9IZjx8v9wPSHttWISYCBwj_P8thqSHStzOzR-YEWH4xDJN8ln6vdt0tpd23jDuqPDtwK-CFozc2IQM4gQGH_w86VcSUpkq/s1600/Double+Photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwigcPtqONKwyX9ntw4ULFtCGqvdtaOtLSMKi74_9IZjx8v9wPSHttWISYCBwj_P8thqSHStzOzR-YEWH4xDJN8ln6vdt0tpd23jDuqPDtwK-CFozc2IQM4gQGH_w86VcSUpkq/s320/Double+Photo.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"And if we crash, at least this photo will be evidence that I didn't have a heart attack first..."</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We learned a technique from the cars that passed us. Some of
the drivers, at least, when nearing a curve, would begin to beep. At first I
thought the beeping was directed at me, being sensitive to criticism. Then I
realized they were short, staccato, friendly beeps. Warning beeps. Beeps to
announce one’s presence on the road, bursts of noise and self-affirmation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTiW5XQfgEq53nU6cBYzgtWkaYy7LThZYaZE_0f6sagZ71GpREumXWd_yn_Rfecwxu-05Ri3oewkfVb5qx9uo5CBiSiPbS1onnqW43cufSEMgLUneh0Cdftc3Y4XR90JF_TdQ/s1600/Mountains+Unknown.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTiW5XQfgEq53nU6cBYzgtWkaYy7LThZYaZE_0f6sagZ71GpREumXWd_yn_Rfecwxu-05Ri3oewkfVb5qx9uo5CBiSiPbS1onnqW43cufSEMgLUneh0Cdftc3Y4XR90JF_TdQ/s320/Mountains+Unknown.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This being a trick that could only help our safety, beeping
quickly fell into my arsenal on the GC-200. As we approached a curve, I would
beep once sharply, then twice more for a follow-up. Some of the curves kept
going, with no end to the blindness in sight, and so I kept beeping every
couple of seconds. I felt like a satellite drifting out in space, sending
signals out to alert other intelligent beings of my presence. The scariest
thing, of course, would be to receive a signal in return.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nothing scarier happened to us than almost running into one
pickup truck barreling around a curve fairly on (going 40 km/h allows for a
fair deal of reaction time, at least). We also stopped towards the end at “El
Balcon”, a scenic viewpoint. A man ran a concessions stand there, and he found
my initial parking job unsatisfactory, requiring me to back out on the road
across both lanes of traffic and straighten up. I had visions of rolling
backwards forever. Amy was so flustered she spoke with the man in English first
as she got out of the car; when she switched to Spanish, he in turn grew
flustered, saying “<i><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;">Co</span></i><i><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES; mso-bidi-language: HE;">ño, hablas español?</span></i><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES; mso-bidi-language: HE;">” <i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">And yet, we survived.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAlfj6i-h0ZWc4VM2NCEczJ6OinUr2krSZSo02KMgcPHI0OqXrMZbuQR78NlmqpfpzDf2tLHHTcdVhbFvQ_j3i_0XDHTiwYiWvK6J5UattPkTpCTRtTUR7Zr3hf5RWDM7MHCp/s1600/Road+and+Coastline.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAlfj6i-h0ZWc4VM2NCEczJ6OinUr2krSZSo02KMgcPHI0OqXrMZbuQR78NlmqpfpzDf2tLHHTcdVhbFvQ_j3i_0XDHTiwYiWvK6J5UattPkTpCTRtTUR7Zr3hf5RWDM7MHCp/s320/Road+and+Coastline.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span>We survived the whole
drive, of course. The 1h20m stretched into two hours, what with the crawling
speeds and the stops. We received very few beeps in return, but we made it to
Puerto Mogan, where our finest meal of the vacation awaited us, with smooth
vegetable paella and the best croquetas I had all trip. We took nice photos.
Somehow, it was all worth it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">And then we went back
around the island the other way, taking the highways. It took less time than
the trip through the mountains. The drive was not worth a second trip through
the mountains, and anyway, Amy’s heart and my ears wouldn’t stand it. </span><i><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES;">Co</span></i><i><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES; mso-bidi-language: HE;">ño, </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">indeed</span><span lang="ES" style="mso-ansi-language: ES; mso-bidi-language: HE;">. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-34443734151634638642011-12-27T19:02:00.000-05:002011-12-27T19:02:19.765-05:00All Lost in the Christmas Markets<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcd5Ia68tfJjh7UbM3wnNjzHWW_A2G1cFH5lYZ6o7xfZKQrPRI_L5tG6k8cAC4wpWC9QL3l4UEe_X9MiseuNsfxC0Z3eSQS5KAUXb5dW_qjRc3t7FCQ5H2UY7KKdWqvK8gDyyv/s1600/Carre+d%2527Or+CM+Crowd.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcd5Ia68tfJjh7UbM3wnNjzHWW_A2G1cFH5lYZ6o7xfZKQrPRI_L5tG6k8cAC4wpWC9QL3l4UEe_X9MiseuNsfxC0Z3eSQS5KAUXb5dW_qjRc3t7FCQ5H2UY7KKdWqvK8gDyyv/s400/Carre+d%2527Or+CM+Crowd.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> Strasbourg Christmas Market</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
What’s the difference between life in Europe and in the
U.S.A.? It’s a common question, especially when talking to one’s grandparents
on Skype. It comes up in expat-American conversations from a number of angles. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The difference is, in general, not large. Our life in Europe
does not differ greatly from our life in America, no more than life in New York
City differs from life in Ludington, Michigan, or life in Paris differs from
life in Esch-sur-S<span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">û</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">re, Luxembourg. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Differences exist, but mostly mundane, everyday ones: e.g. European
pencils are skinnier (I speak from personal experience). There are countless petty
differences on this order. On a deeper level, there’s always the generic freedom
of living abroad, the ability to lose oneself in the local language (languages
in Luxembourg), and the daily challenge of making oneself understood. All of
these things are great, but they have to do more with being abroad than where
one is, or than Europe. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
For all that, one thing that stands out in Europe is the
rhythm to which the Old World sways. Europe, or at least the Northwestern
continental corner (i.e. the upper half of France, Germany, and Benelux) appears
to have an established approach to traversing the year, one based on weather,
tradition, religion, ancient harvest rituals, and a dash of modern industry.</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The year begins with New Year’s celebrations and the
leftover Christmas season holidays (Epiphany). That last burst of holiday joy
and as many cords of wood as a household can manage sustain homes through the
next six or so weeks, a grim period where “sunlight” lasts about 7-8 hours a
day, mostly appearing in grim, gray-white cloudy form. Winters are dreary,
cold, and rainy, with a surfeit of snow to lighten the spirit. Everybody likely
tucks their heads into their coats, stays inside as much as possible, and bears
witness to the relation between the word “hibernate” and the French word for
winter, “hiver”. </div>
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<br />
Carnival, that last bastion of sinning on the Catholic calendar before Lent,
offers the first upbeat of excitement. Whîle much of this region has Catholic
roots, if reformed religious views, the impetus to celebrate probably comes as
much from cabin fever as anything else. The celebration takes place in mid-to-late
February, spring lurking around the corner. As such, a week of festivities leads
to a shorter, more excited waiting period for the return of warmth and the sun.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Spring sets its own rhythm, with Easter, nature’s own
resurrection, and the joy of returning to outdoors activities and longer days
overtaking the continent. Spring will be lovely and summer no less so, though in
August, everybody goes away on vacation. September marks the return to work and
school, but also the beer and harvest festival season; one can find a festival every
weekend until mid-November. It makes it difficult to schedule other activities
with beer connoisseurs. </div>
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<br /></div>
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And in mid-November, the rhythm beats with Christmas Markets,
to be described here forth. </div>
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<b>Les Marchés de Noël</b></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY21jYRa-KPGcM0eEiXC_mOdpPuk6VX0rmyRgaOLbF1MFq-SKmUTd-bxe02zfJEHO4arJXfEgEIW10D3gK6Xo-azd9ayDobqpRTwsOrO8KqpCdUNpx1RjndljmTSe6wm4svB56/s1600/Gingerbread+Decoration+Tourisme.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY21jYRa-KPGcM0eEiXC_mOdpPuk6VX0rmyRgaOLbF1MFq-SKmUTd-bxe02zfJEHO4arJXfEgEIW10D3gK6Xo-azd9ayDobqpRTwsOrO8KqpCdUNpx1RjndljmTSe6wm4svB56/s200/Gingerbread+Decoration+Tourisme.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Strasbourg street</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b> </b></div>
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Annual market festivals of modern times emerge from basic
traditions of people coming together to sell their goods. In Luxembourg there
is the annual end of summer <b><a href="http://www.fouer.lu/">Schueberfouer</a></b>, a fair that has
its roots in the late Middle Ages, with this year having been the 671<sup>st</sup>
celebration. </div>
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The idea of having a market around Christmas time appears to
date back to a similarly late medieval date, at least as far back 13<sup>th</sup>
or 14<sup>th</sup> century. While I didn’t find unequivocal evidence for where
and when they began, most sources and intuition suggest this to be an
originally German institution. The small wooden cabins that house each vendor
and his/her wares, the ruddy nature of the fare and the people, and the
adaptation to cold weather all suggest Germany: the markets feel like prefab
portals into a Grimm Brothers tale.</div>
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I knew naught of these markets before coming to Luxembourg. As
an American Jew whose main prior abroad experience was in Israel, I might not
be expected to know much about Christmas. Christmas as a child meant three
things: 1. Watching movies; 2. going to my best friend David’s house to see
what he got for the holiday that I could share in – mostly, I hoped for video
games; 3. a day off from wrestling practice. In college, I would be home for only
about 5-7 days centered on Christmas, and in addition to that sense of
homecoming, I had to maintain my weight for a tournament that awaited me on my
return to the South. After college, I spent two Christmases in Israel, which
became a time where Amy would go home and I could relax in our apartment. All
in all, Christmas hasn’t been on my radar.</div>
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The Christmas Markets, however, arrested my attention. <i>Les
</i><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">Marchés</span></i><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;"> de Noël</span></i><span lang="FR-LU"> </span><i>(</i>the French name, which is <span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">easier to type than <i>Christkindelmärik</i>),</span><i><span style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;"> </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">do more than just propagate the big 3 C’s –
Christianity, Commercialism, and Capitalism. They also provide a vibe, a sense
of community, and a chance to drink hot beverages and interact with people in
other languages. This mixture sucked in my interest as a secular, American Jew,
and draws thousands of other people as well.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">First, a Christmas
Village in Belgium</span></b></div>
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<b><span> </span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">On what we in the U.S.
call Black Friday, where stores put on grand deals and people frantically fight
over those deals, <i>Les </i></span><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">Marchés</span></i><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;"> de Noël </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">open
here. It was on the Saturday after, following a Thanksgiving celebration in
Luxembourg the night prior, that Ben and I stumbled on our first Christmas
market, in Belgium. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">We were visiting </span><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">Liège</span><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">, a proud, independent city in east Belgium, just barely
a part of the French-speaking half of the country, Wallonia. The brick-laden
city stood as an industrial powerhouse, and remains twice the size of
Luxembourg, with just under 200K residents. There’s a grand view to be had
after climbing300 some-odd steps to the Citadel, and the author George Simenon,
creator of the <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Georges-Simenon/e/B001HCX6KQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?qid=1325027873&sr=8-2">Inspector Maigret series</a></b>,was a native of the city. We decided on Liège as our weekend destination for
all these things, and because it was the best we could do for one day and a
less than 3 hour train ride. </span></div>
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</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5ws9oKMs4ks4cy3A1Dtw-FLIXnXxbu-POQJZIQmeoAFUZdZvwtIz0XoejyixdWH4gYZ2sXsk1d3FCodRnHHUiN2UNhyu8_NBXhXzJDXtQoZKmi3PxMwWBlX-5SO88dvjW1dZD/s1600/Skating+Rink+at+Christmas+Market.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5ws9oKMs4ks4cy3A1Dtw-FLIXnXxbu-POQJZIQmeoAFUZdZvwtIz0XoejyixdWH4gYZ2sXsk1d3FCodRnHHUiN2UNhyu8_NBXhXzJDXtQoZKmi3PxMwWBlX-5SO88dvjW1dZD/s200/Skating+Rink+at+Christmas+Market.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">"I don't see a 'She-Wolf', do you?"</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">It was to our surprise
that, after we dumped off our bags and began our cruise through the center of
the city, we stumbled upon a bunch of the wooden houses and a skating rink.
There at Place St. Paul we found booths and waffles and chocolates galore, as
well as modern dance music that can be found anywhere (read: Shakira).
Europeans enjoy taking things outdoors as much as possible, and <i>Les march</i></span><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">és</span></i><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;"> </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">provide another example. With mobile heaters set
up and an array of hot chocolate and hot wine stands surrounding the rink,
people congregated to exchange holiday cheer and body warmth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Having tasted a bit of
the holiday spirit, we continued through the pedestrian streets of the city
center and round a corner, whereupon we discovered another market. This market
was officially a “<i>Village de </i></span><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU; mso-bidi-language: HE;">Noël</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">,” though despite their website’s
<a href="http://www.villagedeno%c3%abl.be/EN/index.asp"><b>explanation</b></a>, I can’t really say there’s a difference between the two. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The village held the real
action, in any case. Held on Place St. Lambert (the site of a recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/world/europe/death-toll-rises-after-liege-belgium-attack.html?scp=1&sq=liege&st=cse"><b>violent attack</b></a>),
the village offers a Ferris wheel, large slide to ride down, food booths,
trinket and ornament vendors, a large brass band playing marches, and all the <i>glühwein</i>,
hot chocolate, and beer one could ask for – truly the heart of the Liège Christmas
festivities. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYAuhvVkMaGKckH2RkdWtpjRDoE0bS_vATN3No1qZBHKgmDiQXYLs2QQ6KTjMVNrQ0dsi6Yif_xn0MpzIwwgKncJcCwDnCaS2n69tJKZu_AkQDd2mcBjh4rGapH5SQATfNnW1Q/s1600/Chocolate+Ben.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYAuhvVkMaGKckH2RkdWtpjRDoE0bS_vATN3No1qZBHKgmDiQXYLs2QQ6KTjMVNrQ0dsi6Yif_xn0MpzIwwgKncJcCwDnCaS2n69tJKZu_AkQDd2mcBjh4rGapH5SQATfNnW1Q/s200/Chocolate+Ben.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The Chocolate and Marzipan in action. Photo by Benjamin Chang.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Being in Belgium, we decided
to do as the Belgium tourists do. I bought a cornet of fries, drenched in
Andalusian sauce, but our chocolate choices were more noteworthy. Ben couldn’t
resist a large slab of white marzipan at the Charlemagne chocolatiers’ booth
(Charlemagne’s purported birthplace is close to Liège). We stopped there to
pick up the slab and buy some gift chocolates. As we deliberated and worked
through language barriers, a local cut us in line, picking a bag of chocolates unhesitatingly
and demanding the right to pay. The woman behind the booth muttered her
apologies to us, eyes wide with helplessness. The man, a swarthy fellow,
remained unabashed, however: “I tell everyone when they come to Liège, they
must come for the chocolate. That’s why you come to Liège!” He faded back into
the crowd, but his words, or at least his breath, left the impression that he
had come for the <i>glühwein</i> as well. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">We returned at night, the
best time to visit the markets. The glow of lights; the ongoing excitement found
in the way people walk and talk in waves and spikes and streams and rambles;
the defiance of the weather and the earlier and earlier onset of night, all
this brings out the best of Europe and of <i>Les marchés</i>. Well, that and
the hot chocolate and waffles we munched on from Galler, who have a factory in
the town. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">The Humble Home Front</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Luxembourg’s Christmas
market is a more humble affair. <i>Everything</i> in Luxembourg is a more
humble affair, except maybe the approach to global finance. The city of
Luxembourg sets up two <i>marchés, </i>one on the Place de Paris near the train
station, and one in the center on the Place d’Armes. The central <i>marché </i>is
the main one. Four rows of 5-10 booths snake across the square. Various local
bands and artists play carols at the gazebo on the west end, though in their
absence a DJ is liable to spin some modern takes on the season’s songbook – I’m
pretty sure I heard an Mariah Carey Christmas song in there. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">Luxembourg’s market, like
most of its social life, is sort of rinky-dink, but with a few special items.
First, they sell <i>grompelkichelchen</i>, which are crepe-sized potato cakes,
and quite tasty. Also, the Luxembourg <i>marché</i>, like most other marchés,
sells <i>Glühwein</i>, the mulled wine specialty of <i>les marchés</i>. <i>Glühwein
</i>translates into French as <i>vin chaud</i>, which translates into English
as hot wine, which gives you the essence of the stuff. It’s wine, usually red,
that is heated, spiced, and sweetened. (The second meaning of “to mull” is “to
heat, sweeten, and flavor with spices for drinking, as ale or wine,” which also
captures the essence of the stuff. I did not know that definition). </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">I had my only full cup of
<i>glühwein</i> in Luxembourg. To drink <i>glühwein</i> in Luxembourg, one pays
3 euros for the wine and another 2 euro deposit for the mug; I drank mine out
of a Christmas shoe shaped mug. Despite the charm, the sticky sweetness was a
little bit too much for me. Some on the internet call <i>glühwein</i> the
German winter version of sangria, but somehow what I had didn’t work for me the
same way.</span></div>
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The last nice thing about Luxembourg is a shared quality
with other markets, but significant. Placed in the center, the market serves as
a universal meeting point. Anybody can come in, check out the booths, drink a <i>glühwein</i>,
and soak in the atmosphere. The center of that center square features a set of
tables, so that the main food booths look on each other and people gather under
the glow of those heaters and act merry and cold and like themselves, but the
best part of themselves. I’m not sure Black Friday allows for the same
behavior.</div>
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<br /></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<b><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">Le Capitale
de Noël</span></i></b><i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;"></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxxcoxMrFsbzDkiAqCmg9drgc7J4jtrT7mDmnp-YtDjSXXQ7rhj55LP6bIEljZE71FJY01vlOOsEc8g2Vmm3aRYm-Tbtt3fWGyz7SvGUwLASFZa2e2FkFV0yDX4Cc3WGrhGNx/s1600/Christmas+Tree+Purer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxxcoxMrFsbzDkiAqCmg9drgc7J4jtrT7mDmnp-YtDjSXXQ7rhj55LP6bIEljZE71FJY01vlOOsEc8g2Vmm3aRYm-Tbtt3fWGyz7SvGUwLASFZa2e2FkFV0yDX4Cc3WGrhGNx/s400/Christmas+Tree+Purer.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The largest decorated Christmas Tree in the world (or so they say).</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Last for this tale is the market in Strasbourg. Strasbourg,
a French city of 280K residents on the border of Germany, is significant for
many things, but those things belong in a different article </div>
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<br /></div>
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The important thing to know here is that Strasbourg is the
self-dubbed “Capital of Christmas.” Here I thought I visited the capital of Christmas
when I went to Bethlehem for <a href="http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2008/12/two-weeks-in-life-or-lost-highway.html"><b>Christmas 2008</b></a><span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"></span>,
but no. What right does Strasbourg have to the title of Christmas Capital,
trumping Bethlehem’s renown as Jesus’ birthplace? Well, as best as I can tell
it rests on three claims, all of dubious veracity. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>Strasbourg, according to
one of my French teachers but not most other people, held the first Christmas
market. Strasbourg’s market dates to 1570, meaning it’s pretty damn old, but as
noted earlier, probably not the oldest.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">22.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>Strasbourg is the
birthplace of the <i><span lang="FR-LU" style="mso-ansi-language: FR-LU;">Sapin</span>
de Noël</i>, i.e. the Christmas tree. The Internet renders this debate more
unclear. Some sources say yea, verily, and others claim that the Christmas tree
was first added to the end of the year festivities near either Riga or Tallinn.
Both claims pin the innovation in the 16<sup>th</sup> century, so at least
half-credit to this claim so far for Strasbourg.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">33.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span>Strasbourg has a really
cool set of Christmas markets and celebrations.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This last claim could only be verified in person. Amy, A. (a
friend of ours), and I took a weekend trip to scope out the situation. We
arrived by train on a rainy Friday evening, rented a car, ate dinner, and then
headed out of the city to our village B&Bs; we got lost, confused in the
rain, angry at each other, and then eventually inside late enough to wake the
proprietors of the inns. <i>Les marchés</i> would be a Saturday thing.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxnm7U-sFNUTmDBHreJT2gmrQSwqX1JdIpt4-1QYVTemEhy7e7ugcXgtG8Ioyrxks0k7x0t5VvtOqxvsASklAmFv_n-EnDKlUgTu-0kmi8OtLk7CdP4eAL-uytZfyZlOz9eaGA/s1600/Christmas+Bretzels+and+Pastries.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxnm7U-sFNUTmDBHreJT2gmrQSwqX1JdIpt4-1QYVTemEhy7e7ugcXgtG8Ioyrxks0k7x0t5VvtOqxvsASklAmFv_n-EnDKlUgTu-0kmi8OtLk7CdP4eAL-uytZfyZlOz9eaGA/s200/Christmas+Bretzels+and+Pastries.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Also part of the promise - Christmas-themed pastries.</span></i></td></tr>
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On Saturday, we arrived in the city to visit the markets
just after noon. Strasbourg’s center is called “Grande île”, or the big island.
It’s an apt name, as the center is an island surrounded by the Ill River, which
feeds into the Rhine River a few kilometers farther east. The whole island is a
UNESCO World Heritage site, with a grand Cathedrale de Notre Dame its heart.
That World Heritage site held at least 9 separate markets (two others are off
the island). This is Strasbourg’s Christmas promise – a series of markets in
different places and with different themes strewed across the dense city
center, so that in one day one can experience a full array of Christmas in the
heart of Europe.</div>
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We started by getting off the tram in the center and walking
to Place Kleber. The market there was unspectacular, but we got a hot
chocolate, the initial rush of the crowds and street musicians to be found
everywhere in the city, and <i>Le Grand Sapin de Noël</i>. Strasbourg claims
that their Christmas tree is the tallest decorated tree in the world<span style="mso-bidi-language: HE;">. W</span>hether or not that’s the case, it’s pretty
grand, standing there in the middle of Place Kleber, an open square capable of
hosting such a big Christmas tree. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANMi2TCqpE8p3VK74mtxXozoKM-xa2zebs85T38BG6fRabC7II0gQ7DqCfPFl4hBoSqiDYgjUzPYBBqS_Zk3oxBvdLXpogQFJq0MAK0yPqV3TQZvftePT1oCfBPLjaptMC93-/s1600/Horse+Cart+Residue+Downtown.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANMi2TCqpE8p3VK74mtxXozoKM-xa2zebs85T38BG6fRabC7II0gQ7DqCfPFl4hBoSqiDYgjUzPYBBqS_Zk3oxBvdLXpogQFJq0MAK0yPqV3TQZvftePT1oCfBPLjaptMC93-/s200/Horse+Cart+Residue+Downtown.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Romance has its downsides. </span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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After the tree, we stopped in an ornate chocolate shop,
where the ladies bought gifts. I watched as a two-story, two-horse cart clomped
along a curving street, leaving a string of photographing tourists and, well,
horse shit behind them. This throwback transportation guided us to the Place du
Temple Neuf, a smaller square that is normally a parking lot, but did well in
providing a couple places for vendors to vend. I did most of gift shopping
here, but we also tried some chestnut and blueberry jams. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoJ8aWIwpoK2RUOYIgAHpQzALIhbP9pl-bXhvMJD5d7MfIx2QdLpkBR5ENRIawd3i_kreQwUZkbVv4UNaftGrfL8177agE0Tn5PITSNvxpKfc6rN2LxnN4RxSkr8uuDtz8kTv9/s1600/Chandelier+Street+%2528Dora%2529.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoJ8aWIwpoK2RUOYIgAHpQzALIhbP9pl-bXhvMJD5d7MfIx2QdLpkBR5ENRIawd3i_kreQwUZkbVv4UNaftGrfL8177agE0Tn5PITSNvxpKfc6rN2LxnN4RxSkr8uuDtz8kTv9/s200/Chandelier+Street+%2528Dora%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Rue des Hallebards</span></i></td></tr>
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This prologue led us to the Rue de Hallebards, over which
hung a series of chandeliers enclosed in glass cases. This striking decoration
forewarned us of the main attraction of the city one block to the south, the
Cathedrale. The crowds thronged in 10 person-wide waves spanning the street,
cresting in the market at the foot of the crazy Cathedrale, the center of the
Capital of Christmas.</div>
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Impressively, the crowds and the markets almost obscured the
huge building behind, as the eye naturally fell on the red and brown of the
booths, on the accordion players sitting street level, on the people, the
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We wended our way through the
crowds, lost one another, reunited, and then decided to split up, the ladies
one way and I another.</div>
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My wandering took me to the south side of the Cathedrale,
where Strasbourg had set up their skating rink, less central than the one in Liège
but still popular. I then drifted down to the river, left the markets for a
little bit, strolling through the east side of the Grande Île, but I didn’t
wander long: the girls sent out the bat signal, too cold to continue shopping
in the marchés and eager to get indoors to some old-fashioned modern stores. I
rejoined them, helped them install themselves in a café, one with no room for
me, and went back on the walk.</div>
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I turned to the western section of the city, knowing a
well-touted literary café awaited me in that direction. I walked past the
village for children, a tent that housed games and activities at the foot of
another pink sandstone church (pink sandstone the most available building
material for the city). The waves of crowds thinned and grew less frequent as I
found the river again and walked along it to the Petite France district. There
I found the former industrial heart of Strasbourg, set on a few fingers of land
in the middle of the river. Restaurants serving endless variety of sauerkraut
dishes, as well as a good share of pig knuckle, surrounded a market touting
local crafts. I finished my gift shopping here and at another market of local
Alsatian flavors around the corner: cognac-flavored egg liquor was my big find.
</div>
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That ended the daytime Christmas market touring. Though
tired, burdened by the fruits of our successful day of shopping, and wary of
our half-hour commute to the inn, we still had the night ahead of us. We still
had the best of the markets to look forward to. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-U9RbpDBEsJj1TgzM8b_8I8PsjOUuM6BtUMdrM1y6L3_TiqoG7q3fhGOxMtbTvs6Bl12cm94SAnImn-Mxr3XIxTlphW24XAT9wTLghx3T_KRCve5kae04fhpEcahLHp-6xJd/s1600/Petite+France+Market+2.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz-U9RbpDBEsJj1TgzM8b_8I8PsjOUuM6BtUMdrM1y6L3_TiqoG7q3fhGOxMtbTvs6Bl12cm94SAnImn-Mxr3XIxTlphW24XAT9wTLghx3T_KRCve5kae04fhpEcahLHp-6xJd/s200/Petite+France+Market+2.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Petite France at night (Market on the right)</i></span></td></tr>
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I met the girls at the Place Kleber, where we took the
necessary photos of the tree at night. From there, we returned to the Petite
France area. Though we didn’t find a prompt, authentic eatery that could satisfy
each of our culinary concerns, we did get to wander about in the cold, through
the continuing crowds, amidst the glow of the market, and with sips from Amy’s
cup of <i>Glühwein</i>. While we were stressed and cold and not overly warmed
by the wine and the Christmas cheer, it was cute all the same.</div>
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After at last finding a grand Thai meal, we drifted back to
the river on our walk to the tram that would take us to our car. Christmas
decorations lit up both banks of the river. The red and yellow and green stoplight
glare of Christmas bathed in the pink sandstone tint of the city harmoniously.
The river lapped at the bank as we trundled along with our booty, past amorous
couples, families, and groups of students. The relief of a full day’s end
washed over us. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFDnZeP7j-pQWAM9Gfiiheozi7o4fciwMDaab_7wPoNqEjD904sBXnb-3u0oPCTqZQJChB6rVN3XyqZ7I2cLtnS4NwHjFHwikFLQua8pr8j8bMtx1EymvvB7qLrNmU_1LreBF6/s400/Hot+Wine+and+Cathedrale+2.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="300" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Hot wine 'neath the Cathedral. Just as the pope would like, I'm sure.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFDnZeP7j-pQWAM9Gfiiheozi7o4fciwMDaab_7wPoNqEjD904sBXnb-3u0oPCTqZQJChB6rVN3XyqZ7I2cLtnS4NwHjFHwikFLQua8pr8j8bMtx1EymvvB7qLrNmU_1LreBF6/s1600/Hot+Wine+and+Cathedrale+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></i></a></div>
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Our ride home was probably not all that different from one
we would have taken if the three of us had gone shopping in, say, the Mall of
America in A.’s home state of Minnesota. We would have felt the same relief from
finishing our gift-buying. In either situation we would have had stories to
tell about the people we saw and the encounters we had. Inevitably, in our core
we would have faced the paradox of feeling good about buying gifts for others
and feeling bad about feeding the consumerist colossus and the endless need for
more and more stuff (or maybe that was just me). </div>
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Maybe <i>Les marchés de Noël</i> is just a grand gimmick,
capitalism disguised as quaint nostalgia and doused in hot wine. Tradition or
not, the idea of the markets is that they are markets; venues to sell products.
Many of those products are unnecessary. The Christmas market is just hype.</div>
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But then, gimmick or not, the feeling is different. Bringing
people together, placing them outside, putting them on a map in a location
together, removed from the stronger waves of modern advertising, modern
technology, modern post-modern detachment from the world, this still stands as
a difference from the malls and the Walmarts and the consumer is king mentality
of the U.S. </div>
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Europe still doesn’t really bring Christmas any closer to
the original idea of celebrating Jesus. I’m not close to becoming a convert to
the Christmas season (nor to Christianity, natch). But if one has to choose to
take part in the Christmas season, one can do worse than to go to the markets,
and to get outside on the streets, together.</div>
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</div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-10372187670139033312011-11-07T05:22:00.002-05:002011-11-07T05:26:44.673-05:00Between the tower and the café - Seeking Balance on a week in Paris<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We took the shorter line to the elevator at the West leg of the Eiffel Tower. I held my umbrella gingerly above our heads, nevertheless poking one or two of the taller gentlemen joining us in line. At the ticket control, we showed our pre-ordered tickets, receiving compliments from the agent for the green paper that served as our tickets’ backing. Within minutes, we crammed into the elevator and climbed to the second floor. And so I was here again, on Monsieur Eiffel’s beautiful monstrosity.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-txK4NA1mx256kTSrP3Yf1xeYeSybhsHblnV0epekhQfvcW59dTpyZlDxuqq4sMCkzKDzn8d1kq0ppvSLston8y5T_SV8GCpCqMNLKcyOx6HliU2V_V9A55YrmH591RaI6Vv/s1600/Muffin+choppers+and+tall+tour.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-txK4NA1mx256kTSrP3Yf1xeYeSybhsHblnV0epekhQfvcW59dTpyZlDxuqq4sMCkzKDzn8d1kq0ppvSLston8y5T_SV8GCpCqMNLKcyOx6HliU2V_V9A55YrmH591RaI6Vv/s400/Muffin+choppers+and+tall+tour.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The view from the Trocadero Gardens the day before we climbed</i></span></td></tr>
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This past week, Amy and I visited Paris for fall break. The week off from school, due to Luxembourg’s observation of All Saints’ Day, provided the perfect opportunity for Amy to visit Paris for the first time. It wasn’t my first time. I had visited <a href="http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2008/11/paris-oh-paris-be-mine-once-again.html">thrice</a> in the past <a href="http://shortmaneurope.blogspot.com/2006/08/barcelona-seemed-tired-last-night.html">five </a>years, and on my one childhood foray to Europe, a two-week trip with family 16 years ago.</div>
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On one’s first visit to Paris, or to anywhere really, one is a tourist and must do tourist things, the Eiffel Tower standing above all other items on the tourist list. I visited the Eiffel Tower on my first trip to Paris – one of my strongest memories of that trip is the shame and fear I felt as I tiptoed up the open-air stairs to the second floor while my younger brother raced ahead of me with not a hint of hesitation. I also visited the Eiffel Tower in 2006, on my best friend’s first knowing visit to Paris, and in 2009, while leading a school trip for many high schoolers who had never been to Paris, which made this the fourth time ascending through the metal crosses and bars, with the fourth virgin companion (counting myself the first time).</div>
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There are a few ways to explore a city. One can follow the tried and true approach of guide books and tourist sites. One can search for the forgotten corners of a city, those considered out of fashion now. Or one can seek out the new, the untouched, the mythically authentic. </div>
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In a world capital like Paris, especially in Paris, the latter approaches are all but ridiculous. In seven days, one can either follow the tried and true or flay themselves in the self-righteousness particular to experienced travelers, those who “refuse to conform” and “blaze their own trail.” I am not above self-flagellation, especially of this nature, but it gets silly, and when there’s the moderating force of a reasonable traveling partner alongside, I find it best to succumb to my inner tourist and push the traveler’s ego aside.</div>
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Finding it best doesn’t mean submitting willingly, nor easily. Throughout the week, I tried to find the balance between seeing what must be seen and feeling at least a bit liberated from the standard, from the road well taken. Not (only) to wage a futile battle instead of enjoying a vacation, but to heighten the enjoyment, to enrich it. At least, I tell you that.</div>
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Meanwhile, we climbed the second elevator and ascended into the clouds. When looking for novel inspiration, we humans often look skywards. I comforted myself with the idea and took in the cityscape below.</div>
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Our fundamental circumstances made this a different trip than the previous ones I had taken to Paris. For the first time, I visited Paris as one should, with a lover (considering my “bounteous” history of lovers, I know that’s surprising). For the first time, we visited by train, the TGV regional fast train that made the 230-mile journey from Luxembourg in just over 2 hours. For the first time, we spoke a modicum of French, at least a little bit more than “bonjour,” and “merci.” And for the first time, we stayed in one of the hipper neighborhoods of the city.</div>
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La Butte Aux Cailles, Quail Hill, is a small city hill in the 13<sup>th</sup> arrondisement (district) of Paris, in the Southeast of the city, near Place d’Italie. The hill, the tallest point in the city according to the “official” <a href="http://www.butteauxcailles.com/index.php">website </a>-, actually takes its name from a businessman named Cailles, who bought the hill and set up a vineyard there in the 16<sup>th</sup> century. The district became an area of workers and rag collectors (chiffonniers), and then the setting for a <a href="http://www.histoire-fr.com/troisieme_republique_nee_sang_3.htm">major battle</a> in the counterrevolution against the Paris Commune of 1871 (the Commune lost). Until the 1990s, the hill remained a local haunt, insignificant, before at last a mayor of the area decided to build up the bar and leisure scene to welcome the tourists and hipsters. Et, voila, we arrived. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKE8dtw_rwUFNObUQcTG40tqzJe2wfxVBg88655Km6Wrtd7QXg7AeueNuqp1OXGqOE0ZyoX0HwhQPpBfmxbXaJJ3hoiSM9L48tTIaba33eOF5Fz8VDsAN1bT6w1OC0jf-hlpy6/s1600/Paris-rue-de-la-butte-aux-cailles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKE8dtw_rwUFNObUQcTG40tqzJe2wfxVBg88655Km6Wrtd7QXg7AeueNuqp1OXGqOE0ZyoX0HwhQPpBfmxbXaJJ3hoiSM9L48tTIaba33eOF5Fz8VDsAN1bT6w1OC0jf-hlpy6/s400/Paris-rue-de-la-butte-aux-cailles.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Credit to <a href="http://www.imagesdubeaudumonde.com/article-paris-rue-de-la-butte-aux-cailles-38719673.html">Monsieur Jacques Bousiquier</a>. I'm not sure what's going on with the pink sky. </i></span></td></tr>
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A <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/travel/lost-in-paris.html?pagewanted=all">nice article</a> in the New York Times tipped me off to its existence, and shortly after I booked our stay in a hotel there, located right below the Place de la Commune de Paris. Our suspicions that the area was hip were confirmed twofold: first, by the abundance of bars, restaurants, and cute <a href="http://loisivethe.wordpress.com/">tea salons</a> that we passed each morning and night; secondly, by my friend C., a Frenchman who for me epitomizes young Parisian cool, and who often chooses these bars to visit when he comes into the city from his suburban home. </div>
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Of course, Amy and I are far from hip when it comes to our night lifestyle; we would note how the hill buzzed each night around 9 or 10pm as people started to fill the bars, while we like pumpkins returned home to our hotel to go to sleep. For while the neighborhood was a plus on the whole, well located, interesting, and with a hotel that was cheaper than its quality would fetch in the center, it was also not super close to the center, not close enough that we could easily return to the hotel before dinner. With one exception, our days were long affairs, morning till evening of touring and shopping and sitting in caf<span lang="FR-LU">é</span>s, and then at last of dining and returning home, with no interest in joining the buzz. At least we two are compatible in our unhipness, and we enjoyed our hill all the same, and said we’d be glad to live there if we ever move to Paris. </div>
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So each night and morning, at least, we shared in a new place.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Kids Hanging out in the shadow of the Sacre Coeur's dome</span></i></td></tr>
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Our touring was long, hard, and fruitful. All the places I wanted to return to or visit for the first time, we reached. I hadn’t been to Montmartre in 16 years, and so gladly climbed up the steps to the Sacre Coeur and walked around the winding roads, re-informed both by <i>Amelie</i> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bohemian-Paris-Picasso-Modigliani-Matisse/dp/0802139973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320577059&sr=8-1">this fine book</a> on the hill’s beauty, and its artistic and cultural history, respectively. I missed out on the Musée d’Orsay five years ago and hadn’t been since my philistine youth either, and so we made sure to stroll through the Impressionist Gallery and check out the big Toulouse-Latrec paintings. I wanted to visit the Musée de l’Orangerie, home to famous art dealer Paul Guillaume’s collection of 1900-1920 Parisian-milieu paintings, Modigliani and Soutine and all the rest, and we detoured into here after finding a much too long line at the Louvre on Halloween (we did make it to the Louvre three days later). </div>
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The last museum was our favorite, or at least mine (Amy waffled on choosing a favorite), of the three. It is most known for its holding of 8 giant paintings by Monet of his beloved water lilies, separated into two rooms of four paintings. While I remembered that as a child, I held Monet’s fascination with his water lilies as the prime example of why art was lame when I argued with my parents about going to museums, I could appreciate his effort to bring stillness to the center of the city (the museum is located on the edge of the Jardin des Tuileries along the right bank, between the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre). A temporary exhibit on turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century Spanish painters also suited Amy’s and mine interest perfectly, and we especially appreciated “<a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/302/13/1400.extract">La Granadina</a>”, a piece by Hermen Anglada-Camarasa. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Human Lily in Contemplation of Water Lily</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfiOCmSn8Q_3CuVtZOBqgdHr7uWfdc81JHQh622YJ_wHXowzmFtk4ndYxYk0JgPknbDTgae6Nr3vpVcsqrpx2PWBvNKVtLIRSIm3wCuX7adXNAr30dnEwbTWREelFjBxww_GP/s1600/Modigliani+Paul+Guillame.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlfiOCmSn8Q_3CuVtZOBqgdHr7uWfdc81JHQh622YJ_wHXowzmFtk4ndYxYk0JgPknbDTgae6Nr3vpVcsqrpx2PWBvNKVtLIRSIm3wCuX7adXNAr30dnEwbTWREelFjBxww_GP/s320/Modigliani+Paul+Guillame.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Modligani's portrait of Guillaume's elegance</span></i></td></tr>
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Monsieur Guillaume’s collection most excited me, however. Very fine works from my favorite art period included Picasso and Matisse, Renoir and Cezanne, Derain after his fauvist fame, but also Henri Rousseau, Maurice Utrillo, and Chaim Soutine, all well displayed. Amedeo Modigliani, one of my favorite painters, had several paintings represented in Guillaume’s collection. Beyond this joy of old favorites, my happiest discovery was the work of Marie Laurencin, a French woman I knew nothing about before and plan to learn much more about afterward. What better can art, writing, or museums do than inspire new learning?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGzezI8a5D36gwTfHE188MRf0LfTLijMiW8JOcn7Q3YI5rZeFLiAvuAICWYztWggAh5W-GqhKwy-LlRFNBZuKwhg15fhxkV1OLgBmpkhu6KCWeTZg8WWDUYCfrAPCTn5BRBYEz/s1600/Marie+Laurencin+Chanel.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGzezI8a5D36gwTfHE188MRf0LfTLijMiW8JOcn7Q3YI5rZeFLiAvuAICWYztWggAh5W-GqhKwy-LlRFNBZuKwhg15fhxkV1OLgBmpkhu6KCWeTZg8WWDUYCfrAPCTn5BRBYEz/s400/Marie+Laurencin+Chanel.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Chanel 1923, by Laurencin</i></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPxi_ZG_8WXBBPiUBFRe2iwmoWXO6RNgzVK1mjc-2dduY75567AbhrOPXin_1oArUPWnTdKHy4szaglI4ECkvCUk5lEKxQ6uemTdAM1MtKAblE4q25lkojIrKKh5sDiHQkZcir/s1600/Amy+and+Autumn+JdL.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPxi_ZG_8WXBBPiUBFRe2iwmoWXO6RNgzVK1mjc-2dduY75567AbhrOPXin_1oArUPWnTdKHy4szaglI4ECkvCUk5lEKxQ6uemTdAM1MtKAblE4q25lkojIrKKh5sDiHQkZcir/s320/Amy+and+Autumn+JdL.JPG" width="320" /></a>We also lucked into choosing the right days to go into the museums, weather-wise; Tuesday and Thursday, the worst days Paris threw at us, with rain and wind and a trace of the dismal European gloom that had settled into Luxembourg two weeks before, found us in the Orsay and the Louvre, respectively. The rest of the time, we marveled at the sun, the yellow leaves, and the buzz in the streets. Before we left, I postulated that early November is the time to catch Paris in its most natural element, and this week only confirmed my guess. Not yet plagued the cold of winter, nor the emptiness of August, but instead imbued in the perfect distillation of the grays, browns, and blues that represent the breadth of the city’s palette, tinted now with those yellows and oranges on the trees.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5H0AhiMMmHmmosYPGQoXJTlXMh1Mc6uNvc1icncm5MGv1wMp10vE-nkcvqxfu1-6XCkCj_9OxY4Fggr0MvbDyGWN7V74cxpJqNgpsISH4TT5D-CYqN43JmA9gNY_4BQL0GstI/s1600/Tai+Chi+Clowning+in+JdL.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5H0AhiMMmHmmosYPGQoXJTlXMh1Mc6uNvc1icncm5MGv1wMp10vE-nkcvqxfu1-6XCkCj_9OxY4Fggr0MvbDyGWN7V74cxpJqNgpsISH4TT5D-CYqN43JmA9gNY_4BQL0GstI/s320/Tai+Chi+Clowning+in+JdL.JPG" width="320" /></a>In that color template we took strolls through the Jardin Des Tuileries and the Jardin du Luxembourg, the latter on Sunday morning, as formal and informal groups of tai chi practitioners rotated their hips and arms on the fallen leaves. In the Tuileries, we stopped to watch people feeding seagulls and ducks in the pond, and then the seagulls and ducks fighting like needy children, the seagulls louder and more insecure, in larger packs; the ducks more centered, zen even, focused on beating the seagulls back only as a means to food, and not an assertion of ego or pride.</div>
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Those Jardins gave us the necessary space and contemplation to brave the human maze beneath the pyramid in the Louvre, or the bustle of the Champs des Elysees, if not for long, and to squeeze into the Arc de Triomphe and the Notre Dame. We climbed neither of the heights in those two sites, nor the dome of the Sacre Coeur, glad just to register and check the sites off our list. And on our last day, Friday, after checking off most of our sights, we took the clichéd but still worthwhile boat cruise, receiving a nice summary of all the places we had been along the Seine. Plus, the guide had an amusing bit going in both French and English, which can be fun for an hour.</div>
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All these things on our list were necessities, unavoidable for any tourist coming to Paris. We didn’t avoid them. We tried to do them smartly, I guess, but we went to all these things. To take the long view, going through all these tourist sites, we ran the baptismal gauntlet, the initiation process that will allow us to be mere visitors next time we go to Paris, and not tourists. I did score one major victory on this front, at least: we did not attend the Moulin Rouge. The once and present cabaret, now home to a tacky Vegas-style revue (www.moulinrouge.fr) along the red-light district street bordering Montmartre, gave off an aura of tackiness and gaudy crudity, such that Amy decided she didn’t need to shell out 100 euros for the show. A big relief.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqcqLrnCCqENZiB38KyiusXjvXZxJ4PhbRGAb8pv7tMaoKPWn2H2RJVRhhfZCQDljaXk4VskN-X_mCGvipC93ifH2uUl4lS83SWSTFCbEEIz5bBGAwTyS3ln7DWucWtr5gOwE/s1600/Montmartre+street+scene.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqcqLrnCCqENZiB38KyiusXjvXZxJ4PhbRGAb8pv7tMaoKPWn2H2RJVRhhfZCQDljaXk4VskN-X_mCGvipC93ifH2uUl4lS83SWSTFCbEEIz5bBGAwTyS3ln7DWucWtr5gOwE/s400/Montmartre+street+scene.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Enough madness in Montmartre for us</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>About to explore the Latin Quarter. Reading as ever. It gets irritating sometimes.</i></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Outside of the touring though, we explored Paris as well as one can on foot over seven days. Amy and I unveiled our patented travel strategy, tested in smaller cities (and not really when we visited New York this summer, because we were busy and only there for 4.5 days), and lo, it worked wonders in Paris! Or maybe not wonders, but we got to see a lot of the city, just the way each of us likes to see a new place.</div>
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To wit: on four different days, after blundering around under my guidance towards or through a neighborhood, sometimes eating lunch, one day gawking at the Pompidou (Amy hated it), we found a café. Once settled in the café, respective bladders empty, we went about our tasks: Amy went out shopping, while I sat there and read, wrote, and studied French, meanwhile sipping tea. So we settled into Montmartre on our first full day, I nestled in the corner of a café near the Place des Abbesses, as the radio played cheesy French pop songs, while Amy explored the artsy boutiques and shops, picking out a new purple coat for winter. So again in the Latin Quarter, me first at the relatively corporate Malongo and then the neighborhood El Balto, where I enjoyed the soft indie-sounding music and the cute bartender, as well as the eclectic gathering of customers, while Amy held long conversations with clerks in luxury boutiques about their lives to date, and also bought clothes. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Brass band clearing the street on Ile de St. Louis</span></i></td></tr>
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We explored Le Marais and <span lang="FR-LU">Î</span>le de St. Louis this way, areas I hadn’t been to before. The former, part of the broader Bastille district, houses the Jewish quarter and a number of intriguing alleys and shops. The latter is the island behind the Notre Dame and boasts a great collection of mansions and private homes, but also a long street for shopping that, due to the high buildings on each side of it, does at least somewhat feel separate from the rest of the city. There I found a salon de thé called La Charlotte de l’Île. The woman behind the bar was actually behind a bar of keys, plucking out a beautiful etude on a piano. The two customers, a middle-aged man and a girl my age, chatted, she talking about how this was her only day in Paris, he about how he hated American coffee. I sat in a corner opposite totem-like pieces of art on the wall, unpacked my backpack, and got to work, while Amy put a bow upon her shopping efforts, buying gifts for friends and family, and for herself too.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>La Charlotte's Wall</i></span></td></tr>
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While that sort of traveling wasn’t explicitly “Parisian”, we made sure that our culinary experience was authentic. Or rather, I made sure. Amy’s taste is not for the heaviness of French food, and so we catered to that some nights – Thai, Mexican, Moroccan, and macrobiotic veggie restaurants all appeared on our dinner docket, and Amy found fish two other nights. <br />
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But, as stated, I ensured that at least one of us tasted the best French cuisine had to offer. Twice I ate steak tartar - raw beef, essentially, served looking like an uncooked burger but tarted up with onions, capers, and other spices on these two versions that I hadn’t had before, making this the best steak tartar I ever ate; I had French onion soup several times; a croque madame and a croque monsieur once each (elegant ham and cheese sandwiches, the first one with an egg on top); we both ate crepes twice, once for dinner dessert, once for lunch; one day for lunch I ate rabbit; and the coup de grace, as it was, the best meal of the trip for me, was the foie gras/pot au feu combination, or in other words, goose liver paste and then a beef stew. This eaten on our second to last night, in a restaurant called Le Tresor, the Treasure, in Le Marais. Something about the way the fig marmalade offset the sticky texture of the bitter paste, how it all melted in my mouth, how it all revolted Amy on three different levels, made for a delightful Parisan meal.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSK7ZtRjDSAYVblEKJa8rbMRUP0y4jutgdT-yi2dibfyq0ZxNVGVDiVAM9Z2GzOHeMqtrPg3qKsn3pryGIqttoR5PBFCO3dcUcplvHWnWB4xF9hbx2UCp-gotMCmz5ToscFxJ/s1600/Foie+Gras+Baby.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSK7ZtRjDSAYVblEKJa8rbMRUP0y4jutgdT-yi2dibfyq0ZxNVGVDiVAM9Z2GzOHeMqtrPg3qKsn3pryGIqttoR5PBFCO3dcUcplvHWnWB4xF9hbx2UCp-gotMCmz5ToscFxJ/s400/Foie+Gras+Baby.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I'm not sure what part of that could gross anyone out. Mmmm.</span></i></td></tr>
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***<br />
<br />
There’s a lot I love about traveling, much of which was covered on this trip. I love planning for trips. I love taking the train. I love seeing new places. I love feeling like a foreigner, and I love blending in to the anonymous crowd at the same time. All these things, and those covered above, the food, the sites, the exploration, all are part and parcel of getting on the road.<br />
<br />
But I also love that feeling of displacement, that mentality that one must adopt to travel. The feeling of not being where one belongs. This displacement opens one up to see ordinary things as extraordinary, to regain an awareness of the world’s strangeness. Standing back from the fishbowl of everyday life, the traveler can glimpse the little things that add up to make life whatever life is, in all its weirdness and tragedy and joy and glory.<br />
<br />
These little things, they appear in moments, in encounters, in quiet spaces. We found the moments most when eating, where our most direct contact with others came. In the macrobiotic restaurant, we sat in tight quarters next to an American and his French female companion. He had white hair stretching back into a pony tail and down into a full facial beard, and he stretched his conversation to talk about his political views, favorite French directors, traveling itineraries, ex-girlfriends’ tattoos, and down into the finest detail. His companion took it all in far more grace than we managed to, I starting to break out laughing right towards the end of dinner as he pulled out series of magazines he brought with him when he traveled to show her.<br />
<br />
Or there was Halloween night. Dia de los Muertos, as we went to a Mexican restaurant recommended by our Mexican-American friend in Luxembourg. Both of us were somewhat sick, each in our own way, and the Mexican disappointed. What didn’t disappoint was the performance of the two girls sitting behind me. Young girls, about my age, Mexicans, clearly good friends, they spent the whole dinner looking at their phones. Texting, checking email, updating facebook, I don’t know. If there’s a set of circumstances that sums up the world we, Amy and I, live in, it’s sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Paris, feeling ill, while two Mexican girls living in Paris spend their whole dinner on their phones. Sigh.<br />
<br />
Not all of these moments were happy ones. As we went to cross Place de St. Michel, we heard a thud and then saw a man fall down on the sidewalk. A bus stopped in front of him. We missed the collision, but it appeared that the man walked into the bus which had tried to run the light. There was no Jordan Baker around to explain what happens when two careless people crossed paths. Anyway, we stood and watched and wondered while others attended to the man, who appeared to have suffered a blow but was moving all his hands and legs, and with no signs of bleeding. We crossed the streets with much greater caution for the rest of the week.<br />
<br />
But then there are moments of silly confusion, rather than the grim sort. The group of elderly Italians in the metro station who couldn’t figure out the tickets, and so we spoke broken Italian to them, they spoke broken French and English to us, and finally, unable to find a complete Italian sentence beneath my French, I showed them that the ticket machine actually worked in Italiano. “Bravo!” said a joyous man in the group, and he cupped my right cheek in gratitude. The cheek glowed in warmth for the rest of our metro ride.<br />
<br />
Or like the middle-aged American who came on to Amy at the Musee d’Orsay.<br />
“Vous etes Parisienne?” he asked.<br />
“Non, je suis Americaine,” she responded with a smile. I walked back over to her at this point. He saw me, broke into a grin, and said, “Oh, me too. You know, I picked the wrong person, but gotta practice that French.” We encouraged him to keep working on the French.<br />
<br />
Really though, when I talk about moments, I don’t mean any of this. I mean the opening into a peace of mind, into a harmony with the breath and with the air around, a quiet space. Many people find their quiet space through spirituality, or through rural towns, or through nature. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9Vte0rQNErumlMSAWLxxiFehWeWfARt-lsc5gjkn3rwZoLgznwxkowPPGt7-qcBk1N1Hd7I7gSWW437rTciah6pg0qPLAXiCVz15zoOw847O8V91Cmjh9Ceo-Bo7vJXalen6/s1600/Vert+Galant+Left+Bank.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW9Vte0rQNErumlMSAWLxxiFehWeWfARt-lsc5gjkn3rwZoLgznwxkowPPGt7-qcBk1N1Hd7I7gSWW437rTciah6pg0qPLAXiCVz15zoOw847O8V91Cmjh9Ceo-Bo7vJXalen6/s400/Vert+Galant+Left+Bank.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">For example, a slice of nature in the middle of the Seine</span></i></td></tr>
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I am fond of those things. I can appreciate those things, and include them in my life. For me, however, the quiet space is to be found in a city, among the convenience, the noxiousness, the bustle, the rush, the bums, the haughty elitists, the overpriced stores, the touristy areas and the undiscovered nooks, but the agglomerations of people and buildings and stuff all in a smaller, denser area. The moments come for me when I can find space amidst that area. </div>
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The moment came on Thursday night, in the steady rain. I stood outside, under an umbrella, while Amy made a last purchase for the night, of pharmaceutical products hard to find in other places. Darkness had long set in, the glow of streetlights filtered by that rain, lending a fuzzier, more romantic lens to the evening. </div>
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I stood across the street from a church. We were in Le Marais, and an orthodox Jew in his wide-brimmed black hat walked by me, buzzed or tapped in a code, and entered a building to the right of the store. Shortly after, the church bells started, ushering in 7:00pm. I was across from one church, but one or two others were in earshot, and their clocks were not perfectly synchronized. One chime from one church chased the chime from another, and soon the two or three separate bells chased each other, unclear which was leading and which following. The chase lasted for a minute, bells falling on one another like the rain on my umbrella. And then the silence returned, or rather, the buzz of the city preparing for dinner and a lively night. The moment settled on me. Amy then came out the store, and we went off to dinner.</div>
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***</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ6wsuHifjGBtrkmo1tzSGOuqk9Dn1scfwgApsmKdm87MBhgoO_TPK-LznFwzvNLeMDMegymSzSwpt456FnmLXVHImARIQM4Ve6F0-5L1pRXafA2jrrHTLIHiVN-hQcOnPqiBp/s1600/Tour+de+Eiffel+from+Montmartre.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ6wsuHifjGBtrkmo1tzSGOuqk9Dn1scfwgApsmKdm87MBhgoO_TPK-LznFwzvNLeMDMegymSzSwpt456FnmLXVHImARIQM4Ve6F0-5L1pRXafA2jrrHTLIHiVN-hQcOnPqiBp/s400/Tour+de+Eiffel+from+Montmartre.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">View from Montmartre</span></i></td></tr>
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But I can’t end without finishing off with the Tour de Eiffel. The Eiffel Tower, a ridiculous structure, built only to perpetuate its own glory and that of its city. A ugly metallic phallus pointed upwards to nowhere, an eyesore, a cliché, an irrelevancy.</div>
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Or else the Eiffel Tower, a brilliant piece of work, a shining example of constructed meaning, literally. The Eiffel came to serve a purpose as a broadcast tower, which is why it outlived its original 20-year life span. But it also served its own purpose, as the current centerpiece of the city, its most famous structure, and the guiding light to all visitors of Paris, at least.</div>
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One can’t escape the Eiffel Tower. There it is looming from the window of the Louvre, or the Musee d’Orsay. Here we see it around the corner from the Sacre Coeur. There it is from the boat, of course, the last stop before the cruise returns eastward. The Arc de Triomphe now serves as a prime lookout to see the Eiffel. The Trocadero Gardens unroll perfectly at the Tower’s feet. Everywhere you go, there you are, in the Eiffel Tower’s shadow.</div>
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So we didn’t escape the Eiffel Tower, but submitted to it as wisely as we could. We came with preordered tickets, printed on that lauded green paper. The positive side to preordering was that our line wait was much shorter. The negative side was that our date was fixed, and we picked the worst one, Tuesday, where the weather was perfect to visit the Musee d’Orsay, but not to see the city. </div>
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Things looked grim, or dim, actually, from the second floor. Through the fog we could barely make out the Arc de Triomphe, we could just catch the dome of the Hôtel des Invalides below, we couldn’t find the Notre Dame, and the Sacre Coeur blended in with the white around it. Rain fell on us as we stood out on the edge to get our photo taken, and again sideways as we waited in line for the summit elevator. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4wlQ8iNCMgHkMHmT7o_5mtfctR5ZQ7aIKwYznYCyTHUjSef9p2VeCkIyAOJjqjZoFmVvAOJctGjGRh1l6AwQVaoExGb2ee1YZfgahW0Wp5LQU5YjE5YbmqdWajJsM300F5Jm/s1600/Arc+de+Triomphe+and+Fog+2.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4wlQ8iNCMgHkMHmT7o_5mtfctR5ZQ7aIKwYznYCyTHUjSef9p2VeCkIyAOJjqjZoFmVvAOJctGjGRh1l6AwQVaoExGb2ee1YZfgahW0Wp5LQU5YjE5YbmqdWajJsM300F5Jm/s400/Arc+de+Triomphe+and+Fog+2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The soupy fog - can you see what's behind it, just visible?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefcbPcszbsl7d7uEWuKnV4Uiof_rlM3n-cdLc6oZ0J0XnfbwUr8lRH42-dOWgsa2qVheld74VVITQtEpQJv_4Lh1L-mvAfFoSCeUJzQ4sCzGbVjdyzWHthzTQvc18FoAhCg7r/s1600/Off+center+little+lovers+and+Eiffel.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
I hoped that we might somehow rise above the clouds when we reached the top, but I obviously did not take any meteorology classes in college. The cloud was thicker from the summit, so that we had to strain to regain what we had seen 500 feet below. We took one quick tour around the top of the tour, had enough, and did our best to descend as quickly as I could.<br />
<br />
I apologized to Amy for not checking the weather before booking our tickets, even though I booked about a week before. “It’s ok, we didn’t have to see everything,” she said. “The rain’s kind of nice, anyway.” I smiled, relieved that at least this, the one major duty of our stay, wasn’t a failure with the audience that mattered. (And I tested her feelings on the rain by leading us to walk to the Orsay, about a half-hour trip.)<br />
<br />
I also smiled because I thought about the next time we would have to deal with the Eiffel Tower. Probably, it will be when Amy’s family comes to visit next summer (right guys?). In any case, I will be more than capable of buying them the tickets online in advance. And Amy will be more than capable of leading them up to the top. After four times, I think I’m well through with the damn thing for a while.</div>
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</div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-52801663530951343082011-09-17T10:51:00.002-04:002011-09-17T11:16:25.600-04:00Soft Silly Music: Meaningful or Magical? Beauty and Narrative at a Jeff Mangum show<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The crowd kept clapping. Minutes after the encore, a lesser-known b-side from the artist that many fans didn’t recognize, the crowd’s needs persisted. 1,500 people, more or less united as one, stood and clapped and whistled and yelled, their rhythm fluctuating between cacophony and a focused monorhythm of quickening beats. The house lights were up. Their cause felt slated for sure disappointment; once the house lights go up, it’s over. <br />
<br />
Five minutes into the ovation, I had already left my second floor seat. Ostensibly in the states for the wedding of a friend from high school, I texted Ben, who was waiting for me in Harvard Square to begin the 90-minute drive to the house on the Cape where we and our friends were staying. I told him that I would surely be there in a couple minutes, that the crowd would give up.<br />
<br />
All the same, I ducked into the first floor, in the hall behind the seats. This was not an unsavvy crowd; they knew how unlikely they were to prevail against the Rule of the House Lights. They kept on anyway. Maybe it’s because the show was in and of itself so unlikely, one that for years none of us imagined would ever happen. Jeff Mangum had played for us that night, giving us 13 songs from the two albums that made up the Neutral Milk Hotel discography, and then he played us “Engine,” the aforementioned B-side. On the one hand, we could not ask for anymore; on the other hand, if we’d reached this far, how could we stop before reaching our limit, before finding if we could get one real encore out of the beloved, prodigal musician? The crowd, as such, kept clapping.<br />
<br />
And then I had occasion to amend my previous text message, the one stating that you should always take the house lights against the crowd. I wrote, “except this time.” Mangum had returned to play. Again.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Those familiar with Jeff Mangum – those who can identify him by name, without his band attached to it – probably already understand the hoopla, and understand how the announcement of his concert was what pushed me to fly over the Atlantic Ocean for the weekend rather than anything else. For those who don’t, a brief explanation:<br />
<br />
Jeff Mangum is an American musician, probably close to the age of 40 if not there yet, who wrote and performed music in the 1990s. A member of the amorphous Elephant 6 collective – essentially a group of friends, many of them from Ruston, LA, who lived in Athens, GA and played music together in a variety of bands and songwriting vehicles, eventually garnering notoriety and popularity on a national scale, though I can’t really say how great that scale was at the time. The collective became known for making great music in a generally throwback manner, with nods to 60s pop, the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, that sort of thing. The three most well-known groups or artists from the Elephant 6 collective, I believe, were Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples in Stereo, and Neutral Milk Hotel. Each project had a Ruston native at its core – The Apples, still active, revolved around Robert Schneider in making their 60’s inspired power pop; Olivia Tremor Control, who have in the past couple years started playing shows again and even recorded a new song, had Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss at the center of their psychedelic pop masterpieces; and Neutral Milk Hotel was the name of Mangum’s longtime project.<br />
<br />
If the Apples made the easiest to understand music of the original E6 group, and if Olivia Tremor Control tossed off two records consisting of brilliant pop but also long tracks of tape loops and “experiments,” (and if, for that matter, the younger affiliate Of Montreal actually found the most success in their second, post-2004 recording period), Neutral Milk Hotel are probably the most loved of the E6 bands. I have little grounds for affirming this beyond internet browsing and sharing a love of NMH with friends in college and through 30music, but it is the only band in the group to be enshrined into the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Neutral-Milk-Hotels-Aeroplane-Over/dp/082641690X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315985950&sr=8-1">33 1/3 canon</a>, which stands as at least one strong piece of evidence (Kim Cooper’s fabulously reported book serves as the major source for the info in this article, by the by). <br />
<br />
In any case, the short story goes that Mangum made two full length albums. The first, On Avery Island, was essentially a solo record that Schneider produced and a bunch of other people played on as necessary. The second, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, is the one everybody remembers, featuring a full four-piece band (Mangum on guitar and vocals, Scott Spillane on trumpet, Jeremy Barnes on drums, Julian Koster on just about <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/in-the-aeroplane-over-the-sea-r334039/credits">everything else</a>). After that album, released in February 1998, the band toured for much of the year, and then Mangum didn’t want to do it anymore. He stopped playing shows, broke up the band, disappeared from the indie scene, and didn’t do much publicly for about a decade. Then he started making random appearances at his friends’ shows (including the <a href="http://www.neutralmilkhotel.org/gigog.htm">Olivia Tremor Control reunion shows</a>), and then he played a random show in Brooklyn last winter, and finally this year it was announced he would play a few shows on the east coast and a festival in England. That catches you up as far as the quick and dirty goes.<br />
<br />
As for my attendance, the story is as follows: upon learning about the shows, I first thought about going to the festival (I’m still considering it), but then realized that his dates in the Boston area coincided with the wedding I was invited to. And since it would have been impractical to go to Boston on a Saturday night when I was meant to be in Harwich, I fixed my eyes on making the show at Sanders Theater on a Friday night. <br />
<br />
This was the first show I have ever gone to that involved buying tickets immediately, on the day of. Never have I had to deal with the frustrating process of queuing up online and calling repeatedly in hopes of getting through for one or two seats. I tried on a Thursday when pre-ticket sales were supposedly on sale, but they “sold out” in minutes. The next day, I geared up for the gates to open, clicked and clicked and called and called, varying between requesting one or two seats (in case I could find an interested +1), despairing that despite total preparation, I would be left in the cold. So long to the wedding as well, I thought, it wouldn’t be worth the $700 flight.<br />
<br />
And then, at last, I got through. One seat, in the balcony, for September 9th, 2011, at Sanders Theater in Cambridge, MA. I had my ticket to see Jeff Mangum.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Whether instituted at Mangum’s suggestion, by Wordless Music, or by the Sanders Theater management, the controls on the tickets were stricter than for normal shows. Due to great concern about scalping, ticket holders, all of whom had to pick up at will call, were required not only to show ID but a print out of their ticket receipt or confirmation. I was not alone in not reading the fine print on the email detailing the process we ticket holders got the week before. I thought perhaps to tell the uptight dude running said process that we lived in 2011 and not 2004; he might have easily countered that most people have a smart phone in 2011, which could have shown the confirmation as well. Foiled in my mind, I found a Staples, printed out my ticket confirmation, and returned armed for music. <br />
<br />
Sanders Theater, home to Memorial Hall, is a church-like building on the western edge of Harvard’s campus. Brick and stately, with busts of significant people on each side, and a tall-roofed hall that held 1,500 people, mostly in wooden benches, it’s a theater my grandmother comes often with her Russian-language community of elderly folks to see classical performances. The theater was the perfect setting for Mangum to play; it could have been the source of the images depicted on NMH posters like what they were selling at the show, with old-fashioned victrolas and society dames in the balcony and the general love of old and lost that in this scene, in the hall of Sanders Theater before Mangum’s 6th official show of his return, almost felt pornographically kitschy and attuned to the NMH aesthetic. What I mostly mean to say, though, is that Sanders Theater was a good place to see this performance.<br />
<br />
I began milling around the building just after 7, waiting for doors to open at 7:30 – concert literature boasted of a prompt 8:00pm start. Also, seeing as I had pre-wedding buffoonery to join as soon as possible on the Cape, I thought I could help encourage an on-time start by setting the example and arriving in my seat early. Outside, a small crowd walked around the grassy plot in front of the building. A few stray fans walked around either asking if someone needed a ticket or, more commonly, if someone was selling a ticket. Hanging to our north was a soon to be full moon, not shining in the late daylight but nevertheless impressive, ominous. Amongst the crowd I saw a larger percentage of flannel shirts worn than I’ve seen since middle school, probably – whether the guys sporting the checkered look did it as a conscious homage to Mangum’s preferred form of outerwear or because that’s just how they roll, I quietly thanked the universe that my girlfriend’s taste do not include that style. <br />
<br />
The doors opened at 7:30, I entered, found my seat, and began reading. Slowly, the hall filled with spectators, and by the time the show unpromptly began at 8:17pm, it was about two-thirds full, and a diverse mix – the tattooed, dads with their sons (I wonder who dragged whom to the show), college bros, and indie types like the couple next to me who spoke of not wanting to seem all “anti lo-fi” but really preferring the earlier Mountain Goats records. Of course, diverse in a relative sense; most of the crowd appeared to be middle-class white, with a few Asian, Latino, and other minorities breaking up the monochromaticity. The gender divide was fairly even however, which for a nominally “indie rock” show speaks of Neutral Milk Hotel’s broad appeal. In the background, the sound system piped in recordings of chanting that sounded African, Asian, or in between (i.e. Arabic).<br />
<br />
The gentleman running <a href="http://wordlessmusic.org/">Wordless Music</a>, a man possibly so excited by the monumental nature of this show that he awkwardly quizzed people about whether they were coming or going in the ticket collection process, appeared to applause and introduced the show. He explained why photos and recording devices were barred; not just, as I guessed, because Mangum might have asked for this restriction but because, as I realized when he said it, it’s really annoying when everybody is recording the show and taking pictures with the phone and everything else. When we live through our handheld devices, we’re not living as much, and a live performance from Jeff Mangum was a place deserving of living as much as anything else.<br />
<br />
Without further ado, a classical string quartet going by <a href="http://www.acmemusic.org/">Acme</a> came on. Four girls dressed casually in jeans and what not, they sat and played three pieces by Erik Satie that I noted only for the long bowstrokes that featured heavily, in the first two pieces especially. Meanwhile, the crowd seeped in during the 3rd piece and grew closer to capacity. The new arrivals, ignoring restrictions, used technology rampantly; at least, one guy in the row in front of me posted “Jeff Mangum” on his facebook status. Inescapable.<br />
<br />
Similarly inescapable was the last song of Acme’s set, a 20-minute or so rendition of a Gavin Bryars piece called, “<a href="http://www.gavinbryars.com/Pages/jesus_blood_never_failed_m.html">Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet</a>.” Over a tape loop of an English homeless man singing the titular refrain a few times, Acme gradually built up an elaborate backing, took over the lead melodic role, and then faded into support and then nothingness. Interesting conceptually, the piece wore out the patience of the crowd, at least based on my section and some comments I saw on a web board afterward.<br />
<br />
The song and the set ended around 9:00pm. A few last stragglers joined the crowd, a few others stepped out for a cigarette, a breath of fresh air, or, paradoxically, both. I’d be lying if I said there was a great tension in the crowd, necessarily, but I certainly felt eager, and as the break extended to 15 minutes and then 20, that excitement surely built in other parts of the now-packed hall. At about 9:20pm, a fan in the balcony whistled loudly, exhortatively. <br />
<br />
On cue, the house lights dimmed. Seconds later, Jeff Mangum, clad in trademark flannel, emerged from the back of the stage, sat down in a chair between four guitars and two microphones, picked up the guitar, and began to strum In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’s epic centerpiece, “Oh Comely.”<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
As a person with spiritual aspirations but an overly rational mind, I allow myself very few speculations about life “finding” me in any ineffable way. One of those speculations regards music. I believe that in my life music has frequently entered at just the right moment, just the time when I was ready for it. I’m aware that as I tout my examples they could be easily ripped apart as spurious, but all the same, I have a feeling of serendipity regarding the music in my life.<br />
<br />
The first example was finally getting into Saves the Day and the rest of the brand of emo my friends listened to in high school not long after my first and only high school break up. This example becomes all the more laughable when you consider I dated the girl for, really, three weeks, and that I had no real excuse for feeling so sad, just as most high school boys from upper-middle class backgrounds who listened to emo had no real excuse for feeling so sad, but there it was. Similarly, Nirvana, The Beatles, and Dylan hit me in college at all the right points, when I was finally ready for them. I remember listening to Blonde on Blonde for the first time on a Delta/Song Airlines flight home from Fort Lauderdale after wrecking my engine of the first car I ever owned by driving it for 5.5K miles and 8-9 months without ever getting the oil changed. Go ahead and tell me that wasn’t an appropriate time to hear about everybody getting stoned.<br />
<br />
Few records found me at a more appropriate time than In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. I’m not sure how long I had heard about it before I received it, or when it first came on my radar; between hearing of Of Montreal in early 2004 as the first aural introduction to Elephant 6, listening to Pet Sounds in May of 2004 for the first time and knowing that Brian Wilson was a big influence on E6, and maybe falling in love with Saturday Looks Good to Me’s Every Night over the summer of 2004, a band All Music Guide shamelessly linked to NMH (shamelessly because there’s not much relation between the two, but AMG, personal friends of Fred Thomas, SLGTM’s front man, have supported him in every way possible, which is great by the way), as well as writing for 30music where a few people touted the album as indeed worth it, I became aware that I needed to try it out. Still, I was skeptical; besides not wanting to join the proverbial gang, I thought about the new comic someone had designed for 30music with a girl protesting that she was into NMH before everybody knew them, the joke being that everybody knew them already.<br />
<br />
Without directly resisting or seeking out the album, I skated by until mid-September 2004. Home for my mother’s funeral, delayed by the unfortunate timing of Rosh Hashanah that year and the unavailability of a rabbi, I was on my AIM at the kitchen table in my dad’s house when one of the writers for 30music, a girl named Marisha, started talking to me. I’m sure I didn’t tell her about what was going on, being as I only knew her through online correspondence and not all that well but, perhaps because I had requested it from her earlier or, more likely, she told me she would send it to me at some earlier time, she sent me In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. <br />
<br />
Again, those who have heard the album understand why it was appropriate at that time. Simple harmonically and melodically, but with a grab bag of weird and interesting sounds (accordions, singing saws, horns, fuzz on the guitars, and so on), the album had the immediate hooks to draw me in to its songs and its lyrics, which in their classic melodies and vivid themes spoke to the heart, to beauty and sadness and joy and pain and revelry and exhaustion. In large part inspired by reading Anne Frank’s diary, Mangum concocted a gritty and sparkling tribute to music and life, revolving around nine basic songs and two instrumental interludes. It was a song cycle, with two pairs of tracks explicitly tied together, a series of intersecting lyrical themes, and very basic chord changes. Weird and at the same time immediately accessible, direct and loud and soft and naked, always honest, the album creates its listening audience, such that almost anybody who is thoughtful and patient enough to put it on two or three times will fall in love with it. <br />
<br />
Clearly, it didn’t take me long to join the NMH orthodoxy. Still a newcomer to the guitar, I learned almost all of the songs on the album. The first two tracks are in F; 3, 4, 6, and 8 are in G; 11 in G#; 9 in E; 5 and 10 instrumentals; and I never learned 7. Also, just about the only thing Mangum does with his chord structure out of the norm is to make the 3 or the 6 chord major instead of minor; he plays a B major instead of minor on track 4, “Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1”; a C major instead of minor on track 11, “Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2”; and a E major instead of minor on “Oh Comely”. In the spring of 2005, I performed an open mic on my college campus where I played a song I wrote about my mom and covered “Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1,” enjoying the rickety liberation that Mangum’s vocal encouraged me to sing with. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Mangum began this show, as mentioned, with “Oh Comely”, that E major to C major progression that, in its dissonance, sounds significantly sadder and more weighty than it would if he just stuck with the E minor (these chords, reversed, are how the Kinks get the shimmering effect on the initial strum of “Lola”). The crowd, unsure what Mangum’s tone would be on the night and afraid to spoil anything, stayed silent as he boomed through the 8-minute song, humming the horn parts that enter in the last section of the song, and then ending the song suddenly, without the ritardando of the album version. The crowd erupted, Mangum thanked them, and settled in for the night.<br />
<br />
In terms of a concert, it was pretty straightforward. I’ll post the set list below, but it mostly conformed to expectations – every major In the Aeroplane… song was played, as were the best cuts off On Avery Island: “Song Against Sex” especially, but also “Naomi,” “Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone,” and “Baby For Pree/Where You’ll Find Me Now.” Mangum played a Roky Erickson cover that he had played at previous shows on this tour, a simple lyric about love that fit in well. <br />
<br />
Mangum also had an easy grip of the crowd. He changed a lyric in “Naomi” to refer to Cambridge and then, almost like a nervous newcomer on the scene, asked if the crowd heard the reference. He invited everybody to sing along to “In the Aeroplane over the Sea”, and then again on the last verse of “Ghost.” I never sing along at shows, a habit I must have gleaned from reading some clever bastard’s writing about why it’s lame to sing at shows instead of listening to the artist – I don’t claim originality – and while that’s a fair point for many shows, this one had the feeling of a reunion between Mangum and his fans, of a community; I joined in on “Ghost”, and later on “Holland, 1945,” and I felt the chill of union with others washing over me as I sang about the girl falling from 14 stories high. <br />
<br />
The communal aspect played a huge role in this concert, which was as much a gathering as an artistic performance. The crowd reminded me of two other concerts I’ve been to: the first is a Jonathan Richman show I went to earlier this year, whose crowd was similar to this in their eagerness to lap up everything the performer said and then encourage him to come up with more. Some in the crowd shouted for “Little Birds”, a song mentioned in Cooper’s book as a dark, harrowing, disturbing song, the only post-In the Aeroplane… song Mangum has performed in public, and that only once 12-13 years ago. This knowledge of the artist corresponded with folks at the JR show who knew Richman’s trademark leg kick dance by heart and hoped to see it come out every other song.<br />
<br />
The other show it reminded me of was a Cat Power show in Greensboro the summer of 2006, shortly after she had declared her sobriety, and just before she hit into the fullest boom of her career, it seems, in performing cover songs with sultry Southern swagger. There she stopped many of her songs in the middle out of frustration with the sound in the monitors, shared the news about her sobriety to great cheers, and finally ended the set only to light a cigarette and hold an impromptu Q&A. There as at the Mangum show, the crowd understood that they were dealing with a delicate artist, and so coaxed her along, supporting her at every stumble and wobble, hoping she could ride that bike on her own and amaze us with her talents therein. <br />
<br />
This eager support did indeed coax some singular moments out of the shared Mangum/Sanders Theater crowd performance. During “Baby for Pree/Where You’ll Find Me Now,” the sound system cut off, and Mangum, losing the sound in the monitors, stood up and walked to the front of the stage without breaking his rhythm, sitting down and continuing to play, his booming voice still reaching us in the nosebleeds, everybody leaning on the edge of their seat to join in the intimacy. In an interlude between songs a few minutes later, somebody from the balcony shouted, “Now I can die happy!”, leading to a funny exchange where Mangum thanked the guy without knowing what he said, then finally nodded his understanding and said he could die happy too, to great cheers. Finally, before his last pre-encore song, as the shouts for “Little Birds” and “Communist Daughter” and others, he interrupted to ask, “Ok, do you guys want to sing Holland now?” For all the stories of damaged genius and reluctant performer, Mangum had a fair share of self-awareness and detachment about the show.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Anybody who’s made it this far is more than forgiven for wondering what the big deal is, then. If Mangum played songs not as a crazy savant but as a normal, centered man, if the crowd enjoyed it and supported it, isn’t that enough? Can’t we just go home happy? Can’t I just die happy without writing all of this?<br />
<br />
There’s still something to explore. There’s the issue of the museum and the battle between narrative and beauty.<br />
<br />
In another <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kinks-Village-Preservation-Society-Thirty/dp/0826414982/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316272272&sr=8-1">33 1/3 book</a>, one about the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society album, Andy Miller writes about the fifth track, “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains.” The whole song is a joke on the Kinks still playing R&B, and on a deeper level about, as Miller writes, “How do you reconcile your past and present?” The lyric talks about the last rebel, locked up in a museum, and Miller later compares that quixotic lyric to the Kinks’ fate, especially regarding this album, a failure at the time but enshrined in the museum of rock after the fact.<br />
<br />
Attending any rock show, especially for non-social people like myself, is something of a strange phenomenon. Often, shows are just live performances of what you can hear on the album from the comfort of your home. It’s a vehicle for supporting the museum artifacts that are modern musicians, but unless the band itself is notorious for putting on a great or special show, there is often little extra benefit to the spectator beyond the social experience and that feeling of altruism.<br />
<br />
Further, any reunion or comeback tour becomes immediately an exercise in nostalgia. Especially the first time around, no one wants to hear anything new. So an older band or artist is reviving material from 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago, playing it in a new context, but also owing great fidelity to the original. The spontaneity and improvisation that often serves as the key selling point of a live performance is not only unlikely but not desired in this case. Which leads us to narrative and beauty.<br />
<br />
Before Jeff Mangum returned from his self-imposed hiatus to appear at shows again and then play them on his own, he existed as a narrative for his fans. We watch sports and consume art, I’d argue, for two main reasons: narrative and beauty (in sports there’s also identification, a cruder if more essential concept that, for this essay, I’m not interested in). Sports, for example, offers endless narrative, as various plot lines are shaped, erased, altered, changed, renewed, and grafted on to men hitting, throwing, or bouncing a ball at or past one another. These narratives are largely meaningless, and also rather <a href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6961013/shot-confrontation">arbitrary</a>, but they are enjoyable, and life too is largely meaningless and arbitrary when we dare think about it.<br />
<br />
On the beauty side of the occasion, sports suffer compared to art. In all my years of passionate and then casual fandom, I can think of only one athlete I witnessed in person who consistently performed beautifully: Pedro Martinez, pitcher for the Boston Red Sox during my high school and college years, time of my passionate fandom. Otherwise, due to us taking for granted the unbelievable athleticism of modern athletes, and the competition level that somehow renders most athletes on an equal plane with one another, I haven’t witnessed anybody else at that level.<br />
<br />
Art, of course, provides a great deal of beauty, as well as a great deal of thought into how we live our lives and what it’s all about. On the macro scale, however, art rarely provides us with easy narrative. Everybody is accessible in our time, on facebook and twitter and all the rest of it, and it becomes hard to idolize or glorify artists, never mind construct back stories about them. I’ve been lucky enough, through my time with 30music, to meet a lot of my favorite musicians, and I understand that they’re just normal men and women who are good at music and who have gone on their own path, not heroes or idols or anything else. I could make a narrative up about them, but it wouldn’t be any more special than making up a narrative about you, or about the guy who records their sound, or who serves the drink, or anyone else.<br />
<br />
That said, Mangum offered us one of the few time-tested narratives in art: that of the damaged artist who burned out rather than fade away. He became the Internet Age’s Salinger, its Cobain, its Greta Garbo, a feat all the harder because it’s the Internet Age, where no one can disappear and none are forgotten. A myth rose around him, a sense that in some way He was not like us, whether for ill or for good or, as it is with most chosen ones, for both. <br />
<br />
Which of course is in some way ridiculous, as most narratives are when deconstructed. Mangum wrote a couple great records, went on tour, got tired, and stopped playing and talking to people in public. It wasn’t really that big of a deal. When pulling out that 33 1/3 book about In the Aeroplane…, I was surprised to see it was written in 2005. Of course, I must have read it as soon as it came out. In 2005, Mangum had been gone for seven years. Seven years, when observed from a few steps back, should hardly be long enough to build up a legend, no matter how good the album was. And yet, the rumor mill had long been churning, with brief reports flaring against the dark backdrop of mystery enveloping Mangum, a <a href="http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/5847-neutral-milk-hotel/">Pitchfork interview</a> and the quest to find him from <a href="http://clatl.com/atlanta/have-you-seen-jeff-mangum/Content?oid=1243486">Creative Loafing</a> most notable. Never mind that Mangum made it reasonably clear, as much as he could, that he just didn’t want to play music anymore, for reasons that included the grind of being a popular touring musician, sadness and depression over his friends’ continued suffering despite his own success, his desire to remain himself at a time when people overreacted to the depth of his music, and just because he didn’t want to play anymore. It sounds strange for him to stop doing what he loved to do, but it also makes sense for his mood to change, if we allow people freedom to decide the course of their own life. Mangum obviously either had that innate sense of freedom or acquired it through the success or struggle that In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’s reception brought him. He changed.<br />
<br />
Then why come back? What changed between 2003, say, and now? Did he need the money (unlikely)? Did he just finally realize how much people out there cared about him as a musician and as a person? Did he just get over it? We as consumers of culture and as thinkers and as people also have the freedom to come up with our answer to that first question. <br />
<br />
For example, I constructed a narrative that makes sense to me – Mangum hit on a raw nerve with In the Aeroplane…, both with listeners and himself. Cooper often posits that Mangum may have “channeled” his songs rather than write them, and while the idea comes off as overly hippie-dippy, there is something to it: many of Mangum’s melodies are simple and effective in a way that makes them appear timeless, more discovered than written – a more common example of the eternal melody that blends into what came before and yet stands out on its own is Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Neutral Milk Hotel songs have that feeling. “Two-headed Boy Pt. 2” would sound brilliant covered by a professional church-type choir, especially the last bridge, the “When we break, we all wait for our miracle,” section, where a perfect harmony/counter-melody offers itself a register above the main melody. <br />
<br />
So there’s something fully-formed about the songs on this album, eternal. The lyrics trade in ugliness, death, rebirth, pain, joy, and similar weighty themes. For this reason, the album becomes a hit with everyone who really listens to it. Those listeners react to it in a deep way, and expect something out of Mangum. Mangum meanwhile has to perform these songs over and over, songs that came out of a personal lode of creativity but also emotion and energy; he tapped into a source inside himself that maybe was hidden, maybe was painful to reach, maybe opened up other difficult thoughts and flows. Performing these things might have challenged Mangum, might have physically or emotionally or spiritually have hurt him and drained him night after night. Add that to his new obligations to the press and his fans, and to his disappointment upon coming home and seeing others don’t have it the way he does, and we can imagine the beginnings of his funk. <br />
<br />
From there, it’s not a huge step to the end of the funk. Love and support from those dear to him; understanding (which he flexed several times in this concert) that his songs are loved and he is loved as well by strangers out there; and time and distance that allows him to process the energy released in writing these songs, to detach himself from the creative process and to wholly embrace these songs as now formed entities, as something he can perform for others without giving a piece of himself from that dark place, and all of a sudden playing music for strangers doesn’t become as hard. <br />
<br />
That’s my theory, at least. Like most plausible narratives about other human beings, especially strangers, people we can’t really imagine or know beyond superficial levels, it’s probably total bullshit. Just like Mangum’s level-headed control of the crowd ruined every narrative of damaged genius. That’s the thing about narratives about people: they’re highly contingent on facts we don’t know and feelings that often change, and memory besides.<br />
<br />
Which leaves us with beauty. On a night where all we wanted was the museum versions of the song, where the early bootlegs from a Mangum comeback show suggested he was playing his songs straight up, with little nuance compared to the album versions except some added sweetness in his voice, where we all knew what we were getting, and where the chance of improvisation and narrative spectacle was minimal, all we were left with was beauty. Which may be the ultimate reason Mangum came back: to perform his songs that many of us find beautiful, to allow us to reconnect to songs we’ve heard so many times we know them front and back, to hear them for the first time live (I assume), to join a community for an hour and unite in something bigger than ourselves. In something beautiful.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
“Except this time,” I texted to Ben, as Mangum reappeared and the crowd roared and the house lights came down again. I, out of my seat, settled into a spot in the aisles. Now I was closer to the stage, anyway. Mangum wanted added closeness too, apparently – after picking up the fourth guitar, the nicest looking one, a red and white one he hadn’t used yet, he walked out to the front of the stage again, away from the microphones, and began strumming vigorously. There were only two songs he really hadn’t played yet, “Communist Daughter” and “Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1,” and the latter, one of the clear highlights of an album and career chock full of highlights, was the obvious choice, both from context and the vigorous strum.<br />
<br />
So Mangum ended the night with his spookiest, most unfettered hit. His unamplified voice still rang out in rickety liberation, but there was the triumph of the return in the air, not a chauvinistic triumph but a communal one. In Cooper’s book, E6 member and contemporaneous Mangum girlfriend Laura Carter suggested, prophetically, that what Mangum wanted to do was, “be a recluse and then come out with an album in ten years and shock everybody.” While little can shock or surprise us in the Internet Age, and we’re still waiting on the album, a couple of years after the decade Carter suggested, Mangum has returned. Locked up in a museum, but returning to his songs and their beauty. <br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Jeff Mangum show setlist for Sanders Theater on 9th September, 2011:<br />
<br />
1. Oh Comely<br />
2. Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2<br />
3. I Love the Living You (Roxy Erickson cover)<br />
4. In The Aeroplane Over the Sea<br />
5. Song Against Sex<br />
6/7. A Baby for Pree/Where You’ll Find Me Now<br />
8. Naomi<br />
9. Ghost<br />
10. Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone<br />
11/12. King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 1-3<br />
13. Holland, 1945<br />
<br />
Encore<br />
14. Engine<br />
<br />
2nd Encore<br />
15. Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1<br />
<br />
Source: My memory and this <a href="http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/jeff-mangum/2011/sanders-theatre-cambridge-ma-43d03707.html">website</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-39727097711214530712011-09-08T07:57:00.001-04:002011-09-08T07:58:34.535-04:00After Their Falls, or the Lack of Listening<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
This Sunday, September 11<sup>th</sup>, returning from a weekend in Massachusetts for a wedding and a concert, I will take an overnight plane back to Europe from Logan Airport in Boston. Logan was the origin for American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, both to Los Angeles, both hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center Towers.<br />
<br />
I can remember where I was for several of the 9/11 anniversaries, if only because the date’s significance made me more attentive. The 3<sup>rd</sup> anniversary, a Saturday in 2004, marked the last time, one of the last times, or the day after the last time, that I talked to my mother on the phone, from her hospital bed, before cancer killed her on Tuesday three days later. The following year, at home for the fall, I went with my younger brother and sister to an Of Montreal concert that Sunday night, the band just about to hit the inflection point of their rise to success and relative fame, my siblings and I nearing a similar inflection point in our mutual bond through music, self-forged rather than handed down from above. Last year, I was in Copenhagen with Ben and Amy, where we came upon a rally, a small one, in a main square, calling on the U.S. to reveal the truth about 9/11 being an inside job. Lastly, if not chronologically so, on the 5<sup>th</sup> anniversary in 2006, I was also on a plane, flying a couple hours from Tallinn to Moscow as I ended my initial European jaunt and began a 2 ½ month stay in the city of my parents, of my mother. Somewhere I have my journal from that trip, where during that flight I wrote down the things one could live for, that I could live for, which basically came down to love – of another person or of what one does in life – art, and serving others, as well as some combination of these elements. At the time, I thought I had neither the fortune nor the constitution to succeed at anything but art, cynically, naively, pathetically believing the romantic love that had yet to reach me in 21 years never would. I’ve been wrong, occasionally. In any case, it makes me wonder whence and whither I will be flying on September 11, 2016, and how my worldview will have changed.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I’m not making too strong a political statement in saying that we as a country have, at best, struggled in our response to the attacks over the last decade and, at worst, failed. Economically, politically, militarily, and in terms of safety, we are no better off than we were a decade ago and, in most of these and other measures, worse off. While no one at the time expected the brief sense of unity that emerged in the aftermath of the twin towers falling to last, no one expected irony to disappear, no one expected our culture to reinvent itself, it still strikes me how much our unity has deteriorated, how much our culture eats itself into paradoxical irrelevance, how guarded and ironic and snarky we’ve become, we’ve <i>had</i> to become. <br />
<br />
(I will insert here because I don’t think I have a chance later – having visited New York City again this summer, I’m reminded that the city, more than anywhere else in the country probably, has internalized the lessons of 9/11, has reacted appropriately, and has grown from the experience, exceptions like the Ground Zero mosque controversy notwithstanding. Whatever else I’ve said about the city, it is clearly our greatest city, and best represents our hope and dream in 2011.) <br />
<br />
Living abroad, I have had experience with both sides of the “telescope effect”. I’m not sure if that’s the technical term, or if anybody has conceived of this idea (though surely someone has; also, what I’m talking about differs slightly from the “CNN effect”, which has certainly been coined), but the idea is that when we hear about news from another place, some place faraway, we are inevitably going to hear only about the most important events or stories, and the most important events or stories are inevitably going to be bad. Israel is a good example of this, I think – when in the U.S., in Europe, one only hears about Israel through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict, or in this summer’s exception, about social upheaval in the country over the price of housing. Living there, I found a sense of normality, a sense of the mundane, and while the newspapers ran a conflict-related headline on their front page almost every day, there was more to life than the news. But living away from Israel, as I am now, I fear for the latest violence, fret about the situation, and freak out just as much as the next interested observer, and forget that life goes on there.<br />
<br />
The same goes for living outside the U.S.A. From afar, from the news, the U.S. appears to be crazy. The healthcare “debate” especially hit me – the raucous town hall meetings, the vulgar insults, the Nazi comparisons (usually thrown in hand in hand with “socialist” cries, which reminds me that my saddest moment teaching high school history last spring was when I had to convince a senior that no, Hitler was <i>not</i> a Communist. Those Americans who confused the two may not have had such corrections in their schooling). It seemed like the country was going mad, and since this was the only decade in which I have been something of an adult, since I had no true grounds for comparison, it startled me. It scared me. <br />
<br />
Last year, mostly living in the States, I found things calmer on the day to day, of course, and many of the most vitriolic debates were stowed away until the debt ceiling clash of last month, but news remained full of crazy events. Politicians certainly seemed incapable of talking to or with another, rather than past one another, and I felt like normal Americans, citizens, continued to exist in their own circles, talking about politics, for example, only with people they agreed with, supporting themselves with their own online sourced arguments that all of the group in the circle had read and shared, refusing to talk to the other side because <i>they </i>wouldn’t listen. Neither side listens. Even a circle-closing, uniting event like the killing of Osama Bin Laden led to several inane political arguments, though fortunately short-lived ones.<br />
<br />
Then again, perhaps it’s always been this way. Maybe it’s inevitable that any democracy of our size will become irreversibly fissured, if they didn’t start out that way (which makes watching India and, if the Communist Party ever loosens their grip, China fascinating as we move forward). Look at U.S. history. We had to make several great compromises to put the Constitution together, the two-chambered legislature that has the anachronistic Senate, the Electoral College, and the Bill of Rights chief among the results. Under John Adams, the government tried to outlaw dissent. The antebellum period included a series of last-minute, crisis-averting compromises and violent incidents and crises nevertheless, leading up at last to the Civil War. Slavery and its legacy continue to stain our nation, as does the legacy of gender inequality. Immigrants were controversial and discriminated against every time a new wave hit land, with the previous group of immigrants often the ones to conduct the train of spite against the latest arrivals. The Cold War brought with it a series of near-apocalypses, its fair share of reductive “us vs. them” thinking and grandiose vilification of the <i>them</i> (see: President Reagan), and the frequent sense that we were falling behind, even when we weren’t. The 90s, the decade of my childhood, was a calm one in the U.S., maybe an exceptional decade, a beautiful decade to grow up in if one is interested in peace, prosperity, and happiness as an American, though not if one wants exciting big picture events – then again, the persecution of President Clinton for his wandering libido, while ultimately not consummated, was as much an example of craziness as anything we’ve seen since, though now we look back at it comically.<br />
<br />
Or, perhaps, the issue is that we are weak for the first time. Really weak. In the 20<sup>th</sup> century, the turn of which saw the U.S. become the world’s largest economy, the U.S. was seriously shaken from its eternal, beautiful optimism, its dream and its self-belief, by four events, I would argue – the Great Depression, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. The first struck us economically on a level theretofore unseen; Pearl Harbor was the only instance of a military attack on the U.S. in the 20<sup>th</sup> century, I believe (though even then, Hawaii was not yet a state); the Cold War was our first encounter with the paranoia and competitive urge that comes from trying to be the world’s leader and superpower; and the Vietnam War proved our leaders utterly fallible, our government’s intentions not always clear and noble, our world leadership not necessarily a blessing to others or ourselves. <br />
<br />
Through all of those traumas, our nation emerged. We emerged due to the blessings of geography, of isolation and natural resources, of demographics, but also due to the attraction America held and holds for other peoples in other nations, free or not, the principles of religious freedom and personal freedom and everything else, due to the power of our dream and due to our nation’s strength, especially that much vaunted greatest generation which, forged through the hardship of the Great Depression, perhaps the last time the middle class lived on the basis of need rather than want, served in our time of greatest need, when indeed our goals were clear and noble, World War II, and paved the way for the 50 years of mostly uninterrupted prosperity that followed. While I am one of those who would likely be tarred as an apologist, as someone who denies America’s exceptionalism, if I ever got into a conversation on the topic with someone of a certain political bearing, or if I wrote for a publication with more than five readers, and while I believe that indeed every country is in their way exceptional, for better or for worse, and that chauvinism is not a necessary ingredient of national pride and patriotism, I will state that America is indeed exceptional, and that has led to good things. I will always be grateful for growing up in the U.S.A., and even more so for the country accepting my immigrant family and providing them a climate of opportunity and freedom they wouldn’t have had elsewhere. <br />
<br />
(Bad things too – the U.S. WWII museum in New Orleans, a fine museum, does indeed have a section on the internment of Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans living in the states, as well as a series of awfully racist posters teaching citizens and soldiers how to distinguish between Chinese (our friends) and Japanese (our enemies) through physical and racial characteristics. No matter how much one is inured to the biases of the past, it still shocks to see in actual print. Or in other words, no matter how far we have to come in racial equality, anybody who has seen <i>Gone with the Wind </i>can acknowledge the great strides we have made in that area, thank God.)<br />
<br />
In the first decade of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, however, we’ve been suffered almost as many traumas as in the 100 years previous. Iraq and Afghanistan combined loom as something similar to Vietnam in its impact on our nation’s psyche, public coffers, and image abroad; the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession that we struggle with today is not quite the Great Depression, but the situation doesn’t look much more promising; China already looms impatiently as the next world power and the greatest threat to our global preeminence since the Soviet Union, and indeed a greater threat at that; and of course the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of 10 years ago, the yet to be replicated second time we have suffered an attack on American soil since the Civil War. <br />
<br />
(I could change the typology slightly and claim the war on terror is the parallel to the Cold War, but I think this works better.)<br />
<br />
The combination of these events instills a self-fulfilling quality in our national spirit. These events or situations suggest that we are not what we once were, that we are indeed in decline, that we need to change direction. Hence, incumbents get voted out of office quickly, the winning side presumes a huge mandate instead of accepting that we live in a divided country and that one has to govern either brilliantly or carefully, not foolhardily or timidly, leading to another cycle of new politicians, new overstated mandate, and new disillusionment. Hence, people grasp to further and further extremes in the hope of finding an answer to the nation’s problems, which leaves a widening gap between the two sides, even if one side or the other manages to pull the whole conversation in a direction they prefer (as the Right did in the debt-ceiling debate – I suppose you could argue the Left did this in the healthcare debate or, even better, gay rights, but I don’t know enough about it. I think I can objectively state that the Right is currently better at shifting the conversation). Hence, at a time where to solve our problems and show our strength amid this typhoon of challenges we need to come to greater consensus on a national level, a greater agreement of what sort of sacrifice we should share, what sort of country we want in the big picture, and what we are willing to give to that country, we pull at one another’s hair and allow the recession to persist, the war to continue without clear direction, and China to go past savoring our struggles and into scolding us for threatening their economy and vision of their slower rise to preeminence. <br />
<br />
Hence, dead or not, Bin Laden did pretty well in fucking America up.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
September 11<sup>th</sup>, 2001 was the first day of the school year, of my senior year in high school. It was a sunny day. As tradition demanded (and probably still demands), after the three lower classes had been seated in the chapel for the All School Meeting that would begin the school year, we seniors marched in with great pomp and cheer, holding up two fingers for the class of 2002, yelling a lot, and acting out a sense of naïve chauvinism that can only belong to high school seniors. I’m sure I participated in the revelry less than most of my classmates, not because I have a disinclination to naïve chauvinism, though I’d like to think I do, but because I have always had a bit of the contrarian asshole in me, and felt it was silly to whoop it up the way everybody else did.<br />
<br />
The All School Meeting must have ended by 8:30. We had a day of abbreviated classes, as befits the first day of school. I think I had Physics first period, and then a free period that started somewhere in the 9:00am hour. With nothing productive to do, I went down to the Ryley Room, the “hangout” area below our dining hall. They had TVs there, and I watched a rerun of SportsCenter.<br />
<br />
This is the part that always embarrasses me upon recollection. As I was watching ESPN, sitting on a stool on the elevated platform area in the first back corner of the room, unconcerned with the world outside, as it were, my friend Tom O. came down. He had a free period too, obviously. After standing by me for a second, he went over to the far end of the room, towards the other back corner, to buy a snack or a drink and watch the big screen TV they had put in Ryley Room that summer (not a big screen TV, actually, but a big screen on which a projector projected TV programming). <br />
<br />
A few minutes later, he called out to me. “Shvarts, you gotta check this out! A plane crashed into the World Trade Center.”<br />
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t move. I might have said I wasn’t interested. It just seemed like news to me, and I was not yet a news reader. <br />
<br />
Some twenty minutes after that, towards the end of our free period, I still at my small TV watching my small picture sports news, Tom yelled again. This was when the second plane crashed, I think. At the time, I think the significance had yet to sink in. I collected my things and went to English class.<br />
<br />
It was at that point, walking over to the English building, that I was aware that the news had traveled. Students were talking about skipping class to watch the news. Teachers in our classrooms talked about what was going on, about what the school’s response would be. News was happening, the world was changing, and we shouldn’t be made to sit there and wait for it ignorantly. In my International Relations class, as we talked about what was going on and who might be behind it, appropriate a discussion as it was for that class, I thought in a very Jewish, which is to say provincial way, that it might be Palestinians, but that <i>that</i> would be crazy, it wasn’t like they weren’t doing anything in Israel now, it wasn’t like they were silent (at the Rosh Hashana service I attended at my temple a few days later, the Rabbi’s sermon tied 9/11 to the recent Jerusalem Sbarro bombing). <br />
<br />
Later that day we had another All School Meeting, less celebratory than the morning’s. Gathered on the grass in front of Samuel Phillips Hall, we heard our Head of School and Associate Head of School tell us about the gravity of the day’s events, about what connections it had to our school, and about our response. I don’t remember what they said, really. <br />
<br />
I remember checking with my roommate Matt, a Manhattan native, to see that everyone he knew was ok. I remember waiting twenty feet away from my friend Derrick, an African-American from Brooklyn, a guy who as a freshman we dubbed “Grandpa Warrior” because he seemed so much older than us, tougher than us, a friend on whom I happened to walk in once a year or two before at an inconveniently romantic and personal time with a lady friend, a friend who more than any from high school I am not in touch with and wish I could be in some way, even though time and distance and experience has rendered that unlikely (Facebook does not help in this effort, by the way), as this strong kid waited for a response on his cell phone with a worried look on his face before finally finding out, around 3:00 pm, that everything was ok. <br />
<br />
That night, I remember thinking how awful it all was. I still thought out nightly prayers back then, whispered them even sometimes, prayers to God for my mother’s health and happiness, for the happiness of those I cared about, for things that would lead to my happiness, though I tried to avoid asking for that directly. That night, I prayed for all affected by the attacks, those who died and those who lost someone and those missing and those hurt and so on. I don’t think I directly prayed for the lands from which those who killed themselves came, for their neighbors and peers and countrymen in poverty and oppression, for relief from whatever could drive people to such madness and hatred (even though, yes, many of the terrorists involved and Bin Laden himself were middle class or wealthy), but I thought about it. I tried to understand where it came from. I couldn’t. I fell asleep, eventually.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
This trying to understand is at the center of what I think has been missing from our decade since the attacks. Understanding, seeking understanding of the other is the only way forward in a problem with two or more sides (in a problem with one side, the way forward is understanding oneself, which is harder). Understanding does not mean acceptance, condonement, or even that dreaded buzzword of political correctness, tolerance. It means tying together at least a plausible background story that led our enemies to become our enemies, in the hopes of defeating them or changing them or knowing what comes next or improving ourselves or growing or living in the middle of these options or all of the above, as ultimately the solution will always be. <br />
<br />
For example, trying to understand the terrorists could lead to the following thoughts: anybody who harms civilians is a bad person. The attackers on 9/11 chose to attack America. Why? Partly because of the American military presence in the Middle East and America’s support of Israel. Some might jump off here and say let’s end both of these things. I would encourage continued thought (Israel on its own is a topic that requires great effort to understand all sides involved, and a place where they do that more than in the U.S., but where all sides need to reach understanding more urgently).<br />
<br />
I would suggest that we think about how unique America is or isn’t in suffering a terrorist attack. I can remember off the top of my head major terrorist attacks occurring in Madrid, London, several places in Russia, Israel of course, India, and Norway since the attacks on the U.S. The scale may not be the same, but the frequency is much higher. When I lived in Russia five years ago, I remember having dinner with my uncle and talking to a friend of his. I was telling him about how I was writing a novel, largely autobiographical, centered on the traumas a young girl (not autobiographical) faces growing up when I did. Two of the main three traumas were the death of her mother and the events of 9/11. This man, hardly a Russian patriot, Jewish and hence disinclined to trust Russia in fact, but also possessing that old world elitist view towards America that, say, my father so well embodies, asked me if I thought 9/11 was really significant enough to base a novel on. “One attack and you want the world to cry for you?” Later, I dated a Russian woman who, in part referring to our response, described America as a child.<br />
<br />
(Note to prospective literary agents reading this: that novel is finished and sitting on my hard drive, shockingly not yet picked up by any major publishing houses! Inquire within.) <br />
<br />
I don’t think their criticism, especially its barbed tone, is wholly legitimate, but we would do well to remember the traumas that we, or our leaders and government at least, have visited upon other places, whether through action or passivity (Cambodia, for example, suffered from both). If we want to view ourselves as exceptional, as the preeminent power in the world, if we think Pax Americana is a good thing for the world, if we want to believe in ourselves and our manifest destiny this way, we need to try to understand, or indeed to understand how the world views us, and why. It’s not enough to just say that America is the best and if you don’t like it, you can get out. It’s not enough to make French jokes and wonder why they forgot about World War II, just as we forget about the American Revolution. It’s not enough to fight the terrorists and fear China. It’s not enough to call the Right batshit crazy or the Left liberal communist apologists (or, yes, Nazis). If we want to be exceptional, great, we have to try to live up to it, to what made us great: our openness, our attraction for immigrants, our ability to revive ourselves, and perhaps our newfound ability to understand one another and those beyond.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
My 9/11 this year will be festive. High school friends and I will wake up in a house rented on Cape Cod for the wedding, amidst empty alcohol containers, strewn about clothes, and the vague silliness that memories the morning after a wedding consist of. We might watch the beginning of that day’s football games, many of us in a fantasy football league together, before Ben and I drive in his rented car up to Logan, possibly stopping by my dad’s house to pick up some things I could use in my Luxembourg apartment. We’ll hang out in the international lounge, then he’ll go to Madrid, I’ll go to Luxembourg via Paris, and somewhere over the Atlantic, hopefully asleep, I will pass that arbitrary day of significance, arbitrary in the way all measurements of time are, and awake on September 12<sup>th</sup>, 2011. <br />
<br />
I would be mildly surprised if, amidst our revelry, any of us bring up what day it is (hopefully they don’t read this before that weekend, or else I will have spoiled my experiment and hypothesis). I would be more surprised if, even amidst our revelry, we don’t talk at least a little, indirectly, about the effects September 11<sup>th</sup> has had on us, individually or collectively. About the economy, about jobs, about the recession, about politics, and so on. It may be lazy to draw a direct line between all of those things and September 11<sup>th</sup>, but it would be foolish to deny that they are part of the same web.<br />
<br />
On the plane, I will not pray. My belief is vaguer than it was ten years ago, more of an agnostic-tinged Jewish-Universalist view that I’m sure you’re not interested in hearing described. What I will do is what I have done since I was in high school, if not earlier, which is to tap my forehead with the first two fingers and thumb of my right hand in the shape of a triangle, first pointing up and then down, forming the outline of the Star of David. I cribbed it from Catholics crossing themselves, obviously, and I’ve stuck to it through years of spiritual wandering and wondering.<br />
<br />
Were I to pray on the plane, I would not pray for my and my fellow passengers’ safety: I fly frequently and well, with little concern, and whatever fears I’ve had on planes came only after I started having someone to come home to, someone I would be afraid of losing and who would be afraid of losing me. I would not pray for my happiness, for the happiness of those who matter to me, for my mother to rest in peace, or anything that I prayed for before (which included, often, praying for the Patriots and the Red Sox, hardly noble subjects). My experience suggests that goal-driven prayers are not very effective, and that actions taken to achieve those things are more valuable.<br />
<br />
Were I to pray on the plane, I’d pray for our country, and the world, prayers not meant to be mutually exclusive. I’d pray for us to continue to try to understand one another. I’d pray for us to listen more and browbeat less. I’d pray for America and the world to show renewed strength, to enter a new era of cohesion, of prosperity and growth and happiness. And I’d pray for us to understand one another, again.<br />
<br />
I would have no illusions about these prayers being fulfilled. </div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30880164.post-5760094699981161912011-08-15T08:33:00.000-04:002011-08-15T08:33:13.932-04:00Luxembourg after eight days, in ten words or in 2,000<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkThYLAJW9M9lzIhS8Z_wsm95Fuq5WzgtjKJk2lTZFIpLk94gPx3dgSZGdl9p-O9jr7zo2_TDAITP-TVKjLif1tx8BFeEiMDf-c-ddY1ke2gen8PIP1AHEQopod4CipZj3fbZt/s1600/Flags+Bridge.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwlhUpgbL0nSZyuma2B_FIzrp0UPp0UCNLaH34DjLAzYtBCzSU-84NxUhTEcCNA6rilyBh2JDybJ08UDQYL2QvbYSXXmncVcEtlQNgiCjs07uBMq0MhlYZxPFH3BeFnoo_4061/s1600/Grund+Street+Shot.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTZzogafWx39VdPJ75ZfLOvlqt2iSccc9gREcalRDxeHhzrImuoBtvkVlG2Ds6oTESk5-bGu3old_SA03JfslktUekxU-RHqVf_T_qToaxbgNyEJMA4uCbye_NpexAn0X5rfZi/s1600/House+and+Bridge+.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTZzogafWx39VdPJ75ZfLOvlqt2iSccc9gREcalRDxeHhzrImuoBtvkVlG2Ds6oTESk5-bGu3old_SA03JfslktUekxU-RHqVf_T_qToaxbgNyEJMA4uCbye_NpexAn0X5rfZi/s320/House+and+Bridge+.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQbgz_6if0z48xs3er-QsvlExLa75iIDHkMbdnGMLQH14TMaLFqw7ZkkV7OX-Ohwc6dKkYZOxzt1odDCvdphLVj2nXOh0Ozluu_Dvy-fsi6PVaQuAvxd7dJFeZUKERHo6-LWO/s1600/Two+sides+of+the+City.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div class="MsoNormal">A few possible mottos for Luxembourg, the capital of the country of Luxembourg:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Luxembourg: Always Take an Umbrella”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Luxembourg: Everything’s Smaller Here”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I don’t need to look like a Luxembourger to know how to say, ‘I’m a bad mofo’ in Luxembourgish”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="FR-LU">“Luxembourg: Notre grisaille est notre beauté“ (Our grayness is our beauty) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Luxembourg: Come for the Eurail C<span id="goog_1233859757"></span><span id="goog_1233859758"></span>onnections, stay for the view”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Luxembourg: <i>Non, </i>we are <i>not</i> a city in Germany.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">***</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkThYLAJW9M9lzIhS8Z_wsm95Fuq5WzgtjKJk2lTZFIpLk94gPx3dgSZGdl9p-O9jr7zo2_TDAITP-TVKjLif1tx8BFeEiMDf-c-ddY1ke2gen8PIP1AHEQopod4CipZj3fbZt/s1600/Flags+Bridge.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkThYLAJW9M9lzIhS8Z_wsm95Fuq5WzgtjKJk2lTZFIpLk94gPx3dgSZGdl9p-O9jr7zo2_TDAITP-TVKjLif1tx8BFeEiMDf-c-ddY1ke2gen8PIP1AHEQopod4CipZj3fbZt/s320/Flags+Bridge.JPG" width="240" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal">The first impression one has on Luxembourg, before one arrives, is a collective “Really?” The relatively non-EU exposed will say, “Luxembourg is its own country? Really?” The geographically curious will say, “Luxembourg is smaller than Rhode Island and a sovereign country? Really?” The young man moving to the city and looking for a job will say, “I might have to learn Luxembourgish? Luxembourgish is a language? Really?” Luxembourg is something of the fairy tale on which the hopes and dreams of modern Western Europe are built, and much of it challenges credulity.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Luxembourg is the world’s only Grand Duchy, meaning the only place ceremonially ruled by a Grand Duke. They have pictures of the current Grand Duke, a tall and handsome man named Henri right out of “Choose your Royal Figure!” casting books, everywhere in the city, a degree of admiration and worship I’ve only seen surpassed in less politically balanced countries; I saw about as many pictures of Paul Kagame in Rwanda as I have of Henri here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Luxembourg is a tiny country, one that not surprisingly suffered from invaders and changing rulers for much of its history. It gained its independence in the mid 19<sup>th</sup> century, discovered a deep iron ore shortly thereafter, and managed to maintain some wealth for the rest of the century. In the 20<sup>th</sup> century, twice the country suffered under German invasion and occupation. It makes sense from that perspective, then, that the country would be one of the founding members and driving forces of the EU, which in its first form was the European Economic Community, if my memory of undergraduate history serves me correctly, and that community may have well been based around the trading of iron and steel, at the time a cornerstone of Luxembourg’s economy. In the 21<sup>st</sup> century the country serves as one of Europe’s financial capitals, holds the European Court of Justice to boost its claim to being Europe’s 3<sup>rd</sup> capital (behind Brussels and The Hague, I believe? Or Paris?), and due to a relatively low tax rate also hosts a number of multinational companies (Amazon and Skype (pre-Microsoft at least) are two examples that come to mind).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Luxembourg is a tiny country and host to a tiny population. The capital, where we live, boasts of 100,000 or so residents. The country as a whole has a population of 500,000. Meaning Boston’s official population is about 100K people more. Like Boston, however, Luxembourg has a huge commuting population during the regular working day. According to our relocation agent, that 500K swells to two million people on a given weekday as workers stream in from Belgium, Germany, and France (the three surrounding countries) to take advantage of Luxembourg’s strong economy and generous worker benefits. Even in the height of the August <i>vacances</i>, every other car I’ve seen seems to have a D or F license plate for Deutschland and France, respectively.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXWCWYy-roYJywInAqns3UI3aQ_XA5nlb3bEo_Ifyf9ag5gqp3Yrm8Y1PfSE1bljhfDvzo1ghx38a30KOhRYT_DF3cxvM8AlboMgEQMBKsaRiJDJaICb8tHm4GLw2xhffLw0tq/s1600/P1050743.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXWCWYy-roYJywInAqns3UI3aQ_XA5nlb3bEo_Ifyf9ag5gqp3Yrm8Y1PfSE1bljhfDvzo1ghx38a30KOhRYT_DF3cxvM8AlboMgEQMBKsaRiJDJaICb8tHm4GLw2xhffLw0tq/s320/P1050743.JPG" width="320" /></a>Which leads to one of the major benefits of this tiny ‘burg (any city that makes Tel Aviv look big, well…): the multitude of languages and peoples that make up that 500,000 population (never mind the two million). I’ve seen and heard various quotes for the immigrant percentage of the population, anywhere from 37% to 49.9%. Many of the people who live here are not from here: that much is apparent. Among the largest groups represented here are Portuguese and, more historically, the Italians. The Portuguese are the largest group, weighing in at about 20% of that 37-49% of the immigrant population, which makes them just under a tenth of the total population. Of course, that means there are about 50,000 Portuguese natives living in Luxembourg, hardly a grand wave of migration, but <i>everything</i> is smaller here. Amy and I have also been impressed, walking around, by the evident diversity of the city, both in its restaurants (in 8 days we’ve eaten at Luxembourgish, German, Italian, French, Indian, and mediocre Middle Eastern) and the people walking the streets, with Africans, Russians (Eastern Europe, what what!), and Indians, among others, offering a pleasant blend in the city. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That human diversity leads to linguistic. The official languages of the country are French, German, and, yes, Luxembourgish, a Dutch/German patois with a bit of French sprinkled in. The order in that previous sentence marks the order in which we’d like to learn the languages if we stay here long enough, though Amy reports that Luxembourgish has a charming sound to it: their word for ok, it appears, is “Tiptop.” Beyond those official languages, one hears of course the omnipresent English, in its British, American, and International varietals, one hears the Portuguese of that community, one hears a fair deal of Italian and then Spanish from tourists, one hears Dutch that is vaguely distinguishable from German, one hears when he strains his ear some Russian, some Arabic, and even the barest snatch of Hebrew. For language whores like us, it’s hard to imagine a better place than Luxembourg for the size. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(One interesting footnote to this linguistic diversity, for me, is as follows: I asked J, our main relocation agent, how the hell he knows what language to use with a given person. He, a handsome man of about my age, with a skin complexion that suggests Mediterranean, South American, or even African heritage somewhere down the line, who claims Belgian as his nationality but has lived in Luxembourg all his life, and who of course speaks all the languages needed, recalled, “It’s interesting. If someone looks foreign, I would probably speak French to them first, unless I hear them speak German or English or something else. If it is a setting where I know they’ll speak Luxembourgish, I speak Luxembourgish. Sometimes, people, like just now at the bank, will begin speaking to me in French because I don’t look Luxembourgish, and I’ll say, ‘it’s ok, we can speak Luxembourgish if you want,’ and they’ll say, ‘sorry,’ and we’ll speak Luxembourgish. So it’s hard to say. Sometimes you just know, sometimes you don’t.”)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">***</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s August here in Luxembourg, and in some ways you’d know it, while in others you wouldn’t. You’d know it because there is a lack of bustle during the week, because many of the restaurants are on their cong<span lang="FR-LU">é</span>, because it’s doubtful that any recruiter or company is going to respond to my desperate pleas for another month. You wouldn’t know it because, well, it’s not that warm. On a warm day like yesterday, the temperature bleeds into the mid 20’s Celsius, or low to mid 70s Fahrenheit. Mostly though, I’ve been wearing long sleeves and jeans (though by golly, I’ve actually seen Europeans wearing shorts: the glorious benefits of globalization!). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Beyond that, the fate of the day’s sky never reaches surety or permanence. Any day might start of cloudy, break into a bit of blue and sun, and then fall back into showers or drab overcast, before cycling through again. Even today, looking out on a mostly clear blue sky out our living room window, I expect that there will be rain at some point, and that our umbrellas will again serve us well. (N.b.: posting this a few hours after writing it, I find myself proven wrong – it has been sunny and gorgeous, hitting 30 degrees Celsius, or about 85 Fahrenheit.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">August sentiments do reign over the city’s mood though, in all senses. While much of the rest of the continent and indeed the world may be rife in protest, worry, and fear of debt (despite being in Israel for the better part of three years, including during a war and some seemingly monumental political moments, I feel like I missed out on the action there, for example), here our second Sunday was marked by a concert in one of the town centre fairs, along with a large collection of mimes dressed In different costumes – clock heads, instruments, butterflies, Enlightenment-era bewigged royals – walking around to mug for photos with children and families, some on stilts, other at ground level. Today is a Catholic holiday and, Luxembourg being ostensibly a Catholic country, the city is mostly shut down and quiet. On the whole, Luxembourg holds a nice mix of French flair for life and German industriousness, I say on first glance, but in August the French side is winning.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">***</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Lastly, on the physical nature of the city. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQbgz_6if0z48xs3er-QsvlExLa75iIDHkMbdnGMLQH14TMaLFqw7ZkkV7OX-Ohwc6dKkYZOxzt1odDCvdphLVj2nXOh0Ozluu_Dvy-fsi6PVaQuAvxd7dJFeZUKERHo6-LWO/s1600/Two+sides+of+the+City.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQbgz_6if0z48xs3er-QsvlExLa75iIDHkMbdnGMLQH14TMaLFqw7ZkkV7OX-Ohwc6dKkYZOxzt1odDCvdphLVj2nXOh0Ozluu_Dvy-fsi6PVaQuAvxd7dJFeZUKERHo6-LWO/s320/Two+sides+of+the+City.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>The Centre on the Left, the Rest on the Right.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal">Luxembourg owes its existence in large part to its physical nature. The main city was once a fortress; that fortress rested on a rocky formation surrounded by river valleys; as such, the city is something of a land island, surrounded by natural moats. This did little to slow the 20th Century Germans, or many of the foreign rulers from earlier history, but nevertheless, Luxembourg stood out, in a literal sense.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDILS0UrFx5YZk2W8rSlUFfIuRyfGxcMBJz8rBE2PpTzIJxdBaYvl4Gy4nyZY0H_cuixtzIpw8wLxoFEBsXUKklwmbipwvNixmdnkyCC0Xw5B14y5nNEiToLNXrOI-O4OEJM-K/s1600/Grund+from+above.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDILS0UrFx5YZk2W8rSlUFfIuRyfGxcMBJz8rBE2PpTzIJxdBaYvl4Gy4nyZY0H_cuixtzIpw8wLxoFEBsXUKklwmbipwvNixmdnkyCC0Xw5B14y5nNEiToLNXrOI-O4OEJM-K/s320/Grund+from+above.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Grund from above.</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>What that means for our cozy town is that the centre locks onto the olden fortress area; a largely pedestrian shopping area occupies the heart of the city, streaming shoppers past the landmark squares in front of the Grand Ducal Palace (one of five in the country, I hear). Then, surrounding the city are the valleys of the Petrusse and Alzette rivers, as well as <i>les Villes basses</i>. The rivers are hardly impressive, the Petrusse hardly a stream, less than a meter wide, the Alzette a staid stew of a river bearing that grungy green that many city rivers boast of, though without the size or import of those other rivers. The low cities, Grund, Clausen, and Pfaffenthal, offer the classic Old Europe feel, narrow cobblestone paved roads next to a river, replete with Michelin-starred restaurants and a famous church (the Abbaye of Neumunster). We have so far only made it to Grund, home to many of the Portuguese in town, as well as a pair of Scottish or Irish pubs. It was indeed scenic strolling down to the low town on a Saturday night, twilight upon us and the black roofed buildings of the old city towering above. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwlhUpgbL0nSZyuma2B_FIzrp0UPp0UCNLaH34DjLAzYtBCzSU-84NxUhTEcCNA6rilyBh2JDybJ08UDQYL2QvbYSXXmncVcEtlQNgiCjs07uBMq0MhlYZxPFH3BeFnoo_4061/s1600/Grund+Street+Shot.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwlhUpgbL0nSZyuma2B_FIzrp0UPp0UCNLaH34DjLAzYtBCzSU-84NxUhTEcCNA6rilyBh2JDybJ08UDQYL2QvbYSXXmncVcEtlQNgiCjs07uBMq0MhlYZxPFH3BeFnoo_4061/s320/Grund+Street+Shot.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A Grund street. Ok, a slight incline.</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>The city is not hilly in the way I often think of European cities as being hilly. In the main part of the city there are mild undulations, but nothing significant. What of the high versus low cities, you might ask. It is of course true that there are different altitudes in the city, but it is better to think of the city height as a discrete rather than continuous functions – to get to the bottom, one descends on a steep decline, whether towards Grund et al. or one of the outer neighborhoods, Cents for example. To get back, one takes a cab or a bus. The high city is mostly flat, the low cities are mostly flat. No, hills are not part of the scenery.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">For all that, we do live on something of an incline, and from our 3<sup>rd</sup> floor apartment (4<sup>th</sup> floor by American counting), we have a slightly elevated view of the center and of the old town, and a peering glance to the train tracks and <i>villes basses</i> below. The contrast between that high and low, along with the contrast between the more traditional center and the modern surrounding neighborhoods (to our northeast, we can spot the beginning of Kirchberg, where the EU institutions are housed), and the ever-present contrast between sun and clouds, blue and gray, lends Luxembourg its beauty, a beauty it can boast of. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At that, I leave you with a picture of the view I have from my desk, as well as a standing invitation, presuming I actually know you, to come visit. And if I don’t know you, just visit this site for more writing on Luxembourg, travel in and near the country, and any other adventures that merit the time. <i>Tiptop? Tiptop. Et Merci.</i><br />
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</div></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851307075167025935noreply@blogger.com0