Halloween at the ENS

Well, one of the best/funniest things about when foreigners steal American traditions is when they almost get it right, but not quite. Like the ENS Halloween party, which was, for some inexplicable reason, on the wrong night. No idea why it was last night rather than tonight, but then again I'm not complaining because it means I get to party for Halloween twice, haha. Last night I invited Bryan to join me in yet another round of "cultural research" (read: ENS party in the gym). hahaha.

I was less surprised, having done the freshman orientation dance party in the gym a few months ago. Bryan, however, was blown away by the presence of the bar right in the middle of the party, haha. As with the previous party, the alcohol selection was rather classy, including real flutes of champagne! Oh the French and their commitment to classy partying--even a ghetto college dance party in the gym has to have the right accompaniment.

Classy is all relative, however, as the kids sure went all out with their costumes. Here are some of my favorites:



But the real best costume award has to go to these two girls, who went as swine flu!


Bryan and I pondered many ideas for our own costumes. We seriously considered Sarko and Carla, but we realized that was problematic because Bryan is too tall and doesn't have any heels. And I don't have a little black dress, nor the right kind of hair. We ended up settling for a goth couple, although we ran out of time to actually do it right, so we didn't really look like we were dressed up for anything special.


But that's ok, it was really all about the music. I had some major luck with the DJs, who played almost everything I asked for and nothing Bryan asked for, haha. That's how I managed to get Billie Jean and Beat it, as well as some Lady Gaga going on. It's always fun to ask for American things in France, you have to Frenchify your pronunciation. But it worked like a charm.

And even though Bryan didn't get his She-Wolf, we got Womanizer, which he thought was even better anyway:



It was indeed Britney who got us up on the dopey stage thing in the middle of the gym for all of 5 seconds, haha. Then we were pushed off, but not before Basia managed to snap a picture! This was probably right before we ended up having to jump off to avoid being sent flying...

Funny story

So yesterday afternoon I went on my usual Sunday afternoon rollerblading outing. I almost didn't go because Bryan and I were out partying until 3 am on Saturday (haha), but I finally decided that since the weather was extraordinary and I always enjoy the trip once I do it, I should haul my sorry hungover ass out of my room and go for a skate. Particularly since this week's circuit was through a neighborhood I didn't know at all.

About an hour in to the trip, I notice this guy wearing a Phillies jersey! Not one to pass up such a remarkable occurrence particularly given that my team (haha) is going back to the world series, I went up to him to find out if he follows Philly baseball. Turns out he doesn't really have a clue and didn't know about the world series. A friend gave him the shirt. But that opening nonetheless led to a long conversation, he's a photographer who owns his own company and works in both fashion and architecture photography. We didn't have a super in-depth conversation, since this was all while we were skating in a big group. He's from Guadeloupe but has lived in both Puerto Rico and LA, then came to Paris to start his company two years ago.

In any case, we also discussed how hard it can be to find good places to skate in Paris since the streets are so narrow, and he said he knows some good places over by Invalides where the streets are wide open and you can work on general technique practice. He invited me to come skating with him tomorrow afternoon, so I'm going to do so.

In short, I've met a very interesting French guy all thanks to a Phillies jersey that he didn't even really know what to do with, HAHA.

I'm still here!

Man, don't know where the time has gone, but it sure is flying. How is it that I've been here for almost two months already???

Last weekend I finally got a picture of the Sunday afternoon rollerblading outings that I love so much:


And that's only a small portion of the crowd, the line of skaters actually stretched further than my camera could take in (at this point we were in the 14th, near the observatory). It's a lovely afternoon outing, particularly since we've had some nice weather these past few weeks. It's also a good antidote to mild hangovers, as I've discovered perhaps more often than I should, HAHA.

The other small adventure of the week was getting my flu shot administered, after I bought it at the pharmacy. Here it is in its crowning glory:


When I saw the dr to get the shot, I observed that I was really surprised you could just pick up the vaccine over the counter like that. He said that this year was the first time they're doing it this way, since they want to make it easy for everyone to get one. In the past apparently you needed a prescription. I'm really glad they changed it, because under the old system, I would have had to go to the dr, get the prescription, go to the pharmacy to pick it up, then go BACK to the dr to get the shot administered. Now THERE'S some French logic for you, glad they saw the light on that one, haha.

Otherwise, I've mostly been working on my chapters in the desperate hope I can get another draft in to Judy before I leave for Portugal next Sunday. I think I can make it, but I do need to be focused over the next week. Last night, however, Bryan and I decided to take on the Marais/Beaubourg gay scene, which is having slightly detrimental effects on my productivity this morning!!! Here are some highlights:

At the bar with 3 euro pints (that actually didn't suck):


Afterwards, we decided to go track down Niamh at her new job at a lesbian bar by the Pompidou center. Since I can't walk past the Pompidou center without getting my picture taken with the lips, that clearly had to happen, even though you can't see them too well in the background:


From there, Bryan had to demonstrate his moves for the musical he's writing about the lesbian scene, called Lipstick (you think I'm joking, but I'm not, he's already written lyrics and melodies!).

This was from "Going to the lesbian bar," an obviously timely choice since that's precisely what we were doing!!!

We knew Niamh worked in a lesbian bar near Beaubourg, but we didn't actually know which one. So we went to one Bryan knew, and even though we didn't see her we stayed and danced for a while, mainly because when we walked in Katy Perry was playing. Obviously. So that had to happen, then it moved on to Britney and Shakira. As a side note, that She-Wolf song is DIRTAY. But I love every minute of it.

Since we couldn't find Niamh at this bar, I went up to the coat check person and asked if there were any other bars in the neighborhood (which was prefaced by much agonizing between me and Bryan over how to ask for what we were looking for...un bar lesbien? un bar pour les filles? I finally just settled on "similar bars," at which point the coat check person used the phrase "bar pour les filles" so we at least got our vocab question answered, haha). She gave us directions to another one, so we went over there and sure enough managed to surprise Niamh :-)

More American logic

So over the past few days all these signs have popped up in pharmacy windows, saying "get your flu shot here!" There's a heavy ad campaign promoting the flu shot too, and it's really cheap, only 6 euros 25 cents.

I had a few minutes yesterday afternoon, so I thought, ok, perfect timing, I'll swing past the pharmacy down the street and get my shot. What I didn't realize until I got there, though, was that by saying "get" your flu shot here, they mean quite literally that you can buy the needle and syringe. They don't actually ADMINISTER the shot, they just GIVE the materials to you! So I was like, "uhhh, what do I do now?" And they were like, "oh, you have to find a doctor or nurse to give it to you, unless you know how to do it yourself."

Now, I'd assume I could just give myself the damn shot, if it's just sticking it in your arm. But is there an art form to it? Is there something I should be looking for? And how do I dispose of the materials afterwards? Not that I have any concern about AIDS or anything, but still, it doesn't seem appropriate to just toss it in the trash can! I thought about googling it and figuring it out, but I decided to just make an appointment at the school's health center and be done with it so that I don't screw it up. So that's all set up with no trouble, I'll be "getting" my flu shot next week.

But can you imagine in the US, just randomly passing out needles and syringes in pharmacies so that people can do their own vaccinations? And then just allowing them to toss the used materials in the trash???

Big interview on Monday too!

Well THAT was one hell of an experience

So, as expected, Farida Belghoul is a Character with a capital C. And perhaps one of the most negative people I've ever met regarding the future of France (she said France is now Sodom and Gomorrah, and in her words, "you know how that ended." Ouch).

The visit started with me (before I found Belghoul) witnessing a student pushing a hall monitor into a fence, which meant that I had to go to the main desk area and back up the monitor's story and try to help identify which kid did it (he ran away after the fact). They were all apologetic that my visit started like that, and they certainly weren't expecting my reply, which was the obvious "oh I taught in a lycee professionel, don't worry, I know what it's like!"

Anyway, I then found Belghoul and we walked over to her classroom. As we walked in, she was like, "I'm sorry, it smells like students here." (which it did, but what can you do). hahaha.

The interview did not start off on the right foot at all, in that as we were walking to the classroom and she asked me about my topic, I said I was trying to understand where the beur literature phenomenon comes from. I was thinking that my emphasis was on "phenomenon" in the sense of how the category got created, but she took it differently and railed against me about how it's a constructed category and that it's my fault as an academic for legitimizing it. I realized a minute later what the problem was and apologized for misspeaking and explained what I was really doing (thank god I've got the foreign thing going on, even though it wasn't a mistake specifically tied to the language, perhaps she was willing to cut me some slack anyway). There was definitely a moment where she realized I wasn't your average boring researcher trying to do the same old thing, as she paused for a second and was like, "oh. now THAT is a different question." Huge sigh of relief on my part, haha.

The interview itself actually might not end up being the most useful thing in the world, mainly because I had a hell of a time keeping her on task. I wanted to talk about literature, she wanted to rail against French society. Case in point: I asked her what books she likes to teach, and she went on a rampage about how you can't teach books when kids don't know how to read and that she's just a glorified jail guard. She's quitting at the end of the year, and there's some serious sour grapes going on. That said, I can't blame her, I found the lycée professionel system draining after just one year so I don't know how she has done it for as long as she has.

But every question was like that. When I asked her what contemporary books she likes to read, she said literature is dead. When I asked her about new movements trying to redefine the relationship between literature and politics, she said she only believes in politics in the Platonic sense and not in the corrupt modern world, where it's all crap anyway. She even took up Le Pen's classic slogan ("France, love it or leave it") and was like, "it's time to leave."

All in all it was a fairly soul destroying interview, if you choose to look at it that way, haha. I did ask her if there was any hope anywhere, and she said it was in individual fulfillment, making your own path away from the spotlight. So I can see her point there at least.

So yeah, you can see why this interview may not be the most productive for my thesis, but it was damn interesting.

After the actual recorded interview, we had a long conversation that was much more interesting. I think I won her over, as she gave me extra time and was very nice after that. She said some nasty things about other people that I probably shouldn't put on a public blog (haha), but the highlight was when she called this other book "atrocement nul" (atrociously worthless). Lindsay and I have already discussed the spectacular nullity of said book, so I had a good laugh over it. Lindsay's problem is that it's super relevant to her topic, despite the crap quality. So I told Belghoul that I had a friend doing this specific topic, and Belghoul was like, "oh man, she's screwed, she does have to use that book!" haha. She also asked me for some recommendations of recent beur novels, so I was able to give her one suggestion that I think was a good choice. I figure that was a pretty big deal, that she was willing to ask me for references.

In any case, I felt like I won the lottery at the end of the interview when she was like, "well, I still don't really know why I accepted to speak with you, but I'm really glad I did." Score!

Needless to say, I was totally brain dead afterwards, haha.

Big interview today!

So I've been meaning to post a quick entry about my big interview today for a few days now and haven't gotten around to it.

The story begins 20 years ago, when this author, Farida Belghoul, wrote a book that she didn't want labeled as an "immigrant book." She took to the TV screens and airwaves and basically declared war on the establishment, saying that everyone was trying to pigeon-hole her, they're full of crap, and she wanted respect as an artist. She even attacked other authors from the same population demographic, saying that they hadn't done much to render the label inaccurate, since their writing wasn't breaking free from the mold. In a more stunning comment, she once said that immigrant writing in France was "globally worthless." Ouch.

She once gave an interview to a leading academic researcher on immigrant writing, and apparently she wasn't happy with what he did with it (he tends to go very far toward the sociopolitical readings rather than literary). She swore at that time that she'd never talk to an academic again, haha.

After this first book, she apparently decided that no one "got it" and she dropped out of the public sphere. She became a high school teacher in the suburbs and that was that.

And then I come along.

She runs an organization in the banlieue for children who have been expelled from school, so I contacted the organization to see if I could get in touch with her. I was careful to underline the literary side of my topic and emphasize that I wanted to talk about her issues with the labeling process, since in the end we actually do agree on a lot of things. It took a few weeks, but they finally sent me her phone number.

Figuring they wouldn't have given me her number without first checking in with her, I thought the battle was won. Which it was. But I also knew that she's a tough cookie, based on her interviews. So yeah, here's a rough summary of the conversation we had when I called. It was a cell number so I knew it was her, but I still had to be polite and ask:

Me: Hi, is this Mme Belghoul?
FB: Obviously.
Me: Uhhh...I'm the American PhD student (etc)
FB: They sent me your email. I don't usually reply to these things. I don't know why I replied to yours.
Me: Oh, well, I appreciate it...
FB: What do you want from me?
Me: (explain my topic, how I'd be thrilled to hear more about her opinions on ethnic labeling in literature)
FB: What are you going to do with it?
Me: (explain how it's for diss, won't do anything for publication without her approval, etc)

In the end, I managed to snag an interview today, at her school, over lunch! Yes! So I'm trekking out to the banlieue (two trains and a bus) and am meeting up with the writer who swore she'd never talk to an academic again!!! I'm pretty optimistic, mainly because I think I've already won the battle. We actually do agree on pretty much everything, and the fact that she's let me get this far makes me think that it'll be ok. As long as I prove myself competent, it's not like she's going to declare war on me. I imagine she's thinking "it's about damned time someone did this." But she's still a tough one, haha.

Perhaps the funnier part of the whole thing was that last week I had a meeting with a hotshot sociologist here at the ENS, Stephane Beaud. He's a really great researcher, one of the premier scholars in France on youth and immigration and banlieue life. He's written "the book" on a lot of standard interpretations of what's going on--and he's very openly sympathetic to their cause, so he writes with great humanity and genuine care for his subjects. I've taught one of his books and the students loved it. And he's the nicest person ever. Anyway, all that to say he's a big deal. So I was meeting with him last week to discuss my topic, and he was very nice and encouraging about it. He asked me what kinds of interviews I've done, so I mentioned a few, then I added that I was seeing Farida Belghoul this week.

That's when he basically fell out of his chair.

He was like, "how did you get her to agree to that???" Then he told me that when he got her on the phone once, she was like, "we have nothing to say to each other" and hung up on him!!! Hahahaha. He was highly impressed that I had managed to get her to invite me to lunch on top of it all. In the end we agreed that I had a lot going for me that he didn't, namely the young PhD student studying literature thing. I also think being foreign probably really helped in this case. I'm anything but "the establishment" at this point. Plus he's a sociologist and she hated the sociopolitical readings of her work, so he had a pretty major handicap there. Nonetheless, I managed to score an interview/lunch date that not even Stephane Beaud could pull of. hahahahaha.

So that's today from 12:30-2:30. I'm going to leave here a little before 11 to make sure I get out there on time. It's literally just outside the city limits, but since it's such a pain to get there I'm certainly not going to mess around.

Nuit Blanche!

Well, it's been a bit of a long week, but I know I owe an update on the nuit blanche because, well, it was epic. Nuit blanche in French is "all-nighter," and THE nuit blanche is an annual festival in Paris and in some other parts of the country where there are all sorts of awesome contemporary art installations. The idea is to celebrate fall and have something exciting to spice up the rentrée.

Our party began at 7 pm on the terrace of one of the hallways at the university. And it ended at 9:30 am as we dragged ourselves home from Montrmartre. Yes, this is math we can all do, that means the party lasted for FOURTEEN HOURS. Hence the epic nature of this post, and a contributing factor to why it's Thursday and I'm still not fully recovered, haha.

Here are Emily and Basia with the fruit they dipped in chocolate:

The team of Italians also made spaghetti carbonara for the group (well, for me they made spaghetti with olive oil and ham, haha). From there we hit the town.

The first thing we saw was actually in the courtyard of the ENS, which was a woman walking among a bunch of record players:


I don't know what it means, so don't ask. From there we tried to get to the Luxembourg Gardens to see the GIANT disco ball:

I wish I could give you a better sense of perspective on just how massive it was, but you can sort of tell by the trees in the foreground. There were tons of people, though, so we couldn't get very close. This pic gives an inkling of the crowds (it's about midnight at this point, just to situate the chronology):

From there we went to the Saint Séverin church in the Latin quarter, for what I think turned out to be the coolest installation of the night. There wasn't really anything to photograph for it, but here's a group shot:

The installation was a series of 40 speakers arranged in a big circle. There was a recording of a choir singing an unaccompanied piece (my guess is Bach but they didn't say), and each speaker was playing one of the voices. So it was all recorded individually, then you could stand in the middle of the circle and hear how the sound changed as you walking around. You could go listen to the sopranos (or one specific soprano) and then move to hear more bass, etc. And if you stood in the middle, it was absolutely perfect surround sound. Isn't that awesome? We LOVED it.

From there we went to what was perhaps the disappointment of the night, which was the giant crystals inside Notre Dame:

The crystals were supposed to represent stuff in the church, but it seemed tenuous at best to us. And they weren't even all that cool in the end. But obviously we had to see it.

We were a huge group by this point:


From Notre Dame we headed up to the Buttes Chaumont, where there was a series of installations. Our favorites were the field covered in desk lamps (pixar, anyone?):

And the field of umbrellas:

There were also a series of strange neon signs:


We got pathetically lost in the Buttes Chaumont and lost about an hour trying to find each other. We finally got out of there around 4 and headed to the Espace 104, an artist's colony. On the way we found a really awesome installation, a soccer field with bumps!


The idea was that in changing one detail, the rest of the game was also totally thrown off. There were real refs and they were recruiting people to play! We seriously pondered signing up but decided we'd kill ourselves (or our ankles) given how tired we were, haha.

Anyway, once we did all that we decided that we might as well go to Montmartre and watch the sun rise over the city, since it was after 5 anyway. We got to the neighborhood while it was still dark, so we could appreciate how Sacre Coeur just LOOMS over everything:


Anyway, the main problem with this grand idea was that we were a good hour away from sunrise, so we had to kill all sorts of time. But we figured it was still one of those now or never kinds of moments, since we were so close. So we decided to gut it out and wait around. Fortunately Emily's friend Albert lived in the area, so we were able to seek refuge there for a cup of tea while we waited. Anyway, it was totally worth it, the sunrise was pretty amazing, here's a series of 3 pics:


And here's Team Montmartre, the ones who made it all the way to the sunrise!


So yeah, there you have it, that's why I pretty much wanted to die on Sunday and Monday, hahaha. But I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Ah, France

So this is going to be a rather quick entry because I have to run out the door in a few minutes, but I did want to post two random pictures before tonight, because I'm expecting to have a whole lot more to say for myself tomorrow (more on that in a second) and I figured if I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to post these two pictures, they'd be too random to upload tomorrow, haha. I've been sitting on both of them for a few days now because they're totally unrelated to anything else.

Anyway, when it comes to Communist Party materials, France does a really fine job in coming up with stuff that amuses me. cf this poster:


The background is that they call swine flu "la grippe A" for that official code name it really has. Which makes sense in theory but is actually a really dumb idea because it's totally misleading because the bird flu from a few years ago was "la grippe aviaire." And of course that was a whole lot more serious, so people are freaking out thinking that swine flu is the same thing. In any case, I liked this sticker, which appeared on one of the entrance doors to my dorm the other day. I'm desperately searching to get my hands on some real copies of it, and I promise that if I do, I will be mailing a bunch of them to people, haha. Until then I had to settle for a picture.

The other picture is actually not funny at all, it's just rather ridiculous. It's a memorial in the main hallway to the ENS, dedicated to alums who died in WWII.

Which is all well and good, but take a closer look at the parenthetical notation after each name. Yes, you're reading it right, the memorial includes the discipline of each student AND THAT STUDENT'S RANK IN THE CLASS! So the first person was #22, the second was #25, etc. I mean seriously, now, there's even a slacker at #52 and another at #58! Isn't that insane? I mean, totally not surprising given how obsessed they are with rankings here, but we were rather shocked that this would extend all the way to a monument to the war dead.

Ok, that's about it for now, I'm running out the door to get organized for tonight's Grand Adventure, which is an all night contemporary art festival throughout the city! It's from 7 pm to 7 am, more details here: http://www.nuitblanche2009.com/ We're making a huge dinner together in the dorms (haha) then hitting the town. We plan on seeing it all, regardless of how long it takes!