People from the great beyond (AKA - north of the Mason-Dixon Line) prepare macaroni and cheese in funny ways. For instance, a particular female friend of mine who shall remain nameless (to protect the guilty) thinks it “gourmet” to add hotdogs.
If you’ve tried this Yankee concoction (she says - “Northern delicacy”), please leave a comment. Thanks!
The day I’m scheduled to arrive in Italy (10 Jan) just so happens to be the day their law prohibiting public smoking goes into effect. That is unless the rebellion can stop or delay the ban.
Captions and commentary are pending, but for now — pretty pictures.
On Friday night a few of us went to see ballet at the Garnier Opera. The first of the two pieces performed was Air with choreography by Saburo Teshigawara and music from John Cage. The performance was very minimalist, accompanied by a grand piano that maybe played two dozen notes throughout the entire 45 minute performance. That left the opera house eerily quiet - quiet enough to hear the dancers breathe.
The second piece, which I think most of us preferred, was entitled Appartement, choreographed by Mats Ek with music written and performed by the Swedish group Fleshquartet. I just found an online review from the debut performance a couple year’s back. I can remember having to sit through hour after hour of my sister’s dance recitals when I was young. They seemed to last days if not years. (Sorry, sis!) But this performance was definitely one of the most entertaining things I’ve ever seen. It was lively, humorous, required remarkable skill, and had great music. I didn’t want it to end, and neither did the rest of the audience judging by the multiple curtain calls.
So now I’ve learned my lesson, sis. Give ballet a chance!
Ten Reasons to Love France [Idle Words]
Oh so many reasons to love the French [AJC]
‘I love France’ [The Daily Rant]
The French Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment, except to say that french fries actually come from Belgium.
Some of the fine folks in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University have come up with a Dialect Survey to find out how Americans really talk. I suppose being away from home these past couple years and meeting people from all over the world has really increased my awareness of my own particular dialect.
At first I thought Scottish people had a really odd way of sayings things. They probably thought likewise about me. Then people back home started talking funny and everybody developed a strange accent — at least that’s how things began appearing to me. And let’s not even mention what French has done to my ability to speak and hear English!
But just to let everyone back in the South know, I still speak your language. I’ve done my fair share of convincing the rest of the world to call any sweetened, carbonated beverage a coke and to refer to a group of two or more people as y’all. Little did I know how geographically-oriented the terms rolling a house and cutting the grass could be.
Do you know where something that’s catty-corner is located or what a roly poly is?
On Saturday morning I headed out via train to Amiens, just over one hour north of Paris. I took a medieval architecture class a couple years ago where we mainly studied the cathedrals of Italy, France, and England. I had been planning on going to Amiens since I arrived - its cathedral being the tallest in France. (The choir of the cathedral in Beauvais is technically taller, but that’s all it is - the nave was never completed.) It’s been consistently sunny here in France for over a week now so I got some really good photos both inside and outside.
I made it back to Paris in the afternoon just in time for a Scottish parade. Yesterday the Scottish national rugby team played the French team here in Paris so in honor of the Auld Alliance, linking the two nations back in the 1295, they held a pipe band parade at Montmartre. The parade was supposed to start at 4 o’clock but didn’t commence until sometime after 5 o’clock. The French seemed to blame the delay on the Scottish stopping in at a bar (or two) on their way to the starting area. The Scottish appeared to blame it on the French for putting so many bars along the eventual parade route! When the bands (from Scotland, England, and France) finally got their acts together any harsh feelings were quickly abandoned.
And any true Scotsmen running up the steps to Sacré Coeur in Paris, please note that your actions might cause on-looking lassies to fall down the steps! Trust me; I’ve seen it happen.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and various French-language press to which I won’t bother linking as the number of French-speakers reading this blog tends toward zero, the French unit of Coca-Cola is due to introduce Vanilla Coke here in March.
NOTE: There is not exclamation mark to indicate unadulterated euphoria after that last sentence. I enjoyed Vanilla Coke while back in the States this summer, but wasn’t particularly impressed. I guess flavored soft drinks in a plastic bottle will never compete with concoctions mixed at the local Steak ‘n Shake or Waffle House.
Did you know that Thomas Jefferson introduced vanilla to the United States from France? He also brought back macaroni and ice cream from his travels in Europe. Three cheers for my favorite President, irrespective of the fact that he was an architect!
A Spanish historian has discovered anti-Franco forces used modern art as torture on their prisoners during the Spanish Civil War. Allegedly the National Confederation of Workers constructed cells with tilted beds, bizarre colors, and randomly placed geometric shapes on the floors to psychologically torment captured Franco supporters in Barcelona. The Spanish newspaper El Pais states:
The avant garde forms of the moment - surrealism and geometric abstraction - were thus used for the aim of committing psychological torture.
The creators of such revolutionary and liberating [artistic] languages could never have imagined that they would be so intrinsically linked to repression.
I believe I’ll have to bring this issue up the next time one of our professors begins showing us slides of modern art. But if subjecting people to modern art is torture, I guess I’m guilty as well. So Bert or Candace, if either of y’all read this, I apologize for exposing you to the mind-bending, “degenerative art” at the Pompidou Center!
So I didn’t watch the Super Bowl last night - or should I say early this morning. Being one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time here on the continent, kickoff wasn’t until after midnight. After the Falcons made their exit from the play-offs I didn’t really keep up with the NFL. (It’s NCAA basketball time, baby!) But who watches the Super Bowl these days for the football? I mean, I was able to watch the commercials online this morning and saved myself the hours of sports coverage. Who performed at half-time? I never heard anything about it.
But enough procrastination, back to architecture! We’ve got an interim pin-up tomorrow so I need to finish writing my concept statement; drawing plans, sections, and elevations; and building corresponding models. Au revoir!
The Economist Intelligence Unit has just released their semi-annual list of the most expensive cities in the world. Paris is ranked as 10th (tops in continental Europe) while New York comes in at 11th. The Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka topped the list followed by Oslo, Hong Kong, Libreville, Zurich, London, Geneva, and Copenhagen. Good ol’ Atlanta, Georgia was the cheapest American city in the poll, coming in at 68th.
NOTE: I will gladly and graciously accept monetary donations in either dollars or euros to help defray my high cost of living. And y’all in Atlanta should have plenty of currency to spare!!! (You might also send some yen to any friends you might have living in Tokyo.)
In the course of yesterday afternoon, Brian and I walked up to the Panthéon, visited the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, watched the ice skaters in front of the H?tel de Ville, saw most of the 14th-16th century French and Dutch paintings at the Louvre, and walked the entire length of the Avenue des Champs Elysées from the Arc de Triomphe back to the Place de la Concorde.
I’ve been inside Notre Dame a few times before, but not since it’s been decorated for Christmas. They’re still constructing the nativity set, but there were plenty of banners and other decorations already in place. We also climbed the towers (think hundreds of steps up narrow medieval spiral staircases) to catch a great view of the city.
In front of the H�tel de Ville, they’ve installed a temporary ice skating rink (bigger than the one last year in Glasgow’s George Square) along the lines of the traditional Rockefeller Center rink. To complete the “winter wonderland” theme they’ve disguised the street lamps as snow-covered trees - complete with real tree bark trunks! (A little odd, I think… but hey, this is France!)
So you’ve probably heard the Louvre is huge. Double the size of what you’re thinking… maybe even triple it! We were there for about three hours and saw less than one whole floor on just one wing. I, personally, was glad to discover the work of Charles Le Brun - the street on which I live is named after him. His works have their own room at the museum, and they definitely need it. Hanging on the walls were a series of four paintings each probably larger in size than the total floor area of my apartment! (something like 24’ × 15’)
The Champs Elysées is decorated for Christmas, and I’m not talking about the red and green traffic lights. Each of the trees lining the grand boulevard is lit up and most of the stores along its length are also adorned for the occasion.
And one of the best things about the day was that none of it cost me a cent! That’s right, architecture students in France have pretty much free access to all of the country’s artistic treasures - museums, churches, châteaus, essentially all the national monuments . Viva la France for making a wise investment in their cultural future!
I don’t think anyone’s ever accused the French of not finding a reason to celebrate. This morning just after the stroke of midnight, millions of bottles of wine from the Beaujolais region of France began their journey around the world - the first wine of this year’s harvest. It’s a tradition that’s carried out the third Thursday of November every year. Supposedly the restaurants and cafés will really be hopping tonight as everyone gets their first taste of this year’s vintage.
Unlike regular red wine on most other days of the year, tonight the wine will be gulped not sipped. And if the skies continue to clear and drizzle ceases, supposedly we’ll awaken to see the red liquid flowing through the city’s streets following a Parisian bacchanalia!
Spending these past couple years here in Europe, I’ve been fascinated with what American media makes its way eastward across the Atlantic. For instance, most films shown in Parisian movie theaters are made in Hollywood. Only about 40% of songs on French radio are in French; and, no, the majority of the other 60% aren’t in Swahili; they’re in English, American-English that is.
However, during lunch today with my architecture studio team, I was a little surprised and very amused to hear our Dutch colleague refer to the show Perfect Strangers!!! I can’t even remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen an episode, but to hear someone from Holland talk about Balki Bartokomous just brings it all back!
And just when I didn’t think any deeper cultural understanding could be reached, he goes on to allude to Bob Ross and his happy little trees! Apparently, they show “The Joy of Painting” in the wee hours of the morning. They’ve even memorialized him with his own flower.
It’s raining here in Paris. I haven’t written anything here in the past couple days so I thought I’d at least include this little snippet of information.
A few of us went out last night as part of Paris’ first Nuit Blanche celebration. Different art exhibits and parties took place all over town all night long. We went to see one in particular at the Biblioth?que Nationale de France where a German group had set up one of the building’s four towers as a giant computer screen. The public was allowed to help program the screen by visiting the group’s website and designing images and animations. Unfortunately, we didn’t know about that until it was too late. Wouldn’t it have been neat for all of Paris to see an image you had created?!? Or to have played Tetris for everyone to see!?!
As part of the Journées du Patrimoine, fellow architecture student Catie and I went to visit the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) today. The interiors are nearly unbelievable - filled with marble, gold, exotic woods, paintings, sculpture, etc. Earlier we had attended one of the morning service at the American Church in Paris and afterwards enjoyed walking through the streets of downtown Paris sans cars courtesy of International Car Free Day.
Tomorrow “real’ classes start. Our intensive French language study is over so now it’s time for architecture studio, a visual communications class, another one covering French architecture, and continuing “non-intensive” (3 hr/week vs. 15 hr/week) language classes.
As for other news, I’m just finishing reading Word Freak, a book about competitive Scrabble®. Interesting fact #173: The game was invented by an out-of-work architect during the Great Depression. I’ve played team Scrabble® twice while here in Europe - using the French version but playing in English - and have amassed an amazing 1-1 record! Not that I’m competitive, but we should have won the second game but the other teams didn’t think “et” was a word although Merriam-Webster lists it as a past tense of “eat.” Who are you going to believe?
Did you know the universe is green?
What is it?
For those of y’all who’ve seen my car (1990 Volvo), you’ve probably wondered about the Jeff Gordon sticker on the rear window. It was placed there by Candace Stevens, a friend of mine I met in Alaska of all places. But props must go to Jeff for winning his 4th Winston Cup Championship!
Alas, Harry Potter has arrived at British cinemas… The movie’s already broken opening records here in the U.K. I’ll let y’all know if, and when, I see it. I assume they got that which way does a witch fly on a broom scandal sorted out.