Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

After watching Le Chef: contre-attaque with Cyrille Lignac on M6 tonight, a show which is all about slowing down and reclaiming France’s gastronomic heritage in a world of plats tout-faits (pre-made meals) and microwavable everything, I realized that some of the advances in the last century that have allowed us to accelerate life to its dizzying modern pace haven’t all been the Heaven-sent blessings they were cracked up to be. Well, that and the fact that the quick dinner I grabbed was served to me by a conveyor belt in meticulous and efficient Japanese style. We do eat too quickly and we don’t really take any joy in preparing our food these days, it’s true, and I’d love to get back to the days when that was possible. Hell, when it comes to food preparation here in France, I’d settle for an oven!

On a similar but non-food-related note, I think I’ve also been settling for the insipid, rapidly digestable, refined carbohydrates of literature lately which is nothing like the slow readings I enjoy putting on my mental back burners to stew and simmer for hours, adding the spices I find during my daily routine for flavor. Cramming all these books down my gullet at such breakneck speed just to get through them only ensures I end up with the flimsiest understanding of the basic plot. The idea of broadening my horizons through slowly peeling back the many layers of meaning just brings tears to my eyes and is fairly laughable given my impending deadlines.

Why did I opt for an accelerated master’s again? Why did I opt for an accelerated life in general? Is there something so wrong with doing things slowly and well? Blergh, I don’t have time to think about it. I need to take a power nap, get up early, drink some instant coffee, sprint to class, and speed-read all day tomorrow. At least darting around from one task to the next like a hummingbird has to burn lots of calories, right?

Tags: cooking, Cyrille Lignac, food, France, Japanese, M6, school, television

Integration

Moving to a foreign country is always a little tricky. Even though I’ve studied the French language and French culture since 8th grade, there’s still no way to be completely prepared when you move abroad. As much of a pain as it was first getting setup here, I do feel as though Paris really suits me. Granted, it would suit me better if I had a larger income than a grad student (more on that later), but I think I’m making real strides in integrating into the local fabric (you didn’t think the title of this post referred to calculus, did you?).

First and foremost, I finally met Guillaume in person Thursday night. He and I have been penpals for years and years, but we’d never actually met face to face before this week. I’m really glad we did, because he’s even more interesting and dynamic in real life (i.e. he’s a real person, who knew?). We met at the café at 80 boulevard Hausseman (which is cute, but expensive) after he finished work at i-TELE (a TV station where he works as an anchor’s assistant) in one of those moments where you look at someone, you look again, and then say, “Guillaume?” It was odd because he looks pretty much exactly like pictures I’ve seen, but it still took a second to recognize him. Anyway, we got a table, he ordered a Perrier (though in some sort of special way which meant I had absolutely no idea what was going on) and I went with my standard café au lait which I absolutely love (more so when I’m not wearing it). I was self-concious of my French at first because, let’s face it, being French his was great, and being one of my friends, he knows his grammar inside and out, so I knew he wouldn’t miss any mistakes. Of course, after the first few awkward minutes, I realized that I really did know him well, even though we’d never met before, and the conversation became more natural. He’s a smart kid with a good head on his shoulders, though he’s in the same place I was at 22: he’s trying to figure out how he can make the life he has now into the one he aspires to have. Good luck, Guillaume, that’s a tricky one.

After an hour or so of French, we started talking about English, a topic which fascinates him (he’s sort of me on the other side of the mirror). He had always told me he spoke English with an American accent, but I had my doubts. I mean, I REALLY did. Not that I didn’t believe that he tried to speak English with an American accent, but in China, people that said they spoke with one accent or another invariably spoke with just a Chinese accent. The end. There’s no way you could construe their English as being from one region or another of the anglophone world. But, to my great surprise, I was totally wrong about Guillaume. After showing him what people sounded like in the South and the Midwest (he was curious, and I like doing accents, so it worked out well, though I must admit, it’s a little uncomfortable talking like a cowboy in English in a Parisian café), we actually started speaking English. And wow. Just, wow. His accent isn’t flawless and he sometimes Frenchifies his grammar, but when he said “daughter” with the correct emphasis, the correct vowel sounds, and the rhotic ‘r’ in it’s full glory, I was astounded. Good Lord, he DID speak with an accent that was clearly American! Evidently, they teach a sort of neutral version of English here (what on Earth would that sound like?), but he learned how to pronounce things from watching American television and listening to American music. Evidently, despite the disdain that the French supposedly feel for America, some of them really like they way we work. Actually, if you look at all the anglicismes here, all the culture, all the brands of clothing and the marketing techniques which basically say “wear these jeans to be as cool as Americans,” we can’t be all bad in the US. Most French people aren’t anymore prejudiced than we are toward them on the other side of the pond, and like we hold their culture and products (e.g. wine, chocolate, cheese, etc.) in a certain esteem, the feeling is evidently more mutual than I realized.

Anyway, it was a real pleasure meeting Guillaume, and after hours of chatting, we decided we should meet up again really soon. Walking home from our rendez-vous I realized that I actually really like the French because they are way nicer than people ever give them credit for. Maybe it’s because I’m from New England where people can be downright cold and mean (well, at least it can seem that way), but so far I’ve only met decent people here. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, who knows?

One that is clear is that real integration is possible. People on the street evidently think I’m French because I get stopped all the time by people looking for directions. “This line stops at the Bastille, right?” “Do you know where avenue Charles de Gaulle is?” “Can I take the RER to Orly from here?” If these people were tourists, that would make sense, but in every case, they’ve been French! How odd. While I’m not so deluded (which I used to spell “diluted” because I always thought it meant watering down your own bullshit until it was clear enough that you could almost believe the lie you were trying to tell yourself) as to believe that I’ve somehow magically mastered the mysteries of France in three weeks, after my interview yesterday, I at least know it’s possible.

You see, I met a woman named Melanie yesterday who runs the English department at a polytechnic school here in Paris. As it turns out, she’s also from Vermont (Newport) too and is very likeable. Actually, it’s a really good thing I took Eddie to Québec just before coming here, because I had refamiliarized myself with the geography of that part of the state on the way back, so we had loads to talk about. The interviews were normally about 20 minutes, but mine went on for almost an hour. Even if I don’t get the job, I had a good chat with her and it proves that some people really do live the dream. She got a Master’s in French from Middlebury too, and went from a conversation tutor to the head of an English department that she created, and has been living here in Paris for the past ten years running it. How cool is that? She wanted to come to France and stay, and she made it happen not just be finding a job, but by creating her own. That takes some drive, and I hope, should I still be in love with Paris at the end of the year and decide that Europe is the place for me, that I will be equally motivated.

I got up late today so I missed the trip to Versailles, but honestly, I didn’t really feel like going anyway. To be honest, the great monuments of Europe are very interesting, but it’s the little things off the beaten path, the things that not every tourist on the planet has seen, that interest me more. So, my mission today is both academic and fun in that I have to go scrounge through bookstores until I can find what I need for my classes. That might be a pain in the ass if I didn’t like shopping for books so much. After that, I need to get my ass in gear and turn my reading up a notch to make sure I’m caught up in all my classes. I guess, even though my day won’t be filled with golden archways, velvet draperies, and musical dancing water shows, I’ll at least get some learning done and feel a little of what it’s like to be a French student in the process.Tant mieux really, tant mieux.

Place Vendome in the VIIIe

Tags: accents, books, bookshops, cafés, culture, English, France, friends, Guillaume, Paris, school, television, Versailles

Media Fast

Tonight, after enjoying A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court in audiobook form and contemplating a statement one of my roommates made, I’ve decided to start a media fast. You see, while I don’t watch that much broadcast television, at least when I’m not at my parents’ house, I do watch more than a few movies and video podcasts each week. All in all, these must approximate the amount of time an average American would be watching television, and while I think my choices of content that come to me uninterrupted by inane commercials aimed at the lowest common denominator viewer (who, I must confess, appears to be illiterate and likely has an IQ similar to wilted celery), they still keep me entranced in front of a glowing screen for hours each week.

I find this unacceptable, because I think the television is a glittering glass manacle of the mind, designed to pacify its viewers. While there are plenty of educational programs out there, I find that the general effect of TV viewing is complete stupefaction. The longer I sit in front of the glowing idiot box, the less able I am to pull myself away from it. The more vanilla, banal, cliché shows I watch, the less creative I am able to be. Television essentially has the power to make its victims zombies that crave nothing more than to bask in its cold white glow as much as possible, sucking up the poor facsimile of experience in lieu of having real experiences of their own. Almost as if it were heavily sedated, a person’s brain works less while watching television than it does when sleeping. I hope you find that as terrifying as I do.

What would happen if we all turned away from our video streams and used that time to live our lives? Some would find themselves filled with loneliness as their favorite talkative companion fell into a dark coma. Others, well, others just might start thinking. They might have genuine social interactions and dive headlong into the drama of real life instead of the lives of fictitious characters. They might form relationships with people around them instead of idolizing actors that play their favorite characters, making them demigods among mice. They might even learn more about their world and start working to change it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate television. Like all things, it has its place. It has revolutionized communication and changed the very core of our society, giving rise to the age of free and virtually instantaneous exchange of information. It is a cheap form of divertisement for the everyman that can help him escape his troubles. But, like all things, it has evil uses, one of them being the zombification of the masses for commercial and political gain. Perhaps, like so many other drugs, its effects are best enjoyed in moderation, which the everyman may or may not be able to muster.

One could also say that books allow for a similar escapist waste of time, and I would concede to an extent. Sure, books provide a form of entertainment that allow us to leave reality and your troubles behind for awhile, much the same as TV, but I would argue that there is a significant difference. Books require participation on the side of the reader. He or she must constantly use his mind to dream up the characters, imagine their faces, and envisage the action and landscape of the story. Books also allow for infinitely more depth than television and great books can contain such a timeless shining gem of truth as to inspire an epiphany in their readers. Perhaps the art of writing is more perfect because it is so much older than the art of producing television. Maybe, someday, television will provide the same depth and mental participation as reading, but I find it unlikely.

So, I’m escaping from the world of reality television, televised car chases, and “infotainment,” at least for now. I’ve decided to not only give up the lackluster American broadcast media, but all non-instructional video until my birthday, February 23rd. I hope to work on my writing, catch up on years of reading I’ve put off for the ease of watching a movie instead, and exercise a little more. I hope, after that month, to come back and sound very much like a man who has given up drugs; preaching about how much time I found and how much better I feel now that I’ve put down the phosphorescent needle and the multi-chromatic bottle. Perhaps, after a month, I will have purged some of the toxins left by the cheap, over-processed, bleached, high-fructose corn syrup boob tube and set myself free in the process.

Tags: books, fasting, media, television