Le Mouffetard Bar and Brasserie,
Rue Mouffetard and Rue L’Arbalete:
Angry-faced artisan butcher, stone street, tros café au lait,
KG, wish you were here,
Nearing 1pm, soon to start drinking.
Be sad, but never too sad to leave your room.
The wayward pietons (the French).
I want to be stumbling drunk, stumbling,
(But not lumbering) in / through Le Place de Contrascarp,
Like he said he was, like he said they were, moveable.
Like I said, wish you were here.
Figue fraiche, 29 euro per KG.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Paris 2: The Chapel of St. Vincent DePaul
"Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet" (2 Kings 13:21, New International Version).
Relic veneration was present in popular religions of the Middle Ages, and indeed has been a part of Christianity since the early Church. The now distinctly Catholic practice takes cues from the Council of Trent, and is further developed in the "Roman Catechism," based on the belief that the bodies of deceased saints are to be regarded as former temples of the Holy Spirit. Augustine wrote that a man's body "belongs to his very nature." It is no surprise that this practice has become essential to Catholicism, in all of its corporeal, visceral sensibilities. Catholicism is a bodily tradition; in Catholic churches, the body of God hangs on the wall, above the altar. It is the utmost and ultimate focus and the salvation of the Catholic, through first the Incarnation, and then the Passion, the death. And still, the body remains. From those traditions come, quite logically, an interest in and veneration of other things somehow both holy and corporeal. Some relics recognized and authenticated by the Roman Catholic Church include: Jesus' baby blanket, Jesus' foreskin, Jesus' loin cloth worn on the cross, St. Augustine's elbow, the rest of St. Augustine's body (in churches in Algeria and Italy, repsectively), and the body of St. Theresa of Avila. There is a relic of some sort in every consecrated Catholic church.
Not the least incredible among this tradition was that, I was told a few years ago, the Chapel of St. Vincent DePaul in Paris, in fact held and displayed, as its obligatory relic, the body of St. Vincent DePaul and not, I was told, a few hairs or a fragment of bone, and not held in a sealed, opaque box, but, in the true spirit of Catholic corporeality, upon the path cut by God in His body, by a theology of atonement and by that body, despite the Ascension, still nailed bleeding to the walls of every Catholic church in the world, St. Vincent was displayed, preserved, in a glass box, for true Catholic corporeal reflection and devotion. Relatively anonymous, the chapel stands not separate from the block, only slightly marked, only moderately sized. But all sense of Catholic grandeur is upheld within its walls, ornate, variously wood and gold, all along the knave of the chapel, a different martyr stands, one in each window, down from their crosses, St. Alban holding his own decapitated head, marking the path to the body contained therein. The arrangement is striking, majestic; St. Vincent, in repose, in glass, high above and slightly behind the altar, dressed in bright light like stage lighting, reflected in an angled mirror just above, smaller, holy figures surrounding him. To visit the body, one walks up an enclosed staircase on the right side of the knave, at the front of the chapel, which emerges onto the tiny stage, there with the relic, nearly at the chapel’s ceiling, in the center of the universe of the Chapel of St. Vincent DePaul. Those few praying below are likely not concerned with those giving devotion to or merely viewing St. Vincent, but one would merely need to open one’s eyes, or perhaps shift them slightly upward, depending on one’s placement in the chapel, to see the arched back of a pilgrim, as prominent as a priest upon the altar and more conspicuous for his elevation.
The body of St. Vincent DePaul, like a body in an open casket at an endless and ongoing wake, only vaguely resembles a human being, either alive or dead. That is, like the recently deceased who lays in an open casket at a wake, he is waxy and perfect, paradoxically both shrunken and expanded, bloated. In the living and the dead, there is both growth and decay, and neither cease in either state. The relic that is St. Vincent DePaul is neither growing nor decaying and so is really neither dead nor alive and uncannily appears as such. Because I am told that this figure is the body of a dead man, I look at it and try to imagine that such is the case, but in truth, it is likely a wax casting, a wax figure in fact just like those in the wax museums of tourist towns, if one that contains, within its materials, elements of the man’s body that it represents. And I must admit that I was, in fact, expecting something other than a monument shaped like a man, that I was expecting a corpus, something that seemed as though it would inspire prayer by acting first on the viscus of the pilgrim, and yet, I think, it must do that. Here is not a name in stone, the chapel can boast, but that to which the name in stone would refer. And whether or not it seems to me that there is still another reference put into play by the figure’s waxiness, by the unnaturalness, as dead or alive, it is, in that glass box, a body as a shell, as a body is, or so it might be. It is without animation, without animism, without âme; it has not path, itself, no voie, and it does not see, voir.
Relic veneration was present in popular religions of the Middle Ages, and indeed has been a part of Christianity since the early Church. The now distinctly Catholic practice takes cues from the Council of Trent, and is further developed in the "Roman Catechism," based on the belief that the bodies of deceased saints are to be regarded as former temples of the Holy Spirit. Augustine wrote that a man's body "belongs to his very nature." It is no surprise that this practice has become essential to Catholicism, in all of its corporeal, visceral sensibilities. Catholicism is a bodily tradition; in Catholic churches, the body of God hangs on the wall, above the altar. It is the utmost and ultimate focus and the salvation of the Catholic, through first the Incarnation, and then the Passion, the death. And still, the body remains. From those traditions come, quite logically, an interest in and veneration of other things somehow both holy and corporeal. Some relics recognized and authenticated by the Roman Catholic Church include: Jesus' baby blanket, Jesus' foreskin, Jesus' loin cloth worn on the cross, St. Augustine's elbow, the rest of St. Augustine's body (in churches in Algeria and Italy, repsectively), and the body of St. Theresa of Avila. There is a relic of some sort in every consecrated Catholic church.
Not the least incredible among this tradition was that, I was told a few years ago, the Chapel of St. Vincent DePaul in Paris, in fact held and displayed, as its obligatory relic, the body of St. Vincent DePaul and not, I was told, a few hairs or a fragment of bone, and not held in a sealed, opaque box, but, in the true spirit of Catholic corporeality, upon the path cut by God in His body, by a theology of atonement and by that body, despite the Ascension, still nailed bleeding to the walls of every Catholic church in the world, St. Vincent was displayed, preserved, in a glass box, for true Catholic corporeal reflection and devotion. Relatively anonymous, the chapel stands not separate from the block, only slightly marked, only moderately sized. But all sense of Catholic grandeur is upheld within its walls, ornate, variously wood and gold, all along the knave of the chapel, a different martyr stands, one in each window, down from their crosses, St. Alban holding his own decapitated head, marking the path to the body contained therein. The arrangement is striking, majestic; St. Vincent, in repose, in glass, high above and slightly behind the altar, dressed in bright light like stage lighting, reflected in an angled mirror just above, smaller, holy figures surrounding him. To visit the body, one walks up an enclosed staircase on the right side of the knave, at the front of the chapel, which emerges onto the tiny stage, there with the relic, nearly at the chapel’s ceiling, in the center of the universe of the Chapel of St. Vincent DePaul. Those few praying below are likely not concerned with those giving devotion to or merely viewing St. Vincent, but one would merely need to open one’s eyes, or perhaps shift them slightly upward, depending on one’s placement in the chapel, to see the arched back of a pilgrim, as prominent as a priest upon the altar and more conspicuous for his elevation.
The body of St. Vincent DePaul, like a body in an open casket at an endless and ongoing wake, only vaguely resembles a human being, either alive or dead. That is, like the recently deceased who lays in an open casket at a wake, he is waxy and perfect, paradoxically both shrunken and expanded, bloated. In the living and the dead, there is both growth and decay, and neither cease in either state. The relic that is St. Vincent DePaul is neither growing nor decaying and so is really neither dead nor alive and uncannily appears as such. Because I am told that this figure is the body of a dead man, I look at it and try to imagine that such is the case, but in truth, it is likely a wax casting, a wax figure in fact just like those in the wax museums of tourist towns, if one that contains, within its materials, elements of the man’s body that it represents. And I must admit that I was, in fact, expecting something other than a monument shaped like a man, that I was expecting a corpus, something that seemed as though it would inspire prayer by acting first on the viscus of the pilgrim, and yet, I think, it must do that. Here is not a name in stone, the chapel can boast, but that to which the name in stone would refer. And whether or not it seems to me that there is still another reference put into play by the figure’s waxiness, by the unnaturalness, as dead or alive, it is, in that glass box, a body as a shell, as a body is, or so it might be. It is without animation, without animism, without âme; it has not path, itself, no voie, and it does not see, voir.
Paris 1: Montparnasse Cemetery
In mid-winter hours approaching dawn, Gare Montparnasse is capable of offering little defense against the shocking truth of temperature. Whatever wind is deterred by the outer structures and sparing sliding doors is equally matched by the way in which the overall design seems to focus, to direct the remaining winds through the spaces of the station. It was that shocking truth that I realized when, for fear of that early morning cold, I briefly balked at the exit, wondering if it might not be better to wait inside until the dawn fully broke over the six-story buildings of Montparnasse. That is, it was already too late for bodies like mine, sliding into the frigid morning, to hault. It seems a strange design, at the time as much as in retrospect, to visit, in such a state, a cemetery, for as the day would mature, in time, bodies in motion, active and detemined, citizens and visitors, by incidental friction and purposeful navigation, would come to create a sort of heat, a distinctly urban phenomenon of some collective thermal byproduct; but in Montparnasse Cemetery, as in any cemetery, there is of course a profound absence of such a phenomenon. Still, minor salvation became of timing, as the sun began to crest Paris’ low buildings in time to color the monuments with a sort of early-morning mercy orange, not quite firey, but at least of a color associated with heat. But not the heat of bodies.
There are buried in Montparnasse what one might call “people of note,” people of fame. The plots of these people are visited with with varying frequency and their memories are given devotion with varying degrees of interest and physicality: potted plants, stuffed animals, and framed, sketched portraits for Serge Gainsborg, a note for either John-Paul Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir that reads: “Merci pour toi livre.” Which livre was left unspecified, but the unseeing eyes of those two in repose paused to make no distinction. I used the opportunity of standing in front of the latter monument to a make a confession to the unhearing ears of Sartre, though I am certain he could care less. As cold as I was, I rather empathized, and moved on.
I already cannot remember if I made this observation of Montparnasse Cemetery, or of Miséricorde Cemetery in Nantes, but one of the two, and perhaps both, distinguishes itself immediately from American cemeteries with which I am familiar, though not yet too familiar, by the fact that the main route into it and through it is actually a route through it. As it opens, as an entrance / exit, on one side, so it does the same on the other side. In this arrangement, while the Cemetery still stands to represent certain definite ends, the certain, definite, respective ends of all whose mutable and muted forms are laid therein, the cemetery space, when arrange as such, is no end for those who can, or must, move along the ground. Each monument, by the turns they are allowed to take, in this arrangement, is then even more a monument. Each shrine, built for ruin the more complex, once bold and then delicate beneath time’s heavy hands, visited incidentally, in unprostrated, uninvested, daily convenience-devotion, rises and rises again on respective horizons, however, elegant, always brutely physical in all of its stone and cement and geometry, standing in the stead of the once body beneath it now gone to vapors and fragment. The casual passerby, passing through, carries with her some notable element of the living world, some element wholly absent from the single entrance / exit cemetery. For in this arrangement, there are, walking among the dead, those with no concern for the dead, those not originally, or presently, concerned with the dead, all intermingling, if not interacting, with those present in mourning, and those present to leave sketched portraits or to make confessions to the unhearing, in partial jest, or those present merely in order to say that they were once present. Here, in this arrangement, there is: “I was once present in Montparnasse Cemetery, among so many shrines to the dead,” and also: “I walk to work thorough Montparnasse Cemetery, among so many shrines to the dead.” Therefore, it is perhaps rash to say that there is a profound lack of the phenomenon of the incidental heat of bodies in motion, in passing, in Montparnasse Cemetery, but the morning, still, was cold, and the ears, still, unhearing.
There are buried in Montparnasse what one might call “people of note,” people of fame. The plots of these people are visited with with varying frequency and their memories are given devotion with varying degrees of interest and physicality: potted plants, stuffed animals, and framed, sketched portraits for Serge Gainsborg, a note for either John-Paul Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir that reads: “Merci pour toi livre.” Which livre was left unspecified, but the unseeing eyes of those two in repose paused to make no distinction. I used the opportunity of standing in front of the latter monument to a make a confession to the unhearing ears of Sartre, though I am certain he could care less. As cold as I was, I rather empathized, and moved on.
I already cannot remember if I made this observation of Montparnasse Cemetery, or of Miséricorde Cemetery in Nantes, but one of the two, and perhaps both, distinguishes itself immediately from American cemeteries with which I am familiar, though not yet too familiar, by the fact that the main route into it and through it is actually a route through it. As it opens, as an entrance / exit, on one side, so it does the same on the other side. In this arrangement, while the Cemetery still stands to represent certain definite ends, the certain, definite, respective ends of all whose mutable and muted forms are laid therein, the cemetery space, when arrange as such, is no end for those who can, or must, move along the ground. Each monument, by the turns they are allowed to take, in this arrangement, is then even more a monument. Each shrine, built for ruin the more complex, once bold and then delicate beneath time’s heavy hands, visited incidentally, in unprostrated, uninvested, daily convenience-devotion, rises and rises again on respective horizons, however, elegant, always brutely physical in all of its stone and cement and geometry, standing in the stead of the once body beneath it now gone to vapors and fragment. The casual passerby, passing through, carries with her some notable element of the living world, some element wholly absent from the single entrance / exit cemetery. For in this arrangement, there are, walking among the dead, those with no concern for the dead, those not originally, or presently, concerned with the dead, all intermingling, if not interacting, with those present in mourning, and those present to leave sketched portraits or to make confessions to the unhearing, in partial jest, or those present merely in order to say that they were once present. Here, in this arrangement, there is: “I was once present in Montparnasse Cemetery, among so many shrines to the dead,” and also: “I walk to work thorough Montparnasse Cemetery, among so many shrines to the dead.” Therefore, it is perhaps rash to say that there is a profound lack of the phenomenon of the incidental heat of bodies in motion, in passing, in Montparnasse Cemetery, but the morning, still, was cold, and the ears, still, unhearing.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Nantes 5: The Market and Several Unfulfilled Parallels
The Moroccan figs and incense, the paperback copies of the Qur’an, the stunningly dyed fabrics, sat behind the stumbling shrimp, the sleek, cold forms of giant, iced, dying fish, the mussels like coral, the twisted, dense baguettes in their usual, myriad form. They sat behind the 5 Euro pairs of jeans and the 6 Euro pairs of sneakers, the 3 Euro pairs of women’s underwear and the 2 Euro gallettes and crepes. Behind, I must admit, I must address, is a term relative to one’s approach, to one’s orientation. It would be easy, I am sure, to imagine that there is no back to a Saturday morning market, that the immense parking lot-become-marketplace is without front, without back, without privileged location. Since I am no conspiracist, and since I intend to disseminate no conspiracy, I will agree, immediately, with what is easy to imagine, and although I have already revealed a bias, although I have already implanted a tone, I will defend what comes hereafter against accusations of unfounded, biased, or inflammatory rhetoric, mostly through a series of confessions. The market is subject to approach, to point of entrance, just as it is subject to perspective, to atmospheric conditions. If I had come upon the market from the riverside, the figs might have been the first item I saw, behind nothing and in front of the entire market. But I approached the market, the Saturday morning Nantes city market, from Nantes, from the city, straight, in fact, from Centre Ville. The first items for sale that I came upon were the sleek, dying forms of the iced fish.
I would like to be granted, if I may even be allowed the request, a slight digression here. I am, as I write, after all not at the market, and there may be a certain logic to allowing more recent experience to co-author this text. When my copine first arrived in Nantes, she explained to me this evening, she had just become acquainted with a new friend and the two were to spend the afternoon together, the former accompanying the latter, a French citizen, on her search for employment. During the events of the afternoon, my copine was surprised to note that her friend’s curriculum vitae, her resume, included a photograph of herself; this was no improvisation on the part of the French citizen, no attempt to personalize her resume, but a mere compliance with alleged government policy. When one files for unemployment in France, when one applies for a job, one must include, in the designated spot, a passport-style photograph. It should, however, be noted that the author could not find definitive confirmation of this at the time of publication.
As the digression ebbs, allow the brisk Saturday morning along the river to return (although, if you will recall, we approached city side). At this market, one is given to the wills of so many others – the crowd is immense, and many of the apparently more regular, more seasoned market-goers trail clumsily behind them pieces of wheeled luggage, as they do possibly a week’s worth of shopping in produce and fish, although the bread is likely bought daily. I cannot and will not claim that, of these people, I saw no one patronizing the booth selling figs and incense, or the booth selling the Qur’an or the fabrics. In fact, another digression wells, and prevents me from claiming anything more, for the moment, about the market. The market may, in fact, be the digression, if the reader so prefers.
The French government will not ask you (nor anyone) to declare an ethnic origin, nor a religious affiliation, systemically; and formlessly, or rather, I mean to say, less formally, the French will ask you not to declare such things. This is so, one can assume – and indeed, at least one, it should be noted, is assuming – because of an idea of Democracy, because of an idea of privacy and Democracy’s relation to such. This policy is a sort of attempt at a guarantee against bias, against discrimination. This, like any policy, is potentially flawed, and specifically so in the way that it makes impossible any attempt at tracing, tracking, or unearthing bias or discrimination. That is, if one were to say, for example, that the recent riots in suburban France may have reflected the frustration felt by immigrant, largely Muslim populations who perceive, who believe that they are abandoned and unofficially ghettoized by the government, the system itself (personified, for the moment, leaving specific leadership aside) might respond with a suitably systemic shrug, which would communicate the (potentially smug) notion that one cannot reasonably respond to such accusations / theories, because one has no idea (officially) if those people who were burning cars and throwing petrol bombs are immigrant Muslims or upper-class, white Protestants.
The author cannot and so will not presume to make definitive judgments, value judgments on this method of managing a country’s population, but will instead hide (as entirely as is possible) behind assumptions and vague assertions. This method of managing a country’s population, while in print leaves room for nothing but absolute, Absolute Democracy, its existent reality in fact leaves room for and invites the whole different animal of wild assumption and vague assertion. “I should perhaps confess that what tortures me, the question that has been putting me to the question, might just be related to what structures a particular axiomatic of a certain democracy, namely, the turn, the return to self of the circle and the sphere, and thus the ipseity of the One, the autos of autonomy, symmetry, homogeneity, the same, the like, the semblable or the similar, and even, finally, God, in other words everything that remains incompatible with, even clashes with, another truth of the democratic, namely, the truth of the other, heterogeneity, the heteronomic and the dissymmetric, disseminal multiplicity, the anonymous ‘anyone,’ the ‘no matter who,’ the indeterminate ‘each one’” (Derrida, 14). One will never ask one’s ethnic background, and one will be asked not to share such information, but “Do you spell Ibrahim with two or three ‘E’s?” And, of course, there is the aforementioned photograph on resumes.
Now I feel that I must make a concession – no, an admission, but no concession – for we have arrived at a certain place in the text where decisions must be made, on one part or another. The admission is that – and I make this admission not without a certain concession – this piece of writing was intended, originally, but not consciously or explicitly, to be something that resembled a form of patriotism. Now, however, concessions made, confessions pregnant, I am hesitant to unleash what I presently see may, in practice (that is, the practice of writing) become a sort of patriotism – that is, a naiveity, that would threaten to level the entire (non)argument so far (not really) set up. Perhaps I will still have recourse to write about Chicago’s torillas, but, perhaps, a concession must first be made, on both the part of the author and the part of the reader; that is, another digression.
Over lunch this afternoon, an acquaintance shared her experience of and reflections on a film she had recently seen. This film, politically charged and poignant, for her, illustrated many of the more disturbing aspects of the current French political climate, namely the gaining of power and momentum that presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy is experiencing and engineering. This woman, reasonably speaking for likeminded French individuals, described her concern at seeing Sarkozy simultaneously increasing the thrust of his allegedly anti-immigrant, classist rhetoric, and gaining trust or, at the very least, visibility with the French public. The primary problem, as the film illustrated, is not necessarily a complete lack of opposition, but more profoundly, a complete lack of unity among the opposition. There is a “left” or a Left in France, but much of the Left is in disarray, she explained, for the fact that, while some engage in grounded, logical debate, voicing well-founded opposition, too many instead engage in various forms of mudslinging and radical but seemingly chaotic and ill-founded forms of opposition, which appears, often, entirely anti-, but entirely without any sense of pro-. In a word, while many oppose the Right, the opposition has no leader. Sarkozy, my French friend explained, is not even as popular as he appears, but since he appears as such, he holds a lot of water (although, as finance minister, Sarkozy managed to secure the highest approval ratings of anyone in the French government). He effectively makes use of media, of television and the internet, to construct and maintain a certain visibility, often making somewhat outrageous and inflammatory claims, using questionable, subtly racist terminology to the ultimate end of notoriety. The response comes multifaceted but disparate – the less responsible strains of the opposition give a bad name to the entire opposition, a lack of unity gives birth to frustrated, violent outbursts, and the Right simply has more fodder for disregarding, for belittling the opposition.
While this film so effectively illustrated these ideas for my new acquaintance, it did so not by any direct elucidation, but instead by remarkable parallel. It did so, one might speculate, unintentionally. The film, in fact, is an American film, and distinctly so, dealing entirely with American events. The film is Goodnight and Good Luck, which portrays the particular episode, if you will, in the larger Red Scare, as fronted by United States Senator Joseph McCarthy.
McCarthy’s project was relatively short-lived in the history of the United States (though roughly four long years, I am sure they were), and left my experience of America (certainly not unaffected, but at least) relatively unscathed. That is, I should say, however I feel about McCarthy’s attempts to turn his paranoia into a re-shaping of the country, I still walk down the Chicago streets of my beloved Mexican immigrant neighborhood, about as suspiciously pink (by McCarthy’s standards) as any senator could hope for, unshaven, eating fresh tortillas and humming any number of versions of “Song for Ché.” And just then, or rather, just now, it occurs to me: was I merely at the wrong market? See, whether this last question is a painful oversimplification or if the market story itself fills that role remains to be seen. But what occurred to me as I prepared to unwittingly unleash a stream of naïve patriotism, or nostalgia for Chicago, was that I may have simply been at the wrong market. Any of the farmers’ markets that take place in Daley Plaza include large numbers of white suburban farmers (or farm owners), and the markets in Roscoe Village do not include tamale stands. Chicago, in fact, is the fifth most racially segregated city (by neighborhood) in the United States, according to a recent Urban League study, and so, I have had to remind myself, just because I like to spend my time there in the historically Mexican neighborhoods, that, in itself, bears no witness to some idea that Chicago embraces its immigrant populations any more than Nantes does. And so a parallel emerges, if a sort of unfulfilled one, and I am left curious as to whether or not there is a certain, considerable, poor, young, white artist demographic who choose to live in the immigrant suburbs of France, to take advantage of the cheap rent and the vibrant immigrant culture. Although I have, in fact, met many young, white artists, this does not seem to be the case with any of them.
This all, of course, speaks nothing to the fact that the Red Scare of the 1950s will likely, given enough time, pale in comparison to the current state of political affairs in the United States. But as the reader will have forgiven the author his confessions, concessions, admissions, and digressions, perhaps the reader can similarly forgive the limits of perspective herein.
Derrida, Jacques. Rogues. Tr. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005.
I would like to be granted, if I may even be allowed the request, a slight digression here. I am, as I write, after all not at the market, and there may be a certain logic to allowing more recent experience to co-author this text. When my copine first arrived in Nantes, she explained to me this evening, she had just become acquainted with a new friend and the two were to spend the afternoon together, the former accompanying the latter, a French citizen, on her search for employment. During the events of the afternoon, my copine was surprised to note that her friend’s curriculum vitae, her resume, included a photograph of herself; this was no improvisation on the part of the French citizen, no attempt to personalize her resume, but a mere compliance with alleged government policy. When one files for unemployment in France, when one applies for a job, one must include, in the designated spot, a passport-style photograph. It should, however, be noted that the author could not find definitive confirmation of this at the time of publication.
As the digression ebbs, allow the brisk Saturday morning along the river to return (although, if you will recall, we approached city side). At this market, one is given to the wills of so many others – the crowd is immense, and many of the apparently more regular, more seasoned market-goers trail clumsily behind them pieces of wheeled luggage, as they do possibly a week’s worth of shopping in produce and fish, although the bread is likely bought daily. I cannot and will not claim that, of these people, I saw no one patronizing the booth selling figs and incense, or the booth selling the Qur’an or the fabrics. In fact, another digression wells, and prevents me from claiming anything more, for the moment, about the market. The market may, in fact, be the digression, if the reader so prefers.
The French government will not ask you (nor anyone) to declare an ethnic origin, nor a religious affiliation, systemically; and formlessly, or rather, I mean to say, less formally, the French will ask you not to declare such things. This is so, one can assume – and indeed, at least one, it should be noted, is assuming – because of an idea of Democracy, because of an idea of privacy and Democracy’s relation to such. This policy is a sort of attempt at a guarantee against bias, against discrimination. This, like any policy, is potentially flawed, and specifically so in the way that it makes impossible any attempt at tracing, tracking, or unearthing bias or discrimination. That is, if one were to say, for example, that the recent riots in suburban France may have reflected the frustration felt by immigrant, largely Muslim populations who perceive, who believe that they are abandoned and unofficially ghettoized by the government, the system itself (personified, for the moment, leaving specific leadership aside) might respond with a suitably systemic shrug, which would communicate the (potentially smug) notion that one cannot reasonably respond to such accusations / theories, because one has no idea (officially) if those people who were burning cars and throwing petrol bombs are immigrant Muslims or upper-class, white Protestants.
The author cannot and so will not presume to make definitive judgments, value judgments on this method of managing a country’s population, but will instead hide (as entirely as is possible) behind assumptions and vague assertions. This method of managing a country’s population, while in print leaves room for nothing but absolute, Absolute Democracy, its existent reality in fact leaves room for and invites the whole different animal of wild assumption and vague assertion. “I should perhaps confess that what tortures me, the question that has been putting me to the question, might just be related to what structures a particular axiomatic of a certain democracy, namely, the turn, the return to self of the circle and the sphere, and thus the ipseity of the One, the autos of autonomy, symmetry, homogeneity, the same, the like, the semblable or the similar, and even, finally, God, in other words everything that remains incompatible with, even clashes with, another truth of the democratic, namely, the truth of the other, heterogeneity, the heteronomic and the dissymmetric, disseminal multiplicity, the anonymous ‘anyone,’ the ‘no matter who,’ the indeterminate ‘each one’” (Derrida, 14). One will never ask one’s ethnic background, and one will be asked not to share such information, but “Do you spell Ibrahim with two or three ‘E’s?” And, of course, there is the aforementioned photograph on resumes.
Now I feel that I must make a concession – no, an admission, but no concession – for we have arrived at a certain place in the text where decisions must be made, on one part or another. The admission is that – and I make this admission not without a certain concession – this piece of writing was intended, originally, but not consciously or explicitly, to be something that resembled a form of patriotism. Now, however, concessions made, confessions pregnant, I am hesitant to unleash what I presently see may, in practice (that is, the practice of writing) become a sort of patriotism – that is, a naiveity, that would threaten to level the entire (non)argument so far (not really) set up. Perhaps I will still have recourse to write about Chicago’s torillas, but, perhaps, a concession must first be made, on both the part of the author and the part of the reader; that is, another digression.
Over lunch this afternoon, an acquaintance shared her experience of and reflections on a film she had recently seen. This film, politically charged and poignant, for her, illustrated many of the more disturbing aspects of the current French political climate, namely the gaining of power and momentum that presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy is experiencing and engineering. This woman, reasonably speaking for likeminded French individuals, described her concern at seeing Sarkozy simultaneously increasing the thrust of his allegedly anti-immigrant, classist rhetoric, and gaining trust or, at the very least, visibility with the French public. The primary problem, as the film illustrated, is not necessarily a complete lack of opposition, but more profoundly, a complete lack of unity among the opposition. There is a “left” or a Left in France, but much of the Left is in disarray, she explained, for the fact that, while some engage in grounded, logical debate, voicing well-founded opposition, too many instead engage in various forms of mudslinging and radical but seemingly chaotic and ill-founded forms of opposition, which appears, often, entirely anti-, but entirely without any sense of pro-. In a word, while many oppose the Right, the opposition has no leader. Sarkozy, my French friend explained, is not even as popular as he appears, but since he appears as such, he holds a lot of water (although, as finance minister, Sarkozy managed to secure the highest approval ratings of anyone in the French government). He effectively makes use of media, of television and the internet, to construct and maintain a certain visibility, often making somewhat outrageous and inflammatory claims, using questionable, subtly racist terminology to the ultimate end of notoriety. The response comes multifaceted but disparate – the less responsible strains of the opposition give a bad name to the entire opposition, a lack of unity gives birth to frustrated, violent outbursts, and the Right simply has more fodder for disregarding, for belittling the opposition.
While this film so effectively illustrated these ideas for my new acquaintance, it did so not by any direct elucidation, but instead by remarkable parallel. It did so, one might speculate, unintentionally. The film, in fact, is an American film, and distinctly so, dealing entirely with American events. The film is Goodnight and Good Luck, which portrays the particular episode, if you will, in the larger Red Scare, as fronted by United States Senator Joseph McCarthy.
McCarthy’s project was relatively short-lived in the history of the United States (though roughly four long years, I am sure they were), and left my experience of America (certainly not unaffected, but at least) relatively unscathed. That is, I should say, however I feel about McCarthy’s attempts to turn his paranoia into a re-shaping of the country, I still walk down the Chicago streets of my beloved Mexican immigrant neighborhood, about as suspiciously pink (by McCarthy’s standards) as any senator could hope for, unshaven, eating fresh tortillas and humming any number of versions of “Song for Ché.” And just then, or rather, just now, it occurs to me: was I merely at the wrong market? See, whether this last question is a painful oversimplification or if the market story itself fills that role remains to be seen. But what occurred to me as I prepared to unwittingly unleash a stream of naïve patriotism, or nostalgia for Chicago, was that I may have simply been at the wrong market. Any of the farmers’ markets that take place in Daley Plaza include large numbers of white suburban farmers (or farm owners), and the markets in Roscoe Village do not include tamale stands. Chicago, in fact, is the fifth most racially segregated city (by neighborhood) in the United States, according to a recent Urban League study, and so, I have had to remind myself, just because I like to spend my time there in the historically Mexican neighborhoods, that, in itself, bears no witness to some idea that Chicago embraces its immigrant populations any more than Nantes does. And so a parallel emerges, if a sort of unfulfilled one, and I am left curious as to whether or not there is a certain, considerable, poor, young, white artist demographic who choose to live in the immigrant suburbs of France, to take advantage of the cheap rent and the vibrant immigrant culture. Although I have, in fact, met many young, white artists, this does not seem to be the case with any of them.
This all, of course, speaks nothing to the fact that the Red Scare of the 1950s will likely, given enough time, pale in comparison to the current state of political affairs in the United States. But as the reader will have forgiven the author his confessions, concessions, admissions, and digressions, perhaps the reader can similarly forgive the limits of perspective herein.
Derrida, Jacques. Rogues. Tr. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005.
Nantes 4: Our Lady of L'Apres Midi, Vendredi
The Church of Notre Dame de Bon Port rose up, unexpected, itself
Somehow unsuspecting, seemingly echoing nothing
Of the Place du Sanitat. I approached
Through that field of parked cars, occupied,
Through that field of occupied parked cars,
Occupied for reasons obscured by that church rising,
Unexpected and unexpecting, it had not donned its dome
From where I stood, before I stood beneath it, before the flames,
Faces of saints, structures gone to disrepair
And somehow holy for it, the unconvincing stone portrait,
St. Joan burning, some tips of tongues of flames crumbled
And become dust like all burning, unconvincing, blessing
Dominic along the peeling paint, the ceiling saint
In decaying mural like a leper’s face and mirrored across
The altar, Esther, whose feet dissolving in giant flakes,
Slowly meeting her absolute, like any Old Testament woman should be left
Wanting nothing, but eyeing the broken stone flames
Beneath the broken, stone, unnatural feet
Beneath the broken, stone, boyish face
Of broken, stone St. Joan of Arc and broken stone,
Flames long cold, looking to her Father,
Looking past Our Mother of Arriving in Good Condition
And her crumbling, blessed dome, cracked and peeling,
Dusty and forgotten, more blessed the broken stone,
Grateful and distant humility born of dying Catholic grandeur.
Somehow unsuspecting, seemingly echoing nothing
Of the Place du Sanitat. I approached
Through that field of parked cars, occupied,
Through that field of occupied parked cars,
Occupied for reasons obscured by that church rising,
Unexpected and unexpecting, it had not donned its dome
From where I stood, before I stood beneath it, before the flames,
Faces of saints, structures gone to disrepair
And somehow holy for it, the unconvincing stone portrait,
St. Joan burning, some tips of tongues of flames crumbled
And become dust like all burning, unconvincing, blessing
Dominic along the peeling paint, the ceiling saint
In decaying mural like a leper’s face and mirrored across
The altar, Esther, whose feet dissolving in giant flakes,
Slowly meeting her absolute, like any Old Testament woman should be left
Wanting nothing, but eyeing the broken stone flames
Beneath the broken, stone, unnatural feet
Beneath the broken, stone, boyish face
Of broken, stone St. Joan of Arc and broken stone,
Flames long cold, looking to her Father,
Looking past Our Mother of Arriving in Good Condition
And her crumbling, blessed dome, cracked and peeling,
Dusty and forgotten, more blessed the broken stone,
Grateful and distant humility born of dying Catholic grandeur.
Nantes 3: Dans Le Jardin des Plantes
Damp and cool, the green of the Jardin des Plantes manages to remain vibrant beneath the measured grey of a January sky. It feels early, and I drink a bit, though it is mostly water, and attempt to strike a balance between defense and surrender, dancing a bit with the fragrant, afternoon air’s ability to call me all to hopefulness and nostalgia, anxiety and affinity. The clouds look as though they desperately want to release rain, but one does not expect it. I remain and wait for this space to release something related to the sky, but born terrestrially for the most part – an invitation to revelry of sorts, but still vague. The fragrance here is so rich, but it holds back a bit, excusing itself with the hour, or an interruption of tobacco smoke, or even the time of year for, as it is still only January, such a mélange of odors might itself wonder if it should not be so reckless as to stir the type of spring-like visions that it is certainly capable of stirring.
Part of Nantes’ Frenchness lies in the schedules of its citizens, a great number of whom are always about, walking among the streets, patronizing the shops. Yet the Jardin des Plantes is anomalistically quiet – certainly not deserted, and busy, indeed, by American standards (for a public park on a weekday). But those humans who are present here move in steady, sweeping motions, leaving the quicker pace to the grouses and exotic ducks that play on the green, darting to and from Asian foliage, manicured and maintained, but allowed to seem, in certain places, random and clustered, as if some natural circumstance played at least a partial role in its origin or design. The gardener smokes and presses the heels of his hands to his eye sockets. He appears remarkably clean, though he is certainly too far from me to say for sure. The enormous faux-Oriental style bird house stands vacant as shockingly white doves perch on the spindly branches of a nearby willow of some sort. A cool draft forces the air to abandon its more tepid qualities, and one begins to expect rain, though it is only coincidence, I am sure, that sees the park become much less populated at the moment.
Part of Nantes’ Frenchness lies in the schedules of its citizens, a great number of whom are always about, walking among the streets, patronizing the shops. Yet the Jardin des Plantes is anomalistically quiet – certainly not deserted, and busy, indeed, by American standards (for a public park on a weekday). But those humans who are present here move in steady, sweeping motions, leaving the quicker pace to the grouses and exotic ducks that play on the green, darting to and from Asian foliage, manicured and maintained, but allowed to seem, in certain places, random and clustered, as if some natural circumstance played at least a partial role in its origin or design. The gardener smokes and presses the heels of his hands to his eye sockets. He appears remarkably clean, though he is certainly too far from me to say for sure. The enormous faux-Oriental style bird house stands vacant as shockingly white doves perch on the spindly branches of a nearby willow of some sort. A cool draft forces the air to abandon its more tepid qualities, and one begins to expect rain, though it is only coincidence, I am sure, that sees the park become much less populated at the moment.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Nantes 2: Photographing the Cathedral
Sometime near four o’clock in the evening I was returning from a walk and as I came to the top of my street, I looked off to the south-west, towards the cathedral and, inspired by my view, decided that I should photograph the cathedral from that spot on the corner of Rue Préfet Bonnefoy and Rue Henri IV, at that moment (or as soon as possible), that the view I was taking in at that moment, from that perspective would be the ideal view to turn into a photograph, a physical representation of what would otherwise be a memory or a daily but ephemeral daily habit. Having darted inside, up the three (or six half-) flights and down again, back up to the corner, I poised and posed, angled and focused and decided that a few paces forward, towards the cathedral, would offer a bolder shot and so took such paces and, immediately upon so doing, made the same decision again two or three times. From this perspective, the shot had indeed become quite a bit bolder, but I was now dealing with the monument in the center of Place de St. Pierre, which was relatively appearing to stand in the center of my shot, distracting, splitting and leveling that sense of boldness which had now become my undeclared objective, or rather, of course, was the capturing of such.
To circle right, to circle left in order to solve this problem were my options. The right circling demanded much more traveling, as to circle right would have been to step right out onto Rue Henri IV and so to have to step many more steps. This, it seemed, would change the shot irreparably and perhaps unnecessarily and so, naturally, I circled left, crossing the much smaller street that, together with Rue Henri IV created the intersection at which I was now standing. This perspective certainly offered a good, bold shot, but from that south-west corner, I had lost the glare created as the cathedral crossed just between the sun and myself, the glare of which I had just recently grown so fond. The only option then for recovering the glare but also keeping out the monument was to cross Rue Henri IV at this, the cathedral side of the Place de St. Pierre and swing back out right, which is precisely what I did, although, no sooner had I done so did I realize that I had now come so close to the structure itself that I could not fit it all at once in the frame. As I have grown quite fond of post-development-assembled panoramic photographs, my situation posed no serious issue, but it did then pose the questions of what I was to include in this panoramic, and how many shots it should comprise; and further, it occurred to me, I was now no more than a few paces from the front of the cathedral, which the sun was certainly illuminating most boldly by now.
Placing myself in front of the cathedral and craning my neck to view its façade, it soon became obvious that the complex of scaffolding constructed around one half of the front side, bearing men performing restorative work, was not, in fact, the subject that I was hoping for. Sidling right, it seemed that shooting a panoramic, moving vertically, of just the right half of the front side might provide a notably different but equally bold (series of) photograph(s) as had been my initial intention. In order to radicalize the angle a bit, I took one or two steps at a time, checking my shot as I did, until I was viewing the façade nearly straight up from immediately in front of the right cathedral door. This shot revealed a bit of the detailing above the door, but the angle communicated a vertiginous quality as the final photograph captured the topmost part of the cathedral cutting against the sky, so very high above the lens. From here I began to notice new things about the cathedral, namely pertaining to its interior. It occurred to me, as I lowered my camera, that the sun was likely passing through the stained glass work at the front of the church in a spectacular fashion and I decided to enter and see if that perhaps was not the best angle of the cathedral at that particular moment.
The cathedral, upon first impression, appeared to be quite empty except for the woman sitting behind the glass with the painted lettering that reads “Secours,” the man sitting at the auxiliary pipe organ, and the softly blazing sound that the latter two together made. What that player lacked in virtuosity, the cathedral itself made up for in grandeur, and the compositions themselves made up for with alternating majesty and austerity. The occasional stray note offered up to the acoustics of the cathedral was returned innumerable times to my ears, each just barely offset from the one before, creating a welcome dissonance that was something beyond charming. The prayerful tones swelled and ebbed and reached out to the utmost cornices of the space, caressing and dipping into each architectural detail, each corner, each space between, long untouched by human fingers, long left to steep in light and breathless air and to be grazed only by the fleeting electricity of sounds, waves impermanent but somehow cumulative, striking slightly, but giving and swimming gracefully to be struck, to have swam; each interaction of wave and stone itself producing another form of its original, just offset, sent out a bit behind its original, to swim and swarm and strike again, mimicking the first, if a little softer, slightly the more offset, all the while participating in and accommodating the process in constancy. A B-flat slid high above the pipes, already half the height of the arches along the knave, crested at the peak of an arch and turned some varying series of numbers of degrees and drifted, dropped, or raced backed downwards, some countless succession of itself and its selves just behind, to find the nose of Duke Francois II laying stoned, listening, and giving, giving, giving back some countless succession of offset B-flats to slide, crest, turn, drift, drop, race and find again to start again to sound again and, of course, again until then with warning unseen because no warning was being searched, the sound stopped – or rather, the source went silent and the infinite or seemingly infinite processes enacted therein dove into one final series of successions, ringing softly but quickly into silence, as though the moment itself had sucked hard and fast an enormous breath into itself, snapping shut its lips to seal out the moment to follow. In the rapidly waning light, I photographed the one chapel with no icon and walked back home.
To circle right, to circle left in order to solve this problem were my options. The right circling demanded much more traveling, as to circle right would have been to step right out onto Rue Henri IV and so to have to step many more steps. This, it seemed, would change the shot irreparably and perhaps unnecessarily and so, naturally, I circled left, crossing the much smaller street that, together with Rue Henri IV created the intersection at which I was now standing. This perspective certainly offered a good, bold shot, but from that south-west corner, I had lost the glare created as the cathedral crossed just between the sun and myself, the glare of which I had just recently grown so fond. The only option then for recovering the glare but also keeping out the monument was to cross Rue Henri IV at this, the cathedral side of the Place de St. Pierre and swing back out right, which is precisely what I did, although, no sooner had I done so did I realize that I had now come so close to the structure itself that I could not fit it all at once in the frame. As I have grown quite fond of post-development-assembled panoramic photographs, my situation posed no serious issue, but it did then pose the questions of what I was to include in this panoramic, and how many shots it should comprise; and further, it occurred to me, I was now no more than a few paces from the front of the cathedral, which the sun was certainly illuminating most boldly by now.
Placing myself in front of the cathedral and craning my neck to view its façade, it soon became obvious that the complex of scaffolding constructed around one half of the front side, bearing men performing restorative work, was not, in fact, the subject that I was hoping for. Sidling right, it seemed that shooting a panoramic, moving vertically, of just the right half of the front side might provide a notably different but equally bold (series of) photograph(s) as had been my initial intention. In order to radicalize the angle a bit, I took one or two steps at a time, checking my shot as I did, until I was viewing the façade nearly straight up from immediately in front of the right cathedral door. This shot revealed a bit of the detailing above the door, but the angle communicated a vertiginous quality as the final photograph captured the topmost part of the cathedral cutting against the sky, so very high above the lens. From here I began to notice new things about the cathedral, namely pertaining to its interior. It occurred to me, as I lowered my camera, that the sun was likely passing through the stained glass work at the front of the church in a spectacular fashion and I decided to enter and see if that perhaps was not the best angle of the cathedral at that particular moment.
The cathedral, upon first impression, appeared to be quite empty except for the woman sitting behind the glass with the painted lettering that reads “Secours,” the man sitting at the auxiliary pipe organ, and the softly blazing sound that the latter two together made. What that player lacked in virtuosity, the cathedral itself made up for in grandeur, and the compositions themselves made up for with alternating majesty and austerity. The occasional stray note offered up to the acoustics of the cathedral was returned innumerable times to my ears, each just barely offset from the one before, creating a welcome dissonance that was something beyond charming. The prayerful tones swelled and ebbed and reached out to the utmost cornices of the space, caressing and dipping into each architectural detail, each corner, each space between, long untouched by human fingers, long left to steep in light and breathless air and to be grazed only by the fleeting electricity of sounds, waves impermanent but somehow cumulative, striking slightly, but giving and swimming gracefully to be struck, to have swam; each interaction of wave and stone itself producing another form of its original, just offset, sent out a bit behind its original, to swim and swarm and strike again, mimicking the first, if a little softer, slightly the more offset, all the while participating in and accommodating the process in constancy. A B-flat slid high above the pipes, already half the height of the arches along the knave, crested at the peak of an arch and turned some varying series of numbers of degrees and drifted, dropped, or raced backed downwards, some countless succession of itself and its selves just behind, to find the nose of Duke Francois II laying stoned, listening, and giving, giving, giving back some countless succession of offset B-flats to slide, crest, turn, drift, drop, race and find again to start again to sound again and, of course, again until then with warning unseen because no warning was being searched, the sound stopped – or rather, the source went silent and the infinite or seemingly infinite processes enacted therein dove into one final series of successions, ringing softly but quickly into silence, as though the moment itself had sucked hard and fast an enormous breath into itself, snapping shut its lips to seal out the moment to follow. In the rapidly waning light, I photographed the one chapel with no icon and walked back home.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Nantes 1: This Land is Your Land
My experience of France, of Nantes, so far has been one of necessary foreignness, as one would reasonably expect, but contained within that, and perhaps easily overlooked in anticipation is the foreign, French, and Nantais conceptions of America, independent of my presence as an American. That is to say that it has been fascinating to move towards an understanding of the ways in which citizens of Nantes engage American culture in their daily lives. I should however mention that the observations that I am to share here do not speak to any truly broad observation base, but rather are reflections on a rather specific group of people and a rather specific series of interactions. Those people are most particularly a group of “kids,” I might casually say – young adults, more formally, my new friends, specifically. They are artists and musicians; in a word, the closest parallel to the kinds of friends that I keep back in Chicago.
They find American art and pop culture fascinating and in a strange way, hold it both as novel and simultaneously more interesting, more valid, even, than French art and culture. Exemplifying this so very poignantly was a party I attended at which a band of twenty-somethings performed punk rock and surf-punk renditions of Nancy Sinatra and Beach Boys songs while wearing mustaches and cowboy hats. This was hilarious for them, as it was for me. Yet, illustrating the simultaneity of novelty and respect, many of the people at this party also perform more legitimate, serious music and also do so in English. When pressed on the issue of why they all so often sing in English (but never habitually speak in English), most respond by saying that it simply makes more sense to do so; that performing folk music or punk rock sounds better in English. But there is also a sentiment of distancing oneself from what seems to be a feeling of an absence of good music, pop music, and good, legitimate, respectable pop culture in France’s history. One guy told me that he sings in English because he is not interested in being a French singer, that he doesn’t care about Jacques Brel, but that he cares about Woody Guthrie. The idea of singing songs inspired by American art, but doing so in French does not seem to appeal, at all, even in the name of creating something unique or of moving French music culture forward. Yet, in doing this, in adopting this attitude, there is something distinctly French occurring.
Even in instances when American culture or daily life intersect with or utilize some foreign culture, it seems far less common that the “Americanized” version or the “American side” of something exhibits any real depth of knowledge of said foreign culture than the inverse. For example, I may know who Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg are, and I may use the phrases “tête-à-tête” and “c’est la vie,” but it is seemingly as common as that to find a French person of comparable interest and standing as me who can perform Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan songs and who can actually speak English. If I am approached on the street in Nantes (approx. pop. 500,000) by someone asking me a question in French, and I respond: “Je suis désolé mais je ne comprends pas. Je ne parle pas le francais,” the response, you can be pretty certain, will be: “Oh, do you speak English?” Of course this is no surprise, for English is spoken officially in more countries than is French, and unofficially in so very many more countries, but even language aside, and even the fact of the pervasiveness of American culture aside, there is a certain very real investment and interest in America. As mentioned above, there is a breaking with French history seen as somewhat (pop) culturally bankrupt but without any noticeable sense of shame. Indeed, these people that I meet are in fact very proud to be French and exhibit a decent knowledge of the cultural history of their country, but they are proud to be French people who know who Paul Auster and William Faulkner are. And that again is the strange coexistence. They seem to say: “There is no such thing as a legitimate French folk or pop singer, so I am not going to be a French singer, I am going to be an English (language) singer. But I am still French.” Therein lays a curiosity. I have mixed up my examples and am now curious if these same people are as familiar with Moliére and Proust as they are with Auster and Faulkner, for say what you will about Jacques Brel and Johnny Holiday, the contributions of Moliére and Proust are as uncontested as Auster and Faulker, as Hemingway and Kerouac. Yet I would be willing to wager that the distancing of the French artist from e.g. Jacques Brel and Johnny Holiday that can positively give forth an impressive cosmopolitanism, in fact detrimentally extends to Moliére and Proust.
Last night, I received a very simple answer from someone on the point of singing in English. Paraphrasing, he said: “If I sing in French, then when I perform in France, people can understand me. If I sing in English when I perform in France, Sweden, Greece, the United States, people can understand me.”
They find American art and pop culture fascinating and in a strange way, hold it both as novel and simultaneously more interesting, more valid, even, than French art and culture. Exemplifying this so very poignantly was a party I attended at which a band of twenty-somethings performed punk rock and surf-punk renditions of Nancy Sinatra and Beach Boys songs while wearing mustaches and cowboy hats. This was hilarious for them, as it was for me. Yet, illustrating the simultaneity of novelty and respect, many of the people at this party also perform more legitimate, serious music and also do so in English. When pressed on the issue of why they all so often sing in English (but never habitually speak in English), most respond by saying that it simply makes more sense to do so; that performing folk music or punk rock sounds better in English. But there is also a sentiment of distancing oneself from what seems to be a feeling of an absence of good music, pop music, and good, legitimate, respectable pop culture in France’s history. One guy told me that he sings in English because he is not interested in being a French singer, that he doesn’t care about Jacques Brel, but that he cares about Woody Guthrie. The idea of singing songs inspired by American art, but doing so in French does not seem to appeal, at all, even in the name of creating something unique or of moving French music culture forward. Yet, in doing this, in adopting this attitude, there is something distinctly French occurring.
Even in instances when American culture or daily life intersect with or utilize some foreign culture, it seems far less common that the “Americanized” version or the “American side” of something exhibits any real depth of knowledge of said foreign culture than the inverse. For example, I may know who Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg are, and I may use the phrases “tête-à-tête” and “c’est la vie,” but it is seemingly as common as that to find a French person of comparable interest and standing as me who can perform Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan songs and who can actually speak English. If I am approached on the street in Nantes (approx. pop. 500,000) by someone asking me a question in French, and I respond: “Je suis désolé mais je ne comprends pas. Je ne parle pas le francais,” the response, you can be pretty certain, will be: “Oh, do you speak English?” Of course this is no surprise, for English is spoken officially in more countries than is French, and unofficially in so very many more countries, but even language aside, and even the fact of the pervasiveness of American culture aside, there is a certain very real investment and interest in America. As mentioned above, there is a breaking with French history seen as somewhat (pop) culturally bankrupt but without any noticeable sense of shame. Indeed, these people that I meet are in fact very proud to be French and exhibit a decent knowledge of the cultural history of their country, but they are proud to be French people who know who Paul Auster and William Faulkner are. And that again is the strange coexistence. They seem to say: “There is no such thing as a legitimate French folk or pop singer, so I am not going to be a French singer, I am going to be an English (language) singer. But I am still French.” Therein lays a curiosity. I have mixed up my examples and am now curious if these same people are as familiar with Moliére and Proust as they are with Auster and Faulkner, for say what you will about Jacques Brel and Johnny Holiday, the contributions of Moliére and Proust are as uncontested as Auster and Faulker, as Hemingway and Kerouac. Yet I would be willing to wager that the distancing of the French artist from e.g. Jacques Brel and Johnny Holiday that can positively give forth an impressive cosmopolitanism, in fact detrimentally extends to Moliére and Proust.
Last night, I received a very simple answer from someone on the point of singing in English. Paraphrasing, he said: “If I sing in French, then when I perform in France, people can understand me. If I sing in English when I perform in France, Sweden, Greece, the United States, people can understand me.”
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