Category: dear reader
The muttering retreats
Before I start complaining, here’s a treat:
M. Starik has put up some great new work from her trip to Rome! I suggest you check it out, preferrably while sipping a nice cup of coffee this afternoon.
* * *
So it’s starting to look less and less likely that I’ll be able to afford a trip back to the US this summer. I’m still hoping that the cost of flights will go down a bit when the airlines realize that charging people obscene amounts of money is unlikely to be a good strategy for recuperating their volcano-related losses. I’m sad I won’t get to see my parents and friends for a while, and I’m especially sad to be missing the wedding of some people who are exceptionally dear to me. But fifteen hundred dollars for a plane ticket is highway fucking robbery.
Moreover, I’ve been getting a little edgy with Paris for the past few weeks. The brusqueness of the city has been getting to me. I’m tired of being run into on the street or in the market, apologizing like any normal human being, and being stared down like I’m some mal élevé punk. Today at Monoprix a guy swung around suddenly and slammed his shopping basket directly into my babymaker (sorry for that) and I winced slightly. “Pardon!” he barked angrily, as if it was I who had suddenly changed vector and injured someone in the process.
In another tale of Francophone frustration, all of the loose change under my bed amounted large jars of one, two, and five centimes (as well as a handful of pennies and some krone). Like any normal American, B wanted to sort the change, take it to the bank, and exchange it for cash. I laughed aloud and said that there was no way in hell you could do that at a French bank. He scoffed at me, carefully sorted and counted the change, and then left to prove me wrong (hoping to end up thirteen euro or so richer for his trouble). Poor guy. Apparently the people at my bank looked at him like he was raised in a barn when he came through the door with some jars of change. Not only did they refuse to give him any coin sleeves to sort the change, they claimed that they have no cash on the premises (coin or paper). At a bank. Not a 7-11. At a financial institution where people store their money with the idea that they will someday probably want to have access to it. B, daunted but not broken, visited three other banks with similar accounts of their incomprehensible place within the socius. One teller suggested B visit a currency exchange bureau, which still fill the streets of Paris despite the fact that nobody uses traveler’s checks or carries cash anymore as most people rely on ATMs to obtain foreign currency while traveling. B quickly discovered that these places are now just havens for pickpockets, who were blithely unloading wallets filled with diverse currencies on the counter of the bureau. Will a currency exchange bureau happily exchange piles of obviously stolen currency? Yes, yes they will. Will a currency exchange bureau exchange coin for cash, even for a fee? No, no they will not. Do said currency exchange places own change sorting machines? Yes, yes they do. Is France an entirely nonsensical country? You be the judge. B returned to my house two hours later, chagrined. I suggested that since it wasn’t really our money in the first place, we should just give it to a homeless person. Frayed to his last nerve, B said tartly, “Nice. Now where exactly do you think that homeless guy would take it to turn it into cash?”
* * *
I finally kinda lost it today when we were running errands and decided that it would be nice to pick up a rotisserie chicken for lunch on the way back to my apartment. We walked right by the rotisserie place and the guy was out front with a dozen or so chickens and those yummy potatoes that they make in the drippings. As we had some other errands to run, we decided to swing by when we were done. A mere half hour later when we arrived back at the rotisserie place, we found it shuttered. At 1:30 p.m. On a weekday. Upon further inspection, we read that the store was closed everyday for lunch from 1-4 p.m. Because of course one needs to take a three hour lunch every day. Of course.
Look, I’m not the person who is going to knock how the French do things. I get it – these are just basic cultural differences. Frankly I don’t always love how nicey-nice Americans are to strangers, or how the ridiculous lengths to which American service industry goes to because “the customer is always right,” or that a lot of people I know in the States take fifteen minute lunches and scarf their sandwiches at their desks. But sometimes being here makes me just feel achingly, frustratingly American.
* * *
Finally, we’ve been rewatching Arrested Development the past few weeks (even better than I remembered, BTW) and the streaming video site we are using has been doing these completely brutal Chipotle banner ads. By “completely brutal,” I mean that they make me want a Chipotle burrito so bad that I actually hurt with frustration. B shares my despair that the closest we might be to American-style Mexican food of any iteration this summer might be Dolores in Berlin, so we both moan loudly whenever the banner ads come up. We’ve been fantasizing like jackasses about how awesome it would be to go to a generic American suburban shopping center for an afternoon to go to Target and eat at Chipotle. Seriously, if I went into a Target right now my brain would probably explode from consumer glee. Perhaps it’s better that I stay away for a while. Go eat some Mexican food for me. Better yet, send me some refried beans or pickled jalapeños and and I’ll send you something delicious from France.
In which I somehow artfully segue from a rant about American Apparel into a tender farewell
Is anybody else following these Gawker-led assaults on American Apparel? To be honest, I’m kinda conflicted about the whole thing. I shop there on a regular basis, as do most of my friends. I even recently encouraged a reluctant B to shop there for the first time when he needed some new t-shirts. None of us would be considered particularly “on-brand” from the perspective of AA corporate style. Most of us take serious issue with how material consumption structures life in contemporary society. Not to generalize for the people I’m close to, but I think the logic that we all share is that AA produces logo-free, decent-quality, sweatshop-free basics. I guess the last part is the most important to me on some level, as I’ve certainly encountered the occasional lapse in quality in AA products and find their aesthetic to be increasingly visible in its branding, if not to my parent’s generation certainly to people in my own peer group. But I’ve felt somewhat better about buying from AA based on their well-publicized mode of semi-ethical production. I’ve at least felt like it isn’t the worst place to buy an article of clothing if you have some sense of remorse about your object world being brought to you on the backs of the poor.
While I’ve certainly heard accounts of the snobbishness that goes on toward customers at AA stores, I’ve never felt particularly ill-treated while shopping there. That said, I tend to like being ignored when I’m buying things, so if you wanted legitimate help from a sales clerk I probably would steer you elsewhere. Some of the clothes have felt frustratingly ill-sized and I’ll admit it’s maddening to be a size 4 and feel like everything is too small. My local AA’s in Southern California seemed relatively diverse in their staffing, so I was surprised to read in these tell-all forums about the seemingly rampant discrimination that takes place behind the scenes. I have found AA employees to be uniformly good-looking and hyper-conformist to the brand aesthetic, which seems to support the accounts of a horrifying staffing process that involves constant photographing of both potential and current employees. I was under the impression that this sort of thing was illegal. However, I just watched a woman on a reality show on national television ask a potential assistant during a job interview if he slept around a lot, so apparently I’m just out of touch with how worker’s rights have devolved in the past decade or so. I guess I’m rather curious if AA is really an exceptional case, or if the lookism that they perpetuate part of most clothing stores’s modus operandi at this point in time. That is to say, I don’t see any unattractive, off-brand employees at most high-end retailers. Is the issue here that AA brands itself as an ethical company in its advertising while resorting to retrograde hiring practices behind the scenes? I see scores of angry commenters on Gawker calling for the end of American Apparel – is it better to shop somewhere with better retail hiring practices and more ethically problematic ones at the level of production? I’m genuinely asking this question, in part because I don’t see any other retailers at the level of mass production and distribution that sell domestically-produced, sweatshop-free clothing, manufactured by factory workers who are given access to low-cost meal programs and medical care. Is it an incredibly ugly truth that these standards are a radical departure from the manufacturing protocols of most other major US clothing retailers? Yes. Should the AA retail employees unionize (or at least organize) and disrupt the chain of distribution until they are afforded the basic rights of all taxpaying workers in the US? Absolutely. Are the anonymous Gawker forums the place to do such a thing? I kinda doubt it. If you are seeing chronic sexism, lookism, and other kinds of discrimination in your workplace as high as the corporate level, get legal representation and put your name on your complaint. While the US system isn’t designed to help, speak for, or even acknowledge the existence of the people who work in those clothing factories, it has become incredibly adept at addressing the issues of middle-class and upper-middle class workers suffering from discrimination in the past few decades, especially in a context this photogenic and media-friendly. I’m a little burnt out on news stories about the banker who was fired because she was too pretty (and also posting sexy photographs of herself on the internet). Or the online plaints of the AA employee who was fired because her nail polish was chipped. I’ll bet you that’s nothing compared to the labor practices at your friendly neighborhood Chinese megafactory that produces the 3 dollar t-shirts that fill your local Wal-Mart (or, for that matter, the labor practices at your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart).
What sayeth ye, dearest reader? I’m totally ready to face the accusation that I’m merely providing a palliative rationale for my own consumption to appease the gnawing worry that buying anything makes me part of the problem. I’ll say it upfront: I’m probably providing a palliative rationale for my own consumption to appease the gnawing worry that by buying anything, I’m already a part of the problem. I’m also ready to face the music on the fact that while I complain about the reality-television-ification of our culture that extends to the way in which our news is framed and delivered, I’m also one of it’s greediest consumers. Is this an impasse? Am I always-already a hypocrite?
My friends BC and S would probably say yes, if I can put words in their mouths. BC, S, B and I have been hanging out a lot in the past two weeks, as we’ve been trying to jam in quality time before S’s departure from Paris today (sob). The four of us gotten into a lot of heated debates, eaten some delicious meals at Rouammit and Le Hangar, watched some football and aired some ugly patriotism, prepared and consumed a gumbo feast, drank several bottles of French-branded tequila and whiskey, and reviewed our respective coming-of-age via hip-hop music for hours and hours on end (well, that was the boys, not me). It’s been pretty great and I’ve been in my sweet spot of being the girl who gets to hang out with all the cool guys, something that my inner geeky seventh grader never fails to enjoy. I’m so happy to know these guys and to be even remotely hip enough to roll with them.
As for S: Man, are we sad to see you go! I know you are returning to your überlovely girlfriend in the second (or third, depending on how you count) best city in the world, but we sure wish you could have stuck around here for a bit longer. I’m so pleased that somehow in the last few months we went from being exceedingly polite strangers to ragging on one another like old friends. Please feel free to think of this blog as a surrogate for Facebook whenever you like. We here at Keeping the Bear Garden in the Background should be so lucky. Vaya con dios, brah. You will be missed.
Clarence in Paris: Pink Flamingo Pizza
205, rue Vielle du Temple, Paris 75003
Métro: Filles du Calvaire or St. Sebastien-Froissart
I’ve been wanting to try Pink Flamingo Pizza since every single person I know sent me this New York Times Frugal Paris article when they found out I was moving to France. The idea was so lovely – order your pizzas, take a pink balloon, and go find a spot along Canal St. Martin and wait for your picnic to be delivered. I’m surprised that it took me so long to actually go to Pink Flamingo. Some of that can be attributed to the long hard winter that made sitting outside anywhere seem less than delightful. But most of it can be attributed to the fact that when I investigated the Pink Flamingo website (yes, I like scouring menus on websites as a hobby), the whole thing seemed, well, kinda gimmicky.
Perhaps the problem is that I lived in New York City for just a bit too long to have much patience for creative ingredient combinations on pizza. At an old-school New York pizzaria, there are only a handful of toppings available and you can bet your ass that none of them are pineapple. Or perhaps it was my time in Southern California, home of the stupidest pizza in the world, that got my guard up. Either way, Pink Flamingo boasts unique, vaguely filmic pizzas in a kitschy environment and I’ll admit I got nervous when I saw formulations like La Che (Cuban-style pork marinated for 24 hours in garlic, lime, green onions, and coriander with fried plantains), La Gandhi (Sag Paneer, Baba Ganoush, and mozzarella), or La Bjork (smoked salmon, fish roe, and crème fraîche) on the menu. It seemed to be the recipe for a California Pizza Kitchen style disaster.
But I just kept hearing good things about Pink Flamingo, and when I by chance walked by their smaller Marais branch on rue Vielle du Temple on my way to APC to admire things I cannot afford, I was pretty charmed by their funky décor and the VW bus that sits out front. You see, as a child I was totally obsessed with pink flamingos and wanted nothing more than grow up and be the crazy old lady with a veritable flock of plastic ones in her front yard. To see that much pink flamingo kitsch aggregated in one location, in Paris no less, got me all hot and bothered.
I had suggested to S that we eat there on the hungover day that followed our night of being blind drunk, but we had already been badly burned by brunch by Breakfast in America (already said my piece on this, but you can mentally insert a shudder in all references to this place hereafter) and neither one of us were interested in another stupid contrivance with bad food. B finally agreed to check it out with me on our weekly date night (I know! If I wasn’t so happy I’d gag too!) after we saw a pretty rare print of Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, his totally mesmerizing (if depressing) indictment of Italian culture. It was my first Anna Magnani film and oh man, is it worth the trip to Accattone if you happen to be in Paris in the next few weeks. I guess Criterion has also already gotten their sweaty little paws on the thing (I jest, I totally love those guys), so you can probably Netflix it too if you don’t live in Paris or if you can’t stand the atmospheric charm of Accattone.
It was rather late and rainy by the time we finished the film, so sitting along the Canal while we ate didn’t really seem like an option. We headed to the Marais branch of Pink Flamingo and immediately found ourselves transported into a Jim Jarmusch film – Tom Waits on the stereo, checkerboard tablecloths, dim lighting, pictures of Brooklyn on the walls, and what B calls “a studied grittiness” (I was going to just steal that outright, but all those lectures I give my students about plagiarism have finally gotten to me). We decided to go for it an order some of the more adventurous combinations on the menu: La Basquiat (gorgonzola, fresh figs, and prosciutto) and L’Almodovar (a “paella pizza” with chicken, shrimp, mussels, chorizo, fresh peas, and a tomato saffron cream sauce). It smelled really good in there, and we were impressed to read that all the flour used on the premises was organic and that all the ingredients were bought fresh daily from small, local producers and retailers. The guys who worked there were surprisingly nice, especially given that they are probably some of the hippest hipsters in the hippest part of the Marais (that’s pretty hip, people). And the pizza:
Oh.my. lord. This stuff is delicious. Thin, perfectly charred crust, sweet tomato sauce, and a carefully considered combination of toppings that were flat-out alchemic in your mouth. Both B and I walked in to this place expecting to get something out of our system, and instead found ourselves waxing poetic about these perfect pizzas. We brought the menu home and now find plotting future visits to this place one of our favorite activities (“Ooh, next time we should do La Macias (tajine-style chicken cooked with onions, ginger, coriander, and cinnamon, served with pickled lemons, and green and purple olives) and La Poulidor (finely-sliced duck meat, apples, and goat cheese)!” or “Don’t we practically have to order L’Obama (grilled ham and pineapple chutney) at some point if we really want to call ourselves good Americans?”). Best of all, my local branch not only does home deliveries (by cute hipster boy on bicycle no less!), but will also happily bring you your pizza on the grounds of the Musée Picasso if you want to have a picnic. But I suspect we will be trying the Canal delivery service next, as boozing by water features is already in pretty heavy activity rotation. Might as well add some truly fantastic pizza into the mix.
Details: Go with it and you won’t be disappointed! Pizzas range from 10.5 – 16€ apiece, and we did see a happy couple share one. Clarence only shares pizza if he can still eat the quantitative equivalent of an entire pie, so B and I were pretty stuffed with two pizzas. Free bicycle delivery to a local outdoor picnic spot, complete with a souvenir pink balloon so the guy can find you. Home delivery requires that you spend at least 15€ euros and they charge you 2€ fee. As far as I can tell, that’s a lot of hipster sweat for a small price. Open everyday for lunch and from 7-11:30 p.m. They also appear to be in Berlin as well! Their website is definitely worth a gander.
* * *
B came to my place in a state of pure glee a few nights ago and drug me to see this billboard:
This baby, you see, appears to share the same name as one of my favorite readers. A silly association, perhaps, but we thought of you, Hattie. Hope this delights you as much as it did us.
Leavings
So my mom hates the new template, but I rather like it. It’s called Bueno, which is why I investigated it in the first place. Is there are more perfectly delightful word to say in any language than “bueno”? Doubtful. Also, the second best* candy bar in the world is surely a Kinder Bueno bar. I remember having an argument with someone in college about whether or not it would be called a Bueno bar in France or Germany. On the off chance that my college friend reads this blog, I’ll settle the score now: Yes, they are called Bueno bars, no matter where you buy them. And they are always delicious.
But I guess there is a real formatting problem happening with my mom’s browser (Firefox on a PC, no wonder). I worry that this is because she doesn’t understand how to zoom out in the view box, not because there is anything actually wrong with the site (which looks terrific, if loud, on my Safari-running Mac). But what say ye, other readers? Is the blarg horrifyingly ugly to look at now? I’m not much for democracy, but if you will be much less likely to come here with this new template, speak now! I can change it back! But I felt like a change and this one seems oh so Bueno!
In other news, I’m in love with my students in this rapturous way that I never expected to be totally wild about teenagers. They never fail to say things that absolutely kill me, I mean, stop me dead in my tracks, I JUST DIED, KILL ME.
I’ve got this little anarcho-punk in my Public Speaking class who gleefully talked about how she hopes civil unrest in Greece will result in the people burning down the banks and seizing control of the government. She quoted Fanon in my classroom the other day, and not because I’ve forced her to read it (I only make my American students do that). Her idealism spouts, of course, from the warm, comfortable nest of the white, Western, and upwardly-mobile upper middle class (which, let’s face it, is waaay more terrifyingly sometimes than the complacently upper class). But she was so earnest, so absolutely, unbelievably convinced that the revolution is coming, that it actually broke my heart that one day she will surely be a compromise-formation liberal like myself who watches John Stewart and shudderingly votes for whomever the equivalent of Barak Obama will be in France. Someday she’ll be talking about “building social programs” and “sustained reform,” and her revolution will seem but a naïve oversimiplification. But today, in all her youthful vigor, I was completely in love with her. I defended her against her already-jaded classmates. I even helped her find difficult phrases in her English pocketbook, phrases like “high capitalism” and “prison-industrial complex.”
In fact, lately I’ve sustained a seriously intense fantasy about becoming a high school English teacher, basically so I can just hang out with teenagers and tell them about books and hear what they think about things ALL DAY LONG, EVERY DAY. This isn’t to say that it would be ridiculous for me to be a high school English teacher, despite the fact that I’ve now accrued quite a few (cough) more years of graduate school than such an endeavor would really require. But man, oh man, do I dream about it! In my fantasy, I’m the cool teacher with the chunky jewelry and the cluttered classroom of taxidermied animals and framed posters of lesser-known modernists, the one who makes them read the best books and changes their mind about everything important and encourages a few of them to go on and pursue egregious graduate degrees that involve reading until your eyes bleed. I had a few of those kinds of teachers, and man oh man, were they great. I suspect more than a few of them were terminally ABD as well. Just saying.
Seems like I’m doing a lot of “just saying” lately.
Finally, have you been watching the La Toquéra videos on the Le Fooding website? It’s how I’ve been spending most of my time. Translating as “camera hat,” the videos showcase awesome French chefs from Le Fooding-endorsed restaurants as they put together a delicious snack. The Sonia Ezgulian video finally pushed me over the fence with the French convention of eating raw radishes with salted butter. Now I don’t know what I’ve been doing all these years. She mixes her butter with seaweed flakes and sesame, but I’ve been doing the same procedure with a touch of mustard and fresh chives. Bueno. Caveat emptor: if you are having trouble justifying a pure-butter aperitif snack, don’t bother trying this with some hydrogenated soybean oil butter substitute. I’m not judging you –it’s only in France that I use real butter this liberally (read: flagrantly). My fridge in the States is usually filled with Earth Balance Light. But this is kind of a go-big-or-go-home** kind of recipe. A raw radish with a smear of Earth Balance just sounds gross.
* Snickers are the best candy bar in the world. Obviously.
** I taught the kiddies “go big or go home” the other day. I also taught them “make it rain.” You’re totally welcome, France.
Everywhere tints childrening, innocent spontaneous, true.
So today is two important things. The first is Mother’s Day. I’m a bit ambivalent about the Mother’s Day thing. In general, I loathe holidays that are the product of American commercialism and it seems to me that marketers have been especially insidious about making this particular day a guilt-ridden festival of six dollar greeting cards and shitty supermarket bouquets. They don’t do “Mother’s Day” in France, and none of the mothers I’ve met here seem particularly bothered by it.
That said, I have a pretty terrific mother. The best mother, you might say (others have, besides me, that is). I have a mother that other people envy. She’s smart and witty and some of the best company that you’ll ever keep. She gives excellent, seasoned advice without being invasive or judgmental. She’s an incredibly savvy businesswoman who somehow build a successful accounting firm from the ground up while always managing be there when her kid got home from school. She bought me big stacks of books for every holiday and is the reason that I do what I do for a living. She’s a great cook, a better hostess, and always cheats at board games. She’s quick to kick her shoes off if there is sand to be walked in or water to be waded in. She’s the best, really, and I’d be a shuddering pile of mud if it wasn’t for her. So happy mother’s day, Mom. If anybody deserves their own Hallmark holiday, it’s you.
Secondly, it’s my best friend MT’s birthday today. I met her my sophomore year of college when we were randomly assigned to live together after we had both ditched our disastrous freshman year roommates. I didn’t know if we would get along at first – MT is almost inhumanly beautiful and pulled together and I was terribly intimidated by her when I met her. But she proved herself immediately to be as equally smart and funny and silly as she is gorgeous and we’ve been friends ever since.
What kind of friend is she? Well, she’s the first person I want to talk to when something goes wrong or right in my life and I never feel bad about calling her when I’m crying hysterically with snot running down my face. She’s a great listener and while she is able to give well-tempered, level-headed advice, she also knows exactly when I just want somebody to be on my side, no matter how ridiculous my side might be at that particular moment. Last year, I had bizarre experience that consolidated all my love for MT. A woman I barely knew threatened to beat me up out of the blue (there was a guy involved, and a lot of alcohol, surprise, surprise). Chicken-shit dork that I am, I didn’t even know how to handle the situation, except to sputter something like “We’re in a PhD program! I didn’t even think physical fighting was on the table!” as I scampered away in fear. About a week later I was at a party with MT. Another friend came over to talk with us and to let me know that it was possible that the threatening woman might show up later that evening. My other friend asked if it would be a problem if the threatening woman showed up. I started to hem and haw, but MT immediately snapped to attention. “Uh, yes, there’s going to be a BIG fucking problem if she shows up!” MT announced as she put her arm around me protectively. I suddenly realized that MT wouldn’t even hesitate to get in a fight for me, or at least make a lot of noise in that general direction. I tell this story not because I want you thinking that my best friend is anything short of a class act (she isn’t, and she’ll probably hate me for recounting this). I tell you this because I realized that night that she’s got my back in a way that I didn’t even know that my back could be gotten, and every time I think about how protective she was of me I get kind of teary and emotional. It’s nice to have a friend that makes you feel like you always have somebody on your team. It makes you feel like you can take on anything. I’d tell you to go get one of those friends for yourself, but I know firsthand how hard they are to find.
So happy birthday, chickadee. You’re my ever after favorite. While I’m a total wimp when it comes to my own confrontations, I’d totally take out anybody who ever messed with you.
Final news! It appears that despite the suspicions I’ve aired here that I’m a pretty lousy English teacher, the university where I teach in Paris has nevertheless renewed my contract for another year. This means I will be in France through the summer of 2011, and I couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe I have another year to keep badgering you with an inappropriate level of information about my diet! Just think how many anachronistic idioms I’ll be able to teach the youth of France in another two semesters!
Now all you punks that promised that you were coming to visit might actually have time to do so. Just saying.
The Bear-Garden 