Category: social skills

Mille six cent dix

My neighbor stopped by today to invite me to a party he is throwing tonight for his birthday (a canny way of preventing people from calling the cops when it gets too loud, I suspect).  I told him I wasn’t sure if I could come, but that I appreciated the invitation and that he had my full support to rage on until the wee hours.  Or something less articulate than that in French.  He informed me that this party could also be regarded as a kind of building birthday party, as he recently did some research and discovered that the bones of this building date to 1610, making my apartment 400 years old. I had a brief moment of second language stupidity as I didn’t quite understand “1610” at first (numbers are my nemesis) and then seemed excessively amazed when I finally figured out what he was saying.  But we shared a nice laugh about America being a young country.

I guess it’s no wonder, then, that my doorways are a bit crooked, my floors are uneven, and that the wiring seems a bit dicey.  We should all be so lucky to look this good at 400 years old.

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Also, my greatest dream came true today when somebody arrived here by Googling “world’s worst cyst.” Welcome, dear reader! You are my kind of gal. Or guy. While I can’t help you with your query, I’d love to know what you find out.

Neato

Scene:  My public speaking class. I’ve just slogged through a terrible rhetoric activity with my students.

Me:  So what references does the author make to make his argument relatable to his audience?

Student 1:  He talks about yoga and Tai Chi.  A lot of people do yoga and Tai Chi.

Student 2:  If by a lot of people you mean bobos.  Bobos do yoga and Tai Chi.

Me:  Hipsters too!  Don’t forget about the hipsters.

(My comment is met with quizzical looks.)

Student 2:  What is this hipsters?

Me:  Oh, um, well, hipsters are kind of like bobos. More into indie music maybe. But you know, hybrid cars. American Apparel. Skinny jeans. Chuck Taylors. Organic foods. Wayfarers. French New Wave films. The occasional apolitical keffiyeh.  That kind of thing. I guess it’s an American term.

Student 1:  But bobos are kind of old in France.  Are hipsters old?

Me:  No, I guess hipsters are mostly in their twenties and early thirties in the US.

Student 2:  So people say, “I am a hipster?”

Me:  Actually no, I think that one of the important things about being a hipster is that nobody actually thinks they are one.  It’s kind of a derogatory term.

(Students begin quizzing me about hipster culture.  They appear to be much more interested in this than classical rhetoric.  Suddenly I’m trying to explain Williamsburg, Coachella, Urban Outfitters, and why people might enjoy drinking blue collar beer.)

Student 2:  What about the Arcade Fire? Is that a hipster band?

Me:  Totally.  Look, there’s some websites you can visit if you are really curious. (I write the addresses for Stuff White People Like, Hipster Runoff, and Cobrasnake on the board.  I figure this is sort of like an American culture lesson.)  Anyway, are there any questions left about the rhetorical concepts I went over earlier?

Student 1:  Or about hipsters?

Me:  You only get one more question about hipsters.

Student 1:  Are you a hipster?

(Before I can respond, Student 2 interrupts)

Student 2:  That’s a trick question!  She said that no real hipster will say that they are a hipster.

Me:  I guess you’ll never know if I’m a hipster or not.

(Students look very disappointed.)

Me:  Honestly, no, I don’t think I would qualify as a hipster.  I’m sort of the wrong kind of dorky to be a hipster.

Student 1:  The wrong kind of dorky?

Me:  I mean, I don’t really know about what’s cool or happening.  Like right there, nobody who says “cool or happening” is really that cool or happening.

Student 2:  You think you are a dork?

Me:  Yeah, but not the cool kind that might make people think I’m a hipster.

Student 2:  I don’t think you are a dork.  I think you are neato!  (I taught them “neato.”  Yes, I occasionally teach French youth archaic slang and encourage them to use it in their daily lives.  Sue me).

Me:  Well, thank you.  You get an A.

Student 2:  A what?

Me:  Nevermind.

I live across the street from a Live Hot Shower Show.

While I’m admittedly often quick to make the cheeky metaphor, the title of this post is the most literal thing I’ve ever written. I live across the street from a Live Hot Shower Show.  Why is this capitalized? I don’t know. But the Raidd Bar, whose awning I look directly down upon from my window, advertises it as such, so I’m going to stick with their stylistic decisions.

My apartment building is essentially at the corner of Gay and Gayer as far as Paris is concerned. The boulangerie downstairs is called Legay Choc (yes, it means what you suspect it means). While I frequent it for baguettes and the occasional tarte framboise, I suspect they make the majority of their money on a little item called le pain magique, a cock-and-balls shaped roll with sesame seeds for pubic hair. Oh, they also sell bags and bags of pale pink, penis-shaped meringues. Need to buy some bondage gear in Paris?  I can refer you to at least half a dozen shops nearby. Les Mots à la Bouche is one of the most impressive gay and lesbian bookstores I’ve ever seen, both for novelty items and serious queer theory. My neighborhood teems bars with names like Le Feeling and Open Café, out of which hoards of well-groomed gentlemen spill onto the street every night. But Raidd Bar, with live DJs seven nights a week and the Live Hot Shower Show, is the king of them all.  I seriously wish I had stock in this place. As my dear British friend would say, Raidd is always heaving.

You may be so vanilla as to now inquire, “What, praytell, does the Live Hot Shower Show consist of?” As far as I can ascertain, there is a large glassed-in vitrine in the center of the bar in which a handful (a large handful?! sorry) of extremely strapping young men, well, take a live hot shower. I’m sure there is also dancing involved, and maybe also some towel work? I’m not entirely sure, because by the time the Live Hot Shower Show has commenced, the windows of the bar are completely fogged up and all you can see is purple and pink lights flashing inside. Occasionally, damp men fall out into the street for a smoke. Everyone looks pretty hot and bothered by the time they leave.  Your next question might well be: “Well, why haven’t you been to the Live Hot Shower Show?” I haven’t been because it isn’t the kind of place that appears tourist-friendly, as one might say. Most of the bars in my neighborhood aren’t particularly conducive to female patrons. And honestly, I get it. Do your thing, boys. I feel lucky to live in a neighborhood where there are people out and about at all hours and I am never, ever harassed on my walk home late at night from the métro. Granted, I’m not harassed because nobody in my neighborhood after ten p.m. has even the remotest interest in me, but sometimes it’s nice to go blissfully unnoticed. If you are curious about what happens inside, Raidd Bar has a very well-designed website, complete with a killer opening video sequence. I’m not going to link there, as I suspect they get plenty of web traffic on their own. But Google it if you would like to see some very cut young men that possess a rather remarkable, if niche, skill set.

The one drawback of living in such close proximity to a Live Hot Shower Show is that it is a rather loud affair. First there is the happy hour, when the first rounds of patrons show up for the night. Then there are the two nightly live shows, in which the music is cranked to full volume (fortunately these guys are as gaga for Lady Gaga as I am). On Fridays, Saturdays, and inexplicably some Sundays and Mondays, there is a serious house DJ until 2 or 3 a.m. Then, there is the inevitable post-bar-ejection hookup loitering, in which a dozen or so drunken guys schmooze with one another on the street until everybody figures out who they are going home with. Finally, around 4 a.m. the dancers from the Live Hot Shower Show go home, glistening, beautiful, and often singing Barbara Streisand songs at the top of their lungs. I’m not being hyperbolic. Last night it was “Happy Days are Here Again.” They nailed it.

I’ve spent a fair amount of evenings watching the proceedings from my window.  It’s pretty addictive, as several of my houseguests can certainly attest.  My mother could barely peel herself from the window during her entire visit for the holidays.  It sometimes makes for a wistful Friday night, like the one I find myself in the midst of now.  I stayed in to try and get some dissertation reading done, and instead I’m looking out the window and wondering why there isn’t more Cyndi Lauper, more Madonna, more ABBA, and more hot-water-centric entertainment in my life.

I’ve become voyeuristically well-acquainted with some of the regular patrons, including one guy who always, always wears a white leather suit, Labor Day rules be damned. He is often bare-chested underneath, even on some of the most frigid evenings. He’s loud, he’s proud, and he never, ever goes home alone. I like this guy. He really puts himself out there. He’s tenacious. Sometimes, long after everyone else has left the building, he is still out on the corner trying to put something together for himself.  Often at 5 a.m. on a workday. But nevertheless, tonight I had a lovely surprise:

You might not be able to tell from my clandestinely-shot photo, but that’s white leather suit guy with ANOTHER white leather suit guy. I watched them for a while and they are definitely an item, a pleasantly touchy-feely item. There was a cheek kiss! As far as I’m concerned, cheek kisses mean these two crazy kids are sharing the Sunday paper over brunch. If finding someone else willing to wear a white leather suit that matches your own when you go to see the Live Hot Shower Show together isn’t the dictionary definition of “soulmate,” I don’t know what is. I’ve never been more encouraged that there is somebody for everybody out there.

Good night, dear reader.  I hope this finds you on the verge of an amazing weekend.  While that may or may not include a Live Hot Shower Show, I do think it gives us all certain lotus-eating paradigm to aim for, yes?

That’s how it is on this bitch of an earth.

Hands-down, best Google search to arrive at my blog thus far: “keeping bear in bear garden.”  I laughed myself silly on that one.  “Honey, I haven’t made any headway on that rabid-bear-containment issue, but look at this funny girl writing about her high school reunion  and restaurants in Paris!  Honey?  HONEY!?!?”

* * *

A leaves tomorrow and I’m going to spare you a long description of my mopey, snotty, teary, bleary-eyed sadness.  He is about to begin a dead-serious post in a place that has gotten seriously little attention as far as humanitarian crises go.  If you’ve been following the crises in Haiti and Chile, you certainly know that MSF is always at the front-line of these kinds of emergencies.  What you may not know (I certainly didn’t) is that they currently have operations in forty countries, many of which do not receive much in the way of media attention, especially in the West. I can’t speak to the work of other NGOs or humanitarian aid organizations, but I can say that if the rest of MSF is staffed by people with one-tenth of A’s dedication, integrity, and intelligence, then it is a worthy organization for any dinero you would like to give.  I’ve put up a link on the sidebar to the donation section of the MSF site. If you are curious, also check out the informational site called the International Crisis Group.  A directed my attention there and I’ve been using their reports to learn a bit more about the places in crisis that don’t receive a lot of mainstream coverage.  It is smart, no-frills, and acutely detailed site.

To A:  Vaya con Dios, brah. Few people will appreciate that Point Break / Fast and the Furious reference as much as you. Who will I joke around about la technologie française with when you are gone? More importantly, who will I eat it with? Thanks for an amazing visit. You are going to be seriously missed.

To restore silence is the role of objects

First of all, if commenting is any sign of collective resonance, I should write about high school reunions all the time. My friend BJG, inspired in part by my incoherent ramblings about the past decade, posted a knockout ode to the great love of his high school life:  Lauryn Hill circa 1998-9. He distills something pitch-perfect about his affection for Hill, namely its stuckness in a particular album, a particular mood, and a particular moment in time both in her career and in his own life.  I was thinking about this the other day when A and I got to talking about our first concert experiences and I tried to explain how much seeing Bush had meant to me when I was young. A is a few years older than me and responded with a typical revulsion to my declaration of youthful love of Gavin Rossdale. The standard response to such a declaration is to denounce the band as faux-grunge and to reassert one’s allegiance to and fandom of Nirvana. I forgive it in A and some of my other friends that actually are of the age to have had some semblance of pop-culture consciousness of the Seattle grunge scene. But when somebody who graduated from high school in 2000 in an upper-middle class American suburb tells me how their about their deep and abiding love of Nirvana prevented them from ever really getting into Bush, I feel a strong desire to call bullshit. I was nine when Nevermind came out, and so were they. Maybe there were a lot of extremely pop-culture savvy nine-year-olds scampering about in ‘91 and I was just deaf to their noise, but I highly doubt it. I can’t speak for someone born in ’78 or ’84. But I can say, pretty unequivocally, that if you were born in ’81 or ’82, there was a moment sometime in your adolescence in which you thought that “Machinehead” was the coolest fucking song you had ever heard. You also probably owned Dookie and thought of it as a punk album. It’s okay. Don’t panic. It was the suburbs, you were only twelve, and there were plenty of years left for you to get into The Clash and forget all about those early transgressions.

I’m surprised that some people are reticent to own these kinds of identifications, especially because they seemed so definitional of our social consciousness when they occurred. Bush—and by this I actually mean Gavin Rossdale—laid down the tropes for my romantic life to such an absurd degree that having a guitar and a greasy mat of hair were near-prerequisites for dating me in high school. Gavin was the perfect guy:  foreign (but not in an alienating way), talented, brooding, and volatile. He was always liable to punch through a door or get into a fight, but this was because he was passionate and damaged, probably by something in his past that was tragic and difficult and largely incomprehensible to a nice girl like yourself. Gavin would break your heart if you were actually available (Gavin wasn’t into available) but when things fell apart he would write you a song to try and win you back. The song he would write you would suggest that your adolescent connection with one another was singular, transcendent, and pure, and you would believe it with your whole heart. Or at least I did. One of the things I truly mourn as an adult is that kind of radical self-effacing emotional investment in an object. Yes, those early objects are always just a cipher, but despite this we never manage to cathect as acutely again, even though as a consolation prize the objects of our affection gain flesh and blood.

To wit, nothing on television or film has ever left the kind of psychical mark on me as did the following video. I was engaged in the perverse coming-of-age activity of watching MTV Spring Break and wondering what the bloom of my own youth would look like. It was 1996, and he kept playing in spite of the rain. I never made it to Cancun, but I can still say that there is nothing better than this: