White Man Sampler

The frequency and thoroughness of my bloggery looks like it’s increasing steadily. This is partly, I think, because I’ve finished all my organized city walks and my extra-parisian trips (traveling requires so much planning!) but mostly due to the fact that Margaret is busying herself more and more with the journal, pens, and oil paint(brushe)s we got her. It’s hard enough for me to get my brain off its metaphorical butt and into accomplishing mode, but when Margaret provides a lovely distraction it becomes nearly impossible.

I’ve been blogging in one form or another for about 5 years now, and I still feel a bit of anxiety over posting my every little bit of quotidian news – is anybody really interested in reading them? Even if they are, isn’t it maybe sickly or at least sadly self-indulgent to keep scrapbooking and publishing my unsolicited twaddle?

I will implicitly answer my own question and invest the next 20 minutes of my time telling you about the pear juice I just drank. Ok, so not implicitly… explicitly. I’m explying the answer.

But, seriously : It’s like drinking a &%*$# pear, people! Buy a plane ticket (get into debt or whatever, just snap to it), come to France, find a Carrefour supermarket, purchase the store brand ‹‹ jus de poire ›› and – you think I’m joking, don’t you? Well, I’m not. Join me. Pour a pear down your throat, it’s exhilarating.

Better calm down. I was listening to Quadrophenia and reading about Keith Moon on fr.wikipedia.org. Gets you worked up.

Amazing that we’ve put quite a lot of time and money into working out an independent semester abroad in Paris and yet I still find my lazy natural man taking command and spending 3 days out of 10 on playing Starcraft and snarfing various dairy products. Quite the expression of freedom, though. And that’s what we’re all over here we’re fighting for, isn’t it?

I did do some stuff yesterday, though. For my French Culture Proofs (instinct says “prooves” but I won’t, as I’ve already “explied” all over this entry*) class, we continued researching Parisian cemetery culture by visiting the nearby Cimetière de Montmartre. I’ll publish my write-up on that soon.

Afterward, it was up to visit Studio 28, one of the oldest moviehouses in Paris and, unfortunately, one of the most full of itself. I have yet to encounter that sort of self-important kitsch in any other “salles”, so the countless framed moviestar autographs and photos of the owner with various Sundance and Cannes attendees made me wonder when Studio 28 stopped creating its own community and started living off its own reputation. Despite the establishment’s thick applebeesish aura, instead of an appetizer menu, the grumpy ticket lady offered only a stinkeyed surveillance.

Then it was shopping in a couple of attractive papetries ( entire boutiques devoted to JUST notepads and whatnot!!! ) and the purchase of another moleskine in which to put my life, after which THE ORIGINAL COQUELICOT ! You see, after much experimentation and deliberation, our search for the best boulangerie (bakery) in our neighborhood is la Prairie Coquelicot, whose baguettes beat the rest by a bit and whose croque monsieurs give any competition a pounding (prudent use of sauce beschamel, actual bread instead of sliced honky pain de mie, and more reasonably priced). Well, we heard the original, larger store was up on the Montmartre butte and yesterday we finally made it. Heaven! For one thing, they actually TOAST the items you’d like reheated, keeping them appropriately crispy and even, rather than committing the soggy microwaved crimes which nearly every other bakery has disappointed us with. Seriously, guys! I’m really concerned that a culture so proud of its bakeries would tolerate such lazy destruction so easily avoided by means of a small toaster oven. I’m honestly writing the Ministry of Culture about this…

SEE: http://www.coquelicot-montmartre.com/

* Yeah, that’s right : exply. I delved into the latin a bit and imply (also employ) comes from the Old French and latin verbs plier/plicare meaning “to fold in”; thus “explain”, which comes from expliquer/explicare, signifies “unfolding”. There’s implicate and explicate, so there can logically be imply and exply. It’s just not commonly used outside of … well… the several foot radius around my mouth.

** Actually, these two asterisks don’t correspond to anything. I just wanted a place to announce that, for the first time in my life, I remembered the names of the two grumpy old critics on the Muppet Show : Statler & Waldorf. Good timing, too, because if I had to go look that up one more time, I would’ve likely ended my own life. It just happens so often and it really takes a lot out of you.

~ by John and Margaret FORBYN on 26 June 2009.