Friday, October 16, 2015
My father was on deck on a battleship in the Spanish Civil War standing next to another sailor when a bomb struck the deck and killed his comrade instantly. My father related the story in his gentle, unemotional way to illustrate how human beings can stand tightly between death and life: had the bomb hit the deck a few feet to one side, the dead man would have been my father.
I remember this story as I reflect on the death of Josette Lacroix, familiarly known as la poupette --the little doll, the wife of Jean Lacroix, the retired gendarme who rides with me as part of the Club de Cyclisme de Caunes-Minervois ("CCCM").
Jean and Josette welcomed me to Caunes with open arms, inviting me to their house for lunch in 2013, and having me to lunch again last year, 2014. Jean was a gendarme, a member of the paramilitary force that preserves order in the French countryside. However, because he was capable and eager to see the world, Jean served with the French gendrarmerie not just in France, but in Martinique and Cameroon, the latter as an adviser. Jean and Josette travelled widely: Jean spoke to me with enthusiasm of his love of Egypt, of travelling in a felucca on the Nile, and of his later trip to Mexico with Josette. They were curious and eager to experience the world outside Caunes, although their origins were modest. Jean came from a family of eight children, their father a barrel-maker --the workshop was down the street from my house here-- pushed out by the industrialization of the manufacture.
Jean and Josette were sweethearts, he tall, thin and quiet, with piercing blue eyes, she petite, periwinkle-eyed and blonde. They had three children, two daughters and a son. Their life was far from rosy, though: Jean and Josette spent years caring for Josette's mother, incapacitated by a stroke; their eldest daughter died of cancer at thirty-five, leaving two children and a husband bereft. They took on partial responsibility for their daughter's children, keeping them with them summers to ease the burden on their father, who never remarried.
They never shirked their family responsibilities, and they still found time to volunteer to help keep Notre Dame du Cros in good order: Jean assisted with repairs and renovations, as well as making the popular tripes for the kermesse lunch each year; Josette would daily open the abbey to visitors, cycling from their house on Allee des Vignes Baties to Place de la Abbaye. Indeed, she was such a keen cyclist that she helped found the CCCM. My first year in Caunes I used to see her riding around Caunes on her bicycle, always smiling and ready to stop for a few minutes to chat, a joyful woman, despite her sorrows.
A year and a half ago she had her first stroke, which incapacitated her mentally a bit. It was followed by another, which eroded a bit further her capacities. Jean cut back on the days he cycled with the CCCM, returning home earlier than he had to assure that Josette was not left alone too long. Sundays, he would drop her off at Notre Dame du Cros so she could go to Mass, and he or neighbors would bring her home. I saw her there frequently: it was where she worshipped and would sometimes read the lessons.
The Sunday before last I was, unusually this year, at Notre Dame du Cros. I had gone to the HD broadcast of the MetOpera in HD, which conflicted with going to Mass at Saint Vincent, which has, with its magnificent organ, become my church of choice. A minute or two after the Mass had started, Josette came in, shuffling slowly and finding a seat on the bench in front of me. I tapped her on the shoulder; she met me with a radiant smile, shifting her position so I could join her. We rode back to Caunes in the car of Marc and Marie-Helene, a couple active in the parish.
The next night Josette had a small stroke, followed by a massive one the next day. She lost all consciousness, although Jean said after the first stroke, she was still able to squeeze his hand in response to his grasp of hers. She went into a coma Tuesday night.
I learned of all this last Sunday, when I rode with the CCCM. I called Jean and got his son first --he had come down from Paris, where he has a business. When Jean came on the line I volunteered to help with grocery shopping or house cleaning, if he needed it. He kindly thanked me, and told me there would be a meeting with the doctors Monday at 11:30 a.m. when a decision would have to be made about Josette's fate. I urged him not to let the doctors pressure him, and he thanked me for saying that. We rung off, and I wondered when Josette would be taken off life-support.
The removal of all aids to life happened Tuesday morning, and at 6:00 p.m., Josette Lacroix died. The funeral Mass and internment were today.
Throughout the week I have been miserable, losing things, breaking glasses. And eager to leave Caunes. Timeless the countryside may seem, but neither it nor we are immutable. And the little village of Caunes is no exception: this week I saw the "For Sale" sign in the window of Chez Marlene, the grocery store opposite the mairie that is the only place in Caunes that sells fresh fruit and vegetables and a variety of groceries: Marlene (a niece-by-marriage of Josette) wants to retire. If no one takes up when Marlene leaves off, the heart of the village will be moribund, as Marlene's is not just a grocery store, it is a center of village life.
I also learned this week that my 83-year old cycling partner, Jeannot and his wife Gisele, are putting their house nearby mine up for sale.
"It's a good idea for us to move near our daughter who works at the Institut Pasteur in Paris", Gisele told me yesterday, when I stopped by to tell them when the services for Josette would take place. (Their other daughter lives in Tunisia, where they used to live, and which they wish she would leave.)
So all the things I thought I could count on in Caunes are no more reliable than anywhere else.
I should have known.
Josette's funeral was a magnificent affair: the entire village came out. The CCCM sent a wreath, many of the members were there, along with their wives. Pere Philippe, the solitary priest who is in charge of Notre Dame du Cros, cancelled the daily Mass to assist the parish priest with the funeral Mass. The abbey church with its magnificent white marble altarpiece, a kneeling angel on each side (one, its hands clasped in prayer, the other, hands crossed against its chest) was filled to capacity. The choir of volunteers sang, unaccompanied --not always tunefully-- but generously. The influence of technology on even rituals of death was made manifest: Josette's son and her son-in-law read their remarks from a mobile device. They were no less moving for that.
At the end of the Mass, many people walked or drove to the cemetery to say their goodbyes at the graveside A friend read from a piece of paper she had written on. Then the small, narrow coffin was encircled by two ropes, one at the front, the other at the end. It was lowered into the earth feet first, then the head, gently. The man in charge explained the service was now at an end, although anyone wishing to faire une geste d'adieu (make a gesture of farewell) was welcome to approach the grave after the family. Jean, his children, grandchildren and relatives filed by, one by one, then walked to the cemetery gates. Jeannot and Gisele, who had driven with me to the cemetery, preceded me. We saw Jean Lacroix once more before we left, Courage-- I wished him before saying my goodbye.
So I'm leaving the village as soon as I can, which is Sunday. My original departure date was Tuesday, but I want to break up my travels to Tulle into three parts, so I limit myself to two hour trips, the first to Toulouse, the second to Rocamadour, the third to Tulle. In each case I have nice lunches planned.
Funnily enough that's what has kept my spirits up this week: meals out. Creature comforts are the only defense against death's unforgiving grip on those we love. So I'm going to hotels for three days so I can be waited on, to fight against the despair.
--I am sure that Josette would laugh out loud, if she could hear me.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Clear and Cold In The Back Country
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Today was the day summer ended for me, the day that marked definitively the end of my stay in the Minervois.
It has been cool in the mornings and yesterday, even forbiddingly dark and cloudy. However, this morning it was that many degrees cooler, and although I had an excursion to Monolieu ("the village of books") with Chantal planned, the weather suggested layers would be advisable.
Not only that, today was a reminder that l'Aude is the windiest departement in France. I came home to a house whipped by the howling winds and cooler than it has been. I pulled out a down quilt and lay it on the bed, knowing that the time when either a fire or man-made heating would be necessary had arrived.
The air is so clear and crisp the clouds are sharply outlined. Not forbiddingly cold, Chantal, Baboon, Beau and I strolled Montolieu happily, having lunch at l'Apostrophe, the art deco restaurant set beside the ancient paper factory established by Louis XV(known as the bien-aime, or, "beloved").
The lunch --coquilles Saint Jacques for Chantal, chicken cooked in coconut milk and curry for me, was delicious. L'Apostrophe has bands playing on weekends in the summer, but like the boutique across the way, it will close for the season at the end of the month.
"We will only be open weekends when we return in mid-November. And then, in January, we will close until mid-March" our amiable waiter told us.
And so it is here. There are places that stay open in each village, but the choices are limited.
To someone used to the incessant pace of Manhattan, it seems terribly sad that places close down for the season, although it is easy to understand.
"That's the way it is in the back country in France", Chantal explained to me. "It's too expensive to pay all the personnel for six covers" (How many there were at lunch today.)
A friend of mine who lives part of the year in Maine explained to me that it is similar there, too.
"People figure how much they need to live on", and work only enough during the season to be able to stop for the winter", she said.
Caunes is not quite like that: La Table d'Emilie stays open year round, as does La Marbrerie. For which I am grateful, even if I have not yet spent a winter here. Nevertheless, the village is somnolent by nine o'clock, although the cafe on the main drag stays open, keeping the drinkers in liquid, another thing I am grateful for.
I wanted to experience Caunes in the colder weather and I am doing that. However, it makes me want to leave as soon as I possibly can. Cycling is out, as the wind fights the cyclist, and I've no desire to fight back. So I've decided to book a night in Rocamadour, the village with the monastery and pilgrimage site perched on a cliff. I'll leave Monday, a day earlier than I had planned originally. Frankly, if I could find another place to go on Sunday, I would.
While in the MInervois, as in most places, people don't shake their routine easily, I want to be off. With the temperatures dropping and cold weather gear becoming essential, there seems no reason not to venture further afield sooner. The back country is beautiful, but I am a citadine, a city-dweller, at heart, and the fresh air is not enough to keep me happy. I must be off.
Today was the day summer ended for me, the day that marked definitively the end of my stay in the Minervois.
It has been cool in the mornings and yesterday, even forbiddingly dark and cloudy. However, this morning it was that many degrees cooler, and although I had an excursion to Monolieu ("the village of books") with Chantal planned, the weather suggested layers would be advisable.
Not only that, today was a reminder that l'Aude is the windiest departement in France. I came home to a house whipped by the howling winds and cooler than it has been. I pulled out a down quilt and lay it on the bed, knowing that the time when either a fire or man-made heating would be necessary had arrived.
The air is so clear and crisp the clouds are sharply outlined. Not forbiddingly cold, Chantal, Baboon, Beau and I strolled Montolieu happily, having lunch at l'Apostrophe, the art deco restaurant set beside the ancient paper factory established by Louis XV(known as the bien-aime, or, "beloved").
The lunch --coquilles Saint Jacques for Chantal, chicken cooked in coconut milk and curry for me, was delicious. L'Apostrophe has bands playing on weekends in the summer, but like the boutique across the way, it will close for the season at the end of the month.
"We will only be open weekends when we return in mid-November. And then, in January, we will close until mid-March" our amiable waiter told us.
And so it is here. There are places that stay open in each village, but the choices are limited.
To someone used to the incessant pace of Manhattan, it seems terribly sad that places close down for the season, although it is easy to understand.
"That's the way it is in the back country in France", Chantal explained to me. "It's too expensive to pay all the personnel for six covers" (How many there were at lunch today.)
A friend of mine who lives part of the year in Maine explained to me that it is similar there, too.
"People figure how much they need to live on", and work only enough during the season to be able to stop for the winter", she said.
Caunes is not quite like that: La Table d'Emilie stays open year round, as does La Marbrerie. For which I am grateful, even if I have not yet spent a winter here. Nevertheless, the village is somnolent by nine o'clock, although the cafe on the main drag stays open, keeping the drinkers in liquid, another thing I am grateful for.
I wanted to experience Caunes in the colder weather and I am doing that. However, it makes me want to leave as soon as I possibly can. Cycling is out, as the wind fights the cyclist, and I've no desire to fight back. So I've decided to book a night in Rocamadour, the village with the monastery and pilgrimage site perched on a cliff. I'll leave Monday, a day earlier than I had planned originally. Frankly, if I could find another place to go on Sunday, I would.
While in the MInervois, as in most places, people don't shake their routine easily, I want to be off. With the temperatures dropping and cold weather gear becoming essential, there seems no reason not to venture further afield sooner. The back country is beautiful, but I am a citadine, a city-dweller, at heart, and the fresh air is not enough to keep me happy. I must be off.
Friday, October 9, 2015
The Importance Of Being Self-Important (American notes)
Friday, October 9, 2015
There was a time when we were all more modest, yours truly included.
I reflected on this after seeing the comments related to an article on the increasing presence of emotional support animals on college campuses. As a dog-lover, the subject is of natural interest, although the article's subject --the highly negative reactions of those who commented on the previous article about the phenomenon-- was an article about a reaction to an article, and therefore, more about humans than dogs.
In general, the comments adjudged today's students "weaklings" and exhorted proscription of animals on campuses for a variety of reasons: the animals are not trained to respect strangers, the students are too immature to care for animals adequately, the trend permits students to live in a world not at all like that they will confront after college.
I was struck by the number of comments and reflected on how convinced of our right to force our opinions on each other Americans have become. Since newspapers began permitting readers to comment on articles, legions have started spending time composing personal statements in reaction to them. With many people reading The New York Times online it's easy to click and comment.
The newspaper calls these offerings, as a whole, a "conversation". It's easy to see how useful to the goal of keeping readers continuing subscriptions the device is. However, I find the bulk of the comments so personal, so riddled with emotion, they do not rise to the level of the apercu, being neither illuminating nor entertaining.
Which begs the question, "Why do people comment?" I don't know. When someone writes a letter to a Congressman, that letter is taken seriously, pollsters will tell you: one letter is said by them to probably reflect the views of fifty people, not a considerable amount, but in the aggregate, useful to indicate what public sentiment pro or con a piece of legislation is.
A comment attached to a newspaper article, "What's the good?" Essentially, this: the writer feels vindicated, launching his view into the blogosphere. The downside of that is that all of us have come to think we are much more important than is the case.
There was a time when people hesitated to express their opinion because they knew they were unqualified to do so. Polling now makes everyone eligible to give an opinion on virtually any subject in the public domain. That the interest of pollsters is not in the opinion itself, but the trend the opinion reflects, never dampens the expressive willingness of the person surveyed; rather the opposite: it's liberating for Joe American to be asked what he thinks, and he willingly offers his views.
I had a professor of constitutional law, Charles Whelan, S.J., who used to keep a little sign on his desk at Fordham Law School: it said (as best I can remember):
Your First Amendment right to speak does not include making me hear what you have to say.
Yet no one would write for public consumption who did not believe their message would fall on deaf ears. There is a distinction, though, between the writer who believes himself able to add something to the debate, viz. as a group, letters to the editor of The Times Of London, or The Financial Times; and those letters The New York Times actually prints in its pages. The Times editors are very selective, printing only letters from people they deem authoritative on a subject and in line with their general views. Across the Pond, the British are, in comparison, still respectful of boffins (British for "expert"); and as a result, their expressions of opinion are finely worded, gently stated suggestions of confirmation or, an alternative point of view, to that in the article that inspired the response. That is to say, there is an element of modesty in the expression of the letter-writer's point of view. Not for the Brits the bombast of the American approach.
Everyone's opinion is worth as much as everyone else's opinion in America, at least superficially. Behind the scenes, the people who pull the strings may laugh up their sleeve at the vibrancy of what is called "public discourse" in the United States. The decision-makers take their counsel from people knowledgeable and qualified to give it. Letting people express themselves freely through the many media available gives the public a chance to "let off steam" harmlessly, they may say.
Is it harmless, though? If everyone thinks their opinion has equal value then no one has any reason to take the opinions of knowledgeable and qualified people as having more value than that of the hoi polo. (N.B. I couldn't get even the typing program to allow me to use the Greek for "the common people".) Thus, the debate starts at the level of the lowest common denominator: whether it works its way up to a level at which decisions can be taken in an informed way is not certain. The overall effect is a decline in respect for the knowledgeable and qualified, "intellectual snobs" as the popular media defines them. So the public debates are increasingly about rhetoric, rather than substance.
Last word: I wrote a comment to the article about the negative reactions of readers to the article about emotional support animals in the Times, which I picked out of the 212 comments offered, so I could print it at the end of this post.
Guilty as charged.
There was a time when we were all more modest, yours truly included.
I reflected on this after seeing the comments related to an article on the increasing presence of emotional support animals on college campuses. As a dog-lover, the subject is of natural interest, although the article's subject --the highly negative reactions of those who commented on the previous article about the phenomenon-- was an article about a reaction to an article, and therefore, more about humans than dogs.
In general, the comments adjudged today's students "weaklings" and exhorted proscription of animals on campuses for a variety of reasons: the animals are not trained to respect strangers, the students are too immature to care for animals adequately, the trend permits students to live in a world not at all like that they will confront after college.
I was struck by the number of comments and reflected on how convinced of our right to force our opinions on each other Americans have become. Since newspapers began permitting readers to comment on articles, legions have started spending time composing personal statements in reaction to them. With many people reading The New York Times online it's easy to click and comment.
The newspaper calls these offerings, as a whole, a "conversation". It's easy to see how useful to the goal of keeping readers continuing subscriptions the device is. However, I find the bulk of the comments so personal, so riddled with emotion, they do not rise to the level of the apercu, being neither illuminating nor entertaining.
Which begs the question, "Why do people comment?" I don't know. When someone writes a letter to a Congressman, that letter is taken seriously, pollsters will tell you: one letter is said by them to probably reflect the views of fifty people, not a considerable amount, but in the aggregate, useful to indicate what public sentiment pro or con a piece of legislation is.
A comment attached to a newspaper article, "What's the good?" Essentially, this: the writer feels vindicated, launching his view into the blogosphere. The downside of that is that all of us have come to think we are much more important than is the case.
There was a time when people hesitated to express their opinion because they knew they were unqualified to do so. Polling now makes everyone eligible to give an opinion on virtually any subject in the public domain. That the interest of pollsters is not in the opinion itself, but the trend the opinion reflects, never dampens the expressive willingness of the person surveyed; rather the opposite: it's liberating for Joe American to be asked what he thinks, and he willingly offers his views.
I had a professor of constitutional law, Charles Whelan, S.J., who used to keep a little sign on his desk at Fordham Law School: it said (as best I can remember):
Your First Amendment right to speak does not include making me hear what you have to say.
Yet no one would write for public consumption who did not believe their message would fall on deaf ears. There is a distinction, though, between the writer who believes himself able to add something to the debate, viz. as a group, letters to the editor of The Times Of London, or The Financial Times; and those letters The New York Times actually prints in its pages. The Times editors are very selective, printing only letters from people they deem authoritative on a subject and in line with their general views. Across the Pond, the British are, in comparison, still respectful of boffins (British for "expert"); and as a result, their expressions of opinion are finely worded, gently stated suggestions of confirmation or, an alternative point of view, to that in the article that inspired the response. That is to say, there is an element of modesty in the expression of the letter-writer's point of view. Not for the Brits the bombast of the American approach.
Everyone's opinion is worth as much as everyone else's opinion in America, at least superficially. Behind the scenes, the people who pull the strings may laugh up their sleeve at the vibrancy of what is called "public discourse" in the United States. The decision-makers take their counsel from people knowledgeable and qualified to give it. Letting people express themselves freely through the many media available gives the public a chance to "let off steam" harmlessly, they may say.
Is it harmless, though? If everyone thinks their opinion has equal value then no one has any reason to take the opinions of knowledgeable and qualified people as having more value than that of the hoi polo. (N.B. I couldn't get even the typing program to allow me to use the Greek for "the common people".) Thus, the debate starts at the level of the lowest common denominator: whether it works its way up to a level at which decisions can be taken in an informed way is not certain. The overall effect is a decline in respect for the knowledgeable and qualified, "intellectual snobs" as the popular media defines them. So the public debates are increasingly about rhetoric, rather than substance.
Last word: I wrote a comment to the article about the negative reactions of readers to the article about emotional support animals in the Times, which I picked out of the 212 comments offered, so I could print it at the end of this post.
Guilty as charged.
chachacha
New York, New York 1 day agoWednesday, October 7, 2015
The Pricey Upshot; A Visit To The Shoemaker
October 7, 2015
I decided it was not wise to wait until I heard from the salesman at Lapeyre about his proposal to replace the installed awning with the awning that ought to have been installed. So I called him late this morning to tell him I would be by to pick up the new invoice for the difference between the smaller awning and the larger after lunch.
It occurred to me as I was considering how much more an awning twice as long as the one installed would cost, that in fact, I was never given an accurate estimate of what an awning with all the "bells and whistles" and appropriate to the size of the terrace would cost. I already thought the almost $4,700 cost of the meter and a half awning installed was much more expensive than I had anticipated, but rationalized it by telling myself that on account of the strong sun, the terrace was unusable any time except the early morning and late evening. By sheltering the terrace, I would essentially add another room to the house. Although it is costing me.
Had I had an accurate estimate of the cost of an mechanized awning of the right length, I might have chosen a cheaper awning. However, as I had now committed myself to the mechanized model, Lapeyre would only make an exchange for the more expensive model, not reimburse me.
I try to be realistic about my choices, so "in for a penny, in for a pound" I said to myself, and hoped that the additional expense would not be staggering. In that spirit, I went to the Lapeyre in Carcassonne to see the salesman. He was ready for me.
"Let's sit at my desk, over here", he pointed, and I arranged myself and Beau.
"I'm going to charge you only the difference between the new product and the old, no further charges for installation, and the value-added tax is included in the price."
I held my breath.
The longer awning will cost you one thousand four hundred and twenty Euros more--
That's not an inconsiderable amount, about $1600 more for two meters more fabric.
"But-- I'm going to take off four hundred Euros-- so the real amount you have to pay is one thousand twenty Euros (1,020E).
I agreed to the exchange on those terms, thankful I had not been stuck for twice that amount.
I and Monsieur Dubot will personally take down the awning presently installed, and replace it the same day with the awning appropriate to your terrace. I'm sorry, but I only sell one or two of these a year--
--"That's no excuse", I interjected. "Would you be willing to reimburse me for the price of the awning inappropriate to my needs, as you are now making me spend more than your estimate suggested?"
"No."
"Well, then we will proceed as you suggest."
"I will take a photo of the new awning and send it to you, so that you know all has been done perfectly."--
And here the salesman used the French slang for "perfect" which is--
--Nickel.
"And Monsieur Dubot and I will be back when you return to show you how the remote control works, so that you can have the awning extended at night and have the lighting if you choose, rather than have it retracted at night as it would automatically do otherwise. We will come to see you again, one more time after we install the right awning for you."
At this point, each of us more or less resigned to our options (he cannot send the inappropriately ordered awning back to the factory, I cannot opt for a cheaper, less fancy awning), we became very jovial:
"--Well, if you're going to come by to that end, I'll give you lunch."
"--Oh, no! You don't have to do that, but it's nice of you."
In the midst of all this bonhomie, the salesman told me he is studying English to better deal with his Anglophone clients. We agreed to speak further as to that in the weeks to come.
In all, I think that I was fortunate that the salesman (who also heads that department at the Lapeyre branch in Carcassonne) was willing to try to reach a compromise. He could have insisted that I had signed the invoice (which constitutes a contract in France) and walked away. That is a very important point: unlike the United States, where there are consumer protection agencies at multiple levels, nothing of the sort exists in France. So if you have a dispute with a vendor or a service provider, you are without remedies unless you are willing to engage a notaire at your own expense to intimidate the person you believe has wronged you. And that would take a long time and not necessarily lead to your vindication, as judges are strictly bound to apply the law found in the French legal code, French law having no court of equity, and its judges no power to fashion remedies when the law has not spoken to a question.
Notwithstanding, the lack of thought associated with my awning project as handled by Lapeyre, which sells itself as above the pack of home improvement companies, reflects the general carelessness that prevails in France in general. I had another example of this insouciance after I left Lapeyre and went to a shoemaker in Carcassonne to pick up a pair of boots I'd left to be waterproofed and oiled two weeks ago.
I had left a deposit of fifteen Euros for a job the shoemaker priced at thirty. He told me it would take one week for the oil to penetrate the leather, followed by the application of the waterproofing material, which would take another week for the leather to absorb. By October 7 --today-- the boots would be ready for pick-up and looking better than when I brought them in.
Not so, though, because when I presented my ticket, the shoemaker could not find the boots among those on the front shelves awaiting their owners They also were not inside any of the paper bags he had put other pairs in.
"--Ah! I have them here in the back, I was just starting to get them ready--"
"But they were supposed to be ready today!"
"I'm sorry, but I haven't gotten to them yet. I can get to them tomorrow--"
"But I'll be gone two weeks from yesterday, and you said you would need two weeks to do the treatments--"
"Yes, I'll start tomorrow--"
"But I'll be gone two days, by that time. I made a trip here from Caunes today just to pick up the boots--"
"I offer you my apologies, but I'll get to them tomorrow--"
"But that won't work. Please return my deposit to me now--"
"--But I can start work on them tomorrow--"
"--But you said it would take two weeks, so there isn't enough time for you to do the job you said you would do. Please return my deposit of 15 Euros to me."
--And the shoemaker seemed genuinely distressed that he would have to return my deposit to me.
"You have my apologies--"
"Perhaps I'll see you next summer. Then you'll have the entire season to get the job done," I said as I picked up my money and walked out.
And I was not being sarcastic.
I decided it was not wise to wait until I heard from the salesman at Lapeyre about his proposal to replace the installed awning with the awning that ought to have been installed. So I called him late this morning to tell him I would be by to pick up the new invoice for the difference between the smaller awning and the larger after lunch.
It occurred to me as I was considering how much more an awning twice as long as the one installed would cost, that in fact, I was never given an accurate estimate of what an awning with all the "bells and whistles" and appropriate to the size of the terrace would cost. I already thought the almost $4,700 cost of the meter and a half awning installed was much more expensive than I had anticipated, but rationalized it by telling myself that on account of the strong sun, the terrace was unusable any time except the early morning and late evening. By sheltering the terrace, I would essentially add another room to the house. Although it is costing me.
Had I had an accurate estimate of the cost of an mechanized awning of the right length, I might have chosen a cheaper awning. However, as I had now committed myself to the mechanized model, Lapeyre would only make an exchange for the more expensive model, not reimburse me.
I try to be realistic about my choices, so "in for a penny, in for a pound" I said to myself, and hoped that the additional expense would not be staggering. In that spirit, I went to the Lapeyre in Carcassonne to see the salesman. He was ready for me.
"Let's sit at my desk, over here", he pointed, and I arranged myself and Beau.
"I'm going to charge you only the difference between the new product and the old, no further charges for installation, and the value-added tax is included in the price."
I held my breath.
The longer awning will cost you one thousand four hundred and twenty Euros more--
That's not an inconsiderable amount, about $1600 more for two meters more fabric.
"But-- I'm going to take off four hundred Euros-- so the real amount you have to pay is one thousand twenty Euros (1,020E).
I agreed to the exchange on those terms, thankful I had not been stuck for twice that amount.
I and Monsieur Dubot will personally take down the awning presently installed, and replace it the same day with the awning appropriate to your terrace. I'm sorry, but I only sell one or two of these a year--
--"That's no excuse", I interjected. "Would you be willing to reimburse me for the price of the awning inappropriate to my needs, as you are now making me spend more than your estimate suggested?"
"No."
"Well, then we will proceed as you suggest."
"I will take a photo of the new awning and send it to you, so that you know all has been done perfectly."--
And here the salesman used the French slang for "perfect" which is--
--Nickel.
"And Monsieur Dubot and I will be back when you return to show you how the remote control works, so that you can have the awning extended at night and have the lighting if you choose, rather than have it retracted at night as it would automatically do otherwise. We will come to see you again, one more time after we install the right awning for you."
At this point, each of us more or less resigned to our options (he cannot send the inappropriately ordered awning back to the factory, I cannot opt for a cheaper, less fancy awning), we became very jovial:
"--Well, if you're going to come by to that end, I'll give you lunch."
"--Oh, no! You don't have to do that, but it's nice of you."
In the midst of all this bonhomie, the salesman told me he is studying English to better deal with his Anglophone clients. We agreed to speak further as to that in the weeks to come.
In all, I think that I was fortunate that the salesman (who also heads that department at the Lapeyre branch in Carcassonne) was willing to try to reach a compromise. He could have insisted that I had signed the invoice (which constitutes a contract in France) and walked away. That is a very important point: unlike the United States, where there are consumer protection agencies at multiple levels, nothing of the sort exists in France. So if you have a dispute with a vendor or a service provider, you are without remedies unless you are willing to engage a notaire at your own expense to intimidate the person you believe has wronged you. And that would take a long time and not necessarily lead to your vindication, as judges are strictly bound to apply the law found in the French legal code, French law having no court of equity, and its judges no power to fashion remedies when the law has not spoken to a question.
Notwithstanding, the lack of thought associated with my awning project as handled by Lapeyre, which sells itself as above the pack of home improvement companies, reflects the general carelessness that prevails in France in general. I had another example of this insouciance after I left Lapeyre and went to a shoemaker in Carcassonne to pick up a pair of boots I'd left to be waterproofed and oiled two weeks ago.
I had left a deposit of fifteen Euros for a job the shoemaker priced at thirty. He told me it would take one week for the oil to penetrate the leather, followed by the application of the waterproofing material, which would take another week for the leather to absorb. By October 7 --today-- the boots would be ready for pick-up and looking better than when I brought them in.
Not so, though, because when I presented my ticket, the shoemaker could not find the boots among those on the front shelves awaiting their owners They also were not inside any of the paper bags he had put other pairs in.
"--Ah! I have them here in the back, I was just starting to get them ready--"
"But they were supposed to be ready today!"
"I'm sorry, but I haven't gotten to them yet. I can get to them tomorrow--"
"But I'll be gone two weeks from yesterday, and you said you would need two weeks to do the treatments--"
"Yes, I'll start tomorrow--"
"But I'll be gone two days, by that time. I made a trip here from Caunes today just to pick up the boots--"
"I offer you my apologies, but I'll get to them tomorrow--"
"But that won't work. Please return my deposit to me now--"
"--But I can start work on them tomorrow--"
"--But you said it would take two weeks, so there isn't enough time for you to do the job you said you would do. Please return my deposit of 15 Euros to me."
--And the shoemaker seemed genuinely distressed that he would have to return my deposit to me.
"You have my apologies--"
"Perhaps I'll see you next summer. Then you'll have the entire season to get the job done," I said as I picked up my money and walked out.
And I was not being sarcastic.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Une Bavure; Keeping Chickens
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
The word bavure --a feminine noun, means a blunder in French.
That is the best way to describe the issue of my order of a retractable awning from Lapeyre, the high-end home furnishing company.
Lapeyre is a division of Saint Gobain, one of France's top companies.
Neither the association with Saint Gobain, nor Lapeyre's expensive offerings guarantee against blunders by the sales and service people, as I learned to my fury this morning.
At about 11:00 a.m. Monsieur Xavier Dubot, the man who installed the awning last Friday, came by to show me how the remote control for the awning worked. This is a top-of-the line awning, with a strip of lighting to light it at night, sensors to retract the awning when the wind is too high, a sensor to unfurl the awning when the sunlight requires it. It sounds like a wonderful product, but when Monsieur Dubot unfurled the awning he installed, it became apparent that the awning was far too short to provide any sort of cover for the terrace.
Monsieur Lacena at the store sold me the awning whose measurements were taken by M. Dubot and passed on to M. Lacena.
Something fell between the cracks, and of course, no one took responsibility.
The installation had to be completed before I left, and now the removal of the awning fabric and its replacement with a longer bolt and the attachment of two longer bars to provide the needed length will all have to take place while I am away.
Fortunately, my neighbor who will be supervising the work on the attic will be able to let Monsieur Dubot in the house. Monsieur Dubot says he has never done a replacement, but "he knows how to do it".
I think he can, but what choice do I have? As the awning is now, I have essentially spent about $5,000 to illuminate the terrace in the evening.
The experience summarizes what is wrong with France today: everyone does things as they think best, and no one takes responsibility for the consequences.
Beautiful country, incredibly disorganized, prone to bavures.
***
Update:
I consulted my friend at La Marbrerie about what to do about the mess of the stor bann project, and she gave me good advice:
"You have to make a big stink. You have to tell them you are a lawyer, and you will not let them get away with their mistake. You cannot let them take you for some little old lady they can take advantage of. See it you can still stop the check you gave them Friday, and if not, go to the store tomorrow and every day after that, and demand to see the person in charge of the entire store --and say you will not leave until you are given a rendezvous.
Do not let up the pressure. Otherwise, they'll string you along, thinking you'll be leaving and they will not have anyone to back you up. If you don't, they'll just figure, 'She's an American, she's alone, she won't be back for quite some time' --and when you come back, they'll say it's been too long for you to make any claim."
I took my friend's advice and called the salesman as soon as I got back. I raised my voice and told him I would not accept his attempt to pin the blame for the delivery of the wrong product on me. What is more, I pointed out that any interference with the product as delivered to me and installed would nullify the 5 year guarantee. I told him I was a lawyer and would pursue all my remedies, all of this said in a hard voice. After a few seconds of this, he became exasperated and told me,
"I don't know how things go in the United States, but in France we do not speak to a sales person as though he were a dog."
And then the line went dead.
Five minutes later, the salesman called me to tell me that he would have the awning installed taken down and the same day, have an awning appropriate to the measurement of my terrace installed. I would merely pay the difference between the two products.
All this will take until November, certainly, and supervision of it will be one more task for Chantal to take on. However, I have to believe that the salesman fully intends to make the exchange --although I will be much more careful about turning over a check for the balance than I was on Friday.
***
Until this morning's surprise about the awning, I was actually planning to write about the fad for keeping chickens that is sweeping France. I actually think poor service and the lack of a work ethic are kissing cousins with the phenomenon of self-sufficiency and decroissance beloved of neo-ruraliens, back-to-the-land types and their friends who are keeping chickens. It is very French to take an idea to its logical extreme and try to put it into practice. Unfortunately, the results are not always encouraging; but my observation is that, the French, once committed, can do nothing but keep defending the choice they made, as changing course would be an admission of error. And, as the Lapeyre sales representative's reaction to anger at his incompetence demonstrates, the French cannot bear to be criticized.
The man who installed the awning keeps chickens, my cleaning lady and her husband keep chickens, my neighbor across the way keeps chickens, the people up the road keep chickens. I asked the installer why doing so was so popular in France and he told me that many French had seen a program showing how industrial egg farming is carried out in France:
The chickens never range, they lay until they die and when they die their corpses are not even taken out of the cage because it's uneconomical! The French love animals, so many started keeping chickens themselves after that.
Nice explanation, although I've noticed that there is at least one general circulation magazine about how to keep chickens on newsstands fanning the trend. Then again, I also think the idea of eggs from free-range chickens is certainly appealing.
However, such eggs can be purchased at "bio" supermarkets, of which there are plenty, even in a backwater like l'Aude. "No", I think the real reason the French are going mad for chickens is that by doing so they can have cheaper "organic" eggs as well as satisfying a need to seem to be self-sufficient.
That need to be seen to be self-sufficient is a very strong impulse in many French nowadays. The philosophy of decroissance --a kind of 21st century Luddism-- holds that globalization can be defeated if everyone will only consume less of that which is mass-produced, produce more themselves and scale down their wants. Foraging for edible plants is part of this trend, and the French have always gone hunting for mushrooms, so this is just an extension of that tradition. France has also always permitted gleaning that left behind after any kind of harvest, so tradition supports that trend --although it's usually the poorest people who do it.
In my view, the philosophy of self-sufficiency that the French are now embracing is their response to the failure of French institutions. The French don't think their government does anything other than advance the self-interest of their representatives and as a result, they have turned their backs on participation in politics, with the exception of union members, who are entrenched in France's political life.
So everyone does for themselves: home repair companies like Monsieur Bricolage, Brico Depot and others do a nice business in DYI repair products, some people produce their own wine, everyone has a vegetable garden. Some people get by on very little, supplementing a government payment with odd-jobs done for cash, not fixing up the house, not having a television or land line or WiFi, buying second-hand items, using an IPhone for all purposes of communication.
This is the French way: radically individualistic, more so actually, than the American. In my own view this strategy will neither defeat globalization nor lead to a better French society, but its opposite: a society where it's sauve qui peut (every man for himself) and the next generation is worse, not better off, than this one.
Funnily enough, I don't think what the French seeking auto-suffisance are doing is anything like what Thoreau sought when he went to Walden Pond, although, superficially, it may seem so. I think what Thoreau went to Walden Pond to seek was a respite from materialism and to make a statement that the world can be too much with us, to paraphrase Wordsworth. However, Thoreau returned from Walden Pond, while the average Frenchman seems to want to live there forever.
-
The word bavure --a feminine noun, means a blunder in French.
That is the best way to describe the issue of my order of a retractable awning from Lapeyre, the high-end home furnishing company.
Lapeyre is a division of Saint Gobain, one of France's top companies.
Neither the association with Saint Gobain, nor Lapeyre's expensive offerings guarantee against blunders by the sales and service people, as I learned to my fury this morning.
At about 11:00 a.m. Monsieur Xavier Dubot, the man who installed the awning last Friday, came by to show me how the remote control for the awning worked. This is a top-of-the line awning, with a strip of lighting to light it at night, sensors to retract the awning when the wind is too high, a sensor to unfurl the awning when the sunlight requires it. It sounds like a wonderful product, but when Monsieur Dubot unfurled the awning he installed, it became apparent that the awning was far too short to provide any sort of cover for the terrace.
Monsieur Lacena at the store sold me the awning whose measurements were taken by M. Dubot and passed on to M. Lacena.
Something fell between the cracks, and of course, no one took responsibility.
The installation had to be completed before I left, and now the removal of the awning fabric and its replacement with a longer bolt and the attachment of two longer bars to provide the needed length will all have to take place while I am away.
Fortunately, my neighbor who will be supervising the work on the attic will be able to let Monsieur Dubot in the house. Monsieur Dubot says he has never done a replacement, but "he knows how to do it".
I think he can, but what choice do I have? As the awning is now, I have essentially spent about $5,000 to illuminate the terrace in the evening.
The experience summarizes what is wrong with France today: everyone does things as they think best, and no one takes responsibility for the consequences.
Beautiful country, incredibly disorganized, prone to bavures.
***
Update:
I consulted my friend at La Marbrerie about what to do about the mess of the stor bann project, and she gave me good advice:
"You have to make a big stink. You have to tell them you are a lawyer, and you will not let them get away with their mistake. You cannot let them take you for some little old lady they can take advantage of. See it you can still stop the check you gave them Friday, and if not, go to the store tomorrow and every day after that, and demand to see the person in charge of the entire store --and say you will not leave until you are given a rendezvous.
Do not let up the pressure. Otherwise, they'll string you along, thinking you'll be leaving and they will not have anyone to back you up. If you don't, they'll just figure, 'She's an American, she's alone, she won't be back for quite some time' --and when you come back, they'll say it's been too long for you to make any claim."
I took my friend's advice and called the salesman as soon as I got back. I raised my voice and told him I would not accept his attempt to pin the blame for the delivery of the wrong product on me. What is more, I pointed out that any interference with the product as delivered to me and installed would nullify the 5 year guarantee. I told him I was a lawyer and would pursue all my remedies, all of this said in a hard voice. After a few seconds of this, he became exasperated and told me,
"I don't know how things go in the United States, but in France we do not speak to a sales person as though he were a dog."
And then the line went dead.
Five minutes later, the salesman called me to tell me that he would have the awning installed taken down and the same day, have an awning appropriate to the measurement of my terrace installed. I would merely pay the difference between the two products.
All this will take until November, certainly, and supervision of it will be one more task for Chantal to take on. However, I have to believe that the salesman fully intends to make the exchange --although I will be much more careful about turning over a check for the balance than I was on Friday.
***
Until this morning's surprise about the awning, I was actually planning to write about the fad for keeping chickens that is sweeping France. I actually think poor service and the lack of a work ethic are kissing cousins with the phenomenon of self-sufficiency and decroissance beloved of neo-ruraliens, back-to-the-land types and their friends who are keeping chickens. It is very French to take an idea to its logical extreme and try to put it into practice. Unfortunately, the results are not always encouraging; but my observation is that, the French, once committed, can do nothing but keep defending the choice they made, as changing course would be an admission of error. And, as the Lapeyre sales representative's reaction to anger at his incompetence demonstrates, the French cannot bear to be criticized.
The man who installed the awning keeps chickens, my cleaning lady and her husband keep chickens, my neighbor across the way keeps chickens, the people up the road keep chickens. I asked the installer why doing so was so popular in France and he told me that many French had seen a program showing how industrial egg farming is carried out in France:
The chickens never range, they lay until they die and when they die their corpses are not even taken out of the cage because it's uneconomical! The French love animals, so many started keeping chickens themselves after that.
Nice explanation, although I've noticed that there is at least one general circulation magazine about how to keep chickens on newsstands fanning the trend. Then again, I also think the idea of eggs from free-range chickens is certainly appealing.
However, such eggs can be purchased at "bio" supermarkets, of which there are plenty, even in a backwater like l'Aude. "No", I think the real reason the French are going mad for chickens is that by doing so they can have cheaper "organic" eggs as well as satisfying a need to seem to be self-sufficient.
That need to be seen to be self-sufficient is a very strong impulse in many French nowadays. The philosophy of decroissance --a kind of 21st century Luddism-- holds that globalization can be defeated if everyone will only consume less of that which is mass-produced, produce more themselves and scale down their wants. Foraging for edible plants is part of this trend, and the French have always gone hunting for mushrooms, so this is just an extension of that tradition. France has also always permitted gleaning that left behind after any kind of harvest, so tradition supports that trend --although it's usually the poorest people who do it.
In my view, the philosophy of self-sufficiency that the French are now embracing is their response to the failure of French institutions. The French don't think their government does anything other than advance the self-interest of their representatives and as a result, they have turned their backs on participation in politics, with the exception of union members, who are entrenched in France's political life.
So everyone does for themselves: home repair companies like Monsieur Bricolage, Brico Depot and others do a nice business in DYI repair products, some people produce their own wine, everyone has a vegetable garden. Some people get by on very little, supplementing a government payment with odd-jobs done for cash, not fixing up the house, not having a television or land line or WiFi, buying second-hand items, using an IPhone for all purposes of communication.
This is the French way: radically individualistic, more so actually, than the American. In my own view this strategy will neither defeat globalization nor lead to a better French society, but its opposite: a society where it's sauve qui peut (every man for himself) and the next generation is worse, not better off, than this one.
Funnily enough, I don't think what the French seeking auto-suffisance are doing is anything like what Thoreau sought when he went to Walden Pond, although, superficially, it may seem so. I think what Thoreau went to Walden Pond to seek was a respite from materialism and to make a statement that the world can be too much with us, to paraphrase Wordsworth. However, Thoreau returned from Walden Pond, while the average Frenchman seems to want to live there forever.
-
Thursday, October 1, 2015
My Father and Iskenderun; The Virgin Of Istanbul
Thursday, October 1, 2015
From the Jewish Virtual Library:
ISKENDERUN (formerly Alexandretta), harbor town on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey on the gulf of the same name; population (2004), 173,900. The town (along with its district), first attached to Syria under the French mandate, was annexed to Turkey in 1939. Jews settled in Iskenderun in the Middle Ages. They were expelled by the Crusaders in 1098, but returned during the 16th century. During the 17th century the Jews of Iskenderun were among the supporters of Shabbetai *Ẓevi. The community was small and numbered some tens of families. After World War I about 20 families remained in Iskenderun. Most of the Jews emigrated from Iskenderun to Israel with the establishment of the State.
***
My father's travels on cargo ships were always a source of fascination for me. He found the world fascinating and travel a worthwhile way of penetrating its mysteries, his university, in fact. My youthful travels were limited to those trips to Spain we took as a family, so, as a child, to know that my father had traveled much further --down the west coast of Africa, across North Africa, and most exotically of all, to Iskenderun, as far east as it is possible to go in the Mediterranean, further east than Alexandria, than Port Said, than Cyprus, than Haifa-- created a sort of envy in me. That he had had so much more excitement in his life than our settled life would suggest, probably explains my own wanderlust and the admiration I have for his wanderings.
"Iskenderun is also called Alexandretta", my father would say, and I (--arrogantly thinking I knew more because I read books, than my father who had lived them) said,
"Oh, Alexandria--"
"No, Martita, my father would gently correct-- Alexandretta", and I would be confused.
My father's ship stopped in the port of Iskenderun (named after Alexander the Great) some time after the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and his coming to the United States about 1947. I would guess that he probably stopped there sometime in late 1945: as until May 2, when the Battle of the Mediterranean ended (followed by Germans surrenderer May 5) the Mediterranean was not entirely free of risk to shipping.
In Iskendeun, on shore leave after unloading the cargo, my father and his shipmates went to a cafe in the town. Iskenderun had been part of French Transjordanie until it was captured by the Turkish Army in 1938 and was recognized part of Turkey in 1939. Seated at the cafe, my father and his shipmates were approached by a few local men who spoke to them in Spanish, but a Spanish whose pronunciation sounded a bit odd.
"They explained to us that they were Jews whose families had fled Spain on account of the Inquisition. They had settled in Iskenderun centuries ago, and lived as Jews, although they spoke Turkish, too."
The excerpt from the Jewish Virtual Library above, says there were only twenty Sephardic families left in Iskenderun after World War I. The men my father and his shipmates spoke to were among them.
"Life was very primitive in Iskenderun, Martita. Everything was carried on donkeys, all the women were covered up, and the men, too, they wore long clothes. I thought Galicia was backward, but I never see [sic] in Galicia what I saw in Iskenderun."
I wonder whether how much of what I saw in Carsamba, that conservative Muslim area of Istanbul --the women dressed in black veils from head to toe, their faces covered, the men in skullcaps and beards-- resembles what my father saw in Iskenderun in 1945.
***
While I was in the Avrupa Pasaji (the Mirrored Passage) in Istanbul, I was surprised to find a tiny souvenir of the city in the shape of a circular fridge magnet with an Orthodox icon of Mary at its center, bordered by an Islamic motif and ISTANBUL written on the bottom. The image looked very familiar, but I could not place it.
I asked the seller, a fair-haired woman, whether she could tell me what incarnation of Mary was depicted, but she could tell me nothing. All she could tell me was that the Christian churches were located off the Golden Horn. Perhaps someone could tell me more there. I left Istanbul with the mystery unresolved.
Back in Caunes, I looked at the image of the icon again and thought it might be of Our Lady Of Perpetual Help, a popular object of devotion among Roman and Eastern Catholics. I went to the Internet and sure enough, the image on the fridge magnet was a copy of the icon.
Here the story gets curiouser: Our Lady Of Perpetual Help is an icon painted in Crete and first exposed in San Mateo Church in Rome in 1499. (At the time, Crete formed part of the Republic of Venice.) "Why would someone manufacture a fridge magnet souvenir of Istanbul using a Cretan icon that hangs in a church in Rome?" you may ask.
The answer is, I think, that the icon of Our Lady Of Perpetual Help is a Byzantine icon, dear to Christians Roman, Greek, Russian and Oriental Orthodox. Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453; the icon was painted some time between 1325 and 1480 and it was well known: a parchment attached to the icon tells that it was brought to Rome after being stolen by a merchant traveling there from Crete.
So my little refrigerator magnet is a highly charged repository of Istanbul's Christian religious past as Constantinople. Yet the letters ISTANBUL on the souvenir's bottom place it firmly in the present--
As if to say, "Istanbul is for Christians, too. Our Lady Of Perpetual Help --PROTECT US."
From the Jewish Virtual Library:
ISKENDERUN (formerly Alexandretta), harbor town on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey on the gulf of the same name; population (2004), 173,900. The town (along with its district), first attached to Syria under the French mandate, was annexed to Turkey in 1939. Jews settled in Iskenderun in the Middle Ages. They were expelled by the Crusaders in 1098, but returned during the 16th century. During the 17th century the Jews of Iskenderun were among the supporters of Shabbetai *Ẓevi. The community was small and numbered some tens of families. After World War I about 20 families remained in Iskenderun. Most of the Jews emigrated from Iskenderun to Israel with the establishment of the State.
***
My father's travels on cargo ships were always a source of fascination for me. He found the world fascinating and travel a worthwhile way of penetrating its mysteries, his university, in fact. My youthful travels were limited to those trips to Spain we took as a family, so, as a child, to know that my father had traveled much further --down the west coast of Africa, across North Africa, and most exotically of all, to Iskenderun, as far east as it is possible to go in the Mediterranean, further east than Alexandria, than Port Said, than Cyprus, than Haifa-- created a sort of envy in me. That he had had so much more excitement in his life than our settled life would suggest, probably explains my own wanderlust and the admiration I have for his wanderings.
"Iskenderun is also called Alexandretta", my father would say, and I (--arrogantly thinking I knew more because I read books, than my father who had lived them) said,
"Oh, Alexandria--"
"No, Martita, my father would gently correct-- Alexandretta", and I would be confused.
My father's ship stopped in the port of Iskenderun (named after Alexander the Great) some time after the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and his coming to the United States about 1947. I would guess that he probably stopped there sometime in late 1945: as until May 2, when the Battle of the Mediterranean ended (followed by Germans surrenderer May 5) the Mediterranean was not entirely free of risk to shipping.
In Iskendeun, on shore leave after unloading the cargo, my father and his shipmates went to a cafe in the town. Iskenderun had been part of French Transjordanie until it was captured by the Turkish Army in 1938 and was recognized part of Turkey in 1939. Seated at the cafe, my father and his shipmates were approached by a few local men who spoke to them in Spanish, but a Spanish whose pronunciation sounded a bit odd.
"They explained to us that they were Jews whose families had fled Spain on account of the Inquisition. They had settled in Iskenderun centuries ago, and lived as Jews, although they spoke Turkish, too."
The excerpt from the Jewish Virtual Library above, says there were only twenty Sephardic families left in Iskenderun after World War I. The men my father and his shipmates spoke to were among them.
"Life was very primitive in Iskenderun, Martita. Everything was carried on donkeys, all the women were covered up, and the men, too, they wore long clothes. I thought Galicia was backward, but I never see [sic] in Galicia what I saw in Iskenderun."
I wonder whether how much of what I saw in Carsamba, that conservative Muslim area of Istanbul --the women dressed in black veils from head to toe, their faces covered, the men in skullcaps and beards-- resembles what my father saw in Iskenderun in 1945.
***
While I was in the Avrupa Pasaji (the Mirrored Passage) in Istanbul, I was surprised to find a tiny souvenir of the city in the shape of a circular fridge magnet with an Orthodox icon of Mary at its center, bordered by an Islamic motif and ISTANBUL written on the bottom. The image looked very familiar, but I could not place it.
I asked the seller, a fair-haired woman, whether she could tell me what incarnation of Mary was depicted, but she could tell me nothing. All she could tell me was that the Christian churches were located off the Golden Horn. Perhaps someone could tell me more there. I left Istanbul with the mystery unresolved.
Back in Caunes, I looked at the image of the icon again and thought it might be of Our Lady Of Perpetual Help, a popular object of devotion among Roman and Eastern Catholics. I went to the Internet and sure enough, the image on the fridge magnet was a copy of the icon.
Here the story gets curiouser: Our Lady Of Perpetual Help is an icon painted in Crete and first exposed in San Mateo Church in Rome in 1499. (At the time, Crete formed part of the Republic of Venice.) "Why would someone manufacture a fridge magnet souvenir of Istanbul using a Cretan icon that hangs in a church in Rome?" you may ask.
The answer is, I think, that the icon of Our Lady Of Perpetual Help is a Byzantine icon, dear to Christians Roman, Greek, Russian and Oriental Orthodox. Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453; the icon was painted some time between 1325 and 1480 and it was well known: a parchment attached to the icon tells that it was brought to Rome after being stolen by a merchant traveling there from Crete.
So my little refrigerator magnet is a highly charged repository of Istanbul's Christian religious past as Constantinople. Yet the letters ISTANBUL on the souvenir's bottom place it firmly in the present--
As if to say, "Istanbul is for Christians, too. Our Lady Of Perpetual Help --PROTECT US."
Monday, September 28, 2015
Constantinople; Greek Orthodox Istanbul and Globalization
Monday, September 28, 2015
Water has always been a problem in Istanbul.
So the information card in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul associated with the ruins of the sewers and cisterns of Istanbul says.
Which means the temporary shut off yesterday was nothing unusual. The water came back on at 1:00 a.m., rather than 1:00 p.m. as we had been told, and we thanked God for small favors.
During the Roman Empire, Istanbul was part of Eastern Thrace and originally got its water supply from the mountains of present-day Bulgaria. Elaborate fountains featured in the city's spaces and baths were frequently taken. When the source dried up, new methods had to be invented to supply the town. The ruins of the ancient water system are open to tours with the Basilica Cistern, built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Justinian, being among the most popular.
***
Originally, Byzantium was limited to the European side of modern-day Istanbul. The other side was Chalcedon, now the Istanbul neighborhood called Kadikoy. Readers of the Christian Bible will remember references to the Chalcedonians of Asia Minor. In 451 the Church council there accepted that Christ had two natures, divine and human, a position that united the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as Protestants. (The Coptic Church of Egypt and Ethiopia and the 'Jacobite' churches of Syria and Armenia believe he had only one nature, the divine one.)R
Troy --where the Greeks fought the Trojans-- is in Asia Minor, or northern Anatolia province in modern Turkey. That is, on the other side of the Bosporous from Thrace.
Eastern Thrace along the inlet into the Sea of Marmara known as The Golden Horn is where Greek Orthodox Istanbul now resides. Of course, before the Ottoman Conquest in 1453 Constantinople was ruled by Byzantine emperors who subscribed to the Greek Orthodox faith. As the Ottomans extirpated the Byzantines, the church was pushed back further West, where it retains its seat today. It is there --to the Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols; and the Chora Museum --once the Church of the Holy Saviour, then a mosque, in the Fatih district in the far west of the city-- to which Max and I are going today.
***
Our taxi drops us somewhere along the Golden Horn, at the bottom of a hill in the neighborhood called Fener, where most of Istanbul's remaining 5,000 or so Greeks live. From the bottom of the hill we can see the tops of the Phanar Roman Orthodox Lyceum, the most prestigious Greek school in Istanbul. Fener is Turkish for Phanar,, the Greeks being known as Phanariots.
Phanariots are not simply Greeks, however. The terms specifically refers to those Greek families that came to traditionally occupy four positions of major importance in the Ottoman Empire: Grand Dragoman, Grand Dragoman of the Fleet, Hospodar of Moldavia, and Hospodar of Wallachia.
Around the corner from the school, which is an imposing red-brick structure built in the 19th century, is the Byzantine Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols, known to the Turks as the Church of the Blood. The "Mary" referred to in the church's name is not Christ's mother, but Maria Palaeologina, illegitimate daughter of Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII. To buy peace with Genghis Khan's Mongol armies, her father betrothed Maria to Abaqa Khan, the Mongol ruler of the Persian Ilkhanate. At Khan's death fifteen years later, Maria was again used to buy peace: her father betrothed her to another Mongolian prince in order to create an alliance against the Ottomans threatening Byzantine Nicaea.
Fortunately for Maria, the Ottomans captured Nicaea and Maria was released of her obligation She returned to Istanbul, rebuilding the convent and monastery on the present-day site of the church. Although originally dedicated to Mary, the mother of Christ, the church remains associated with Mary of the Mongols.
The association with blood in Turkish minds is associated with the death of a Turkish standard bearer during the last hours of the siege of Constantinople in 1453. The church has never been used as a mosque, escaping all attempts to convert the property from Christian to Muslim ownership. Built in the 13th century, it is, in fact, the only Byzantine church in Istanbul to have remained Christian to the present day. (The Church of Saint George, home of the Patriarchate, was built after 1453, when the Ottoman victory ends definitively the Byzantine period in in Istanbul.)
The Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols is rarely open, and it is not open when we pass by. However, there is a buzzer to press and I do: a few minutes later an older man opens the door and looks at us. I show him the Christian medal around my neck and he invites us to come into the church courtyard.
He opens the tiny church to us and turns on the lights: we are bathed in glory, icons everywhere. The ikonostasis is carved of dark wood and lacquered, with images of Saint Michael, Saints Cyril and Methodious, Saint Anthony and other Orthodox saints. The vault above the ikonostasis reveals a Levantine Mary, mother of Christ, an enormous image of her head and shoulders draped in maroon robes.
There is something very moving about being in a space that has striven (and succeeded) in remaining itself despite the violence of history's push. Which continues: the nearby Church of Saint George, home of the patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church, and therefore a place of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians, was bombed by Muslim extremists in 1997. Rumeli is the Turkish word for "Europe", and indeed, the little church remains one of the last artifacts of when Istanbul was Christian and European. A few feet beyond, by the Golden Horn, there is a cafe run by a man who remembers when there were many Greeks still living in the neighborhood. He is an atheist and has a son who is in law school in Florida, married to an American. He has lived in Fener all his life:
There used to be a lot of Greeks here, but not so many anymore. I have two Greek girls who work for me here --they'll be here later. This is still a place you can live.
We mention that up the hill, on our way to the Chora Church (now a major tourist attraction)-- we walked through Carsamba (pronounced Charshamba) --and were struck by the ubiquitousness of women in burkas:
It's Afghanistan over there, Turks from Anatolia, Syrians, Afghanis. The Islamic foundations funded by Saudi money pay for all their needs, and they vote for Erdogyan.
When I ask him what will happen in Turkey, he tells me that Eastern Turkey will become a separate Kurdish state to fulfill the desires of the Americans and the British, but that the rest of Turkey will remain a secular republic, as Turks don't like the Saudis --or Arabs in general, and have come to resent Erdogan's courtship of Gulf states:
The building you see all over Istanbul --that's Saudi and Quatari money. In return for votes paid for by Islamic foundations backed by Saudi and Qatari money and tied to Saudi and Qatari real estate developers, Erdogyan gets the votes he needs from Caramba and the east of Turkey.
Early tomorrow Max and I leave Istanbul. Once again, I have to say that the best metaphor for the city is that of a mirrored passage. Seductive, ancient, modern, spiritual, corrupt, with corners of surprising urbanity, alongside squalor.
Last night, on our way home from Taksim Square, I encountered an Ecuadorean woman and her brother selling handicrafts from that country. They were forced by circumstances to come thousands of miles to sell cheap products for a few lira in the equivalent of Times Square.
The cafe owner and the Ecuadorean vendor --what better proofs of Istanbul's history as a trading city? What better proof of globalization's reach --with all its unpredictable consequences.
Water has always been a problem in Istanbul.
So the information card in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul associated with the ruins of the sewers and cisterns of Istanbul says.
Which means the temporary shut off yesterday was nothing unusual. The water came back on at 1:00 a.m., rather than 1:00 p.m. as we had been told, and we thanked God for small favors.
During the Roman Empire, Istanbul was part of Eastern Thrace and originally got its water supply from the mountains of present-day Bulgaria. Elaborate fountains featured in the city's spaces and baths were frequently taken. When the source dried up, new methods had to be invented to supply the town. The ruins of the ancient water system are open to tours with the Basilica Cistern, built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Justinian, being among the most popular.
***
Originally, Byzantium was limited to the European side of modern-day Istanbul. The other side was Chalcedon, now the Istanbul neighborhood called Kadikoy. Readers of the Christian Bible will remember references to the Chalcedonians of Asia Minor. In 451 the Church council there accepted that Christ had two natures, divine and human, a position that united the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as Protestants. (The Coptic Church of Egypt and Ethiopia and the 'Jacobite' churches of Syria and Armenia believe he had only one nature, the divine one.)R
Troy --where the Greeks fought the Trojans-- is in Asia Minor, or northern Anatolia province in modern Turkey. That is, on the other side of the Bosporous from Thrace.
Eastern Thrace along the inlet into the Sea of Marmara known as The Golden Horn is where Greek Orthodox Istanbul now resides. Of course, before the Ottoman Conquest in 1453 Constantinople was ruled by Byzantine emperors who subscribed to the Greek Orthodox faith. As the Ottomans extirpated the Byzantines, the church was pushed back further West, where it retains its seat today. It is there --to the Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols; and the Chora Museum --once the Church of the Holy Saviour, then a mosque, in the Fatih district in the far west of the city-- to which Max and I are going today.
***
Our taxi drops us somewhere along the Golden Horn, at the bottom of a hill in the neighborhood called Fener, where most of Istanbul's remaining 5,000 or so Greeks live. From the bottom of the hill we can see the tops of the Phanar Roman Orthodox Lyceum, the most prestigious Greek school in Istanbul. Fener is Turkish for Phanar,, the Greeks being known as Phanariots.
Phanariots are not simply Greeks, however. The terms specifically refers to those Greek families that came to traditionally occupy four positions of major importance in the Ottoman Empire: Grand Dragoman, Grand Dragoman of the Fleet, Hospodar of Moldavia, and Hospodar of Wallachia.
Around the corner from the school, which is an imposing red-brick structure built in the 19th century, is the Byzantine Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols, known to the Turks as the Church of the Blood. The "Mary" referred to in the church's name is not Christ's mother, but Maria Palaeologina, illegitimate daughter of Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII. To buy peace with Genghis Khan's Mongol armies, her father betrothed Maria to Abaqa Khan, the Mongol ruler of the Persian Ilkhanate. At Khan's death fifteen years later, Maria was again used to buy peace: her father betrothed her to another Mongolian prince in order to create an alliance against the Ottomans threatening Byzantine Nicaea.
Fortunately for Maria, the Ottomans captured Nicaea and Maria was released of her obligation She returned to Istanbul, rebuilding the convent and monastery on the present-day site of the church. Although originally dedicated to Mary, the mother of Christ, the church remains associated with Mary of the Mongols.
The association with blood in Turkish minds is associated with the death of a Turkish standard bearer during the last hours of the siege of Constantinople in 1453. The church has never been used as a mosque, escaping all attempts to convert the property from Christian to Muslim ownership. Built in the 13th century, it is, in fact, the only Byzantine church in Istanbul to have remained Christian to the present day. (The Church of Saint George, home of the Patriarchate, was built after 1453, when the Ottoman victory ends definitively the Byzantine period in in Istanbul.)
The Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols is rarely open, and it is not open when we pass by. However, there is a buzzer to press and I do: a few minutes later an older man opens the door and looks at us. I show him the Christian medal around my neck and he invites us to come into the church courtyard.
He opens the tiny church to us and turns on the lights: we are bathed in glory, icons everywhere. The ikonostasis is carved of dark wood and lacquered, with images of Saint Michael, Saints Cyril and Methodious, Saint Anthony and other Orthodox saints. The vault above the ikonostasis reveals a Levantine Mary, mother of Christ, an enormous image of her head and shoulders draped in maroon robes.
There is something very moving about being in a space that has striven (and succeeded) in remaining itself despite the violence of history's push. Which continues: the nearby Church of Saint George, home of the patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church, and therefore a place of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians, was bombed by Muslim extremists in 1997. Rumeli is the Turkish word for "Europe", and indeed, the little church remains one of the last artifacts of when Istanbul was Christian and European. A few feet beyond, by the Golden Horn, there is a cafe run by a man who remembers when there were many Greeks still living in the neighborhood. He is an atheist and has a son who is in law school in Florida, married to an American. He has lived in Fener all his life:
There used to be a lot of Greeks here, but not so many anymore. I have two Greek girls who work for me here --they'll be here later. This is still a place you can live.
We mention that up the hill, on our way to the Chora Church (now a major tourist attraction)-- we walked through Carsamba (pronounced Charshamba) --and were struck by the ubiquitousness of women in burkas:
It's Afghanistan over there, Turks from Anatolia, Syrians, Afghanis. The Islamic foundations funded by Saudi money pay for all their needs, and they vote for Erdogyan.
When I ask him what will happen in Turkey, he tells me that Eastern Turkey will become a separate Kurdish state to fulfill the desires of the Americans and the British, but that the rest of Turkey will remain a secular republic, as Turks don't like the Saudis --or Arabs in general, and have come to resent Erdogan's courtship of Gulf states:
The building you see all over Istanbul --that's Saudi and Quatari money. In return for votes paid for by Islamic foundations backed by Saudi and Qatari money and tied to Saudi and Qatari real estate developers, Erdogyan gets the votes he needs from Caramba and the east of Turkey.
Early tomorrow Max and I leave Istanbul. Once again, I have to say that the best metaphor for the city is that of a mirrored passage. Seductive, ancient, modern, spiritual, corrupt, with corners of surprising urbanity, alongside squalor.
Last night, on our way home from Taksim Square, I encountered an Ecuadorean woman and her brother selling handicrafts from that country. They were forced by circumstances to come thousands of miles to sell cheap products for a few lira in the equivalent of Times Square.
The cafe owner and the Ecuadorean vendor --what better proofs of Istanbul's history as a trading city? What better proof of globalization's reach --with all its unpredictable consequences.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
The Mirrored Passage
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Last night the mosquitoes made themselves known, and the thunder at 3:30 a.m. suggested a storm, so I arose and went to the terrace to see what the Bosporous looks like in the middle of the night. We have kept the door to the large terrace open since we arrived, leaving the terrace light on as a sort of "night light" to guide any nocturnal wanderings. Last night there were no lights anywhere, so only the shadows of a few ships passing in the night could be seen. Lightning would flash across the sky now and then, but there was no sign of rain.
The air from the Bosporous, so fresh and cool and soothing, decided me on sleeping on the Turkish sofa that faces the terrace. Europe and Asia --the latter on the other side of the long channel that is the Bosporous from where I lay-- spread out before me. I took a blanket from the bedroom and kept it ready in case I felt a chill, but I easily dropped of to sleep.
When my father went to sea at the age of eighteen, he boarded a Spanish Navy ship that took him through the Straits of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is where Europe and Africa look each other straight in the eye, and it evoked wonderment in my father. As the Bosporous does me. The great ports --New York, Marseille, Istanbul and others-- do too. Populations travel to these destinations advantageous to commerce and civilizations emerge.
Istanbul first appears in historical records as Byzantium twenty-five hundred years ago, although it is believed the original settlement is earlier. Constantine builds the first church on the site of the Hagia Sofia in the fourth century, A.D., opening it on February 15, 360. Constantinople becomes co-equal to Rome in 500, and separates from Rome in 1054, in what is known as The Great Schism. After Sultan Mehmed II defeats the Latins during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the city becomes Ottoman and the capital of the empire. The Hagia Sofia's history as a mosque begins at this time. At the request of Ataruk, the mosque becomes a museum on February 1, 1935, the former Christian church-turned-mosque then deconsecrated.
Istanbul is a constantly evolving city. It's population is sometimes given as fifteen million, although no one knows exactly how many people call Istanbul home. More sophisticated than the rest of Turkey, some analysts have suggested that it would break off and become separate from the rest of the country, an island of tolerance in an increasingly Islamicized country.
Walking through the neighborhood near the apartment, I see Turkish flags everywhere, many accompanied by a banner with a photo of Ataturk, the father of modern, secular Turkey. The photos of Ataturk are an indication of support for an open, democratic Turkey. The recent setbacks suffered by the President's party suggest that most of Turkey is not yet ready to give greater Islamization --and those in power who support that-- a free pass. The future is anyone's guess.
There is a code of hospitality --yesterday a young woman paid our tramway fares because we did not yet have a tramway card; today a man making fruit smoothies tried to give me a banana when I asked whether I could buy one-- but everyone who displayed such kindness to us was dressed in Western fashion. The hundreds of people we passed --men in Western gear "protecting" relatives or wives wearing headscarves and long dresses, if not burkas-- gave us nothing other than quick, cautious looks.
This morning, Max and I walked along the Istlikal: it was early in the morning and the broad avenue was virtually empty, the only pedestrians a number of young men whose dress and manner suggested they had been out dancing all night at gay clubs. One young men held hands with a beautiful transvestite, walking comfortably with her. Off the Istlikal, near Saint Anthony of Padua Church on the Istlikal, we came to the Avrupa Pasaji, a shopping gallery with scarves and many other souvenirs to buy. Yunus, the owner of one of the booths, happily engaged us in conversation.
"If you are here tomorrow, you must come back to drink chai with me. Please take one of the refrigerator magnets home with you as a souvenir of me. If you don't like it, please don't throw it away...take the one with 'ISTANBUL' --you see it shows the Blue Mosque, the Maiden Tower and the Hagia Sofia...."
And he pushed the fridge magnet on me as a gift, talking as he wrapped my purchases.
"You know, it's not all about money. I have to make money --I am here seven years, and this shop is my 'baby', but I am not here just for money. I like to talk to people, I speak a little Spanish, and a little English and I like to practice speaking."
As he completes his wrapping, he says,
"Do you know how to find me again? It is the 'Avrupa Pasaji', although most people don't know the name this way, they know it as the 'Mirrored Passage.'"
And he points up above the booths in the gallery, to make sure I see the sections of mirror, cut into decorative shapes, that line tops of the sides of the passageway.
"'The Mirrored Passage' --everybody knows where it is, if you have to ask."
--Istanbul.
Last night the mosquitoes made themselves known, and the thunder at 3:30 a.m. suggested a storm, so I arose and went to the terrace to see what the Bosporous looks like in the middle of the night. We have kept the door to the large terrace open since we arrived, leaving the terrace light on as a sort of "night light" to guide any nocturnal wanderings. Last night there were no lights anywhere, so only the shadows of a few ships passing in the night could be seen. Lightning would flash across the sky now and then, but there was no sign of rain.
The air from the Bosporous, so fresh and cool and soothing, decided me on sleeping on the Turkish sofa that faces the terrace. Europe and Asia --the latter on the other side of the long channel that is the Bosporous from where I lay-- spread out before me. I took a blanket from the bedroom and kept it ready in case I felt a chill, but I easily dropped of to sleep.
When my father went to sea at the age of eighteen, he boarded a Spanish Navy ship that took him through the Straits of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is where Europe and Africa look each other straight in the eye, and it evoked wonderment in my father. As the Bosporous does me. The great ports --New York, Marseille, Istanbul and others-- do too. Populations travel to these destinations advantageous to commerce and civilizations emerge.
Istanbul first appears in historical records as Byzantium twenty-five hundred years ago, although it is believed the original settlement is earlier. Constantine builds the first church on the site of the Hagia Sofia in the fourth century, A.D., opening it on February 15, 360. Constantinople becomes co-equal to Rome in 500, and separates from Rome in 1054, in what is known as The Great Schism. After Sultan Mehmed II defeats the Latins during the siege of Constantinople in 1453, the city becomes Ottoman and the capital of the empire. The Hagia Sofia's history as a mosque begins at this time. At the request of Ataruk, the mosque becomes a museum on February 1, 1935, the former Christian church-turned-mosque then deconsecrated.
Istanbul is a constantly evolving city. It's population is sometimes given as fifteen million, although no one knows exactly how many people call Istanbul home. More sophisticated than the rest of Turkey, some analysts have suggested that it would break off and become separate from the rest of the country, an island of tolerance in an increasingly Islamicized country.
Walking through the neighborhood near the apartment, I see Turkish flags everywhere, many accompanied by a banner with a photo of Ataturk, the father of modern, secular Turkey. The photos of Ataturk are an indication of support for an open, democratic Turkey. The recent setbacks suffered by the President's party suggest that most of Turkey is not yet ready to give greater Islamization --and those in power who support that-- a free pass. The future is anyone's guess.
There is a code of hospitality --yesterday a young woman paid our tramway fares because we did not yet have a tramway card; today a man making fruit smoothies tried to give me a banana when I asked whether I could buy one-- but everyone who displayed such kindness to us was dressed in Western fashion. The hundreds of people we passed --men in Western gear "protecting" relatives or wives wearing headscarves and long dresses, if not burkas-- gave us nothing other than quick, cautious looks.
This morning, Max and I walked along the Istlikal: it was early in the morning and the broad avenue was virtually empty, the only pedestrians a number of young men whose dress and manner suggested they had been out dancing all night at gay clubs. One young men held hands with a beautiful transvestite, walking comfortably with her. Off the Istlikal, near Saint Anthony of Padua Church on the Istlikal, we came to the Avrupa Pasaji, a shopping gallery with scarves and many other souvenirs to buy. Yunus, the owner of one of the booths, happily engaged us in conversation.
"If you are here tomorrow, you must come back to drink chai with me. Please take one of the refrigerator magnets home with you as a souvenir of me. If you don't like it, please don't throw it away...take the one with 'ISTANBUL' --you see it shows the Blue Mosque, the Maiden Tower and the Hagia Sofia...."
And he pushed the fridge magnet on me as a gift, talking as he wrapped my purchases.
"You know, it's not all about money. I have to make money --I am here seven years, and this shop is my 'baby', but I am not here just for money. I like to talk to people, I speak a little Spanish, and a little English and I like to practice speaking."
As he completes his wrapping, he says,
"Do you know how to find me again? It is the 'Avrupa Pasaji', although most people don't know the name this way, they know it as the 'Mirrored Passage.'"
And he points up above the booths in the gallery, to make sure I see the sections of mirror, cut into decorative shapes, that line tops of the sides of the passageway.
"'The Mirrored Passage' --everybody knows where it is, if you have to ask."
--Istanbul.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
The Weekend Of The Feast Of The Sacrifice
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Max and I began our day walking from the apartment (in Beyoglu) to the port at Kabatas and walking to the Ciragan Palace in Besiktas, further up the Bosporus towards the Black Sea. The Ciragan Hotel was as elegant as ever, cool and comfortable.
After that we walked in the opposite direction to Karakoy, where we had a cheap (and not very satisfying) dish of gyro-sliced lamb served on a pile of hot bread cubes. We picked up the tramway that took us over the Galata Bridge to Eminonu and the Grand Bazaar. Today the Grand Bazaar is closed because it is the weekend of the Feast Of The Sacrifice, a moveable feast that involves slaughtering lambs and distributing food to the poor. Nonetheless, the area around the Bazaar hummed, as the private shops can open, while the Grand Bazaar must close on national and religious holidays. We spent some time with a rug dealer who tried to convince us that the outrageous prices for his (admittedly) lovely rugs were reasonable, notwithstanding the collapse of the market for Oriental rugs.
From there we went on to Sultanahmet, where we entered the English Bookshop, which specializes in English language books about Turkey. Suleiman, the manager, quickly led me to a small press book that is a history of the effect on one Turkish family of the change from the Ottoman's to Ataturk's modern Turkey. We exchanged e-mails and agreed to keep in touch.
Grabbing the tramway back to Besiktas, we mounted the stairs to the apartment, struggling a bit in the heat. Resting at our temporary home before going out, we discovered after our naps that the water in the city had been turned off.
The water will not go on until tomorrow at 4:00 p.m., Ilhan said.
Not happy news.
We pondered what to do and realized that the multi-gallon bottle of water in the kitchen was only one-third full, so we did not have much water from a non-municipal supply to use until the city's supply came back on.
When we called Ilhan this time, he said the water would go back on in one hour.
Hmmm.....
After a needed nap, we went walked to Taksim Square, Istanbul's equivalent of Times Square, and on to the Pera Palace, in the neighborhood of the same name. The Pera Palace is famous because it was built by the Belgian who also started the Orient Express, and meant to serve its customers. It is also famous because Agatha Christie lived there when she traveled to Istanbul with her husband, who was an archaeologist.
When I was last in Istanbul, in 2001, the Pera Palace was in need of a re-do. Which it was given, to plaudits, recently. The interior of the hotel retains its charm, but an expressway has been built on one side of it, and high-rises on the other. With the result that the building feels wedged in, a glorious relic, overtaken by development on all sides.
The dinner we had on the terrace was uninspiring, as was the service: barmen also served as waiters, a waitress inside had to use the bar to serve clients, rather than using a service bar. All was presided over by a loud, bossy man dressed, not in a waiters uniform, but a suit and tie to set him off as in charge. The chief result of his interference seemed to make the service less efficient, rather like the business school paradigm of an assembly line whose efficiency is decreased when one-too-many hands are added. The breeze on the terrace was cool and watching the largely older American and British couples do their best to get drinks had its entertaining moments: the staff barely speaks English, so they frequently misunderstand the requests the guests were making.
This seems a problem all over Istanbul: despite the enormous number of foreign visitors, most of the natives can express themselves only in Turkish. The one exception was the Ciragan Hotel, perhaps because it is part of the Kempinski chain, owned by Germans. The Pera Palace, on the other hand, is owned by the Jumeirah chain, owned by a group from Dubai.
While one school of hotel management holds out fine service across-the-board as its ideal, another (exemplified by the Jumeirah Pera Palace) seems to think that a once-great reputation and famous guests is enough to keep new clients coming. As many of those clients are tourists for whom a stay at the Pera Palace is the trip of a lifetime, the name being well-known, they book. While they may be dissatisfied with the service, they will not be returning anyway --and will be replaced by the next unsophisticated tourist, seduced again by the allure of the Pera Palace when it was the place you stayed before you boarded the Orient Express.
***
I thought there were a lot of stray cats in Caunes, but I've never seen as many as roam every street in Istanbul. The cats here are sleek thoroughbreds with diamond-chaped heads and sharply peaked ears. They come in every color and variety of mottling, and they are great seducers. What the life of a cat on Istanbul's streets must be like is not something I like to think about: today I saw first, a young black cat, lithe and agile; a few seconds later, an old,and shambling one. The old cat's fur was mangy, its sides spongy. The two cats looked at each other. The older cat (perhaps sensing that in a contest for food, the younger would win), slunk off to find some other place to feed, far from youthful competition. A survivor, it had paid dearly for its its longevity.
***
The streets of Istanbul are a shambles.
The city has many hills, so there are plenty of steps to mount to reach apartments overlooking the city and the Bosporus. I tread carefully, whether I am going up or down them, as the cracked masonry can lead to a sudden spill at a sharp angle. The streetscape is messy, but the vibrancy of the city is undeniable. Walking along Istlikal, the main shopping street in the city, tens of thousands of people swarm across the long avenue, which is pedestrianized, except for the old trolley that still makes its way from one end of the avenue to the other . Watching it approach, slicing through the ocean of humanity on each side of the Istlikal, men hanging off every corner of the tram, the sun setting behind, the scene was an incomparable vision of humanity.
The great cities are messy affairs, and not for the faint-hearted.
Max and I began our day walking from the apartment (in Beyoglu) to the port at Kabatas and walking to the Ciragan Palace in Besiktas, further up the Bosporus towards the Black Sea. The Ciragan Hotel was as elegant as ever, cool and comfortable.
After that we walked in the opposite direction to Karakoy, where we had a cheap (and not very satisfying) dish of gyro-sliced lamb served on a pile of hot bread cubes. We picked up the tramway that took us over the Galata Bridge to Eminonu and the Grand Bazaar. Today the Grand Bazaar is closed because it is the weekend of the Feast Of The Sacrifice, a moveable feast that involves slaughtering lambs and distributing food to the poor. Nonetheless, the area around the Bazaar hummed, as the private shops can open, while the Grand Bazaar must close on national and religious holidays. We spent some time with a rug dealer who tried to convince us that the outrageous prices for his (admittedly) lovely rugs were reasonable, notwithstanding the collapse of the market for Oriental rugs.
From there we went on to Sultanahmet, where we entered the English Bookshop, which specializes in English language books about Turkey. Suleiman, the manager, quickly led me to a small press book that is a history of the effect on one Turkish family of the change from the Ottoman's to Ataturk's modern Turkey. We exchanged e-mails and agreed to keep in touch.
Grabbing the tramway back to Besiktas, we mounted the stairs to the apartment, struggling a bit in the heat. Resting at our temporary home before going out, we discovered after our naps that the water in the city had been turned off.
The water will not go on until tomorrow at 4:00 p.m., Ilhan said.
Not happy news.
We pondered what to do and realized that the multi-gallon bottle of water in the kitchen was only one-third full, so we did not have much water from a non-municipal supply to use until the city's supply came back on.
When we called Ilhan this time, he said the water would go back on in one hour.
Hmmm.....
After a needed nap, we went walked to Taksim Square, Istanbul's equivalent of Times Square, and on to the Pera Palace, in the neighborhood of the same name. The Pera Palace is famous because it was built by the Belgian who also started the Orient Express, and meant to serve its customers. It is also famous because Agatha Christie lived there when she traveled to Istanbul with her husband, who was an archaeologist.
When I was last in Istanbul, in 2001, the Pera Palace was in need of a re-do. Which it was given, to plaudits, recently. The interior of the hotel retains its charm, but an expressway has been built on one side of it, and high-rises on the other. With the result that the building feels wedged in, a glorious relic, overtaken by development on all sides.
The dinner we had on the terrace was uninspiring, as was the service: barmen also served as waiters, a waitress inside had to use the bar to serve clients, rather than using a service bar. All was presided over by a loud, bossy man dressed, not in a waiters uniform, but a suit and tie to set him off as in charge. The chief result of his interference seemed to make the service less efficient, rather like the business school paradigm of an assembly line whose efficiency is decreased when one-too-many hands are added. The breeze on the terrace was cool and watching the largely older American and British couples do their best to get drinks had its entertaining moments: the staff barely speaks English, so they frequently misunderstand the requests the guests were making.
This seems a problem all over Istanbul: despite the enormous number of foreign visitors, most of the natives can express themselves only in Turkish. The one exception was the Ciragan Hotel, perhaps because it is part of the Kempinski chain, owned by Germans. The Pera Palace, on the other hand, is owned by the Jumeirah chain, owned by a group from Dubai.
While one school of hotel management holds out fine service across-the-board as its ideal, another (exemplified by the Jumeirah Pera Palace) seems to think that a once-great reputation and famous guests is enough to keep new clients coming. As many of those clients are tourists for whom a stay at the Pera Palace is the trip of a lifetime, the name being well-known, they book. While they may be dissatisfied with the service, they will not be returning anyway --and will be replaced by the next unsophisticated tourist, seduced again by the allure of the Pera Palace when it was the place you stayed before you boarded the Orient Express.
***
I thought there were a lot of stray cats in Caunes, but I've never seen as many as roam every street in Istanbul. The cats here are sleek thoroughbreds with diamond-chaped heads and sharply peaked ears. They come in every color and variety of mottling, and they are great seducers. What the life of a cat on Istanbul's streets must be like is not something I like to think about: today I saw first, a young black cat, lithe and agile; a few seconds later, an old,and shambling one. The old cat's fur was mangy, its sides spongy. The two cats looked at each other. The older cat (perhaps sensing that in a contest for food, the younger would win), slunk off to find some other place to feed, far from youthful competition. A survivor, it had paid dearly for its its longevity.
***
The streets of Istanbul are a shambles.
The city has many hills, so there are plenty of steps to mount to reach apartments overlooking the city and the Bosporus. I tread carefully, whether I am going up or down them, as the cracked masonry can lead to a sudden spill at a sharp angle. The streetscape is messy, but the vibrancy of the city is undeniable. Walking along Istlikal, the main shopping street in the city, tens of thousands of people swarm across the long avenue, which is pedestrianized, except for the old trolley that still makes its way from one end of the avenue to the other . Watching it approach, slicing through the ocean of humanity on each side of the Istlikal, men hanging off every corner of the tram, the sun setting behind, the scene was an incomparable vision of humanity.
The great cities are messy affairs, and not for the faint-hearted.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Arrived In Istanbul
Friday, September 29, 2015
The last time I was in Istanbul was late August and early September 2001. I remember because Bill and I returned to New York on a Saturday and I was back at work Tuesday, when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center Towers. I loved Istanbul and I'm glad to return, although Istanbul in 2015 is a sprawling mass of new hotels alongside the city I knew way back when.
The wait for the airport passport check gave me a chance to observe the people on line. The populations were, it seemed to me, more diverse than I am used to even in New York City: in front of me were two men from China, I think: one was tall and looked Han Chinese, but the other might have been Tibetan, judging from his rosy cheeks and features. Behind me was a family from a Baltic republic, is my guess; ahead of me on line were Russians and Africans and Sri Lankans and Arabs.
I did not know I needed a visa to enter Turkey. At first I thought this would be a big problem, but all I needed to do was pay 25 Euros to the man at the visa desk, and I got a souvenir stamp put in my passport to let me through passport control. Nationals of some countries (Switzerland and Russia among them) don't have to have visas to enter Turkey, but others (United States and Spain) do.
At the baggage carrousel for my flight I quickly found Max and we exited to the taxi line. The taxi line was chaotic --no one was in charge, and there was no line, just people approaching taxis at random. We flagged one driver down, but he told us to go to the head of the line. We jumped at a taxi that had a light on indicating it was available and got in. We handed the driver the iPhone Max had dialed our airbnb host with, and he got specific instructions to the apartment: Istanbul is so large no one can know all of it and locals need help when they leave their familiar neighborhoods.
The ride to the apartment took about an hour through heavy traffic: Istanbul must be one long traffic jam during all but the wee small hours of the morning. Driving along on Ataturk Boulevard the neon sign of a hotel caught my eye: The Grand Oral Hotel. --Could "Oral" be how "Ural" is pronounced in Turkish?
Seeing short, squat Turkish women on the plane I was reminded how remarkably ugly they can be, short and squat with moles on their faces and big noses. Yet the young woman seated next to me reading a French thriller was beautiful: porcelain skin, light hazel eyes and honey-colored brown hair. The eyes of Turks are either an unimpressive black or brown or they are exotically lovely: grey, pale blue, golden hazel, the latter colors frequently accompanied by naturally blond hair. Which reminds me of the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where Jose Ferrer, playing the Turkish official with homosexual urges, looks over Peter O'Toole and asks him "Are you Circassian?"
The apartment is exquisite, large and comfortable, with a huge terrace overlooking the Bosporus. It is located on the European side of Istanbul: on the other side of the Bosporus is Asiatic Turkey. The weather is warm and humid, and everyone is out. The apartment is on a small side street at the top of a hill with a small cafe opposite. To get anything to eat or to go to a supermarket it is necessary to walk down a steep set of steps. However, the little grocery store at the hill's bottom has yogurt, nuts, juices, cheese and apricots, Turkey's pride.
The dried apricots from Turkey are the best I have ever eaten: fat, succulent and with a sweetness like honey. And this is just what we were able to find at a convenience store.
The change of scene is welcome.
The last time I was in Istanbul was late August and early September 2001. I remember because Bill and I returned to New York on a Saturday and I was back at work Tuesday, when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center Towers. I loved Istanbul and I'm glad to return, although Istanbul in 2015 is a sprawling mass of new hotels alongside the city I knew way back when.
The wait for the airport passport check gave me a chance to observe the people on line. The populations were, it seemed to me, more diverse than I am used to even in New York City: in front of me were two men from China, I think: one was tall and looked Han Chinese, but the other might have been Tibetan, judging from his rosy cheeks and features. Behind me was a family from a Baltic republic, is my guess; ahead of me on line were Russians and Africans and Sri Lankans and Arabs.
I did not know I needed a visa to enter Turkey. At first I thought this would be a big problem, but all I needed to do was pay 25 Euros to the man at the visa desk, and I got a souvenir stamp put in my passport to let me through passport control. Nationals of some countries (Switzerland and Russia among them) don't have to have visas to enter Turkey, but others (United States and Spain) do.
At the baggage carrousel for my flight I quickly found Max and we exited to the taxi line. The taxi line was chaotic --no one was in charge, and there was no line, just people approaching taxis at random. We flagged one driver down, but he told us to go to the head of the line. We jumped at a taxi that had a light on indicating it was available and got in. We handed the driver the iPhone Max had dialed our airbnb host with, and he got specific instructions to the apartment: Istanbul is so large no one can know all of it and locals need help when they leave their familiar neighborhoods.
The ride to the apartment took about an hour through heavy traffic: Istanbul must be one long traffic jam during all but the wee small hours of the morning. Driving along on Ataturk Boulevard the neon sign of a hotel caught my eye: The Grand Oral Hotel. --Could "Oral" be how "Ural" is pronounced in Turkish?
Seeing short, squat Turkish women on the plane I was reminded how remarkably ugly they can be, short and squat with moles on their faces and big noses. Yet the young woman seated next to me reading a French thriller was beautiful: porcelain skin, light hazel eyes and honey-colored brown hair. The eyes of Turks are either an unimpressive black or brown or they are exotically lovely: grey, pale blue, golden hazel, the latter colors frequently accompanied by naturally blond hair. Which reminds me of the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where Jose Ferrer, playing the Turkish official with homosexual urges, looks over Peter O'Toole and asks him "Are you Circassian?"
The apartment is exquisite, large and comfortable, with a huge terrace overlooking the Bosporus. It is located on the European side of Istanbul: on the other side of the Bosporus is Asiatic Turkey. The weather is warm and humid, and everyone is out. The apartment is on a small side street at the top of a hill with a small cafe opposite. To get anything to eat or to go to a supermarket it is necessary to walk down a steep set of steps. However, the little grocery store at the hill's bottom has yogurt, nuts, juices, cheese and apricots, Turkey's pride.
The dried apricots from Turkey are the best I have ever eaten: fat, succulent and with a sweetness like honey. And this is just what we were able to find at a convenience store.
The change of scene is welcome.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Istanbul: A Break From Home Improvements
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Tomorrow I go to Istanbul for four days and nights. My Swiss friend, Max Gfeller, is joining me, and he knows the city well. I was there with Bill and Max (they were colleagues at Swiss Bank Corporation) almost two decades ago and liked it then. The city is vital and teeming, so I am looking forward to the change.
The last few weeks have been filled with work related to the renovations in the house. This morning, the workmen came to install the additional heating and air conditioning units, a job they'll complete tomorrow. Next Thursday, a workman will come to install the awning on the terrace. And the following Monday, October 5, the work necessary to create a full bath and adjoining room out of the attic begins.
The break could not be coming at a better moment: I am sick of thinking about home projects. I find I am not very practical, in the sense of knowing much about what makes modern homes comfortable. For example: earlier this week, the bathroom drain became too clogged to be delivered of its contents with the French equivalent of Drano. --Fortunately, Chantal had a plunger. The fixture in the walk-in closet stopped working yesterday, making knowing where to find what you want to wear difficult. --Fortunately Pierre (the man installing the central heating), fixed it for me while he was here this afternoon. A woman alone with a large house, I am far from handy: it's all very humbling.
Living in the countryside you need to be adept at home repair, as well as technologically savvy. My phone service has gone dead and I am not now or ever have been a Microsoft employee. After an hour on the telephone with technical service for my phone carrier, the woman at the other end of the line just decided to send me a new modem.
I have done my best to understand all the details of the bathroom design Chantal has made for me, but I can't grasp them all. There is a difference between having a certain taste in the decor of rooms and knowing how to adapt the elements of that particular taste to the realities of a space. I possess the former but not the latter. Chantal has that practical sense --it's why she could run a business installing custom-made swimming pools. I'm, as they say in French, a 'nul' --a 'zero', as I told my contractor. He ought, I made sure he understood, consult Chantal with respect to decisions regarding any of the practicalities incumbent on creating a living and bathing area in the attic.
I am suddenly aware that all my knowledge; all the skills I honed in college and law school, won't help me unstop a bathtub clogged with dog hair. (Someone more practical than I am would not have given Beau a bath in the bathtub in the first place, but done it outside.)
Is there something about growing older and creating a home in later life that is different from doing it when younger? Or is it that, living alone in a country where the language is not the one in which I was taught and trained, the limitations of my knowledge are more glaringly evident? I love living in the Minervois, happily walking Beau along paths where I meet almost no one, and when I do, they say "Good day". The flip side of that is an awareness that shifting from the thoroughly urban environment of Manhattan to the countryside requires either an attitude adjustment --It can't get done this week, but eventually it will get done; or, a bloody-mindedness at odds with the very reasons for being in the countryside in the first place.
I have worked very, very hard these almost five months in the Minervois, and my "tour" here is almost over. Having taken the time to recruit the right personnel and had the good luck to realize a valued friend has the skills to assure the project's satisfactory completion and wants the job, I think I'm in pretty good shape.
Tip-toeing around the workmen who have invaded the house, though, I realize "I have got to get out of Caunes."
There's more to life than home improvement, as I think Istanbul will remind me.
Tomorrow I go to Istanbul for four days and nights. My Swiss friend, Max Gfeller, is joining me, and he knows the city well. I was there with Bill and Max (they were colleagues at Swiss Bank Corporation) almost two decades ago and liked it then. The city is vital and teeming, so I am looking forward to the change.
The last few weeks have been filled with work related to the renovations in the house. This morning, the workmen came to install the additional heating and air conditioning units, a job they'll complete tomorrow. Next Thursday, a workman will come to install the awning on the terrace. And the following Monday, October 5, the work necessary to create a full bath and adjoining room out of the attic begins.
The break could not be coming at a better moment: I am sick of thinking about home projects. I find I am not very practical, in the sense of knowing much about what makes modern homes comfortable. For example: earlier this week, the bathroom drain became too clogged to be delivered of its contents with the French equivalent of Drano. --Fortunately, Chantal had a plunger. The fixture in the walk-in closet stopped working yesterday, making knowing where to find what you want to wear difficult. --Fortunately Pierre (the man installing the central heating), fixed it for me while he was here this afternoon. A woman alone with a large house, I am far from handy: it's all very humbling.
Living in the countryside you need to be adept at home repair, as well as technologically savvy. My phone service has gone dead and I am not now or ever have been a Microsoft employee. After an hour on the telephone with technical service for my phone carrier, the woman at the other end of the line just decided to send me a new modem.
I have done my best to understand all the details of the bathroom design Chantal has made for me, but I can't grasp them all. There is a difference between having a certain taste in the decor of rooms and knowing how to adapt the elements of that particular taste to the realities of a space. I possess the former but not the latter. Chantal has that practical sense --it's why she could run a business installing custom-made swimming pools. I'm, as they say in French, a 'nul' --a 'zero', as I told my contractor. He ought, I made sure he understood, consult Chantal with respect to decisions regarding any of the practicalities incumbent on creating a living and bathing area in the attic.
I am suddenly aware that all my knowledge; all the skills I honed in college and law school, won't help me unstop a bathtub clogged with dog hair. (Someone more practical than I am would not have given Beau a bath in the bathtub in the first place, but done it outside.)
Is there something about growing older and creating a home in later life that is different from doing it when younger? Or is it that, living alone in a country where the language is not the one in which I was taught and trained, the limitations of my knowledge are more glaringly evident? I love living in the Minervois, happily walking Beau along paths where I meet almost no one, and when I do, they say "Good day". The flip side of that is an awareness that shifting from the thoroughly urban environment of Manhattan to the countryside requires either an attitude adjustment --It can't get done this week, but eventually it will get done; or, a bloody-mindedness at odds with the very reasons for being in the countryside in the first place.
I have worked very, very hard these almost five months in the Minervois, and my "tour" here is almost over. Having taken the time to recruit the right personnel and had the good luck to realize a valued friend has the skills to assure the project's satisfactory completion and wants the job, I think I'm in pretty good shape.
Tip-toeing around the workmen who have invaded the house, though, I realize "I have got to get out of Caunes."
There's more to life than home improvement, as I think Istanbul will remind me.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Solo Cycilng
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Beau en pension with my neighbor Chantal until later this morning, I was free to get up early and cycle. I raced to get ready in time to meet the Club du Cyclisme de Caunes-Minervois ("CCCM"), but by the time I got there, every one who showed up had left. So I pedaled on alone, back up the long hill that is Avenue du Minervois, and took the road past the village of Trausse, towards Felines and further, Olonzac.
Trausse-Minervois is in the same department as Caunes-Minervois, l'Aude. Olonzac is in the adjoining one, l'Herault. It is much easier cycling in l'Herault, because the roads are more well-maintained, a function of the greater relative wealth of l'Herault. I often turn onto the side road towards Felines, riding past the moulin and the Chateau de Paulignan. Today I want to go further, though, so I go towards the Chateau de Gourgazaud and La Liviniere in l'Herault.
The wines of La Livinire are considered the Minervois' finest, although the owners of the land on which the grapes are grown by the roadside want to sell to a developer: there is a big sign at the top of the hill. There the view is panoramic, low-lying mountains all around: vue imprenable --unrestricted view, says the sign. What a shame to see it diminished by the building of cookie-cutter homes. The sign has been there since I first came to the Minervois three years ago, so perhaps it will be a while before the vines are pulled up.
Every French village has, of course, two entrances. This obvious fact makes my ride to Felines today easier than usual. The side road from Trausse to Felines involves a good bit of climbing, while the road towards Olonzac is straight and flat, une route nationale. I turn towards Felines at La Liviniere and enjoy cycling on the local road, past acres and acres of vines, many now brown on the bottom and harvested.
Felines is charming, but remote. There is no cafe and there is no distributeur for me to get the cash to pay for one, as I left the house unfunded. It is quiet in the village: I wonder how many of the houses are only inhabited part of the year, as in Caunes and many other villages in the Minervois. Riding through these villages there is an absolute quiet I relish. Sound travels far in these spaces: a man calling his dogs in the fields (it is hunting season) can easily be heard despite the distance.
The air is cool, the day is sunny, the roads are quiet, the hills and the mountains beyond are easy on the eye. Sunday, a day of rest.
Beau en pension with my neighbor Chantal until later this morning, I was free to get up early and cycle. I raced to get ready in time to meet the Club du Cyclisme de Caunes-Minervois ("CCCM"), but by the time I got there, every one who showed up had left. So I pedaled on alone, back up the long hill that is Avenue du Minervois, and took the road past the village of Trausse, towards Felines and further, Olonzac.
Trausse-Minervois is in the same department as Caunes-Minervois, l'Aude. Olonzac is in the adjoining one, l'Herault. It is much easier cycling in l'Herault, because the roads are more well-maintained, a function of the greater relative wealth of l'Herault. I often turn onto the side road towards Felines, riding past the moulin and the Chateau de Paulignan. Today I want to go further, though, so I go towards the Chateau de Gourgazaud and La Liviniere in l'Herault.
The wines of La Livinire are considered the Minervois' finest, although the owners of the land on which the grapes are grown by the roadside want to sell to a developer: there is a big sign at the top of the hill. There the view is panoramic, low-lying mountains all around: vue imprenable --unrestricted view, says the sign. What a shame to see it diminished by the building of cookie-cutter homes. The sign has been there since I first came to the Minervois three years ago, so perhaps it will be a while before the vines are pulled up.
Every French village has, of course, two entrances. This obvious fact makes my ride to Felines today easier than usual. The side road from Trausse to Felines involves a good bit of climbing, while the road towards Olonzac is straight and flat, une route nationale. I turn towards Felines at La Liviniere and enjoy cycling on the local road, past acres and acres of vines, many now brown on the bottom and harvested.
Felines is charming, but remote. There is no cafe and there is no distributeur for me to get the cash to pay for one, as I left the house unfunded. It is quiet in the village: I wonder how many of the houses are only inhabited part of the year, as in Caunes and many other villages in the Minervois. Riding through these villages there is an absolute quiet I relish. Sound travels far in these spaces: a man calling his dogs in the fields (it is hunting season) can easily be heard despite the distance.
The air is cool, the day is sunny, the roads are quiet, the hills and the mountains beyond are easy on the eye. Sunday, a day of rest.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Les Jours du Patrimoine and Saint Vincent
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Today and tomorrow, all over France, public buildings are open to the public at no charge. Some which are never, ever open (like the President's residence le Palais d'Elysee and Le Quai d'Orsay) admit visitors.
L'Eglise de Saint Vincent, where I attend the Saturday evening "vigil" Mass, opened its organ loft to visitors this morning for a guided tour by the Chief Organist, Henri Ormieres, as part of the Jours du Patrimoine. Saint Vincent is a monument historique and as such, gets 50% of any money for repairs and restoration from the French state, that it is a house of worship in a country more strictly secular than the U.S. notwithstanding.
Quibbles aside, the organ is one of the best I have ever heard, anywhere. It compares with that of Saint Sulpice in Paris, whose most famous organist was Cesar Franck; it compares with Saint Clotilde, also in Paris, which I heard in June. The sonority of Saint Vincent's organ is out of this world: M. Ormieres explained that this is due to the homogeneity of tone throughout the instrument's register.
Which itself is due to the genius of its maker, Theodore Puget. Puget was the chief competitor of the maker of Romantic organs, Aristide Cavaille-Coll. Cavaille-Coll created enormous, extraordinarily decorative organs, but he also pioneered innovations that permitted the sound of the organ to imitate a "symphonic" sound. The Puget organ of Saint Vincent is "Romantic" in being encased in a wooden cabinet painted burnt sienna and highly burnished using a wax made of boiled rabbit skins. ("Yes!" --boiled rabbit skins.)
The organ is also "symphonic" in its capacity to resonate in the church's vast space. There are German organs that have incorporated a carillon, although Saint Vincent's does not --it uses a separate carillon of over fifty bells. In the world of organs, German organs are the most technically advanced, although French organs by Puget and Cavaille-Coll bear comparison. Spain and Portugal, on the other hand, never incorporated the 19th century advances and remain "Baroque" in style.
To help us understand better how the organ of Saint Vincent achieves its wonderful sound, M. Ormieres took us "backstage" --into the guts of the organ, behind the buffet, as the organ cabinet is called. There we were confronted with "pillows" that inflate and deflate mechanically --and regularly. That regularity is essential to the homogenous sound of the organ. Before electrical bellows were invented in the 1930s, souffleurs --bellows pumpers-- were employed to keep the air moving through the organ pipes when the organist touched the keys.
Which gets to the difference between a piano and an organ. The piano is a percussion instrument, the organ is closer to a bagpipe --or tens of bagpipes made to work in concert via the medium of a keyboard or keyboards. The organ at Saint Vincent has four keyboards: three resembling a piano keyboard, the fourth a keyboard of pedals worked by the organist's feet.
The organ then, is more like a symphony orchestra than a piano Indeed, 20th century American innovations to organ manufacture have resulted in organs that mimic individual symphony orchestra instruments like the oboe. The organ at Saint Vincent does not sound like these organs, which were built for theaters like Radio City Music Hall. (Indeed, the organ there --the Mighty Wurlitzer-- is the largest Wurlitzer built, having four keyboards above the pedals and fifty-six pipes.) The sound of the organ at Radio City Music Hall is enormous, but for my taste, it lacks the subtlety of the French organs.
The organ was originally a pagan instrument that developed in the Middle East and traveled West. The simplest version was small and not used to play religious music until the Middle Ages, when it was originally used to accompany monks singing services, then played to provide incidental music to break up the flow of words of the liturgy and chant.
Every organ sounds different, and every organ needs constant maintenance; and eventually, rebuilding, which poses a dilemma for the chief organist: During the rebuilding, the organ cannot be used. At Saint Vincent, the small organ behind the altar was used until the 'great' organ was back in service again. And, during rebuilding, a great organ's life hangs in the balance: a clumsy rebuilding can destroy the original sound; a great organ builder can breathe second life into a venerable instrument, as happened at Saint Vincent.
"A great organ builder has to be a great musician as well as a great engineer", M. Ormieres says. "An organ builder with no 'ear' will not be able to build a great organ."
Saint Vincent was lucky. The the half million euros needed for restoration of the organ took four years to raise. Renovations began in 2001 and were finally completed in 2005. The builder was careful, M. Ormieres confided:
"For the first two days he did not do anything, he just listened to the sound of the organ and studied it --I knew doing that he was 'getting to know' the organ, adding to his already great knowledge. And that the rebuilding would restore the organ to its original sound."
The ability to hear this extraordinary instrument keeps me coming back to Saint Vincent, a half an hour from Caunes. I have become "an organ groupie".
(Monsieur Henri Ormieres will be playing a concert at Central Synagogue in Manhattan Tuesday, October 18 2016.)
Today and tomorrow, all over France, public buildings are open to the public at no charge. Some which are never, ever open (like the President's residence le Palais d'Elysee and Le Quai d'Orsay) admit visitors.
L'Eglise de Saint Vincent, where I attend the Saturday evening "vigil" Mass, opened its organ loft to visitors this morning for a guided tour by the Chief Organist, Henri Ormieres, as part of the Jours du Patrimoine. Saint Vincent is a monument historique and as such, gets 50% of any money for repairs and restoration from the French state, that it is a house of worship in a country more strictly secular than the U.S. notwithstanding.
Quibbles aside, the organ is one of the best I have ever heard, anywhere. It compares with that of Saint Sulpice in Paris, whose most famous organist was Cesar Franck; it compares with Saint Clotilde, also in Paris, which I heard in June. The sonority of Saint Vincent's organ is out of this world: M. Ormieres explained that this is due to the homogeneity of tone throughout the instrument's register.
Which itself is due to the genius of its maker, Theodore Puget. Puget was the chief competitor of the maker of Romantic organs, Aristide Cavaille-Coll. Cavaille-Coll created enormous, extraordinarily decorative organs, but he also pioneered innovations that permitted the sound of the organ to imitate a "symphonic" sound. The Puget organ of Saint Vincent is "Romantic" in being encased in a wooden cabinet painted burnt sienna and highly burnished using a wax made of boiled rabbit skins. ("Yes!" --boiled rabbit skins.)
The organ is also "symphonic" in its capacity to resonate in the church's vast space. There are German organs that have incorporated a carillon, although Saint Vincent's does not --it uses a separate carillon of over fifty bells. In the world of organs, German organs are the most technically advanced, although French organs by Puget and Cavaille-Coll bear comparison. Spain and Portugal, on the other hand, never incorporated the 19th century advances and remain "Baroque" in style.
To help us understand better how the organ of Saint Vincent achieves its wonderful sound, M. Ormieres took us "backstage" --into the guts of the organ, behind the buffet, as the organ cabinet is called. There we were confronted with "pillows" that inflate and deflate mechanically --and regularly. That regularity is essential to the homogenous sound of the organ. Before electrical bellows were invented in the 1930s, souffleurs --bellows pumpers-- were employed to keep the air moving through the organ pipes when the organist touched the keys.
Which gets to the difference between a piano and an organ. The piano is a percussion instrument, the organ is closer to a bagpipe --or tens of bagpipes made to work in concert via the medium of a keyboard or keyboards. The organ at Saint Vincent has four keyboards: three resembling a piano keyboard, the fourth a keyboard of pedals worked by the organist's feet.
The organ then, is more like a symphony orchestra than a piano Indeed, 20th century American innovations to organ manufacture have resulted in organs that mimic individual symphony orchestra instruments like the oboe. The organ at Saint Vincent does not sound like these organs, which were built for theaters like Radio City Music Hall. (Indeed, the organ there --the Mighty Wurlitzer-- is the largest Wurlitzer built, having four keyboards above the pedals and fifty-six pipes.) The sound of the organ at Radio City Music Hall is enormous, but for my taste, it lacks the subtlety of the French organs.
The organ was originally a pagan instrument that developed in the Middle East and traveled West. The simplest version was small and not used to play religious music until the Middle Ages, when it was originally used to accompany monks singing services, then played to provide incidental music to break up the flow of words of the liturgy and chant.
Every organ sounds different, and every organ needs constant maintenance; and eventually, rebuilding, which poses a dilemma for the chief organist: During the rebuilding, the organ cannot be used. At Saint Vincent, the small organ behind the altar was used until the 'great' organ was back in service again. And, during rebuilding, a great organ's life hangs in the balance: a clumsy rebuilding can destroy the original sound; a great organ builder can breathe second life into a venerable instrument, as happened at Saint Vincent.
"A great organ builder has to be a great musician as well as a great engineer", M. Ormieres says. "An organ builder with no 'ear' will not be able to build a great organ."
Saint Vincent was lucky. The the half million euros needed for restoration of the organ took four years to raise. Renovations began in 2001 and were finally completed in 2005. The builder was careful, M. Ormieres confided:
"For the first two days he did not do anything, he just listened to the sound of the organ and studied it --I knew doing that he was 'getting to know' the organ, adding to his already great knowledge. And that the rebuilding would restore the organ to its original sound."
The ability to hear this extraordinary instrument keeps me coming back to Saint Vincent, a half an hour from Caunes. I have become "an organ groupie".
(Monsieur Henri Ormieres will be playing a concert at Central Synagogue in Manhattan Tuesday, October 18 2016.)
Friday, September 18, 2015
Old Shoes and Death Taxes
September 18, 2015
It has occurred to me that I do not have a single pair of dress shoes here. If someone were to ask me what life is like here, I could sum it up by saying, "You'll have no use for them."
So the contrast between New York --where (no pun intended) the fabric of life is stylishly woven-- and Caunes could not be greater. I have clothes here I could only wear if I traveled to Paris --I would be laughed out of Caunes if I wore them.
Which almost happened last Sunday, when I was invited to a luncheon in Villeneuve. It was cool enough that I thought summer wear was not necessary, so I wore black leggings, a black shirt and a snug Western-style black leather vest with alternating bands of red and black fringe. Thinking boots with the outfit would be too much, I settled for black espadrilles.
One of my hosts is an artist, so I thought a bit of imagination in dress would be positively received. And indeed, my hosts appreciated the outfit, which I said made it impossible to mistake me for "anything but an American". However, everyone else was dressed in conventional off-the-rack summer wear.
I recently co-hosted a lunch to introduce a Dutch couple moving to Caunes to people already living there. The idea was to use my house, which is large, rather than that of my co-host, which is very small. I showed everyone around from top to bottom. At the end of the house tour, the wife in the Dutch couple commented, "Your house is 'out of the box' --I like it!" Well, I've put a lot of thought into the environment I wanted to create, and I was willing to bring items from New York, because I knew what I would find here would be junk, or terribly dated.
It's the natural beauty that makes living here worthwhile. This morning at 7:45 a.m. I took Beau on a walk on the Voie du Pont Casse. It was cold and clear and sunny --perfect weather. Later I went for a bicycle ride to Villeneuve and back, returning via the longer route, via le Tinal d'Abrens. The weather made the ride easy, and I may go out again this afternoon.
Nonetheless, living here year-round would be trying for someone used to the ready availability of services and products New Yorkers are used to. For instance, earlier, chasing a ball Beau pushed under my silk-covered love seat, I smeared an upholstered arm with lipstick. Fortunately, I'd brought a "Tide" stain-removing pen with me a year ago and I was able to quickly remove the stain. Otherwise I would have damaged the love seat permanently, as no one in the vicinity of Carcassonne offers the kind of "steam cleaning" people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C. take for granted. Which is also why the quality of the furniture tends to be cheap --no one offers cleaning services, so why spend on better items? And with per capita income the lowest in all of France, few residents of l'Aude have it to spend, anyway.
That no one ever throws anything out is one of the things I like the most about France. That means it is possible to find people who can repair things, but the wait for the good artisans can be very long.
So in a sense, the more relaxed attitude of the French is born of necessity. With fewer people who do work at a high level available to the average person, no one allows themselves to become too excited about delays and long waits. My friends at La Marbrerie just learned that their plan to build a small hotel has been put on hold for the near future while the conflict between the local authorities and the authorities in Paris gets ironed out. The delay was foreseeable because although the architect complied with one set of regulations, the others also governing the project are in conflict. The project is stalled until an even higher level of the French bureaucracy can adjudicate the controversy.
Lastly, the inheritance taxes are confiscatory. For even close relatives, inheriting real property carries a tax of 35% of the assessed value of the property. Anyone else inheriting real property must pay 65%!
So I won't be here forever. In fact, I'll put the house on the market once the renovations are done. It could take years before I find a buyer, given the state of the French real estate market. The only ray of sunshine in that sector is the news that for the first time in twenty-five years, everywhere in France it is cheaper to buy a house or apartment than to rent.
Which may mean I will find a buyer in less than four years --which is how long it took the previous owners of my house to find me.
It has occurred to me that I do not have a single pair of dress shoes here. If someone were to ask me what life is like here, I could sum it up by saying, "You'll have no use for them."
So the contrast between New York --where (no pun intended) the fabric of life is stylishly woven-- and Caunes could not be greater. I have clothes here I could only wear if I traveled to Paris --I would be laughed out of Caunes if I wore them.
Which almost happened last Sunday, when I was invited to a luncheon in Villeneuve. It was cool enough that I thought summer wear was not necessary, so I wore black leggings, a black shirt and a snug Western-style black leather vest with alternating bands of red and black fringe. Thinking boots with the outfit would be too much, I settled for black espadrilles.
One of my hosts is an artist, so I thought a bit of imagination in dress would be positively received. And indeed, my hosts appreciated the outfit, which I said made it impossible to mistake me for "anything but an American". However, everyone else was dressed in conventional off-the-rack summer wear.
I recently co-hosted a lunch to introduce a Dutch couple moving to Caunes to people already living there. The idea was to use my house, which is large, rather than that of my co-host, which is very small. I showed everyone around from top to bottom. At the end of the house tour, the wife in the Dutch couple commented, "Your house is 'out of the box' --I like it!" Well, I've put a lot of thought into the environment I wanted to create, and I was willing to bring items from New York, because I knew what I would find here would be junk, or terribly dated.
It's the natural beauty that makes living here worthwhile. This morning at 7:45 a.m. I took Beau on a walk on the Voie du Pont Casse. It was cold and clear and sunny --perfect weather. Later I went for a bicycle ride to Villeneuve and back, returning via the longer route, via le Tinal d'Abrens. The weather made the ride easy, and I may go out again this afternoon.
Nonetheless, living here year-round would be trying for someone used to the ready availability of services and products New Yorkers are used to. For instance, earlier, chasing a ball Beau pushed under my silk-covered love seat, I smeared an upholstered arm with lipstick. Fortunately, I'd brought a "Tide" stain-removing pen with me a year ago and I was able to quickly remove the stain. Otherwise I would have damaged the love seat permanently, as no one in the vicinity of Carcassonne offers the kind of "steam cleaning" people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C. take for granted. Which is also why the quality of the furniture tends to be cheap --no one offers cleaning services, so why spend on better items? And with per capita income the lowest in all of France, few residents of l'Aude have it to spend, anyway.
That no one ever throws anything out is one of the things I like the most about France. That means it is possible to find people who can repair things, but the wait for the good artisans can be very long.
So in a sense, the more relaxed attitude of the French is born of necessity. With fewer people who do work at a high level available to the average person, no one allows themselves to become too excited about delays and long waits. My friends at La Marbrerie just learned that their plan to build a small hotel has been put on hold for the near future while the conflict between the local authorities and the authorities in Paris gets ironed out. The delay was foreseeable because although the architect complied with one set of regulations, the others also governing the project are in conflict. The project is stalled until an even higher level of the French bureaucracy can adjudicate the controversy.
Lastly, the inheritance taxes are confiscatory. For even close relatives, inheriting real property carries a tax of 35% of the assessed value of the property. Anyone else inheriting real property must pay 65%!
So I won't be here forever. In fact, I'll put the house on the market once the renovations are done. It could take years before I find a buyer, given the state of the French real estate market. The only ray of sunshine in that sector is the news that for the first time in twenty-five years, everywhere in France it is cheaper to buy a house or apartment than to rent.
Which may mean I will find a buyer in less than four years --which is how long it took the previous owners of my house to find me.
Sunning and "SNL"
September 16, 2015
I did something I never do today: I sunned.
I have been pushing myself to the limit to organize the creation of an "en suite" bathroom and sitting area in the attic, opposite my large guest room. Nothing could me more boring than writing of the details of home renovation, so I eschew it. Except to say that it made me mentally exhausted, if not physically.
So, this afternoon, I took a nap. And dreamt of: Saturday Night Live, performed in New York.
In the dream, I laughed and laughed --and laughed.
If that doesn't mean I'm ready to go home soon, I don't know what does.
I did something I never do today: I sunned.
I have been pushing myself to the limit to organize the creation of an "en suite" bathroom and sitting area in the attic, opposite my large guest room. Nothing could me more boring than writing of the details of home renovation, so I eschew it. Except to say that it made me mentally exhausted, if not physically.
So, this afternoon, I took a nap. And dreamt of: Saturday Night Live, performed in New York.
In the dream, I laughed and laughed --and laughed.
If that doesn't mean I'm ready to go home soon, I don't know what does.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Scaling Back My Ambitions In Favor Of Zzzzzz...s
Saturday, September 12, 2015
There was a time when, if I didn't get enough sleep, I could ignore the fatigue and push on. Now I find that that is not an option.
Also, when I was younger, not getting enough sleep sometimes meant not sleeping enough hours, versus sleeping badly. Now I tend to sleep badly more than sleeping fewer hours.
Which was born out this morning.
I had an ambitious day planned: it is the 10th anniversary of Books et Cie, an independent bookstore around the corner from Saint Vincent, where I go most Saturday evenings. At 10:00 a.m. there would be a reading from Fiances, a novel about a woman in a nursing home who confuses a man in the nursing home with the man she loved, someone she thought killed in French Indochina. The author would also be present to take about the book and dedicate copies. At 4:00 p.m., there is a dialogue between two French translators, one working from Swedish, the other English. In between I hoped to see Youth, the film with Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel made by the director of the Oscar-winning La Grande Belleza, Paolo Sorrentino. And I had a few errands to run at Le Pont Rouge before making it to Carcassonne, parking by Le Canal du Midi, and walking to Books et Cie. After seeing the film I would run to hear the translators speak, then run to Saint Vincent for Mass. Then I could return home to sleep alone. (Beau is en pension with my neighbor, Chantal.)
Well, I got to do everything I had planned for this morning. when I arrived at Books et Cie, the reading had just started --on time. The area around the readers and the writer was full up, but someone brought me a chair placed on the other side of the low wall dividing two sections of the bookstore. I could see everything, but more, I was placed directly in front of rows of books.
In France, all books appear in paperback editions. This is traditional: the books were originally produced this way so that wealthy book collectors could have their volumes bound in leather and embossed with their personal library marks. Although few people in France have the means (or inclination) to create personalized volumes, there has been no transition to hard-cover printing.
France, is of course, book-mad, so a dedicated booksellers can arrange their libraries very finitely around specific topics. In the case of Books et Cie, the emphasis is on the finest in world literature. The shelves immediately in front of me contained contemporary books originally written in Italian and Spanish translated and published in France. The shelves to the left of me were lusophone --literature from the Portuguese-speaking world. To the write of me was a tall bookcase with literary arcana on the top shelf: a collection of all the Nobel-prize speeches of literature laureates from the beginning of the prize's life; a history of Le College de France, the correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Walter Benjamin.
On the second shelf were contemporary books inspired by authors: a book written by a Frenchwoman inspired by her lifelong infatuation with Daphne du Maurier, entitled Mandelay Forever; a book of interviews given by Francoise Sagan, who came to fame writing Bonjour Tristesse at eighteen, but never surpassed it. Another book considered the Rimbaldolatres --those fans of Arthur Rimbaud (punk poet Patti Smith is one) who cannot say enough about their idol. There was a book of (brief) interviews with Beckett exploring his love of silence, and a book of Walter Benjamin's last letters, written when he was on the run from the Nazis. On the bottom shelves were literary journals, and behind me contemporary novels from France, with a few Anglophone authors mixed in (James Salter).
I could hear the two women reading and catch most of what they were saying, but I most enjoyed reading the titles on the shelves surrounding me, a pleasure I could not have had had I found a seat earlier. I tried to do this as unobtrusively as possible, as the quiet when I walked into the bookstore and throughout the reading (which was ornamented with music played between chapter fragments) was imposing. The woman managing the portable stereo, a woman in her 70s, hair dyed black, cut in a pageboy, her face framed by big "cats' eye" glass frames, glared at me when, as I took my seat, the keys around my neck jingled: the noise was an outrage against art. When I unzipped my knapsack pocket to put them inside, she glared again, but after that, she let up, and I enjoyed both the words spoken and the titles read.
The reading over, I trawled the bookshelves in the rest of the store: literature from the Arab world, Western philosophy, Eastern philosophy as interpreted by modern French thinkers, critically-acclaimed thrillers from around the world, the latest non-fiction collection from Jean d'Ormesson. I spied a DVD made about Marguerite Yourcenar's life on Mount Desert Island in Maine, focusing on her interest in the environment. The narrator is Michael Lonsdale, one of my favorite actors. (He is most famous in the English-speaking world, for playing the French inspector in Day of the Jackal.)
Jean d'Ormesson is not a writer popular with partisans of the Left, but he is as open-hearted as any one in France who invokes la solidarite. His voice is gentle and wry, and although he is an aristocrat and member of France's elite (his father was ambassador to Germany before the Second World War). His personality endears him to many who do not share his conservative sensibilities, and some refer to him as "France's favorite aristocrat".
Yourcenar, on the other hand, was crustier, and a great snob. (She too, was an aristocrat: Yourcenar is an anagram of her family name, [de] Crayencour.) Yourcenar lectures her listeners from an Olympian height, which can be tiresome; but to hear her speak French is to realize how badly the French speak their language. I cannot wait to watch the film and find out how she and her wealthy lover, Grace Frick, managed their lives on Mount Desert Island.
Exiting the store I had my third coffee of the morning and picked up a sandwich to eat on the way to the movie theatre. It was not yet open, so I could not buy tickets, and it would be two hours before the film: which is when my tiredness hit me.
Suddenly, the idea of returning home and sleeping away the afternoon beckoned. If as we get older we are more accepting of ourselves, I have arrived. I quickly made for the car and drove home, from where I write this now.
Wisely, it turns out: a violent hail storm began as soon as I turned the key in the lock.
There was a time when, if I didn't get enough sleep, I could ignore the fatigue and push on. Now I find that that is not an option.
Also, when I was younger, not getting enough sleep sometimes meant not sleeping enough hours, versus sleeping badly. Now I tend to sleep badly more than sleeping fewer hours.
Which was born out this morning.
I had an ambitious day planned: it is the 10th anniversary of Books et Cie, an independent bookstore around the corner from Saint Vincent, where I go most Saturday evenings. At 10:00 a.m. there would be a reading from Fiances, a novel about a woman in a nursing home who confuses a man in the nursing home with the man she loved, someone she thought killed in French Indochina. The author would also be present to take about the book and dedicate copies. At 4:00 p.m., there is a dialogue between two French translators, one working from Swedish, the other English. In between I hoped to see Youth, the film with Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel made by the director of the Oscar-winning La Grande Belleza, Paolo Sorrentino. And I had a few errands to run at Le Pont Rouge before making it to Carcassonne, parking by Le Canal du Midi, and walking to Books et Cie. After seeing the film I would run to hear the translators speak, then run to Saint Vincent for Mass. Then I could return home to sleep alone. (Beau is en pension with my neighbor, Chantal.)
Well, I got to do everything I had planned for this morning. when I arrived at Books et Cie, the reading had just started --on time. The area around the readers and the writer was full up, but someone brought me a chair placed on the other side of the low wall dividing two sections of the bookstore. I could see everything, but more, I was placed directly in front of rows of books.
In France, all books appear in paperback editions. This is traditional: the books were originally produced this way so that wealthy book collectors could have their volumes bound in leather and embossed with their personal library marks. Although few people in France have the means (or inclination) to create personalized volumes, there has been no transition to hard-cover printing.
France, is of course, book-mad, so a dedicated booksellers can arrange their libraries very finitely around specific topics. In the case of Books et Cie, the emphasis is on the finest in world literature. The shelves immediately in front of me contained contemporary books originally written in Italian and Spanish translated and published in France. The shelves to the left of me were lusophone --literature from the Portuguese-speaking world. To the write of me was a tall bookcase with literary arcana on the top shelf: a collection of all the Nobel-prize speeches of literature laureates from the beginning of the prize's life; a history of Le College de France, the correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Walter Benjamin.
On the second shelf were contemporary books inspired by authors: a book written by a Frenchwoman inspired by her lifelong infatuation with Daphne du Maurier, entitled Mandelay Forever; a book of interviews given by Francoise Sagan, who came to fame writing Bonjour Tristesse at eighteen, but never surpassed it. Another book considered the Rimbaldolatres --those fans of Arthur Rimbaud (punk poet Patti Smith is one) who cannot say enough about their idol. There was a book of (brief) interviews with Beckett exploring his love of silence, and a book of Walter Benjamin's last letters, written when he was on the run from the Nazis. On the bottom shelves were literary journals, and behind me contemporary novels from France, with a few Anglophone authors mixed in (James Salter).
I could hear the two women reading and catch most of what they were saying, but I most enjoyed reading the titles on the shelves surrounding me, a pleasure I could not have had had I found a seat earlier. I tried to do this as unobtrusively as possible, as the quiet when I walked into the bookstore and throughout the reading (which was ornamented with music played between chapter fragments) was imposing. The woman managing the portable stereo, a woman in her 70s, hair dyed black, cut in a pageboy, her face framed by big "cats' eye" glass frames, glared at me when, as I took my seat, the keys around my neck jingled: the noise was an outrage against art. When I unzipped my knapsack pocket to put them inside, she glared again, but after that, she let up, and I enjoyed both the words spoken and the titles read.
The reading over, I trawled the bookshelves in the rest of the store: literature from the Arab world, Western philosophy, Eastern philosophy as interpreted by modern French thinkers, critically-acclaimed thrillers from around the world, the latest non-fiction collection from Jean d'Ormesson. I spied a DVD made about Marguerite Yourcenar's life on Mount Desert Island in Maine, focusing on her interest in the environment. The narrator is Michael Lonsdale, one of my favorite actors. (He is most famous in the English-speaking world, for playing the French inspector in Day of the Jackal.)
Jean d'Ormesson is not a writer popular with partisans of the Left, but he is as open-hearted as any one in France who invokes la solidarite. His voice is gentle and wry, and although he is an aristocrat and member of France's elite (his father was ambassador to Germany before the Second World War). His personality endears him to many who do not share his conservative sensibilities, and some refer to him as "France's favorite aristocrat".
Yourcenar, on the other hand, was crustier, and a great snob. (She too, was an aristocrat: Yourcenar is an anagram of her family name, [de] Crayencour.) Yourcenar lectures her listeners from an Olympian height, which can be tiresome; but to hear her speak French is to realize how badly the French speak their language. I cannot wait to watch the film and find out how she and her wealthy lover, Grace Frick, managed their lives on Mount Desert Island.
Exiting the store I had my third coffee of the morning and picked up a sandwich to eat on the way to the movie theatre. It was not yet open, so I could not buy tickets, and it would be two hours before the film: which is when my tiredness hit me.
Suddenly, the idea of returning home and sleeping away the afternoon beckoned. If as we get older we are more accepting of ourselves, I have arrived. I quickly made for the car and drove home, from where I write this now.
Wisely, it turns out: a violent hail storm began as soon as I turned the key in the lock.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Anxiety is a normal part of life, although the competition students now face is vastly intensified from what it was like when I was a student forty years ago. I went to one of the most competitive schools in the nation and at the time, drug use and drinking were rampant: students needed to "let off steam", or just "get stoned" to forget the pressure.
Today, with students at even the most selective colleges aware that the job opportunities are fewer and fewer and only the top will get good job offers, is it any wonder students are anxious? Why clamp down on a support mechanism that is not a "gateway" to more dangerous ways of handling stress?