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.

      

   

   

   

     

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.

   

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

   

   

Caunes' Finest Food

September 11, 2015

     When I was in Merida, in Mexico's Yucatan in the Spring of 2014, I considered moving there.  I was the guest of a former classmate of Bill's and her husband, both keen on retiring to Merida soon.  There is a lively Canadian and American ex-pat colony there, lots of museums, and even an Alliance Francaise.   Prices too, have been very attractive to foreign buyers, and the city so safe it's said drug lords live there to protect their families from violence in the rest of Mexico.

     So I was introduced to a friend of my hosts, the real estate broker who found them their house, an Englishwoman who has lived in Merida for years.  She spent a day taking me from one end of Merida to the other, including a visit to a luxurious modern house that would not have been out of place in Beverly Hills.

     It was owned by a Jewish woman from Brooklyn who bought it knowing no Spanish and intending to start a new life as a high school English teacher, what she'd done before she retired.

     It didn't work out.  Her lack of Spanish made it difficult to integrate into the Mexican lifestyle, and the house turned out to be more expensive to maintain than her means allowed.  So she put it on the market.

     She was delightfully frank about all that had happened to her in Mexico and how much she missed New York.  She particularly missed the food.  In that inimitable accent most Americans associate with New Yorkers, she told me:

     I'd like to have an egg roll once in a while, you know?

     Here in Caunes, I can't say I share her sentiments, although there are things about food in the southwest of France that are not my idea of a healthful diet.  Of course, I'm thinking of the reliance on meat prepared in animal fat, foie gras and butter that is most Languedociens' idea of the components a great feast.  Pasta, too, is always "Frenchified", a simple pasta aglio olio being just too plain for the French palate

     I cannot, however, fault the French pizza in Caunes.  I have never had anything like it, and I cannot get enough of it.  L'Argent Double, the local pizzeria, makes almost forty different types of pizzas, all with a crust as thin as a flat bread, and nothing like any pizza anyone has ever had in the United States.  La Reunionaise (named after the island in the Indian Ocean that is still part of France), combines the thinnest slices of pineapple with smoked ham.  My favorite, l'Agenaise, uses heavy cream, pork, smoked ham, walnuts and pruneaux d'Agen.  Total cost for this delicacy big enough for two?  Nine euros.

     It's gotten so, once I call and give my name, the pizza maker says Un "Agenaise", no?

     --"Yes!"

                                                                       ***

     On another food front:

     This evening I also took in Tante Henriette, a curious grocery, which is only open every fifteen days and has clients queuing to pay for their orders.  Tonight, as they were closing, I went inside and was initiated into the society of those who frequent this French version of a pop-up grocery.

     The space is owned by a Caunois who lends it to local producers of bio vegetables, yogurt, jams, and eggs.  On sale also (although I don't from where) is rice.  Customers e-mail the woman who coordinates the orders and interacts with the producers.  Every fifteen days the orders are driven down from villages near Lespinassiere, up in La Montagne Noir.

     There's nothing for sale that has not been ordered in advance, except there are 3 jars of cream made from local chestnuts.  I ask about yogurt, but it's all spoken for.  I take my jar of creme de chataigne and think how good a teaspoon will taste when I can get hold of some plain yogurt.  As I am walking out of the grocery, the man who owns the store follows me and says,

     If you wait five minutes, you can have a package of 8 yogurts.  Someone ordered them and has not shown to pick them up.

     I walk inside and, within minutes, he has a plastic bag with the individual yogurts out of the old-fashioned, wood-faced refrigeratoron on the counter.  The light-weight plastic bag says "BERNADETTE", but they're about to become mine.  How long will they last?

     Oh, at least until the beginning of October.

     Nothing will spoil I think, and buy them.  The price?  Five euros and fifty centimes.

     --And now I am an initiate.

     When I take them home and put them in the refrigerator, I see that the dairy farmer is actually located in St. Denis, a village of 465 people near Lespinassiere.  The chestnut cream is from Felines, 12 kilometers away.  Interestingly, it isn't terribly sweet, but the taste of chestnuts is certainly there.  French pastry chefs use marrons glaces in their desserts, but I've always found them too sweet.  This cream has the consistency of peanut butter, and looks like organic peanut butter does when you open the jar, watery on top, thick below.

      The creme de chataigne is freshly made, too.  The chestnut trees are dropping their fruit, as the many smooth, hard nuts I came across walking Beau last evening attest.  There for the taking, too, are fresh white figs: I have a handful every day, marveling that I can indulge so, knowing that in New York they are available, at best, for two weeks.

       Meanwhile, the vendange continues.  First the white wine grapes were harvested, now the red.  The weather becomes a little more autumnal each day, although it remains beautifully sunny and dry. In a few weeks it will be time to eat the hearty food the southwest of France is known for, daubes, cassoulets, sausages with beans.

        No wonder the French eat well: they insist on small-scale production of what goes into their mouths.



   

   

Echt -Ugh!; Losing Patience with Ex-Pats; For All The Good It Did Me

September 8, 2015

     I had always heard that the Dutch didn't like the Germans, but I had proof of it today at lunch.

     I lent my house to the purpose of a lunch to introduce a new couple, from the Netherlands, to Caunes.  Over lunch, I used the word echt to mean "authentic", describing New York's neighborhoods.  Echt is a word used in Yiddish, although it is spelled ehkt.  When I used it, the wife in the couple cried out with pleasure:

     You know Dutch!

     --No, I don't, but I know the word from Yiddish and German.

     Oh, it's not a German word.  It's a Dutch word--

     Hardly an argument worth having, I reserved my belief and thought I'd check the origins of the word after the lunch was over.

     Sure enough, echt is a German word meaning genuine or typical, as well as being Dutch.

     No wonder it's not easy creating one European Union.

                                                             ***

     One of the couples invited specifically to meet the new couple, as they'll soon be neighbors-- didn't show up.  I'm not much inconvenienced, as all I've done is lent my space.  The woman who organized the luncheon tells me that the couple is very reliable, that they always return e-mail and phone calls.  So she thinks they may have gotten some bad news that obliged them to take off without time to give notice; or that one of them was hospitalized; or that a child of theirs with mental problems might have had a breakdown.

     Two thirds of the way through the luncheon, the doorbell rings.  And I'm sure I was not the only person who thought it might be the couple, arriving late.  It was my plumber, so the mystery remained unresolved.

     Just a few minutes ago, the phone rang.  It was the wife in the couple, apologizing for missing the lunch.

     The dates were never confirmed, she said by way of excusing the non-appearance.

     I was not inconvenienced, I explained, but her apologies were owed to the people who cooked for eight, not six, I said, particularly our friend who organized the lunch.

     Do you have her number?  she asked.

     Now that is the limit.  There is such a thing as getting too comfortable.

                                                                   ***

     The husband in the Dutch couple in the luncheon party used to work in advertising.  It became so stressful, he dreamed of leaving the Netherlands and living somewhere else in Europe.  His wife did, too, so they came to the Minervois.  Their present house, in Cabrespine, is up for sale, and they think they have a good offer from a couple in South Africa of Norwegian descent.

     However, each time they get close to signing, there's a problem getting their attorney to work with their buyer's attorney.  They want to sell as soon as possible and have already committed to the house in Caunes.  Boxes packed, they find it maddening that the South Africans are not more business-like.

     Perhaps it's a cultural thing with South Africans, but in Holland we're very--

      (--And here he stretched out his arms and made cutting motions with his hands.)

     Strict about things like this.  Although since I've lived here, I, too, have come to see things another way, and I'm more relaxed.  Though because we want to move, I'm wondering why the South Africans can't be more predictable.  It will happen when it happens, I guess.

      I could not help thinking that a large part of the European-descended population of South Africa is Dutch, so it seemed funny to me to think that somehow, they "go native" and become unpredictable by the standards of Holland.  Yet my Dutch guest's musings on the changes in his attitudes from the time he lived in the Netherlands to now, suggest once you move somewhere where the standards are different, you adapt if you want to survive.

                                                                       ***

     I went to a lot of trouble to file a complaint about charges on my French debit card I could not recognize, a few weeks ago.  I was particularly concerned about a single debit of 36,20 for a toll associated with Montelimar, in Provence, where I have not been.

     Today, having to stop at the bank I found out that the "investigation" has been completed.

     Madame Azema, the teller, told me that as all the charges were local and done with my debit card, the investigation had been closed.

     The only thing I can do now if I want more information about why the Montelimar toll was debited from my checking account balance, is to file a complaint with the toll authority, a private company.

     All I want to know is whether the debit represents several tolls aggregated, or is unaccounted for.  At least if I know that several day's tolls are aggregated, I will have some sense of why the amount is as large as it is.

     The bank thinks there was no fraud because the charges were within their definition of "local", and my card was used.  So they closed the investigation as soon as I started it.

      While my Dutch guest has adapted to France enough to live out the rest of his days here, whether I, as a temporary resident, will adapt to French standards remains an open question, though.  Americans are used to a certain transparency in financial transactions, and I am very much an American in that respect, as much as I like other things about "la belle France".

   

First Cycling Of The Year

Sunday, September 6, 2015

     Throughout this year, Anno Domini 2015, I have been frustrated again and again in my efforts to re-establish the cycling routine I sustained in France last year.  This is not a minor thing, cycling has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  I've been cycling since I was a kid in East Harlem and my parents managed to get hold of a 20" two wheeler when I was eight.  When I was a junior in high school, I saved the money to buy a Peugeot U-O8.  I rode it through my college years at Harvard, and post graduation, during the transit strike in 1980.  I was working at the old Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb then, and it was far from fashionable to cycle.  I enjoyed the cycling so much, I kept it up after the strike ended, which was considered "not quite the thing".  How times have changed!

     In law school, I rode between Fordham Law School and where I lived in the Columbia University area.  My second year in law school I had my left ovary removed, a major operation then.  After the surgery, the one question I was most interested in knowing the answer to was "When can I cycle again?"  (Three weeks, was the answer.)

     The U-08 was stolen from where I locked it in front of Fordham Law School some time during my third year, but a classmate getting a new bicycle sold me her Trek, a silver steel model with 8 speeds, and wrap-around handlebars, made for a man .  It did double duty while I was studying for the Bar and living at my parents' in East Harlem.  That was in 1985.

    It is still the bicycle I ride, although last year I replaced the wrap-around handlebars with mountain bike handlebars so I can sit up straight and put less pressure on my back.  I had the changes made at the end of the season, so I had no chance to see whether the new handlebars actually lead to greater back comfort.  I went out to ride early in June, but Beau's difficulties adapting to being alone in France scotched my riding this summer.

     Somehow, this Sunday presented itself as an opportunity to get on the bike and ride.  The weather is cool enough that it is possible to ride in mid-afternoon, so I went out on the road that runs past my house, which leads to Trausse and beyond, to Felines, a pretty village in the hills.  I have ridden this road many times in the last three years and it is not challenging, 12 kilometers each way, 15 miles in all.

     A year since my last ride, not much has changed: the allees of plane trees are untouched, the roads are as empty as ever, the old windmill up the hill from the Chateau de Paulignan still stands, Felines  is as sleepy as ever.  What had changed is that the tree snails were out, their white shells visible on every low-lying branch of reed grass, now that the summer's heat is a thing of the past.  In contrast, the Languedocien standard that used to fly proudly over a grove of oliviers within walking distance of  Caunes, is gone.

     And I am a year older.  (My birthday is Wednesday.)  But I made it back and forth from Felines without any physical strain.  Perhaps I'll get a happy chance to test my physical capacities further before I leave the Minervois towards the end of October.  Which would be ample reward for almost nine months off the bike.

   

   

Neo-Ruraliens Revisited

Saturday, September 5, 2015

     I have mentioned that two young men, Pierre and Martin, drive their vans along the easement behind the garage of my house to tend to a chicken coop and vegetable gardens.  I knew Pierre, tall and blond, was a neo-ruralien, escaping the dense outskirts of Paris for a more tranquil life.  Martin I knew nothing about, save that he, too, is pleasant and polite. As they pop by several times a week and park within sight of my terrace, I wanted to know more about the set up that brings them to my secluded part of Caunes.

     The opportunity presented itself this morning, as I was having coffee on the terrace and looking at the news reports on my computer.  Martin pulled up and exited his truck, pulling out gardening tools when I assailed him from my perch.  After the preliminary formalities, I asked him whether he would like a cup of coffee, which he did.  So I went inside and made some for the two of us while he fed the birds. I brought the coffee down started with my questions.  It turns out that Martin, too, is from the outskirts of Paris, that he came to Caunes because in Australia he met a Frenchman from Caunes with whom he exchanged apartments.  And having come to Caunes four years ago and seen that he could make a living working in the vineyards, he decided to settle here.

     That was my preliminary question, but I followed it with my main one:
 
     Are you and Pierre squatters, or do you own the land you cultivate?

     Neither, Martin explained.  The land belongs to two women: Alice, who owns the stationery store in the village, Le Bazaar d'Alice; and Isabelle, who lives on my street.  The mairie saw that the land was overgrown, not having been cultivated for years.  This gave rise to concerns that the brush could catch fire, endangering the houses in the area, a serious concern.  So Alice and Isabelle offered the land to Pierre and Martin to cultivate, in return for anything they could harvest from it.  That was three years ago.

     While we were talking, the chanticleer who rules the roost in the poullailler strutted around his domain, the chickens backing off as he strode.  I saw his beautiful plumage and commented on it, which prompted Martin to tell me

     We're going to eat him soon.  

     This pretty bird wakes me every morning at 6:30 a.m., so I received the news of his demise soon with mixed emotions.  Perhaps indicative of my true feelings, I suggested that they might give his feathers to Chantal, my friend who makes purses out of patches of fabric and feathers, then asked solemnly why he had to be killed.  For which there is only one answer, which Martin gave:

     He's nice and fat.

     I expressed some regret at the news, hypocritically.  Then Martin said,

     But we'll probably get another one.

     And, at that, the truth came out:

     But not too soon!  I said quickly.

   

The English Book Club

September 4, 2015

     I spent yesterday afternoon having lunch in a private home and talking about books with eight members of a book club, all English.  The lunch was held in a home that had been built from a building that was previously part of a cave cooperative, an association of wine growers that had disappeared.  A compound of buildings behind a main gate were all put to residential purposes after the cooperative failed.  The house included a private garden with a small swimming pool.  It is small, but comfortable.

     The book club members are mainly women, although the husband of one also attended.  They are enthusiastic readers and articulate about their likes and dislikes --and there was nothing stuffy about them.  Anyone who thought the English reserved, has not seen them along their compatriots, the wine flowing, enjoying good food and talk.  I knew the group wanted, in addition to ideas for novels, suggestions for biographies to read.   So I brought "Just Boris", about the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson; and a biography of Turner, the painter, as my biography suggestions, plus "The Man In The Yellow Hat", the second book in Jane Gardam's "Old Filth" trilogy, which I am reading now.  My offerings were welcomed and I was made to feel at home by everybody.

     To preserve the anonymity of the book club members, I will not describe them individually, but anecdotally.  One woman, a widow twenty years, confessed that although she travels widely, she feels lonely, her children grown and living independent lives.   Another brought what she said was "non-alcoholic sangria".  It was, in fact, 9% alcohol.  So they are a diverse and lively group.  All the club members have retired to France and interact mainly with their compatriots, their French being limited.

     Which doesn't mean they do not observe their French hosts closely.  At one point the conversation turned to "SatNavs" --the British word for GPSs, and from there to the difference between driving in Britain and l'Aude.   Everyone agreed driving in France, where there are often few cars on the road, was generally much more pleasurable than driving on the U.K.'s crowded motorways.

     At that point, I mentioned that I agreed with everyone, except that I found French drivers do not keep their distance, even on an entirely empty road.  Instead they come up to your car's bumper, which I find nerve-wracking.  Everyone knew what I was talking about:

     If you're driving on an empty road in the middle of nowhere, a car behind you will still hug your bumper!  They do it all the time --they're afraid of not being close to another car, so they group like sheep.  --They can't stand being alone.

     --And they had methods for dealing with this "tic" of French drivers:

     Flash your fog lights --they don't like that, and will back off when you do that.

     If you're driving a manual transmission, engage the emergency brake --the back lights will flash, and they'll think you're going to stop suddenly!  Then they back away in a shot.

       (After hearing about the fog lights, on the road later, I tried flashing my brights and can report that it works.)

         It seems odd to me that anyone would retire to a country where they have a limited command of the language, but the English have been retiring to France since the end of the Second World War.  The French used to retire to Morocco and Tunisia, former French-speaking colonies, but today, they are more likely to retire to Portugal, where few will learn the language.  Canadians and Americans retire to Puerto Vallarta in Western Mexico; or Merida in the East, without mastering Spanish.

      So perhaps living as an ex-pat in a monolingual enclave is less unusual than I thought.  At one point during the lunch, the talk turned to the hassles of traveling between Britain and France: having to fight the traffic on the motorways to the airport; the surly porters at Stansted (the airport Ryanair serves with flights to Carcassonne), travel delays at the airport--

      Perhaps a "staycation" could be just as nice, one book club member offered.

      Except for the WEATHER! a wiser person rejoined.

      So the English come to France in droves: for the weather, for the wine, and because it is cheaper to live in France than England.  Property prices are much lower, so it's possible to make money on the sale of a house in England and have money left over after buying a place in France.  As a result, the ex-pats live more comfortably than would be possible in the U.K.  And there's a new French tax law that allows foreign residents to choose their domicile for estate tax purposes, another incentive to buy in France.,   (It means children can inherit without paying 35% of the value of a house in French estate taxes.)  While the French are moving to Portugal because food prices are 30% cheaper than in France, British are moving to France for the same reason.

      And there's no need to learn French.

A Change In The Air

Friday, September 4, 2015

     I had heard that, summer over, Caunes was quieter, less festive.

    You would not have known it from the crowd at La Cantine du Cure last night.  La Cantine began in a space off the entrance to the Benedictine abbey, near the tourist office.  It was opposite the homes of a number of villageois, who complained about the noise from patrons and the amplified music provided as free entertainment.  The problem was talked about for two years, with some people saying that young people needed a place to kick up their heels, others deploring the so-called "rowdiness".  Over the winter, La Cantine moved to a large tract of land off rue de l'Abbaye, not far from its original location, but away from the more populated side of the abbey.  The land belongs to an estate owned by the parents of one of the owners of La Cantine; on the other side are the conventual buildings of the abbey, in the process of renovation.  Result: the business can operate with less flak from neighbors.

     The weather is cooler, the press of summer work abated, kids in school, the week almost over, a.   good number of Caunois head for the open air dining offered at the new location.  Since it opened three years ago, La Cantine has been the place to go for informal dining, although I found the cooking in the first two years frequently burnt or charred, and avoided it. With a change of chef there has been a great improvement.   The tapas on the menu, all Spanish inspired --albeit with a French touch (tortilla espanola made with French cheese!) are served in large portions, easily enough to make a full meal of.  There are various seating areas: you can sit on high chairs and eat on a table made of a wine barrel, or you can sit low to the ground and dine off a sort of coffee table; you can dine under a thatched roof at a picnic table, or at the bar.  La Cantine is no longer open from lunch through the evening five days a week , so its patrons have to wait until Thursday to stop by, and make the most of the three days at the end of the week when the projected crowd justifies opening the bar.   Judging by the liveliness of the crowd last night, the owners have no reason to worry: La Cantine will have a good arriere saison.

      On the house renovation front, I am busy trying to put in two more inverters, one in my bedroom, one in the large guest bedroom.  That installation, plus the placement of a large, electronically operated awning on the terrace will complete my home renovations for 2015.  I had contemplated creating a full bath and en suite bedroom in the attic (in fact, budgeted for it), but this morning I was at the point of shelving it no pun intended) for the foreseeable future.

     When I first thought about the project, I asked for recommendations from trusted friends in Caunes, who gave me the names of a contractor and a plumber who worked for them, and with whose work they were very happy.  The contractor quickly gave me his estimate, but I have waited all summer for the plumber's.  Earlier this week a neighbor told me that the plumber stopped by with his estimate, but that he did not want to drop it off if I was not there because he wanted to explain the details of it to me.  The neighbor told me to call the plumber, which I did.

     The plumber and I agreed that he would be at my house between 9:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. this morning.  So I made arrangements to have my guest walk Beau while I met with the plumber.  When he didn't show up, I called him.

     I've got an emergency.  I can be at your house in an hour.  This is a tough business.

     Needless to say I was not sympathetic. I told him to fix another time and hour next week, as I'd be busy all day today.  We agreed on next Monday, but I had my doubts.  I'd read A Year In Provence, and did not want to be taken for someone who could be strung along, as Peter Mayle was by his contractors.  In my mind, I had cancelled the job.

     Then the doorbell rang: it was the plumber, armed with catalogues aplenty.  He said he had the estimate and he wanted me to choose fixtures.  His estimate was reasonable and his choices were wise.  In 45 minutes we'd decided on the shape of my new bathroom.

     I asked about a contract: the signed estimate and delivery of 30% of the cost creates a contract in fact.  I warned that I wanted a clause at the bottom would have to be added, specifying that the work would be done by a specific date: he was agreeable.

     I am now on my way to having a new bathroom put in.

                                                               ***

     It is now mushroom-gathering season.  There are many varieties to be culled here, not all safe for human consumption  Already 21 people have been treated for mushroom poisoning, and the season is a week old.

     Which is a shame, because if they had been more careful, they could have readily sorted out the venomous from the non-venomous mushrooms by stopping by their local pharmacy.

     In France, all pharmacists are trained to know the mushroom varieties and recognize those poisonous to humans.  It is a service pharmacists have always rendered here.

Crepuscular Downpour

September 1, 2015

     Yesterday, the weather report for much of southern France was on alert orange, predicting the incoming storm would have a significant impact on the affected areas.  Indeed, at 9:30 p.m., winds blew in sheets of rain, one after the other, for two hours.  The lightning behaved like strobe lights, never touching the ground, but constantly flashing white and illuminating the sky for miles, before going dark and flashing again.  The lightning never touched the ground, but it didn't seem a good idea to hang out my bedroom window, so I watched the deluge seated on my bed.

     All day the sky had been grey and flat, the atmosphere hot, heavy and humid.  The pressure built until the electricity had to release itself, which led not just to the strobe effect, but to a sound in the distance like a roll on the kettledrums.  The showers made a whooshing sound like a whisper.  Occasionally a car could be seen emerging from the dirt road that begins down the hill from the house, la voie du point casse.  I pitied anyone out in the storm.  And in fact, near Montauban, two people were killed when a tree fell on their car.

     The storm brought the temperature down and by its end there was a lovely coolness in the air.  Those who know told me that the rain would make the land between the row muddy, but that would only delay the harvest a day or two: it would have no effect on the grapes.

     After a hot summer, the coolness is welcome: once the storm passed, I slept with the window open.  This morning the sky was brilliant and the sun came out and began drying up all the rain.

     Children returned to school today, last night's storm marking a definite end to summer's pleasures. Fall is on the way.