July 12, 2015
After much thought, I now realize I have to park the car outside, the risk of having the car vandalized again be damned.
The scratches on the car have been minimized by the generous application of scratch remover paste and I can almost convince myself that the scratches are barely noticeable. Anyway, the insurance declaration from the Mairie notes scratches on the side of the car that were there before those I added, so I am probably covered for the damage.
However, last night, working again and again at trying to ease the car into the garage correctly, I heard the car touch one of the folding garage doors. These operate like shutters with several panels and fold back to reveal the garage. They are nice and new, thanks to the former owners.
Once I had parked the car, at last, I realized that it would take little for me to damage my garage doors. That is uncovered damage, and knowing the way things are done in the Midi, it would take months to repair or, more likely, replace them, whatever the cost.
The cost-benefit analysis is clear. If my car is vandalized, the damage is covered by the insurance.; if I damage my garage door, I'm stuck with the cost of repair.
Now that I have made the acquaintance of the Citroen garage and dealership in the village, if the car is again damaged, I can plead to use them instead of the garage in Trebes that did a half-job.
I will not have my own parking space and have to search for parking, but even if I have to park in the parking lot in the center of the village it will be a lot easier than trying to angle the car into my garage.
There is also another reason I want to go back to parking the car outside:
In my ham-handed parking attempts, I believe I have knocked down an iron stake attached to a chicken wire fence my neighbors down the road put in place to delimit the easement behind my house and their property. Two young men who use the easement to get to their chicken coop and cottage gardens also drive past the chicken wire fence, but they are experienced at getting in and out of the space. I certainly don't think they knocked the post and chicken wire down.
Living in a village means working out good relations with the neighbors. Just as I don't want my next door neighbors unhappy because Beau barks or howls when let alone too long, I don't want my elderly neighbors down the road unhappy I knocked down a boundary fence next to the easement they gave.
While in a big city like New York, there's an unspoken rule that if you have bad neighbors you ignore them or move away, in a village you don't have the option. In New York, you "grin and bear", the neighbors next door who fight periodically, so loudly you can hear it through the concrete walls; you try to ignore the neighbor on the other side of the apartment who shouts so loudly you know when he is intimate with his partner.
In the countryside, silence is golden, especially on Sundays. If I am to go to weekly Mass, that means I have two options: On Sunday, I can take Beau to Notre Dame du Cros for the 6:00 p.m. Mass and sit outside the church door, tying him up briefly when I go inside to take Communion. That is one solution, but it means that parishioners may be disturbed when Beau barks at being tied up while I am inside the chapel. (And parishioners will complain if this is my regular practice.) Or, 2. I can leave Beau at home late Saturday afternoon and go to Mass at one of the churches in Carcassonne.
That was what I did yesterday. I was rewarded by hearing Mass in a Gothic church that dates to 1247 and hearing a magnificent organ with 57-bell carillon. As a result, today I will keep my neighbors happy, at least until the late afternoon. (Incidentally, in New York, Beau has no problem being alone. It is not unusual for dogs to display different behaviors in different locations.)
By 4:30 p.m. I will be on the road, heading for Saint Nazaire, in La Cite in Carcassonne. There is a free organ concert there at 6:00 p.m. This will also be an opportunity to leave Beau alone for three hours, which is a practice to which I am slowly accustoming him. I will be back by 7:30 p.m., early enough that even if Beau barks or cries, the neighbors cannot complain too much, if at all.
After all, many people have dogs here. They are almost all barkers --even teeth-baring snarlers-- and people like them that way. For example, Yves, a Belgian man with a sweet Belgian shepherd bitch called "Pippa" (and one of Beau's girlfriends), is unhappy she doesn't bark. He wants a dog that will drive away burglars.
Most people live in detached houses with land around them, so if the dog barks, the neighbors will hear it, but perhaps not so much as my next door neighbors. "You cannot imagine how thin the walls are", Elodie tells me constantly. When she suggested that I might buy a citronella collar to deter Beau from barking, I quickly told her I would do so. You have to keep the neighbors happy, or risk having your name blackened throughout the village.
Anyone considering a move to a Midi village had best keep that in mind. If you think I'm exaggerating, I'll the true story --told me by a London barrister friend with a friend with a house in the South of France.
The house-owning friend had lived in the village for a number of years on what she thought were good terms, but something she did changed all that. As a result the cordiality she had come to expect in her daily rounds through the village disappeared. The situation deteriorated to the point where she ultimately picked up sticks, sold the house and moved back to England.
There was nothing she could point to that changed the attitude of the villagers towards her my friend told me. Her lack of perceptiveness proved fatal to her plans to retire in the Midi.
***
Postscript
Fate hands me a break a few minutes ago, when I went outside to try to repair the boundary fence.
As I struggle to drive the iron boundary post back into the ground with one hand and de-compress the chicken wire my car flattened with the other, out of his house comes Mr. Gimenez, the neighbor down the road, accompanied by his daughter, whose car is parked in front of his house.
I call out to them, "I'm trying to straighten out your "gate" --I don't know the word in French for this, French isn't my first language--"
Mr. Gimenez and his daughter walk over to where I am standing and his daughter says, "That's nice of you!" Her father says, "Oh, it's not serious, don't worry about it!"
He picks up the downed stake, and unable to ground it, lies it on its side next to the chicken wire, which I have managed to unfold. "It's not a problem", he says, smiling.
"Well, have a good Sunday!" I say, shaking his hand and his daughters in turn, they wishing me the same.
The neighbors down the road are happy. One pair of neighbors down, one pair to go.
Post-Postscript
However, my next door neighbors are still unhappy with Beau.
I learned this a few minutes ago in leaving a note that I would be out for 3 hours late this afternoon at their door. Samir, the partner of Elodie, opened the door and read my note while I stood there.
"Things are better, but I still heard him this week at 7:30 a.m. when I was trying to sleep. Elodie is on vacation and so is Nowan [their son]. Hopefully the citronella collar will take care of the problem.
"What I think you should do is leave him with someone, because you have no life if you cannot go to Mass and you cannot go cycling because he will bark.
"The problem is that you are here in the summer and the summer is when we are on vacation.
"When I'm awakened at 7:30 a.m., I'm in a bad mood for the whole day. We've been nice about all this, other families would not have been.
"The problem is that you are here during the vacation period, which is when we are on vacation. The best thing is for you to pay someone so keep Beau for you."
When I bought the house, the house now owned by Samir and Elodie had stood empty for a long time. And I did not have Beau, whom I am certainly not going to give up.
As must be obvious, if I don't bend to my neighbors' will, they will continue to complain.
So, just as I thought I had found a solution to two problems (the car, leaving Beau alone during the day), I realize I have not dealt with my next-door neighbors' desire to sleep late.
I thought that during the week, leaving for a bicycle ride would not be a problem because Elodie works, and Samir works off and on.
"'Yes', it's better now, especially on Sundays," Samir tells me.
"Well, I put my ear to the door when I leave to be sure he is not barking, and when I return, I put my ear to the door for the same reason" I rejoin. "I know he's not barking."
"He barks in episodes", returns Samir. "He stops for a while, then he starts again."
Perhaps the title of this post should be, "The Impossibility Of Keeping The Neighbors Happy"!
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Gender Differences In Parking; Swallows Wake Me; Donkey Farm
Saturday, July 11, 2015
There are few areas in which I would yield to the stereotypes of women's abilities versus men. I think women can make excellent engineers, they just need to have exposure to the field and its possibilities. Similarly, I think women can make great pilots, great jockeys, great race car drivers. When it comes to me and my ability to park in a small space, however, I have to wonder whether there is any truth to canards about women's more limited spatial perception. At least where I am concerned.
Since the car was vandalized, I have been parking it in the garage that comes with the house. The garage is approached by a narrow path, an easement given by my neighbors across the way. Successful parking involves angling the car almost flush against one of the exterior walls of the garage, then straightening the car out and easing it in slowly, in reverse.
I have only been able to this once, yesterday. As a result, I have made a nice mess of the car, which is scratched in several places. Although the car is a rental, and my experience over the last three years has been that the leasing company has been indulgent, I wonder whether I have just been lucky. I have scratch remover paste which I will be sure to apply diligently before I return the car, but it's frustrating to try and try and try to get the maneuver right only to hear the grinding sound of the car chassis rubbing against the garage wall. What misery!
--At least I don't own the car.
*****
In the almost six weeks I've been here, I have put in heat pumps, and retained a contractor to put in a full bath on the top floor as well as turn the attic into an inhabitable space. I've paid my taxes, participated in the planning meeting for the church bazaar, had two pieces framed, entertained visitors and simultaneously kept up my Monday through Friday gym visits and added several cycling jaunts. I've been bitten by a dog, stung by a horse fly and struggled with the problem of having a dog that does not like being alone and neighbors that are quick to complain if he barks out of loneliness. The car has been vandalized and I've taken to parking it in the garage, an effort that always leads to tears.
You might ask "Why are you doing all this? Wouldn't it be easier to go back to New York, where you would have none of these concerns?"
Well, the truth is that every morning, swallows wake me. I hear them outside my window. I get up and look out towards the Pyrenees: I can't get that back in New York. On a clear night I can see hundreds of stars, the planets Venus and Neptune, too. And when I go for long walks (as Beau and I do every day), I pass some of the most beautiful rolling countryside in the world.
This morning I decided I would find the path that loops from the cemetery in Caunes around the vineyards to a donkey farm and back to its beginning near the ruin of a former chapel of the Carmelite order. Beau and I started out at eleven and were back by one. The path is behind the village foyer, a public space used for village events as well as private festivities. I had never fixed the cemetery on a map, so I wandered near the road to Carcassonne before doubling back and finding the path to the cemetery.
The cemetery is framed by cypresses, tall slender trees. The black-green leaves have a sombre tone, which is why they are ubiquitous in French cemeteries. Past the cemetery there are just fields, rows and rows of vines At one point there is a fork in the road and if you turn left you start your on you way back. Go on a bit further and you encounter two pastures for donkeys and a large house at the top of the hill on the property. It belongs to the owner who runs a business providing rides in the mountains on donkeys.
Where in New York City could I find something like that? So whatever the challenges of living here, they are more than made up for by the beauty around me.
There are few areas in which I would yield to the stereotypes of women's abilities versus men. I think women can make excellent engineers, they just need to have exposure to the field and its possibilities. Similarly, I think women can make great pilots, great jockeys, great race car drivers. When it comes to me and my ability to park in a small space, however, I have to wonder whether there is any truth to canards about women's more limited spatial perception. At least where I am concerned.
Since the car was vandalized, I have been parking it in the garage that comes with the house. The garage is approached by a narrow path, an easement given by my neighbors across the way. Successful parking involves angling the car almost flush against one of the exterior walls of the garage, then straightening the car out and easing it in slowly, in reverse.
I have only been able to this once, yesterday. As a result, I have made a nice mess of the car, which is scratched in several places. Although the car is a rental, and my experience over the last three years has been that the leasing company has been indulgent, I wonder whether I have just been lucky. I have scratch remover paste which I will be sure to apply diligently before I return the car, but it's frustrating to try and try and try to get the maneuver right only to hear the grinding sound of the car chassis rubbing against the garage wall. What misery!
--At least I don't own the car.
*****
In the almost six weeks I've been here, I have put in heat pumps, and retained a contractor to put in a full bath on the top floor as well as turn the attic into an inhabitable space. I've paid my taxes, participated in the planning meeting for the church bazaar, had two pieces framed, entertained visitors and simultaneously kept up my Monday through Friday gym visits and added several cycling jaunts. I've been bitten by a dog, stung by a horse fly and struggled with the problem of having a dog that does not like being alone and neighbors that are quick to complain if he barks out of loneliness. The car has been vandalized and I've taken to parking it in the garage, an effort that always leads to tears.
You might ask "Why are you doing all this? Wouldn't it be easier to go back to New York, where you would have none of these concerns?"
Well, the truth is that every morning, swallows wake me. I hear them outside my window. I get up and look out towards the Pyrenees: I can't get that back in New York. On a clear night I can see hundreds of stars, the planets Venus and Neptune, too. And when I go for long walks (as Beau and I do every day), I pass some of the most beautiful rolling countryside in the world.
This morning I decided I would find the path that loops from the cemetery in Caunes around the vineyards to a donkey farm and back to its beginning near the ruin of a former chapel of the Carmelite order. Beau and I started out at eleven and were back by one. The path is behind the village foyer, a public space used for village events as well as private festivities. I had never fixed the cemetery on a map, so I wandered near the road to Carcassonne before doubling back and finding the path to the cemetery.
The cemetery is framed by cypresses, tall slender trees. The black-green leaves have a sombre tone, which is why they are ubiquitous in French cemeteries. Past the cemetery there are just fields, rows and rows of vines At one point there is a fork in the road and if you turn left you start your on you way back. Go on a bit further and you encounter two pastures for donkeys and a large house at the top of the hill on the property. It belongs to the owner who runs a business providing rides in the mountains on donkeys.
Where in New York City could I find something like that? So whatever the challenges of living here, they are more than made up for by the beauty around me.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Le Copinage
July 9, 2015
In France it is often better to know someone than to know something, I am coming to learn. I have had reason to experience the difference in connection with the repair of my tires after a vandal deflated two of them a few weeks ago.
I am not someone who knows much about cars and who drives on four wheels and a prayer, if you will. So while my tires got re-inflated, afterwards there was an unexplained yellow exclamation point showing up on the tachometer of the car's dashboard.
I could not figure out why I was getting this signal, and thought it might be a new problem with the car. I took out the manual for the car from the glove compartment to try to find an answer. It was of course, only in French. Flipping through the tables of symbols for the different parts of the car, it appeared to me that the problem might be that there was not enough brake fluid in the car, a dangerous condition which could cause the brakes to fail. When I realized that I had been driving around on possibly compromised brakes, I realized I had to find a mechanic fast.
The question was whether to call the number for service as I had done earlier, or try a local mechanic. If it there was not enough brake fluid in the car, a mechanic could easily add some, but if I called the service number it would take at least a day for the problem to be sorted out. A local mechanic might be quicker, but I did not know anyone reliable, or how to judge anyone I found in the vicinity of Caunes. So what did I do? --I relied on le copinage, that is, my network of contacts, or cronies.
It was simple: I had a problem involving four wheels. Whom to ask? My cycling partners, all local men, with a long history in Caunes and the surrounding villages.
I got up early today to make sure I was at the meeting point first and waited. Sure enough, all three of the men who rode with me confirmed that there was a Citroen dealer in Caunes, which I had not known. My problem was resolved mid-morning, much sooner than it would have been had I called the service number on my lease contract.
What was the problem that caused the warning light to go on? Was it due to a problem with the brake fluid?
No. The problem was that the repairman who picked up the car when I called about the air having been let out of the two tires took the car to the garage and re-inflated the tires without resetting the gauge that measures the pressure on the tires back to the point where it had been. Consequently, the gauge indicated that the pressure on the tires was unsustainable, and the yellow exclamation point lit up. Thanks to the mechanic's carelessness, and because I could not make sense of the French manual, I enjoyed a free night of worry.
The French word insouciant means "carefree", as it does in English. But it also means "careless". And insouciance is very much a part of the mentalite of many French I encounter in business situations:
*The salesman who sells me my WiFi printer does not ask what level MacbookAir I have, so it is unclear whether the printer will be WiFi compatible with my laptop, which uses an operating system more advanced than those for which the printer was built. (I can use the printer by attaching it to the computer with a USB cable, but wanted to use it remotely);
*The saleswoman at La Grand Pharmacie de la Gare rings up three products part of a "buy 2, get the third one free' promotion, but refuses to give me a refund when it turns out one of the purchased products is more than the other --a fact not part of the boldface of the promotion. (She blames me for not looking at the virtually illegible fine print, even though before she rings me up,she makes me go back to the aisle from which I took the products to confirm that the promotion is still on);
These are just two examples to add to my experience with the mechanic that re-inflated my car's tires In stores, when you ask for a product, you had better hope that the sales personnel you ask is working the aisle where the product you need is located. C'est ne pas mon rayon ("It's not my aisle") is such a well-worn response in shops that it has entered the language as a catch-phrase for "no service".
At times, I find myself frustrated by the lack of energy and initiative and ask myself "Would I find this back home?" I have to say "Yes", as anyone who has ever had to find something in a Radio Shack or Best Buy can attest. The attitude of the clerks in New York is lackadaisical, and sometimes insulting, too.
On the other hand, I have never been insulted in a French store, just tested. The check-out clerk at La Grande Pharmacie de la Gare drove me crazy when she told me she could not give me a refund for the item I didn't want at a higher price, but I flummoxed her when I said "Next time, you'll point out the difference before you ring me up, right? --I'm counting on you, copine!"
In France it is often better to know someone than to know something, I am coming to learn. I have had reason to experience the difference in connection with the repair of my tires after a vandal deflated two of them a few weeks ago.
I am not someone who knows much about cars and who drives on four wheels and a prayer, if you will. So while my tires got re-inflated, afterwards there was an unexplained yellow exclamation point showing up on the tachometer of the car's dashboard.
I could not figure out why I was getting this signal, and thought it might be a new problem with the car. I took out the manual for the car from the glove compartment to try to find an answer. It was of course, only in French. Flipping through the tables of symbols for the different parts of the car, it appeared to me that the problem might be that there was not enough brake fluid in the car, a dangerous condition which could cause the brakes to fail. When I realized that I had been driving around on possibly compromised brakes, I realized I had to find a mechanic fast.
The question was whether to call the number for service as I had done earlier, or try a local mechanic. If it there was not enough brake fluid in the car, a mechanic could easily add some, but if I called the service number it would take at least a day for the problem to be sorted out. A local mechanic might be quicker, but I did not know anyone reliable, or how to judge anyone I found in the vicinity of Caunes. So what did I do? --I relied on le copinage, that is, my network of contacts, or cronies.
It was simple: I had a problem involving four wheels. Whom to ask? My cycling partners, all local men, with a long history in Caunes and the surrounding villages.
I got up early today to make sure I was at the meeting point first and waited. Sure enough, all three of the men who rode with me confirmed that there was a Citroen dealer in Caunes, which I had not known. My problem was resolved mid-morning, much sooner than it would have been had I called the service number on my lease contract.
What was the problem that caused the warning light to go on? Was it due to a problem with the brake fluid?
No. The problem was that the repairman who picked up the car when I called about the air having been let out of the two tires took the car to the garage and re-inflated the tires without resetting the gauge that measures the pressure on the tires back to the point where it had been. Consequently, the gauge indicated that the pressure on the tires was unsustainable, and the yellow exclamation point lit up. Thanks to the mechanic's carelessness, and because I could not make sense of the French manual, I enjoyed a free night of worry.
The French word insouciant means "carefree", as it does in English. But it also means "careless". And insouciance is very much a part of the mentalite of many French I encounter in business situations:
*The salesman who sells me my WiFi printer does not ask what level MacbookAir I have, so it is unclear whether the printer will be WiFi compatible with my laptop, which uses an operating system more advanced than those for which the printer was built. (I can use the printer by attaching it to the computer with a USB cable, but wanted to use it remotely);
*The saleswoman at La Grand Pharmacie de la Gare rings up three products part of a "buy 2, get the third one free' promotion, but refuses to give me a refund when it turns out one of the purchased products is more than the other --a fact not part of the boldface of the promotion. (She blames me for not looking at the virtually illegible fine print, even though before she rings me up,she makes me go back to the aisle from which I took the products to confirm that the promotion is still on);
These are just two examples to add to my experience with the mechanic that re-inflated my car's tires In stores, when you ask for a product, you had better hope that the sales personnel you ask is working the aisle where the product you need is located. C'est ne pas mon rayon ("It's not my aisle") is such a well-worn response in shops that it has entered the language as a catch-phrase for "no service".
At times, I find myself frustrated by the lack of energy and initiative and ask myself "Would I find this back home?" I have to say "Yes", as anyone who has ever had to find something in a Radio Shack or Best Buy can attest. The attitude of the clerks in New York is lackadaisical, and sometimes insulting, too.
On the other hand, I have never been insulted in a French store, just tested. The check-out clerk at La Grande Pharmacie de la Gare drove me crazy when she told me she could not give me a refund for the item I didn't want at a higher price, but I flummoxed her when I said "Next time, you'll point out the difference before you ring me up, right? --I'm counting on you, copine!"
Monday, July 6, 2015
Johnny Hallyday On The Road
July 6, 2015
Johnny Hallyday, France's only rocker, is on the road again. Seventy-two years old, he played Nimes and comes to Carcassonne later this week.
Hallyday fans (and they are almost all French) embrace Johnny as one of their own, notwithstanding that he was born in Belgium. Hallyday is a tall, strapping man, 6'1". He dresses like a gunslinger crossed with a motorcycle rider: black leather pants, sometimes fringed, showing off his long legs and shapely bottom. He wears black leather jackets to match his chaps and his shirts are always open to the sternum, accented by a circlet. Broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, he cuts a fine figure.
He wears his hair shorter now, and sports a goatee, but it is still a mane, now brown, but once shoulder-length and golden. Broad forehead, large nose, high cheekbones, a stance at once challenging and seductive, he is an idol and he knows it. Fans buy "Johnny Hallyday" beach towels with the image of their man on a motorcycle, head down, looking right at you, cruising down the highway. They are always in evidence at concerts, along with other "Johnny" paraphernalia
He sings in English and French and the beat is pulsing. "I love ya' honey" he belts, picking up the microphone with one hand and striding across the stage.
Mick Jagger is a shrimp. Johnny Hallyday is a shark. No Peter Pan, he celebrates his audience as well as himself, throwing out bits of clothing, the handkerchief he wipes his face with between songs.
Life, love, betrayal and rising from the ashes of all these are the stock in trade of his songs. The suggestion that "I don't give a damn" (je m'en fous) is part of Johnny's allure. His many fans are people in France whose lives allow them few pretensions, the gas station owners, the cafe proprietors and the people who work for them. Here are the lyrics of his song "Fool For The Blues":
Don't say you love me babe,
Johnny Hallyday, France's only rocker, is on the road again. Seventy-two years old, he played Nimes and comes to Carcassonne later this week.
Hallyday fans (and they are almost all French) embrace Johnny as one of their own, notwithstanding that he was born in Belgium. Hallyday is a tall, strapping man, 6'1". He dresses like a gunslinger crossed with a motorcycle rider: black leather pants, sometimes fringed, showing off his long legs and shapely bottom. He wears black leather jackets to match his chaps and his shirts are always open to the sternum, accented by a circlet. Broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, he cuts a fine figure.
He wears his hair shorter now, and sports a goatee, but it is still a mane, now brown, but once shoulder-length and golden. Broad forehead, large nose, high cheekbones, a stance at once challenging and seductive, he is an idol and he knows it. Fans buy "Johnny Hallyday" beach towels with the image of their man on a motorcycle, head down, looking right at you, cruising down the highway. They are always in evidence at concerts, along with other "Johnny" paraphernalia
He sings in English and French and the beat is pulsing. "I love ya' honey" he belts, picking up the microphone with one hand and striding across the stage.
Mick Jagger is a shrimp. Johnny Hallyday is a shark. No Peter Pan, he celebrates his audience as well as himself, throwing out bits of clothing, the handkerchief he wipes his face with between songs.
Life, love, betrayal and rising from the ashes of all these are the stock in trade of his songs. The suggestion that "I don't give a damn" (je m'en fous) is part of Johnny's allure. His many fans are people in France whose lives allow them few pretensions, the gas station owners, the cafe proprietors and the people who work for them. Here are the lyrics of his song "Fool For The Blues":
Don't say you love me babe,
I know you'd be lying
I can see it in your smile
It's like a drug now
You're addicted to them blues
Always getting high
Oh ! But the rain it falls
From the way I feel, the way I feel
Empty souls and empty hearts
We don't choose, I'm still a
Fool for the blues
Oh those bitter words
Do someone hurt you bad?
All this pain
We have inside all of us
From the love we never had
Oh ! And the rain still falls
But I know baby through it all
Oh ! They say time will heal
But I know from the way I feel, the way I feel
Empty souls and empty hearts we don't choose
I'm still a fool the blues
Empty souls and empty hearts we don't choose
I'm still a fool for the blues
I can see it in your smile
It's like a drug now
You're addicted to them blues
Always getting high
Oh ! But the rain it falls
From the way I feel, the way I feel
Empty souls and empty hearts
We don't choose, I'm still a
Fool for the blues
Oh those bitter words
How they hurt me baby
All this pain
We have inside all of us
From the love we never had
Oh ! And the rain still falls
But I know baby through it all
Oh ! They say time will heal
But I know from the way I feel, the way I feel
Empty souls and empty hearts we don't choose
I'm still a fool the blues
Empty souls and empty hearts we don't choose
I'm still a fool for the blues
Notwithstanding his image, Johnny is astute:he moved to Switzerland to reduce his tax burden, and maintains a home in Los Angeles, which he likes because he can live unrecognized, taking long motorcycle rides and staying in nondescript motels. Recently diagnosed with colon cancer , he was successfully treated. His review in last Sunday's Le Figaro indicates he can still put audiences in a frenzy : Johnny Hallyday; solide come un rock.
Johnny Hallyday, 18 platinum albums, the French 'Elvis'. Vive le rock francais!
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Greeks Vote "No", not "Nai"
July 5, 2015
The Greeks have voted "No" rather than "Nai" ("Yes" in Greek), massively rejecting the terms of lenders. Tomorrow, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will have a long day's working session, trying to navigate the news.
The idea of Merkel, the right-leaning daughter of an East German clergyman; and Hollande, the left-leaning well-fed son of an attorney from Correze; trying to manage the politics of a renegade Greece, that gave the raspberry to the financial parameters of EU membership, beggars the imagination.
However, both are forced by circumstances to find common ground on Greece. Each of their countries are the biggest lenders to Greece, and if "Grexit" happens, it will be on their necks.
Hollande's Socialist leanings mean that he must publicly demonstrate sympathy for the Greeks; Merkel, on the other hand, must bow to the rigor Germans expect in financial matters. Both know that the Greek economy is now in no better shape than it was when the country joined the EU, and that the interest rates demanded will keep Greece a sort of "banana republic" for the foreseeable future.
No German banker (--and perhaps no German) would have agreed to the terms of Greece's entry into the EU. However, German and French bankers saw money to be made from Greece and they lent the Greeks money on that supposition. That the Greeks have turned out to be like the "lay-away" customers in ghettos --never arriving at the means to discharge their debt-- does not mean that the return on assets lent has been negligible.
Alex Tsipras has shrewdly played on not just Greek nationalism, but that of nationalist parties in Europe. Thus, a "No", is a way of saying "The contract you made us sign was a contract of adhesion to which we were not equal parties. So we want the contract re-made."
The dilemma is that Spain, Ireland and Portugal took the bargain and the pain when their economies were unable to deliver the benefits on which the loans were predicated. The fear across Europe is that these countries will exit the Euro out of anger that the Greeks are handed special terms.
What to do? The European Union was supposed to evolve into a force that could compete with the U.S. economy, which for purposes of the argument, was supposed to be taken as a major player in the global economy. Events of late are transforming the "European Project" into a squabble between the member countries as a group, outdistanced by countries with populations much more willing to sacrifice for the future of their children.
Whatever the merits of the Greek case for relief, the resulting arrangement will leave Europe as a whole far behind the rest of the world, which is taking a page from the experience.
The Greeks have voted "No" rather than "Nai" ("Yes" in Greek), massively rejecting the terms of lenders. Tomorrow, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will have a long day's working session, trying to navigate the news.
The idea of Merkel, the right-leaning daughter of an East German clergyman; and Hollande, the left-leaning well-fed son of an attorney from Correze; trying to manage the politics of a renegade Greece, that gave the raspberry to the financial parameters of EU membership, beggars the imagination.
However, both are forced by circumstances to find common ground on Greece. Each of their countries are the biggest lenders to Greece, and if "Grexit" happens, it will be on their necks.
Hollande's Socialist leanings mean that he must publicly demonstrate sympathy for the Greeks; Merkel, on the other hand, must bow to the rigor Germans expect in financial matters. Both know that the Greek economy is now in no better shape than it was when the country joined the EU, and that the interest rates demanded will keep Greece a sort of "banana republic" for the foreseeable future.
No German banker (--and perhaps no German) would have agreed to the terms of Greece's entry into the EU. However, German and French bankers saw money to be made from Greece and they lent the Greeks money on that supposition. That the Greeks have turned out to be like the "lay-away" customers in ghettos --never arriving at the means to discharge their debt-- does not mean that the return on assets lent has been negligible.
Alex Tsipras has shrewdly played on not just Greek nationalism, but that of nationalist parties in Europe. Thus, a "No", is a way of saying "The contract you made us sign was a contract of adhesion to which we were not equal parties. So we want the contract re-made."
The dilemma is that Spain, Ireland and Portugal took the bargain and the pain when their economies were unable to deliver the benefits on which the loans were predicated. The fear across Europe is that these countries will exit the Euro out of anger that the Greeks are handed special terms.
What to do? The European Union was supposed to evolve into a force that could compete with the U.S. economy, which for purposes of the argument, was supposed to be taken as a major player in the global economy. Events of late are transforming the "European Project" into a squabble between the member countries as a group, outdistanced by countries with populations much more willing to sacrifice for the future of their children.
Whatever the merits of the Greek case for relief, the resulting arrangement will leave Europe as a whole far behind the rest of the world, which is taking a page from the experience.
Cloistered
July 5, 2015
The Languedoc has forty-eight monasteries and convents by one count, and France many more. So it's not surprising that in French, the verbs "to cloister" --cloitrer) , or "to cloister oneself" --se cloitrer-- (both bearing an accent circonflex over the "i" I'm unable to reproduce here)-- are used more frequently than in English.
As I learned to my surprise hearing a news report about the heat wave on one of the major stations. The presenter --contrasting the behavior of tourists, out in full strength in Paris and other tourist centers, notwithstanding the intense heat-- said the French response to the high temperatures was "to cloister themselves".
Which explains why, when you are anywhere in France on a particularly hot summer afternoon, all the windows and doors are shuttered. When they are closed, French houses, many made of stone, with heavy tile floors, are surprisingly cool, even in the hottest weather. (My own house is always ten degrees colder than it is outside. ) Shuttered windows look unwelcoming, but it is the custom here. And those locals who keep some windows open during the day shutter them religiously at night, the sound of groaning latches audible throughout the village once the sun has set. In the winter, the same logic prevails, in reverse: energy is to be conserved, heat kept in. Many people still heat their houses using fireplaces with ducts from which heat rises to the upper floors to heat their houses. The former owners of my house did so, supplementing the heat from the one fireplace with portable electric heaters for the coldest days. As do the old couple down the road from me, whose three chimneys supply all the heat for their home.
Picture windows, air conditioning and central heating are not features of old French houses. Those features are available in new construction, in planned developments that cater to well-off people, not the average. Which means that the average French home is a place where entertaining is frequently limited to close family members. The French are very social, but because few people have the money to spend on modern conveniences for their homes that many Americans take for granted, much of social life is conducted in public spaces. For instance, today, the Anti-Cancer League in the village is hosting a day dedicated to educating villagers about the disease. Tuesday, in Villefranche --the next village towards Carcassonne-- there will be a party with music and food, a subscription event. Next month, the chapel where I go to Mass will hold its annual picnic and bazaar. The price of all events is 15 Euros, food included. These events are how most of the French meet their compatriots.
The France of intimate dinner parties and champagne toasts is limited to the gratin, the upper crust in Paris and big cities such as Toulouse, Nice and Lyon. On the rare occasions when one is invited to a meal at someone's house, it's usually a lunch on Sunday, and the table is set for a large group. At lunch, the French talk and talk and talk about not much of anything, the whole purpose of the gathering being to enjoy good food and wine in the company of others. Serious subjects are banned, unless they concern food. After a long Sunday lunch, everyone goes home and takes a sieste, an afternoon nap.
Most of the time, however, everyone makes do without much fuss. An elderly local woman and her husband live in a very old house whose back stands behind the old village walls, walls that date from the time when a much smaller village, before the village expanded beyond the walls. The house has little light, but there is a walled back garden, a place where the owners plant some flowers, some herbs and some tomatoes. It is their pride and joy, and it was a signal honor to have been invited inside to see the house and garden.
What do they do on a hot day? After a bit of lunch they take a sieste, the television in the sitting room lulling them to sleep. They are perfectly happy. The house has been in the family for generations, it is where their son and his wife and their two young children will move while renovations are being done to their house. Neither the older generation nor the younger has any desire to live anywhere other than Caunes. They know all about picture windows and such modern conveniences, but they see no need for them.
Their homes in Caunes are their cloister. In their homes they escape the world. Not for them and the other villageois the bustle of cities. The Caunois work hard, and they are not unaware of what is going on in the world beyond Caunes, but they prefer to keep away from the madding crowd, and have little desire to know more of it.
"The French have a remarkable capacity for minding their own business" wrote the author of Instructions for American Servicemen in France, a guidebook for U.S. Servicemen serving there during World War II.
As so much of what is contained in the book reminds me of the villagers of Caunes, I quote from it here:
You have certainly heard of gay Paree. Yet the French have far less the regular habit of pleasure than we Americans. Even before the Nazi occupation, when the French were still free to have a good time, they had it as a special event and managed it thriftily. A whole French family would spend less on pleasure in a month than you would spend over a weekend. The French reputation for gayety was principally built on the civilized French way of doing things; by the French people's good taste; by their interest in quality, not quantity; and by the lively energy of their minds. The French are intelligent, have mostly had a sensible education, without frills, are industrious, shrewd and frugal.
The French are not given to confidences, or to telling how much money they make --or used to make --or bragging. And they think little of such talk in others. The French have a remarkable capacity for minding their own business. Even in the days when they used to travel, before the Nazis shut down on it, the French never used to sit down in a railway station and tell their private affairs to a total stranger. They are observant, don't think they won't notice what you do. But they have little curiosity.
All the author writes rings true in my experience. The longer I live here, the more I realize how much happier these folk --cloistered in their modest homes-- are than many of their urban counterparts. The idyllic landscape, the fertile land, the dominance of agriculture still in the hands of families, the resulting slow pace of life, seems to make for greater happiness, the limitated cultural possibilities notwithstanding. Everyone has to entertain themselves, but there is no shortage of people who do so successfully: women who embroider beautifully, lending their talents to the church bazaar, people who read, who tinker, who cook, who garden. Not everyone has the self-reliance to live here, but those who do are, I believe, happy.
--Thoreau would have liked Caunes. For after all, wasn't Walden a cloister, when you come right down to it?
The Languedoc has forty-eight monasteries and convents by one count, and France many more. So it's not surprising that in French, the verbs "to cloister" --cloitrer) , or "to cloister oneself" --se cloitrer-- (both bearing an accent circonflex over the "i" I'm unable to reproduce here)-- are used more frequently than in English.
As I learned to my surprise hearing a news report about the heat wave on one of the major stations. The presenter --contrasting the behavior of tourists, out in full strength in Paris and other tourist centers, notwithstanding the intense heat-- said the French response to the high temperatures was "to cloister themselves".
Which explains why, when you are anywhere in France on a particularly hot summer afternoon, all the windows and doors are shuttered. When they are closed, French houses, many made of stone, with heavy tile floors, are surprisingly cool, even in the hottest weather. (My own house is always ten degrees colder than it is outside. ) Shuttered windows look unwelcoming, but it is the custom here. And those locals who keep some windows open during the day shutter them religiously at night, the sound of groaning latches audible throughout the village once the sun has set. In the winter, the same logic prevails, in reverse: energy is to be conserved, heat kept in. Many people still heat their houses using fireplaces with ducts from which heat rises to the upper floors to heat their houses. The former owners of my house did so, supplementing the heat from the one fireplace with portable electric heaters for the coldest days. As do the old couple down the road from me, whose three chimneys supply all the heat for their home.
Picture windows, air conditioning and central heating are not features of old French houses. Those features are available in new construction, in planned developments that cater to well-off people, not the average. Which means that the average French home is a place where entertaining is frequently limited to close family members. The French are very social, but because few people have the money to spend on modern conveniences for their homes that many Americans take for granted, much of social life is conducted in public spaces. For instance, today, the Anti-Cancer League in the village is hosting a day dedicated to educating villagers about the disease. Tuesday, in Villefranche --the next village towards Carcassonne-- there will be a party with music and food, a subscription event. Next month, the chapel where I go to Mass will hold its annual picnic and bazaar. The price of all events is 15 Euros, food included. These events are how most of the French meet their compatriots.
The France of intimate dinner parties and champagne toasts is limited to the gratin, the upper crust in Paris and big cities such as Toulouse, Nice and Lyon. On the rare occasions when one is invited to a meal at someone's house, it's usually a lunch on Sunday, and the table is set for a large group. At lunch, the French talk and talk and talk about not much of anything, the whole purpose of the gathering being to enjoy good food and wine in the company of others. Serious subjects are banned, unless they concern food. After a long Sunday lunch, everyone goes home and takes a sieste, an afternoon nap.
Most of the time, however, everyone makes do without much fuss. An elderly local woman and her husband live in a very old house whose back stands behind the old village walls, walls that date from the time when a much smaller village, before the village expanded beyond the walls. The house has little light, but there is a walled back garden, a place where the owners plant some flowers, some herbs and some tomatoes. It is their pride and joy, and it was a signal honor to have been invited inside to see the house and garden.
What do they do on a hot day? After a bit of lunch they take a sieste, the television in the sitting room lulling them to sleep. They are perfectly happy. The house has been in the family for generations, it is where their son and his wife and their two young children will move while renovations are being done to their house. Neither the older generation nor the younger has any desire to live anywhere other than Caunes. They know all about picture windows and such modern conveniences, but they see no need for them.
Their homes in Caunes are their cloister. In their homes they escape the world. Not for them and the other villageois the bustle of cities. The Caunois work hard, and they are not unaware of what is going on in the world beyond Caunes, but they prefer to keep away from the madding crowd, and have little desire to know more of it.
"The French have a remarkable capacity for minding their own business" wrote the author of Instructions for American Servicemen in France, a guidebook for U.S. Servicemen serving there during World War II.
As so much of what is contained in the book reminds me of the villagers of Caunes, I quote from it here:
You have certainly heard of gay Paree. Yet the French have far less the regular habit of pleasure than we Americans. Even before the Nazi occupation, when the French were still free to have a good time, they had it as a special event and managed it thriftily. A whole French family would spend less on pleasure in a month than you would spend over a weekend. The French reputation for gayety was principally built on the civilized French way of doing things; by the French people's good taste; by their interest in quality, not quantity; and by the lively energy of their minds. The French are intelligent, have mostly had a sensible education, without frills, are industrious, shrewd and frugal.
The French are not given to confidences, or to telling how much money they make --or used to make --or bragging. And they think little of such talk in others. The French have a remarkable capacity for minding their own business. Even in the days when they used to travel, before the Nazis shut down on it, the French never used to sit down in a railway station and tell their private affairs to a total stranger. They are observant, don't think they won't notice what you do. But they have little curiosity.
All the author writes rings true in my experience. The longer I live here, the more I realize how much happier these folk --cloistered in their modest homes-- are than many of their urban counterparts. The idyllic landscape, the fertile land, the dominance of agriculture still in the hands of families, the resulting slow pace of life, seems to make for greater happiness, the limitated cultural possibilities notwithstanding. Everyone has to entertain themselves, but there is no shortage of people who do so successfully: women who embroider beautifully, lending their talents to the church bazaar, people who read, who tinker, who cook, who garden. Not everyone has the self-reliance to live here, but those who do are, I believe, happy.
--Thoreau would have liked Caunes. For after all, wasn't Walden a cloister, when you come right down to it?
Friday, July 3, 2015
Good and Bad Guests
July 3, 2015
Annie Tempest's comic strip in Country Life, "Tottering By Gently", is among my favorites. "Dickie" and "Daffy" are a no-longer-young couple who live in a large pile in the English countryside. They are a stereotype of elderly country types, who drink too much wine, whose three dogs sleep in the bed with them, and who are utterly removed from what goes on in London, even when they are there on a visit to Dickie's club.
One of the memorable cartoon strips is about a bad guest, a fellow who drinks everything in sight and never stops talking about nothing of great interest. By the end of his stay, Dickie and Daffy's eyes reveal their real feelings about their guest, notwithstanding the veneer of bonhomie they feel obliged to keep up.
Recent visitors gave me reason to remember the cartoon, and to analyze why I was so grateful at they departure. In considering what irritated me, I realized that the series of maladdresses that characterized their visit are far from specific to them, but shared by many of my countrymen. As we approach the celebration of Independence Day, I offer my observations in apposition (but not opposition) to the generalized love of individual freedom that is quintessentially American.
First off, my visitors found the towels, robes and slippers I laid out on their bed not to their taste, and served themselves to my private stock;
Secondly, my visitors took over my kitchen, cooking what they bought and liked, making their own coffee and in doing the latter, damaging my coffee maker;
Third, my visitors camped on my upholstery, pushing chairs against the wall and leaving marks, as well as putting their sneakered feet on the sofa;
Fourth, my friends like drinking wine, consider themselves conoisseurs and pressed me to drink with them, despite my demurrals;
Fifth, knowing full well that I am a practicing "Roman", one of them lectured me about the logical connection between the celibate life Roman Catholic priests are asked to live and the pedophilia scandals in the Church;
Sixth, one of my visitors took her companion sternly to task in front of me on two occasions, airing dirty linen in public;
Seventh, at home, in the living room, my guests spent their time checking their e-mails, playing computer games, and contacting the office, all right in front of me, rather than in their rooms;
Eighth, my guests sought to persuade me to buy a property near them, a property belonging to friends of theirs;
Ninth, one of them made unwelcome inquiries as to my financial situation;
Tenth, they never spoke of anything other than themselves, their deals, their amazing trips and their well-connected friends. What they wanted to do when with me was drink, eat and shop limitlessly without regard to the realities of the French countryside, with its modest possibilities. And during their stay, they made me various gifts (a belt, a shopping cart's worth of food when we were at the supermarket) --a not-so-subtle way of letting me know that they thought that by doing so, they had settled their account completely.
My friends had a wonderful time. They ate omelettes with truffles (the latter provided by me), game (ditto), and charcuterie made by master butchers. They drank and bought great wines, took home table linens and clothes. They visited a chateau run by acquaintances of mine and offered to make them a connection with someone who might be interested in importing the " biologic" wine made there. If my acquaintances take up the offer, one of my guests will be the middleman.
Yesterday I sent my friends on their way to the hotel on the Cote d'Azur I recommended when they consulted me about their trip. They also left with a reservation I'd made for them at the best restaurant within an hour's drive, La Table de Fontfroide, at the abbey of the same name.
Of course, I got a one line e-mail thanking me as soon as lunch ended, sent from an iPhone while they were on the road towards what would be a considerably more luxurious experience consistent with their expectations of France.
A one line e-mail "Thank You" note --"Magnifique! The Abbey was awesome! Off to St. Maxime. So many thanks for your hospitality!-- will have to do. They are such busy people.
Annie Tempest's comic strip in Country Life, "Tottering By Gently", is among my favorites. "Dickie" and "Daffy" are a no-longer-young couple who live in a large pile in the English countryside. They are a stereotype of elderly country types, who drink too much wine, whose three dogs sleep in the bed with them, and who are utterly removed from what goes on in London, even when they are there on a visit to Dickie's club.
One of the memorable cartoon strips is about a bad guest, a fellow who drinks everything in sight and never stops talking about nothing of great interest. By the end of his stay, Dickie and Daffy's eyes reveal their real feelings about their guest, notwithstanding the veneer of bonhomie they feel obliged to keep up.
Recent visitors gave me reason to remember the cartoon, and to analyze why I was so grateful at they departure. In considering what irritated me, I realized that the series of maladdresses that characterized their visit are far from specific to them, but shared by many of my countrymen. As we approach the celebration of Independence Day, I offer my observations in apposition (but not opposition) to the generalized love of individual freedom that is quintessentially American.
First off, my visitors found the towels, robes and slippers I laid out on their bed not to their taste, and served themselves to my private stock;
Secondly, my visitors took over my kitchen, cooking what they bought and liked, making their own coffee and in doing the latter, damaging my coffee maker;
Third, my visitors camped on my upholstery, pushing chairs against the wall and leaving marks, as well as putting their sneakered feet on the sofa;
Fourth, my friends like drinking wine, consider themselves conoisseurs and pressed me to drink with them, despite my demurrals;
Fifth, knowing full well that I am a practicing "Roman", one of them lectured me about the logical connection between the celibate life Roman Catholic priests are asked to live and the pedophilia scandals in the Church;
Sixth, one of my visitors took her companion sternly to task in front of me on two occasions, airing dirty linen in public;
Seventh, at home, in the living room, my guests spent their time checking their e-mails, playing computer games, and contacting the office, all right in front of me, rather than in their rooms;
Eighth, my guests sought to persuade me to buy a property near them, a property belonging to friends of theirs;
Ninth, one of them made unwelcome inquiries as to my financial situation;
Tenth, they never spoke of anything other than themselves, their deals, their amazing trips and their well-connected friends. What they wanted to do when with me was drink, eat and shop limitlessly without regard to the realities of the French countryside, with its modest possibilities. And during their stay, they made me various gifts (a belt, a shopping cart's worth of food when we were at the supermarket) --a not-so-subtle way of letting me know that they thought that by doing so, they had settled their account completely.
My friends had a wonderful time. They ate omelettes with truffles (the latter provided by me), game (ditto), and charcuterie made by master butchers. They drank and bought great wines, took home table linens and clothes. They visited a chateau run by acquaintances of mine and offered to make them a connection with someone who might be interested in importing the " biologic" wine made there. If my acquaintances take up the offer, one of my guests will be the middleman.
Yesterday I sent my friends on their way to the hotel on the Cote d'Azur I recommended when they consulted me about their trip. They also left with a reservation I'd made for them at the best restaurant within an hour's drive, La Table de Fontfroide, at the abbey of the same name.
Of course, I got a one line e-mail thanking me as soon as lunch ended, sent from an iPhone while they were on the road towards what would be a considerably more luxurious experience consistent with their expectations of France.
A one line e-mail "Thank You" note --"Magnifique! The Abbey was awesome! Off to St. Maxime. So many thanks for your hospitality!-- will have to do. They are such busy people.
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