[7695 words]
What happens to a person’s mind when he comes to a city he barely knows, with the expectation of remaining there for a somewhat lengthy time, among people who do not speak his native tongue as a first language, and who share only the deep features of an ancient meta-culture and the superficial features of post-industrial society? Of what sort and to what depth can bonds be formed between people who were born into perspectives on the world whose points of origin are separated by an ocean? And how effectively can sensitivity and careful observation overcome the limitations imposed by lack of subtle knowledge about an environment in which one is just a visitor? These are some of the questions I have confronted in these last few months, and I have barely yet begun to apply features to the dim sketch of an answer.
Not surprisingly, the language difference is a constant reminder of my foreignness, and it continually throws up potential barriers that need to be dealt with, so that they do not, whenever possible, become real barriers. For example, when a foreigner asks a native a question, on the street for directions, or in a store about some item, that native has every reason to expect that the person asking the question will understand the answer. Although I am definitely making progress in my comprehension of spoken French, there have been situations where I have thought I understood the answer, only to find out later that I hadn’t.
This limitation of comprehension also has the effect, at times, of creating unexpected attempts at bonds that may be interesting for the moment, but have little chance of enduring beyond their proper moment. People are sometimes charmed by your foreignness and see you as some sort of oversized child that they need to take care of (in some situations this perception is accurate). They might take you aside and lavish attention on you, going to great lengths to see that you are entertained and that every potential social sticking point is smoothed over. I do not rebuke these attempts; they are usually,after all, heartfelt and sincere.
Others wish to pry your mind of the profoundest insights on your particular and specific perspective on their culture. They probe with deep, sensitive questions about your perceptions in an attempt to get some sort of view on their culture from the outside, to supplement their own. These attempts at communication are both gratifying and frustrating, for the ideas I am thinking about France at any given time are of a complexity that in no way matches my current ability to explain them. Although many here speak good English, there are other times when they and I don’t necessarily share the same vocabulary, but more importantly we might not share the same interpretation of what is being said and heard, even in English.
The point is, you improvise. You try not to bog down the conversation with a lot of questions about every word that is unfamiliar, or the particular meaning of a certain usage. It is sometimes necessary to do so, but most of the time, you can glean from context what you need to know. This is usually sufficient. But I am afraid that this has created the situation, more than once, where people think I know French better than I actually do. This happens because you get into the habit of nodding in assent, the gesture of comprehension, and sometimes, when it is too late, you realize you’ve assented to a proposition you hadn’t really understood well enough, and found that the current subject matter had pivoted around this point. You find you have lost your bearings in a sea of words, and your conversation partner can usually sense this.
Being a foreigner can alternately elate you or bring you to the brink of despair. The elation comes from the simple thrill of seeing what is frankly ordinary with new eyes, and making connections between the unfamiliar experience and already possessed knowledge. Some measure of despair comes from frustration drawn from the inevitability of failed communication and the protracted, involved process of learning to understand and express oneself in an entirely new way; in addition to which, only compounding the difficulty, different ways of saying things very often go hand in hand with different manners of conducting social interactions. You often lack sufficient information to have a complete picture of the situation you’re in. The amount it appears you have to learn to be simply conversant in a foreign language is staggering.
In spite of the above mentioned issues, I exhilarate, for I am beginning to find social inroads into Bordeaux’s cultural life. To be sure, many days are spent in front of my computer, typing in the words for which a paper manifestation now sits before your eyes. But interestingly, this solitary, hermetic activity seems to be the key to my social interaction, for I have found that many Bordelais are keenly interested in what I have to say about them and their town.
It happened that about a month ago, Philippe and I were invited to participate in a loose-knit exhibition or art fair that was then being planned. Called Aux 500 diables, this manifestation, as it were, was to include a wide variety of local artists and purveyors of cultural product. The participants would be exhibiting at many sites throughout Bordeaux; the name Aux 500 diables was a blanket title for all the exhibitions taking place within this framework. Our arm of the event was set up to focus on independent publishers, a category to which I eminently qualify. It was to be held at the cafe Grand Phylloxera, a cultural hangout on the rue de Ruat, which I have previously mentioned [see no. 2].
I write this after my three-week interaction with this establishment, and I can state without reservation that the Phylloxera is an excellent enterprise for this, or any other, town to have. It is run by people whose wish is to provide a space for the public to gather, drink wine and coffee, eat a meal (all at very reasonable prices) within a decidedly emphatic atmosphere of art. People come here to put up artworks, play music (both on the little stage and at the cafe tables themselves), have lively discussions, read from a large collection of art periodicals provided; they come here to live art, they gather here to be art. And, for all of that, the place is surprisingly humble and unpretentious. The Phylloxera, in a word, is supportive of the arts, both in principle and in practice. As presenters, Philippe and I were offered beverages in exchange for which the staff repeatedly refused to accept payment; and on the second Saturday, we were even given a free lunch. This was in spite of the fact that half the cafe was closed off to paying clientele, because the space was required by us to put up our exhibits.
The man who invited us to participate in Aux 500 diables, an acquaintance of Philippe’s named Stéphane, releases and distributes recordings by underground, experimental, noisy, abrasive, and otherwise difficult to neatly categorize works. He was aware of my group (as a local distributor of my group’s label) and, hearing that I was in town, decided that he wanted to meet me. He phoned me up and we arranged a time.
This was how I found myself jabbing the buzzer that sounded in his apartment on the rue Abbé de l’Epée bright one Wednesday morning, between the intermittent showers apparently characteristic of this time of year. One room of his apartment is dominated by a pile of TV sets in one corner, and a bookshelf crammed with books, in which Sade (that’s de Sade to my American readers) seems to be disproportionately represented. At the end of a narrow hallway, the walls of which were covered with posters and photographs, past a pile of human bones, lay a neat, tidy kitchen, across from which was a bedroom with the most complete collection of Bart Simpson paraphernalia you could possibly dream of. We met in his office, stacked high with shelves of cassettes and disks, over smoked tea. He showed me the kinds of disks and cassettes he was distributing, and we talked about my plans here in Bordeaux, of which my ideas yet form only the dimmest glimmer. It was here that he invited me to participate in Aux 500 diables, and informed me of a meeting the following week where all the participants would meet at the Phylloxera and discuss their plans.
The day of the meeting arrived, and we found ourselves seated around cafe tables with bottles of beer, glasses of wine and cups of coffee, making plans. This was a chance to meet the other presenters and bring ourselves up to date on all the specifics of the event. There were representatives from about six cultural initiatives there, whose work ranged from electronic and alternative music to limited handmade editions that exhibited care and craftsmanship.
It was here that I met Guido, a German living in Bordeaux, who does music and performance art. He talked about some an internet manifestation of Aux 500 diables that he and his partner, Isabel, were proposing, for which he was requesting a photograph and a brief text to put on-line. We arranged a time for me to come to their studio, in part to see his computer setup, but mostly to do a picture of me for my “page” on the World Wide Web.
After the planning meeting for Aux 500 diables, Stéphane invited us to his place to sample some cheese and wine that he had acquired. Like many people deeply active in music and the arts, he has a day job; he works as a waiter in an upscale restaurant which adjoins a shop that specializes in these two commodities, and had procured some interesting specimens that he wanted to share with us. We gladly accepted the invitation.
Cheese is a foodstuff that is passionately appreciated in France, and to which considerable attention is apparently devoted, esthetically and otherwise. This fact that is well attested in the following quotation from a guidebook* on the subject:
“French cheese is undoubtedly the best in the world. Although there are individual cheeses from other countries which may be as good as, or even better than, the best of French cheeses, no country offers a range of cheeses that for inventiveness, consistently high quality, authenticity and sheer variety of flavour and texture, comes anywhere near the French selection.”
On the other hand,
“North America has not, on the whole, been kind to cheese, although more cheese and more types of cheese are made there than anywhere else. Some are fine natural cheeses [which are] unfortunately too often swamped by the mass of anaesthetized, homogenized, artificially coloured and flavoured, pre-packed, ready-sliced, ready-shredded, ready-grated-it sometimes seems ready-digested-cheese food and cheese products.”
Both quotes from The Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide To Cheese, by Sandy Carr, London: Mitchell Beazley Publications, 1985.
From what I can gather, it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of cheese to the French. (It’s common knowledge, I think, how they feel about wine.) In American English, we have the adjective “cheesy,” which we bandy about disparagingly at anything which lacks substantial character or seems to be produced without care. It really isn’t too difficult to guess where this word comes from; all you have to do is ingest a dollop of Velveeta or Cheez-Whiz, and you will understand quite well how much respect our biggest cheese manufacturers evidently have for the model for their product. Although it would be possible to translate the word “cheesy” into French, the concept of cheese itself would never enter into the equation. The French dote on cheese, lavish the care of artisans in its making and eating, and build a secular sacrament out of what is, in essence, multiply rotten milk. (Another item that will put a nail in this point’s coffin is that, in the field of statistics, what in America is known as a “pie graph” the French call a “camembert graph.”)
Stéphane had boasted that France has enough cheeses for one to eat a different cheese every day for a full year, and he added, that there are actually many more varieties to spare. At the end of every meal, one can always expect to see the host or hostess bringing out the cheese as a final course. Each platter thus produced always contains tidbits which, when smeared on a fragment of crusty loaf, become a fine complement to any meal. I am finding, too, that this practice actually seems to aid the digestion.
There are a bewildering variety of cheeses, and I am hard pressed, with my uneducated palate, to discern much important difference between one cheese that smells like manure and another. I don’t mean this as a put-down; some of the cheeses that smell the most like manure are actually the tastiest. And I always prefer these cheeses to the red sausage that smells like wet dog. At the end of my stay here, I may be tempted to write, in my own Panégyrique, a Chapter III about my wayward experiences with French cheeses. Assuming my arteries survive that long.
I must admit that I was unprepared for what awaited us at Stéphane’s. He was gracious enough as a host to present us with no fewer than 16 different cheeses, all of them top-quality, not to mention four different wines, one each from Chile, New Zealand, Portugal, and of course, France. As for the cheeses, there were so many that I don’t remember most of them, though I think the bright orange crumbly mimolette, an aged gouda from northern France, was my favorite. There were crumbly cheeses, and there were pasty cheeses. There were cheeses that stung the palate and there were those that coated the tongue with subtle flavor and a velvety softness. There were cheeses with hard, impenetrable crusts and there were cheeses, such as brie, with soft white fuzzy crusts. (Philippe gets a little testy if he sees me remove this crust before eating it; on the other hand, his mother agrees with me, finding its fuzziness disgusting.) The pride of Stéphane’s collection was an ancient (yes, I believe it was pre-Roman) hard Corsican goat cheese, Stéphane himself being of Corsican extraction. It was very hard, greenish in color, and quite aggressive to the taste buds.
At one point, a bit overwhelmed by this bounty, I looked across the table at Philippe. I could not bring myself to interrupt his evidently transcendent pleasure with any comment or question. His face was radiant, as if in testament to one of the profoundest pleasures a Frenchman can experience.
In the time between the cheese-in and the Phylloxera gig, we had plans to go to Bergerac, farther inland, for Philippe’s and Samuel’s school vacations, which lasted a week. Philippe was evidently eager to get away from the city for a time, because he has in mind the purchase of a small plot of land on which he can sit and think and pursue two of his burning passions, which happen to be bird watching and trees. The visit to Philippe’s mother in Bergerac offered the option of borrowing her car to drive to several prospective fields that were for sale and scope them out.
Philippe, Samuel and I boarded the train on a Tuesday afternoon, and had an uneventful ride which took us through the French countryside and numerous small villages. In spite of the fact that we stopped in many of them to let passengers trickle on and off, we arrived in Bergerac a scant ninety minutes later. Philippe’s mother was there to greet us at the station. I felt she must share some spiritual affinity with my own mother as, in the days before we came, she had called Philippe up and told him that we should both bring our dirty laundry. My mother regularly does this, too, when she knows I am about to visit.
Bergerac is a small city straddling the Dordogne River whose surrounding countryside seems largely turned over to vineyards. It is located in an area where the Occitan dialect of French once predominated. Apparently in small pockets it is still spoken, as the road sign at the entrance to the town bore its French name as well as “Brageirac,” its Occitan variant. Like many of these towns, its old section is easy to distinguish from later additions; the streets in old Bergerac become more numerous, narrower and more chaotic in plan. Some of the older buildings in old Bergerac, near the city center, are remarkably similar to the classic Tudor-style homes of England, with stucco and small bricks chinked in between upright and diagonal wooden pillars; and some of these date from the same period as the Tudor homes (c. 16th century). Bergerac’s narrow streets often pitch and yaw, climb and descend with the underlying terrain, which is somewhat more hilly than is Bordeaux’s, which makes it seem even more picturesque and charming.
We went into a number of chapels to look at the stained glass, as usual. In one of them, the procedure for entry had a medieval or cinematic quality to it; we rang a buzzer from the outside, and waited for several minutes for a wizened nun to respond. She was otherwise occupied with some pressing issue, but in the end finally assented to our request. She pulled on an old bell cord to summon another woman (not a nun), who could not have been over four feet tall, to give us access to the chapel. It was evident that such requests were uncommon, and I felt like we were disrupting the rigid structure of day after day of what to them may have been a pleasant monastic tedium that reigned in this establishment.
Upon entering the chapel, I took casual note of what I first took to be a statue of a nun, kneeling in prayer at one of the Stations of the Cross. I had become mildly engrossed in a detail in one of the windows, when I saw, at first from the corner of my eye until it had my full attention, this “statue” throw her arms out, as if in despair, joy, or maybe to rid herself of a kink in her back. She then made the sign of the cross, and then proceeded, absolutely without sound, to the next Station. She in no way acknowledged our existence in the some twenty minutes we were there; in that time, she prayed to three stations. At that rate, I calculated, the remaining eleven would take her another hour.
Another day, we took a drive through the countryside. We visited the outside of the Chateau de Monbazillac, the seat of the vintage of the same name, choosing not to enter because of a steep admission fee. We climbed to the top of a nearby ancient windmill and got a pleasing, if wind-whipped (this windmill was obviously placed in this location for a good reason) view of the surrounding lands. We visited a large hydroelectric station dating from the 1910s, a dam across the Dordogne, where Bordeaux gets much of its electricity. One display detailed the failure of the original fish ladders alongside it to attract any fish, who apparently knew nothing of fish ladders and crowded up at the bottom of the dam, trying in vain to get to their breeding grounds upstream. We visited St. Pompon, a tiny medieval village with a lovely stream running alongside the main street through the town’s center. St. Pompon (named after St. Pomponius) boasts a very old (12th century?) church.
The Sunday that we left, we went to one of the properties up for sale that Philippe was interested in. It had been raining off and on the entire week, and it was sprinkling during our visit, as well. Part of the roadbed that led to the field had become a tributary to a nearby stream. The road cut straight into an area that was part forested, and part bramble. A ten-minute walk from where we parked the car lay the field Philippe was interested in purchasing. The price was very low, and it was evident why; the place was an acre of bramble, and difficult to penetrate. It had a number of features that delighted Philippe; it is situated near a stream with trees all around, isolated well away from any main road. If he buys it, it will be a lot of work to make it usable recreationally, but this will bring no doubt some measure of satisfaction in itself.
The event at the Phylloxera went well. We were supposed to be there by 11:00 AM to set up, and were. The doors did not officially open until 2:00, and Philippe and I didn’t need all that time to set up, because we only had a few items; Philippe his newsletter and I some CDs and copies of The Expatriot. Other people there had more elaborate catalogues of items to put on display. In all, there were half a dozen of us “independent producers” in a side room of the Phylloxera. This was to be the arrangement for the next two weekends, as well, for we had agreed to commit three consecutive Saturday afternoons to the presentation.
The Expatriot did surprisingly well, I think. True, I was selling them for pretty cheap (5f a copy), but, in the three afternoons that it was on display, I sold six subscriptions for 30f each and several complete sets. In addition I sold five CDs for 100f each (quite noticeably cheaper than CDs usually go for in France) so I came away with about 700f in my pocket (about $140). In addition to these sales, and more importantly, I think, I received two offers to present my work before an audience. One was on the radio, presenting my group’s music, and the other was to give a presentation to a class on musical composition in May. I was fairly pleased.
There were by no means a lot of people coming in to see the stuff, but there was almost always someone. Friends of Philippe’s would come, look around, and hang out for a hour or two to chat and have some coffee. It was pleasant and convivial. If someone asked me a question I was unable to answer completely or at all in French, Philippe would step in and help me out. Several people thought my publication looked interesting, but did not know English, so obviously did not want to buy it. At least some of the copies went to people who had been mentioned in one of the issues, so it seems they are interested in how I describe them. But I think the main thing that attracted some of the people who bought them was that The Expatriot was about, in some sense, Bordeaux, their city, as seen by an outsider; some people said as much as they gave me their money. In spite of the banality of these reminiscences, they seem to offer a shift of perspective to my readers in Bordeaux which they find enjoyable. In this, they are perhaps sharing in my own shift of perception, which is why I came here really, and I am enjoying this interesting twist, which is something I never anticipated.
At the end of the first Saturday of Aux 500 diables, Gilles [see no. 3] showed up to look things over. Nice of him, I thought, to show his support in this way. Things were winding down, the end of the afternoon, and the exhibitors were beginning to pack up their things. Gilles bought us some beer and we sat around after the close of the show and talked. Soon Gilles was asking us what plans we had for dinner and, since we had none, he invited us to dine with him there, at the Phylloxera. We agreed. In the meantime, it being Saturday night, the other side of the cafe was beginning to fill up with the evening’s drinkers and diners. We decided to have our dinner in the exhibition room.
It’s always a great time when Gilles shows up. He has verve and charisma. He has the gift of gab. He loves to entertain and be entertained. Money is only a way of having a good time with friends; that’s what it’s for. If he’s invited you to drink with him, he acts insulted if he hears you jangling for change in your pocket in an effort to share in the expense. Also, he has a knack for making outrageous comments that, at the same time, make you want to challenge them, but his gift is in keeping it all light, fun and stimulating. He is gregarious, a linguistic show-boater, the center of attention yet inclusive. His stated position is that he “hates” Americans, and yet he lavishes time-consuming delicate explanations of French culture and language on me, as if I were somehow under his tutelage.
We were sitting around two square tables pushed together to make a larger one to seat Philippe and I, and Gilles and his friend. Bertrand, one of the other exhibitors who had an exquisite series of pseudo-constellations made of numerous pinholes in black paper displayed on a light table, was also there. We placed our orders. Philippe and I ordered specific platters from the menu, while Gilles, too engrossed in some explanation to pause long, told the waiter to bring any five different à la carte items for himself and anyone else who wanted to help him eat them. And another round of drinks.
Everyone was having a good time. I was feeling very good myself, appreciating this opportunity to relax after an afternoon of sitting mostly in one place and trying to explain my work in French. I had sold much more than I expected to sell, and was happy to be having a good meal in a restaurant with pleasant company.
I continue this story, but only after first insisting on the following proviso: My French, although improving, isn’t yet very good, so I didn’t understand most of the nuances or dynamics of what happened next. I will therefore describe it as if I were a deaf person, or as if I were watching it through thick glass, which is precisely how I felt as the scene unfolded.
A young man (we will call him Stéphane2, to distinguish him from the other Stéphane, who by this time had already left the Phylloxera) entered the room with a bottle of wine and made his way to our table. We greeted him; apparently he was an acquaintance of both Philippe’s and Gilles’. Stéphane2 was addressing Gilles, and seemed to be offering him some of his wine, and looked like he was trying to be friendly. I was busy eating and half-listening, when it very slowly dawned on me, over a period of several minutes, that the terms of this conversation were not precisely friendly. I looked at the faces of both men. They were not shouting or even raising their voices. However, Gilles was barely masking his impatience at Stéphane2’s advance, speaking quickly and using dismissive hand gestures. Stéphane2’s face was flushed, having the color of meaty terra-cotta.
I tried to understand what they were saying to each other, but couldn’t. It was as if they had switched to another vocabulary list, one that wasn’t in the textbook I learned French from. Their voices were strangely lowered, as if keeping the lid on boiling anger. I had trouble determining if Gilles was angry or just being flamboyant. I was only a little less mystified after Philippe leaned over and said to me, “There is a psychodrama going on.”
Suddenly, Gilles sprung into action. He shouted an epithet and leapt up from his chair, which fell backwards onto the floor. Gilles had a fork in one hand and he flung himself at Stéphane2, and jabbed the fork into the man’s abdomen. Too stunned to do anything, I just sat there, while Philippe and others dashed over and attempted to restrain Gilles, and separate the two men. Gilles’ violent explosion did nothing to dim Stéphane2’s ardor (the wound, however sincerely inflicted, was not serious), they were still at it, yelling at each other and exchanging epithets. The staff of the cafe, sensing trouble from the next room, came in, obviously alarmed.
I was able to understand that our server was threatening to call the police if tempers didn’t get under control. The manager of the Phylloxera first attempted calmly to get the two men into separate rooms; he soon sensed the futility of this effort and then he exploded, too, shouting to Stéphane2’s to leave the room. This got their attention, the two men at least went to opposite halves of the room, but Stéphane2 obstinately refused to leave. He felt he’d been wronged and was not going to let it drop. Gilles, apparently feeling he’d made his point and defended his honor, decided that he would withdraw, without in the least attenuating his hostile attitude even a little bit. He departed with gestures that made it clear that he had been wronged and the he was making this important sacrifice to restore the peace. He threw some bank notes on the table to pay for his dinner (and ours) and he and his friend left.
Ivan Chtcheglov opens his essay “Formulary for a New Urbanism” (1953) with these words:
“We are bored in the city, there is no longer any Temple of the Sun. Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That’s lost. We know how to read every promise in faces-the latest stage of morphology. The poetry of the billboards lasted twenty years. We are bored in the city, we really have to strain to still discover mysteries on the sidewalk billboards, the latest state of humor and poetry”
These same words, with tactical variations, might be detourned to apply to tourism, about with Guy Debord states in his essay “Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography” (1955):
‘...leaving the imbeciles to their slavish preservation of “citations”.’
“the introduction of alterations such as more or less arbitrarily transposing maps of two different regions, can contribute to clarifying certain wanderings that express not subordination to randomness but complete insubordination to habitual influences (influences generally categorized as tourism, that popular drug as repugnant as sports or buying on credit.)”
“Methods of Detournement,” Guy Debord, 1956.
Travel, today, like Debord’s favorite beverages, has lost much of the taste that it must have had in decades past. The imperatives of industry and the demands of an increasingly cosmopolitan population concentrated in the large urban centers of the world have resulted in large strides toward a vaunted “world culture” that threatens to be as homogenous and boring as it is universal. The final steps in this ascendancy have not yet been taken, that is true; nonetheless, the sensitive traveller today must be continually more struck by the similarities apparent between his home and the places he’s visiting than by the differences.
Clearly, I am focusing on the down side of this problem, inasmuch as it pertains to my current situation, which is far from bleak.
As I wander the streets of Bordeaux, I note with amusement all the English I see in the names of shops, on sweatshirts worn by passersby, in the music pouring out of the open doors of cafes and bars. It is easy to tell which English is the real thing and which was produced locally. Obviously the music is for the most part British and American pop music, so that’s authentic in its use of language (however jarring it might be in terms of rupturing the fragile sense that still exists of a “French” atmosphere). The other English is more naive, and hence more entertaining. A shop across the street from our apartment is called “Candi Cool.” Right next to it is a shop called “Feeling.” A little further down is “Le Beverly Hills Grill Room.” A large athletic man with bulging biceps walks past your park bench wearing a sweatshirt that reads “Sporty Boy.”
Last night, Patrick, our neighbor from downstairs and a friend of Philippe’s, asked me simply if I miss the United States. There was not much of a pause before I answered. “A little,” I said.
I surprised myself with my answer, because for the entire time I’ve been in France, I’ve been continually struck, not so much by the differences, but by the similarities. I file these observations away under “cultural imperialism.” But when I came here, I was almost hoping for a wrenching case of culture shock, something which America and Europe seem jointly to have conspired to deny me. We both, after all, share the culture of the Occident, over which America seems to cast an increasingly long shadow. I suppose it was too much to hope for to come here and expect there still to exist much “foreignness,” especially since this is my third visit here. But my deeper fear is that the world is becoming all too homogenous, and that eventually the word “travel” and the special experiences it brings, will have lost all meaning.
So, if the similarities outweigh the differences, why is it that I miss America, even a little bit? It’s because, I think, these similarities, salient though they may be, are by and large superficial. And, in beginning to sense the existence of something underneath that superficial layer, I am getting a touch of that culture shock after all.
Much of this feeling comes from an inculcated sense of convenience; a strong feature of American culture. I know what I can count on over there; over here, it’s partly a game of hit and miss (and not entirely because of my ignorance). Stores are not generally open on Sundays, and some are closed for a couple of hours around noon everyday. (This is not too serious; just something to be aware of.) I had never been charged a customs fee in the U.S., but when my final box of possessions arrived from my sister, I had to pay $80 in duties for a box of clothes and CDs, the declared value of which was $200. Today there is a postal strike (in conjunction with a garbage collector’s strike, and a railroad strike). The post office was still open, but there was no first class mail in the box, only junk mail. The only postal strike in U.S. history, I believe, was in 1973. Everyone was flabbergasted. The French seem mildly annoyed.
My friend John, who has lived in Prague for over a year, warned me that I’d never feel at home. I begin to understand this, as I come to the realization that, however much in common we share with the rest of the world, our banal expectations, like bad habits, are difficult to be rid of. They color all of our perceptions and no amount of awareness of this principle can assuage the reflex to be put out a bit when the unexpected inevitably occurs.
But all of the things that I just mentioned are surface; they are relatively unimportant. They might be whisked away as if by a broom should the Japanese, for example, take the position in the world stage that America has held for most of this century. There are profound things about France-about everywhere-that will never be smothered and extinguished by this thin layer of paint.
“Oh, so you haven’t given up Coca-cola?”, her perfect French stinging like an indictment. My hands held the sweating glass, at the point of bringing the fizzy brown liquid to my lips.
“No,” I explained. “I like it.”
At home we take the real thing for granted, quaffing it at and between meals, pouring pep into moments which have exhausted theirs. Abroad, Coca-cola is a flag, as recognized as the Stars and Stripes. And as partisan, it seems.
Although the French evidently drink plenty of coke, it seems they need instructions. All the cans here are marked with the advice “Se boit très frais” (“To be drunk very cold”). It’s easy to see why this is. The French live in a world where there is a rather precise ritual for how long before a meal the wine should be chilled, and how soon it should be opened. And of course, the rules differ depending on which wine is being drunk. Perhaps as a result, the “rules” for how to drink Coke are easily left by the wayside, and require reminding.
I had previously understood that there were rules such as these, but Philippe tends to be informal about such things, always, it seems, preferring to drink white wine with everything. His claim is that the subtlety of the taste is a more spiritual experience for him than drinking red. Therefore I was lead to believe that the rigid formality to which-wine-goes-with-what had become something of a relic, the standards of it relaxed, in the same way that sexual mores and appropriate public dress have been liberated during this century.
Apparently, not so, or not with everyone. At a dinner party, I had been offered before the meal red wine, which I gladly took. By the time the meal was served, I had not yet finished my glass, so I took it to the table with me. The dinner was seafood. I thought, okay, you’re supposed to drink white with seafood, but I wanted to finish my red first. A puzzled look from the hostess when she offered me white and I turned it down politely.
Halfway through the seafood course, I had finished my red and wanted to try the white to see how it was. I poured myself a glass from the bottle on the table. When the cheese course came, I hadn’t finished my white yet, and wanted to. The hostess offered me some red. I thanked her politely and said I wanted to finish my white.
She couldn’t contain herself and said, “Oh, he wants to drink red with seafood, and white with cheese.” There was nothing mean about the way she said it; it was as if she were making an observation more than anything.
Philippe said, “Oh, leave him alone.” In spite of Philippe’s defense on my behalf, I have henceforth decided to synchronize my wine drinking with whatever course is being offered.
I have recently taken up an avid, irrational interest in the nation of Georgia. I really can’t explain it very well, so in lieu of that, I will explain how this interest came to be.
I have memories, as an undergraduate Linguistics major in college, of going through the library stacks, searching for grammars of obscure languages, so that I could compare their features, much as one makes comparisons between postage stamps in a collection. One of my “discoveries” was Georgian, apparently one of the most ancient of still-spoken languages, which seems unrelated to any other language on earth. Their alphabet, based directly on Phoenician (without making the sidestep through Greek first as ours and many other alphabets did) was tantalizing and graceful.
The Georgians themselves claim, and outsiders smitten with the language tend to bear this out, that their language is capable of expressing anything expressible in any other language on earth, by virtue of an extremely complex set of prefixes and infixes attached to verbs which (I found this very interesting) not only indicate number and person of the subject performing the action, but also the number and person of the direct object as well as whether or not the action was performed to the benefit of the subject, the benefit of the object, or to neither’s benefit. Many grammatically complete sentences in Georgian therefore comprise but one word.
There is a series of books published by the Presses Universitaires de France, each a small paperback of some 120 pages. Subtitled Collection Encyclopédique, this Que sais-je? series (What do I know?) contains over 3000 separate volumes, each on a single topic thoroughly yet briefly explained. Recently finding out that a Que sais-je? existed on Georgia (Que sais-je? nº 2099), I bought it, and read it through, cover to cover without stopping. In it I discovered a fact that helped the Georgians gain Philippe’s respect: the Georgians are held to be the inventors of wine.
Why this surprisingly sudden resurgence in interest in what is, after all, an esoteric subject? My guess is I’m still searching for some of the foreignness some part of me feels I’m missing here. Tucked away into the remote mountains and protected from the present by seventy years of Soviet communism, I’m guessing the Georgians have foreignness in spades. All the more provocative is the fact that I am currently on the same landmass with that tiny country, so it’s just a matter of getting on a train and heading there, if I want to. Georgia gives me an exhilarating sense of possibility, openness and adventure, and I find I do want to go there.
Should I decide to make this journey, I shall be careful to temper my romantic fantasies about Georgia with a hard dose of skepticism before I go so that I cannot be very disappointed by what I do, and do not end up seeing.
WHOEVER INVENTED mail deserves a fat slap on the back and all our accolades. It’s just great to get letters from friends and feel the connection, despite the distance. A few tidbits gleaned from recent postings follow.
Uta writes to point out that the Golden Mean is not the proportion of A4 paper [see no. 2]. I thought they might be different, but I couldn’t remember. Her clarification appears below. She also writes, “Suddenly I’m meeting people-or hearing from people I’ve known who have had the courage to drop everything and move on to parts unknown. Did you start this movement?”
Steev writes that he is quitting his job to work on art. Maybe I did start a movement.
Tim, a former co-worker, writes that they have a new employee where I used to work who is from India. Apparently another co-worker asked him if he rode elephants to school when he was a kid. The xerox repairman asked him if they have beer in India. I don’t even know the guy and yet my heart goes out to him. (“Iowa, near Chicago, eh? Do they have gangsters?”)
Dan writes: “I couldn’t help but think of your savings and whether you had converted all your Iowa dollars into Bordeaux dollars (or better yet Deutschmarks or gold) immediately upon your arrival. I bet you didn’t (who would?) and are regretting it like mad now that the dollar has gone so far down the toilet. (You remember toilets, don’t you?) Jesse and I read about the 1986 (?) stock market crash while we were in Yugoslavia. It gave us a funny feeling.” It’s certainly true that this turn of events has made me an avid reader of the financial page. (Let’s see, how much is that 100f worth of groceries going to cost me today?)
Brian writes that “there was nothing in the paper here regarding Guy Debord’s suicide. Not even the Village Voice.”
Stewart sends along some clippings which provide more information on the Debord suicide. One in particular is interesting, from the Evening Standard of 9/12/94, called “Three suicides and a murder,” it contains the “facts” of the San Francisco Chronicle article I excerpted [see no. 3] which ran 11 days later and must have been based on the Standard’s article. Also, The Guardian of 5/12/94 ran an obituary on Debord entitled “Shattering of the Spectacle,” by Malcolm Imrie, Debord’s English publisher and translator. It’s mostly simply praise, which no doubt would have pissed Debord off.
I have seen the entire video tape of the 3-hour-long broadcast of Debord’s films, which ran on Canal+. This program includes a film entitled Guy Debord: son art et son temps, as well as Debord’s film of La société du spectacle; followed by a shorter piece called Réfutations. At the end of the program is a text announcement which seems like an excerpt from a letter written by Debord which states (I translate): “a sickness named alcoholic polynevritus first noticed in the fall of ‘9? [the last digit is not visible]. At first imperceptible, and then progressive, only becoming genuinely painful at the end of November ‘94. As with any incurable illness, one gains a lot by neither seeking nor accepting care for it. It’s not like a sickness that one contracts by regrettable imprudence. On the contrary, this disease required the faithful obstinacy of an entire life.”
Finally, Vittore sends a copy of Arte Postale! 69, devoted to Ray Johnson. In homage, it suggests, “The Pope of Recycling Art adored clever forgeries. There is a wealth of witty genius in mail art archives around the world that should be shared, not treasured. So recycle your personal Raylics, mail photocopies around But also create your own Ray Johnsons and let them freely mix with the original ones. Let’s scare the shit out of art dealers and posthumous glory exploiters.”