De la musique, potpourri de Paris

Bonjour tout le monde!

Et pardonnez-moi for not having updated this blog in such a long time!

Fear not, however, a fresh excuse is prepared ; my laptop burned out a little over two weeks ago. While I have been able to get by using the computers here at the Sciences Po library, that little hiccup, which should be resolved by this Friday, I hope, has nevertheless limited my ability to use a computer for other important things (like keeping all of you in on the loop of Paris!)

I titled this update the music and potpourri ("miscellanea") of Paris ; the recent weeks have been full of many new experiences and memories, (many, but not all, related to music) that I am eager to describe - in a roughly chronological order, by my best efforts.

I begin my day, nearly every day, with a 40 minute ("door to door") commute using Paris's regional network of trains and its metro system, taking a commuter train into the main station that services the southern part of Paris, Gare Montparnasse, then take the metro to the St. Germain-des-Prés quartier of Paris.

All flavors of humanity use the metro system. Businessmen and businesswomen, each bedecked with scarves and pointy shoes and wheeling their little suitcases behind them in a frantic hurry, tourists bedecked with all manner of clothing expressing their love for Paris or their respective countries and lugging incredibly heavy duffels or hiking sacks, students carrying art portfolios, instruments, backpacks, etc., every one fighting to land a foot on the floor of the metro car that guarantees them, it is understood, right of entry regardless of if the buzzer sounds or the red light flashes, every one tentatively reaching for some manner of support when inside the jolting, accelerating car.

There are those, whoever, who use the tunnels for purposes other than the metro, the literal flip side of Paris that spend probably as much time below ground as above it; the homeless sleeping on ledges and newspapers and trying desperately to drown out the (neverending) noise and lights, the muslim widows (presumably) kneeling quietly and open-palmed at the foot of staircases, and the musicians seated on the benches or standing in the corners. These latter play any and all manner of instruments - accordions are the favorite, to be sure, but guitars, saxophones, violins, and flutes and even xylophones have been featured - and some of them can quickly become familiar faces.

Two musicians stand out in my memory and are worth taking a moment to describe ; one, a rotund and doleful man who sits on an amplifier and plays Bach and Latin music each quite sweetly on his accordion, the other, a thin and balding man who, seated next to a CD player blasting some classical piece for solo flute, "plays" a reed pipe quite animatedly in efforts to convince the uninitiated that the sound of the flute is emanating from his own lungs.

*Please see CORRECTION at end of post.

Culturally enriching some of these musicians can sometimes be, I have also been able to take advantage of some other opportunities to experience Parisian art, music, etc, two in the past month that really stand out in my mind:

The first was the night of October 7, when Vincent, a friend from le 72, the church I attend, invited me to accompany him - as he had a subscription that allows for him to bring a friend - to a showing of Dom Juan, by Molière, at La Comédie-Française, the oldest theater in Paris. The actors were, of course, marvelous, and convincingly unfolded the story before my eyes without much use of the aid of props or of set, and their dialogue was wonderfully animated, a real encouragement to continue to learn the beautiful French language. Though, to be entirely honest, I had some great difficulty understanding the actors for the first portion of play -- and most especially when they made fun of the Marseilles-ean (a port town in the south of France) accent -- the expressiveness of the actors and the text of the play that Vincent had brought allowed me, by the end of the piece, to understand at least 80 percent of it. 

The second was much more recent - just this past Saturday night, in fact (the 20). Étienne, a friend from Sciences Po (and 72), who is something of a jazz aficionado, suggested we go to Le Caveau de la Huchette. Located kitty corner across the Seine from Notre Dame and in a bizarre pocket of ethnic restaurants and various theaters, spectacles, etc...this hole in the wall jazz caveau (literally "vault", as in a family's wine cellar or something similar) was fantastic, and probably the best place I have been to in Paris at night so far. A building that dated, according to Étienne, from French Revolutionary times when it served as a prison, it was transformed after WWII into a now fairly-famous jazz club, a remnant of American culture that the GIs left behind, apparently. The walls were covered with gargoyles, torchholders and signs from hundreds of years ago, and the dance floor was covered with elderly gentlemen and gentlewomen doing the be-bop or swing incredibly spryly and with the most charming dignity, along with younger folk observing these experts in admiration and trying to emulate ; counting those of us "just there for the music", crammed into red benches ringed around the dancers, quite a crowd was listening to the band up on stage. The atmosphere was fantastic and the music group - a bassist, a pianist, a drummer, a trumpeter, a clarinetist and a trombonist - was a delight.

Other than a few cultural excursions such as these above (or dryer but also interesting visits to museums and the like), my life over the past couple of weeks has really consisted mostly of the routine, which I have grown to enjoy.

Classes have continued to go well (though admittedly too quickly, as I wait for my computer to be fixed and to be less constrained to the library hours to effectively work), and I continue to enjoy my studies.

The lectures in my history of international relations course are especially stimulating, both in terms of sheer content and in terms of the lively personality of the professor, who prefaces such and such an insight with "Néanmoins...toutefois, cependant...Je vous rappelle que vous ne pouvez rien comprendre de la première guerre mondiale sans...", (which is to say, "Nevertheless...nevertheless, nevertheless...I remind you that you cannot understand anything insofar as the first world war is concerned without..."), before bringing up some personality trait of a famous leader, an anecdote concerning a diplomat, a reigning philosophy of a society at the time, or some historical reality of contemporary importance that has since been lost to the sands of time etc. Both the content and the perspective are French, of course, which means that they are at the very least...fresh to a student of an American background.

In the other course I mentioned in another blog posting, I believe, L'Arc des Crises, I gave an exposé with a group on the problem of Somalian piracy in the gulf of Aden. I found the subject very interesting learned a pretty good deal. Piracy is just the tip of the iceberg, really...Somalia itself has had a really rough go of things with the "international community" as well as with its own power players; colonized by the Italians and British, mashed into a republic for the UN, brutalized by a Soviet-sympathizing dictator, and manipulated by various east African imperial states in their proxy wars and by the United States in the war on terror, the country has for over 20 years been in utter anarchy, seeing the failure of over a dozen transitional governments and the rise and fall of various local groups. But I digress ; needless to reiterate, I am enjoying the gritty subject matter that my classes are covering.

Speaking of grit, I won't presume to say that mine has gotten any truer for the past boxing lessons I have been taking, but I have been learning to take a punch. And how to give a few, as well. Our coach is an excellent instructor, and I really think I am learning quite a lot ;
"Left foot forward, chin tucked, step with your punches and keep the same distance from your opponent! Circle with him! Mais non, c'est une danse! Harass your opponent with your left and wait to use your right - take advantage of your reach! Ouiah!! Super, super."...
...even if I am also suffering a fair deal ;
"Box in place, box in place, sautez!! sautez!! un, deux, trois...dix. Et bien continuez...Pushups, one two...ten Tenez! TENEZ!! (hold, all of you) Bien...soixante (sixty) secondes...trente seconds...Tenez! Bien."

In any case, between the boxing class and Ultimate Frisbee, I am getting a bit of exercise each week so as to stay in decent shape. Nothing remotely close to the level of exercise I had on Myers Quad playing ultimate at UGA and not nearly as much as I would welcome, but it at least puts a dent in the calories packed on by the pains-aux-chocolats and the occasional mille-feuille.

Well, lessee...a piece of Parisian trivia is as good a note as any to end on, I suppose.

My last name in French, when pronounced "zhear-bear", means, really, nothing beyond my last name. It can also be a French "-ER" verb, however, pronounced "zhear-bay", which itself has two meanings. The first is an older definition related to gerbes, the French word for bundles of wheat, and means, well...to bundle wheat (surprise). The second, and much more current, definition, is vomir, which is a verb meaning, so far as I can understand, "to violently toss one's cookies", i.e., "to hurl".

On that lovely note, I close.

Joseph

*CORRECTION : The thin, balding man who "plays" the flute next to the CD player blasting classical music is not done any favors by the acoustics in the Parisian metro. While I was originally entirely convinced he was a fraud, I have since come to believe he is a fantastic flautist who would gain more from his talents by killing the CD and just playing solo. I even bought one of his CDs, and believe it to be him. I guess this just goes to show how little I actually remember of music and how careful one should be before jumping to conclusions.