Of projectiles and dorm rooms

Our last full day in Paris, S and I visited the Centre Pompidou, an almost unsettling structure whose viscera are its skin and which houses some of the most gloriously strange modern art on the planet. My favorite, if one can have a favorite among such exercises in the grotesque, was called "Huyghe + Corbusier: Harvard Project," a film/opera featuring very recognizably hip, modern marionettes (the young male not only wore a day old beard and an expression of too-cool ennui, but also sported little puppet Pumas) performing an interpretation--get this--of Le Corbusier's deal with Harvard to design a new academic building some years back, a bit of achitectural minutiae that I know nothing about: apparently it was a very controversial transaction, vexing both parties. To wit: the dean of Harvard ("the Dean of deans") was represented as a formless black mass, resembling the dark figure from Spy vs. Spy in the old Mad comics. There was also a hip, be-banged young girl who appeared to be ravaged by the black mass at one point, and an idealized Le Corbusier, making him look much tenderer than the photos I had previously seen of the steely-eyed, chrome-domed genius.

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Riding on a TGV (teh-jeh-veh) train is like being snugly lodged in suspended animation inside a great metal womb hurtling through space at all but silent and incomprehensible speeds--a breakneck pace that only becomes apparent when this titanium shell bursts past another of its ilk hurtling in the opposite direction. The sound of this mid-track salute as it blasts through the window reminded me, child of the mass media as I am, of the stylized audio-visual mania of films like Requiem for a Dream or The 300 (and lampooned hilariously in Sean of the Dead): that sudden, clipped editing, shifting instantaneously and without warning from one image to another and to another (focus on barrel of gun, dilating pupil of gunman, slow-mo bullet exploding with smoke and tiny particles of debris from opaline chamber, speed up double time as bullet enters chest of thug) and always accompanied by an equally frenetic rush of sound (heavy metallic click of bullet entering chamber, etc). It shocks and at the same time happens so quickly as to barely be registered by consciousness. After a while, it almost becomes lulling.

The ride from Paris to Marseilles thus happened in a dream, like much of this European tour, even while I remained wide awake for all but the first half hour. We slid into Gare St Charles promptly at 22:30, as promised (so far the EU has proven very trustworthy in this regard), and hopped on the metro to Rond-Point du Prado, but late as it was, and Sunday, the buses had quit and we had to walk, I with both Shenee's and my bag slung one over each shoulder, the remaining 3 kms or so in over the puddled cobblestones and uneven pavements to her house in the Bonneveine district. Stephane, her host pére, was kind enough to drop me at my hostel in his swanky Peugeot (he even offered to let me stay at the house but I demurred, eager to adjust to the dorm climate in which I'll be living for the duration, more or less, of my trip). This was, in retrospect, foolish to say the least: sleeping in a room on a single bed, with several other dudes snoring like old floorboards and rusting around like whales trapped in canvas bags, is not something anyone should ever be eager to do. 4 hours of sleep later, I now recoup at Shenee's with un cafe et le petit-dejeuner, telling my sad tale of stumbling in the dark with all my things, trying to constrain the arc of my clumsiness, staring blankly from my bed at the large curtained window facing me on the opposite side of the room, imagining it was a blank movie screen on which my dreams would soon be projected, disappointed hour after hour as this fantasy proved too fantastical, coughing (I've been fighting a cold since Madrid), sighing, and finally sleeping.

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Some pics for the visually-inclined:

Marseille upon arrival, Le Prefecture




Barcelona, my future home.

View of Madrid from our room on the 7th floor of Hostel Santillan, Grand Via.

Sangria and Jazz bar, Madrid. This watery piano sang us all the jazz pop classics of yore, mostly from the Casablanca soundtrack.
More pics soon...

French Keyboards, or, Merry-go-rounds in the shadows of ancient cathedrals

The French keyboard is an interesting case. It resembles what I imagine to be what a normally functioning brain would look like if translated into a pattern of letters, only after a mild stroke. Everything seems to be in the right place but when you open your mouth to say something, it all goes mental. The shift button for a period? The apostrophe at the top of the pad under the number 4? which btw you have to press shift to use.

Aside from the mild retardation I feel when sitting at a keyboard here, I don't seem to be operating at maximum capacity navigationally or linguisitcally either. It isn't that my French and Spanish are weak--they indubitably are--or that I reflexively use the one in the other country and vice versa, but that ENGLISH has been proving difficult as well. I am in a perpetual state of preadolescence. I can't even account for how many times I've gotten lost in the streets and metros (NB: avoid the Musee D'Orsay RER train terminal if possible: it is like reading hyroglyphs w/o the Rosetta Stone, trying to figure out which train to take). The other day I wandered around Montmarte, where we are staying, and stumbled upon what must be the French garment district--shop after shop selling yards, or I suppose meters, of fabric of all patterns and materials, sandwiched next to discout shops selling not only cheap ass souvenirs but also second hand clothing and bags and such. In a kind of awe (the same low grade stun that has characterized my state of mind for the past week) I ambled farther and farther into this backstreet neighborhood until I found an "Ed" (which is a kind of chain market here) and bought a bottle of amazing Bordeaux and ludicrously delicious "petite" munster and a baguette for a song (EU3,50) and proceeded to try to find my way home. I took a right thinking that this corresponded to the direction from which I originally came, and seeing a picturesque merry-go-round in a little square, I thought I was on the right track (I had earlier passed one very much like it) but upon closer inspection of the little square, I observed an ancient church looming over it that wasn't there before. It chimed the hour (1900 hrs) with a kind of brassy clang--very old-sounding to my neo-phyte American ears--and I knew I was hopelessly lost. Or in a strange paradise.

Meanwhile, Shenee napped back at the room but was probably up by now and wondering worriedly how a quick check of email and NCAA brackets could take me so long. Truth was I finished all that in 30 minutes and had been wandering in a kind of vertiginous state for the next 60. Clutching my bottle and loaf to my chest--which is a not uncommon sight round here--and the munster in my pocket, I walked at a clip down the hilly streets (the rue des 3 Abesses, the rue des Martyrs, the rue de Houdon) toward what must be the main boulevard (the rue de Clichy), and what ho! it was, but I hadn't the foggiest which way to turn at this point to get back to the hostel and a doubtlessly furious and weeping Shenee. Not to be inconsistent, I went the wrong way (a la droit), which of course I didn't realize until I passed 2 metro stops (Pigalle and then Blanche: the one after Pigalle should have been Anvers if I was going the right way). Knowing it would be a good 20 more minutes of walking, I jumped on the train and raced back to Anvers and the Blvd Rouchechourt and up to room 401 of the Regent Montmarte where I pushed open the door to find a relatively calm if still a little groggy Shenee waiting with Austin's heavily illustrated France guidebook in her lap.

Multiply this story by about 50 and you'll have an idea about the sheer time it would take me to write everything. But soon, I promise, I will more regularly update my Grand Tour for your edification and pleasure.

Paris in brief: day 1: wandering from Montmarte in Arrondisement 9 toward AR 2 and 3; many Starbucks along the Blvd des Italiens and environs; linger among the sculptures at the breathtaking Tuileries; take metro back to 9; check in at hostel; nap; get lost alone in backstreets; drink Bordeaux and eat bread/cheese in room w/Shenee; eat at Italian restaurant next door; pass out from combination too nuch Bordeax, Lambrusco, cheese, pasta, walking, and and overnight train ride the night before. Day 2 (yesterday): eat dejeuner at quaint brasserie next door (omlette avec chasingnons et salalde); visit Musee D'Orsay (my kind of museum--painters and paintings I know a crumb about); walk in rain and cold; take the wrong RER train; visit Le Academie des Bieres and drink Le Chouffe, Grisette, and other mindblowing Belgians amidst the savory scent of various moulles; eat Indian food back in Montmarte; pass out from combination too many Belgians, too much museum, too much walking, and too much dal. Day 3: must get started!

Ciao!

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Must be quick. Only 3 minutes left on internet. In Madrid with Shenee. Barcelona yesterday. I want to live and die there. marseille is dirty, sleezy, and full of wonderment. Truly French. More later. Love to all.