Thursday, July 1, 2010

Things I Forgot, Part II

30/06/10

As we speed away from from Paris to Brussels on a shiny train, it seems appropriate to wrap up my 2 Parisian weeks with another installment celebrating the odd, impressive and freaking cute things I'd forgotten I'd be seeing upon my return to La Paree.

1. Smokers, partout.

Not unlike maker-outers, this is one thing I didn't forget in essence, but in frequency. It's a part of the culture. It wouldn't be Paris without endless brooding faces dangling clopes from their lips, after all. And to be fair, in these past 2 warm and sticky weeks I spent in Paris, I doubt I saw quite as many cigarettes as I did in the late fall months of 2008, when "being in Paris" and "it being flipping cold" created the Smoker's Perfect Storm. My favorite move back then was the young, anxious (and presumably low-budget) metro-smoker, anticipating his stop, would whip out his rolling paper, toss in a tuft of loose tabacco and have a perfect tiny cig ready to go in seconds, before stuffing it behind his ear and jiggling his leg til the time finally came to zip out the car's double doors.

I should quickly note that La Republique, however, is doing its fair share to cut down on this habit that Americans, at least, have been slowly banning and restricting for years. Completely forbidden inside all public buildings (and even, to many Parisians' horror, bars), smoking is acknowledged to be dangerous to the health in France, though I suspect they could give a shit about the whole "discourtesous to others" piece. (I doubt the 15-feet-away-from-doors law we have in Chicago is happening anytime soon.) My fave is definitely the surgeon general-style warnings on cigarette packs that the French have also adopted, maybe because they seem so much more INTENSE than ours, but probably only because it cracks me up to read them in french. Stuff like pregnancy warnings, "SMOKING KILLS," and, my personal favorite, "SMOKING LEADS TO A LONG AND SADDENING DEATH." Perhaps the moralists are making steady progress, but I'm not so sure.

What's more impressive, though, and ultimately the point I'm trying to make, is not the quantity of cigarettes you see around you but just how efficient the smokers are at gettin it done. In a phrase, Parisian smokers are incredible multi-taskers. Two case studies:

1) Kate Schnak and I were in a bar during a slow happy hour, gazing off at the display of televisions set to some sort of VH1/MTV/live concerts stations, and particularly on band, lead by grungy chick with neon pink hair. While she's giving it all she's got, she's accompanied by her aloof (typical!) french male bandmates--a camera pans the bass, guitar, keyboard--all just swaying nonchalantly, as if the notes coming out of their intstruments were merely an afterthought to their initial goal of sending out the most mellow groove vibe possible. All this alone cracked me up, until, cue the drummer, we see this dude flailing his sticks around without abandon. He was adorable, giving everything he had, and then I noticed he totally, somehow, had a cigarette dangling from his mouth! Now I'm no smoking expert, but I find this sort of thing incredibly impressive. How do you thrash you head with your arms otherwise engaged AND manage a few puffs all at the same time!?

2) I was walking down St. Michel one busy afternoon (picture the Latin Quarter and Notre Dame) when a delivery truck appears as if from nowhere on the cobblestone sidewalk, presumably trying to turn onto what I thought was a pedestrian-only busy street of restaurants and shops. I'm in no particular rush myself, and notice that all the factors are present for total entertainment: confused tourists, angry locals, and the sheer physical impossibility of this truck fitting between the two Don't Drive Between These 3 foot cement poles coming up from the sidewalk. Dudeface immediately realizes the difficuly of the situation, and everyone's fuming, unable to get around him. He then executes the fastest series of forward/reverse steering wheel artistry I've ever seen, whipping it around to--somehow--make that truck fit into a space most physicists would have otherwise deemed impossible. And, of course, did you guess it, he had a cigarette not in his mouth but his RIGHT HAND the entire time.

Clearly the french wouldn't be impressed by this sort of thing, because I began to see whole cigarette as afterthought thing everywhere. Classy (and slim, bien sur) middle aged women waltz down the boulevard in their shiny pumps, chatting up a friend and holding a tiny dog with a cig bouncing loosely between their lips. The aloof and greasy man, strolling along reading a newspaper, leaving puffs of smoke behind him. I even noticed cigarettes in the mouths of women portayed in Monet paintings, as if to say, "Jessie, give up. This is just how we roll."


2. Metro Musicians

With this observation, I simply want to pay tribute to an adorable phenomenon I have not seen in any other city transit system. Sure, in Paris you'll come across all kinds of musicians: accoridianists will jump in your metro car, wandering troubadours will serenade you as you make you transfer, and even awesome ethnic instruments I've never seen before make frequent appearances. But what I had TOTALLY forgotten about was when you come across the street musician motherload, in the depths of the metro: 4, 6, sometimes even 10 musicians, playing and singing some ethnically particular tribute to the motherland, where ever that is with utter and complete gusto. Kate S. And I caught 6 (was it 8?) presumably Russian men EACH with his OWN accordion, belting their brains out in wicked harmony, and we practically fell to our knees. You could hear the sound while you were on the train, approaching the station, wondering what full and bizarre orchestra could possibly lay ahead of you. I've also seen bad ass pipe flute varietites, maybe with some guitars to lay down rhythms, along with wicked drum and vocal combos of all sorts. CDs are often for sale nearby. If I haven't made myself completely clear by now, allow me to rectify that: these groups are ADORABLE and incredibly awesome and impressive. In Chicago, at least, the paint can drummers ain't got nothin on these.


And last but not least:


3. CHILDREN.

I don't know if we have any Madaleine books fans out there, but this one is for you. For some reason, upon leaving Paris in '08, I at some point forgot about one of the cutest sights to see: the frequent and orderly transportation of young children across town. This is presumably done for field trips, chapparones shepherding groups of ankle biters (upwards of 40), and they always seem to a) trek them along busy streets we'd never dream feasible in the states and b) cram them, even when they're tiny!, onto public transportation as if this were a perfectly reasonable way to transport children.

On the streets, they seriously walk in long lines of two pairs. While they lack nuns leading the way or matching dresses and hats (the wide brimmed kind with the long ribbon, right?), they are indeed in those painfully cute pairs HOLDING HANDS. French passersby and drivers are totally accustomed to this, and are content enough to stop at the intersection to let the scores of whippersnappers cross an incredibly busy throughfair. Like ducks cross. UGHH it is so cute and I am always torn between OMG MUST DOCUMENT AND BROADCAST CUTENESS ON THE INTERWEBS and Holy cow don't be a huge creeper, Jessie. Nathan and Bridget have gotten impressively accustomed to me behaving in the former, creeping all up ons the children. While I never successfully creeped a street crossing picture, below is an example of me being crippled by all this cuteness. If you can blame me, you, sir, are made of stone.

Buhhhh they were playing a game of epically cute proportions where they ran back and forth squealing. It was crippling.

Anyway, I did remember this phenomenon from before. The whole public tranportation piece, however, that was new. Returing home from my delightful daytrip to Auvers Sur Oise, I squeeze into the crowded city bus (but fair enough for a 6pm bus whose precedent came an hour ago), and it takes me exactly 15 seconds to realize what's going on: 5 seconds to notice that anything is off at all, 5 to confusedly scan the normal looking enough crowd and another 5 to realize and confirm that the bus is indeed entirely filled with CHILDREN. (Author's note: if you have been getting throwbacks to TGS when I say that, this is why we are friends.) I was instantly delighted to discover--this was my first time--that the Frenchs' bold ambition of herding massive amounts of children in public places that would be unheard of in America actually extends to public buses--the one Parisian transportation frontier I had until this trip ben too terrified to cross into. Stunned, I try to count them--groups of three seated in seats for two, some standing, clutching what rails they can reach, others slumped against the wall on a vacant piece of floor ready to accomodate their need to nap. Forty-two. I counted 42, and for a brief moment of horror searched for who could possibly even be their chaperones. There were probably 6 in all, as sunburnt and cheery as the 5-8 year olds. I've barely taken in the spectacle when said chaperones began calling to children neighboring the slumbering ones. Levez Antoine, levez Sophie, and before I knew it, they reached their stop and poured out, like a school of fish. Older ones holding the youngers' hands, grimy fists clutching backpacks, the bewildered passengers left behind passing forward hats and swim towels left behind. I move to sit by the window, and you cannot imagine how quickly I scrounged for my camera--looking at them clustered in the cobbled alley, they'd become at least 60--some must have been hiding under the seats. I am deeply sorry to report that the bus driver (go figure) made haste to get out of there, and so my words will have to describe what was perhaps too ADORABLE and bizarre for words. So though I have yet to see nuns at the fore of such groups, clearly whoever wrote the Madaleine books knew what was up.

J

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