This place is crawling with VC.
There are Communist propaganda billboards and hammer-and-sickle flags everywhere. It reminds me of Cuba if you replace 1957 roadsters with millions of youths on motorbikes.
Vietnam’s economy is expanding at a rate of 7.7% per year and 26.2% of the population is 14 or under.
The mythos of “The American War” in Vietnam is inescapable, yet at the same time it’s hard to imagine it having happened here. The only evidence I saw of the war were the ruins of a few brick buildings near Danang. I can say with confidence that the Vietnamese really love the U.S.A.
I was shopping for a rain poncho in Hue, and the first one I tried on had a large, clear-plastic section in the middle. Like a crotch window. I found it puzzling until I saw someone wearing one on a motorbike. It’s for the headlight.
Forget Cairo, Bangkok, or Mexico City. Saigon has the most insane traffic I’ve ever seen. The first time I tried to cross the street, I thought, “maybe I’ll just stand here until it’s time to go home.” But alas, the guide book advises to just start walking across the street at a slow, even pace and the cars and motorbikes will gauge your position, and avoid hitting you. Et, voila! It works. After you get over the initial shock, it’s actually kind of zen, walking through what amounts to 15 lanes of traffic without stopping. Imagine being a corpuscle. Or an ant.
Honking in Vietnam is ubiquitously used as a defensive driving tool. Like, “honk honk, I’m here.” Amidst it all, I never saw a collision or accident of any kind.
Jukeboxes in Vietnam sometimes remind me of my high school cassette tape collection. Lots of hippie shit and classic rock.
Traveling alone as a graying, nearly-40-year-old man in Thailand and Vietnam is like having “I Would Like to Pay for Sex With Young Asian Girls and/or Boys” written on your forehead. It also gets you dirty looks from older adults who think that’s what you’re there for. It’s weird and gross.
The first day I was in Saigon, guys on bicycles would glide by me clicking rattles on their handle bars. At first, I thought about getting one for my velo back home. Then, the next day a succession of dudes glided past me rattling their rattles and saying things like, “boy massage?” So, I never bought a rattle.
Before arriving, I read about a scam where two hot Vietnamese women on a motorbike ride up next to you, get off, start telling you how handsome you are, and then start grabbing your crotch and digging around in your pockets for your wallet. I had been there about 15 minutes when the first attempt was made. They rode up on the sidewalk blocking the path and said, “hey handsome!” and I hot-footed it around them as fast as I could. A solo attempt happened again later that night, but then it never happened again.
Some girly Vietnamese moto helmets have a space cut out of the back for a pony tail.
Surprisingly, there is free, open WIFI nearly everywhere in Vietnam. However, Facebook is blocked unless you make the effort to use an I.P. address blocker or a proxy server or whatever it is you have to do to get it working. Most internet cafes have it, though, and the Vietnamese are prodigious Facebookers.
One day in Saigon, I took a stroll south across the river into District 4. The entire three hours I was there, I was the only white person in sight. I stopped for a small noodle bowl at a street stall, and by the time I was halfway done eating, there were no less than 10 people standing around smiling and watching me eat. Like, “Hey! There’s a big tall white dude eating at the noodle stand! WTF!?” Then, a man tried to hand me a small baby. I have no idea why, but his insistence kind of startled me, and I was afraid if I took it, he might not take it back.
I had a similar experience when I got a haircut in Hoi An. By the time it was halfway over, there were about six people standing around watching with great interest. The weirdest part was that the barber shaved my head, then talc-ed my head, and then shaved it again. Then, he shaved my ears with a straight razor.
Having planned a week in Vietnam at the last minute, I have to admit that I was woefully unprepared for the food scene. Bo bun. Banh mi. Pho. Spring rolls. Sure. But then there’s the other 95%. I had no idea the breadth of Vietnamese cuisine.
For instance, on my way to the Danang airport to begin my long journey home, the taxi passed a motorbike with two small dogs in a cage on the back. The driver said, “Dog! Woof woof!” Then, he made an “eating” gesture with his hand and said, “Very good! Very good!”
One day, I had an iced coffee with condensed milk that had three shots of espresso in it and it was excellent.
Two items from the Vietnam Airlines in-flight magazine:
“Government offices and museums open at 8am and close at 5pm. Avoid doing business from 11:30am to 2pm, when many people are either at lunch or napping.”
“The game ‘Catching the Duck While Blindfolded’ is popular among all Vietnamese villages. For this game, players and spectators group together in a large circle. Two players are blindfolded and pushed inside. A strong duck is also placed into the circle and the players must listen to its frantic movements to judge where it is and how they can catch it. Spectators roar with laughter as both the duck and players run noisily and disorderly around the circle. If it happens to be warm, some play ‘Catch the Duck on the Pond,” which is like ‘Catching the Duck While Blindfolded,’ only in water and without the blindfold.”
They sell frozen fish in bags and fresh Pho at the Saigon airport.
KFCs are everywhere.
Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
Showing posts with label L’Observateur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label L’Observateur. Show all posts
L’Observateur : Paradise Edition
Koh Lipe is an island at the southern frontier of Thailand in the Adang Archipelago, which is part of the Tarutao National Marine Park. None of the islands you see on this map are inhabited except Lipe.
The indigenous people are called Chao Ley, which means “Sea Gypsy” in Thai. The Chao Ley remind me a lot of the Huichol of Central Mexico in that they are nomadic, close to nature, and incredibly sweet. They also make a mean spicy seafood salad.
There is a bungalow on Lipe called Porn Resort. And another called Bung Roon.
One morning Elli found this guy under a bucket in the bathroom:
More good stuff from Wikileaks about the Prince and Princess.
The indigenous people are called Chao Ley, which means “Sea Gypsy” in Thai. The Chao Ley remind me a lot of the Huichol of Central Mexico in that they are nomadic, close to nature, and incredibly sweet. They also make a mean spicy seafood salad.
There is a bungalow on Lipe called Porn Resort. And another called Bung Roon.
One morning Elli found this guy under a bucket in the bathroom:
More good stuff from Wikileaks about the Prince and Princess.
L’Observateur : Malaysia Edition
Malaysia is strange melting pot of a country. You’ve got ethnic Malays and Chinese and Indian immigrants, plus the colonial influence of England, Portugal, and the Netherlands. You can be sitting in a Chinese temple and hear the Muslim call to prayer. Or shopping with Muslims to the tune of Christmas carols. Christmas temples. Chinese carols. You get the picture.
As a result of all this intermingling, there is a very interesting “hawker” food scene, which gets rave reviews from foodies, but honestly doesn’t hold up against Thai or Vietnamese cuisine.
We’ve all heard about people getting caned in Singapore. But it seems like child’s play once you learn that smuggling narcotics into Malaysia carries a mandatory death sentence.
The local language, Bahasa Malaysia, anglicizes many words: kopi, teh, ais, sos, cili, abulans (coffee, tea, ice, chili, ambulance). But strangely, their word for water is air.
Most Malaysians speak passable English. For instance, our taxi driver in Langkawi learned it by listening to American music on the radio. In particular he said, “Country Roads” by John Denver, which he then regaled us with – a cappella.
Some Muslim women are accustomed to squat or “Arab” toilets, and when they encounter a Western toilet, mistakes happen:
When you arrive at the airport in Penang, they scan your body to see if you have a fever.
In Malaysia, people from different backgrounds and religions have learned to almost-peaceably co-exist. Hooray for multiculturalism.
As a result of all this intermingling, there is a very interesting “hawker” food scene, which gets rave reviews from foodies, but honestly doesn’t hold up against Thai or Vietnamese cuisine.
We’ve all heard about people getting caned in Singapore. But it seems like child’s play once you learn that smuggling narcotics into Malaysia carries a mandatory death sentence.
The local language, Bahasa Malaysia, anglicizes many words: kopi, teh, ais, sos, cili, abulans (coffee, tea, ice, chili, ambulance). But strangely, their word for water is air.
Most Malaysians speak passable English. For instance, our taxi driver in Langkawi learned it by listening to American music on the radio. In particular he said, “Country Roads” by John Denver, which he then regaled us with – a cappella.
Some Muslim women are accustomed to squat or “Arab” toilets, and when they encounter a Western toilet, mistakes happen:
When you arrive at the airport in Penang, they scan your body to see if you have a fever.
In Malaysia, people from different backgrounds and religions have learned to almost-peaceably co-exist. Hooray for multiculturalism.
L’Observateur : Bangkok Edition
Long Live the King
In Thailand, it is now the year 2554.
Thais call Bangkok “Khrung Thep.” Ex-pat residents call it “The Big Mango.” So, I guess that means only non-Thai non-residents call it “Bangkok.”
Thailand has the longest-reigning monarch in the world in King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has been in power since 1950. The royal family is protected by the country’s strict lèse majesté laws, which make it an offense to insult the monarchy, to the point that if you badmouth the royals, you might spend some time in jail. In fact, the Thai government is so sensitive about the subject, that you can’t access the King’s Wikipedia page from within Thailand.
According to Wikileaks, there is some concern among Thais about the Prince (and probable future King) because he is a womanizer. Also, there are currently photography exhibitions by two of the Princesses up at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center.
The street food scene in Bangkok is outrageous and fantastic. There is no way to report the breadth of this experience, so I won’t even try, but it is worth noting that we ate at least five times a day and never once came close to getting sick. Again: It is totally safe to eat street food in Thailand. Do it. The only downside is that sometimes you smell sewage while you’re eating.
You can’t mail parcels larger than 500 grams from Thailand to the United States. When asked why, the Thai postal officer told me: “Not my country, YOUR COUNTRY!” Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have a way to x-ray for bombs ... or there are Muslims in Thailand (the latter). Also, it is inexplicably verboten to mail a package of any sort from Thailand to an American P.O. Box.
Thai cigarette packages feature extremely graphic images to keep you from smoking. What’s with the foot?:
There are TV monitors on the Bangkok Metro that show cat cartoons.
Chatuchak Weekend Market on the northern edge of Bangkok is rated by some as the best street market in Asia, and there is a foodie paradise called the Or Tor Kor market adjacent. Highly recommended.
On two separate occasions, a Thai person told me they had just returned from a vacation in Laos. When I asked why, they both said “trees.”
I have now circumnavigated the globe in my lifetime. The route goes something like this: Austin to Newark to Paris to Cairo to Bangkok to Hong Kong to Taipei to Los Angeles to Austin. Take that, Magellan!
Thais don’t honk much.
L’Observateur : Toot Uncommon Edition
Later that day, I ate fried brains on pita with pickled turnip on the side.
Waiter: “We have liver and brains.”
Me: “Brains.”
Waiter: “Liver?”
Me: “No. Brains.”
We hired a driver named Kamal to take us the 12km from Cairo to Giza to see the Pyramids. When he said “Sphinx,” it sounded like “Suhfinkus.”
If you are female, it is not advisable to walk around Egypt with exposed ankles.
It’s true what they say about traffic in Cairo. There are no lanes and little stopping. Crossing the street is like playing Frogger, except in this version you only get one life.
L’Observateur : The Thom Yorke Photobomb Incident
The funny thing about the Thom Yorke Photobomb is that Thom Yorke did not actually Photobomb me. A Photobomb is when someone intentionally screws up or “bombs” your picture from behind. As this article from Yahoo! France points out, a common example of a Photobombing would be when you make rabbit ears on another person’s head.
What actually happened is this: A little over three years ago we were at the Louvre taking advantage of reduced-priced-entry Friday night, and when we walked into the room where La Joconde hangs, I saw Yorke standing with a person I presume to be his wife. Awestruck, having just moved to Paris a month prior, I hurriedly staged a photo of Elli with him in the background. As I was shooting, he turned, and in one of the frames he appears as if he’s jauntily staring into the camera. Photobomb? Not so much. He never even saw me.
So, how did The Thom Yorke (Not) Photobomb go viral? As far as I can tell, on Saturday, November 6 someone calling themselves “The Game” or “Ricky” took the three-year-old image off my blog, photoshopped many more Thom Yorkes into it, and posted it on a viral media web site called BuzzFeed in an effort to get enough “viral hits” to win an iPad, and set of a chain of events where by Monday the image was in Rolling Stone’s Random Notes (below) and also on Stereogum, Blender, NPR, The Daily Swarm, The Daily What, and the aforementioned Yahoo! article explaining the concept of a Photobomb to a twittering and expectant French populace.
Here are some of the more interesting comments from some of these pages, including the internet style police who critiqued Elli’s footwear, which she defiantly defended:
Her shoes are a tragedy... just saying!
She's wearing clogs!!! ...wait, what are we looking for again?
Bitch looks like my evil ex maybe she can pay me the 100k she stole from me?
I saw the guy photobombing, then I googled his name. Then I thought "Oh neat, this girl got photobombed by a celebrity." I closed the tab and came to the comments. I read yours and had to go back to find out that I'm retarded.
Everything in it's right place. best. photo. ever.
This is amazing. I feel a little bad for him but it's just so hilarious.
Wow. He only blinks with one eye? Freaky. Did he suffer a stroke or something?
She's ultra cute!
Then the Farkers got ahold of it:
Going viral on the internet can really help your career – if what goes viral is what you want to go viral on the right sites. Again, not so much. (Ask Jack Rebney.)
The Stats: In the month before the initial post on BuzzFeed, according to Google Analytics (which I have deduced only catches about 75% of all traffic), I got something like 750 hits. In that month, a few people posted comments and I sold another copy of my photo book. In the week after the initial post on BuzzFeed, I got 9,467 hits on this blog (front page views totaled 1,032). One person left a comment (to tell me I had been Farked) and no one purchased the book.
Here’s what a virus looks like on Google Analytics:
Looking back on the original incident, the strangest thing was that as far as I could tell, not one other person in the entire museum recognized him, and my only regret is that when we saw him again later that night sitting alone on a bench by the toilets waiting for his wife, I wish I would have offered him some money for that “pay what you want” download of In Rainbows that I never paid what I wanted for.
Last night, as we were getting off the Eurostar at Gare du Nord, we saw Pete Doherty standing there. We kept walking.
What actually happened is this: A little over three years ago we were at the Louvre taking advantage of reduced-priced-entry Friday night, and when we walked into the room where La Joconde hangs, I saw Yorke standing with a person I presume to be his wife. Awestruck, having just moved to Paris a month prior, I hurriedly staged a photo of Elli with him in the background. As I was shooting, he turned, and in one of the frames he appears as if he’s jauntily staring into the camera. Photobomb? Not so much. He never even saw me.
So, how did The Thom Yorke (Not) Photobomb go viral? As far as I can tell, on Saturday, November 6 someone calling themselves “The Game” or “Ricky” took the three-year-old image off my blog, photoshopped many more Thom Yorkes into it, and posted it on a viral media web site called BuzzFeed in an effort to get enough “viral hits” to win an iPad, and set of a chain of events where by Monday the image was in Rolling Stone’s Random Notes (below) and also on Stereogum, Blender, NPR, The Daily Swarm, The Daily What, and the aforementioned Yahoo! article explaining the concept of a Photobomb to a twittering and expectant French populace.
Her shoes are a tragedy... just saying!
She's wearing clogs!!! ...wait, what are we looking for again?
I saw the guy photobombing, then I googled his name. Then I thought "Oh neat, this girl got photobombed by a celebrity." I closed the tab and came to the comments. I read yours and had to go back to find out that I'm retarded.
Everything in it's right place. best. photo. ever.
This is amazing. I feel a little bad for him but it's just so hilarious.
Wow. He only blinks with one eye? Freaky. Did he suffer a stroke or something?
She's ultra cute!
Then the Farkers got ahold of it:
The Stats: In the month before the initial post on BuzzFeed, according to Google Analytics (which I have deduced only catches about 75% of all traffic), I got something like 750 hits. In that month, a few people posted comments and I sold another copy of my photo book. In the week after the initial post on BuzzFeed, I got 9,467 hits on this blog (front page views totaled 1,032). One person left a comment (to tell me I had been Farked) and no one purchased the book.
Here’s what a virus looks like on Google Analytics:
Last night, as we were getting off the Eurostar at Gare du Nord, we saw Pete Doherty standing there. We kept walking.
L’Observateur : Mexico Rap
A few days after arriving in Real de Catorce, we spent four days in the house on a juice fast – and then Hurricane Alex hit, and we spent six more days in the house, watching sheets of rain pour down the side of the mountain. Cabin fever.
Then, Alex was back-ended by four days of torrential thunderstorms, and that’s when things started getting weird. Parts of the one-way tunnel collapsed and there was a sinkhole in the parking lot the size of a moon crater which almost ate the medical clinic:
In town, people were looking at each other with the intent, yet faraway gaze which wordlessly wondered what would happen to the town if the tunnel completely collapsed. We made a run on the general store.
The night of the last big thunderstorm, I was lying in bed and the house made a mighty cracking sound and I started to wonder if it might slide down the mountain. In the end, every house in town was either wet or molding with the apparent, miraculous exception of mine. Credit: The Swiss.
On the 10th day, I was standing outside on the patio looking intently at the 12-foot-high ruin wall which forms the southwest corner. It looked to be buckling. I walked inside, shut the door, and it collapsed into a pile of stone. If I would have been standing where I was standing 10 seconds prior, I’m not sure what would have happened. The wall was probably built by a 19th Century Spanish mine employee. This is the “above/after” shot. Que lastima:
After the storms, the hills around Real became greener than anyone had ever seen them. Water spilled down the gulleys and the Sierra Catorce was, for the first time in anyone’s memory, flush with water. Streams, waterfalls, and the sound of running water became a nice, if temporary, addition to normally dry, dusty climate.
After we finally escaped down the mountain, we took a trip to Mexico City. We stayed at Casa Gonzales, ate at the original Al Pastor taco joint, and drank mezcal like it was going out of style, which it most definitely is not. From D.F., we flew to Huatulco, spent a week at the beaches there, and then moved on to Zacatecas where – you read it here first – we decided to get hitched! The wedding plan is to neo-elope in some exotic locale around the end of 2010. After the big moment, we went to La Leyenda and celebrated our engagement with queso fundido. This one’s for the relatives:
A few days later, we were walking near Puerto Palillos and Elli stepped on a rattlesnake’s rattle, which, since I was walking ahead, meant I had stepped directly over it. The snake whipped around and hissed. Elli screamed and ran. All parties were equally terrified.
A great man once said: “Para todo mal, mezcal. Para todo bien, tambien.”
P.S.: A few weeks later we were in a taqueria in Kilgore, Texas and the woman working there was from Matehuala.
L’Observateur : The Austin Chronicle SXSW Film Issue Edition
L’Observateur : Ass Experiment Edition
The other day I was Google Mapping the neighborhood and noticed that there is something labeled “Ass Experiment” just south of Place de la Republique.Speaking of experimenting with asses, I thought I was going to get to see Nicolas Sarkozy or Vladimir Putin coming out of the Nôtre Dame the other day, but it turned out to be a Russian Orthodox priest and his posse.
A clip from “Revivals: Scrum Again” by Tad Friend in The New Yorker, 10-26-09:
“The last time rugby was played at the Olympics, the Americans won the gold. That was in 1924. A team composed largely of Stanford students made the six-thousand-mile trip to Paris on a lark – the sport wasn’t really played in America – and crushed the French in the final, 17-3, prompting a mob of drunken French fans to shower the team with rocks and bottles. And so ended rugby in the Olympics.”
L’Observateur : FFF3 Edition
The Fiery Furnaces performed on France 3’s “Ce Soir (Ou Jamais!)” last night, taking the stage mere seconds after a typically protracted French intellectual round-table discussion on “L’Eglise Catholique et la Pedophilie” – a title which they then inexplicably superimposed over the band while they were playing. (The cutaway shots to the panel watching them play are also priceless.)
It’s a long-standing source of wonder why the French don’t “get” rock music, but after last night, I’m thinking that maybe it’s because they air it after protracted round-table discussions on pedophilia. Just a theory. Performance begins at the 1h10m mark. [UPDATE: The person responsible for putting this graphic up was fired.]
L’Observateur : Wow, What Are the Chances?! [École Militaire Edition]
On days when the weather is nice and I can ride my bike to work, I sometimes sit on a park bench in the Champ-de-Mars and eat and read before I go to class. Facing the École Militaire with the Eiffel Tower at my back, I opened my New Yorker to an article by Adam Gopnik titled “Trial of the Century,” and the first line read:On a January day in Paris, in 1895, a new ceremony was enacted in the courtyard of the École Militaire, on the Champ-de-Mars, that still shocks the mind and conscience to contemplate ...Wow, what are the chances?!
L’Observateur : Paris 1919
Friend P. Lucas Mennella’s grandmother gave him these snapshots of Paris at the end of WWI and he gave me permission to exhibit them here. Most of these were taken at Place de la Concorde, and it’s interesting to see the Louvre without the pyramid, the ferris wheel in the 7th behind the Eiffel Tower, and an airplane parked at the west end of the Tuileries.
L’Observateur : Horsefeathers Edition
I got up one morning and when I opened the new pack of eggs, there was a chicken feather inside. >>>Around the Epiphany, French bakeries make loads of king cake. Except they call it galette de roi, and it’s nothing like one you might find in New Orleans or at your neighborhood HEB. It’s more like a chausson aux pommes, if you substituted almond paste. I sampled (inhaled) four from three different bakeries and surprisingly, the best one came from the Monoprix (our neighborhood HEB). An epiphany indeed.
The post-holiday soldes are in full swing and people are crawling all over each other to buy all the crap they didn’t want a month ago. But it’s 30% off!!! Where I come from, a pile of shit is still a pile of shit no matter how much I have to pay for it. And, after you adjust for the exchange rate and the fact that goods are cheaper almost everywhere else on Earth, the whole exercise is fairly worthless.
It’s been snowing a lot lately. We get dusted almost every morning and had one fairly substantial accumulation a few weeks back. This comes as something of a surprise given that it snowed maybe twice in the past two years.
I like to look at the 10-day forecast in Celsius and then switch it to Fahrenheit so it seems like it’s going to be warmer outside.
The only advantage of having two right-handed gloves is that you never have to stop and figure out which one is which.
France is ranked #1 in the world in overall “quality of life” for the fourth year running, but I wholeheartedly disagree with the 87 rating in the Climate category (but that’s probably because I live in le Nord and I’m not here in the summer to enjoy 11pm-sundown cocktails-on-the-Canal). No matter, I have a hard time with the notion that the quality of life in France can: a) be reduced to an integer. b) possibly be better than it is in, say, The Bahamas – but I suppose they don’t have galette du roi. Down the list, the USofA comes in #7, UK #25, and Mexico #46. And apparently, if you want really good deals, you should move to Iraq, which scored a perfect 100 in Cost of Living. And how is it possible for Yemen to score a 0 in Climate?
France is ranked #1 in the world in overall “quality of life” for the fourth year running, but I wholeheartedly disagree with the 87 rating in the Climate category (but that’s probably because I live in le Nord and I’m not here in the summer to enjoy 11pm-sundown cocktails-on-the-Canal). No matter, I have a hard time with the notion that the quality of life in France can: a) be reduced to an integer. b) possibly be better than it is in, say, The Bahamas – but I suppose they don’t have galette du roi. Down the list, the USofA comes in #7, UK #25, and Mexico #46. And apparently, if you want really good deals, you should move to Iraq, which scored a perfect 100 in Cost of Living. And how is it possible for Yemen to score a 0 in Climate?
L’Observateur : Madrid Edition
In Madrid, people wear colorful wigs and huge plastic sunglasses on New Year’s Eve. And, as if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, almost every bar and restaurant is closed after about 6pm (with the exception of high-cover-charge nightclubs) and everyone just sort of wanders around in the streets looking stupid – while any other night of the year you can eat and drink in tapas bars until the sun comes up. Go figure.
For good luck in the coming year, Spaniards eat 12 grapes in rapid succession with the chiming of the clock at midnight. Also, they have their own version of champagne called cava. It’s cheaper and tastes pretty much the same to me. With regard to vino tinto, rioja is the region, tempranillo is the grape, and crianza is the age.
The arty highlights of the trip were an up-close look at Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” at the Prado, an Ellsworth Kelly at the Reina Sofia, and the entire bottom floor (20th C) at the Thyssen-Bornemisza.
The two best places we ate were a foward-thinking tapas bar called Txirimiri and a rundown diner called El Brillante near the Atocha train station, where they have great fried calamari bocadillos and maybe the best cafe con leche in the world.
There’s a reason why people say “Holy Toledo!” It’s because the place is nothing but a bunch of old churches, synagogues, mosques, convents, and monasteries (that has been turned into an old-world tourist trap). Highlights of the day included a smooth, relaxing 30-minute train ride from Madrid, an exhibition of theatrical costumes designed by Salvidor Dalí, buying marzipan from a nun, and seeing the tomb of El Greco through a hole in the floor.
The rain in Spain fell mainly in the afternoon, and every single day.
L’Observateur : Indian Summer Edition
The most flagrant no-call hand ball goal since Maradona’s “Hand of God” in 1986 sent France to the 2010 World Cup. But the honking horns we heard all night could have just as well been coming from the Algerians, who also advanced with a win over Egypt.
We’re having an Indian Summer in Paris this year. Temperatures are hanging in the upper 50s and half of the leaves are still on the trees.
The Apple Store in the Louvre finally opened. The Paris Wheel is back.
Eric Tabuchi. Craig Smith. Paris Photo.
L’Observateur : Wow, What Are the Chances?! [Fall 2009 Edition]
Turns out, there are some public clay courts the 19th, which is great for a variety of reasons: 1) The ball bounces higher, 2) It’s easier on the knees, 3) You can easily defend line calls because the ball leaves a mark in the clay, and 4) Our French Open fantasies have come to life.The first time I went, I said “bonjour” to a 6'7" middle-aged man playing on the adjacent court, and he startled me with his response: “What’s up, dude?” Turns out, he’s an American writer (living in France for 28 years) who has co-written with Roman Polanski and used to play professional soccer in Europe. When I asked him if he left the U.S. for the same reason Polanski did, he replied, “no, nothing that fun.” I’m still not sure what he meant by that, but the very next week Polanski was arrested in Zurich on 32-year-old statutory rape charges. No matter, the end of The Tenant is still my favorite film finale of all time (“No one does it to you like Roman Polanski”), and I am now one degree of separation from the man who directed Chinatown.
Speaking of Chinatown, after four months of living out of our backpacks, we finally moved into a nice apartment in the 3rd (159 Rue du Temple, caddy-corner to the Square du Temple, just down the street from Marché des Enfants Rouges). The flat has a loft and is situated in a centuries-old building. And this is our landlord. Oh, and it’s related to Chinatown because there is a mini-Chinatown two blocks away on Rue Maire which features the oldest remaining building in Paris (1300 A.D. [subject to some debate]), which now has a Vietnamese phô restaurant in the ground floor and there is an amazing new banh mi shop next door. ¡Viva colonialism!
The Fiery Furnaces blasted through town again a few weeks ago and I had the brief pleasure of hanging out with their bass player Jason Lowenstein, which was really cool as I always quite liked his Sebadoh material. We talked at length about the timeless value of The Minutemen and SST Records and generally hit it off.
I went to one of my favorite Paris thrift shops the other day, and the Men’s button-up section had been replaced by a rack of disgusting, used-blanket-quality flannel shirts – which are unfortunately back in style. Then, when I Googled “style, flannel” to find a link for this – the final paragraph of another spell-binding edition of “L’Observateur” – the first hit was a blog post featuring a photograph of none other than Jason Lowenstein and Sebadoh. Wow, what are the chances?!
L’Observateur : France 1999
It’s been 10 years since my first 10 days in Paris. To commemorate the occasion, I dug up some old double- (and triple-) exposures I accidentally took on my first manual camera. If you look closely, you can make out the ghost of Puddles the Younger...
L’Observateur : Superhero Edition
Some arty highlights: 1) Michael Wolf: I went and saw this exhibition because his work reminds me of what I could possibly imagine my future work someday looking like – in a perfect world filled with huge budgets and helicopters. I added up his sales sheet, and in three weeks he sold 176,000 euros worth of prints. 2) Martin Parr: This guy’s work reminds me a bit of Austin photographer Will Van Overbeek, but Parr’s collection of Saddam Hussein wristwatches was what made the price of admission. 3) Né Dans Le Rue: An excellent graffiti exhibit at the Fondation Cartier. 4) Boris Mikhailov and 5) Jerome Byron.
Also, new work by Branislav Kropilak. And, I love what this guy is doing.
L’Observateur : Rentrée Edition
French Flaming Lips fans waiting for Coldplay. (Photo by Jenny Hart)
My second rentrée has been a little sketchier than the first. We couch-hopped for five days before we finally found a temporary rental near Porte de Clingancourt. The neighborhood is surprisingly Hausmannian and offers a range of culinary delights. We’ll be here until the end of the month.
My last moment of import in Paris last May also happened to be my first-ever functional French conversation. Upon rentrée, I have picked up where I left off, talking the crazy talk of an expat with a learning disability.
(Photo by Jenny Hart)
The day we moved into our temporary flat, The Flaming Lips came through town opening for Coldplay at the Parc des Princes, a soccer stadium that holds 60,000. It was a far cry from the first time I saw them at the Oklahoma University Student Union in 1986. We scored some VIP passes from our pal Steven and got to stand stage right during the show. Steven dedicated “Pompeii AM Gotterdammerung” to me, and I took a bow in front of 40,000 confused French people. Later, Dr. Ellenor Shoemaker and Ms. Jenny Hart breathed on Chris Martin. Everyone left happy.
The world’s oldest person died again.
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