Parislog 10
March 17, 2006

The Paris metro is the greatest transport system. It just gets you everywhere in Paris with hardly any time taken at all. The only problem that I have is that numerous times when I come up to the top, I am completely turned around backwards. I head the complete wrong direction on the right road. Some stops have 4 different openings onto the street.

There seems to be a theme developing in my mind of the French loving a good protest even if it is just blaring their horn when the traffic isn't moving even though it can't move and their horn won’t change anything. At least they get to feel like they have expressed themselves. My opinion. I am interested to see if they actually get results with the student protest or if it too will end up being an exercise in having spoken but that is it. I guess it is logical to have this form of protest be so strong considering the revolution. That was the granddaddy of protests and the forming of this current version of the country.

I am really enjoying the French passion for the "bande dessinée", what we would call comic strips but amped up to the level of more of an art form. You will find similar work in specialized areas of comic art in the states but it is huge here. The library has an immense section just for thousands of the hardbound books. Every bookstore has a section for them and some stores specialize and they are wall to wall. For me they are a great resource for learning more of the language as they are like short stories but with pictures to help you make a guess at what the word might be. They are so many varieties and I am finding the style that I like best. Every few days I return to the library for 5 more, the limit.

I was invited by H* to a concert by Jules Holland. I am completely clueless about who they are other than a quick read on the website but they turned out to be awesome. And major thanks to H* because the ticket price would have been 35€ otherwise. She and I had a blast. I met a couple of other friends of hers who were awesome too. As H* was working there for the evening, we also went backstage for a bit and got to chat to the band as they were preparing to leave. For me it was a nostalgic feeling being behind the scenes again.

Coming home took longer than going there. It was on almost exactly the other side of Paris from where I live and took 1 hour to go and 1 hour and 20 minutes to return. The trains don't run nearly as often at night and I had two big changes that I ended up having to wait for almost 10 minutes on each one. The cool thing was that it was a completely unthreatening ride. My biggest concern was getting home or close before the trains stop. I haven't figured out yet how the closing works and my French isn't good enough to get that one across. I know that they close at 12:30 but I didn't get off the train until 1:00 at it was still going. I am guessing that you can't enter after 12:30 but after that???? After I got off, I had a 20-minute walk through the streets and were they ever quiet. I guess one of the advantages of having a transit system that doesn't do much after a certain time is that everyone goes home. Or maybe it is just the people who choose to live in the middle of Paris.

There is an interesting difference here from stateside and that is that the inner city is the affluent educated crowd over all and the suburbs tend to be the more marginalized and poor people excepting a few neighborhoods, totally the reverse of home.

Today, I met up with the woman who was my seat partner on the plane and we went to the Pompidou Museum to see an exhibit on Los Angeles art from 1955-1985. Yuch. It was the worst for me. The most nonsensical art forms that just seemed the epitome of shallow and unskilled. It was not enjoyable and some of it was positively disturbing. They were pieces that showed photos from the performance art period. An example: a man leaning backwards on a Volkswagen bug and having his hands literally nailed to it. Not my thing.