New tenant, new lamp, broken dryer

I decided yesterday was about time to get ready for Mathilde, who will be living in our mother-in-law apartment for several months as she does an internship at Alliance française. Mathilde is 22 and from Perpignan, France. I started my clean-up with a load of laundry and immediately broke the dryer. I didn't do anything special to break it; it just started making a really strange noise, like someone had dumped about 15 dollars worth of quarters inside. In fact, this was my first thought: that a pocket (not mine, mind you) containing an extraordinary amount of change had not been emptied before the article of clothing it was attached to was thrown in the washing machine. That would have been great, in retrospect. No such luck. So the next thing I did was take out two items with zippers, in the vain hope that the noise was coming from some innocent metallic object and not some vital inner mechanism. In the meantime, I should add, I had put a very expensive, very loved pair of trousers in the wash on the "delicate" hand wash setting. I was petrified they would shrink or lose their exquisite shape. I took the extra precaution of reducing the number of rotations on the spin cycle. I got so distraught over the impending dryer disaster (Month of August! Repair guy on vacation! Intern coming from France in a week!) that I wasn't really paying attention to the wash cycle in progress. When the washer stopped I tried the door but it wouldn't open. Thinking the cycle was done, I turned the setting to "off" and then waited a minute before opening the door. When I did, a ton of water came spilling out onto the floor. Water, water everywhere! That's right, the reason the door would not open was that the cycle was still in progress you idiot! I was so dumbfounded and distracted by the dryer problem that I just held my trousers in my hand and looked on as the water continued to spill onto the floor and my shoes.
The important thing is that my trousers look fine -- they have their same basic shape and color. They were pretty water logged, though, since the spin cycle had not been completed. So I wrung them out as delicately as possible, which is actually impossible, and now they are hanging to dry for the next three days....

After I hung them up, I did the most sensible thing I could do: I decided to put off the apartment clean-up for a day and took the wet clothes from the broken dryer up to the coin-op laundromat. Neko and I went for a walk while they were drying, and we happened to go by Click! Design That Fits, a really great little shop in West Seattle owned by a couple that makes beautiful jewelry (Smersch, check 'em out). My favorite lamp in the universe, which I have wanted to buy ever since I first saw it there at least two years ago, was beaming at me from within. It was on sale. Finally! So I bought the last one in stock and ordered another. The lamp is so beautiful. I was an avid lamp collector when I lived in France. I love lamps, beautiful lamps. What makes a lamp beautiful? It's a mystery. The shade on this one is called "hot dog". Ain't that cool?
It looks great by the side of the bed.





Today I got throught the big clean-up, which included taking scary things out of the refrigerator and freezer. Caroline left some food items behind, thinking they would get eaten. I could not tell what any of them were. I also sent a couple of huge spiders packing. I vacuumed the whole place. Now it looks really cozy, don't you think?

Have a nice day!

I can see clearly now

I finally got a new pair of glasses. I love them. They're kind of ugly betty type glasses, with frames designed by one of France's emerging talents in the field. I got them at Eyes on Fremont. This is one of my favorite small businesses in Seattle: hip and knowledgeable salespeople, all of whom are wearing groovy glasses with a smile; a wonderful but not overwhelming selection; terrific after-sales service; consistently high quality product, selected with an EYE for aesthetics. Sure, you'll pay less at Costco or Sears, as my ophthamologist said; but you won't find the same groovy frames or get a pair of glasses crafted with the same care.

It's amazing how the world lights up and comes into focus when you have a pair of glasses adapted to your eyesight. What I love most about this latest pair is the coverage they offer. I took my oldest pair of glasses in with me because I had broken them while they served as a replacement for the lost pair (boo hoo on that; they were great designer frames by YSL that I bought just two years ago from another great small business in Paris). They're about 25 years old and I got them at one of the Lissac outlets in Paris. Here's a historical detour for anyone interested in the history of eyewear:

Histoire
Georges Lissac crée son premier magasin, rue Dauphine avec deux de ses frères, à Paris, en 1919. Le premier « mégastore optique » ouvre,rue de Rivoli en 1938. Cette succursale devient le siège social de la SARL Frères Lissac créée en 1931. Ce magasin demeure aujourd’hui encore le plus grand magasin optique d’Europe.
Précurseur en matière de communication dans l’histoire de l’optique, Georges Lissac lance, en 1932 la première campagne publicitaire de l’histoire de l’optique avec le slogan : « Des lunettes toujours parfaites à prix honnêtes ».
Précurseur, Georges Lissac propose un examen gratuit de la vue quand, à l’époque, la majeure partie des consommateurs choisit ses verres en les essayant.

Anyway, when the guy at Eyes on Fremont saw me old frames, he went nuts. Wow, he said, those are really back in style right now. I had figured this out myself given the number of hipsters who have commented on them in the past two months of so. He suggested I have them made into prescription sunglasses.

The world looks clear now and Puget Sound was like glass last night, so we went for a little pre-dinner kayak ride We put in (that's what the pros say) at Salty's and went out to inspect the seal raft. No seals last night! But the air was so clear; there was no haze at all. Every line and detail, every nuance of color in the downtown skyline stood out like an image in a viewfinder. Okay, maybe that was because of my new glasses, whatever. We went down to Jack Block Park to see if the seals were hanging out there. They weren't, but we had fun photographing barge 255. Then we headed back toward Salty's and popped open our beers offshore. I'm not a beer drinker, but there is something so satisfying about sitting in a kayak and drinking a beer while gazing alternately at the revelers on the deck at Salty's and the Seattle skyline.

Tuesday music

Piers Faccini

Birthday Month (July 10-August 10) Winds Down

This deserves a pause for a nice long Ohm.....

This action-packed month has included unexpected travel to foreign lands and a spontaneous hike along the Dosewallops River. Most importantly, it began with my birthday gift to myself: 20 yoga classes at 8 Limbs in West Seattle.




One evening while in Paris I was rushing along my usual back-street routes to get somewhere when I came upon this group of yoga practitioners, finishing their class en plein air.

I stopped to take a couple of pictures. The location is Place des Pères, which is just in front of the stunning and secretive Basilique Notre-Dame des Victoires, which lies hidden behind the flashier and more famous tourist magnet known as Place des Victoires.




The last time I hiked the Dosewallops I was on my way to climb Mt. Anderson. That was about 35 years ago...

Proust au musée des lettres et manuscrits à Paris

Le bonheur est au 222 boulevard St-Germain jusqu'à fin août.
Dépêchez-vous!

Time flies

As we biked along the Sammamish River Trail yesterday, I was thinking about how amazing it really is - when you think about it - that it is possible to fly 5,004 miles (Paris - Seattle via the great northern route) in just ten hours. Last Sunday, just a week ago, I was trudging through the Buttes des Chaumont park with my cellphone in hand, trying to find the exact location of the birthday party for Hanna, who just turned two. Noel and I finally managed to bump into eachother, though it seemed to be due more to random luck than technology and reconnoitering skills.

I stopped to snap this photo on the way:




Here she is, the birthday girl:

Le Basilic

I hope to get to the story behind these photos soon. But work is calling and jet lag is slowing me down.

My friend Monique sold her apartment in Paris last year after accepting a generous severance package from her employer and deciding to trade the stress of being a high-powered executive for one of France's largest corporations for the stress of meeting a payroll and running a restaurant. It seems to be working for her! And I worked for her too, for a couple of days last week.

Cathleen Vella

Unfortunately, I learned this morning that Facebook is a very effective way to communicate bad news as well as good. My dear friend Cathleen Vella of Paris, France passed away just now. I got a facebook message from a mutual friend, Tizzy, informing me that Cathleen was dying and had just a few hours to live. I was frantically scouring facebook, looking for a way to get more information without bothering Cathleen's husband Pierre or her son Pascal. I noticed that Cathleen's status was "on line", which I found odd. We had exchanged messages a couple of weeks ago -- when are you coming to Paris, she asked. Soon, I replied. Not soon enough I am sorry to say.

Then, just now in fact, Pascal sent a message to all of Cathleen's facebook friends, announcing her death.

You will be missed, Cathleen Flaherty Vella. Your good humor and love of life never failed you, despite being tested over and over again. I was practically in despair yesterday because both of my computers were not working due to a software glitch. Sometimes we lose perspective about what really matters, and adjustments are in order.

Cathleen, how brave you were to get on my sailboat!

En grève contre BP

J'ai décidé d'arrêter de m'occuper de ce blog et d'écrire sur les fait divers tant que BP n'aura pas réussi à régler ce petit "pépin" qui fout la merde au niveau planétaire. Fuck you, BP, et vous les autres pratiquants du capitalisme sauvage et ravageur. Le capitalisme, j'ai entendu dire un jour à la radio, il n'a jamais était si moribond ni si agressif. Mais oui, c'est ça le drame.

La bonne nouvelle (voir article du Monde) à mi-teinte est que le cours de bourse du titre BP est tombé au plus bas! 36 centimes d'euro par action seulement... youpee! Mais derrière les chiffres il a (hélàs) des hommes, et parmi ceux-ci les actionnaires individuels de BP, sans parler des fonds de pension qui paient les retraites de beaucoup de gens modestes avec les rendements de leurs investissements dans les marchés des capitaux... quel merdier cette marée noire, quel merdier le capitalisme sauvage.

Et moi et moi et moi dans tout ça? Je fais grève!

SIFF 2010 - Mon Palmarès à Moi

I've seen four films in the SIFF line-up so far. One I've already indicated; the three others are Amer (Franco-Belge), Le père de mes enfants (Belgian) and, last night, Farsan, a delightful Swedish comedy. Farson would never make the Cannes line-up, simply because Cannes seems to have something against comedies. We went with a friend and the three of us laughed our heads off at all the delightful silliness. At the same time, Farsan has its genuinely touching moments. The guy who plays Aziz makes the film. He's a lovable but totally invasive parent who hasn't really moved on from his wife's death and who as a result is making things hard on his son and the son's wife. They are secretly adopting a child while she pretends to be pregnant. The film is in Swedish and was filmed in one of those lovely, sleepy towns that dot the Swedish landscape. Watching it, you long to move to Sweden and work in a bicycle repair shop for peanuts. Seeing Sweden as I remember it made the film special for me; my two movie companions had never been to Sweden and thoroughly enjoyed the movie anyway. One of them wanted to move there, right away.
Amer and Le père de mes enfants are more sober films. The French don't do Swedish comedies. They do comedies, but that's another matter. Both of these films are Belgian productions; both are in French. In the case of Amer, filmed in the south of France (near Eze, it looks like), the language is not that important because there is not much dialogue. The film is a hommage to the Italian giallo style of the 60s. I saw it with my friend D. Her first words when the lights went up were "that was the worst movie I have ever seen". I'm not so sure. There was something compelling about the way it was filmed. Three key moments in the life of one person - as a girl, an adolescent and a young woman. A giallo is a half thriller, half slasher film. This was more slasher than thriller, though the explicit violence came only in the final sequence. If you watch the film as reality, it doesn't work. But as the developing fantasy life of the main character viewed from inside her head, it works much better. The music is creepy and funny at the same time: Sergio Leone meets Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. The camera work and colors reminded me of a cross between David Lynch and Bunuel. On a visual and auditive level, the film works. That's the only way to see it.



Le père de mes enfants was filmed in and around Paris, except for a brief sequence in Italy. Paris was the character in the movie I most wanted to watch. Based on a true story, the film is both warm and sad. It mostly works, though at times it seemed about to veer off topic. The three daughters of the over-extended film producer are wonderful and relaxed. In the case of both Farsan and Le père de mes enfants, the lighting and actors are natural. Such a refreshing contrast with Hollywood big productions! The sixty-year-olds in Farsan look their age and it is wonderful to see. The actors in Le père de mes enfants are not overly-made-up or facelifted. Everyone just looks like a person. Vive le cinéma!

Le bonheur est sur les Champs (Elysées)

Anyone who has spent any time on the Champs-Elysées (la plus belle avenue du monde) will love this transformation.

Mom and me

After losing my expensive and really beautiful prescription sunglasses on Christmas Day, I have now lost the expensive and really beautiful Yves Saint Laurent glasses I bought in Paris two summers ago. The sunglasses are gone forever, having been accidently thrown out. Okay, they were inside a bag. As for the more recently lost pair, they are somewhere in my house. I just can't find them. So I have taken to wearing old glasses. The pair I was wearing last night is about 20 years old. I only wore them when I went to movies (I never drove when I lived in France and didn't even own a car). They are really hilarious. I actually love wearing them because it makes me feel like a secretary in a 60's sitcom. The photo was taken by my sister Carolyn; the occasion was the wedding reception of my cousin Suzi's daughter Tina; the place was the Rainier Golf and Country Club.

The copy and paste mentality

When I taught at the super-selective HEC (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales), a French grande école that trains many of France's future business elites and captains of industry, I often had my students keeps a journal in English so they would get writing practice. I told them they could write on any subject whatsoever, but sometimes suggested topics for open-ended essays.

I would collect the journals a couple of times during the term and read/grade them. To my surprise, one student had copied text from Time magazine word for word, passing it off as his own reflections about the problem of immigration in France (a topic I had given). I did not read Time magazine regularly, but just happened to have read this very article. I immediately recognized the words, not to mention the vast improvement in this student's written English. From upper intermediate to publishable in one fell swoop!

When I confronted the student, he denied having copied the text. So I showed him the original. He did not seem too embarrassed and eventually explained to me that he needed a good grade in my class to get an internship his dad had arranged for him in New York the following summer. The end justified the means, in his mind at least.

This happened in the mid-80's, before the ubiquity of the Internet. Today, it is so easy to copy and paste and the amount of material available for the taking is so vast that plagiarism has become a major problem. Le Monde has published an interesting article on the subject (this post's title links to it). Apparently, plagiarism detection software has been developed and a string of more than six identical words with an existing published document gets picked up and flagged.

This paragraph caught my attention:

Mais pour Hélène Maurel-Indart, si le plagiat prend de l'ampleur, ce n'est pas seulement à cause d'Internet. "Bien sûr, avec les ordinateurs, il y a la banalisation du geste copier-coller." Un clic suffit, plus besoin de recopier manuellement des pages d'ouvrage. "Mais il y a également l'augmentation du nombre d'entrées en master, avec des étudiants qui ne sont pas toujours capables de valoriser leurs informations."

But for Hélène Maurel-Indart, the Internet is not the only reason plagiarism is becoming more widespread. "Obviously, with computers copy-and-paste has become a banal gesture." It just takes one click; manually recopying the pages of the work is no longer necessary. "But there are also more students pursuing master's degrees, and some of them are not always able to valorize their information."

That is the crux of the problem, I think. With the Internet, one quickly realizes that one's thoughts on a given work or author or movement or moment in history or sociological phenomenon or whatever have probably been expressed by someone else already. Blissful ignorance of one's precursors is no longer an option. The challenge lies in acknowledging them and building on what they have already written. But what if what they have already written tallies with what you think? Just agreeing is so lame. Just going out and finding the words of others who agree or disagree is easy. The world of scholarship has not yet figured out how to deal with the copy-and-paste mindset. Judging from my experience at the University of Washington, higher education functions pretty much the same way it did 30 years ago. The anxiety of influence may have intensified, that's all.

Ten pounds lighter, ten years younger

They say the right haircut can make a gal look younger and lighter. It sure did the trick for Neko, who has just come back from the groomer. She'll thank me for it this summer.

Before


After

Just a really nice song

L'inconnu du métro

Merci à Philippe Colin et sa cellule de dégrisement sur France Inter, que j'écoute en différé grâce au podcast, de m'avoir fait découvrir l'incomparable Marie Dinkle et son blog, l'inconnu du métro. Le concept est très simple, comme le style d'écriture de Marie. Avec son ton juste et léger, elle nous montre qu'on peut aimer autrui sans passer pour quelqu'un de candide.

A propos de l’inconnu du métro
Vous vous demandez qui est cet inconnu assis en face de vous qui regarde par la fenêtre. Chaque fois que vous tentez de regarder dans sa direction vous croisez son regard. Gêné vous baissez les yeux. On ne dévisage pas les gens. Il se demande la même chose. Pourtant vous ne le reverrez jamais. C’est l’inconnu du métro.

Marie repère puis aborde l'inconnu du jour, mène sa petite enquête auprès de sa proie consentante, prend une photo de cette dernière et met le tout sur son blog (il suffit de cliquer sur le titre pour le visiter). Par example, ici c'est Mauricette. Pour connaître son histoire, et celle de tant d'autres inconnus, suivez le lien et consultez sur place. A déguster sans modération.



Il paraît que le blog sera bientôt traduit en anglais. Personnellement, je ne vois pas l'intérêt mais why not?

En tout cas, continuez Marie Dinkle. On vous aime beaucoup!

My career in advertising

The pay is pretty good.
I created the tagline for the Sanctuary advertising that will be visible with every film shown at this year's Seattle International Film Festival. It was the best ten minutes I ever spent. My friend D is one of the SIFF sponsors this year and, as a result, in addition to the free advertising, we get free passes. These are cool things you wear around your neck, and they get you in for free to any film you want to see, any time.

The festival starts in about two weeks, but there are press screenings going on now and we get to go to those too. Today I actually went to a movie at noon! It was a French film, Les Beaux Gosses. Bizarrely, the title was translated as French Kissers. Most unfortunate. Not a great film, but not bad either.

A cross between a tranche de vie and a series of vignettes.

No time to blog!

The best part? As I was leaving Pacific Place, I noticed that Anne Taylor was having a sale on dresses, so I walked in to have a look. Ten minutes later, I walked out with two for the price of one. I am not a shopper; I get no pleasure out of agonizing and lingering. These dresses are perfect; one will be just right for my cousin's daughter's wedding in three weeks. I just need to find the right shoes. Clementine will have them.

If you go to SIFF, look for my masterpiece.

Sanctuary: a unique place for life's special events.

It is just right with the artwork, which I can't post here for some reason. Go to SIFF and you'll see it.

Survival mode

I just wanted to reassure those who have been wondering that I have not fallen into a black hole. April is the cruellest month for me in terms of work. This year, as last year, it is proving a challenge to pursue school and get through a mountain of day-job work at the same time, not to mention.... all the other stuff. Had the Charlotte Gainsbourg show at the Crocodile been worth anywhere near the price of the ticket, I would have let y'all know. But alas, I should have listened to my instincts. Like her mother, Charlotte has no voice to speak of. And unfortunately, she does not have her late father's song-writing or musical ability. But the pre-dinner at Le Pichet was excellent, and so was the show at the Showbox the same night, where we had back-stage passes. Nice to have someplace to go when the place where you are disappoints!
Now it is back to the subsistence life: métro, boulot, dodo. Mostly boulot. Merde!

I have a photo I took in Iceland on my desk right now, just beneath my computer screen. It predates this week's eruption (both the taking of the photo and my decision to put it on my desk). Maybe I'll scan it and post it some day. I am sorry about all the stranded travelers but excited about the eruption. I love volcanic eruptions! When I lived on Rue des Ecoles in Paris I belonged to a gym just around the corner. There was a famous volcanologue who used to box there every morning at 7 am. A volcanologue! When I visited Iceland, I was struck by many things, not the least of which is this: the ground trembles ever so slightly, all the time. You realize pretty quickly that the place could blow at any moment. You begin to understand Bjork's music.

Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women: Nicole Hardy does Anne Sexton

Instead of having talent, I have cultivated friendships with talented people. This is not as easy as you might think.

But I figure I might as well spend a minute today to mention one of my many talented friends and let you all know that she's going to be performing next Thursday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m. at Richard Hugo House in Seattle.

She (Nicole Hardy by name) has been selected to participate in a tribute to famous dead poets that is part of the larger celebration of National Poetry Month. You are excused if you didn't know that April, in addition to being the cruellest month, is National Poetry Month. But now that you know, don't you forget it. To take part, all you have to do is write or read a poem a day this month, and buy a ticket (they're cheap) to next Thursday's event, which I promise will be fabulous. Note: it is easier to read a poem a day than to write one. You can also fulfill the requirement by spending ten minutes a day doing rhyme-y conversation with a loved one. It's super easy and kind of fun. One person starts, making a statement that ends with a word that will serve as the one all subsquent statements have to rhyme with. For example, if I say "I say like sitting in the sun," you say something like "I can think of better ways to have fun", to which I might reply "It better not involve a gun".... Etc.

So back to NICOLE HARDY, poetess extraordinaire.

Next Thursday, April 15, at Hugo House, she (along with local poets Peter Pereira, Matt Gano and Jourdan Keith) will be doing readings of a famous dead poet, Anne Sexton. Her fellow poets will be doing Richard Brautigan, Audre Lorde and Frank O’Hara. If you have never heard of them, don't worry. Poetry begins in wonder. Actually, philosophy begins in wonder, according to Descartes, but never mind. Poetry is like philosophy, but couched in even more cryptic statements. And I mean that in a good way.

Here's how the upcoming event works:

For Dead Poets Society, each living poet will portray a dead poet from the canon and read his or her work; it will be part costume party, part poetry reading. As an extra wrinkle—since Hugo House’s mission is to support new work, all of the poets will write one original poem in the vein of, inspired by or in response to a work or the life of their selected writer.

Tickets for Dead Poets Society are $10 ($6 for Hugo House members, seniors and students) and are on sale now through brownpapertickets.com.


This is truly an opportunity to enjoy an evening of culture and fun for the price of an entrée at Circa in West Seattle, where Nicole works and also gathers some of the material for her fabulous poems.

Soyez nombreux!

Rue des Anciennes Arènes, Place du Cirque, Béziers

In 1999, I co-invested in a renovation project in the French city of Béziers. Béziers is located in Southeast France, in the département called L’Hérault (34), in the region known as Languedoc Roussillon.

Béziers is not too far from the larger and better known city of Montpellier. In fact, Béziers is something of a secret treasure. It is located just 10 kilometers from the Mediterranean and 50 kilometers from the mountains. The back country is simply spectacular and untamed, and features the station thermale Avène and roquefort cheese. More about Avène below.

The city of Béziers is known for bulls and wine. But there is more: the inner city neighborhood where I bought and renovated an apartment (as part of a larger and ongoing project) is where the Roman arenas (arènes) were located, built in 80 AD and able to seat nearly 15,000 spectators.

The vestiges of these arenas and surrounding neighborhood have now been almost completely rehabilitated and are open to the public for guided tours. So if you’ve never seen a vomitorium, consider visiting Béziers.

Béziers boasts 65 centuries of history, from the Roman era to the Crusades, not to mention the opulent 19th century, traces of which remain in the wide tree-lined avenues, the new Arena, fountains, public gardens, and imposing Haussmanian architecture. Better still, the weather is California-like. Best of all, Béziers is off the beaten tourist track. Even French tourists seem to stop at Montpellier or head straight to the Côte d'Azur without stopping.

Some people may be shocked to learn that bull fights are still staged in France, but they are, in Roman amphitheaters located in Fréjus, Arles, Nîmes, Béziers and other towns in the south. In Béziers, the annual 4-day feria, based on the Spanish corrida, takes place in August. Béziers even has its own accredited bullfighting school.

I’ve been thinking about Béziers lately because my investment has matured. It has been a rental unit since work was completed, with rent controlled at a moderate rate and the property managed by a special company set up for this purpose. A hassle-free investment, except for all the hassles. More about that another time. I've also been thinking it would be fun to look in on my investment this summer. We could fly into Paris, rent a car, and head south. Maybe go to Grenoble after that, where my friend Monique has just bought a resturant. Maybe traverse France and pay a visit to my sailboat in La Rochelle. Just thinking aloud here...

Not too far from Béziers, up in the hills, sits the Avène spa. Visits are covered by the French social security system, as the water is noted for its healing properties for sufferers of skin ailments such as eczema and psoriasis. Incidentally, Avène makes a wonderful, gentle line of skincare products, which unfortunately are impossible to get in the US (but sold in Canada!).

Here are some photos taken as the project was near completion. And yes, the sky really is that blue in Béziers.

1. These tiles, which date from the 18th century, were found when the project got underway. We decided to use them in the entryway to the apartment.

2. This is the view from the kitchen terrace, which overlooks a tiny interior courtyard.

3. Vestiges of the Arènes.

4. Béziers

5. Place du Cirque. My apartment is in the white building with the green shutters. The living room overlooks the square, Place du Cirque.

Spring into it

Roxy made some lovely cupcakes with orange/cream cheese frosting for Easter Sunday brunch. Notice how she color-coordinated the cupcake paper holders and her icing decorations.



















Carolyn had some left over paint that she used to decorate her hollow eggs. Don't they look perfect with the chamelias?

Noël en Espagne, Paco Rabanne

As the Easter hoohah heats up, many people the world over are wondering when the Catholic Church is going to assume accountability for the Sins of its Fathers. For decades, the Catholic Church has merely transferred priests who sexually abuse children, rather than doing the right thing. How many thousands and thousands and thousands of children have suffered in shame because the Catholic Church did not do the right thing?

Can you imagine the outcry if public school administrators just quietly transferred sex offenders out of sight rather than reporting them?
Why should a sex offender who dresses in priestly garb be spared having to answer to society for crimes against children?

And lest you think I am down on priests, let me take a moment to recommend an excellent book written by a friend of mine. Andrea Vogt's Common Courage recounts the life and death of Bill Wassmuth, a noted human rights activist and former priest who lived in the Pacific Northwest. Andrea is a superb writer and this is a moving defense of tolerance and social justice.

I would like to see the Catholic Church become a beacon of tolerance and take a firm stand against hypocrisy, especially when it comes from within its own ranks. More tolerance for activists who do good, like Bill Wassmuth, and less co-dependency and enablement for its own members who sexually abuse helpless children while advising women who are married to abusers to suck it up and pray. Perhaps a more publicly accepting attitude towards homosexuals while we're at it.

Isn't it time for the Catholic Church to change, just a little bit?

Three years and not counting

That's how I feel.
I am married to the best man in the whole world.
That sounds pretty lame, but consider this:

He makes a perfect marinara sauce.

Last week he did all the laundry and then cleaned the laundry room.

He always notices when I cut my hair or am wearing something new, and he always compliments me. I don't know if he is being sincere, but I don't care.

He is endlessly patient but not a pushover. I don't know how he manages this delicate balance.

He actually loves to read and talk about books.

He will watch as many Law & Order reruns as I want to see (they aren't reruns for me).

He opens doors for me, including car doors.

He helps little old ladies carry their groceries.

He's really, really cute.

He makes sure we always have great music to listen to.

He likes simple things, like walking with me and Neko.

He's very romantic.

He plays the rhyming game with me even though he knows he will lose because I am the champion.

He is cheerful most of the time but not so cheerful you want to smack him.

I could go on and on, but who's counting? Not me.

If you read only one book on the Knox case...

The local media (with the exception of Andrea Vogt's reporting for the Seattle PI, from Italy) has been just appallingly bad in its treatment of this case. Indeed, the US media has been nearly as bad. The local talking heads, in lieu of any real reporting, just read press releases handed to them by the PR firm hired to mislead the American public. Blame it on budget cuts if you will. But I say if you don't have the money to pay reporters on the ground then you should stick to covering local things and leave the complex international stuff to the pros. The fact that one of the three people convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007 is from Seattle is irrelevant.

In her book on the case, Newsweek and Daily Beast reporter Barbie Nadeau corrects the hundreds of errors that have been committed by the local media, for anyone who is willing to take the time to read her short and well-written book.

I was going to write a brief review to go with this recommendation, but Tina Brown's introduction (in the Daily Beast) fills the bill quite nicely. An excerpt:

Barbie Latza Nadeau, who has been reporting from Italy for Newsweek since 1997, arrived in Perugia the day after Meredith’s battered body was discovered in the house she shared with three other girls. A resident of Rome, fluent in Italian, Nadeau (who also happened to have been married in Knox’s hometown of Seattle) was uniquely suited to grasp all the factual and cultural nuances of this confounding case.

And she pursued them zealously. Over the next two years, she attended almost every session of Knox’s murder trial, read the entire 10,000-page legal dossier in Italian, and invested countless coffees, dinners, and glasses of prosecco in cultivating cops, lawyers, judges, witnesses, jurors, friends, and families. Nadeau’s regular posts on The Daily Beast during the 11-month trial established her as an authoritative voice on the case—with appearances on CNN, CBS, NPR, the BBC, and NBC’s Dateline. But her pieces also got her blackballed by the Knox family because she declined to toe the line they force-fed to a U.S. media eager to get them on-camera: that Amanda was a total innocent railroaded by a rogue prosecutor in a corrupt justice system.

Daily Beast readers knew otherwise, thanks to Nadeau’s thorough and balanced reporting. But her objective dispatches also earned her the enmity of ferocious pro-Knox bloggers, who hurled insults and threats, hoping to discredit her professionally. Instead, her reputation has been enhanced by her diligent pursuit of a story that most of the U.S. media, including The New York Times, badly misread.

Barbie Latza Nadeau’s sensitive, clear-eyed, and compelling examination of a perplexing case is now a book—the second in our provocative Beast Book series—that brings to American readers the first full account of this baffling case. The book finally gets behind the impassive “angel face” (as the Italian tabs sneeringly called the defendant) to find the real Amanda Knox. Mining diaries, social-networking sites, exclusive interviews, and telling moments in the courtroom, Nadeau paints the first full portrait of a quirky young woman who is neither the “she-devil” presented to an Italian jury nor the blameless ingénue her parents believe her to be. What Nadeau shows is that Amanda Knox is, in fact, a 21st-century all-American girl—a serious student with plans and passions—but is also a thrill-seeking young woman who loves sex and enjoys drugs and who, in the wrong environment with the wrong people, develops a dark side that takes her over and tips her into the abyss.

Getting to know me

Finally, my first paper is behind me, and no, I am not sitting on the smallest seat in the smallest room of the house. For anyone wondering about my sanity, that is a reference to Voltaire. The story goes that in reply to a letter critical of something he had written, he replied: Monsieur, Je suis chez moi, assis sur le plus petit siège dans la plus petite pièce. Votre lettre est devant moi. Bientot, elle sera derrière moi.

I don't know if this story is true. However, my first graduate school paper in more than a quarter of a century is behind me. Once I got into it, I didn't want to finish it off. What a vital mental exercise! Why do most of us stop writing papers as soon as we are allowed to? Yesterday, in preparation for my next paper, I went to Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington and came across all 40 volumes or so of Rousseau's collected letters. 40 volumes, people! Maybe more, I didn't count. But think about it... think about the sheer volume of thought he committed to paper. He also wrote books, lots of them. We fancy ourselves writers today because we unload our petty thoughts in blog entries and dash off rapid emails. Most of us have no idea what it means to write any more. Yet another reason to tip my hat to my hardworking and underpaid journalist friends. You know who you are. I admire you for what you do.

And now for something different, taken from a friend's blog. Thanks, friend. You know who you are.

It's one of those getting to know you questionnaires that imply the existence of a stable self and lots of amour-propre. These are the subjects of my next paper, which spans the century separating La Rochefoucauld (17th) from Rousseau (18th). But first, a little banality (or is it anality?):

1. What time did you get up this morning
6:20, to feed the cats before they ate us.

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds and Rust.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
In the Loop or was it Entre les Murs? Not sure.

4. What is your favorite TV show?
The ones I watch most regularly (while on the elliptical) are Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow. I'm a news junkie. Not really, but I like saying it. I also like 30 Rock because it is just a bunch of usually hilarious non sequitirs.

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
Breakfast 1 (6 am): Coffee and 2 squares of dark chocolate
Breakfast 2 (9 am): Yogurt and fruit or toast and egg.

6. What is your middle name?
Anne

7. What food do you dislike?
Cooked spinach (I like all other cooked greens, but cooked spinach makes my teeth feel weird).

8. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
Renaud, Tournée Rouge Sang.

9. What kind of car do you drive?
Mini Cooper S (the S says it all).

10. Favorite sandwich?
Admiral Sandwich.

11. What characteristic do you despise?
Self-pity

12. Favorite item of clothing?
My fitted gray hoodie

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
South Africa

14. Favorite brand of clothing?
Prairie Underground (see fitted gray hoodie)

15. Where would you like to retire to?
A little red house with white trim in rural Sweden.

16. What was your most memorable birthday?
Always the last one.

17. Favorite sport to watch?
Gotta go with baseball, though curling is a close second.


18. Furthest place you are sending this?
Cyberspace.


19. Person you expect to send it back first?
Superman.

20. When is your birthday?
July 10th (same as Marcel Proust).

21. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Both. It's the in-between that can be tough, requiring a nap.

22. What is your shoe size?
37 1/2 - 38.

23. Pets?
Our dog Neko and two cats, Pushkin and Munchkin. We also have about 5 fish in our outdoor pond, but I don't know their names.

24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
My tulips are coming up!

25. As a child, what you thought you wanted to be when you were grown up?
First a wordsmith (there was a show on channel 9 of that name and I thought that was the job of the host), then a vet.

26. How are you today?
Not wanting to work on the annual report I have to translate.

27. What is your favorite candy?
Dark chocolate. As a kid, red licorice.

28. What is your favorite flower?
Tulip.

29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
Tous les matins du monde.

31. What are you listening to right now?
The tinkling of Neko's collar tags.

32. What was the last thing you ate?
Yogurt with pistachios, golden raisins and a cut-up fig.

33. Do you wish on stars?
Huh?

34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Aqua marine.

35. How is the weather right now?
Sunny and a bit windy.

36. Favorite way to exercise?
Fast walking with Neko/My stick routine.

37. Favorite soft drink?
Fuze Slenderize.

38. Favorite restaurant?
Le Pichet in Seattle.

39. Favorite color of nail polish?
I hate nail polish.

40. What was your favorite toy as a child?
I honestly have no idea.

41. Summer or winter?
Fall. So there.

42. Hugs or kisses?
Depends on who is doing the hugging or kissing.

43. Chocolate or Vanilla?
What a question! Chocolate, like any civilized person.

44. Coffee or tea?
Coffee.

45. Do you want your friends to email you back?
Whatever.

46. When was the last time you cried?
I don't remember.

47. What is under your bed?
A boogie man.

48. What did you do last night?
Went to dinner at Bob and Chris's house. Chris made a delicious pizza and brownies.

49. What are you afraid of?
The world going to hell in a handbasket.

50. Salty or sweet?
Sucré-salé.

51. How many keys on your key ring?
4 - three house keys and one car key.

52. How many years at your current job?
Twelve.

53. Favorite day of the week?
Montuwedthufrisatsunday.

54. How many cities have you lived in?
Seattle, Vancouver, Los Angeles, South Hadley, Shanghai, Paris, La Rochelle

55. Do you make friends easily?
Yes, so far.

56. How many people will you send this to?
To everyone who reads this.

57. How many will respond?
It's up to them.


By the way, my paper was on Françoise Sagan's Bonjour tristesse. Here she is in 1968.

Munchkin and Neko

Because of her disability, we decided not to get Munchkin fixed. We took her to the vet once, and it took her about six weeks to get over it. It took roughly half that time to get her into a cage so we could get her to the vet. She may be unable to run or jump, but when she wants to elude the human grasp she is talented and dangerously armed. To compensate for her equilibrium troubles, she has developed the most muscular claws I have ever seen on a cat. And she knows how to use them.

The end result is that Munchkin is often in heat, and the object of her desire is Neko. She follows Neko everywhere during this period, cooing and clinging. Neko is amazingly patient, and every once in awhile gives Munchkin a few playful bites that seem to scratch the itch.

Neko, because she lives among cats, does many catlike things. For example, she finds small and tight places to sleep in. She also licks her paw before using it to scratch behind her ear. Stuff like that. Just now, I found her in one of her favorite tight spots, inside the mail basket under the table near the front door. When she thinks I might be going out without her, she will jump up on this low table and position herself next to the basket where we keep the car keys. Don't leave home without me is the message.

So here's Neko, in one of her favorite spots. But she's not alone. Munchy is in heat:





I have also seen Munchy get inside Neko's basket of toys and lie there, waiting for Neko to choose her as the preferred thing to chew on.

Too dang busy to blog

I have been trying to finish a paper on Françoise Sagan - I am happy to report that, as of yesterday, I am very close to the end - while keeping up with the reading for this quarter's seminar and my day job. Not to mention the occasional French teaching gig. I'll try and remember to post a link to the La Repubblica article and related video by Italian journalist Riccardo Staglioni, who was in Seattle to do research for his piece on the world of Amanda Knox. He somehow managed to work around the spin Marriott blacklist and find me and Charles Mudede. In his excellent article, he referred to Anne Bremner as Cruella Deville and to Marriott as a spin doctor.

Bowled over

In my world, every day is Valentine's Day because my one and only constantly finds ways to bowl me over.

Yesterday was no exception. We got together with a group of intrepid neighbors and had ourselves a bowling extravaganza at West Seattle Bowl. It was interesting to see the various strategies that the non-bowlers (like me) adopted to avoid sheer and utter humiliation. It was also interesting to see that we have some true bowlers in our neighborhood. I think there is something to the notion that certain people excel at indoor sports like bowling, ping pong and pool. Often, these people suck at the usual sports, football, basketball and baseball.

My hubby excels at all sports and is ultra-competitive. He did pretty well against the indoor sports enthusiasts. What I noticed is that he used his superior strength, size and muscle mass, hurling the bowling ball rather than releasing it close to the ground and close to the line like the true bowlers. As a result, when he aimed correctly it was like a bomb exploding. Pins went flying. This kept him in the game against the true bowlers.

As for the rest of us, we ranged from occasional bowlers to total neophytes. One neighbor grew up in the Ukraine and had never bowled before. Another neighbor, from California, decided that her best option was to gently place the bowling ball on the ground and give it a little push. This worked out well at the beginning but not over time. As for me, well, let's just say that I am close to a neophyte. Bowling is not unheard of in France, but it is not a national sport by any means. I had bowled three or four times as a kid. Once I bowled at the Washington Athletic Club as part of a birthday outing. We lived near Roxbury Lanes, but I was not a regular patron. It was the kind of place that looked seedy and sagging, and it smelled like stale cigarette smoke, even from outside.

So I watched people's strategies and tried to emulate the pros. Easier said than done. The bowling ball was heavy, even though I chose the lightest one. I appreciated that fact that my hubby did not try and "help" me, though he gave me just one tip toward the end and it was just what I needed. He told me that instead of trying to correct for the curve of my ball (it kept going toward the right), I could just stand further to the left and closer to the line. I tried it and immediately improved from totally sucking to actually knocking over some pins and even getting one strike. If I had my own personal bowling ball, I'm sure I would improve my game. In other words, I believe I am just one properly sized and weighted bowling ball away from being awesome at bowling. I have heard that a bad carpenter blames his tools, but I don't think this applies to bowling or curling.

Sarah Palin is a f*cking retard

Apparently, it's okay to call someone a f*cking retard (or even a fucking retard) if you are in satire mode. So I'm going to go ahead and call Sarah Palin a f*cking retard, perhaps the biggest f*cking retard who has ever harbored political ambitions in this country. It is true that George W. Bush worked hard to pave the way for f*cking retards like Sarah Palin, by refraining from ever having an idea in that pointed little head of his, and by persisting in his fractured syntax in the face of criticism, protests and satire. It must have been tough, and I am proud of him for not giving in to this unacceptable pressure from some elements of the populace, demanding that he use proper English and that he actually make sense. Making sense is totally overrated.

Back to Sarah, the biggest f*cking retard on the political landscape today. With any luck, she'll run for prez in 2012. Having outlasted her fifteen minutes of shame through sheer shamelessness, she is here to stay. She will not go quietly into that good night. Don't expect Sarah to read the mood of the people and leave leadership in more capable hands. No way. She is a train wreck and she knows that America loves nothing more than to watch a train wreck. She is better than a train wreck. She is a train wreck in slow motion.

I watched her deliver her speech at the tea party last weekend. Her message was absolutely and utterly devoid of substance, which made it really appealing to her audience. The genius of Sarah, though she is a f*cking retard, is that she has tapped into the deep resentment that her audience feels toward anyone who is smart and who believes in some modicum of social justice. You can tell because she gets the biggest applause when she paints herself as a victim of the liberal media. Sarah is brave to stay on the scene even though the liberal media and everything else that is evil hate her and criticize her. Their criticisms only make her stronger and more determined. She is a slow moving train wreck and she will take down anything that is in her path.

So expect to see more of Sarah Palin, the f*cking retard. If you are hoping for change in that respect, I can tell you that this hope-y change-y attitude of yours is just not working for you. Don't be a f*cking retard. Read my hand. On it I have written my key ideas for America. Pay attention to f*cking retards like Sarah Palin and they will continue to entertain you.

I try not to get too worked up about things that don't matter and over which I have no control, or annoying things that happen due to my own actions (usually when trying to take a shortcut, literally or figuratively). I generally succeed. But on occasion, a passing setback can really get to me. Like yesterday. Warning! This is a pretty boring story.
This quarter, I go to the UW just once a week, for a three-hour seminar. I try to get to campus 30 minutes before class starts, so I can review my notes. I have found a perfect spot just outside the classroom: a table with two chairs, set off the main hallway. It is quiet; I can spread my stuff out; no one bothers me. Yesterday, I got to the campus gate at 2 pm. One of the two parking ticket booths at the 45th street entrance was closed. No big deal. There were about 4 cars ahead of me. It takes about 30 seconds to transact this business of paying for parking and getting a little piece of paper that you leave on the dashboard. You pay full price (15 bucks tout de même!) and get a refund when you leave.
After five minutes of sitting, I began to get that bad feeling (irritation rising) when there was no movement at all. The sports car that was in front of the booth when I arrived was still there; the guy in the booth was just standing there; a car had pulled up for a refund. After another five minutes, I thought about turning around and trying another entrance. But I was stuck, since several cars had gotten in line behind me. Finally, there was some movement. The sports car drove off. Only three cars in front of me. But the guy in the booth was talking to the driver of the car waiting for a refund. Then he left the booth and went to the closed booth, where he swiped the magnetic stripe of a credit card. Then he came back to the booth and picked up the phone. He was holding the receiver with a handerchief. Then he was gesticulating at the driver of the car waiting for a ticket to park. I looked at the clock in my car. It was 2:20. I had been sitting there for 18 minutes! This pantomime continued -- the phone, the gesticulating, running to the closed booth -- for several more minutes. I felt as if I were watching a foreign film in a language I don't speak, with no subtitles. Finally, at 2:26, it was my turn. I handed the guy my credit card and said I would be parking at Padelford. He blew his nose with the handerchief and then used that hand to give me back my card. Ewwwww! I decided not to ask him what the problem was.
At 2:26, the campus is full of jaywalkers, rushing to class because they are late. It is a time-honored tradition at the UW for pedestrians to assert their absolute right of way at all times. Bikes bow to them and cars bow to all. Cars have to stop (unwritten rule) whenever any pedestrian wanders into the street on campus, whether or not they are in a crosswalk. Once you stop for one pedestrian, other pedestrians come out of nowhere -- like zombies in a horror movie -- and cross in front of your car. And you just have to sit there. As a student at the UW a quarter of a century ago, I was one of those zombie pedestrians. So now I feel that divine retribution really does exist.
By the time I got to class, I was ten minutes late. Luckily, my classmates and prof were having trouble getting a dvd player to work and so hadn't started. I went from being 30 minutes early to being 10 minutes late. I was annoyed. I felt as if 40 minutes of my life had been stolen from me by the gods and their earthly zombies.

Sosies

Last week, having exhausted the challenge of getting people to post profile pictures of themselves as kids, Facebook got the masses involved in posting profile photos of celebs they are purported to look like. I only got involved on Sunday, since I don't get to Facebook very often. It is better that way. Really.

Some of the lookalikes were a huge stretch; I won't name names. But in some cases, the resemblance was immediately apparent. I don't usually participate in these things, but this time I did. As usual, I did more than the assignment strictly called for.

First of all, I have been told at different times that I look like 3 famous people. One is Liv Ullman. The second is Hayley Mills. And the third is a secret, at least for now. My closest friends know who she is. But I'm not sayin'.

I thought it would be fun to post a photo of each one as she was when the comparison was made and as she is now. Hayley Mills is about 63 and Liv Ulmann is now 70. Here they are, then and now. Neither has had work done, which makes both more interesting.

I used to hate it when people said I looked like Hayley Mills, but now I can see why they said it. If I had a scanned photo of me then, you would see why too. But I don't. So too bad!

As for Liv Ullman, there is a story behind it. I was at the Bon Marché liquor store, underage, trying to buy a bottle of scotch. Rumor had it that it was easier to get away with using fake ID there than at other state liquor stores. So there I was, fake ID in hand, heading for the check-out counter. The guy behind the counter would or could not take his eyes off me. It was too late to return the bottle to the shelf and flee. I stood in line like a lamb being taken to slaughter, waiting to be busted, humiliated.... When it was my turn to pay, the cashier said "Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Liv Ullman?" When I, relieved, said no, he showed me the back cover of Changes, Liv Ullman's then recently published memoir. I don't know if I could see any resemblance; I was blinded by the sense of relief that flooded over me. He didn't even ask me for ID. Makes sense: Liv Ullman was in her late 30's at the time.

Photos below: Hayley and Liv back then, followed by Hayley now and 2 of Liv Ullman now.

Evian's 2010 ad

My friends Noel and Lara, parents of Anna, born in July 2008, live in Paris. Lara is an actress, and you may have seen her in La Vie en Rose, the biopic about Edith Piaf that garnered Marion Cotillon an Oscar. Lara has a mid-sized role in the movie. Between films, she does some ad work. Here she is in the latest Evian ad. Good work, Lara!





And here's Noel, fixing drinks on a hot afternoon in Paris, August 2008: