If you are a French professor at the university of horror in Paris giving a class on 17th Century French Lit, Francophone Lit or French Cinema (or any other class imaginable with “French” in the title), it naturally follows that you will be unable to resist a brief treatise on American literature, film and culture from time to time. If this seems completely illogical, welcome to Paris. The more outlandishly bizarre your unchallenged statements about the US, the better.
Here are some of the facts I have learned about American culture according to French professors which will no doubt leave you with a big, “huh?”
· Ben Franklin, William Penn and Samuel Adams were Naturalist writers. And Zola wasn’t a real naturalist (I guess since he wasn’t an American politician, duh.)
· The 80s Eddie Murphy film Coming to America is an allegory to the life of Marcus Garvey.
· Political correctness in the US only exists in American universities.
· 60% of Americans support the war in Iraq (although we corrected the professor that actually 62% were against according to the last CNN poll).
· Phillip Lovecraft (gothy comic books for surly teenagers?) is a great contemporary American author and recommended reading according to my French cinema professor and he couldn’t believe that none of the three Americans in the class—all well out of their surly teens—had never read him.
· Frequently recurring experience, especially in cinema class: “blah blah blah great American film/text by [someone I’ve never heard of and not culturally important.] And the invariably following: “Oh, none of you American exchange students have ever seen/read it? Well, you need to read/see some American books/films and know your own culture.”
But this is not American Culture. This is a Weirdo French Intellectual Version of American Culture. It’s a sort of fascinating shadow culture populated by French-Canadians and what role have they played in the American national consciousness? They’re always just vaguely up north being polite, maybe even when they play hockey. This Great American Text/film was invariably written or directed by someone part French or with some sort of French influence which explains its obscurity at home. I remember that one—or possibly all—of these mystery Great Cultural Figures are named Jacques and I don’t remember their last names. They’re always men, of course.
But frankly, if it’s not Jack Kerouac, the only partially French famous American Cultural Figure I can think of, I don’t know who they’re talking about. Although he might not be obscure enough for them, I’m just waiting for one of the French professors to mention him. And call him Jacques.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
Cecil's Report Card
As I recently got my grades for last semester, my cat's current caregiver (my dad) was inspired to give me his report card for the quarter June-January from his East Coast boarding school. He is progressing nicely:
FELINE ACADEMY, Fall, 2006 Evaluation for Cecil B. Gulpy, affectionately known as Cecil Burper His Greyness
Attendance: A-
Always present in house during the afternoon; one unexcused absence one night.
Cat Flap Mechanics: A
Operates flap efficiently.
Eating Etiquette: C-
Has difficulty discriminating his own bowl from that of other cat.
Hunting 101: F
Cannot locate, let alone capture, bird, mouse or moth. (Note: he has successfully caught one poor woodland creature since his fall report card was issued which will raise his hunting grade for the next marking period).
Human-feline Interrelationships: A
Shows affection to humans, especially to males.
Inter-feline Relationships: C
Tolerates fellow cat, but still evinces occasional pouncing and hissing.
Adaptive Ability: C
Slow to improvise, but reliable in habits.
Toilet Habits: D
Poos in neighbor's yard (editor's note: neighbor thankfully does not read my blog!)
Overall Grade: B
Clearly, an above average cat!
FELINE ACADEMY, Fall, 2006 Evaluation for Cecil B. Gulpy, affectionately known as Cecil Burper His Greyness
Attendance: A-
Always present in house during the afternoon; one unexcused absence one night.
Cat Flap Mechanics: A
Operates flap efficiently.
Eating Etiquette: C-
Has difficulty discriminating his own bowl from that of other cat.
Hunting 101: F
Cannot locate, let alone capture, bird, mouse or moth. (Note: he has successfully caught one poor woodland creature since his fall report card was issued which will raise his hunting grade for the next marking period).
Human-feline Interrelationships: A
Shows affection to humans, especially to males.
Inter-feline Relationships: C
Tolerates fellow cat, but still evinces occasional pouncing and hissing.
Adaptive Ability: C
Slow to improvise, but reliable in habits.
Toilet Habits: D
Poos in neighbor's yard (editor's note: neighbor thankfully does not read my blog!)
Overall Grade: B
Clearly, an above average cat!
Majoration Blues
At the moment, I have the every-type-of-blues, I think, but to anatomize foreign country depression, the specific blues in question refer to an evening out at the Salty Kiss jazz club that boasts free jam sessions on Monday nights. J-dogg and I proceeded upstairs to jazz land without having to pay a cover for entry-- jazz-tasic we thought. Then ubiquitous Surly Waiter brought us menus for drinks and there was something about 7 euros for the first drink. The word accompanying this information—a word I didn’t know—was majoration. Being an ever optimistic American who feels like, if there’s no cover, the jazz jam session really is free, I generously interpreted this foreign word with no near English cognate as something that would benefit me, a reduction on the first drink to get you to order more or to get people to come out on a Monday night. The fact that this word appeared twice on the menu was clearly French advertising encouraging us all to take advantage of the majoration. However, I asked surly waiter to make sure. What’s this majoration thing? Does it mean that the first drinks are only 7 euros? He indicated a positive response which he would later explain as meaning that he either hadn’t understood the question or that he had actually explained what a majoration was.
J-Dogg and I obviously ordered drinks that cost more than 7 euros to take advantage of the fabulous Monday night majoration offer. The jazz was great, the musicians were having a blast and started bantering with the audience a little. Everything was jazz club cool, and when my drink came like 4 hours after I’d ordered it, it was nothing extraodinary.
What was, however, extraordinary, was the 32 euro bill that came with our 2 over-iced-to-conserve-the –actual-alcohol-at-the-bar cocktails. The next time surly waiter delivered drinks I confidently told him there was a mistake and our bill should be 14 euros. He responded in surly fashion that, no, that was right because they added 7 euros to everyone’s first drink of the evening. This is what the “majoration” acutally meant, which I verified by asking random bar patrons. It comes from the verb to major, which in French means to increase. (What is that, secret code? Jazz club slang? I’d never heard it before and made a point of sharing the lexical discovery with all Americans in my masters program—grad school did not prepare me for the Parisian Jazz Club— so that they would avoid a similar fate and not embarrass themselves in front of visiting college friends—especially ones who told me upon arriving that my French must be great, thanks to graduate program and my 5 months in friendly and helpful, always willing to lend a hand when linguistic misunderstandings arise Paris).
After much arguing with surly waiter whose nickname was now surly drink-vending-under-false-pretenses-waiter, the explanation was that they added a drink surcharge to pay the musicians and that it was expected that everyone order a drink to make it worth the musicians’ time. This is the Beckettian logic that I have come to expect in France. Maybe the next time I’m at the post office they’ll say that stamps are free, but I have to buy the teller a sandwich. Instead of a sensible cover that everyone pays, there is an order an overpriced drink expectation. What if no one orders drinks—does surly French waiter kick them all out? Do the musicians not get paid and leave in a music diva hair-flipping huff or would they stay in the hopes that one person would order a drink which would allow them to split 7 euros 5 ways so that they could buy food for their children? What if you just stared at a menu for the duration of the concert and constantly pretended you were about to order something and then didn’t? “Who would create a system like that,” I find myself wondering about everything from jazz club prices to the post office (even when sandwiches are not involved) to the University of Paris.
How do you say majoration in French, my translator bar pal asked his friends after giving several synonyms in French—all of which I understood perfectly. Majoration, someone replied, the same word with an American accent. The bar found this hilarious—they’d downed several non-majoration drinks already. After my best Listen, Mister directed at false pretences waiter (“ecoutez, Monsieur”-- this is a French phrase that you can use either for very friendly or very angry situations—I did the angry face with it as I did not want to part with 16 euros for glass of ice with lots of ice, mint and a vague odor, if not much of a taste, of rum), I had to conclude, however, that if the money really went to the musicians that was ok, since they were very talented so I paid for it in my best sullen waiter way. I seriously considered signing: Your club sucks, you majoration bastards, instead of my name (it’s about as long) on their copy of the credit card receipt.
I thought back on the jazz jam session and imagined myself on stage playing a mournful “I just bought a 16 euro cocktail without realizing it and it was mainly just a glass of ice” saxophone riff and then explaining, that one’s called Majoration Blues. Before all the French-as-a-second-language patrons got their bills.
J-Dogg and I obviously ordered drinks that cost more than 7 euros to take advantage of the fabulous Monday night majoration offer. The jazz was great, the musicians were having a blast and started bantering with the audience a little. Everything was jazz club cool, and when my drink came like 4 hours after I’d ordered it, it was nothing extraodinary.
What was, however, extraordinary, was the 32 euro bill that came with our 2 over-iced-to-conserve-the –actual-alcohol-at-the-bar cocktails. The next time surly waiter delivered drinks I confidently told him there was a mistake and our bill should be 14 euros. He responded in surly fashion that, no, that was right because they added 7 euros to everyone’s first drink of the evening. This is what the “majoration” acutally meant, which I verified by asking random bar patrons. It comes from the verb to major, which in French means to increase. (What is that, secret code? Jazz club slang? I’d never heard it before and made a point of sharing the lexical discovery with all Americans in my masters program—grad school did not prepare me for the Parisian Jazz Club— so that they would avoid a similar fate and not embarrass themselves in front of visiting college friends—especially ones who told me upon arriving that my French must be great, thanks to graduate program and my 5 months in friendly and helpful, always willing to lend a hand when linguistic misunderstandings arise Paris).
After much arguing with surly waiter whose nickname was now surly drink-vending-under-false-pretenses-waiter, the explanation was that they added a drink surcharge to pay the musicians and that it was expected that everyone order a drink to make it worth the musicians’ time. This is the Beckettian logic that I have come to expect in France. Maybe the next time I’m at the post office they’ll say that stamps are free, but I have to buy the teller a sandwich. Instead of a sensible cover that everyone pays, there is an order an overpriced drink expectation. What if no one orders drinks—does surly French waiter kick them all out? Do the musicians not get paid and leave in a music diva hair-flipping huff or would they stay in the hopes that one person would order a drink which would allow them to split 7 euros 5 ways so that they could buy food for their children? What if you just stared at a menu for the duration of the concert and constantly pretended you were about to order something and then didn’t? “Who would create a system like that,” I find myself wondering about everything from jazz club prices to the post office (even when sandwiches are not involved) to the University of Paris.
How do you say majoration in French, my translator bar pal asked his friends after giving several synonyms in French—all of which I understood perfectly. Majoration, someone replied, the same word with an American accent. The bar found this hilarious—they’d downed several non-majoration drinks already. After my best Listen, Mister directed at false pretences waiter (“ecoutez, Monsieur”-- this is a French phrase that you can use either for very friendly or very angry situations—I did the angry face with it as I did not want to part with 16 euros for glass of ice with lots of ice, mint and a vague odor, if not much of a taste, of rum), I had to conclude, however, that if the money really went to the musicians that was ok, since they were very talented so I paid for it in my best sullen waiter way. I seriously considered signing: Your club sucks, you majoration bastards, instead of my name (it’s about as long) on their copy of the credit card receipt.
I thought back on the jazz jam session and imagined myself on stage playing a mournful “I just bought a 16 euro cocktail without realizing it and it was mainly just a glass of ice” saxophone riff and then explaining, that one’s called Majoration Blues. Before all the French-as-a-second-language patrons got their bills.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)