Birthday & Thoughts on Ecriture (ironically typed)

(our road trip map, see Compiègne up top and Reims to the right? and Paris of course, that was our triangle of travel)


(view from someplace we stopped along the way to change drivers)


(cathedrale de Braine)


(hôtel de ville city hall of Compiègne, Joan of Arc came here to rally troops)

Lundi 5/4/10 (transferred from my normal paper journal)
I just went on a beautiful road trip yesterday. I had an amazing birthday in general. The notes on the other page are our directions outa Paris, written haphazardly in a librairie (book store) at Charles De Gaul (the airport where we rented a car from), so we'd only have to buy one map - a bigger one with less banlieu (suburban) details. The flower on the next page was in my hair all day through Compiègne, Reims, and Champagne country, and the song of the trip fits perfectly with it. The radio station we could get the best was like straight up club music all day, which was kinda funny considering we were driving through rainy countryside and medieval towns, but it made it like a party everywhere we went haha. Anywho, somebody decided to put that 60s song with the line "if you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair" to club music! It was the most ridiculous song, with the crazy deep bassline behind such a chill set of lyrics. We thought it was hilarious so it became the trip song. The trip was frickin beautiful though, we got to see a bunch of towns Joan of Arc saw on her travels, and the cathedral in Reims where the kings were always crowned, and then drove up into this field and had sandwiches on a hill of grapevines and saw the sunset over an unbelievable view! My camera died halfway so I'll have to snag some pics from Martha n Alex.

(view from the hill where we had our sandwiches)
I wish I could write about everything! Gah, there's just never enough time and I have so much shit I wanna record, well here's somethin I've been thinkin about


Thoughts on Ecriture
I bought this pen (a sweet fountain pen) not long ago, mostly because you can erase it (German technology I in fact make sparse use of), but I've since fallen in love. I feel like I'll hang on to this pen cuz it's so cool, and you can refill the ink, and it'll have some longevity in my life unlike most small quotidien (daily or common) items. The angle of the tip gives it some personality and for the first time I feel right writing in cursive - a long lost art thanks to computers, poor elementary education, and character-less, mass-produced pens.
Laura and I somehow got into discussing Parisian revolutionary history the other day and when she opened her notebook to validate her claim of Louis-Philippe's maintenance of the pre-1830 monarchical methods. I noticed her handwriting had changed like mine into cursive at the point of purchasing a fountain pen. Cursive can be frickin beautiful.
Just one more thing to love about europe. In the states it's almost impossible to find these pens, whereas here they're everywhere you'd find pens - monoprix, librairies, and there's a whole frickin floor devoted to pens in Gilbert Joseph on St. Michel! In the states we have no erasable pen worth mentioning and we've lost the feel for cursive. No one can even read it anymore. Thanks to computers no one can read most handwriting anymore and it's truly a shame. So much personality and life can go into the written word. It was central to academic/intellectual life in a way we can't understand post-computer-ubiquity.

Reading literature lately has been fulfilling my spiritual lackings a great deal. My good friend Vicky Hugs has a lovely section of Notre Dame de Paris about the transition into life with a printing press. He's a genius of course and had a perspective I'd never really considered before. Architecture was the greatest means of mass communication and self-expression pre-printing-press. P. 161 "chaque face, chaque pierre du vénérable monument est une page non seulement de l'histoire du pays, mais encore de l'histoire de la science et de l'art." (each face, each stone of the venerable monument is a page not only of the history of our country, but also of the history of science and art.)

(Inside Notre Dame de Paris)
Of course he emphasizes his subject and the medieval time period he so Romantically respects. It's cool to look at the building like that though, of course there's loads more explanations, but I won't bore you. You should just go read it again, unabridged, in french...

ok one more cool quote - parisian houses like water. P. 166 "Les maisons se pressent, s'accumulent et haussent leur niveau dans le bassin comme l'eau dans un reservoir. Elles commencent à devinir profondes, elles mettent étages sur étages... les maisons enfin sautent par-dessus le Mur de Philippe-Auguste, et s'éparpillent joyeusement dans la plaine sans ordre et tout de travers, comme des échappées." (The houses press against one another, accumulate and raise their level in the basin like water in a reservoir. They start to become deep, the put floor upon floor... the houses finally jump over the wall of Philippe-Auguste (built in the 11oos), and scatter themselves joyously in the plain without order and by all means, like freedmen.)


(cathedrale de reims)

sick in Tuileries/Parc Montsouris

7/4/10 (transferred from paper)
I'm sitting in the Jardin des Tuileries right now on a bench on a lovely day - a little grey but nice and warm and there's a cute little black bird taking a bath in a puddle behind me and loads of tourists walking to and fro. I'm a little dizzy still form the sickness, but I spent the whole damn day and night in bed yesterday and I'd rather chill somewhere different today.
I spent a little while trying to find a park with internet and most the way from 93 St. Michel (where our IPP classes are) to Place des Vosges (where I know they have internet) I decided I'd rather find a park I'd be comfortable in. I'm sick, and I wanna lay in the grass in the sun and be happy. However, Paris sucks sometimes and has rules up the ass unnecessarily and you can never sit on the fuckin pelouse (grass). I came to a big central park thinking maybe I could find a corner, but I'm tired of walking and a bench will just have to do.

It's definitely cool to say I'm in the Jardin des Tuileries. I can see the Louvre off to the left, Place de la Concorde to the right, and the Musée d'Orsay across the river. i can think about the Palais de Tuileries which once stood here-ish and how it was torn down in the 1848? revolution. I can even think of the millions who've walked here - royals, revolutionaries, celebrities, common parisians, and tourists. I can think of the many lives and stories associated with this place. But I'm sick and all I keep thinking about is how it wouldn't be a big deal to wake the pelouse. (the signs saying the grass is forbidden say "pelouse en repos" or "the grass is resting")
I could go back to good old Montsouris where they have both internet and spots to lay on the grass. Not yet though, I've not patience for the metro and no conscience to walk it.
What the hell gives them the idea this is a park? It's like 80% gravel and there's someone trying to sell you something every 10 ft. I guess it's a jardin, not a parc, but still...
Ough, some jackass just hit me with his sac en plastique while he walked by. Why

Later
He came back as I was writing that last sentence and sat down right behind me, so I promptly packed my shit and left. Guys fuckin suck here. What would give you the idea that it's ok to do that? To treat a woman like a piece of shit and then you expect her to fawn on you or something? That's clearly why he came back, knowing he'd snagged my attention, surely the only thing I could possibly be thinking is how to jump is bones and he made it so convenient for me to talk to him! Fuck you jackass!
I don't trust anyone here. After I left the Tuileries I took the RER B down to Montsouris and now I've found a nice spot on a hill where I can sit in the grass. I can get internet if I want, and there's honestly a lovelier arrangement and collection of trees and flowers here. I think I'm under an oak tree and little ones are springing up at its roots. Down the hill is an arrangement of impatiens(?) and a cherry tree in full blossom. Over to my right is a lovely patch of daffodils, although most the blossoms are gone. It's gettin on that time of spring already... For as quick as it does grow, it decays away so soon, before the summer sunshine has reached its golden noon, before the summer sunshine has reached its golden noon.

Anywho, so I layed on this hill and read a little more Hemingway before I started writing and I stopped because some guy who'd been chillin down the hill from me got up and walked entirely too close to my head.
What kind of world is this where you're never safe and where people aren't even people anymore. they're ok being creepy transitory assholes. Maybe it's just my experience as a woman. It's a different world I experience. It seems worse here than in the states, but even in Chicago the hollering started young. Yeah it's worse here, even just from the fact that I can't understand them fully a lot of the time. The overly pushy jackass creeper will always be a part of my Parisian experience. Maybe it's part of the reason I couldn't say I would move back here for good like Jordan so badly wants to.
I have the odd-enough preference to want to actually be slightly respected on a daily basis.
Maybe I just feel more strongly about it because my gender class has me thinking about my subjugated position here. Maybe it's just because I'm against the idea of getting involved with anyone right now and I see through the stupid game of even the well-intentioned frenchman.

Later
I read a little more, but I know I won't live a moment exactly like this again so I wanna record it. To my left on the hill are a couple of couples lying together. Behind them the B train keeps going by with its bells and grating metallic brakes. Down the hill from me a little is a backpacker laying on his backpack, a guy behind a pine tree I can't really see, and a raven picking through the grass for seeds. To the right of them by the bed of flowers is a cute little group of 2 women and 2 girls. One girl has a green bandana and she keeps running up and down the hill and all around, making exclamations of joy and discovery and playing generally the way I wish I still did. So cute. Lastly there's a group of students further over to the right chillin on the hill with their cigs and their air of cool amusement. The tree I'm under has a good start on growing its leaves, and they make stars in the sky. Other people pass on the sidewalks, but they don't really matter so much. It looks like it's gonna rain, so I might head back.

Blogging again!

Hey everyone,
So I know it's been a long time since I've written anything, and most of you have probably stopped reading, but it's nearing the end, so I figured I might as well give some sort of sense of my time here. I definitely gave myself a big task with the whole "assignment" thing trying to fit with school, but once I'm done in a couple weeks maybe I'll put some of those up. For now I'm going to put up some tidbits from my journal, and they might be out of order or out of context, but they'll definitely give you a sense of what I've been up to. Things in parentheses are extra explanations for you.

6/5/10
I fuckin love my life here. Today is amazing. I got up a little late, but I made it to class just on time. I had to take the 21 bus up to Auguste Blanqui and then walk to stupid St. Jacques cuz they've closed Glacière (my closest metro stop) pour travaux till August! It's not so bad though, the 21 goes straight to the classes on St. Michel by Luxembourg, so that's still rather convenient. Anywho... We had Romantisme at the museum of Maison de Balzac over by Passy on the 6.

The beginning parts were dec, here's paintings of people he knew and the desk he wrote on, etc. but the last room on the top floor was fuckin amazing! They had the original printing blocks of the illustrations from his books. The detail and personality in each one was awesome, but they're only a few inches square each. They had every character I think, and we could find Colonel Chabert (which we read in lit). I took pictures of as many amazing ones as I could before the class moved on and I didn't wanna miss what he said. The bottom room was sweet too: all caricatures from journaux, mostly critiquing "constitutional" king Louis-Philippe as a pear, haha.


Then I went with Antonia and Amira a bit of the way outa there, took the RER A for the first time (where we saw a guy halfway through eating a whole pie!) to Châtelet. The Monop' (small version of a common supermarket) in the level that connects all the RER trains has the best fuckin juice. Me and Alex discovered it the day we went for a picnic in Bois de Vincennes. So I got the juice and a wrap for lunch and got to trying to find my way outa the station (no easy task). Châtelet's a fuckin bitch to navigate, but there's surprises around every corner! I went up and down some stairs, down a few tunnels and heard violins, and decided to follow the sound.
I've seen them before, but it was nice to take some time to stop and listen to this big sting group that playis in the tunnels. They're amazing! They played Bach first (I only caught the tail end) and then went into Pachabel's Canon! Ooh! Brought chills! I have some change and went up the stairs outa the crowd. i was about to leave when the higher line of the violin 1 snagged something in my heart and I had to turn back. I had fuckin tears in my eyes for the whole end of the song. Fuckin beautiful! And with each note echoing off the metro walls it can't get any better.

I even found my way out rather swiftly after that (down a tunnel curving left, down some stairs, sharp right and up an escalator, right again, through the doors, left, and up the stairs to Rue de Rivoli). Now I'm in the park around the tour St. Jacques on a bench in the sun with beautiful flowers on the trees in front of me, birds chirping in the tree above me, and these 2 little kids playing and running back and forth along the gravel path. So cute!


Aight, I'm gonna go find some flats to dress up my outfit for the ballet at Opera Garnier tonight! and then I'm off to class to discuss some Flaubert. Tootles!