August 18, 2001, to August 23, 2001
I had to get back in the swing of things this week with a meeting with my supervisors to discuss what has been accomplished and to make plans for the remainder of my time here. Busy busy. But I have time to dash off a not-so-short update for the week...
So in the week since my mom left France, I have actually not gone out very much. But I do have some stories to tell: on Saturday after dropping my mom off at the airport, I went home and slept to recover from waking up at 4:15am. That evening, I ventured to Paris to see "Final Fantasy" because some people had said it was good, and being a fan of the video games, I wanted to see the movie. I also wanted to see it in English to make sure I didn't miss anything, because sometimes sitting in a theatre for 2 hours listening to French makes my head hurt :) I had a small adventure in getting to the movie, tho - I went early to find out the showtimes and bought an advance ticket. Since I had about a half an hour till showtime, I went down the street to Ben & Jerry's (!) and had some ice cream. When I got back to the movie theatre, I couldn't find the ticket! I had to buy a new one :( How embarrassing.
Anyway the movie was decent, very impressive with respect to the graphics - at some points I was like "I can't believe that is not real!". But I don't want to give away too much so I will just not say anything more :)
Then on Sunday I went to a place called "Centre Georges Pompidou". It's a big big building where they have some weird art exhibits, mostly temporary stuff. I didn't bother to go in because none of the current stuff seemed all that interesting, and I spent quite enough time at museums when my mom was here :) But the building itself is something worth seeing. It's pretty darn ugly. The architect wanted to leave as much room as possible inside the building for exhibition space, so he put the "insides" on the outside - cables, pipes, elevators, you name it. It's even color-coded, like blue for water pipes, green and red for other things. I thought it would be neat, like a big kindergarten palace place, but it is actually an eyesore. It is right next to this really old pretty church and the contrast is pretty sharp. But at least I got to see it :)
Near the building is a fountain, which was actually the main reason for me going down there to begin with. It is an entirely mechanical fountain, with different heads shaped like different things, all moving and spouting water. Some abstract shapes, some like lips or hats, some that look sort of like characters from Tim Burton's "A Nightmare Before Christmas". The one I wanted to see was the lips. In my college-level French classes, we watched a video series called "French in Action", and they always had clips of the lips from that fountain, don't ask me why. So I got to see the famous fountain. It's not a particularly beaten path so there weren't as many tourists in that area as, say, at the Louvre or Eiffel Tower, which was nice.
I had dinner at a café near the fountain and saw the movie "Time Code" (in English) at a nearby theatre which was playing it. The movie was .. weird. But so hard to follow even in English that I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor French people around me who had to read the subtitles! But for those of you who have not seen it, it was certainly an interesting experiment: the screen was divided into 4 boxes and each ran one continuous take, all of which were filmed at the same time in different places. The actors and actresses apparently ad-libbed around a specific structure. It was "artsy", and therefore completely incomprehensible, but you got the sense you were watching something interesting and cool, at least :)
Oh! I almost forgot! Out in front of the CGP is a big square, and lots of "buskers" (people selling useless tourist stuff) and street artists set up shop there. In particular there was this one contortionist guy who got HUGE crowds of people watching him. He was really entertaining, sort of a comedian/contortionist, delivering most of his lines in English. He said he has been doing this for 14 years or something. He picked volunteers from the audience to act as props (no I did not volunteer). He ran half-hour shows with like a half-hour break all day as long as I was there. I don't know if he does this every day or what, but with the amount of people who ran up to his buckets afterwards to drop in money, I imagine he makes quite a bit of cash in a day. I took a couple pictures of him in some of his more complicated positions. Hopefully they will come out well, although it isn't as though you can't see contortionists in the US.
Street artists are in abundance here of course. People wanting to paint your portrait (for 500FF a pop! that's about $65!), do a caricature, write your name in Chinese characters (like 5 or 10FF), or just sitting there playing music and selling their CD's along with it. When you get on the subway, you might hear as many as 3 different groups with different instruments: one in the vast acoustically-rich corridors, one at the platform, and one in the car with you as you ride. Accordions are by far the most common, but I have also seen guitar players, drummers, a didgery-doo (long Australian horn thing), a keyboardist, a cellist, and harmonica-ists, individually or in groups as large as 7. I have not seen any accordion-monkey duos, however. Often they carry around their own little amplifier and a mike so the sound gets to everyone in the car - to maximize the probability that someone will give them money when they finish their 2 songs :) It is certainly enriching, although not many people give them money. I'm willing to bet those who do are tourists ;)
The rest of the week has been relatively slow. I spent a lot of it writing out postcards since I realize I better send 'em soon if I want them to arrive before I do! I have been reading this book called "Sons of the Profits", which is a laughing history about Seattle's pioneer days. Quite interesting - I bought it on the Underground Tour when I was in Seattle. Last night I saw "La Planète des Singes" (Planet of the Apes) which opened here on Wednesday. The dubbed version. The movie was not altogether great and so I got a bit of a headache trying to follow the fast-moving dialogue. But the twist ending - gotta love it. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, except to say it's pretty much all completely different from the original.
Well I haven't made any plans for this weekend, but I'm probably going to be a tourist and go see Fontainebleau or something that is close to but outside Paris. The weather has settled down a bit from the scorching heat my mom and I had, but it is still quite warm. Everyone in the office except for literally 5 or 8 people is on vacation. Verrrrry quiet around here. Which is nice, because it means I have less people's hands to shake in the morning! (see Weekly Update III)
A couple tidbits about office life in France before I go. Many times when I am working, people will come into the room where my desk is (without knocking of course), and start talking to me, coming to stand by my desk and making no secret about the fact that they are looking at my screen. In fact they "peer" at it, if you understand me - purposely make a show of looking, as they ask "how is it going?" Now, these are not necessarily people in charge of my internship, and I find I get rather prickly and tend to think how rude they are being. I think this is because, in the States, it seems that people regard the desktop as a sort of private zone, giving it some respectful distance in spite of it being in plain view. Before you jump to any conclusions, I *am* working when this has occurred and it bothers me just the same. Perhaps it goes along with their use of absent people's offices for meetings and such. Or maybe they are just nosey :)
A second story: I got access to another printer which happens to be closer to my office than the other ones. I went back and forth a few times to get my printouts, just grabbing them and leaving, until one time I had to wait for something to finish and had time to wait and observe the little alcove. What did I see? A larger-than-life full color poster advertisement for women's underwear with, of course, a woman in lingerie. The caption reads "Look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you" in French. I was, needless to say, rather surprised to see it there. These French attitudes and cultural nuances never cease to amaze me.