Moving well into the winter solstice, and into my project not to be the standard schlub I have so gleelessly been since college, I am happy to report some changes:

• I went to the doctor. This might not seem like much, but extended neglect of personal health usually terminates with a check-up reality check. “Doc,” I said, “last time I saw one of you, they told me I have high blood pressure. I smoke, drink more than I ought, eat indiscriminately, and take no regular exercise.” She shook her head and scolded me. “What do you want me to tell you? Change your habits and your hypertension should correct itself. Also, you’re fat. Get of your ass, boy!” It’s kind of nice to be scolded by a stranger, especially one with a medical degree – it just feels more imperative. I got some blood work done, no big surprises there, and have a dentist appointment next week. Going to see Doc was a small, obvious step, but it applies a nice frame of reference.
• I started cooking again. Mathilde and I go through phases of cooking, and phases of eating- or taking-out, much as I imagine many urban DINK couples do. The financial, health, and conjugal benefits of cooking at home seem obvious to me: despite rising food prices, you eat cheaper, with more control over what goes into (and what is left out of) your food, and with the civilizing joy that comes from turning into the tasty, shared, cooked. Not long ago I finished Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma – which, I believe, is going to be a game-changing text for the edible ethics of my generation – and it has brought me back from the suicidal brink of mindless eating. There was a time when, with long-toothed grin, I would swear unqualified allegiance to the “Meat is murder, and murder tastes good.” Well, murder does taste good, but torture is a bitter salt. I grew up with happy, pastured Angus, and have seen the misery of CAFOs, wide-eyed from a Greyhound, so while I believe feedlot beef production is rarer in France than back in the States, I’m still happier eating less of, and paying more for, cuts of happy cows, or for that matter pigs and chickens. It is perhaps not strange, but certainly new, for me to experience grocery shopping as an ethical exercise. Thankfully there’s more transparency in food labeling in the EU than the USA – as a wise, highly trained special mission force once said, “Knowing is half the battle.”
• I’m getting out more. I think of myself as a rather ambitious tourist. When on my own, and given limited hours, I tend to execute sight-seeing itineraries that would make most tourguides weak in the knees. Sadly, I don’t have this “culture-ranger” at home in Paris, a city that – for as much as we may gripe that its institutionalism has robbed it of its dynamism – is a cultural Yosemite. So I’ve been getting out more, or at least am starting to: I am still in the gathering stage, getting on mailing lists, sizing up targets, putting together a calendar. I missed the FIAC, though I don’t feel too bad considering its extortionate ticket prices and dealer orientation, but we are still in plein-milieu of the Festival d’Automne, with its embarrassment of visual and performance art, so there’s plenty to go around.
• I’m doing some sport. That is, I’ve started wrestling again – for the first time in 10 years. It’s only been two weeks, in which time I’ve pulled an adductor on the inside of my thigh, a tricep, and something beneath my left obliques, but if I can make it through a month or two without tearing anything or popping a hernia, I think I’ll be ok. Compared to the southeastern US, wrestling is very marginal in France. It doesn’t really exist at a “high school sport” (though not much does), and Judo seems to be the king of the grappling arts. I had toyed with the idea of boxing, and though I still really want to learn how to use my fists, just as a practical matter, there’s something rather unappealing about getting hit repeatedly in the skull. A friend of mine who did it for a few years after college said he knew it was time to stop the second time his nose and a rib were broken. Fun. Wrestling is an altogether different contact sport, neither impact- nor submission-based, and though I was never that great in high-school (3rd in districts), I always enjoyed it. What’s great about it is that it gives a purpose to exertion. Going to the gym and “working out” to “look good” or “get in shape” is rather boring, not to mention pointless. Losing weight for vanity’s sake, while worthy, is far less compelling than the fact that, if I don’t get to a more “natural” weight class, I will get my ass handed to me. It’s a well-framed project, with 3 classes a week and free access to a university weightroom, for a paltry sum. On top of all this is the fact that there’s a coach and a team – never underestimate the motivational incentive to, quite simply, not be a pussy.
• I’m growing my beard. Actually, no big news there, as it’s a personal traditional now in its 10th or 11th year. The only difference is that I’ve made an early start this year – last week of October – and I hope to keep it clear through the season. Last year I made the terrible mistake of shaving during some warm weather in early January, only to have the cold force me to regrow the whole thing after.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to since my last, rather downcast post. I have some other extracurricular projects in gestation, but it’s best not to speak too much until something is manifest. The important thing is that I’m trying to pull-focus on my perhaps too wide-ranging interests, and thus convert curiosity from distraction to production.

Wish me luck!

Twenty-nine years ago today, around quarter-after-ten in the morning Pacific time, I was brought screaming into this world. Those who know me would likely say I have yet to shut up. Sadly, this may be the case – too much talking, not enough doing, or for that matter writing.

I stare down the last year of my twenties, the last of my nominal prime, with a Janus face, looking forward to soften the disappointments behind, and to sweeten my own morbidity. I consider at once the smallness of life, my own smallness; the beauty of life, and my own youth. Perished chances, things not done; things to do, chance arriving. It’s excruciatingly banal. I suppose life is rather banal, after all, though I despise myself for saying so. Maybe that’s a good resolution: resist banality. How nauseautingly trite.

The most haunting image of a man in crisis over his youth is not Alexander, weeping that he has no more worlds to conquer. It is Caesar, weeping that he has not wrought anything memorable by the same age as the Macedonian. I am not sure if I find this crushing, inspiring, or simply anachronistic – the species of classical ambition and greatness it recommends is, as far as I can tell, long extinct. But the existential pressure it exerts is immense, and scales down to all ordinary men who wish they were something more than common. It is a good question, “What have I accomplished?” but it doesn’t do anything more than relight a fire that should have been burning anyhow. The next question must of course be “What do I want to accomplish?” – this is setting the pot on the fire, whether it was there before or not.

So, the pot is on the fire. This year must be about gathering meat and vegetables for the broth, and keeping the flame stoked.

(written Monday, 28 July)

Yesterday we left Paris and today we met the sea. In our time this says nothing – we can cross hemispheres in half a day – but when all you have seen of France has been from the window of low cost flight or even from a TGV, a roadtrip from Île-de-France to les îles de Hyeres, gives a much better sense of scale, and what you’re missing on the way.

Leaving Paris is an annual tradition, and from the end of July to mid-August the roads are packed. One of the most popular is the “Autoroute du Soleil”, which heads southeast from Paris to Lyon on the A6, where it joins the A7 to shoot down the Rhône valley towards Marseilles. It’s one of the oldest, and most highly trafficked, French national roads, and it is infamous for its jams.

While travel on the American Interstate system can be a flavorless cycle of cloverleaves, weigh stations and Flying J truckstops, driving in France provides an excellent taste of the wealth of the countryside, and the embarrasment of riches in land and the history that comes along with it. In the US, the brown and white signs marking points of interest are few and far between. The blue and white ones marking rest stops are of course more common but less exciting. Even these, in France, have a touch of class omitted in the States.

Here, rest stops – what we Americans sometimes laughably refer to as “comfort stations” – are called “Aires de Repos”. The simplest meaning of “aire” is “area”, but I prefer the alternative definition of “aerie” – a raptor’s nest – which is more colorful. Each of these rest stops has a name, some evocative – Aire of the Doe, of the White Dog, of the Great Tower, of the Imperial Woods – but most often they are toponymic. In addition to the standard amenities, many aires have a piece of public art, of 60s, 70s or 80s vintage, presumably to valorize the parking lots, picnic tables, and turkish toilets they accompany. To me this is a typically French flourish for a public project, and it would be interesting to know the history of its conception, and the fate of the many sculptors who contributed works to such a distinguished set of galleries. From Paris to Beaune, aires crop up every 10km or so; from Beaune to Lyon, ever 15km. I’ve read that there are many “phantom aires,” closed indefinitely, whose signs remain on the roadside. I wonder what happens to the abandoned art.

Signs for points of interest, historic or otherwise, provoke an altogether different sense of delight and discovery. In the US, these are generally reserved for battlefields and natural formations, and though a similar pattern is found here, they are far more prevalent, and – thanks to the images on each – far more fun. To be sure, some are just indicative, an arrow and a name for a geographic formation – the Massif of this, the Dentelles of that, the Paysage of your current region. Others give a historic summary – Avignon, Cité des Papes, or Orange, Cité des Princes. My favorites, however, offer a handy, state-endorsed illustration of something you may, or may not, see from the car window. A crennelated tower in the distance, or a sombre chateau just by the roadside, is given a name just as you may ask what it is. It is the chateau of Bourbilly, of course, of of Egouilly. Sometimes the white-on-brown silhouettes come without prevision, and you crane your neck to find the original form over the guard rails, the fields and trees, before passing by.

Being able to identify an unknown countryside as you pass through it animates the six lane trajectory. The merit of this approach to highway travel fell on me about an hour after our depart. No sooner had I asked, “Where are we?”, than a 1.5×2 meter panneau, showing a short-horned cow flicking its tail, announced, “Land of the Charolais.” The brown cows in the fields astride the highway suddenly had a name. I knew nothing better of our longitude and latitude, but I was happy to know that those cows had an appellation, and one I already associatied with quality steak. Not much later we passed a dramatic tableau: a Gaulish soldier, bellowing beneath his moustaches, raised sword above winged helmet against his Roman foe. We were not far from the Battlefield of Alesia, where Vercingetorix made his long last stand against Caesar. Lest we forget.

I appreciate the French approach to signage on an otherwise lifeless part of modern transport infrastructure because, at a moment, it is generous, didactic, efficient and, above all, casual. It is patrinomy writ short, and in its brief indication there it implies not only that “Vous etes ici,” but you are here, and, bien sur, you should know what here means. These “points of interest” signs can pique the imagination of a history buff and illuminate the passage of everyman – and they give everyman an answer to his children’s backseat “Are we there yet?”. “No, we just passed Dijon, seat of the dukes of Burgundy,” or better yet, “No, we are only at the Crocodile Farm – look at that sign and te toi.” I am all for a reductivism that, at 130km/h, may not turn the landscape into an open book, but at least gives it good captions.

It is finally summer. Sure, the solstice has long since passed, but I’ve only just now come to feel that I have turned my cheek to the sun as has the earth. When I was younger summer was defined, the three sticky months of freedom and boredom that fell between two school years. It was a tidy package, bookended by anticipation and a sense of relief. The last day of class was always one of impatient joy, while the first day of the new school year one of bittersweet, but awaited, return to structure and society.

Parents must have a bizarro-world perspective on the school-defined summer, as they have to figure out what to do with their kids until September rolls around again. For childless American post-grads, summer at least remains symbollically bounded by Memorial Day and Labor Day, with the Fourth as its bombastic, official greeting. In France, however, it’s a bit harder to pin down. The long weekends of May make the dregs of spring almost intolerable, as the working nation waits for its collective shutdown in August. Until the last weeks of July, when the mass exodus to the provinces begins, the only words on everyone’s lips are, “I need to be in vacation.”

But vacation is different from summer – vacation is the season’s rationalized format, its sanctioned apotheosis, but hardly its spirit. Summer is not so much a season – demarked by astronomy or meteorology – as the state of mind and the range of activity that the weather affords. It is long weekday evenings that beg to be shared, long weekend afternoons that preclude long nights, or long warm nights spent against the heat of the dog days. And it is finally here.

Last weekend, Mat and I joined a bunch of folks out at the estate of our friend Lucy’s family. Only in summer can you schedule a party from 2 to 8pm. We arrived just as the first flames leapt from the oil-drum grill, which had been tucked in a quiet lawn back behind the 18th century chateau and it’s high garden wall. The rest of the day was spent in textbook activities. We grilled two immense rounds of sausage and steak, drank beer and rosé, kicked around the soccerball and shuttled the badminton cock. Soy made many excellent attempts to catch a marshmallow in his mouth. Tony posed on the riding mower. Cumuli piled above the wheat beyond the treeline. Sitting on the grass became laying, laying became sleeping. Then, up for a couple of dodgeball matches. I don’t think there’s any sport more invigorating than the smiling malice and casual exertion of playground games.

Afterwards, we toured the community potager – a perfect mix of utility and ornament maintained by 20 local families. Tomato vines and dwarf appletrees were heavy with green fruit. Purple cabbages unfurled like monster flowers, while zucchini blossoms puckered, ready for the fryer. Between these and the leafy greens, the swollen pumpkins and tiny berries, roses and pansies throbbed with bees. Lola’s 3-month-old, Simon, slept in Mathilde’s arms as we walked. A duck and a drake rounded up their young in the pond. For all it’s mew and squeal, spring would be hard pressed to produce a more fertile tableau.

We left just shy of 8, taking the rental with Laure and Rachid back through the crush of Porte Maillot. Jo and Damien met us for dinner on the Bassin de la Villette, where we put back a cold Brouilly and digested with a walk along the quai. We were home before 11, the day too full to try for a night, just as the season would have it. Vacation begins on Friday. I am glad to have had some summer before.

Pictures of the afternoon here.

Scott Beale has a post on McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon that makes me misty, and thirsty.

Although the “oldest bar” title is disputed by the Seaport’s Bridge Cafe, among others, that takes little away from the “olde New York” ambience and hoary charm of the place. That it is so emblematic of the brickbat-and-bowery-boy era may be, I suspect, why Joseph Mitchell titled and led his excellent collection of fin-de-siecle Knickerbocker profiles after it.

By night it is often mobbed by tourists and fratty bingers; my advice is to go mid-afternoon during the off season. When I worked across the street, on the occassional Friday I would pop in for a one-and-one and a burger lunch. If you’re only a bit peckish, there’s also the the “cheese and crackers”: a good hunk of aged cheddar, a sleeve of Saltines, and some raw onion, it is a direct descendant of the British “ploughman’s lunch”.

But PES is so on point.

To think that in the US, sexual education is still a matter of debate…

Even so, it’s rather amazing the level of frankness in French anti-AIDS Public Service Announcements. This is but the latest in a randy series. I, well, I’m just glad this kind of thing airs late. But then, I guess that’s the audience they’re targeting. Kudos for the straight-shooting – and the catalog of fetish.

And the pool of tits!