Paris Notes, Part Trois
It's grey and drizzling, and despite the song, Paris when it's drizzling is not quite as lovable as Paris in the springtime. Sarkozy himself is now literally and perpetually white with rage--no mere expression, look at this video, the man is now nearly the same color as Merkel:
I assume he's had no time for his usual careful application of autobronzant. But who can account for the most curious thing? Despite having every reason for pessimism, what with Europe hurtling toward hell in a hand-basket or a hand grenade, I can't remember seeing Parisians so jolly and playful. Everywhere I've been, people are smiling, open, game for a laugh.
I know Paris very well. I lived here for years. I'm not imagining it, the city is in a good mood. Yesterday I went out for a cup of coffee with my father on the Île Saint-Louis. A pretty young policewoman stopped us at the bridge and asked us politely if we'd wait for a moment because a crew was about to arrive to shoot a film.
A film, my father asked? What kind?
She wasn't sure, she said, but they were German.
They're coming again? My father said.
Ah bah ouais. A hint of a sly smile.
Seig heil! said my father agreeably, raising his arm in a Nazi salute.
No nervous but-you-can't-joke-about-that! response. No but-I-am-the-law, Monsieur! glare. She cracked immediately, dissolving in peals of feminine laughter. Ah oui! she agreed, thoroughly amused.
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Apr '11
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
Claire, an intriguing post, you've put a handful of topics in and shaken them all around. Can't wait to see where it spins off to. Which will be the runaway theme: German world domination, political correctness, the debt thing, Paris and Parisians (I lived there too, for a while), or something else?
Apr '11
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
What was it the German tank commander is supposed to have said in Prague in 1968? "Well, here we are again."?
Jul '11
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
When your father can joke about that in Germany, then we will be getting somewhere...
May '10
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
August 1914.
Sep '10
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
Maybe they're happy because they read Wolfgang Shauble's interview in Der Speigel in real historical context:
SPIEGEL: In historical terms, there have been only two solutions to these kinds of problems: either inflation, which devalues a country's debts more or less by stealth, although it does the same to citizens' assets …
Schäuble: … or, in the past, a war, which is nowadays, thank God, impossible -- precisely because of the process of European unification …
SPIEGEL: … or at least a monetary reform.
Schäuble: You've described exactly the large historic challenge we face: to solve the problem without taking those measures, in light of the catastrophic experiences of past centuries. We must face this challenge, and we should have the self-confidence that we will succeed.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,780248-2,00.html#http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur
This statement does not make the more relevant historical analog Nick Stuart mentions above, 1914 instead of 1939.
Apr '11
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
I would like to think that this is a positive development. Perhaps everyone not of the vast bureaucratic order is seeing the collapse of the European Union and thinking "Finally now we can go back to having our nations again." Such a prospect would make me happy too. I have always felt the Europeans seemed a bit up too up tight or lacks. Lacking that American easy going attitude that makes us so darn friendly and productive.
Of course it could always be that everyone has entered a state of denial so strong they think everything is fine...
Dec '10
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
Sounded like Chirac speaking: Same pitch, tone, cadence, and emphatic solemnity. It also expresses the wishful thinking of a President of the Republic, believing himself powerful enough, replete with the colonial experience of the Second and Third Republics, to subdue the Greeks more effectively than did the Fourth Republic the Algerians.
The choreographed placement of flags with respect to camera angles has also been a longstanding art form—the relative size of Sarkozy’s still dominating the European flag, but less than before, showing only four stars; the European flag still covering slightly more of Merkel’s with its fifth star.
Aug '10
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
Yesterday in Texas was cold, bright, and windy, weather to put a man in mind of mid-latitude Eastern-hemisphere bonkerhood. As Thursday is also Slovene Over Lunch Day (MWF it's Turkish), my outdoor reading was an article about the likelihood of Greek-style unrest up the coast a bit. Over Moroccan lamb, cantaloupe, and fun-size Snickers, I read the comments section, the only place Slovenes get talkative, slangy even, if "slang" includes phonetic German. The decision: we must go crazy, for we are European and that is our way. But first, we need crazy leadership, for we are European and that is our way.
A midday well-spent. But did I stop there? Nooo. Feeling misty-eyed about the 1997 Thai financial crisis - I was in Brazil the evening it hit - I Googled this. Had I imagined it? No. Why Brazil was involved then - indeed, why we are involved with Greece now - made no sense. Economists are entertaining only to the extent they think money has amazing physical properties, in the 1997 case those of liquid helium and Boursin cheese. I'll say this for Brazilians, though: nobody was whitefaced, and nobody rioted.
Nov '10
Re: Paris Notes, Part Trois
The mood that you describe sounds more like Paris in early 1940, before the events of May, than any other time I have heard of;; a time when the "phony war" seemed far away and manageable. (That is based, of course, upon what I have read; despite appearances, I was not present at the time.)
Some, of course, knew better, and some undoubtedly know better now. But, when there is nothing that one can do about a situation, why not enjoy oneself?
To return to your post about "The Quiet American" of earlier this Fall, though, your description of the morning with your father is engaging in a way that your straight reporting and your philosophizing is not. Please keep it up.
Edited on Nov 4, 2011 at 2:44pm