Paris 2008

Da Vinci Code Walk

Three years ago I read my first novel in 30 years and it was the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I read this novel not because it was so immensely popular, but in spite of that fact. I read it because it dealt with some historical facts about religion and the Knights Templar I had been interested in for some time. It was a novel after all, so Brown could and did play with the facts to make the novel more exciting, so my job was to separate the fact from fiction. It was a fun mystery but my follow up research on Knights Templar and other historical facts was even more fun. Much of the action of the story took place in Paris, so it was relevant to my trip.

The general theme of the novel is that sometime in the 12th century, after the first crusade, the Knights Templar had found the Holy Grail somewhere in the ruins of the second temple in Jerusalem and kept it hidden over the centuries. (there is no evidence of this – or that a Holy Grail ever even existed) Over the next 200 years the Knights Templar grew in power and popularity and amassed great wealth and property in Europe. They also became wealthy as bankers, loaning money to kings and popes alike.

However, their popularity and wealth engendered both the envy of Pope Clement V and the enmity of King Phillip IV of France, who owed them a great deal of money. How dare they be so successful. So the prelate and the monarch decided to do something about it. On Friday the 13th of October 1307, they had the Templar leaders arrested for heresy. NOTE: You will almost never see a 13th floor in a hotel or a 13th row in an airplane.

The Templars were tortured extensively and (surprise) they confessed to heresy. After trial of sorts they were (surprise)convicted of said heresy. After conviction they were publicly burned at the stake in Paris, and all their lands, castles and wealth were confiscated and divided by the pope and King Phillip IV (these are historical facts up to this point). The novel then meanders off into legend and phantasy and proposes that some of the remnants of the order escaped with the Holy Grail. The Grail, according to Christian mythology, was the chalice which contained the wine Jesus and the diciples drank at the Last Supper. This cup is said to have magical powers and has been sought after by Christians for centuries.

The novel says the Grail was not a cup, but it was actually evidence that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that she was pregnant at the time of his death and she had his child after the crucifixion, and that Jesus has had descendents over the centuries who mostly lived in France. The revelation of this item would of course bring disgrace to the church by killing much of its dogma. Therefore, to protect its dogma the church had most of those descendents of Jesus killed one by one as well as nearly all of the Knights Templar over the centuries. A certain bishop has been designated by the pope to conduct this extermination process for two millenia. All this intrigue and conspiracy makes for an interesting murder mystery with historical religious overtones. The church was not happy with this novel, but at least did not order a fatwa on Dan Brown.

So my first tour in Paris this year was the Da Vinci Code walking tour. In preparation for it I skimmed the novel at home, then I brought along the DVD of the movie to Paris along with another disk about the history of the movie, and another disk “The Da Vincci Code De Coded” which is a scholarly analysis of the various subjects raised by the novel. The issues raised in the novel were historically based, including the possibility that Jesus did in fact marry Mary Magdalene. Some reference to her being his girl friend, lover and possibly his wife is made in some of the Gnostic Gospels dating from the first century, AD. But like just about everything else concerning old religions, who knows? You will believe whatever you want to believe. I played all of these disks in my apartment the night before the two hour walking tour. I was pumped up and ready to go on the tour and walk in the footsteps of the characters.

This I did the next day, a crisp Thursday morning in April in Paris. The Da Vinci Code walk is sponsored by Classic Walks Walking Tours of Paris, which has guided tours in Paris based on seven different themes, one of which is this one.

We meet the tour lady at the Place Vendome in front of the Ritz hotel where Professor Robert Langdon, the main character in the novel, was staying as revealed in the opening paragraphs. I peeked inside the Ritz Hotel and it certainly lives up to its name – it is ritzy and super-opulent. The guide told us that the the smallest and cheapest room in that hotel is 660 euros per night – that is over $1000 per night, folks, for a hotel room. The most expensive? That would be 10,000 euros for a suite (close to $15,000) per night, or over 100 grand a week (gotta stay at least a week in order to savor the flavor). Who could burn that kind of money? Probably only drug dealers and oil sheiks. They both satisfy our addictions and swim in money.

The guide said she went to some sort of function at that hotel and looked on a menue where one bottle of Heineken’s beer was 138 euros, or about 200 bucks. People who spend like that probably also wear lots of gold. This touch of pretense made me appreciate my my humble heritage and down-home tastes.

So we follow the route of Sophie the renegade cop and Langdon the murder suspect through the Tuileries Garden, and the guide points out a few of the liberties Brown took with the facts. In addition to following some of the paths and events in the novel the guide gives French history of the each of the areas we traverse We go to St. Sulpice Church where in the novel the mad monk Silas murdered the nun, followed the Rose Line to what he mistakenly thought was the Holy Grail. All he found was a piece of paper with a bible verse that said in effect he had reached a dead end. He had been tricked by the Knights Templar.

The church posts written disclaimers about some of the novels statements about it, e.g. where it said the church was built on the site of a former pagan temple, and thus has its former demons. The prominant written notice says “Dan Brown was wrong. This is not the site of a former pagan temple (although I say it is a pagan temple TODAY)” We go to the inverted pyramid at the Louvre where at the end of the novel Langdon concluded (by implication) that the Holy Grail exists in or under the small pyramid underneath. Whoops. It is removable and cleaned on a regular basis. No matter. It was an interesting and fun two hours.

The Normandy Tour

For a very long time I have had a strong interest in World War II, with all its action, tactics and heroics. But most of all I contiue to view it in wonderment as it epitomized man’s inhumanity to man. Whoever designed humans must be a war buff, because since people descended from the tree branches they have been killing each other on a regular basis for thousands of of years, many times in HIS name. They have been hacking each other to death for dozens of centuries and blowing each other up for the last three or four. And he never does anything about any of it. All he does is watch, maybe from a giant, divine easy chair.

But this war was the bloodiest of all of them, with maybe as many as 60 million human beings killed world wide. In an interesting commentary a few years ago, Pope John Paul II made the statement that God let Hitler reign ONLY twelve years. Aint that cute. Only twelve years. And some 50 million dead people, and tortured people, and starved and wounded people, and thusands of destroyed cities and towns. Then after 41 failed attempts on Hitler’s life (he said god was saving him to fulfill his destiny) god lets him commit suicide a few days before the unconditional surrender. God certainly nipped that one in the bud. Maybe he dozed off a little in his divine easy chair.

Anyway, it was an all day tour with a two hour train trip to Bayeux, a town just south of Cherbourg. There we were met by a guide with a van. We went first to the German cemetery where some 21,000 German soldiers killed in just the invasion (some 200,000 more were killed further inland) are buried. These were the graves of all the Wilhelms and Johanns and Jakobs, 19 and 20 year old kids who were simply doing their duty for god and country. From there we went on to the Pointe du Hoc, where the US rangers got slaughtered, and then on to Omaha Beach and Utah Beach where thousands more were killed on both sides. Some of the pill boxes and German guns remain. We spent an interesting hour in the Omaha Beach Museum about a mile inland. Note: The German soldier’s belt buckles were in fact inscribed with "Gott mit uns," or “God is with us.”

Finally, we went to the American cemetery which contains about 9,000 bodies of our soldiers killed during the invasion (some 18,000 more bodies were sent home for burial in the US, at the option of the families). These were the graves of all the Williams and Johns and James, 19 and 20 year old kids simply doing their duty for god and country. In total for all WWII (Europe and Japan) the Americans had some 400,000 soldiers killed, while the Germans had some 3 ½ million soldiers killed plus about 4 million civilians. War is heck.

We also went to the spot where “Saving Private Ryan” movie began. It is based on a true story, but the name of the soldier was not Ryan. Why was that name chosen? Because it was the most common name in the cemetary, with 156 dead Ryans buried there. Also there are 4 women and 144 Jews amoung the 9000. Another fact I did not know was that those five beachheads by the Americans, British and Canadians were 80 miles wide at the time of landing, which is a lot wider than I thought. That is what the guide said, but I have a feeling he may be wrong on that one.

All in all it was an excellent tour for anyone interested in the subject.

LES OBSERVATIONS

Les Noirs

Les femmes noires have a propensity toward adipose, like at home. Les homme are loud but not quite as much as at home. To their credit I saw only one backward ball cap, and nary a visible butt crack or even baggy pants. In other words they are not trying to copy the American black styles, as far as I could see. The few I saw seemed fairly orderly and normally integrated into French society. But I will explore this further on the next trip.

ONE EXCEPTION: Near the cathedral, at the beginning of a walking bridge over the Seine, two black guys speaking English asked English speaking tourists if they would please sign this petition they were holding which asks the UN to please provide food for these starving Africans. Most people think this is a good cause, so why not? But, after they sign the petition they are asked if they would please make a donation to the cause - they are now committed to the cause and are embarrassed into donating. Nearly everyne who signed donated. Very clever. It all went into these guys' own pockets of course. But based on their accents these guys may have been Nigerians and not native Parisian blacks.

Two Observations about the NEED TO CONFORM BUT STILL SHOW INDIVIDUALITY.

a) 2007, In the Newark Airport, while waiting for my Madrid flight, I see four black males, mid 30’s, who were dressed almost identically. Each had flowing silk shirts, gold chains and watches, diamond earrings, expensive hand tailored gray jeans with some sort of silver threads woven in, black leather belts with silver studs, and each wore the jeans so low that the top of the butt crack was displayed. But even within this bovine conformity they did make an effort to show their individuality. Each one of the four had different styles of silver studs on the black leather belt, .e.g. one with diamonds, one with half-moons, one with stars and one with hearts.

b) 2007, Madrid Airport, on first trip to Paris. Five Muslim men all dressed exactly alike, with flowing white robes, full beards and white pill-box turbans with tails hanging down in back. They slouched and belched and lounged on the airport benches with their legs and feet sticking out in the aisles. They grunted and made snorting noises and some hacked and spit in the trash cans. The ones closest to me were palpably odiferous which I understand is a cultural norm. This was a group that would be fun to invite to your next dinner party.

But within all this mindless conformity of dress and behavior they showed their individuality, by God (‘scuse me, by Allah). Each one had his own pill-box turban tail at a different length from the others.

Paris 2008, OBSERVATIONS ON WORDS AND LANGUAGE

ENGLISH FRENCH vs FRENCH FRENCH

Entree in English means the main dish.

Entree in French means first course, and the main dish is le plat.

Filet mignon in English is that yummy hunk of meat

Filet mignon in French means a dainty thread. That yummy hunk of meat is a tournedos.

AFRICAN AMERICAN vs AFRICAN FRENCH

You know that cute clumsy relatively new nonsense appellation that many Negro Americans call themselves: African American. It is clumsy because it changed the one syllable word “black” (which replaced Negro) into a seven syllable phrase. Why use a seven syllables phrase when the one syllable word is quicker and cleaner and has done quite nicely for 20 some years. It is nonsense because it assumes that anyone with African ancestry is necessarily a member of the black race, when there are over 100 million white people who live there, along with a few hundred thousand African born Asians. Also there are some 10 million white people of African descent who live in North America, Theresa Heinze Kerry being just one salient example. So an African American can be in fact be black, but also white and yellow and red and any color or race you can name, and therefore the term is meaningless to designate race. For the phrase to make any sense, that is to convey the meaning of race,you would have to say Black African American. Whoops!

If the blacks think they need a new word for black race they should try using Eskimo instead. It is much simpler and quicker, and the Eskimos aren't using it anymore, anyway.

So in Paris I wondered if the French Negros followed the American example and called themselves the equivalent of African French. They are also of African descent, so why not? They don’t for the simple reason that 95% of the French citizens of African descent are from northern Africa and Algeria, and are WHITE. So if the French blacks followed the American example they would in essence be calling themselves WHITE. I believe they are referred to as les Noirs, only, by themselves and others. At least that is what I have gleaned so far.

Note: The use of the French word, Nègre, meaning Negro in English, is now considered racist in France, according to two of my French dictionaries. So the word negro and its French equivilent which for 500 years was both the the scientific name (three races: caucasian, negro and oriental) and the polite name for dark skinned, sub-Saharan Africans suddenly became offensive. A positive word becomes a negative word virtually overnight (the 1970s, I believe) because somebody says it is, and that is it.

OK, it is a fact that language always has and always will change over time. All I would ask is that the changes have glimmer of a semblance of of a hint of a rational basis. But, alas, I ask too much.

One final rant: Native American. A native is someone born in a place, by any definition. So a native American is ANYONE born at anytime in North America, Central America or South America, from the top of Canada, south through the U.S., Mexico, Central America down to the southern tip of Argintina. So all of us born on those continents are native Americans. Everybody, 100%, including cowboys. Those other guys are injuns.

WHY DO I WRITE THESE OBSERVATIONS HERE?

Because Paris is where they coalesced and I wrote them down.

Ok, that’s enough observations for Paris 2008. Next year I will touch on the following:

Fashion

Metro

Les noirs, encore

TV

Beer

Grocery stores

14 avril 08

Pourquoi je vais en Paris cette annee? Parce que……………….

In Berlin 2006 I was channel surfing one day and came upon Channel 5, the French international station. A comedy was playing and of course I understood almost nothing being said in French, but for some reason the French comedy had sub-titles in French. How odd, thought I, but I could read good chunk of what they were saying and actually laughed at some of the jokes. Why could I read that chunk? Parce que for years I have used the study of French as a warm-up for my study of Spanish, and now as a warm-up for studying German. It was that French comedy with sub-titles in French that was the genesis of my renewed curiosity about French, and now France..

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Then in 2007 I took a week out of my month in Madrid to check out Paris –frankly to see if it was as bad as I had heard it was.

It was not. In fact during my brief exposure I liked it very much, including the few people I met. So this year I decided to explore it a little more in depth.

Preparation:

In October and November 2007 I read and outlined two books, The Story of French (history of the language) and Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t be Wrong: Why We Love France and not the French People, both of which were interesting and informative. The books will stay home and the outlines will travel with me to Paris. Also I began studying the language again with a couple of CD programs, including the highly advertised (usually a bad sign – and it was) Rosetta Stone. I began it at the beginning of the first level and finished it all through the end of second or intermediate level, and it was worthless, By contrast, the far better program was from Transparant Language that has a dictionary, grammer explanations, exercises and games, all of which helped make learning fun.

Then in December I googled “Paris Expats” and found a plethora of interest groups who meet at various times and places in Paris for social hours, discussions, etc. There must be 50 or 60 of them, including theater, movies, eating out and just about any interest you can think of, including language speaking groups. Voila! Spanish speaking groups caught my eye. Since Paris will replace Madrid this year it would be nice to speak to somebody in the one foreign language I can speak with reasonable fluency.

So I signed up with three Spanish speaking groups, one French/English and one German language group and one English speaking ex-pat group. Later in Paris I signed up for the whimsical “Impeach George Bush” group which is yet to be actually formed, but also for the very real and interesting sounding “Philosophers Café in Paris in English”. In this one they meet once a month, vote on a topic to discuss, and then spend 90 minutes debating the topic. Unfortunately its meeting is the day I leave for home. Each of these groups sends me emails regarding news and upcoming meetings, and my email box has been stuffed with them every week for the last 4 months.

Finally, you can't go to Paris without first seeing one of the many movies made that include the city either as the theme or as a back ground for a story.

So before leaving I checked them out and found about 30 of them. I picked The Da Vinci Code and its companion disk with interviews and the making of the movie. Also, Paris, Je t’aime, La Vie en Rose, and the Last Tango in Paris (saw that one about 30 years ago). That should be enough for now.

Je suis prêt maintenant.

Le Voyage

16 avril a 7 mai

The Apartment

Located in the Marais area, 3rd Arr., one block from where the Knights Templar had their fortress/palace in the 13th century (now a public park called, surprise, Square (meaning small public park) du Temple) and about ¾ mile from the island upon which sits Notre Dame Cathedral. Also it is two blocks from where many of the Spanish speaking meetings take place. It is within walking distance to many attractions but is also close to two metro stations which can whisk you just about anywhere you want to go, and near a comprehensive drug store/supermarket. So the location is excellent for me.

It is a studio apartment with kitchen, bath, living room with a bedroom loft and a large walk-in closet. Along with the usual amenities it has a computer with printer and fax machine, TV with all French channels, stereo set and wifi high speed internet. I mostly used my own laptop with the wifi.

The Meetups

That is what they are called, and are part of an international organization called “Meetups International” with its HQ in Brooklyn, New York. There are several meetups in large cities all over the US and much of the world. The one in Paris that was the most fun for me was the Spanish Scrabble meetup, which I attended on two Sundays. Claudia the leader described it in her meeting notice as being played “in una manera ludica.” I had never seen or heard this adjective “ludica” before and my big Spanish dictionary says it means “playful,” as opposed to serious. Then I found the English word, ludic (which also I never knew), which is derived from the French word ludique which is from the Latin ludus, all meaning playful. So from that one meetup notice I learned a new word in four languages, which is the type thing I love to do. And this scrabble was indeed playful and spontaneous and it was fun. The authority for the words was a Spanish/French dictionary. The members of this Spanish speaking group all lived in Paris, were fluent French speakers, and occasionally would converse in French at the meetup. I did better in this scrabble than I usually do in English scrabble, and used one word .(res=animal or beast) which they had to look up in the dictionary, where it is defined as "bete". Ha!

Then one evening I spent a couple hours with a Chilean woman in Spanish conversation and the one important thing I took away from that meeting was the correct pronunciation of Augusto Pinochet. As I had always believed, it is pronounced as a Spanish name (the “t” in “chet” is pronounced) and not a French name as the benighted American semi-intellectuals pronounce it. Another time a different group of us had a meetup at museum and had a Peruvian Andian meal with descriptive lecture, all in Spanish of course.

On another occasion Claudia and the group and I met at a Basque restaurant in north west Paris for lunch where we had octopus and lamb, two Basque specialties, and three bottles of Basque wine . Just like old times in Madrid.

So in 2008 I had some April in Paris, and a lot of Spanish in Paris.

Then there was the German meetup which was simply small conversation groups seated at a long table in a german tavern near the Seine river, and I struggled to understand what they were saying. Bruno the leader saw me struggle and talked to me in English, and we had a decent conversation.. There were a couple of other Spanish conversation meets coming up and also a Parler Fancaise meetup and an ex-pats meetup and my little calendar was getting FULL. I don’t do full calendars anymore, so I started cutting back, way back during the last week..

The French People

I have always heard that the French were grouchy and nasty and unpleasant, but my experience was just the opposite. My first experience with a Frenchman was when I was looking for a certain metro station, struggling with the map, and a 20 year old French guy volunteered to help me find it without my even asking. He apologized for no English and I told him J’ai non probleme et I merci-ed him boucoup. He led me to the station and told me the number of stops to my destination and said au revoir. Now that is kindness from a stranger that we seldom see at home.

Also, the many times I asked for directions they all were friendly and helpful (though not always accurate). So I saw no problem there.

Furthermore after some time I observed that in general there seems to be an endemic politeness in Paris; in fact one which seems to be so omnipresent that it must be a cultural norm.. Everywhere you hear bon jour, bon soir, merci and de rien (you are welcome), or more formally, je vous en pris. Unlike the Spanish and the Germans who have a good morning which lasts to a certain time of day, then good afternoon until a certain time and then good evening, the French have only a bon jour which goes from morning till about 6 pm when it is bon soir, and that’s it. But they use them on a consistent and regular basis. Even strangers meeting in hallways do it and I have had as many a 5 bon jours before reaching my apartment door. I do it myself all the time now, and it is kind of nice. In every small store when you enter you are greeted with a bon jour and an au revoir when you leave. It may be just a routine part of their culture, but polite is nice no matter what the reason.

I also heard that the waiters are grouchy, but I’m not sure where that comes from. From my experience you get the usual bon jour upon entering a restaurant, a “monsignor?” when he is ready to take your order, a merci on payment and an au revoir upon leaving. That seems pretty polite to me. In Spain, on the other hand, there is no greeting whatsoever from a waiter and the first words you will hear from him is “digame” (tell me) or sometimes “vamos (lets go).“ But even that is not grouchy, it is simply their cultural norm. {I have 10 pages written about Spanish restaurants, elsewhere} So with all that institutionalized politesse where did all this bad press about the French attitude come from?

Well, one negativish thing they really do is correct your French syntax or pronunciation by repeating what you said in bon usage, meaning proper French. But that is just fine with me That is the way to learn. Or more likely they will ignore your French altogether and answer you in English. On their behalf, there are reasons for that attitude. I read that Paris is the most visited city in the world with some five million visitors (twice the population of the city) per year. About half of those visitors have some high school French they want to try out on the local folks. And the local folks have heard their language whacked and chopped and butchered in every known way by people from all over the world on many occasions. So they might be a little short with the butcher, especially if they know your language almost as well as you do.

There is another reason, which one of the two books I read (the “60 Million “ one) devoted a whole chapter to. And that is the bon usage I referred to, or the absolute need to use what they consider correct Parisian French at all times. It may be arbitrary, as are all the rules of grammar in any language, but it is their correct usage as they have learned it and that is what they want to hear. They correct each other on the subject all the time, and in public too, as I understand.

Remember the French sub-titles to the French language comedy I saw in Berlin, which I thought was so odd, but it got me started on this adventure? Well, the book solved that mystery as well. It seems there are dozens of French dialects around the world, including Québec, and for those non-Parisian dialects they add sub-titles. So the comedy I saw was obviously speaking one of those non-Parisian French dialects. There you have it. A French language movie with sub-titles in Parisian French make the Parisians feel better.

It is 5 May and I go home in 2 days, and I have worked hours trying to get the photos in this Trip Diary, and have done so many different things I’m not sure how I did it. So I may defer on some subjects until later.

Now it is 6 May and I leave the apartment at 6am tomorrow, so I WILL defer those subjects until later.

The two tours

Fashion

Metro

Les noirs

TV

Beer

Groc store

A bientot!