One million tiny plays about France, #1

(Idea lovingly ripped off from a column in The Guardian)

Two Parisian boys, just returned from August vacation in Manhattan, practice their English, discuss their futures.

Jean-Pierre: Thibault, how are you going?

Thibault: Ugh, I go well, but the research for the work, she makes me shit. 

J.P.: You don't have the chance, you should prepare to the E.N.A. like me. This is the work of the real aristocrats.

Thibault: I find what you do completely undickable. I don't dick any of it. 

J.P.: But why you don't want to become a functionary? Do you want to work more than 35 hours a week?

Thibault: Of course not, but I don't want to work with those shitters. The idea of this makes me shit more than the research for work. Maybe I will to move to London?

J.P.: 'a'a'a'a'a'. And eat their food?

Thibault: This is true. And make love to their women? 

J.P.: There is perhaps something there. They have never had a real lover with 'Ze French Touch'. 

Thibault: I will make my little English take her foot. 

J.P.: Ah yes, she will climb the curtains. 

Thibault: It's decided. I move to London. 

Comment perdre une partie de Monopoly

*How to lose a game of Monopoly

[Disclaimer: this is a posting particularly limited in scope, but I had to post, for the following three reasons:]

Dear CZ,

Je m'excuse d'avance, but seeing as you 'don't remember' the night of that infamous game of Monopoly, I thought I would help you out. Basically, this post is:

1) Vengeance. Back in Spring 2006, I was lead to believe, in particularly convincing French legalese, that I was going to be deported from the country for 'inciting racial hatred against the French' with the contents of this very blog. The author was none other than you, my dear.

2) A Public Service. You think your middle name is "N'a jamais perdu une partie de Monopoly"; within a half hour of losing this very game, you were denying your loss. I know that, being French, you're very adept at rewriting history, but not on my watch.

3)An interesting Study on the results of a French economic law education on Monopoly strategy. I could write a thesis on this, I think. France's finest academic institutions produce some scary results:

First, not landing on any real estate yourself, start to build houses on other people's property, then refuse to pay taxes/improvement fines.

Then, feeling someone getting ahead, you ally with a third player. When this new ally starts to reap those advantages, ally with another player. (5 minutes after allying with me, I haven't forgotten that you called to the other players "LET'S MAKE THE AMERICAN BLEED!")

When your former alliances start losing, pool your resources and take over the lead.

And then....against the odds...die untergang:

Step 1. Complete denial:



Translation:
You know why I've won yet again? (won? we ask)
Because:
1) I PERSEVERED
2) I [sic]
3) I REFLECTED
4) I PERSEVERED

Step 2: Childlike violence

(After being heckled by us on the couch, CZ, you so nobly admit 'It's over because of YOU"..yes, yes, dear we are to blame for your downfall)




Step 3: Actual violence:

..And THAT's why you don't go to Le Queen for Ladies' Night.

A cautionary tale, in pictures. Once upon a time, there was a club, a club that needs no introduction. An unpretentious, cheezy, boombox of sweaty Europeans, fistjabbing the air. (see graphic 1, examples A and B)

Graphic 1:



In our tale, two girls arrive on the Elysian Fields after downing a few mugs of Limoncello.



Embarrassing dancing results. Note: I like to think I was being ironic, and that I didn't actually think this was attractive at the time.

But then, of course, the police crash my party as usual. Or ARE THEY cops? Why, they appear to be...dancing!


...why, even throwing in a little law-enforcing ass wiggle....



And. . . basically. . . All i can think of is:



Combined with a bit of:



...And I can't stop laughing.



...Pretty soon, I'm in complete hysterics. What followed was a very NSFW situation, prompting the following conversation:

"Huh, he's like naked. Like NAKED naked."
"Yeah. Well, except for that towel he's...holding."

Now, I had seen the strippers at Queen before, but thanks to Arrested Development, my enjoyment of the erotic arts is forever tarnished. Le sigh.

(Side note: What about cops is hot? Has anyone seen members of Law Enforcement in America and/or France? Now, the CRS, maybe. Stripping CRS (Riot Police) dudes, that I can imagine. They could incorporate dry ice instead of tear gas into their act; it'd be amazing.)

But, tiring of these shenanigans, we stumble home. Up the 6 flights of stairs, and into bed, to sleep like little drunken babies.


The end.

"Red wine on paint", 2008.

I am as accident-prone and as unable to tolerate wine as a 4 year-old. The only way I even got into kindergarten was sleeping my way in. I won the Best Napper award in Pre-K!

So, I have had bad experiences with red wine in the past. But typically this involves over-ingestion and embarrassing dancing. For example, the night this picture was taken. The look of drunken pain on my face pretty much sums it up:


I inflicted that pain, in vomit form, all over Richard's flat in the 15th arrondissement, and about 12 pairs of shoes. Sorry, guys.

Tonight though, red wine and I had an even more unfortunate encounter.

It had been a bad day. I had to investigate my visa status, and visit the bank. Both involved kowtowing to mean French bureaucrats. Who eat puppies. Lest we forget.

Coming home in a storm, I decide I could use some red wine, pick up the bottle of Bourgeuil, and realise I don't have a corkscrew. And neither does the flat I'm staying in.

Building up steam, I decide to take a small knife, and start jabbing it into the cork.
"This is a bad idea," I think. I keep going.

No, no. I'll ask the neighbors for one. Sure, my next door neighbor tends to fall asleep with the door open, passed out onto his bed (I'm convinced he's a heroin addict, after watching too much Intervention). So, I knock on his door.

"Hi, it's your neighbor!"

"No."

(I pause). "It's your neighbor who lives next door?"

(he pauses, realising you can't deny fact. Although I think he's trying)

He says he doesn't have a corkscrew. What kind of French person DOESN'T HAVE A CORKSCREW. Creepy motherf**** I think, and go back the 1/2 step to my apartment.

I pick up the knife, then go for the carving fork. This seems like an excellent improvement over the paring knife.

So I'm pushing desperately when all of a sudden, the cork gives, and out comes a GEYSER of red wine, all over my face, my Reiss sweater, and, most unfortunately of all, the wall of my friend's flat.

It wasn't just a spill. At least I don't have to re-paint my friend's kitchen for just a measly spill. This was a work to make Pollack jealous. I can't wait until I'm famous. I can just see the interview:

"Well my inspiration really was my frustration. Not merely my own, but society's frustration with its own bureaucratic constraints. What this red wine-on-paint study really represents is the brutal force we have in all of us; the violence of life."

I'm half-laughing, half-crying when I hear a knock on the door. It's my neighbor.

"I found a corkscrew."

Ergo, frigo

Maybe it's my roommate's Atkins diet, maybe it's nostalgia, but I've been getting pretty sad looking at our fridge recently. Then it occured to me what a freakishly perfect microcosm of our life in Paris the door is.

Without further ado, the contents of our
fridge door:

-Not 1, but 2 noise violation notices from the police, for "Tapage nocturne; cris, chants, et musique enregistrée." This has launched a not so subtle war with the neighbors, which climaxed in The Pear Incident, in which a neighbor threw a pear at Cesi out their window. They threw. A pear. On purpose.

1 label from a tan of unidentifiable Southeast Asian fruit. Reads:
MANGO STEEN IN SYRUP "COCK" (we are approximately 12 years old)

- 7 Marie Antoinette magnets, courtesy of Andrea Mack. We liked Versailles a lot, we preferred the fridge magnets.

- 1 rejection letter from large law firm.

- Various notes on pink pads. Notably:

- "BE CAREFUL OPENING FREEZER, VODKA WILL FALL."
(we have subsisted on a few litres of Vodka from Miami International Apartment all semester. I would have legally adopted them if it were legally possible for man and alcohol to share that sort of bond.)

-"THINGS BROKEN": (this is a sad, sad list)
The list of glasses broken is so long, we have started attributing financial responsibility to the dog.

...It will be tough to leave this flat. But all I know is I'm investing in plastic cups and insulation wherever I move next.

Pas tes oignons

This is what I opened the door to, recently:



French garbage man's jacket: 3 euros

Pants : 8 USD

Staying on Francescas' couch: 0 euros

10 Kilos of Onions, brought by foot from North Paris: 5 euros

5.614 Kilos of Quinoa (not pictured): 19.8 Euros

Being told the stove doesn't work: priceless.


...Those onions are rotting in our kitchen as we speak.

Gestion de colère

It's been difficult to respond to the question "How's Paris?" of late. Paris is amazing. Of course. Everyone knows that. Paris could be completely charming under 9 out of the 10 biblical plagues. Raining locusts? Why, locusts would compliment the muted greys of Parisian buildings just splendidly!

But, Paris is largely irrelevant to my quotidien. Sciences Po is not Paris, Sciences Po is a crock pot of simmering academic rage at the moment. I didn't think it had gotten to me until yesterday.

I kicked someone. A stranger.

And she totally deserved it.

I delivered a (gentle) kick to the shins to an American girl eating a tuna and egg sandwich across from me in the library yesterday.

In my defense, I wouldn't have kicked her if:

1) This had been her first offense (she was eating a panini last time)
2) The library weren't so crowded that I was practically face-first in her egg baguette. (EGG, people, EGGs in the library)
3) I hadn't been in the library for 6 hours in a row already.


I passed it off as an accident. But I don't regret it. Not only is it stinky; she's in FRANCE. The only place where public social norms are stronger than in Britain. Whereas in London people just look away uncomfortably, in Paris they will MAKE YOU PAY. I consider my foot merely an instrument of public opinion.

To the anonymous library glutton, I offer this warning: If I have to follow social norms, so don't you, my pudgy compatriote. Don't MAKE me kick you again.