Sunday, March 18, 2007
Bonjour Houston! Back online again, I feel as if I have just returned from the dark side of the moon.
Sorry, no photos yet. I've spent the last couple of days just feeling my way around, finding food, cigarettes, etc. It took me two days to figure out how to use the French phone card successfully (the "1" button sticks on my phone), half an hour to assemble the ironing board (part of it was hiding in the closet), and an hour learning to change the channel on the TV (a mixed marriage of satellite and local broadcast, remote and manual, with instructions to press one of the buttons "gently"). I've washed my clothes twice, as I try to decipher where the water softener is supposed to go (white crud all over black pants), and I was able to heat my pizza to lukewarm only by insisting to the oven that I am in charge here (it's a combination convection/microwave whose instructions are in inscrutable symbols--French or German words would have been preferable).
I avoided the TV as long as I could stand it, not wanting to waste valuable Paris time on brain-numbing that I can accomplish perfectly well at home, but last night I gave in and watched several hours of Law & Order dubbed in French. Pretty weird. The cute blond prosecutors all have cute blond voices, and Lenny Briscoe sounds extremely nasal--guess they got a load of that "nez" and just had to go with it.
My first day out walking, I ran across a sidewalk photo shoot involving a platinum blond model with lollipop-red lips wearing a tight outfit of sparkly pink and black. Her t-shirt read, "Shopping in Beverly Hills." She had three identical pouffy, white, immaculately groomed miniature poodles on three leashes and they were having a marvelous time darting and jumping, entangling her legs. There was a dog handler there, but they only acknowledged his presence briefly and continued cavorting. You could tell the model was professional, making an effort when the videographer called "action," but she would occasionally let herself give in to a genuine smile at the humor of the situation.
Art students: remember when we read that article about women in impressionist paintings being cordoned off by barriers like balcony gratings? I have one of those wrought-iron gratings in front of my eight-foot tall casement window! I was really hoping I would. It's so Paris.
I'm taking mental notes about what I want to photograph and in a couple of days I'm going to take my camera out and just concentrate on shooting stuff. I don't like to carry it with me all the time because it marks me as a tourist. Without the tourist gear, I can masquerade as une Parisienne until I open my mouth to speak.
Language success: I asked a simple technical question when I was buying a battery charger and I understood the answer.
Language failure: I'm smoking unfiltered cigarettes today.
A bientot!
Sorry, no photos yet. I've spent the last couple of days just feeling my way around, finding food, cigarettes, etc. It took me two days to figure out how to use the French phone card successfully (the "1" button sticks on my phone), half an hour to assemble the ironing board (part of it was hiding in the closet), and an hour learning to change the channel on the TV (a mixed marriage of satellite and local broadcast, remote and manual, with instructions to press one of the buttons "gently"). I've washed my clothes twice, as I try to decipher where the water softener is supposed to go (white crud all over black pants), and I was able to heat my pizza to lukewarm only by insisting to the oven that I am in charge here (it's a combination convection/microwave whose instructions are in inscrutable symbols--French or German words would have been preferable).
I avoided the TV as long as I could stand it, not wanting to waste valuable Paris time on brain-numbing that I can accomplish perfectly well at home, but last night I gave in and watched several hours of Law & Order dubbed in French. Pretty weird. The cute blond prosecutors all have cute blond voices, and Lenny Briscoe sounds extremely nasal--guess they got a load of that "nez" and just had to go with it.
My first day out walking, I ran across a sidewalk photo shoot involving a platinum blond model with lollipop-red lips wearing a tight outfit of sparkly pink and black. Her t-shirt read, "Shopping in Beverly Hills." She had three identical pouffy, white, immaculately groomed miniature poodles on three leashes and they were having a marvelous time darting and jumping, entangling her legs. There was a dog handler there, but they only acknowledged his presence briefly and continued cavorting. You could tell the model was professional, making an effort when the videographer called "action," but she would occasionally let herself give in to a genuine smile at the humor of the situation.
Art students: remember when we read that article about women in impressionist paintings being cordoned off by barriers like balcony gratings? I have one of those wrought-iron gratings in front of my eight-foot tall casement window! I was really hoping I would. It's so Paris.
I'm taking mental notes about what I want to photograph and in a couple of days I'm going to take my camera out and just concentrate on shooting stuff. I don't like to carry it with me all the time because it marks me as a tourist. Without the tourist gear, I can masquerade as une Parisienne until I open my mouth to speak.
Language success: I asked a simple technical question when I was buying a battery charger and I understood the answer.
Language failure: I'm smoking unfiltered cigarettes today.
A bientot!
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