FPA

The weekly meeting starts in a few minutes. French Pastries Anonymous members admit to ourselves that we are powerless over Croissants, Pain au Chocolate, Baguettes Traditionelles, &c... and that our lives have become unmanageable!

Thanksgiving and Advent

Thanksgiving at the American Cathedral was really great. Surprisingly good, in fact, in that they served over 60 at a level of quality that would have made any American host proud. The turkey was perfect (I understand that is catered – and, let’s face it, French caters had BETTER make it right!). Sweet potatoes and stuffing and pumpkin pie (something of a curiosity to the French) – and really superb cranberry relish, with ginger and lemon zest. Also lots of good conversation. All the preparation overseen by the stewardship chair – whose husband runs the Paris office of Goldman-Sachs!

On Saturday, we went to the Louvre to see the new exhibit on Alexander the Great. Mostly small objects of the period (vases, amphoræ, masks, golden oak wreaths &c… ). There was an interesting interior – a tomb. Apparently, the tomb of Phillip II of Macedonia (Alex’s dad) was discovered untouched.  On display was another one. Also some dandy columns, with their architraves and frieze, from a ruin in Thessaloniki. I also learned that there is an order called proto-Corinthian, in which the acanthus leaves support the whole capital and there is no scroll at all.

Church again on Sunday – the First Sunday of Advent – and Lessons and Carols for Advent served as the Liturgy of the Word. Very well-done. Boy do they have a good choir! And organist and organ, too. Mary Had a Baby, My Lord! was exquisite: the Americans really know how to bend the thirds just right! This was also the first Sunday for Christmas boxes – literally hundreds of them – which the community prepares and then sends to children in poorer countries. And there will be more again next Sunday. Afterwards, everybody pitched in to carry them out to the waiting truck which will transport them to Serbia, this year (I think).

Then we went to a little hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop, just off the Champs Élysée, which produced what may be the best shawirma I have ever had. Not only were the ingredients perfect, but the wrap must have been a freshly-made crêpe or something, because it was incomparable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAB_aibwrU&feature=player_embedded#!

Louise Michel

We went to an exhibit in Montmartre yesterday, right across from the "square Louise Michel", at the foot of the long, steep stairways leading to The Basilica of the Sacred Heart. 

I think this was built as a memorial to the hostages – including the Archbishop of Paris – who were shot by the communards in 1871, in retaliation for the military execution of some of their own. Interestingly, the square is now named after one of the communards, whose lover went to the guillotine for it. Her name was Louise Michel, called the "Red Virgin of Montmartre". Also "the good Louise". She was a teacher and an anarchist. She was deported to New Caledonia, where she set to work teaching the indigenous people. There was an amnesty after a couple of years, and she returned to France – unrepentant – where she spent the rest of her life in and out of jail. The plaque identifying the "square Louise Michel" identifies her as a heroine of the commune. She remains a heroine for the French left, I guess.

Not so, the late-19th-century building that crowns this hill (the highest in Paris, I think). Many (especially leftists) consider it a disgusting monstrosity. the style is called "Neo-Byzantine", although it doesn't look much like anything produced in the 1000 years of that culture. I think it has more in common with the fantastic imagery of art nouveau, which I like a lot better. I suppose it is to Byzantium what Neuschwanstein is to  medieval German castles, or Ishak Pasha Sarai is to the palaces of Abbasid Bagdad: a romantic fantasy.

"Funny Games"

I saw a really awful movie last night: Funny Games. I recommend it only because I see it as a metaphor for fascist takeover. Two well-bred young men go from house to house in the Hamptons, killing the inhabitants. But they don't just kill them: first they dominate and degrade them. On reflection, it is clear that they could not succeed if they were resisted, but the victims delude themselves with the hope that this isn't as bad as it seems, that it is a temporary aberration, that it will pass. They try to reason with their tormentors, to placate them. "Maybe if we give them what they want, they will go away." In the process, they become complicit in their own destruction. Just like Germany in the 30s.

The director is the Austrian, Michael Haneke (Hidden, The Piano Teacher). Those whose idea of a "moral film" is one in which the forces of good triumph in the end will find this movie immoral – just as they found Pasolini's Salo: 101 Days of Sodom. Both are an unflinching gaze at human evil, and that is why they are revolting.

Anastasios of Tirana and Frank of Zanzibar on social struggle.

My house-sitter, Allen Killian-Moore, sent me this. Remarkable, because it comes from an Orthodox prelate:

"We must promote daring initiatives and just social struggles and not be
spectators of divine interventions and actions, but offer ourselves as
co-workers with the Lord...economic globalization is solely concerned with
broadening the market...Woe to us if, in the twenty-first century, we
again relinquish the initiative for social justice to others, as we have
done in past centuries, while we confine ourselves to our opulent rituals,
to our usual alliance with the powerful. We must promote a society of love
rather than a globalization that transforms nations and people into an
indistinguishable, homogenized mass, convenient for the economic
objectives of an anonymous oligarchy."

--Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana

And it reminded me of this:

... Christ is found in and amid matter—Spirit through matter—God in flesh, God in the Sacrament. But I say to you, and I say it to you with all the earnestness that I have, that if you are prepared to fight for the right of adoring Jesus in his Blessed Sacrament, then you have got to come out from before your Tabernacle and walk, with Christ mystically present in you, out into the streets of this country, and find the same Jesus in the people of your cities and your villages. You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slum.

Now mark that—this is the Gospel truth. If you are prepared to say that the Anglo-Catholic is at perfect liberty to rake in all the money he can get no matter what the wages are that are paid, no matter what the conditions are under which people work; if you say that the Anglo-Catholic has a right to hold his peace while his fellow citizens are living in hovels below the levels of the streets, this I say to you, that you do not yet know the Lord Jesus in his Sacrament. ...If you are Christians then your Jesus is one and the same: Jesus on the Throne of his glory, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus received into your hearts in Communion, Jesus with you mystically as you pray, and Jesus enthroned in the hearts and bodies of his brothers and sisters up and down this country. And it is folly—it is madness—to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the Throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children. It cannot be done.

There then, as I conceive it, is your present duty; and I beg you, brethren, as you love the Lord Jesus, consider that it is at least possible that this is the new light that the Congress was to bring to us. You have got your Mass, you have got your Altar, you have begun to get your Tabernacle. Now go out into the highways and hedges where not even the Bishops will try to hinder you. Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash their feet.

---Frank Weston, Bishop of Zanzibar: conclusion of his address to the Anglo-Catholic Congress of 1923, Our Present Duty,

Paris in November

Now that I have been here for almost 2 weeks I thought it would be fun to start up my travel blog again. Before I left home I signed up for Dragon voice recognition/dictation software. It helps a lot with work, and it makes this process a lot easier too: I can just talk.

After an uneventful flight (non--stop Minneapolis/Paris) I got into the most dreadful jet-lag, from which I am only now just recovering. No help from the sleeping pills I got before I left, to fight it, just made it worse. So, I have been staying home a lot, trying to acclimate. I did get to go and see my old friend, Jean-loup, who is suffering from cancer, but who is hopeful of some possible remission. My friend, Sharif, with whom I am staying, is a big movie fan like me, so I have already been to the movies a couple of times.

Sharif has that process down. We drive over to La Defense (the big high-rise Plaza that is like a huge pedestrian mall), where there is a rather elegant multiple-screening-room complex – all stadium seating – complete with popcorn and soft drinks but also with a little Parisian café/bar that serves good coffee and appertifs. We saw Contagion (about a worldwide pandemic) after which Sharif observed that it is amazing what we will call "entertainment"! We also saw Brad Pitt's new movie about the general manager of the Oakland athletics (the French version is called Strategy). It is an interesting enough story but mainly a showcase for Brad as good, middle-aged actor.

Out on the plaza, there is a fairly sizable Occupy camp. Everyone seems to approve. There is also an enormous "Christmas market", which is kind of like a farmers' market (row after row of booths) but it's all for Christmas. Sharif says they copied it from the Germans, and have outdone them. At least in terms of size. Interesting contrast between the camp and the market!

We went to church yesterday, at the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. It is in a very ritzy location: a block off the Champs Elysee, right next to one of the world's most expensive hotels (the Four Seasons). The last time I was here, the French had considerately provided guards in camouflage suits with submachine guns, for some reason, but no sign of them now. I must say that I was quite favorably impressed with the scene at the Cathedral. First, it is a really beautiful building: high, narrow Gothic, fine glass, and a really superb choir. As for churchmanship, they are about like St. Mark's: Eucharistic vestments, six candles on the altar – grouped in clumps of three on each side, which I think is a good idea – and side-altar candles lit for the high mass, as God intended! They even used a sanctus-bell chime, but no incense. Bells but no smells! Even though it was the Feast of Christ the King. We attended before him before the mass, and it was most rewarding and well-attend. The visiting preacher, who led the before, is the retired dean of our Cathedral in Providence. She was most engaging, eloquent, and interesting. Also an excellent preacher. They don't seem to have much going on in the way of services during the week, so I doubt that I will be of any use to them. But who knows? They are beginning their search for a new Dean, even as they await their interim Dean. Anyway there were lots of friendly people, easy to talk to, and I felt quite at home. Sharif and I will go to their annual American Thanksgiving dinner there on Thursday.

Yesterday I ventured out on my own for the first time, except for grocery-shopping on the high street a couple of blocks from here. It takes the better part of an hour to get from here to the Louvre. I find the trip rather enjoyable, because you get to do a lot of people-watching, and most of it is through the lovely Blois de Boulogne. [This was once the private hunting preserve of the Emperor, whose bedroom I was going to visit. His hunting lodge is now a restaurant.] Even though it is late fall, it is mild enough here so that there is still a good deal of muted color. The climate is damp enough so that the grass is always lush and green, and many of the trees still have tinted leaves. It is also really fun to ride the Parisian public transportation system, the only thing wrong with which it is lots of stairs. The metro is especially bad in this regard. Although there are up-escalators at most stations, half of them don't seem to work. Fortunately the stop at the Louvre has only a few stairs. I sprung for a membership, so that I can get in free, and don't have to stand in line.

Once inside however, it is kind of a challenge to find the elevators. They are there, but carefully hidden. Anyway I managed to find my way to the “First Floor”, which is actually three floors above the entrance! Well, the reception area is now underground, at subway level, and then there is the ground level and another level called the street level (raised about half a story above grade) and then the first or "noble" floor. My goal was the apartments of Emperor Napoleon III. Really sumptuous, as you can imagine. I guess the Republicans (the good guys in late 19^th-century French politics) were fed up with all the pomp. They sold off the crown jewels in the 1880s. This was all explained at the small display of part of what was left: two diamond tiaras and a pair of Ruby-diamond bracelets. Behind glass, of course, but you could get right up next to them.

Then there is food. I do love to go grocery shopping! It's not that the commodities are that much better than ours, just different. The supermarkets, for example, have lots and lots of canned duck. And they cut the beef differently from our manner. For one thing you can get little packages of beef already cut exactly the right size for bouef bourguignon. I made a stew of that already. Our major restaurant excursion so far has been an indescribably beautiful place called La Fermiette de Marbuef. It's right across the street from the Cathedral, and Sharif and I went there after coffee hour. The menu of the day was pretty ordinary, up-scale, French offerings: lobster bisque, duck quarter, and chocolate mousse with whipped cream – preceded by the charming French custom, amuse bouche (delight the mouth), which was a little shot glass with purée of carrot and of fresh herb sprig that I couldn't identify.

But the really memorable feature of this restaurant is the art nouveau interior.

The place was built at the height of that fashion, in 1900. For years it was forgotten – closed and used as a storehouse, incredibly. But it’s restoration is breathtaking. Mostly fabulous compositions in ceramic tiles on the wall, with pilasters and columns of fanciful, curvy design, and high-arched skylights of pale stained glass. Like sitting inside of Maxfield Parrish painting. Not to be missed. [More pix.]

Sharif has signed us up for a musicale on December 2, at the Cathedral – the choir singing the Mozart Requiem, and another, contemporary choral work. I don't know if it's intentional, but that is an appropriate day for a requiem – the martyrdom of the four N. American church women in El Salvador.

After that, it will be time to head for Madrid. For some reason, there are really cheap flights everywhere. Only about $150 round-trip to Madrid from Paris. Even so, I think I may take the train back, and stop off in Barcelona, if I feel up to it. I find that I'm not as energetic as I once was, even the last time I was here three years ago. But we'll see, maybe it's just jet-lag.

I decided to pamper myself

by checking into the Crowne Plaza at Gangi airport (Singapore), there to recuperate further from the strains of India. Singapore prides itself on being a :”first-world island” in a “third-world” sea, and the rich city-state is at pains to prove it by its sleek, new airport. One of its charms is a brand-new, five-star hotel, accessible directly from the terminal. My Pusher wheeled me right to the front desk. It was pricey, but worth it. By then, I had quite a cold, and I really could use the 27-hours rest. The nice manager extended my stay to 3:00pm, and then further to 5:00, so that the Pusher could pick me up and take me to the special-services lounge the next day.

Everything about the plaza was luxurious. The interior design was calm, understated, and lush. Huge clay pots gull of cut flowers, an indoor garden out the window, lit through a glass ceiling across which ran streams of water. The room was reached through an outdoor passage, where I could briefly sample the close, humid, stifling, tropical atmosphere. (I believe Singapore is as close as I have ever been to the equator.) The manager not only checked me in early; he gave me an accessible room (mainly of interest in the bathroom) on the fifth floor. It was large and perfectly designed. A banque of windows overlooked a runway (unused, as far as I could tell). Internet connection by cable (fast and reliable – and expensive), plenty of Fijiwater in the fridge (also expensive), and a bed that I want. Really firm, king-sized pillow-top, with four huge pillows . I spent most of my time there.

There were two restaurants: a Cantonese one and a Pacific Rim eclectic, which I chose. They had a double buffet (Asian and Western) celebrating the last day of New Years (Year of the Tiger). Hideously expensive ($70! I could give Rs10 to about 315 beggars in Jaipur for that. Is there a contradiction here?) But It was worth every cent:

· Oysters, clams, mussels, prawns with mignonette and sauces

· Chinese salad of roast apples, cucumber, deep-fried tofu, and doughnut fragments. You toss it yourself at the buffet in a big bowl (which they then replace ), with shrimp/soy dressing topped with crushed peanuts

· “drunken prawns” (poached in wine)

· Braised sea-cucumbers

· Salad of finely-shredded carrots, cucumbers, &c with honey dressing

· Various flavor-bursts on single Chinese soup-spoons

· Mixed grill of various sausages and lamb chops in wine sauce

· Cheeses

· Dessert bar: ice cream, mousses, walnut torte, one-bite sweets

All of this with the assistance of a smiling waiter. (Everyone smiles in Singapore. There is probably a severe corporal penalty for frowning.)

My smiling Pusher was on time to pick me up. I had a few hours to wait in the special services lounge, but I was able to work and even to stretch out and sleep for about an hour. He came back for me and pushed me through all the formalities to the front of the gate itself. The plane was one of those new double-decker Airbuses (380). I was in the lower deck, where the little “suites” (super-first-class private compartments are located in front.

But before the rest of the economy passengers, before business class, before first class, and even before the ten august occupants of the many-thousand-dollar “suites” came Yours Truly, wheeled by my smiling Pusher, the first on the aircraft. And when I boarded the Narita/LAX flight, I had priority over even the camouflage-fatigue-clad Japanese regiment at the security check. If you have to fly, wheelchair is definitely the way to go!