Return-Path: <@cs.cmu.edu:dbo%eroica.cs@cs.utah.edu> Received: from cs.cmu.edu by PROOF.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU id aa04992; 25 Jun 92 20:57:10 EDT Received: from cs.utah.edu by CS.CMU.EDU id aa00799; 25 Jun 92 20:51:57 EDT Received: from eroica.cs.utah.edu by cs.utah.edu (5.65/utah-2.20-cs) id AA03001; Thu, 25 Jun 92 18:51:24 -0600 Received: by eroica.cs.utah.edu (5.65/utah-2.14-leaf) id AA19487; Thu, 25 Jun 92 18:51:11 -0600 To: spiro@cs.cmu.edu, petel@cs.cmu.edu (peter lee) Subject: travelogue Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 18:51:09 MDT Message-Id: <19485.709519869@eroica.cs.utah.edu> From: dbo%eroica.cs@cs.utah.edu here's the collected works. starts out slow but picks up eventually as the suspense builds. will he find an apartment? will he get his belongings? read on... === Down and Out in Paris. Copyright (c) 1990, Douglas Orr To: travels From: doug@saxo Date: Fri, 6 Apr 90 16:29:29 +0200 Subject: travelogue --- I got here a week ago last Sunday. Tricia and I have been looking fruitlessly for an apartment since. We've seen two places that have nice views of the Eiffel Tower (a feature which I found to be QUITE cool), but basically it's a pain in the ass (chiant) to get a place here. I guess it's very hard to get rid of people, once you lease to them. This, combined with the LARGE number of real French people looking for apartments, means that agencies insist on having guarantees (warranties) from employers and/or gullible loved ones to back up your feeble promises that you will not be a deadbeat. You have to make 3x the monthly rent in salary, net. In addition, they want banking histories, copies of your last 3 months pay stubs, copies of your last 3 months rent, etc.. Needless to say, I don't have many of these things in my posession, had I ever had them. C/a va. Chorus seems quite nice, so far. I had an exciting introduction when I drank way too many cre^mes (coffees) at the local cafe before getting on my 30 minute train ride. 30 excrutiating minutes later (I cannot describe how slowly that time passed) I arrived in Saint Quentin (the suburb, not the prison). It's modern. It's hip. It's happening. It's a lot of modern buildings. Everyone's been very nice so far, and very friendly. Everyone speaks French to me. I spent about an hour with Fredrick Herrmann explaining the company organization to me in French. I got almost all of it, which amazed me. I didn't fare so well at lunch when someone got onto diversions about what suicide it would be to ride a bike around here and where to buy desks. I now completely understand why foreigners sometimes smile and nod at hectic conversations. It's odd how easy it is to space out into nowhereness when you don't, without working at it, understand what's being said around you. The building is modern and is mostly large rooms with 3-4 desks in each. The people here are mostly young, hip and well dressed. Lots of the guys have earrings. This is somewhat different from many of the other people I've seen who dress kind of like the music here -- 70's retread. I can't tell what the nerd quota is here, since I can't understand most of what's said, much less the nuances. More on that as it comes. Speaking of music, I have heard many amazing things since coming here. The Cowsills rendition of "Monday, Monday." A French version of "Ruby Tuesday." And, no shit, "Feelings." All on mainstream-middle-of-the-day radio. Classic tracks on acid. I spent a pleasant few moments on Monday watching "Der Preis is Reiss" on German television. Much of the experience here defies accurate description. Buying lunch also defies description. Chorus has some deal where they give you meal stubs for which they pay for part. You can redeem these at local restaurants. Straightforward, so far. Only, at the cafeteria, you have to use their tickets. So, you have to exchange the generic tickets for these other tickets. Not just one kind, of course. You get a red ticket which admits you to the cafeteria, then some number of yellow tickets, based on an algorithm too tricky for me to completely comprehend in rapidly repeated French. I gave them nine of my tickets and 6 francs (which I am told was much like giving them ten of my tickets) and they gave me a handful of red and yellow tickets. The good news is that they accepted the tickets at the other end of the line, so at least everything was internally consistent. (Not that it would have surprised or particularly bothered me, even, if they had just asked me for some more money at the other end of the line.) Everyone's been very friendly, so far. There's a young guy from Belgium (just done with his military service, Dan) who is starting today also. We have formed the bond-of-the-new-hire (we are equivalently lost). We spent 10 minutes together trying to get the copier to work (fucking international symbols on everything an an led display telling us to press "enter"). Someone here is named "Bernard Dugor" or something like that. I think he was as happy to see me as I was to see him. Most people work on Suns (running sunos, as near as I can figure). My first task is to put sysV streams in for their sysV.4 project. Should be interesting. So ... things progress. So far everything is super (pronounced "soo-pahr", with the accent on the second syllable). The chronicles from The Land Where Jerry Lewis is King will continue soon. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue, part II Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 16:29:29 +0200 From: doug@biniou hey ... I guess I must be living in FRANCE. in case you haven't heard, I finally rented (or have almost rented) an apartment for the first of May. it was pretty tortuous, but after a week of thinking about it and phoning back and forth to chorus, the owner decided that I was an ok risk. actually, he decided the president of the company, whom it seems they want to sign the lease, was an ok risk. the apartment, sadly, doesn't have a view of the eiffel tower, but it is very close to 3 subway lines, two stops from one of the trains that goes to chorus and 4 stops from the other. it's in a very nice neighborhood with lots of neat French places for hanging out. it's clean and bright. unfortunately, it's a bit on the modern side, but, in my current state of mind, watertight and heated have much more to say for themselves than aestheticly pleasing. that's the good news, and very good news, it is. my belongings are on some unidentified tub, rocking their way to rotterdam. I got the demands from those holding my belongings today and they include the following: 1) your original form of leaving the USA from the Consulate I have in my posession a cancelled airline ticket. could this be what they mean? oh ... no. it seems they want my WORK VISA, which, of course I don't have because it takes a really fucking long time to do anything in France and they have to transmit it back to the embassy in pittsburgh (or someplace) which will, in turn, send it to my home address and I really hope my mail got forwarded like I wanted it to. and: 2) the original form of registration in your new hometown this would probably be the carte de sejour that you get from the comissariat of police after arriving in your hometown. you get the carte de sejour from the commisarriat of the area where you rent your apartment. well, since I don't EXACTLY have an apartment yet, the upshot of this is that the earliest I could have the forms I need is the first of May when I rent my ... completely empty ... apartment. of course, it takes 12 days to mail something to holland and godonlyknows how long it will take the pack mules to move my stuff from there to here. guess I had better hustle out and get that air mattress. I opened a bank account a couple of days ago. I looked into getting a savings account, but the French haven't quite hit their stride with savings account interest, yet -- 2.8% was the number quoted to me. naturally, to open a checking account, I needed my letter of attestation from my employer since, without it, I'm essentially indistinguishable from they guys in the subways with their hats on the floor and the little signs that say, "merci." I'll get my checks in a few weeks, which will be quite handy, since noone here has heard of the notion of "temporary checks." I'm spending a lot of money on bank checks. I went today to try to sign up at the local gym. I took with my my letter of attestation, announcing to anyone at the gym who might care just what my salary is. the bank was closed of course, since we're within 3 or 4 days of a catholic holiday, so I braved forth with my credit card in hand. after 20 minutes or so of gay 3rd grade level banter, we determined that they only take visa. I braved my way back to my point of origin. the gym looks pretty much like an american gym, except, of course, for the rubberbands. oh ... and the waterskiing. I still haven't figured out exactly how that one is to work. I may need a demonstration. I spent an amusing 20 minutes yesterday in a hardware store trying to explain to a young gentleman why it was that my american voltage converter was unsuitable because it had prongs that weren't long enough to fit into the outlet. I hit the wall on the French language stuff yesterday and was forced to go mcdonald's by myself, just to recharge. sometimes, having lunch with a table full of French people is very much like having lunch by yourself. paris is still beautiful. the food is still wonderful and I'm still having a good time. at work, it is getting a little tiresome how they have little champagne parties at lunchtime all the time. it is odd, what a hard time I have adjusting to some things. the inconvenience of not having ANYTHING open at night or, seemingly random times like good friday; it just makes me feel like everyone here is lazy and that can only be because I'm an american. the people look different. they're mostly thin. not a lot of fat people around here. they're small. much shorter than americans. they dress in fits and starts. Either they are much more chic than your average american (especially the women) or they are dressed kind of rattily -- in a sweater that looks like it gets worn every day and some kind-of funky pants that don't really fit. people often wear jeans that are baggy and don't fit. I don't know if that's the style or if there's just not as much of a selection of sizes. you get the impression that they, in general, have far fewer material goods than americans -- smaller wardrobes, no car, etc. when you go to someone's house for dinner, you stay 'till one and get four or five courses. it's all very good, and they all drink lots of wine. the same is true when you go out to a restaurant. they don't go out that often, and when they do it's because it's an occasion; the primary purpose is not to eat. I had dinner with one of my coworkers and a few of his friends which was like that. the food was wonderful. I understood a lot of the conversation, especially early in the evening when everyone was still trying to speak slowly. later in the evening, I got more of a taste for how hard it is for me to express complicated ideas in French. I doubt if anyone really understood what I was trying to say about national-identities or sociology. but, that's ok. I saw my first French movie sans-subtitles on tuesday. I understood most of it. it was good, but there's not the standard structure you find in american movies. it's more terrifying, because there's no particular compunction to fill in a happy ending. bad things happen to nice people. villians escape without just desserts. the humor is more black and brutal. so, I've spent the last week or so getting used to work and screwing around with the last of the apartment hassles. it's sinking in, slowly, that I'm really here. maybe next week (after the 3-day weekend for easter) I'll know what that means. -Doug >>>>> To: chorus_list From: doug@saxo france net isn't down. as you'll see from your incoming mail, I'm down. I'm down*, I'm bad* and I have an attitude*. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Keep Me Homeless under that tower, they laid me down. said, ain't no place, for yanks in this town. I smoked and I fumed 'bout this paris predic'ment. now be a-cautionin* THEM, that be wantin' that slick* rent. squeeka-squeeka squeek squeeek. squeeky squeeky squee-squee. squeeka-squeeka squeek squeeek. squeeky SQUEEKY squee-squee. cause I'm yankee born, red right, not blue. and I'm attested* for good. Michel Gien ain't no fool. (rhymes with blue) so, I'm rentin' it right, mote-piquet grenelle*. you do me some dis*, I'm the tennenant from HELL. squeeka-squeeka squeek squeeek. squeeky squeeky squee-squee. squeeka-squeeka squeek squeeek. squeeky SQUEEKY squee-squee. blood*, I'm rentin' it now, and you're leavin' it clean. for this blue-eyed amer'can lean, mean machine. gimme digs by the tower, close to line c*. cause I'm a parisien homeboy*; just a quiche-eatin' me. -Doug [Doog-bo] P.S. Let me know if you need more translation or cultural context. Glossary [glossaire] : down: knows the score bad: bad to mess with attitude: agressive approach slick: good; large caution: French contract guaranteeing that a landlord will be paid rent. obtained from some responsible person or entity attestation: French document attesting to the fact that an individual is employed by a given company mote-piquet subway stop on line 8 of the paris subway grenelle: dis: disrespect blood: friend def: good line c: RER line that goes from Paris to ST Quentin homeboy: friend; person Michel Gien: my boss -- >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue; how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm? Date: Mon, 30 Apr 90 14:29:32 +0200 From: doug@biniou La vie continue. When last we left our brave hero, I think he was congratulating himself for having narrowly escaped the French troll patrol (he was delivered from the fate of choosing the bridge with the softest foundation to sleep on). And, now I'm actually living in my new apartment. Before I continue, I should ask you if you're enjoying the day before May day, and what your plans for May day are. I assume you have the day off, right? That's right ... it's another fucking holiday here in France. As someone said recently, "the French, they love their vacations." They have two expressions for vacations here. We are currently enjoying a "pont" (bridge), which is a construction where you have a bank holiday that falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday so you can use up a vacation day and get a 4-day weekend. Better still is a "viaduct" whereby you have two vacation days within a week and for an investment of 3 days you can end up with a 9-day sweep. Chorus donates the day today, so I could go pont-ing if so desired. I was too disgusted not to show up for a little while and at least send some e-mail, just to feel like I did something. It is a glorious day outside, though, so I don't think this feeling is going to last. And, there's another 3-day weekend coming up in two weeks, so what the hell. I continue to be unable to exactly describe my parisien experience. For those interested, you should watch "Les Ripoux," "Betty Blue" "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "The Nutty Professor." We spent a total of 3 weeks waiting to find out about the apartment and another two before we could move in. For one of the weeks we ended up in this weird little apartment in the thirteenth, on the sixth (seventh to you) floor (sans ascenseur -- no elevator to you). The highlight of that week was when we tried to find something to eat on Easter Sunday and ended up at this wild brasserie/horse racing joint. It was packed with people trying to shove their way to the front to place bets. We were seated right in the middle. No croissants, but the best coffee, ham and eggs I've had here. I've moved three times since I got here and I was starting to feel like I should get a tent and a camel. I'm very glad I'm finally settled. The weather here turned dead-flat gorgeous about 4 days ago. It's in the low 70's, blue sky and very sunny. I LOVE it. It stays light until after 9 at night, now and the sun comes up by 6:00 or so. The apartment is just off the Mote-Piquet Grenelle subway stop in the fifteenth arrondissiment. There is an open-air market under the subway (it's actually an elevated railway at this stage) every Sunday and yesterday we got the best strawberries I've ever eaten there. They also sell fake-american jeans and china and meat and cheese and wine and just about anything else you could possibly want. In addition, we're in the center of the Mote-Piquet Grenelle shopping district. We're about a block from a Uniprix, which is a big department store/supermarket. There are 3 patisseries within a block (for bread and pastries) a couple of butcher shops, a charcuterie (a French deli, sort of), a fish shop, a wine shop, a greek deli, produce stores and a bunch of random stores for photo processing, linens, clothing, and the like. The one thing I haven't found is a frozen food store (that's right--they typically have stores that sell nothing but frozen food; they're called surgelles). The one thing that I haven't found within a block, that is. There is one that's about 3 blocks away. There are also bunches of good-looking restaurants in the area, including a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant, a kous-kous joint and a Russian restaurant. And, of course, there are lots of brasseries where you can go and get a coffee and hang out, outside. The ones close to the subway line are expensive; as expensive as in Montparnasse, near the railway station. There it's 15 francs for a cre^me (I think it's basically cafe' au lait, made with cream instead of milk). That's $2.80 or so ... no refil. Eggs and ham will run you another 29 francs, for the $9 breakfast special. But, it's so glorious to sit in the sun, read the Times Herald (an english language newspaper published jointly by the New York Times and the Washington Post) and watch the people go by while the creme caresses your lower consciousness, it's very hard to pass up. They also serve beer. There's also a Gymnase club nearby. That's the gym where I work out. There's one 5 minutes from where I work in St. Quentin, and the one in La Mote-Piquet is 2 minutes away, if that much. It's less than a block away and has 3 1/2 stories of just about anything you could want for exercise, plus rubberbands. That's right, weights, stretching, aerobics, 4 kinds of karate, judo, saunas, swimming, stationary bikes, treadmills, and even stairmasters. And, in stunning contrast with the gyms that I've been to at St. Quentin and Place D'Italie, there seem to be some people here who know what they're doing. I might actually start to get somewhere if I'm not careful. Not right now, of course, since they're closed for the holiday. May day, you know. There's a movie theater close by, also. They only have one screen because they show 70mm big-screen movies. We haven't gone there yet, but we have gone to a few other movies. The theaters have huge screens and REALLY comfortable chairs. The movies come out about 3 or 4 months late here and you get to see a lot of Rutger Hauer movies you might miss in the US if you didn't have cable. A movie costs $7-8. I will probably see most French movies before you do. My stuff has reached port I guess, and all I need to do is get a doctor's exam and pick up my work permit in order to get it. It is in the French Consulate in Washington and on the second of May, we're going to find out if I REALLY need to be examined by a US doctor, and if I REALLY need to go to Washington to get it. I have two more months on my tourist visa. Once I get my visa, I can go register myself to the prefecture of police. Oh boy. It's fairly empty in the apartment without any of my stuff. We bought a futon/sofa for the living room, that's currently our place-to-sit. It's also very heavy and a real pain to take up and put down. I think a click-clack sofa bed (they go click clack when you unfold them) is in our future. We bought a bunch of appliances from the woman who occupied the apartment previously, so we can eat and wash clothes. She had an american style (3/4-sized) refrigerator (when the advertise apartments they even advertise "cuisine americaine" if it has an american-style kitchen), which I have filled with beverages and ice cubes. Typically, the refrigerators here are much smaller than in the US, down to dorm-sized, even. They use lots more fresh food, so they don't keep as much on hand. This is fine, unless you decide you want a frozen daquiri. I finally got a French bank card and a checkbook. Look out world. Everyplace here takes checks. Evidently, since the French banking system is national, if you bounce a check you can be barred from writing checks for a year and that can be seriously inconvenient. Evidently, check forgery isn't a big problem. Checking accounts typically have overdraft protection, automatically, also. So, things march on here. I'm having fun. I get homesick a lot. I guess it's all the normal experience for l'etranger. I'm enjoying all of the stuff that's new and different. I'm going to try to take some French classes in a couple of weeks to help me get up to speed more effectively. But now, I should do some work. And, maybe go enjoy what's left of the May-day annex. More as it develops. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: latest movies Date: Mon, 07 May 90 16:25:26 +0200 From: doug@biniou I can't remember exactly the title (something to do with happiness or sorrow, I think), but there's an advertisement for one of the latest French movies on a lot of the kiosks around here. it pictures this very attractive (long dark hair), well built, nude, young minxette pouting in 3/4 view, with her right arm raised and holding a straight razor to her underarm. has that made it out to the Showcase yet? -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: silly americans Date: Fri, 04 May 90 10:13:43 +0200 From: doug@biniou background: when I was at work on Monday (which, it turns out was a day off because it was the day before a national holiday and you wouldn't want people coming to work within the vicinity of a national holiday) I foolishly scheduled a Mach talk for the next Tuesday which was, of course, a national holiday. all I can say is, where will it end? ------- Forwarded Message Date: Thu, 3 May 90 14:55:34 +0200 From: doug@chorus (Doug Orr) Subject: ooops ... mach talk II I'm starting to understand what people mean when they say, "every day is a holiday in France." The previously, loosely scheduled Mach talk is tentatively re-scheduled to 1400h, Thursday 17, May. If this turns out to be another national holiday (is Brigitte Bardot's dog's birthday in May, or was it August?) I'll reschedule again. -Doug ------- End of Forwarded Message >>>>> To: travels From: doug@saxo Date: Fri, 4 May 90 14:55:34 +0200 --- French personal ads. Now, in Pittsburgh, you might find something like the dominant couple looking for a black bi female midget mud wrestler. But, here in the land of Voltaire and Moiliere they go for something a little more refined (and to my jaded eyes, bizarre). Phrases in braces are in italics; the rest is bold. Gay, lively, spontanious, Carole is a veritable ray of sunshine. Single, employed, {small, slim and very cute, above all she is a sentimentalist who believes in love.} Are you are tender, are you serious but with a sense of humor? {She waits for you with all} the force of her 20 years. Laure is 21, with beautiful, laughing eyes, lots of charm and no timidity. A salsesperson, {this is a serious, couragous young woman} with plenty of tenderness. {For your intimate meetings or parties with friends, she will cook delicious treats. When} you take her hand at the cinema, to {dance or take a walk, you will see her eyes shine with joy. Single,} she is truly made for a life for two. Olin, here's one for you: A ravishing 24 year-old Eurasian, she has grace, supplety, charm and the femininity of the women of the orient, {combined with the dynamism and character of Western women.} A single commercial attache', {she is passionate about music and travel; she appreciates equally} the indoor life {(exotic cusine is no secret to her). It's} in a climate of tenderness and harmony that she envisages her life for two. Here's a scary one: A single 28 year-old hostess, she has charm, femininity, a sense of hospitality, and elegance. In addition, a sense of humor, of {fantasy and of tenderness. She is a beautiful dream, constructed to make} a life for two with you. She is {frank, balanced, sincere and motivated to achieve life as a couple and a family.} Here's one, if I weren't otherwise occupied ... Her eyes are blue, her body superb, she's a distinguished and hyper-seductive brunette. A divorced 32 year-old manager, {she has a sweet and clear vision of a couple and a family. That's what she wishes to create with respect for a} cultivated and sportive man who's up to her standards. And, the guys: 30 years old, he is a single financial director. {He has succeeded at all there is to succeed at, and it wasn't by accident.} (do you believe this?) Extremely seductive, {he's 6'1". He has class and education. He hates the ordinary. He's a super sport (golf, tennis, ...)} He knows how to communicate and how to talk about a life for two where tenderness, humor and the unexpected all have their place. Not only is he a very good-looking man, {but he has a smile ... (not everyone does here) At 6', he is strength and tenderness. His music is classical,} his sports are {fencing, diving, and skiing.} His tastes are refined, he is sensual and a {gourmet. He has a true gentleness and straightforewardness.} A single 27 year-old engineer, he loves life and wishes to pass that love on. He will be a wonderful husband and an attentive father. >>>>> Date: Sun, 27 May 90 21:09:27 -0400 From: paul@speedmetal.cool.engin.umich.edu (Paul Killey) To: doug@chorus Subject: don't move to germany! This could reflect the national mind: Love is a sleigh ride through the snow-covered countryside, and suddenly the sleigh overturns, trapping you beneath it. At night, the ice weasels come. -Nietzche Ice Weasels. Do you get David Letterman obeh deah? >>>> To: paul@speedmetal.cool.engin.umich.edu (Paul Killey), allen@kwan.enet.dec.com Subject: Re: don't move to germany! Date: Mon, 28 May 90 12:00:37 +0200 From: doug@biniou Ice weasels. Of COURSE! That's what that was last night. I got overrun by German ICE WEASELS! sonufabitch. I'm living a movie and it's fluxuates from inspector clouseau to fellini. so, kathy (from boston) wants to come to paris. she's wanted to for a while, and I told her I thought it would be ok. well, I fucked up big because I share my apartment with another person who, it just so happens, isn't ready for visitors. my sfw (small french woman) was insisting that she was going to just go to stay with friends while kathy was here. the implication was that she was either going to stay with friends or under a park bench or just throw herself into the seine and it didn't really matter anyway because her life wasn't worth living because she had no home and noone cares about her. (didn't sharphorn have some story that went like this?) so, I told kathy she would have to stay in a hotel. well, kathy was quite sympathetic right up until the point where it interfered with something that SHE wanted to do and after many long phone calls countered with something like, "I want to come stay; I want to stay with YOU and I want tricia to hang out with me during the day so I won't be lonely and if I can't do this then I don't want to come." I replied that I didn't think this would work out, but I would verify and get back to her. naturally, I was crucified for asking the question because I exhibited a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem and total insensitivity. the next day, when tricia was speaking to me again, I verified that, indeed, she did NOT want kathy staying with us just yet (in a few months would be ok) and I replied that this was fine (the TRUTH) and would relay the bad news to kathy. I called kathy and left a message because she was not there. she returned my call at sometime that I would estimate to be in the neighborhood of 11:00pm EST (because it was in the neighborhood of 5:00am local time), mad as a hornet with a lung full of raid. ooops. when she said that she wouldn't come to paris if she couldn't do things as specified, she didn't MEAN she would not come to paris. this is the vacation she's waited ALL YEAR for and she's under a LOT OF PRESSURE and her LIFE IS SHITTY and NOONE CARES about her even ME after ALL SHE'S DONE FOR ME and how could I let something that was as nonsensical as this happen because all she wants to do is sleep on the floor and if she comes to paris I HAVE to take time off of work because otherwise she would be by HERSELF and she would be BORED and it wouldn't make any sense to come all that way and spend all that money to be BORED. so, I reminded her that she was the one who wanted to come under very particular circumstances and that if she still wanted to come and stay in a hotel, it would probably work out for everyone (in an UNCHARACTERISTIC flash of brilliance I had pre-cleared this with tricia to make sure it was ok) and that I was pretty busy, but i could definitely take one day off and maybe two and no I couldn't guarantee that I could take two days off, and maybe I had done one or two things for her in the past, too and maybe there were some cultural differences here that she didn't understand and would just have to try to be a little more patient about. so, she's coming and staying in a hotel and not super-happy about it. as of 6:00am, that is. returning to bed, I found one sfw who was in a state of, shall we say, resignation. of course, I had to stay home until 10:30 and have breakfast with the sfw to visually demonstrate that, even though one of my friends is coming and she'll have to share me for a while, that I still love her. I don't expect this will be the end of the story. It may very well end with me throwing one of the involved parties in the seine. stay tuned. Ice weasels rip my flesh. You can keep this to yourself. If it ever gets back to me it will be in the form of one big fucking ice weasel. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: oh yeah... Date: Mon, 04 Jun 90 12:04:43 +0200 From: doug@saxo I almost forgot: Another thing it means to be an american is that you're hard working. I get up at 8:00 so that I can go to the gym on Sunday morning and that shocks, amazes and disgusts French people. And, did I mention that today's a holiday? -le doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 16:09:37 +0200 From: doug@swing I don't really have time to do a travelogue right now, but a travelogue has been thrust upon me, as it were. So, you've been following along with me as I have traversed the slippery course of French beaurocracy, in search of my furniture. In order to get my furniture, I need a carte de sejour. In order to get my carte de sejour, I need a visa. For a visa, I need a medical checkup. And, I had to go BACK to the US to get my visa because, of course, I can't get either the checkup or the visa to be in france...in france. I'll skip over the part where the combination of travel agency/language skills/human error left me at the airport without any tickets. After buying new tickets to California, I managed to get on the plane ok. I'll skip the meeting at Unix International. It was fairly boring except for the conspiracy theory introduced by one participant about how OSF is really a plan by vendors to control all third-party software (I later tried to explain about conspiracy theories to French people, but as with my explanation of all other IMPORTANT aspects of American culture, I think it just furthered their perception that I am strange). I bought some more tickets from California to Washington. Didn't have any of those, either. In Washington, I got up early and went to the French consulate. They gave me a bunch of forms to fill out. I filled out the forms and gave them the requisite identity photos. No transaction can be completed by the French government without another identity photo. I think they are a form of currency in some underground economy, I do not yet understand. They also gave me a form that I had to take to a doctor in Virginia. I got cab with an Iranian driver who gave me a COMPLETE description of what happened when he picked up some woman first thing in the morning who was in a bad mood and wouldn't say, "please" when she asked him to take her somewhere. He came here 15 years ago from Iran and if someone can't say "please" to him first thing in the morning, he doesn't have to take them ANYWHERE, let alone in a big hurry because he drives the SPEED LIMIT. This description meandered on for some 40 minutes. Despite the fact that I was in a big hurry, I skillfully avoided repeating her mistake. After some time, we arrived. The doctor was (by sheerest coincidence) French. The checkup was, uh, casual. I produced a urine sample which, as near as I can tell, he immediately discarded. He listened to my heart and we went into another room where he checked off huge numbers of items on his health-checklist, without really paying much attention to me at all. Afterwards, we had a nice chat where he described why this was a worthless checkup, based on 20-year old health concerns and how French medicine was, on average, just as good as US medicine. He immediately followed this assesment with a story about how he was pleasantly shocked when he came to the US and had a new entry in his examination forms he had to complete -- how long he spent with a patient. He told me that in france, since you are paid the same no matter how much time you spend with the patient, so everyone spends as little time as possible with each patient. I laughed nervously. He told me in so many words that, the big reason for health checks is the pesky colonials in poor health and bright young Americans such as myself are welcome in France. No problem. Now, BACK to the French consulate. This time I had a cab driver who was actually a marketing expert from some small African nation. He told me all about how lack of electricity and roads requires different strategies when it comes to marketing things in Africa. I also learned about how the computer in his cab worked. Uh huh. It took roughly the same amount of time to get back to the French embassy as it had to get to the doctor's office -- a millenium. I gave them the doctor's forms, signed some attestations, gave them some more photos for good measure and got my visa. At LAST. Another cab ride with an earnest young man reading a book analysing the differences between the Koran and the Bible took me to the airport, relatively happy. Well, here I am back in France, drooling slightly and all ready to get my furniture, clothes, dishes and cd's that I haven't seen for three months. I call my moving company and they describe the sixteen simple things I need to produce in order to move and then they get to...the attestation de changement de re'sidence. "Where do I get one of those," I ask brightly? "The French consulate will give you one," they reply with a dutch accent. I feel the lights growing dim. The room begins to spin. Organ music swells. I think I have died ... no. No, I haven't died. This was merely an illusion that occurred when my mind simply could not accept the realization that I received no attestation de changement de re'sidence from the French consulate I had just visited and I would probably NEVER see my cheap furniture and used clothing again. I was at the brink, looking over with the dirt slipping from under my toes. But, I dragged myself back. Once I was able to talk again I thanked the mover and called the French consulate in the US. I asked the woman (in French) if she would mind speaking in english, immediately branding myself as a moron (it is an important part of the protocol involved in speaking to someone at the French embassy that you begin by first saying something that they consider to be patently, amazingly stupid). I explained my situation. After she recovered from the shock that I was IN FRANCE, she made it clear that my problem was of a difficulty on a par with sub-atomic physics. We quickly destroyed up my simple-minded notion that I might take care of getting an attestation that I lived in france ... in france. "Well, well, you'll just have to SEND me a copy of your passport and visa," she spluttered, still barely able to comprehend the impossibility of the situation. "I can do that," I responded calmly. "But, you must pay!" she retorted, pouncing upon a gaping flaw in my argument. "I can pay," I replied, struggling to remain calm. "Can I pay in francs?" I asked. "Of course not! This is America," she sneered. (I wondered to myself what the person in front of me in line had been paying her for in francs two weeks before, but I decided not to ask.) "The rates change every 15 days -- you will call back on Monday and we do not take personal checks -- you will have to send money!" she shouted triumphantly, hanging up the phone. Ah. Of course, paying in francs would eliminate the need for conversion and without conversion I might be able to start this next leg of my journey today. Maybe, in a kinder, gentler world one might be able to do things in a simpler fashion that would make everyone happy. But, here, it's pretty clear that this is not the POINT. Regular mail to the US takes 12 days one way. Possibly, if I just gave the movers my belongings they might allow me to call it quits and I could just start over without owing anyone anything. A clean start. Just like the pioneers! We'll see. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 15:40:13 +0200 From: doug@swing I am, as usual, in a hurry today, but I'm never too busy to give a brief report from the darkest heart of the city of light. Some days life here is a Franz Kafka story; some days a Werner Fassbinder movie; some days it's the Hellen Keller story; some days it's just a record played at the wrong speed. I think I have moved up to the next plateau of beaurocracy in my dealings with customs. As you may recall, when last we left our hero he had received the news that an important piece of paper, required for transmission of his goods through customs, was waiting for him at the French consulate in washington, if only he could figure out a way to pay for it in dollars and guess how much it cost. I dutifully phoned the consulate this monday to wrangle again with the daemons who posess the keys to the doors to no-man's land. I spoke with a different person and explained my dilemma -- I am in france and I need my changement de residence form so that I can complete the customs process for my belongings. Naturally, I had to call back in an hour because it takes an hour to find one's file. Calling back I spoke with yet again another person. This person took a new approach with my problem. First, there was brief excursion into language limbo while I explained that they couldn't have my mother's address--how *she* got into this, I'll NEVER know--because she was dead. Then the surprise. "Changement de Residence?" she asked. "Well, we can send you one in the mail." I hung up stunned. You could have knocked me over with a tartellette. My euphoria lasted for at least 30 seconds. But then I realized what had happened. I must have JUST entered the next inner ring of hell. They had toyed with me enough and now they were just going to lie to me. "Sure Mssr. Orr. Pas de probleme. We'll just MAIL it to you. (Muffled hysterical laughter in the background)." French people say that americans are paranoid. Lots of French people say that. It's a common perception. They don't understand that the americans they usually come into contact with have been bludgeoned into a state of mindless incomprehension. They are cowering dogs, just waiting for their tormentors to demand that they fill out another form or visit a different bureau. There's only so much can-do spirit in a person and they know it. Well, anyway, I'll know in a few days if I'm really in the inner ring or not. I still have a little of my can-do stuffing so I think I can go another round. As soon as I finish with this message I'm going to try to reinstate my american car insurance long-distance. This weekend I went to see Visconti's "Ludwig" -- a franco-germano-italiano historical psychological suspence drama. It was a lot like Lawrence of Arabia, in that it was very long. The main theme seemed to be that if you were a young 19th century Bavarian king, devoutness and purity of spirit just couldn't compete with the 300 years of inbreeding that went into your highly unsound genetic makeup and ultimately you would end up locked alone in a little white room with bad teeth and a bad attitude. The movie was in italian with French subtitles, and many of the actors were obviously dubbed from whatever their original non-italian languages were. On occasions such as these, I sometimes wonder why they don't just hire a cast of eskimos and save themselves some money. That to the side, it should be noted that my impressions are affected to some extent by questions of ... uh ... interpretation. Ludwig was doing just fine until they made him king at age 19. He was young, devout and innocent. He became obsessed with the music of Wagner and payed him outrageous sums to produce "Tristan" in Bavaria. (Even so, it took the counsel 25 years to figure out that he was nuts.) He fell in love with Romy Schneider. She was no good for him. She was his cousin. He married Sophie. He never fell in love with her. She was his cousin. He took to his bed with a bottle of chlorophorm and his teeth turned black and his eyes got red, and he finally retired to a bavarian chateau with about 40 male models in liederhosen. The evil counsel members plotted to throw him out and he was betrayed and brutally killed on the moors. The moral is, the good may die young, but sometimes it takes them more than three hours to do so. Is it any wonder people fear German unification? I am losing my ability to use any language whatsoever. I nearly said, I "took a pizza." These days, I "make a vacation." Often, adverbs leap out of order in sentences, seemingly out of my control. I like fool myself into thinking I'm evolving into a higher order species, but I fear the reality is probably not so pretty. In any case, I had a pizza yesterday in a small French pizzaria. Towards the end of the meal some people came in. It quickly became obvious they were german. They began conversing with everyone in the restaurant about how proud they were that the germans were the third in the world in football (soccer) and how the one had won a large bottle of whiskey from the other, betting on the match. I was reminded of the scene in Casablanca where the occupying german soldiers are singing patriotic songs and the French drown them out, playing La Marseilles. We paid the check and left. So, in short, the situation is as normal as it gets around here. I'm just listening to my French rockabilly cd and trying to figure out how to say "fragmentation" in a different language. More as it develops. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: don't worry, be frenchie (mini-travelogue) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 90 13:39:11 +0200 From: doug@swing This is more of a collection of random cultural thoughts than anything else. I am sitting here, slaving over this comparison between Mach and Chorus and random overgeneralizations are leaking out the edges. One of the interesting differences between Mach and Chorus is that Chorus philosophy does not discourage putting things in the kernel. It is passively approved of because Chorus provides mechanisms and a framework for doing so. It's OK to put things in the kernel. As I pondered this, I realized that this was more of a reflection of national character than a design decision. It's OK. Here in france, it's OK. It's OK to eat red meat. It's OK. It's OK to drink alcohol and eat butter and lots of salt. It's OK to do your laundry on a seasonal basis. It's OK. It's OK to exploit women. It's OK to smoke. It's OK not to exercise. It's OK to complain. Skip the shower; just take a sponge bath. It's OK. It's all ... OK. Some of these thoughts are prompted by the fact that it's been hotter than hell here for the last week and facilities such as air conditioning were evidently among the trappings of the bourgeois that were destroyed during the revolution. My daily metro rides are a new experience in ... wheeeuuuugggh. I have joined the legion of weinies sporting bottles of spring water on their desks. The european windows open ALL-THE-WAY; no screens. Here on the fourth floor, through the heat vapor, the outside looks cool and inviting. I have shaken myself back to consciousness each time before climbing out to relief. So far. Oh, before I forget, here's a quick language lesson. I think some of you may have gotten groundings in this already: basser: [bay-say] to lower baiser: [bay-zay] to fuck queue: [kuh] a queue cul: [kooh] ass presarvatif: [pray-zer-fa-teef] condoms Is it any wonder Jerry Lewis is a national hero? So, it's the dog days here in Paris in August. The parisiens are leaving in flocks for the country (presumably, the country dwellers are flocking into paris -- it's not clear you'd want to stick around with all of those parisiens on their way). It's nights of cool movie theaters and begging waiters for just a few more ice cubes. But ... it's OK. -Doug >>>>> To: doug@chorus Cc: travels, allan@chorus Subject: glossary addendum In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 03 Aug 90 09:55:22 +0200. <6618.649670122@swing> Reply-To: allan@chorus Date: Fri, 03 Aug 90 10:57:17 +0200 From: allan@chorus > Oh, before I forget, here's a quick language lesson. I think some > of you may have gotten groundings in this already: > basser: [bay-say] to lower > baiser: [bay-zay] to fuck You left out one of my favorite problems with the French language: baiser (v): [bay-zay] to fuck baiser (nm): [bay-zay] a kiss As in: Donne-t-elle un gros baiser de ma part. [give her a big ? from me ...] Now, as an American, not fluent in the language, what am I *supposed* to think this means? Another one that sort of bothers me is: montrer [moan-tray] to show monter [moan-tay] to mount/to go up I invariably get these two confused and instead of asking someone to show me something, I end up asking them to mount me. I'm not sure if it has the same meaning, but it makes me nervous none-the-less. Plus tard, L'etranger >>>> To: travels Subject: minor cultural notes (mini-travelogue) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 90 15:19:18 +0200 From: doug@swing Well, it's August in Paris, and it's everything it's cracked up to be: hot and deserted. The Parisians, like the Vulcans, must make their periodic treks and every twelve months, they pile into their cars like clockwork and make the great Gallic exodus. Recent hires like Tricia don't have the requisite vacation time, so they can't join in the Renault wagon-train down south. She spends a fair amount of time gazing wistfully out the window muttering things about, "bord de la mer." French, as I may have alluded, is a wily and subtle language. It's an old language that was designed before there was the widespread possibility of having more than 60 things. As a result, the word for seventy is actually just sixty plus ten. The word for eighty is four times twenty, and ninety is four times twenty plus ten. This may seem like a clever economy until you try to take an eight digit phone number from someone: oui, le numero est soixante quinze soixante quinze soixante quinze which is either 60.15.75.75 or 75.60.15.75 or 75.75.60.15. I expect there is some verbal clue you're supposed to give and get to disambiguate this string of gibberish, but I'm neither wily nor subtle enough to do so. It's also possible that the inventor of the French number system just went on vacation once he got to 60. Our harder-working more practical belgian neighbors saw the folly in this and invented words for seventy and ninety; a feat that greatly increased the haughty disdain in which they are held by their French cousins. The ever thorough swiss completed the belgian system with a word for eighty, silently reconfirming the longstanding French suspicion that they do not know how to enjoy life. Last night I had paille (spelling uncertain--pay-ay'-ya) at a basque restaurant. Thoughts of paille now bring two phrases to my mind: "hunker down" and "splatter." The three are forever connected. Vacation time in France is kind of nice. The French seem to view life as a series of inconvenient interludes between vacations. My favorite cafe' is closed, so I can't get breakfast on the weekend (tastes great, but not very filling, like a lot of things in life). Lots of things are closed, but that is offset by the great lack of crowds and traffic. There are lots of noisy American tourists here. If you go someplace where you don't speak the language, don't make this common mistake: just because the people around you probably can't understand you, don't confuse this with their not being able to HEAR you. I know lots of details of things from travel plans to sex lives of visitors to this fine city that I might not have been otherwise privy to. And, if you don't want to be accidentally taken for a native, be sure you wear a fanny pack, new rebox, and several flourescent colors -- gore-tex, preferably. It's in the 90's again today. The air conditioning at work is still broken (actually, not installed, but I prefer to think of it as being broken; my boss says the only thing worse than the heat is the Americans complaining about the lack of air conditioning). And, it's time to get back to work so that I can drag my sweaty carcas back home and sit in the bathtub with the hand sprayer. Or, take a shower, as we say. Stay cool. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: movie review Date: Mon, 27 Aug 90 09:39:41 +0200 From: doug@swing The summer is drawing to a close here in Paris, which means that we're being treated to the raft of movies the rest of the civilized world sees at the beginning of the summer. And a number that the rest of the civilized world might never see. Bruce Willis' latest try hard epic has opened with its enticing promise of brawn triumphant, but on Saturday night, it seemed like a better idea to dwell within the darkness of the inner self; to plumb the depths of a twisted soul in torment; to gaze through the funhouse mirrors at the agonies of the past. So, I went to see a French movie. "Nuit d'Ete en Ville," roughly translated means "A night of naked self-examination in the summer in the city." In this sense, it is the perfect European movie. It is the kind of movie that American critics love to praise for its sensitivity (which is a code for obscurity). Sensitive movies are kind of like sensitive guys--you kind of need them to round out the collection, everybody praises them, but nobody REALLY likes them. The movie opens late at night with two very naked people discussing the joys and heartbreaks of their lives. It ends with two naked people discussing the joys and heartbreaks of their lives. The time between is nicely bridged with the two naked people discussing the joys and heartbreaks of their lives. She is terrified of being alone. When she sleeps, he tries to leave. She awakens and is terrified. They cry. They take a bath. There is a lot of zooming in on feet and hands that I did not completely understand. I think the film was pretty much a low-budget "Less Than Zero," where cocaine had been replaced with high-grade French coffee. These people just drank too DAMN much coffee and as a result feel compelled to prattle at one another about their dreams and fears and compulsively put on and remove clothing at a high rate of speed. It is advertised as "the experience of a life time, as lived in one night." Well, I don't know about you, but I go to sleep at night because in the morning I have to get up and go to WORK. Always a different perspective, here in France. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue: the carte de sejour Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 09:54:36 +0200 From: doug@swing I got my carte de sejour today. Nearly had to strangle a small nasty foreigner (neither French nor american) who thought he could jump the line in front of me (there were only two of us in the office -- I don't know WHO he thought he was fooling, AND I am about a foot taller than he is). I had a fairly amazing time finding the damn place. I found the Palais de Justice on the advice of a policeman. 3 separate policemen within the Palais de Justice directed me to different corners where I could find my destination. The fourth policeman informed me that what I was looking for was actually the Prefecture de Police across the street. I innocently wandered across the street (why I believed him any more than the others, I'm not sure) and looked for the reception. I asked about where to pick up my carte de sejour. They tried to get me to sign up for a new carte de sejour (if you remember, this is where we found our hero sometime around the beginning of June). This is a standard French trick. Several minutes of French (or whatever you want to call what I speak) and wild gestures later, I made it clear that I didn't want a NEW carte de sejour. There was ALREADY a carte de sejour waiting for me, possibly somewhere in that very building. Ah. Escalier F, s'il vous plait. Merci beaucoup. Escalier F. Simple enough. Out to the courtyard and to the sign Escalier F. Now ... what floor? Bureau 5, according to my notes. A quick trip to the elevator and up to the ... hmm ... only 4 floors. Well, we'll try the 4th floor. 1935 elevator; someone's scrawled "asshole" in French on the doors. This proceeds. 4th floor and all of the signs seem to pertain to political prisoners or something. Probably on the 3rd floor. Nope. Second floor. Nope. Lots of policemen here. They regard me with interest. Hurry down to the first floor. The first floor was more like it. Lots of offices having to do with cartes and travail and sejours and the like. Well, too many, really. The first office, with what I took to be the most logical name for what I was trying to do contained a desk a woman and about 5 people. We got down to 1 and the small person-raised-in-a-land-without-queues entered and tried to insinuate himself between me and the desk. "EXCUSEZ-MOI," I said, levelling a glance that could have flattened a much taller person. He relented. The kind woman in that office looked at my convocation and informed me that the room I wanted was just at the entrance to the corridor. "Did she know the number?" Well, something like, (insert 3 worthless, random numbers here). Each of the people in each of the rooms at the entrance to the corridor roughly repeated the performance found in the first. I tried a couple of other rooms along the way, just for good measure. Some of them were marked, "no admittance to the public," but I pretended I didn't understand that. All in all, I tried most of the rooms that had some combination of the words, "sejour," "carte," "travail," "visa," or "etranger" in their titles. Each place offerred some new advice, for which I gave them due heed and credit. Finally, someone figured out that I wanted "Salle Est" which was on the first floor. She explained this in loud, slow French, clearly indicating to the rest of the crowded room that she was talking to either a moron or a foreigner or both. For good measure, I tried another room and got the same advice. And, indeed, "Salle Est" was on the first floor. Not unclearly marked. I wandered in. Calcutta. Mexico City. Imagine a crowded place. Oh ... there's my pal from upstairs and several people are glaring at him already as he tries to ooze forward unnoticed. But, he did get here before I did, so I pay no attention. Evidently, he's shorter AND smarter than I am. But, things picked up from here. They collected our appointment slips and I went to the head of the line and zipped quietly out, well ahead of you-know-who. Evidently, the French diety of burocracy is just and does keep score. If you were wondering. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue: anophelophobia ... the domination Date: Fri, 14 Sep 90 09:26:09 +0200 From: doug@swing (The title may make more sense to those of you who have seen, "Ninja III: The Domination." Maybe not.) We've all heard of mosquitos capable of carrying off small children. Here in Paris, we have mosquitos those mosquitos call, "sir." Bred for ferocity and capacity in secret underground laboratories, they are exhibited at livestock shows -- testimonials to superior French genetic engineering skills. At night, winged troops invade the gallic countryside, draining cows. They invade the countryside, that is, those that are not already engaged in steady vigils by my bedside. As indicated, these are no ordinary mosquitos. Pests for the 90's, they are the stealth bombers of the insect family. Fully versed in gliding and detection avoidance, the slip effortlessly past the tightest defense perimeters. Having zeroed in on their target, they light, jump-jet perfect, and reconnoiter. A creamy white texan landscape stretches before them with rivers of liquid gold pulsing beneath. Drawing a breath, they savor a moment of perfect anticipation -- then strike home. Inch after inch of proboscis plunges towards union with destiny. Only keen judgement and strict discipline prevent these vicious wunder-bugs from running their victims through, pinning them helpless to the mattress in a cruel entymological parody. Having drunk their fill, they withdraw. They leave behind fused and bubbling flesh. The toxins they spew on exit are bought in quantity from a cooperative West German chemical firm. Sated and spent, they reel silently away. I awake from peaceful nightmares minutes later, to find another swelling bump; another searing itch. I slap desperately and out of control, my limbs slabs of lifeless meat. I writhe and burn and my screams of rage are devoured by the night. For a moment in the darkness, I think I hear a tiny, high-pitched laughter. -Doug >>>>> To: bricker@cs.wisc.edu Cc: travels Subject: if you talk to ... Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 08:24:34 +0200 From: doug@swing If you talk to your friend at eecs at U of M, tell him he's made a terrible mistake. He (probably one of his minion) accidentally gave MY doug account to someone who has the strong appearance of being a wiener. As soon as I come to my senses about this france thing, I am almost certainly going to go running home (Ann Arbor) and be VERY pissed off if this little wanker is still squatting on my account. I mean, I'm an ESTEEMED alumnus (when you think of Michigan computing, it's pretty much me and Bill Joy, right?) and Doug Van Halen ... er ... Van Houelling, the revered VICE PROVOST of computing doesn't even have a doug account at eecs. I could see getting kicked for the guy that buys all of the computers for the lit school, but for some untenured, unlettered, student who doesn't even have a BUDGET? This guy smells like an UNDERGRADUATE! Get SERIOUS. In the mean time, there is still a doug alias, by means of which I have been getting an increasing amount of mail of the form: From: Mail Delivery Subsystem Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Message-Id: <9009200328.AA03023@sparky.eecs.umich.edu> To: doug@sparky.eecs.umich.edu ----- Transcript of session follows ----- 550 fortune... User unknown ----- Unsent message follows ----- Received: by sparky.eecs.umich.edu (5.61+++/2.00-alpha) id AA03021; Wed, 19 Sep 90 23:28:09 -0400 Date: Wed, 19 Sep 90 23:28:09 -0400 From: Doug Rothert Message-Id: <9009200328.AA03021@sparky.eecs.umich.edu> To: fortune "Never spit on a gift snake." ---- Adds insult to injury. Know what I mean? -the real doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: important furniture update Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 10:27:51 +0200 From: doug@swing Well, my furniture is ... (the tension mounts) still in AMSTERDAM! (How many remember the Saturday Night Live world reports where they announced every week the health status of Franco, after he had died: Franco is dead ... Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead ... Tonight, Franco continues to be in grave condition, ... etc.?) The reason I bring this up is because our network is down, also. I can't ftp files from the US because the link is broken. It's broken in Amsterdam. It seems, Amsterdam is kind of like the bus stop at the river styx. I have never been there, but I envision these huge piles of used clothes, cd's, and old network packets lining the streets, like so much refuse during a garbage strike. The moving company is, evidently, now trying to figure out how to get from Amsterdam to Paris. I believe they'll be taking the great polar route. I hope they pack enough food for the sled dogs. I would go and fetch my stuff myself, but I'm afraid I'd find out that the only way I'm allowed to have my things is if I wrestle with some guy wearing a hooded robe and weilding a sythe. I think I'll just buy new clothes and cd's. -Doug P.S. Naturally, our mail takes a different route, which is why you may see this message. Or, then again, maybe you won't. The whole thing is very French. >>>>> Return-Path: mandy%telomere@LANL.GOV Received: from p.lanl.gov by chorus.chorus.fr, Thu, 27 Sep 90 18:54:22 +0200 Received: from telomere.lanl.gov by p.Lanl.GOV (5.61/1.14) id AA05157; Thu, 27 Sep 90 10:54:14 -0600 Received: from vector. (vector.ARPA) by telomere.lanl.gov (4.0/5.17) id AA13408; Thu, 27 Sep 90 10:54:58 MDT Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 10:54:58 MDT From: mandy%telomere@LANL.GOV (Amanda A. Ford) To: doug@chorus Subject: Re: important furniture update Hi Doug, Interesting that you should be having problems with Amsterdam... My brother has an interesting circularity story with regard to same. He was an exchange student in Norway for a year in high school, and made a comment to his host family about the reputation of the Scandinvians for free sex--in short, the great Norwegian sex myth. They said, oh no, that's in Sweden, not Norway; they are the ones with loose morals. Later he made a trip to Stockholm, and told someone there the the Norwegians had assured him that the Scandinavian sex myth was alive and well in Sweden. Of course they denied it--COPENHAGEN, of course! Naturally, a trip to Copenhagen was in order (he was a puberty case, you know), and you can guess the result-- AMSTERDAM! Well, the honest and moral folks in Amsterdam denied everything, and sent him back to Oslo. Now we can deduce from this exchange that someone was not being perfectly truthful. Any ideas? -Mandy >>>>> To: doug@chorus Cc: travels Subject: Re: important furniture update Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 11:15:12 +0200 From: grob@chorus Dear Doug, I don't want to imply anything personal about you but our furniture left NY on July 13 or 14 and arrived in Paris about 2 weeks later and was delivered (even those pcs that had to be carried up 14 flights) a few days later. Thus, it seems to me that this is more likely something particular about YOUR furniture. There may be some reason that they won't let it into France. Then you say the network is down and you can't ftp? I suggest that it is some kind of plot, have you noticed people following you? Do strange men in trenchcoats come up to you and mumble meaningless phrases? Lori >>>>> To: lori Cc: travels Subject: a minor question Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 13:49:14 +0200 From: doug@swing Since you've admitted knowledge of the existence of the men in the trenchcoats (something none of your FELLOWS has the courage to do), you can answer a vital question: what are they DOING with all of those tissue samples? Lori, I feel certian we're working towards a similar goal, so you can tell me ... are YOU in charge? -Doug >>>>> To: doug@chorus Cc: travels Subject: Re: a minor question In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 27 Sep 90 13:49:14 +0200. <11166.654436154@swing> Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 15:30:09 -0400 From: paul killey Are the men in trenchcoats wearing pants? Maybe there is a simple explanation for all this. >>>>> Date: Thu, 27 Sep 90 13:15 EDT From: JONES%cgi.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Amsterdam To: doug%chorus.fr@RELAY.CS.NET We have also never been to Amsterdam. This is because last fall one of my friends went there. Her rental car was broken into and had the radio stolen. The Amsterdam policeman said "Why do visitors to our country come here? Why don't you go to a nice place? You'd be having a much better time right now if you were in Utrecht." So Mike and I went to Utrecht and had fun. --Trish >>>>> To: travels Subject: the unthinkable happens Date: Fri, 05 Oct 90 09:21:42 +0100 From: doug@swing I am filled with profoundly mixed feelings and I'm not sure why. My stuff arrived yesterday. In the thrall of relief, there was a pretty big pang of confusion. Stage II of "what the FUCK am I doing?" I think. Again, stony reality intrudes on my small world. And, small my world is. Boy, oh boy, I thought my apartment in Pittsburgh was a little on the cramped side. Little did I know I was living in Tara. 60 square meters just isn't that much space. And, when you add the european disdain for closets and storage space -- let's just say I've got a lot of boxes sitting in the middle of my living room and I'm finally going to be FORCED to fold my clothes neatly. In the afternoon, surrounded by boxes of books I have no bookshelves for, I listened to my long-lost cd's in total rapture (until my dinky little transformer overheated). I worked out in my University of Hawaii t-shirt and finally out-Americaned the French people. [You would think you're at some sort of national intermural playoff most days at the Grenelle Gymnase club. EVERYONE is wearing something from Duke or USC or U-Maryland. I had to ask the guy wearing the Worchester Polytechnic Institute sweatshirt (or "sweet-shar," as we say here) if he had really attended there. No ... a friend of his.] I nearly cried when I found a bunch of books I had forgotten about that I haven't yet read. And, I wondered over and over just exactly what I was thinking of when I brought all of this stuff. For the most part, vigorous grumbling not withstanding, I have gotten along without this stuff for 6 months. I've replaced any essentials that were missing. And, then all of these boxes show up. Do you have any IDEA how many pairs of athletic socks I own? I started on the kitchen stuff, but I gave up when I got to a pile that included some chopsticks, a bottle opener from the Pittsburgh Hilton I got when I was 13, a pastry cutting device I've never used, some tongs, and a meat-thermometer. I don't have any drawers in my kitchen. But, there's a storage room in the basement and that's where a lot of this stuff will go. Summer clothes and all of the books I couldn't leave behind but am certainly not going be reading any time soon. Tomorrow I'm going to go to IKEA and buy a cupboard. Never bought a cupboard before. It seems to be a very european thing to do. Today I dressed in my faded jeans with the big holes in the knees, an old favorite sweater, and my jeans-jacket. I've been told I look like a gangster. Basically, I am content. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue ... daily goings on Date: Mon, 15 Oct 90 13:48:55 +0100 From: doug@swing Life in France continues in fits and starts. Some things continue to defy description. I was leaving the post office the other day and I was accosted by the man who was in line in front of me. "Where are you from?" he asked. (Europeans don't seem to understand the game that we play in America where we try and be polite and PRETEND the person we're talking to isn't really a foreigner, even though we can only make out every other word they are saying.) "Les Etats-Unis," I said with mild trepedation. Saying you're from America is like saying you just bought a motorcycle--it's not something that people approach with indifference. When you buy a motorcycle, everyone feels compelled to tell you the tragic story their poor retarded cousin JimBob and how well he used to be able to walk before HE bought a motorcycle. The european response is a little less predictable, although it usually takes one of three forms: a) I am thanked for liberating the French during the war. (I've given up protesting this and have taken to modestly accepting the thanks; perhaps in return I should be thanking them for sending Lafayette to help us with the British. I haven't quite gotten the protocol down.) b) I am told the United States are wonderful because they have credit cards and salad bars (and Elvis, crack, and Jerry Falwell, but why muddy the picture?) A variant of this involves my being told how nice California is. c) I am told they were sure I was Swiss. (Every day I am here, I thank God Ronald Regan is not president.) So, after determining that he had a real-live authority on the line, the guy at the Post Office started firing tons of questions about how much it cost to live in the US, etc. I tried to be polite, but his approach to personal hygene (thinking chain-smoking in a phone booth would be a good substitute for using a laundry once or twice a year) was gaving me a yen to move along. This was all in French, of course, but I thought I was doing all right until he got to the thrust of his query: "What about the stamps?" he demanded in an ahah-now-I've-got-you tone. I looked around cautiously to verify he was still talking to me and to asked him to repeat. "What about the stamps?" he repeated, clearly losing patience. I frantically tried to recall what it was those two guys kept screaming at Dan Rather while they were illegedly beating him up. Well, evidently I had run into some half-crazed stamp collector who was barely keeping himself going with the thought that one day he might go to America where the streets are paved with stamps. "They have lots of stamp shops, yes?" "Do they have French stamps there?" "The stamps are cheap, yes?" And, your ambassador to the world performed pretty sadly this day. The best I could do was recommend that maybe it would be good if he went someplace other than New York City ("There must be LOTS of stamp shops in New York, yes?") because there were stamp shops all over the country ("Ooooh.") and hotels were expensive in New York ("Aaah.") Moving from the ridiculous to the sublime, I (by coincidence a non-tourist) experienced a sublime near-ultimate tourist experience yesterday. The sfw (small french woman) and I went out for a noonish promenade in the latin quarter, in search of the ultimate French brunch. After several near misses (no brunch served, reservations only), we were nearing exhaustion. Tricia threatened to faint, so we veered into a plain-old brasserie, our hopes for the ultimate brunch had wavered but we still clung to the thought of maybe getting a decent snack. Well, the musical chairs method isn't always the best way to choose a restaurant. The brasserie we were next to when the music stopped was right across the street from Notre Dame. "I wonder if lots of tourists come here?" I shouted to myself as we entered, over a deafening chorus of American voices. We walked in young people; we were considerably older before the waiter deigned to grace us with a brief but highly disagreeable visit. I let Tricia order since I'm told that occasionally (if I'm running a high fever or am extremely overtired) I have a slight accent. Well, evidently he wasn't buying it. I should have shaved or not worn the sneakers, I guess. Immediately he switched into his best Faulty-Towers-school-of-table-waiting pose. With each additional item we attempted to add (2 cre^mes, and 2 tartine-with-butters and jam making a total of 5), he rolled his eyes heavenward and uttered a near-audible prayer that we and all other tourists be wiped from the face of the earth by a freak meteor storm. We were actually there for lunch, so I asked him for a menu after we got done ordering the French (bread and coffee) portion of our breakfast. I received the look that says so much more: Oh ... OH ... here he was trying to complete the 7 TRIALS OF HERCULES and MR TOURIST (yes, he knew ALL ALONG that I was a STINKING TOURIST as if I thought that I could HIDE by not TALKING) wants a MENU. I could feel our downhill lunch experience picking up speed. We studied the menu for a while, mostly, because there wasn't anything else to read. We memorized the menu. We memorized the menu, read backwards. We made up complicated anagrams in several languages with the contents of the menu. Some time later, after we had discarded the menu in favor of staring into space, our coffee arrived along with the traditional roll of cash register tape containing our subtotal. Mr. Charm killed imaginary cockroaches with each of our items, spraying food and drink for several meters in all directions. "And, we'll take 2 'mignons'" I asserted in my best, I-live-in-Paris so-don't-screw-with-me tone. "Oh ... OH" he snarled, picking up the cash register tape, "you're SUPPOSED to order ALL AT ONCE." I glanced around to verify that I was, indeed, in a food service establishment as I desperately tried to remember how to say "listen, asshole" in French, but he was gone by the time I looked back. "We must have revenge," Tricia declared through clenched teeth, revealing a side of her personality I had, until now only suspected. I thougt about trying to defuse some of her anger, but decided to leave this fight for the locals. While Tricia searched frantically for addition errors in the bill, I comforted myself with thoughts of the "mignon" to come -- eggs and sausage in a mustard sauce cooked in a casserole. The coffee hadn't been too bad. Maybe the best approach would be to forgive and forget and just try to enjoy what was left of the afternoon. It's very crowded here. After all, anyone can have a bad day. We saw our waiter quite regularly as the afternoon wore on. Each time he'd bring some new variant of, "it's on the way." We read the menu some more, took a short nap, and finally he brought out two steaming casseroles. Mmmm. With ridiculously heightened anticipation I lifted the lid. Hmmm. Well, looks a little greasy, but ... hmmm ... is that sausage ... looks like ... yeah, it looks a lot like a ... hot dog? Well, it was true. Tricia and I had somehow ordered something frequently served to 5-year olds--greasy fried eggs with a chopped up hot dog in them. We gobbled down our ... delicious meal. I restrained from making humorous comments to Tricia about French cuisine that might have provoked a nasty scene. We received the second portion of our bill and I plopped down on the order of thirty dollars. We fled, grateful to escape with our lives. As we left, Tricia told me she wasn't feeling well and might faint. I assured her that she'd be fine. -Doug >>>>> To: doug@chorus Subject: Re: travelogue ... daily goings on Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 00:42:50 EDT From: Joseph.Bates@WIZARD.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU Poor sfw. I hope she is feeling better. But I don't understand how she could have been unable to make the gentleman squirm like a fish in a toiletbowl. Is there such a thing as tipping in France? Or using all the ketchup? I think in this case you must act like a tourist, an ugly, loud, stupid, dangerous tourist, a tourist who knows who saved whom when whom wimpily let their country be overrun during the Big One, W W 2. This kind of tourist is not going to be run over by some FRENCH guy. This kind of tourist knows he can't and won't be held accountable for anything because he has no brain and certainly no manners. This kind of tourist makes mistakes, like dropping plates, and then brays loudly in amusement. This is the guy who likes Larry, Moe, and Curly, well placed banana peels, and flattening bear cans against his wife's butt. You know the sort of fellow, and I hope in the future you show the Frenchman how his fevered imaginings actually look when materialized before his eyes. America is counting on you, good buddy. Standing Tall Again, Joe >>>>> To: Joseph.Bates@WIZARD.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: travelogue ... daily goings on Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 13:04:58 +0100 From: doug@swing Poor sfw. I hope she is feeling better. But I don't understand how she could have been unable to make the gentleman squirm like a fish in a toiletbowl. Is there such a thing as tipping in France? Or using all the ketchup? I think in this case you must act like a tourist, an ugly, loud, stupid, dangerous tourist, a tourist who knows who saved whom when whom wimpily let their country be overrun during the Big One, W W 2. This kind of tourist is not going to be run over by some FRENCH guy. This kind of tourist knows he can't and won't be held accountable for anything because he has no brain and certainly no manners. This kind of tourist makes mistakes, like dropping plates, and then brays loudly in amusement. This is the guy who likes Larry, Moe, and Curly, well placed banana peels, and flattening bear cans against his wife's butt. You know the sort of fellow, and I hope in the future you show the Frenchman how his fevered imaginings actually look when materialized before his eyes. America is counting on you, good buddy. Tipping? Sadly, there's this term "service compris" which appears on most menus hereabouts and translates as, roughly, "you're screwed." We debated deducting the tip from the total, but I'm a foreigner here and I'm still uncomfortable with acts that might ultimately result in my deportation to Algeria. Tricia was quite willing to go toe to toe with this guy. The problem was that after eating the hotdogs we both lost a lot of our ... zeal. In retrospect, I realized that I made the same mistake we made with Hitler in Poland--by not throwing a few plates around or "accidentally" spilling coffee down the front of his little sissy-boy waiter outfit, by not showing him whose GNP was bigger, I was implicitly approving his agression. But, don't worry. I've LEARNED from my mistake. As soon as I can figure how to say, "this is an outrage you flouncy little pancake pusher!" I'll march right back there and teach him the MEANING of the word respect. The pride is BACK. You can COUNT on ME. -Doug >>>>> To: jbates@cs.cmu.edu Subject: the price of fame Date: Mon, 15 Oct 90 09:56:38 +0100 From: doug@swing Joe! I have shrivelled up and died of envy. I suspect you may have already seen this, but, in case not, let me quote: "... and hippie computer hackers created an interactive environment simulator called virtual reality. Olin's friends get their own GAP ads and your bunch makes it into the Spy 100 (number 60, but with a bullet, I'm SURE). For an ordinary guy like me, mass murder is pretty much the only way to this kind of fame. But, at least I can tell people that I know you (and that I think you must know Tim Leary). -Doug >>>>> To: doug@chorus Subject: Re: the price of fame Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 00:02:51 EDT From: Joseph.Bates@WIZARD.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU Foolish names and foolish faces often appear in public places. Yeah, I know Tim. Weasel owes me twenty bucks. Joe >>>>> To: travels Subject: vacationlogue Date: Thu, 08 Nov 90 21:16:17 +0100 From: doug@swing I have been gratified that a number of my friends have taken time to comment that they are enjoying my tales from the dark continent. The bleaker aspects of my adventures seem to be particularly popular. In fact, the worse off I become, the more pleasure my friends seem to derive. I'm sure I'll find a good light to put this in eventually. In the mean time, I'll tell you about my latest vacation. I started by zipping briefly to the US to move my car. Local wits have wondered if it was double parked. Ha ha. I had barely been able to persuade the Mensette travel agent I picked from thousands to give me a connection that left AFTER the incoming flight had arrived. I think she hand-picked my travelling companions who were: a) a somewhat addled, hard of hearing old priest b) a somewhat addled, hard of hearing old Italian gentleman who spoke no english. Chrisitian charity being what it is, they tried to communicate for an hour in a by shouting things in different languages at each other. "MAFIA!" "EETALEEE ... much MAFIA EEEN EETALEEE." "KEEL LOTS PEOPLE." "PIZZA? YOU LIKE PIZZA? PASTA FAZOO?" "TASTES GOOOOOD? MMMMMM????" "WAR, 44 ... KEEEL LOTS PEOPLE." After sprinting through Kennedy to catch my plane all I wanted to do was sit and sweat, but instead I spent an hour saying things like, "NO ... he SAID 'THEY KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE,'" "NO ... he SAID 'you like PIZZA?'" "No Miss, he wanted Mineral Water, not Miller Lite." Ten rows in both directions wanted the three of us dead and I was pretty much in total agreement. As I say, I moved my car. Sometime during a five hour drive after the eight hundred seventy second chorus of 99 bottles of beer on the wall (my car radio is, I think, in Amsterdam) I lost my will to warble and my voice took on the tonal characteristics of a poorly maintained transmission. To soothe my inflamed bronchii, I tried an old family cure and scrubbed them with cat hair. Astonishingly, my condition degraded. On the return flight, somewhere over the Atlantic, Arab terrorists detonated something inside my head. My eustatian tubes seared, packed full of healthy low-altitude high-pressure air, and my trip was suddenly transformed into the Helen Keller travel experiences -- I would stare dizzily down what appeared to be a long, moving tunnel and croak a request to the (Air France) attendant who would stare blankly back, mumble something in French I couldn't HEAR much less UNDERSTAND, and then give me some more Evian, independent of whatever I was actually trying to get. I sat next to the usual sort of mixture of travellers you get on Air France. One was an American who appeared to be 19 and was coming to Paris to appear in the touring version of 42nd Street. He was in a confused state not knowing what he was getting into going to a foreign country where he did not speak the language, so I hit him up for free tickets. The other was a French guy whose mother was English and was returning from doing two years of military service in Indonesia. He was, like all French people I sit next to on Air France, perfectly bilingual and made me want to slit my throat with the little plastic knife they give you to spread your Brie. Of course our conversations were conducted through the same communications-haze-cum-cone-of-silence that was threatening to give me Evian-induced renal failure, so they treated me as one might treat anyone who seems to continuously answer questions that were not asked and constantly ask you to repeat things -- like a real moron. Fortunately, we landed and they did not ask me any questions in customs. Outside of customs, I was greeted by a small french woman who was feeling quite content because she was in the process of doing the thing that French people do best -- taking a vacation. She was also feeling mildly superior because she was, like all other French people, living 6 hours in the future. I was, of course, still trapped in the inferior time frame where it was 3am and feeling like someone who drank one too many bottles of Robotussen. The plan was to go to San Malo, in the North by the bord de la mer for the weekend. We raced across town in a taxi because it can take hours to get through the Paris traffic jams at 9 in the morning. I do mean we raced because this morning there was noone else on the road and we got to the train station. I had somehow forgotten--the day before was a holiday! All of the parisians were ELSEWHERE. All, but our taxi driver, of course, who was clearly not satisfied with this state of affairs, complained vociferously, overcharged us, and dropped us in an ignominious heap with our ton of baggage well down the street from where we wanted to go. Time to get a cafe'. We were unexpectedly an hour early now, so we decided to kill some time by drinking coffee. Killing time drinking coffee is a questionable idea if you just spent eight hours in a plane killing time drinking Evian, and I'll leave it at that. On the way to the train station, Tricia said something coy about looking into our reservations. I said that I thought we already had reservations. t: To go, yes, but it was hard to get good seats coming back because of the race. d: Hard to get good seats? The race? t: Yes, this is the weekend of the every-four-year race for the rum that all of Paris goes to San Malo to see. d: Oh. Oh. Let me fully absorb this. You're telling me that we have some expensive high-speed-train reservations to go to a cozy French resort where we will spend the weekend with the REST OF OUR PARISIEN NEIGHBORS and it will be DOUBLY RELAXING because WE CAN'T COME BACK? Where can I BUY SOME ROBOTUSSEN? t: Yes. That's why the bed and breakfast I reserved is so far away from town. What is robotussen? As a fortunate side effect of this conversation, my ears popped and I could hear again. A brief visit with the high-tech touch-screen reservation system confirmed that we were embarking on, for all intents and purposes, a one-way vacation. I left my faith in the idea that God takes care of idiots and small french women and since we had one of each we were probably ok. The TGV ride was quite nice, modulo the luke warm $40/person lunch (steak and fries) that I was too miserable to eat. The TGV is quite cool. It's like riding in a plane that taxis very quickly between stations. We got to San Malo and got established and, since I was about to die of sleep deprivation, the natural thing to do seemed to be to walk to town by way of the beach. "It is twenty minutes," I was told. French is a hard language to grasp entirely, and I got caught again--I did not ask WHAT was twenty minutes. It turns out that it's twenty minutes to walk to get a third of the way to town. They say that the weather is unpredictable in the tropics, but I didn't realize that the tropics extended so far north. After half an hour into our trip, a freezing downpour was driven in from the sea by high winds. As we searched desperately for shelter, the rain turned to hail. We finally found what was probably the local equivalent of a Barbary Coast press gang hangout. The locals slugged down grog as we lingered over hot chocolate and dripped. My cough had turned ugly but I figured that at least I probably looked too sickly to shanghai. When the rain let up some, we sloshed into town for dinner. We took a taxi back. The next day we walked into town again, this time taking an umbrella on the off chance it should rain again. Things were pretty off because half an hour into the trip the sky turned black and liquid. We confidently whipped out the umbrella and the wind turned up to 80mph, blowing a steady stream of water against our backs. Until the hail started, that is, of course. Within 10 or 15 minutes we were able to find shelter under a building and we stood out the rest of the rain. When we started walking again, it was clear that Tricia was not happy about being wet again. Mad as a small wet french hen, I would say. She would walk a few paces, twitch one of her limbs, look nastily up at the sky, then either put on or take off her jacket. d: Why don't we find a bus or a taxi? t: I would have to sit on my wet jeans. I would be uncomfortable. Of course. Walking in soaking clothes outside in a brisk winter breeze is CLEARLY preferable to sitting in some nasty warm taxi. I coughed menacingly; maybe if I could cough up some blood or get a high fever going, I could RIDE to town. Aside from my rapidly degenerating health, the rest of the weekend was fine. It turns out that San Malo is kind of like the anti-Paris. The prices are not way out of line, the pace is slow, and the people are friendly. People here mutter lots of haughty things about the provinces as they push you out of the way in the metro and yell at you in some interminable queue in the bank. But, I kind of like them. The B&B we were staying at was nice enough, although temperatures in the 40's, hail, high winds and freezing rain weren't a sufficient hint that it might be getting on towards the time of year where American tourists like to be heated via artificial means. Perhaps it was just not possible to get heating equipment installed that far from town. We visited the local aquarium where we saw some exhibits where they were evidently simulating life in the bayou. We visited something called an exotarium that had exhibits of things that make you go eeeugh, have a high legs to eyes ratio, or both. I saw a number of the same things at the B&B, but at least it was WARM in the exotarium. We visited a museum where I learned about how the French discovered America in 1553. French discovered America? Damn. I must have been confused. I could have SWORN that Amerigo Vaspucci had something to do with it. Where did Columbus fit in? Or didn't the Vikings discover America, but were too Scandanavian to tell anyone about it? The French. That must have been one of those days class when Robin Baird wore a tight sweater to world history class. I read a placard that said something about how they took some boatloads of settlers who were convicts (intellectuals, and that sort of scum) to Terra Nova where they were promised clean water, wood, and an endless supply of free ice. But, maybe I was confusing this with the story of how the French discovered Australia. At 5am on Monday, we duly rose and dragged ourselves back to the train station. Some fitful sleep and several expensive croissants later we were back in Paris, along with the rest of the temporary residents of San Malo. As I tried to make some phone calls and waited for the train to take me to work, I rested content in the knowledge that the vacation is alive and well in Paris. -Doug >>>>> To: travels Subject: pale riders Date: Fri, 09 Nov 90 09:58:31 +0100 From: doug@swing Saint-Laurent-Les Bains, France(AP) -- Heavily armed bandits seeking cash at a wealthy, isolated monastery wound up in a gun battle with monks who had taken up arms after a wave of robberies. One monk was wounded. The monks had been organizing themselves as a self-defense force in the last few weeks. In the two previous robberies this year, "the telephone lines were cut and we couldn't call for help," said the abbot of the 19-century Trappist monastery Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, Pierre-Marie, on Tuesday. The abbot said a burglar alarm sounded at the monastery about 3 A.M. Monday, an hour before morning prayers. The bell signaled to the 36 monks, who produce 4 million bottles of wine a year on their immense estate in the Ardeche in southern France, that they were being robbed. Arming themselves with shotguns, the brothers raced outside to an administrative building about 100 meters from the main monastery, where the alarm had sounded. But one monk blasted a round into the air, flushing two masked men. The bandits found their way barricaded by a parked car and the shotgun-toting Brother Zhpherin, organizer of the monastery's hunting expeditions, who demanded that they stop. Instead, the robbers pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and a pistol, opening fire on Brother Zepherin and the other monks, Father Pierre-Marie said. The monks returned fire. Brother Zepherin fell with 200 pellets in his leg. The robbers escaped in a a car in which accomplices had been waiting, the abbot said. They were still being sought on Tuesday. Rumors have circulated for years that the monks have a safe stuffed with cash. The robbers had ransacked the office, Father Pierre-Marie said. "It's been a long time since we kept any cash here," he added. >>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue: the sale baiser and other assorted topics Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 15:18:07 +0100 From: doug@swing It's Christmastime in la la land and I'm in a rare mood. I remember seeing a comedian in a comedy club in North Carolina once. He had just finished a series of rants about various things and he paused pensively. "Let's see ... what else do I HATE?" Today's mood. Christmastime. They have the lights hung here in San Quentin (the suburb, not the prison) and it's going to be a glorious ... uh ... Saturday Night Christmas. As in days of old, a` la Saint Travolta, revolving mirrored-ball disco Christmas lights have been carefully positioned all around the St. Quentin commercial center. Christmas with style. Speaking of style, it is partout (everywhere). Several thousand miles from Chicago, cigarettes everywhere, almost out of gas, it's dark and I'm in a gym. In the gym I have gotten over the impulse to ask people wearing US college-insignia apparrel, where they are from -- they are from France. I have even become so jaded as to not be shocked by the occasional wet suit. Wet suit? Yes, here in France we do not limit ourselves to simple primitive lycra. But, Monday evening my rapidly fading innocence was assaulted again by someone wearing--in a dark corner of the gym at 8:30 at night in a country where it gets dark around 6pm--sunglasses. Do you know how STRONG you would have to be to wear sunglasses at night in a normal US gym? On any self respecting US beach I would likely find myself on the business end of any sand that might be getting kicked about. But, judging by the precarious list that affected this guy's bench press, he would not do well in competition with me. Except, of course, in terms of style. When style in language meets marketing, it's hard to tell what's going to come out of it. Last night I passed a place called "le baiser sale'." We might remember that baiser is one of those words that's tricky for foreigners because it means two things -- as a noun it's an act of affection -- a kiss. As a verb, it's something you might suggest that someone who cuts you off at a stop light do to their mother. "Sale'" means "salty" and "sale" means "dirty" and I didn't see the accent the first two times I reread the sign and the place was a video bar, whatever THAT is, and I'm just going to stop there. I didn't go in, though it was tempting; it WAS a very stylish sign. Stylish international office conversation between myself, a Brit and a Frenchman: fr: [to the brit] go on and buy it, it's only going to cost you four quid. d: [small moan for unrelated reasons] fr: [american-economy sarcasm] that's $5 to you. br: [more american-economy sarcasm] by now, $5.10. d: [max sarcasm] I wish *I* used to have an empire. There are strikes everywhere here and everyone strikes. High school students strike. They talk about the superiority of the european educational system, but I think they, too, miss out on some basic concepts now and then. Such as, "it reduces the threat implicit in a traditional strike if you are the non-paying consumer of a product and not its producer." What's the message here? "If management don't cave into our demands we're going to stop costing them money ... we MEAN IT." There was a leverage problem that by unspoken agreement both sides ignored. I suggested that it maybe it would spice things up if we could bring in some tough scab students to break the strike--maybe from inner city Detroit. Noone seemed to understand exactly what it was I was getting at. The news was filled with pictures of the demonstrations; pictures of agitated youths imploring for more money -- every other word a "quoi" (the local equivalent of, "uh"); pictures of agitated youths imploring their fellow youths to clean up afterthemselves and not be an embarrasment for the tourists; and, pictures of the majority of the student body standing around, looking bored and smoking cigarettes. This strike served the same purpose as most strikes here, and gave everyone a nice day off. Until, that is, a bunch of agitators (disguised as high school students!) started burning cars and breaking windows. At this point, the student strike attained true absurdity and a certain bizarre style. Speaking of ruffians, an American friend, Bijan, and I were talking, on the way someplace the other day and we were accosted by a young French guy (in English). fg: where are you from? d: the US. [... and the logical next question ...] fg: oh, are you from the Bronx? d: uh, no fg: where are you from? d: pittsburgh. [puzzled stare. sometimes I just say, "the east coast"] b: california. fg: oh, california is GREAT. b: oh, you've been there? fg: no. hey, you speak english pretty good. [... and so on, until we naturally got to the point in a conversation with couple of complete strangers where one would announce (now, in French) ...] fg: d: <"full contact" what?> fg: "full contact." d: fg: d: fg: [... we continued in language hell for some time, until ...] fg: b: fg: Gang warfare as an instrument of style. And I have no doubt that most gang members proudly wear sweatshirts of the style you can buy from a company called Chevignon that announce (in 2" high letters), "100% Hoodlum-wear USA" To think of the money I could have made here importing hoodlum-wear from, say, Inkster, Mi. and instead, I chose the humdrum everyday life of computer science. I think maybe I had better join a gang. I gotta get some style. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: globalogue: the kinneson lifestyle Date: Sat, 08 Dec 90 13:19:31 +0100 From: doug@swing I don't know if this is going to be a travelogue, so much as a global commentary on the bizarre state of the world. (I figure that if I expand the scope of my missives somewhat, eventually everyone will get bored and ask to be dropped from the list and then maybe we can all get some SLEEP.) Ok, it's weird here. They have mattresses here that are made out of "Bultex." Fabric for people with eating disorders? What could this mean? The local butcher shops have bunches of furry little bunny rabits hanging by the feet (Thumper!) and the one in St. Quentin (I'm trying to get people to refer to St. Quentin as, "the Q," but not much of anyone seems to understand why) has a big ... how do you qualify this ... it's not fur, exactly ... let's see ... a big, bristly boar, lolling about next to the veal shanks. Excuse me, but what EXACTLY is the butcher's FUNCTION? Wasn't he the jolly fat guy that skins things and cuts them up? Everything here seems to have fur. Minimalist butchery. Very 90's. Oh, shit. Boar for dinner? AGAIN?!? And, I watched a large part of "Walking Tall II" dubbed in French last night. I cannot say why. But, I was reading the paper this morning and it doesn't seem like weirdness is all that localized. Of minor interest was the article about NASA (the Rodney Dangerfield of space exploration) and their renewed problems attempting to perform astonomical experiments. They're worried that they are again experienceing terminal overheating ("terminal what?" the article did not say). They've had this problem before and last time it was caused by terminal ventilation ducts becoming clogged with lint from astronaut's clothing. I may be confused, but isn't lint something of a solved problem? $150M space program crippled by lint. My kingdom for a Dustbuster. The Russians are taking measures to combat the sea of smut that has invaded Moscow, since Glasnost (including such catchily named publications as "Eroticon"). There are public yearnings for such keen Western innovations as zoning and sex shops. The topper, however, was when I got to the part where Iran adopts the Sam Kinneson model for living. I'm sure we all remember Sam as the man who said, I believe you shouldn't have sex with someone unless you're in love with them. I'm serious. It might be for a really SHORT FUCKING PERIOD OF TIME. Clearly inspired by forward social thinking such as this, there has been a measure introduced in the Iranian Parliament to allow "marriages of a fixed duration" as a means of combatting sexual frustration. That is to say, temporary marriages; marriages lasting... who knows? a couple of years? a weekend? a mad, reckless lunch hour? The move is, of course, not supported by fundamentalist spoilsports who prefer the more traditional self-denial. If this pans out, however, it will be time to think about that downtown Teheran "Mr. Tuxedo" franchise. So, I guess it's not just here. Is that a comfort? I don't know. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: la poste est la Date: Fri, 04 Jan 91 16:32:40 +0100 From: doug@swing la poste est la`. This means, essentially, "the post is there for you." I have some suggestions for la poste and its clientel (some of which are applicable at our own US post office) that they might be better la`. 1) anyone joking with officials of la poste, taking up lots of time, should be shot. 2) anyone arguing with the officials of la poste, taking up lots of time, should be shot. 3) anyone holding a savings account at la poste (not la banque, mind you ... la poste) will by definition take up lots of time and should be shot. 4) anyone performing complicated operations on savings accounts held at la poste should be stabbed, immolated, drawn, quartered, shot, and forced to apologise to others standing in line. 5) anyone performing some combination of numbers 1-4 should be blown up in a public ceremony. 6) they do mail, telephone, box sales, telegraph, money machine, minitel, and banking services so well, perhaps la poste should expand. I don't believe they have, as yet, a grocery operation. perhaps they could start taking bottle returns. maybe you could have the funds resultant from returning for-deposit bottles directly deposited in your la poste savings account! 7) la poste should be blown up in a public ceremony. on a friday afternoon. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue: the Desert Storm at home Reply-to: doug@chorus.fr Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 10:50:18 +0100 From: doug@swing In response to Brian Renaud's question: > Other than glee over the opportunity to sell the Iraquis another twenty > billion worth of equipment, what is the French view of the war? I submit the following. --- There's massive confusion here, at a personal level. The politicians piss me off (as do, indeed, US politicians ... don't get me wrong). Allow me to take a few moments to indulge in some bitchiness. First, the people are divided. Witness the violence at last night's peace demonstration (it wasn't as bad as that at the demonstrations held by the high-school kids, if we're trying to rank these things). There are lots of arabs here who don't understand why Saddam isn't currently rolling his tanks into Tel Aviv. There are lots of industrialists, damning the ingenuity of our allies the Germans, who almost made some GOOD MONEY from some slightly after the last moment Iraqi arms sale. (On a related note, I see Heckler-Koch is having financial problems. Isn't that too bad.) Mostly, there are lots of people who don't think that this should be their war. At a slightly higher level, France has memories of faded grandeur and delusions of present and future grandeur. The de Gaulle legacy was that, "You can look like an important country if you constantly shift alliances, pose, issue ultimatums and, generally making a pain in the ass of yourself. Under NO circumstances do ANYTHING that might belie the fact that it's been a solid HUNDRED YEARS since you were a world power. Intimations that other world powers exist may be legitimately taken as a Slap in the Face." The government is following a modified, but basically faithful version of this program. They have a real problem, without a doubt. There is a huge arab population here--a legacy of days of now faded imperial glory. They're mostly from Algeria and Morocco. The Algerians have some not completely pleasant memories from the last Occidentzilla vs. Arabara battle. They grabbed hard, along with the populations of Jordan, Algeria proper, Yemen, and most of the other non-oil-bearing Arab nations, at Saddam's promise to settle the Palistinian question (presumably in a fashion they would find acceptable) and took Saddam for a home-grown conquering hero. They are currently revising their outlook. This contributes understanding to what some might regard as the confusing fact that, despite the fact that we're all allies here, France decided to ... well, to take things into it's own hands (just a LITTLE) and negotiate a peace settlement SLIGHTLY different from that which we had seemingly agreed on. La France got the cold shoulder like everyone else, forcing it to return it to the level of simple ally, so, having nothing better to do started in on some hardball negotiations. CLEARLY, it was worth making some trouble about the fact that the 30,000 French troops were under to be under American command. So, there was some negotiation about who was giving the orders. (I think it was agreed that next time, if they send 400,000 troops, they can give the orders.) Ok, that got resolved and we were all allies again and war was declared and the French parliament met (a discreet 5 hours after the deadline expired) declared war with a big majority. (Excluding the communists and the unions, of course ... does the US railway union speak before congress before they make big decisions or have I been away too long?) Then ... well ... how does anyone expect France to be a BIG DEAL in the Arab world if they go around bombing them? France didn't want to bomb any sites in Iraq because, god forbid, they might unintentionally KILL some Iraqi soldiers or something. Ok, you guys can go in the second wave and bomb an airport in Kuwait. The news took a decidedly huffy tone about how France had been, seemingly, pushed to one side (Can you IMAGINE? Slap in the face!) And, from the news coverage given to the the second wave when they finally sent their massive wave of TWELVE bombers in, you would think they had just defeated Alexander. (Shades of Generalissmo Franco is still dead, they updated the state of the finished mission every 15 minutes.) Wasn't there always a kid on your 4th grade softball team who was never satisfied and he always wanted to pitch and he wasn't very big and didn't hit very well and ... So much for bitchiness. France has its own concerns and its problems to worry about and it's certainly better than (although sometimes similar to) having no ally at all. In other news, the International Herald Tribune published a handy twelve step guide for how to identify a letter bomb. Probably the most useful piece of advice was, "Watch for letters that arrive with excessive postage, as though the sender did NOT want the package to be returned." I can imagine the excerpt from the Abdu Nidal's The Compleat Terrorist that says, "... and be sure to ALWAYS include adequate postage. Use the scale! Remember what happened to Ahmed." French newscasters are complaining because they are having trouble getting information from the army. They claimed the censors were favoring the US journalists. Hey, when the White House and the Pentagon want to stay informed, they just watch CNN. What's the problem? They ever-helpful US government has advised its citizens that it's no longer safe to travel in the mideast. And, now there are almost as many dogs sniffing around in airports and railway stations as there are in the restaurants. As for me? I'm just nervous. I hope it ends soon. None of this has addressed the question of who's going to fight for the next war to maintain international justice if there's no major US economic interest at stake. But, I guess we're not there yet. There are other problems that are more pressing, for the moment. And, if France thinks it want to be a power in the Mideast, I think it would be fitting that it get its wish. As always, be careful what you ask for. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: la tempete du desert; update Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 09:20:19 +0100 From: doug@swing I am sure you're all sitting there on the edge of your chairs, wondering what we in the third world (those countries that do not receive CNN) are thinking about the war, today. Far be it from me to deprive you of a quick update. Here in France, we're concentrating on defensive manoevers. Everyone is highly defensive about claims that the members of the French air force are spending all of their time complaining, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes in small Saudi cafe's. As the minister of defense and President of the Republic went to on television to explicitly state, there is NO TRUTH in this rumor. They have flown FOUR MISSIONS and they were really hard, too. And dangerous. They got shot at. Well, there was one that it was too cloudy to fly. Ok, three missions. Did I mention that they were really hard? Let me run that video of the warehouse blowing up again ... Yes, it's high entertainment here as the French War Machine moves out. Some poor jerk -- unemployed at this point, no doubt -- made the mistake of asking the Israeli Minister for External Affairs what he thought. In addition to responding to the immediate issue of the Iraqi bombing of Israel (he said something to the effect of, "we will bury them," but I may not be translating perfectly), he took the occasion granted by the few extra seconds left in his slot to point out that had France not done such a FINE JOB of equipping the IRAQI WAR MACHINE maybe we WOULDN'T BE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE TODAY. I found this highly amusing, but, evidently, this feeling was not shared by Mitterand who was already beleagured by swarms of reporters wondering just what the French fliers were DOING all day ("they work FULL TIME," he asserted testily). So, he took a little time out of his busy day to call the Israeli prime minister to assure him that France had not and would NEVER sell the Iraqis chemical weapons. And, well, all that nuclear stuff ... well, France never replaced it after the Israelis blew it up (fool me once ...) Due to lack of time, he didn't detail all of the other things France has never sold to Iraq (wine, bibles, bikinis, french rockabilly cd's, ..., the list goes on), but I am glad we cleared that up. On channel 2, the state sponsored tv (everyone who buys a tv gets taxed to support channel 2), we have a special correspondent in New York whose job it is to WATCH CNN and report, in French, what's happening. Meanwhile, the prime minister of Tunisia--who, evidently, doesn't watch CNN or Tunisian TV or anyone else who's broadcasting the massive pro-Saddam demonstrations happening in his country--was on a different channel. He took the occasion of appearing on French TV to reaffirm his country's overwhelming and uniform support of the French involvement in the war. He didn't actually say anything nice about Israel, but you could tell he was just dying to. I expect that was the last anyone ever hears from him. The best part of the TV analysis is how they keep talking about France's "special relationship" with the Arab states. I am very much an ignorant external observer, but all I keep seeing are the results of French arms sales going awry and examples of the great affinity the average arab-on-the-street in, say, Algeria, feels for the French. Is this like the "special relationship" Britian has with India? Almost certainly, I don't have all of the facts. And, so it goes. Gung ho. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: globalogues: a tricky business Date: Mon, 21 Jan 91 12:16:08 +0100 From: doug@swing It has been pointed out to me by one of my esteemed colleagues (and trusted allies) that some of my travelogues might, if they fell into the Wrong Hands, offer grievous offense; at the moment, particularly to French or Iraqis. Well, it should go without saying (but, of course, bears interminable repeating) that this is HUMOR. I am taking true facts and twisting them mercilessly for my own foul purposes. Now that I have reemphasized that, let me underscore, rephrase and reinforce my meaning. Or, better, let me add specifics. I LIKE French people. I'll join the French minister of defence and say that I think the French fliers are doing a fine job. (I won't rant about it on TV, making it look like they're NOT. The funny thing about this is that what the critics MEANT was that he/Mitterand should be criticized because they were limiting French involvement. I certainly haven't heard anyone make the charge that French pilots [except, possibly me by means of LUDICROUS EXAGGERATION, for the sake of HUMOR] weren't doing what they've been told with utmost speed and efficiency.) I don't particularly think that their government is more ludicrous than that of the US. Their society has its oddities, which I seek to underscore for the sake of HUMOR. Or, as Mork would say, "ARK, ARK, ARK." JUST KIDDING. (On the other hand, try to pick out something I said that wasn't essentially true. ARK, ARK, ARK.) I don't know any Iraqis, and certainly don't dislike them, individually or collectively. I would expect that my offhand comments about their current inability to march into Tel Aviv are probably fairly low on their list of concerns right now. Glad we have that straightened out. God these europeans are touchy. (JUST KIDDING. MORE HUMOR, OK???) -Doug P.S. It goes without saying that the US is guilty of plenty of nasty stuff vis a vis the situation in Iraq, completely aside from the question of whether we should be there in the first place. We're nasty, wicked imperialists, concerned only with our own interests and the almighty petrodollar and we should all be exploded publicly. Ok? Everybody satisfied? Maybe I should concentrate on US topics for a while. Do we have any more major government movements to stamp out art underway, or are we satisfied with taking over the mideast, for the moment? That's the problem with the US ... it's just too big a target. >>>> To: peter%goshawk@LANL.GOV Cc: travels Subject: Re: globalogues: a tricky business Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 16:22:52 +0100 From: doug@chorus > Local news reports that the french have had a run on fine firearms at all the gun stores (CNN showed a particularly nice gunstore in the Riviera). Gun sales have been suspended in France, due to ... er ... popular demand. The demand was so popular that one store owner claimed to have sold a year's worth of guns in a WEEK. So much for the legendary strict European gun control laws. Interviews with gun consumers produced two basic results: some sheepishly claiming a newfound passion for hunting gallic shrugs When they said "French arms sales had been suspended due to the problems in the Mideast," I initially took this to mean something different. Ooops. Interviews with Muslims in the suburbs indicate that they (those who get interviewed -- we have the standard media-related reality warping found anywhere in the televised world) pretty much behind Saddam 100% and massively pissed off. Cause and effect. > Doug, could you find me a fine italian shotgun before you skip out of the country? I'm pretty sure I can no more buy a shotgun in this country than I can Tylenol. I am pretty sure I can lay my hands on some brass knuckles. Would that do? -Doug >>>> To: doug@chorus Cc: travels Subject: Understanding France Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 11:57:23 -0500 From: paul killey Here are a couple tidbits that will help us understand France a bit more. that I am sure a subset of the doug-list will enjoy. In the New York Times, we read that France is the most sedated country in the world ... has the greatest consumption of anti-depressants and tranqs in recorded history. The M.D. they interviewed was a gynecologist. Evidently in France, women will see a gynecologist not only for the reasons we would expect, but also if they are having a bad sex or love life to the degree they require sedation to face the next day. You've all heard about how Eskimos have 40 different words for snow? The Manchester Daily Guardian reports that the French have something like 400 words for "prostitute" ... reflecting the subtleties of culture, class, peccadillo, and so on. It was part of an article talking about the impact of the "Marthe Richards" laws that shut down bordellos after WWII and a brief history of subsequent attempts to get store-bought sex. I got the sense, reading between the lines, that the British seem to have an attitude about the French. >>>> To: paul killey Cc: travels Subject: Re: Understanding France Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 18:15:37 +0100 From: doug@swing Evidently in France, women will see a gynecologist not only for the reasons we would expect, but also if they are having a bad sex or love life to the degree they require sedation to face the next day. Sounds right. You've all heard about how Eskimos have 40 different words for snow? The Manchester Daily Guardian reports that the French have something like 400 words for "prostitute" ... reflecting the subtleties of culture, class, peccadillo, and so on. We did a test, here at Chorus. One of the Yanks claimed that English was a more descriptive language than French, and challanged the French people to come up with more words that meant, "to be drunk." Initially, we surged ahead, because we were completely prepared beforehand (standard American battle tactics). The French caught up in a couple of heated rounds, including one where they cheated viciously, trying to secretly add 10 extra points on their score (ok...MAYBE it was an accident). This proceeded very tensely, until the brits stepped in and we squashed them. Had things gotten really close, we were going to bring out our secret weapon -- an Australian. The French demanded a rematch with words that mean, "to be guillotined." We have as yet to respond, but I'll keep this in mind if we do. It was part of an article talking about the impact of the "Marthe Richards" laws that shut down bordellos after WWII and a brief history of subsequent attempts to get store-bought sex. I got the sense, reading between the lines, that the British seem to have an attitude about the French. I asked one of the Brits I know why things were the way they were in the Anglo-Franco relationship. He confided to me that they can't be trusted after De Gaulle refused to let Britian into the Common Market (thirty or so years ago). People around here have good memories. -Doug >>>>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue: it's not just me Date: Tue, 05 Feb 91 11:00:51 +0100 From: doug@swing Just in case you thought it was just me, here's a testimonial from a recent newcomer to france, verifying the surreal nature of the universe. I find the idea of decoding the events around me with a berlitz calcu-translator very attractive. I am forwarding this without his prior knowledge, but I'm sure Dr. Bird (who may be familiar to those of you in the Michigan contingent) wouldn't object. [If he does object, he can, of course ... try and figure out how to sue me in the French court system(e). Aaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha. (Organ music swells. Insane, hysterical laughter is heard moving into the distance. Fade to black.)] -Doug ------- Forwarded Message From: bird@acri.fr (Peter Bird) Subject: Un gout d'eau Organization: Advanced Computer Research Institute Phones: Voice - 72 35 84 00, Fax - 72 35 84 10 Not having a great command of the French language makes television viewing an amusing exercise. If you've never had the opportunity to watch 'native' French television/cinema, they have the tendency to dub everything. Tom Selleck with a French accent is something to behold. It actually makes it easier to follow the news. Every morning, the national networks show 'Euro-Journal'; this is a composite of English, German and Italian news programs. The networks at least have the courtesy not to overdub these programs; these are sub-titled. With my Berlitz calcu-translator and a little creativity i can pretty well figure out what's happening in Germany, Latvia, Italy and places around the world. I just don't have much of an idea what's happening in France. This morning was the best i've seen so far. As you well know, the French are very proud of their wine tradition, and they take the beverage very seriously. I now have evidence that they take all of their fluids seriously. I tuned into what appeared to be the 'Today' show to discover a water tasting expert. He and Mr. 'TeleMartin' were discussing the virtues of 4 different brands of water: Evian, Vittle, Volvic and another (BRAND X?) Monsieur Water Taster spoke eloquently of the virtues of Volvic "It has a rich bouquet, with little aftertaste." However: "The Evian is definitely drinkable, and I would still recommend it." My French being as poor as it is, i wasn't sure if they discussed the different vintages. bird - -- ------- End of Forwarded Message >>>> [Here we have a little exchange between myself, the person it took three months to get a visa (including side trip to the US) and seven months to get his furniture, and one of my friends who seemed to slip through with a mere two weeks. Life in Lyon doing supercomputing seems to be a little softer than in Paree. But, it's probably no fun there, really.] >>>> To: bird@acri.fr (Peter Bird) Subject: Re: Stuff Date: Thu, 07 Feb 91 18:32:08 +0100 From: doug@swing I think we're in the running for a world's record down here. I went into le bureau de Prefecture (sp) on Monday when i received long term visa. I was told by the person who accompanied me that my request for a work permit was already in le bureau de Travail on MERCREDI!! (voila!) Even the people here in house said that 1 month was optimistic. fuck you. gah. I can't fucking believe it. fuck you. wait a minute. what did you get? how did you get a visa? you have to go to the US to get a visa. you're pulling my chain, right? if not, let me just say that mitterand is old and ugly and supercomputing is a fad destined to be laughed at in 10 years like nehru jackets and beehive hairdoos. are you telling me that they put something in your passport that is green and says something like, "limite carte de sejour" and has a stamp on it and everyone kind of ooed and awed over? or wait...did you get your Visa bank card? that's not really a visa, you know. it's probably a debit card. it's not worth shit for credit. they suck the money out of your account directly. you can run a slight negative balance on your account, but it's not the same. you can't buy groceries with the float. did you REALLY get a visa? long term? do you mean vista? you have an office with a lovely vista? please clarify. tricks are ok, but I have to go throw up right now so I can't elaborate. a visa. boy, that took you a whole ... what ... two weeks, huh? fuck. -Doug >>>> [Then, two weeks later, the scum gots his carte de sejour. My mind snapped. I could not accept it.] >>>> To: bird@mickey.acri.fr (Peter Bird) Subject: dangerous french drug addicts invading your protected areas Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 18:23:02 +0100 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr Peter, I am quite alarmed. I received a message today from some drug addict pretending to be you. Can you believe it? I was shocked, I'll tell you. I'm forwarding the contents. Since they were using your account, I must assume that you may know them. Perhaps the message will provide some valuable clue to their identity. I suspect, from the disconnected and rambly tone, it may be the work of a laudanum addict. They're dangerous, so please use caution. From: bird@mickey.acri.fr (Peter Bird) Subject: I know you'll be pissed, but... To: doug@chorus (Doug Orr) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 17:24:36 MET next wednesday i have an appointment at the office of work at 2:00 in the afternoon. Now if we can just get some management... -- -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: globalogue; from the halls of Al Busayyah ... Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 10:51:08 +0100 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr Well, the French and allied troops (as we like to think of them here) seem to be progressing well in the war to liberate Saddam Hussein and events are unfolding accordingly. All around the world, Palestinians are saying, "oh FUCK ... we backed the WRONG GUY ... AGAIN!!!!" With possibly the sole the exception of Yassar Arafat, who, in a traditional display of prudence, has announced that the the PLO is firmly in "the same trench" as Saddam. Trench, bunker, or hole? You say potato... And, Israel has chosen this opportunity to ask for an additional three BILLION dollars in aid to rebuild and to better defend against the arab agressors--presumably including those currently in full retreat. I guess this probably means that they're not going to pay us for those patriots we gave them, after all. Actually, the total amount requested was thirteen BILLION dollars, which included ten BILLION dollars to help resettle Soviet Jews repatriating to Israel (and, buy them all nice new cars???) A new chapter has been written in the annals of, "you don't know if you don't ask...the worst they can do is say 'no'" international relations. I am just hoping noone asks us to pay for the reunification of Germany. It's probably just that noone has thought of it yet. Back on the war front, I might have mentioned that we seem to get kind of a particular, uh, accent on the news that flows through here. I decided to test this theory when I had the occasion to speak to my dad on the phone last night. me: So Dad, you know that pincer movement that's headed north through Iraq? Mr. Orr: Yes. me: How would you describe it? Mr. Orr: Well, what do you mean? me: I mean, what would you say are the nationalities involved? Mr. Orr: Well, there are a bunch of Saudis. me: Uh ... who else? Mr. Orr: Well, there are lots of American marines, of course and I think there is a big British contingent. me: So ... you wouldn't actually describe it as being "LED by the French?" Sometime later the hysterical laughter ended and my father had composed himself and I was able to determine that the national presses of the two countries, being what they are, place somewhat different emphases on individual participation. More or less as I suspected. Of course, we rest easy knowing that the highly touted French forces, that may or may not be leading the charge, are elite troops, battle trained in Chad. Yes, they are none other than the celebrated French Foreign Legion. One of the big freedoms offered by the Legion, we may remember, is that it anyone can join; it doesn't matter if you're not French. The proud forces of the Legion are populated with criminals and scum from all over the world. Whether or not the French are leading ANYTHING may be an interesting question in semantics. On other fronts, Arab unity has again come to the fore in an impressive display as Arab states, traditionally queasy about attacking a brother Arab nation, now squabble about who gets to help liberate Kuwait City, with everyone manoevering to get a piece of the action. Attacking a brother nation in full retreat is, evidently, a somewhat different matter. And so it goes. On the home front, the French have, for the moment, forgotten peace initiatives and are basking in their first military victory since Napolean. In press briefings, the diminutive General Rocheforte literally refers to "FRENCH and allied troops." And Mitterand assures reporters that, while France is COMPLETELY dedicated to the allied cause, all this cooperation will stop immediately once peace negotations begin and France can bring to fore, "la difference." Noone would expect anything less. And, as the US armed forces are finally given the chance to exorcise the ghosts of Vietnam (Remember the domino theory? And how nobody noticed that they were talking about "domino"-SINGULAR), throughout the armed forces we hear the resounding echo of the phrase of the day: "Desert GOOD. Jungle BAD." Along with everyone, I'm sure, I just hope it's over soon. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue; a nyuck from the void Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 17:37:24 +0100 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr It may not be exactly fair, but in my neverending efforts to keep you informed of the national mood here in France, I am driven to quote from a widely distributed, albeit American magazine -- Spy. Actually, Unisys did something I can't quite figure out, so this is a prime way to avoid working. In the March issue article about professional trend followers, Spy's crack investigative reporters note: A [Paris] trend shop called Eclat [incorrectly accented], dissects the resurgent popularity of the Three Stooges among college students: "Mo's [sic] angry question, which always precedes one of his violent episodes, is the question of all existentialist men demanding meaning from a void, "Hmmm, a wise guy, huh?" The only response--from the void that is Curly--is the tragic 'Nyuck! Nyuck! Nyuck!'" In the same book, Bart Simpson is described as a "tiny parti-colored speck of rebellion, a Bogartian symbol of integrity." I, myself, have periodic brushes with the void. In a recent paper that was published at Usenix, as a mild bit of humor, I put in my bio, "interests include operating sytems, distributed systems, and existentialism." I was expecting that one of the local reviewers would find this mildly amusing and question me about it, at which time I'd take it out. The reviews passed without note and the paper was published as it stood. I didn't think much about this until our librarian asked me if I was interested in existentialism a few weeks later. I explained that this was a small joke and I was surprised that noone else had noticed. "Oh no," she said, "everyone noticed; they all asked me about it. The biographies are the first things that French people read." Ah. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. In the trends department, we are always struggling to dance on the razor's edge of fashion. But, what can follow the mini-skirt? What can follow the 100% hoodlum wear or the Oakland Raiders look? Today, in the subway I was greeted with 10 foot high posters advertising the new haute mode: "the Bronx look." Silly me, I had always thought the Bronx look involved bullet holes. No, if we are to understand by example, the Bronx look involves skinny French models in oversized sweatshirts, bandannas, stretch pants and running shoes. And, for all their efforts, never have I seen a less funky looking group of people. Except, possibly, on French nighttime TV. Imagine a 40ish Greek woman with greasy black hair and 60's eyeglasses performing antiseptic gospel music. Straight from a Benny Hill Euro-song competition. No, don't do that. Too painful. Imagine, instead, the triumphant comeback engagement of Englbert Humperdink. New moustache, old songs. Hmmm. Not much better. How about a minstrel show? When was the last time any of you saw white people in blackface?? And, if you did see that, could you believe your eyes? Probably not. Better not even try. Can this be? Am I dreaming? Is it the void??? Who knows. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck ... -Doug >>>> To: travels From: doug@swing.chorus.fr Subject: globalogue; attack! attack! attack! -------- Another globalogue? So soon? Well, I feel that things continue to be bizarre enough to warrant them. The world is a strange place. In Iraq, military-genius-pinup Saddam "attack! attack! attack!" Hussein has adopted tactics from the British; in particular, the Monty Python "RUN AWAY" manoever. Iraqi radio, continuing its tradition as a beacon of truth cutting through the fog of ignorance, announced that "Iraqi forces had repulsed the American invaders." They failed to specify whether this had occurred at a POW delousing station or not. At the UN, translation problems abound. Somehow, the Iraqis are attempting to express some idea that, when translated from Arabic comes out sounding like: "We unconditionally accept the 12 UN resolutions with the following conditions." Or, "we unconditionally accept the 12 UN resolutions. The names of those 9 resolutions are..." And, they are suffering badly from the fact that Occidentals just don't haggle for shit. Here in France, we have dropped all pretense of trying to pretend how we're really kind of bummed out about fighting the Arabs-with-whom-we enjoy-a-special-relationship and kicked back into unashamed revelry. Television news was devoted almost exclusively to the French contribution. Channel 5 had a old blowhard general (love that dotted stubble haircut!) who described in excrutiatingly an drawn out, almost Andy Griffith-style, monologue the French progression through Iraq of the last few days. The net effect of this could be summed up as, "we went up around the top. There weren't many Iraqis there." But, it sounds much better in French. The entheusiasm was such that a funkier people might have phrased it as "kicking butt." (George Bush?? Funky?? Imagine.) You can take the boy out of the empire... My latest information is last night's television news, since there's a newspaper delivery strike (read, "day off") today, so living 6 hours in the future does me absolutely no good. General Norman "attack! attack! attack!" Schwartzkopf (or, "Arnold Schwartzkopf" as he was mistakenly referred to at one point by the local press) has discovered that one of the hardest things about attacking the Iraqi army is catching up with them. At his press conference last night, General Schwartzkopf, in sort of a "you're-not- so-tough-without-your-skuds-eh" speech, detailed some of the things that, in his opinion, Saddam Hussein was not: "tactician, strategist, or general." Evidently, General Schwartzkopf is not a Monty Python fan. One confusing thing resulted from last night's staticstical tally. Perhaps I misunderstood, but I believe the statistics they quoted were something like this (as I mentioned, I'm unable to get a paper to verify): Allies Say Iraq Sez Civillians killed 900 7000 Iraqi soldiers killed 92 80 Tanks destroyed 3100 ??? This leads us to one of the following conclusions: a) we are destroying unmanned tanks b) iraqi tanks have ejector seats c) we are destroying iraqi tanks by pouring sugar in their gas tanks d) iraqi tanks are driven by civilians e) statistics are confusing (I am informed by one of my British allies that a tank is actually considered destroyed if the gun or a tread gets shot off. So, perhaps we're just winging them--shooting for the gun hand, John Wayne-style.) I also saw plenty of footage of Kuwait being liberated last night. After two days of "cleaning" operations by US marines, the city was given a clean bill of health and Kuwaiti and Saudi troops were allowed to liberate it. I'm told that the Kuwaiti role in this may be, among other things, part of an attempt to combat bad press Kuwaitis have been getting--purportedly, large numbers of military-aged Kuwati men have been sitting the war out in Egyptian discos, waiting for the hired army to finish pitching the Iraqis from their country. To finish his monologue, the French general last night announced that for the next stage of their operations, the French would be high-tailing it for Kuwait City in order to reopen their embassy in a fashion that will "demonstrate the [French] glory to the rest of the world." Possibly they had heard that the Kuwaiti discos were reopening. Dudes! Party! -Doug P.S. I just heard, and you probably know by now, that there's been a cease-fire and that the Iraqis have capitulated. I'm glad it's over. I hope it lasts. >>>> To: travels Subject: globalogue postscript Date: Thu, 28 Feb 91 10:30:49 +0100 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr Another of my esteemed British allies just popped down to see me. He too had witnessed the really quite remarkable performance of the French general on TV last night and we were able to reassure each other that we REALLY HAD seen him describe for nearly a HALF AN HOUR how the French had encircled, entrapped, and overwhelmed the enemy (gesturing wildly with a pointer at the huge map behind him). In the midst of this, they cut away to their correspondent in Saudi Arabia who had been at the front with the French troops. He described something that sounded right out of the Paris-Dakar race, with all vehicles racing at top speed (evidently, unhindered by contact with actual Iraqis) from Iraqi town to Iraqi town. Then we switched back to the general, who was asked to comment on the progress of the rest of the allies. He spent quite some time "tipping his chapeau" to the French troops, briefly acknowledged the allied troops, described the allied progress more-or-less as, "they're coming up the other side" and went back to a review of French progress. Rodger also informed me that the Americans, in some kind of a colonial blood frenzy, fired upon a British transport last night, killing those inside. (I noted that the British didn't have the good sense to fire back.) This is becoming something of a tradition in the American army. At the onset of the war there was an incident where an American aircraft mistakenly fired Hellcat missles at American amoured vehicles, killing some soldiers. This, naturally, caused a big stir because Hellcats are expensive missles designed to be used on TANKS-- they're not supposed to be wasted on AMOURED VEHICLES. It would be interesting to see the tally of Allies killed by Irakis, versus Allies killed by Allies. Maybe not. -Doug >>>> To: rodger From: doug@swing.chorus.fr Date: Fri, 01 Mar 91 12:26:56 +0100 Subject: important newspaper reports With respect to your confession that you had broken down and bought an American newspaper, I peeked at Allan's IHT and we concluded that I could just type the text of it in as a travelogue. First, I must express shame and loathing for having been defeated by the Iraqis in such a humiliating fashion. I'm glad that Iraq declared victory so clearly, or I might have misinterpreted the facts. I'm still picking pieces of dirt from my face after having my nose rubbed in the sand. It was fiendishly clever how they tricked us into destroying their obsolete soviet gear for them. It's probably a plot to increase their foreign aid subsidy and get neat new cellular telephones. Iraqi radio reported having accepted the cease fire after the Republican guard had completely wiped out the allied tank force. An American military official was quoted as saying that it was embarrassing having to run after the Iraqi tanks in order to get a shot at them. Everything's a matter of interpretation in these wars. Multinational troops stormed their own embassies in various imaginative fashions. The ever-loyal Jordanians took down their saddam posters even faster than they had put them up and sent flowers and congratulatory notes to the Kuwaiti embassy. They've gone into a sort of a national state of "Just Kidding." I guess all those Jordanian arms shipped to Iraq after the embargo were part of the joke. Those wacky guys. The ever-loyal Soviet defence ministry threw up their arms and announced that it's not the equipment's fault--it takes someone competent to run it. Evidently, the Russian-trained Iraqi troops weren't up to the job. The Kuwaitis celebrated liberation in the fashion traditional in Arab countries and in Miami, by firing off automatic weapons. Nervous marines were quoted as saying, "I wish they wouldn't do that." No report on disco attendance. Not all Iraqi POWs want to go home. Officers, for example, tend to like it more where they are. The Israeli foreign policy was quoted as something like, "SOMEBODY owes us a BUNCH of money." The Israeli government also thinks they should play an important part in the postwar diplomatic efforts. The French, never short on annoying initiatives, think that THEY should have an important part in the postwar diplomatic efforts. The Russians, inventors of the phrase "stubborn like a Russian," think that THEY should have an important part in the postwar diplomatic efforts. The Germans, ably demonstrating that chutzpah is probably a direct translation of some ancient Teutonic word, announced that they think that THEY should play an important part in the postwar diplomatic efforts. Yeah, right. In fact, just about the only people who haven't declared their intentions to run the mideast peace settlement are the Jordanians, who have chosen to adopt a low profile. The whole thing seems to have boiled down to a bunch of bitter squabbling and posing, practiced by imperialists with economic interests and embittered neighbors who all have drawn knives looking for an exposed back to stab. In short, the situation seems to have returned to normal. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue; goin' to the movies ... Date: Sun, 24 Mar 91 17:30:53 +0100 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr ... and, don't sit in the back row with Gerard. Well, this is the kind of a day where I wish I were at a movie and not at work, so might as well zip off a quick travelogue while I compile. I recently saw, "Rozencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead" where one of the main characters pronounces, "We're the opposite of people--we're ACTORS." In keeping with that spirit, Gerard "the hunk" Depardieu made headlines recently with a minor communications failure in the US. Reportedly, in an interview with Time magazine, he put forward that as part of his formative preadolescent years, he took part in several rapes. Uh, Gerard...did you say RAPE? Here in France, we're kind of used to Gerard and his fond reminiscences of his days on the street, and have learned to, well, to ignore him. Every time the subject of his youth comes up, there's some new bizarre story about being chased by prostitutes, drug dealers, and godknowswhat, and it would be all quite frightening if he ever told the same story two times in a row. But, in the grand theatrical Dan Rather tradition, he sticks more with sweeping, majestic themes and the details remain hazy. [I should further note that, to study English for "Greencard" Gerard followed the plan of a noted French educator, Dr Alfred Tomatis ('you say "Tomatis"...') This breakthrough plan involves listening to same sounds an American foetus hears WHILE INSIDE IT'S MOTHER'S WOMB (produced, I would expect, during the last few months of pregnancy where the mother is advised not to travel to India, where the child might be exposed to parasites and unhealthy noises). So, we understand what we're dealing with, here. Being a great actor does not require that you or any of your friends be firmly lashed to reality.] Just to try and calibrate a little, socially (I live in a constant state of recalibration), I asked several French women (some of them small) if there was some unusual cultural difference that could account for this (even by Depardieu standards) wacko statement. No, rape is pretty much non-sanctioned in France, also, they said. "Ah, whew," I sat back relieved. "But...the interviewer was probably a woman," they concluded, knowingly. Effectively answering "yes" to my question. Much to Gerard's surprise and chagrin, the American Public (or, the "Puritan American Public," as it's known here) bought the story hook, line and sinker, and has seized upon it with doberman-like tenacity. (And if any part of the Puritan American Public that hadn't heard about it, the National Enquirer quickly took care of that.) The American Public doesn't realize that it was only by the merest Chance that the Cosmic Department of Humor and Whoopee Cushions didn't make action movie hack Steven "I was a hit man for the CIA" Seagal a great actor and a national treasure, so that he could be OUR ambassador to the world. Shit, think of it. Truly, there, but for the grace of God, go we. Gerard's taken a classic defense posture--"Hey--*I* never said that." His press agent believes this is part of a conspiracy to prevent him from winning an Oscar (the evil mega-corporation Time Inc. attempting to deprive them BOTH of BIG BUCKS). And his French and American lawyers are busy "examining" a copy of the interview tape. It will be interesting to see what happens at the Oscars. As a public service, here's a quick rundown of potential communication errors. The French word for "rape" is "violer." Perhaps what he ACTUALLY meant was... french english potential intended meaning ------ ------- -------------------------- violon violin helping nice ladies learn the violin? violation breaking&entering breaking into women's homes? violemment violently violently beating (but NOT raping) women? voler to fly flying through the air with women? some sort of a spirtual experience? But, you can see how this sort of thing might easily get confused in the translation. The NOW is working to help Gerard mend his confused ways. They've suggested he start off with a large contribution. This is America, after all. Quick, Gerard--what is the frequency? --- On other news, I saw the new Bernard Blier classic, "Merci, La Vie" the other afternoon. Fortunately, I saw it in a huge theater with a huge screen. Otherwise, I might have missed something. Let me see if I can capture the flow for you. In the opening scene, one of the heroines, Joelle is seen getting the crap kicked out of her by someone we assume to be her husband (she's wearing a sort-of wedding mini-dress). After he brutalizes her and speeds off in his Porsche, she and the audience lose consciousness. Soon, she's found by Charlotte Gainsbourg, leaving her in significantly better shape than the audience, who will probably be lost and semi-conscious for days to come. (I can't exactly remember the name of the character Charlotte Gainsbourg plays, but, as you'll see, this small confusion between reality and fantasy is not terribly important. Please bear with me.) So, Joelle and Charlotte become friends and Joelle goes to live with Charlotte because Charlotte's dad is somewhere else. They determine that someone is working in a building across the way, so they visit the building and set off a variety of fireworks, forcing the guy working in the building to go dancing with them. At the dance, they keep switching in and out of black and white and into and out of different clothes. Charlotte forces the guy to dance with her friend Joelle, which he does not want to do (as an American vulgarian, I immediately suspected something was fishy about the movie at this point, because Joelle is quite cute). At this point, they switch back into black and white (occasionally commenting about whether they're in black and white or not) and the snappy clothes and the three of them hop into the sack (the land rover, actually) and we learn something important about love. Once he's spent and used, Charlotte and Joelle abandon the worker and this is the last we see of him. At least, that's what I learned. After several further minor adventures, (including the one where Joelle's husband?/lover?/tormenter? sticks Charlotte's head in the toilet to make her say where Joelle is, then tries to seduce her...in a fatherly sort of way), the two adventurers end up on the set of a movie. Which movie? Why, this one, of course. Someone recognizes Joelle and a huge melee breaks out. The directory yells, cut and they call for the doctor (Gerard Depardieu) who comes to take care of Joelle, after she's gotten beaten up again (a recurring theme). At this point we go into hyperdrive and blood slowly starts to drip from the ears of the audience. We find Charlotte's father, both in the past along with a bunch of Nazis (Nazis?!?) and his domineering wife who is not dead, but is about autopsied, anyway ("Can I just have a moment to freshen up, first?"), and in the future, in a clock store where he feels up Joelle from his wheelchair. Back on the set of the movie, the Nazis torture everybody (except the director, unfortunately) and the movie ends with everyone getting machine-gunned by the Nazis, naked (no, no...not the Nazis), in cattle cars. Reviews have been pretty mixed for this movie; there was a lot of it I actually kind of enjoyed. If you pretend that they're showing two or three movies simultaneously it is a little easier to keep a hold of. The director was equating it to the use of a television remote control (yes, always eager to take the best from American culture, the French have adopted the english word "zapping") as a cinematic technique. But, is it art? Oh, I have skipped the part where Gerard feels up Joelle (speaking of recurring themes), then forces her sleep with the entire town to spread AIDS in order to increase business for his practice. For Gerard's sake, I hope they wait a few months for before releasing this in the US. I'm not sure this is what he needs right now. -Doug >>>> [Back on the business front, sometimes things happen that they wouldn't understand in Alabama...] >>>> Return-Path: tilly@chorus Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 09:51:12 +0100 From: tilly@chorus (Tilly Bayard-Richard) To: chorus_band@chorus Subject: Toilettes hommes au 2e`me e'tage / Men's room on 2nd floor Les toilettes hommes du 2e`me e'tage sont INUTILISABLES pendant qq jours (attendez pour les utiliser a` nouveau, que l'on vous donne le "feu vert" parun nouveau mail). DO NOT USE Men's room on the second floor until new advertising. You are kindly invited to use Lady's room. >>>> To: travels Subject: travelogue; a pizza from hell Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 11:08:28 +0200 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr Greetings from the edge. Before I start on another of my rants about how much harder it is to get stuff done here, I should talk about some of the things that are easier here. Let's see. It's much easier to get French food here. I have consistently found more bakers that produce high-quality baguettes and croissants here. I think it might be easier to buy french cars, although I don't have any actual experience with this myself. Ok. Moving right along, we changed apartments this weekend. (If anyone should like to call me, better try me at work because I'm between phones.) After a long day of wandering around elsewhere on Sunday (and waiting for the last bus that never came), we came back to an apartment full of boxes, boxes, and more boxes. Master of all situations, Doug says, "don't worry honeee. I'll order a pizza." My memory was that in America, under moving conditions, pizza was called for at all times. Happily, we have SPIZZA 30 American Pizza (whether you're at the office or at home, share a large pizza with friends and experience our special dough). Oooooh. Special dough! My mouth was watering as I left the door at a gallop on my way to the cabine te'le'phonique, a few blocks away (no phone, remember...) Ok, the first phone booth I found had a queue associated with it. No problem. During the 45 minutes I had spent wandering around making phone calls this morning, I had discovered another phone booth, ten minutes away. I walked ten minutes further to the other, somewhat more defaced by graffiti, phone booth. The French public phone experience begins. Most public phones are equipped with high-tech lcd displays and little card readers that accept the cards you buy in (of course) cigarette stores. You get so many units per card, when that runs out you go back and get some more smokes and another card. Sounds reasonable, no? Yes, except that the telephone software was designed by someone who is currently lying on his stomach wearing a leather mask, being whipped mercilessly by a woman named bruno who's sporting thigh boots and an SS uniform. C/a fait mal, esclave? Oui, ma^itresse. Je ne peux pas vous entendre! OUI, MAITRESSE. An engineer who likes pain. Giving and getting. So, you're in a hurry, you fumble with the card, you stick the card in the slot, and the friendly little LCD display greets you: Take the phone off the hook (slave). You take the phone off the hook. Take out your card (slave). You take the card out, slightly mystified. Hang up the phone (slave). Huh? You hang up the phone. Take the phone off the hook (slave). Oh. Ok, let's start over. Insert the card or dial a free number (slave). Much better. NOW you have done things in the right order. Now, you are learning. You may NOT insert the card FIRST. That would be a violation of the RULES and we would have to make the naughty phone user start OVER because we could not violate the RULES. We would be very STRICT with you if you violated the RULES. Close the cover (idiot). You close the cover, and your card is swallowed by the machine. Please wait. Dial your number (slave). You start dialing, but you're a little weak with hunger, so you type a seven instead of a four. You look around a little nervously for an erase button. Nope. There's a little memory button, a little button with an icon that looks like an open book. Something that might decrease the Guns-n-Roses level volume produced by each keypress. No restart or correction buttons. Oh well, no problem. You hang up. BEEP BEEP BEEP. The latch flies open and it presents your card to you. Take out your card (sycophant). You pull the card out and stick it back in to reset the thing. BEEP BEEP BEEP. Not so fast. (I SAID) Take out your card (grovelling weakling). You take the card out. I guess these things don't reset. You flash the little white button to hang up. You insert your card. The phone is not still hung up. Hang up the phone (filth). SHIT. Violated the rules again. Wait a second, was I supposed to hang up first or put my card in first? Shit. Hang up again. BEEP BEEP BEEP. Take out your card. GODDAMIT! You pull out the card. Take the phone off the hook (slave). Ok, carefully now. Take the phone off the hook, insert the card, put the latch down, wait, whew, type seven digits and ... screw up the LAST ONE ... SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. Someone's phone is ringing, and it's not a pizza place. You search for some alternative; any alternative. You pound on the little green button that lets you insert other phone cards. It's not connected to anything. You push every button in the booth. You pound on the telephone. You look around for a rock. No, there is no alternative. You admit defeat and hang up. Take out your card (worm). Fuck you. Ok. One more time. Slowly. Hang up. Take the phone off the hook, insert the card. Put the latch down. Wait. Dial the number. Success! Preliminary beeping. It's busy. Thank you mistress. Hang up. Take out your card (dirt). Sigh. The phone at SPIZZA 30 continued to be busy for 20 minutes. I know. I dialed regularly. There were a few periods of time where I was atoning for the sin of poor order of execution, rapidly clicking buttons and removing and inserting cards, but after about 15 minutes the phone and I were a polished team. The hostage had come to admire, respect, and need its tormenter. We were as one. In between busy signals, I called my dad. I called my friends in the US. Noone was home. Finally, SPIZZA 30! Hi, I would like to order a pizza. What arondissiment? 14th. What metro? Cite' Universitaire. I don't think we deliver there. (choke) (mild thud as I black out and hit my head.) (background noise) Ok, it's alright. We deliver there. The number you must call is 42 83 99 99. Uhgnhhhhh. (dial tone) Take out your card (slave). I tried the new number. Maybe it was a pizza place. Maybe not. Maybe it was a suicide hotline. Maybe it was phone sex. Whatever it was, it was off the hook. I called that fucking number for forty fucking minutes and got a solid busy signal. In between, I called more friends who were not home. I called Domino's in St. Quentin. They have no stores in Paris, yet, and no they don't deliver, if you're curious. I called information to ask for numbers of other pizza places. I got no answer, which was a refreshing change of pace. Take out your card (loser). I went home. An hour and a quarter had passed. It was 9:30. At home, I was pretty sure there was the number of a weird little chicken delivery service. I explained the situation to Tricia, explained how there would be no special dough for us tonight or any other night, but assured her that food is On The Way and headed off again. Ok, 9:45 and a couple of phone booths later, I assuredly dial the number of Hector's Chicken. They answer on the second ring. Hector's! (wild rush of orgasmic joy) I would very much like to order some chicken. Fine. What's your phone number? (the booth spins.) Uh...I don't exactly HAVE a phone number. Oh. Hold on. (thud. second brief blackout.) It's ok. I scream for joy into the phone. In-CREDIBLE! I place the order. "That will be 15 minutes," they say. I tell them I love them. It's 10:00. I walk home. On the way home, I realize that I've misspelled the street name. I arrive home at 10:15, optimistic that we shall eat soon. I've ordered a bottle of wine. I am tired. At 10:45, we give up hope of ever seeing food again. We share the last bit of cheese that was in the fridge and glass of water. At 11:00 we go to bed. At 11:15, the doorbell rings. It's the chicken. Actually, one corn salad, one chicken salad and a half bottle of wine. That will be $20.00, please. I pay the man. I tip lightly. At 11:20, we have determined that we have no idea what box of posessions contains the corkscrew. I put both salads in the refrigerator and we go to sleep. Possibly this is what we should have done in the first place. -Doug >>>> To: Subject: random serial killings Date: Tue, 14 May 91 09:09:10 +0200 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr Something I have noticed here in France is that there aren't that many serial murders that take place. I am not thinking so much of the Ted Bundy style serial killing, but more the Austin Bell Tower, Vietnam vet with a hunting rifle style. For example, there just aren't that many times when large numbers of striking SNCF workers are gunned down in cold blood while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes at the site of one of their work slowdowns. This really amazes me. I mean, you almost NEVER hear about some hard working guy who gets up extra early, skips his coffee, rides the RER half an hour up to St. Michel to discover a strike on the C line, waits around for a while, takes the metro down to Montparnasse and discovers that the trains are on strike there, also; who then, after another forty five minutes or so of waiting, contemplating the horrible opression of being packed standing room only, cheek by jowl with several hundred smelly strangers, pulls out a nine millimeter pistol and aces eight or ten SNCF workers leaving a trail of bloody blue uniforms and cheering commuters behind him. That kind of thing. And, the guy would certainly become a folk hero. But, it seems like it almost never happens here. I find that really surprising. -Doug >>>> To: travels Subject: la primiere sinistre Date: Thu, 16 May 91 10:12:37 +0200 From: doug@swing.chorus.fr France has a new prime minister. A woman, no less. We are in for some fun. Witness [with translations]: Lori, local american woman posts, Subject: un petit pas pour les femmes Michel Rocard d'hors Edith Cresson dedans. Which reads: -A small step for women: Michel Rocard out; Edith Cresson in. Eric, French guy living in California replies: Encore une fois, les feministes americaines n'ont rien compris. Edith Cresson n'est pas une femme, comme Rocard n'est pas un homme, puisque ce sont des politiques! De plus c'est avec ce genre d'idee que l'on justifie toutes les conneries faite par un politique, si c'est une femme. Eric PS: Ne me traitez pas de misogyne, car je ne le suis pas. Par contre vous pouvez me traiter d'anti-feministe-americain. Si vous voulez faire un voyage dans le passe (environ un siecle), venez ici ! -Once again, the american feminists have completely misunderstood. -Edith Cresson isn't any more a woman than Rocard was a man, because -this is politics. What's more, this sort of attitude [?] is used to -justify any arbitrary kind of bullshit done by a politician if she is -a woman. -p.s.: Don't think that I'm a misogonist because I'm not. To the -contrary [why this is to the contrary, I'm not sure...], I am an -anti-American-feminist. If you want to take a trip into the past, -(on the order of a century), come here! And, better yet, Jean-Christophe, local French guy says: Remarques si c'etait "Edith Cresson dehors et Michel Rocard dedans" ca nous ferai du spectacle rue Matignon ! Treve de plaisanteries, c'est un TRES PETIT pas pour les femmes car Edith Cresson n'a pas eu jusqu'a present l'occasion de prouver qu'elle etait a la hauteur du poste, elle n'est pas vraiement costaude comme politicien. Bref ca ne fait pas beaucoup de BONNES raisons pour lui filer Matignon, les mauvaises langues dans mon genre en veront deux : 1 - Miterrand s'est arrange pour avoir enfin une potiche comme premier sinistre et exercer en toute quietude le pouvoir qu'il affectionne le plus : le pouvoir absolu. 2 - Mitterrand a joint l'utile a l'agreable en recompensant royalement sa maitresse favorite. ...Encore une qui s'est fait une place avec son c... Rien de tres flatteur pour la petite Frisee (ni donc pour les femmes en general) dans tout ca. -Let's say that if it was Edith Cresson outside and Michel -Rocard inside [this, I believe is a sexual reference]--that would be a -REAL show on rue Matignon [prime minister's residence?]. -Joking aside, this is a VERY small step for women because Edith -Cressen hasn't up until now proven that she is up to the job; she's -not really a hard-core politician. In short, this are not many GOOD -reasons for her to take the post; nasty guys like me might see two: -1. Mitterand has finally arranged to have a [slang--not sure of the -translation] crony as prime minister and will be able to exercise the -power he desires most: absolute power. -2. Mitterand has combined the practical with the agreeable and -royally rewarded his favorite mistress...another example of someone -sleeping her way to the top [the original is a bit more graphic]. -Nothing here is all that flattering for the little Frisee [? pet name -for Cresson?] or for women in general. I expect this should generate some fun cross cultural interchange. Now, where did I put that plane ticket... -Doug