February 22, 2002
7. Champagne Cups
Well, it's been a hard week all around. I've been doing my French homework every night -- now I know twelve different verb tenses and their uses. In my normal conversation, I use about three. I got all the boxes emptied and contents sorted about, and generally made my flat liveable. In fact, it was perfectly liveable before all my stuff arrived from Canada, which I'm sure makes some sort of statement about unnecessary possessions weighing heavily on the soul.
Every morning, I get up at 6:30am, shower and shave and take the twenty minute walk to Port d'Orléans to catch the 7:20am bus. This is the most direct way for me to get to work at 8:00am. For some reason, this week, I haven't been sleeping well. One morning, at breakfast, I thought I must have a mouse -- somehow during the night, half a large round of Babybel cheese had disappeared. (Note: Babybel is a French brand of cheese similar to Edam, and is especially distinguished by the red plastic protective layer. It is one of my favourite cheeses, and it can easily be found in Canada. If you're on a fat-reduced diet, you should try it. It has 50% less fat than, well... pure fat.)
In fact, I vaguely remembered getting up in the night, having a very large cheese snack and doing some dishes, including rinsing out the espresso maker that I purchased that weekend. "Ah-ha!" some of you will shout, "his poor sleep started at the exact same time that he purchased an espresso maker!" This is just a meaningless coincidence.
Sure, I have been enjoying an espresso or two every day after work. There is a definite joy in puttering about with grinds, water and a little mechanical device to make a strong and tasty hot beverage. Of course, espresso is stronger than French coffee (one of the differences is that espresso is made with steam), so this weekend I am experimenting by not drinking any.
I had another bad experience with coffee this week. Somebody threw a plastic cup over their balcony while I was walking under it to the bus. Thankfully it passed through a tree, so it was mostly shaken out by the time it struck me, and I only had a few sticky drops of coffee to rinse out of my hair at work. Regardless, it demonstrates that you can find a jerk in any city.
But oddly enough, that was only the first thing to fall on me that day. Later in the evening, while returning from my grocery shopping (in a different area of Paris altogether), a pillow from above slipped through somebody's open window and struck me. Hmmm, ominous.
But that leads nicely into something I learned this week. The backs of all the euro coins are personalized by the country that they are minted in. In France, these coins have the figure or face of Marianne. Marianne is a figure of the revolution, probably most famously painted by Delacroix in Liberty Leads the People, which shows her carrying a flag in one hand and a weapon in the other, leading the people in the French revolution. In this painting and in many renditions, she is unencumbered by upper-body wear.
Marianne isn't a real person; it is believed that her name was a revolutionary codeword. She represents the French republic, and until this century she was faceless, or the face of every woman -- noble, common, artisan, peasant. Brigitte Bardot, however, was the inspiration for many sculptures of Marianne and became the living representative for this symbol. Bardot passed the title to Catherine Deneuve, who was Marianne for many years.
With the new millenium, however, all of the mayors of all of the cities in France voted for the new face of Marianne -- Laetitia Casta. She is a Victoria's secret model, whose upper-body can therefore be found in different degrees of encumbrance. The traditional French measure for ideal proportions is the rather petite champagne cup. Of Laetitia, however, it could be said Y'a du monde au balcon -- she has an ample balcony from which to greet the world. (Or in German Es gibt Holz vor der Tür -- there's enough wood before the door).
You can also frequently see another French symbol on doors, posters, groceries, and clothing. The rooster is frequently associated with the French Republic (often in blue, white and red), because of a very, very old pun. Two thousand years ago, the latin name for the country was gallus, which is also the latin word for rooster. Despite this ancient pedigree, the rooster doesn't enjoy the same level of official endorsement as Marianne, which is probably due to Napoléon being unimpressed with the bird.
Speaking of the Gauls, I went to see the most expensive movie ever made in France: Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra. You may be familiar with the short, blonde Gaul warrior (Asterix) who gets his strength from magic potion, and his permanently strong and large friend, Obelix. The movie was amusing enough, and I could follow the entire story, but I certainly missed many of the nuances, especially the puns on the character's names. If you have seen Amelie (or Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulin in France), you would recognize Jamel Debbouze, who played the delivery boy. In Asterix, he was the young architect who must build a pleasure dome for Ceasar in three months or be fed to the crocodiles.
And remember, kids, M. Knucklebunny says "-- Boursin and Babybel can sometimes mask the pain --".
Posted by The Inaccurate Tourist at February 22, 2002 12:00 PM