coming clean - dos passos readings

I had had the expectation that this class would be somewhat of a personal narrative writing class, with the blog posts resembling curated diaries, digressions on the Parisian lifestyle and our own experiences living in Paris in the spring of 2015 and all that. It is just about 95 years after Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast — that which would stand for a centennial anniversary of the lost generation. I am not certain whether the assignments posted on canvas are prompts for the blog posts or for the conversation in class, so in my confusion I have written a hybrid of the two.
I also have to say how I feel uncomfortable in sharing my entire private life with the entire class, and thus, auditing myself poses a difficulty and somewhat of a burden on my creativity and on my desire to write these posts. I like the idea of constructive participation, but as those are true accounts of my life, being judged on my writing takes a new form of familiarity that I wished never to encounter in my adult life. I feel if I were writing fiction this would be different. I would love to be able to account for my semester in Paris by these short narratives, however I feel stifled by the looming threat of literary analysis, and by the general sense of apathy I get from the class. That being said, I wish to participate in this class in more than just presence, and this post will hopefully catapult me back into the mindset I was in at the beginning of the semester.
I have spent the last few weeks reeling with illness. I had never gotten sick in New York, nor in Los Angeles, and I am surprised by my sudden susceptibility to bronchial infection (which I imagine could make a great band name). Normally, my tolerance for these spring bugs is very high but something about Paris, maybe the proximity to other sick people, is what is different. Almost everybody I know has come down with some kind of bronchial illness — probably all the same one — and a few have had other issues. My ulcerative colitis has flared again, and I wonder if it is because of the cigarettes, caffeine, dairy, meat, bread, cold, alcohol, that I have introduced into my diet recently. Fortunately, nothing seems to soothe my IBS so at this point it is more of a meditation on removing stress rather than dietary irritants. 
I also find that there’s another kind of contagion which is much more detrimental to health than infections are, and that is the sense of apathy which I mentioned earlier. The table in my living room only became more and more dirty until last night when I decided that it was time for my life to again be worth something. I feel like my table represents and reflects everything in my life, my laziness, ennui, etc. As Lauryn Hill says, “everything is everything.” 
I have also become empty of music — I want to buy a guitar but I have been spending so much money that I can’t rationalize spending on that too. I figure if I spend very little for a few months then I’ll have saved up enough to buy one, but at that point I don’t see why I don’t just wait until I get back to New York where guitars are cheaper and I have an apartment and more stationary life.
It makes me very sad to know that I, again, will be leaving to make a new life for myself. I feel like I am creating conditions for myself to replicate the instability of living in a split custody household, but instead of household, life — 6 months in New York, 1 month in Los Angeles, 6 months in Paris, 1 month in Los Angeles… ? months in New York and who knows what else. I am restless — attention deficient or impatient, which it is, I am not sure. I have noticed this pattern, however, and I feel like it is a symptom of the anxiety that eats away at me. I went to talk to the councilor that Parsons Paris provided, and he turned out to be a wonderful man, a musician, too, raised in Greece, lived in New York, etc.
I keep getting urges to trip — I feel like I am looking for something in my waking life that my day dreams are not sufficient enough to find. I have been sleeping a lot, too, hoping that I’ll remember some of these revelations or realizations that I have in my dreams so that I can figure out what I am trying to figure out, but I guess since I am so sleep deprived, my mind is being greedy with its lessons. Writing also helps me discover these things, but since I’ve felt the emphasis of this class shift from writing to literary analysis I have lost my desire to write. A lot of my personal disposition tends to be reflective of the educational environment I am in; this was especially so in high school, when I was in class from 7 am to 3 pm every day. 
I need to find a musical community, people with I can play music with and talk with about these things. I feel like artistic communities have the same sensibilities, and are self selecting as a result, so finding one will only be a matter of searching for one.
I have also become very interested in astrology, and, while I am sure I shouldn’t be revealing this, as mine advised me to study astrology and metaphysics in secrecy, I feel a need to share this information. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how binary people and situations tend to be, and I believe that astrology (as well as many other human behavioral sciences) are true. I am very much a libra, and that is satisfying and enlightening for me. 
I didn’t get a chance to finish the Dos Passos reading, but from what I got through, I recognized a similar trauma as is in Hemingway’s writing. Dos Passos has the same innocent narrative that Hemingway writes, with an unassuming and non-prescriptive voice, for example, when Dos Passos is sequestered by Sheffield into his love-den type living room, there is a definite implication of homosexual tendencies, but Dos Passos plays possum and gets himself out of the situation without prejudice or phobia, and the ambiguity of the situation tells this in itself. He also has this innocence when he is describing the violet-eyed couples that he keeps encountering, where he’ll hope to find friendship but then realizes that he is mentally impotent because of his presence in the military and battle trauma.

I don’t have much else to say, except an apology for being somewhat mentally absent these past few weeks, and for being physically absent in several different places, several times, for whatever it’s worth, and that I want to get more tattoos. 

a walk through a graffitied wonderland

I was already in the Marais area, so I decided to do the walk backwards, starting at the Hotel de Ville, moving towards Rue du Poitou. I was fully engaged with my music, having just had a near to spiritual experience walking through a tattooed alley just behind a boulangerie, when I ran square into Emily and Alex, finishing the same route I was just beginning, and Alex's father, who was very kind and wonderful. They asked if I wanted to join them, but I was on a trajectory already.

I continued down the Rue Vielle du Temple, looking for tags and graffiti I could photograph. The only ones around were too simple for my taste -- having been raised in California, lived in New York, and now Paris -- graffiti has become a form of art that I recognize more easily than any other, and am now more versed in graffiti more than I had realized. That being said, the street art in Paris is less politically charged and more personally expressive than the ones I have seen elsewhere, though generalizations are almost always inexplicably untrue.

This graffiti tells me of a culture whose character is based in seeking to achieve expression of mind and of heart. I see sex, art, sex, stupid, stupid, sex, clever (the clever ones make me smile) sex, sex, stupid. I am looking for one to relate to, whose message is as banal as it is universally true. I find comfort knowing where I stand with others, especially those others who are brave (or dumb) enough to make their mark through such a transient medium; concrete and pigment, these allies are the modern day Lascaux. This makes me wonder if it is human nature to draw on walls, something of an attempt at upward mobility. Perhaps this was Kubrick's intended message, though I wish to never find out.

Walking past the L'As du Falafel, I immediately regretted the sandwich I had just eaten, but c'est la vie. It's true that those sandwiches are the best falafel in the world (no exaggeration). I walked past the Jewish bakery, and gawked at all of the beautiful pastries that I won't let myself eat; maybe when I'm an old lady, I tell myself. I saw a new place that sells strudel like pastries on the corner, which corner I couldn't say, and decided to come back to try one, though for 3,50 the pastries are a bit steep and probably not as good as I imagine they will be. I walked towards Rue du Poitou, momentarily feeling myself disoriented in the Parisian labyrinth. Finally I found my way back to Vieille du Temple and stopped at a café called Boots. It reminded me of home, with independently run magazines and indie music playing in the background. The barista didn't speak French very well, and as I left I noticed her doing language exercises on the counter.

I walked up towards the A.C.P., and noticed an American Apparel across the street. I went in, for old time's stake, and found a scarf that I really wanted to get but not for 55 euros. I considered stealing it, but the censor on it was all too conspicuous, and the employees were boring holes into my back with their eyes. 

(hey David)

I walked onwards, until I saw the end of the street where it opened onto a main road. I found the metro and stopped for a cigarette before heading home. I sat on an ruinous step that reminded me of one of those incredible monuments I see online, and smoked my cigarette. A man walked by asking for money, but did not harass me, as I was having my cigarette. I boarded the train and went home.

euroless

Living the life of an impoverished writer this week has been one of the more freeing things I have done. Living off of stolen fruits and vegetables from the alimentaire shops with open air fruit stands, and the little dried food I had in my kitchen taught me how little money contributes to my happiness and how much it actually detracts from it. Guilt I associate with spending money vanishes with money, and inventiveness and artistic fulfillment precede. 

I lost my debit card somewhere in Paris on the 26th of January. I had $150 transferred to a Western Union, which translated to about €130, which has lasted me exactly 8 days, now, with €20 left still, for an emergency. I owe Sam €35 and I owe a few people €0,5 here and there, for the espresso machine in the student lounge, but I will pay them back as soon as I get my pin number or my debit card, whichever comes first. Having to ration food and alcohol has taught me self control, having to ask myself, now or later?, as I am used to now and later, though the latter has caused me many problems, namely those which are embarrassing and bourgeois. Needless to say, it was good for me.

I have been spending time stressing out about my audition for the Bel Canto program in Florence, Italy. It is a 4 week opera intensive, and if I get in then I am guaranteed the summer in Europe. So far, I have only a vague idea of what I might do in Portugal for two months, as I had planned to rent an apartment though June and July, then go back to Los Angeles, to see my family, then to New York for the fall and to find an apartment and get my bearings on American soil again. I hate to think so far in advance, because I feel that it detracts from my experience here in Paris, but these things need to be planned now rather than later, and once I have my future planned, I can relax in the present, and not be worried about where I am going or how I am getting there. 

I have to record myself singing two Italian pieces, and because I do not have a pianist, I have to do them a cappella or with a pre-recorded tape, which is inconvenient for timing and pitch. The application is $75, and I am afraid that I will be wasting my money, especially if I don't get in. The program costs $6,300 without any scholarships, plus living expenses which I know will be high since I will be there in the summer time and the summer always costs more money. I hate how much I think about money, but if I do not, like my future, I will reach a dead end. I don't know if I want to become an opera singer, either, but for now, it is what I do best and what I have worked on the hardest, and where I feel an affect.

I have been spending more time walking around and thinking, and then writing those thoughts somewhere, as an effect of not having money to spend on extemporaneous purchases. This has allowed me to reflect on the value of money, and delegate where I spend it, but also see where money exists that I have taken for granted, and where money does not need to exist that I have also taken for granted. Parks, for example, have always places that I enjoy going to, but never had they been my preference to a café or two a clothing store. 

I feel disgusted when I think about how much time I spent shopping, not even to buy anything, but looking just because I had the money to look, and the option to spend. I’ve missed so much life blinded by my debit card, burning a hole in my pocket or bag, and I know now that it is a product of my childhood, running from one store to another with my mom whose binge shopping addiction was passed down from her mother, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother, and so on, and which offer her a sense of security in this world, being able to quantify herself by the clothes she wears and the food she eats and the things she owns. Life is qualified by experiences and memories, sometimes intelligible and sometimes lost in time but always good, even when they are bad, and always more real than anything in a store. Life is qualitative not quantitative, and quality always trumps quantity, especially when it comes to tangible things, because money is an abstract, fleeting invention to satisfy modern man’s need for structure and it has clotted up the arteries of humanity like cholesterol and sooner or later this world is going to seize and die. This is neither good nor bad, it just is, like the fact that I lost my debit card, and what came out of it was worth more money than I could have spent in my entire lifetime. I had heard many times that money does not buy happiness, which I thought was bull shit until I realized it is true this last week. Money cannot buy a disposition or an emotion, and while it can buy things that  may supplant or manufacture that emotion, happiness, it is not genuine unless it is, and happiness by tarte aux pommes is not happiness like spending a day with someone you love or walking through a park and watching life reveal itself to you, and basking in the wonder and mystery of it all.

I saw two pigeons walking in a single file line across the Parvis de Nôtre-Dame and the one followed the other in corkscrew spirals and turns and forks and the two pigeons walked the exact same winding path until they found themselves under a car. I think this may have been a mating ritual.

I sat down on a fence near the Panthéon to smoke a cigarette, and suddenly it became incredibly cold and incredibly windy. I had a difficult time lighting my cigarette, but once I did, I was pacified and I sat and watched as people, probably students, walked about with their backpacks and collegiate glasses. Some people came out of the Universal Studios building next to me to smoke, and suddenly there was a rush of wind and ash began blowing around me. I thought this was odd, I had never had my cigarette produce ash so light that it floated in the air. I looked around, thinking that maybe the people smoking nearby were ash-ing their cigarettes into the wind, and then I thought that maybe, a few blocks away, a building might have caught fire and the ash in the air was coming from that, but I heard no sirens. A man walked past me, and as I was looking around for a fire or a burning bush, this man looked at me and with his eyes only said, “I know, me too,” and I realized then that it was not ash but snow, and I am so ignorant to cold weather having been raised in Southern California that I did not recognize it when it I saw it. I laughed at the situation, and at myself, for thinking fire instead of ice, and I walked away, down another unrecognizable block.

I walked off the subway at Charles de Gaulle étoile and as I walked towards my apartment just off of Rue Mac Mahon I noticed a fervency in the air. The people waiting at the bus stop were staring at the Arc de Triomphe which never happens and a man ran across the street in just a suit towards the arc which I thought was weird, too. A man who walked past me was wearing a royal purple scarf, which was also odd and I realized, then, that the sun had broken through the clouds for the first time in weeks and spring time was coming.

Two Weeks in Paris (so far no quiche)

Listen to this track while you read this post.

I forget where or when I had my first impression of French culture, but I have always admired the French save from the pervasive smugness. I began learning French in 9th grade with the intention of going to or living in Paris. I was born American and raised Portuguese. This experience so far has been more of a "coming home" rather than a "going abroad". Though perhaps I am caught in my own delusions of grandeur.

I always thought about the cafés and vente à emporter kiosques, the late nights drinking beers with good friends at bistrots, making conversation until the sun rises and then post-conversation conversations fueled by wine and fatigue, the memories of which last only a day or two until the next night out. I thought of speaking of love and life and nebulous things with people I know personally, not just through Facebook. I thought of the French I would speak with its messy conjugations and disregarded syntactical rules. I dreamed of the cobblestone streets and the markets that sell fruit not wrapped in plastic, the clubs with smelly people and restaurants with slow table staff. I thought of fortune and I dreamed of breathing the air and smelling the smell of freshly baked baguettes wafting through the narrow winding walk streets, and beaucoup du café. 

I saw a post on a blog called Messy Nessy Chic about week before my departure called "Living the Bohemian Student Dream in 1960's Paris". It detailed, in pictures and captions, the life of a vrai étudiant parisienne. The pictures were of students, not much older than myself, standing in staircases, sitting at desks, organizing jazz records.

"It doesn’t seem like much has changed."

I had forgotten about this article, having filed it away with the other abstractions I read last month, until I sat down to write this blog post. I was reminded of it by a comment my roommate made to me. One Tuesday night, after getting a drink with a close friend, I sat on my balcony and smoked a Lucky. I was content in my faux fur, like a baby swathed in blankets. I began to sing, quietly at first then more loudly. I sang Gershwin and Chopin and once I ran out of songs, I made up melodies. People in the street below didn't appear to notice, or if they did they showed no inclination to participate, though a few of them did look around with curiosity or maybe irritation. I took that as encouragement to sing, and so I sang more decidedly and confidently than I had been before. My roommate came out to smoke with me, and we had a very nice conversation. After that, I went to bed.

In the morning, I was very hungry. I get in moods where all I want to do is eat which will last for days, sometimes weeks. I don't know that I ever don't want to eat. I went to the Marais for coffee and walked around and went into St. Paul Cathedral where I sat and prayed and admired the architecture. I don't consider myself a religious person, but I have a soft spot for holy places, especially those that are ornately decorated. I am in conflict with myself about whether it is disrespectful to do this, seeing as I am Jewish by birth and agnostic by choice, but I figure that it is in the spirit of Christianity to accept any and every person into their home. After that, I went to one of those vintage stores which sell clothing for 1 euro a piece. I found a red white and black nylon jacket there, though I don't know on what occasion I'd wear it. I went and bought a slice of a tarte pistache abricot and sat down to watch the rain and the cars drive by. Behind me to the right was a mother and her daughter, who were speaking in German. It made me think about how incredible it is that words convey so little. I wonder sometimes if words mean anything at all; text can be at times illegible and meaningless. Often I will find myself looking at words rather than reading them, searching for meaning in the words themselves rather than what the words convey, like reading a foreign language. I took the rest of my tarte to go and ate it on the way to the metro Saint Paul.

The metro is very efficient. Compared to the New York subway system, at least. I've heard that the trains in Tokyo are lightning fast, which I imagine is a bit dangerous, but I say throw caution to the wind. It comes in handy when you are trying to get somewhere, though it does not foster that particular conversation that comes from mass frustration. Some of my best acquaintances have been made in the Subway in New York. On my way home from a party one night, I stood watching two rats nibble on some discarded saffron rice in between the rusted tracks. Two students approached me, one disgusted and one intrigued, and we got talking about the pros and cons of living in Queens, as opposed to living in Brooklyn. I saw them around the city a few times after that, and we always acknowledged each other with mutual familiarity. The metro also closes at an obscenely early hour, which in America would be called a ploy to benefit the Taxi company, or federal negligence, but in Paris is simply understood that metro employees will not be made to work overnight shifts. 

Time goes by differently in Paris, also. Where in New York, the mornings were the shortest part of the day, in Paris it is the opposite. I feel as though my morning drags on until the evening, and then come 4 pm it is 11pm and I am asleep in bed. I could not say why this is, if I did I would be grasping at straws.

It is also very cold in Paris, which makes showering difficult because the shower head does not stay in its holder well in my apartment, so when my knees are cold my head is warm, and when my knees are warm, my entire body is freezing. And, because the water makes the cold air even colder, it takes me an hour just to warm my body enough to get out of the bathtub. Then, I take a five minute break in front of my heater to warm the parts of my body which did not get enough heat in the shower, and immediately jump into my bed, which is always icy cold until my body heat warms it from the inside. I really like this feeling, though, I enjoyed the endless hot water in New York just a little too much.

The pastries and baked goods in Paris are more beautiful than the paintings in its galleries and museums. In the window at Fauchon, there is an immaculate chocolate orb, sans scratches or mold lines, almost like it was created on Photoshop and then pasted into the window. The traiteurs and boulangers have created the paradigm of modern decadence. Even the lesser quality bakeries still have pastries on par with the better bakeries in New York. I have been inspired by the bread in Paris, and am baking fresh baguettes as I write this.

I do not have enough experiences yet to amount an objective depiction of Paris, however I have had some experiences walking around the city at night which have been awesome in the truest sense of the word. Paris is not the city I had imagined it to be, as is the case with every preemptive perception, though it has surpassed most if not all of my expectations in ways I could not have imagined. I feel as though I have been here the entire semester already, and it has only just begun.Two Weeks in Paris (so far no quiche)