Happy Bastille Day! The anniversary of the storming of the Bastille—a military fortress and prison—in 1789 by a violent mob is one of the defining moments in the fall of the monarchy, or the ancien régime, as they say in France. Check my facts but this was followed by the formation of a July 14 Commission to investigate the insurrection. Bastille Day is celebrated by parades, fireworks, flags, etc. — like our own Independence Day, which also celebrates a violent insurrection. They don’t make insurrections like they used to, I tell you. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: France
5 Reasons We’re Not Helped by More Gun Laws
The most common statistical sleight of hand when it comes to showing charts of gun murder rates per capita by country, with the United States always in the lead, is that these charts, somewhere in the fine print, and sometimes not at all, note that they’re only charting so-called “developed” countries, meaning that the U.S. is being compared to countries like Japan and France, but that Latin American countries and African countries, among others, are left out. So — 50+ people shot to death in a Nigerian church? Doesn’t count because Nigeria is not a “developed” country. And so on. (The other thing you have to pay attention to is whether a chart is showing gun murders or gun deaths. The U.S. has a very high suicide rate compared to most other countries — more than 60 percent of our gun deaths are suicides — so rolling the suicides in… Read more →
Débrouillard
Débrouillard is what every plongeur wants to be called. A débrouillard is a man who, even when he is told to do the impossible, will se débrouiller — get it done somehow. One of the kitchen plongeurs at the Hôtel X, a German, was well known as a débrouillard. One night an English lord came to the hotel, and the waiters were in despair, for the lord had asked for peaches, and there were none in stock; it was late at night, and the shops would be shut. “Leave it to me,” said the German. He went out, and in ten minutes he was back with four peaches. He had gone into a neighbouring restaurant and stolen them. That is what is meant by a débrouillard. The English lord paid for the peaches at twenty francs each. —George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London Read more →
A Review of This Year’s Met Gala!
Excerpts from an essay By Glenn Greenwald: When it comes to mask mandates, it is now commonplace to see two distinct classes of people: those who remain maskless as they are served, and those they employ as their servants who must have their faces covered at all times. . . . Last month, a delightful event was hosted by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for wealthy Democratic donors in Napa — the same wine region of choice for Gov. Newsom’s notorious dinner party . . . Pelosi’s donor gala took place as millions face eviction, ongoing joblessness, and ever-emerging mandates of various types. . . . Even though many of the wealthy white donors had no food in front of them and were not yet eating, there was not a mask in sight — except on the faces of the overwhelmingly non-white people hired as servants, all of… Read more →
If Balboa Could Find the Pacific Ocean, Why Can’t You?
I mentioned in class today that 30 percent of Americans age 18 to 24 cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map . . . (This was in the context of income diversity — or “income inequality,” take your pick — i.e., I can’t find the Pacific Ocean on a map but I’d like to be paid the same as a Harvard MBA.) Students absolutely could not believe this so I Googled the link to this National Geographic article. Not only was I proved correct on my Pacific Ocean assertion, 58 percent of respondents could not find Japan on a map, 65 percent couldn’t find France, 69 percent couldn’t find the United Kingdom, and 11 percent could not find the United States. The survey is a bit old now — it was taken in 2002 — but if anything, I’m sure the current situation is worse. If my kid could… Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Death on the Installment Plan is a fictionalized coming-of-age story based on Céline’s youth in pre-World War I France. Absent are heroism, transcendence, love and the possibility of love. Instead, there is a lot of human action that comes to nothing. Death is not ennobling. That said, hopelessness has never been described with more wit, energy and imagination or more droll, breathtaking language. Here’s a sample of the black comedy, as the narrator remembers a local physician (all ellipses in the original): “The most exquisite deaths, remember that, Ferdinand, are those that attack us in our most sensitive tissues . . .” He had a precious, elaborate, subtle way of talking, like the men of Charcot’s day. His prospecting of the Rolandic, the third ventricle, and the gray nucleus didn’t do him much good . . . in the end he died of a heart attack, under circumstances that were… Read more →
We’re Still Smarter Than You Are
Teens from Asian nations dominated a global exam given to 15-year-olds, while U.S. students showed little improvement and failed to reach the top 20 in math, science or reading, according to test results released Tuesday. — Why Asian teens do better on tests than US teens – CSMonitor.com Why am I not shocked by that? Because Americans on the whole are dumb and lazy. We have lots of dumb, lazy parents raising dumb, lazy kids. The average American kid doesn’t compare well academically to the average kid in an Asian country where academics and hard work are valued, or to the average kid from a small, homogenous European country where it’s easier to get everyone pulling in the same educational direction. The U.S. is a big, diverse country and the average academic results are pulled down by a lot of dummkopfs. But still, the smartest people in the world are… Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: Day for Night
Day for Night (1973) Directed by François Truffaut. With Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Valentina Cortese.. A movie about making a movie . . . The director says, “Making a film is like a stagecoach ride in the old west. When you start, you are hoping for a pleasant trip. By the halfway point, you just hope to survive.” Highly recommended! Read more →
An American in Cannes
Here’s a young man enjoying the beach at Cannes, probably as a high school graduation trip with his friends. He looks like he’s enjoying himself, clowning it up for the camera . . . Read more →
Five Guys in Europe: France
We’ll always have Paris . . . Read more →
We Live Like Baboons but at Least We Have Television
Baboons who live in the African plains spend about one-third of their life sleeping, and when awake they divide their time between traveling, finding and eating food, and free leisure time–which basically consists in interacting, or grooming each other’s fur to pick out lice. . . . And as the historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has shown, in thirteenth century French villages–which were among the most advanced in the world at the time — the most common leisure pursuit was still that of picking lice out of each other’s hair. Now, of course, we have television. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow Read more →
Quote of the Day
You frogs can kiss my . . . how do you say “big black ass” in French? — Serena Williams Read more →
Joyeux Anniversaire, Manet!
History painting, what a joke! There is only one authentic thing: to paint what you see. — Édouard Manet (Jan 23, 1832 – Apr 30, 1883) Read more →
We’ve Fallen Behind France in Moral Fortitude
The President yesterday denounced the “extent of the fraud” and the “shocking” and “brutal” response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days. “These elections are an atrocity,” he said. “If [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?” The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and, without meddling or picking favorites, stood up for Iranian democracy. The President who spoke those words was France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. — WSJ.com Read more →
French Engineering
From Ned Batchelder: Le Viaduc de Millau is the tallest bridge in the world, as measured to the top of the tallest pylon. Well, monsieur, we’ve got some tall bridges in America too! Leave it to the French, though, to build one over land . . . Read more →
Word of the Day
sang-froid, also sangfroid \sang-FRWAH\, noun: Freedom from agitation or excitement of mind; coolness in trying circumstances; calmness. Sang-froid is from the French; it literally means “cold blood” (sang, “blood” + froid, “cold”). Read more →
Absolutely Sweet Marie
Marie Antoinette misreads the mood of the peasantry: When we went to walk in the Tuileries, there was so vast a crowd that we were three-quarters of an hour without being able to move either forward or backward. The dauphin and I gave repeated orders to the Guards not to beat any one, which had a very good effect . . . When we returned from our walk we went up to an open terrace and stayed there half an hour. I cannot describe to you, my dear mamma, the transports of joy and affection which every one exhibited towards us. Before we withdrew we kissed our hands to the people, which gave them great pleasure. What a happy thing it is for persons in our rank to gain the love of a whole nation so cheaply. — Marie Antoinette, Letter to Her Mother, 1773 Read more →