je blague.

True on so many levels

Tue, 12 May 2009 21:27:27 +0200

“Could be a little richer… (more art)… B+”

The grade I got on my visual journal for Parisian Contemporary Art. He wrote it on a neon green post-it. I don’t know why, but I loved it. It’s now in my scrapbook.

A truly post-modern problem

Sat, 09 May 2009 16:54:35 +0200

When wondering how to get dressed in the morning, I often check weather.com, a site which I have discovered gives a completely inaccurate weather reports 100% of the time, we’re talkin degree-wise and cloud/sun or rain forecast. Always wrong. Consequentially, some days end in backaches from the pointless umbrella stuffed in my already weighed-down purse or ruining various leather/suede products from walks home in the pouring rain.

After time and again being misled by weather sites, I started to actually (gasp) open my window to check the weather. Not able to quit cold turkey, I would proceed to check weather.com quickly after to verify or deny what I have myself felt and seen. This, my friends, is where my post-modern problem comes in. After feeling/seeing the weather with my very own eyes and body, I always trust the website even when it says something completely different. “So,” I say to myself, “the ground is wet and people are walking with umbrellas but weather.com predicts a 0% chance of rain, so I think it’ll be fine”. Technology over experience? Weather.com over the view from my window? I mean, fuck you weather.com, but really fuck me for this absurd learned behavior. I wish I could quit you.

PS this site may not be accurate but come on look at that title: http://thefuckingweather.com/

Yes, everything is art, but that doesn't mean you're not fucking insane.

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:06:00 +0200

Here’s looking at you, Sophie Calle. The bourgeois woman who got a job as a maid at a hotel so she could look through people’s possesions and photograph them (L’hôtel, 1981). The artist who stalked a man for a week including following him on a plane to Italy to document his every move (Suite Vénitienne, 1980). The person who found an address book in the street, and instead of returning it to its rightful owner, called and interviewed every contact in the book to ask them about the person who owned it (Le Carnet d’address, 1983). Keep up the good work crazy, I’m writing a paper about you right now.

am i lazy for just posting pictures? this is bandol, france.

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:33:00 +0200

am i lazy for just posting pictures? this is bandol, france.

memories are just moments, fragmented pieces of feeling, scents,...

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:01:51 +0200

memories are just moments, fragmented pieces of feeling, scents, sights. this is one of my favorites. hvar, croatia. climbing to the top of an ancient fortress just in time to watch the sun set over this view.

spring

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:31:00 +0200

spring

Photo

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:28:39 +0200

This is why I'm a feminist

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:05:00 +0100

Around 12:30 last night, A taxi dropped me off four blocks away from my apartment. As I was walking home, a man started running towards me from across the street screaming “mademoiselle can I ask you something? I need to ask you something!” I ignored him as I thought would be the safest option (as opposed to telling him to fuck off, which I haven’t quite mastered yet in French). He started aggressively walking with me, ranting about things in an effort to provoke me in an uncomfortable proximity to my face, ”Why aren’t you responding?! Say something. Are you scared of me? You think I think you’re pretty? You think I’m trying to fuck you?” This proceeded for a block in a half. With my heart racing, all the articles on women’s safety I’ve ever read flashed before my eyes. Namely, if someone is following you on your way home, don’t go home. Secondly, draw attention to the situation. Thank God there was a man and a woman about twenty paces behind me, who I screamed to for help. They tried by walking with me but the guy persisted, continued walking with us and continued to yelling other things about me which I won’t translate. He finally left right before we reached my street and I raced home, terrified, overwhelmed and furious.

So this is why I’m a feminist. I’m a feminist because woman eat, breathe, and shit in fear. I’m a feminist because every walk home at night I worry that this— or worse— will happen. I’m a feminist because women are constantly demeaned in this unique way, tailored to the fact that anyone can and will insult, harass, assault or rape us and we are rendered utterly helpless. I am a feminist because I believe this needs to change.

I am not one to ever tell anyone how they feel but I firmly believe that the majority of women who say they don’t often feel this fear just haven’t realized that the way they feel when they are alone at night isn’t the way men feel alone at night. It is not the feeling that you are about to be robbed, or beat up. It is a feeling in the pit of your stomach and in the back of your throat that because you’re a woman, this man feels entitled to approach you, say and do anything he wants to you, and this entitlement is reinforced constantly.

I cannot emphasis enough how much this is linked to the depiction and portrayal of what it is to be a woman in the world. It is all connected. If woman are objectified in tv and film, woman are objectified in the streets of cities. Anyone who cannot connect the dots, or cannot understand why it is so offensive is because they don’t understand or have not experience the extreme danger, disservice and dehumanization this does to women.

Yes, we can take precautions. We can take taxis all the way to our doorsteps. We can walk in groups at night. We can make sure to have mase, or a rape whistle with us. But it doesn’t get rid of the fear and it doesn’t make it fair. So I will say to whoever reading this, that if you still can’t understand why feminism isn’t a dead movement, and if you still don’t consider yourself a feminist, than you are in effect saying you don’t give a shit that your mother, daughter, sister, girlfriend, co-worker, best friend, wife or whoever experiences this veritable fear in our daily lives.

The Most Annoying Liberal Arts School in the U.S.

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:41:04 +0100

The Most Annoying Liberal Arts School in the U.S.:

We’ll take any title we can get.

Everything you don't want me to write about part deux

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:36:46 +0100

Below is the what I was going to submit to that writing contest, before I read the directions (see earlier post ‘Everything you don’t want me to write about’). It’s also an ‘excerpt’ from an essay I have yet to complete.

Everywhere you go there you are and other cliched epiphanies

After choosing Barcelona on a complete whim with no background in Spanish or Catalan, no concept of the cultural, historical or political environment, I moved into a dark, oddly adorned apartment with a 75 year old Spanish woman who spoke no English. My journey winds through alleys on dark cobblestones streets, up high-ceilinged cathedrals, and through cozy smoky cafes, only to wind up exactly where I began; an American in Catalunya.

This essay will describe my existential experience with the malleability (or lack thereof) in one’s identity. And the real lesson I learned, that the location doesn’t change oneself- it is oneself that (can) change in one’s location. However this did not come easily for me. It only happened by actively pushing my own personal limits; befriending strangers with my primitive Spanish, talking walks with no destination, and trusting the city to provide the raw materials as I shaped my own adventure and consequentially my own narrative.

In the end, this resulted in the on-going process of becoming a more complex version of myself. Not a new woman- but the same Me- just with new experiences. The abroad experience is marketed as a pre-packaged all-inclusive ‘life experience cruise’ of some kind, and this experience for me happened to be in Barcelona, which provides for frilly descriptive prose describing striking colors, scents from la boqueria, and panoramic views from rooftop. But this experience can happen anywhere, at anytime for anyone who challenges themselves because ultimately; wherever you go, there you are.

I’ve been thinking about Barcelona a lot. Maybe because...

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:09:00 +0100

I’ve been thinking about Barcelona a lot. Maybe because the novelty of being in a new place has worn off or because a ton of people have been traveling there and asking for my advice. Maybe… but what I’m most curious about is the nostalgia phenomenon and its effect on memory.

Nostalgia, by my definition, is just an idealized form of the past. If we are always longing for something that was not true to begin with, how can we convince ourselves to be happy elsewhere? How can we break this habit? How can one truly enjoy their surroundings, if they’re longing for a past in its untrue form? Nostalgia can be enjoyable for sure but when I deeply reflect on my time in Barcelona, I know that I am happier in Paris.

I was thinking of starting this post about what I miss most about Barcelona. My first thought was the legality of indoor smoking. The irony? I don’t smoke. Case in point. In fact I remember many mornings waking up in disgust from the stench of my cigarette soaked clothes and hair from being out the night before. And yet my first thought was “Ahh the luxury of being able to sit in a cafe and light one’s cigarette without a second thought”.

Perhaps nostalgia is some kind of evolutionary benefit. Maybe people live longer if they believe they’ve had happy, productive lives, whether or not that is how they actually felt at the time. Maybe people are happier if they only reflect on the good, or only look back to some kind of photo-shopped past. It’s always wonderful to remember the good, but maybe we should try to reflect on our dark hours too, especially in order to appreciate the present and further, to understand the complexity of life in every circumstance, no matter where you are.

do endorphins kill brain cells? yesterday it was 56 degrees and...

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:20:27 +0100

do endorphins kill brain cells? yesterday it was 56 degrees and sunny and the only words i could get out of my mouth were “i am… so… happy.”

I ♥ nothing i’m parisien (so accurate)

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:28:00 +0100

I ♥ nothing

i’m parisien

(so accurate)

M. Ward is a wonderful musician who has worked with nearly all...

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:57:36 +0100

M. Ward is a wonderful musician who has worked with nearly all of my favorite musicians- namely Conor Oberst and Jenny Lewis. Last night E and I saw him play at Café de la Danse and then we took the band out for drinks. It was wonderful and I’d love to go into all the details but I sound like a crazy, so I’ll spare you. But watch and listen!

France is for Lovers... (who have babies)

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:04:00 +0100

After Michael Moore’s film Sicko was released, conservatives fumed about his portrayal of France (and every other country) claiming it was biased, exaggerated or slightly inaccurate. While that’s probably somewhat true, yesterday I found out there’s even more about France for Americans to drool over:

1. The French government dispenses 200 Euros each month, to any person with a residency card, to help pay for rent. You are applicable regardless of your nationality (meaning you don’t need to be a citizen of France) and regardless of your income. You just apply. (Side-note: I am ineligible for this sick deal because I am only here for five months and thus do not hold a residency card. Merde!)

2. If you are a young mother (my professor speculated under the age of 17 but could not recall exactly), legally you cannot be evicted from your apartment during the winter. If you don’t pay your rent, between the months of November through March, you cannot be forced to leave.

3. You get paid to have 3+ kids. Literally you get a sum of money, immense tax breaks, and most public amenities at half the price (metro/bus fare, etc.) These laws were made in the post world war II period when France’s population was not growing as a result of industrialization. After the devastation and humiliation of the war, these laws were put in place as some kind of competitive nation building tactic. Have more French babies! We’ll pay you!

4. Three months paid maternity leave. If you’re wondering what the U.S. policy is on this… I’ll sum it up for you: it doesn’t exist. In fact, the U.S. stands next to countries like Swaziland and Liberia, which also don’t guarantee paid leave for mothers.

America, fuck yeah!

The big old US of A exports only its very worst cultural and...

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:13:17 +0100

The big old US of A exports only its very worst cultural and technological advancements; guns, syphilis, etc. (see: Guns, Germs & Steel). Along the same lines, films like “He’s Just Not That Into You”, based on a novel based on a reference to one line in one episode of Sex & the City that masquerades as some kind of revelation about men.

But mostly I wanted to post this because I like funny title translations. This one roughly means “what they think of men”. Word.

last night

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:03:00 +0100

last night

the world is flat (thanks thomas friedman)

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:52:00 +0100

the world is flat

(thanks thomas friedman)

monet’s waterlilies at le musée l’orangerie. and my...

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:48:00 +0100

monet’s waterlilies at le musée l’orangerie. and my roommate.

Everything you don't want me to write about

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:59:00 +0100

I got an email that advertised an abroad experience writing contest by glimpse/national geographic. I started writing without reading the guidelines (I’ve never been big on directions) and found out that my story fit perfectly under their category called what ‘we don’t want’. Some cute excerpts of what they don’t want:

Long-winded descriptions of your thoughts and feelings. Show them through action and dialogue!

Essays.

Personal-growth or adventure stories that take place in another country, but that reveal nothing about its culture.

An academic tone. College professors might be impressed by unnecessarily large words and overly complex sentences, but we aren’t.

Oops. (I’ll post my essay here when it’s done).