The iPod Juggernaut

Starbucks is not the only American cultural/capitalist juggernaut trying to invade France. The iPod is the other. Their dancing silhouette advertisements are everywhere; the actual product is not. It’s not as if the French don’t use music players; they do. I see alternative music players all the time here, and iPods rarely if at all. The problem seems to be that both the Starbucks and the iPod peddle “universal” cool. They are exactly the same in France as they are in the US and everywhere else. Their style is similar: they are both going after a bohemian yuppie cool. You’d think that’d work in France—after all, the word for yuppie in French is “bobo” (bohemian bourgeois, like the David Brooks book)—but no, it doesn’t. The French have a pride in their own particular culture; it’s like a club, and there’s a rigorous application process to become a member.

Not to say that these two institutions won’t pass the test. McDonald’s seems to have been judged acceptable. I see people there all the time, and not just tourists. But McDonald’s has made concessions to the French palate, as indeed they have for the UK. Perhaps these two purveyors of cool will have to do similarly. This seems much easier for Starbucks than for the iPod (what will they do, release a tricolore iPod?), but there you have it.

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Last night, I missed the last Metro. It closes at 1 AM on every day but Saturday. We had heard that it closed on 2 AM on the weekends. We Americans assumed this included Friday and Sunday as well. There’s a message here, but I’m not sure what it is.

At any rate, before we missed the last Metro, we were sitting around waiting for the train. So were a bunch of other people. It comes infrequently after about 11 or so. Like right before a plane flight, there was a coiled tenseness in the air. This was ridiculous, clearly: it was going to be empty; we would have our choice of seats. But it was what it was. A train pulled up on the opposite side of the station. Amongst a young group of males, many of whom were clutching bags of chips, one particular male with a yellow-and-orange horizontally striped sweater shouted. There was some hubbub as two others from the group joined him and they leapt into the center of the train tracks (keeping careful not to land on the rails themselves) and began, with sharpies, to graffiti the side of the train. One of them never relinquished his bag of Doritos. The meaning of the graffiti was inscrutable to me. They stopped once the warning blare sounded. Glancing at the sign that indicated the time until the next train would arrive, they strutted across the train bed then struggled up the wall and over the lip. They were received to congratulatory noises (I couldn’t translate the French), then everything reverted to that earlier anticipatory tension.

We ended up walking to our respective homes. I walked the most. But I had it easiest upon arrival; the others presumably had to explain what they were doing, arriving after 2 AM. The keycode doesn’t care what time it is.

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I had chores to do today, involving buying the necessities: detergent and toothpaste. I’m not entirely sure that I’ve purchased the right things. The explanatory diagrams on the back of my detergent and stain remover are the correct images, but I’ve still got a nervousness about a bottle which has certain unknown words. The trouble with words is that the smallest one can bite you. “Always read the fine print” is fine advice except for foreign languages, where you will derange yourself over one phrase. Thankfully, “Colgate” is a universal. Brands are really comforting for the traveler. I can imagine why someone would go to a McDonald’s or Hard Rock Café. I don’t agree with that decision, but I understand why. Toothpaste is toothpaste, though; I can’t imagine getting the local flavor of toothpaste will measurably improve my experience.

I went to a supermarket-like store in my arrondisement. I say supermarket-like store because I have seen several stores advertise themselves as such but not be worthy of the name. If your store is the size of a 7-11, I’m sorry, you aren’t a supermarket. In fact, I haven’t noticed any stores that really deserve the name supermarket.

Stores in France instead have absurd specialization, to the point of overlap. I’m still not sure what role un brasserie or un epicerie serves in the general store system. Nor am I sure you need a specific store for sausages, but in Paris, there are several. Because of this overspecialization, I was expecting to go to one or two different stores to get everything (which was ridiculous to think).

The particular store that I went to seemed fine for most purposes, though. Unlike the harsh white bright fluorescent lights of most supermarkets, the light in this Marche Franprix was muted yellow. The toothpaste got a small shelf near the cashiers’; wine could be found in three different locations, in prices ranging from the humble (2 euro) to the opulent (75 euro). Cheese’s presence was similarly dominant and French cheese dominated, of course. Once you check out, you have to bag your own groceries—service, really? The operation is low-tech, unlike the Sainsbury’s in Oxford which had self check-out (this sounds better than it is; it was extremely flaky).

The Parisians mostly carry their own transport for groceries. It looks like a duffel bag mounted on wheels. The best of these roll on two wheels but have two others on reserve, all of them rotating on a wheel within the wheel, so that when the user traverses stairs, the three outer wheels flip around the inner wheel and make travel easier. There are also packs of people and their bags around the market. I didn’t know where the market was, but I found it by tracing the hordes of these bags back to their sources.

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One of the consequences of staying in a city that’s a fashion capital is seeing people try to dress fashionably. Whatever the results of the attempt, it’s bound to be entertaining: either they dress well, and it’s aesthetically pleasing, or they don’t, and the effect is hilarious. All ages and races play the game. Just today I saw a group of older French. There were two women: one who looked like Cruella De Ville, all in white furs, except for red square wraparound glasses; the other who was elegantly dressed with a black leather jacket. There’re the two extremes for you.

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The French emergency sirens are not that convincing. They are too intermittent and sonorous. So drivers tend to ignore them a little more than other cities. They only produce the intended effect when a convoy of police cars charge down the street. Their sirens harmonize perfectly. It’s always a mix of large vans and smaller sedans. I’ve seen this four or five times so far. I always wonder what deserves the big fuss, then realize that no one else seems to.

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Americans, please, please stop wearing fanny packs.

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People have begun asking me for directions. In French. Good French. I’ve never been so proud to not be able to help: if I can’t know things like a native, I at least look like I do.