Being Put On Hold Has Never Been So Rewarding

I was sweating over this phone call.

I made a foolish error in ordering tickets for the Paris Masters tournament in a week and Kanye West/Common Concert on November 17th. You see, French ones look an awful lot like sevens. In America, there’s a bar under the one, but France doesn’t have that. So, for me, many ones look like sevens, until I realize—“No, there’s no 75h00!” That error, though, is minor; when you write “75 Boulevard Jourdan” instead of “15 Boulevard Jourdan,” this causes your tickets to go to the wrong address.

To rectify this error, I had to call the ticket office, a prospect that terrified me. As I said earlier, when I hung up, I wiped off a sheen of sweat from my forehead. Not because the French involved was particularly difficult—I ended up speaking pretty well—but because the costs were so high. I worked it out, with the help of a very understanding call woman, who must have thought I was some mentally-demaged case, with the speed at which I read my order number. Anyway, instead of getting the tickets mailed to me, I’ll have to be proactive about the whole enterprise and pick them up.

Incidentally, to refer back to the title, being put on hold was great, because instead of boring ambience music, I got to hear music from the Lion King. This was obviously a marketing ploy, as the ticket company is responsible for peddling tickets to Le Roi Lion which has just opened. Nevertheless, whatever the motives, it was infinitely more enjoyable than listen to aggressively soothing harp cords with orca calls as harmony.

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I’m a member of the course called “Paris Lecture Series.” I haven’t mentioned it because there hasn’t been a meeting. There hasn’t been a meeting because the course is entirely self-directed. Being overwhelmed by an avalanche of trivial errands, I haven’t, aside from the lecture last week, had a chance to actually engage in this course. I still haven’t as of now. But I did make a move towards doing so by visiting the Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre and getting their schedules of lectures; I’ll be going to one tomorrow.

Anyway, the reason I say this is to relate this anecdote: both of these museums naturally have security. This is the age of terrorism after all. Anyway, they search bags, naturally. Now, it’s my impression that in the US, when you have your bag searched, you hand it to the security dude, who then opens it him- or herself. Perhaps I’m wrong, but this is just how I remember it. Anyway, the French security guards were very insistent that I open it myself. I don’t really have an explanation for this; perhaps they’re worried about something being triggered if they themselves open it? I don’t know, like I said. But one thing that’s true about security factotums around the world is that the minor steps of procedure are vitally important to them, both because supervising those minor steps is their job, and because it makes them feel powerful.

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The final Harry Potter has stormed into France and has been met with a comparative shrug. Certainly the effort is being put forth; I see many advertisements for Harry. But there are very few people actually reading Harry Potter, comparatively speaking. It certainly seems popular when measured against other books, but when compared to its own high standards, it falls short.

The advertisements, incidentally, try very hard. Unlike the jolly Harry of America, or the British Harry of…uh…Britain, Harry Potter of France has morphed into Existentialist Harry. The cover of the final book features Harry on a cliff, staring out to sea, storm clouds behind him. It’s some mixture of Romantic Hero and Existentialist Brooder. But the French don’t seem to have taken to the pitch as enthusiastically as other nations.

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Delicious tart: chocolate on top of apples. I didn’t catch the name, but mmmm!

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Worst Dressed: Wearing a fedora, dress shirt, and sweatpants. Either someone hasn’t done his laundry for a while, or has multiple personalities who want to dress in different ways.

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I spent most of the day writing, which is why there’s a paucity of material here. And writing about my own writing is tedious, so I’ll avoid it. This is just my explanation.