Halloween and All-Saints Day

“Halloween has jumped the shark,” Phil Jackson announced, adding that he thought he’d end up celebrating All-Saints Day instead. The French seem to agree; amongst Frenchmen, Halloween barely rates as a presence, whereas All-Saints Day kicks off a four-day weekend.

Not to say Halloween was a ghost in France. There are too many Americans and too many corporations to allow Halloween to fade away into the ether. The Americans have fond memories of their youth, with pillowcases bulging with candy and designs on partying; the corporations have fond memories of bulging profit lines and designs on an immature market.

I saw more collective activity in the Fondation yesterday night before I went out than any other time. People wandered around, their fairy wings bouncing, their masks unworn, dangling from their strings. The inhabitant of one room taped candy on the door, advising passersby to “Take One!” (I took the advice of course).

As for those rapacious businessmen, they’re attempting an invasion, to bring the Fondation’s activity elsewhere. Disneyland-Europe advertised something like the “15 Days of Halloween,” noting that “With Halloween, EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED.” To this, the French responded, “Is it permitted to not care?” Sure, some people participated—I saw a five-year-old girl (or so) on a scooter with a devil’s mask at two PM—but that example should tell you how far the ethos has penetrated. Listen, you wait until after dark to dress in costume, then you get the candy, OK?

Me, myself, I spent the night out, but not Halloween-themed. But a lot of Americans, as I’ve already mentioned, held on to that piece of home by dressing in costumes. It’s kind of strange how it works out. You’re at home, and you want to get away; you’re away, and you want home. The thing is, about Paris, that you’re not adrift at a stormy sea. It’s more like a swimming pool—there’s the shallow pool, and then, further out, there’s the deep level, but it’s much more comforting. There’s so much Americans and English spoken that I’ve never felt a moment of being totally unmoored—I’ve felt confusion, yeah, but never completely at a loss.

At the same time, while I’m in my swimming pool, with my water wings, under the gaze of a lifeguard, I wonder—what would it be like to be out at sea? I left to see something different, and I came and saw that so much was the same.

****

I made the mistake of taking ice cream on the RER today. We were led to believe, at orientation, that no one eats on the Metro and that it’s considered rude to eat there. This is not true, and that was not my mistake—for example, two days ago I saw a woman, hunched in her fold-down seat, wolfing down her sandwich from Paul, occasionally glancing in both directions, as if she expected someone to steal it from her at any moment.

Anyway, the reason it was a mistake was not because of some taboo, but because of a baby. Soon after I sat down, a baby started wailing, but in a curiously distant way—I assumed it was a car down. But as the crying continued, I realized it was in my car, like when you realize that cell phone ringing is your own. I looked up from my book and my ice cream and saw the baby’s face ease: he was looking straight at me. I figured whatever had been bothering him had ceased, so I went back to my sweets. No sooner did the plastic shovel touch my mouth, with its sweet cargo, than a discordant note sounded as the baby began wailing again, with eyes crinkled furiously. I took the shovel out of my mouth and the baby stopped. The baby was jealous. The dad finally figured out the source of the baby’s rage, and moved the baby’s face so it couldn’t see me. I went back to my ice cream.

But there were a lot of babies raising a ruckus today, and I can only assume it was because of All-Saint’s Day, which, despite the religious connotations, basically means “A Day Off,” just as Labor Day announces “A Day Off” rather than the impending worker’s revolution. Small children, toddlers and babies, dominated the streets, towing along their exhausted parents, who appeared to be considering whether the day at work would be better after all.

Meanwhile, the way our intrepid staff members made it sound, I expected All-Saint’s Day to be an audition for a dystopian disaster movie: all empty streets like a movie set, with sustenance hard to come by. When leaving the Fondation to get food in the morning, I said to a friend, “Oh, I’m going to go foraging for food,” as if I were roughing it or something. I knew as soon as I saw that The Imperial open that that expectation was false, as the Imperial, while an excellent patisserie, does avail itself of free time quite frequently.

Not all the stores were open, of course, but enough were that I barely noticed the difference. What was noticeable was that all claimed it was an “Exceptional Opening!!” (average of two exclamation points or underlining, but never both—that’d be gauche) on account of the holiday, which I went along with for the first two or so until my patience ran out. And upon entering said exceptionally open stores, the proprietors had an unusually predatory yet clumsy attitude that suggested that they’d been watching American instructional videos on how to be a good salesman. So that was slightly surreal but not exactly a deserted ghost town with tumbleweed rolling through (tangent: I’d like to actually see tumbleweed—it’s just a common device, and yet for all I know, it has the same reality as Rudy Giuliani’s sanity)

In fact, nothing really distinguished the day, except for the relaxing feeling that accompanies every day off. It was fun to see one toddler try to steal another toddler’s tricycle, and then be restrained, and then sneeze moss-green snot onto a mauve scarf, but I really don’t think that’s a specific characteristic of All-Saint’s Day, more an amusing anecdote.

****

At the central pool of the Jardins du Luxembourg on Wednesday, there was a sudden recognition: the children, who have Wednesdays off, were sailing sailboats in the pool! This might strike you as unexceptional, but anyone who’s seen that masterpiece of instruction, French in Action, will instantly recall Marie-Laure (is it sad that I still have such command of the details of the plot?) sailing sailboats in that central pool. How charming! I’ll put a check on the checklist for an item I had forgotten existed.

Now if only I could see the rapist (actually a mime) or a dude walking around in a Yale shirt with a blazer.

“…and you might even speak French, yourself…”

****

I went to a bar, Fleche d’Or, which puts on free concerts, last night. The concerts were “indie” rock in the real, independent sense of the term, rather than the, oh I don’t know, Coldplay sense of the term (several people used to describe them as such, although obviously they’re huge now).

The performances were uneven; two were firmly committed to the proposition that because music is noise, a lot of noise means a lot of music. If that had continued, I suspect my eardrums should be shipped for autopsy immediately. One of those noisy bands were all dressed the same, in white dress shirts and black straight ties—isn’t it cute when Mom dresses her boys before their important concert? They repeated “The House is Burning Down” for an entire song, which would have tested the Oliver Wendell Holmeses of France had anyone, including English speakers, understood or thought about what they were saying.

The other two performances were solid. I’ve never heard country-funk combined before, and I found that enjoyable. The cover-type band that ended the night was also very competent. Good stuff.

The bar itself was full, in a good way—i.e., I did not have to use my elbows as deadly weapons. On the other hand, like all bars in France, cigarette smoke mixed with the air and became a part of its fabric, dominating the milieu. As always, my clothes stink of it now. And after an hour, my throat began to itch on the inside. I’m no anti-cigarette zealot. The measures against cigarettes here are somewhat draconian. And if someone really wants to feel like pieces of their lungs are being violently sheared out, more power to them. But I have certain limits, and that limit is: smoking in bars, which always brings out excess, smoking or otherwise. And smoking makes it actively unpleasant for everyone else, unlike the other forms of excess inherent to bars. . So I’m very much in favor of smoking bans, although a lot of the other stuff strikes me as excessive.

The bar was located in the 20th, in a newer section of town. The streets did not have that warren-like feel, with hole in the wall after hole in the wall after hole in the wall that characterizes the rest of Paris. Instead, many of the buildings loomed overhead. So the neighborhood was different than most of the other ones I’ve been to.

All the same, it was a great time—I love music of course.

****

This Kobe rumor stuff is getting ridiculous. Listen, it won’t happen probably until after December 15th, when players signed over the most recent offseason can be traded. Then you can see guys like Andres Nocioni and his $7 million contract get moved. So no, I don’t believe that announcement of Paxson’s that the deal’s dead. Kobe will still get moved because he’s got the hammer.

****

I was sitting in the Metro reading Zola’s Germinal (in English) and a guy sits next to me reading…Germinal (in French). I love serendipity.

****

The holiday I’ll miss most is not Halloween, although holidays with massive amounts of candy are naturally appealing to a guy like me. No, it’s Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving encourages general rather than specific gluttony. I mean, there’s the aspect of spending time with family and friends watchin’ pigskin, but let’s be real: we Americans (and me specifically) like the holiday because it’s morally legalized gluttony, no guilt attached, unlike the rest of our quotidian gorging.

I suppose I could have a chaste meal at some nice French restaurant, but it really won’t be the same. Now, I guess I could also go the route of procuring a turkey, and having America-in-Paris, but that’s bound to be a pale imitation of the real experience, not least because I have no cooking skills to speak of.

I feel this way really strongly, and one of the best aspects of an extended overseas trip is not just the opportunity to appreciate a different way of life, but also to appreciate your own. It was more true in the pre-Internet days, when the connections were fewer, but even now, with some severed connections, I miss certain rituals and commodities—Sunday football, the beginning of basketball season, Thanksgiving, cheaper movies (to name only a few)—which brings out what I really value. Or some deep stuff like that.

****

There are two types of ringtones in Paris. The first is the tinny imitations of conga or swing. The second are the faithful reproductions of more obscure rap songs—it’s kind of surprising to hear the distinctive opening chords of Dr. Dre’s “Bang Bang,” which was not a hit, I think.

The former is not surprising at all—people like free things the world round—but the latter suggests a literacy with our hip-hop culture that exceeds even our collective understanding of our own. Let’s put it this way—the same nation that put out “Illmatic” is also responsible for Soldja Boy, or however you spell it. Thank god we’re exporting the best for foreign consumption of ring tones. Otherwise how barbaric would the rest of the world think us? (imagined reaction: after hearing “This is why I’m Hot,” repeated fifty times, “Wait, why is he hot?”)