Overwhelmed

I have a theory, perhaps somewhat controversial and contradictory with previous statements. I think the strike is beginning to overwhelm Paris.

It is rare for me—perhaps I’ve been lucky, and I admit to it in the past—to see outright crazy people on the Metro. I’ve seen crazy, as in weird, people, but not crazy as in, please call the doctor to whisk him off the streets crazy. One guy was an apparently normally dressed person stood on the edge of the quai, gesticulating madly and holding an impassioned yet reasoned debate (think Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) with the empty space where the train would come. When it did, he busied himself about whatever tasks the insane find pressing, until—and this is so typical of the insane; they just cannot hold themselves to a schedule—the buzzer rang and the doors shut with their definitive simultaneous click and he came running up, rapped on the door and pointed in at my brother, face contorted. Also on the quai, but considerably more pacific, was a bearded jumpsuited fat man. But these have not been my only sightings of the indigent of Paris; in general, the strike has increased the mixture of me and the hobos. They, the homeless crazy, have been roaming about the stations rather than vegetating.

This is not an indicator of my point above, obviously, as the homeless are not representative of Parisian society as a whole, but they are symbolic. People are faster onto metro, quicker to snap up empty seats, shouting more and generally lashing out of their self-contained islands. One person conducted a speakerphone conversation with a thrilled, shouting woman over the course of ten minutes tonight.

It’s not the effervescent enthusiasms of night, either. Our French teacher was late today, by about thirty minutes (she arrived at ~9:33). She claimed that she had set out at 6:45. After her back began to hurt because of walking, she tried taking the metro. One line didn’t work because of, well, the strike. So on to the next line…But a stop later, there was a bomb threat because of a suspicious baggage (Incidentally, you know how there are always those warnings to watch out for abandoned baggage or suspicious individuals? I never do and I never see any, although the former probably causes the latter) So what can be done but to suffer on the taxi, and so on and so on?

But this is an extreme case. More usual is when you’re coincé (crushed, squeezed, hemmed in). At the big hubs like Montparnasse-Bienvenue, Gare du Nord or Chatelet-Les Halles you find a big tide wash in that carries and crushes you like some piece of driftwood. One of my friends crushed a woman who let out a moan, but he could do nothing and I sympathize of course… After one such tide today, a man who looked American but insisted on speaking in French (I have never heard a Frenchman unconsciously say, “oh boy” in reaction to something bad), found himself curled on the pole, like a fireman frozen mid-descent, or a stripper trying to be alluring: oh how he let “putains” and “merdes” escape from his mouth in the whiniest of tones. I knew he was overwhelmed when a lady didn’t wait a minute to hold the exit door open for him for a solid minute—“That was rude,” he said in French.

But, I wanted to say to him in French, you think you have suffered and perhaps you have, but you can do nothing about it and it’s not worth venting your spleen over the matter. You think you aren’t the only one who’s crushed under the pressure? Of course not. But he was merely the most overwhelmed of a society that little by little is becoming ever more frustrated by the strike’s disruption of their schedule.

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The name on everyone’s lips is Sarkozy himself, who does not appear overwhelmed at all, despite his recent drop in the polls to 51%. “Putain” is the Parisian prayer addressed to that inscrutable being; most Americans have an entirely more favorable opinion: “I saw someone wearing a Sarkozy T-shirt...I’d totally buy that; Sarkozy’s awesome.”

I don’t know what to think of Sarkozy. I’m trying to avoid heuristics. On one hand, he’s for controlling immigration while pandering to the extreme right (Le Pen supporters are his second-best supporters, after the UMP), but has appointed the most diverse cabinet in French history. On one hand, he speaks in uncompromising tones about his planned reforms for the workplace; on the other hand, he strikes an immediate deal with the unions. For every action he takes, I can find another one that taints that clear view.

And all I have left is a snap judgment, the what-do-I-think when I see him. This is a particularly American judgment to make, I think. We are accustomed to thinking of our Presidents as more than mere political leaders, but as guardians of the nation-idea, of moral reason. That’s one non-hypocritical (but bad) reason that many people were offended by Bill Clinton’s philandering. It’s why Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and the Founding Fathers in general have semi-official secular religions, and Joesph Ellis, Simon Schaama et al. are their apostles and hagiographers. It’s why you can still sometimes see JFK’s portrait hung up in cheap bars. France doesn’t really do that as much, so it’s kind of strange to bring the American standard of judgment to the leaders.

Nevertheless, Sarkozy strikes me as potentially a more effective American than French President, because it’s clear what American archetype he’d shoot for, were he American: the Official Ass-Kicker role. This is the role George W. Bush was tragically miscast in, but for the reason that it is such a powerful archetype in American mythology. And Sarkozy, to me, appears to be aiming for exactly that archetype, and lord knows if he’ll succeed in pulling it off. But the critical thing about it is that the Official Ass-Kicker (whose roots are in the Western) will only accept the Honorable Compromise, which is one that attempts to fill the deep-felt goals of each side, not petty goals of expediency. If not, the Official Ass-Kicker must (wait for it) Kick Ass or Die (i.e. lose major political capital) in the process. This, therefore, does not bode well for the strike ending soon, assuming Sarkozy is really self-cast as the Official Ass-Kicker, which I kind of think he is—but those are the heuristics operating in the absence of overwhelmed information-processing centers.

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Upon entering the Cour Carée of the Louvre, my brother Jason muttered “oh shit.” It actually might’ve been “Wow” but it doesn’t matter which. The point is this: it overwhelmed him aesthetically. This makes perfect sense. Noise is banished as annoying, aesthetically distracting. It looms over you, enclosing the sky and becoming the entire world. It is geometric like all French Classical architecture. Like all great art, it is easier to experience than explain.

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One of the most hilarious underappreciated aspects of the Louvre are the explanatory plaques. For most of the art, especially the French, they are your usual plaques: this is who it was by, that is what it is about, this is the style it’s in, that is the other relevant information, etc., etc. Well, for the Greek and Roman antiquities, it became very judgmental and fussy: it got complimentary with a few (“sensible and naturalistic”), but oftentimes negative (“baroque and overdone” and “cold and academic”…their adjectives always came in pairs, incidentally.)

There’s a very simple historical reason for this. Paris, for a long while, simultaneously plotted its eclipse of and homage of Rome and the classical civilization, creating a very strange relationship between France and classical civilization. At least, that’s my guess. Either that, or the French are hilariously judgmental, which is also true otherwise as well. Probably a mix of the two, to be honest.

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I don’t take pilates seriously, I will admit it. I cannot. I have been challenged often by pilates enthusiasts about the intensity of the exercise and I always pooh-pooh it (there’s a maneuver called “The Seal” where you clap your feet together—how can that possibly be exhausting? Seals and dolphins are the most fun-loving animals out there; it’s impossible to imagine them balancing their checkbooks or paying their bills or other exhausting things like that.). Then I actually try pilates, and it invariably defeats me. But after a week or so of tender muscles, I return to my former position: I don’t take pilates seriously.

My brother and mom were doing pilates today. My mom did it on a credible pad; my brother did it on a fur throw rug that looked like it belongs to a) a 19th century hunter’s cabin or b) a 1970’s swinger’s pad where the man has a throw rug for chest hair, as well as another on the floor. They were following the instructions of the demonstrator, who exercised in time with an ethereally pleasant voice along with soft music the elevator composer would be embarrassed to play. The video had a CGI background of the Grand Canyon or something. I’m unsure what this is supposed to make me feel—pilates isn’t a big deal? But don’t you want me to take it seriously? Isn’t exercise not supposed to be easy? This video clearly does not address the unconvinced.