Flying the Colors

There's no reason why we can't be both patriotic and Francophilic (that's not a disease, just in case you were wondering). So here's our attempt at an abstract American flag photo collage.







I never was very good at collage. It would have been so much easier to just save this post for today. Oh well - Happy 4th of July!

Fête de la Saint-Patrick

No one seems to be celebrating around here (at least not in Belleville, which seems to have welcomed every ethnic and religious group but Irish Catholics), but that needn't stop us from paying hommage to St. Patrick, aka Sanctus Patricius, aka Naomh Padraig, on his feast day. So here's some green from our photo archive.

Barbie, Rue Dénoyez, all made-up for the St. Paddy's Day Parade

Park behind the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, 4e arr.

Lockers, Archives Nationales

Chinese New Year's Day Parade

Lobby, Hôtel Georges V

Completely unintelligible pedestrian sign, Lyon

Napoleon's "Camp" Bed, Fontainebleau

Wall tiles, Le Bon Marché

Design-y Lamps, 5e arr.

Happy St. Patrick's day!

Research Update

You may remember my first encounter with the Archives nationales (AN) almost exactly three months ago - I went, I saw, I came home empty-handed. This week, I ventured back with a better idea of what I needed from the AN, and had greater success.

Thanks to my previous experience, I knew the drill: deposit things at vestiaire, proceed directly to Salle des inventaires.. After confirming the côtes (call numbers) of the materials I wanted to consulter, I was finally able to register for a year pass (only 10 euros for students!), and was permitted to enter (insert dramatic music here) the Salle de consultation. Basically it's a reading room. Nifty architectural details. Photography is allowed.

Over a few days, I sifted through the contents of series F/21, boxes 4626 and 4657, which contain the records of the Ministère des Beaux-Arts, specifically the Ministère de l'Instruction Publique, which oversaw state subventions for theatres, concert series, and institutions of music education, among others. I looked at a lot of stuff like this:

Since they told me I didn't need permission to make photographic reproductions of everything I looked at, I assume it's ok to share with you . . . as long as you promise to bail me out of jail if I get in trouble for this. Also, give yourself a point for every composer's name you recognize out of that list. Who is J. Jongen??

Concert series and theatres receiving state funding were obligated to perform a certain amount of new French music every year, and this document shows how they proved to the state that they were satisfying the quota. These documents may be relevant to my dissertation in that they demonstrate one kind of demand for music composition - a demand that could either increase or decrease the financial incentive to compose for the concert-going public. I'm interested in how (or if) that demand was perceived by composers, and how (or if) they reacted to it. In a sense, I already know how composers felt about concert series: getting new works performed there was difficult, prohibitively expensive, and less rewarding (financially, professionally, psychologically) than they wished it would be.

Those are just some current thoughts. We'll have to see where these sources take me in the future. Dissertation research: always an adventure!

Total non sequitur: I had to post this cartoon because it's almost as topical today as it was in 1921. The text reads, "Everything's going down - except for one thing." "What's that?" "Unemployment!"

Research Begins . . . and Ends

Monday was the day I was going to start my research. After a week in town, I felt pretty well settled, and I was getting restless. So Monday morning I started packing my bag, and decided to check the hours one last time for the Bibliothèque Nationale. Imagine my frustration when I saw that the library is closed from September 7th through September 20th. (Why they close in September, when people are actually around, rather than August, when everyone deserts the city for les vacances, escapes me.) Of course, I was also relieved that I hadn't wasted a trip down there only to be turned away, which is my default for these kinds of things.

So instead of going to a library Monday, I went to Métro République, where I got a hold of a Passe Navigo (equivalent to a CharlieCard, basically a metro pass you can tap rather than swipe or insert) with my picture on it and everything. Sweet!

Tuesday, I picked out the next library I would go to - the Archives Nationales - and felt good enough about the mental work I had done to devote a significant part of the afternoon walking with Maggie and Panda to a dog store in the 11th, where we procured a bag of dog food and some chew bones. Success!

2nd Blog Challenge: Name all 12 languages in which information for this dog food is provided

Finally, today, Wednesday, I got up "early" (7:30!) and went to the Archives Nationales, just four stops away on la ligne 11. After being shot around the lobby as if in a pinball machine (security to information desk to vestiary to registration desk) I finally landed in the salle des inventaires - basically an entire room acting as the archive's card catalog. Apparently you can't register for a pass until you've confirmed that the documents you want to view actually reside in the Archives Nationales, and you can't confirm that until you've found the cote, or call number, in the salle des inventaires and consulted with the research librarians up there.

The Archives Nationales share a beautiful 18th-century building with the Musée de l'Histoire de France

Full of energy and optimism, I entered the salle des inventaires, only to find the computer bank unhelpful (same interface as you get online, lacks search capability, can't wait to post a rant about French website design). Thanks to the bibliographies of several pieces of secondary literature, I knew the papers of Comtesse Greffulhe, née princesse Elisabeth de Camaran-Chimay (an important salon host and patron) can be found in the Archives Nationales, but I didn't know where.

There she is!

Luckily, I found a citation in a footnote of a book I had scanned and used that to go to the appropriate bookshelf in the room, where I found the inventaire, or finding aid, for the Greffulhe collection. Once I had copied down the numbers of all the folders in the collection I found interesting, I went to the research librarian to ask if I could now (finally) register. The answer was no. We first had to check to see if the materials I wanted to consult required permission. They did. So I had to fill out a permission form, which will be sent to the Greffulhe estate. I will hear back from the Archives Nationales by mail (or email, I'm not sure which) in at most two months. (!!!??!!?) But maybe sooner.

So with less than two weeks down, I'm 0 for 2 on research attempts. Tomorrow I'll try contacting a few private foundations and archives, hopefully with better luck.