PDA

Paris, as everyone knows, is the city of love. In every corner, a romantic surprise awaits those observant enough to notice. And by "a romantic surprise" I don't mean sighting the Eiffel Tower through medieval buildings, or people-watching at a quaint café that has its own resident accordionist, or sharing a decadent, aphrodisiac-rich dessert at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. No, by "a romantic surprise," I mean PDA (public displays of affection), in which amorous Parisians surprise you with the intensity of their romantic urges.

Exhibit A: The Classic Mid-Afternoon Park Bench Make-out Session. We saw this during many a walk with Panda at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Most of the time we were too bashful to document the phenomenom. But thanks to the powers of a telephoto lens, we can share our slightly sketchy (but mostly anthropological) voyeurism with you!

Exibit B: The Steamy Lip-lock with Handsy Embrace in a Very Crowded Public Place. We saw these two while making our way down the Champs-Elysées during Nature Capitale. (Bonus: The reason we took this picture had nothing to do with the PDA people and everything to do with the guy carrying a cat on his shoulders, just behind them.) The street-side hook-up is less common than the park bench version, but it makes up for its lower frequency with higher visibility. We're not saying people don't have a right to greet each other with kisses - after all, "bises" are an important part of French culture - it's just that when things go beyond cheek-kisses, we start noticing. (Also noticed during our walk down the Champs-Elysées: a mother suspending her young daughter over a drain while the daughter urinated. This took place right across the street from Ladurée.)

Of course, the PDA depicted above is tame compared with what Maggie saw under a tree in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont a week before we left. Even if we had taken pictures of what those people were doing, we wouldn't post them - this is a family blog!

Field Day, or Sarkozy: The Butt of Every Joke

This morning, we checked out the exposition Nature Capitale that has covered much of the Avenue des Champs-Elysées since Saturday night (the expo ends this afternoon). Normally the only thing growing on the so-called "Avenue of Elysian Fields" is the revenue of well-known luxury brands (Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Gucci). But for this exposition, France's Jeunes Agriculteurs (a unionized version of the FFA?) laid down fields of wheat, goldenrod, and lily of the valley; planted oak and pine trees; and herded in sheep and cattle.

We were among roughly 2 million visitors to this (unfortunately temporary) display of nature's bounty and celebration of  the Journée Mondiale de la Biodiversité (International Biodiversity Day). Little did we know that out of all of those people, we would see two major French celebrities.

We know what you're thinking: "Oh my goodness! That's the mascot of La Vache Qui Rit!"

Yes, it is. But look again and you'll also see Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Nicolas Sarkozy just behind Madame La Vache. They drew a big crowd while examining the livestock, meeting the farmers, and showing their support for French agriculture in general.

With the Arc de Triomphe as your back drop, how could this photo-op go wrong? And I was lucky enough to have a perfect view of the whole thing.

Faux Pas Friday

Only two more days to submit your three favorite Panda-à-Paris posts! Send your list to panda.a.paris[at]gmail.com!

We discovered a new anglophone-in-Paris blog recently called "paris (im)perfect" and I hope its author (Sion Dayson) won't mind if I blatantly rip off one of her regular segments: Faux Pas Friday.

Yesterday, I had a rehearsal with Dominique, the pianist with whom I gave a concert last week. (Maggie and her mom came along to listen.) We got to talking about the recording I made and he complained about the "flatness" of the sound quality. I wanted to reply that any flatness must have been due to the poor quality of his (and most other) computer speakers. Here's where things went wrong.

Quick vocab lesson. Enceinte is a noun with three meanings:

1. The various walls encircling the city of Paris over its history were known as enceintes.

2. Enceinte is one way of saying "pregnant." (This is an ad the French government published recently in an attempt to promote their vision of France's future, which only succeeded in infuriating women and the political left - there's a good analysis of the scandal here.)

3. A Google search for "enceintes" (plural) shows the meaning I was going for - speakers. Even with the S, it's pronounced the same as the other two. But just to be clear, as I said the word I gestured as if I were picking up two little computer speakers.

Except I didn't actually say "enceintes," not even after a moment's hesitation when I weighed it against the other option, which is spelled slightly different, but which is pronounced the same as the middle syllable as enceintes. Instead of enceintes, as I reached for the two "computer speakers" in front of me, I said "seins." Which means breasts.

Me, the idiot: "Si l'enregistrement semble plat, c'est à cause de tes ... seins;" "If the recording sounds flat, it's due to your ... breasts."

Happily, in the context of this sentence, it must have sounded more like I dropped the "en" of "enceintes" in a lower register, making it inaudible, but still "heard." (The French do this all the time, especially in their frequent use of the word enfin, which resembles the ubiquitous "like" of American English.) Dominique certainly didn't notice. Maggie, on the other hand, noticed, and after I made eye contact with her (which was immediately) she could barely keep herself from cracking up.

Oops. Hopefully next time this situation comes up, I'll think of the three meanings of enceinte (as compared to the one meaning of sein) and choose correctly.

The French Protection

For a few days this week, you could see this ad coming out of Métro Belleville:

It reads, "Condoms protect against AIDS" and I'll let you figure out the rest. This is a good example of the different standard of propriety that applies to French ads. Lots of near-nudity, lots of suggestive prose, tackling the tough issues, it's all good. No abstinence-only education here.

This ad is actually one in a series. Here are the two other versions:

It turns out you can make your own (if you're so inclined) by going to the Têtu website. Just put in your name, the number of capotes, and upload a picture, et voilà! You're fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS. Or so the website claims.

While that might be a little weird, you have to give the French government credit for backing up words with deeds. Within Métro Belleville (as well as many other Métro stations) you'll find condom vending machines:

Notice on the left side of the machine it translates condoms as "préservatifs" (rather than capotes, which is more informal). Keep this in mind if you ever come to France and end up talking about food preservation. The phrase you want to use is "agents de conservation" - saying "préservatifs" will only confuse everyone.

Hotel Kaiserstein

Hotel Kaiserstein* proudly welcomes Eden and JP, our current overnight guests, as well as Louis' mom and Cathy, dinner/sightseeing guests.

*Open 24/7 between September 1st, 2009, and May 31st, 2010, Hotel Kaiserstein is a cozy, family-run establishment welcoming travelers from all over the world. Sleeping up to four at a time, we offer fine tea and coffee, spirited tours of the city, and fancy-pants, homemade dinners. Our competitive rate (0$) includes a comfortable air mattress or convertible love seat, turn-down service, and the company of an inquisitive, affectionate, ultra-soft dog.

References available from the nine happy customers we've already served. Book now, as our calendar is rapidly filling up!

Hope to see you soon!

Musicology is Fun

This blog claims to be about musicology, but mostly I subject you to boring anecdotes about research. Today, all that changes. For your amusement (or more likely, your utter bewilderment and/or disgust), I present a list of the 27 best film title/composer puns several of my classmates and I could come up with. (The total list consisted of 78, so be glad I'm only publishing 27.) We are/this is the future of musicology.

Bach to the Future

Correline

De Falla The Roman Empire

Ferris Bueller's Day Orff

James and the Giant Piccinni

The Fantastic Mr. Fux

Weill You Were Sleeping

Yankee Doodle D'Indy

Purcellpolis

Faure Weddings and a Funeral

You, Me, and DuFay

Bruch-Bach Mountain

The Da Vinci Kodaly

You Don't Messiaen with the Zohan

Charlotte's Webern

Close Encounters of the Byrd Kind

Korngoldfinger

Battle of Britten

Haydn Fidelity

The Joy Gluck Club

16 Josquindles

Mouton Rouge

Scarlatti Face

Milhaud Myself and Irene

The Stepford Ives

12 Angry Mendelssohn

This strikes me as an amusing - if potentially ineffective - method for teaching students how to (mis)pronounce composer's names, even if it doesn't teach them anything about the composers themselves or music in general. If you can think of any more, let me know!

Language Learning

This is the first time I've been to France where I haven't been spending 90% of my day with native speakers. Or at least, with speaking native speakers - the library is a very "shhhh!!!!" kind of place. I still feel like my language is improving - especially my comprehension (I can now understand people on the phone!) - but the change doesn't feel as drastic as at other times. I find it most difficult to improve my accent, since the older I get, the farther I am from that formative age when accents are still malleable.

This video, a Flight of the Conchords classic, captures how I tend to hear myself, even if it's never quite this bad: