Panda is in Paris!

airplane crossword puzzle

early morning landing at Charles de Gaulle airport

We made it!

Packing Photo Challenge

This is all the stuff we're bringing. Everything you see in the next few shots has found its way into a bag.

Now, for a little fun. In the next few pictures, find the object that's out of place (something we're not bringing with us) and win a prize!* (Hint: If you click on the pictures, you can zoom in!)

* TBA upon arrival in France, but we'll be sure to make it worth your while!!

Panda Can Fly!

A lot of people have been asking how Panda will travel. Will she come with us in the cabin? Will she be sedated?

The answer to both of these question is no. Only dogs under 15 lbs. can travel in the cabin, because they have to be in a carrier that fits under the seat in front of you. At a solid 26 lbs., Panda is too heavy (and way too long) to be accepted in the cabin.

And since she can't be in the cabin, she can't be sedated, since she'll need her balance if things shift in cargo. That's right - we're checking Panda (in her crate). She'll be in a climate- and pressure-controlled area, and we'll leave food and water (and feeding instructions) in case the plane has to hang out for a while.

We also have to leave all kinds of information on her crate: a signed and dated statement that she's been fed and watered within the last four hours; a few "this side up" and "live animal" signs; and at least one "My Name is Panda" sign so the baggage handlers treat her tenderly and lovingly.

Most of this info comes from the American Airlines site, and my impression is that it's consistent across airlines (the ones that transport dogs, anyway).

♫ ninety- ninety- ninety-six hours to go - oh - oh, Panda wants to be sedated . . . ♫

Packing Like Whoa

Each picture is worth at least a few words. I'll leave it to you to guess what they may be.

Half our stuff is going up in the attic; the other half is coming with us. Keep a lookout for the "after" pictures of our depressingly empty room.

Phoning Phrance

Just found out our landline number in Paris, and in sending it around (let me know if you want/need/can't live without it) I remembered that calling France can be confusing.

First, you dial 011, which is the international access code.

Actually, FIRST CHECK THE TIME! France is 6 hours ahead of the East Coast, so if you decide to call when you get home from work, you will probably wake us up (we go to bed early!). The best time to catch us will be early morning through mid-afternoon EST, which translates to midday through early evening, France-time.

So, first, you dial 011.

Second, you dial France's country code, which is 33.

Third, you look at the 10-digit French phone number, such as 01-23-45-67-89. (This is not our number.) To call a French number from France, you dial all 10 numbers. Outside of France, you remove the first zero.

So ultimately, you dial:

011 - 33 - 1 - 23 - 45- 67 - 89

Et voila! You're seconds away from speaking with your favorite people in France!

The Fine Print: If you want to save money on international calls, you can dial 1010 228 before all that other stuff, and it'll cost you only 1.9 cents per minute from a landline or 15 cents per minute from a cell phone. I refer you to 1010 228 not because it's the best deal, but because it's the one I know about. You can also get a Skype account and either not pay anything (by calling us via a computer microphone) or pay another low rate by pre-paying a Skype account (to call our landline or eventual cell phones). If anyone knows of an even better deal, please let me know.

What We're Doing Right Now

Packing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Library Bureaucracy

French bureaucracy is the stuff of legend, and hopefully previous posts (on getting a visa or opening a bank account) have provided satisfactory examples of why this is so. But just in case you have any remaining doubts, may I submit to you the requirements for gaining access to the "research" area of the Bibliotheque nationale, where I will spend much of my year.

Everyone must present:

• Photo Identification (passport or carte de sejour)
• Proof of residence (gas, electric, or telephone bill from the last three months, rent receipt, or in the absence of all of these things (that's me!) a lease; good thing I have several copies

Student researchers must also present:

• Valid Student ID
• Letter of Introduction from a "research director," in this case my adviser

With these items, I can prove that I am no amateurish, miscreant, rogue researcher. They will then let me pay 27 euros (reduced rate, since I'm a student) for a year-pass to the library.

Actually, the deal is better than that - apparently the BN, in partnership with other cultural institutions (the Musee Guimet, the Musee d'Orsay, the Comedie-Francaise, and others) offers reduced entrance fees for holders of BN library cards. So that should be pretty cool.

Can't wait to get started!

Tools of the Trade - The Video Camera

At first, I wasn't sure that a video camera would be useful to me. I'm only likely to interview a few people, most of whom will be of peripheral importance to my project. And this is academic research, not a documentary (although now that I think about it, a mockumentary about academic research would be a hit . . . in the academic community only).

But then I had an interesting conversation with a patronage scholar in New York (Sylvia Kahan) that convinced me of the utility of a video camera. If ever I'm granted permission to photograph a larger number of documents (as is possible in a private collection, but unlikely in a public archive), it might make more sense to video the collection so I don't have to pause every time I turn the page to take a picture. As long as the video camera is stable, and as long as I turn the pages appropriately, I could pull screen shots from a video later on. That way I'll waste time outside of the collection, not while I'm there.

With that in mind, let me introduce my new friend: the Flip Video Camcorder. (If you go to that website, beware the loud, corny music and ADD-inspired animation.) I've actually already "reviewed" this camera on my other blog (so dorky!) so I'll just re-embed that video.

(We all know that this camera is really most useful for taking video of Panda leaping about in the snow, or going on a bike ride, or playing with Sophie - but I can dream about using it for professional purposes, right?)

New Haven

I'm way late in posting about this, but in June I took a field trip to New Haven to conduct preliminary research at Yale's Irving S. Gilmore Music Library. I spent the better part of four days working in the Virgil Thomson Papers, for which (thank goodness) there exists an online finding aid. The finding aid helped me to identify the materials I wanted to look at in advance, so that I didn't have to waste time in the library.

If you read my original statement of purpose for the project, you'll remember that Virgil Thomson (the composer, music critic, all around cool guy you see to the right) inspired me to think about the relationship between music and money through his classic expose of the music world, The State of Music (1939). Since his writing in that book is quasi-satirical and always tongue-in-cheek, I wondered whether he actually believed that income source could explain musical style (which is a huge claim). By examining the VT Papers (including correspondance, financial records, and other materials that he saved over the years), I hoped to find some proof of Thomson's sincerity (or lack thereof), and I hope to learn about what led him to make the money/music connection so central to his book.

In the end, I didn't find much about either.

I did, however, remember what archival research feels like: slow, sometimes painful, with occasional moments of surprise, humor, and satisfaction. For instance, reading through VT's checkbooks mostly made me want to cry. But at a certain point I realized that his precarious financial situation throughout the 1920s and 1930s made a certain argument possible - that his preoccupation with money in his book came out of real-life circumstances, which makes it likely that the preoccupation is sincere.

Other encouraging signs that suggest my project isn't some grand wild goose chase: in a letter to his publisher written while the book was in progress, VT claimed that his "economic-esthetic theory" would constitute the "main meat" of the book. (Letter to Thayer Hobson, October 4, 1938) What's more, in a 1961 reprint of The State of Music, VT added a preface in which he remarked, "even the chapter on the economic conditioning of musical style, admittedly a scherzo, has in it far more than just a nubbin of truth."

So, according to VT, I'm not wasting my time. That's a relief. One archive ransacked, 20+ to go.

At least I ate well.

Addresses

Dear Family, Friends, and Foes,

If you would like to receive mail and/or luxury items from France, please email us your addresses. We might already have them, but we also might not. Better safe than sorry.

Two Weeks!!!