Sarkozy, C'est Fini!

Sunday night, at Place Bastille, where at least a hundred thousand jubilant people gathered under an overcast sky to welcome a new president, it all came down to two chants.

Sarkozy, c'est fini! (SAHR-ko-zee SAY-fee-nee)!

Hollande gagne! (OH-lan GAHN-yea)!

"Sarkozy is finished," and "Hollande won."

So ended the hard-fought and often nasty election campaign which saw France turn for the first time in sixteen years to the Socialists, making the center/right Nicolas Sarkozy a single-term president. 

This was the scene a few seconds past eight p.m., when the TV station being broadcast on the stadium-sized screen at Place Bastille flashed François Hollande's photograph, over the percentage of votes (51.7%) that exit polls showed him receiving. The jubilation was reminiscent of Barack Obama's 2008 Grant Park rally on election night in Chicago:

In addition to our exclusive Paris Play video, here are faces of the evening captured in stills, with our impressions, and a word or two about what we think could come next.

A line of (mostly) women dancing and ululating with glee

Father and daughter celebrating history

And plenty of time for silliness

Each time the screen showed a picture of the outgoing president, seen here conceding defeat, the huge crowd booed...

...or worse

The young and lithe climbed to the base of the famous Bastille column

Thousands upon thousands of revelers boiled out of the Metro stations...

...and boogied on to Place Bastille, swelling the crowd to at least a hundred thousand strong

He was disappointed that the police forbade him to ride his motorcycle into the huge crowd...

...while these folks on rue St. Antoine cheered the celebrants from their safe second-floor perch

The magazine L'Express was hot off the presses within two hours, while the president-elect didn't arrive to address the waiting crowd until 12:45 the next morning

There were plenty of homemade signs, and the crowd was overwhelmingly young

The ubiquitous image of Che Guevara, found wherever leftist internationalists gather

In 2008, when Obama and his supporters celebrated in Grant Park, they did so under a growing economic cloud, the result of the Bush administration's mishandling of the American economy, which meant the celebrations had to be short, because the United States was in crisis. The economy cast a pall that Obama still labors under; as he runs for a second term, the Republicans work to foster the lie that the Great Recession is the Democratic president's fault.  

Three-and-a-half years after Grant Park, incoming president Hollande labors under a similar cloud. The European economy is worse off than the United States' (though the entire world economy is yoked together), and France suffers from record high unemployment, as its citizens chafe at the austerity measures the European Union is demanding.

Hollande's victory flies in the face of that demand. He believes (as does American economist Paul Krugman) that austerity is a ridiculous policy in the face of a recession, and that economies must be nurtured with strong government measures to increase employment and strengthen social programs.

The UK newspaper, The Independent, which doesn't like Hollande, grumps that Sarkozy's defeat "...poses once again the question of whether any national leader, of any party, can impose the degree of austerity deemed necessary by the financial markets and remain electable." One of the messages that both left and right were united on this year was that "financial markets" were not governments; the French wanted French elected officials, not Brussels-based European Union bureaucrats, to make economic and political decisions for their country.

Whatever the next weeks, months, or years of a Hollande presidency have to offer, the basic question is, what kind of a world will this young will-be voter, carried by her mother to witness this critical historical moment, find herself in when she comes of age?

Your Answers for Marcel Proust

Kaaren honoring Proust with stargazers (our flower shop was out of cattleya)

Last Saturday we asked you to answer a Proust questionnaire. Here are the responses from those brave enough to play. We're delighted by your eloquence. As you'll recall, the questions were:

1. The main feature of my character

2. The quality that I desire in a man

3. The quality that I desire in a woman

4. What I appreciate most about my friends

5. My main fault

6. My preferred occupation

7. My dream of happiness

8. What would be my greatest misfortune

9. What I would like to be

10. The country in which I would like to live

11. The color I prefer

12. The flower I like

13. The bird which I prefer

14. My favorite authors in prose

15. My favorite poets

16. My favorite heroes in fiction

17. My favorite composers

18. My favorite painters

19. My heroes in real life

20. My heroines in history

21. My favorite names

22. What I hate most of all

23. Characters that I most despise

24. The military act that I value most

25. The reform that I admire most

26. The gift of nature that I would like to have

27. How I would like to die

28. My present state of mind

29. Faults that inspire the most indulgence in me

30. My motto

Street art by Tristan des Limbes

Walter Calahan

My answer:  Proust had to answer too many questions.

Susan Griffin

1. If I knew I would tell you. (which might indicate, openness, I suppose).  2. emotional insight.  3. emotional insight.  4. Their presence in every sense of the word.  5. Being late.  6. Writing.  7. Warm weather in good company or serene solitude.  8. I’m too superstitious to say it out loud.  9. I am what I’d like to be now. In another life, perhaps an actor.  10. Either where I am now, Berkeley, California, a country in its own right, or France.  11. Deep blue in the sky, turquoise in water, green around me outdoors, ochre on the walls inside, black or shades of purple to wear, skin and eyes in every available shade.  12. Cherry blossoms.  13. Hummingbirds (and sparrows and ravens).  14. Among so many, these come to mind:  Tolstoy, M. Proust, V. Woolf, Edith Wharton, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Grace Paley, John Berger, Michael Ondaatje, Joan Didion.  15. Again among so many, Sappho, Dickinson, Whitman,  Mallarmé, HD, WC Williams, Theodore Roethke, Rilke, Nelly Sachs, Adrienne Rich, Aime Cesaire,  Jacque Prévert, Paul Celan, Cavafy, Lucille Clifton, B.H. Fairchild.  16. Well, of course, Valjean in Les Miserables, and the narrator of In Search of Lost Time, Mrs. Ramsey in To the Lighthouse, Lady Dedlock in Bleak House.  17. Bach, Mozart, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, Jelly Roll Morton, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald riffing on standards, Bob Marley,  Arvo Part.  18. Helen Frankenthaler, Claudia Bernardi, Basquiat, Morton Dimondstein (my adoptive father), Frida Kahlo, Rothko, Morris Graves, Lucian Freud, Eve Hesse, Alice Neel, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Titian, Cezanne, Suzanne Valadon,  Sonia Delaunay, Charlotte Salomon, unnamed Haitian”folk” painters.  19. Aung san Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Helen Caldicott, Rosa Parks, Barbara Lee, my friend, Jodie Evans.  20. Ninon de Lenclos, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells,  Eleanor Roosevelt, MLK, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rachel Carson.  21. Pilar, Pascal, Rachel, Dante.  22. Arrogance mixed with stupidity and cruelty (the first often leading to the latter).  23. Edward Cassaubon in Middlemarch,  though it’s harder to find absolute villains in good fiction than in real life; one can even sympathize with the ruthless Inspector Javert.  24. Liberating the concentration camps in WW II.  25. Universal Health Care.  26. Good health.  27. In my own bed surrounded by family and friends.  28. Anxious and happy alternating from moment to moment.  29. Being late.  30. The truth will set you free.

John Lennon by Jef Aerosol

John J. Heimark

1. The main feature of my character:  My character.  2. The quality that I desire in a man:  Honesty.  3. The quality that I desire in a woman:  Honesty.  4. What I appreciate most about my friends:  Sense of humor.  5. My main fault:  I am cheap.  6. My preferred occupation:  Masterbuilder.  7. My dream of happiness:  World peace.  8. What would be my greatest misfortune:  To lose a friend.  9. What I would like to be:  Loved.  10. The country in which I would like to live:  Brazil.  11. The color I prefer:  Navy blue.  12. The flower I like:  Bird of Paradise.  13. The bird which I prefer:  Peregrine Falcon.  14. My favorite authors in prose:  Prose is dull and tedious.  15. My favorite poets:  Kaaren Kitchell, Carl Sandburg….  16. My favorite heroes in fiction:  T.S.Garp.  17. My favorite composers:  Bach, John Lennon, Joe Ely…. 18. My favorite painters:  Michaelangelo, van Gogh, Terry Allen….  19. My heroes in real life:  My father, fire fighters, police officers….  20. My heroines in history:  Betsy Ross, Sue Heimark Dufern, Sandra Day O'Connor…. 21. My favorite names:  Allison, Veronica, Brice.  22. What I hate most of all:  Losing family.  23. Characters that I most despise:  Politicians….  24. The military act that I value most:  Desert Storm, 1991.  25. The reform that I admire most:  Cigarette smoking restrictions.  26. The gift of nature that I would like to have:  Public speaking, like my father has.  27. How I would like to die:  In my sleep when I am over 100 years of age.  28. My present state of mind:  Bliss.  29. Faults that inspire the most indulgence in me:  Good food.  30. My motto  "Attitude is everything." 

Dream or fortune, I will touch the moon 

Daniel Moore

Dear Paris Play:  I’m really sorry, I started out kind of Pataphysical, and ended up kind of metaphysical.

1. The main feature of my character: eyes that eye, nose that noses, mind that minds, heart that… harkens, and hopeful invisibility.  2. The quality that I desire in a man: If asleep, a dream bubble in 3D, if awake compassion and wisdom (or the same in both states).  3. The quality that I desire in a woman: Heartfelt enthusiasm and a laugh like falling water, light in the eyes that lights up other eyes.  4. What I appreciate most about my friends: Eyes that light up, lips that sing, limbs that generously extend & swing.  5. My main fault: Never quite there, however close, never too far, however far, AND an inability to take these exercises seriously, and yet, and yet….  6. My preferred occupation: There’s no limit in listening, opening up and the word horde flowing.  7. My dream of happiness: Everyone on fields of light, choirs in the clouds, lively spectrums from good minds.  8. What would be my greatest misfortune: To not think and know these things or be bereft of faith.  9. What I would like to be: A saint who flies through the air and lands where needed.  10. The country in which I would like to live: A country of flying saints and soft landings.  11. The color I prefer: I admit a great fondness for turquoise, especially when matched with silver.  12. The flower I like: One in the shape of a piano played with trilling runs and deep chords.  13. The bird that I prefer: The hoopoe, leader of the birds to the Great Simurgh, and of course the Simurgh itself (see The Conference of the Birds).  14. My favorite authors in prose: Francis Ponge, but that’s poetry, or Irving Rosenthal, Sheeper… or is that also poetry?  15. My favorite poets: The ones to come… to whom, like music, we aspire.  (And then there’s Mevlana Rumi, in authentic translation, Rene Char, Tomaz Salamun, etc. etc. etc.).  16. My favorite heroes in fiction: All the Kafka ones, then back to Gulliver and Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe, and of course Hayy ibn Yaqthan by Ibn Tufayl.  17. My favorite composers: Olivier Messiaen, Terry Riley, John Adams, etc. etc. etc. (I’m getting serious now).  18. My favorite painters: Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Jess, etc. etc. etc.  19. My heroes in real life: All saints, living in real life, and dead in even more real life.  20. My heroines in history: Rabia Adawiyya, and Shaykha Baji and my wife Malika, whose histories are gloriously still in progress.  21. My favorite names: Ah… Muhammad, Hafez, Gululapeg, Sandoz the Magnificent, Gerard de Nerval, Otto.  22. What I hate most of all: Hatred.  23. Characters that I most despise: Despisers.  24. The military act that I value most: The Laying down of arms.  25. The reform that I admire most: That once all striving is made to change and better things, we know somehow that everything by Divine Decree is, oddly, perfect just as it is (illuminatingly).  26. The gift of nature that I would like to have: Ever cool most inward aplomb on an epic scale.  27. How I would like to die: Reciting Qur’an, sitting up or laying back, no problem, remembering God in all gracefulness and sweet relief, with a farewell poem snatched from the angels.  28. My present state of mind: Less easy than it should be, sharper than it has been, as circular as ever, with a few sparklers.  29. Faults that inspire the most indulgence in me: Sadly, my own.  30. My motto: La ilaha il Allah Muhammad rasulullah (and may it be the last on my lips and in my heart.

Anna Waterhouse

1. Faithfulness.  2.  Faithfulness.  3. A nurturing instinct.  4.  Faithfulness…and a nurturing instinct.  5.  I’m too generous. (Kidding.) I’m too sensitive. (Also kidding.) I’m sarcastic.  6.  I’d love to be Bonnie Raitt. To have spent my life playing the guitar like that, and singing with those people....wow.  7.  Writing. Singing. Without worrying about money.  8.  The death of my child.  9.  Four inches taller.  10.  Italy.  11.  I have no favorite colors, though there are a few I dislike. Puce comes to mind, if only for the name.  12.  It’s a tie. Roses for their scent and beauty, and the fact that they protect themselves and need a ridiculous amount of care; and orchids because they have no odor, are ridiculously fragile, and vant to be left alone.  13.  Easy. A hawk. Our neighborhood hawk can come scoop up our adorable wild bunny, if he wants, though I hope he doesn’t. In other words, if it’s almost anything versus a hawk, I’m rooting for the hawk.  14.  Oooh, way too big a question. All the famous ones, at some time or the other, or in some mood or another. And I also dislike them all at some time or the other, or in some mood or another.  15.  See #14. (Though Neruda often rises to the top.)  16.  Not sure what “heroes in fiction” means. Fictitious characters I like or admire or want to emulate?  See #14.  17.  Composers? Really?  I mean, everyone from Verdi to Philip Glass to Kurt Cobain. Or maybe I don’t understand the question.  18.  Lucien Freud. My uncle Romano. Miro’. See #14.  19.  Jesus.  20.  None come to mind, though I’ll surely kick myself when they do.  21.  Carbon de Castille Jaloux, or just about any French name except Gabi.  22.  A sense of entitlement.  23.  Child molesters. Predators in general. (Unless you're a hawk, I guess.)  24.  The salute.  25.  The repeal of slavery. 26.  I don’t understand the question. Unless you mean that I’d like to be able to take root and live several hundred years, and when someone cuts off my limbs they grow back…  27.  A long, long, long time from now. And I'd kind of like to be translated. Sucked up into the sky. A chariot of fire could be good.  28.  Calm.  29.  My yelling at bad drivers. (Meaning “other” drivers.) I just think I’m so cute when I do it.

Patricia Duthion

As I don't know how to answer the questionnaire, I asked my dog. She had no spiritual 
ideas, but Raga said:
 
Le principal trait de mon caractère? La volonté, la désobéissance, l'entêtement. Mais aussi, 
je suis très pacifique, je déteste l'agressivité. 

La qualité que je préfère chez un homme? Qu'il soit joueur, et bon joueur si possible. 

Et chez une femme? La douceur et la patience, ça me rassure.  

Le bonheur parfait? Faire quelques longueurs dans la piscine, m'ébrouer dans l'herbe, 
manger, manger, encore manger, puis m'allonger contre ma maîtresse pour un bon somme.

Mes films cultes? Les 101 dalmatiens, Belle et le clochard, Rintintin? Il y a longtemps que 
je ne suis pas allée au cinéma, il y a sûrement mieux. 

Les fautes pour lesquelles j'ai le plus d'indulgence? La gourmandise, le cabotinage. 

Qu'ai-je réussi de mieux dans ma vie ? Ma maîtresse.

Is This Germany in the Thirties?

Faux Mexican wrestling poster; street art mocking the French presidential runoff

As we wait for Sunday's second round of voting in the French presidential election, when the center-right incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Socialist challenger, François Hollande, face off, mano-a-mano, the big story is still the fact that Marine Le Pen, the 43-year-old, far-right, anti-immigration challenger, picked up almost eighteen percent of the first-round vote April 22. This was a tad more than her father, Jean-Marie, received in the first and second rounds, respectively, as the National Front's presidential candidate in 2002.

Will she, or will she not endorse either remaining candidate by Sunday? some commentators still breathlessly ask.

No, she won't. She dislikes both parties, and positioned herself in a triumphal speech on election night (“We have exploded the monopoly of the two parties...”) as the successor to the failed policies of Sarkozy's UMP party, and the perceived "ultra-liberalism" of Hollande and the left in general. Imagine, for example, if U.S. Republican Sarah Palin had been a third-party candidate, and, having lost in the hypothetical first round, had taken a whack at both McCain and Obama. (Just for fun, further imagine the U.S. with viable third parties, instead of parties that are two sides of a coin residing in a lobbyist's pocket.)

While Ms. Le Pen may not be a kingmaker, there will also be the question of legislative representation in France's multi-party Assembly and Senate further down the line, and perhaps even pressure on Sarkozy (if re-elected) to consider National Front politicians as cabinet members. That's not bloody likely either, according to most pundits, but there are some talking heads who say, "Hey, why not give her a shot? She's got no program other than anti-immigration, trade protectionism, anti-NATO, and ultra-nationalism; give her party some responsibility in a cabinet and watch them tank." Ms. Le Pen has served as a member of the European Parliament, representing north-west France.

 

Meanwhile, the 'tween elections period was marked by a bit of political theater here in town yesterday (May Day), a ritual that Le Pen's National Front party performs every year, but since this was an election year, their event--a parade and wreath-laying--was bigger and better, and quite well-organized. While the trains didn't run on time (the parade was late), there were dozens of contingents of National Front supporters bussed in from all over France, and the number of blue, white and red national flags made it look like a Nixon rally (had Dick been French).

The ritual political theater, started by Ms. Le Pen's father, who founded the Catholic-based party in 1972, involves placing a floral wreath at a truly gaudy gold-painted statue of Jeanne D'Arc, the national heroine of France, across from the Louvre on Paris' Right Bank.

We at Paris Play found this odd, since we know May Day as an international left-wing celebration, and since May first is known here as Fete du Travail (Labor Day, which is akin to the holiday in the U.S. in September), to honor the labor movement and its successes. Labor is a powerful force here in France, and the 35-hour week and an early retirement age are practically sacrosanct. In late 2010, during his first term, Sarkozy successfully pushed the legislature to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, but a Socialist president with a heavy political debt to labor may work to drop it back down.

Anyway, this is the 600th anniversary year of Jeanne D'Arc's birth, and the fortuitous coincidence of it being an election year in which the National Front did well, made the party's ritual tweaking of left-wing noses even more of an event this year. Marine Le Pen AND Jean-Marie showed up for the wreath-laying, and Paris Play estimates that ten thousand National Front members attended the event, and the party rally in front of the Garnier Opera House.

(Our crowd estimate: We counted 300 people passing a single point during one minute, and the crowd kept passing for one half-hour. Later on Tuesday, we attended the annual left-wing, Left Bank May Day celebration, which coincidentally happened to meander by our block. As we write this post, the crowd is still passing, after some hours. Hundreds of thousands. However, none of the photographs in this post are from that parade. We found the right more fascinating.)

Are we in Germany in the 1930s, as some would have it, and are these the faces of fascism? Or is this just a bunch of scared and angry (and happy to have made a political tremor) French nationalists enjoying the first really sunny Paris day we've had in weeks, since the false spring of late March? We hate stories that end "only time will tell," so we won't say that.

We will note (our friend Mort Rosenblum of Reporting Unlimited tipped us to this excellent New York Times analysis) that there is a rising tide of extreme right sentiment all over Europe, but it appears to us that the National Front is still more of a Le Pen family personality cult (witness the generational hand-off) than a political party (think of a far-poorer populist Ross Perot), and that Marine is just a more attractively packaged and more muted version of her father.

4 May Update:  Perhaps Nicolas Sarkozy read Paris Play's assessment of the Le Pen family party and found himself in agreement with our conclusion, when he called it the Le Pen family business. 

Here are four short, uncut, high-definition videos of marching, singing, chanting, etc., that will give you even more of the sense of being there. Think of them as uncut newsreel footage. They are Flash, so you might not be able to view them on Apple mobile devices:

Questions Marcel Proust Would Like to Ask You

I was given a great gift about a month ago. Our friend, Jeannette, asked me to lead a half-day Marcel Proust in Paris tour, as part of a larger tour she was leading.

I was thrilled by her invitation, but had two responses: while I'd read A La Recherche du Temps Perdu and a number of books about him, no way could I do justice to Proust in less than a full day, and furthermore, could I do justice to Proust? With hope and nervousness, I spent the next few weeks reading a terrific Proust biography by George Painter, investigating where I might take the members of this tour, and mapping out an itinerary with Richard.

There were a few surprises in the planning stages, such as at the manuscript museum. We’d heard there were letters of Proust there, but learned that the exhibition had been dismantled and the materials had migrated elsewhere. Not a single example of Proust in his own hand. But at the museum we found a card with a “Questionnaire de Marcel Proust.” It was a list of questions that he first answered in an English-language confessions album at the age of 13, and again at age 20. The original manuscript of Proust's enthusiastic answers was discovered in 1924, and auctioned off on May 27, 2003 for 102,000 euros.

Who knows what might eventually happen with your responses!

I won’t try to capture the tour in words. It was a transformative experience. If you’d like to enjoy it yourself, ask me to take you on a Proust tour when you’re in Paris (but give me some notice, please).

What we’d like to do is to ask you to play a Proustian game. Answer these questions in the following format (imaginary example):

1.  Vision. 2. Depth. 3. Grace. 4. Awareness. 5. Lateness. 6. Writing. 7. Etc.

Send them to us by Thursday, May 3 using this e-mail link, and we’ll print your answers in a Saturday, May 5 post. This is for the playful and adventurous among you. (You may skip five answers, but not more.)

Marcel Proust Questionnaire

1. The main feature of my character:

2. The quality that I desire in a man:

3. The quality that I desire in a woman:

Street art by Da Cruz

4. What I appreciate most about my friends:

5. My main fault:

6. My preferred occupation:

7. My dream of happiness:

8. What would be my greatest misfortune:

9. What I would like to be:

10. The country in which I would like to live:

11. The color I prefer:

12. The flower I like:

13. The bird which I prefer:

14. My favorite authors in prose:

15. My favorite poets:

16. My favorite heroes in fiction:

17. My favorite composers:

18. My favorite painters:

19. My heroes in real life:

20. My heroines in history:

21. My favorite names:

22. What I hate most of all:

23. Characters that I most despise:

24. The military act that I value most:

25. The reform that I admire most:

26. The gift of nature that I would like to have:

27. How I would like to die:

Street art by Tristan des Limbes

28. My present state of mind:

29. Faults that inspire the most indulgence in me:

Street art by Fred le Chevalier

30. My motto:

Without you, nothing will happen...so join in on the Proustian fun

In Paris, We All Drive Caddies

A photograph of centrist presidential candidate François Bayrou adorns a supporter's caddy at the Bastille marketplace. Bayrou is expected to get around ten percent of the vote in the preliminary round of voting April 22, and could be a spoiler in the May 6th second round, if he endorses the right-wing Sarkozy instead of the Socialist Hollande.

When we lived in Los Angeles, where we had to drive to get anywhere, Richard would refer to our car as the two-ton backpack. We'd strap on the two-ton backpack to go shop at Whole Foods in El Segundo, or schlep to Home Depot on Jefferson Boulevard, or to bring home a stack of books from Small World Books on the Venice boardwalk.

Here in Paris, we have no car.  Don't need one; don't want one; don't miss one.

But we still go to shop, at any of three long-established local fresh produce markets that are within walking distance, or either of two supermarkets, any of three local pharmacies, any of three hardware stores, the shoe repair shop, four good bakeries, three butchers, the dry cleaners, etc. The neighborhood survives here, and so (fingers crossed, Paris is also being gentrified) do the small shops that help give a neighborhood character and convenience.

And, like everyone else here, we drive a caddy.

If you've been where the urban poor and aged live in the United States, you've seen these caddies, sort of a laundry hamper on wheels, used to tote necessary goods if one doesn't have a car.  And in really sad cases, some people's caddies are large stolen metal shopping carts that serve to hold the only possessions they own.

Here in Paris, there's no social stratification; caddies are not the sole preserve of the aged, the poor, or the homeless; we all drive them, rich, poor, male, female, old, young, Muslim, Christian, Jew--name your demographic, and you drive a caddy.

Many come in Henry Ford's basic black (our choice; we're not flamboyant), but you can find one at the department or hardware store to suit just about any taste, from polka dots, to Tartan plaid, to laminated posters of Ganesha.

Even postal service letter-carriers drive caddies.

And, reflecting another social difference between Paris and Los Angeles, we don't lock our caddies when we go to the store.  People leave them outside, or queue them up at the market entrance while they shop. Yes, we leave them unattended, in a city of 2.5 million people.