Sorry it has been so long between updates. Last week and this one are crunch time for getting work done. One class totally down; it's final paper written and sent in. Finish up another Wednesday when we have our final Council of Ministers roleplay; the write-ups are already sent in. Thursday takes care of French (final exam) and EU Econ (turn in paper). That paper is the big focus of this week: a comparative analysis of French and Danish welfare/social protection systems, and whether these explain variable growth rates. And then a final in policy issues next Tuesday. It's crazy how quickly this is all wrapping up.

I spent the weekend down in Toulouse, visiting my friend Lindsay, and had a great time. I'll update more about that when I've got more time and get my pictures uploaded.

For the moment, just a quick thought about the French language. Something I've noticed and brought up with my French teacher last week: French is less subtle than English, in so far as one word will more often have several meanings, where in English they are each given their own word. Not to dig too much into Barthes, but I think I can be more clear if I French often uses the same signifier for many signifieds, while English gives each signified its own signifier. English makes a distinction between sirens (generally more malicious and ancient Greek) and mermaids (more recent and often friendlier), whereas both are siren in French. I had another, better example, but I can't come up with it at the moment. I would guess, with nothing to back me up, that this is a product of having the language so strictly regulated by the Acadamie Francaise, and English being open to more free development and borrowing.

Happy Thanksgiving

So my first Thanksgiving not spent with family went over pretty well. It is my second-favorite holiday of the year (after the Christmas season - which is really more of a season), so though it isn't at all a part of their history, it still causes pitty to think that the French don't celebrate. Yes, your lack of pilgrim ancestors might be a problem, but it's just such a great day. Family, parades, good food, and festive Fall-ness. So though some things were missing off that list, we did our best to carve a little island of Plymouth for the French today. We cooked and ate dinner at my friend John's apartment with his extended host family and did a pretty good job of it. No pumpkin pie, but a full meal and plenty with which to fill outselves.






Cick here for the full album.

I've had many things to be thankful for this year and much appreciate them. Hope you have all enjoyed yourselves and the long weekend. Love to familiy and friends - though we pulled off a successful version of the day in France, I still wish I could have been there with you.

Pilgrims, Abe Lincoln, Turkey.
Stephen

And a tradition:

Part 2, Part 3

Childhood Nostalgia Moment

Today was pretty uneventful, so lacking any new stories, here are some thoughts introduced by YouTube videos.


Sadly, this one isn't really that good, but it gives me an excuse to mention Howards End. In my political economics class yesterday I was struck by how much our discussion could be broken down and explained as that book. The question was what to do about child labor and other such practices in China and elsewhere. Is this a cost to be paid on the only road to development and growth? Should we declare a universal standard of morality that we owe responsibility to prevent this happening? Suddenly, one side of the room the Wilcoxes, and the other the Schlegel sisters, the workers cast as the Basts, and the professor's proposition perhaps the child. A question a century ago and now.


Monsterpiece Theatre presents "The Sound of Music." Possibly less strange a re-telling than this marionette version I read about.


Can't believe they managed a Twin Peaks segment.

And so we have the lesson for today: Sesame Street and its eventual dumbing down. About two years ago I attended a presentation on puppetry and Jim Henson given by Stephanie d'Abruzzo, star of Avenue Q and longtime Sesame Street puppeteer. Besides a chance to see some early Henson work, the most interesting part of her talk was her discussion of the changes she noticed during her years working on the show. At its inception the show had a strongly education purpose and contained a mix of simple children's humor to some directed to go over their heads. Turn on the show now and you might not recognize it from its original format. Now, while the educational purpose is still there, the visuals are an overwhelming, overstimulating mess, the humor reduced, and long-running character plots given less weight. What this is reflecting is a shift in television habits and consquently audience targets. Originally, the target group was children ages 3-5 with parents, hence the more sophisticated material. They needed to engage both these young children and their parents. But then, according to Ms. d'Abrubzzo, the target shifted in the late 1990s, gearing itself at kids ages 1 (or earlier) up to two or three. At this age, the focus shifts to visual stimulation and pure entertainment. This doesn't help to fight against viewership patterns, encouraging parents to watch with kids, nor does it act in the same role it once did, targeting education in underserved culutrally-deprived youth.

My problem here, why I feel this is a loss, is the same problem I have with the Disney-ification of classic fairy tales. By removing the death and other challenging elements from these stories, they're neutered of their original purpose. They're not just entertainment, but a way of introducing kids to some of the realities of life. And while Sesame Street once did this (and mentioned inflation - on a kid program!), I really doubt you'd see that today. And kids go unhelped by pretty pictures.

This NYT piece from this past weekend looks back at early Sesame Street from a contemporary perspective. Just one quote to back up my earlier point: "I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of “Sesame Street,” how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody 'Monsterpiece Theater.' Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, 'That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — 'so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.' "

And if you're still up for more, after all that, one last link: Fred Rogers before the Senate on Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding in 1969.

Great Writing for Today

So I can't claim any credit for finding this, but one line out of this AP piece on America's most dangerous cities was too good to pass up:

"Detroit was pegged the nation's murder capital in the 1980s and has lost nearly 1 million people since 1950".

In an Alex Ross piece I was reading the other night, he mentions an architectural guide during a tour in Germany complaining that a new building in the Potsdamer Platz had too many right angles and thus revived an authoritarian aesthetic. This was a new perspective through which to view my earlier comments on the modern architecture in Strasbourg. Has European architecture been put through the same Adorno-esque neo-classical rejection that German music has? Are purposely esoteric atonal musical events and the ECHR drawn from the same well?

Later I was listening to John Adam's Nixon in China. The hyper-classical pronunciation managed turned a chorus of cheers into a running call for chairs. Cheers/Chairs. Adams and frequent collaborator Peter Sellars have a new piece, Doctor Atomic, which premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 2005 and is part of the Lyric Opera of Chicago's season this winter. I hope to see it in January when I'm back there. Concerning the test of the first atomic bomb, it paints Robet Oppenheimer as a modern day Faust, the question of his soul hanging in the balance against the bomb. Though while Fuast in the end loses his immortal soul, Oppenheimer's journey is to the discovery he has one - so the librettist decides. The construction of the libretto is also pretty fascinating. Every line comes from transcripts of the sceientists, declassified documents, related poetry (Oppenheimer had a book of Baudelaire in his pocket at the first test and supposedly reacted to the detonation by quoting from Donne; his wife is given voice through the words of her contemporary, poet Muriel Rukeyser), and other contemporary writings on the Manhattan project.

...

So I'm liking the French a lot less this week. The metro has been on strike (again) since Tuesday night. And while my line is running some of its trains, packing myself into these over-crowded cars has given my new sympathies for sardines. And I'd also like to issue a blanket apology to every person in whose back/side/chest/thigh/head I've found my elbow/hand/knee/bag/hip. Wednesday wasn't so bad, most likely because everyone else assumed the metro would be closed, so it was only a little crowded. But then on Thursday I couldn't even get into trains. And yesterday was somewhat violating.

And then supposedly early this week ahead, the museums, postal service, and other general services. Meanwhile in the university system (and being in a grand école, this I am spared) the student strikes still piddle on. I still don't really get student strikes - seems like they're only hurting themselves - but this is what the French get for making this some sort of constitutional rights. It kind of makes me miss the US, where we can just declare this illegal.

Still yesterday was fun. Got a haircut, went to Shakespeare & Co. with Tony and then grabbed coffee, then we had a dinner party at Garrett's apartment for his and Tony's birthdays, which had been during the last two weeks. We made a surprisingly good dinner, too (credit largely to Garrett and Gracie).

My internet in the apartment hasn't been working since Wednesday either, so I'm in the library at Sciences Po right now, taking care of email, checking up on the world, and trying to save some articles and research for these papers I've realized are due in two and three weeks. The end is coming surprisingly fast.

Strasbourg

So yesterday we had a field trip to Strasbourg, to visit the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. The former is not actually a body of the EU, but rather a separate organization which has been around since 1949 and has 47 members to the EU's 27. Also, its only real power is limited to the European Convention on Human Rights and running the European Court of Human Rights, which ensures compliance.

The Parliament, meanwhile, is one of the legislative arms of the EU. It has confirmation powers over commissioners and new members and is one of two bodies that must vote in laws. We sat in on an hour of a session and then had a brief lecture. Unfortunately the session was not debate on current proposed legislation, but instead a hearing of the interests of EUMPs. They had a dozen different translators running, to keep everyone up with the changing speakers. Some of these were legitimate - asking the EU to consider how to ensure border security on the edges of the Schengen area - but others seemed a little further outside the body's competencies - complaining about FIFA rulings regarding Northern Ireland's status within soccer leagues.

But the lesson here has nothing to do with European governance, it has to do with architecture. Strasbourg has best presented to me so far the enormous gap France seems to manage between its older buildings and its attempts at modern architecture. I had gotten a bit of this last Friday passing through the business center of La Defense and looking out at traditional Paris, but Strasbourg beat even that. The main part of the city is absolutely beautiful. Little cobblestone streets and buildings that give the look of some sort of German fairy tale. Brothers Grimm without all the gristly endings. Or maybe Santa’s village. And then you have the more recent additions. The train station is a strange, glass bubble. The Council of Europe headquarters is some sort of Japanese temple gone wrong. The Parliament looks like the dystopian future. And the Court of Human Rights looks like the Jetsons threw up. This problem was present in Brussels too, at the Commission. It was one of those glass and colorful piping playground buildings.

I have nothing against modern architecture, only the ugly and ridiculous variety. Maybe I’m just biased, but I like the more dignified Greek revival look of American government centers. The columns of the Supreme Court, the dome of the Capitol building. There’s a certain staid respectfulness these buildings force upon you. And perhaps that’s Europe’s problem. It’s hard to take the EU seriously when their buildings look like Isaac Asimov. Well, that and EUMPs who decide the Parliament is the best avenue to argue with FIFA.

See the difference:
Classic Strasbourg

The Train Station Bubble

I suppose what's really necessary, in a much more general sense, is to strike the balance between decently looking architecture and decently functional buildings. For though they fall too far into spheres and city-of-tomorrow with their new work, the older buildings show their age a great deal when it comes to facilities. So I'm not against new buildings (or even replacing the old ones), I just don't want to feel like I've wandered into Jules Verne's voyage to the moon.

The rest of the Strasbourg pictures.

And the last set of pictures from Italy, including the Vatican.