Gov't 2.0

I just discovered that No. 10 Downing St. (the White House with a British Accent) has its own Twitter! I'm not certain that this is legitimate, but it seems like it might be. It certainly seems like a great way for the executive to get their news stories out there, and just imagine, if Kim Jong Il or Castro had a twitters, we'd never have to worry about them falling off the radar. The real question, however, is this: Barack Obama did a great job of mobilizing social media during the campaign (including twitter), but will he be able to keep this up when he's in office? As has been widely reported, he's already being forced to give up his Blackberry and email, but might the UK's example prove that its okay for government to have a presence - if an extremely filtered and controlled presence - on social media sites and web 2.0 in general?

Its a Small Small World

Woah. Now that Google Reader has had its very own Tina-Fey-like makeover, where the greatness of content remains largely unchanged as the outer shell is streamlined, it is also picking up and recommending Tumblr feeds. Is this the sign that all the matter in the internet universe is collapsing inward into a black hole? I'll let you (or someone, anyone, really) be the judge of that.

Macy's Thanksgiving

In spite of all my objections to Macy's (see: buyout of Marshall Fields, terrible dressing room lighting) I'm pretty won over by their new commercial, and a total softy for the Parade.


I got to go once or twice when I was little, but my favorite Thanksgiving tradition has been rolling out of bed and down the street to Linda's house to be awed by the Rockettes and disgusted by the Mike Miller dancers (as I am even as I type) while she makes green bean casserole. Linda has had a slightly more sophisticated Thanksgiving in Paris this year and last, so I'm twittering the Parade instead, and I've got to say, this is the best in quite some time.

exhibit a: actual talent is performing - James Taylor, Miley Cyrus, Idina Menzel, Kristen Chenoweth
exhibit b: the Rockettes looked surprisingly cute
exhibit c: the surprise Rick Astley performance/rickrolling reference gained them some coolness cred
exhibit d: the Keith Haring balloon piloted by his dad (who looks just like him) was touching and arty
exhibit e: a bizarrely funny moment with a briefcase drill team seemed biting and ironic given the current state of the businessman

Shocker: AOL Hometown Folds

I was never really an AOL nut, so I can say that I know what their Hometown Service is, but I ran across a message announcing that today - Oct. 31, 2008 - their operations would be shutting down. I'm mostly just frustrated because I can't get the result for my google image search of "Monica Lewinsky Cigar Aficionado Cover," but for any of you still living in the AOLUniverse perhaps this is a sad day.

But hey, at least the site with the announcement has a nice Halloweeny color scheme:

Name Dropping

A few days ago, a post popped up on everyone's (and by this I mean my) favorite femiladyism site Jezebel about Juicy Campus. Jezebel blogger Dodai faulted the Gossip-Girl-gone-horribly-wrong, rumor-mongering site for a business model which essentially "involves humiliating women". To a large extent, I think this is well merited criticism, but to be fair, this is exactly the sort of reaction you would expect Jezebel to have, both on behalf of and as a function of their readership. Juicy Campus is gross, but its equally gross for men and women pilloried on the site. To be frank though, sticking up for the guys trashed on Juicy Campus was only my second instinct. My first went a bit more like this: "Georgetown!!!"

I love it when Georgetown gets name-dropped in the pop-culture world. I loved going to a midnight showing of Syriana at the Georgetown AMC and cheering along with everyone else when the Saudi prince talked about his degree. I loved it when the Gossip Girls debated about the Duke's alma mater. I feel like place-pride is pretty important to me, in general. A survey of some sort claimed that Chicagoans love Chicago more than any other city's residents love theirs. This certainly seemed to be evident in Grant Park last night with the crowd's deep feeling that Barack Obama was their man, and I think i take that with me too.

The Olympics Opening Ceremonies Recap in Advance!!!

Or at least at less of a delay.

I had the great pleasure of being live-chatted opening ceremony snark from Paris this morning.

me: i should trade in my euros before they are worthless
okay
will the opening ceremonies make me hate china more?
or less?
Linda: ummm...
you probably more.
me: oh dear
this will be an interesting night in taht case
Linda: they make pretty much all other olympic opening ceremonies like they were trying to get by on the cheap.
Linda: so yeah...
probably not going to think so highly of them.
me: hmmm
they probably killed panda babies
and did deals with the devil
but in any case,
im quoting you
in my facebook event
Linda: that sounds really plausible.
me: you are soooo secret sourcey
Linda: oh yes because i'm seven hours ahead and no network has such a death grip on the olympics here.
six
you are hosting an opening ceremonies event?
me: still
indeed
we are ordering chinese
and then
we are playing games on sunday
Linda: very cool.
me: donde did you watch?
Linda: through the olympic website...through france.
they show events live.
but i think it is having problems
oh well no parade of nations for me.
me: sad
are you watching it even as we speak???
Linda: well i have been for the past hour
for a while i was so bored, i was thinking of live blogging it.
but i figured that would look sketch if someone came in.
and now the connection kind of died.
wait the danes just passed
the order is really strange.
it is now uganda
me: i dont get it
is this like
the order in romanized chinesse?
Linda: i think so.
closest i can approximate.
though it is now going us
Us
because it was ukraine and then uruguay.
but as far as i can tell they are still near the beginning.
argentinian team is HOT!
me: this is super odd
hahahahhaha
i want to live blog you narrating it to me
Linda: uzbek team...not so much.
[sidebar: did you know that russia is kind of currently invading georgia]
me: ummm
nope
not so much
Linda: yeah it's kind of bad.
me: silly medvedev
i will look at this
Linda: yeah well its funny in the british papers, it takes a while to realize that medvedev is president.
because they all went for quotes to putin in china instead of medvedev in moscow.
also the chinese way of pronouncing countries is very interesting. i'm still not figuring out the order.
also girls in white shirts jumping around the track that the atheletes are walking on. isn't that exhausting?
cuba is getting big cheers.
and president bowed...? wow you are really going to hate china more.
still worst thing about it are the ugly suits they are wearing.
omg...when you watch? look at the girls in the white...they are wearing ugly go go boots.
me: ahahahhahahahah
im on it
sorry
metting with boss's boss
Linda: no i'm sorrry...i'm being obnoxious...
okay well talk to you later.
me: nono
are you leaving work?
Linda: no.
me: I AM COOLER THAN THE OLYMPICS
Linda: okay.
sorry.
i thought you had to go to the meeting.
me: you should parle with me
nope
jsut did
sorry
Linda: okay...also really strange music selection that is not synced to the countrie.
it is like ethnic.
but like strange mexican music with african countries?
and yes, you are cooler than the olympics.
ummm isn't the belarussian president like CRAZY????
me: i th ink???
but they are my fav. olympic nation
Linda: belarussians?
why?
uhoh white outfit girls are not synced. i think heads are going to roll tonight.
me: sad
but true
Linda: oooo so protest by work today...
tons of riot police
either anti-China or pro-Tibet.
not sure.
me: hmmm
i will guess the latter
Linda: meh...sarkozy is there.
people were pissed.
everybody loves the canadians
but their outfit is ugly like whoa!
me: are they wearing roots?
oh noes
Linda: no didn't you know...roots lost the contract.
me: way worse than rl toolyness
hahah
Linda: because they started making u.s. outfits.
me: i like that you saw the devastating import of that
Linda: and then the u.s. switched to ralph lauren.
wow but it's so ugly.
i think my retinas just detached.
me: wow
this is a sad sad downfall
i once bought a too-short unflattering roots shirt
to pay homage to the cheated canadian figure skaters

All overly controversial opinions are probably joking - lighten up!

Baisé

The euro is trading above 1.6 dollars. Semi-regularly. In fact, it hit an all-time high yesterday. Happy (belated) Bastille Day.

In consoling news for Americans however, even foreigners can't afford to live abroad necessarily. Food costs were rising five percent per month for a bit and while we may be Europe's "bargain bin" as per Slate and this post, this is still only for those who aren't subsisting thanks mostly to price-controlled bread.

The Inertnet

Briefly believed Brian Eno had died today, thanks to a lame Twitter hoax I stumbled across. That'll teach me to visit the real internet.

Some good, if obvious aggregators:
The Hype Machine - Music
Ffffound! - Pictures
Cribcandy - Furniture/Home Design

Things I Miss, Part 1

riding on trains
valuable, heavy coins
not getting mocked for wearing a scarf at all times
cheap flights
sensuous badoit bottles
walking quickly
my apricot body wash
kirs
the cool graffiti
monthly transit passes
intimate movie theaters
agrum
going to paris
cheap strawberries

more as i miss it

Political Figures By Whom I Am Inappropriately Charmed:

1. Richard Nixon
2. Pat Buchanan

In other news, I said this blog would be more than just study abroad, but there are probably still some frenchified wrap-up thoughts in weeks to come that might trickle out. Bear with me. Or don't.

Cool Graffiti from Lyon, Take 2

I really like the way the graff is wrapped under this bridge I walk over on the way to school. Its more subtly done than this picture makes it out to be.

Overheard

... At a café on the quai:

Brit: "I'd like a little kitten; I'd just hate it to become a cat. Maybe we can get a kitten that will become an elephant?"

Cool Graffiti from Lyon, Take 1

Where I've Been ...

Russilly In Burgundy wine country with my family and host family. I apparently have a super doughy face.

Silver Lining

Slate is exactly the sort of site I'd post a link to at right if I didn't figure it doesn't need any help from me. It is almost always interesting, and usually varied enough that even the single most boring class/meeting/etc in the world is somewhat improved by its distracting presence. I know this because I performed rigorous, scientifically unimpeachable tests of this theory this afternooon until my laptop's batter ran out.

This week, Slate is running a series of columns all entitled "How Did I Get Iraq wrong?" giving their contributors the enviable opportunity of dealing with questions that even the responsible parties have a tough time doing. And they face something almost as vindictive as the American electorate; commenters on the interwebs.

But really, who needs that? This post is about what we got right in Iraq. Stamps.

American stamps backed in adhesive instead of lickable glue originated in the first Gulf War, so that soldiers could still send letters home, even inspite of the humidity. And this was actually such an innovative thing that the rest of the world still hasn't caught up.

The French may be opposed to American interventions overseas basically unequivocally, but they're the ones still getting tongue paper cuts, suckers! Well . . . and me, for the moment.

Jumper

Third Eye Blind was one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Then I went to Paris.

Nick and I went up for a weekend in February just before Linda moved from a program in the center of the city to snooty HEC on the Paris fringes. Nick and I bought weekend tourist passes. They came with discounts on the bateaux mouches and to a slightly unappealing Italian chain in the city. Not very impressive. Linda had just bought a week pass as she wasn't serving out the month.

Our tiny paper tickets worked for the very first metro ride on the 1 and for our second which took us to the Jardins de Luxembourg. After that, they simply refused to read at the next station. Paris is switching over to a system more like the Oyster card in London or the MetroCard in DC, but in truly French fashion, this means they have given up hope on the magnetic paper ticket readers far too early. They make no repairs. The manned ticket window is a real rarity.

So. We jumped every metro gate save three or four that weekend. In the older metro station, this really meant vaulting over the bars. In the newer ones with full length doors, it took hopping through the exits. All of this became all the more interesting after I sprained my ankle Friday night and spent the rest of the weekend making Keri Strug-type efforts.

After this moved from the frustrating to the farcical, it was actually mostly fun. Parisians would egg us on, or try to sneak us thru on their working cards. And we got all the benefit of participating in a time-honored tradition, without any of the illegality. After all, the only thing you need to be on the Metro is a valid ticket. And a knack for sticking your landings.

NOT his man

I just read on Perez Hilton that Leonard Cohen is being inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Madonna and several others. Odd as it was to be getting my Leonard Cohen fix from Perez, and not, say, anywhere with even a slight scrap of dignity, I was fairly excited.

In a morbid conversation - or maybe just a realistic and useful one, depending on how Daria you feel - late this summer, Jess, Lauren and I narrowed down the songs we thought we would have played at our funerals. I think this was mostly an exercise in using the ultimate end-all-be-all criteria for narrowing down our favorite songs.

Jess went with These Days by Jackson Browne
Lauren went with Like a Prayer by Madonna
I went with Chelsea Hotel No. 2 by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen is a fantastic songwriter, but save a very very few instances, I have tended to like covers of his songs better. He occasionally has too dolorous a voice, to great a faith in the power of synth. Chelsea Hotel No. 2 is the greatest exception to the rule. Cohen's rough voice is just exactly right, and it hardly seems right for anyone else to sing about a one night stand with Janis Joplin other than the man himself.

Here's the only catch in his Hall of Fame induction: with so many amazing covers with so many amazing artists, couldn't they have found someone slightly better than Damien Rice to perform in tribute to him?

Mind's Eye

Oh. Hey there, "In like a lion, out like a lamb" March.

For some reason, I always picture this time of year as greenish, and not at all Leonine. Not because of the coming of spring or anything so reasonable. Just because the leapyearability of February makes me think of frogs.

LIT (redux)

In an unprecedented move of blogosphere follow up, I just ran across a bilingual book of Hemmingway short stories with facing pages of the same text in English and French. I'll get back to you on whether or not he is translateable...

La Basilique de Fourviere.

A nineteeth century basilica that sits atop the "hill that prays" - lame nickname - the largest bluff overlooking the Saone and the city as a whole. This is one of the main focal points of the cityscape. Since I've been a little down on France, I figured I ought to post something positive ... also one of the only five pictures I currently have access to. This isn't such a bad argument for liking Lyon though. It looks so mediterranean ...

And now for something completely different...

A post having nothing at all to do with France!

I have a pretty (un)healthy affection for Agatha Christie-penned books. It is probably not one of my better features. Usually they leave me feeling warm and fuzzy about the quaintness of England, and even murder. They are also an insane ego boost to charge through as they are written essentially for slightly slow fifth graders, and I make no qualms about small victories. Anyway. The only exception to this rule is, in fact, And Then There Were None, a book I read when I actually was, rather approximately, a slightly slow fifth grader*.

It scared the proverbial bejeezus out of me, as books about mulitple suicides will tend to do, mid-family-vacation-slash-camping trip. We wandered around Yosemite, which was very lovely, and ate Dinty Moore beef stew cooked over a campfire, which was also lovely, though probably only for me as it was my favorite camping food, but not actually good. Less lovely was when I noticed all the bear signage. Usually this wouldn't bother me, but post-mystery scare, I couldn't sleep. I became convinced I heard bear noises outside the tent. Just exactly what constitutes a bear noise, I could not tell you.

Within a few minutes, my paranoia had built and I became pretty well convinced that the bear had made it into our permanent tent platform thingy, and was, in fact, engaged in eating my little brother on the bunk below me.

I'm not sure exactly what the point to this story is other than that I was totally unconcerned by Chris' demise. Not that I don't love him, but I'm fairly certain all of my energy went into playing dead for my imaginary attacker for the rest of the night. Perhaps the moral of the story is that I am self-centered and not all that awesome of a person. Perhaps the moral of the story is that bears really are a threat. No wonder Stephen Colbert has them at number one.

EDIT: This picture is acutally an old Smokey the Bear anti-forest fire ad. How entirely terrifying! Smokey is much more cuddly.



*I was actually so slow I was put in a special remedial pencil holding class. I failed. But at that point in time it was just too depressing to let me down further, so they gave me stickers anyway and doomed me to illegibility forever.

L'éléction 2008, Part One: Bias

In 1939, the first edition of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers was published. It would go on to become the best selling mystery ever - just not under that name. When the book was published in the States shortly afterwards, the title was changed to the litigation-friendly, controversy-free, and all around spookier And Then There Were None.

Fast-forward to something at least mildly relevant/interesting. One of the larger playhouses in Lyon is currently staging the theatrical adaptation ... which they are calling Dix petit negres, a backwards step I'm fairly certain you don't have to speak French to appreciate. Using our handy-dandy outdateness subtraction meter (which has previously been useful in brand new scandals in the priesthood (-5 or 6 yrs)) we can see that this theater company is, by now, 78ish odd years behind the times. And thats not even the half of it.

The French essentialization of the US Presidential race goes a little something like this:
Well, its either Clinton or the negre.
(actually what my seatmate said on my flight from London to Lyon this past weekend)

Hillary Clinton is lucky, at least in this respect, whatever you may think of every other respect, to be married to Bill. With a famous last name, she at least gets more specific credit that her own essentialization - that of being a woman. Though I can't say with any authority what the American discussion on this barrier breaking race is like at this stage in the game, I would rather think that it is not approached with such the - erm - shock and awe of the French who still have very rigidly defined gender roles at least to a certain, rather recent generation. One host parent here laughed at the notion that an American father would help with the housework. My host father refused to answer my request to cook, as the kitchen was not his domain, and another host mother refused to look at library registration information because forms were her husband's business.

This is all, of course, anecdotal. I have performed no great social survey, but the French view of the election, at least in my experience has been one more focused on prejudice than politicking?

And now, for the million dollar question: who do the French prefer?
In a national poll put out by one of the big daily papers, the French populace selected Barack Obama as their preferred pretender to the presidency. Vive la chauvinism, I suppose.

The Bitch is Back

If only I could post a little Elton John for you right now. Was gone fishing to Scotland and London, and now I'm back. I really will have to follow up on promises of trip updates I suppose. But here's what you neet to know for now:
a. Glasgow > Edinburgh like woah.
b. British food isn't half bad. But it is all fat.
c. I have been to London twice and still failed to see: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, or the inside of Saint Paul's. What exactly have I done?

The Look of Love

I went wandering on the presqu'ile (peninsula that is the city center) today and was struck by a few savory scenes:
°Two young guys, faces flushed and veins popping from their necks, being pulled apart by the drivers at a taxi stand on the very fashionable street they were trying to mash each others faces into
°Just around the corner, a couple somewhere between 18 and 22 strolling in front of the fine arts museum. When the girl reached out for his hand, her companion actually twisted away with very apparent disgust. She took it and they kept walking.
°A few blocks later, after an inadvertent turn on to the one short street that apparently makes up this very Catholic town's red light district, a thoroughly and typically seedy looking bunch of passer by. Save a rather clean cut young family. The - I assume - parents checking out the information posted at the nicest looking of the dumps while their tenish year old daughter waited across the street.

Happy February Thirteenth.
Better luck tomorrow.
I love you
I miss you

Rain Check

Just got back from Paris. Traditional study abroady updates promised soon.

It was delicious.

Open Letters To Europe 1

Dear French Critics,

Shove it.

Love Kate

Asterix et les Jeux Olympiques had Jamel Debbouze and his only arm and Zizou in all of his stereotyped Maghrebian glory. What more could a girl ask for?

French Fries

Registering both for classes and Sciences Po (the university) was semi-adventuresome to say the least - description potentially to follow depending on my bitterness and desire to bore you - and I coped as any good possessor of matched chromosomes would. With food.

France is pretty well stuffed with comfort food, actually. Chocolate, bread, cream sauces, etc. run rampant. Literally so, in fact when my host mother chases me from the dining room to my bedroom with breton butter cookies, insisting that I eat more. I would like to report that I had the class to partake. But no. Cos I don't conform like that, yo.

I went for:
1. the orbit gum
2. the cliff bars
that were left over from my trip here.Its just a shame that eating my homesickness couldnt have been slightly more gourmet.

I've been thinking a lot about what American cuisine is since I got here; both when trying to put my finger on just what it is that I'm missing (since it couldn't possibly be anything as meaningful as people or places) and as a function of cultural give-and-take conversations with Europeans, etc.

A Belgian abroad might miss the specific kind of sausage that she just can't find in neighborhood charcuteries. I miss rogan josh, and vietnamese crepes, and burritos and about a hundred other things. These are pretty broad generalizations of course, and it goes without saying that American Chinese food is hardly always what it would be in Shanghai, but the way that cuisine and social structure in the US are intertwined makes for some tough explanations. That the ensemble of immigrant food is American food, is not self evident to populations still dealing rather more actively with xenophobia even in well-educated milieus. Or as two Italian friends - perfectly open and amiable themselves - put it rather more succinctly last night, their compatriots "think they're not racist, but they are."

This occasionally false sense of social acceptance is constructed in opposition to what is seen as an often more bigoted American model ... the French fascination with the Civil War (at least two popular comics detail the mishaps of Confederates and Yanks) suggests that their conception of US social structure is out of sync with most all of the reality save perhaps the deepest south.

End pontification.

This is all a little serious, and more than likely an imperfect assessment on my part, but is to q degree representative of some other misnomers in visions of America from across the pond. McDonald's is wildly popular, relatively expensive, and has noooo clue how to make a milkshake. And it has beer(?!) on the menu. Almost all, save the 1664, is true of Starbucks. These are the finest imports, much the same way a Washingtonian might treat Cafe Bonaparte et al.

I would like to think that the big mac and the frappucino aren't the only things that American cuisine has to offer, but when I think of what we were advised to bring as gifts to our host families -
°reeses pieces
°red hots
°fluff
- or what I have envisioned for an All-American feast I've been fantasizing about making -
°pbj
°macaroni and cheese
- I suppose we aren't necessarily much above that.

Anyhow, advise me. How do I go about eating America?

EDIT: Some clarifications have hopefully been made. Also, the most homey meal yet? Ikea cafeteria food/Swedish candy. Case closed.

Lost in Translation

The French state subsidizes cafeterias in both universities and high schools and it is pretty great to think you can eat for about a third of what it would cost to buy your way into an American cafeteria - take a certain Leo J. O'Donovan, SJ Dining Hall, for example. That said, a can of Diet Coke alone costs about a dollar forty ... you win some, you lose some.

The cafes have almost won back my affection, however with things like their abortion-advertising napkins. No matter your beliefs, is this really mealtime conversation? And their fantastic foods. Like the "coleSLOW" salad I had the other day. This might acutally be more effectively evocative of the semi-ruralized Americana that loves it some coleslaw (yr faithful correspondent included, obviously)than its less hackneyed spelling.

By far the best mistranslation I have yet to encounter, however, is probably more accurately put, a case of overtranslation. Sciences Po Lyon hosted a post finals part at a bar/billiards hall called Road 66 ... it is rather as though no one ever stopped to think that mayyybe all of the acutal road signs they decorated with hadn't been specially translated for french audiences to read "Route 66" (Route=Road in French. I guess that's semi-important for comprehension).

All of this makes me just a little nervous about the translation of things that really matter. I'm just about done with Ernest Hemmingway's A Moveable Feast ... which is way less pretentious than it sounds as it is a very easy if lovely book to read. But it is just precisely Hemmingway's quality of concision, of well-turned simplicity, which makes me wonder if it would really be possible to translate Hemmingway as, well, Hemmingway, and not just an approximation of the anecdotes he relates in to French. The French language has a significantly restricted scope when compared to English, which it sees as rather word-bloated; this, however, only serves to makes things more complex as many things lack a mot juste and must be explained at greater length - death to the accurate author. (EDIT: because clearly these last two sentences were paradigms of terseness.) I think I might do well to just end here rather than continue to be tempted by remarks on French ineffeciency on the whole.

p.s. Super-attractive pic of Coppola and co. What up, Scarlett Johanssen?

Door Number Two

Okay, I am also playing around with tumblr, another blog format, at gzmt.tumblr.com
Upsides to tumblr are that reposting things from the web is much easier; it generally looks nicer ... at least given my lack of html skills thus far; and it is naturally a shorter form medium making it more natural to post random things. That said, I'm more comfortable with blogger; it allows for longer updates; and I'm not sure I'm ready for this super hipster step.

Let me know what you think: I could go with one or the other, or possibly keep both for different purposes.

The Business Plan 1.oh

1. If I ever go into shipping, my business will be called PDQ

2. If I own retail stores they will play only thematic, mood-setting muzak; i.e.:
Lingerie Stores will play Rod Stewarts Tonight's the Night
McDonald's will play Queen's Fat Bottom Girls
Cingular will play The Backstreet Boys' The Call

3. Computer keyboards will be standardized across scripts, or as my French keyboard would have it: ùconputer keyboqrds zill be stqndqrdiwed qcross scripts;b

attention!

not. kidding.

1. i say omg a lot. this began ironically/referentially (see j. wall, dec. 2006) and became habitual. deal. im only about 75% as unintelligent as this makes me seem.
1.5. as of the writing, i am from an amero-centric point of view - which seems appropriate here, if nowhere else - abroad. that said, this is just a blog blog. not solely a study abroad deal
2. my computer is dying. so we'll see.

love

addendum:
sometimes (read: most of the time.) i am lame

EDIT:
Duly noted, Katy Pape. Expect further capitals in future. This can be a sort of experiment in which to stretch my unemo potential.

Article One

hullo, world