Willy + Smutley Have Been 'Round the Block

The French are privy to the best AIDS awareness ads in the whole wide world. (Consider. And. And!) Work for Aides by Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Here's another from the same campaign: I give you Smutley the promiscuous cat!


When I first decided to visit France in 2006 (a kind of scouting vacation), my dad invited me to dinner. We didn't talk much, but toward the end, he suddenly went, "One of my co-workers had a daughter a lot like you: smart, pretty. Whole world going for her. She went to France on vacation and fell in love. Then she got AIDS, and now she's dead. Have a good trip."
And on that somber note, he ushered me out the door and on my merry way.

A Lesson on Not Jumping the Gun

The internet claims this is Surcouf, prior to his incarnation as a sort of Gallic Best Buy.

Him (leaping through doorway): I'm going out! Are you coming with me?!

Me: Where are you going?

Him: Chez Surcouf!

Me: What is Surcouf?

Him: A French pirate, very well-known----

Humor me ››

'Every Search is a Quest. Every Quest is a Story.'

VOTW passed me this pretty video about an American expat finding love in Paris. Yeah, it's an old story; but in this case, it's told in the world's second language: Google search.

Embrace the warm fuzzies.* Or embrace the commenter who said:

I think one should be done on someone going vegan. Google definately played a big roll in me going vegan(along with peta)

...yeah.

See more search stories. Note the cinematic way in which new ones are presented. Doesn't it please you that Google and YouTube got hitched?

---

*Just so it's clear, I'm touched by this video. But that's because I'm living a cliché.

Riverside Romance: Paris vs. Tokyo

Chelsi wraps up her three-month sojourn in Japan this weekend, so I'm hoarding all the cultural comparisons I can while the gettin's gewd. Here's a shot she took of a couple in the Japanese countryside Tokyo:



And here's a shot I took of a pair by the Seine, fortified by a now-empty bottle of wine:



Love love love. Same language, different dressings...

Traductions: Abusive Showers.

So me and The Man™ were sitting in a government lobby today, talking about my advancement in French. Comme d'habitude, dude raised hell* about how we should speak more French together and how I need to get over this being-shy thing.**

"Oui, je SAIS" -- yes, I know! -- I snapped.

He gave me this look -- the kind of look you give a wounded puppy on a hot deserted street -- and said, "Tu veux que je t'accable?" You want me to [ ] you?

I had this dumb-ho expression on my face, and he was all, "You don't know this word, accabler?"

I shook my head "no," so he busted out with this beat-up pocket FRENCH-ENGLISH dictionary that's probably older than me. Fortified with fresh anglais, he raised his head and said, "Would you like me to overwhelm you?"

Aww. That's cute. "I don't think that's the definition you're looking for," I said.

He nodded and dutifully turned back to the dictionary. Then, more earnestly this time: "Would you like me to shower abuse on you?"

At this I laughed so hard that the Gatekeeper at the accueil turned to us and hissed, "S'IL VOUS PLAIT!" So after that we STFO'ed, but not before I choked on my own spit and died.

Image credit: Armor Photo. I was actually looking for pictures of screaming military sergeants, but none were very good and this one was just......

.....how could you not?

---

*Okay, it was more like furtive purgatory.
**I take classes now to help with this.

Dueling Perspectives on French Productivity

French: The Most Productive People In The World

vs.

Every day's a holiday – if you're French

Subheader to the latter: The mindset of 'work less but gain more' has infected French thinking and created a lazy nation.

Both theses can't be right. Or can they?

---

Slightly off-topic: at the beach in Guadeloupe, The Man™ watched thoughtfully as I struggled to shake sand out of a pareo without getting it to blow back into my face. Then he went:

"Hey. Look here."

I turned.

He calmly folded his pareo in half and shook it briskly left to right, dislodging the sand swiftly and neatly. "See this? Side to side."

"Ohhh," I said.

His eyes grew stern. He stopped the vigorous sarong-shaking. "Do you know why I know this? Because I'm French. And I get five weeks' holidays."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "I guess if we weren't so preoccupied with advancing the current state of technology, we might've made time to learn how to shake sand out of blankets."

This naturally led to a fight. Going back on topic though, I do think there's something to the philosophy that knowing how to play contributes to greater efficiency during in-office time. I also think it sucks that as a successfully-conditioned American, the thought of taking a vacation -- even a wee three-day one -- throws me into fits of hysteria-laced anxiety.

Actually It Wasn't Farting Hearts; It Was Farting Lower Carbon Emissions.

We give you Ad banalities!, Tokyo vs. Paris edition.

RB @girlsarestrange.com:


Angela: I like these little containers

Chelsi: in a Japanese advert, those would be pictured alongside an actual banana

A: just in case you don't know

C: and the caption would read: banana juice for my heart on warm summer day
: and then there’d be a little cartoon banana just below it
: dancing a jig
: and then just to the left, an actual Japanese person
: probably some smiling chick
: touching her face
: and then it would be blown up to some ridiculous size and pasted on a building
: or a bus

A: that sounds like the worst thing ever
: although I did see an ad yesterday in which a car appeared to be farting hearts.

Missing Muzzy

He ain't green for nothin'.

I know this guy, a fellow expat, called Kito. (You may remember him as the man responsible for the Dirty Knife Allegory.) We talk a lot via Gchat because we're the only two somewhat-close friends from the Bay Area that happens to be sharing a time zone.

In January, when I arrived in Paris, I went through this three-day stint where I was scared shitless of doing simple things like going to the grocery store or reciprocating streetside Bonjours. On one of those days I was sitting in a cyber café, hungry as hell, talking to Kito, and I asked how he felt about his language situation.

At that point, he'd been working in Germany about six months.

"It's not where I hoped it would be," he said. "Today on the bus I saw these kids speaking German. And I hated them."

The thought of him sitting on a bus, gnashing his teeth at the sight of prattling children, stuck with me. I wondered whether I'd ever have a moment like that: when the sight of kids speaking French in ways I can't would fill me with insufferable envy.

It happened yesterday. I was sitting in a park in Montmartre, struggling with a French novel, when a shriek made me raise my eyes to the playground.

There's this kid all crumpled up on the jungle gym, crying about god-knows-what. His brother runs over to get the sitch, and the little weeper expounds on his grievances with a fluency and an eloquence I can't begin to muster.

The green-eyed angst rose inside me, thick and heady.

It's not just the want that eats you; it's the irrational desire to defend yourself to someone, to stand up and shout, "I am that competent -- charming, even! Far away from here, in a country I left, PEOPLE DON'T STRUGGLE TO TALK TO ME. I can call telephone companies, navigate discussion from the weather to work, soothe sobbing children, and make subtle jokes -- all with grace and ease."

Then I had the dilemma that an expat is always vaguely aware is coming, but tries to avoid with the optimism of fresh perspective, months before falling facedown into it: could I live with myself if I returned to a place where I'm less happy -- just because small-talk doesn't present a struggle?

Or am I equal to the challenge of staying in a country where, however much I integrate, however much I learn, I will never be a native?

Futzing with Gchat Vid Chat.

Witness, ye, as Chelsi and I bring our occasionally antagonistic Gchat relationship to a whole new level: AUDIOVISUAL.

The verdict on Gchat Video: not much laggage or pixellation, and it took just a couple of minutes to download the necessary software. Feedback isn't as bad as on Skype, plus it's neat when we full-screen because it's like she's sitting right in front of my face, closer than LIFE. Which makes it incredibly startling when one of us screams suddenly or betrays an I-think-you're-full-of-shit expression.

Also, I got to show her:

• The cut I got from a Saturday morning accident involving a knife and strawberry jam
• My saucy white French Band-Aids (okay, not Band-Aids; pansements) with silver on the padding (for better healing!)
• How the vaseline here comes IN A TUBE!

This is the kind of stuff technology enables overseas friends to do.