The Paris Review online

I've become completely addicted to the Paris Review online offerings. My way in was Louisa Thomas' blogging about the US Open (tennis, of course, not golf). Simply some of the finest sports writing I've read in a long while. I hope she keeps it up somehow, somewhere.

Then this morning I discovered that Nelly Kaprièlian has begun keeping a "culture diary" for the same outlet. Her first two entries are rather long, and I really don't know where she finds the time. In addition to being an editor and writer at the French weekly Les Inrockuptibles (I'm a subscriber and actually contributed a handful of record reviews in the late '80s), she often pundits — she's a regular on the radio critics roundtable Le Masque et la plume, for instance, and I keep catching her on various public-radio outlets. Plus her first diary entry reveals an active social life.

I confess to a love-hate relationship with Kaprièlian. On the one hand, she's a tireless defender of American fiction in France, and I will always cherish her memorable tongue-lashing of Jean-Louis Ezine, a fellow Masque literary critic and serial interrupter. (He's so witty and charming, however, that he's my favorite on the show!) On the other hand, Kaprièlian is a remarkably humorless snob (very French, that) and she shares the inexplicable (to me) Gallic enthusiasm for Philip Roth — even his latest novels.

But back to the culture diary, which I can see myself becoming addicted to. The prize so far is Kaprièlian's account of her interview with Michel Houellebecq, whose new novel, La Carte et le territoire, is a critical and commercial hit in France. I've read and loved all his books, and can't wait to get my hands on this one. Susannah Hunnewell's new chat with him is a must, too.

James Ellroy's one cranky dude

Upon the recent publication of the last part of his Underworld USA trilogy, Blood's a Rover, in France, James Ellroy has been on a big publicity blitz over there. I just got around to reading a very entertaining interview with him in the weekly mag Les Inrockuptibles. Here's my (somewhat hasty) translation of a few choice exchanges between Ellroy and journalist Serge Kaganski. (Confusingly, the French title of the book is Underworld USA.)

SK: One of the things that stick out in the book is the racism of some of the characters, starting with Hughes and Hoover, and the frequent use of racist language in your dialogue.
JE: [interrupting] I see where you're going, let me explain.
SK: Wait, I'm not insinuating that you or your book are racist, but are you fascinated by racist language just the way you're fascinated by slang or ghetto speak?
JE: Hey! You're interrupting me here! Don't interrupt me! Okay… [goes on to talk about his characters]
SK: But what's your relationship toward that racist language? Is it simply realism? Are you fascinated by it?
JE: It doesn't bother me at all. I like the various forms of the American language. I like racist insults. I like using Yiddish words. I like slang. I like hipster talk. I like jazz speak…
SK: So for you, racist expressions are a purely literary device?
JE: Ask me questions! You're just interpreting my answers!

A bit later…

SK: You like writing only about the past. It's both great and a pity. America is very interesting right now with Obama in the White House.
JE: I don't care at all! I've already said it but you don't seem to listen. I don't care about the modern world. I don't go to the movies, I have no Internet, no cell phone, no TV, I don't read newspapers. I have an assistant who takes care of my bills. I live like a hermit. I don't want to know what's going on in France, I don't give a shit! I just want to live only in the world I create.
SK: But you live now!
JE: No, wrong answer! Okay, I live now, I go to the supermarket, I see what's around me… But history, politics, the news don't interest me at all, and I'll never write about these times. So give me a break with Obama!
SK: You enjoy confirming your reputation as a conservative?
JE: Yes, absolutely, I'm a conservative. Beyond that, I don't comment on my political opinions. I don't like computers, I don't like digital technology, I don't like crowds in the streets. I like looking back and focus on something that's controlled, organized and programmed in my head. That's the kind of place where I like to live, that's where I'm comfortable, safe. But though the world of today doesn't interest me at all, I'm still very happy to be alive.
SK: You're held as one of the greatest American writers—
JE: It's true!
SK: —are you also a reader? Which novelists do you value?
JE: I don't read at all. I know nothing about current culture. I'd still mention one writer, Don DeLillo, whose Libra inspired American Tabloid.

Ellroy goes on to talk about how except for L.A. Confidential, he doesn't care about the screen adaptations of his books, he's only in it for the money they bring him, etc. The conversation switches to his stay in Paris. Typically, Ellroy sticks to his hotel and goes out only to do his promo rounds.

SK: But how can you not be interested in travel, in the pleasures of change and discovery?
JE: Sir, how to put it? I don't give a shit about all this! I love women, being alone, my fictional world, classical music, and dogs. That's a lot, and it's enough to fill up my life. Today I have a regular girlfriend, an American, so I don't ogle women anymore. But before, yeah, I looked. In that respect, there's a bit of myself in some of my characters.

Jeunet on Hollywood

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has been making the rounds in France lately, plugging his latest film, Micmacs à tire-larigot (trailer here). In an interview, which I translated below, he talked about his experience in Hollywood, directing Alien: Resurrection in 1997. A bit of context: Jeunet was hired to work on the fourth installment in the Alien franchise after he directed Delicatessen and City of Lost Children; he went on to make Amélie and A Very Long Engagement (in the interview he also mentioned that Emily Watson was originally cast in the latter movie, only to be replaced by Audrey Tautou).

Interviewer: Was it nice to work in the US?
JPJ: Do you have two or three hours? It was a great adventure. I remember at the time I said it was the hardest day of my life, every day. I had almost total artistic freedom but they constricted me from a financial viewpoint, which is exactly the opposite of what I had expected. I can still hear the producers telling me, Can you do this in one shot instead of three? Can you trim? It was really reductionist. It's a perverse game. On the one hand I had actors like Sigourney Weaver who wanted perfection, on the other hand I had producers who wanted me to go as fast as possible. It was difficult to negotiate. And in Hollywood there's the good ones and the bad ones. I saw the Hollywood myth collapse like the towers on 9/11. Nothing worked. Aside from the aliens themselves, which were amazing, the special effects didn't work — I'm talking about explosions, doors that are supposed to be blasted. Nothing worked. I felt I was in The Dictator when —
Interviewer: — are you serious? I feel like you're talking about Albania.
JPJ: Yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: Albania in 1972.
JPJ: Just a bit below that, Albania in 1967. Maybe I didn't get the best crew… A symbol: my first day of shooting. The first time I'm saying "Action!" — the camera didn't work. It never did, we put it out to pasture. That was a symbol for the entire shoot.

American at last

I had been eligible for American citizenship for quite a while, but I only made up my mind when Bush was reelected in 2004: I wanted to vote the next time around. After a longish but uneventful naturalization process, I became an American citizen two years ago. Quite frankly, it felt mostly like a bureaucratic procedure and I still thought of myself as French. I started to feel some stirrings when I cast my vote in the Democratic primary in February. Readers of this blog know I was a Clinton supporter but I had zero qualms supporting Obama once he was the nominee, and yesterday I voted for him 110%. (Factoid: voting with one hand—especially when you're not experienced with the New York system—while trying to film with the other is hard!)

This morning, I can say that for the first time, I am an American. I feel American. There is no shame anymore in holding this passport. And in fact, it's the country holding my other passport, the French one, that suddenly looks archaic with its antiquated power structure and elite-grooming system.

In the meantime, the tears have got to stop! Cars honk in triumph: I well up. Strangers scream in joy: waterworks. I look at the newspapers' covers and it's sob time.

But the thing that really, really gets me is when I think of the point in Obama's acceptance speech when he said America is "young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled." I know this is par-for-the-course verbiage, but at the same time it means a lot that he included gay people. I didn't think it would matter so much to me, but it does. Especially since as I write, it looks like the loathsome Proposition 8 making same-sex marriage illegal has passed in California. Part of me hopes it's just the death throes of a certain kind of mean-spirited, exclusionary thinking, but at the same time I'm not blinded enough by last night's triumph to actually believe it. We may be energized, but so is the dark side.

So yeah, I'm euphoric right now. It won't last long because the country's in a right old mess, but we can savor victory for a bit. Our side had forgotten what it tastes like.

The shackles of mimesis

Already a follow-up on this morning's post, which included a bit about Simon McBurney's staging of All My Sons on Broadway. I should have mentioned that McBurney is a Brit whose company, Complicite, has created such shows as The Street of Crocodiles, The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol and Mnemonic. (Complicite's site mentions that it's currently developing a play with Jonathan Safran Foer.)

Which then led me to belatedly remember this Guardian blog post about stage directing, with which I completely agree. Especially this bit:

"Mainstream Anglo-American theatre tradition remains so absolutely married to the idea of literal-minded mimesis that there is virtually no hint that anything but the text can invent meaning on stage beyond dumb representation."

And this one (if the author thinks realism is overused in England, he should check the US, which is even worse):

"Here's hoping that in a couple of years time, alongside the brilliant realism that the British do so well, we're seeing mould-breaking texts from new writers being staged radically by directors who have cast off the shackles of mimesis and are putting on stage performers who create meaning rather than simply actors who 'look right for the part'."

Casting off the shackles of mimesis! Brilliant!

Single moms in the news

While America is debating the fate of Bristol Palin, five-months preggers at 17 and promising, we hear, to marry the similarly teenaged father, France has just learned that its divorced, 42-year-old Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, is pregnant and unattached. And not only is Dati single, but she's refused to reveal who the father is: "I have a complicated private life and that's the boundaries I've set for myself when it comes to the media. I won't say anything on this subject."

I cannot even imagine a female American politician in a similar position 1) describing her private life as "complicated" (it would be translated for her as "slutty"); 2) choosing single motherhood; and 3) being allowed to choose single motherhood without being tarred and feathered.

Meanwhile, the ravages of religious stupidity, poor education and the politics of sexual abstinence continue in the U.S., now vividly illustrated by the Palin family. The sophistry and rhetorical contortions the conservative right has to display in order to not criticize the Palin situation are a marvel to behold.

If you like François Truffaut

If you speak French (or want some serious practice) and like François Truffaut, French public radio has just completed a weeklong tribute to the director that adds up to a whopping 16 hours of programming. And for a while at least, you can listen to it all spread out on several podcasts. Just go to the France Culture site and scroll down to F to download the shows to iTunes. "Archives" consists of Truffaut himself talking about his work; "Documentaire" has a documentary approach with film excerpts, archival audio clips of people talking about Truffaut, etc.; "Débat" is made up of roundtables with some of the director's collaborators and film scholars discussing his career.

I've only listened to about four hours so far and I'm completely addicted, especially since the series is about a lot more than just one director—it covers the birth of both modern cinephilia and film criticism, French cinema in the postwar years, the relationship between French and American cinemas, etc.

A memorable moment among many, many others. On April 29, 1974, the Film Society of Lincoln Center is presenting a tribute to Hitchcock at Avery Fisher Hall; Ingrid Bergman introduces Truffaut, who delivers a short speech in his strongly accented English, familiar to viewers of Close Encounters of the Third Kind:

"Bonsoir mesdames et messieurs. I beg your pardon in advance because my English is terrible. You just saw the dubbing version—the dubbed version, not the French version. In America, you call this man 'Hitch'; In France, we call him 'Monsieur Hitchcock.' [audience laughs] You respect him because he shoots scenes of love as if they were scenes of murder; we respect him because he shoots scenes of murder like scenes of love [laughter, applause]. Anyway, it is the same man we are talking about, the same man and the same artist. When I began to direct films, I thought Monsieur Hitchcock was fantastique, maybe because he weighed more than 200 pounds. Therefore I tried to eat more and more. I gained 20 pounds but it obviously didn't work. I knew I had to find another way to understand the proportions of his genius. So I asked Monsieur Hitchcock to give me an interview of 50 hours and to reveal all his secrets. The result was a book. Actually it was like a cookbook, full of recipes for making films. But the great secret of Monsieur Hitchcock is a secret of cinema itself. People used to say, 'A film is good when it gives fear or pleasure to the audience watching it.' But I don't believe that. A film is really good when you can read between the images the director's fears when he made this film, or his pleasure making this film [chuckles]. I see it must be pleasure that Monsieur Hitchcock felt when he put his camera on the summit of Mount Rushmore."

The doc podcasts conclude with excerpts from Truffaut's aforementioned interviews with Hitchcock, which were recorded and saved. There was simultaneous translation by Helen Scott since Truffaut's English wasn't good and Hitchcock didn't speak French, so it's very easy to follow. And if you want to focus exclusively on the Truffaut/Hitchcock tapes, the blog If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger… has posted huge chunks of them. Craziness!

I am not unhappy

A colleague who had been reading the travelogue I was writing while on vacation remarked "Boy, you really seem to dislike America." It's actually not the case: I'm reasonably happy living in the US, and I even acquired dual French-American citizenship not so long ago. I also realize that it's precisely that utter fuckedupness of the US that's fostered so much great art over the years—no wonder the chaotic genius that is pigfuck was born in the Midwest, for instance.

What does drive me crazy, however, is how Americans always think they have it better than anyone else and other countries should emulate their model. I won't even get into pesky details like, you know, torture, Iraq, the lack of universal healthcare or the absolute inequality of the social structure here; but travelling abroad, particularly to Europe, you realize that America has really fallen behind in terms of quality of life.

Now this is a topic that hasn't surfaced in the campaign so far, but it touches on something really essential: Do we live comfortable lives with good public transportation, low pollution levels, a widespread adhesion to basic tenets of civility and the social contract? Are we happy? I don't believe the American-style rat race, in which people feel they have to always work more to keep up with the Joneses (ie, buy ever bigger houses, ever bigger cars—that is, before the advent of $5/gallon gas) actually fulfills said people. And one look at the crumbling New York City subway, in which water pours down onto the rails whenever it rains and the stations are filthy and decaying, should be enough to sober up the biggest booster. "Capital of the world?" Hah! Does Mayor Bloomberg really ride the train??

So yes, I do admire the Scandinavian Social-Democrat model. And there's no mystery as to how it's achieved (or at least one of the ways it's achieved): high taxes. Personally, I have no objection to paying more of them if they go to public transportation, better healthcare for everybody, better public infrastructure (ie, more rail and ferries, less roads).

Oh, and while we're on the subject of northern European countries: I've posted on matters pertaining to Scandinavia's approach to music on the SundayArts blog.

My first baseball game

Yesterday afternoon, I attended my first live baseball game; I guess you could say it was a big step in the Americanization of this freshly naturalized Frenchie. A friend got tickets for the Yankees vs the Kansas City Royals, so we all travelled up to the Bronx in scorching heat. According to the excited people in my party, it was a great game with plenty of action, real suspense and lots of hits (the NYT described it as a "slugfest").

I have to say, I'm still not convinced. And if I'm not convinced after a good game, then baseball's just not for me. But that's okay, to each their own—I'd still rather watch the lamest soccer game over the most exciting baseball slugfest, and with Euro 2008 starting, there's no doubt as to what's going to hold my attention.

What I'd like to comment on, however, is the ambience at the game itself. First of all, Yankee Stadium is an eyesore. You get out of the subway and it's like you've been teleported to some developing nation (though the prices certainly are first rate: it's Gouge City out there) and the directions are vague. Your visual sense is assaulted nonstop. There may be a new stadium next year, but its design is really conservative, especially compared to new stadiums (mostly for soccer) like the Olympique Marseille new Stade Vélodrome, the Lazio's new Stade delle Aquile in Rome, Valencia FC's new home in Spain, the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, or the Spartak Moscow's new home.

But what really struck me is that apathy of the fans; that seems to be an American thing because I got the same feeling at the soccer games I've seen in the US. The crowd was pretty quiet, and started yelling mostly when told to, like when the screens went MAKE SOME NOISE! Granted, people got out of their seats and screamed and clapped on good runs, but even that felt restrained. No songs, no taunting of the Royals, no spirit. The only chants were along the lines of "Joh-nny Da-mon!" which is just plain sad. I mean, is that the best you can do, Yankee fans??? Compared to the action in the stands of a soccer game, it was a bit of a letdown. My hometown club of Bastia, in Corsica, was dreaded all through the ’70s and ’80s for its rabid fans, and even though its humble Stade Armand-Césari holds only about 10,000 people (and even less when I used to go), they make more of ruckus than 55,000 Yankee fans.

Want to see how it's done? Check out the action even before a soccer game starts, as Liverpool fans sing their anthem in a match against Chelsea. Or see how fans of Lens sing "La Lensoise" and manage to do a conga line in the stands. The Sheila pointed out that America doesn't know how to do political protest and get in the streets anymore, so it's no surprise it sucks at cheering at games as well.

You may say: Yeah, but in the US we don't have violent hooligans! Of course there's got to be a middle ground between complete apathy and complete mayhem. But here people are so afraid of lawsuits that nothing happens at all. Or at least that's one of the reasons, I think.

Also: What's up with the nonstop eating and drinking? I have to admit that I ate a ginormous amount of peanuts and popcorn but I honestly don't believe I would have consumed as much if I had been more into the game. But I've seen people at soccer games leave to go to the concession stands during play, which is completely insane since a goal can come at any moment in soccer, and for all you know it's going to be the only one of the match. Do you really want to be at the trough when that happens?

Great white yonder

Yikes, a week without posting: I'm a bad, bad blogger. My excuse is that I had the opportunity to ski in Colorado at a bargain-basement price, so I took it. My first time going down the Rockies' trails—and it was quite an experience, on and off the slopes.

Now, my American readers need to understand that when you grow up in Europe, skiing is not the richy-rich sport it is here. Prices are considerably lower and in France, for instance, there's a long-standing tradition of classes de neige (snow classes), when (sub)urban kids are shipped off to the mountains for a week mixing classes and skiing.

It's not quite the same here. I was able to afford the trip only because of a cousin working at the Beaver Creek resort for the season: I crashed in her room and benefited from her huge discount on lift tickets. Our idea of entertainment was trivia night at the local coffee shop/bar ($1 for a Coke). The other skiers' experience was quite different: nearly $700 for private ski lessons for instance, multimillion-dollar houses on the slopes, and an easy $25,000 for a week at the Ritz-Carlton (where ski valets take off your ski boots at the end of the day so you don't have to put in the effort yourself—something I find utterly ridiculous).

Even though I live in New York, where enormous wealth is far from rare, I somehow manage to avoid being directly confronted to it in my daily life. I mean, I know full well that some people on our own Park Slope street live in million-dollar homes while we're lowly renters but they all wear the Slope winter uniform of fleece anyway, and they all get the same $3 breakfast sandwich at the local diner, and they all get the same pizzas delivered. (Well, there was that one time when the Sheila picked up an ATM receipt left by the previous customer and the balance for that checking account read $980,000!)

But being in Beaver Creek and Vail was quite different: The smell of money was pervasive everywhere I turned. It may have had to do with my own guilt in partaking in what is, in the US, an elite sport, like doing polo in the Hamptons or something. The thing is, customers in those resorts are so pampered that lift tickets are hiked to offensively high levels ($92/day is the regular price) to keep the amenities going and, possibly, the number of people (riff-raff?) on the slopes down. It's a reasoning I find absurd in my daily life, and yet I love skiing and so am willing to swallow my class-war guilt and forge ahead.

Interesting detail: My cousin told me that among the countries well represented at the Beaver Creek Ritz are Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. I guess Chavez's socialist policies still allow some people to do well for themselves…

Entering the 20th century

I just received a mailing from my alma mater, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (aka Sciences Po), asking for money. They even trumpeted a new logo and included a pin! Now this is routine for alums of American universities, but in France it's pretty racy stuff. The mailing's related to a new law from summer ’07 making a chunk of donations tax-deductible. Again, routine here but groundbreaking in France, where a lot of university-level education is very very cheap (tuition for my years at Sciences Po in the mid-’80s was under $1,000 total). Believe me, escaping from college without debt makes a huge difference on your outlook on life.

But at the same time the French university system is in crisis, crying out for money and losing competitive edge. I can't say that I'm fully aware of all the issues at play, but it's hard to argue with the fact that French universities don't have much money. I feel many American ones have reached a ridiculous level of obscene luxury, absurdly sheltering their clients—sorry, students—inside privileged cocoons, and I certainly think education needs to be either free or cheap (again, getting out of college debt-free is huge), but there's got to be a middle ground somewhere.

Anyway, Sciences Po's president, Richard Descoings, is very proactive (some say in a rather self-serving way; just check out his blog) in modernizing Sciences Po. Part of me likes this aggressive attitude, which I find refreshingly rare in French academia but—and I kinda but kinda not apologize for being so crass here—dude's got to do something about the slicked-back hair; it really only works if you're a flamenco guitarist.

From the deathbed

A bit of brouhaha around Time magazine's article "The Death of French Culture." What, again? Though I believe the piece originated in the European edition of Time (it's hard to tell from the online version), I think it's fair to say that the American media sends out a smug, Schadenfreude-laden dispatch about the death of French culture every three or four years, so one more feels a little blah at this point.

What's new in this latest postmortem? Not much. In short, France pours money into the arts but has little to show for it, especially as its homegrown artists don't sell outside of the country. But this doesn't address two important facts.

First, culture means more to a country than what sells abroad. There's tons of successful French movies and singers, but they express themselves in French and don't export well. They themselves seem fine with that—why is bigger necessarily better? Besides, is it so weird for people to enjoy culture in their own language and not English?

Second, judging a country's culture by what makes it to the US is completely misleading since self-obsessed America is closed off to anything it doesn't generate. Perhaps it would be worth wondering why America has so little interest in anything other than itself—a problem that has tons of obvious geopolitical repercussions.

And frankly, the US isn't really in a position to be contemptuous of other countries' efforts and interests these days, considering America is awash in corruption, fraud, obscene consumerism, voyeuristic celeb frenzy and the constant trampling of the small, poor and weak by the big, rich and powerful. Perhaps Time should look into "The Death of American Culture" next?

Paris review

"Did you see any riots?" asked my colleagues upon learning I was just back from an unplugged (hence the lack of blog updates) break in Paris. Since I stayed in the Marais area, a posh neighborhood whose idea of a clash involves uncoordinating your socks and scarf, I had to admit that no, I hadn't seen anything. I did catch the end of the public-transportation strike, which meant walking everywhere—lacking a helmet and being conditioned by NYC laws to wear one while biking, I felt too daunted to get on one of the ubiquitous vélibs. Still, it was hard not to be impressed by their success: easy access to public bikes is precisely what a civilized city must set up. I'm not holding up my breath for a similar venture in New York, however.

My lone theater outing was a production of Eugène Labiche's Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (1851) at the Théâtre National de Chaillot. Alas, director Jean-Baptiste Sastre was rather clueless, refusing to trust either the play's infernally precise farcical mechanism or his cast, led by the gifted comic actor Denis Podalydès. Instead of building up to a frenzy, as the plot required, Podalydès remained on the exact same tepid pace throughout, depriving the play from the required momentum.

Better theater was indirectly gleaned from the exhibit honoring the 50th anniversary of Sacha Guitry's death at the Cinémathèque Française (now located in a Frank Gehry–designed building originally meant for the American Cultural Center). Born in 1885, Guitry was a dandy with a ginormous ego who made his name as a playwright and actor, but also quickly grasped the impact of film and made over 30 of them. For a stage monster of his generation, he handled the transition to the screen with surprising ease and bite; too bad he's so unknown in the US. It was particularly fun to see again the likes of plain-faced but sharp-witted Pauline Carton, who always played maids for Guitry but also turned out to be an unsung collaborator, giving suggestions throughout the creative process, helping with research, etc. Guitry's wives, on the other hand, were upfront and glamorous, from operetta star Yvonne Printemps to the gorgeous Jacqueline Delubac. I couldn't find much Guitry on the web, and what's there is completely opaque if you don't understand French, but here's an excerpt from one of his 1950s historical epics, in which Edith Piaf plays an anonymous revolutionary singing out against Louis XVI. (Completely unrelated but found while looking for Guitry are these mesmerizing clips from the 1935 movie La Garçonne, in which blond Suzy Solidor—a seducer of all possible genders in real life—sings to a roomful of inverts then leads Marie Bell into opium and sapphism.)

Another good surprise in Paris: multiplexes often scramble cell-phone reception. Yesssss! Add this to the fact that unlike Americans, most of the French are able to spend a couple of hours without eating, and you get a much quieter filmgoing experience than here—where the constant, regressive munching drives me up the wall.

Where credits are due

My recent post about Jan Johansson prompted a further email exchange with the friend who'd sent me the CD. This involved an in-depth analysis of the translation issues raised by Johansson's theme song to Pippi Långstrump (Pippi Longstocking), as heard here.

This, in turn, prompted some thoughts about classic French theme songs and credit sequences from TV series. There's a long tradition of slapping French lyrics onto imported themes, or to write new songs altogether. Haïm Saban's French theme to Starsky & Hutchhttp://youtu.be/AjLqtioEpm8, for instance, was really cheesy but oddly memorable.

Here are some other favorites, a few harking back to the glory days of the ORTF—French public television and radio, modeled on the BBC by De Gaulle, and for many, many years the only game in town.

• Les Globe-trotters This ingenious three-season series in which a couple of buddies go on a round-the-world trip started in 1966, with a theme by Paul Bonneau.

• La séquence du spectateur A weekly ritual for me, this show presented a ten-minute excerpt (not a trailer: an uncut excerpt) from various movies.

• The puzzle train The word “interlude” refers to something that fills time. They’d run this short—where you had to put together a sentence based on the illustrations on the train—whenever they were running ahead of schedule and had a few minutes to kill.

• La vie des animaux This animal show was resurrected several times but the old credit sequence is the best.

• Les chevaliers du ciel This series about fighter pilots, which started in 1967, was turned into a movie a couple of years ago. Cool beginning credits here, but most people in France remember the end-credit version sung by none other than Johnny Halliday. Music by the great François de Roubaix, whom I wrote about a little while ago.

And now a couple of more recent theme songs. Visually the credits aren't really inspiring but the music still had an impact: I have no idea who did the French version of Santa Barbara but it embodies the 80s for me. As for the French them to Prison Break, it's by the Marseille rapper Faf Larage. The song was a best-selling single in France in 2006.

Foreign tongues

Listening to France Inter radio recently, I learned that Mimi Perrin, the founder and lead member of les Double Six vocal group in the 60s, also translates books from English into French. The revelation came in a discussion of the latest John Le Carré novel, which just came out in France; turns out Perrin and her daughter Isabelle have been Le Carré's regular French translators for the past 20 years.

What's fascinating about this is that les Double Six specialized in translation as well: the transformation of an instrumental jazz solo into a vocal one, with lyrics. Known as vocalese, this exercise has been made famous by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, and the Manhattan Transfer, and les Double Six was the best-known (the only?) French act specializing in it.

Another fun tidbit is that during its short existence (1959–64), les Double Six featured a great roster of singers, including Ward Swingle (founder of the Swingle Singers), Eddy Louiss (usually known for his piano and organ playing), Bernard Lubat (also a drummer) and Christiane Legrand (sister of composer Michel, and the singing voice of Delphine Seyrig in Jacques Demy's crackpot musical Donkey Skin).

French is usually perceived as a language that's rhythmically unwieldy because it lacks a tonic accent as strong and adaptable as the one in, say, English. Since Perrin was the one writing the Double Six lyrics, she was accutely aware of that problem as she formed sentences that could flow in a way similar to a flute, trumpet or sax solo. You can check out how she did by "Rat Race" and "Meet Benny Bailey" (two Quincy Jones composition, with the Double Six adaptation based on Count Basie recordings), and Gershwin' s"Fascinating Rhythm" (based on a Stan Kenton recording).

Les Double Six "Rat Race" (Perrin's sings Billy Mitchell's sax solo)
Les Double Six "Meet Benny Bailey" (Christiane Legrand sings Frank Wess' flute solo, Perrin sings Henry Coker's trombone solo)
Les Double Six "Fascinating Rhythm" (Claude Germain sings Frank Rosolino' trombone solo, Eddy Louiss sings Bill Holman's sax solo, Perrin sings Bill Perkin's sax solo, Louis Aldebert sings another Perkins solo)

Mind expansion

The 61st edition of the Avignon Festival has just ended—not that you'd know the three-week event had happened at all by reading the US press. That's okay I guess: Avignon is only one of the largest theater festivals in the world. That's probably why for the past several days the Times' chief critic, Ben Brantley, has been blogging about his theater marathon in London; typically, it started off with a show starring Orlando Bloom. Meanwhile, Avignon has presented productions staged by the likes of Frank Castorf, Ariane Mnouchkine, Rodrigo Garcia, Sasha Waltz and Romeo Castellucci. And that's only the ones who might ring a bell among NYC theater freaks. I mean, just look at the photo on the left: Doesn't it make you want to see more? At least you will be able to for this particular one: It's from Castellucci's show, Hey Girl!, which is coming to Montclair in February.

What's frustrates me is this lack of inquisitiveness about what's happening in the field you're meant to be covering. If you're going to spend some time across the Atlantic, wouldn't it make sense to also cross the Channel and poke around? Wouldn't you be the least bit curious? Wouldn't you want to experience theater that's completely different from what we see here, instead of just a more competent version of our regular fare? (For make no mistake, that's what London offers.) Reading the Times, you would never know that in the past 10, 15 years, an entire generation of directors has rethought European theater, and that a new generation is now coming up to scramble up the parameters all over again.

Compare this attitude with The New Yorker's Alex Ross, who regularly covers a wide geographical area. Typically, he just wrote a piece about a new opera titled Alice in Wonderland that just premiered in Munich (check out the mouth-watering video here). What's great about the article is how Ross translates the appeal of the production for the likes of me, someone with an interest in the field but who isn't a hardcore buff. He also makes it very clear why covering this type of show is important not only for American readers, but for the health of the American opera scene itself.

Name calling

In his NY Times column on Friday, Clyde Haberman discussed a new study showing that in seven states (but the trend is likely to be national), schools are (re)named "not for people but rather for animals, lakes, hills and other features of nature. (…) Historical figures have taken it on the chin, especially American presidents." In Fayetteville, Arkansas, for instance, Jefferson Elementary School became Owl Creek.

I'm already frustrated by the fact that too many American streets tend to be named after numbers, trees or a relatively small pool of people (JFK, MLK, Roosevelt, etc.), so it saddens me to see schools identified via ever-more bland monikers. Wouldn't it be a lot more fun to have Gertrude Stein High and George Kaufman Middle School? Here in New York, we do have many streets named after locals, but they tend to be honorary names, not the actual street names.

In France we of course have tons of middle and high schools named after various kings, generals, Jeanne d'Arc or De Gaulle. But plenty of others are named after writers (Corneille, Alexandre Dumas, Stéphane Mallarmé, Alphonse Daudet), scientists (Buffon, Pasteur), artists (Picasso, Ingres) and, this being France, philosophers (Michel Montaigne, Henri Bergson, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau). And let's not forget singers (Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens) and at least one comedian (Coluche)

And then there are the ones after regional figures: In Corsica, where I grew up, the local giants—Pascal Paoli and Napoléon—of course have schools named after them. Other choices dig deeper into local lore: I attended the Lycée Giocante de Casabianca, which is named after the son of 18th-century Corsican Navy officer (and representative to the Convention Assembly) Luce de Casabianca; both were killed by the British during the battle of Aboukir. Turns out there's even a British poem about Giocante's heroic death. I mean, WTF?!?

All this to say that naming a school after writers and poets and artists helps a nation remember what's important in life, and where it came from. Obviously it has the potential to be perceived by some as divisive but you build a country by rallying around its artists, writers and scientists. Of course, I realize I'm hopelessly old-school and old-world in thinking like this…

French Idol

Nouvelle Star pretty much is the French version of the Idol franchise: There are regional auditions, the remaining 15 candidates are progressively winnowed down, and there's a jury—made up of four, not three people, and including the divine Marianne James (with the big frizzy hair). But unlike American Idol, Nouvelle Star is more open to genuine oddballs, loves radically transformed covers, and offers addictive group sings with various combinations of contestants. On the other hand, the contestants are overall younger and less experienced than in the US; they tend to be less show-offy and less likely to have been formatted by years of kiddie performances, which also means they're more like real amateurs, in the original sense of the words.

The show recently selected its winner, Julien, who was my fave from the very beginning—I happened to be in France during the regional rounds and immediately noticed the scrawny dude playing the ukulele at the Marseille audition. Fortunately the Nouvelle Star site features plenty of excerpts, and I lovingly selected a handful for you, dear readers.

Among the highlights is this group cover of Indochine's brilliant 1985 single "3ème Sexe," which was made into a regular video and thus provides a good intro to the strongest candidates. That the overall mood is very pop need not be stressed, but note also that the sartorial style is much improved from American Idol. Winner Julien is the shaggy one who looks like he escaped from Williamsburg.




And now Gaétane, among of the last three standing, performs Britney Spears' "Toxic." Of all the candidates she had one of the best commands of English. English pronunciation usually is a disaster for us Frenchies, whereas candidates in the Scandinavian or Dutch Idol shows tend to be fluent.




More Britney with winner Julien, a 25-year-old art-school grad from Arles who goes for yaourt (yogurt English, ie speaking as if your mouth is full of potatoes) on his Ani DiFranco–style reading of "Baby One More Time." Technically it's off the map, but I find this cover perversely addictive.




Gaétane and Julie duet on Elli Medeiros' "Toi Mon Toit" while Julien and finalist Tigane play furniture. Does Gaétane look really annoyed by Tigane's antics?




Julien and Tigane (a 19-year-old student from Versailles) look soulfully into each others' eyes while dueting on Tété's "A la faveur de l'automne." The song is from two years ago—Nouvelle Star, unlike Idol, embraces current hits.




Group effort on a faithful cover of "Cherchez le garçon," a 1980 cult hit by Taxi Girl, the Parisian new-wave band that spawned Daniel Darc and Mirwais (later to produce Madonna). Note that Julien is wearing his trademark barrette.




And finally a great cover of a great song: Katerine's freak 2006 hit "Louxor j'adore," where Julien shines again.

The war at home only

Just got some advance promo for Ken Burns' new marathon doc, The War, coming to PBS in September ’07. The war in question is WWII, which is described on the package as "the greatest cataclysm in history." I won't argue with that. What really gets up my nose is that The War will portray said cataclysm "through the stories of ordinary people in four American towns."

Hey, Ken, it's not called World War II for nothing!

So does this mean the doc will only cover 1941–45, when America participated, or will it generously go for 1939–45, the dates taught in European schools? Or will it be 1937–45, when Japan attacked China? Hmmm, let's take a closer look at the press materials. The first episode is titled "A Necessary War: December 1941–December 1942." So it wasn't necessary before? It's not like the U.S. wasn't aware of what was going on in Europe and Asia, including things like the ongoing Shoah.

There's more: The series "explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective." But this doesn't mean America was not concerned by what was going on in 1937–39; the rest of the world was going up in flames and you think the US was oblivious? If Burns was insistent on focusing only on the US, it would have been great if an episode had been dedicated to the war's impact here before Pearl Harbor.

Okay, enough with the apoplectic episode. We'll return to our regular programming in the next installment.

Reno 911!

Over the past few years, Jean Reno has replaced Gérard Depardieu as the embodiment of a certain kind of French maleness in Hollywood, so much so that in the new DreamWorks/Aardman feature, Flushed Away, he voices a character named Le Frog.

When Hollywood needs a Gaul, Reno dutifully punches in his time card—except that unlike Depardieu and earlier imports such as Charles Boyer, his characters aren't sexual. I think it all started in ’95 with the horrid Meg Ryan/Kevin Kline vehicle French Kiss, in which Reno played an inspector. Then he was a French secret agent in Godzilla, a French cop in The Pink Panther and The Da Vinci Code, a French Airforce pilot in Flyboys. Lots of manly-man stuff—albeit sometimes of the bumbling kind—but not much traditional sex-ay action. Interestingly, the disappearance of the sexy French stud from American movies (except for Olivier Martinez in Unfaithful I guess) has corresponded with the years in which France has become the symbol of fey European weakness for a lot of red staters Gone are the days of Le Shaggeur, welcome to Le Frog.