A Cat May Look at a King

Chanoir is a graffiti artist based in Barcelona, Spain, who began his career in Paris. Click photo for his website.

Here in Paris, Marley and I watched the royal wedding in London Friday. We approached the event from an anthropological perspective, curious about how the Brits do royalty in 2011.

I asked him whether he preferred to watch it in French or English and he just looked at me as if to say, Do I care?

I stretched out on the couch and surfed the channels, while he stretched out on my chest.

I stopped at the Luxe channel to listen to various commentators wax eloquent on the bride’s dress.

“This one?” I asked him.

He yawned and began to purr.

Kate Middleton’s dress was designed by Sarah Burton of the house of Alexander McQueen. It was white.

“Did you know that Queen Victoria started the white-dress-for-your-wedding tradition?” Marley asked me.

“Really,” I said. “Where did you hear that?”

 Marley closed his eyes.

 The dress had a full creamy skirt, nipped in at the waist with lace sleeves and bodice. Kate wore a tiara that King George VI, the one who stammered, had given his bride, Elizabeth, in 1936; attached to it was a simple veil.

Marley said, “I like the way she covers all her bases: hair up (in front), loose (in back); dress revealing (strapless corset beneath) and covered up (high-necked, long-sleeved lace bodice on top, incorporating hand-cut embroidered flowers, the rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock and made of English Cluny lace); expression open (warm smile) and closed (modest glance downwards).”

“I hadn’t noticed that,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “and another thing (the cameras were now inside Westminster Abbey), would you look at those hats!”

“What is it with the Brits and hats?” I said.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it,” Marley went on. “In what other country would you dare leave the house wearing that thing on your head?”

“I know,” I said, “it looks like Athena’s Medusa shield with lethal snakes looped around it.”

“I think that’s Fergie’s daughter,” said Marley.

“How would you know that?” I asked.

“You know how I love a good show,” he said. “I pay attention to these things. Oh! Oh! Look at that hat—two pheasant feathers! I’d love to get my paws on that!”

“And look at the chocolate cake hat!”

“That’s nothing compared to that licorice flying saucer. And the DNA spirals dangling off the dove-colored hat that Victoria Beckham is wearing.”

“Okay. I know you love the visuals, but are you listening to the words?”

“Not really,” he said, smiling.

“This cardinal or bishop or archbishop with a voice to die for just said, 'Be who God intended you to be and you will set the world on fire.'”

“He just made that up?”

“No, he’s quoting St. Catherine of Siena. He’s telling the bride and groom that marriage is meant to help a man and woman (or let’s be fair, a woman and woman, or a man and a man) inspire each other to become what they are meant to be.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Marley said.

“No, but I think that’s right. Now the Bishop of London is saying, “Every wedding is a royal wedding. Every bride and groom a king and queen.”

Olivia, sculpture by Jane Kitchell. Click photo for her website.

“Who needs a queen to be king,” said Marley, turning his noble profile to best advantage.

“You’re the prince,” I said (pronouncing it the way the French do, prance). “Richard’s the king in this house.”

Marley turned sulkily away.

“Don’t pout now,” I said. “Listen to this!”

“‘There must be no coercion if the spirit is to flow. Each must give the other space and freedom,’ the bishop said, and quoted Chaucer, "When mastery cometh, the god of love anon beateth his wings and farewell he is gone."

“Why can’t he speak plain English? That just sounds affected.”

“Imagine that. Chaucer was telling us in the 14^th century that the minute one person dominates another, love flies out the door. Magnificent! One of the greatest writers of all time. A quintessentially exuberant English writer!”

The tenor and baritone voices of the men in the choir, soared in harmony with the sopranos of the boys.

“That just hurts my ears,” Marley said.

“It’s exquisite harmony,” I said. “Do you want me to plug in my earbuds?”

“No, no, then you can’t hear moi purring.

“Our Father, which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come...”

“This brings me back to chapel at The Bishop’s School for Girls,” I said.

“I don’t remember that,” said Marley.

“You weren’t born yet. I hadn’t met Richard yet. That was in the future.”

Marley squinted his eyes. “Future?”

“It’s too complicated to explain. Anyway, I like your gift for living in the present.”

Marley closed his eyes and stretched a paw up to my chin.

“Wait!” I said. “Wake up!” Now they’re singing a song with words by William Blake, another exuberant English poet.

Bring me my bow of burning gold!

Bring me my arrows of desire!

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire.

Marley opened his eyes a slit. “The queen’s dress—it’s duckling yellow. And look at that white eggbeater hat! And the mauve one with steak knives fanned out on its brim! You just want to swat them ‘til they clatter to the floor, then bat them around like a soccer ball.”

“Well, maybe not today,” I said. “Just look at that cathedral! The long red carpet that leads up to the altar, the diamond checkerboard floor.”

“I like the young green trees inside,” said Marley. “You could chew on their leaves.”

“Yes, and the gold and blue row of mini-cathedrals along the lower walls, the high silvery arches and the stained glass windows above!”

“And the red and gold of William’s Irish Guards uniform. Even the choir boys have little red beefeater jackets on!”

We were on a roll.

“Marley, you know what this makes me think of?”

“No,” he said, closing his eyes again.

“The Rolling Stones. No one puts on a better show than the Stones. All that prancing and dancing.”

“I don’t see anyone prancing or dancing in Westminster Cathedral,” said Marley.

“No, I mean the pomp and circumstance, the pageantry. Everyone putting on a good show, having fun, enjoying being British.”

“Putting on a good show—that’s the genius of the Brits,” said Marley. “I like to think it’s mine, too.” He dipped his head modestly and I thought of Catherine’s similar gesture.

“And the poetry,” I said. “Don’t forget the poetry. Now the choir is singing a song with the words of Milton! They could all hang out in that cathedral for ten years and never run out of great literary quotes. Great British quotes. And no one’s even mentioned Shakespeare yet.”

Marley jumped off my stomach. “Just looking at that duckling yellow dress makes me hungry,” he said, and sauntered off to the kitchen to rustle up a meal. 

Shine A Light

We ventured so far into the inner world in the past two posts that I’d like to focus on something external this time, like, say, a list of differences between life in France and life in America. And why not present the list in the context of the vision quest? Those twelve sea creatures metamorphosed into variants of the Greek gods and goddesses, each with their own realm of action, so let’s look at the French and Americans through the eyes of the “invisibles.”

Any such list is entirely subjective, of course, coming as it does from our limited experience of living off and on for three weeks to three months at a time since the ‘80s and now as permanent residents of Paris for a mere three months. But here are a few things that Richard and I have noticed:

Poseidon (sleep, dreams, the Collective Unconscious)

We live in a stone building that was built in 1862. Our apartment is on the fifth floor and looks out onto two courtyards. We have three fireplaces, none of which work but which look good, especially the salamander in the dining room, and herringbone parquet wooden floors that creak when we walk but which we wouldn’t change for the world.

A salamander

At night, if you lean out the window far enough, you can see the lights of every one of the twenty apartments in the two wings of our building. I am knocked out by the discipline of the French in relationship to sleep. By 11 p.m., almost every window is dark. By midnight, everyone has gone to sleep, including Richard and me…unless we are writing or editing photographs or studying French or we just got back from dinner with friends and are a bit too wired to sleep yet.

Beaujolais, the house cat at Rotisserie Beaujolais

The French are our model for good sleep habits. They are Benjamin Franklin’s delight, “Early to bed, early to rise….” But we don’t always follow this model.

Dionysus (passion, desire, silence, the Personal Unconscious)

I’m going to get in trouble here, but here goes: We keep running into examples of the French notion that marriage and passion don’t go together. According to our French friends, mistresses and side men are rife, for both sexes. It seems to me that Americans place more value on fidelity in marriage than the French do. My advice to American women who are considering moving to France: find an American mate first, and move here together.

On the other hand, silence: we could write a book about the different public attitudes about noise in the U.S. and in France. It is shocking to sit in a restaurant surrounded by French couples or groups of friends who modulate their voices so that everyone in the room can have a private conversation; then a couple of Americans sit down and the shouting begins.

Or you fly back to the U.S. and land in NYC or Dallas-Fort Worth and before you’ve even reached customs, a TV overhead is blaring news or some inane reality show.

The relationship to silence seems to me to reveal something about a culture’s embrace of, or fear of, the soul. You cannot hear the voice (or voices) of the soul in the midst of a constant barrage of noise. Creativity begins in the soul. 

And the French have a tremendous respect for creativity.

Artemis (emotional security, cleanliness)

Let’s just talk about showers. American showers are better, the plumbing is better, since it’s not hundreds of years old, the water has less calcium and it makes for less fly-away hair.

Then there’s toilet paper. Over the years, we’ve laughed at stories we’ve heard of people who bring a suitcase of their own, but it’s true, if you want sandpaper, go into any French bathroom.

I can’t speak about emotional security except one by one, within individuals. And I don’t know enough French individuals to say.

Hermes (education, reading, inspiration)

A friend just sent me an Internet link that compares how many independent bookstores there are in New York City to ones in Paris. The difference is staggering: something like 1400 in Paris versus about 18 in New York City. I’m not surprised. You can’t go for more than a few blocks in Paris without running into a bookstore.  

“If you don't listen to the Guardian Books podcast, I recommend it. It's free. Regarding Montaigne, the podcast in Paris also distinguished the French, in contrast to the Brits and Americans, for loving and publishing essays, liking to read about ideas.”

Richard and I watch French TV for an hour a night, as one of our French lessons. It’s striking how many shows have intelligent debate about books, literature and ideas, and how few dumb sitcoms and idiot reality shows and dancing with celebrities there are. Our acupuncturist here told us how the American CBS series 60 Minutes did a long, admiring piece about the highest-rated show (at the time) on French television, an hour-long, prime-time Sunday night talk show called Apostrophes, which featured interviews with writers the caliber of Marguerite Duras and André Malraux.  The show Apostrophes still has its own definition in the Larousse dictionary. 

Daedalus (creativity, art, craft)

In this realm, there is something that is so striking about Paris that it might be half the reason we moved here: the street signs. You can’t go more than a block without reading some plaque on the wall that honors a poet, a novelist, a photographer, a sculptor, an architect, a scientist, a doctor, a philosopher. Often it is where that artist or inventor was born, or only lived for a year.

On our short street alone, there is a plaque at #74, where Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, lived; a plaque at the town house, #71, where Joyce finished Ulysses in the apartment which was loaned to him by Valéry Larbaud, poet, novelist, essayist and translator; a plaque at #67 for the philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who died there in 1662; a plaque for Jacques-Henri Lartigues, the photographer and painter; and at #2, where the poet, Verlaine, lived for a time. Creative people are respected and honored in this city. Perhaps that’s why so many have lived here. You can feel it in the stones, in the buildings and in the streets.

Athena (government, management, money, peace)

It’s inevitable that a country such as France, which has known so many wars on its own soil, would be more cautious than the U.S. about invading other countries for imperialistic aims, whether to gain resources or territory (in the name of democracy, bien sûr). The U.S. is too young a nation, too naïve about the costs of war, to have much wisdom about the value of peace.

After divesting itself of its colonies during the wars of liberation in the early ‘60s, France has maintained liberal relationships with its citizens abroad, and immigration, while flawed (but at least they don’t build border fences), still rejuvenates French society daily. Most neo-logisms, which the French Academy tries desperately to keep out of the language, are now coming in from Arabic and African languages, not American English.

And money? The French pay about 70% of their income in taxes. Most entrepreneurial Americans would find that unthinkable. But they haven’t experienced the safety net—the infrastructure and the health care—that the French take for granted. More on the latter in Demeter’s realm.

Hestia (house, home, garden, interior and architectural design)

Parisians live in apartments with fewer square metres than the average American. We moved from a house of 2,500 square feet to a 900 square foot apartment. While there’s no room for all of our books, it is considered relatively roomy by Parisian standards. And we immediately have a more expansive life here than when we lived in a larger house. We can walk anywhere in the city and join friends in restaurants that are open to the street, or to any one of the theaters you find every few blocks or any of the world-class museums to be found within walking distance. Imagine, a troupe of world-class Sufi dancers from Syria performing two blocks from your apartment.

But “home” brings me to another subject: household appliances. Americans win that one hands down. We cannot figure out why a European Maytag washing machine takes several hours for a load of washing and several hours for a drying cycle and is noisier than the jets coming in and out of LAX. It’s a mystery. But Americans are better at manufacturing machines.

Aphrodite (beauty, morphos, shapeliness, style, love)

Paris is the center of fashion, so fashion is in Parisians’ genes. What is striking, in contrast to the outlandish styles you see on the fashion runways, is how French elegance combines three things: fine material, simplicity of design and understated refinement. And it seems that mini-skirts never go out of style here, they’re just accessorized with leggings or dark stockings in the winter.

And shapeliness? It’s startling how few fat Parisians you see. This is due, we think, to the nourishing diet, and to the ease of walking in Paris.

The French seem to have built-in radar for temperance and restraint in standards of beauty. You rarely see huge artificial breasts, bad face-lifts, over-bleached hair, sloppy gym clothes in the street and men who dress like boys in shorts and T-shirts—again, elegance seems to include the notion of measure and appropriateness here.

And love? Aside from food, it’s the national religion.

Demeter (food, cooking, nourishment, health)

No one who’s ever spent three days in France forgets the food. The bread! The cheese! The chocolate! The artistry and deliciousness of the cooking!

Poilâne bakery, the world's best 

But let me just mention what the French lack: Whole Foods. There is no market like Whole Foods in Paris. I miss the American spicy salmon and California guacamole they sell. And though the French make a better almond butter, they can’t approach American peanut butter.

Then there’s health care. Our health insurance payment here is equivalent to our old Anthem Blue Shield, but it pays for all medicine, all doctor visits, and a doctor’s visit means the doctor comes to your house if need be. But we wouldn’t want any such socialism in our country, would we? Well, maybe if we’d experienced French health care, we might.

Ares (goods, shopping, purchases, travel, war, practical community protection--such as firemen and policemen)

In spite of my fondness for Whole Foods, it is so soulful to walk to the boulangerie to buy bread freshly baked within the hour, cheese from a fromager where every clerk knows the history of fifty different kinds of cheese and what bread or wine would go best with it. And if you’re a chocolate kind of person, you can buy that dark chocolate and carry it out in a turquoise bag that is more beautiful than a bag from Tiffany’s.

And the public transportation? It makes us weep with gratitude. Though most of the time we can walk to just about anywhere in the city (Paris is only 41 square miles, smaller than San Francisco), when it’s raining or very late, we can hop on a Métro and reach any distant destination in the city within 40 minutes at the most. After driving for hours at a time to get to a destination in Los Angeles, this human scale, of buildings mostly not much taller than five stories, of restaurants and shops mixed in with residential apartments, of great public transport, everything feels intimate here. And that has a relaxing, pleasurable effect on the psyche.

As far as protective services, my hairdresser in Los Angeles, who was from Paris, told me that after experiences like being occupied by the Germans in World War II, the French will not put up with aggressive local policemen. He said we’d get to know the police in our arrondissement, and run into them at our local cafés, and get to know them by name. And that compared with American policemen, they’re much friendlier, and less confrontational.

We experienced this when Eric, a policeman, was called to our building. He was a blond young man on a bicycle who seemed about as threatening as the pre-med student in your dorm in college. (But that’s another story.)

Apollo (performance, enjoyment, celebration)

Okay, here’s a story from 2009. Richard and I went to see Martin Scorsese’s film about the Rolling Stones, “Shine a Light.” It was in one of the theaters in what used to be the former public market, Les Halles, a rather Dionysian part of town near the rue St. Denis, where all the hookers hang out. The theater was full. We had good seats in the center of a central row. Now, no one goes to see a film about the Rolling Stones unless he or she likes rock ’n’ roll, and has some attraction to the Dionysian brand that the Stones have been giving us since the ‘60s.

The film was terrific. One great song after another by the greatest rock band in the world (And if you disagree, you’re just wrong.) We could hardly sit in our seats we were so ecstatic. Richard was once a disc jockey in the San Francisco Bay area, and we both came of age with the great rock bands of the ‘60s. It was crazy to be listening to this music and sitting down. So we moved in our seats. How could you not?

But we slowly became aware of the oddest phenomenon. Everyone around us seemed rapt. No one was leaving the theater. But everyone sat, not moving, hands in their laps, like good children waiting to be allowed to eat. No one around us even moved their heads slightly in time to the music. We wondered if we’d hear people saying afterwards that they hadn’t liked the film or the music. But no, in the lobby, we heard low murmurs of approval in French in every direction. We stood by the exit door and listened. The very thing that makes it so pleasant to be in a public space with the French, their decorous restraint, seemed lunatic while listening to the Rolling Stones.

We came away with two impressions: that Americans with their impulsive exuberance might just know how to let loose better than the French, at least in public. And this is why great rock ‘n’ roll has come from England and the United States and not from France. It’s just not the gift of the French.

Zeus (generosity, gift-giving, blessing)

The uninhibited nature of Americans makes it easier for them/us to express generosity. Or so it seems to us at this point. Though, as we get to know more French people, who knows what we’ll find? The French, we are told, are notorious for their initial reserve—smiles are earned, not given freely as they are in the United States. But, we are also told, they are warm life-long friends once you break through that reserve. We’ll keep you informed.