Happy Mother's Day!

Hey all,

Happy Mother's Day!

I just spent last weekend (4/30 - 5/4) in Paris! It was amazing; I did a million things! Traveling alone opens up a world of possibilities that come only with independence. Loneliness is the price you pay for that independence. Fortunately, I was able to meet just enough people to feel just fine alone.

I spent most of Friday at Versailles, an extravagant garden that showcases the wealth of Louis XIV, the king of France from 1661-1715. He called himself "Le Roi Soleil" or "The Sun King", which is where I got the idea behind my blog URL, which was originally used for a course on the fella.

Thoroughly satisfied, but wiped out from a long day in the sun, I rested for a bit at the hostel before meeting my California friends Sherry and Stacey in the 13th arrondissement (district) for dinner. I confirmed the rumors that the 13th is the place to go for cheap Chinese food! On Saturday I would have lunch in the 10th following a tip I had gotten about Vietnamese sandwiches; I would definitely be more willing to call the Belleville stop in the 10th French Chinatown than the Maison Blanche stop in the 13th, where I got dinner the night before. There are far more restaurants, as well as a predominantly Sino-Vietnamese community, and the area seems like it's got some history behind it.

I spent Saturday morning at an Andy Warhol exhibit at the Grand Palais, the same place I went to see the Picasso exhibit earlier in the semester. I hate to sound like a snob, but I didn't think it was great; I feel like the mass reproduction of Warhol's stuff (be it his doing or not) has made him mainstream to the point that there's very little that is surprising or interesting for a media-imbued culture zombie like myself. His work with diamond dust surprised me, though; the lavish idea of using them as a kind of sheen to his work profoundly struck me. I felt like it called upon Americans to recognize that a mineral is a mineral, and whatever value we have attributed to them is completely secondary from their generation.

That night I would meet Lauriane, one of the host family's daughters, in the 5th arrondissement for dinner. This might be my new favorite area of Paris: a happy balance of young energy from the law school and other universities nearby mixed well with the beautiful old buildings, spawning short bursts of artistic energy that shrink and swell in different ways throughout Paris.

Sunday morning I went to the Centre Pompidou to see an exhibit on Alexander Calder, an American sculptor and my namesake (Benjamin Calder Hair). There is a great deal of nostalgia that goes along with his work, but there's also the fact that it's just good stuff. He excelled in what he called "drawing in the air", bringing long thin lines of wire into profiles of people, often turning them into three-dimensional caricatures.

I was happily surprised by a Kandinsky exhibit happening at the same time; I didn't know much about him, and still don't - I spent far more time at the Calder exhibit, which interested me much more. Kandinsky's use of colors was amazing, though - there was an audacity in his approach to the canvas that blew me away, even if I didn't like how the piece turned out on the whole. I overheard a fellow giving what seemed to be an impromptu tour of the exhibit who said that Kandinsky actually had a disorder that made colors literally resonate with him, producing frequencies. This guy could hear colors! Crazy stuff.

I got a quick lunch, thinking I was going to race off if I wanted to see Sainte Chapelle and le Pantheon in one day. Fortunately, I ended up having just enough time on my hands; getting lost and crossing the Seine five times in an hour made me earn it, that's all... Sainte Chappelle was much smaller than I expected (I think they worked on a more human scale in the 13th century), but very beautiful, though brimming with tourists.

I really liked the Pantheon - it, too, is smack dab in the 5th arrondissement, a straight shot from the Luxembourg Gardens. It's a very cold, dry building in and out, which is fully appropriate considering it is home to the ashes of many great French thinkers and generals. Among them are Voltaire, Rousseau, Zola, and Dumas. Though it doesn't quite merit a second trip, it certainly was special to be so close to the tangible remains of these visionaries who, in my mind, had become idealized (even deified) to an almost mythical extent.

I stocked up on rou bao 肉包 (pork buns), jiaozi 餃子 (potstickers), and tofu 豆腐 before hopping onto the Metro to go back to Bordeaux Monday morning, barely making my train by ten minutes!

Fortunately, I got back in time to set my things down and decompose for a bit before heading back out to work; right now my work at BabyLangues is the realest sense of meaning in my life, since the stressful comfort of school has been stripped from me for upwards of two months now.

I'm happy to be back in Bordeaux, but definitely ready to return to California. I feel like I've done what I need to do here, and the water is quickly stagnating: without a full-time job, classes, or the money to travel, I will have to become a bit more resourceful with my time. The GRE is calling, I suppose! I've started sending out requests to meet with my former professors in order to discuss my graduate school options; I sure wish I could ask for some of my French professors at Bordeaux for letters of recommendation!

I've posted a few pictures and videos on my photobucket, so it might be worth checking it out if you'd like to see some more recent photos of me and where I've been!

France 2, one of six broadcast channels on French television, sat in on my atelier Wednesday evening, developing on what appears to be a growing interest in BabyLangues, the company for which I work. Here's a link to the video; it's not long, but it's all in French... I'm only at the last two seconds or so, so... yeah. The page you open will ask you to download Silverlight; if that doesn't interest you, make sure to click on "Ou bien retrouvez une version simplifiée en cliquant ici." Cliquer = "to click". Gotta love Anglicisms... hahaha

Best,
Ben