Think Small

Becoming French

It was just the other night when interacting with a police office, it occurred to me that I had become fully French.  Was doing things once unthinkable for me.

While there is a curiously large genera of generic and boring books by Anglos complaining about all things France, I moved here to experience first hand all things French.

While I will never be French by blood, some major milestones seem to have quietly passed indicating adopting French-ness in my way of being.

- When a police officer lectures me not to ride my bike the wrong way down a street rather than apologize as a polite Canadian should I respond challengingly with comment? (a sarcastic version of WHAT?) and inform him the signage needs to be improved and it is his duty to do so to protect the safety off people such as I.

- Sometimes I will now walk two steps into the street, then look up at what traffic is coming.

- I will discuss with my fromagier between the Brie Mieux and the Brie Melun which is more in season and whether any come close to the superior Coloummiers (which is made but a few KMs away.)

- When my frommagier refuses to cut my Coloummiers into quarters I don't quietly accept the half, I keep asking "C'est pas possible?" maybe throwin in a shrug or two until he relents and quickly cuts in down to the desired size.

- Find 8pm a normal time to be at the office, but locked out if arriving at 8am.

- Believe a one hour lunch is a right and 2 hours acceptable but feel guilt when eating at my desk for disrespecting the food I eat.

- Will drink a glass of wine at lunch (not daily, but sometimes...)

- Consider champagne perfectly acceptable for a weeknight without need of an occasion or the belief it is in any way decadent.  Simple appropriate for what we are eating.

- Will fight to the death that a grape growth on one side of a hill versus the other will yeild a better wine, intrinsically not because of artificial snootiness.

- Have a drawer of scarves for every season.  Never leaving home without one.

- Despite 20 moto-scooters and swarms of zooming cars will put nose in the air and cycle directly accross any roundabout (Opera, Bastille, Republique, etc. ) knowing I have the right of way and confidence everyone will allow passage.  They will only honk or cut you off upon your hesitation. (Never hesitate.)

- Have adobted an esoteric hobby (collecting 1920s and 30s sports photography.)

- Own a professional grade set of boules for petanque

- Love a goot protest.

French culture and society is impressively strong and set in its ways. Bless them for it.  It is what I love about them. It is what makes the country what it is.  Gives a profound identity and shorthand for what France and the French are all about. A strength indentity and conviction most countries lack, all countries would kill for.

And serioulsly, Liberté Egalité Fraternité, is the greatest strap line in the hisotry of communications.

Ideas, Rules Doing and a John Jay

Our industry has a lot of great minds and a lot of opinions.

But opinions aside, its what one does that matters.  The actual ideas.  The ones that get made, and made great.

Whether an idea is in the form of a script, a way to look at the budget to make the impossible possible or what a prospective client sees in the lobby on pitch day - they all matter.

But some people do more and do better.  No matter how old I get, they are a kind of hero.

Few know the name John Jay.  But anything he does, says really, amazes me. 

Sharp, profound and informed.  Above all, makes you think a bit different and better about something.

A knower of art, retail and how a restaurant can reshape a neighbourhood while reinvigorating its past  (Ping.)  A genral doing of things.

These are the types it is great to see enter halls of fame. 

I don't know Jon, but I know I like what he's done.  Even if it was only the skewers at Ping, I would hold that opinion.

These are his rules stolen from a WK blog:

1. Be authentic. The most powerful asset you have is your individuality, what makes you unique. It’s time to stop listening to others on what you should do.
2. Work harder than anyone else and you will always benefit from the effort.
3. Get off the computer and connect with real people and culture. Life is visceral.
4. Constantly improve your craft. Make things with your hands. Innovation in thinking is not enough.
5. Travel as much as you can. It is a humbling and inspiring experience to learn just how much you don’t know.
6. Being original is still king, especially in this tech-driven, group-grope world.
7. Try not to work for stupid people or you’ll soon become one of them.
8. Instinct and intuition are all-powerful. Learn to trust them.
9. The Golden Rule actually works. Do good.
10. If all else fails, No. 2 is the greatest competitive advantage of any career.

 

The Inaugural Tour de Paris

With the early arrival of summer sun and the scheduled annual return of tourist flocks this weekend was a good time to explore unexplored parts of Paris.

This city, while maddening at times just as frequently offers elements that comprise the best of urban living.  At the top of the list of brilliance is Velib’, the now much duplicated bike sharing scheme. 

The Velib’ system and my scan card were reason to arrange an adventure.  While Paris is about 8 intimate KMs across, the circumference was a mystery to me, much because of the fortress of automotivity La Periphique.  A modern fortress wall ringing the city. 

The mission was simple, circle the outermost reaches of the city.  The areas many cross but few notice.  An exercise in nothing more than fulfilling curiosity.  Tracked by reapplying the app Skitracks.

Stage 1

La Tour de Paris started with a short Prologue from home to the dry cleaner.  Just to get the legs going and  complete a quick chore

Stage 2

From my cleaner near Centre Pompidou the second stage finished at Bercy Park.  Once the sprawling wine warehouse district it was “modernized” in the 90’s to a centre of chain restaurants and dull shops.

Stage 3

The charm of Paris was abruptly lost as the Eastern edges of the city host heavy industry on the banks of La Seine.  Home to the plants, that make the aggregates, that make the foundation on top of which the gorgeous zinc bars of St. Germain sits so confidently.

Stage 4

A comforting return to Haussmann fingerprints as 6 story buildings stand at attention lining the boulevards.  This stage finished dramatically at the ancient book market where I furthered my collection of old original sports photography and journals.

 

Some amazing shots from 1927 to 1929 editions of Le Mirior des Sports.

This was also the first feeding station as heralded baker Poilân has one of their three shops here in this most distant of outposts where vendors wonder how you discovered them.

 

Stage 5

One of the longest stages along the massive boulevard housing the above ground tram, its lawn and superb vacant bike lanes.  Great cruising right across the Western reaches of La Seine.

Stage 6

Where Bois de Vincennes on the East side is the classy park, Bois de Boulogne on the West of the city up against the ritziest of neighbourhoods is certainly the sleazy older brother.  Renown for the peering eyes of prostitutes lining the forest edges.

Stage 7

The first mountain stage, climbing behind Montmartre was unremarkable except for the vibrant Turkish neighbourhood at the end serving as the second feeding stop.  The Turkish lemon soda that seemed to be a good idea, was a bad idea.

Stage 8

While one almost always feel truly safe anywhere in Paris this is the one area you are likely a bit on edge.  Housing tenements, shoeless prostitutes and homeless men guzzling 1 Euro bottles of wine over Backgammon atop carbord box tables.  The forgotten corners of Paris.

Stage 9

From the upper-right reaches on the well redeveloped canals of Port de Villette the second mountain stage with long long stretches of ripped up boulevards and car chocked roads. 

Le Fin

While hundreds heavily armed riot police keep casual eye on a protest it was time to conclude they way many things end, or start in France.  Avec une verre de champagne.

So, that was the inaugural Tour de Paris.  If you come to Paris on vacation there certainly are better things to do.  If you want to see the unknown parts of Paris on the most low performance but high style bikes going, well I can only say “bonne courage.”  You will finds markets no book writes about, thriving ethnic communities and quaint neighbourhoods that seem worlds away from the centrall masses of Paris.

The distance?  50.7KM.