Don't drift off! The Paris section is almost done!Christmas is coming to Narbonne
Fifteen degrees under sunny skies and the good people of Narbonne are Christmasfying the city. It’s very funny, in a sweet and charming way, to see the square outside the Hôtel de Ville tricked out with elves and giant transparent bubbles full of blowing snow. They’ve tied tiny Christmas trees to all the lampposts and soon, Santa is coming. You have to admire their pluck: it’s like seeing beach umbrellas in the Arctic. How did they know?
Okay, I know you want to get out of Paris, but see how much there is to tell? More than one of you has written to remark on my “truffle porn” in the previous post. I am not ashamed. That nature created something so ugly and so delicious is something worth trumpeting. If I could go back in time, I would go to my bespectacled, bowl-haircutted, pot-bellied, halitosis-inclined, too-hairy-for-a-fourteen-year-old self and show him a truffle. And I would say “If something this repulsive can be the object of passion, my son, then so, one day, might be you. Although I wouldn’t count on it, especially since you’re wearing corduroy socks and there’s a Wonder Woman decal ironed onto your underwear which no one can see but you can bet half the kids in school know it’s there.”
We awoke Saturday morning, ready for the next leg of our journey, but we were going to need help. And into the fray jumped Nanny, Grandpapa, and two little boys who had braved an early-morning plane ride in order to ensure we could all be in Paris together. (The strike made it impossible to count on the train.) We met at a hotel near the Porte D’Orleans and struck out immediately for FUN. We had lunch in a nice little restaurant tucked into a sidestreet near the hotel, and then took the metro to the Musée de Cluny, near the Sorbonne, the site of some of the oldest Roman ruins in Paris. Renald and I are both suckers for old rocks and this place had, underground, the remains of some stunning old baths. There wasn’t much left of it, but reconstructive drawings showed what would have once been a very elegant bath, very close to the Seine. Cluny was named for the abbey that later stood on the same spot, and the museum had some great artifacts in many rooms, the most interesting of which (for this old garage-sale snuffler and trash fanatic) was three large vitrines full of little objects that had been found in the Seine in the nineteeth century. Many of these were seals—clay insignias carved with the reverse images of what their owners wished to impress into wax—as well as bits of jewellery, children’s toys and the like, all of which had, at one point or another, been deemed no longer useful or important and had been tossed into the river.
We had to take care with Grandpapa’s leg, which has been giving him trouble of late, so we had a break in the late afternoon, and in the evening, we went out for an Italian meal, up near the Montparnasse. It’s been a while since I’d eaten Italian (apart from the French version of pizza) and we had a very enjoyable meal. The owner chirped to us in Italian, which we didn’t understand a word of, but it was a nice break from French food.
Doreen, Renald, and a lion's bum in Paris
The Sunday began with breakfast in the neighbourhood, then we headed out to the Jeu de Paume to see the Steichen exhibition. The Jeu de Paume is the king’s old tennis courts, and its been used as a photography space since 2004. Anne and I saw an incredible Cindy Sherman retrospective here in 2006.
The Steichen was two floors of the museum, a very thorough selection of his artistic as well as commerical work. Steichen was Julian Schnabel before there was a Julian Schnabel: he was general in the art photography scene before becoming extremely famous in the forties and fifties as one of Hollywood’s and Broadway’s best known imagemakers. His earlier compatriots accused him of selling out, but it doesn’t really matter what the eye of a great photographer is turned on: the Brooklyn Bridge at night or a bar of soap. The eye is selling light and composition, not the thing being photographed, and Steichen had an incredible eye and a brilliant sense of space. Ben and Max weren’t as impressed as the adults were, but I think both boys saw (especially in Steichen’s early work) how someone with a camera can change something by taking a picture of it. The prints that Steichen and Steiglitz made and had tipped into Camera Work (probably the most important and influential magazine of photography ever printed; it ran from 1902 to 1917 and set the ground rules for art photography for fifty years) were handmade photogravures that both photographers considered gallery-quality prints. A roomful of them were on display here and although one sense that they have faded somewhat, they were stunning to see. (As an aside, Anne and I had seen a Camera Work print of a Steichen image made in New York in 1910: it was selling for 900€.)
After a short rest, we six headed out for our final supper together. We had wanted to go to Le Dome, but it was too expensive, and instead we went to La Coupole, which, with its enormous bright room was well worth choosing second. Lawrence Durrell writes of La Coupole that it used to be famous for being willing to accommodate any culinary whim, and he once knew a painter who would sit and eat and smoke and at midnight would have a fresh litre of bull’s blood. (It was brought to the door from Paris’s slaughterhouses by a man on a motorcycle.) You could sense the many decades of history that happened over oysters and red wine—and sometimes bull’s blood—in that room. It’s now owned by a major chain, but they do their best to remain authentic, and the service and food was amazing. But judge for yourself whether or not we had a good time!
Boys with "cocktails"
Max in fondue heaven
Three happy (and full) guys
Unfortunately, that night at the hotel, we all had to say goodbye. No pictures of that. One side effect of Anne’s birthday surprise was that it meant the visit she was looking forward to from her parents in January wasn’t actually going to happen (it was part of the ruse). So goodnight and goodbye on the Sunday night meant that we wouldn’t all see each other again until April and it was rough on everyone. Anne got up at 6 a.m. to say goodbye to them again and then Nanny and Grandpapa, having braved white lies and an intercontinental flight, headed home.
That morning, the Redhill-Simards elected to get on an earlier train, and we took the Metro to the Gare de Lyon. Infernal chaos ensued, the lowlight of which was being nearly crushed to death getting off on the platform at Chatelet with 2000 people in a space that looked like it could safely hold 1000 where we had to transfer to the number 1 line to get to the train station.
After escaping that (I can’t tell you how truly terrifying it was), we found ourselves trapped underground between the 4 and 1 lines with at least 4000 other people who were filing into this one pedestrian tunnel from three directions. It took forty minutes to travel 150 metres. Anne and I had to paste looks of calm authority onto our faces to hide from the kids how scared we actually were. But even in this, a little moment of grace found us: a man, standing beside me, could see how frightened Ben was, and he reached into his coat pocket and took out a handful of fruit Caramellos. Then he passed a couple forward—Parisiens passing candies hand-to-hand in an underground hell—until they got to Maxime. Then we got on the 1 line, made it to Gare de Lyon, and escaped Paris at last, glad to have been, and glad to be gone.
This officially marks the end of not only this very long Paris entry, but also the Curse of Paris. On my fifth attempt, I had a perfect visit. Not even the strike could screw it up. Thanks Paris, you cruel mistress.
BONDAT
That’s “goodness” to you. As in Goodness, my play, which has been translated into Catalan and premiered last weekend in Girona, Spain. I’d written to the production to tell them that I was in Europe and would love to come and see the opening, and they arranged it, although I later learned they dreaded my coming. Ignorant of this, I drove off whistling to the Spanish border and crossed it for the first time in my life last Friday afternoon under dazzling bright skies and headed to this ancient Catalan city.
Beautiful Girona
A word on Spain and Catalonia. I thought I was going to Spain to see my play in Catalan. But I was not. I was going to Catalonia to see my play in Catalan. The people of this region are very proud of their separate history and they react to being presumptive Spaniards in much the same way a Quebecer might bristle at being called a Canadian. In fact, they fetishize Quebec’s status in Canada and long for something similar in Spain, where ninety-three centimes of every tax-Euro they send to Madrid pays for something outside of Catalonia. I was having the vaguaries of Catalonia’s longing for independence explained to me in a café on the river the day I arrived. My interlocutor was Jordi Mestres, and he pulled back the curtain on the mysteries in a way no one in Canada would be brave enough to do: Catalonia’s issues are financial ones couched in cultural terms. As are all such protests. (One wonders, having come from an example where the culture wars continue after the money has been spread around fairly, whether expressing minorityhood might not be a main feature of such identity struggles?)
Jordi was my entrée into the Catalan theatre, and he interpreted between myself and the director, Pere Puig (pictured with me at left), and anyone else who wanted to converse. English and French was sometimes enough, but thank god for Jordi. He was a man who by dint of love now finds himself living in the theatre. His wife is one of the two daughters of the founder of Sala La Planeta, the theatre where Bondat was opening, and Pere’s wife is the other one. They also have deep ties to the main newspaper in Girona, El Punt, so being brought into their company felt as if I was shaking hands with a particularly benign mafia: a cultural one. Naturally, El Punt interviewed and photographed me (the article appeared on the Sunday with a, natch, very positive review of the play) and my hosts treated me with incredible grace. I say they were scared of my coming down, but this had more to do with their respect for artists and the play itself than it did with any reputation of mine. Those of you who know me personally know that I am the last person for whom a red carpet should be laid, but this they did, in deference and even terror, which thankfully was lifted soon afterwards. This treatment was also a product of the kind of people the Catalans are: a loving bunch, a warm bunch, big-hearted and expressive. I’d never met Catalonians or Spaniards before and I found these people almost damp with emotion. Coming from Toronto, a place only damp, it was overwhelming, to be shown such warmth. You could get used to it.
The play opened Friday night—at 10:30 in the evening—and received a roar of approval from the audience. (At the final curtain, which was at 1 a.m.) This was not my Goodness, nor Volcano’s – it was very different, and even some of the songs were different, and of course I understood only the words with latinate roots, but under the different clothes, I recognized my work and it was moving and strange to see it there. It was as if I’d passed myself in the mirror and seen an entirely different face, but one that had to be me. We celebrated afterwards with champagne and snacks, and when the audience filed out of the partyroom, at 3 a.m., dinner was served. This ebullient cast, now relaxed having made it through the fire, joked and drank and posed for pictures and generally seemed to be of the species of actor I’ve known everywhere else. They were a wonderful bunch.
The cast of Bondat (the guy playing me is fifth from right ...)
Pere Puig, in particular (his name is pronounced “per-uh putsch”) was a man of incredible grace. Painfully shy, it seemed to me, and utterly self-effacing, he had dedicated himself utterly not just to this play, but to me as well. Without my knowing, he had purchased all of my fiction and had it sent along to one of Catalonia’s best-known rising literary lights, a man named Javier Cercas, and had his books in English for me, as well as Javier’s phone number and email address. He felt strongly we should get to know each other. All of this said and produced in a silent backroom at the theatre at 2:30 in the morning, without Pere making eye contact with me, and in painfully halting English. A very special experience.
Saturday, most of the cast and crew met for lunch in the old city. Girona’s old centre is made of rising tiers of ancient streets, with stone-arch stairways leading up and down and tight, winding streets. It’s a very beautiful city. The restaurant we ate in was right on the old Via Augustus. We ate a great meal of many dishes, including a bacalao drenched in tomatoes and red peppers, and a fish we call monkfish, which looks so disgusting raw (like an oily intestine) but was one of the sweetest, firmest white fish meats I’ve ever eaten. I’ll have to cook it looking away from the pan, but there you go.
We drank a lot of wine, joked in our broken tongues, exhausted and delighted from the night before, and when it was almost all over, I gave a toast in English, which Jordi (his inimitable self at right) translated, and half of them burst into tears.
Write a play, make sure a Catalan falls in love with it, and I promise you you’ll feel like a million bucks. And as a even more wonderful aside, the three-day run was so successful, that Bondat will, in April, play an additional two weeks in Girona, tour the Catalan small-theatre circuit for two weeks, and then play for a month in Barcelona. And although I’m delighted that it will, the thing that really pleases me is that I’ll get to see all these people again.
PUPPY HEAVEN
The day after I got back, we all went to Carcassonne to see the Foire d’Animaux, a two-day puppy- and kitten-fest with breeders from all over France. The main event was held in a large room smelling of puppy-sweat and -poo with little creatures mainly sleeping, exhausted from being loved for two days by desperate boys and girls. We are kinda sorta in the market for a dog now, having looked into how we get an animal back to Canada (it’s pretty straight-forward) and our guys are dying to get an animal that their parents can feed, walk, and clean up after (beyond day three, you know how it is). The chien du moment is an Epagneul Breton (a Brittany spaniel) a kind of hunting dog known for its sweet temperment and ability to sense a squirrel from nine kilometres. (A friend from Toronto writes that they have a very high “prey drive” that made one of her Brittanys “basically autistic outdoors.”) But the argument for or against a puppy is not made in words. This is the argument:
What do you think’s gonna happen?
(Me, I want one of these:)
MAXIE IN TOULOUSE
For a long time, I have owed Maxime a sporting event to even up the basketball game Ben got to go to with me in Toronto earlier this year (brotherly math). So on Wednesday night of this week, we headed out to Toulouse to see the Toulouse F.C. play Nancy at the Stade de Toulouse. We drove through terrifying fog to get there, and although the stadium was wreathed in mist, the lights cut through to the spectacle and we watched our very first European soccer game together (with our purple Toulouse scarves around our necks). I have to say it was an amazing experience—our seats were awesome—and the athmosphere was fascinating.
There were at least three discrete sections of noisemaking: a rabid Toulouse fanclub at one end, a small Nancy fanclub at the other, and someone on the other side from us, a clutch of fans with instruments, including a sousaphone.
Max got a little bored at the, uh, ten minute mark of the first half, and by the twenty-minute mark, he was ready to leave. I convinced him to stay to the half. At the intermission, I was happy to go home (it took 90 minutes to drive, half in blinding fog), but Max talked himself into going back in for the second half. “It’s my very first soccer game, who cares if I’m bored? I should go and watch!” So in we went, and at the seven minute mark (which coincided with the end of the chocolate) he announced he really wanted to go. So we left and traded scary stories in the car until he fell asleep somewhere near Mirepoix.
Okay, I know you want to get out of Paris, but see how much there is to tell? More than one of you has written to remark on my “truffle porn” in the previous post. I am not ashamed. That nature created something so ugly and so delicious is something worth trumpeting. If I could go back in time, I would go to my bespectacled, bowl-haircutted, pot-bellied, halitosis-inclined, too-hairy-for-a-fourteen-year-old self and show him a truffle. And I would say “If something this repulsive can be the object of passion, my son, then so, one day, might be you. Although I wouldn’t count on it, especially since you’re wearing corduroy socks and there’s a Wonder Woman decal ironed onto your underwear which no one can see but you can bet half the kids in school know it’s there.”
NANNY, GRANDPAPA, MAX AND BEN CONQUER PARIS
We awoke Saturday morning, ready for the next leg of our journey, but we were going to need help. And into the fray jumped Nanny, Grandpapa, and two little boys who had braved an early-morning plane ride in order to ensure we could all be in Paris together. (The strike made it impossible to count on the train.) We met at a hotel near the Porte D’Orleans and struck out immediately for FUN. We had lunch in a nice little restaurant tucked into a sidestreet near the hotel, and then took the metro to the Musée de Cluny, near the Sorbonne, the site of some of the oldest Roman ruins in Paris. Renald and I are both suckers for old rocks and this place had, underground, the remains of some stunning old baths. There wasn’t much left of it, but reconstructive drawings showed what would have once been a very elegant bath, very close to the Seine. Cluny was named for the abbey that later stood on the same spot, and the museum had some great artifacts in many rooms, the most interesting of which (for this old garage-sale snuffler and trash fanatic) was three large vitrines full of little objects that had been found in the Seine in the nineteeth century. Many of these were seals—clay insignias carved with the reverse images of what their owners wished to impress into wax—as well as bits of jewellery, children’s toys and the like, all of which had, at one point or another, been deemed no longer useful or important and had been tossed into the river.
We had to take care with Grandpapa’s leg, which has been giving him trouble of late, so we had a break in the late afternoon, and in the evening, we went out for an Italian meal, up near the Montparnasse. It’s been a while since I’d eaten Italian (apart from the French version of pizza) and we had a very enjoyable meal. The owner chirped to us in Italian, which we didn’t understand a word of, but it was a nice break from French food.
Doreen, Renald, and a lion's bum in ParisThe Sunday began with breakfast in the neighbourhood, then we headed out to the Jeu de Paume to see the Steichen exhibition. The Jeu de Paume is the king’s old tennis courts, and its been used as a photography space since 2004. Anne and I saw an incredible Cindy Sherman retrospective here in 2006.
The Steichen was two floors of the museum, a very thorough selection of his artistic as well as commerical work. Steichen was Julian Schnabel before there was a Julian Schnabel: he was general in the art photography scene before becoming extremely famous in the forties and fifties as one of Hollywood’s and Broadway’s best known imagemakers. His earlier compatriots accused him of selling out, but it doesn’t really matter what the eye of a great photographer is turned on: the Brooklyn Bridge at night or a bar of soap. The eye is selling light and composition, not the thing being photographed, and Steichen had an incredible eye and a brilliant sense of space. Ben and Max weren’t as impressed as the adults were, but I think both boys saw (especially in Steichen’s early work) how someone with a camera can change something by taking a picture of it. The prints that Steichen and Steiglitz made and had tipped into Camera Work (probably the most important and influential magazine of photography ever printed; it ran from 1902 to 1917 and set the ground rules for art photography for fifty years) were handmade photogravures that both photographers considered gallery-quality prints. A roomful of them were on display here and although one sense that they have faded somewhat, they were stunning to see. (As an aside, Anne and I had seen a Camera Work print of a Steichen image made in New York in 1910: it was selling for 900€.)
After a short rest, we six headed out for our final supper together. We had wanted to go to Le Dome, but it was too expensive, and instead we went to La Coupole, which, with its enormous bright room was well worth choosing second. Lawrence Durrell writes of La Coupole that it used to be famous for being willing to accommodate any culinary whim, and he once knew a painter who would sit and eat and smoke and at midnight would have a fresh litre of bull’s blood. (It was brought to the door from Paris’s slaughterhouses by a man on a motorcycle.) You could sense the many decades of history that happened over oysters and red wine—and sometimes bull’s blood—in that room. It’s now owned by a major chain, but they do their best to remain authentic, and the service and food was amazing. But judge for yourself whether or not we had a good time!
Boys with "cocktails"
Max in fondue heaven
Three happy (and full) guysUnfortunately, that night at the hotel, we all had to say goodbye. No pictures of that. One side effect of Anne’s birthday surprise was that it meant the visit she was looking forward to from her parents in January wasn’t actually going to happen (it was part of the ruse). So goodnight and goodbye on the Sunday night meant that we wouldn’t all see each other again until April and it was rough on everyone. Anne got up at 6 a.m. to say goodbye to them again and then Nanny and Grandpapa, having braved white lies and an intercontinental flight, headed home.
That morning, the Redhill-Simards elected to get on an earlier train, and we took the Metro to the Gare de Lyon. Infernal chaos ensued, the lowlight of which was being nearly crushed to death getting off on the platform at Chatelet with 2000 people in a space that looked like it could safely hold 1000 where we had to transfer to the number 1 line to get to the train station.
After escaping that (I can’t tell you how truly terrifying it was), we found ourselves trapped underground between the 4 and 1 lines with at least 4000 other people who were filing into this one pedestrian tunnel from three directions. It took forty minutes to travel 150 metres. Anne and I had to paste looks of calm authority onto our faces to hide from the kids how scared we actually were. But even in this, a little moment of grace found us: a man, standing beside me, could see how frightened Ben was, and he reached into his coat pocket and took out a handful of fruit Caramellos. Then he passed a couple forward—Parisiens passing candies hand-to-hand in an underground hell—until they got to Maxime. Then we got on the 1 line, made it to Gare de Lyon, and escaped Paris at last, glad to have been, and glad to be gone. This officially marks the end of not only this very long Paris entry, but also the Curse of Paris. On my fifth attempt, I had a perfect visit. Not even the strike could screw it up. Thanks Paris, you cruel mistress.
BONDAT
That’s “goodness” to you. As in Goodness, my play, which has been translated into Catalan and premiered last weekend in Girona, Spain. I’d written to the production to tell them that I was in Europe and would love to come and see the opening, and they arranged it, although I later learned they dreaded my coming. Ignorant of this, I drove off whistling to the Spanish border and crossed it for the first time in my life last Friday afternoon under dazzling bright skies and headed to this ancient Catalan city.
Beautiful GironaA word on Spain and Catalonia. I thought I was going to Spain to see my play in Catalan. But I was not. I was going to Catalonia to see my play in Catalan. The people of this region are very proud of their separate history and they react to being presumptive Spaniards in much the same way a Quebecer might bristle at being called a Canadian. In fact, they fetishize Quebec’s status in Canada and long for something similar in Spain, where ninety-three centimes of every tax-Euro they send to Madrid pays for something outside of Catalonia. I was having the vaguaries of Catalonia’s longing for independence explained to me in a café on the river the day I arrived. My interlocutor was Jordi Mestres, and he pulled back the curtain on the mysteries in a way no one in Canada would be brave enough to do: Catalonia’s issues are financial ones couched in cultural terms. As are all such protests. (One wonders, having come from an example where the culture wars continue after the money has been spread around fairly, whether expressing minorityhood might not be a main feature of such identity struggles?)
Jordi was my entrée into the Catalan theatre, and he interpreted between myself and the director, Pere Puig (pictured with me at left), and anyone else who wanted to converse. English and French was sometimes enough, but thank god for Jordi. He was a man who by dint of love now finds himself living in the theatre. His wife is one of the two daughters of the founder of Sala La Planeta, the theatre where Bondat was opening, and Pere’s wife is the other one. They also have deep ties to the main newspaper in Girona, El Punt, so being brought into their company felt as if I was shaking hands with a particularly benign mafia: a cultural one. Naturally, El Punt interviewed and photographed me (the article appeared on the Sunday with a, natch, very positive review of the play) and my hosts treated me with incredible grace. I say they were scared of my coming down, but this had more to do with their respect for artists and the play itself than it did with any reputation of mine. Those of you who know me personally know that I am the last person for whom a red carpet should be laid, but this they did, in deference and even terror, which thankfully was lifted soon afterwards. This treatment was also a product of the kind of people the Catalans are: a loving bunch, a warm bunch, big-hearted and expressive. I’d never met Catalonians or Spaniards before and I found these people almost damp with emotion. Coming from Toronto, a place only damp, it was overwhelming, to be shown such warmth. You could get used to it.The play opened Friday night—at 10:30 in the evening—and received a roar of approval from the audience. (At the final curtain, which was at 1 a.m.) This was not my Goodness, nor Volcano’s – it was very different, and even some of the songs were different, and of course I understood only the words with latinate roots, but under the different clothes, I recognized my work and it was moving and strange to see it there. It was as if I’d passed myself in the mirror and seen an entirely different face, but one that had to be me. We celebrated afterwards with champagne and snacks, and when the audience filed out of the partyroom, at 3 a.m., dinner was served. This ebullient cast, now relaxed having made it through the fire, joked and drank and posed for pictures and generally seemed to be of the species of actor I’ve known everywhere else. They were a wonderful bunch.
The cast of Bondat (the guy playing me is fifth from right ...)Pere Puig, in particular (his name is pronounced “per-uh putsch”) was a man of incredible grace. Painfully shy, it seemed to me, and utterly self-effacing, he had dedicated himself utterly not just to this play, but to me as well. Without my knowing, he had purchased all of my fiction and had it sent along to one of Catalonia’s best-known rising literary lights, a man named Javier Cercas, and had his books in English for me, as well as Javier’s phone number and email address. He felt strongly we should get to know each other. All of this said and produced in a silent backroom at the theatre at 2:30 in the morning, without Pere making eye contact with me, and in painfully halting English. A very special experience.
Saturday, most of the cast and crew met for lunch in the old city. Girona’s old centre is made of rising tiers of ancient streets, with stone-arch stairways leading up and down and tight, winding streets. It’s a very beautiful city. The restaurant we ate in was right on the old Via Augustus. We ate a great meal of many dishes, including a bacalao drenched in tomatoes and red peppers, and a fish we call monkfish, which looks so disgusting raw (like an oily intestine) but was one of the sweetest, firmest white fish meats I’ve ever eaten. I’ll have to cook it looking away from the pan, but there you go.
We drank a lot of wine, joked in our broken tongues, exhausted and delighted from the night before, and when it was almost all over, I gave a toast in English, which Jordi (his inimitable self at right) translated, and half of them burst into tears. Write a play, make sure a Catalan falls in love with it, and I promise you you’ll feel like a million bucks. And as a even more wonderful aside, the three-day run was so successful, that Bondat will, in April, play an additional two weeks in Girona, tour the Catalan small-theatre circuit for two weeks, and then play for a month in Barcelona. And although I’m delighted that it will, the thing that really pleases me is that I’ll get to see all these people again.
PUPPY HEAVEN
The day after I got back, we all went to Carcassonne to see the Foire d’Animaux, a two-day puppy- and kitten-fest with breeders from all over France. The main event was held in a large room smelling of puppy-sweat and -poo with little creatures mainly sleeping, exhausted from being loved for two days by desperate boys and girls. We are kinda sorta in the market for a dog now, having looked into how we get an animal back to Canada (it’s pretty straight-forward) and our guys are dying to get an animal that their parents can feed, walk, and clean up after (beyond day three, you know how it is). The chien du moment is an Epagneul Breton (a Brittany spaniel) a kind of hunting dog known for its sweet temperment and ability to sense a squirrel from nine kilometres. (A friend from Toronto writes that they have a very high “prey drive” that made one of her Brittanys “basically autistic outdoors.”) But the argument for or against a puppy is not made in words. This is the argument:
What do you think’s gonna happen?
(Me, I want one of these:)
MAXIE IN TOULOUSE
For a long time, I have owed Maxime a sporting event to even up the basketball game Ben got to go to with me in Toronto earlier this year (brotherly math). So on Wednesday night of this week, we headed out to Toulouse to see the Toulouse F.C. play Nancy at the Stade de Toulouse. We drove through terrifying fog to get there, and although the stadium was wreathed in mist, the lights cut through to the spectacle and we watched our very first European soccer game together (with our purple Toulouse scarves around our necks). I have to say it was an amazing experience—our seats were awesome—and the athmosphere was fascinating.
There were at least three discrete sections of noisemaking: a rabid Toulouse fanclub at one end, a small Nancy fanclub at the other, and someone on the other side from us, a clutch of fans with instruments, including a sousaphone.
Max got a little bored at the, uh, ten minute mark of the first half, and by the twenty-minute mark, he was ready to leave. I convinced him to stay to the half. At the intermission, I was happy to go home (it took 90 minutes to drive, half in blinding fog), but Max talked himself into going back in for the second half. “It’s my very first soccer game, who cares if I’m bored? I should go and watch!” So in we went, and at the seven minute mark (which coincided with the end of the chocolate) he announced he really wanted to go. So we left and traded scary stories in the car until he fell asleep somewhere near Mirepoix.
