Hello. I am back. I am also late. If you have been checking this page regularly, then I am flattered. Relying on reader enthusiasm isn’t the best retention system. I might add an email reminder at some point. Since my website is currently static (a simple text file with some associated images), I would have to ask Jeff for a bit more firepower to take this rocket of a blog into outer space. Yup.1 For now, I suggest you view my blog posts like James Bond after Moneypenny shoots him in Skyfall: you’re not sure when he’ll show up, but he will at some point, and when he does, he will be in a tropical place downing a shot with a scorpion on his wrist. Sometimes, a short death makes for future excitement. And so, I present to you, the second in this majestic series, on this seventh of November, or, as we cultured people keep time, this third batch of delicious homemade yogurt.
Today is the last day of the two-week vacation the French school system gives us, les vacances de toussaint, or All-Saints day vacation. A good friend and I went on a short trip north, first to Brussels, then to Utrecht, a small town in the Netherlands. Brussels is an international, haughty city, a hub of European diplomacy, waffles, and shamelessly displayed colonial artifacts from the middle Congo. The colonial legacy was striking. In college, my senior thesis revolved around narratives of colonization in the Congo. In the 19th century, newspapers and governments (the French and Belgian, in the Congolese case) portrayed African colonization as a grand national adventure story: the intrepid explorer carrying the hopes of the nation on his shoulders. The crowning achievement of the national adventure was the colony, the spoils the hero brings the grateful nation. 2 As a testament to the enduring power of narrative, “antiques” stores dot the roads of Brussels, specializing in African art. The spoils.
Aside from its unrepentant colonial past, Brussels contained some neat museums. The European Union sponsors a free museum of European history, and it was amazing. It highlighted the wonder of European unity following the World Wars. As an American, I don’t think I appreciated the marvel of lasting peace in Europe or the hope that the fall of the Berlin Wall represented. To its credit, the museum refused to lean too far into this rousing European narrative, and added some nuance: what to do about lingering European nationalism? The refugee crisis? The reason I enjoyed the museum , I think, was that like a good history paper the museum offered an interpretation of its subject and then invited reflection. I appreciated the honestly-presented cohesiveness.
Along with the European history museum, we went to a museum of fine art, instruments, and later a whole host of museums in the Netherlands, including a modern art museum. I admit that modern art tends to confuse me, and I usually stare at a given “modern” work for a long time, hands clasped behind my back, waiting to feel something. While viewing, I am always aware of the infamous banana incident of 2019, and feel a little silly for trying to draw conclusions from, say, geometrically arranged room fans. Could these geometrically arranged room fans have a better life cooling down a room than confusing the uninitiated? Yes. Maybe I’m missing a deeper commentary on the tenuous difference between “art” and “life”. Whatever that means. It’s one of those themes that seems deep when you say it but doesn’t reveal much. There were some works in the museum that were more powerful, however, including a contemporary artist, Danielle Dean, transporting replicas of African slave ports to low-income cities in America, then promoting them using modern advertising techniques in the style of Nike. A dense spoonful of social commentary.
Overall I enjoyed Utrecht much more than Brussels. Small towns please me, as does meeting old friends, which I had the chance to do in Utrecht. One of the joys of spending more years on Earth, I think, is catching up with the friends you made along the way (aww). Sharing news, reliving old times, ah, the custardy filling of existence. Utrecht was also impressive in the amount of bicycles on the street: hordes of joyfully helmet-less Dutch people streaming across the street, vastly outnumbering us lowly pedestrians. Parked bicycles covered the sidewalks and the entire city had the feel of a college town if nobody ever left, like a Peter-Pan university. Good coffee, too.
I am happy to be back in my usual Bressuire rhythms, though. Running regularly, tapping away on my computer, losing at chess, brewing yogurt, buying baguettes, fumbling my way through picking up groceries from the local supermarket. Yes, I recently discovered that my local Carrefour offers free drive-through grocery pickup. Sweet! However, Carrefour expects two things: 1, that you can understand French spoken through a tinny speaker inexplicably one foot off the ground, 2, that you have a car. When I went to retrieve my groceries, I failed both of these conditions, and thus added to my running total of French confusion. I ended up gamely walking away from the drive-through attendant with two bags of groceries and a full backpack, looking a bit like a pack mule, and, I am sure, reinforcing the French image of the can-do American spirit. As a cultural ambassador I do everything with a purpose.
I have nothing more to say, so I leave you with pictures. Until next time! Kapow!
