On classes, Wheelbarrows, Romans, Science, and that's about it

Where once there were none, now there are many! A most grandiose welcome to all of my new readers and readers, more generally. I hope that the pressures of fame and fortune will not weigh too heavily on this Wlog. I will let you, dearest reader, be the judge of that!

Over the past week, or however long it has been since my last posting, a great deal has happened. On Monday, September 9th, 2019, my Great Struggle with the Schedule came to a glorious fruition: I found my first class. Arriving at the building, the first thing I noticed was a crowd of students puffing away at cigarettes of all varieties. From a distance, the intermittent puffs of smoke erupting from the crowd gave the appearance of a geyser field, or some volcanic realm. I fumbled my way through the haze to my class, which passed uneventfully. Most professors speak with ex-act-ing enunciation, which is helpful; my average comprehension for a course hovers around 80% for the first hour, declining by about 20% every 30 minutes after that. If I miss something,I have only to look at the screen of the French student in front of me, who is dutifully transcribing everything the professor says. The French system of note taking, I firmly believe, is a vestige of the monastic tradition of copying manuscripts. Laptops, being generally faster to write with, are ubiqituous; whenever the professor says something important the resulting cacaphony is similar to attending a mosh pit where everybody is wearing tap shoes.

At about the hour-thirty mark, perhaps given the monologue nature of the class, perhaps given the nature of nicotine, the class became fidgety. By this I mean the level of conversation, which had been a low simmer for most of the course, now warranted the occasional glare from the professor. Conversing during a lecture, more than anything, is what separates my French academic experience from my American one. This may be a consequence of larger classes at the University. The answers to such questions, I know not!

I do know, however, that the Poitiers museum is awesome. Fossils, engravings, inscriptions, vessels, sculptures, big ol’ paintings: for someone who dabbles in history, getting to trace my finger along the razor-sharp lettering of a Roman grave is bonkers-town population Will Gleason. Indeed, the “problem” with living in a town like Poitiers is that everything has a historic majesty to it; history easily becomes another part of the scenery. For instance: there’s a high end clothing store in downtown Poitiers that is built around the ruins of an old church. Massive stone arches fill the sales floor, racks of clothes are tucked into sculpted stone alcoves. Most people just look at the clothes. It is my solemn duty, I believe, to make up for the general lack of excitement over all this old stuff. The general disinterst of the average Poitiers streetgoer does make me wonder, however, if there are certain things about my hometown that I take for granted. Perhaps the best thing to do is to integrate myself into a group of passing tourists, and then get excited over everything they get excited about. That way I can periodically scratch away the “over it” rust that tends to accumulate.

An aqueduct near Poitiers.

One thing the denizens of Poitiers are certainly not over is electronic organ concerts. Likely due to the massive student population, the powers that be in Poitiers go to impressive lengths to appeal to the young. And so: on a balmy weeknight of Thursday yore, I and a group of intrepid Americans set out to explore one of Poitiers’ hottest spots for the nocturnal party animal: the St. Pierre Cathedral. Standing in front of the massive entrance to the cathedral, we watched people play with fire for a little while. Then the wheelbarrow dudes came. The wheelbarrow dudes were a blend of SWAT, Daft Punk, Queen and your local gardener. Around their waste lay a wheelbarrow, on the wheelbarrow a massive speaker. Logically, these dudes were made to travel. Onwards and upwards we, along with about 15 other people, followed them, slowling shuffling our way through the darkened streets of Poitiers, listening, along with the rest of the city, to an eclectic mix of Rock and zip-zap dubstep. Upon arrival at the city square, our police escort (two SUVS and three patrol officers) dispersed. It was one of the more thoroughly bizarre things I have done. But quite mesmerizing. I imagine the Pied Piper had a similar effect.

Finally. A short digression on human’s relationship with alcohol, and France in particular. In order to thoroughly explore the topic, however, I must first introduce a few concepts about Roman expansion.

The Romans never set out to conquer their known world, just as I never set out to eat all the cookies on a given baking sheet. Instead, the early Romans did a little looting and pillaging here and there, when everybody was done harvesting and had nothing to do. In a similar fashion, I eat a few cookies in between long sessions of intense productivity. Occasionally the Romans got a little carried away and the looting and pillaging became conquering and occupying. One cookie becomes two cookies. Now the Romans had to decide: what the heck do we do with this city? If the new territory was close to Rome, odds were Rome would annex it. For the former occupants, this meant taxes and military service, sans Roman citizenship. But say this new territory is in… Greece? The Romans initially preferred the hands-off approach. A forced alliance, sealed by a treaty, where the conquered state took on the same “friends and enemies” of Rome, and sometimes had to pay a tribute*. As a third option, Rome would round up a bunch of Romans (generally military veterans) and send them off to form a colony in the conquered territory. Colonization, along with annexation and alliance, made up the three systems of Roman expansion; an expansion that was slow, halting and characterized by the question “so now what?” This was no master plan for world domination.

So. Be thou Rome hater or Rome lover, there is no doubt that their systems of foreign governance are directly relevant to the consumption of alcohol in France. Before I get into this, however, I must first venture into the murky, tepid waters of biology: the alcohol that we drink is the result of intensive labor by small organisms. For pedalogical purposes, I deem them “little dudes”. These little dudes like to eat sugar. A lot of foods, such as grapes, have sugar in them. Leave the grapes alone for too long, and the little dudes go to munch town. The fruit of these little dude’s feast is alcohol. I think.

Now, alcoholic drinks are popular. I do not understand why. Granted, a glass of wine makes cheese taste pretty good, but oysters? Harder to believe. No, the only explanation is this: many years ago, the French people stumbled across a small gathering of little dudes. Most likely in the prehistoric age, before the little dudes became smaller. I’m not going to delve into the science of this. The French people must have conquered the little dudes, imposed their will upon them. The French people forced the little dudes into an unequal treaty, mandating a regular tribute: alcohol, the fruit of the little dude’s labor. The modern vestige of this prehistoric deal is clear: the French people’s consumption of large amounts of alcohol. When prehistory become antiquity, the Romans would copy the French method of governance, the alliance system. Such historical continuity combined with the present reality is unequivocal evidence, dude.

I have other revelations, too, but I think I will save them for future wlogs. Tomorrow, I participate in a color run, write a historical commentary and soak it all in. As a reward for staying till the end of this blog (an impressive feat), I attach a few photos. No explanations! No time. Catch you in the future, folks!

*It took about four wars before the Romans took direct control of Greece. The Romans were surprisingly apathetic about governing far-away lands; at one point, after defeating a resurgent Macedonian tyrant, the Romans gave all the cities back to the Greeks and left (Polybius 18.46.14). +1 kindness! Such bizarre, complicated moments of restraint are part of what makes history exciting. Eventually, though, the Romans came back and burned an ancient city to the ground, among other things. -1 kindness ☹