The Lexicographer's Rules

To some people it’s a foregone conclusion that the last 12 months have been wonderful for me, seeing as how I spent them in France. So when I say I am a bit melancholy at the prospect of leaving Paris tomorrow morning they won’t be surprised. I suspect that others, those who’ve been here and experienced more than tourism, might understand why a year in Paris can be an iffy proposition. Not because of what you think you know is bad about Paris. That’s probably wrong. Yes, it is. Pretty much everything you were told in advance, good and bad, was wrong and useless, but there’s another whole set of good and bad to do the job. But, it turns out that I’ve come out on the positive end. After a rough down time last fall as the result of gray skies, becalmed French progress and a heavy school work load, this semester has turned out to be a real joy, a time in which I could leave the house with friends at 10 or 11 in the evening and be confident of several hours of good food and drink and cigarettes and above all, conversation. So these are my end notes for a year in France. I’m working on a manuscript tenatively titled The New Yorker in Paris which will be a small, sarcastic living manual for those who don’t need guidebooks to explain that there may be long lines at the H&M or that the métro is the best way to get around (or how to use it), and those who don’t want explicit instructions on setting up a bank account or why they might encounter a huissier. ... There are two major ways in which Paris is deficient. First, the métro does not operate 24 hours a day. Second, everything except museums and restaurants is closed on Sundays. These two inconveniences are vestiges of culture and a time that the French like to pretend still exists. (I shall continue to generalize and say things like “the French” because it makes me like them more; I like the idea that they are knowable, conceivable and recognizable instead of strangely unidentifiable, irregular and hairy, which is what they actually are.). There are also several minor ways in which Paris is deficient. Many shops are also closed on Mondays, and many museums and libraries are closed on Tuesdays, although not all, so it’s a crap shoot. Some Parisians keep a guidebook to their own town just to know what is open when. Most bars close at 2 a.m.; those most likely to stay open later by special license are tourist-targeted and tourist located, though not always. These are bars I recommend avoiding. They have very little in common with the rest of Paris, or France. Cabs are difficult to find except at a few major intersections which usually are far from places that are designated as official taxi stands. You might think that, like New York, the cabs cluster in the tourist areas, or near the bars and nightclub districts, or on the busiest thoroughfares. This may be true, but it doesn’t seem like it. A small bit of advice: like New York, always get in the cab before you give your destination. Then it’s harder to be refused. People do not respect queues; they like to boldly butt in line, kind of sidling in while looking away. Particularly guilty of this are young couples who are not quite hip but have aspirations; this is a small example of the means by which they intend to get ahead. Sometimes the French like to pretend that having a question authorizes them to jump to the front of the line, which may or may not already contain people who also only want to ask a question. Sometimes they question they need to ask is, “Can I pay for this here?” in which case the answer is “oui” and so they succeed in their plot to feel superior to the chumps and suckers who have chosen to wait in an orderly fashion. French men are more sexually aggressive than most American women are capable of handling. There are numerous ways in which Paris is superior to New York. The pace is slower. The meals are better, although the food is the same. Related to the line above, this paradox is explained by the fourth dimension of food: after cost, setting and chef comes time, the element by which pleasure is nurtured rather than extinguished as the waiters and busboys push you, as they don’t do in Paris, to pay and leave so they can roll the table over to another customer. You see the time-food element come into play in those restaurants which plan for only one sitting a night: they fully expect their guests to dally so that each table by the end of the night will only have accrued one meal check. People are quieter. There is less shouting on the streets, less talking on the métro, less fooling around in general.

"This money should have been spent on the poor. And it was. One hundred dollars a month is the average salary of a Russian aerospace worker."

—CNN. Dennis Tito paid 20 million dollars to fly into space on a Russian rocket and stay on the international space station.

"He's minding the store and puttering around the house, fixing things up, reading and talking to his friends making speeches. He's done some great interviews with kids in the neighborhood. You know they come in and interview him for school projects. You know they sell Girl Scout cookies, and he buys 20 boxes. It's been fun."

—Poughkeepsie Journal. In an extensive interview with the editorial board, Senator Hillary Clinton discusses education spending, Senator Jefford's defection to the Democrats, energy planning, her agenda for her Senate term, airport congestion, the lifestyle change that comes with no longer being first lady and what her husband's up to: "He's always going downtown to the diner or Starbucks, or the library or hardware store to find more hooks for hanging paintings because he's the person in charge of hanging things on the wall. We are having a really good time. It so odd, people say, 'What a change, what a switch.' We were both raised in pretty simple surroundings so being back in our own house, having to take care of it and figuring out what to do from day to day, that's the way we spent most of our lives, even though we had this unusual experience of living in a very, very nice public house for a long time. It's a good feeling to be back in your own home."'

"Mitchell's religion was understatement, which produces clarity and lasts forever. He would have preferred violent death to being caught with wooden phrases. He needed no swearing or bathroom descriptions. Upon discovering somebody who could talk, he put them in chains. He would listen to them, and quote them for pages."

—New York Times. Two books of collected stories by Joseph Mitchell have been re-released: My Ears Are Bent, which first appeared in 1938, and McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, published in 1943.'

"I have never seen anything like this in my life. here are no police. There are no soldiers. The streets are full of Palestinians. I feel like they surrendered the city to us."

—San Diego Union-Tribune. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took control of east Jerusalem on Friday as the coffin of Faisal Husseini, the top Palestinian Liberation Organization official in the city, was carried through the streets.'