Those were the days

"This diner was built over FIFTY years ago!!" joked Eddie Izzard about the lack of history in America. I get it and it's funny, but I don't believe that it's simply that people in the US don't revere historical buildings or history in general. The US is a young nation, we couldn't possibly have buildings as old as Europe's, because we've not been around as long. When I met my mother-in-law, she seemed to share Eddie Izzard's views, when it came to American cities. To be fair, she'd mostly spent her time in LA and NY. When my husband graduated from college, he and his folks came down to see me in Philadelphia. There, my mother-in-law was able to see some of the oldest buildings in the states and was reminded that, in Boston, she had seen evidence of historical buildings. I enjoyed Philadelphia and it's history. Though I felt sad and embarrassed for the portly fellows who had to stroll through humid summers in Ben Franklin costumes, I liked seeing the birthplace of my nation every day.To get to my favorite sushi place, I passed by the Liberty bell and Independence Hall.

Now I'm in Europe, "where the history comes from" (or so said Eddie Izzard) and I appreciate the historical preservation of buildings. More important than my location, my age has changed my appreciation of history. This year is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall and the 15th anniversary of Tianman Square. I have lived through both of those occasions. I remember them, on some level. Three years ago was the 20th anniversary of the Challenger falling from the sky and I remembered being a four year when it happened. I experience a different feeling on these anniversaries, compared to those that I did not live through. On the anniversaries of Hiroshima, I was able to call to mind the melted statue at the UN in New York, but it was still something distant for me. On anniversaries like D-day or JFK's assassination, I like to hear the stories, but have absolutely no personal connection. If anything, I feel quite critical, considering what I know what came next, instead of what it meant for the people living through it.

I am almost 28 and it seems that I am now better able to understand the historical marking of time through events, because I've begun to personally mark time through events. I am now old enough to look back and see that it is 13 years since I had my lower-intestine removed, I will celebrate my second wedding anniversary, it is 10 years since I moved out of my mother's house. I understand the difference of a 5 year anniversary, compared to a 10 year anniversary, when remembering something painful. When California postponed the announcement of the decision of whether or not to overturn proposition 8 (banning gay marriage), it was in recognition of the power that a day can have for the collective conscience. Who knows how such an announcement would have been received on the anniversary of the White Night riots. (The riots in 1979 in response to the sentenceing of the man who killed an important gay activist.) Sitting in a cinema in Switzerland over two years ago, watching a preview for the World Trade Center, I whispered "It's too soon". Words that I never quite understood before.


I wonder what our generation's impact will have on the commemoration of significant days. I, myself, have been known to celebrate silly anniversaries. Trying to find a fun way to celebrate my husband's 26th birthday, I arranged it as an anniversary of his 6th birthday. We went to a dinosaur museum, as he had done 20 years before, and had pizza with his friends. As gifts, he received Lego's and an RC airplane (he'd wanted to be a pilot when he was 6). Others in my age group are wearing The Berlin Wall fashion line, celebrating the anniversary of the Berlin wall in spray-painted 80's style T-shirts. That makes me nervous. I understand that the fall of the wall was a positive thing and that a certain amount of levity is appropriate, but I wonder how my peers will affect the tradition of paying tribute in the future. We who cover songs and adapt classic literature, we who think that Regan coined the phrase "city on a hill", we who buy new models of electronics as often as possible, we will dictate the method of remembering for the next generation. "Where were you?" is a phrase often used when looking back to a historic event, but it is typically only part of it. I fear that my young adults, who remember where they were on September 11th 2001 and on the day a black man became president of the US, will focus on that aspect and not the change in the world that each global event has had.

don't judge a book by it's something nice about a person don't say anything at all

There was an advertisement for Hannah Montana on the back of 20 Minuten Freitag today. I've never seen the show or heard her music, but understand that she's a pop icon for tweens, but I'd never realized that the only characteristic making her one personality different from the other is her hair color.
My first reaction was "give me a break", but then I thought about Clark Kent and Superman and that was just a hair style and a pair of glasses. I suppose that one must suspend disbelief for that sort of entertainment. But then I got to thinking about my old favorite cartoon Jem.
Jem had two different identities that involved more than hair color and glasses. As Jem, she was a rockstar and, if I remember correctly, maybe she fought crime? I dunno, there was another band and they were the bad guys and they were called the Misfits. Her mild-mannered identity was some sort of philanthropist who had a mansion that was an orphanage and there was a big computer and magic earrings and an episode about the dangers of drugs.
What's truly important is that both of her identities had the SAME BOYFRIEND. Jem's identities were secret to him, but she knew that she was two-timing her, because she was her girl on the side. This upset me as a kid. For some reason I understood that we were meant to suspend disbelief for things like Clark Kent and Superman but Jem never jived with me.

Coming this July

The new Harry Potter film is coming soon and I am just so darn excited. I am reminded of the summer the 6th book came out. It was the day that I was to be flying to Switzerland. The UPENN bookstore was selling them at midnight to a limited amount of customers and I intended to be in that limited amount. The evening began with a viewing of Charlie and the Chocolate factory with a bag of sweeties. Then I waltzed down the street to the bookstore ready to claim my book.
The line was fantastic. Some people in costumes, some not, some Sorority girls selling adult beverages to we waiters, it was a hoot. That is, until I was three people from the door and the booksellers announced that they were closing. I was crushed.
So I scooted on home, checked my luggage and went to sleep. The next morning I headed to JFK airport and tah-dah!!!! there was a whole stand of harry potter's books right in the entry way. It was marvelous. Fantastic. I was so excited that I read the whole flight. I'd never done that before. I read the whole flight and that, mixed with going straight from the airport straight up into the mountains resulted in the worst jet-lag-inspired insomnia I've ever experienced. By day three I was so out of it it was insane. In the mountains in Austria Ivo wanted to try to help me to sleep and offered to read to me.
"Ok" I sobbed, absolutely beside myself from exhaustion and inability to sleep.
"Are you good and comfy?"
"*sniff* yes"
"Alright 'Snape rushed down the tower stairs. Beneath red and green curses were flying. The wolf.....' Jessy, I don't think that this is very soothing reading."
It was definitely not. Lucily Ivo switched to Der Schwarm and I dropped right off.

Later that summer Lucas joined us on the Lake of Constance after a stint in London. He'd been there with a theater school and escorted the teenagers to a bookshop in London at midnight to be the first to buy their books (As far as I know, Lucas still resolutely refuses to read any Harry Potter book). He waited with them "chapperoning" them and fending off skeezy men from hitting on the naive young women.
At one point a group of drunke guys came to the end of the line and said "What club is that then?"
an excited 16 year old cheerfully answered "It's a bookstore! We're waiting for the new Harry Potter!"
"Cuing up for a fucing book? Can you be seriuos?"
That was a great summer.

Meanwhile I arrived back to the states to find the boy I babysat for completely destroyed. Without spoinling anything, the book was a bit too musch reality for a fantasy series.

prevention or pretty

Here in Switzerland there are large mountain boulders in front of some jewelry stores and banks as a measure of prevention. There are also metal poles that are raised by a security guard's key but that is not what is important right now (it's just really neat to watch). You see, in Switzerland, boulders are handy and being useful there in the street. In America, big huge planters are used to prevent truck bombs and the like, instead of boulders. I wonder which has a more calming effect. The boulders, which one can imagine rolled down the nearby mountains conveniently in the path of any vehicles that would wish to do harm or a massive pot of plants and litter.
This question is fresh on my mind because I have arrived home in Zürich from Geneva to be startled by MASSIVE plant pots all throughout the city. Sunday afternoon, my first thought was "What is that massive ugly pot protecting?"
It is not protecting anything. Apparently it is part of a tourism coup. They are huge and garishly painted and decorated (In front of a shoe store, there are shoe-soles plastered on, some how) and distributed throughout the city in seemingly non-sensical arrangements.
When I first came to Zürich there were Bears, also garishly painted but slightly more sporadically dispersed. I believe that there was an even earlier campaign of cows or lions or something. In Providence, we had the Mr. Potato-heads, which I guess are similar, but I liked them and the fact that they were often stolen led to a level of intrigue that these planters will probably never attain.
Along with the soled pot, there are pots that match their location. That is similar to the bears, which would often confuse people by trying to inspire them to visit whichever nearby business had sponsored them. However, some of them seem not to fit at all. On Paradeplatz in front of two HUGE bank buildings there seems to be an oddly urban themes. Some of the pots have concrete high rises painted on them while others are covered in purposeful hot-pink spray-paint in a faux-graffiti style.
The Zürich tourism website calls this campaign "Invasion of the giant pots" and the president says "During the summer of 2009 the Gartencity Zürich will enrapture our Swiss and foreign guests and leave a lasting memory. This is how we love presenting Zurich."
I wonder how many Americans visiting will not only not be enraptured, but like myself, be reminded of post September 11th American protection pots.

old people and poop sense

I notice that throughout Paris there is a popular pairing of young folks and old. It is more then once per day that I see a young person escorting an older person through the street, listening and engaged. I don't know what this is about but I like it in a really big way. I dunno if they're related, volunteers, if they're good friends or golf buddies, if they're just walking together for that one quick moment that I see them, exchanging less than 20 words and then moving along, or waiting to steal their purses and run off quickly.
Also, when walking in the street in Paris, I keep my eyes to the ground to look out for dog doody. Often, on my way, I see dog doody in the ways of others. The thought creeps up that maybe I should shout out a warning and then the Parisians (seemingly without ever having looked down) avoid the poop with ease and suavity. Neat.

You are sooooo good looking

When I was learning sign language, I asked a Deaf person "what do you say when someone sneezes?" He looked at me askance. "I mean, what do you sign when someone sneezes?" His look was equally confused. "Nothing." He signed. "We don't do anything when someone sneezes, unless it's gross and they need a tissue."

When I was learning German, it was easy and automatic to say "Gesundheit" when someone sneezed. It was actually a bit embarrassing. One day, some one sneezed, I said "Gesundheit" and then "Oooooooh!" as I often did when using a word like that or "Kindergarten" or "schadenfreude" or any other word that I had taken ownership of through my learning and collecting of the german language.
In fact, I said gesundheit so naturally that it put off a fellow teacher in the kindergarten where I worked. She and I were the English teachers and, me being the native speaker, she deferred to me often in questions of more casual speech. "Jessica, we're meant to only speak english in front of the children." Of this, I was aware. Absolutely none of the children at school knew that this teacher is actually Swiss and simply speaks flawless English without an accent. "I know. That's what I say in the states, too." This teacher said "God bless you", something that I had not said in years and years.

In class, my french teacher was terribly polite and impressed upon us the importance of certain niceties while we are here in Paris. Answering and initiating pleasantries and the inclusion of Madame or Monsieur whenever possible, and so on. She taught us that someone sneezes we say "A tes sohuait." I asked what we say in the polite form and she told me not to worry about it. I pressed her again and she seemed please and told me.
The other day, when in a sparsely populated metro I was sitting next to a stressed-looking man, when he sneezed. "A ves Souhait", I said quietly while wearing my ipod. He was so pleased that he lightly tapped the inside of my elbow while saying thank you.
I liked that teacher.

ack! kinderphobia

I was in the park today and it was gorgeous.
It's the Saturday before Easter and all sorts of families were dressed up for all sorts of religious services. They were lovely. Flowers were in bloom and they air was beautifully perfumed. An old man played hop scotch where a small girl had drawn a hop-scotch field (?) in chalk. I don't know why they make them retire early here. The man seemed plain ol' youthful.
I sat on a bench writing postcards when three young children started toward me. The young girl rolled toward me slowly and wobbly on roller blades. "Madame!" She had a flower for me. It was crazy. "pour moi?" I asked, terrified that she would require more french than I am capable of.
She confirmed that it was for me and while thanking her I put it in my hair. "It looks lovely!" She said and I thanked her again. Then child two came rolling down and as he tottered behind my bench he slipped and fell down. "D'accord?" I lamely asked searching my brain for any sort of comforting french phrases I may have in my brain. "Pas mal! Pas mal!" he repeated over and over again. At first I thought that he was saying "s'par Mal". Like he'd fallen a few times already. Then I realized that he was french and not swiss and that he was saying that it didn't hurt.
"C'est vrai?" I asked still feeling terribly dumb.
"Pas mal, madame, merci, pas mal."
Then came the third. He had no roller blades but some sort of helicopter that launches when one pulls a string and pushes a trigger. He demonstrated it for me and launched it over a small wall. Then he wanted to clamber over the wall and get it. I helped him and tried my best to express my absolute admiration for his helicopter, but I don't even know the damn word for helicopter. Grrr. Yet again, the little one didn't seem to notice that I was incapable of more than monosyllabic speech. Go figure!