A Walk Around the Block

On Monday evening (our time), we were Skyping with the Baguette-winner’s parents. Her Mum was surprised to hear that she had been at work all day. France is in a “state of emergency,” after all. The truth is, most of Paris is “business as usual.” People are at work, on the metro, in public spaces and in the bars and cafés.

To give you an idea of what the main attack sites look like, as well as the neighbourhood that this all took place in, I went for a little walk yesterday...

This is Rue Oberkampf, the centre of my French universe. We live here, and I only really know my way around Paris in terms of getting to and from this street. It’s Wednesday, and the street is busy. It’s always busy. During the day, it’s all delivery vehicles and shoppers; at night it’s a hotspot for the young and hip.

Just a little further down Rue Oberkampf, a shrine has sprung up. Until today, this corner was the closest people could get to Le Bataclan. Over the last few days, people have been congregating here, bringing flowers and candles, crying and, sometimes, singing.

Le Bataclan is on Boulevard Voltaire and, until today, this whole block had been closed to the public. It has now been opened to pedestrians (but not cars), and a new shrine has emerged directly facing the concert hall. I’m guessing that the two shrines will have met up by tomorrow.

I happened to be here at the same time as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, who were showing support to the victims of Friday’s attacks. They drew some attention from the people present, but most of the crowd were there to read the messages left at the shrine, and to leave flowers of their own.

Just a stone’s throw from Le Bataclan (by a good thrower of stones) is the Oberkampf metro station. All metro stations were closed on Friday and for much of Saturday morning. Today, it’s only Oberkampf that remains closed, apparently at the behest of the police.

Continuing down Boulevard Voltaire, we come to Place de la Republique. This has now become the centre of world journalism, it would seem. If you’ve watched BBC World or Sky News in the past five days, they’ve probably been reporting from here. In fact, I was watching this guy just before leaving the house:

When Charlie Hebdo was attacked, people gathered here every night for a week, and left all sorts of messages (and flowers and candles, of course). This time, the vigils have been a little smaller. Perhaps the sheer number of people killed on Friday night makes people feel less safe in large numbers. Perhaps it’s the idea that anyone is a target this time. People are out and about - the streets are busy - but they tend to want to keep moving. Or maybe I’m projecting, because I want to keep moving.

Parisians are still coming to this square, to pay respects and to mourn. Some come to meet (and interview) Lady Liberty herself:

There’s also a guy wearing all white, pseudo-breakdancing and rapping along to his headphones. He’s rapping in French so I’m not exactly sure what the message is, but he keeps saying “La Republique,” so he’s probably making a statement. Whatever the case, people are mostly ignoring him - today is not the day for such rambunctiousness.

There are also totally normal things happening here. Some kids skateboarding, some people just sitting in the sun, and a guy juggling (for some reason).

We’re heading north from here, towards Le Petit Cambodge. It’s on the other side Canal St Martin, which is a good opportunity to take a photo of two ducks. If it was Summer, the Canal would be busy as heck, but it’s a little cold at the moment.

Over the Canal and 40 seconds up the road is another shrine, set up outside Le Petit Cambodge and its neighbour Le Carillon.

Directly over the road is a hospital, where the waiting time to give blood is currently more than one week.

I wrote above that everything is “business as usual,” but individual behaviours are not exactly the same as before. People are jumpy; if you’ve seen the video of people fleeing Place de la Republique when they hear firecrackers go off, that’s obvious. You’ve probably heard that the attitude is defiant, that people are going out to prove that they are not afraid. Certainly, if you ask a Parisian what they plan to do, the answer will invariably be “we will party and spend time with friends, and show these people that they can’t beat us,” something along those lines.

I went out last night to meet a couple of friends for a drink. We were near the Pompidou Centre and Les Halles, major areas for tourists and locals, usually a bit of a nightmare thanks to the foot traffic. There were still huge numbers of people on the street, but these people were all leaving their offices and heading home. The bars and cafés were virtually empty (especially for central Paris). My friend (a Parisian) wanted us to keep walking until we found somewhere busy - he found the empty bars spooky. Maybe it’s an overreaction to say that the atmosphere has changed to that degree. It’s November, never high season for tourists, and it’s starting to get cold and dark. But the usual joie de vivre - a cliché, but only just - has been replaced with a truly deep sadness, and a growing sense of worry about what the future might look like.

It’s only Wednesday - as I write this, raids are still being carried out against supposed members of the terrorist cell from Friday night. It’s probably too much to ask that the city is exactly as it always was, so soon after. The bars and cafés will fill up again, maybe even by this weekend. And people will stop trying to convince themselves that they need to act Parisian, and will simply go back to being Parisian. After all, as John Oliver said on Friday night, this is the country of “Jean-Paul Sartre, Edith Piaf, fine wine, Gauloises cigarettes, Camus, Camembert, madeleines, macarons, Marcel Proust, and the fucking croquembouche!”

Sense and Senselessness

We live in the 11th arrondissement maybe three minutes' walk from Le Bataclan, which is maybe three minutes' walk from the offices of Charlie Hebdo. For some reason, our neighbourhood has been at the centre of a whole lot of violence in the last year. There might be something special or infamous about where we live. Equally, there might not.

It was easier to dismiss the January attacks; Charlie Hebdo is a controversial publication which was under constant security. They had been hit before. It was horrifying, but it made some sense.

After last night's "fusillade," that logic is out the window. Le Bataclan is a significant live music venue, but it's not the biggest in Paris, nor the most famous. Stade de France is very big and very famous, but these attacks were not in the stadium. And where does this leave Le Petit Cambodge?

We try to find links, a pattern to follow to ensure that we're safe. It makes sense, sadly, that an attack may occur at or near a French football match - the President was there, after all. We can avoid large displays of nationalism, sports, culture or otherwise. But must we also avoid all American rock bands? Was it something about the name Eagles of Death Metal? Do we stay inside on Friday the 13th? Never patronise Cambodian restaurants? How long is a piece of string?

Today, my partner and I want to go Christmas shopping. The malls are open, which in itself seems extraordinary, but that's just the attitude here - to change one's plans would be to admit defeat.

Making the day's schedule is one big logic exercise: we should avoid the Metro, because that's an obvious target. We shouldn't go to Les Halles - the mall in the centre of Paris - because there were reports of attacks there last night. We will head for a mall well outside the central city, because somehow that seems safer.

But should we even leave the house at all? These attacks might not be finished, and there could be copycats and co-conspirators awaiting their turn. But then, what makes tomorrow safer than today? Maybe we should leave it three days, just to be safe? We want to lean on some clear-cut logic for reassurance, but last night just wasn't logical. These terrorists aren't following the script.

In a totally unrelated setting, as a Wellingtonian, I've felt something similar to this before. We are overdue for a major earthquake. We have been my whole life. My primary school was on the fault line. We practiced and prepared, and we carefully constructed our buildings, and we gathered emergency supplies. And it was Christchurch who were hit the worst. 

As sensible people, we want to rationalise what happened last night, to make sense of the senseless. But I'm not a security expert and I don't know how this works. So I'm doing what all of my French neighbours are doing, and just carrying on; just doing whatever it is I do each day. And today we're going to the mall.

Pat's Guide to the Farmers' Market

If you’re anything like me, sometimes you need to buy food. Supermarkets are great for packaged items, hygiene products and cigarettes, but for fresh produce, we must embrace the farmers’ market. You see, supermarkets think they can charge whatever nonsense price for apples that aren’t quite good enough to sell to the Japanese. They’ll sell you a cucumber for $4. Four dollars! For a watery log that you’ll never notice until your Dad puts it in your sandwiches because you’ve run out of Milky Way spread and it’ll ruin your month, but you still have to eat it because you can’t go outside until you’ve eaten everything in your lunchbox because school is fascism!

I believe it was Adam Smith, the inventor of economics, who said “When I’m a-philaderin’, I always bring a mandarin.” He also said this thing: “I buy all of my fresh produce - mandarins included - at the farmers’ market. It simply cannot be bestened for value.” Whether or not “bestened” is truly a word, the sentiment rings true. For value, the market is your new king.

But you can’t just wander into a farmers’ market unprepared. The savings could quite literally murder you in your sleep. Not to worry, however, I’ve put together this comprehensive five-step guide to shopping at the local market.

1. You’ve gotta have “A Guy”

See this guy?

He’s my cherry guy. He sells me only the finest cheapest cherries. I know what you’re thinking: why don’t you just buy big bumper packs of cupcakes, eat the cherry off the top, and throw the  cupcake in the rubbish as a celebration of opulence? Believe me, before the GFC, I had no idea that cherries were available as a stand-alone product. Times have changed. Screw you Madoff.

We’re coming up to winter here in Paris, so the cherry well has well and truly dried up. Luckily, when we’re out of cherry season, my cherry guy becomes my clementine guy. He sells me only the finest cheapest clementines. And he sells them with a smile. Well, not really a “smile”, but he sometimes calls me ‘chef’, which means ‘chief’, not ‘chef’, and he probably patronises me because he respects me so much.

2. If you’re buying horse meat, buy from the best

Obviously. We’re at the end of the Northern Hemisphere racing season, so it’s a great time to shop around for horse meat. Horses are majestic creatures, and their flesh is rich in nobility. You might never be a lord or a viscount (whatever that is), but you can eat like an earl or a count. Count me in!

We should all eat horse, if only as a method of population control. Horses hate us. They’ve taken down some of humanity’s greatest: they got Superman; they got Geronimo; they got Genghis; they got Theoden in LOTR; they got Roderick, King of the Visigoths. They even got Eadgils, “the semi-legendary king of Sweden.” [One day I’ll donate to Wikipedia]. If we don’t eat horses, who will they get next? Richie? I don’t bloody think so.

Top tip: Unlike unicorns, a horse’s meat does not contain any supernatural properties, so you’ll want to supplement this meat with about twice your daily Centrum dosage.

Bonus top tip: Ask your horse guy whether the jockey was right- or left-handed. You want to make sure you’re getting your horse steak from the whip side, as it comes pre-tenderised.

3. Make yourself sound smarter by pretending to know about fish

This is actually a good idea for many of your produce purchases. Just the other day, I had this exchange with my melon guy:

Me: “Say, you don’t happen to have any Moroccan melons, do you?”

Melon guy: “Yes sir, all of our melons come from Morocco.”

Me: “I thought so. That’s why I asked."

Now, we all know that the important part of a melon is how long it can sit in your pantry once you’ve forgotten about, before the fruit flies arrive (aka ‘the pumpkin rule’), but the point is I impressed the melon guy. He even asked me to marry his daughter. [He didn’t ask me that, and if you thought he did, you’re a bigger racist than me (and I’m the one who wrote it)].

When you’re at the fish stall, it always pays to turn to the person next to you and make some bold comment about being surprised at the price of gurnard these days. Don’t worry, they don’t know which one gurnard is either, but they’ll respond with some inconsequential remark about tilapia, and you’ll both rush home to over/under cook your catch and feed it to your resenting families. The thing is, buying fish is almost exactly like buying wine. You look at the price, then you look at how much it has been marked down by, then you buy two bottles/kilos because “I can’t believe how cheap this Beaujolais/grouper is,” even though you have no idea how much it should cost normally.

Truth is, only Dads really know the names of fish. And they only really know the names of two or three, and then they just make something up to impress the children who do all the heavy fishing (ie, hold the rod and try to stay awake). Dads will probably tell you that they “love a snapper”, or “I’m a kahawai guy”, which is similar to when people say “I only smoke Lucky Strikes”- it’s true, but only until Pall Malls are 50c cheaper a pack. As long as Dads can lob it straight on the barbecue, that fish will do.  

4. Appear interested in the expensive stuff that you have no intention of purchasing

A weird thing is happening at the market these days. For some reason, it’s transitioning from a place where people shove past one-another, hoping to snag a few bargains before hurrying home to their Sunday hangovers, to a place where people just stand around, eating “gourmet” things and listening to “musicians”. I personally think that these “vendors” are taking up perfectly good produce real estate, but some people seem to like ‘em.

Why not pick up a can of fancy foie gras? Don’t buy it, of course. You’re here for carrots, avocados, capsicums and the like.  Just look at it, nodding sagely as you peruse the ingredients (if the duck’s tears aren’t included, it’s not authentic foie).

You could even have an oyster or six, straight from the shell. Perhaps enjoy a dry Gewürztraminer, hoping like hell that the sugars in the wine will kill the vibrio bacteria before you board your flight later that day. Of course, you won’t do these things, because carrots, capsicums, etc. The point is, you aren’t an out-of-control bourgeois type, but you can pretend to be for these precious minutes.

5. Run home with your new produce, because it’s probably already gone off

Yeah, sometimes you aren’t getting the créme de la créme, as my Italian friends say. But with prices like these, who cares?

Smile, you’re a market guy now.