Whole New Bois d'Amour

Bonjour! The weather dawned bright and sunny with only the most intermittent of clouds, and the kids took advantage of our opening the windows to open the shutters to say "Bonjour!" to the world. We had little big plans today: library and confirming Mac's report that he's seen a fountain at the Bois d'Amour when he goes to get croissants in the morning. I decided to give the day over to being with the kids instead of trying that half work/half kids thing - plus, it really is good to walk away for day (two is too many, but 24 hours is just right). Plus, you feel like celebrating when the King of Breakfast (as the kids have dubbed Mac in gratitude (and expectation) that he proffer forth croissants and pains au chocolate daily) brings an almond croissant (super special and delicious!).

And so here is my Oliver resting on the way home for lunch from the library. He checked out a book on how to draw heroes and monsters - all vaguely medieval, but also futuristic sci-fi looking. Iris wanted a book of dog breeds (always non-fiction for her); and Eleanor one on sharks (ever the surprise!). I checked out one on Louis XII (François' predecessor) and Mac's going to learn more about Charlemagne. On the way back, we stopped at a bakery that makes an excellent sandwich bread (plus, the kids can see their slicing machine in action - fun!). Here you see Oliver taking a pause and munching on a slice. How did that kid get so leggy?

A quick lunch in which Eleanor finished the jar of cornichons (really sour pickles - how does she do it?) and then we were off to the Bois d'Amour. So what's it like to hold a dagger and suck your thumb at the same time - while getting a shoulder ride? Only Eleanor would know. This is the main street of the heart of town, and I hope that you can see that tables and chairs have come out - indeed, Mac and Iris had a coffee/hot chocolate "en terrasse" on the way home.

And here it is! The horloge-fountain (clock (!) - fountain) in question. Mac says that when it's still dark the lights beneath the fountain streams light up - cool! Iris loved it and spent a goodly amount of time trying to figure out how it works - she had various and sundry theories about the way the water made the wheels turn which in turn made the gears turn for the clock. Bet she's right! We've wondered all along what these concrete stands were for (more terrasses and cafés? sculptures?). Now we know! I think that it's part of an entire program throughout the park called "Au Fil de l'Eau" (following the water), and it's not the only brain-teaser in the park!

Take this "rebus" for instance - it asks that you read it before trying to cross any body of water. The answer is on the other side of a small stream that runs before it. Go figure. Ok - for you rebus fans out there, I'll give you time to figure it out. It took us a while and the kids were long gone looking for the answer on the other side. I love rebuses - fun with words! Whenever you're ready for the answer, it's down at the bottom of the page.*

Look at how many people are at the bamboo grove! And look at how they've completely redone it! What had lain dormant during the winter has now been reawakened and primed for spring. Iris and Eleanor's "fishing" holes are much smaller or gone entirely, and Oliver had resorted to running along the path so as to not careen into people. It really is like rediscovering the Bois d'Amour - and it's delicious to think that it will only get greener and lusher as the weeks go by now.

Maybe I'll get more shots like this one. Oliver discovered a "new way to climb bamboo" and here seems to be levitating between heaven and earth. He can't wait to show his friend, Jakie, an avid climber himself. There's more to know about the Bois d'Amour - an old gate wall clearly indicates that it wasn't a public park all along. Was it a gift from the Rohan family to the city of Josselin? One end of the park gives out onto one of the gates of the castle ground.

The other end of the park (which we finally decided to explore today) gives out onto one of the state highways and... sheep! If you've ever seen Shaun the Sheep, you know to be excited by sheep - who knows what crafty shenanigans they're really getting up to behind our unsuspecting human backs? It made for a perfectly lovely surprise at the end of a perfectly lovely day.


Ah wait, Iris did hurt both of her fingers digging and climbing, but check out the cool "Neolithic bandages" her dad designed for her!!! She loved those and wore them all the way home. Only the prospect of the cute butcher's amazing lasagna got her to take them off!




*A vent d'oeufs trav vers C 1 courant dos (avant de traverser un courant d'eau) fée attend scie on eau cou 'r an (fais attention au courrant). Nifty, eh?

First Chapters of Turks and Memoirs

1219 / 3000 words. 41% done!

The word meter of shame betrays today's minimal progress. In words. In images, things are good: I have chosen six images to discuss, which is more than enough for a 20 minute talk. And once the images have been chosen I'm not going to say the talk writes itself (I would never say the talk writes itself), but the structure (and maybe even the logic) are there.

Just a few cool points form today's forays: I've done a good deal of reading about Leo X's declaration of a crusade in January 1517 (that's when pardons were declared - once you've got your pardon in, you can have a crusade), and of course lots about François Ier being the only big king to join up (with lots of flourish and being associated with Constantine etc.). What I haven't seen, but discovered today, is that the Ottoman Turks, under Yavuz Sultan Selim, captured Jerusalem and the surrounding Palestine in 1517. They would rule it until 1917. The reason this is important is that I was starting to worry about the broadness of the term "Islam" in discussions of François's Orientalism. When I was saying "Islam" wouldn't I have to start distinguishing between the Islamic culture of the Ottoman Empire (based in Istanbul, Turkey) and that of the Holy Land (centered around Jerusalem)? Well, because of what I learned today, I can argue that that distinction collapses (not to be forgotten, but, as the image above indicates, to be collapsed) with the Ottoman invasion of Jerusalem in 1517. The image is fantastic - many layers - but the one I just want to mention is that it depicts Christian Crusaders, led by the king of France, facing off against the Turks in Jerusalem. The Turks are conveniently labeled, and we can see the topography of Jerusalem in the background, complete with history-collapsing cross in the background. This is exactly the kind of fantasy I want to explore - Leo X's crusade never happened, and by all accounts, François had neither the resources nor really the intent to go all the way to Jerusalem to confront the Turks. Why bother when, since the Turks were in Hungary (which was their fief!) and making big plans for Vienna and the rest of Eastern/Central Europe. But again, the key is that texts are being translated (the image is from a 1517 French edition of a 1483 pilgrimage to the Holy Land by one Bernhard Breydenbach of Mainz, Germany), images are being created (of François Ier facing off against the Turks with the dramatic background of Jerusalem). The more fantasy the better - the more aggressive the militarism, the more interesting.

All of which makes François's alliance with Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1525 that much more puzzling. This is the big challenge now. I'm holding the images too accountable to the history - don't shirk, my historian friends! What I mean by that is that I find myself looking for things in the images that would help me explain François's dramatic turn-around. In fact, it's all a complex chess game against the Habsburg Empire in which François uses his Turkish alliance to gain power over Charles V (who himself (unsuccessfully) appealed to the Persians at one point!). And so I won't be myself fantasizing that François deeply appreciated or understood Suleiman (although the gifts they exchanged were pretty swell: François received a seven-headed dragon made of crocodile skins; Antonio Rincon (François's primary diplomat to the Ottoman court) gave a courtier a world map, with a user's book!) - François kept calling Suleiman an "infidel" even during their alliance. There's a distinguishing term I keep seeing, a term that consistently underscores the difference between François and Suleiman, and that is "tyranny." It figures prominently in the Triumph of Fortitude and this could prove to be a very interesting exploration.

OK - so if I formalize what I wrote above and edit it heavily, that's probably another paragraph of the paper right there!

Last thing: I only have about 100 pages to go in the Triumphe de Prudence (284 pages of moral allegory and didactic treatise - the most fun you can have!) and was stunned to read, in a section on the history of architecture that:

• comment les anciens peres demouroient en tabernacles, desquelz a present sont imitateurs les Arabes, Tartares, Yrlandoys saulvages, plusieurs Indiens et Ethiopiens

It's the "Yrlandoys saulvages" (the wild Irish) that get me - wow! Really? Ever since Gerald of Wales, there has been a description of wild men in the upper reaches of the British Isles, but this still surprised me, especially in a grouping with Arabs, Tartars, Indians and Ethiopians. The latter four are closely associated in medieval maps, and the medieval imagination of the Other (they are alarmingly inter-changeable) - but the wild Irish are an entirely new addition here. Wow!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
Iris spent the day at home because of an ear infection (ow! ow! ow!) - two hours at the doctor's office (where I read a bunch of the Triumphe de Prudence) and then a day of salt water and rest and children's Motrin until we could start the antibiotic. She's always such a trooper about these things - and loves the doctor's office (dang! I still need to post about our wonderful experiences with the French medical system - a.k.a. my love affair with French pharmacies). She perked up about 4 p.m. and wrote her memoirs (her word). She had caught the title of many of the books at the Castle on Sunday and a great many were memoirs - once she found out what a memoir was, she was hooked on the idea of writing hers. So, without further ado, the Memoirs of 6 year old Iris:

• Chapter 1: Baby. When I was born, I came out by myself and cried only a little.
• Chapter 2: Life. My first sentence was "I do it" and I puked (spelled "pyokt") up my milk and I was bald.

That's all she has so far, but it is unerringly accurate: I didn't push once at her birth, she hardly cried (plus, we were all so amazed and laughing ourselves), her first words (at age 2) were indeed "I do it," she did indeed spit up milk until she 9 months old (lots of it), and she was as bald as could be until those incredible curls started coming in the spring of her second year. So what's interesting about this to me is that she's writing down the stuff of her own legend. None of those are things that she remembers, of course - they're all tales about her that we've told her... and that she now sees as part of her tiny (and to me fragile and poignant and oh so dear) history.

P.S. (later) Mac and I just finished Le Combat des Trentes board game - 4 nights of bludgeoning and romping! In the end the Montfortistes (English alliance - me) won with 117 points against the Blésistes (French alliance - Mac) with 115 points. Not the way it happened in history, but with the role of a die and a few well-timed cards, things can be rearranged! This is a really smart game and we consistently loved the luck-strategy tension (the best-laid plans and all that), and how very much like a battle things like force and arms were used. Not that we know anything about battles really. Just read about them in bookish things. :-) Anybody coming to visit us better brush up on their War of Breton Succession, for this game is sure to enter into play!

Easter Mysteries

No, this isn't a post about theological quandries (although I thought that you might enjoy at least one medieval Resurrection, in which the feet disappearing up into the clouds do some pretty heavy theological work to explain said Resurrection). No, this post will be a continuation of what we saw and did on Easter - the strange and the bizarre part of it. Today was an odd half-work day: the kids were home but I just have to work since my conference paper needs to be pretty much written by this Friday morning and I somehow have to miraculously prepare things so that I can work in short bursts between now and when two chapters and a report for my fellowship are due in a month. One chapter's pretty much done, and the other one will probably take shape through my writing the equivalent of a series of blog posts (another reason this blog has been so wonderful - I do write a little bit every day!). I think I can, I think I can. Once that's done, I then have the month of May and June to work on a the new Women's Studies course and see what I want to do with Love and War in Medieval Art and Liteterature. And fret over the Leeds conference paper (giving that in mid-July). And visit with dear friends (hoorah!), No progress on the conference paper (I promise lots tomorrow), but I did find another terrific image, which I may end with today.

Actually, before we get to "News of the Easter Weird" I want to show you just one more Ascension image - this one is so wonderful, so unusual. It's from the 16th century, and compresses the Great Big Moments of Christ's life into its vertical axis: so, Nativity at the bottom, Crucifixion in the big middle, and Ascension at the very top. It's that Ascension that shows Christ walking ever upwards and opening the door of the heavens that is so terrific. The four bodies of the evangelists, one in each corner, bent over their work gives the whole thing this kind of intensity - as though we, too, should be crouching over our holy texts (this is an ivory book cover, by the way). Ivory is such an incredible medium: soft and warm to the touch (it needs the oil of human touch to keep from cracking, actually), luxurious inviting, and incredibly demanding as a medium (one false move and "Crack!"). I always love the roundness of the figures, knowing they seem especially that way because of how often they've been touched. The incredible Donna Sadler once told me that it's in ivories that you'll find some iconographic departures, so personal were these objects, that patrons could ask for twists on the usual stories. This one is certainly the case - no tiny feet disappearing into heaven here; Christ just walks up and opens the door!

Gee, now I kind of wish that this was about theological quandries. Ah - another time. Ok, so maybe this is a French tradition that I don't know about, or maybe a Breton tradition (somehow I really don't think so)? But we're approaching the line to get in to the castle yesterday and this lively group of people start calling out to us to stop and say hello. We are then approached by one of the two people dressed as chicks hatching out of an egg, and the person in question asks if we'd like to buy a condom. I have to stop and stare and laugh at that one (ok, three kids is three kids, but gee whiz!). Is this for a charitable organization? I ask, thinking of an AIDS fundraiser or some such, but no, "c'est pour notre mariage!" I am told. To pay for your wedding I ask? No, no, just a symbolic amount of money will do. Does this then mean that the other person in the other chick suit is the lucky bride to be? Yep. I handed them a coin and we were handed our condom which had a picture of the couple in question and their upcoming wedding date (May something). OK, Francophones and Francophiles, tell me what you know! Is this a completely isolated incident of a group of friends triple dog daring their soon-to-be-wedded friends to do this? Or is this a completely traditional pre-wedding prank? (They stopped every single car coming up the main street, and everyone seems to have responded with good cheer and much happy honking). Is the idea, if you can prank together, you can make a life together? There are stranger traditions (well, maybe not stranger), but I think, for instance, of Russian newlyweds getting their pictures taken by famous Soviet monuments (one of the first things we saw when we landed in Moscow those many years ago). Any light to be shed on this instance of weird will be welcome. The kids were utterly oblivious to our puzzlement, only Iris muttering "You shouldn't take candy from strangers, Mom." Yea, let alone strangers in chick outfit!

This next moment wasn't so much strange, as it was so delightfully unexpected. After our egg hunt/fact-finding mission, we walked to what is called the Chapel of the Congregation which is adjoined to the castle wall, though the entrance is on the outside. (I'll have to read the little sign more carefully when we go by again). Now, we'd just spent all this time in a castle (secular space) doing things related to Easter (religious holiday). But when we entered the Chapel of the Congregation (holy space), there was an entire exhibit about the life of the Brest-Nantes canal (decidedly secular). There were crêpes and cider and Breton tarts, and bales of hay, and 19th century photographs, and chocolate eggs hidden in tiny burlap sacks hidden beneath scythes (!), and this beautiful, lovely harpist, who immediately made us think of the exquisite Mallory Guinee who is herself an accomplished harpist. We weren't sure what to think of the medieval costume and headgear, but it was lovely. She was soon joined by a storyteller and the kids settled right down on some bales of hay and snuggled up to hear a story of the grand days of the canal. Instead, it was a story about a little piece of cardboard that had gotten lost under a dusty bed and thought that no one wanted or cared about it until it was found by a tin soldier. At that point, we discover that the little piece of cardboard was actually a much-sought after puzzle piece, and when it was found, the puzzle was made whole again. Here, you can listen to the dramatic conclusion for yourself. (Yes, that is Oliver's hand coming up to say hello halfway through).



Isn't that delightful? I just love being here for moments like these. Being out of almost every loop here (because we live in our own happy little loop, or in the truly loopy world of art history), we never know what's going to emerge - and so we wander into entire worlds that people have conjured up, completely unawares. I imagine that it's a little bit how kids experience the world, don't you think?

Speaking of kids, I can't resist including this little snippet of Iris when we first got there - you see her processing that the Easter Egg Hunt is in fact a fact-finding mission based on finding egg-shaped boards and reading their directions. We have a phrase that we use a lot: "Go with the flow" (also, "Let go, let Mom") - she decided to apply it!

Easter Castle

We made it! We made it inside the castle! After three months of riding past its enormous stone foundations and walking past its many closed doorways, we walked inside the castle keep, the lush gardens, and (yes!) the castle itself. The Duchess (who lives on the second floor of the castle with Monsieur le Duc) organized an Easter Egg Hunt and so we were there right as the gates opened, ready to hunt and be amazed.


And amazed we were. The castle grounds are huge and filled with surprises. It seemed that there were more trees in bloom here than anywhere else in Josselin , and the castle grounds certainly have the biggest stretch of land all around. Indeed, since the 11th century, it's been good to be the duke!

There are two gardens: an English garden, where you can find the beautiful waterfall above, which is given over to big expanses of green and curving paths and a kind of generally unfurling Nature. I started when the kids walked on the grass, my Paris training of "Ne Marchez Pas sur la Pelouse" (Do not walk on the grass) kicking in - but, no, here you can run upon the grass! The earth was still soft from yesterday's rains, and the smells of the many blooms were wonderful - the kids just ran and ran. Look! you can't even see that there's a whole medieval city grouped around this park!

The other garden is a French garden, manicured and stately and, in this section, soon enough to bloom with lots and lots of roses. We found out at the front door, from a woman we later realized might well have been Madame la Duchesse herself, that the people of Josselin always get in for free. Even though we're only of the people of Josselin for six months, we count, too! - which is really sweet and lovely. Indeed, we saw several of Oliver's classmates there this afternoon, and one of Eleanor's, a beautiful little boy whose father we call "le père distingué" because he's so distinguished looking (about once a month he comes in to pick up his kids in a gorgeous three-piece suit, too - mystère!). Spring really is cool - new places and spaces literally open up for meeting up.

So when we walked in, we were handed a clipboard with a two-sided form and told to fill it out for a chocolate reward at the end. And you know what? The Duchess's scavenger hunt was no walk in the park! (Actually, uh wait, it was.) Meaning, we had to really hunt for some of those answers. There were huge wooden egg boards placed all around the grounds with nifty information about Easter and chocolate, little jokes and riddles. And then there were also clues left everywhere that helped you put together the answers to different questions of the form. I found out this way that it was only in 1984 (living memory for me) that the stables were turned into the current Musée de la Poupée (Museum of the Doll - which we didn't visit today, but will soon enough!), and that what makes a tart made with eggs taste good is the zest of a lemon. The kids had varying degrees of confusion in their response to it all: Iris had envisioned herself hunting eggs and putting them into a basket, and Oliver kept wondering why there was "an intellectual element" as he called it, to the proceedings. Eleanor just ran around until she was too tired to stand and then promptly fell asleep in her dad's arms. So yes, it was more of a scavenger hunt for answers than a collect-them-all egg hunt but Iris cracked me up by shrugging her shoulders and saying "Looks like I gotta go with the flow." Thank you, Iris!

And then... the castle! The two shots I'll show today are from the outside, since you can't take any on the inside because it's still a private residence. You visit three big rooms and their adjoining ante-chambers on the first floors, but it's a full 45 minute visit - lots to talk about! As much as the architecture is 15th century, the castle interior, and much of the restoration of the 16th century inner façade is 19th century (by someone trained under Viollet-le-Duc actually). It's a rare glimpse into a 19th century aristocratic family's dream/return of not the feudal period, exactly, but certainly a time when the aristocracy was recognized as such. Now, you could call me naïve here, and say that this was not a return or a dream at all, that in fact, despite the upheavals of the French Revolution there was great continuity for the aristocratic classes after the Revolution: many of them found their castles and properties again and simply carried on. But there's a heaviness to the traditions that are enacted in the 19th century that to me belies a kind of emphatic nostalgia, a kind of "it was, too, like this" quality. They planted a sequoia tree in the courtyard before the inner façade (which is today 150 years old - you can see it to the far left of the first picture today); they continue to name the first sons of the family Alain or Josselin, and the first girls Marguerite; and, most emphatically, the dining room has everyone's name written in gold lettering all around the room, crowned by the coats of arm showing the extent of the inter-marriages of the royal family. Pre-French Revolution this would be just the way things are; post-Revolution it seems dreamlike (think of our dubbing JFK's White House "Camelot"). But then, what were they to do? Entirely give up on the dream? When I see the portrait of the grandfather of the current duke in his WWI uniform (and when I know that he perished in that war as a captain - as it commemorated on the column in the Promenade), then I have to humbly admire how this family has modernized itself. There's much more here, but for now suffice it to say that it's fascinating to be in a castle which was furnished in the 19th century by a family still dubbing itself very aristocratic and whose dream of perpetuating the ease and grandeur of this way of life is the reality we visit today.

All this to say that if you read "APLUS" in the Renaissance stonework above, you were correct: that's the motto of the Rohans. Oh how dearly I would love to find a book of "devise" (mottos) of royal families - the few that I know are all so cool (I love "honi soit qui mal y pense" - cursed be he who thinks ill of it - it being the emblem, the family).

Here you see not only the ermine tails of Brittany (which all of Anne de Bretagne's coat of arms have made famous and which now show up on every Breton souvenir), but also the actually ermines themselves - they're the little weasel-like creatures running along the top of the stonework. Lovely, yes? Anne de Bretagne was associated with this place, as was Henry IV whose first cousin was a Rohan. Ah! But I must tell you that the long-awaited sighting of the Table Upon Which the Edict of Nantes was signed was not too be. Our lovely tour guide told us that that had been a flourish added on by an earlier generation of tour guides and that "Madame la Duchesse" does not allow such fictions. So, now I have to wonder if that table is anywhere around at all. Highly unlikely, but one can still dream. There are some terrific old photographs in the entrance space of the castle ground showing scenes like the Duke and Duchess receiving penitents during the Josselin Pardon in September. I would actually be really interested to track the relationship between the aristocratic family and the town after the Revolution. Another chapter.

Mac awaits for another rousing session of Le Combat des Trentes board game, so I'll need to go which means that I won't get to show you the Resurrection paintings we showed the kids today - well, they involved Jesus's feet ascending into Heaven in any case, which really got some good conversations going!

Market Day with Dragons

With the return of Monsieur Mac comes the return of Messieurs les Fromages! That Brie de Melun looks like it could come over and slap us around a little bit (yikes!), but mmm, mmm, is it good (another Iris choice - that is one brave girl!). Moving clockwise, a lovely, and surprisingly mild, "bio" (organic) hunk of Gruyère from Savoie holds up a fantastic Ossau Iraty (Oliver is wild about this cheese, saying "It keeps tasting good even after you taste it"). And rounding out the circle is the wonderful Darley, which we ate all up before Mac could enjoy it last time. The line was nice and long today - lots of time to chat and admire the cheeses and get free samples (the kids are starting to really love the market).

More definite signs of spring: strawberries (but I forgot to check where they're from!) lushly arranged so as to be nigh irresistible. We got the ones in the basket lined with pink tissue paper - it being spring and all. We make four definite stops every time we go: the Fromagier, the Fruit Guy, the Cute Butcher, and the Vegetable People (these have all become their names). Iris is getting really attached to them all and has talked about giving them drawings.

Oliver looks so happy and fulfilled in front of the butcher's stall, :-) This week we got a nice cut of lamb (feeling compelled to show our Easter cheer culinarily with all the good food around), some chicken, and the sacred lasagna that, really, we do get every single week.

Iris was clearly overjoyed at just about everything in this moment. I swear that gap in her teeth is getting bigger - and I love her smile all the more. Just a little practice and we're talking about a champion whistler here! I had a wonderful conversation in the Vegetable People line with one of her classmate's moms and we're making plans to get the girls together - voilà! We talked about lots and lots of things from being working moms to French CEO salaries (the line was delightfully long at the Vegetable People, and this mom is super interesting) and at one point she paused and said "It's so nice to hear someone be positive about France - we just complain about everything all the time." ("Nous somme râleurs" for you francophones out there!). This statement flabbergasts francophilic me - I really can't see past my love of the fundamental principles of France (not the liberté, etc., but the core values of humanism and human dignity) even as I know they're being tested by post-colonialism's ills. But then again, if people don't complain, there's no social change - so hoorah for the râleurs!



And isn't this a nice sight?






Our kitchen has been the site of much mirth lately - here we are celebrating "Pre-Easter" with egg cups (Hello Kitty, Buzz Lightyear, and Woody) that came filled with a big chocolate egg. Easter is going to be very interesting to witness, I think - there's been so much talk about the Vatican and the child abuse scandals of late (France is supposed to have one of the lowest incident rates in Europe, or even the world - a German analysis in a paper that Mac read while there credits the French culture of laïcité for the success in turning in the perpetrators early to the secular, or lay, authorities) and I wonder if that will have any effect. Hopefully the good stuff (different for each person) can be kept apart for this very bad stuff. (Well, that's a matter of huge debate these days, actually). Easter is definitely part of the cultural rhythms as they intersect with Zone B school holidays, and prompts a 3-day week-end during which families travel all over France to visit each other. As usual, our kids will be learning about it through paintings.



It might be an interesting conversation to talk about the differences between this manuscript page painting from the Gerona Beatus of 975, in which the shapes an composition are rigid, and the colors have had to conform....


... with this Elevation of the Cross by Peter Paul Rubens from 1610-11, in which the colors carry all of the emotional weight and visual energy of the piece (the way the sun hits Christ's flesh, the blues and reds of the attendant figures, the foliage framing it all). The Crucifixion is, of course, pretty hard to understand on about one hundred levels (the cruelty, for starters) - but the kids are certainly eager at this point. Brittany has shown them quite a few Crucifixions even along the roadside. :-)


Pending any theological musings, we went out to the movies this afternoon! How to Train Your Dragon became straightforwardly, Dragons here, and we found a movie theater that showed it in 3-D (well worth it - swooping rides on the back of a dragon!) in Locminé, just 20 minutes away! As we sat down in the plush theater seats (a must for French movie theaters: that the seats be plush), I mused out loud that I felt as though I should buckle myself in (!!!) which is absurd, but I guess that I find the 3-D really convincing. Oliver looked up at me in surprise and said "That's so funny, that's how I feel when I sit down to read a book." Wow! The kid really goes places with his reading!

So, I am very tired from last night's battling in Le Combat des Trentes board game. The game is awesome - just the right combination of strategy and chance and never a dull moment. We left the board last night with two out of ten rounds done and a tie - much medieval battlefield strategy (and chance) to ensue tomorrow night! Please do note Mac's incredibly serious face as he starts to tally up points thus far. I love that serious face!

School Matters

1042 / 3000 words. 35% done!

A good writing day, with lots of un-writing and rewriting, and a good session with my main textual source, as well as the first real writing about an image. I'm making much ado about the geo-politics of Islam (i.e. the Turkish invasions of the early-mid 16th century) entering the allegorical dreamscape of the Triumphe des Vertuz by Jean Thenaud. When you talk geo-politics of Islam, you also talk geo-politics of Christianity, or, more precisely in this age of exploration and early colonialisation, Christendom (isn't it interesting that Christianity has a term signifying the territoriality of the religion? there must be an equivalent for Islam), and so I've been on the look-out for that kind of "Mappamundi" (world map) language, the mappamundi being (among many other things) one of the earliest medieval images of Christendom, as a concept: an entire world available for Christianisation.

Well, lo and behold, there appears in the earliest chapters of the Triumphe a catalogue of the Monstrous Races - the reason to get excited about this is at least two-fold: 1) the monstrous races are a significant part of mappamundi (there are two kinds: those in the bottom right (or southwest) of the world, and those in the top left (or northeast) of the world - medieval mappamundi being oriented towards not the north, but the east) - to your left is an image of the southwest ones, these guys go way back to Herodotus and Pliny; and 2) in a debate beautifully fleshed by Augustine (354-430), the possibility of saving the monstrous races, or converting them to Christianity (their soteriological potential) is articulated (it gets marvelously complicated: are the monstrous races the cursed of the earth? the monsters who survived the Flood? No, says Augustin, every single thing in nature is a communication from God (the word "monster" itself comes from the Latin "monstrare" to show, to reveal) and we are thus to learn from them). Ok, wait, actually three reasons: 3) in the goodly amount of reading I've done on Things Medieval, I have yet to see the monstrous races appear in a dream allegory. Thenaud is using language usually reserved for travel accounts (Wonders of the East, Mandeville's Travels and the like) in a dream allegory - he is blending discourses here, imbuing his didactic treatise with the language of the mappamundi, and doing this on the issue of the territoriality of Christianity, on its monstrous inhabitants. Since the Turks are also described as monstrous (not racially, but religiously, ethically), this is all very important to the point about ambivalence and Orientalism that I want to make. With Thenaud we're in the presence of a culture struggling to make sense of a Middle Eastern other of the Islamic faith (but, hey, doesn't that sound familiar to the present day? well, I won't be talking about that in my talk, but it's there underneath it all).

Ok - sorry, didn't actually mean to do that - and I didn't even write about that today: I wrote about the presentation image and the weird mission that Louise sent Thenaud on in his voyage to the Holy Land (she wanted him to procure gold, frankincense, and myrrh and present these exotic gifts at the Holy Sepulcher in her name à la the three Magi). But enough! Let's talk about the kids a bit, for they too had days of studious advancement. :-)

After Iris and I do the Thinking Bench (today it was a pool, as, starting after Spring Vacation, her class will go to the pool every Thursdau afternoon!), I go to Eleanor's classroom and read a book with her and Mac before saying good-bye. I love walking in and seeing the two of them in front of The World Biggest Radiator. Eleanor is usually chattering away in her own Eleanor-ese French, but more and more there are entire phrases that make sense. She's learning French by phrases which, when you think about it, is both more useful and applicable than learning a language word by word. But only little kids can learn it that way. As Oliver's teacher explained to us, he already has too much language structure to pick it up that way - he needs to get to the point where he can hear the words in French and put them in a French structure (more on that in a second). The Africa unit continues with lots of talk of crocodiles and the like and Eleanor loves every minute of it (reinforces the Madagascar movies). Right before she shoos us out, we stop at this poster of the alphabet and, as she points, I say the picture for each letter. More and more I pretend to forget the word and she swoops right in with it.

So I can't sit here and tell you that my children learned French in three months flat and that it was effortless. I can tell you that there are moments in which French pour out of them, but these come and go with emotions. I can also tell you that all three kids' teachers report that the children understand really just about everything and that, especially the girls, they are speaking more and more. I see evidence of this with Iris as she is describing more and more games that she is playing with the other girls. They are still incredibly curious about Iris and America and ask her all sorts of questions - the difference, as she was telling us tonight right before bed, is that now she can answer their questions. I have to pinch myself and remember that we still have three glorious months here (the changing of the seasons is making me realize "tempus fugit" and all that). There are subtle but definite changes - when the kids watch TV now, they ask for French shows (the dreaded Garfield, or the much more welcomed Barbapapa DVDs); when they want something at home (milk, a hug, to watch said Barbapapa DVDs, they ask in French). So, no, we're not talking about deep feelings or philosophy in French, but I think that if I stepped back and compared us to three months ago, I'd be amazed. Oliver is the really tough one to figure out. As recently as yesterday morning he said "You can't force me to speak a language that is not my native language" on his way to school - and he was in a good mood! This was more an observation than a protest. Sigh, I think to myself, and then I see the kind of work that he is doing at school, which, his teacher tells me (because I asked) he is doing entirely by himself. So he's reading those sentences above about the boy and his red balloon and the girl and her dog and he's making pictures for them.



He's choosing the sentence from the choices above and matching it to the picture.





He's unscrambling word order and creating logical sentences.







And he's writing some of these sentences in cursive.





And did I mention that he loves school more than ever? That time to read, and the two hours of down time around lunch just make his day every day. He's into the Inkheart trilogy now, and just finished the second book. Like Iris needs to write every day, this boy needs to read. His impish side still comes out as you can see in his devilish polygon - ooo! and I just noticed that another polygon has been turned into one of those multi-colored popsicles. This kind of makes his teacher crazy ("Il faut quand même respecter le travail" - "He needs to respect the/his work" she told me), but she's very sweet about it. Maybe she finds them kind of funny, too - he has them all over his "travail." So why do you think he still resists speaking the language? Considering what he's doing on paper, and that he translated "sanglier" correctly as boar during tonight's reading of Asterix, it would just seem like an easy transition to me. Well, the truth is, as happy as he is, and as content as his teacher is, I can't really fret over it. As Eleanor said tonight, "Bravo! ça marche!" (Bravo, it works!).

Random, but deeply appreciated things:

• Iris came home yesterday with a mussel shell from the paella they had at lunch (yep, paella) - no souvenirs from today's Chicken Cordon Bleu (although I swear I was salivating at the end of her thorough description).
• We are fully engaged in our next epic saga for bedtime stories: the girls wanted to keep the group together (although we did ditch a few of the additional 21 characters we had picked up in our hunt for Krrrrichelieu), but this time they are after "the guy who made Krrrichelieu bad in the first place" (this was Iris's cool idea). His name (decided by committee is) Teetsy of Krakamora. !!! Now if that doesn't give them sweet dreams...
• When Dominique came to the door to say hello (and to give us free movie passes - thank you, Dominique!), Iris walked right up to her and said "Bonsoir, Dominique"!
  

Ok, I am getting "are you ready to rumble" looks from Mac who wants to play the "Combat of the Thirty" board game - as do I! I'll flatten his fussy quires in no time (hope I get the "Aide de Dieu" (Help from God) card - those always come in handy!).

Going For It

Well, everybody, we're going to go for it and make our dreams come true. We've been eyeing this house that's for sale in Josselin (right on Olivier de Clisson street!) and today we put an offer on it. It'll be hard to say goodbye to life in Greencastle, but we have some really good options here: I'm going to bring my medieval training to fruition and consult at the castle for organizing cultural events, and Mac is considering working at the local café (it's only part-time, but this being France, he'll have benefits).



The house needs a little work, but you know how good Mac is with a trowel.




I've always loved this house, especially the little carvings of children on the beams. The kids are 100% behind the idea: Oliver's thinking of doing Harry Potter readings; Iris might start selling dandelion bouquets; and Eleanor wants to start a toddler belly-dancing club.

We look forward to settling in and teaching our new neighbors the good old American thumbs up sign - we're feeling full of pep! With three floors and an attic, we might really be able to pursue our life-long dream of running a writing retreat/day care center with imagination stations for both academics and toddlers. Keep us in mind for your next sabbatical/child.

Nobody really knows when April Fool's Day started. :-) My favorite version is that it was under the reign of Charles IX (grandson of François Ier) who, in moving the New Year from April 1 to January 1 made those who continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1st, "fools." Sounds just like something that wacky Charles would do (and boy was he wacky!). In any case, we won't be buying a house in Josselin, but there have been some really good "poissons d'avril" all day here (the newsman announced a rearrangement of the sacred school holidays!) and I couldn't resist. Plus, the phrase "you know how good Mac is with a trowel" cracks me up every time I say it (see, I'm laughing right now!).

In honor of April Fool's Day, and of my Swiss ancestry, here is the #1 April Fool's Joke ever (so say these folks anyway) brought to you by the BBC in 1957 - enjoy!



Hee hee!