Not only in the summertime

The rites surrounding a household’s Christmas tree can lead to familial precipices. Real or artificial? Plastic or aluminum? Living or cut? When and where to put it up? What lights—all white, colored, blinking, steady, bubble? Angel or star on the top? Or weird bulbous pointy thing? And then there are the ornaments—which ones, from what side of the family?

It’s a thing.

My mom always bought the tree from the lot at Safeway soon after Thanksgiving. She left it standing in a pail of water in a shady corner of the back yard until around the second weekend in December and we could finally put it up in the bay window in the living room and decorate it. In unvarying ritual, Dad put on the strands of lights; we screwed in the bulbs (this was pre-integrated lights, folks) except for on the high branches; Mom draped the garland. Then we pulled the glass ball ornaments out of their tissue-paper nests in yellowing cardboard boxes, connected the wire hangers and carefully hung them on the tree. Some of those ornaments were pre-war, and their paint was fading; I don’t recall my parents ever buying any new ornaments throughout my childhood; we just used the same ones year after year.

But I know people who don’t even buy their tree until the 24^th. I don’t judge.

However, in the meantime, “O Tannenbaum” is perfectly appropriate for Advent.

The melody for this song is a German folk tune dating to 16^th Century Silesia, an area of Eastern Europe that has belonged at one time or another to Austria, Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia (as was). Clearly it’s a province whose inhabitants need to value things like music, art and suchlike as antidotes for politics.

The 19^th Century lyrics that have been set to the old tune do not specifically refer to Christmas—a Tannenbaum is actually a fir tree, although the word has taken on the meaning of a fir tree for Christmas. There’s also no mention of decorating the fir tree. No, the words speak of how the tree’s leaves stay green throughout the year, winter as well as summer. (Additional verses added over the years do bring in Christmas.)

Evergreens—firs, pines and the like—are of course symbols of eternal life. Pre-Christian Europeans decorated their houses with evergreen branches to celebrate the winter solstice, when the sun turns the corner and begins to return to the world. Christians go one step further with adding lights—candles and then electric—to beat back the darkness. The ornaments help refract the light into the room. 

(Unless you’re like someone I know whose family tradition is to not have lights on your tree. I don’t judge.)

I love Christmas trees, however they're decorated, wherever they are, even if it's for commercial purposes; I just love them. 

Let’s hear the Philharmonic Children’s Choir of Dresden sing about them, then:

Seems appropriate to have kids singing this one.

Praise him, all ye peoples

A friend introduced me to the voice of Patricia Janečková. While I’m not typically wild about barely pubescent singers being thrust into the concert circuit, her voice just knocked me out.

Janečková is Slovak, not Czech, but she’s German-born, so she still fits in with my Czech-German-French focus this year. And while the “Laudate Dominum” from Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore isn’t an Advent piece—the text is from Psalm 116—it calls upon all nations to praise the Lord for his mercy has been bestowed on us all, and the Lord’s truth endures for all time.

Seems like a good message for our times.

Flight plan

While Berlin’s Tegel airport does not positively impress, there is nothing like navigating Paris’ Charles De Galle on your way back to the District They Call Columbia to remind you what a Mickey Mouse airport Dulles is. Even with the recent expansion to IAD and the elimination of a lot of those dopy transportation modules that used to ferry you out to the gates or back from the actual aircraft, the comparison is vivid.

Here’s what I mean. CDG is the only place I’ve seen the Airbus 380 where it doesn’t absolutely dwarf everything else around it. At CDG, it looks like just another aircraft:

That’s probably because it is one freakin’ huge airport. This is just a chunk of the interior of Terminal 2E:

I did love the design, even if Air France might do a better job of managing the boarding process.

Terminal 2F was like being in an anthill after someone stirred it with a stick, both times I was passing through it. But it also had some beautiful design:

But even with all this massive space, they’ve also looked after the details:

Won’t find any of that around Dulles. Or Tegel.

Ladies in the garden

On my way to the Cluny museum (which was on my List for Paris, but which—having seen—I do not have to revisit) I took a stroll through le Jardin du Luxembourg. Or at least a part of it; it’s pretty big, as befits a palace.

I’ve always liked the gardens—from my first visit after graduating from college. There’s something about its carefully laid-out plantings, its graveled paths and its sense of space that makes me wish I lived nearby so I could walk through it all the time.

Here’s a sampling:

There are a lot of these corridors of trees. During late Spring and through Summer, they’re lush; right now, kind of spare, though this one is clinging to leaves:

In addition to the usual pigeons and a bunch of seagulls, there were several of these birds:

Kind of like pigeons on steroids; I couldn't help but think about roast squab. It may or may not be a stock dove, whatever that is when it’s at home. I shall have to ask some of my birder friends.

The central pool, where in warmer weather little kids sail toy boats, is ringed by a concatenation of statues of powerful women in French legend and history. Here are a few of them.

Valentine de Milan, duchesse d’Orléans, 1341-1408:

Valentina was a member of the powerful Visconti family of Milan. She was shopped around on the marriage market before being wed to Louis, second son of Charles V of France and eventual duc d’Orléans.

I don’t know the significance of the book she’s carrying, except that she was a patron of the poet Eustache Deschamps and the mother of another, Charles d’Orléans.

Marguerite d’Angoulême, 1492-1549, on the other hand, was an intellectual powerhouse, whose mother, Louise of Savoie (16 when she gave birth to Marguerite) was also brilliant.

So, I don’t know why she isn’t holding something bookish; although that is rather a pensive pose. Actually, Marguerite got her brother, François I, in trouble during his reign, due to her Protestant leanings, which she articulated quite a bit. Her first marriage, to Charles d’Alençon, paired her with a kind but practically illiterate man. Her second was to Henri II de Navarre. Marguerite was a tremendous patron of arts and letters.

Marguerite d’Anjou, 1430-1482, was the wife of Henry VI of England, who was not the brightest bulb on the tree. But in his name, and that of her son the Prince of Wales (who I presume is the boy clinging to her), she was a ferocious leader of Lancastrian forces when the Wars of the Roses broke out.

Following the defeat of her army (which she led on the field) at Tewksbury in 1471, and the death of her only son, Marguerite was imprisoned by Edward IV, and eventually ransomed by Louis XI.

But here’s the depiction that just puts me in awe, Marie de Médicis, 1575-1642; look at the determination on that face:

Marie was married to Henri IV (the king of Navarre who famously converted to Catholicism in order to ascend the throne of France because “Paris vaut une messe”). It was a marriage for dynastic purposes, which she fulfilled by producing several children who lived to adulthood. But it was hard on her because Henri pretty much flaunted his mistresses. Following his assassination, Marie was regent for her son, Louis XIII, but came into conflict with the other great influence on Louis, Cardinal Richelieu. Marguerite died in exile, scheming against the cardinal to the end.

Now, this is something I found interesting:

Marie’s was the only name plate I saw to be so adorned.

I liked this guy stretched out under one of the queens, reading a book in the sun:

However formidable these women might have been in life, they cannot escape avian attentions in this incarnation. I noticed this attempt at defense on several of the statues:

And you can see why it’s needed:

And why I love Luxembourg.

Shoes, barrels and stockings

Today’s the feast day of Saint Nicholas, the 4^th Century Bishop of Myra. These days we mostly know him in his secular guise: Santa Claus. He’s the jolly old Saint Nick who brings presents to good children. (In several European traditions, Saint Nicholas Day is when gifts are given, and the saint is often accompanied by a figure meant to be a Moor, therefore in blackface, who punishes the naughty children, sometimes carrying switches for the purpose. I don’t judge, it’s tradition. Like, I dunno, statues of Confederate generals.) The usual vehicle for signaling that you’re looking for presents is to leave out your shoes (a precursor, I guess, to hanging stockings* with care.)

Unsurprisingly, then, most songs about Saint Nicholas are for children. I’m giving you a couple.

First, from Germany, we have “Laßt uns froh und munter sein”, which is all about preparing for the saint’s visit, getting shoes shined up in readiness. As you can see here:

Over in France, by contrast, we’ve got another happy-sounding children’s song, but the storyline, man—the storyline. “La Légende de Saint Nicolas” recounts one of the gorier tales surrounding the actual Saint Nicholas—remember, the bishop of Myra? Specifically, the story about the three boys who ran afoul of a butcher and were murdered, cut up (possibly with a bone saw—who’s to know; not even the CIA, right?) and put into a barrel of brine. Nicholas restored the boys to life and de-dismembered them; he also reportedly forgave the butcher on condition of repenting.

Yes—this children’s song is all about that incident. I don’t judge. In this instance, the boys have been in the pickle barrel for seven years, when Nicholas is invited in by the butcher. He’s offered a slice of ham, and refuses it. How ‘bout a bit of veal? Nope. The saint specifically asks for the meat that’s been brining for seven years, which sends the butcher into a tizzy. Nicholas reanimates the boys and redeems the butcher.

*This triggers the recollection of a story by Damon Runyon, “Dancing Dan’s Christmas”, which has the usual collection of insouciant characters. The key element I’m thinking about is, after a bunch of them have been standing around Good Time Charley Bernstein’s speakeasy tossing back hot Tom and Jerrys, Dancing Dan takes a notion to dress up as Santa, and borrows the costume not immediately needed by Ooky (who has passed out from too many Tom and Jerrys). 

Dancing Dan cuts quite the figure, and when Charley suggests that it’s a pity that there appear to be no stockings available for him to fill, Dancing Dan replies, “I know where a stocking is hung up. It is hung up in Muriel O’Neill’s flat over here in West Forty-Ninth street. This stocking is hung up by nobody but a party by the name of Gammer O’Neill, who is Miss Muriel O’Neill’s grandmamma. Gammer ONeill is going on ninety-odd, and Miss Muriel O’Neill tells me she cannot hold out much longer, what with one thing and another, including being a little childish in spots.”

Well, the story turns on a jewel heist, a very large stocking, a jealous mobster boyfriend, flummoxed cops and some other things. But Gammer O’Neill dies a very, very happy doll. It’s absolutely the spirit of Saint Nicholas.

Day at the museum

One of my three must-dos for Paris was to revisit the Musée de l’Armée, the museum of French military history, to see what they did to mark the centenary of the First World War. I’d not been to it since the turn of the century, so it was time. (I don’t much care about the previous centuries of French military might; after a while, one suit of armor looks remarkably like all the rest in line, so…)

They had some very well-designed multimedia displays, but they really hadn’t done much to incorporate recent historiography. (There was a temporary exhibit, in another part of Les Invalides, on the continuation of World War I in the East, meaning the combat in Eastern Europe and the Middle East from 1918-1923, titled appropriately “À l’Est, Guerre sans Fin”—In the East, War without End. I whizzed through that, but it’s not my area of focus.) But not particularly illuminating.

But here are a few bits and bobs from my visit:

First of all, they concatenate both world wars into a single exhibit—fair enough—which they start in 1871:

  

In other words, they date the world wars of the 20^th Century from the defeat of the French by the Prussians in the war of 1870-71. Which, I suppose, is valid, from a nationalistic perspective. (If you go to the Imperial War Museum in London, you’ll discover that Britain and her Empire pretty much won both world wars with its stiff upper lip, and maybe a bit of assistance from, you know, everyone else. I haven’t been to any US military museum—if we even have any—but I well recall all the retrospectives on D-Day 50^th, 60^th and 70^th anniversaries that showed how Americans totally kicked German ass, and there were a few Brits, Canadians and French guys scattered about the beaches. We all have our historical lenses.)

The Franco-Prussian War ended with the humiliating defeat of French armies at Sedan, the capture of the French emperor, the ceding of Alsace and much of Lorraine to the Prussians, extraction of a ruinous indemnity and the declaration of the Second German Empire via the coronation of King Wilhelm of Prussia as Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany…in the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles.

That seriously bites. I don’t think it’s accidental at all that the post-WWI treaty that dismantled the Second Reich, took back Alsace and Lorraine, imposed ruinous reparations on Germany and placed guilt for causing the war squarely on Germany and her allies (among other humiliations) was concluded in that very same Galerie des Glaces. These things are like high school: they’re never over.

(The display notes the signing of the Armistice and effective surrender of the Germans in Marshal Foch’s railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne on 11 November 1918. It refrains, later on in the World War II part of the exhibition, from mentioning that Hitler dredged up that very car, hauled it to that very spot in Compiègne and forced the French to capitulate on 22 June 1940 in it.)

One thing I had not previously known about was that there was a Russian Expeditionary Force deployed along the Western Front, in Champagne.

Following the February 1917 revolution in Russia, as well as their participation in the catastrophic Nivelle offensive, the soldiers mutinied in France; the brigade was disbanded by the end of the year.

As I moved into the Second World War part of the exhibition, I came across film clips of some of the concentration and extermination camps as discovered by liberating Allied forces. The films were not new. But I thought this warning caught my eye:

:

This is what PBS should display before docus that deal with difficult subjects and tell uncomfortable truths—they might be too much for you if you’re utterly pig-ignorant fuckwits.

Okay, I did not go to any other parts of Les Invalides, but I got a bit of a chuckle out of a few things I saw on the way to the exhibit I wanted to see.

First, this row of probably 17^th Century cannon:

Yawn, right? But here’s some detail:

That was pretty. But what caught my attention was this:

What do you suppose the royal porcupine is all about?

Also, the larger topiary in the background is actually the home of a rather robust rabbit, which I saw bolt across the lawn (too fast—despite his size—for me to get a shot):

And then there were these two ladies at the top of a staircase:

I have no idea who they were meant to be, but the one on the right looked like she’s checking Twitter on her mobile. I guess not:

I really am a culture vulture, non?

A blessing to your soul

After yesterday’s full-throated hymn, let’s take it down and back. “Christmas Is Now Drawing Near at Hand” is an old piece—16^th Century, at least—reportedly deployed by beggars encouraging passersby to dig deep in honor of the season.

It’s moralizing, which might explain why you don’t ordinarily hear it these days, when we’ve turned from stories like “The Gift of the Magi” to every Hallmark Channel movie produced in the past decade. Some of the admonishment is certainly timely:

“So proud and lofty do some people go

Dressing themselves like players in a show

They patch and paint and dress with idle stuff

As if God had not made ‘em fine enough”

The line about little children learning to curse while unable to utter words of prayer—well, I’m more concerned with the thousands upon thousands who utter empty prayers by rote, and cast cherry-picked judgments on others, which the Jesus of the Gospels would find abhorrent. But I can’t argue with this:

“Oh, teach them better, oh, teach them to rely

On Christ, the sinner’s friend who reigns on high.”

Part of the preparation of this Advent period is the quiet stock-taking; are we ready for the coming of the Messiah? If we aren’t quite, what do we need to do to get there? How can we truly welcome the Child in the stable? What kindnesses can we show others, where do we need to open our eyes and hearts?

Something to consider while listening to Lel Waterson:

Hope of all the earth

When it comes to Protestant hymns, it’s hard to do better than the Wesley boys. Charles Wesley wrote some of the most stirring worship songs around, which were put to use in the early Methodist church days (which brother John founded with him and George Whitefield), when preachers needed to rouse the congregants to fervent worship. Wesley’s opus numbers in the thousands; today we’re having one for Advent, “Come Thou, Long Expected Jesus”.

This one has been set to several melodies; I’ll give you two versions. First up, the one set to the tune Stuttgart, written by a contemporary of Wesley’s, Christian Witt (sadly, after a long trawl through YouTube, this was the best example I could find; where are the Methodist choirs ready to belt this one out?):

I’ve also heard it set to the Welsh tune “Hyfrydol”:

Each has its fine points; each does the text proud.

Au revoir, Paris

The gilets jaunes protests were still tying up Paris yesterday as my taxi made its way across the city to Charles De Gaulle airport. It wasn’t clear to me that they were still marching, but the gendarmes had blocked off a number of streets in the 7^th arrondissement, and traffic was even worse than whatever passes for normal.

We went around the Arc de Triomphe; I didn’t get a shot—taxi moving too fast by that point—but I could see that, while Sunday’s power washing had got the worst of the graffiti off, there were still the shadows of the slogans up.

I did get a few pix of other graffiti, enough to make me think that the power washing business is about to experience quite the surge.

Well, I’d factored in some wiggle room for the airport run, so I wasn’t worried about missing the flight. And indeed, I had enough time to relax for a bit before being selected by Air France for a “random security screening”, so I had to haul out everything remotely electronic from my person and my carry-on bag—for the second time. (First time in regular security screening.) I was pulling mobile, cameras, lenses, laptop, pedometer—it was like one of those clown cars at the circus. But I passed. Woo-hoo.

Other than that, and the deep joy of Washington Dulles airport’s Mickey Mouse system for international arrivals, it was a pleasant enough flight. And I confess that I was deeply happy to get home, take a shower in my own bathroom and pull clothes out of my own dresser and not a suitcase.

I’ll still have things to report from my travels, but for now I’ll just leave you with these shots of a Northern Virginia sunset.

Gratitude Monday: Angels in Seoul

If all goes as planned, by the time people in the Western Hemisphere read this, I should be on a flight back home after nearly three weeks in Prague, Berlin and Paris. It’s been a very good journey for me—not all pure positivity, but I took the trip to try to sort through some things I’d rather not think about.

And today is Gratitude Monday, and the second day of Advent. So here’s a Christmas carol from France, “Les anges dans nos campagnes”. Anglophones know this as “Angels We Have Heard on High”, so you probably don’t need a translation.

I chose this performance because it tickles me that some boy choir in white monks robes are performing a French Christmas carol in Seoul. Globalization, eh?

I’m grateful for this trip, for seeing new things and revisiting some familiar ones. I’m grateful for the season of Advent, and for sharing it with friends and family. And I’m grateful to be headed home, where I can do a real load of laundry.

Un promenade dans le boulevard

Further to my post about the “gilets jaunes” protests in Paris, I went to the Champs-Élysées yesterday to have a look at the Arc de Triomphe. Well—I didn’t get to go to the actual Arc, because they were power-washing graffiti off it from Saturday’s rumpus:

  

I actually saw some yellow-vest types, but they were vastly outnumbered by riot police, and things were quiet.

Further down the boulevard, there were other signs of the weekend activity—

HSBC boarded up:

A perfume shop taking down the boards:

Société Général's ATM screens smashed:

And a notice telling customers an interior ATM was available (except the bank was actually locked up, this being Sunday):

Louis Vuitton took the steel mesh route:

Not precisely on the Champs-Élysées, but nearby, I found this graffito, which was appropriate to the protests. It invokes modern-day (gilets jaunes) and historic (sans culottes) revolutionaries, and cries, “Death to the pigs”:

And something that heralds the fall of civilization: a Five Guys—a really big Five Guys—right there on the Champs-Élysées. That's what people should be protesting:

Riots on the right

I was eating le petit déjeuner in Singleton Siberia at my hotel yesterday (I’ll tell you about that later), when I overheard the guy at the front desk speaking with an American couple who needed to get to Charles De Gaulle airport later in the day. He was giving them the various options, but warned that things were complicated “because of the riots.”

Well, I should hope so.

Turns out that there’ve been protests against the high cost of fuel over the past few Saturdays, always along the Champs-Élysées. And another one was scheduled for yesterday.

As I was preparing to head out to the Musée de l’Armée and handed him my room key, I checked that the riots would be on the Rive Droit, and I’d be okay if I stayed on the Rive Gauche. Yes, he assured me, just along the Champs-Élysées.

Okay, I hared off to the museum, fighting with Google Maps, which insisted I could not use public transportation to get there. It wasn't until I switched to Les Invalides as my destination that GM grudgingly said, well, okay, I could take Ligne 12 to Concorde, then switch to Ligne 8 (the museum is in Les Invalides). I was downcast to hear the announcements at the first station that whole bunch o' stations in the vicinity of Champs-Élysées were closed on account of the expected riots, including Concorde. However, it turns out that Ligne 8 and Ligne 12 have two consecutive touch points, so Madeleine got me the needed transfer.

When I'd logged three hours at the various exhibitions of interest,  thought I’d swing by le Bon Marché, a famous department store, on the rue du Bac on my way back.

Well, color me surprised when I stepped out of the Métro station and heard a ruckus. Here’s what I saw passing by on the boulevard Raspail:

I mean—they weren’t rioting, but they were definitely part of the “yellow vest” protests. (As for the riots: they were real. A few score arrests were made in the course of Saturday.)

Also, I noticed that the gendarmes who guard the intersection of the rue du Bac and the rue de Varenne (which appears to have some government offices) were accessorized with gas masks:

Huh.

Here are some other things I thought worth noting on that trek.

Someone decided the rue du Regard needed a name change:

Here was an interesting shop window display:

It was a shoe store, if you’re asking. (Rue du Bac is trendy.)

And here’s a very bright toaster:

This woman was transporting her Christmas tree…on her (non-motorized) scooter:

And a tale of two bicycles, the first rather sad and the other I just dunno:

Paris, baby; it’s all there.

Strumming Hallelujah

We have moved into Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmas when Christians prepare for the coming of the Christ child, so it’s time for some seasonal music to help us with that. Because I’ve spent the past few weeks in various parts of Europe, I’m going to concentrate on Christmas songs and carols from those areas this year.

I’ll start out with something Czech, “The Zither Carol”. I hesitate to put up YouTube clips in languages I don’t know because there’s always the danger of terms like “yo mama” and “combat boots” might feature. But I’m taking a chance.

I also hesitate to do anything referring to itself as zither, because that is not one of my favorite instruments. The unrelenting zither soundtrack nearly kills The Third Man for me.

But anyway…

The lyrics call girls and boys to leave their toys and come worship at the Baby’s crib. It tells of angels watching over, of shepherds and wise men—they’re all there.

The chorus proclaims hallelujah and says all must draw near. (And you do get the kind of zither strum effect from the continuo in this rendition.)