Saturday, June 18, 2011

Un masque, s'il vous plaît


One of the things that I love about the French culture is how invested it is in the art of disguise.  Think about it - parfum, maquillage, haute couture -  no one does disguise better, or wears it better, than the French.  I suppose the thing I find most interesting about the French love of the art of diguise is the courage it takes to practice it, because most of the time, the thing that is being disguised is not really hidden at all.

My favorite example of this is the parfum du Métro.  The city of Paris has developed a scent that it diffuses throughout many of its Métro stations.  The parfum is an attempt to mask the odor of the thousands of bodies that pass through the stations, which, combined with the various smells left behind by the personnes sans domicile fixe who sleep in the Métro stations at night, is quite pungent.   The Métro authority's parfum fails miserably in its attempt to hide these odors.  However, they bravely ignore their failure and  continue to diffuse the parfum du Métro daily.  I love that.

Of course, the French love of disguise can have some serious consequences.  For example, the French like to pretend that their social assurance system is the best in the world.  I suppose that it is, if you are the person being taken care of, and not the government who has to find the revenue to meet the hidden costs of the caretaking.   The French also like to say that their society is open, progressive, and sophisticated.  But the French veneer of sophistication and je ne sais quoi  is a very thin veil that disguises the truth of France, where racism is common and where immigrants, especially non-white immigrants from former French colonies, face a steep uphill climb.

Back to less serious forms of disguise.  I'm referring to the above photo of today's breakfast which consisted of café and a tartine - which, as you can see, is just the fancy French name for bread and butter.  However, I would argue that the combination of superb French bread spread with satiny and rich French butter  deserves to hide behind a fancy name.

Bonne journée à tous!

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