The BN

This is a model of the BN so it gives you a visual idea to go along with my description...

Chateau de Chambord

Francis I had Chambord built for him during the early 1500s as a retreat of sorts...
My school took a field trip here last month. I found it more impressive than Versailles. This was the only photo I took as my camera battery died.

Le Métro

One of my stations...le Quai de la Gare

Les égouts de Paris

Every Wednesday one can find Pariscope, the weekly magazine of entertainment options, at any newsstand for forty cents. It is not a slim magazine, as one would suspect, for a metropolitan area of ten million. While leafing through it what perhaps surprises me most is the number of theater options. For some reason I have always equated the theater more so with London than with Paris but the first fifty pages of Pariscope covers theaters, cabarets, chansonniers, and about any other sort of stage spectacle. I have yet to delve into the theater as a result of my language handicap (the circus or maybe mimes seem to be about my speed at the present for stage entertainment).

As I was skimming through Pariscope last week I came upon a section called “visites et promenades” and my eye stopped at a listing “Les égouts de Paris.” My antennae went up. I have at least mastered a few thousand French words over time and I did not immediately know what “égouts” might be. I knew the word for taste, “goût,” so I immediately extrapolated that perhaps égouts might mean “tastings.” The pseudo-gourmet in me came out at that moment. What could these tastings possibly be? Chocolate? Wine? A variety of unpasteurized country cheeses? Chocolate, wine, and a variety of unpasteurized country cheeses all at once? At that point it was Sunday, around lunchtime, and my morning gruel was but a distant memory and my rumbling stomach thought this was an excellent idea. The price was certainly a bargain, 4 euros, and the location, a few blocks from the Musée D’Orsay, was just two Métro lines away.

I readied myself to leave the apartment but just before I left I noticed my little anglais/français dictionary by the door and a nagging voice in my head said “look up égouts...”

Just like the Métro, the sewers of Paris are both a technological marvel and a response to a population crisis. The sewers, of course, have a much longer history, dating back to pre-Roman days. Then, sewers were simply trenches that led to the Seine, or to the Marais, the local swamp. The later Romans were true masters of water engineering and they built both pipe sewers and aqueducts to bring fresh water to the city for drinking and for baths. During the Middle Ages these disappeared and sewers again became v-shaped depressions in the middle of cobblestone streets that led to the Seine. Suffice it to say, as the city grew Paris became a smelly place to live. Of course, worse than smelly was the health crisis caused by filth channeling through the streets and then into the Seine that provided most of the drinking water for the city. It became common for farmers in the surrounding area to come to Paris in the early morning to collect what was known as “night soil” to bring back to their farms as fertilizer.

However, the city population was still small enough that the Seine could naturally filter out the human waste and the water was still good enough to drink--if one went to the right spot to get it: woe to those who lived downstream. By the early modern period as the city population reached two hundred thousand one saw city engineers respond to the crisis by the building of the first true, underground sewers that would take waste away to the river. Of course, these sewers were not universal through the city and the Seine became even more polluted as the population overcame the river’s ability to filter out the pollution. The city became home to thousands of water carriers whose profession was to carry water from streams and springs not polluted by humans to its wealthier inhabitants.

Under Napoleon III in the 1850s and 1860s, at the same time as builders redid the city streets and created new parks, other engineers began to build the first, true modern sewer system. In the span of some twenty years dozens of larger sewers ran under Paris while new aqueducts brought fresh water into the city from as far as seventy miles away. For the time period it certainly was a marvel of engineering and the population benefited by a much healthier city. And, some of the very same pipes are being used to this day. Of course, the word pipe is a misnomer as some of these “pipes” are over thirty feet in diameter.

The entrance to the “Égouts de Paris” is a rather undistinguished looking turret-shaped building, about the size of a large news kiosk. The sign has an “arrow” that points underground and one goes up to the turret/entrance (hardly on the same scale as I.M. Pei’s pyramid) and pays the four euros to a rather cheerful attendant (more on that later) and descends a spiral staircase around the turret to the bowels (sorry) of the city. It is a self-guided tour of a very small cross section of the sewers, several twists and turns and cavernous openings underneath the streets, perhaps a couple of hundred yards in length. And while it is a sewer, it is actually a storm sewer that one is touring and the only smell is that of rotting leaves (hey, what happened to the chocolate, wine, and variety of unpasteurized cheeses?). Outside, above ground, it was another chilly and gray day and the sewer was warm, though certainly on the humid side.

The tour leads through various cross sections of the sewer and is full of informative signs, a diorama or two, and just a few other tourists. A group of schoolchildren were behind me as I guided myself along the tour and they certainly seemed to be excited about the sewer. Perhaps I was missing something? Jean Valjean? The ghost of Baron Haussmann? Anton and his rooster, on the run? I paused and saw the children being led by a special guide, a sewer worker proudly wearing his powder-blue jumpsuit. I decided to draft behind the “tour” as it was not offered to the average tourist, even the specialist on French advertising history. The guide certainly knew his sewer stuff as he animatedly described parts of the sewer, its pipes, its cleaning and maintenance, and certainly everything else that one would want to know about the sewers. The children certainly seemed to be fascinated with his sewer lore. Of course, I recall my own interest in water at that age, of building dams and canals and channels in our family’s side yard and then turning on the water from a spigot to test the soundness of my construction. Perhaps that was my true calling? My vocabulary took a real boost that day as I learned all types of hydrographic words that I never otherwise would have come upon. Part of the tour took us on an iron grating, a sort of catwalk, that was above the rushing water below us and I felt myself being permeated by the essence of dead, moist leaves. I am sure there is some spa in the Western U.S. that offers the same treatment but here I was in Paris getting the same treatment plus a tour of the sewers for a measly four euros.

He took great delight in explaining one of the major problems of the storm sewers: the buildup of silt over time, that, if left untreated, would see the sewers arteriosclerotically blocked. The Parisian solution during the late 1800s was ingenious. Engineers constructed a large, hollow, floating metal ball that was eighty percent the diameter of the silted sewer. The ball would be lowered into the sewer in pushed into the opening. The ball in the sewer (think of a pea in a straw, perhaps) would let water flow around its sides. However, just like a plane wing creates lift because of the lessening of air pressure above the wing, the ball changes the water pressure in the pipe and causes the water to flow much more quickly around the ball creating turbulence. This turbulence put the silt back into solution and would see the problem solved.

The best part of the tour was the historical alleyway that consisted of a forty or so hanging placards, in both French and English, that gave a history of the sewer through text, maps, drawings, and pictures (most of which I cribbed for the introduction). With the water and debris rushing below I had a good half hour of learning everything and more about the sewers. At one point one could even take a tour of the sewers in a Venetian style gondola but those days have long ended? And, like all museums now, this “museum” had a gift shop that one had to enter before the final exit. While much of the exhibit was excellent one could say the gift shop needed some work, especially in their stock: a few pins, a postcard or two, a Paris sewer hat, and some t-shirts (“I visited the Paris sewer and all I got was this lousy t-shirt,” perhaps?).

A few television monitors were in the shop and one could chose to watch one of seven different three-minute programs about “Paris and its sewers today.” One included vignettes of Parisians losing their keys and other possessions down the sewers. The Parisians then called a special sewer hotline that appeared on the screen and the scene switched next to a special powder-blue van, a sewer response team of experts dressed in you-know-what that with the precision of a CSI team delved back into the depths and rescued those items to the grateful response of their owners. There certainly appears to be a sense of pride in the sewers that one does not see in the U.S.

One lonely attendant, in his powder-blue jumpsuit sat on a little stool by a cash register that got little use. The smell of rotting leaves was even stronger here as the gift shop was in a cul-de-sac of sorts that had little ventilation. The attendant did not look very happy (I am sure he knew the words to all of the incessantly-playing videos by heart) and I imagine his chief aim in life was to perhaps rise to the much happier ticket-taker above him if tuberculosis or consumption did not get to him first.

While not quite what I originally expected I found the diversion to be worthwhile. I have now witnessed the city’s two largest underground infrastructural achievements. All I now have left of this troika of the troglodyte world are the catacombs. But that awaits for another day and another blog.

Métro boulot, Métro dodo

This is a French idiomatic expression that one can translate as: Métro work, Métro sleep. Of course, to the average Parisian this encapsulates the banality of life. Five days a week they trudge out to their local stop in the morning, blearily ride the train (or series of trains) to work, push papers about in their cubicle (plus perhaps a few games of FreeCell), blearily take the train home, and then go to sleep. Repeat for about thirty years and then retire. I think Sartre had a word for this but I cannot recall it at the moment…

I, of course, after two weeks in Paris have come into a general routine. While not exactly Métro boulot, Métro dodo, it is not that much different. But, I shall try to provide an overview of the average day for me here, plus some running commentary. I can almost hear readers now clicking to more interesting web logs such as “commemorative spoon collecting” and “making the world’s largest lint ball: tricks and traps.”

While generally an early riser in the States I have yet to master that skill here. Perhaps one reason is that the sunrise is about an hour later than for me at home and a second reason is that when the sun rises there is a thick layer of clouds shielding it. As a result, even by eight a.m. my bedroom is fairly dark when I finally get up. Since I am in charge of my own breakfasts I have moved from the Puissant all-bread breakfast back to my traditional gruel and I am out the door by a little after eight thirty. My Métro stop is just a three-minute walk from home and I take the stairs down to the station.

The world’s tallest cliché, the Eiffel Tower, is the symbol that most people associate with Paris, but for some reason for me it has been the Métro. The Parisian city government created the Métro in the 1890s as a response to a near transit crisis in the city. Since the reign of Napoleon III, 1848-1870, Paris had seen a near-total remaking of the city (broadening of boulevards, water supplies, sewers, new parks) that made the city mostly what we recognize today. This rebuilding program was perhaps too successful in one way for Paris exploded in size (population and geographic) the last fifty years of that century, becoming a veritable “black hole” that sucked in people and resources from the entire nation. As Paris expanded in size the city needed to move the population quickly and efficiently to their places of work. The old transit systems of omnibuses and streetcars (and horses) simply could not handle the crush. At enormous expense the city began the construction of the Métro, partially inspired by the London Underground. Within a few years the first beautifully constructed Art Deco stations came into operation and, well, the rest you know is history…

I have always found the Métro to be easily accessible. The stations are usually close to the surface (unlike the Moscow subway system where one takes interminable escalators down to reach the trains) and save for the few large, multi-line stations, are small in size. They are quite safe and since my last trip here the city has spent a lot of money on cleaning them up (and since the London bombings of last summer there is a lot more security present). And, best of all, at least from my perspective the Métro is a good buy: I have a one-month pass that takes me anyplace and anywhere within Paris proper (and a small region outside the city, like Vincennes, where I live) for $51. Even in my car that is the cost of just two tanks of gas.

Moreover, I have the good fortune on living on the premier Métro line, the #1 (it goes along the Champs-Elysées, the Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, and a few blocks from Notre Dame). As a result, my trains are new and clean and also run quite often—usually at most I might have a three minute wait—which means not as much crowding. The new trains have no dividing doors between compartments so one can actually sit in the last train and seen eight to ten trains up to the front. At times it is almost a disconcerting sight as the trains snake through some twists and turns underground.

I board my train at Saint-Mandé and sit down. It is not a place to talk and meet people. Does one really want to tell a child some ten years later that “I met your mother on the subway”? It is also, thank goodness, not a place for cell phones and the most one hears is a few muted conversations. Most passengers take a defensive posture to ward off unwanted social contact. Everyone who rides the Métro wears some sort of mask. First, there’s the “reader,” who, now matter how much the train might lurch or if someone bumps into them will not move their book away from their face as their concentration is so intense. Second, there’s the “starer,” who stares at the map of the stops of the train and counts how many stops to go, even if the “starer” has taken the train for years and could ride the train, eyes closed, and know exactly the position and station. Third, there is the “defender” who sits with a bag or a sack or a purse enclosed by his or her crossed arms, legs tucked underneath the seat while wearing an airport scowl (thanks, Fred). The “defender” dares anyone and everyone to trespass upon his or her bubble. Last, there is the “continental.” The “continental” has done it all and seen it all and carries an air of world weariness. Paris! Bah! I would rather be in Gstaad now on the piste. The Métro is beneath him has he rides the train with a look of bored indifference. Yes, the Jag is in the shop and the wife is driving the Porsche today so I deign to take the train, the “continental” says. I choose the “continental” mask today (I did feel rather world-weary that day) and find my seat.

Porte de Vincennes, Nation, and Reuilly-Diderot all go by. Ten minutes after I first boarded I get off at the next stop, the Gare de Lyon. Besides fourteen Métro lines that cover Paris like a lattice, Paris also has five train lines (the RER) that run deeper and faster underneath the city and also run well outside the city limits above ground to the suburbs and banlieues that surround it. The Gare de Lyon is a multi-train station that not only is a junction of three different Métro lines but it also houses two RER lines, the A and the D. As a result, I have a long walk from my line to the next Métro, the 14. These multi-line stations see thousands of commuters, all briskly pacing to their next stop through which, to the outsider, may seem like a rabbit’s warren of tunnels and corridors. These large stations also house shops, boutiques, cafés, and shops. One shop is called “Presty Woman” and sells women’s accessories. I do not really know what “Presty” means—it is not a French word that I know of and I suspect that it was supposed to read “Pretty Woman” but someone did not bother to proofread when the proper time came. Today, I do not stop at Presty Woman but continue on to the 14.

This is the newest line on the Métro, and also the shortest, a mere eight stops, created as a line that would lead to the new Bibliothèque Nationale. As a result, the trains, like the #1 line are new. However, not only are they new but this line has no drivers as the trains are automated. Normally, this would not bother me one way or another this day we were nearly at the BN when my train lurched to a stop, and I mean lurched, as some people on the train actually lost their footing and fell. While not especially paranoid about subways I did wonder what was going on. No one else seemed bothered so I kept my “continental” mask on. A minute later and automated voice came on stating that there had been a “technical accident” and that we should “be patient” until it was resolved. Since I had no intention of getting out of the train (and we were actually directly under the Seine at this time) I decided patience was a virtue and thought about the Jag in the shop. After five minutes nothing happened and the automated voice repeated its warning. Still no other passengers seemed ill at ease though the “starers” on the train had little to do now as there was no train movement. The “defenders” all readjusted their positions and the “readers” pushed their noses more closely to their books. A minute later the train restarted and we reached the station. No explanation of what happened was given and as I have been riding the train a couple of weeks it has taken place one other time, though not with such a lurch and not with as long a wait so I write it off to some kinks in the automated system.

I get off the train at my station and do my five-minute walk to the library for my usual processing before I can reach the bowels of the building and the thrill of French advertising trade journals of the 1950s. I am well into a routine as I go to the desk in my reading room and present my card to a clerk who then scans the card and then retreats to a back room to find the boxes of journals that I had requested the previous day. I return with my card and my boxes and begin a day’s work. I have a lot of reading to do and even if I cannot speak French particularly well I can scan in French very fast and I go through an edition of a journal in about fifteen minutes looking for the things historians look for…

I have a laptop (thanks, Joe!) and take notes from smaller sections of journals but occasionally I come to articles that are just too juicy and long for me to try to type out completely due to time constraints so I take my journal to the photocopying room. There are only two photocopying rooms for some few hundred readers and I am quite lucky that most other researchers are not copying much. With only two rooms for photocopying one has to hope when one gets one’s reader’s desk assigned that one is close to the copy room for one might have to walk as far as seventy yards to reach it. While that may not sound like that far to walk (for a marathoner, no less) it is not that convenient when I have to copy things about twelve different times during the day. Once I reach the room I hand my photocopy card, loaded for copies at forty cents a page to the copy attendant. The BN does not allow researchers to do their own photocopying so as to protect the materials, and of course, this adds another barrier to even wanting to get photocopying done.

Another impediment is that some of the photocopy attendants do not want to do any photocopying at all. I seem to have about a twenty-five percent chance of getting an attendant who will look at my journal and say that it is “too delicate” to copy and hand it back to me and shrug their shoulders. One attendant frowned when she looked at my journal and starting shaking her head as she began to inspect that issue to see if it were “copy-worthy.” As she inspected she also proceeded to break the spine of the journal and nearly tore some pages out and she summarized the whole experience with an “It is too fragile to copy” reply. On the wall of the copy room is a list of documents that the BN will not photocopy but as I look at the list if one held to it to the letter one could not copy anything at all.

Later that morning I brought another article and the attendant (I have christened him “Grizzly Adams” as he looks like a younger version of the 80s television bear-man) also frowned and without even inspecting the journal he said, “Sorry, I cannot copy this.” This particular article was ten pages and I knew that it was impossible for me to type the whole thing out in anything less than two hours. I am more resourceful than that so I walked many, many yards to the other photocopy room to find another more pliant attendant. I was in luck as there was a young woman in this room (they seem to rotate the photocopiers every two hours to other parts of the BN in other service positions) and I ask her in my most obsequious French if she could photocopy this very rugged and tough French journal. Of course, she does not care at all about the condition of the journal (and to be fair, it is in very good condition as it has probably only been handled about five times) and copies the article for me with a smile. Cha-ching for the BN, as they just earned four dollars for the right to photocopy for me “Dissemblances et similitude de six publicitaires.”

And so goes my usual day at the BN: reading, scanning, typing, and then running the obstacle course of the photocopy rooms. Grizzly Adams has made reappearance three other times so I have to scoot down to the other room and hope for a winsome attendant. The basement research area also has an overpriced café (we are a pretty captive audience) where I take a break every two to three hours. While those in the manual professions certainly have a right to scoff at me, it is work of a sort and after about seven hours I am usually pretty much mentally spent and the words on the pages blend all into one. I return my items and head out to be reprocessed for my exit. As I walk to the station I plan my thrilling evening: I will take the Métro home and stop at a small supermarket for a few items for dinner, maybe a stop as well at the corner bakery and then up to my apartment to make a meal, do some reading, listen to the radio, and then “dodo.” As I head home to sit with the “readers,” the “starers,” the “defenders,” and the “continentals” I wonder on my walk to the station which mask I shall wear on the way home.

Address

My address:

Hultquist
c/o Mouchnino
15 Rue Georges Huchon
94300 Vincennes
France

I would put up a mapquest map but I am out of time now...

A Visit to Publicis

As you may have read in the previous entry my work on the history of French advertising agencies began in graduate school as it was my dissertation topic. Before I left for France on that first research trip I had worked for several months reading nearly everything I could find on the topic. This plan had a mixture of good news and bad news. The bad news was that there was not much scholarly work written on the subject: as a result I had to search methodically to find anything. Of course, this was also good news as it meant that I was entering a field with few other historians with whom I would compete. As a result, I could set the standard, at least for American historians on this topic.

I did find the memoirs of a French advertising executive, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet. This was a gold mine for at that time (1991) there few, if any, such memoirs available for my period. Bleustein-Blanchet, an autodidact, founded, in 1927, a one-man advertising agency in Montmartre, Paris, and named it Publicis. Over the next sixty-some years Bleustein-Blanchet built his agency into one of the largest in Europe and the second largest in France. He was a lot of things: a showman, a charmer, a social chameleon, and a tireless worker. These attributes served him well in the advertising profession. Publicis came to be known as France’s “quality agency” and an agency that innovated in terms of its management and product. As a result, I began my research with a study of the firm, as a type of anchor on which to base the rest of my work.

Before I left on my first research trip I sent a letter to the 85-year old patriarch of the agency summarizing my research interests and that I would like to interview him when I came to Paris (lesson: always start at the top). A month later I received a letter from Bleustein-Blanchet’s nephew, Claude Marcus. Marcus, Vice-President and head of Publicis’ international operations wrote that he would be pleased to meet with me and that I should contact him while in Paris. And, so I did. I met with Marcus seven times, each interview session lasting an hour as I learned much about Publicis from an important insider—he had joined the firm in 1946 and had witnessed its enormous expansion. Oh, and did I mention that Publicis’ office is on the Champs Elysées? In his “penthouse,” sixth-floor office I could see the Arc de Triomphe over his shoulder. It is safe to say that I had never felt as out of place as I did for those sessions, a peasant from Ohio in the heart of France, being given valuable time from an important business executive for a nascent project. The history of Publicis became an integral part of my dissertation. I had also written entries on Publicis and Bleustein-Blanchet for the “Encyclopedia of Advertising” published three years ago.

Fast forward fourteen years later for this trip. I wanted to update and revise my dissertation. Moreover, I wanted to expand my sections on Publicis. In late December I wrote to Maurice Lévy, now head of Publicis, announcing my return to Paris and that I would like to talk to him about the firm (always start at the top). I included my dissertation chapters on Publicis and also the two, slighter encyclopedia articles. Two weeks later I received an email from Monsieur Lévy saying that I was again welcome to visit the agency and that two top executives would be happy to meet with me. While I was in Tours doing battle with Heathers I arranged another visit to Publicis via email.

On Thursday, I returned to Publicis for the first time since 1992. I, of course, had changed: less hair and more wrinkles. Publicis had changed as well. In the years under Lévy’s leadership, Publicis had become the fourth largest advertising conglomerate in the world with forty thousand employees spread over one hundred countries. I could add other superlatives but you get the idea. The main office remained in the same position, right on the Place de l’Etoile. I scrubbed and shaved that morning and put on my finest thrift-store suit and took the Métro to the agency. I must admit that I was feeling a bit nervous. I entered the foyer and gave my name to the women at the desk (fearing, unrealistically that I might get the same reception I received at the realtor in Paris when I asked for my key: I don’t know anything about you) and she nodded and called “upstairs” and spoke a few rapid-fire phrases that I did not quite follow and she gave me a temporary badge and directed me to the elevators.

A few others awaited for elevators and as we got in and pushed our floors I seemed to notice that when I pressed “six” that the others’ eyes seemed to scrutinize me a bit closer (they all pressed lesser floors, the dwellings of cubicle drones and lower middle managers) and wonder, at least so I thought, who I was. Publicis television commercials played in monitors above the number banks. The sixth floor had changed little from what I could recall at the last visit. Thick, cream-colored carpeting and dark black paneling with black leather chairs awaited me in the foyer with a podium at the end where I gave my name. I was asked to wait a moment and a few seconds later the Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications, Eve Magnan, came out to greet me. We exchanged the briefest of pleasantries and then went to the office of Bertrand Siguier, Vice-President of Publicis (and basically the number two man after Lévy at Publicis proper). Siguier, a trim and athletic man in his late fifties had actually been hired by Bleustein-Blanchet himself in the 1960s, and has worked his way up the corporate ladder.

Our discussion began in French but I noticed over time that we used French less and less and English more and more (as they politely realized the meeting would go faster that way). Both were quite interested in my project, though Siguier thought a better and more important story was the history of Publicis from 1969 to the present rather than my earlier period. Since he had been an important participant in that second period of expansion I could understand why. Unfortunately, nearly all my work and understanding of French advertising takes place before 1969 so I told him that could indeed be my next project. He nodded his acquiescence and then turned to look at the chapter I had mailed him. This particular chapter was a history of the firm, 1946-1969 that I had crafted from multiple sources and the loss of much blood from my forehead as it dripped on the keyboard some years ago. Some readers know that I am not prone to self-aggrandizement but Siguier actually told me that they were many things in this chapter that he did not know and that it was the best thing that he had read on the firm (to be fair, almost nothing has been written about the firm, save for sketchy journalistic overviews so it was not as if he had a lot to compare my work to).

He also stated that other agencies had commissioned “histories” of their firms but those were so usually so “rosy” (or perhaps full of b.s.) that they were not interesting reading. Furthermore, he said he would share that chapter with Lévy the next day as they were both leaving on a business trip. We talked about the firm a few more minutes and I certainly have to say that I enjoyed the conversation as I have rarely met anyone who had more than a passing interest in my own academic work. Siguier found some names for me in his rolodex of some older, retired executives for me to contact. I thanked him for his time and left with Eve Magnan for her office where she helped me to set up interviews with some of the retired executives that Siguier had found for me. Afterwards, via a PowerPoint presentation on her desk she gave me a contemporary overview of the firm and its global reach. Publicis had certainly changed in eighty years. She also found Claude Marcus’s home phone number and gave it to me. I called him later that day, the first time I had spoken to him since my last trip (though we had exchanged some messages via mail but our last had been ten years past). He is over eighty now, and retired, but he still has an active interest in the firm that his uncle founded. I will be meeting with him on Tuesday and I am sure a later entry will discuss our meeting.

One last thing I have to note is how well the firm has always treated me. There really was no reason they had to be so accommodating. Even this last meeting was proof that I was doing nothing of great value to the firm today but here were two executives taking no little time to help me, an American “outsider” with my project that eventually may find publication and an audience of fifty other interested academics. I am sure an American firm might do the same thing as well: I do not know. However, I would opine that the French corporate world does have a more humanistic tradition in terms of the background of their executives (while American executives tend to come more from engineering backgrounds) and perhaps that is the reason for their interest.

The Bibliothèque Nationale

Photo courtesy J.R. McCain->

And so my work begins.

All academics, because of the nature of our profession, develop a narrow area of research in which one specializes in what many outsiders (well, and even insiders) consider to be an esoteric topic. Certainly, some academics write with a broad brush but that is mostly when they write for the general public and not in a professional forum. The reductive formula for my work might look like…

French History>20^thC France>Business History>Advertising History

Of course, even advertising history is not the only thing I cover (for those of you who are bored--or my students Logan and Anthony--the page down button is to your right) for to understand advertising one has to understand the interrelated areas of the economy including the producers, the advertising agencies, the media, and the consumers. I am sure there is something else I am leaving out but you get the idea. Change fascinates me and it is no surprise that I became a historian as I like to try to understand how and why that change transpires. France after 1945 underwent an incredible social revolution: mass migration to the cities, rapid rebuilding and industrialization, an explosion of consumption, and, like in the US, a baby boom that produced a youth culture. French advertising mirrored and documented those changes.

For me, the best way to understand this era is not just by reading the advertisements, but I have to comprehend the agencies that created those advertisements. Just as an art historian must study an artist to understand the genesis of a painting I need to do the same thing with advertising. Who were these people? What was their background, training, and values? How did these attributes shape their advertisements?

So, where do I begin? My best sources are trade journals of the advertising profession. Nearly every profession produces trade journals and they are a rich source of information of the status of the trade. As a result, for the next several weeks I will be reading journals that I have read before in my last trip here, taking notes, photocopying, and improving upon what I collected in my first trip. Beyond that, I will be interviewing major actors in the French advertising profession (more on a later entry) for their own experiences.

These trade journals reside at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (the “BN”). The BN is a venerable and nearly ancient institution, dating from the 13^th Century, having originally been a royal depository. Now, like the Library of Congress, the BN is dedicated to collecting any document or book printed in French (and a number of other languages as well). The current collection is well over ten million books with countless other documents and other printed material. On my last research trip I did not use the old BN proper, at the Rue de Richelieu, but instead the BN Annexe near Versailles. The Annexe held a good number of the periodicals that interested me and I have to say that I have never had a better commute. My morning routine would see me leave my place in Belleville, take Métro to Le Chatelet, walk across the Ile de la Cité, passing by Notre Dame, take the RER (the faster Métro) to Versailles, walk in front of the chateau, and plop myself in a small reading room. The BN Annexe was small, friendly, and efficient. I would request my journals and an employee would go to the storage room and get them in about five minutes. It is similarly efficient for photocopying (one cannot photocopy the documents oneself).

In the fourteen-year gap since my last research trip the French government contracted for a new BN as the old facilities were, frankly, old. Space had also become a problem. The new BN was going to be a model for libraries of the future and also a cultural showpiece for France’s President, François Mitterrand during the Parisian building spree of his second presidential term.

From a design standpoint the building is stunning (for a far better description, see the essay within the book Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik, staff writer for the New Yorker—thanks, Jim, for lending that to me). When one first approaches the BN from a distance one sees four twenty-five story towers (or ‘L’s) that appear like the legs of a table turned upside down. The upside-down table is on a platform of stairs that surround the building. As one takes the stairs up to a flat area (the underside, if you will, of the table top) one is in a flat, windswept plain with each tower a good two hundred yards or more apart. One certainly feels insignificant as a human considering the scale. In the center of the plain is a forest of pine trees that are recessed in a sunken garden, some eighty feet below the surface of the plain. As one strolls the plain of gray wooden planks one can just see the tips of the tallest trees emerging from the forest, perhaps the size of two football fields. To enter the library one has to take an escalator down to the garden level.

On my first day there last week I had to first obtain my “carte de recherche” allowing me access to the collections. Library bureaucrats subjected me to two levels of screening (no laughing, please) as I had to prove my academic bona fides to be allowed to use the collection. Honestly, I found the bureaucrats much more helpful and pleasant than the ones I encountered when I had my last screening as a graduate student. I guess having a Ph.D. and title of professor does open some doors.

During this initiation though, as usual, I found my reserves of French beginning to wear down. I think I have a French attention span of about ninety minutes. At minute 91 sharp those neurons go on strike (how French!). Various instructions came to me in French on the library’s use and rules (nothing in print) and as the interviews went on the French came faster and faster. Gopnik’s essay had warned me about the difficulty of use of the BN and suddenly it came to me that I barely had an idea of what the bureaucrats had told me. After going to the cashier to pay my $60 for my “carte de recherche” I decided it would be prudent to return to the library the next day when my reserves were replete.

The next day I returned and did what I do best: watch other people. When the library opened I went with other researches and stood in a line at a “vestiaire” where one exchanges their coats, bags, etcetera. One is given a clear plastic satchel in which one puts one’s laptop, books, notes, and other belongings (to help protect from theft) and then enters the beast. With your card you go through a turnstile and go through two steel double doors that would make a bank proud. From there one takes a double escalator down four floors in a large, airy corridor that is covered with steel-gray wall hangings (reminiscent of medieval chain mail) until one reaches the basement. I actually felt I was on my way to a place of ritualistic sacrifice as the ambiance was, to say the least, cold. One uses one’s card again to access another turnstile and then yet again two more steel doors. We are almost there! We are now at the true “garden level” and one can see the forest beside us enclosed in glass on its sides. On this garden level are different reading areas based on one’s area of research: law, economics, history, literature, philosophy, et cetera. There are 1650 reading seats. I made my way to the history section (though I actually could read in almost any section).

The previous day, before leaving the library and after my French breakdown, I had to use a computer and reserve the journals I wished to use the next day (so that they would be awaiting me). One also at the same time has to reserve a seat (they are all numbered: mine would be L100 for day number one). I was at least pleased that I could manage that.

I found L100. All of the seats are in rows of large functional tables, perhaps ten seats to a row. From my seat’s vantage point I could see forty to fifty rows stretching into the distance. Another imposing view that was quite different from the old annex that could hold perhaps forty readers. I had heard from some naysayers and critics about the library about the idiotic design: the books were placed in sun basking towers while the researchers became pod people residing in the darkened basement. Well, the books in the towers are shielded from the sun and the readers in the basement actually get a good deal of ambient light from the forest beside them. It is actually quite a pleasant and quiet place to work.

The desk had an outlet for my laptop (thanks, JP!), a light, and a large area for me to spread out my other materials. Perhaps it also has a nap area below: I shall check that out tomorrow and I shall get back with you. I went to the history desk close by and gave them my reader’s card and in return they found the materials that I had requested the day before. I returned to my desk, turned on my laptop, and began to read Vendre, January, 1946.

My New Home

This is the front of my building...I am on the 3rd floor in the back facing an interior courtyard...all of three blocks from the Avenue de Paris and my Metro stop, Saint-Mandé.

Anton and his death-defying cat...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/Kristikoser/circus.swf

I go to the Circus!

When I was writing a grant application for this trip I am sure one of the things I did not list on my research itinerary was a trip to the circus. But nonetheless, on my last night in Tours I found myself attending, with much of the famille Puissant, the circus.

A few nights before my departure Madame Puissant mentioned to me, perhaps apologetically, that the coming Tuesday she wanted to take the family to the circus. Of course, the family did not mean just her children and grandchildren, but “les étudiants” as well. I think she was not sure that I would really be that interested in attending or that it would be “below” me. However, I was intrigued as a cultural voyeur to see the French circus and I readily agreed.

I am sure that the last time I attended the circus I was around five. About the only thing I recall was that I desperately wanted a toy sword that one of the vendors walking the stairs dangled in front of me. What a violent materialist I was then. So, as a point of Franco-American comparison, I would not really have much to go on save for snippets of televised circus I had seen. And, as a self-appointed cultural commentator, I realize that there is such a danger in making simplistic generalizations anyway (about either French or American culture) that one can Socratically dissect into non-truths. Certainly, after studying French history and culture for nearly twenty years I do have some authority and I have tried not to make my brushstrokes too broad.

The night of the circus the adults and four of the grandchildren crammed into two cars and we made our way to the “fairgrounds,” a parking lot next to Tours’s municipal stadium. We arrived and saw the ubiquitous golden circus tent and a caravan of semi-tractor trailers behind it emblazoned with the name “Cirque Pinder” (check out their website: www.cirquepinder.com). As we walked to the “big top” two of the children, Elliot, 8, and Victoire, 4, whose parents could not attend, held onto my hands. As the “exotic” American I certainly held some status in their eyes though I also marveled at the amount of trust that small children can place so quickly in adults that they barely know. I guess despite what some of my students think I am not such an ogre after all.

Madame Puissant had already bought the tickets for us, some family package deal that was very reasonably priced. As we approached the tent entrance Cirque Pinder employees dressed in hussar’s uniforms, red with gold stripes, greeted us and acted as ushers to take us to our seats. The big top itself was a “one-ring” circus with wooden planked banks of seats surrounding the ring. Each bank had about twenty rows and I could not imagine that the tent itself could hold more than a couple of thousand. This night it was about half full and we were most of the way up toward the tent wall. It scarcely mattered as our view was great. Half of the crowd was under ten and one could certainly feel their excitement as more people milled in and music played on the speakers.

Circuses certainly have a long history, dating at least back to Rome if not before. The fairs of the Middle Ages had traveling companies that if were not exactly circuses, provided similar entertainments of acrobatics, juggling, and “exotic” animals. The Early Modern period saw infrastructural improvements that allowed easier travel for these performers and the rise of a middle class gave the proto-circuses an audience. By the 1800s, the circus we know developed in Western Europe and the U.S. As a result, the French have had a long circus tradition. France is best known now for their Cirque du Soleil, part of a larger movement known as the Cirque Nouveau, a circus that does not use animals but instead emphasizes human acrobatics and ballet-type story telling. Tonight’s circus was not Cirque Nouveau but the circus that most Americans would recognize: a ringmaster, the lion tamer, the clowns, acrobats, magicians, and the high-wire artists. Sorry, no mimes.

For a circus that was not particularly large (in terms of size or attendance) the Cirque Pinder put on quite a good show. The ringmaster was smooth and effortless in his delivery. All the performers were smartly dressed with a sense of flair. Trainers had groomed the performing animals little short of perfection. Between acts an army of helpers took apart and reassembled various apparatuses quietly and efficiently (with so many staff on hand I wondered how the Cirque could hope to turn even a slender profit). If I could make a guess, I would doubt that an American circus of similar size would pay such attention to detail. Of any of the performers, I would say that the “magicians” were clearly the best. Over the past years I have seen enough televised appearances of magicians and shows that reveal their “secrets” so there is not a lot new in terms of the basic magic act. However, even knowing what to look for I was dumbfounded for a few of their disappearing and reappearing acts and my applause for them was certainly genuine.

But then there is the sadness that is the circus. And this sadness is universal and knows no national boundaries…I just happened to be in France to view this one particular circus. Those less cynical may wish to read other, cheerier blogs. The saddest thing about most circuses is the treatment of the animals. I cannot imagine what a life it must be like for a 500-pound tiger to be in a small cage most of the day and then to come out at night in a larger cage and be poked and prodded and whipped into some demeaning activity all to the musical accompaniment of the instrumental version of Kenny Roger’s “Lady.” I kid you not. I am sure you can make up your own scenarios about the various other animals that appeared as well.

I also liked to watch the circus but not necessarily where I was supposed to be watching but instead I regarded the fringes, away from the center lights. Where can I start? Was it the fourth magician, dressed up like Michael Jackson, whose main task was to spin the various cages around but never was able to perform himself? Was it the women on the high wire who never actually went out on the wire but just brandished her arms like Vanna White as a Herve Villechaize look-a-like rode his Lilliputian bicycle back and forth fifty feet above the ground? Was it the slightly portly “acrobat” who had seen too many winters, a refugee of some 1980s Eastern European gymnastics factory who had been a great gymnast in his own right but never could quite perfect the triple twisting dismount from the rings (or whatever defining movement that was necessary to compete at the world-class level) hence dooming him to a circus career of one European city after another until his knees gave out forcing him into a new circus career of following the elephant with the poopscoop? Were their smiles really genuine?

Of course Vladu the gymnast could have similarly looked at me and pointed out my own shortcomings…if Hultquist had only been more assiduous in his own career he would be on his third book by now. And how could he give that three hundredth lecture on feudalism to a sleepy audience of indifferent freshmen?

But I save the best for last. The evening was over half over when into the ring pranced Anton Fischer and his “Tirolean” animal wagon. Fischer, a late forty-something combination of a dissolute Steve Martin and a manic Rod Stewart, danced and capered about the ring in his lederhosen, slapping his knees and the bottoms of his feet all the while grinning like there was no tomorrow. He was a great showman. Of course, he better have been one as his animal act was about as mundane as one could imagine. I actually took a video of this with my camera to verify I am not exaggerating-I may post at some point if I can solve some bandwidth issues. In his Tirolean wagon was a strange combination of animals that performed various tricks: a cat (don’t ask), a dog (don’t tell), a sheep (don’t go there), and a goat (please, Anton, for the love of God, stop). Of course, it was all very clean and family oriented, but seriously, does anyone really want to see a housecat poked and prodded into jumping through a hoop? And, having a cat stand atop a dog that is atop a goat that is atop a mule is not the most thrilling thing in the animal kingdom. Even some of the slower children in the audience realized that this was just filler until the next act and just applauded politely. Anton bounded off the stage, rooster in hand, to get ready for the next evening’s performance…

Snow at Restigne

A self-portrait last weekend at Restigne...

Welcome to Paris!

Despite what you have read, gentle readers, over the past few weeks, I do pride myself on a certain level of competency in life. Certainly, this trip has tried and tested that pride on a number of occasions…

Wednesday, 1 February was the big day: the move to Paris. I had lived in Paris for ten weeks in the winter of 1992 when I did my dissertation research. It was amazing how little I knew and how naïve I was then. I arrived with only a one-night stay booked in a hotel near the airport: after that I was on my own to find a place to stay and live, not knowing French much better than I do now (no laughing, please). After three-day stay at a fleabag of a hotel on the Ile de la Cité I did find a ‘hotel’ that rented out rooms for the long stay resident ($700/month then for a ten by ten cell) and I was there for the duration of my trip. The situation worked but it was scarcely ideal.

This time I had no desire to try to find something on the fly. In late November, working through collegial connections I arranged an apartment just to the east of Paris proper in Vincennes, a middle-class residential neighborhood adjacent to the largest park in Paris, the Bois de Vincennes. The price was right and the location was quite good: three blocks from the nearest Metro stop, a good sign in the eyes of most Parisians.

I had my usual breakfast with the Puissant family and my two fellow students and at 9:30 Monsieur Puissant helped me load my suitcase in his car and I bade a sad goodbye to Madame Puissant and the household-she invited me to come back on any week-end that I wished during my remaining stay in France. I had a rather civil departure time of 10:30 from the Tours train station. Because of the high-speed French train network, the TGV, one can now go from Tours to Paris in little over an hour as opposed to nearly treble that on the standard trains. It is a blurring experience, traveling a few feet off the ground at nearly 200 miles per hour. The cows and trees disappear before one can focus on them. The TGV has certainly changed living patterns France, allowing long-distance commuting never before imagined. Of course, it comes with a price, not just the new elevated train lines, but the cost, nearly double that of the regular train.

I was in no particular hurry that morning and I actually like taking the train at a more sedate pace through the countryside. French trains are not only comfortable but roll smoothly and have large windows perfect for watching the world go by. Besides, I had already taken the TGV to Tours on my day of arrival--but then I was in I hurry as I had been in planes or airports for nineteen hours when I had arrived in Paris. It was a foggy and cool morning with most of the trees and grass covered with a light rime. We passed a number of small villages, little different than the one I had stayed in the previous weekend. The impression one gets traveling through France is that despite its physical size (France is roughly equal to Texas in square miles), France with sixty million inhabitants is still, compared to the rest of Europe, relatively under populated.

About thirty miles from Paris the countryside disappeared abruptly to be replaced by concrete and asphalt: we were in the Paris metropolitan area, a behemoth of some eleven million people. One in six French can in all actuality claim to be Parisian.

A little before 1 p.m. the train pulled into the Gare de Austerlitz, one of the six Parisian train stations. I pulled my rolling suitcase from the train and made my way to the street. Metro lines run below all train stations in Paris but I had little desire to try to wrestle my bag through the turnstiles and down and up escalators—a taxi would be well worth the cost. I certainly found a pleasant and helpful taxi driver right outside the station and I praised myself for my timing—arriving in Paris without a hitch. I gave the driver my address (not for my apartment but for a realty office where my apartment owner had left a key for me as she lives in London) and we had a swift fifteen minute drive to the agency. To make the day even better the fog had burned off and the sun came out warming the city up to a pleasant 40. I was so pleased I gave the driver a 30% tip as I got out of the cab.

Then, things started to go not quite as well. As the cab sped away on the busy Avenue de Paris I opened the agency’s door. The door that would not open. A tiny, handwritten sign said: out to lunch, back at 2:00. I ruefully looked at my watch and it was scarcely after 1:15. So much for my planning and my fine timing. Of course there could be worse things than to have to wander around Paris but I was on a busy street with a lot of pedestrian traffic with my giant suitcase in one hand and my satchel in my other hand. I looked for a temporary refuge of a café or a restaurant but in typical French fashion the two that I found were crowded for lunch with tiny chairs with about ten inches between tables and no place for a giant rolling valise the size of a small rhinoceros. I decided instead to walk the neighborhood, off the main street, and to find my new apartment anyway.

Of course, my apartment building was all of three blocks away, and even walking slowly this only took me about six minutes. The neighborhood, at least, was pleasant, a solidly residential area of mostly five-to-eight story apartment buildings. No signs of cars having been on fire anywhere! My apartment was scarcely a block from a large day care center (called a maternelle in France) and a bakery that my colleague highly recommended. I returned to the Avenue de Paris. It was 1:30. I peered through the glass of the realty willing someone to return from lunch early. My psychokinetic powers failed. I made a larger circuit of the neighborhood returning back to the agency at 2 p.m. Empty. Maybe on Wednesdays they did not come back after lunch? My head was starting to hurt and I began to feel pressure behind my temples. I was also starting to feel a bit footsore and my arm was tired from pulling my valise. Food also sounded good at this point.

I did one more circuit as I did not want to just stand outside the agency on the street with passersby bumping into me…at 2:15 I returned and there was a light on inside. I happily entered and was greeted by a woman behind the desk. I explained my situation: the owner of the apartment had left the key for me to pick up today for the apartment. The woman’s reaction: I don’t know what you are talking about. My head began a legitimate pounding at this point. I had the phone number of my colleague’s friend in London someplace in my bag but did not want to have to dredge that up and find a payphone to call London (and maybe not even get a reply). I had visions of opening up my valise and crawling inside to take a nap.

Then the women said, “I’ll check with my colleague.” At least my French training was paying off as I could understand her. She returned in a moment and said, thankfully, “Oh, yes, we have your key here.” Sweeter words have rarely been spoken to me. She handed me an envelope (now this was ridiculously easy—she did not ask for my passport or name but just handed me the keys to someone’s place) and smiled. The throbbing began to reside. Of course, it was a quick walk to the apartment (I am sure some resident snoop who spends his/her day looking out their window wondered who in the world I was on my fourth circuit of the neighborhood) and I entered the number code I had been given into the exterior door. The door opened. So far, so good.

The owner had emailed me in the previous week—go to the second floor and to the first door on your left as her apartment. Parisian apartments typically do not have numbers, names, or any sort of identification on them. Most likely a sign of the privacy people wish in a large city. I took the incredibly tiny elevator (about as large as a phone booth) up one flight as I did not want to wrestle my bag up the stair. There were three doors to choose from and I chose the one of the left. I opened up the envelope the agency gave me and inside there were three oddly shaped keys that looked little different than medieval tools of dentistry.

You may recall my first sentence where I wrote about my pride in my competency. One thing where I admit I do not excel (besides foreign language skills) is the handling and use of keys. For some reason I have always had some trouble in their use and manipulation. I had three keys in my hand and the door had two keyholes. I began to work on the first keyhole with the molar scraper but nothing worked. Then, I used the canine gouger to the same result. And then the third key. Nothing. My headache returned. Maybe it was the wrong door, maybe I had written down the wrong directions. Maybe it was the door to the left of the elevator, not to the left of the stairs?

Then, three of my remaining brain cells recalled one of the most basic things of French civilization: the first floor to them is our second floor. I had been trying for five minutes to open up the wrong apartment. I can only imagine if someone had been in there hearing me try to hack away (of course, maybe they are still there, paralyzed with fear at the attempted break-in). I turned from the door and walked up the stairs with a breathless silence that would have impressed a wraith. The stairs did not even creak.

I came to “my” door that only had one key and opened up the door with no problem. I was home. Certainly, I would have to say that I am pleased with my apartment. It has one bedroom, a living room, a small galley kitchen, and hardwood floors. While spartanly furnished, it certainly has enough for my simple needs. The owner has also left behind a collection of some hundred books in both English and French for me to read. I’ve been here for two days and I have found it to be pretty quiet. I do not have much of a view as my apartment looks over an interior courtyard and the matching rear of a similar building. It certainly has some quirks (not very many lights, no oven, no television, and a stereo that does not work) but I was able to get situated and figure out how to turn on the gas to the stove and turn on the electricity. Maybe I was not so incompetent after all.

Please don't excite the dogs

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago outside the Chateau of Cheverny...they are hunting dogs for fox hunts.

Arrival in Paris

I arrived today in Paris and have moved in only with a few amusing problems to recount later.