Parisian book corners

I’ve left Marseille for the summer and am now back at UCSD, but I still have some pictures/adventures as yet un-written, so I figured I’d post some final few entries from the sunny southern California beaches. (Just pretend they’re from the sunny southern French beaches.) (Actually, a more apt parallel is a screen-lit southern California cogsci lab masquerading as a screen-lit southern French cogsci lab.) Goodbye to everyone in Marseille… but maybe I’ll be back?! I’d certainly love to see you all again.

In early September, I went up to Paris for the AMLaP conference. I stayed an extra day to breathe in the Parisian scent, and took the opportunity to go up to La Porte de Clignancourt, an area in a northern quarter of Paris which is an enormous combination of 12 differently-themed flea markets. It’s quite the experience, really, wandering around the streets and seeing the rapid shifts in types of goods for sale – from sports clothes to shoes to antiques to furniture to enormous, ugly picture frames to boxes of utter junk. While wandering around, I came across a book store of the best kind – one tiny room, stuffed to exploding with books shoved onto shelves completely haphazardly, so anything interesting you might come across would be the result of pure luck and digging. It’s like a treasure hunt.

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I found a hardcover, gold-embossed, three-volume set of The Three Musketeers (in French, bien sur), but didn’t have enough cash with me to buy them, so I ran out to the nearest ATM. On my way back, however, it started to pour, so I hung out in the bookstore for a while, waiting for it to stop raining. While standing around, I started talking to the owner of the shop (after he offered me a coffee – “don’t worry, it’s free!” – from the coffee machine he’d stuck on the table in the middle of some relatively-well stacked books.) For once, it was me who got to spring the “Where are you from?” question, because his French, while excellent, was obviously accented. Turned out he’d emigrated from Lebanon in 1953, and had come to Paris to go to school at the Sorbonne and study psychology. Hey you, he called to one of his assistants, hand me that white book over there. (Which one? the assistant rather pointedly asked, given the rather large number of books, including white ones, scattered about. The one on top of the third stack, the owner replied.) The owner hands me the book, which is a child development book written by Piaget. You heard of him? he asked. Of course, I replied. (Piaget was one of the most influential forerunners of developmental psychology.)

Turns out the bookstore owner was taking classes with Piaget at the Sorbonne. Now that’s epic. This is like meeting someone who’s taken a class from Chomsky, or Descartes, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

After university, he said, he’d moved to Kuwait to start a grain import business, because there’s nothing there but “oil – just oil and sun.” And no income tax.

No wonder his bookstore was so darn awesome.

La Police Nationale

Saturday I got to wear an official, funny French Police Nationale hat.

My friend Clarice (from UCSD) is here to visit for a few days, so we went on a big walking tour/shopping trip around Marseille. On our way down Canebière towards the port, we kept running into increasingly large numbers of policemen clustered in little groups, decked out in full riot gear and looking (at least as far as a French policeman can) intensely fierce and ready for trouble. What was interesting was that there didn’t seem to be anyone to protect against, as the streets were full to bursting, but only with the hordes of tourists who’d descended for one last Provençal hurrah before the end of the season. Being the inquisitive type, I asked a group what was happening that necessitated such a show of force. The policeman standing at the edge of the cadre informed me they were there for a manifestation (likely the most widely-practiced communal activity in France, second only to [though often co-occuring with] the strike). Apparently the G7 finance ministers were meeting in Marseille and a big protest was planned. What would they be protesting? I asked. “Capitalism,” my new police pal said, downright derisively. “Finance. The markets. The world. Everything.” (Clearly he’d chosen his side in this battle well.)

As per usual, I got asked where I was from¹, and this launched a whole discussion between me and 3 or 4 of the nearby policemen, all of whom were obviously bored with all this standing around waiting for the protest to show up.

After the protest passed by, we wandered around the market some more, and then started off back home. On the street perpendicular to my own, we encountered our friendly policemen again, who accused us of following them around. (Not true!) We went to my apartment, laughing about their ridiculous hats the entire way back. (Seriously, how much fear can be inspired in the masses by people wearing the kind of hats you folded out of a sheet of newspaper back in 2nd grade?)

As luck would have it, on our way back out (this time to buy cheeeeeese!), we ran into them once more. We decided this was a sign, and so went over to ask to try on their hats. They very enthusiastically agreed, and also offered up their official anti-riot helmets and shield.

Et voila the photographic evidence:

After the hat photo-op, two of them then proceeded to rip off various official police badges and give them to us. That was a bit strange, admittedly. The bottom one will be going on my office door, though.

As per usual, we got invited out for a drink, which we politely declined, given that, among other obvious reasons, we already were going to a birthday party that night. Turned out to be a good choice, as this party turned into an all-night secret Marseillaise clubbing adventure and then a walk home timed to see the sun rise….
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1. The one upside of my intense accent is that it certainly facilitates unexpected social interactions. Maybe I should start affecting an accent in English in San Diego? Just think who I’ll meet!