Tag Archives: france

SAM’s New Exhibit Reveals Gauguin’s Unrequited Wanderlust

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The Bathers 1897 Oil on canvas Paul Gauguin, French, 1848-1903 23 3/4 x 36 3/4 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951

Faaturuma (Melancholic) 1891 Oil on canvas Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903 37 x 26 7.8 in. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Landscape from Tahiti with Four Figures 1892 Oil on canvas Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903 35 7/16 x 27 9/16 in. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Arearea no varua ino (Reclining Tahitian Women), 1894 Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark Oil on canvas 23 5/8 x 38 9/16in. (60 x 98cm)

Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carrière, 1886 National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon 1985.64.20 Oil on canvas 18 5/16 x 15 3/16in. (46.5 x 38.6cm)

Vahine no te Tiare (Tahitian Woman with a Flower), 1891 Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark Oil on canvas 27 3/4 x 18 5/16in. (70.5 x 46.5cm)

Left, Femme Caraïbe (Female Nude with Sunflowers), 1889 Private collection Oil on wood panel 25 3/16 x 21 1/4in. (64 x 54cm) (Photo: MvB)

Tiki, second half of 19th century American Museum of Natural History Wood 42 1/2 x 9 1/4 x 8 7/16in. (108 x 23.5 x 21.5cm) (Photo: MvB)

Tiki (Figure), 19th century Collection of the Musée de la Castre, Cannes, France Wood 40 9/16in. (103cm) (Photo: MvB)

Taumi (Breast Ornament), late 18th century The Trustees of the British Museum, London, England Feathers, dog hair, shark teeth, vegetable fiber 24 7/16 x 21 1/4in. (62 x 54cm) (Photo: MvB)

Vaka (Canoe Model), late 19th century Musée d'ethnographie, Neuchâtel, France Wood, sennit, feathers 32 5/16in. (82cm) (Photo: MvB)

Detail from Parahi te Marae (The Sacred Mountain), 1892 Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee, 1980 Oil on canvas 26 x 35in. (66 x 88.9cm) (Photo: MvB)

Double figure, late 18th century-early 19th century The Trustees of the British Museum, London, England Wood 24 x 22 13/16in. (61 x 58cm) (Photo: MvB)

Detail from Kumete (Rectangular Box on four figure supports), ca. 1880s Auckland Museum Wood, haliotis shell 12 x 11 3/4 x 5 7/16in. (30.5 x 29.9 x 13.9cm) (Photo: MvB)

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At various times during his life and following his death, Paul Gauguin was described as an impressionist, post-impressionist, symbolist and a cloisonnist. If such classifications imply a unique versatility, don’t be fooled. Whatever the art historians say about the man, he had a single defining characteristic.

He was rootless.

No artist before or since, not even the enigmatic author Kurt Vonnegut, has ever had such a profound case of wanderlust. Now, a wonderful Gauguin exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, “Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise,” puts Gauguin’s travels and travails into wonderful focus, played out against the art of the people he painted. Admission is free for SAM members and kids 12 and under ($23 Adults; $20 Seniors and Military with ID; $18 Student with ID and Teens 13-17). There’s a $3 discount on all tickets Thursday and Friday, from 5 to 9 p.m.

Drawing from many sources both public and private, “Gauguin and Polynesia,” which was organized by Art Centre Basel, is on view from February 9 through April 29, 2012. It includes nearly 60 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, which are displayed alongside 60 major examples of Polynesian sculpture. It’s as fine a show as SAM has ever done: an honest measure of a strange and remarkable man.

Born in Paris 1848, Gauguin grew up in Peru. While there he was impressed, and moved, by the native arts, pottery, and costumes of the Peruvian people and the ancient Inca. His family moved back to France when Gauguin was seven years old. The family, and then Gauguin himself, moved around. Each time, Gauguin reflected that he was finally home, only to decide after a few months–in some cases years–he wasn’t really where he wanted to be after all.

He married in 1873 a Danish woman and moved to Denmark. He tried his luck as a salesman and a stock broker, and raised a family. But he never settled down.

In 1888, he spent eight weeks in the company of Vincent van Gogh in Arles, where van Gogh hoped to build an artists colony. What happened over those weeks changed both of their lives. They had a complicated relationship, Gauguin the dominating bully, van Gogh constantly playing eager to gain Gauguin’s trust. It didn’t end well. Van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a knife or razor, fled to a brothel and cut off, in differing accounts, his full ear or just the lower lobe. (There is a wonderful Gauguin painting in the first gallery of the SAM exhibition where the artist does a lovely homage to van Gogh. Look for it, it’s one of the best in the show.)

Gauguin fled, and by 1891 he had left his family and set out for what he hoped would be the exotic worlds of Polynesia, stopping first in Martinique and Panama where he worked on the first iteration of the Panama Canal.

Then he set sail for Tahiti. And that’s where the SAM exhibition starts. The exhibition has been beautifully put together. The first galleries take the visitor from Gauguin’s departure from France to his arrival in Tahiti where, in conjunction with a government agency, he recorded the lives of the local population.

And it’s here that you see that the artist must have been shocked that the paradise he expected was long gone. Tahiti was first explored in the 1700s. Half-naked Tahitian beauties hypnotized early western sailors, such as the crews of Captain Cook’s ships. After those first stories got back, everybody who could go to Tahiti went.

Taking advantage of local customs and traditions, English, Dutch, and French sailors took Tahitian women as lovers. They spread venereal diseases far and wide. The native population declined. By the time Gauguin got there, missionaries were hard at work bring God to godless natives. Whatever paradise the artist wanted to find wasn’t there. Even the wonderful Tahitian Tiki statues were gone, burned by the missionaries.

The SAM exhibit tries to juxtapose those early, sad, disappointed paintings of Gauguin with magnificent examples of early Tikis and native sculptures. Intricate, beautiful, voluptuous, they give an idea of what Gauguin must have been looking for.

There is a poignant portrait of Tehamana (Tehamana Has Many Parents), Gauguin’s Tahitian mistress that says a lot about the artist’s hopes. She is presented in a missionary dress, but behind her are cryptic Polynesian carvings and writings. It also reveals Gauguin’s less savory side. The girl is 12 or 13.

Gauguin returned to France, wrote a highly romanticized account of the islands, and struggled with his return to French life. He left his heart, it seems, was in Tahiti. But Tahiti left part of its tragic history in him as well. He had contracted syphilis. He went back. And this time, because the beauty he sought wasn’t really there, he painted dream paintings of an exotic world instead. It’s these paintings that form the basis of Gauguin’s reputation and lasting popularity, though few of them were sold in his lifetime.

And his proclivity for getting into scrapes with people, particularly officials, never ceased. He was run out of island after island it seems. One scrape, this time in the Marquesas Islands, where he put a kind of Polynesia sexual playhouse together, was about to lead to a prison sentence when, in 1903, he died of an overdose of morphine. He was a very old 54.

As with van Gogh, it’s hard to separate Gauguin’s work from his life. His sad story, his hopes, his realizations, his pyrrhic victories, his dissolution are completely presented in the SAM show. The exhibition lays out the simple truth of the artist’s life: a promise unkept is different than living a lie.

Special events associated with the exhibit include SAM’s after-hours Remix, on February 24 from 7:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. (Nonmembers $25, Students $20, SAM members $12) and a talk from Musée d’Orsay curator Stéphane Guégan on Gauguin, on March 8 at 7 p.m. (Nonmembers $10; Seniors and Students $8, SAM members $5).

The Plight of the Loud Kid in France’s School System

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

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Exhibit A: A group of four-year-olds reading quietly together on the left. My son (but with an accomplice!) wrestling something to the ground on the right. Different.

Meticulously handcrafted parakeet costumes for the school Carnavale parade

A preschool in winter

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The kids are almost back in school. Thank God, say the parents. In France, this time of year is known as La Rentrée, and is also when all Parisians return from their month-long vacations in the South. Every parent in the school will be richly tanned on the first day back; I will be sporting my standard ghostly pallor. It’s just one more way to announce myself as a foreigner.

Our school experience in France has included three years of the public école maternelle, the hardcore equivalent of our American preschool. I say “hardcore” because preschool isn’t a bunch of kids singing nursery rhymes and playing with blocks here. It’s serious business.

The French école maternelle is a full eight-hour day, four days a week. At our school, the kids tackle subjects and skills not usually taught in the States until kindergarten or beyond. There are four-year-olds counting to a hundred, doing basic reading, and writing Chinese characters. In short, these kids are more advanced than I am. It’s impressive but the flip-side is exhausted kids on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Our son has been known to ask for a stiff drink at the end of a long day.

The teachers are kind but firm, and make it clear the classroom is their domain; there is no parental involvement in a French classroom. If you offer on the first day to be a “room mother,” you’re going to receive a mystified look in response. If you pair the offer with a big eager-to-please American smile, you’re just playing into stereotype and embarrassing yourself. (I don’t know this from experience, not at all).

Even though we’ve been impressed by the teachers and overachieving academics of French preschool–just look at those meticulously handcrafted parakeet costumes for the school Carnavale parade–it has not been a great match for our son. With the level of seriousness surrounding school, kids are expected to behave accordingly. We, however, have what is known in polite company as “a very American child.” If he’s awake, he’s jumping up and down. He has only one volume and it’s loud (his father has that same volume and, no, my life is not an easy one).

For one small example of how his personality stands out among his more subdued classmates, one can observe the folding of the bibs. During his first year of preschool, each child was required to fold their bib after lunch. Every three-year-old in the class took off their bib, folded it into quarters, and placed it nicely in a basket. My kid rolled his into a ball, took a flying leap towards the pile and slam dunked it on top with a “WHEEE!” The teachers noticed the difference, and were concerned.

We have teacher friends in the States who know our son and say things like, “He’s all boy.” In France, however, teachers say things like, “Your son needs a psychologist.” We didn’t know what to make of the difference in opinion, so indeed took him to see a school psychologist. The psychologist didn’t have any grave concerns about our loud son and said many of his problems at school could be attributed to cultural differences.

According to the psychologist, there’s a “let kids be kids” mindset in the States whereas in Paris–especially our kind of snobby area of Paris–it’s more “make kids be silent small adults.” She also acknowledged that in the States, individuality is valued. We accept, even admire, people who think differently and march to the beat of their own drummer. In France, conformity is the only way to go. Standing out in the crowd will earn you a one-way ticket to a psychologist.

Unfortunately, our son’s personality paired with the French intolerance for our son’s personality means he’s always in trouble at school. At one point last year, he was moved to a different lunch hour, no longer with his classmates, and was put at a table by himself to be taught a lesson about staying in his seat during lunch. He was four years old at the time, and the lunch period is an hour long–harsh much, France? (Hey, an hour lunch! Sweet!–ed.)

Even I find it hard to sit in my seat for an hour, as evidenced by the ten thousand times I’ve gotten up to get a mouthful of baguette while writing this article. And if I was four years old and put by myself at a table in a roomful of people I didn’t know, I would probably jump out of my seat constantly to figure out where all my damn friends wandered off to. It seems too much to ask of a four-year-old to stay seated and quiet for an hour, but the French kids seem to have an easier time of it so I really don’t know what the hell’s going on over here.

The American education system is not a flawless one and there will be challenges at home, too. But when we return, we hope there’s a place for him there; we hope there are more creative ideas for dealing with his brand of energy besides embarrassing him or sending him to a shrink or making him eat his lunch alone on the roof of the school. We’re just hoping they don’t force us to medicate him, because then he may forget all those wonderful Chinese characters.

Polite Seattleites, I Give You…the French Wedge

These people are in line but they're not happy about it

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

Here I am again on The Sunbreak, a Seattle news site, talking about Europe. I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but Mr. MvB has been outrageously supportive given my complete irrelevance to his site. I like to think I provide a perspective of life outside the U.S., which, by the way, I’m enjoying watching self-destruct from afar. We return home in five months so that should be just enough time for the whole thing to really go to hell. Looking forward to viewing the carnage in person.

In this installment of “Why is this woman still talking about Europe,” I’m going to discuss the French and their aversion to standing in lines. I have so many stories of being trampled in lines in Paris–this may be a three-part series, four if you’re lucky.

I was mowed over left and right in lines when we first moved here. At first I would make excuses for the line-cutters like, “I bet that person is just in a hurry, probably late to some important meeting or they’ve learned their child is perched precariously on a ledge.” Three years later, I know it’s just the smell of weakness. If French people catch a whiff of it on you, you will become line-waiting roadkill because you are not worthy to stand in front of them.

Our family took a Paris Christmas light bus tour last year. When my son and I entered the shop to buy tickets, we walked smack into typical French “organization”–pandemonium, no line, just a big group of people pushing to get to the counter. It was a dreaded French Wedge.

There were some anglophone tourists darting about, looking panic-stricken and shouting back and forth, “What’s the SYSTEM? I don’t understand the SYSTEM!”

“Good luck people,” I thought to myself, “no way you’re making the tour if you stand around whining about a system in the middle of a French Wedge.” Then I plunged headfirst into the crowd and pushed like a seasoned professional to the front of the line with my little boy’s arms wrapped tightly around my waist. He knows the drill; when entering a French Wedge, grab mama and hang on, kind of like a baby koala but with more fear.

When it came time to get on the bus, another French Wedge formed outside the bus doors. The anglophones were very sweet, all lined up nicely on one side of the bus, but we Frenchies (I consider myself one of them now, in matters of line-waiting and enviable style only) crushed up together on the other side of the door. The anglophones looked bewildered as we steamrolled them out of the way; Americans and Canadians flew through the air yelling, “SYSTEM! There’s no SYSTEM!”

Of course there’s a system–it’s called “Smash the hell out of other people.” We got great seats on top of the bus, which was full of French people. The bottom level of the bus was full of crushed, wounded tourists applying cold compresses and band-aids.

Helmet Hair makes her move

My husband, Alex, and I recently went to a museum and stood in a lengthy line outside the most popular exhibit. This is where a lady I refer to as Helmet Hair pulled the most blatant line-cut I’ve ever seen. She just swung her foot around Alex’s body and stepped in front of him. Alex is useless in line-cutting situations because he starts sputtering indignantly but laughing at the same time, so all he accomplishes is confusing everybody about his feelings.

Then she did it to me. I whipped out my iPhone to record the elusive line-cutter at the very moment she was cutting–what a moment to capture in the Paris wilderness! Look closely because this is exactly how they do it;  they step right in front of you, but they will not look at you. They’ll look in the exact opposite direction of you, even if it means pivoting their head around 180 degrees so they’re staring directly out over their backs. Line-cutting Frenchies are like those owls with really twisty necks.

If you say something polite, you will be ignored. Your only options are to 1.) fistfight or 2.) take back your space. I chose to take back my space and stuck one of my feet in front of her feet. There wasn’t enough room for both my feet, so I straddled her for a minute and stared at her impressive helmet hair. Her head remained turned away from me, but I could tell from the stiffness of her body she knew I was making my move. It was ON.

We played footsie all the way up to the front of the line and I was winning, WINNING when I realized Alex had fallen behind by several more people. I could tell they’d cut in front of him because they were all intently staring at the ceiling and Alex was hopping around guffawing every few seconds. I lost focus. I turned to Alex and said, “What the hell are you doing all the way back there?” and WHOOSH…Helmet Head was past me and into the exhibit. I may have lived here three years now, but when it comes to the sport of lines, I’m still an amateur.

I could talk about this stuff all day but MvB gives me a word limit when discussing things on The Sunbreak not at all relevant to The Sunbreak. I look forward to returning home at the end of the year, where you’ll probably recognize me out and about. I’ll be the one steamrolling over everyone in line. It’s gonna be a cinch; the peaceful Pacific Northwesterners will never see me coming.

An "ice cream line" right here in Seattle, courtesy of our Flickr pool's zenobia_joy. You haven't lived 'til you've experienced this, Mindy.

 

How the French Solved Summer Vacation

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

Summer à la Française. Note fleeing adult.

Americans recovering from their Fourth of July fireworks injuries are wondering what to do with their children for the rest of the summer. In France, we’re gearing up for Bastille Day fireworks injuries–we have drunk people playing with explosives in common–but after that, we know we can dump our kids at the centre de loisirs.

The centre de loisirs, much like gourmet preschool lunch, is a brilliant benefit of high taxes. During school vacations–all school breaks, not just summer break–one or two schools in each arrondissement stay open. You can drop your kid at the school at 8:30 a.m. and people who have more energy than you will entertain them for (almost) free until 5:30 p.m., for however many days a week you need it,  be it for your job or just your mental well-being.

It sounds great, and it is. The only downside to the centre de loisirs is they are chaotic, Lord of the Flies-ish anarchist communities. All the children of the arrondissement funnel into one school, through one door, into a small entry hall crammed full of check-in tables and people waving paperwork. It’s claustrophobic and loud and nobody can move. Pushing happens.

Prior to the storming of the tower

The animateurs who run the centre already look exhausted on the first day. An animateur watched my son and his friend wrestle each other to the ground on Day One (they were screaming!) and said with a sigh, “Ohhh la la.” He was probably thinking about how long summer is.

The kids come home from the centre wrecked and crabby, but they also sleep in, sometimes for the first time ever. The first morning my husband and I woke up at a leisurely 7:30 a.m., we realized our son hadn’t jumped on our bed at the crack of dawn. Alarmed that something was terribly wrong with him, we tripped over each other in our hurry to get to his room, where we found him sleeping soundly. Then we hugged in the hallway and wept at the beauty of it. Thank you, really high taxes.

Last year, I didn’t know for the longest time what my son actually did at the centre.  I’d heard they did fun things but when I asked my son, I received answers like, “I was fighting and then I ran super fast and we was fighting and then I chased them and we was fighting.” Then he would grin and demand snacks.

He seemed happy enough so I figured he enjoyed all the fighting, but it was quite unsettling if that‘s really all he did all day. I pictured preschoolers cagefighting while animateurs cheered their favorite and threw bets down in a pile of euros on the ground. A disturbing mental image, but at least I was getting some time to myself.

A few weeks into the summer, my friend’s daughter began attending the centre de loisirs, too. Suddenly I was getting emails from her like, “Can you believe they went to the circus today?” and “Wow–top of the Eiffel Tower this afternoon!” Sometimes it was a boat tour on the Seine. Sometimes it was the wading pools at the Jardin du Luxembourg. It sounded like they were indeed well entertained but my son never mentioned any of it. Instead he talked at length about the giant mutant spider that crawled over the playground wall that he and his friends had to fight with their bare hands.

Depending on whose version you believe, the centre de loisirs is either a pint-sized fight club full of giant spiders or a whirlwind of exciting activities that’s a lot more fun than time with mom. (Hell no, I’m not taking him to the top of the Eiffel Tower–have you seen those lines?) Either way, the centre is a parent’s friend. The kids are happy and exhausted, the parents keep doing whatever they were doing during the school year, and then most people leave on vacation for the entire month of August.

It’s a good life but seriously, the taxes are really high.

SIFF Six-pack: Cornichon’s Guide to France & Food

We asked Ronald Holden, Belltown boulevardier and Herb Caen of the Northwest food scene–read him over at the award-winning Cornichon–to let us in on what he was looking forward to at SIFF 2011. Herewith, a mélange of francophonie and food films.

Mysteries of Lisbon:  a sprawling, 3-1/2 hour historical adventure across the Iberian peninsula and France (today, 1 p.m. @ the Egyptian)

Love Like Poison: Coming of age in Brittany (May 30, 9 p.m. @ Pacific Place)

A Cat in Paris: Animated film about a cat burglar. Suitable for kids! (May 30, 1 p.m. @ Everett; June 5, 1 p.m. @ Kirkland Perf. Ctr.; June 11, 11 a.m. @ the Egyptian)

My Afternoons with Margueritte: Tuesdays with Morrie with a 95-year-old lady (May 31, 4 p.m.; June 7, 7 p.m.@ SIFF Cinema)

The Names of Love: A serial political seducer, but this time it’s a woman with an agenda (May 31, 7 p.m.;  June 3, 1:30 p.m. @ the Egyptian)

Tapas: a Spanish anthology (May 29, @ SIFF Cinema)

Discovering the Foodie Appeal of France’s School Lunches

 

A French preschool's lunch menu (Photo: Mindy Jones)

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

Our son goes to a French public preschool. There are many differences between the French and American school systems worthy of discussion, but since I’m really hungry right now, I’m going to focus on the food.

Preschool lunch in France is a serious affair. When we first enrolled our son at the school, the director stressed the fact he would be fed well, and mentioned several times that all beef used in the school was French beef.   This seemed like a really important point so we feigned a little sigh of relief and said, “Oh… good, we were so worried.”

The director handed us a school menu. We were amused to see the meal was served in courses: appetizer, main dish with side, cheese course, and dessert. As I scanned the menu items, however, I quickly became outraged and sputtered indignantly, “But Mr. Director, WHERE are the TATER TOTS?”

Items from the tater tot-less menu included appetizers such as tomatoes with mozzarella and basil, vegetable plate with artichoke hearts, taboulé with cucumber and mint. Main dishes were things like sauté de boeuf with tomato sauce, sauteed fish filet with lemon, roasted pork au jus.  Side dishes were basmati rice and cauliflower au gratin; cheeses were Emmental or Camembert. Most desserts were bowls of fresh fruit but on a few select days the kids were treated to chocolate mousse or the “house chocolate cake.”  Forget about the hottest restaurant in town; I’d be happy to get a dinner reservation at the local public school.

The last column on the menu gave suggestions for the evening meal. To best round out my son’s diet for the day, it suggested I make things like green salad with shrimp-stuffed avocado, cheese and spinach soufflé, rice with seafood medley with baked apples for dessert. Or, if I was pressed for time, I could whip together a little quinoa salad with sauteed vegetables and shrimp, tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette, lentils with mushrooms, pâté en croûte, and a poached pear in vanilla sauce.

These suggestions have really come in handy.  Every evening when I start dinner, I say, “Okey dokey, let’s wander on over here and check out those dinner suggestions … HA HA HA OH THAT’S A GOOD ONE,” thus getting my much-needed belly laugh for the day. Then I make spaghetti a la meatballs or some other revered French classic, like tacos. My son must swear not to tell anyone at school what he had for dinner before he is allowed to eat.

Knowing there is an intense focus on “the right food” at school creates anxiety in a foreign non-foodie like me. Once I had to pack Lucien a sack lunch for a field trip and I lost sleep for days beforehand. In this country of refined palates and toddlers who eat foie gras and duck gizzards, I had no idea what to put in a sack lunch that wouldn’t earn me a reproachful look and a talking-to from the teacher.

In the U.S., I wouldn’t have given it much thought–peanut butter and jelly, raisins, carrot sticks, cookie, napkin with cutesy “mom” message written upon it. If I packed that here, however, I might as well wrap him in an American flag and tell him to point and yell “SOCIALISTS!” at his classmates all day. I worked up the courage to ask a classmate’s mother what she was going to pack and she said whatever was left over from dinner the night before. That was not helpful, since I’ve seen the dinner suggestions and don’t even know what most of them are.

I ended up making him a sandwich but cut it into little shapes with cookie cutters.  He also received small cubes of cheese wrapped in brightly colored aluminum foil along with a glittery juice box that had a hologram on the side.  It was a success–he told me later his classmates were envious of his lunch.  What we Americans lack in substance, we make up for in showmanship.

Make of all this school food stuff what you will, but it’s probably important to mention there’s not one overweight child at my son’s school, and in fact I can’t recall ever seeing an overweight French child, period. This leads me to believe French children could probably beat American children in a foot race. They’ll also probably be healthier and live longer, which doesn’t seem fair since they’re the ones with the universal health care. Still, it’s a pity they’ll never know the joy of a tater tot.