The Secret to Europe

No photo of the boulangerie, but this was just down the street

The smell of fresh baked bread. Is there anything on earth so glorious as that smell on a Paris morning? It was Friday and the perfectly round fruit-topped tarts were glistening with sugar and the muffins with their floured plumpness were the first part of an equation whose answer was a comfortable chair, cup of tea, and a good book. But it was the freshly baked baguettes that drew me in.

The mademoiselle behind the counter was chatting with the dignified madame l’customer ahead of me, their words lilting about in that frolicsome French that seems always on the verge of a loving tut-tut.

When it was my turn I stepped forward, gave a friendly smile and nod, and said in my very best French “Un baguette si vous plait.” I was killing it. An integrated part of this morning in the boulangerie.

Except maybe not. The mademoiselle seemed annoyed by my presence. She wasn’t rude, but nor was she nice. She was curt and briskly businesslike with my bread, so different from the affectionate glow of moments before, and barely looked at me as she handed over the bag and greeted the next person in line with a friendly hello.

Maybe the old stereotypes were right. Maybe the French (or Parisians at least) really were still rude to foreigners. Maybe my inevitable accent was just not good enough for their demanding sensibilities. How terribly disappointing!

Good thing it wasn’t true. It took me some time to figure out. Countless more small interactions across the continent, but eventually I noticed the missing piece. And what a difference it made.

So when I watched three young Americans make the same mistake I had, ordering their sandwiches on the Rue Cler last time I was in Paris, and receiving the same terse Parisian response, I was ready to share what I’d learned.

That's my big mystical secret

“It helps a lot if you say hello first.” I told them (not bothering to say hello first because we’re Americans). “It took me awhile to notice it, since back home we smile and get straight to the point, but over here they really like it if you greet them before saying what you want.”

Being Americans, they were guarded about this stranger speaking to them, their defensive caution struggling against the desire to learn and enjoy their vacation.

“So if you just start with a quick ‘Bon jour madame’ in France, ‘Buon giorno signore’ in Italy, whatever, you usually get a much better reaction.” They kind of mumbled a response, still wondering when I’d demand their wallets, so I let them be and stepped up to the counter.

“Bon jour madame” I said to the mistress of sandwiches, who chirped back the answering greeting. “Un sandwich au jambon et fromage, si vous plait.” And we were best buddies by the time she passed across my lunch.

The Americanas were immersed in their guide book when I turned around, but perhaps somewhere down the road they’ll speak from experience when they whisper to someone “It helps if you greet them first.”

Reverential expression of the divine, or just obsessed with boobs?

“Ugh. Great. Tits again. Cuz that’s all women are. I am so sick of that.”

“No way! Look at the care, the precision, the ornamentation and dignity of the carvings. And the serene smiles, delicate hand mudras, and lengthened earlobes of enlightenment. These are demonstrations of reverence for feminine deities, or femininity itself as divine.”

“But why do they all have to be bare breasted? The dudes get to cover their junk.”

“Maybe they didn’t see boobs as nudity, maybe that’s just how women dressed. Lots of cultures are like that, hence National Geographic’s popularity among boys.”

“So why are they so big? This isn’t Sweden. Men are depicted pretty normally, so why are all the ta-tas supersized?”

Lydia and I had different responses to the ubiquitous boobage of Angkor Wat. In the mass of carved curves, one of us saw a monotonous obsession with female bodies, and the other saw the meticulous expression of their sanctity.

What do you think?

Do the multitudinous bare breasts of Angkor Wat reveal an obsession with one aspect of female anatomy, with an emphasis on exaggerated, even unnatural dimensions?

Or do they reflect a culture that revered femininity as a goddess, an apsara or devata?

Is it artistic license and style, or another oppressive patriarchal hypersexuality?

Or is it both, a fascination that was both sexual and respectful, boobcentric reverence?

Or are we missing the point entirely?

There are worse things than having been racist

The contractor was measuring the ceiling in my lady’s house when he noticed he’d tracked dog poo all over the kitchen floor. It was awkward, but he helped clean it up, cleaned his shoe, and we all went on with our day. He did not go deliberately step in more and lay fresh prints.

What if his coworker had left the smudges before he arrived? Should he say “Well, I didn’t start it” then go find a steaming fresh pile of Rover’s Revenge to spread around? It’s easy when we’re talking about puppy poop, but what if it’s something worse?

In episode 349 of The Savage Lovecast, Dan Savage talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when asserting the virus was an STI could get you in a fight, as people resisted the guilt of having inadvertently caused harm. But eventually they accepted the facts and evolved. He compares this to those who still deny climate change. There comes a time when you have to accept that what you've been doing isn't right anymore, and update.

He doesn’t advocate convictions for past mistakes, or tortured guilt for things done when we didn’t know any better, but to double down and willfully continue them once you do? That’s a problem.

Scaling back from lethal disease and global catastrophe, how about being accidentally offensive? Tonight in the Netherlands, and tomorrow in Belgium and Luxembourg, Zwarte Piet will help Sinterklaas deliver presents to all the little boys and girls. Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) is basically one of Santa’s elves, with one glaring difference: he’s in blackface, big red lips, afro wig and everything.

Controversy over the figure has been growing for decades. The (white) majority says “But it's our tradition!” (True.) “We don't mean anything racist by it!” (Good, thank you.) And sometimes “If I meet you you’ll get a bullet through your head.” Charming.

I know people resist changing traditions, but just a couple sentences for perspective:

-Halloween was long based on vandalism, not changing to its current emphasis on costumes and treats until World War II

-Thanksgiving is increasingly about family, and less about genocidal religious extremists, or is that just me?

-Even Zwarte Piet himself didn’t show up until 1850, his name not standardized until the early 20th century, around the same time Sinterklaas stopped kidnapping naughty kids into slavery. And did anyone grow up believing Saint Nick came from Turkey? Well he did, but we changed it to the North Pole (and Sinterklass moved to Spain) without undue rage. So why cling so fiercely to an outdated racist icon?

(Zwarte Piet briefly took over the child slavery racket, though that’s been phased out too. We’ll talk about the function of a black character selling white children into slavery another time.)

This is all very easy for me to say; I didn't grow up with Zwarte Piet. Also, I don't really give an enraged caboodle about changing holiday details (no, I don't watch Fox News' preposterous War on Christmas either). My lady, on the other hand, grew up in The Netherlands in the days before people saw Piet as racist. She had those happy childhood mornings, when the friendly character threw candies and handed out gifts. She loved that character, but when age and perspective showed her its racist overtones, she adjusted. In her words: “A short moment of nostalgic pain is MORE than worth it for doing the right thing.”

Now want to hear something cool? The Netherlands is showing its impressive character yet again. Not waiting for everyone to find their empathy, they are changing, slowly but steadily. In previous years they’ve toned down the blackface by removing the big red lips (and earrings), consciously avoiding portrayals of him as inferior to the white Sinterklaas, and this year they’re adding other colors of Piet, including cheese yellow and (gasp!) white.

I can only imagine it’s a matter of time until people look back and say “Remember back when we had that awful racist character? Nutty!” (Though I expect the overtly racist and anti-immigration parties like the PVV and Vlaams Belang will cling to their crusty obstinacy far into the future.)

So as America roils, burns, and shatters under the weight of our own racism and malfeasance, the sickness in our system that seems unwilling to change, and I figure out my own minuscule part in it, I’m going to look at the waffle-striped Piet this year with a smile, and hope that the arc of history might speed itself up a bit here too...

Trick or treat? Or not.

Granted, I have no children. This places me solidly in the spectator box when it comes to child-rearing, but I noticed a pattern when asking friends if they would be giving out candy to kids this year:

I'm gonna be bold and suggest that if we're worried about
violence and kids, maybe allow the trick or treating, but cut
back on the stabbed-in-the-head costumes?

“We don’t get them in my neighborhood.” Not a pattern, really, more of a uniform chorus of the same sentence. So...where have all the kiddies gone?

“Our neighborhood is full of kids. We see them come out of their houses in full costumes and we get the candy ready, then they get in cars and drive to the mall.”

Wh- Wh- What? The mall?!? Wh- Why? (In my opinion, kids should never be allowed to go to the damn mall, but that’s just me.)

“They do their trick-or-treating at school. People come in, set up a trunk or a table, and pass out candy there.”

Th- Th- That’s not trick-or-treating! That’s grocery shopping.

Why the shift? I feel like in the 80s we were plenty scared of kidnappers, razor blades and poison in candy (the latter of which has never happened, by the way), not to mention ample cause to bemoan, in our pre-adolescent voices, the reflective tape totally messing up our costumes! We’re gonna stay on the sidewalk, mom, there are no cars there! Gawd!

But we went. And we had a barge-load of fun every year. Running door to door, swapping insider tips with friends met along the way as to who as giving out the best stuff, and mapping out the neighborhood in your mind for optimal candy-ation. I would not be surprised to learn that whoever created mapquest was inspired by childhood candy-mapping.

“Skip the one-sided cul-de-sac, it’s not cost effective!”

It seems sad to me that people are so scared of each other these days that we’ve taken this experience away from our kids, especially given that we actually live in the safest time in human history, it’s just that we also live in an age tragically miseducated by the 24 hour news cycle. (Note, that US media article still manages to focus on violence. But unless you think your kid is at risk of engaging in a holy war, the Brits were a little more on track.)

But as I mentioned, I ain’t got none of them little critters, so I don’t really get to talk.

Well. There is one. A certain four year old, whose continued well-being feels like arguably the single most important task of the planet today… Would I want him trick-or-treating? The answer?

Shit yes! He’s going to LOVE it!

But then again, he lives in a small town, and has two responsible parents to chaperon his tiny Iron Man butt.

Big city? Packs of kids wandering loose? Would I want him in one of those in a few years? I….don’t know.

What about you? (Vote in the poll on the vagabondurgres.com version of this blog.)

Ample? Fat? Or something more creative?

“What about this one? How does it look?” His girlfriend considered for a moment, head tilted to the side and lips pursed just a little.

“I like it, the color is good on you, but you need another size.” The shirt was stretched over his broad chest, and ample frame. This is Venezuela, the land of thick, doughy arepas for breakfast and afternoon snacks, and the man’s intellectual career has him sitting in board rooms and at conference tables around the country. “You need size…”

She turned to search for a larger shirt, but the man shopping next to them was more...helpful.

“You need size half-a-cow” he offered.

This is Venezuela, one of those countries that does not mince words. Whereas I might be left grasping for politely indicative words like “ample”, in Venezuela? They don’t mess around.

The question of which way is better is one for the sages, bores, and dorm room floors, but one thing is for sure: if you’re going to live in a place that’s this direct, you’d better have a good sense of humor.

Luckily for my Venezuelan friend of the substantive girth, he has no problem laughing at himself, and neither does Alvaro, my friend and the program director of the Witness for Peace Southwest delegation that brought me to the country.

But Alvaro is no half-a-cow. What would they hang a nickname on, then? The bushy eyebrows? I am sensitive about that one, after years of people telling me I look angry, when actually I’m just ⅛ Neanderthal. But no, it’s not the brows that the man on the steps of the Cathedral commented on.

At five foot and a few, Alvaro comes up to my shoulder. I always like people who do that, especially after living near Holland, habitat of the humongous. Indigenous people throughout Latin America are frequently vertically modest, but Venezuela is predominantly mestizo, ie descendants of Europeans, with Amerindians making up only 2% of the population.

So Alvaro is short. And the man on the steps noticed. He also noticed the calm confidence and knowledge with which Alvaro was conducting us around Caracas, and he had a question.

“Oye, bonsai Tarzan, which way to the metro?”

Bonsai Tarzan. That is quite an image. Not one that every altitudinally modest individual might appreciate. Alvaro politely gave the man directions, and off we all went on our days.

Note: Last weekend Alvaro’s house suddenly collapsed. Luckily no one was hurt, but he, his wife, and their five year old daughter are now homeless. I cannot imagine what this would be like. I set up a fundraising page here, and urge you to contribute, even just a few dollars, if you can.

Thank you.

My San Francisco Giants

I couldn’t remember the last time I went to a Giants game, but we definitely had a different president. That ain’t good, for a kid raised on Will Clark, Robbie Thompson, and (my personal favorite, the player whose cards I collected as a grubby-fingered youngling) Brett Butler.

So, back in the Bay Area after a few years among the baseball-deprived, the footie-fanatics, the soccer-seeking-savages, who think ERA is a brand name and OBP a medical disorder, going to a game was on deck. When I heard two of my dearest San Franciscans were going to marry each other, I looked at that beautiful union and thought “There’s an excuse to go to a Giants game.”

The park of my childhood was Candlestick, dug into the edge of San Francisco’s worst neighborhood, a fortress of cement so ominous it looked more like a Soviet mining camp than a stadium. We always peered down at the field from the nosebleed seats, even before I quite understood what that joke meant, but nachos never tasted as good as they did with those fog-chilled fingertips, and a paper cup of sickly sweet hot chocolate was too good for the gods.

Now we sat in a much nicer ballpark, where the fries come soaked in garlic, and beer has moved from an odor to a flavor. So close to the action, I could see the extent of the season’s beards, as well as the ubiquitous advertising, and paused a nostalgic moment to remember the days before branding conquered professional sports, and when prices were less punitive. Then the national anthem finished and my San Francisco Giants took the field.

The uniforms and the energy were the same, and musical queues still provoked their clap-response without my conscious action. The four note “up-down-up-down/Let’s Go Giants” plays and my hands smack out clap, clap, clapclapclap of their own volition. Pavlov’s palms.

A baseball game is the perfect place to hang out. It’s dull enough to allow time and space to sit back and focus on the company of friends, but irascible enough that at any moment you might have to jump up and scream yourself hoarse as that long fly ball decides whether or not to stay fair, or your leadoff hitter digs for two.

And in a world that seems increasingly contrived, political campaigns and international debacles seemingly orchestrated months in advance, baseball remains reliably unpredictable, where the worst team sweeps the best and the rookie strikes out the All Star. And in this Twitter-headed age that requires constant tension, you never know if you’re going to sit through a 0-1 sleeper, or a 9-10 festival of offense. The drama is so much more poignant when it’s real, unpredictable, out of anyone’s control. And this year’s last couple weeks to play have drama to spare, as both my Bay Area teams juggle the Wild Card.

Our game was...beautiful. The first third was a pitching battle, with moments of teasing promise, then clenching danger, and sighs of release when both came to naught. Bottom of the fourth and good solid baseball put the Giants up by 1. High fives until your hands tingle, and the throat needs a drink to cool it down again.

But top of the fifth, they tied it up with a solo shot to right; at least they earned it. More tension, pitches slapping into the catcher’s glove and cracks of the bat that open the eyes, but the side is retired. The seventh inning stretch must have relaxed the dugout too, because the bottom of the inning put us on top by one, again… But top of the ninth, they tied it up.

So. Here we were, in the sort of scenario imagined on playgrounds and vacant lots throughout the ages. Bottom of the ninth. Tie game. Two outs, one on, our star kid (I’m old now, I can call a 27-year old a ‘kid’, especially when he’s as fresh-faced as Buster Posey) walks up to the plate. He settles in. The sold out crowd stands. Fouls and balls, close calls and tricky takes, and it’s a full count. One more strike and we go to extra innings…

But instead it’s a high fly ball, going, going...veering towards the line...hard to tell from where we are...is it going to stay fair? The noise is already crashing when it lands in the seats, and the wave breaks. Beer is undoubtedly flying, somewhere, and no one cares. He rounds the bases while the bass vibrates our seats, and 41,503 people have both arms in the air, and a city is shouting.

We file out in the jubilant crowd, and I walk to the BART station in a steady flow of Giants jerseys, drifts of pot smoke, and the glitter and dance of the Bay Bridge’s nightly light show. Friends, my hometown, and a win for my team: it’s a mighty fine summer night in San Francisco.

"The Bay Lights" nightly show

What men really want

I hope I’m not going to disappoint you.

Were you expecting (or fearing) a tale of knuckle-dragging meatheads? Jocks, frat-boys, and assorted male stereotypes who think their egos, biceps, and testicles form a sacred trinity entitling them to treat the world as their personal patriarchal fiefdom?

Cuz that's not what I found.

I'll be honest, as usual with humans, I had a script or three that I was prepared to confirm, when I walked into Man Skills class. The most delightfully awful would have been the above douchebaggery, and when the two organizers revealed themselves to be screenworthy specimens of broad shoulders, piercing eyes, and jutting jawlines, it would have been oh-so-easy to scorn them; dislike and dismiss them.

But those bastards had to go and be all...likeable.

And it gets worse. Because not only were they charismatic, but their vision was honest, appealing, and utterly devoid of misogyny. While the concerns and points raised by my lovely lady guest blogger are completely valid, once I heard them speak it was clear the group is consciously and overtly intended to address a need among men, to raise us higher with no corollary of pushing women down.

I'm tempted to expound for pages on masculinity in the modern world. Another day. Suffice to say, people have been railing against the “feminisation” of boys for well over a century, in fact it was this concern that lead to the creation of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. That generation went on to be the rugged dudes grinding up their own bodies in the trenches of The War to End All Wars; hardly wimps, but hardly complete role models either. (Man Skill #153: Dealing with trench foot?)

When the discussion is driven by Fear, it’s easy to get misogynistic overtones, as people lash out at anything they can convince themselves is an enemy. The founders of the Boy Scouts screamed “Women are feminising our sons!” Instead of the Fear, the Man Skills group seeks to address the Feeling. Instead of “Give us back our testicles, she-devil!” they say “We have grown distant from some aspects of the masculine experience.” There’s a pretty sharp difference there.

It should come as a surprise to precisely no one that many men these days feel removed from their masculine side. But before we ask “How do I get in touch with my masculinity?” we need to ask “What IS masculinity?”

A friend pointed out that women are also capable of all the things listed in the Man Skills curriculum, and she's absolutely right. Another reader asked “What do you think Woman Skills 101 would be?” The easy timeworn answers are cooking, cleaning, sewing, and child-raising. That might seem horrifically offensive until you acknowledge that those are skills men should have too.

Because nowadays? A man who doesn’t do any of those traditionally “female skills” is likely to be seen as kind of a jerk.

“How was lunch with Tina?”

“It was nice, but oh my god, did you know Brad never helps change their baby?”

“What, like, never never? Really?”

“I know, right?”

“Wow, I didn’t know he was like that.”

But the feeling is that we really don’t know as many of the “manly” skills as our forefathers did. Today if something breaks, we just buy a new one, but we suspect grandpa knew how to fix it. Mine was also the most sheltered generation to date, when parents tried to keep their kids from ever getting hurt, a trend that has gone through the roof since then. Of course Jim isn’t very good with an axe, little Jimmy wasn’t allowed to use a steak knife until he was 18.

Maybe I should have a class for Child Skills that includes climbing trees, scraping knees, and messing with bees. Except that I’d get sued for all three (and think bees should be protected and assisted, not messed with.)

So...if women are just as able and welcome to start fires, fix cars, and remove lingerie...and men are just as able and welcome to cook, clean, and fix their own damn buttons...what's the point of labeling these skills as male or female?

Maybe there is none.

Or maybe there is something else. Some other purpose this group explicitly addresses. Any guesses what it is? Part Two to follow...

[And let me repeat my marvelous guest blogger's apology for all the heteronormative labels and assumptions throughout these pieces. I wish I was able to more fully embrace the spectrum and variety of the human condition here, but my attempts to do so would be clumsy and wordy. An extension of these ideas to all those facets would be interesting and worthwhile...anybody want to guest blog that one?]

Guest Blog: A Helping Hand

So, now that we’ve all assumed that I’m terribly biased and probably a man-hating, ball-busting, bra-burning, angry feminist - let’s see what the other side might look like. Because there’s always more than one side to a story. And I believe in busting right through stereotypes, when at all possible, don’t you?

Reasons why we should not take offense at the inclusion of one-handed bra-unhooking in Man Skills:

Context

Man Skills. The creator is obviously using some pretty heavy sarcasm here. Further evidence for that is in the invite’s conclusion:

After we are done, we'll drink some beers and talk about how awesome we are. Reserve your spot now or be left in the cold with the growing herd of unprepared men.

He’s poking fun at ‘traditional’ ideals of manhood and male bonding, while using those same concepts to sell a Meetup as a ‘class’ that’s really an excuse to socialize with other men. Do we need to get upset about something that is likely self-aware humor?

Would it be beneficial, in fact, for us to NOT get upset by these types of things? Are we adding to the divide between those who identify as feminists and non-feminists (many of whom are women! See: Katy Perry) when we pounce on relatively small things like this?

Bra Realities

Bra-unhooking IS challenging for someone who isn’t fine-tuning their ability to manipulate the minuscule hook-and-eye set-up on a daily basis. Those things are fidgety; you can easily get one hook undone, then another, only to find that by the last hook, the first one has slipped back into its little eye again! Sneaky little buggers...

I know plenty of women who, despite years of bra-wrangling, have given up the fight entirely. They just put their bras on around their waist, with the hooks in front where they can be seen clearly, then do them up, turn them around, and: voilà! Bra on. Reverse the technique for removal.

And your average, straight male has pretty limited experience - only needing to unhook them when undressing a partner, which, let’s face it, is not the optimal time to be learning a finicky skill, or any skill for that matter. People tend to be somewhat...preoccupied in such moments, the blood literally going elsewhere.

Furthermore, how often does the act of undressing a partner happen? If you’re single, unless you’re Don Juan: not that often. And your average man is definitely not Don Juan. According to various US statistics, by the time he hits 45, the average male will have had 6 to 8 sexual partners.

All that to say: bra closures are pesky little things, and men have scant time and opportunities to figure them out under less-than-optimal learning conditions.

Target Audience

This class is aimed towards the guy who may feel...uncertain in his masculinity. Unskilled. In need of some self-assurance.

Being unable to get. the. damn. bra. off. can sometimes kill the mood, not to mention kill other, um, burgeoning things. Conceivably some men could also be concerned about triggering performance issues. They imagine a scene where foreplay has been halted by a struggle that may have involved inadvertently jabbing their partner’s back with tiny metal prongs; where the woman might deduce that he has no sexual skills, if he can’t even remove a bra.

If she’s still interested in continuing at that point, her expectations might be set to ‘ok, show me what you’ve got, because I have serious doubts’. No pressure there…

If you’re already a little shy, inexperienced, or just plain self-conscious, that could feel like a recipe for disaster. Anyone have Viagra on hand?

Intended message

You could even argue that being able to remove a bra without a fight to the bra-hook death, is a man’s way of showing that he cares. “I’m capable. I can take care of you. I want this to be a pleasurable experience for you. I can show you a good time.” Is it what every guy is trying to say by learning that skill? No. But maybe some men are? Perhaps a good portion of them even?

Do you have any more reasons why this isn’t a sexist class/lesson? Or why it is?

And for my curiosity, after reading both angles on the question, vote in the poll on the vagabondurges.com version.