Culture and Racism

The Meghan, 4 Comments

French Word of the Day: noir (new-ar)- black

I don’t normally get political on this blog, but this event came just in time for the start of Black History Month in the States.

French Elle has published a controversial article about how black women are now becoming more “chic” because they’ve embraced the style of the “white-geoisie” (not my term).

The article appears to rely generally on thug stereotypes.  A better explanation can be found here.

Although Elle has taken it down, I found it here.  (Or part of it, at least.)

An open letter was sent to Le Monde entitled “When Will a Black Woman Appear on the Cover of Elle?” and can be found here in its original French.

Americans largely get labelled as racists, so I always find it interesting when things like this come from other countries.  One thing the open letter criticizes is how the article focuses on the black women in America, completely ignoring the black population of France.

Elle has since posted this debate with two women who are part of a site called Afrosomething.  Basically, they rip Elle a new one for being racist.

Some points from their talk:

  • Not all of the women listed in the article as black are even black
  • Styles being touted as black, such as those worn by Nicki Minaj, are worn by others (such as the Japanese)
  • to say “the black community” is incorrect because there are so many different black communities
  • to say “black-geoisie” instead of simply “bourgeoisie” makes them a completely different group, separating them

They point out that while the article tried to start out as showing how blacks had gained more of an equal ground, it fell into clichés that made it completely racist and shocking for 2012.

I’ve always found this tension an interesting part of modern French culture.  I think a lot of times it gets ignored, but it’s always right there.

Thoughts?

My Main Man, Monet

The Meghan, , , , , , , 2 Comments

French Word(s) of the Day: les nymphéas (lay nym-fay-ah)- the waterlilies

My friend, Jenna, is currently a student at the Art Institute of Chicago which means she can get me into the museum for free.  As many of you know, this is my favorite price.

Claude Monet is my absolute favorite painter of all time.  (In case you couldn’t tell from my Giverny post.)  I see his work and it makes me feel happy inside.  Impressionism can do that to a girl.

The Art Institute has one of the largest collections of Impressionism in the world courtesy of Mrs. Bertha Palmer.  I’m going to feed into a rumor here, and imply that she might have been under the influence of alcohol/ drugs when she bought many of these.  (I’ve no idea if that’s true, but if she was alive now the tabloids would be all over that.)

Bertha Palmer, Source: Wikipedia

No one can resist a few painting photos, so without further ado here’s some Monet:

This painting I did not previous know existed is of my beloved train station in Paris, Saint Lazare.  I lived right next to it for a year and a half.  I assume he painted this just for me.

If anyone has any suggestions on where to find prints of these paintings, please share!

Winter Flowers

The Meghan, , , , , 1 Comment

French Word(s) of the Day: le jardin (luh jhar dawn)- the garden

We had our first huge snow of the year about 3 days ago which means that I’m ready for the snow to melt.  Winter should only last 3 days.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature and I disagree on this.  She thinks it should last 3 months.  I assume she goes south for the winter and doesn’t have to try to walk through sludgy snow on her way to work.

My favorite escape has always been to look at beautiful pictures, and I collected several when I went to Monet’s old haunt, Giverny, last spring.  Monet’s my favorite painter, but I can see how he made such fabulous paintings.  Ready for a spring escape?

Happy winter!

To Eat or Not To Eat

The Meghan, , , 3 Comments

French Word of the Day: sucre (sue- cruh)- sugar

With 2012 has come everyone’s resolutions.  While mine are all lofty goals like world peace and ending world hunger (or they would be if I’d made them), everyone else has the same one: eat healthy.

Now, I’m a big fan of the healthy eating.  It’s important for healthy living, blah, blah, blah.  I have a chronic illness; I get it.  But lately, my food pyramid has resembled this:

When I haven’t had any sleep, it looks like this:

Yes, that is coffee spilling.  Spilling is a special talent of mine that I display whenever I’m sleep deprived.

(The color used for caffeine is called “asparagus.”  If your asparagus is actually that color, you should probably throw it out.)

My family and coworkers have all embraced the veggies-good, lean meats-good, and carbs-are-evil diet.  Well, everyone except my father.  As he doesn’t buy his food, he’s on that diet by default.

By guilt/ peer pressure, I’m on it too.

I have had only ONE Oreo cookie today.  That’s a third of a serving size.  No one eats under a serving size; you eat above the serving size and pretend like the amount you ate equals the serving size.  I don’t even really like Oreo cookies (except with peanut butter à la Lindsay Lohan in Parent Trap), it was just the only sugar item available.

I need a pain au chocolat.

2012

The Meghan, 2 Comments

French Word(s) of the Day: bonne année (bone ann-nay)- Happy New Year!

I always want to say the direct translation of Happy New Year, which is bonne nouvelle année, but the French cut out the “new” part.  You’re just going around saying “Happy year!” to people.  Really, you could mean any year, but I guess the French have evolved beyond the English-speaking world because they just KNOW what you mean.

Michelle’s cat is wishing you a pleasant 2012!

Hooray for Hollywood!

The Meghan, , , 1 Comment

French Word of the Day: acteur (act-tur)- actor

Alyssa and I got in some Hollywood time during  my trip.  Hollywood and Disney basically define my life.  Due to the amount of celebrity sites I go on during downtime at work, I know more about who’s dating who/divorcing who/having whose baby than anyone probably should.

If you don’t believe me, you should know that the tour guide was checking all his celebrity gossip info with Alyssa and me by the end of the trip.  “I think Blake Lively is single now.”  “Um sir, actually…”

I’m not ashamed.

Now for some paparazzi-esque photos of star homes!  I love cellphone cameras because they let you take really awful, tiny pictures of things you could probably just Google image search, but your phone lets you know you were ACTUALLY THERE.

Tom Hank’s house!  (And Alyssa’s hair.  It just couldn’t resist Tom’s siren call.)

This one of Julia Robert’s house is really stalkerish of me.  You can’t even really see it…

Ringo Star’s gate proving that I really will take a picture of anything related to celebrities.  (Although really, check out those stars!  I want hearts on my gate.)

I believe this needs no introduction.

Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was next on our list.

My feet are really this small.

Gregory Peck and I have put our hands in the SAME PLACE.  Of course, so have millions of other people (and their germs), but I’m choosing to ignore that.

The stars I took pictures on the walk of fame show both which stars I like and which ones no one was walking over at the time I wanted to take a picture.

People don’t walk on Doris because you can’t walk on pure happiness.

I made people stop walking on this so I could take a picture of it.  TOM SELLECK (circa that time on Friends when he dated Monica), I LOVE YOU!!!!!

The day ended with Vivian’s apartment from Pretty Woman.  Did any of you know it was actually a hotel?  I had no idea because I don’t pay attention.

All the celebrities talk about In-N-Out Burger.  We don’t have any in the Midwest, so I had to try it for myself.  Turns out, it tastes… like a burger.  They have a secret menu (although not secret anymore because I just told you about it) that only cool people know about.  My sister ordered off of that one because she’s a cool Californian now.

It’s on their website, so really, it’s the worst kept secret ever.

And with that, I’m out.  (I’m so clever with that pun.)

A Very Merry Disney Halloween Christmas

The Meghan, , , 1 Comment

French Word(s) of the Day: Tout ce que je veux pour Noël c’est toi (too sah kah jah voo pour no-el say twah)- All I want for Christmas is you

My phone’s been acting up lately, so I am terrified that all my pictures are going to die.  This means tons of backlogged posts that I hadn’t gotten to yet will be appearing in the next few weeks.

We’ve got a lot to catch up on, folks!

I visited my sister, Alyssa, in California earlier this year.  She’s been living there for work.  She started a blog that she updates every so often (read: never).  I believe the last post was from October 5th.   See?  There are people worse at updating than me.

Disneyland was necessary during my visit as it’s my life goal to make it to every single Disney park at some point in my life.

This castle is Disney’s smallest and is Sleeping Beauty’s.  She has 3: this one, Paris, and Hong Kong.  If you’re going to be a true royal, you must bankrupt your subjects by using their tax dollars for castle upkeep.

We went to Disneyland when it was all spiffed up for Halloween.

They completely changed the Haunted House into Nightmare Before Christmas… it was like Christmas AND Halloween (and therefore appropriate for right now 😉 )

I’m glad that it now looks like I planned putting off this entry all along so that we could get some Christmas love here.

We also bought tiaras because why wouldn’t you?  All the park people bowed to us and said “Your highnesses.”  I wish people would do this to me in real life instead of staring at me like I’m crazy when I wear a tiara in public.

Mine fell off during Splash Mountain, but never fear!  A purple tiara found its way back to me by the end of the day…

The tiara is currently on my night stand waiting for an excuse to be worn again.  The 3D glasses I gave back to Disney.

Merry Christmas, everyone!  And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, Happy Halloween!

(Ok, more like a day left.  But I am close!)

Une Visite!

The Meghan1 Comment

French Word(s) of the Day: chuis bo (shh-wee bow)- I’m pretty (for men; “chuis bo” is the shortened version of “je suis beau”)

Louis came to America for a visit!  I always try to force people to come and see me, and I’m always shocked when they actually do.

He had his first real Halloween and was very entertained by all the trick-or-treaters.  Before we walked by the Boystown Halloween Parade, we went to Walgreens to get last second costumes.  I thought we’d only be able to find vampire fangs, but we actually found animal hats.

Courtesy of Louis

I know: penguins are a great look for me.  Why do I ever bother NOT wearing this?

Louis also looked fabulous (he even lent his sunglasses to his canine friend):

Courtesy of Louis

Our fashion sense clearly shows that we live/ have lived in Paris.  I expect Chanel to debut these hats soon.

In honor of our attractiveness, we sang this song all week:

Go to 1:10 for the song.  The first minute is them talking.

More to come!  For now, stay pretty.

A Quest!

The Meghan, 3 Comments

French Word(s) of the Day:  une quête (oo-nah qwet)- a quest

I got a text from Sam this morning telling me he’d found the “most delicious pain au chocolat [he’s] ever had.”  Of course, he found it after I left.  C’est la vie.

Just because I can’t have one until some undetermined moment in time doesn’t mean you all can’t benefit from it.  (Unless someone has a private jet going to Paris with space for an extra passenger?)

I’m giving all my Parisians a mission.  Are you ready?

Find this pain au chocolat. 

To help you on your quest, I give you the only clue I was given:

Source: Wikipedia

That narrows it down to only about 6,000 bakeries.

Bonne chance, mes amis!

New York, New York

The Meghan, , , , , 3 Comments

French Word of the Day: meuble (mwa-ebleh)- furniture

I’m going to keep up the French Word of the Day.  I’m going to bet I still have a few (thousand) to learn, and who doesn’t want a little bit more French in their life?

My employer sent me to New York to help with a conference.  I’ve never traveled for a job before, so having someone else pay for all my expenses was AWESOME.  I wish work paid for all my vacations.

The first day, I got free reign of the city.  I went to see a little-known museum that some people call “The Met.”  You’ve probably never heard of it.

It was raining.  I have that effect on New York.

Someday, we will all find out why museums feel the need to charge half a year’s salary as admission.  It seems to me that more people would come if it was cheaper, but what do I know about business?

The museum had distinct signs that forebode food, drink, and photos.  I ignored them all.  So did everyone else in the museum.  I think they were there for decoration.

The lovely thing about going to a museums by yourself is that you can see whatever you want for as long as you want.  I hung out by the Egyptians for an hour, taking clandestine photos of really old jewelry.

I also found this sarcophagus of an Egyptian queen who died when she was only 21.  I never thought a thousand-year-old sarcophagus would make me feel old.

And the ever-popular Temple of Dendur (which sounds like a video game), gifted to America by the Egyptians.  It’s from around 15 BC.  No big deal.  Just a few millennia older than our government.

I believe they built a moat around it to keep tourists away, but if there’s anything I’ve learned about tourists, it’s that they will never stop trying to climb on ancient buildings in order to take pictures for their Facebook profiles.  Seriously, the FBI could learn a few things from tourists.

The next section I went to was the American section.  The Met has decided to capitalize on our fascination with HGTV and recreate homes from every century in our governmental history.  It’s like “International House Hunters 1600’s-style.”  (For the record, I would watch that show.)

I got a picture of this 18th-century dining room:

I also stumbled upon the medieval section.  I’m writing this visit off as “research” for my future historical romance novel.

I will take name suggestions for all four knights.

After my tiring day wandering through the museum, I stumbled upon an overpriced cupcake stand.

You all know my love for cake dictates that I cannot turn down cupcakes, no matter how overpriced.

It started to rain 5 seconds after my cupcake purchase.  I attempted to eat the cupcake while simultaneously walking and holding an umbrella.  Any of you who have ever seen me walk before (I’m not very good at it) know that this was a poor decision.  Part of the cupcake dropped into my purse.

The purse is still recovering.

I had dinner with my coworkers and found out that one also works for a literary agent for…. ROMANCE NOVELS.  I’ve already warned her that I’m going to send her a really, really sappy story.  Well, i will whenever I actually get an idea for it/ write it.  In other words, I’ll send her a story next century.

I took a picture of the New York Library, even though I never got the chance to go into it.  Next time!  I shall return.

The next day, I actually had to work.  Life can’t be all cupcakes and furniture.  Well, unless you own a store that exclusively sells said objects.

If anyone decides to open that store, I’d love to go into business with you.