Downtown Aix

I spent most of the weekend bumming around downtown Aix, looking at the architecture, drinking beer, and going to museums.  That is, in between finishing up Jill's ad.  I'm proud of my work, so here's a picture of it.

I got visit the Musée Granet, but couldn't take any pictures of what I saw there because apparently it's forbidden by French law to take pictures in museums, so I learned something new.  Their main exhibition was work by Pierre Alechinsky, and most of the museum space was dedicated to him, although I couldn't help but yawning when I saw his stuff.  I felt like he was a bad combination of Polluck and Cézanne, and I couldn't get into any of his work because I didn't feel like it was something that I hadn't seen before.  I don't know exactly why he is appreciated so much, but I suppose people have their reasons.  Maybe I have bad taste, but I felt like all of his work was the same, and it left me somewhat bored.

Fortunately the museum also had some wonderful neoclassical work that I found immensely interesting.  I admired landscapes in the style of realism, and some of the portraiture was phenomenal.  Most of the work came from the collection of Granet himself, and included a lot of Ingres and Constantin, plus Granet's own work.  There was also a Renoir exhibition, but unfortunately the museum closed just as I found it.  I'll have to go back again soon to see what I missed on the first round.  I did get to see their sculpture exhibition, which was stunning, although I hadn't heard of any of the sculptors prior to seeing their work.

There are many different street performers in downtown Aix: the usual guy who makes spray-paintings, a man selling African wood sculptures, a guy who paints your first name using animals and plants, and musicians.  As I walked down the Rue Mirabeau, I heard Beatles music.  As I continued walking, I saw two Irish-looking guys playing guitars--a two-piece Beatles cover band.  They were actually quite good, and I stayed awhile to listen and take pictures.  Here are some shots I got of them.

They decided to take a break, so I took off down the street.  Aix is called the city of fountains, and is situated on a natural spring.  Jill informed me that it was actually built by the Romans however many centuries ago, primarily for its natural spring water.  Anyways there are fountains all over Aix, and I think there is some kind of tradition where young people jump in the fountains for some purpose.  I'm still trying to figure out this cultural activity, but I've seen quite a few soaking wet people emerge from various fountains around the city.  Right after leaving the band, I spotted this guy in a sort-of bunny costume bathing in one of the fountains.

His friend in the black there was kind enough to keep splashing him as he got out of the water, as they both laughed.  Even though his friend stayed mostly dry, he gave him a hug after they both emerged from the fountain in the middle of a roundabout.

I continued down the street to head to a restaurant that I've been digging.  It's called Les Deux Garçons, and Jill told me that Hemingway used to hang out and write there.  She says that she doesn't like going there because the French mafia runs the place.  They also run all of the nightclubs in Aix, and later Pascal informed me that they run pretty much most of the big bars and restaurants as well.  I was unfazed by these alleged criminal ties, so I sat down with my book of Hemingway short stories, ordered a beer in French, and felt really, really cool.  I free wrote for a little while in my journal, and pretended that I was a great writer, taking in the atmosphere of Aix and composing some great piece of literature.  Well I don't like what I finished with at all, but hell, I just have to keep repeating my new mantra: you have to try.

The Party

It's been a busy couple of days, so unfortunately I haven't had any time to post.  I'm trying to make my posts a little more centralized in their theme, so I'm going to talk about the party on Thursday night.  We spent all day setting up for the event; moving tables and displays out of the boutique and stashing everything in the stockroom.  Pascal rented a bunch of tables and chairs, so we had to set all of those up, and dress them with white tablecloths that we cut from a roll of sheer white cloth.  The roll was quite heavy, so I spent most of the time holding it up in place and spinning it around in order to make the sheets longer for our makeshift table cloths.  Laetitia and Mathilde, another intern, tied the cloths at the long ends of the fold-out plastic tables, and secured them with metal tablecloth clips.  We also hung the white cloth from a long horizontal log at the entrance to Pascal's office in the back of the Liquoristerie.

One of the first party guests to show up was Jean-François Savornin, the guy who does L'Héliquadrisme, who brought along his son, Fred, an amazing guitarist.  He brought some new paintings to the boutique, one of which is my new favorite by far.  It's interesting to see how his style has evolved, I think his paintings are becoming much more cohesive--more abstract and colorful, and less imitation-cubist.  I think that the former works better for his style, and I like to see his work as more distant from cubism, just because I think it's an entirely new concept and requires different treatment for the subject matter--but what do I know, I'm a literature student, not art history.  I thought I had a picture of the new painting that I enjoy so much, but apparently I don't, so I'll have to post again soon about L'Héliquadrisme and include a picture of that one.

Fred and Jean-François came along with their band, which Pascal hired for the party, and they started playing as soon as everyone filed out from the introductory speech in the boutique.  We had set up tables with absinthe fountains and bottles of our liquors.  We also had boxes of vegetables set up, using the different fruit and vegetable pâtes we produce for dipping.  At my table, I served three kinds of pastis--P'tit Bleu, Aqualanca, and Pastis du Pastis--different champagnes, the most popular of which is called Mademoiselle Rose, and two apéritifs: Vermiose and Figoun.

The photos don't really do justice to how many people were there, but it was quite crowded.  I was taking orders mostly in French, which I could mostly understand, but it was frustrating because I wanted to be more cordial and friendly with people, which was impossible because of the language barrier.  It's those little phrases that let people know that you don't speak the language.  When you're just saying "de rein" to everyone's "merci" people realize that you're not a native speaker.  I tried my best to be as friendly and personable as I could, and some people who found out that I'm an American--from my hosts letting them know--spoke to me in English.  They pointed to different vegetables, asking me how to say their names in English, and I asked them how to say the same in French.  It's funny, the people who speak good English over here always disagree when I give them compliments on their speaking.  I always retort with, "Your English is a hell of a lot better than my French," which usually elicits a chuckle.

I saw my new writer friend there, Claire, and she brought along a friend of hers, Krista.  Speaking with them was a nice break from the torrent of French speakers asking for pastis and champagne.  It's much easier to make small talk with people who speak your own language.  Jill caught a picture of us from the balcony above, so here it is.  I figured I didn't really have any pictures of myself on here, so I think this is a good one.  Claire's on the left in the teal, and that's Krista on the right.

Many of the guests left after the cocktail tasting portion finished, and the rest of the interns and I arranged the tables to accommodate the next part of the evening's activities--the Paëlla dinner.  We broke out the bottles of wine at that point, and everyone served themselves up a plate, or a few, of the dish.  As everyone drank their wine and gorged their food, the band played French-folk-rock style music.  Some folks danced, and I stayed on the sidelines taking pictures.  Two dancers, Jean-François and Claire, are apparently professionals, or semi-professionals; Jill informed me that the former used to dance at Monaco in professional competitions.  I was a little too afraid to get up there, and a little too drunk, and now that I know I would've been up against some recognized great dancers, I'm glad I refrained from shimmying around as tipsy as I was.

Above to the left are Claire and Jean-François, and to the right you see Jill and Pascal.  The dark-haired girl in the flamenco dress was the star of the evening.  After Jean-François danced with a few women at the party, of course he had to ask the belle of the ball for a dance.  He stooped over, taking her hands in his, and leading her around the dance floor as she smiled with the kind of radiance only little kids have, before they grow up and become ashamed of how their teeth look. He spun her, and she laughed. They walked back and forth across the dance floor, hand in hand, as the drunken crowd looked on and watched the artist and the little girl dance under the soft pink-orange-purple lights.

Prepping Photos and Staining Wood

So I've spent a whole week here now.  It seems like it hasn't been that long, time is flying by already.  The party is tomorrow, and we're all getting prepared for that over here.  I know it will be interesting, I hope I don't make a fool out of myself though.  I'm still stumbling over my French.  If I think about what I'm saying and rehearse it in my head a few times before speaking, I can get by all right, but sometimes when I'm trying to speak on the fly I get really tongue tied.  I know I just have to keep trying to get through it, but it's not all that encouraging when I feel like I'm getting worse at the language when I hear myself speak it.  I'm getting much better at understanding it already--I can take directions, nod my head, and say d'accord to everything.  Just have to keep trying.  It's still just the beginning, so I'm looking forward to the weeks to come.  I'm realizing that I have to be more active in asking questions about how to say different things, but it's annoying because I'll remember for a few hours, then I'll forget by the end of the day.  I have to hear something and repeat it a number of times before I finally internalize it; I wish I was quicker on the uptake.

I spent much of the day working on animations in Photoshop. I'm teaching myself how to make .gif images, and it's pretty fun.  I'm glad I can do something a little bit more intellectual than mopping floors.  Here's an image I put together for Pascal, now I just have to find something to do with it besides post it on Facebook.

However, the manual labor is not over.  Pascal's giving me things to fix up around the distillery because I'm the only other male that works here.  I'm not saying that girls can't do the work that I'm doing, I'm just more willing to do it, and Pascal doesn't feel as bad making me do it.

I attached the disheveled grape vines growing above the entrance way to the metal lattice they're growing on.  It was windy today, so some of the younger parts blew off of their tendrils, and I used some wire to fix them up.

The boy-work for today wasn't quite finished after that though.  Pascal also asked me to refinish some of the exposed surfaces of wood outside.  After explaining the surfaces he wanted me to recover, in French no less, he handed me a brush, some stainer, and a red plastic pale.

It's going to be another ongoing task for me, as there are many doors and window frames around the outside of the distillery that need to be refinished.  He wants me to spend about an hour a day for the next week or so working on getting everything done.  Today my main job was the large wooden door at the entrance to the spiral staircase leading up to our apartment.  It's a beautiful old door, and I'm glad to refinish it, because I hope it lasts for many years to come.  I'm going to have to do another layer tomorrow because I want to make sure that it's all sealed up, especially the particularly weathered parts, which are turning white from wind and rain damage.

iZach

Today was a little slow, but I'm posting to keep everyone updated.  After stirring myself out of bed, I showered, and then headed downstairs in order to water the plants.  I'm getting a little worried about some of the plants because they're covered with some sort of strange bug that I haven't seen before--although I'm sure my mom knows what they are.  Pascal isn't worried though, he says that we'll just buy some ladybugs to eat them all up.

After watering, I got on the Facebook page for Versinthe.  If you're reading this, you should join the group and like the page (there are two).  They're both called "Absinthe by Versinthe" so I'm sure you'd be able to search for them on the book of many faces.  I'm supposed to be the internet coordinator, so I posted an event, with the help of Laetitia, inviting the group to the party on Thursday.  She helped me write the French part, and I translated it into English.  We scanned a picture of the invitation and posted that on there too, in case you want to take a look at it.  I've been doing a lot of Photoshop work, just editing pictures for Pascal in preparation to post them on the page.  We're trying to revive the group because it has sort of stagnated for the past year or so.  So you should join!  New members are good because your friends will see that you've joined, and then they'll join, and so on, etc etc.  Also, if you have any questions about absinthe to ask Pascal, you can post on that page--I'll probably be the one that responds to you, but I'll be able to ask him and get back to you.

We're also looking to expand the distribution in the United States, so I sent some emails to some top US distributors.  I doubt they'll respond since we're such a small business, and they probably get 20 requests a day from distillers pushing their products, but as we've been saying over here: you have to try.  By the way, if any of you know some distributors that would be interested in selling absinthe, you should let me know!  Also if you have any friends in the liquor industry, I'd love their contact information.  I'm supposed to be pushing this iPhone application that Pascal's been developing.  It's called iAbsinthe (not quite sure about the spelling), but if you have an iPhone, you should buy it.  It's only $0.99, so that shouldn't be a big chunk out of your budget.  It's pretty cool; it has a bunch of cocktail recipes including absinthe, and you can shake it to get a random recipe.  Anyways, I'm supposed to be letting people in the bar scene know about it so that it can gain some popularity in the US.  So if you have any friends who are bartenders, show them how cool the app is after you've bought it, and they'll want it too ;).

Oh, I almost forgot.  I also helped put together the shipments for various restaurants in town.  I had to find the orders for different businesses and box them up for our transporter (sounds oh so official) to deliver them around town tomorrow.  I like doing inventory stuff though, I think it's some good experience.  I'm feeling like one day I'll probably end up starting my own business--I mean, what else am I going to do with an English major?... besides write a book... shout out to any potential publishers, haha.

After work I messed with the banner on this blog.  I think it's pretty cool, so let me know what you think of it!  I'm not much of a graphic designer, but I know how to use Photoshop, so I put a little somethin' somethin' together.  No new pictures today--désolé--but hopefully I'll have something interesting for you all tomorrow.

A movie, a picnic, a tour, and a party

Sorry for no post yesterday, I've been getting complaints.  You could say I was celebrating the Sabbath, but I was actually catching up with sleep due to jet lag and resting for the day.  On Saturday evening, Jill and I went into Aix to see a French movie called "La Tête en Friche."  Tête means "head" and friche means "land plowed but not sowed."  So the movie was about a sort-of simple gentleman, played by Gérard Depardieu, who meets an elderly woman, Gisèle Casadesus, and they become friends.  I won't give the whole story away, but it was a very powerful movie--I'm not ashamed to say I even shed a tear at one particularly moving moment.

It was interesting seeing a movie entirely in French without any subtitles.  I followed the story a lot better than I expected to, although I missed most of the jokes.  I find that watching movies in the language you're trying to learn is an excellent way to improve your comprehension, although make sure you don't put on English subtitles, because that defeats the purpose entirely.  A woman I met at the picnic told me it's good to put the subtitles in the language of the movie, that way one can match the dialogue with the text--oh, that reminds me, I haven't yet said anything about the picnic!

On Sunday, Jill brought me to a picnic event that was put on by an anglophone group based here in Aix.  At first glance, I was a little worried, because it seemed like a bunch of middle aged people and their kids, and I didn't know if I'd be able to have any fun.  Once I got a little bit of wine in me the conversation started flowing, and I met some really interesting people--one of whom is an author trying to get her book published right now.  We had a long conversation about writing, and her thoughts and experiences were very inspiring to me.  Her advice helped motivate me to start working on one of my goals--writing a novel.  I'm thinking that I'll try sending her some of my poetry to see what she thinks, and to get some advice from a more experienced writer than myself.  Hopefully she'll send me back a copy of her manuscript that she recently finished--I'd like to read it.

After the picnic, Jill and I went to a sort-of yard sale, where people brought out all of their old goods to sell.  I didn't really find anything that I wanted to buy (and I'm trying to be frugal because I went over budget a couple of days ago on books... but hey, I need to read!).  It was interesting walking around nonetheless, and seeing a side of Provence that is quintessential to the local culture.  It's also Jill's business, so she's sworn me to secrecy about some of the aspects of it, but here are some pictures of the event.

It was all held in a beautiful little town square, hence the statue and the church architecture.  There were some amazing antiques for sale--even I could appreciate them, and I'm far from a connoisseur.

Today at the liquoristerie I finished sweeping and mopping the stockroom floors before lunch.  I almost had a lunch date with the very pretty intern that works here, Laetitia, but it ended up not happening due to a miscommunication--oh well, one of these days.  After lunch, Laetitia gave a tour of the liquoristerie to some elderly folks.  I'm supposed to give a tour to an English-speaking group in about two weeks, so I followed the tour group, seeing how she handled it in order to get an idea of how I should conduct myself on my own.  I've got some studying to do about the distillation process so that I can explain it without sounding like a fool.  The tour she gave was in French, so I didn't understand everything, especially the technical concepts she talked about while showing the group the distilling equipment, but it was helpful to see how she conducted the whole thing nonetheless.

I learned afterward that the group of folks all had Alzheimer's, so they were an interesting bunch.  There was one older man who was particularly grouchy the whole time, and he refused to try any of the beverages--at the end of the tour, we're supposed to give all of the guests a taste of three different drinks: a wine, the absinthe, and finally an aperitif.  One of the women was particularly high-spirited.  She had fiery red hair, even at her age, with one chipped front tooth.  She walked with a slouch, and every time she'd try to talk to me or the other tour guides, the guides of the group would grab her by the arm, saying "venez ici, venez" meaning "come here, come" almost as if they were talking to an unruly child.  She was hilarious though.  When we were doing the tasting, she stood in front of the counter, chatting us all up and being a character.  She refused to sit down when the group leader tried to lead her away, saying, "Je reste ici!" meaning "I'm staying here!"  She kept on forgetting that she had a glass of wine in her hand as she was brandishing it around, almost spilling it on herself as she jovially joked with us all, being insolent to her group guide, then giving us sly winks out of the corner of her eye.  They all wanted her to try the wine, so they egged her on, chanting, "goutez, goutez" meaning "taste it" or "try it."  Remembering the glass in her hand, her eyes got wide looking at it, then she held the small cup to her lips, drinking some of it down as the rest of the group shouted, "tout, tout!" which I'm pretty sure is our equivalent to "chug, chug!"  She downed about half the glass, then her legs got wobbly and her eyes closed--everyone drew an anxious breath--but she opened her eyes, straightened her legs, and shot us another wink and smile.

After the tour, Leticia showed me around the distillery again, explaining the concepts in English that I missed previously.  She studied in London for a year, so her English is quite good, and we can communicate very well.  Even then, it's difficult translating the technical stuff about how the distillation process works, so that part was a bit labored, with both of us trying to understand that which neither of us really had a grasp on.  I taught her the good ol' American expression, "wing it" because that's what I'm going to have to do when the time comes for me to give a tour.

I got off work a little early because I was supposed to accompany Jill to a classy party that was held at this beautiful vineyard.  The owner of the house owns a popular hotel chain in France, called Accor.  His party hosted many chefs--the theme of the night being rising female culinary stars.  I tried some amazing Italian meats, delicious wines, phenomenal desserts, and extremely rich cheeses.  It's funny--I keep getting thrust into these foodie-cultural groups... maybe the Universe is telling me something...

Anyways, here are some pictures of the event.  I wish I had more, but my camera started dying towards the end, and a bunch of the pictures didn't turn out.  Here's what I got:

Le Marché de Venelles

This morning Jill and I went to the local market in Venelles, the town where the liquoristerie is located.  I wish I could bring you all the cacophony of sounds and wonderful smells, but unfortunately I only have some pictures––nonetheless, I hope you will enjoy them.

Walking in to the market, Jill pointed out a local apple grower who she recommended, so I bought one for 25 centimes, polished it off on my shirt, and bit in.

The whole set up reminds me of a flea market; vendors having set up their shops under tents, and everything erected in the middle of streets closed to traffic specifically for the event.  People sell fruits, veggies, olives, cheese, bread, even clothes and jewelry.  But, for the purpose of this post, most importantly Paëlla––a traditional Spanish dish that is very popular in Provence.

There are multiple vendors selling their version of the dish, and they cook it in large round pans (similar to woks, but I don't really know what to call them).

I bought my portion from the guy to the left, and he really packed in a good helping.  He served me up some prawns, mussels, chicken, and little squid with the standard rice and peas.  Unfortunately, I could not procure a fork at that moment, so I handed him the 7 euros, and took my bag to a little café on the square.  I bought a coffee, sat down, and watched people mill around (people watching is one of my favorite activities).

Jill had gone off to run some errands, so after finishing my coffee, I grabbed my bag, dropped in my camera, and walked my coveted Paëlla back to the Liquoristerie––about a 10 minute walk from the market.

I opened up the dish to see if it was still warm, and took a small bite.  It's got a rich flavor that makes me think of Spain... even though I have yet to visit the country.  Unfortunately, it had cooled off, so I had to throw it in the microwave (which I'm pretty sure is blasphemy over here, but hey, I need my lunch to be hot).

I took about half of the serving out of its plastic container, and plated it.  Here's a better picture of all the goodies inside:

Obviously you have to be a sea food fan to appreciate the dish, and I'm a lover of pretty much anything edible with a flavor, so I dug in with great satisfaction (Mom, I know you're jealous... Dad, you're probably disgusted, haha).

Well, that's all I have for right now.  Jill and I are going to see a movie in town in a little while, but I'll probably take the bus in a bit earlier to explore.  I just got a working cell phone over here, so I can connect with Jill when she gets into Aix, but if you want my number, send me an email.  Hope you enjoyed the post.  What do you think, would you want to try some Paëlla?  Leave me some love in the comments!

Blisters and Black Water

I awoke on my second day at the Liquoristerie to my computer alarm playing one of my favorite new songs by Broken Social Scene, All to All.  I jumped out of bed, showered, and headed downstairs to start the day.  Pascal wants me to keep up the garden during the summer, but that won't be too difficult with the––albeit limited––knowledge that my mom has imparted to me.  I know I'll be referring to her blog for tips on how to improve their plot, but for now the task consists of making sure the plants have enough water to make it through the increasingly hot summer days.  After that, I finished the vacuuming that I started yesterday, sucking up the last few cobwebs hanging in the ceiling corners in the stock rooms.

Afterward I helped Claire restock some of the products in the boutique––basically just making sure that all the products were in their proper place, and making everything look pretty and lined up in straight rows.

There are some really cool paintings in the showroom that Pascal has on exhibit.  They're all done by Jean-François Savornin, and he calls his style L'Héliquadrisme.  The name comes from the fact that he paints two canvases together and they form different pictures when they are each rotated opposite directions––one clockwise, the other counter-clockwise.  It's sort of hard to explain, but here's a good video that explains it with visuals better than I can with text.  Here are some higher quality photos that I took of two of my favorites.

As you might be able to tell, his style is inspired by absinthe, and he references it in many titles of his paintings.  He also greatly respects the work of cubism, which he finds to be an integral ancestral form of art to his own style.  There is also a canvas with a proclamation for his admiration of cubism:

My translation skills aren't perfect, but here's what it basically says in English: "Thank you cubism!  For having liberated color, geometry, movement, the imprints of reality.  For having given a different sense to the liberty of expression.  Let us go further, in giving the individual the power to reinterpret the work thanks to Heliquadrism."

After I admired the canvases, Claire showed me to the cleaning supplies for mopping the floor.  I mixed some soap and hot water in a bucket to begin the process of cleaning the warehouse.  After fixing a broken push-broom head to its handle, I swept sections of the floor individually.  Then I mopped the tile which was cleaning-overdue.  I tend to get really into whatever task I'm doing, so I spend a lot of time making everything perfect––I'm a little OCD like that.  So I ended up only finishing about half of one of the three rooms, but I feel like I did a thorough job.  In my opinion, a job well-done and slowly is better than a shoddy one done quickly.  Not to say that I didn't work hard; I can feel some blisters forming on my palms.

Even though I'm doing mostly grunt work right now, I feel like it's somewhat of a process of proving myself.  Once I can show Pascal that I'm serious and a hard worker, he will be more inclined to give me responsibility and show me some of the secrets of the distilling process, about which I'm eager to learn.  At least I have the weekend to let my hands callous over before finishing the job next week in preparation for the party on Thursday.