Super interesting notes on the weather, the world cup, and whatever else I think of

 

Hmmm....

Let's start with the weather. And I am not here to complain that it is hot.

Although, it is hot.

I really just want to tell you what I realized about the weather here on the Cote d'Azur.

It is not dynamic.

In fact, it's a bit boring.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I'd better explain:

The weather here will one day, just for example in the Fall, go to about 60 degrees, (or to almost 16 for my vast swath of new european readers. Bonjour, salaam, hei! cheers!), and then every single day for two months, with only the slightest variations, that will be the temperature. Then maybe some other time, like now, said local temperature will go to 90ish (or low thirties! Bonjour, howdy, konnichiwa!), and then the temperature just sits there for two or three months.

I still check the weather forecasts here, but more like an obsessive compulsive going home seven times to make sure the oven is off. Because, yes, for the eleventh time, the oven is off, and yes, it is still 91 degrees.

Now we will turn to the world cup!

I watch the world cup largely in replays. My one month canal plus bien sports subscription for 15 euros shows all the games, and then when they are done allows one to watch them when one wants to, in replay. This is very helpful as many games take place somewhere around midnight, or at three in the morning my time (for my european readers, that's just "three" because if it were the afternoon it would be "fifteen"! Buenos dias, shalom, mbote, ciao).

But these world cup games are not nearly as interesting if one knows the outcome, so until I can watch the games I have to be very careful not to find out what happened.

It is surprisingly easy to find out what happened!

The obvious way might, to use a recent example, be me seeing a text from an old friend saying "Wow, that French team looks unbeatable!" which pretty well assures that France has dismantled another lowly opponent and any feeble hope I might have had when watching the game that something even vaguely unexpected might have happened is now completely gone. But that really just spoiled what was a foregone conclusion. The worst real match spoiling I've experienced was the extremely interesting Netherlands vs. Morocco game. We had to do some morning shopping in the markets before I could see the previous night's game, and walking along in a city with not a completely insignificant Morroccan population, I suddenly started noticing an awful lot of Morocco team jersies being worn by all sorts of people.

A lot of Moroccan jersies.

On a lot of satisfied looking people.

"Uh-oh." I said.

I was right, though I'll admit my slight uncertainty helped as I watched.

And finally, could someone from the future come tell me that by some miracle France didn't win this World Cup? It is looking frighteningly inevitable.

Anyone?

Talking pictures

 

Without much comment, here are some pictures of me around town on a very hot day today. Yes, I did have an aperol spritz, though strangely none of these images capture me holding one!

Elimination round

 

After what surely must have been most of the games of the tournament, we have eliminated barely more than a quarter of the teams. But we knew that going in, and most of us are not disappointed. After all, it not only means that most of the teams any of us were cheering for across the world are still here, still with their shot, but also now we are well and truly settled in, easily and calmly adjusted to the turmoil and passions and disappointments of the tournament.

What tournament?

Oh, The World Cup. 

I guess I haven't mentioned it for a couple of days... and you... forgot.

Yes, it is still going on.

It is just a scant few weeks more.

Okay, we'll see you then, though at that point we may be talking about the Tour De France.

Ah, still with me, great. So here's what happened.

Turkiye and South Korea are out.

Yeah, that's about it. There were a couple of pleasant surprises about who made it through despite negative expectations, what with their gritty play, and defensive cohesiveness, but...

I've already almost forgotten their names.

Sorry, it was great while it lasted. And who knows, maybe DR Congo can pull off some sort of bizarre miracle against England, but I am afraid these little cinderella teams are already playing on borrowed time...

And, and! I have another advanced and controversial soccer proposition for you:

The glorified midfields mean nothing and the stars mean everything. 

This may seem obvious, as people tend to obsess about the skills of the stars in all sports. But there is a very strong contingent in soccer fandom and futbol analysis, that is inclined to elevate the strong team play and brilliant midfield control to the level of a deciding factor in games. And I am not saying they are wrong. Going forward, that may be exactly the case, but in the group play we have seen, the much vaunted midfields and team play of countries like Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands looked a little uncompelling through the qualifying period, whereas the star scorers; Messi, Dembele, Mpappe, Kane, Haaland, and Vinicius Jr. were everything that screamed the terror, inevitability, and capability these giant teams bring to the tournament going forward.

This is no prediction. It may all flip on its head going forward. Keep an eye on the early elimination round of 32 game between Japan and Brazil. If Japan can pull that one out it may mark the turning of the tide in this trend.

Or it may not.

But this is all just the cold analysis. Here comes the hard part:

I just didn't feel too bad about the scant few teams going home after the group stage. I mean, they had their chance. But now we are on the immediate eliminations. One game and you lose forever. I think we might be at the phase of the tournament where I am the most sad for all the many many countries who will be falling like flies.

So far, for me this is based on but one single game of this new phase, but there it is: Goodbye, dear South Africa. 

Um.

You tried.

 

What these birds remind me of

 

Since we moved here I have been watching the seagulls flying outside our windows with great pleasure. This in addition to all the delightful and more comical encounters with them at the fish markets, along the boulevards, and of course at the beach. But from our windows they are at their most elegant, and to my great surprise remind me of the bald eagles we watched so eagerly from the windows of our Saint Minneapolis apartment.

Even to me it seems absurd that a seagull could remind me so regularly of a bald eagle. 

Check out this at least half fake picture I made:

Not much to it, eh? The eagle is surely twice the size. He is fearsome, dense, muscular, and imperious. Could there be two such different birds?

And yet maybe our way in is that dead fish they are both happily eating. These birds are, for all their vast differences, primarily waterside scavengers. And maybe that is what gives them some kind of similar quality out my windows across continents. The way they fly is astonishingly similar. Sure, in close quarters the seagull is far more active, ridiculous, and scrappy. The eagle is economical and careful about its energy. But out my window it is the same exact kind of imperious soaring they partake of, the same steady wings, and the same careful, slightly joyous use of the wind. And though in our picture here they look wildly different, in the air somehow they seem nearly the same size, with the smaller seagull's wings sprawling richly out, and its head and sometimes tail flashing white in the sky, dark and light, just like the eagle. They're both magnificent to watch as they glide with the barest touch of effort as they look about for...  nice... dead... things.

As we got towards Summer here another bird, apparently in for Spring and Summer from Africa, came to flood the skies. I don't think I saw a single one of them until maybe May? The air is rarely free of them now as, unlike the sometimes economical seagull, and the always careful eagle, these birds live most of their life on the wing. Their's is a life in the air nearly like fish in water. These are the swifts, and while I love watching them wheel about, they also evoke in me a strange analogy. These swifts curiously remind me of... mosquitoes.

Well, that seems even more inexplicable, but I have a guess for why they might seem alike. The swifts are feeding on insects in the air all day, and so why wouldn't they fly a bit like them, in their irregular patterns, in order to catch them? It at least seems possible to me. And maybe it's them we have to thank for how really minimal the irritating insects have been in this city.

But no matter, the truth is, mosquito-like or not, I am thankful to all these animals, nearly all birds, because this city life has its price to pay. The wilds can drift far away, and the rarity of the connection to that non anthropocene world becomes ever more precious. I am hardly likely to scoff at even the scrabbling pigeons here, where people seem to fill up every space in every way. Every single thing scudding across our hot skies is its own small piece of relief.

Even seeing a dead rat in the street, while evoking its touch of horror, also, like I would imagine it would for a seagull or an eagle, brings me a touch of delight. The world breathes in and out. I need every reminder I can get.

Hot France

 

Because my media is custom made for myself, I am not entirely sure how obsessed the rest of the world is with the European heat wave. I'm pretty sure... a little? I remember hearing about heat waves in other places and they always made me happy they weren't happening to me, but they were ringed with a touch of terror that they could.

And now they are.

Except, it's a pretty normal heat wave here, surely not nearly as bad as the worse ones in Saint Minneapolis. I know that this one is worse too in other places in France, where it's more like a hundred instead of our 93 degrees with a lucky breeze every once in awhile. But it's not like the sun stroked streets are shut down. We were out all day today, for some bizarre reason, and the city was packed as ever. People are on vacation here! That shit doesn't reschedule, so people throw on some scraps of clothes and plunge out into the sun. They sit baking on the rocks of the beach. They bob around in the water like so many corks.

Does anyone look like they're having fun?

I can't tell. You can write in any story you want on these people. It's vacation. They're all true.

What about air conditioning, you want to know.

Sure, we have it, as I mentioned yesterday, we have the only apartment in our building with it, and I frankly wouldn't mind if it went a bit colder, but it blows with ceaseless effort at this point. But that's a bit how it is all over the city. Some small stores in town have no air conditioning and they are insanely stultifying, though my darling wife bought something from one of those horrible stores today while I waited cowering under a tree outside. Many other places have air, but even at the giant supermarket and the glossy department store it doesn't go very cold like it would in the USA. And even more places in this city are so conversant with, and so open to the outdoors that their "We have air conditioning" signs for the tourists are completely meaningless unless you want to grab the ugly table in a dark far back corner where maybe an old vent weakly pours some cool air on you. And that's nowhere to drink a nice pint of cold beer! We had one at a table at the edge of inside outside, across from the opera house, and for about 15 minutes there I was even comfortable when the beach breeze found some life and a way through.

Or maybe I was just drunk.

I hate the heat. With cold weather I tend to harden to it, and adapt as it goes on. Not so with the heat.

We made it home much later with some groceries and it was nearly six already. The cool of our apartment was a blessed relief. 

But now, at 9:30 in the evening, under that same temperature, I slowly sweat.

In the heat of the summer

 

Here's a repost for you, thrown out from a much too hot France that is tossing fitfully under a giant, continental heatwave, to remind me of... colder times. We do have air conditioning, which struggles a bit to keep up, but I'm not complaining.

Oh, wait, I am complaining. 

And reposting a years old Winter classic.

Nevertheless I appreciate the cool relief of our apartment, which is palpable when we walk in from the baking attic hallway. We recently found out from a neighbor that despite some far bigger and fancier apartments below us, we are the only ones in the building with air conditioning! I think it was put in around the edges of the permissions for the building, and perhaps by virtue of the persuasive charms of our young French/Italian landlord who lived here at the time.

But I'm just guessing.

The other reason I am reposting today is so I could watch the France vs. Norway match, but Norway, in what I consider to be an unwise move from their coach, and a bit cowardly, is "resting" their star player. It takes some of the fun out of it, but, so far the game is not without fun, so I'll head back to it, and leave you to this:

I wandered out into the gritty center of Winter. One might even say I trudged, as I soon found myself in a local, sidewalkless neighborhood, plodding in unplowed streets where the snow had turned to what my wife calls brown sugar and butter. It was a mild day, in the twenties (270 kelvins), and though I had two cameras I had walked a long way without feeling the slightest compulsion to photograph anything.

And then, down a long street, coming from the railroad track's dead end, there were the turkeys. 

It is, after all, the turkeys' neighborhood.

I took pictures of them, dark in the snow and under a dim, gray sky. I came close to them which always sets them on their slow way, though they never linger too much anyway. All day they make their long, stately rotation through the backyards and streets of the neighborhood. I love how it is all a world of humans, with grids and walks and straight ways, but the turkeys move through it as a wild world, a world of turkeys, hilly and flat, grass and snow and cement, but all of it open equally to them, none of it straight or for one place to another.

As I stood photographing, the turkeys strolled by me so close that I could not get a picture, partly from the movement, partly from the limitations of the lens, and partly from my beating heart, thrilling at being all among the wild turkeys.

I do my best not to impinge upon the hospitality of the turkeys. I'll linger with them where I first come upon them. Then sometimes I'll follow around to meet them on a second street. After that I get the sense that maybe they've had enough of me, even if I, not always, of them.

I have shown you many pictures these years of the turkeys, but rarely have I gotten ones of them so grouped together, and so I hope that a couple of those give a feel for the flock, and for being among them.

French adjacent comedy

 

Here's some French adjacent comedy pulled from real life discussions:

"I have to go to the bathroom and I don't even know how to say "pee" in French!"

"That would be a useful thing to know."

"Oui."

Portrait of my cousin

 

By one of those amazing congruences in life, when my darling wife and I were in Japan, on our way to moving to France, I heard from my cousin James, who I had not been in contact for some years. It turns out he was moving to France too. Congruence indeed, but my story going back to my earliest childhood with this cousin really was one of extraordinary congruence, for which I am immensely grateful.

May I just mushily mention here that I adore my cousin.

So here we are all in France!

But France is a bigger country than you think, unless you are very clear on the size of France, in which case: France sure is how big you think it is! So it's not like we just wander out our doors and pop over to each other's houses. 

Thus, as a solution, we contrived to meet somewhere.

That was in Montpellier, three to five hours train travel away from my wife and me, and James and his utterly charming dog, in different directions.

It was great fun, and, as a note to any random readers out there who I have invited to visit us in France way back when all this seemed an odd sort of dream: Oh my god are you missing out!

Anyway, you may remember me showing rather a lot of Montpellier pictures and talking about moving to Montpellier, which is still in play, but I also found my cousin agreeable to my taking his picture during that. So I did, and have long wanted to do some portraits of him. But between back problems and illness, it has taken me ages to be able to get to my drawing board again, where on my computer I do layers and layers of drawing, erasing, and drawing some more. 

And then I end up with a portrait.

Which is what I have for you today.

How these memoirs are made

 

Many people ask me:

"How on earth do you write these memoirs I read everyday?"

To which I say with excitement and skepticism, "Wait, so do you read these every day?"

To which many people reply "Well, every few weeks I'll drop in, and it always seems like I missed a bunch!"

Yeah, I guess it is kind of a lot.

I used to have to just type my posts in purely from my imagination every single day, working out of my dark studio in a cold Minnesota basement. It required a lot of fortitude and imagination!

Nowadays I simply keep my stenographer with me at all times. He jots down everything I say throughout the day and night. 

The real challenge at this point is in the editing, and in the restocking of my aperol spritzes.