Angelique et Roger sur l’Hippogriffe

From the model by Antoine-Louis Barye.

This is another sketch from my visit to the museum (see below). When I first saw it, I thought of Persephone being snatched by Whatshisface—there are so many abduction scenes to pick from! But in fact it's the story of Roger and Angelique, found in the 1516 adventure poem Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. (As you can tell by all the o’s, he was Italian.) Orlando Furioso (meaning something like “Mad Orlando”) was written as a continuation to another poet’s Orlando Innamorato (“Orlando in Love”), and seems to contain so many episodic curlicues and narrative rabbit-trails that a clean summary is quite impossible. In this part, the African knight Ruggiero (Roger, en français) saves Angelica (Angelique), the pagan princess of Cathay, from a forced sacrifice to a sea monster known as the Orc. Yes, this is the same situation which faced poor Andromeda, and yes, she is also a favorite for artists who want to paint a pretty naked lady chained to a rock. (One wonders if sacrifices didn’t work if the person were clothed.)

You can also see Roger and his hippogriff in the shadowy forest, as shown by Gustave Doré (who lived in Strasbourg!); or Roger saving the coiffed and soft-skinned Angelica from the nasty monster, as imagined by Ingres.

A Day at the Museum

One of the many many perks of being a student here is that we get into museums freeeeee. I took advantage of this one Saturday and popped into the Musée des Beaux Arts (Museum of Fine Arts). It takes up one largish floor in the Palais Rohan, the palace a few footsteps south of the cathedral which has room for three other museums and museum offices.






















The view from the courtyard.

From the second floor, you can peek out the windows! My camera and I took advantage of this to see the cathedral . . .










. . . and the courtyard of the Palais Rohan. (That’s the cathedral still in the back of the picture, to be clear.)

I had decided to call it a brain-free Saturday, so on this visit I just strolled around, looking into all the shadowy corners of the paintings and staring back at the many Madonnas who looked out tranquilly. I also did a lot of laughing out loud!--one room in particular has multiple illustrations of Genesis, which allowed these medieval fellows to show off their scientific knowledge. Which is precisely what made me laugh! The kinds of fishes, birds, and mammals they imagined or recreated are just fantastic.

I was so enchanted by many of the paintings that I returned the very next day with drawing paper and pencils.


Here is one of the oddball animals, an excerpt from La création des oiseaux et poissons, after one by Martin de Vos. This fish needs braces but seems quite happy without them, because he also has wings.










In the same tableau we find an ostrich with a slight smile, standing at attention at the right hand of God.















Melchior Bocksberger is responsible for the excellent and jam-packed La création du monde, a ginormous canvas which contains most of Genesis. One of my favorite bits is this little skeleton who waves its arms at a little Adam and Eve as they sadly leave the Garden. Here is a hydra for you, who sits on a hill beneath a falling Lucifer.





And here is a little parrot, who is perched on a branch above a few deer, elk, and buffalo, in Roeland Savery’s Paysage de fôret avec animaux.


More drawings to come later.

Beer (and the Inauguration)

For reasons known only to certain parts of my brain, I am apparently unable to write anything coherent or intelligent concerning the inauguration—I say this because I’ve been trying to do so since the night of! So I’m giving up and just posting (below) my thoughts concerning a glass of beer, plus a note about religious language.





As Tuesday 20 January approached, my roommate Tara and I were considering how we’d get our hands (eyes?) on a television to watch the Inauguration. I think Tara had more reason to be excited than I, because she (a) is more politically informed, passionate, and active, (b) has worked with a variety of governmental organizations, most recently as a page at the DNC, and (c) knows enough about politics and the world to know exactly why she likes Obama, without being merely dewy-eyed over his rhetoric and attitude (as I often am).

That morning another BCA student told us that one of the Irish pubs in town, The Dubliners, would have the tv on for the inauguration, so we walked over and situated ourselves at the foot of the screen with another American friend. The owner (short white-haired terse Irish fellow) came and asked us for our order—our friend ordered “un Kro”, or a Kronenbourg, a beer made originally in this region and especially famous. Tara and I, feeling guilty for taking up space and still mostly clueless about drinks, ordered the same. We glanced dubiously at each other when the glasses arrived : one of our first conversations when we arrived here had been about our shared dislike of this drink, up until now smelling only of back alleys, public restrooms, and dirty creepy people.

We were happily surprised! It tasted very light and a little I think like white wine, sort of soft and foamy but not sweet or silky (if that makes sense). The aftertaste was the only unfortunate thing, because it tasted like warm yeast-water and unbaked bread dough. So we’re (mostly) converted. This is probably going to be our only concession to Alsatian cuisine; good luck getting us to eat ham knuckles or sausage and sauerkraut.

Postscript : Since then we have discovered La Lanterne, a micro-brasserie traditionelle. The word brasserie in common parlance means “place to get food and drink at almost any hour of the day”, but its original meaning is “brewery”—and La Lanterne is in fact a micro-brewery, which makes a lovely bière blonde served with a slice of lemon and smelling more like citrus than yeast.

Carte Postale

I bought this au marché brocante (at the antique market), a sprawling mess of tables which pops up in Place Gutenberg on Saturday mornings. I've been so tempted to buy glass ostriches, elaborate silverware sets, accordions, and almost-medieval candelabras. So far I’ve only purchased post cards, which are perhaps more easily transported.

(Just to clarify : this is our cathedral! The tallest building in Europe until the middle of the 19th century.)

Coffee and I, we're in love.

Coffee and I have been together for quite a long time; in fact, I'd say this relationship's only rival is the Church, and early on a Sunday morning they're definitely tied for What Emily Wants More. (Wait, Thomas Cranmer, don't run away, I didn't mean it!)

It's true that this love affair has at times followed a similar pattern to my many other TORRID and DRAMATIC love affairs (c.f. Simone Weil, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, St Augustine, Italo Calvino, and the prophet Isaiah), marked by an extreme devotion combined with unpredictability and impulsivity--such as the year when I drank 8 cups a day and my love gave me heart palpitations, or when coffee suddenly lost its taste (see "Princeton Dining Hall, year one"), or when a crackpot (crackpot, I tell you!) doctor suggested abstaining for a month in order to help migraines and disordered sleep.

Now, however, coffee and I are back on good terms. Someday perhaps our relationship will be as stable as my relationship with Gerard Manley Hopkins or George Herbert, but considering how much of my personality is similar to Speedy Gonzales', I'm not betting on it.


Exhibit A:
My first cafe au lait in a bowl! And Sunday breakfast (at 1pm) consisting entirely of bread in a variety of forms. But mostly the coffee. Coffee coffee.






















Exhibit B:
Here, I am on the train home from Nancy, and am devastated to find that, in fact, all the coffee is gone. Please note that this was coffee a emporter, "to go", only available in train stations.

Singing in Church (and in French, and in English, and in Latin)

Singing here is something of a trip. In the Anglican services each week I revisit my elementary school years, as we sing Mrs. King’s (my fourth grade teacher’s) favorite hymns, in English but with different tunes and with French, British, Indian, or Rwandan accents. (We haven’t yet sung “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder”, but I keep waiting for it.) The organist tends to trip over the notes and frequently changes tempo, while the French woman sitting next to me plows ahead fearlessly, pronouncing “th” like “z” and adding vowels where Webster never would have put them. It’s a very energetic crowd, at 10h30 (10:30 a.m.), with plenty of kids bouncing around as we sing the last, energetic hymns.

I also go to the evening mass at the Cathedral. Here everything is of course in French, and we sing almost all of the service, led by the beautiful trained voices of oldish white men. For the Psalms and hymns, a man in a suit stands on the right of the chancel and sings into a lone microphone, echoing into the frayed edges of the cathedral and guiding the gathered crowd. He sings a first line alone, and then guides us in singing it again, drawing a shorthand of the musical line in the air with his hands. Here the organist is so good to be unnoticeable, and the chilly air fills with a variety of notes and frequencies and accents. It’s so cold in fact that I can see my breath—which gives a new sense to the words “Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as incense” (Ps 141:2). I always enjoy chanting the Psalms, and the hymns we sing are easily understood but lovely, with the natural loping gait and rebounded rhyme of the French language.

On Ash Wednesday we even sang some of the liturgy in Latin—the parts that start with “Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!”, “Kyrie eleison”, and “Agnus Dei”. Considering my Latin is as advanced as my French feels most days, I didn’t mind it at all. I tried to remember the rules of pronunciation we learned in fourth grade (again, at the wrinkly imperious hand of Mrs. King), but all I could remember was that you probably vocalize most of the letters (unlike French!). In the end I just pronounced it like my infant-level Italian, with a generous dose of enthusiasm.

And everything that I said about my trouble with the word “Amen”? Tripled when it comes to singing it. I just stick with my Western U.S. vowels.

Basler Fastnacht! Carnaval à Bâle! Carnival in Basel!

Apparently I went to Switzerland last week ! Tara found out that SNCF (Société National des Chemins de Fer, or National Society of Railroads) was offering a one-day special to go to the carnival in Basel, Switzerland. Strictly it’s not actually “carnaval” (of the Mardi Gras pre-Lenten variety), since it always happens one week after Ash Wednesday, and has been happening thus for 500 years. Yes, 500 years—that’s older than our country.



We left Strasbourg at 1:10 a.m. and arrived sometime around 3. Our goal was the Morgestraich, the beginnings of the whole shabang. It starts at 4 a.m. on the dot, when they turn out all the lights! All the streetlights, the lights hanging above us, and even all the front lights of the restaurants still open for the festivities. And then groups of people (called cliques) parade around haphazardly with homemade lanterns on their head! Carrying big lighted paper floats!



Here the six-foot-something John makes an honest attempt to become something like tipsy—this was about 4:30 a.m., and he said “Normally this is the time where you’re talked out and bar-ed out and ready to go home—and it’s too early for a champagne breakfast—but everyone else seems to be a few beers ahead of me! I’m not sure what to do.” Tara and I opted for sobriety, since we feel disoriented enough by the huge crowd and the strangely accented German (respectively).




One of my favorite groups—they put actual lamps on their head, complete with fringes and bad 70s colors!




















































Each of the bigger floats is intricately painted and has to do with some kind of satire, criticism, or campy joke about contemporary affairs. We saw quite a few about oil, education, and American society (including the cross here above).






































Everyone marching wore masks and costumes (in varying degrees of creepiness or craziness), and each clique had flutes, piccolos, and tambours (drums) playing a kind of repetitive cheery tune. John is a musician and said that the drummers seemed to be following no particular pattern, rolling and hitting and speeding up and slowing down and scattering the pieces of the “song” however they liked. They certainly played with enthusiasm!

























We had by happenstance started off the night (morning?) with a very good vantage point in the main city square; when we’d had enough of being jostled we decided to tramp off into the steep roads and alleys, finding smaller cliques to follow and heading in the direction of any music. We ended up in a tiny square with mossy trees and tons of kids in costume, and lo and behold, a GLOWING OCTOPUS! We hung around until they rolled off, and then followed after them and became part of the parade ourselves. Talk about a good tour of the city!
























And then we found a church (about the size of Princeton’s) which has apparently been converted into a café/art gallery! It was a strange and not unpleasant experience to have a café au lait at 6 a.m. in the nave of a stone chapel.
























If we look tired, it’s because we’re exhausted.







And then there was sunlight!











After a brief interlude where a nap was had on a couch in another café, we met up with two of John’s French friends, Laure and Marie, and walked to the main cathedral . . .



















. . . which happened to be right up against the Rhine!






















































































































Did I mention this is where Erasmus was buried?! Hence my reason for coming to the cathedral. At this point I was too tired to do anything but take one picture, apparently.
















The beginnings of another (another!) parade, which started at 1:30pm, right before our train left.



















































And then Tara got shot with a confetti gun and John got hit with an orange.
I have no pictures! But I took some with Tara’s camera, and will acquire them soon.





































On the way home, we slept. I saw enough of the Swiss countryside to be reminded of home (facing west—foothills and mountains!) and apparently mumbled something about it into someone’s ear; the conductor said “STRASBOURG!” and we shuffled back to our beds.

Church Words

My French vocabulary is growing in two main areas : words about food, and words used in church. If you know me well at all, you know that this is perfectly in character; now I just need to learn to talk about how handsome someone is or how much I’m in love with people, and then I’ll be able to entirely replicate my conversational depth in English!

I’m learning these words because I go to Mass at the cathedral, and I’m learning them in a very interesting way—almost by accident, subconsciously, on the margins of my attention. Of course, this is because of both the liturgy (hooray liturgy!), which is near identical to the Book of Common Prayer (hooray BCP!), and the fact of my being exposed to so much of the Bible since my birth (hooray Evangelical upbringing!)—all the words and verses which I’ve read in a variety of English translations are simply being heard again, with different aural shapes and rhythms. What a blast! And now for some specific words :

One which took me an embarrassingly long time to get is autel. It sounds a lot like “hôtel” and “aula” (an open hall), but in fact means both “altar” and “pulpit”.

La chair means flesh, not to be confused with “la chaire” which means a “chair” of a university, which is also not “la chaise” : a chair (in English).

Chatîment is punishment, related to the English “chastisement”. (The circonflex (^) means that there used to be an s after the vowel.)

Évangile is “gospel”, used here as in the U.S. to mean both the written words (“l’Évangile de Saint Luc”) and the coherent whole, the story of Christ.

Pâques is the word used instead of “Easter”; it’s a significant difference, though, because it’s simply the French word for the Hebrew “Pessa’h”, which in English we say “Passover”. I imagine that this must create nuanced differences in the lived theology of our churches, to have an explicit equation with the Jewish celebration of Passover rather than using the descendent of a non-Christian Anglo-Saxon word.

I’m also getting good at using lots of words I already knew :
-the “we” and plural “you” form of croire (to believe)
-a lot of friendly adjectives in the singular masculine : miséricordieux (merciful), tendre (tender), fidèle (faithful) . . .
-the verb aimer (to love) in all its conjugations.
And a lot of imperative verb forms for the informal/familial “you” (which is, thank heavens, the way you address God)—this is the verb form for asking, demanding, pleading, or commanding something.


The word “Amen” continues to give me trouble. In Episcopal-land, home of slow-moving dignity, one should intone this word with wide vowels : Ahhhhmenn. Where I’m from (in the religious, regional, and socio-economic sense) we say it aYmEN. As far as I can tell, French-speaking Anglicans and French-speaking Catholics say it the same way—but for the life of me, I can never remember which way they do it!! Is it “a-mon”? “ah-mayne”? “ae-men”? They seem to do it differently every time! So I’ve continued what I’ve always done and always will do, sticking with “aYmEN”, an interjection suitable both for religious exultation and the wholehearted approval of a friend trouncing a bad boyfriend.

Thank heavens everyone says “Alléluia” the same, or else I’d really be lost.