In Biarritz

~ Clarissa

We crossed into France, and things are looking up already. No Palestinian or rainbow flags, I’m speaking French everywhere and everybody understands, and for the first time on this trip I had a tasty meal in Europe. We went to a touristy place and had a salad, and that salad changed my entire philosophy of life. I wonder what their haute cuisine is like if a small touristy joint does such sensational food.

N had something they call “bagel with smoked salmon”, and he laughed for 15 minutes because that was no bagel. It was much closer to ambrosia than anything else.

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Published by Clarissa

16 thoughts on “In Biarritz”

      1. That is horrible.

        Now waiting for you to condemn the other one.

        (As you can see by now, this is always the issue. That is, “October 7 = bad”, but “every other atrocity Israel does = eh”)

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        1. “waiting for you to condemn the other one”

          That’s terrible.

          There! We solved the middle east! Now you can stop spamming the comments in your attempt to turn every other, more interesting conversation about it.

          Not responding any more of your OT rants (please someone hit me with a gefilte fisch if I do).

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          2. …also quite puzzled by the “condemn xyz!” strategy. It feels very much like a religious test. Affirm that Christ is Lord! Burn incense before Caesar! Step on the cross! Declare your submission to my cause! Bend the knee before my gods!

            What *is* that? Like, what does it accomplish? Nothing about that helps the oppressed anywhere. Right up there with “awareness” campaigns– ok, we’ve spent a million bucks raising awareness. Who was actually helped by this? The company that manufactured the ribbons?

            Who benefits from all this “Kneel to your obvious mental superiors, peon!” business? I don’t understand the end goal there. Ego? Performance for the theorized “invisible audience”? Goad the enemy into saying something gross that can be used to oust them from their jobs later?

            Meanwhile:

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            1. It’s actually not the “condemn XYZ”, really in itself. It’s in the balancing of dismissal/indifference that the blogger offers to certain outrageous events. Immigrant does something bad. Come everyone and let’s condemn it. Palestinian flag in Europe? Oh, it’s ruining my vacation. Jewish gathering trying to auction Palestinian land? Oh nothing to see there. Ashkenazi jewish woman invoked Hitler to harass orthodox Jews? Nah, don’t look there.

              If this blog has retained a consistent response to all atrocities, you won’t need me to point out the gaping blind spots.

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              1. Dude. It’s my vacation. It’s not your vacation but mine. You are not in Biarritz. I am. Breathe in very deep and start talking in your own voice about your own vacation.

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              2. Why should someone else’s blog have to conform to your ideology? Does it help Palestinians?

                Are you doing anything to help Palestinian victims of violence directly, or just using them to score virtue points on the internet?

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              3. To Clarissa, yes, I’m doing my own things in my own way, thanks for asking.

                To the Meth guy, why do we complain about the New York Times or any other publication (Fox, MSNBC, WSJ, etc)? It’s not because we can’t go on our own ‘publications’ and make noise there. It’s because wherever someone appoints themselves as a curator of public opinion (via blogs, podcast, books, or even just a megaphone), the public has equal rights to respond. It’s called free speech. Look it up.

                And when such a megaphone holder happens to be a professor in charge of students’ lives, we have a duty to hold them accountable as well, since our tax dollars are involved.

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  2. “that salad changed my entire philosophy of life”

    I remember a former French colleague had a salad in Barcelona that offended her at a very, very deep, existential, level.

    Clearly, France and salads are a very deep topic…..

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    1. This is the primary reason for Americans to travel, IMO.

      First time I left the country, I discovered that I’d never actually eaten *food* before… only a weird facsimile of it.

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  4. Happy you’re enjoying your vacation — I’ve been enjoying mine either despite or because of some necessary dispersion of certain illusions.

    The thing is that I wasn’t sure I’d get back here again.

    So here’s what’s going on: the “new gig” isn’t an ordinary job, and I will be taking it.

    Without getting into the specifics, the conditions of the “new gig” will require adopting an official tone for nearly all communications while I’m in that position, with the obvious follow-on that I will not be able to shoot the crap on people’s blogs or comment at all.

    And by “official”, I do actually mean official, as in every possible nuance of official you can think of.

    One good thing about this is that I will have the power to put into effect little changes that will ensure that a new group of people can take over the designs and the systems we’d helped bring into existence decades ago, we being my firm and my people who worked for it back then.

    As a consequence of accepting the position, I lose certain benefits that include the ability to travel to Japan on a regular tourist visa, both while I’m in that position and after it.

    Soon I will be back in the US to sell, donate, or otherwise dispose of everything I can possibly get rid of, because being able to do that is also affected by this development.

    With the theft came the opportunity to clean house which then led to the opportunity of dual retirement, and so we’re not CFO and CEO anymore, but instead we’re both retired and free to do the things we want to do rather than doing the things that pay well.

    What we’ve been working on is seeing whether there’s a “remote work” option that would let us stay in Japan as a somewhat convenient neutral ground, but that’s probably not going to work out for official reasons.

    Similarly, although we could probably get an arrangement like this set up in Malaysia, the official status situation would make it problematic, so we’re both all-in on this while I’m in that position, and I’m trying to wrangle some official status for her as well, which of course has the same conditions.

    So these future retirement plans will have to wait, and we will hopefully be back again in Japan in the future. In the meantime, our stuff remains parked in another country where we have permanent residence that will remain unaffected by official status.

    But if you were ever wondering how someone gets a teaching position who isn’t really in the social class of being a teacher, this is one way to do it, and so there will be students who will be judged on how well they can learn what’s needed to take over these things.

    As for the students, these people also have impressive sounding job titles and are not allowed to fail.

    High stakes! Also, high rewards, with the biggest reward being able to complete a vision that was never fully realised and seeing younger people take it over.

    Which, of course, has to be a lot of what you get out of being a professor.

    There’s still some time, but when I’m out, I’m really out.

    I seem to recall saying something about this many years ago, but I didn’t think it’d go down quite this way.

    Although it might sound like an ideal time to say that it’s for a good cause, I’m not exactly sure I’m into good causes anymore. My family lost control of a university system that we’d funded for many decades after its founding, and between that loss, several business losses, a few forced liquidations, and so on, to the tune of enough money that I’m sure you’d require surgery for your jaw dropping, good causes are not exactly things we can actually afford.

    So you’ll have to excuse taking this position not only for a kind of legacy but also for getting enough cash back beyond what we’d made to start rebuilding some of what our family once had.

    I know what methylethyl might be thinking: oh, but you’re rich!

    No, merely affluent, and not particularly powerful, but five centuries ago, Oliver Cromwell was afraid of us, that we would be the ones executing him.

    Not that he was wrong about that, as we demonstrated at Nuremberg, to be fair.

    There was always a dark sweetness to visiting Japan again, enjoying all of these things I may not be able to do again, depending on how things work out.

    BTW, Biarritz is not a normal French small town.

    They do small town things there elegantly and then pass that off as being things they do with trivial effort.

    What they are is exceptionally great at hiding just what that effort has involved over time to develop.

    Also BTW, if you ever get the chance of getting to the UK again, visit the West Country, specifically little seaside towns in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall.

    There are little things about that picture in San Sebastián that remind me of these towns.

    Oddly, the hill in the background, the bricks, the beige, all of it reminds me of the High Street and Marine Parade of Weston-super-Mare in North Somerset … but especially the fog.

    But if you want the same quiet competence, visit Cheltenham instead.

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    1. As a Brit whose parents were skilled working class, and who sacrificed huge amounts for my education, I understand some but not all of your allusions, but if there is ever any way that you (or a successor screen-name) can come back and refer us to a fuller explanation I would be very interested.

      Thank you for your comment and I will miss you in the medium-term.

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