Stupid And Immoral

I meant to do this yesterday, but just in case someone's around town on Thursday evening, I'm giving a talk up at the University Paul Valéry entitled "Rock & Roll Will Make You Stupid and Immoral," which, as you can plainly see above, it's done to me. There is actually a serious message at the center of it, or a couple of them, although I'll be sugar coating them with humor and anecdotes. Music will be played, visuals will be shown.

Thursday, Feb. 11, 6:15 pm, University Paul Valéry 3, Building B, room 202. (Unless we have to move it across the way, in which case there'll be a notice on the door). Here's a map, Building B has a B on it, which I failed to notice yesterday when I went up there to look at the place. Be there or be square!

Stroll and Fail

It finally got to me the other day: I'm spending way too much time in my apartment. I wake up, read the news, check the doings at the Save the Library site (big excitement: someone posted a malware spam!), then get back to work on my book. That's usually wound down by around 2, at which point I make some lunch. Back to checking the news and various URLs that people have sent and before I know it, the sun's going down. I walk a block or two to the supermarket, then come home. And the next day I repeat it.

The exceptions, of course, are market days, Tuesday and Saturday, when I trudge about a mile over to the Arceaux market. But even that's been taking a hit recently. Either the weather is crappy, or I don't actually need anything. But I did it again this morning. There was no excuse; the sun was bright (I was actually glad I'd remembered sunglasses), and although it was crisp out there, it wasn't too bad.

So let's recreate the walk. I came out of the apartment and as soon as I cleared the carousel in the corner of the Comédie, I put on the sunglasses. Stop to let a tram take off, and then across the Com to the Rue de la Loge, the big street lined with luxury stores (Bang & Olufsen, Godiva, some women's clothing shops and a couple of high-end jewelers) that, almost at the top, has the Place Jean Jaurès where the students hang out and drink at night. Yesterday, there was a big roundup of what I believe are currently called "travellers," kids with huge dogs who hang out and drink 8.6% beer out of cans and beg when they can remember to. The police were all over them there, possibly because, from the evidence, some of the dogs are quite ill. I never thought I'd see a town that could compete with Berlin for dogshit in the streets, but Montpellier's running a good race.

The street flattens out at the top of the hill, where the Halles Castellanes (the indoor market hall) and the Virgin Megastore share a building. I actually was in the Halles yesterday, which is how I noticed the police/travellers contretemps. The idea of going to the supermarket just to buy something vegetable to go with my dinner seemed stupid, so I went to one of the stalls and bought a broccoli. It cost me 75 cents instead of €1.00 or more at the Inno. And it wasn't swathed in plastic, either.

Once past the Halles, though, I was faced with a choice. Walking straight into the large space called the Plaza of the Martyrs of the Resistance, where I'd walk left onto the Rue Foch, has recently been made more difficult because the branch of some bank is doing renovations and the construction crew has built an extension of the building out onto what was already a very narrow sidewalk. I've taken to going down a side-street and rejoining Foch a block or two down, which is longer, but pleasanter -- and darker. I was enjoying the sun, and there didn't seem to be many people out, so I kept going. Rue Foch is what they call a Hausmannesque addition to the city, modelled after the changes Baron Hausmann made in Paris in the 19th Century. All the buldings along it are 19th Century, and I'm told that the reason the street was cut was to divide the two main parishes of the city. To the left as I head towards the Peyrou Arch, the yellow Arc de Triomphe monument to Louis XIV, is the St. Anne district, which is where, theoretically, anyway, I'd like my next apartment to be. Me and, I suspect, thousands of others.

Rue Foch is again lined with luxury clothing stores, and today, the two pharmacies, a couple of doors away from each other, were flashing that it was 11.5°C (53°F) and 6°C (43°F). I decided to believe the former. At the end of the street is the Arch, after which I crossed a street into the park which is part of the Peyrou complex, with an equestrian statue of Louis that's tall enough that there was a law for many years that no secular building (churches were of course excepted) could stand any taller than the King. Recently, someone lashed a huge cardboard sword to his hand, a New Year's prank, I guess.

(This picture's from last April, incidentally)

The other big monument in the Peyroux is the Château d'Eau, the water tower which has the pumps that supply water to the many fountains in the central city, and it's been covered with scaffolding for the better part of a year. The Peyrou has trees on either side of this bare expanse, and needless to say in high summer this isn't the route I choose. To the right (actually to the left in this picture) you can gaze out into the mountains, and on the left is urban sprawl and a couple of hills and, I think, the Mediterranean. Today, the mountains behind Pic St. Loup seemed to have a dusting of snow on them, and there was a crew in the park who were trimming the trees, a sure sign that spring is coming. On either side of the Château d'Eau, there are staircases which go to the lower level of the park, which surrounds the main part on either side and meets below the Château. Extending from the rear of the Château are Les Arceaux, a faux-Roman aqueduct which runs for about a mile, where it hooks up with an older aqueduct which runs to the spring from which the Lez River originates. It's kind of a fake version of the region's big tourist attraction, the Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct near Nîmes.

Attached to one of the arches is a photo, allegedly the only verified one in existence of Jean Moulin, the famed Resistance figure. which was taken there. Stairs at the end of the park lead to a small street, across from which are more stairs, which take you to ground level in a parking lot, where more tree work was going on. From there, it's just a couple of blocks to the long lot where the market stretches out.

Having taken you this far, I have to admit that, except for the wonderful odor the chicken truck was making (a truck with a portable rotisserie on which a dozen chickens roast before a fire, their fat dripping onto some sliced potatoes below), there wasn't much at the market today. My shopping list was modest, as was my budget, but it was essential: garlic and eggs. Oh, and of course anything else that looked good that I could afford. The egg guy is always there on Tuesdays, a friendly chap who serves as an agent for his neighbors who raise chickens. He's got four kinds of eggs: "bio" large and extra-large, and non-bio in the same sizes. Prices range from €2.50 for six extra-large bio to €1.90 for six small non-bio. He loves to talk, and today he wanted to talk English. This is because I taught him the phrase "free-range" the first time I bought eggs from him, and he's been accumulating phrases since then. "'Ello! 'Ow har you?" I admitted to being good. "You wan' six freh randzhe?" Indeed I did. "Two Euro! Sank you. 'Ave a nahze deh!" It's not only his gregariousness that keeps me coming back to this guy, as I've said: I practically have to put on sunglasses when I scramble the eggs, their yolks are so yellow.

In a nice surprise, the cheese guy from Aveyron was there today, too. A few weeks ago, he'd offered me a slice of his Conté, and it was very good: nutty and smooth. We got to talking, and he discovered I was American, so he made another slice out of a very funky two-year-old Conté with a gnarly, worm-eaten (I think) crust. I thanked him and admitted I wasn't really in the market for cheese at the moment. With the piece of old cheese still dissolving in my mouth, I walked away, got about five feet, and a bulb went off in my head. I should get some of this stuff. So I did a U-turn and did just that. As he was cutting it, he said "My British customers think this is like Cheddar." Which is exactly what I'd thought: a nice sharp Cheddar. This guy is in his 40s, third generation cheesemaker, and is, he told me today (when I really wasn't in the market for any) that he's usually there on Tuesdays.

I poked around at several other stands until I found one with exceptional garlic, and bought three heads. Really, there was almost nothing on offer today: a few winter squashes, lots of potatoes and onions, black radishes, and a few turnips. Oh, sure, there were stands that were fully-equipped fruit-and-vegetable stands, but the stuff was all from Morocco and so on. I can get that at the Inno. A new stand offered Corsican charcuterie, coppa and saussicon sec in donkey, boar, and beef varieties, as well as a black sausage called figatelli, which appears to be made from liver and blood. People tell me that the Corsicans make great sausages, so I'll have to check these people out when I have a little extra to spend on exploring the huge range of stuff they were offering.

Wow: six eggs and three heads of garlic. What a haul! Four whole Euros spent, too, less than the ten I allow myself even during hard times in the summer. But the extra six can wind up with me hauling back enough melons, tomatoes, and peaches, as well as other stuff, to wear me out. In the summer stuff is cheap because it goes bad if they don't sell it. That time is coming, but I'm still going back twice a week, if possible, because last year I ignored the market during the months, like now, when it wasn't as colorful, and only started going back in May. As it is, I'll be missing most of March, which I'll be spending in Texas, but I've promised myself to be more observant this time.

* * *

Some weeks back, I mentioned I was going to be writing up a photography show which was running at the Pavillion Populaire by a famous French photographer, Raymond Depardon. Actually, it was four shows, three of which were at the Pavillion, but the most interesting one to me, his photos of the Languedoc region, were at the old St. Anne church, and opened later than the other three at the Pavillion. Two of those I found rather icily intellectual and theory-driven, "Wandering" and "Cities," both of which were photos shot with a set of rules he gave himself. (I have nothing against this per se: the preceding entry was written as an exercise for stuff I have to do with this book I'm writing). In "Cities," I believe the idea was to spend 48 hours in a city and try to do a portrait of it, and, at least for the cities I was familiar with, he seemed confused. Neither portraits of familiar landmarks nor of situations which define the urban life, they were more like snapshots than anything. "Farmers," though, which took up the entire second floor of the Pavilion, was quite wonderful. Depardon himself grew up on a farm, and admits that it's informed his view of everything since. The sympathy and emotional connection shows up in his portraits of people who are still working their small farms. You can see the toll it's taken on them in their faces.

But I missed the show at St. Anne. Just plain forgot it was there, and yesterday I kicked myself. What an idiot. Even worse, though, was that I didn't know that the other show I was going to write about also closed on Sunday. This one I went to because the artist was the wife of a friend of mine, but once I saw the pieces, I really flipped.

Florence Causeur-Chastagner works in collage, cutting pieces out of colored paper and fitting them together. She told me she's never trained in it, just started doing it one day because it made her feel good. There were two main sections of the show. The first were blank-faced sets showing people posing or grouped together as if in snapshots. Marie got one of them on her blog, but it doesn't really register the skill and color. The way these images are framed and arranged in sets implies a kind of narrative because they recall comic books, but in fact there's no narrative at all, which makes narrative-driven people like me stare at them all the longer, waiting for a connection which never comes. It sounds frustrating, but it's not.

But the pieces which made me jump up and down with happiness (I exaggerate, but they really did thrill me) were her reinterpretation of the Mexican Day of the Dead art, in which skeletons do this and that, just like living people. They're called calaveras (which, duh, means skeletons), and what Mme. Causeur-Chastagner has done has been to make her own version, using Bible stories and other religious imagery, which the Mexican tradition would never do. There's a Stations of the Cross, for instance, and some illustrating Old Testament scenes. I scanned a detail of one which she uses on her business card above. This little guy is deciding on whether to wear good or evil (the good being the wings on the coat-hanger). She and her husband spent time in Austin a couple of years ago, which is what triggered this series, and I hope to talk to a couple of gallerists there in March to see if, when they're back at the University of Texas in 2011, she might get a show there. The cultural confrontation might well ignite some worthy discussion. At the very least, it would be a revelation.

The show, incidentally, was at the Galerie Saint Ravy, an old building deep in the old town which is owned by the city and used to show the works of local visual artists, which I think is a very good use of public funds. Almost as good as helping to re-house the collection of the Anglophone Library would be, but that's another story for another day.

Winter

I really do feel bad when I can't post something here every couple of days, but the conundrum I've been facing for the past week is...what?

I doubt that any of the fine readers who come here want to read about the dull but paying work I've been doing every day. Or that those who don't live in Montpellier want to read about the library again, although we do have over 600 signatures as of this moment (and you can sign it here). Or that I went to the market this morning and, as usual for this time of year, didn't find much, although there was a very colorful display of all kinds of root vegetables at one of the organic stands that was tempting. Or that I'm in my 9th month of not being able to taste anything much after 6pm or so, although the drugs the doctor's given me seem to be working a bit, so it didn't make much sense to buy a bunch and roast them to see what they taste like. Or, even grimmer, that my washing machine's broken and the consensus seems to be that I should just buy a new one because getting the old one repaired would cost just as much. Or that I can't afford to do that because I just bought a year's health insurance (but at least I have it now!). Or about my bank card being downgraded and my not finding out about it until my direct-debit bills to the electric and phone companies started bouncing. Or the discovery, through that, that France Telecom Orange has been pulling twenty Euros out of my bank account every month for...what, exactly, when my service is with Free?

Or that the days are short and I tend to sleep too much. Or that the sun still does shine some days, but it gives no warmth to speak of. Or that, on my way to the market this morning, I looked over towards Pic St.-Loup and there was a wall of light grey, which I suspect may be heading over this way for the next couple of days.

Who would want to read that, and why would I want to write it? What would be the point? At least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the same story: it's winter, and it will pass. It did last year, when I was new here, and signs of it started appearing about 30 days from now. Assuming the dirty laundry doesn't drive me out, I'll be here for that. And as I remember, it was very much worth the wait.

Quick Library Update

Things seem to be going well. We had a meeting, two people from it met with the cultural adjutant of Montpellier, and today I wrote a petition, which you can sign here, politely ignoring the site's requests for donations (for itself) if you want to (although maintaining something like this isn't free), and with luck, we'll be back up and running again soon and I can start writing about something else. Like going to Béziers.

Les Miettes d'Hiver

Yes, in fact, it is cold out there. Two days in a row we've had snow, which is really unusual for this part of the world, but at least here in town, it's not sticking. Much worse was about three nights ago when a light, misty rain was falling and icing up the polished limestone of the Comédie, forcing me to sort of mince home with the groceries. I made it without managing to break my neck, though.

This is what's delayed my trip to Béziers, announced earlier. When the sun is out, as it is right now, it's because cold, dry air has blown in from the mountains, although Pic St. Loup was invisible yesterday as I went to the market. I'd like to see it (and I may go out later to do just that) because on that same trip yesterday I saw a hill -- one I must have seen a million times before, making that same trip -- which was covered with snow. It was off in the distance, but just sitting there, white, against a greyish sky, and I did several takes before I realized it wasn't a cloud or something. If the Pic is, indeed, capped with snow, I'll take a picture and post it here.

And, of course, when it's not bright and cold and incredibly windy, lowering the wind-chill factor, it's raining, since this is the season when the Languedoc gets its water, which will eventually be turned into fruits and vegetables and, oh, yes, wine. But walking around Béziers in the rain doesn't appeal, so I'm hoping to get there around the end of next week. It's only 42 minutes by train, so it's not a big deal.

* * *

The affair of the library has mushroomed since my last post. Right now, what looks like has happened is that the University, which owns the space the collection is in, took advantage of the dissolution of FOAL (Friends of the American Library, properly known as ABAM, Amis de Bibliothèque Anglophone Montpellier) gave the University an excuse to get rid of the whole thing, not considering that there would be a public outroar. Well, there was a public outroar, all right, and with it a bunch of comedy. For one thing, I got interviewed by the publisher of our local satirical weekly, l'AggloRieuse, whose name is so dense packed a pun that only a French-speaker could appreciate it. He'd read my blog post, translated it with Google Translator, and was deeply concerned about the baby horses, although he didn't know what they had to do with things. You know: foals. Then, of course, people were posting their concerns to the ABAM list-serv, and every single time that happened, a flood of "take my name off your mailing list" e-mails came in. I'm astonished at how few people know how e-mail works, even in this day and age.

Finally, I set up a Google Group for the issue, which now has 19 members, including one in Montpellier's twin city of Louisville, Kentucky, which had helped the library out in the past. The outraged citizenry will be meeting at 7:30 at Lawrence McGuire's homey used bookshop, the Globe, on Tuesday night. If anyone reading this has expertise in getting grants for library projects, or has any juice with people who do, or feel they have something to contribute to this, just send me your e-mail address as a comment, which I won't publish, and I'll send you an invitation to the group. And if you're in Montpellier or environs and want to come to the meeting, the store's at 2, rue de Carbonnerie (opposite l'Heure Bleu, up the hill from that insane toy store, corner of rue de Canneau).

Just what we'll be able to do is a good question. We've all paid dues to use the library, plus FOAL had a treasury. However much there is, it's not going to be enough if we have to rent another location and move the 30,000 books, DVDs, and so on. I foresee a lot of talking. A lot of talking. But it's just possible that something'll get done, too.

* * *

After the meeting, I may well head to the Vert Anglais for one of their Vert Anglais burgers. As I've mentioned, Nick and Sarah and Jody, who own the place, were extremely nice to me when I first moved here. A year ago today, I was still schlepping up the hill with my computer in my bag to use their wi-fi, because my phone still hadn't been turned on. The computer I'm using now, as a matter of fact, I bought on-line from the Vert Anglais. My total contribution to their coffers in the four months I sponged on their hospitality must have been, oh, a good €200. I rarely go there now, because I've got connectivity at home and I can't really afford to go out at all, but they've just been dealt a blow and I want to help out.

There was this guy who was pretty much always there, nursing a demi of awful French beer, from just after breakfast until about 6, when he went home. He was never particularly warm to me, but there's often a bit of tension between the British and the few Americans here. He also had a son and daughter, the latter with a kid, and they'd join him for lunch at least once a week, at which time he'd switch to wine, then go back on the beer when they left. Sunday mornings, he'd go to the market hall, which is open til 1 on Sudnays, and bring back a roasted chicken, some bread, some cheese, and the like for the staff and their friends.

Last week, the word went around: he'd left the country with his son, one step ahead of the law, and had decamped for Southeast Asia, where he's got a friend who's going to open a bar which he'll help run, with the kid as bouncer. He left a bar tab of €1000 at the Vert Anglais. Hell, I got nervous one morning when I woke up and realized I'd walked on a tab of €16 after a quiz night! At any rate, if you haven't tried the Vert Anglais for lunch yet, I hear wonderful things about the new menu in general, and it sure looks good. (I just don't eat that large a meal at noon, or I'd report on it). They also run the burger, which I raved about here, from 6 to 9pm. Nick, Sarah, and Jody took over the Vert Anglais on a shoestring, and they have ambitious plans to make it even better. They're good people, so drop by if you're in town. Tell 'em you read about it here!

American Library R.I.P.

I was faced with a quandary yesterday: I was told to bring back my library books this week, but should I just give up on the book I'm reading? For a National Book Award winner, The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed, must be one of the worst-written, padded, PC-speak, stupidly focused books I've ever attempted. I'd already forced my way through a couple hundred pages, and was determined to jettison it and just get some new reading, when all of a sudden Jefferson moved to Paris with James Hemings, one of his slaves, and James was apprenticing to become a French chef. Okay, this was interesting, as I dodged around Gordon-Reed's klunky prose style to get at the story. Then one of Jefferson's daughters came to stay with her father, and was accompanied by another slave from the family, Sally Hemings. Finally, nearly 300 pages into this shipwreck, some stuff I wanted to read about.

Then came an e-mail: effective Jan. 1, 2010, the American Library of Montpellier, where I'd gotten this book and two others, was closed. Books should be returned as soon as possible, and no further loans would be made.

This wasn't a total surprise. Late last year, the Friends of the American Library sent out a notice that they'd dissolved. I didn't get a real feeling for why, but it appeared that the new librarian offended them somehow, and refused to let them function as they wanted. The FOAL people were angry that they'd bought computers and books for the library and now were being scorned. Because so many people who used the library apparently don't know how to use e-mail, my box filled up with a debate about the new librarian, who had just been hired, and then it filled up again with "Take me off this list!" e-mails. For my part, I found the new librarian very shy, although by about my third visit there, she opened up a bit more. I almost never saw another soul using the place.

I was concerned, however, about this development, because I am supposed to give a talk under the auspices of FOAL and the American Studies department of the University Paul Valérie, Montpellier III in the very near future. A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with my contact at the University, and mentioned that FOAL had folded. He wasn't surprised: I learned that the American Library is maintained by the University's English Department, and, like educational institutions everywhere, they're pinched for funds. They can't really afford to pay the librarian's salary, there's already a collection of English-language books in the central University library, and so from their side, this is just paring some fat away.

The problem, of course, is that a number of us have paid dues to use this facility, and have come to look at it as a private lending library funded by our dues and moneys raised by FOAL. Although I've found the collection eccentric in the extreme, I've also found a lot of stuff there that I either wouldn't buy for myself (mysteries, science fiction), or can't afford to buy for myself (they have the entire Library of America series, and this batch of books I have here includes the first volume of the Philip Roth collections, which I was looking forward to continuing). I considered this library to be a wonderful service to a sizeable minority of residents here, and had no idea that it existed at the whim of the University.

I'll admit it: I'm addicted to reading. It's what I do most evenings. I don't own (and don't much want and definitely don't have any space for) a television. I'm not a movie guy, for the most part. I read omnivorously and quickly. In Berlin, I found out about the existence of the lending library at Amerika Haus about ten minutes before Jesse Helms and the other right-wingers decided that America had won the Cold War and shut it down and sold off the books. And being able to browse and find stuff by happenstance -- not to mention being able to borrow them for free -- was an unexpected pleasure once I moved here. I borrowed DVDs, too, although they cost extra (and the selection, again, was very odd), and I was planning to do some more of that.

The e-mail box is filling up again, with shock and anger about the unilateral decision to close the library, and there's a movement to petition Jacques Touchon, who's with the city in some sort of cultural administrative function (and who is apparently in charge of Montpellier's twin-city relationship with Louisville, Kentucky) to deal with this situation. While I've been writing this, my mailbox has been adding more and more e-mails on the closure. One asked if this was an anti-American gesture on the part of the University. Others want to set up a book-exchange program. Others just want the library to continue, and I count myself in that number and would be willing to spend some time seeing what can be done, although others who know the landscape better should set the mechanics of that up, not me.

The American Library was a luxury, sure. There are others, in Paris, Angers, and Nancy, but they're all a bit far away, to put it mildly. Given the bounty the earth provides here, the climate, and the scenery, one gets used to luxury as a way of life. This particular luxury was only useful to a small group of people, but if it goes, I'm really going to miss it.

Whew, That's Over!

2000 began for me in Berlin with a bunch of hard decisions: I would walk away from a project which had consumed me for three years, leaving it in the hands of incompetent people who killed it swiftly and efficiently. I ended a two-year relationship that wasn't, in retrospect, really a relationship, with a severely damaged woman whose self-loathing was the worst I'd ever encountered, even in a country as filled with self-loathing women as Germany seemed to be. I would devote myself to a project I really wanted to do, and which I'd have time to do, since I was about to inherit a small, but handy, sum of money. Things were looking good.

Two years later, every cent was gone, the majority of it collateral damage from the 9/11 attacks: €75,000 I'd never see again. Nobody's fault but mine for risking a loan to a good friend. This demolished my book project, which depended on several visits to the U.S. In short order, other dominos fell: the two American publications I'd done the highest-profile work for suddenly wanted nothing more to do with me, this time not my doing, but the result of office politics in newsrooms thousands of miles away. Other office politics ended my radio shows, which I loved doing despite the fact they didn't pay very well; all the deejays on the station were fired.

Over the next two years, I learned how to live on nothing. Literally. There was a year in which I did no work at all of any consequence, falling seriously behind on my rent, living from the deposit on bottles I collected on the streets and more than once taking food from the dumpster in front of my apartment. I did the occasional proof-reading and editing job, and lived off occasional gifts from friends. A relationship which seemed to actually be turning into one turned weird when the woman in question disappeared -- for three months. Welcome to extreme binge alcoholism. I'd never met one of those before. I started a blog because some well-meaning folks convinced me it would help me get work. It didn't, but I met some interesting folks through it.

Through a chance encounter which dovetailed with a fantasy I'd had of moving to France (but not to Paris), I started to think about moving to Montpellier. Then I visited and started to think harder. But how to raise the money? I got to work on a book based on my blog, which, after a year's development, got the angriest, nastiest rejection letter I've ever gotten, from the head of non-fiction at a major publisher, someone I'd always considered a friend. Literary agents looked at it and scratched their heads. I gave up. At the start of 2008 I moved to a cheaper apartment, which enabled me to save a little.

Then, that summer, a friend contacted me: would I be willing to ghostwrite a memoir for someone? I would, indeed, I replied, and contacted the guy. We soon set a fee of $30,000, which seemed fair because his dyslexia showed up plenty in what he was writing, to the point where I often had to guess at what he was trying to say. He explained at the beginning that he'd have to pay me in six installments, and I agreed to it. With the first one I moved to Montpellier, and with the second I opened a bank account, got a telephone, and all the other crapola which attends to a move to a new place.

The third never came. Three months of work, including hurry-up editing of six chapters he wanted to show to publishers, wasn't paid for. He announced he was going to sue me. I'd predicated the whole move on the fee for this book, and now I was dealing with a crazy person. Would I never learn? But, while my lawyer was writing letters, I was learning about life in France, and discovered that I enjoyed it. Then, in the spring, I caught a cold, which cut off my sense of smell and taste. The cold left, but the sense never really returned, except during the hours between approximately 11am and 7pm. I was surrounded by glorious food and wine which I couldn't taste.

The end of 2009 found me looking over the carnage of my profession, dreaming up a new way to do the Berlin book thanks to a fan letter from an expert on the city which came out of the blue via Facebook, happy that the tyranny the United States had endured for eight years was at an end, writing the Berlin book a bit at a time almost every day, and, on the last day, reading a letter from a lawyer saying that my former benefactor was filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and if I had any claims, I had to file them. So there's a little justice there, anyway.

I started the 00s flush with funds, clearing away my old life. I end them broke (but not poor) and ready to continue with my new one, having no expectations, neither optimistic nor pessimistic, just determined. There's a lot I need to get done, and not all of it is dependent on having the finances. I just take things a day at a time, which is, really, all any of us can do.

Thanks to one and all who've been reading. I hope this coming year will allow me to regain my faculties (the nose doctor has put me on a three-month drug regimen, the second month of which has just started, and yes, there's tiny improvement), and I intend to keep up those day-trips every time I get a check. Which, actually, I just have, from the Oxford American, so I'm headed off to Béziers sometime next week, weather permitting.

Will 2010 be better than 2009? Who can say? I hope not, but see above about expectations.