Maitresse

Impending move

Just a heads up that I'll be moving this blog soon to a website of my very own... the URL here has for quite some time been www.laurenelkin.com, but the blog has also been accessible via maitresse.typepad.com. That URL-- the typepad one-- will no longer be in use. Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly!

This will be happening in early February. I'll continue to post here until then.

Thanks!

LE

 

Toutes mes excuses

This place could use some sprucing, it's true. You might be interested to learn that one of my chapters unexpectedly gave birth to another chapter (mazel tov!), and so instead of one 40 page chapter I'm now writing two chapters of about 30 pages, due the 7th and the 12th of November respectively. Between that, teaching, and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, there's just no time for extra-academic endeavors.

My NYU flâneur blog is awesome though.

flânons

Classes begin tomorrow and I've spent the whole weekend prepping my lessons for the next two weeks. It's been nothing but Gilgamesh and Genesis for my Cultural Foundations class, and Simmel and Baudelaire for my Paris class. Non-stop flânerie, all without leaving my spot on the couch.

If you're interested in flâner-ing along with us this semester, I encourage you again to follow the class blog I've set up; between my teaching and dissertation deadlines I doubt I'll be doing much here at Maîtresse. I'll be back in this space eventually, but things will no doubt be a bit quiet here for awhile.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the Arcades Project Project and here, have some Poe.

A blog is born

I'm teaching a class called "Paris in French and Expatriate Literature" at NYU this semester, and I've built a blog for it, where students will post their response papers and I can leave them bits of interesting information.

Check it out and let me know what you think; your input, my esteemed readers, would be invaluable! If you have any ideas as to what I ought to include on the site to enhance my students' experience of the course, please do let me know.

The idea is to look at the figure of the flâneur, and more generally at movement and/in the city; we're reading Baudelaire, Simmel, Benjamin, Aragon, Breton, Mirrlees, Hemingway, Rhys, Baldwin, Debord, and Guène. I'll have the syllabus up on the site soon, as soon as it's taken its final form.

Mille mercis!

marie claire italia

This is kind of embarrassing but is so cool I couldn't not mention it.  Along with five other Parisian bloggers (including Naughty Paris diva Heather Stimmler-Hall), I was featured in an article in the March issue of Marie Claire Italy.  The photographer, the lovely Guia Besana, came to my apartment to shoot me reading, writing, and looking pensively out of the window, and then we went to Shakespeare & Co, where the below shot was taken.  You can download the full article here. Hope your Italian is in better shape than mine!

found in translation

If you're a fan of the translation blog Three Percent, as I am, you might be interested to read the profile Publishers's Weekly ran on him back in October. After an extended career at Dalkey Archive Press (beloved by me; beloved by you?) Post started up Open Letters Press, a publishing house entirely dedicated to international literature in translation, with a mandate to “increase access to world literature for English readers.” And Three Percent, the official blog of the organization, got its name because only 3% of books published in the US are works in translation. What a shame! And what an embarrassment. But if Post has his way, he'll eventually have to change the title of the blog. 

If you're feeling a little out of the translation loop (and who doesn't?), here is their longlist of Best Translations of 2008.  And unlike some "best of" lists, it's not only comprised of books you've already heard of ten thousand times. Although yes, 2666 is on there. And here's their list, so far, of books they're releasing in 2009. The Elsa Morante sounds particularly intriguing.

Some cool news recently-- Scott Esposito over at Conversational Reading heard from Sophie Lewis who heard from Christophe Claro that Mathias Enard's Zone (the novel that is entirely comprised of one long sentence) was the "novel of the decade" in France. (Pay attention, kids: This is how literary buzz is built) So Open Letter went "really?" and found the rights were still available and acquired it.  Look for a translation in summer 2010 by the most-in-demand translator from French of the moment, Charlotte Mandell.

around the internet on a tuesday

Quick and dirty today.

Michael Dirda has a nice long review of Mrs. Woolf and the Servants in the Washington Post.

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Roger Kimball on beauty and beatitude in art. (Via AL Daily)

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ReadySteadyBook has a really good interview with Lee Rourke.

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Charlotte Mandell, translator of Proust, Blanchot, and BHL, is interviewed here. (Via Three Percent)

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Don't miss Stephen Michelmore's breakdown of (lit)blogs.

Top 10 Paris Blogs

I meant to mention this sooner, but it slipped my mind-- a couple of weeks ago, Six Apart's newest endeavor, a list-based guide to the internet's best blogs, appropriately called Blogs.com, ran a list I contributed on the best blogs about Paris.  Here it is.  Enjoy! (And yes I know it's strange the subcategory is "Home & Garden," but it would seem they lack a "Travel" category, much less a "Pretentious Expats" category. They don't have a category for books, either, so I guess we should be content they made room for us in H&G!)

Hitotoki Paris goes live

We're proud to announce the newest addition to Hitotoki's narrative map of the world: Paris.

What other city has been as written about and mythologized as Paris? And yet, how often does the myth reflect the reality? Take it from us: not very often.  In Paris, the reality is so much better than the myth, and we hope Hitotoki Paris captures something of the vital spirit of the place-- its cheek, its attitude, its poise, its mystery, its diversity-- by putting you right there in the moment, in a particular place in Paris where something unique and personal is happening.

Roland Barthes develops the theory of the punctum in his book on photography, Camera Lucida. While the studium is the general field of a photograph (the subject matter, the thing that may interest you or attract you to the photograph), the punctum is the detail that interrupts the scene, the "accidental spark that reveals the 'here and now' of the photograph."* "[P]iqûre, petit trou, petite tache, petite coupure—et aussi coup de dés."** It is a rupture, a break. The punctum changes everything.

The studium, in this case, is Paris, or the particular setting of a Hitotoki.  The punctum is that telling detail that yokes together the writer and this moment in this place in Paris. That turning point, that point of no return, that crystalline moment that could not occur anywhere else-- that's a hitotoki.

Many thanks to those who contributed stories, photos, and illustrations-- please send us more. And to those of you who are just sitting on your submissions, or who have been meaning to sit down and write one for us-- what are you waiting for? Send it in!

*Gerhard Richter, Walter Benjamin and the Corpus of Autobiography.
**"Sting, speck, cut, little hole-- and also a cast of the dice." Barthes, Camera Lucida.

tuesday links

Well shite, here I am blogging about real estate when I should be gathering links-- it's Tuesday! You see, yesterday was a holiday-- Ocean Day, to be precise-- so today feels like Monday. But it's not.

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The French amended their constitution yesterday to include a 2-term limit for the President as well as a State of the Union address (The New York Times has the details). As you might expect, the Socialists went ape shit. I've spent the morning reading Libération, Le Monde, and Google News, trying to figure out what exactly it is about the reforms that the Socialists find so antithetic to their cause, and I have come up empty-handed. To the best of my knowledge, they opposed these reforms because they were introduced by the UMP, not because there's anything wrong with term limits.

I'm pretty much on the fence when it comes to French politics-- don't love the right or the left-- but the current group of Socialists are a joke. In some respects the Sarkozy administration is evil incarnate-- but these recent reforms seem pretty harmless to this observer. My verdict: a gallic shrug.

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Back in my Sorbonne days, you could often find me working at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (sometimes alongside my students from Nanterre, which was embarrassing). One of the major drawbacks of the BSG--also a boon for serious research-- was the total absence of internet connections.  No Wifi and only a couple of computer terminals that were always being used by someone else. The time warp effected by the former convent-turned library was implacable.

Until now. The Sorbonne's Hygiene Committee (I kid you not, it's actually called Le comité hygiène et sécurité de la Sorbonne) is plugging in a couple of Wifi routers, which were installed in May but "unplugged" when a librarian complained of "violent symptoms" of radiation poisoning. The director of the library commissioned a study of the radiation waves in the library, and found them to be 135 times below the maximum legal threshold. So they want to turn the Wifi back on-- which means the unions are getting their panties in a twist. Come September, the unions may prove more of an impediment to studying than email access. [Via LivresHebdo]

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Twizon is the lovechild of Amazon and Twitter. Can someone explain the point of it to me? [Via LaFeuille.]

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And Mark Sarvas wins the award for "Most Salacious Post Title for a Literary Blog."

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Tori Amos. Comic Book Tattoo. Now, more than just a song lyric.

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I've still only dipped a toe into the Murakami waters. But whether you've read all or none of his work, here, from the Times (of London) are the top ten things you need to know about this writer.

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If you don't read Café Mode, you should.* Géraldine is just back from the Rencontres photo festival at Arles, and was kind enough to share some of the highlights of the expositions (including the above photographs of the legendary courtesan Cora Pearl, from the expo Les Insoumises). 

*I feel like I can't mention Géraldine's blog without referring you to Garance's.

psst. Japan-related blogging and various irrelevant ephemera can henceforth be found here.

Taking a break from manifesto-making to share a piece I wrote for the Guardian: "Writers, beware the drive-by when you blog."

Also: I'm reading my first Murakami this weekend, After Dark, and I see now what the big deal is-- it's so atmospheric, so well-observed, and so mysterious. Highly recommended.

Adventures in Tumblrdom

Keith Gessen hath a blog.  And we'll be reading.*

At first I thought it was more likely a crazy fan of his who was imitating his voice. He quotes the Lorax, who speaks for the trees.  He talks about Emily Gould and Nick Denton.  He uses the device of fake reader mail to self-deprecate and pontificate.

It's so much of a caricature... that it can only be the real thing.

I do have one question, though. Gessen gets accused of a lot of things (most attributable to envy and snark), but one label I see over and over is "misogynist." I'd like to hear more about this-- I read N+1 when I can, I read Gessen's novel, All the Sad Young Literary Men, and I haven't come across anything to get my little Barnard-educated back up. Sure, the female characters might have been a little flat. But that's not misogyny-- that's just bad writing. Gessen attends more to the men because he gets the men. He doesn't get the girls. In either sense of the phrase.

So if someone has a real argument to make I'd be interested to hear it.

*well crap, just realized gawker scooped me on this by 8 hours. they really are the last word in media journalism, aren't they? no use trying to fight it.

Hitotoki lives!

The holding page for Hitotoki Paris is up! It's here.

If you are planning to send us something, and you'd like to submit it in time for the official launch in April, please send me your story by March 20th to lauren at hitotoki dot org.

For more information on what Hitotoki is, see the site or this previous post.

And there's some exciting news: we're going to be doing a partnership with Arte to kick off the Salon des Livres this weekend! So stay tuned...

Vous voulez contribuer EN FRANÇAIS? Cliquez ici.

Blog crush

Stop me if I've already mentioned this, but one of my favorite bloggers is The Little Professor. I love the way she is able to make her academic work the subject of her blog and keep it interesting and useful for her readers. (Not that I think academic work inherently uninteresting or useless. All evidence to the contrary.)

For example, see this recent post on the limitations of biographical criticism, or another fairly recent post on the way parallel plots work. Unlike many litbloggers, who mainly serve as glorified Google Readers, The Little Professor gets down and dirty with the texts she looks at, takes 'em apart, sees how they tick. You know, literary criticism.

All too often my own blog is just a Google Reader with commentary, but reading TLP is very inspiring.  So while I figure out how to bring my blog and my academic research more into line with each other, there is one thing I can borrow from her here and now: the sharing of recent book acquisitions. Here are the paperbacks which have joined my collection this week:

Balzac, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes.
In which the phrase "troisième sexe" is coined. Very important for my orals; very important for my dissertation.

Flaubert, Le Dictionnaire des idées reçues, suivi du Catalogue des idées chic.
Utterly irreverent and a great cultural studies tool. I give you an example:

Catholicisme:  A en une influence très favorable sur les Arts.
Musée (...) du Louvre. à éviter pour les jeunes filles.

Mallarmé, Igitur. Divagations. Un coup de dés.
Orals. Includes "Crise de vers" and an essay on Baudelaire.

Apollinaire, Alcools.
Orals. (à l'orale)

Jacqueline de Romilly, Le Sourire innombrable.
Because if you want to express yourself very well in French you have to read those who write it very well. Ahem. Pour bien s'exprimer il faut lire ceux qui s'expriment bien.

whoops

I was a little bitchy on Gridskipper the other day.  I know the Gawker Media Empire is built on snark, but it always feels a bit strange when I get a chance to exercise it.

At least it was for a good cause.

Gridskipper and NYT mention

My latest piece for Gridskipper is on unconventional Paris tours, and it's here.

The New York Times's T magazine blog liked it too, and mentioned it here.  Rock and roll!

Maîtresse, version française

Petit expériment en français, ici. On verra ce que ça donne.

Great Interview Experiment

Now that I've heard back from the other half of my blogger sandwich, I can officially post the results of the Citizen of the Month-sponsored Great Interview Experiment! To participate, go here.

Here I am being interviewed by DaveX of Startling Moniker.

And here is my interview of Pocket CT.

Maîtresse: First things first: Mac or PC?

Pocket CT: PC.   I have to admit that I almost switched to mac when I bought it three years ago.  The lure of pen to screen way beat a mac with a wacom tablet especially since I was using it for life drawing.  I will have to do something rather than go with vista when the time comes. 

Maîtresse: I see from reading your "about" page that there's a really cute story behind the creation of your blog-- one of your friends found you to be such a useful source of information that she wanted to shrink you and keep you in her pocket; thus was Pocket CT born. But here's my question: who would you shrink and put in YOUR pocket, if you could?

Pocket CT: Wow that is a hard question. 

If I could shrink people and put them in my pocket for easy access, I may have a menagerie.  The fact that not one of them would actually agree to be stored in my pocket until I had want of them is clogging my brain as I try to answer it. My first answers are the people I miss the most right now.  My friends Robin who lives in Washington and Rebekah in California are sorely missed in my life.  Is the answer to this who I enjoy the most right now?  Theresa, Jan, all the people I like to dance with at the Guiding Star Grange.  Is this for practical purpose? Should I put a handyman there?  Or maybe I can use this to take out someone who isn’t doing anything good for the world.  I could have a giant pocket full of choices there.

“Want to see my mini Pat Robertson? I know, he is a little smooshed.  I forgot he was in my back pocket and must have sat on something hard and maybe pokey from the look of him.  What?  You want to put him in a jar with bees?  I don’t think that is very nice.  Well yeah, I agree,  it is probably his just due but I don’t think I can…”

Should I answer in the same spirit that Sheila had of someone who can answer all my geeky questions at a whim?  One of the guys who write the O’Reilly books might do the trick. 

OK now I should just choose one. I will pick Rebekah even though she will probably kick me if she is in my pocket.  So I wouldn’t keep her there, rather send her to my sister’s to help out.  She can easily don a super hero cape for stuff like that.

Maîtresse: You've just completed your first full year of blogging. What have you learned, if anything?

Pocket CT: Don't write anything that you will be horrified if the person reads.  They will read what ever I write.  This seems to be the case even if the person rarely touches a computer or doesn’t know me from adam. Something will lead them to that post and then they’ll tell me they were there. 

Maîtresse: Your blog is full of tales of mischief-making-- reading it is so fun and uplifting. How can your readers keep the Pocket CT spirit in between your blog posts?

Pocket CT: I suggest  Pronoia by Rob Brezney, It is workbook style with exercises.  For example he suggests that you stand on a traffic island holding a sign that says, "I love to help; I need to give; please take some money." and dole out currency to random people.  In another you are to blow kisses to all the people who need them, even the awful ones.

Or if you need another blog I suggest  http://happyvalleynews.wordpress.com/

Maîtresse: You've very into food and cooking-- if you could have dinner tonight in any city in the world, where would it be and why?

Pocket CT: Tonight it would be somewhere warm and outside. Somewhere I could wear a sundress and wonder if I am sleepy because of a sunburn or because I got up early to play.   When I am not totally starved for al fresco  it is somewhere in Italy with a group of people it took far too long to organize, yelling or singing at the table with all the courses and some bitter drink at the end.  The dinner would end with a walk where there would be young families, old couples holding hands and loud laughter.  There may be salt in the air or a balloon man.  There would definitely be people kissing

Maîtresse: Which work of art has moved you the most? 

Pocket CT: I saw a painting in a museum in Rome titled “non mi lasciare” - “don’t leave me” of an woman who is about 40 sitting on the lap of an older woman in a rocker.  It has gorgeous Scott Prior style light, intricate intermingled color and a profound but stable almost necessary sadness about it.  It had a longing that starts its crescendo before it registers consciously.   At the time I thought of my grandmother, and not having the opportunity to know her, she died when I was five.  Thinking back on the painting I am reminded of how bittersweet is any relationship between people – eventually one of us will leave the other.  It pretty well captures that.

Maîtresse: Why do you write?

Pocket CT: To get better at writing, it is something I am not naturally good at so need to practice.  Since I won’t unless it is fun I write about whatever is tickling my fancy. 

around the internet on a tuesday

(Even though it's Wednesday morning here in Tokyo)

Scott McLemee reviews Swimming in a Sea of Death, a new book on Susan Sontag's months by her son, David Rieff.  Rieff will be reading in Paris next month at the Village Voice, which is appropriate since, as McLemee argues, Sontag should be read within the context of her many French influences and obsessions. And in one final French connection, Sontag is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. (via Conversational Reading)

Lire magazine has a special dossier on Françoise Sagan (FR).

I think for every article James Wood publishes, two are published on James Wood. Here's one from the FT. Here's another from the Times.  Mr Wood? Your move.

To be fair, the man has a new book out in the UK (US pub date is July). And so there are actually far more than two articles on him this week. Here's another. And here's The Elegant Variation pitting Wood against Anton Ego from "Ratatouille."

The CRITICAL MASS: The NBCC's Good Reads --- Winter List results are up-- in this new feature, previously known as the Best Recommended List, over at the National Book Critics' Circle blog, critics and writers vote for the best books of the preceding season.

Finally, a book I'm hearing about for the first time that sounds like it's worth a read: Laura Mullen's Murmur,  discussed at The Reading Experience and by Jennifer K. Dick (also via TRE).