frog legs

so last night i went to a farewell dinner (you know who you are, you will be missed)   at a nice little french restaurant. the wine was flowing and everyone was laughing and being generally loud english speakers. i decided to be adventurous after my recent food poisoning episode in london, and ordered the frog legs as an appetizer, steak and salad for the main course.

the frog legs were cooked well, the texture was ok and the sauce covering them was nice, but the legs themselves were awful. i've eaten just about every part of cattle, goat, sheep, and camel, poultry and seafood but i couldnt hang with this stuff.

school was cancelled, so i hit up the conservatory:

i have found that by playing 15 minutes and then taking a 3-5min break has been doing wonders for my jaw, and i have been pretty regularly putting in 3-4 hours per day this way. it helps that work has been sparse with school being cancelled so much!

christmas market

here are a few photos around the christmas market that i took last night:
the fountain had frozen over

the nativity scene

there were lights strung everywhere

and numerous goodies

and tents of light

old photographs

 one of my best museum experiences ever was being in chicago and stumbling  across a free exhibition of cartier-bresson's works at the chicago art institute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartier-bresson

moreso than any other photographer, i always find something so haunting and gorgeous in his photos. the only way i could think to describe them would be as outrageously beauftiul. i cannot say why, they just are

barthes talks about 3 points of view in every photo, that of the operator (the photographer), the spectator (the person viewing the photogrpah), and the spectrum (that which the photo is taken of - the specter- a word connected at the same time to death and to the spectacle)

a photograph cannot say what is or what will be, it can only say definitively what has been. it blurs the edges of reality  "since the immobility of a photograph is like the result of a perverse confusion between the Real and the Living : while attesting to the fact that an object has been real, it subtly implies that it is living".

none of the people photographed above are living, nor is the man that photographed them. i can't help but wonder about their stories, about his story. aside from being an interesting window into the early to mid twentieth century, the photos speak to me as do the specter of their subjects (and photographer)

health care

one unfortunate part of travelling is digestive problems, and i've had my share of them over the years! one of the problems of living/travelling in comparative hellholes for a few years is that you get a false sense of security when you are in the developed world.

anyways, this past weekend i got food poisoned by something in london, and came back to france sick. of course all the french people laugh when i tell them this, and reply that i need to stick to french food (because english food is so terrible....)


 today i had my intro to the french health system and had difficulties at first - in central beauvais i had a tough time finding a place that could get me in to see them today. i tried four doctor's offices and finally lucked out by getting a number off the internet. i called about an hour and a half  before when my appointment was set for. i had a gloomy walk over to the office, it was cold and lightly snowing, and i didnt feel great. however, things got better when i got to the doctor's office. i did not have to wait. i was seen promptly at my appointment time. the doctor checked me out, wrote a prescription, and commented that i  almost had no distinguishable accent (my limited vocabulary and poor grammar are what gave me away...)

my social security number had not yet arrived, so i paid the doctor in cash right there (he even had change!) i have to send in one form to be re-imbursed for my expenses. the visit was 22 euros, my prescription cost 11 euros. in total i spent 33 euros to see a doctor, and get two medicines. to be honest, i dont even care if i am paid back for this trip. if i were in the states, how much wrangling and paperwork would i have to go through with insurance companies to deal with this? if i were to pay out of pocket, today would have costed me at least one hundred dollars, and the quality of service would have been exactly the same. hell, i may have even had to wait longer too.

my kind of place

this is a bar that i stumbled across in london.

next time i go back i would love to get a drink there, the name is priceless

london

went to london for a thanksgiving weekend - activities included:
                                                          the borough market:

camden market

wandering around by st paul's

radiohead

found this nice brief analysis of one of radiohead's best songs "pyramid song". i love their music, there is always something subversive or fantastical about it(in this case the song breaks down into common time despite the fact that if you count it like a normal common time tune you won't follow it) . i like the way that bob reynolds (a wonderful jazz saxophonist in his own right) draws out the symmetry of the rhythm, which does in fact resemble a pyramid.

http://www.bobreynoldsmusic.com/video/pyramid-song-radiohead/