Art & Politics

Ten of us are living in this house. Eight are part of a theatre troupe from Paris that does things with masks and puppets and stuff like that, and includes Michel’s girlfriend, Melanie, and one is Michel, my host and dear old friend, known professionally as Sarcloret, who composes and performs songs that are loved by many people. They say he’s like Brasance; I hear Dylan.

They sleep & eat here but spend most of the day working in Avignon, where they’re transforming a restaurant into a performance space. They’re busy busy busy moving furniture, building scenery, sewing curtains, pasting posters, organizing promotional material, lights, etc.

Just as I was getting to know & love them they left; moved to Avignon, close to the festival. But I had three days of tiptoeing around messy pots of spaghetti, chicken bones, wine glasses, coffee cups, guitars, amplifiers, spools of wire, boxes of paper...

La Vie Bohème: Artists in France are paid by the government if they can demonstrate that they work at their art, even if they earn nothing. I don’t know how many Euros they collect but they get health care, apartments, have cars, supplies and equipment, and smoke lots of cigarettes.

They cleaned up before leaving, and now it’s just me and Michel & Melanie, who are always at it, (they are,that is) kiss kiss, smooch smooch, and you know what…. but four musicians are arriving on Tuesday & I think they’ll be the rowdy ones. I don’t mind; I’m happily installed in my room, eating & sleeping on my own schedule and enjoying the last days of my stay. Going to celebrate my birthday tomorrow (7/7) at a favorite restaurant in bocaire.

Outside the house, on the village square, the five-day festival of Meynes is going strong. It’s hard to find a parking spot at night. Daytime, they do traditional things with horses and bulls, and at night drink lots of wine & pastis, also traditional, with terrible brass bands in ugly costumes.

I noticed that the celebrants of the festival are strictly white. None of the Muslims, who are 40% of the village, take part. My friends tell me once the pastis drinking starts, the French have been known to become violent.

I found lavender fields, and on the way visited a couple of ancient medieval villages that the original inhabitants have sold to rich Germans, Swedes, Swiss, English, who gutted the ancient buildings and turned them into magnificent vacation homes. There are no shops, and no one lives there in winter. Can we still call them villages? They’re more like luxury holiday camps on Hollywood sets.

Some of my friends here, who claim not to be “racists,” are unhappy that the French government allows polygamy, and men from Africa come with several wives and many children, and are given apartments, paid childcare, healthcare, their kids go to school, and the men don’t work. The more kids they have the more money they get. Everything is taken care of for them, according to my friends, who don’t like it one bit.

The new boulanger’s croissants are not as good as the old one’s; they’re heavier, as is his bread. And the weather is sweating hot. Like New York in summer, but with crickets and flies.

On Friday I return my rental car and take the TGV to Macon, to visit Rosmarie & Hannes in their magnificent castle. From one extreme to another. Nevertheless, I don’t think I’ll find internet in the castle, so this will probably be my last missive from France.

Here’s the best news: I’ve completed a first draft of my new book, temporarily titled, What Susan Did. It’s all down, in my laptop and in cyberspace, from soup to nuts, and I’m so glad about that.

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