Just enjoyed delicious croissants (scored just down the street / alley) and coffee here in my tiny aerie and I am watching the elite French military band serenade Francois Hollande and the dais with stonefaced super-precise absolutely-square non-swung rendition of some "jazzy" number. Now precision marching from another unit while holding rifles. Considering the hours of practice (think really good university marching band weaves and formations) at government expense for not-very-many-such-opportunities-to-show off, one wonders not that it is done well, but that it is done at all...
Hard to take pictures because of the time lag between when they are behind the trees and emerge in this burst of sound.
Oh very cool. This year the parade invited NZ and Aus to honor their 1916 war dead (biggest percentage of population lost in one battle) and the Kiwis sent a squad of fully painted Maori along as well. What is going through the president's mind? What is Francais for Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot? I didn't grab my camera in time to catch the haka.
So glad I am not in that crowd or anywhere near. Claustrophobia, ochlophobia, smoke-ophobia. Yeah I had to Google "fear of crowds."
So strange to be watching this military parade and be thinking of the perspectives I got this past month in the process of teaching "Americans in Paris": I devoured several books about the end of the Occupation, and the incredibly complex decisions about how and when to liberate Paris (and by whom). After 1871's near civil war and in light of the power of the Communists still very much present, there was a real fear of Baghdad-style fragmentation / street fighting / prolonged anarchy. Leaving aside how close the city came to being scorched-earthed into the stone age (that was Hitler's order, ignored by German command who were already thinking about striking a better deal with the victors and not adding another war crime to their resumes), there was the symbolism of having "The Free French" under de Gaulle (who was loathed and mistrusted by Churchill) be the first to march in--with American equipment and tanks and jeeps. There are no memorials to the thousands of collabos and accused-collabos who died in the two weeks of terror that followed, as (just as in Afghanistan and Iraq) old scores and spats were settled using the mob or the New Order as enforcer.
Good grief. French Foreign Legion Pioneers / Sappers complete with axes, leather aprons and of course The Beards to Fear. Shoot, should've grabbed my camera again.
Where do they get this stuff? How many organizational spreadsheets died to organize this frickin' circus? Not to mention the fresh paint, clothes starch, medal polish, and overtime pay? Sure hope there's no emergencies anywhere, as the entire Gendarmeria Nationale motorcycle corps is out here. Oh shit, the tanks come through. Wonder what the Paris street-engineering thinks about a couple of 50-ton treaded vehicles customizing the substructure of the Elysian Fields Shopping Boulevard? OK we are scraping the bottom of the barrel here: camo-painted flatbeds with camo-painted combat-support backhoes on them, and camo-painted expand-o-bridge dealies. Ooh, and a combat ATV four-wheeler. All driven by suitably stone-faced dudes wondering "How did I get here?"
So odd. I have the sound on, and there's this endless patter, the universal language of parade commentators the world over, always one man and one woman conjuring up inane enthusiasm as they page through their inch-thick programs, breathlessly telling us what we are seeing, whether it's inflatable Mickey Mouse or elaborate Rose Parade wastes-of-flowers, or the Deuxieme Division Logistique de Marseille and their portable latrines (in camo paint)(just kidding).
Mercifully we are done. Hours of fun to remind ourselves of just how bitchin' we really are.
That's a take, and a wrap. We now return you to your normal programming. May the Farce be with you.
