Okay, here's the last set of photos from our vacation in America! We spent the last week or so in New Jersey, and most of that was at the beach in Wildwood; Marjorie and I rented a shorehouse there along with Ben and Corri and baby Lily. A lot of these pictures come from Marjorie's camera, because I guess I'm so used to looking at New Jersey stuff (having grown up there) I didn't remember to photograph a lot of it!


We visited Lucy the Elephant! I'd actually never done this before! More pictures of Lucy (including her insides!) are coming up after the LJ cut...

( Wildwood, Lucy, some NJ history, et cetera... )

Okay, now that Kevin's alligator picture is out of the way, I'm going through my vacation photos in order here. Marjorie and I were in the States for about 15 days. We flew into Philly, stayed in Collingswood, NJ with our friends Steve (fluidbeauty) and Tricia, and then bounced around to New Orleans, the Jersey shore, etc. The day after we arrived, there was a big barbecue at Ben (schtune) and Corri's (corrigami) house, so that Ben could invite all of his international students over for a real-ass American barbecue. Marjorie is fascinated with super-American things (and I guess I am too), so this was a perfect thing to dive into right after arriving in the States. Can you believe that when you go to a barbecue in France, there are no hamburgers or hot dogs? It's downright un-American! So I was proud to show Marjorie the real thing.


The barbecue was in Collingswood, and even I'm a little shocked at how insanely American the town looks. This was on our walk over to Ben and Corri's place.

( More Americana than you can shake a freedom fry at... )

Ben (schtune) just sent me this picture from his phone, with the text, "August sixth."



HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

We don't really have Halloween in France, and I'd told Marjorie there was a small chance we'd see some Halloween candy/costumes/decorations in stores during our visit to the States this month. She was intrigued from an anthropological (and goth) point of view, having never experienced Halloween herself. I thought we might start to see some Halloween stuff popping up near the end of our trip, around August 24th, if we were lucky, but American consumerism went and jumped the gun before we even got there! Amazing! Man, now I'm even more excited for our trip tomorrow. Did I mention we leave tomorrow? We'll be visiting for a couple weeks, mostly for my mom's 70th birthday party in New Jersey, but we're also spending some time in New Orleans, the Jersey Shore, Philadelphia, New York, etc. See you soon, America! We'll be trick-or-treating door to door across your great nation until we've eaten all your candy, and then hopefully we'll be allowed back into France, where it's illegal to be fat.

Here is a song I love dearly which is more or less about America. Well, sort of not really, but they say "USA" a couple times in it, anyway.

Happy birthday, America! You are getting so many birthday punches.

As many of you know, I grew up in New Jersey. A tremendous amount of folks in NJ make it a priority to spend at least part of every summer at the shore, and most of us have our favorite shore towns we visit more often than others. I spent a huge amount of time during my teens and twenties in Wildwood, which is by far the trashiest of the south Jersey shore towns, and definitely my favorite. I still try to go every summer whenever I'm in the States. Anyway, I just ran across this delightful compilation of clips from a 1994 documentary about Wildwood, shot on my beloved boardwalk the year I graduated highschool...

Man, Marjorie and I can't wait for our trip to the States next month! I just spent the last couple days teaching her about the words "douchebag" and "guido."

Say, I don't keep up on American politics much over here — how's Bush doing these days, still royally screwing things up, probably? That's gotta be a drag; hang in there, you guys.

Speaking of presidents, there's a new installment of Drunk History! This one is about William Henry Harrison, our president with the shortest term ever.

I wrote about Drunk History a while back and linked up the first three episodes here. I encourage you to check them all out if you haven't! Volume 3 is still my favorite-est favorite.

Marjorie and I just got back yesterday morning from nine glorious days in America; we arrived in Philly on Christmas Eve and left on New Year's Day. This was Marjorie's first time in North America, and my most whirlwind-style visit to the States ever, and I feel like we never stopped moving for a second; yesterday I realized that I'd never felt more exhausted after a trip back home. We knew our time was very limited and we had a tremendous amount of things we wanted to pack in; namely family and friends, history and sightseeing, and of course le shoppeeng, in a variety of exotic locales: New Jersey (my home state), Philadelphia (where I lived and worked for years), and New York City (where I lived briefly, and which is really worth seeing if you're from Not-America, or even if you're from Not-Not-America). Our main goals were to do as much American stuff as possible and to introduce Marjorie to my wonderful friends and family. I feel really satisfied, proud even, of the ridiculous amount of stuff we were able to accomplish in our short time in the New World. Here's a brief rundown of stuff we managed to do, by location but not necessarily in chronological order...

( New Jersey )
( Philadelphia )
( New York City )
( America in general )

I'll try to steal some of Marjorie's pictures soon to illustrate a bunch of the things above.

One of the many strange parts of this trip is that it was the first time Marjorie and I have spent a lot of time speaking English together; we met in French and have kept the format of our relationship 100% French except when we've had the occasional American visitor in Paris. For the whole week in America we spoke English when we were with my friends, which was the vast marjority of the time, and French when we were alone. It's a fascinating experience, getting to know someone in one language when you already know them well in another, and I'm sure she had the same experience with me; you might be surprised to learn how much language and fluency shape your conversation style and even your personality; your confidence, your sense of humor, et cetera. Her English is better than my French (and, I should note, a thousand times better than my monkey French was when we met) but it was still really strange to see one another communicating using this language we're not used to hearing come out of our respective mouths.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic just because I have language on the brain all the time. We had a great time in the States and Marjorie clearly made a very good impression on my friends and family and left them wondering what I'd done to trick this poor woman into hanging out with me; I couldn't have been more proud to introduce her to everybody. It was a fantastic trip and I really hope we can find the time to visit again soon. See you in the funnypapers, America.

I'm back home in France and a little bit prouder to be an American than when I left two weeks ago.

On Sunday I went with my mom and sister to Rockwood Mansion in Delaware. We had lunch there and then toured the house, and we were super lucky to be there by chance on the last day of a special Halloween-related event: The house was decorated in mourning and the tour focused on the complex mourning traditions of the 19th century; black sheets over the mirrors, beautiful mourning clothing on display in the bedrooms, even a body laid out in the parlor. Unfortunately they didn't allow photography on the tour, so all I got were these pictures from the reception area.


Amanda, Mom


Me

Rockwood is a beautiful place and the tour was fantastic; they're finished with the mourning exhibit now but the history of the house and the family who lived there are really interesting on their own. I encourage you to check it out if you're in the area. Me, I'm heading back to Paris tomorrow.

Hey Americans! I will be in America next week! I'm coming back to Philly and New Jersey for a couple weeks, to attend a few Halloween parties, see my friends and family, work a little bit, et cetera. I'm super excited to be back in the States for Halloween! I'm also super excited to eat some pumpkin pie, which is my favorite thing in the world and is forbidden in France (note: this is not true). I arrive in Philly next Wednesday the 22nd, and I leave again on November 5th. I booked my return flight for right after the election so I can tell everybody, "I swear to god, if John McCain (or Barack Obama, or anybody) wins this election, I'm going to go live in France! I'm fucking serious!" Don't act like I won't do it.

If you want to get (even more) excited about Halloween, check out this video of some artist guy's Halloween display playing in the front windows of his house last year:

Drunk History is one of my absolute favorite things on the internet. Episodes pop up infrequently, and the delight I experience when I see there's a new one is indescribable. I just ran across the latest volume last night, Drunk History, Vol. 3 — The Story of Oney Judge, and it's a masterpiece. (Note: contains swear words.)

Do yourself a favor and check out the previous episodes of Drunk History as well. You'll be very glad you did.

• Drunk History, Vol. 1 — The Alexander Hamilton/Aaron Burr Duel
• Drunk History, Vol. 2 — Discovering Electricity
• Drunk History, Vol. 2.5 — A Ribald Anecdote

I'm back in France! Hello!

I had to head into Philadelphia the other day for a short meeting at my old job (now one of my freelance clients), and otherwise I had no reason to be in town that day, so I decided to take a bunch of pictures of Philly stuff to show my friends back home. I grew up just across the river from Philly in New Jersey, started working in the city in 2000, and moved there around 2002, so it still feels like home to me in a lot of ways. It was neat and weird to wander around and take pictures of things like a tourist.

This is City Hall. You apparently cannot fight it.

( Lots more... )

Okay, Here are a bunch of pictures from my week in Wildwood! I tried to document a bit of the Jersey shore experience in an effort to explain the trash and glory of it all to my perplexed French friends back home.

I sort of almost died in Zombie World! For real! Zombie World is a stupid haunted house ride/game where you ride in a car that runs sideways along a track, and you're armed with a laser gun and you shoot at just-barely-animatronic zombies that are basically lined up along the wall you're facing, standing there waiting to get shot. I went in a car with Steve and Trish, and Jenn and Russell were in the car behind us. About ten seconds into the ride, the track turns ninety degrees and your car is supposed to turn with it, and the turn is supposed to be kind of fast and violent, because this is a haunted house ride and it's supposed to surprise and scare you. However, our car made the turn extremely violently and I smashed my head really hard against the metal back wall of the car. I spent the next half a second wondering how they could have a ride that does that to people and not get sued, and then I realized our car was facing a black wall for a pretty long time... At first I thought it was just a dark part of the ride and the zombies would jump out in a second and scare us, and then a beat later, one of us, I think it was Trish, said what we were all thinking: "We're turned backward!" The turn that should have been ninety degrees happened so violently that our car got turned all the way around, and we spent the rest of the ride looking at a black wall and just hearing the zombies behind us. I couldn't wait to see how the employees would react when our car finally came through the black curtain at the end. There was a small window in the back of the car and Steve happened to glance back over his shoulder right as the old guy who ran the ride saw us. Steve said the guy's eyes popped out and he silently mouthed OH MY GOD, which made Steve wonder if we were either in way more peril than we thought, or maybe there was a dead employee smeared along the backside of our car, just out of our sight. The guy shut down the whole ride and ran out onto the track and let us out of that deathtrap, and then we walked along the track toward the exit and told the guy, "yeah, that happened as soon as the thing started, and we were stuck like that the whole time." Amazingly (and also not so amazingly, because it's Wildwood!), the guy didn't apologize, didn't offer our money back, didn't offer us another ride, didn't really say a single word to us at all, he just walked away, probably to look into the problem. I should mention that we didn't ask for anything, because we honestly didn't want anything, except maybe an apology, or even a "Are you okay?" So we just walked away, kind of laughing at how stupid and awful that experience was. On our way out, we passed a group of guys heading it, and Steve exclaimed to them, mostly jokingly, "That ride is unsafe!" They didn't care. I mean, it says Zombie World right on the sign; nobody said it was gonna be a dance around the maypole, you know what I mean? I think it was Jenn who quipped, "Forget it, Manning, it's Zombie World." My head felt fine a few hours later but I've still got a lump on it, so fuck you, Zombie World.

( Boardwalk, beach, monsters from the deep, and more... )

I miss Wildwood already! I wish I could take it back to Paris with me. But I suspect they would both be destroyed in a nuclear explosion if they came into contact with one another.

I received this deeply moving postcard from calamityjon today.



Jon does not live in New York and to my knowledge has not visited New York recently. He does cry stoically all the time, however.

All right, that's it, the cat's been away for too long and the mice are binge drinking, breakdancing, LARPing, et cetera, so I'm coming back over there to straighten you all out. (Actually, I have a wedding to attend and a housewarming party and some work to do.) Much like Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall, I'm coming to America! I'll be in the United Snakes from June 19th to all the way 'til July 14th. I'll be staying in New Jersey and Philadelphia with assorted good friends, and also spending a week at the shore. Coincidentally, there is a decent chance my roommate Alexis will be playing a few gigs in New York with the Dead Sexy Inc around the same time, so some of you might get to meet him in NYC or Philly or Wildwood. I expect to be super busy with work and social engagements throughout my stay in any case; my calendar is already quickly filling up. I'll try to do an everyone's-invited thing at Tattooed Mom's or some other bar in Philly like the last few times I was in town; that's worked out nicely so far. More details on all of this as things come together. See you soon-ish, America!

I'll be bringing an empty suitcase to fill with American hairspray.

Two very important things I learned last night (completely unrelated to the Nick Cave concert):

1. The French don't have the Tooth Fairy, they have "the little mouse." Otherwise, it's the same exact procedure here inre: tooth, pillow, cash. I still have no idea why a fairy or a mouse would want little kids' teeth.
   
   
2. French cats only have seven lives, as opposed to nine lives for cats in the States. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Anyhow, The Nick Cave show was great! Concert recaps are boring so I'll skip it for the most part. It was an amazing night, and I was no more than twenty feet from Dr. Cave for the whole show. He played a lot of guitar, surprisingly, and they mostly focused on faster, rocking, noisy songs. I usually prefer the sad/quiet/slow stuff, but it was okay, I was in the mood to rock. Papa Won't Leave You Henry was probably the hightlight of the night for me; they tore the house down with that one. Mick Harvey looks (more than ever) like somebody's dad hanging out with all these creepy rockers. And I miss Blixa. And Warren Ellis is downright amazing. Okay, that's enough.

Leonard (ludickid) is here! He brought me these things from America for some reason.



Actually, I asked for the Advil, but I wasn't expecting such quantity; I'd brought a bottle of American Advil to Paris in January and Alexis ate the whole thing in like a week; he may have thought they were candy. Leonard mentioned that he'd initially bought the Spider-Man heads to put the Advil in as a gag, but then he decided that would probably make airport security think it was drugs, so he just brought the items separately so I could, with much concentration, assemble the joke in my mind.

I can't explain the Charlie Sheen action figure or the tie. I don't think anyone can.