Paris Cafes Open Again

Now this is good news: I just read in the Times that cafés in Paris are once again able to open for outdoor service. I've never even been to Paris, but that is still a welcome sign.

I have written before--it probably deserves another reflection sometime--that this lockdown has not been a big deal for me. I worry about the college, and naturally I'm not thrilled about a salary cut forced by the college's losses. But in terms of my day-to-day life, the lockdown is more or less irrelevant. It makes grocery shopping more of a pain, and it keeps me away from my office, but otherwise interferes with little that I want to do.

But the thing that I do miss is the opportunity to get to Europe once in a while. I had to cancel a planned trip to Germany with students over Easter. And this very morning, as it happens, I was supposed to arrive in Poland for a conference of the Austrian Studies Association. Alas, those trips were not to be.

And of course one of the great pleasures of traveling to Europe--one of the great pleasures in life, period--is sitting outside at one of the cafés in the summer and nursing your espresso or cappucino while you talk, or read, or watch people go by for an hour. So rejoice with the Parisians on a big day. Wish I were there.

Comments

A Warning Against Drink

I have gotten several things read over the last few days, but I keep forgetting to post any of it. Some more Gotthelf, but also a couple of other things. I'll try to break them up in order to get a few more posts out of them! Last Friday I finished another Gotthelf novella, Wie fünf Mädchen im Branntwein jämmerlich umkommen . That title does not translate very well into English, or at least I don't think so. Something like, How Five Young Women Perish Miserably Due to Brandy (or literally "in brandy"). It is an early work of Gotthelf's and a piece of social criticism. When Gotthelf was writing (1838), the canton of Bern had recently liberalized its system for granting licenses to operate a pub. At the same time, new methods of producing cheap brandy from different sources, including even the ubiquitous potato, were developed. As a consequence, inns and pubs sprang up throughout the countryside, creating a new temptation for poor...

Dursli

Back to Gotthelf! I have already mentioned that I re-read Gotthelf's novella about the five young women who were ruined by drink. Last week I also re-read the second of his two early novellas tackling the problem of rural alcoholism, Dursli, der Brannteweinsäufer, oder Das heilige Weihnachtsabend ( Dursli the Brandy Drinker, or The Holy Christmas Eve ). This story also warns against the pubs springing up all over the Emmentaler countryside and their consequences for the rural poor. But it is also--even more than I had remembered, in fact--set in the broader political context of the times. Gotthelf begins the novella, in fact, before he ever even introduces the main characters, with about a 10-page discourse on the problematic reception in Switzerland of the ideas of the French Revolution. Its call for equality and freedom, he says, is naturally interpreted by the poorer classes not in terms of true Christian equality and freedom, but rather as a ...

"Plague Time" Essay Contest

If you are a major or minor in History, Political Science, Augmented History, Humanities, or German Studies, you are eligible to enter a brand-new essay contest being sponsored by the Department of History and Political Science. Details available here . And if you aren't a major or minor in one of those areas... it is not too late to become one now !

Plague Time

Search This Blog