T O D A Y W E celebrate Bastille Day. Seven years ago in San Diego, California, my husband and I organized a French-themed soirée distinctly à propos. It took place after July 14th, so we called it “Still Bastille Day.”
The evening started with all of us standing and singing La Marseilleise, karaoke style with Hector Berlioz’s orchestration. Then we showed Pepé Le Pew, from the Looney Tunes DVDs that enrich our vidéotèque. Afterwards I played some Rameau on the piano pour amuser la bouche, as they say in cooking school. Two bilingual poetry readings followed: Charles Baudelaire Au Lecteur (To the Reader) from 1857 and Breakfast (Déjeuner au matin) by Jacques Prevert from 1946. Each dual reading happened simultaneously, at the readers’ discretion. For the French version of Breakfast, we asked Hélène Holl to recite it from her home in Marin County, via Skype. (Nobody talked Zoom then)
During intermission, or entr’acte, as they say in French, I played Erik Satie. Background music not to be listened to necessarily, what he called musique d’ameublement (furniture music). Part II: a re-enactement of a letter by Claude Debussy to Ernest Giraud about Impressionist harmonies, and my version of Canopes (1905) in our electric keyboard with some twinkling amplifications. Our friend Scott Striegel ended the evening with a splendid reading in drag of Paul Rudnick’s Vive la France, a riotous one-page article from The New Yorker that follows.
— New York City, 7/14/2020
Vive la France by Paul Rudnick
The New Yorker, March 26th, 2012
I am Marie-Céline Dundelle, and I do not need a book contract to reveal that French women are superior in all matters. Our secret lies in an attitude toward life, a point of view that I can only call Frenchy. For example, let us discuss weight loss. The American woman obsesses over every calorie and sit-up, while in France we do not even have a word for fat. If a woman is obese, we simply call her American. Whenever my friend Jeanne-Hélène has gained a few pounds, I will say to her, “Jeanne-Hélène, you are hiding at least two Americans under your skirt, and your upper arms are looking, how you say, very Ohio.”
To maintain my figure, I eat only half portions of any food, always arranging it on my plate in the shape of a semicolon. For exercise, at least once a day I approach a total stranger and slap him. And late each afternoon I read a paragraph of any work of acclaimed American literary fiction, which makes me vomit.
As for family life, Americans are far too concerned with a child’s self-esteem and accomplishments. The French woman knows that to build a child’s inner strength it is best either to completely ignore the child or to belittle him. As I was giving birth to my daughter, I refused to put down my copy of French Vogue. When it was over, I turned to my husband and remarked, “I have just had an unusually large bowel movement that will never be as attractive as me.” During my son’s thirteenth-birthday party, I ordered him to remove all his clothing, and I told the assembled guests, “You see? That is why we raised him as a girl.” My wisdom can be traced to the influence of my own mother. When I was five years old, I asked her, “What is love?” She took my small, flowerlike face in her slender hands and replied, “What do I look like, Yoda?”
The French woman is known for being effortlessly chic. I have, in fact, offered tutorials on elegance to American women. I will hand an American an Hermès scarf and ask her to tie it somewhere on her body, anywhere but around her neck. A French woman might use the scarf to secure a ponytail, or she’ll knot it loosely around the strap of her Chanel handbag. Sadly, most of my American pupils either use the scarf as a makeshift sling or eat it. I have attempted to counsel many American women against overdressing. I told one woman, “I’m going to turn my back, and I want you to take off three things.” A moment later, when I faced her, the woman had removed her teeth, one of her eyes, and an Ace bandage.
French culture remains unmatched. Our films include rollicking farces, searing documentaries, and quietly explosive investigations of family life. In these films, to avoid vulgarity, nothing happens, and none of the actors’ faces ever move. French film making has recently reached a peak with the almost entirely silent Oscar-winning movie “The Artist.” True cinéastes say that the ultimate French film will be a still photograph of a dead mime.
The French woman has given so much to the world. Marie Antoinette alone has inspired books, movies, operas, and the hair style and perspective of Donald Trump. Our current First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is not only a role model but an ex-model. But the most glorious and eternal symbol of French womanhood is, of course, Joan of Arc, because she was a cigarette.
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