Photos

Here are some photos that were taken a long time ago but I recently found on Alison's computer. I am trying to construct a visual record but as I didn't take/save (m)any pictures, I am using the ones I find in her labyrinthine "My Pictures" folder.

There are three photos of our apartment. Top floor in the first photo, then views to the left and right of the building. Then there is a view from the door with the post office and a Tudor style house across the road.

Finally, there is one of my bike.

Bike Trip: Bougue

There is a cycle path called the "Voie Verte de Marsan et d'Armagnac" that supposedly runs from our town, Mont-de-Marsan to a town called Gabarret in the Armagnac region, 55 kilometers to the east. Unfortunately, while it supposedly exists, I can not seem to place it on a map. The "cycle-only" path only runs 18 km to the east to a town called Villeneuve-de-Marsan. I will possibly make this 36 km roundtrip today. Halfway to Villeneuve (9 km) is a village called Bougue and Alison and I rode out to it on the first nice day that early summer brought us. The path leaves Mont-de-Marsan, running behind backyard trees in a pleasant suburban track that three times crosses roads that cars cross so care must be taken. After a few kilometers the path leaves the confines of settlement and winds through sandy, shady pine and fern forest. Here are some photos from the trip, the town of Bougue, with its old, yet still inspiring church.

Cercles de Gascogne

I have decided that in an attempt to write in this more, I will write shorter entries, but hopefully the small "taste" will still be appealing. Also, I have been alerted to the fact that there may be typos and badly worded sentences in these entries (thanks Alison), but I am not going to fret too much.

Tonight, the Cercles of Gascogne.

These establishments, born after the Revolution of 1789, were meeting places for politicians, local elites, lawyers, and other officials of towns and regions as an informal place to discuss political matters, drink, and share company. They all bear names that evoke some of the founding principals of the revolution; Cercle de l’Union, Republicain, des Democrates, des Citoyens (citizens), Ouvrier (open), des Travailleurs (of workers), de la Concorde, de la Paix (of peace), de la Fraternite, and more. They were circles within circles. In 1860, they allowed aritsans and local businessmen to attend meetings. Children and women were not allowed and only men in their fifties or later were truly accepted. I am not sure how long this exclusion lasted.

Today, everyone is welcome and often these establishments host cultural events and concerts. On the website for the National Park of Landes of Gascogne, where most of them are located (about twenty in all), they invite everyone to come in and experience the conviviality of these establishments. They are somewhat hidden, old-looking establishments where you will not "find any posters for the latest beer", the floor will be stone or dirt, and the walls, ceilings, and support poles may be original.


A good bike tour of the national park should include stopping at one or two of these bars if you find them. From personal experience, I have only seen them in towns, but it was a Sunday and everything was closed. I imagine the atmosphere is not as welcoming as they would suggest. There are probably a load of old men that will stare you down if you don't look like you belong there, but such is the case with so many places in France. There is a place in Mont-de-Marsan called Le Cercle de Citoyens but I doubt it is an original structure and it looks fairly nice inside. I learned of these places by seeing a promotional brochure advertising a series of concerts they were holding at all the cercles from April to June. Unfortunately, most of them are in towns that can not be reached by train and the bus system schedule is not good enough to get you to a town and back in a single day. If I do travel around the park on my bike, I will be on the lookout for some of them.

Les Contes des Landes: The Four Dextrous Brothers

There was a man who had four sons and when they had grown, he told to them:
“All of you must go and learn a trade, whatever you prefer. Return here in a year to the day.”
After a year, the boys returned home. The father asked the first, “Well, what trade did you learn?”
“As for me, I am a franc (1) diviner,” said the son.
“And you,” said the father to the second, “which trade have you chosen?”
“As for me, I am a franc thief.”
“And you,” said the father to the third, “what do you do?”
“As for me, I am a franc marksman.”
“And you?” asked the father to the fourth.
“As for me, I am a franc repairman,” said the fourth and youngest.

“So, you have told me that you are true in your professions, but I want to see that you are as able as you say. To you,” the father said to the first, “the diviner. There is very close to here, behind the house, a great pine. Can you tell me what is at the top of the pine?”
The son responded, “At the top of the pine, is a magpie nest. In the nest are two eggs and the magpie is covering them.”
“It’s true!” said the father. “To you, now, the thief. You will climb the tree and take the eggs without startling the mother.”
The youth climbed the pine, lifted the eggs without startling the mother and brought them to his father. The old man took the eggs and said: “To you, the marksman, you will throw these in to the air and fire two shots breaking them each in two.”
The third son launched them in to the air, first one, then the other. He brought his gun to bear and fired two shots right through the middle of each of the eggs.
“Ah! To you, the repairman, take these eggs put fix them in a fashion that it is impossible to tell they were ever broken.”
The youngest, the repairman, took the broken bits of the eggs and made them look new. The father was very satisfied by his four sons.

After some days, the king of the land, who wanted to speak with the lads, sent for them to be found. When the four brothers arrived at the castle, the king asked them what they’re respective trades were. They each responded as they did to their father. The king asked to the diviner:
“Well, if you are a diviner, do you know why I have sent for you?”
He responded, “I do know why. For seven years, your daughter has been imprisoned by a demon and you don’t know where to find her. You have asked us here to find her.”
“It’s true,” said the king. “You are able to find her? Ask me for anything you would like to aid you, I will make it so. After she is found, she will be married to you.”
The diviner brother asked for a beautiful boat and captain and crew to pilot the boat across the sea. The next morning, they embarked to find the king’s daughter.

They started to sail and for a long time they sailed trying to find evidence of the king’s daughter, but they could not see land. Finally, after many days, they decided it was hopeless but as they were to give up they spotted an island from the boat. The island had a large moutain right in the center that was crowned with a forest. Then, the diviner said they must stop, as the princess was imprisoned in the castle in the forest on top of the mountain on the island.
He told his brothers, “To you, the thief, the moment has come to employ your skill. When you arrive in the demon’s castle, you will find a tapestry of gold or money. The walls will be made of gold, but you must touch nothing. When you make your way through the castle, touching nothing, you will find the princess sleeping in a chair of gold. Lift her out of the chair and bring her here, but still, do not take any of the beautiful things that you see around you, otherwise the demon will find you and kill you both.”
After the thief penetrated the castle and brought her to the boat, the demon realized that she was missing. The diviner shouted to the his brother, the marksman, as the boat turned away from the island, “When the devil arrives, fire at him and destroy him!” Next he turned to his last brother, “After the demon is destroyed, he will break in to two pieces and the fire inside his body will fall on to the deck of the ship. You must quickly repair the ship if we are to ever see home!”
Soon the demon appeared and the marksman raised his gun. He took aim and with one perfectly placed shot, the demon was split in to two pieces. Pieces of the devil fell to the deck and burned holes straight through the ship. Luckily, the fourth brother, the repairman, was ready and patched up the boat before even a drop of water was able to leak in to the boat. The boat turned back home, with the princess on board and the demon perished.

When they arrived at the king’s castle, he asked each brother, starting with the diviner, “Ah! To you, the diviner, what role did you play in finding my daughter?”
The diviner answered, “I indicated the place where your daughter was held captive and told my brothers how they could rescue her. Without me, everything would have been lost.”
The king asked the same question to the second brother. The thief answered, “I was able to free your daughter from the demon’s clutches and brought her back to the boat.”
The king asked the same question to the third brother. The marksman answered, “When the demon arrived, I took aim and destroyed him with my steady shot. Without me, he would have overtaken us and all would have been lost.”
The king asked the same question to the fourth brother. The repairman answered, “When the demon’s dead body fell to the ground, I repaired the boat from the damage it caused. Without me, we all would have drowned.”
“I am very happy with all of you,” said the king. “You have returned my daughter, but I can not marry her to you all. I will ask her who she prefers.
The young woman said to her father, “Daddy, if you give me my choice between thes four brothers, I would like to marry the thief. He is the first person that I had seen and fell in love when he took me from that place.”
The franc thief and the daughter of the king were married. To console the other brothers, they were all named generals in the king’s army.
__________________________________________________________________

(1) The story uses the word “franc” before each of the word’s describing the sons’ trades. Translated, it means “frank” so I suppose earnest or true, but when I asked the owner of the coffeshop I go to what it meant, he said it was an old usage of the word, and while it roughly means “true”, it is not a direct translation. Oh well. Such is my understanding of French, rough and never exact.

Regional Accents

It has been a while since I posted anything of substance here, and I promise to do better. Today, I have three regional specialties that I am going to highlight (there are so many, I chose three at random).

First, the French Basset Bleu de Gascogne.



Information from pedigreesearch.co.uk

"The Basset Bleu de Gascogne is a medium sized, low slung but not too heavy dog. Perhaps the aristocrat of the Basset types it's form and action echo it's noble heritage and ancient origins. Every point of the Basset Bleu de Gascogne is for a purpose, from it's dwarfed legs to slow it's pace on the hunt to it's long ears to stir up scent when head down on the hunt. A tricolour dog, its body is predominantly white with tan markings above the eyes, on the cheeks and the underside of the ears. The white is heavily ticked, which gives it a bluish appearance. As with many of the hounds the Basset Bleu de Gascogne originated in France, with this particular breed being developed in what was the Basque region of Gascogne. As long ago as the 12th century references are found to the large blue hounds of Phebus, Comte de Foix, or Phebus of Gascogne, they had great stamina and scent detection and were used to hunt wolves, deer and boar. The legs of the Basset Bleu de Gascogne were dwarfed to slow down the breed's running speed. The blue colour is believed to have developed to better withstand the bright sunlight in this region."

Now, much of the region is covered with trees, but originally it was a flat heather-land, so sunlight would have been prevalent. We are travelling to Pau this weekend (south in the Bearn region, at the base of the Pyrenees) where Phebus lived. I will try to photograph a Basset Bleu if possible.


Next, the Basque beret.


The hat that has been worn by the people of the Basque region, straddling the Pyrenees in France and Spain, for centuries. It has been worn by military personnel of many nations, old men of all perversions, and Che Guevara alike. It symbolizes freedom of thought and national unity to many in this area. It is known as txapela, by the Basque in their language Euskera, and protects from sun and persistent drizzle of their rugged low-mountain homeland. It can be seen on men and women all over France, but especially in the region where I live, just north of the Basque homeland. In Basque, there is no word for "Basque", only for "person that speaks Basque", Euskal. Their unity is the language. And a funny little hat.


Finally, the parapluie des Pyrénées et de berger.

In the Gascogne (Landes) region, the threat of rain is a constant feature of fall, winter and spring (as far as I have seen). A sturdy umbrella is a good investment. For hundreds of years, shepherds have tended to their flocks on the grassy dunes and in the Pyrénées mountains and it is a job that does not stop for bad weather. A shop in Pau makes reliable, wind-proof umbrellas in the tradition of the region. Here is a link.




It may be four or five days until I post again. Until then , here is a restaurant in New York that serves many of my region's delicacies; foie gras, magret de canard (duck), and lapin (rabbit). Check out the "About" section and the menus for an idea of the types of food common here.

News

Picked up on this story a few weeks back and saw a video for it today. Just wonderful stuff.

No more dying: Mayor bans death in village



Better still, this town is only a handful of miles from our location in Mont-de-Marsan. Yes, the people of this region have to ability to suspend life by passing local resolutions.

Styles: Tecktonik

Should I feel old for not understanding this? When I walk around town after school is out, I am a head sticking out over a sea of faux-mullet-hawked teenagers. They jangle around town with a "fuck-all" attitude and with heaps of unnecessary accoutrement, bow-legged from their skinny white jeans. I suppose, adolescents will be just that, adolescents.


http://gridskipper.com/357298/dancing-french-electro+mimes-battle-in-the-streets

But I swear, if another one says, "Fack yoo mane" to me, I'm going to go on a rampage.

Addendum to the last post

I forgot to list my sources:

The story is credited to a shepherd, Matoche, who related it to Felix Arnaudin in 1875. The berger lived in La Sérre de las Prades, which is now called Solférino.

The book from which I translated the story was Contes des Landes de Gascogne: Les Fées de la dune. Ed. Felix Arnaudin. L'école des loisirs. Paris, 2001.

Les Contes (Myths) of Les Landes de Gascogne 1

The Fairies of the Boumbét Dune (1)

There once was a shepherd from Taoulade (2) who lived with his flock on the border of Boumbét. The border no longer exists, but it was north of the Mounds, large meadow-like expanses used extensively by shepherds and their flocks. (3) The shepherd was proud and had learned to read, creating a distance between him and other shepherds. They scolded him, “You are too proud to associate with those who have same worth, but you still have to pull ticks off your herds like us!” But he let them say what they wanted, not letting it get to him.

The Boumbét Dune was a mysterious place and often strange sounds could be heard at night. It was midsummer and he let his flock loose during the warm nights. Some nights, while tending his flock, he would hear sounds like “Gri-Gri-Gri” like the shuffling of dishes. Other times he would hear loud bursts of laughter or noises that sounded like no man who walked on two legs, “Plim-plam, plim-plam.” After hearing these noises, he often fearfully thought he was hearing the sounds of a nest of bumblebees.

One evening, the shepherd arrived at the border, and after letting his flock loose, he went to the highest dune and sat. He pulled a book from his bag and began to read. He read in to the night, forever and ever. At times, he threw a look at the stars. After a while, around midnight, the dune opened up right in front of his eyes. He overheard two women speaking. The first said, “Little Darling, let us see what is happening on the dune.” A little girl’s voice chimed, “Mother, I see a shepherd sitting on a tuft of heather!” The mother replied, “Tell him to come here, and his flock shall be taken care of.”

The girl approached the shepherd and said, “Shepherd, we need you to come with us. Do no worry for your animals.” He thought, “It will not kill me to look and I would love to see what is under the dune!” He followed her down and as soon as he entered, “TRRRRR” and the dune closed behind him. He was very puzzled and looked for a way to escape. “Follow me, no one will harm you,” said the girl. They arrived in the meeting room of a home that was beautiful beyond compare of any that he had ever seen. There were mirrors and beautiful tableware and vases. He was dazzled by one thing after another. Everything was extremely tidy and shone like clear water in the sun.

In a mirror, the shepherd boy saw a scene: a deep, deep moor where shepherds, mounted on stilts wandered and tended their flocks. Then he saw a group of women who laughed at him, and they were so beautiful and graceful, he could not help but stare with pleasure at them. One of them, very young, had a plaited crown of heather and gorse flowers entwined in her hair. “Shepherd,” she says, “stay here and restore yourself and rest your cares. Your sheep do not need to be kept while you are here.” Then the fairies served him a splendid lunch, with an abundance of delicacies that he had never tasted or seen. “Oh! If I am ever to be happy in life, then now is the time,” he thought. When he had eaten well, he was led to a beautiful bed that dared him to not fall asleep in it. “I am no longer in the pallet of the dune (4) and here I don’t have to pick at ticks!” He said as he fell asleep.

When he awoke, he was inclined to read again and laid there reading until the dune reopened. He went out of the dune and found his herd in the exact place that he had left it and in full strength. From that day forward he took to the habit of spending all of his nights in the dune with the fairies. The pretty young fairy and him became good friends. (5) The other shepherds rarely saw him on the surface of the land anymore and questioned him, “Where are you hiding? We lose your for whole days!” But he let them talk behind his back, he still had his sheep, was dressed better than them, and had pockets full of money. His flock flourished more than any of the others and his sheep never mixed with the others. They would divert their paths when coming across another herd.

This gave way to much gossip between the other shepherds. Two of them, more clever and mischevious than the others, decided to follow the Proud Shepherd to the dune at night. They followed him and hid in the bushes. They arrived just in time to see him slip in to the dune. They spread the word of what they saw and by sunrise shepherds, cowherders, and goatherders all over the land began to come from as far as Cantegrit and Labouheyre. (6)

The next night, the shepherd returned to the dune, but with his and the fairies secret being spoiled, the dune did not move a strain. It just remained as before, a sandy hillock, dotted with heather and thyme, and a white path. He cried and tried to summon the fairies back with his despair, but they never did. He became impoverished but would still not leave the Boumbét Dune. He spent the rest of his days, miserable and poor on the dune, never marrying or having other social contact, and with no bed but the ground. To this day, he can be seen wandering the mound by moonlight, hitting the ground with his stick, hoping the ground will open up and let him in.

1 Note on translation: At times the prose may seem awkward or hasty. This is the consequence of attempting to not stray too far from the original text to capture the style and language. Often, though, it was impossible to discern the author’s intentions by providing close to a literal translation and I took liberties. I tried to maintain the intent and message of the story throughout.
2 Possibly referring to the Belgian city of Liège, where a restaurant of the same name can be found. I was not able to find any other sources online for this place name.
3 Many of the locations that occur in legends and myths of Landes/Gascogne no longer exist or have changed names. As Gascogne has been relegated to French linguistic history as a lost regional patois, the names of landmarks have been changed to modern French versions. These changes occurred when swampy heathland that had been used primarily by Gascogne shepherds was converted to “living factories” of pine trees in the 1860’s by decree of Napoleon III.
4 Equivalent of “Not being in Kansas anymore”.
5 Implied amorous relationship. Anyone who has witnessed French teens knows that they can not keep their hands off each other and the setting of an enchanted dune at midnight would no doubt create an ideal location for either the hanky or panky.
6 The latter being the small town right in the center of the Parc Nacional de Landes de Gascogne and the birthplace of the folklorist/translator/author of this tale, Felix Arnaudin.

French Graffiti 1

"Never forget Bigue Naste"

Mayor?

Old train station.

Le monde, comme on l'a vu sur échasses

An important component of "la vie landaise" comes from the intersection of history and legend. In my wandering on the outskirts of town, I have trod alongside the infinite silent forests that line the roadways, seen old women cycling from the city to their country homes with dead fowl and vegetables in paniers, and seen the lazy old men pass each afternoon over cigarettes, bocce, and dirty jokes. It would seem as if the area stands still as time passes, flashy shoes and cell phones just a small reminder of the time. But Landes has not always been as it is today, and over the past two and half centuries a dramatic change has occurred in the physical landscape, the livelihoods of the people living here, and the meaning of being from here, being Landaise (or Gascogne, French Basque, etc.)


In 1857, Napoleon III saw opportunity in Landes, a region of sand and swamp, of heather and gorse bushes, and herds of sheeps. He passed into law a decree that would forest the region turning the dunes and marais of Landes in to the premier wood-producing region in France. Endless rows of symmetrical forests took hold in the former herding areas and the land was transformed. I will write more about this transformation in a future post, as I have now gone on too long without bringing up the subject of this post.


Felix Arnaudin, born in Labouheyre (center of Landes, in the middle of what is now the Parc Nacional de Landes de Gascogne) in 1844 left home in 1858 to follow his studies in Mont-de-Marsan. When he returned to Labouheyre in 1861 he encountered a landscape that he could not recognize, what he thought to be a different universe. The change proved to be too much for him and abandoning social ambition he became hopeless recluse, quarreling with his family about his anger over the changes in the landscape he saw around him. He felt the forest represented the very spirit of banality. He wandered the new forests, often on bike, and lost himself in dreams, reading, and walking.

He eventually came to realize that to save the culture he loved, he must record it for the future. He set about interviewing the old men and women of Landes that could remember the time before the forest, photographing scenes that had yet to change, compiling stories and legends of the region, and saving the patois landaise (or gascogne) from historical obscurity. He was a musician, folklorist, linguistic archivist, translator, and artist and became known as the "Pec" (eccentric) of Labouheyre. He was the first to traverse the region on bicycle. He left us with "trois mille clichés d'une rare beauté" of his beloved country. Arnaudin translated the legends he was told in to French from Gascogne (Gasconha, as they write it) and created a record of the culture with photography, sheet music, and more. He merged myth and history in a grand narrative for Landes.

He felt without his work, the culture would be lost and he wanted to save "ce ciel béant, la terre inhabitée, vide à donner le vertige . . . les bordes aux toits gris et les parcs aux toits rouges, miroirant, dispersées de loin en loin . . . et se perdant, rapetissés, à l'extrême horizon." (This yawning sky, the uninhabited land that gives one empty vertigo. . . the borders [of the land] with grey roofs and parks with red roofs, mirrored, scattered here and there . . And that which is shrinking, the farthest horizon.)



I have been reading some of Arnaudin's compiled stories and have begun translating them. Tomorrow, I will put one of them in this blog. The above picture is of his house in Labouheyre.

[Quotes and information in this post come primarily from Contes des Landes de Gascogne, collected and translated works by Felix Arnaudin, edited by Éric Audinet. Pictures were taken from around the web and if you search for Arnaudin you can find appropriate credits.]

Walking Around: Visit to St. Pierre-du-Mont

Last week, I made a plan to walk to a nearby city called Saint Perdon. The town supposedly has a old church worth seeing From the map I was viewing it was about five to six kilometers outside of Mont-de-Marsan. To get there I needed to follow a series of local roads, but would spend the largest amount of time shadowing a national route. I reached the end of my city limits in less than a half hour and twenty minutes later I came upon a WWII memorial and a tunnel in which the regional train passes over. The sidewalk through the tunnel was narrow (about the length of my foot) so I pressed my back against the wall as I moved as cars passed by with the usual French reckless abandon.

At the end of the tunnel, about three hundred meters away, I saw the roundabout (rond-point en français) that sends cars all over the region. From where I stood, I could see the terrain was not going to allow me to pass. I would be walking along barbed wire fences, in mud, and darting across highways to reach my destination. This was badly calculated misstep. I did not realize the shoulders of national routes were not kept us and inaccessible to pedestrians. (Consequently, after doing some research, I found it would be best to limit future long-distance excursions to departmental routes which are smaller, have less cars moving slower, although not better maintained.)

Faced with this, I had the choice of turning back or going southeast to the town of St. Pierre-du-Mont. A city on a hill. I referenced a guidebook and did not find much information on the town (except that it had an old church, imagine that!). Not to call the trip a loss, I started scaling the hill, hugging the guardrail of a windy, steep road. Cars were surprised to see someone walking on the road, but this is common reaction when walking on the outskirts. Everyone here has voitures (cars) to get around as there is very little public transportation.

St. Pierre-du-Mont is a satellite town of Mont-de-Marsan, but not with lack of historical roots. The central feature of the town is a church dating to times when Romans took much of France in continental conquest (1st C. BC – 5th C. AD). It was built by the monks of St. Sever, a town twenty or thirty kilometers south (and hopefully a destination). It is probable that the importance of Mont-de-Marsan as a trading hub was cemented because these monks chose the hill to build the church. Here are images of the church . . .




I also visited the cemetary behind the church.


Receptacle in the cemetary. The signs read: "Plastique" and "Organique".

There was not much else in the town, a small shopping area with a flower shop, bakery, and salon. This was the mayor's office, but is not impressive compared to many in most other cities.


Then I walked home. These are the signs to indicate you are leaving one town and entering another. They are to the point, none of that frilly "Welcome to ......" on a wooden carved sign with pictures.


If the post lacks excitement, it is a reflection of this particular walk and the diminished expectations that I am now forced to accept living where I do. More exciting destinations unfortunately can not be walked to as the sides of roads are too rough. Because the area retains features of the swamp (marais) that it used to be, the ground is often muddy and unwelcoming to pedestrian travel. Walking several kilometers in these conditions is terrible. But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel . . . the bicycle I bought upon arrival may be the perfect tool to get me from town to town in Les Landes.

Reasonable expectations of what might follow

As a motivational spur, I have taken up this space in hopes that it can be filled with souvenirs of my time abroad. The French definition of "souvenir" is different than the American English. A souvenir is a memory, a recollection, a lasting impression. It is not a snow globe or Eiffel tower keychain.

I have been living in the southwest of France for five months now and will be here another five months if all goes according to plan. The inability to be productive in the first half of my stay is one of the factors I am starting this, and outing myself on the interweb adds incentive.

I plan to put pictures, French experiences, travels, quotes, and anything else I can wrangle from the endless rows of pines that make up the 40th department of France, Les Landes. I'm at the center of it, in a town called Mont-de-Marsan. That is where I will start my journey.

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