From the Guest Editor: Greetings
(A little “café” in Paris, by Jean Ruaud)
RJ asked me the other day to guestblog at the Daily Blague during his vacations which will be next week. I should say that I’m at the same time, daunted, humbled and grateful, at the prospect of this task. As a try-out I will now present myself to the Daily Blague’s readers.
My name is Jean Ruaud (Jean is John in English and is pronounced Jan, and is not the feminine Jean), I’m a frenchman of fifty two years old, working and living in Paris. I’m an amateur photographer and blogger.
Once upon a time RJ read my blog (ô, the magic of the Internet), which was, at this time (2004), L’Homme qui marche and contacted me by e-mail. We became Internet friends, RJ and me, and I visited him and Kathleen in 2007 during one of my visits to New York City (and again last year). RJ and I share, I think, the same cultural interests and the same sense of what is important in the world and in life and a great friendship.
I’m a veteran blogger, I opened one of the first blogs in France, in 2001. I began with Douze Lunes (Twelve Moons) and now I write in Mnémoglyphes (which means glyphs or prints or tracks of memory and is a neologism invented by a friend in a book devoted to the philosophical meaning of prints).
I have a job, wich is doing criminal analysis and criminal maps for the French Railway’s law enforcing and security unit.
English is not my maternal language, as you can guess by this post, French is. I was born in a little town, Chinon, in the center of France, some fifty years ago. Close to my little French town, when I was a kid, was something special: a US Army camp and military hospital, right there, at the edge of town. “Les Américains” were everywhere and participated a bit to the life of the city. A number of French citizen were employed at the camp and at the hospital and the city’s pubs and saloons benefited greatly of the American soldiers patronage, as you can figure. Thus, I was exposed early to “les Américains”, to their language and the American popular culture. Some officers and doctors lived with their families in little American villages at the edge of town and before that they even lived in town, in rented french houses or appartments. They had a very different way of life, different products and appliances in their houses, even different cars, and they listened to a different kind of music: jazz and rock’n roll. They were wealthy, athletic and healthy, at least for us! It was exotic and very enticing for us french kids and it gave me a natural fondness for all things American. “Les Américains” were sent home by the General De Gaulle in 1964, much to my dismay.
I learned English in high school but the language I learned there was a literary language not a spoken one. At the time of my first visit in the US, in 1993, I became aware of my incapacity to understand what people said and, more seriously, I was not able to speak in a coherent fashion. Back in France I was seriously commited to learn the English language and I undertook to read, learn the vocabulary, listen to English language TV (thanks CNN and BBC World) and see all the films and TV shows only in original version. Gradually I became almost fluent in this language I love.
During the recent years I visited parts of the United States, above all Manhattan, where I went five times out of ten visits, California (two times), parts of Colorado and Arizona (one) and Houston, Texas (two trips) where I have family working in the oil industry there.
I’m interested in the US culture, politics and history, and, of course, in the Internet and what is called the web 2.0, but my prime hobby is photography. My images were reproduced in some books here in France and you can see them on Flickr. I’m a proud member and reader in the famous American Library in Paris, a venerable institution and a wonderful place of culture and civilisation.
Well, I look forward to write here next week and do my best to entertain you while RJ is busy resting in the sun. See you when? Saturday? I’ll be there!
Jean