Letter from France: Nerdism
Red dress, Paris. By Jean Ruaud.
Dear DB’s readers —
Yesterday night I went to the hairdresser. It was a futile attempt to clear my ideas, a kind of magic thinking. My hair was cut but my ideas were not cleared, magic thinking seldom works. I’d rather go to a traditional-style hairdresser, there are some in my neighborhood, but yesterday it was an emergency, suddenly at the end of the day I couldn’t bear my hair anymore, had to cut it. I was in Montparnasse, had to go to a hairdresser still welcoming customers at 7 pm, in the mall below the Montparnasse Tower. It was a fashion hairdresser close to the Galeries Lafayette. Now, these hairdressers would like to be considered as doctors, highly skilled professionals who execute their deeds in a thoroughly sterilized environment. There is an incredible division of labor, there, with a plethora of personnel, the hostess and cashier, the hair washing lady, the cutter, the dye and dry specialist… The lights are white and bright and almost like in a surgical unit. Unfortunately when I go to the hairdresser it is for having my hair cut, period. I don’t need any treatments for my hair, I don’t need any model photography to look at to choose my hairdo, I need my hair cut and that’s it. A non-nonsense cutting. No hair-spliting either. Hairdressers doesn’t like to cut hair, they want to do your hair. They make me look like an unsophisticated person, tacky, rustic. It’s depressing.
For excuse, wether I need it one or not, I’d say that I’m a nerd. Not the kind you see in the movies, acne-ridden and awkward, in which “nerd” is a derogatory characterization, no, my type of nerdiness is much more civilized. What are my characteristics as a nerd? Well, I don’t like change for instance – unless it’s a new application to test on a computer, in this case I’m eager to try it. In life I like habits, daily or weekly routines, I don’t like to travel – except to the US because my nerdery is very much US oriented – I don’t even like that much to go outside of Paris city limits. What I like is being at home, or at work, and be with my computers doing my things, writing things, reading, integrating information and knowledge, tinkering pictures endlessly in Photoshop… When I go outside it’s with a purpose, taking photos mostly, working on a photographic project. I’m a good walker and like it but I need to do something beyond walking, exploring, making pictures, looking at architecture or urban features. I have low social skills, I’m mostly unable to chit-chat but I can and like to have conversations, real conversations, with people – except when these people are anglophone, in this case I’m quite able to chit-chat because it is part of a larger project: learning the English language, be fluent in it. The thing is: I’m quite able and like to do things that otherwise I hate to do if it is part of a larger project that interests me at the time. I like to interact with people, but my preferred mode of interaction with them is by the way of a computer. I hate the telephone. I’m interested in nerdy, arcane things, that I focus on, explore thoroughly, and I move on suddenly to another thing. I postpone to go to the hairdresser, or to buy clothes, appliances or furnishing until I cannot bear it anymore, and then I go to the next hairdresser, clothes, appliances or furnishing shop, do a burst buy and get rid of these chores, move on to something really interesting.
It’s not easy to be a nerd. Very few people understand you, other nerds mostly.
Later,
Jean
My nephew Pol. By Jean Ruaud.