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Celebrating Revolution A ¥vew.h 'XHliS#
July 4/July 14 — there is more to the difference than just another digit.
The accents of La We en Rose drift down the embankment along the Canal Saint
Martin, the lovely waterway that runs North-South to the Seine. The canal is graced
with such uniquely Parisian landmarks as the “Hotel du Nad, a three-story building
unfortunately renovated to utter flavalessness, the cherished site (in memay if not
in reality as the movie was actually shot in a studio) of the Renoir classic of the same
name. It is also the stage of this Bastille Day ’bal.’
The accordion is shiny and people cheer when the musician announces a tango.
A couple twists to a rock'n'roll beat, yet manages to be only barely out of step Two
ladies in their 70's dance arm in arm and one of them is smiling broadly. The music
changes to a waltz and the couple’s beat hardly changes. Away ty the water another
couple, oblivious, dances alone while an Asian man sits nearby applauding them in
rhythm. A glass of wine would buy a full-course meal fa three at some New York
restaurants, but the cafe that sits at the bottom of the hotel doesn't empty.
Around the city bals like this one spring up at cafes and firemen's houses, the
traditional “bate des pompiers.’ The tradition of the “bate musettes" a public ball
held outside, dates back to the 19th Century and took off after the Revolution. By the
1920s their popularity was at a peak, and they had become known some by the
name of the neighborhood they were held in, like the bal de la rue de la Gaiete, some
by the name of the people in the neighborhood who patronized it, like the bal des
A 1 ivergnats, and some by the name of the school that threw it, like the bas de I'Ecole
Militaire
Nowadays bate musettes are mostly a Bastille Day-only occurence, although, as
with all things past, they have recently become hip again in Paris. The distinctly
grating sound of the accordion is still likely to be swallowed by the shouts of a rap
song. (The latter will occasionally be in French, a surprising experience for an Ameri
can ear; suggestion to Tipper Gore; import French rap?)
At the Hotel du Nord the accadion is the king of the night, and this is as close to
July 4 as it will get. No blue-white-red (the French national colors in that order fa the
fag-ignorant) bumperstickers, no frantic flag-waving ehre, and to be exact no flags
at all. The polite blase of fire crackers is the only sure thing to cross the Atlantic
intact. Of course there is the offical parade down the Champs-Eiysees with the Presi
dent (and this year Nelson Mandeia on a cas-raising tour of European capitate) grandly
mastering the ceremonies. But you would be hard-pressed to find the kind of raptur
ous enthusiasm there generally displayed in each and every hamlet in the U.S. at the
sight of the Icoal patriots. There are few local paraoes in France, and then only inmilitary
•owns, ana watching the-Champs-Eiysees disDlay of national might on TV is defi
nitely uncool, if not downright unimaginable, by the standards of the hip and going
among my compatriots. The end of the Tour de France, the cycling event unfolding
every July, fares generally better, if only because it is faster
“Line certame id6e de la France’ is mae likely to surface in the vehement, pos
sessive pride the French take on anything edible produced from their soil. A palpable
air of superiority is also easy to sense on the subject of culture. And then there is the
general belief that good taste is really a French gene.
Yet in the last ten years, ironically and some say not incidentally coinciding with
the reign of Francois Mitterrand, traces of nostalgia fa a perceived lost grandeur
have manifested themseh'^ *n the steady rise of the Front National, an extreme-right
political party. It has reaped a solid 14 percent of the votes during the last presidential
elections and gained control of three cities — Toulon, Orange and Marignane — all
three in the South, a region with a high percentage of Northem-African immigrants.
The phenomenon, call it ethnocentrism a nationalism, is not unrelated to the ill
winds that swept the famer Yugoslavia and brought war back into the heart of Eroupe
when mosl Europeans thought the very idea utterly implausible. (I can still hear my
Dad at the dinner table.) The French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Main re
cently said Srebrenica could have happened anywhere in Europe. The remark hit
home when one i .e*d in the next news report that the Front National maya of Or
ange has banished a otherwise removed from all the public libraries in his town
books on mutticulturalism a books written by authas with immigrant roots.
Ethnocentrism's ideological bedrock is purity, an idea mae readily associated
with wholeness aid grace than with the mud of mass graves. But purity, as the French
philsopher Bernard-Henry Lev/ said in a long essay on the war in Bosnia is a lethal
concept. Witness the widows of Srebrenica.
The French may view Fourt of July flag-waving as absurd, simple-minaea ana
basely self-gbritving. Yet, and the recent flare-up in Nathern Ireland is but a dra
matic and visual demonstration of thisl the wa'ls of fear and ignorance on which rac
ism and its cc jsin Digotry rest are tar from being just a memory in an economically
besieged and sociaM restive Europe
As Bastille Day is about to end and the July sun stretches a lazy day until weil
past 9 p.m. in a country giddily and belatedly entering summer, there is siight chill in
the air.
Valerie Berta
Valerie Esrta. who taugh! French at UGA and later earned her masters in pnoto-
journaitsm at the University of Missouri, is at least temporarily oack in Paris working
‘or Agence Franca F r esse.
William Orten Carlton = ORT.
SPECIAL CORESPONDENT FOR THE FLAGPOLE.
*• ’ JL ~ : : I :
| The Case For Quadrants |
A s I write this, we here at the Flagpole office are
working on our special handbook fa the Olym
pics, so everything is strewn around even more than
usual This has its positive aspects, though: a map of
Athens was left out, and it has inspired me to think and
to write.
Whenever I can, I get away—usually to Atlanta—
when the stress of being Ort.-in-Athens gets to me. One
thing I have noticed in my travels around the city of At
lanta is this: ever ; address is easy to find once you lave
located the street, because they use a logical street
numbering system combined with a quadrant system.
As you doubtless have noticed, these two things
have totally evaded Athens. The point is hit home (liter
ally!) to me frequently when I have to return mail to the
mailbox after writing ’deirvered to wrong address!’ a
some ruch on it. I live on a street that has several oth
ers rvmed disgustingly similarly to it.
But if you think I have problems, imagine the fact
that there are three Brookwood Drives in a adjacent to
the Athens postal delivery territory! And two of those
share the same house numbers!
I should mention these confusions of names: Water
Street (now renamed), Water Oak Street, Oak Street,
Little Oak Street, Oconee Street, and Little Oconee
Street; Cleveland Avenue and Cleveland Road; Carlton
Street and Carlton Terrace; Talmadge Street and
Talmadge Drive; Prince Avenue and Price Avenue; HiH
Street, Hull Street (North and South!), and Hall Street...
the list goes on and on!
There is East Cloverhurst, West Cloverhurst,
Cicverhurst Court, and Cloverhurst Circle, unless I have
left something else Cloverhursty out. (Yes, I did:
Cloverhurst Terrace!)
And this doesn t even touch on (North and South)
Milledge Avenue, Milledge Terrace, Milledge Heights,
Milledge Circle, Milledge Court, and Milledge Avenue
Extension! Recently they added South Milledge Drive
to the confusion, as if the planners (if there are any!)
had nothing better to do than to exacerbate an already
absurd situation. Folks, with names like those, it is a
wonder that as much mail as does gets delivered to
the right place!
I have a solution, a at least a partial one. It is very
simple. We with the smallest county in area in Geagta
can implement it easily, and it is long overdue. We can
do just what Atlanta did in 1925: establish a quadrant
system and renumber every building to a countywide
standard.
Since existing street numbers already begin at the
intersection of Broaa and Lumpkin, and that is just as
central a place in the county as it was in the city, there
is no need to change this. But instead of some streets
being numbered as if going away from Broad Street
and others parallelling a block a so away being num
bered as if going toward Broad (oi some other point),
unifamity could be established.
Here is how I would quadrant the county:
WESTWARD: this is the easiest direction. The
boundary between N/W and S/W addresses would be
Broad Street, then the Atlanta Highway, following old U.
S. 29 to the city limits of Bogart.
NORTHWARD: this is relatively easy. The bound
ary between N/W and N/E addresses would proceed
up North Lumpkin to Hull Street, then between the Coun
cil on Aging building (N/E) and the old Station complex
N/W), thence tollowina me Southern Railroaa to me
.acKson Countv line.
SOUTHWARD: this is aiso relatively easy. The
boundary between S/E and S/W addresses would fol
low South Lumpkin Street until that begins to veer west
toward Five Points. It would then turn down Carlton Street
to D. W. Brooks Drive (Ag Drive), then follow the latter
street to the Central Of Georgia Railway, which it would
follow to the Oconee County line.
EASTWARD: this is ine hard part becajse there
are no natural divisions here. I would have the bound
ary between N/E and S/E addresses follow East Broad
Street to Trail Creek, then proceed up the creek until it
comes to the East Perimeter. It would then follow that
road south a few hundred feet to the North Peter Street/
Olympic Drive intersection, then would head east on
Olympic Drive to Indian Hills Drive, take a right there to
Spring Valley Road, then hang a right on Spring Valley
Road to Wmterville Road, and tan left on Winterville
Road to the city limits of Winterville.
(Take your own map and try it. and see if you can
come up with a better method of division. I've been think
ing of such a plan fa Athens fa years, but never thought
of writing about it until now.)
Of course, once such a quadranting was put into
effect, renumbering the buildings would be a relatively
simple task... and a third of Athens' buildings would
no longer have identical numbers like 125,145 and
150. Instead, most street numbers would reflect how
far the place was from a cooitywide dividing line rather
than how far it was from whatever caner where the
numbers happened to start at when they laid the area
out!
Once such a simple, sensible system was in place,
l (and doubtless dozens of others) would no longer have
to worry with having to reroute mail and/a having a piece
a two of my mail delayed because it went to the wrong
place initially. Once the hassie of renumbering every
thing was ova with, the benefits would far outweigh the
initial problems. Think abort it! (30.)
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July 24, 1996 FLAGPOLE