Art Nouveau vs. Things Nouveau

You are all most likely familiar with the french word "nouveau," (meaning new) from the phrase "Art Nouveau," which refers to the highly-stylized, expensive-to-produce, flowing art and architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I suppose it is so named because at the time, it was new. Although, in retrospect, it's a rather short-sighted thing to call an art movement. One of my favorite artists, Alphonse Mucha, is famous for his impact on Art Nouveau.

Since you know the meaning of nouveau, let me introduce it in the context of my life. Here, everything is new. For example, at the cafes and bars, there are two prices for drinks: The (lesser) price for standing at the bar to drink and the higher price for sitting down. There are public toilets that are very, very clean on account of when you close the door behind you, jets of water spray over the entire thing, according to Lisa. There are these horror stories of mothers who accidentally left their kids in the toilet after they closed the door and the kids died from the power of the water spray. This delights me as it convinces me they are very clean, indeed.

Everyone speaks French all the time here. I guess I expected that, but it's still new.

Earlier today I went on my first walk around my new neighborhood in Paris. For those of you familiar with the city, I live in the 19th Arrindissmont, which is in the northeast part of the city. This part of town (Belleville) is sort of the Chinatown...and Arab town and Jewish Town...a very international part of the city. It's also quite fashionable these days. It's sort of the East Austin of Paris.

Anyway, I traipsed around in the rain looking for something Parisian and came upon a church. Outside the church were lots of tents. Inside those tents are people, which fact I learned when one of them popped his head out of the tent and began retching onto the street. Is that art nouveau? Wikipedia says no.

On the way back I saw writing on the tents and I thought I'd read it to see if I could trace the origin of said tents. I figure they are for the homeless. Though I was curious, I decided not to get to close. [see above paragraph] They were labelled "Medicins du monde" or "Doctors of the world." I think it is very nice of the doctors to provide tents for homeless people to retch out of, and stay dry in and so forth.

That is all for now. My internet access is limited until next week. I recommend, for those of you who are nouveau to this blog or haven't yet done so, that you read some of the comments. They are full of interesting linguistic tidbits. Also, Valerie writes in to say that the Cherokee have no word for "try." Either you do a thing, or you don't.

That said, I suppose I simply WILL learn this language, rather than just try to. And this culture. And the way home from the Papeterie. And the blog directions in French. And all manner of brand new things.