Baguette Redux

=== Baguette Redux ===
“Mr. Rabbit!” the man calls out in French, taking care not to unsettle the loaves of bread resting on his turbaned head. “Mister,” he repeats impatiently, “rabbit!”

I hear this plea whenever I enter Kiffa’s market, and when the mood strikes me I form bunny ears with my fingers and ask, as if for confirmation, “Mr. Rabbit?”

Before explaining I’d like to go out of my league for a minute. It seems that Mauritania absorbed little from its colonial days, when it comprised a large hunk of French West Africa until finding independence in 1960. Whether this can be attributed to the proud and sometimes insular Moorish culture, geographical isolation, France’s hands-off approach, or other factors, it’s difficult to tell, but on a daily basis one confronts two things to remind them that the French flag once flew here. The first looks like a baguette, and the second sounds like French.

But I’ll get to that and the rabbits in a minute. Daily life in Mauritania in my estimation tends to focus on “making do.” A house is a house if it keeps out the rain. A car gets you there, eventually. And a meal fills you up, however low in nutrients or flavor.

But it works, and there’s a rhyme and a reason. Poverty, isolation and an unforgiving desert are not the whimsical fantasies the developed world tends to see on PBS or guided tours, and the utilitarian nature of life here stems from these realities.

It boils down to a simple belief, strongly held by many the people I’ve had the pleasure to know here. Life is hard, my way works, and I probably couldn’t afford a “solution” anyhow. This is my life, as God has willed it.

So, then, the bunnies and the baguettes, you ask? We’re almost there. Those of you who read the New York Times food section might know that Wendy and Michael London (www.mrslondons.com) are two of the most respected bread and pastry chefs in New York, and maybe the world. As their nephew I’m in a biased position to judge anything edible, but I assure you that the bread here is mostly awful. It’s dense, wet, dirty, and at its best its flavor-less. I shudder to think what my uncle would have to say about it, after all, he practically lost his cool once when, I admitted to him that I’d been eating at Subway a lot. “That’s not bread!” he hollered, as though he’d just been shown a picture of a tennis racket.

“That’s not French!” is what many Parisians would probably say if they heard the language people speak here when they’re not using an indigenous language. I am complicit in this defamation, and in fact my French is just good enough to allow me to see its face. C’est pas jolie. But I’ve got one thing on these mobile bread hawkers. “Pain” is masculine, so when they preface it with la instead of a manly “luhhh,” they’re actually saying “lapin.” You probably just yawned and guessed that lapin means rabbit. Exactement!

The ghost of Edward Said might accuse me of sneaking my Orientalist arrogance into this column, but I don’t mean to imply that life here is a garbled translation of French culture. Far from it. From the surface down into the depths of the languages, customs, and beliefs, life in Mauritania evokes a certain charm that I’m willing to assert exists no where else. The frothy pour of tea from one glass into another, smoke wafting off the grey-white coals cooking the evening meal, the distant shriek of a bearded goat in seek of a companion. Stalked by the sun, life’s various manifestations often come to a boil as well.***

Is my role in this system to teach the bread sellers “le pain,” or to teach them to say it in English? Or to design a feasibility study to help the local bakeries streamline production, expand their product lines and reach new customers?

It’s all a bit overwhelming sometimes, so the truth is I tend to keep it simple. Sometimes I buy a rabbit, and sometimes I don’t.

*** During WAIST, teammate Keith was forced to drop for pushups after making infield errors. I did 20 on my knuckles after writing those two sentences.

=== No More Three By Fives ===
Timewarp Album Review For No Good Reason
Room For Squares
By John Mayer
Sony

Dreamy nostalgia sculptor disguised as pop singer John Mayer presents listeners with a laundry list of issues on his debut “Room for Squares” album. He loves your body, misses his mommy, and cherishes his freedom in an album that doesn’t always gel musically but contains many compelling moments.

More specifically, Mayer’s lyric writing is hit-or-miss, his songs place brilliance alongside meandering slop, and one song (Love Song For No One) feels like the intro music to a sitcom about a flight attendant. But the fatal flaw of the album as a whole is that it’s impossible to hate, and I weep predictably with each listen.

Jon Mayer The Guitarist is obviously proficient, showing his Berklee College of Music (didn’t graduate) pedigree when appropriate. He is able to craft original progressions and textures without bogging down the music with pretentious solos.

But Jon Mayer The Poet doesn’t come off quite as well. Sometimes he’s quaint, as for instance in “83” when he conjures up a touching vision of childhood, waxing “These days, I wish I was six again/ Make me a red cape/ I want to be Superman.” Then he shatters the mood by wondering out loud “what ever happened to my lunchbox.” Let’s see… rotting in a suburban landfill, reincarnated as a breadbox in a developing country…neither of these images help me enjoy your song, Mr. Mayer.

Other tracks suggest he’s shooting a bit high, like “Neon,” which reveals a limited understanding of the Periodic Table of Elements, while others convict him of writing directly to high school sophomores, as in his promise to “bust down the double doors” at his ten year reunion. Maybe it’s because mine is in September and I really would like to show ‘em, but puhleeze!

The beautiful and seemingly harmless little tune “3x5” warrants attention, as it actually contains life-shortening idiocy. The song hinges on the following false triumph: “Today I finally overcame/ Trying to fit the world inside a picture frame.”

The scenario Mayer paints could be imagined as something like the following. An up-and-coming performing artist has three major problems: (1) his travel schedule affects his relationship with his girlfriend, (2) he struggles to describe visual phenomena in words, and (3) he is battling a deep distrust – possibly stemming from his relationship with his father – of cameras.

He tells his lady friend that he wants to share his on-the-road experiences, yet he is proudly sending her a letter with no photos because the 30-second process of pulling a camera out of a fanny pack somehow drains his life force.

He recalls, awestruck, “You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes/Brought me back to life.” Excuse me? Obviously something prevented his sweetheart from being there that morning, let’s say her final exam before becoming an emergency medical technician. If he had merely gotten over his unhealthy hang-up he could have taken a nice picture. True, sometimes it’s hard to capture the sky’s nice bright colors on Kodakrome, and maybe it wouldn’t have “brought her back to life.” But maybe the girl isn’t as brain dead as our protagonist to begin with.

Then he claims “You’ll be with me next time.” Girl, don’t believe this two-faced, conflicted jetsetter for a second. You trust him enough to allow him to travel the world solo to please thousands of young female fans, and he returns the favor by never taking pictures? Don’t throw your life away to travel with the band. You’ll see plenty of sunrises through the windshield of an ambulance during your graveyard shifts.

But as I said, I love this album. It helps that some songs are near-perfect, like “St. Patrick’s Day” and that others serve as a sort of blanket apology. “Oh I’m never speaking up again” he laments at the end of the beautifully crafted chorus of “My Stupid Mouth.” Writing this review years after the record’s release, I can relax, knowing that Jon Mayer did not give up, and in fact has produced another album and is more popular than ever. I just hope the poor guy has come to terms with photography.