Pour en Finir avec Berenice

On the other end of the spectrum of trust was "pour en finir avec Berenice" (to finish with Berenice).  It wasn't the worst play I've ever seen in my life but it does not rank among the best.  I had high hopes for this one as it was described as a Congolese interpretation of Berenice (a play by Racine) complete with music and dance, etc.  This was all true, sort of, but the result was a painfully slow, disjointed mess.  The dance mainly consisted of the director writhing around on the floor in his underwear and having what appeared to be seizures, yes we get it, you're tortured, while physically impressive, amazing even, I can't say it added a whole lot of meaning to the play.  The message as I interpreted it was that the Congo's relationship with Belgium is much like that of Berenice and Titus - basically Titus and Berenice are in love but Berenice is a foreigner and is not wanted as queen of Rome, titus has to decide between his loyalties to his people and his love for Berenice and ultimately chooses not to marry Berenice.  Berenice leaves rome with a tragic outlook and basically waits for death.  So in this interpretation Belgium is Titus and while he has a brief and passionate love affair with the Congo the Congo is never fully regarded as part of belgiulm - it remains the foreigner, the other.  Congo wants its independence from Belgium but also feels abandoned and more or less left to collapse through civil wars etc.  The director of this play also put on the traditional Berenice at the comedie francaise so this newer piece is apparently a reflection on how challenging and torturous this process was, how does an Congolese director present a theatrical tradgedy when life in his country is a tradgedy? or something along those lines.  Anyway, there were some interesting points and the music was great though totally incongruous, but on the whole I can't say I was terribly impressed.  On a side note - I'm not sure how to feel about black actors in white face.

Trust

As relatively new residents of Avignon, Marc and I needed to experience "the festival", a month-long theater festival that takes place every july.  Trust was the fifth or sixth play we saw together and is part of the "In".  It was in German with a few random rants and songs in English and supertitles in French.  While I don't highly reccomend seeing a play with supertitles, as it makes it very difficult to catch all the action, this was by far my favorite play so far. It consisted of about 3 or 4 couples ranting at eachother and various movements people were constantly melting and falling and fighting and hugging, supporting eachother and pulling eachother down.  It was sort of a meditation on relationships and the economy, codependence and capitalism.  It was sort of depressing but moving and powerful. It made me think about relationships and change and stagnation.  It's hard to explain.  It puts into question our relationship to the economy, how money is everywhere and nowhere the motivation for almost everything and yet lacking any substance or inherent value, how we put all of our faith and hopes into a system that collapses upon itself and betrays us.  Our relationships to others are the same, superficial self-serving and yet unfulfilling, we are constantly seeking novelty and to fill some void, even the happiest most stable of relationships eventually become background noise.  Anyway, I'm not doing a great job explaining it, but it was definitely worth seeing.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xETzEoQZc

Wine on ice

While I'm no wine connoisseur (or I guess connaissuese would be more correct) I like to drink wine and living near California wine country for most of my life means that I know a little bit about what I like and don't like. In fact, one of the reasons I was particularly excited about living in Avignon was its location smack dab in the middle of Côtes du Rhône country. In my experience, rosé wines are considered only a step up from white zinfandel on the quality spectrum, that is to say, not so good. However, when it's 35C (95F) and higher most days, a glass of cold (emphasis on the cold) rosé goes quite nicely with a meal or an evening on the patio. It seems to be the most popular summer drink here. But the way the french drink it struck me as peculiar...

I have been accused of being a snob or even "outfrenching the french" but I refuse to put ice cubes in my wine! Here, however, it seems to be the norm, the expectation even. Servers in restaurants bring you a bowl of ice cubes to add to your glass, if you are invited for a drink in a french home ice cubes are dropped directly into your glass without question. At first this seemed shocking to me for a couple of reasons: 1. As someone from a family with perhaps some culinary and oenological snob-like tendencies, this practice violates one of the main purposes of drinking wine; it dilutes the flavor! 2. Again maybe somewhat snobbish, but this is always something I viewed as low-class - a bit trashy, something people do when they don't know any better, something you'd expect of say, your 19 year-old cousin in college, not an adult. 3. Building upon the first two reasons, the French are viewed by Americans as not just connoisseurs of anything wine related but wine worshippers. The French are also known by Americans as the people for whom the word "snob" was invented - to see the french expect that rosé be served with ice has just blown all my former beliefs to shreds. Confident in my snobbish self, I have thus far carried on with my refusal to drink wine with ice cubes in it except when it is served to me that way or if my only options are to drink warm wine or wine with ice in it. Now however, I'm starting to wonder. The more I drink rosé sans ice, the more I feel that it is slightly too acid, too concentrated somehow, almost as if it is meant to be drunk diluted, with a little bit of ice in it. What to do?