I love this time of year

Absolutely final swims?

Film review: L'Atalante (1934)

Three posters to give you an idea of the confusing nature of this film.  It's the only full-length film directed by the tragically short-lived Jean Vigo (whose most famous work is probably Zero de Conduite which, coincidentally, was a major influence on If....  It has a very simple plot: a barge captain (although that's rather a grand title given that his entire crew consists of a slightly cracked old man (Père Jules) and an apparently simple teenager) marrying a young woman from a village and walking out of the church down to the canal (where the "crew" is waiting, accidentally dropping a bouquet of flowers into the water and then rescuing it). The entirety of the rest of the film is the four of them (and Père Jules's seemingly inexhaustible supply of cats) traveling down the river to Paris, squabbling, her getting left behind and then reuniting some unspecified time later in Le Havre.  It's very slight.  But it's also lovely: the film itself has the charm of barge life - cozy domesticity combined with travel and viewing the gritty side of the city and countryside.

At first the wife, Juliette (played with wide-eyed zest by Dita Parlo, who was also Elsa in Grand Illusion) seems a little taken aback at the relative squalor (and overwhelming number of cats) aboard the barge.  She and the "crew" are also a little wary of each other - they refer to her as "the missus" (or at least, that's the translation) whereas she seems to find them a little alarming.  However, she gradually gets into the swing of things, even managing to prize Père Jules's dirty laundry off him.  However, she does look forward to the bright lights of Paris, so it's a disappointment when Père Jules and the boy head off into town first (to see a fortune-teller (who is also, it is strongly hinted, a prostitute)) meaning that the captain (Jean, played by Jean Dasté, who also went on to appear in Grand Illusion) can't leave the ship and Juliette's hopes are dashed. (Père Jules is a larger-than-life character, whom Juliette gets to know when he shows her all the curios he's collected (including the pickled hands of his dead best friend) and his tattoos in his cramped cabin, 

something that inspires wonder and disgust in equal measures, but also provokes Jean into a fit of plate-breaking jealous rage (for some reason).  Père Jules is played by the larger-than-life Michel Simon, who was the titular Boudu, Saved from Drowning just before casting, and thus the most famous of the actors in the cast, who claimed to have signed on because he felt sorry for Jean Vigo, whose career never really took off, and who was in the doghouse because Zero had been banned lest it corrupt the youth.

Eventually Père Jules returns, and the next day Jean takes Juliette dancing.  Unfortunately, this leads to more trouble, because a clownish peddler takes a liking to Juliette 

(and she is too wide-eyed at everything to take offense or see him as a threat) and follows her back to the barge to talk to her while Jean is out later.  (Come to think of it, I have to wonder if this film was an influence on La Strada)  Another rage from Jean and Juliette is instructed to stay in the cabin.  However, she sneaks out overnight to look at the bright lights, and Jean is so angry he orders the barge to depart without her.  After a magical evening of staring at shops, Juliette returns to discover her fate.  She tries to buy a third class train ticket to the next town the barge will get to, but a clearly indigent young man steals her handbag before being set upon by a mob, who beat him to a pulp and carry him off, but neglect to return Juliette's money.  She is forced to find work and seems stuck for a while.  Meanwhile, aboard the barge Jean has lapsed into an almost catatonic funk.  Père Jules accompanies him to the head office and defends him to the boss as he just sits mutely and miserably in the waiting room.  Eventually he remembers an earlier incident where Juliette claimed that she had seen his face in water before she'd met him, which is how she knew he was her soulmate, and he jumps into the river.  

We then get famous underwater scenes, which, because I have the Jean Vigo Boxset (a tragically slim volume - all his films fit on one disc because he died of TB at 29 a couple of weeks after this film was released) I know were probably only possible because Vigo had made an earlier short about a champion French swimmer).  This incident is enough to drive Père Jules to go looking for Juliette in Le Havre, the port they're currently docked at, and miraculously he finds her, in a record store, listening to a song about barges that they'd played earlier.  Jean and Juliette are then reunited and embrace ecstatically, the end.

As you can see, slight, but it's in the telling.  The images are indelible and it has more of the feel of a fairytale romance than actual fairytales.  See it if you can.

Orange and green

Scenes from recent walks as we move from swimming weather (first picture) into early Fall.

My Tuesday and Thursday life

I teach in room 2246 in the law school which, according to this sign, is a seminar room:

Here is the inside of the classroom. At the time I took this photo, my students were not yet in the classroom but they could have been as there are so few of them, they could easily have tucked themselves into a corner and you wouldn't see them. If there is a flu epidemic I fear the whole class will disintegrate and I will be the only one in the room.

Here is the bane of my existence, the swipe access card thing. As you can see, it is old, crappy, and barely held together with duct tape. It seems others have mastered the knack of getting it to work, but I still haven't. I am determined to do so and practice before 5 pm. If I get in the elevator and swipe the card and it works, then I can press the (3) button and get taken to the 3rd floor.

Starting at Wayne State Law

Last week was both the first day of classes at UM-Flint and at Wayne State. The whole hiring process at Wayne State was a bit clunky--delays with HR, payroll, problems with my "access card" (the swipe card that gets me in the building), email problems...so I was a bit surprised when the semester started and I was actually scheduled to teach a class. My class meets from 6 pm until 8 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays so by the time I get to work, most people have left for the day. Simon teaches two classes on Tuesdays/Thursdays and does not get home until mid afternoon. With all the construction on I75, driving to Wayne State can be a bit intense, so I am worried the whole drive down that I will be late. So far, that hasn't happened. Here is my office, room 3333. The building is massive and very strangely designed. The 3rd floor (where most faculty offices are) sort of spirals around and I haven't quite got the hang of it yet. I have to take exactly the same route every time I go in otherwise I get lost.

My office is actually quite nice. It's big and has two massive windowns. (Many of the offices are on the inside of the building and don't have windows at all.) I was also pleasantly surprised to find a brand new computer on my desk when I moved in. The best part is there is a big green circle on the desktop that, when I click on it, it immediately contacts an IT guy who works in the law building and then rushed to my aide in a computer emergency. So far I haven't had one, but it's good to know that there is someone who spends their whole like just waiting for me to be in crisis. When I moved in, the shelves were on the opposite wall, and there were too many of them. I took all but three small ones down and hid the rest in a mysterious little closet tucked away behind my door. There were also a lot of spots on the walls where someone had chipped the paint off. I bought a small pot of paint in a similar color and fixed up the dings. Now, if you don't look too closely, it looks fine.

Amazingly, I've already had a student come to see me. This was last Thursday. I was sitting around, dealing will law school requirements (I am supposed to promise to speak to media/journalists if a legal crisis comes up. I was given a huge form to fill out that committed me to dealing with this sort of thing. I tried to come up with the least likely possibilities (new legislation dealing with disability rights advocacy--never going to happen). I also said I would only deal with emails rather than phone calls or live interviews, so I can always write up useless responses that no one would want to quote. Anyway, in the midst of all this one of my students came by to tell me he was in the grips of a horrific migraine and would not be able to come to class that evening. He was also in a panic about the class--worried he would not be able to write papers, and would fail the class, lose his job, be booted from the country...it was easy to see why he had a migraine. The class I teach is a Master's level course aimed at non-American students who have a law degree from their home country. The idea is that the course I teach--Survey of US Law---is a low level, massively broad but superficial introduction to the legal system. Then, the idea is, they have three more semesters to take more advanced courses in areas of law that interest them. The problem is, I found out, that all but Migraine Student have been here 18 months and have already taken three semesters of classes. I asked them why they were in an introduction course aimed at beginners and they had no idea. One speculated that there had been massive scheduling problems in the past and that this is the first time this survey course was offered. Yeesh. So, I'm not sure what to do with the class given that most things we will discuss will be redundant. I did assign only essays and no exams for the course assignments, and that seems to have them all in paroxysms of anxiety. That's particularly stupid as three are from Germany and the fourth a Bangladeshi woman who has lived in England for the past eight years and got her law degree there, all have excellent English. (Yes, there are only four students in the class.) But, they are older students, work for prestigious foreign corporations and were told by their employers to "get an American law degree of some sort." So that is what they are doing. Once they have their LLM (the master's degree) they may take the bar exam in the state of New York. At THAT point, assuming they pass, they will be able to act as license lawyers on behalf of their company, doing legal work in the US. So, I suppose they are worried that, if they fail, they will have to carry the shame of being duds at their jobs. They are all very nice, reasonable people so I think their worries are ill-founded. I guess my job will be to help them figure out how to make it through all these hurdles.

On top of finding out that the course I designed was almost completely inappropriate for my students, I was locked out of the third floor of the law building TWICE on Tuesday and so had to deal with calling public safety to be let in again. The law building has four floors: the basement/ground floor, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor. The library and auditoriums are on the 1st floor, the smaller seminar and clinic rooms are on the 2nd floor and the faculty offices and staff offices are on the 3rd floor. Around 4:00 I went to the classroom to make sure I could work the AV machine so I could show slides (diagrams of the court stuctures, both state and federal as well as tribal courts in MI) and it took over an hour of futzing around to get it going. By the time I actually had things set up it was just after 5 pm--the time when all access to the 3rd floor is locked and only people with "night access cards" can get in. I have such a card, since I teach at night, but I left it up in my office. So, I had to wander around until I found someone who could call public safety for me to let me in. That wasted another 20 minutes. So, when I finally got up to my office and packed up for my class (which is back on the 2nd floor) I made damned sure I had my "night access card" as well as my phone and notes and such. After class I then tried to get back to my office on the 3rd floor because, of course, I needed my car keys to get home--and found that my access card doesn't work. Argh! So, I had to call public safety AGAIN. More embarassing, it was the same guy. So Thurday, I stayed glued to my office seat until just before my class was set to start and took ALL by belongings to class on the assumption that I would get locked out of the 3rd floor again after class. Eventually I'll have to get my access card fixed by until then...I just will assume I don't have access.

Swinging into swimming

We're experiencing the last (I assume) heat wave of the Summer, with temperatures up into the 90s, so swimming it is!

Dog days