Mademoiselle Remix, Shirley Temple, Nancy Drew and me

Appeared in Republican Herald August 25, 2013

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Shirley Temple and always looked forward to watching her movies on TV. I'm sure lots of readers, young and old, have heard her singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop" or seen her hoofing with Bill "Bojangles," one of the greatest tap dancers of all times. Shirley Temple made so many great movies and everybody has a favorite or two.

Mine is the 1939 film The Little Princess, where Temple proves that besides knowing how to sing and dance, she can be a great dramatic actress as well. In this movie, she plays a little rich girl, living at Miss Minchin's exclusive boarding school in Victorian London. Everyone adores her and the head mistress coddles her until she learns that her richest student's father, off searching for diamonds in Africa, has disappeared, leaving his motherless daughter alone and penniless.

Overnight the "little princess" is demoted from star pupil to scullery maid, transferred from a toasty, luxurious suite to an unheated garret room. Of course, in the end, resilient and ebullient Shirley comes out on top, finding her lost father and even meeting Queen Victoria, but in between times life gets pretty rough.

I have probably seen this movie dozens of times. I have also read and reread the story on which it is based, the 1905 novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, who also wrote the children's classics A Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy. In my Paris apartment, I have a first-edition copy of A Little Princess. It belonged to my great-aunt Annette Hartstein, who for many years was the principal of Jalapa School in Pottsville.

I treasure this book and like to page through it to admire the beautiful illustrations made by an artist more familiar with firelight than with electricity. The drawings are dark yet they glow like burning embers, projecting a warm and wavering light.

When I was fourteen years old, my father died. I wonder if that is why I have always been attracted to stories where daughters lose and sometimes find their fathers. In these stories, mothers are strangely absent, often never mentioned, as if little girls were delivered to delighted, devoted dads by an attentive stork.

Even before I lost my father, I devoured Nancy Drew mystery novels, reading several in the space of a weekend. Other fans of the intrepid Nancy might remember she lived with her dad and Mrs. Gruen, the housekeeper, with no mother anywhere in sight.

Nancy also had a boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, but he definitely stayed in the background. Mostly Nancy "tooled around in her roadster," to use the language of the early novels, with her girlfriends Beth and George. Together, they solved crimes without ever requesting the help of a man, be it Nancy's lawyer father or a member of the local police force.

I wanted to grow up to be like Nancy Drew and, sharing her first name, it seemed I might have a chance.

In my apartment in Paris, I also have some 1930 editions of Nancy Drew mysteries. Heading towards retirement age, I don't think there's much chance I'll ever become a "sleuth" like Nancy, but she remains a source of inspiration to me.

In fact, she and Sarah Crewe, the name of the "little princess" Shirely Temple portrayed, are the inspiration behind a serialized novel I've written and will soon be sharing with Republican Herald readers.

Beginning Monday, September 2, 2013, you'll find a link to it on the homepage of the electronic edition of the paper. The novel is Mademoiselle Remix and twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, she'll be writing to you...

To give you a taste of what it's all about, Mademoiselle Remix's story is that of a modern-day princess who falls out of a fairy tale into the real world.

Like Nancy Drew or Sarah Crewe, she is a girl raised by her father, a millionaire recluse, who has built himself a castle high in the anthracite hills of Pennsylvania. There he raises his daughter alone, with the help of a housekeeper and a governess, the same woman who schooled him when he was a boy (the character is a cross between Miss Patterson, a former head of the Pottsville Free Public Library, and Miss Schartel, once the Latin teacher at PAHS).

Then her father loses his fortune and commits suicide. Overnight, Constance, sixteen years old, finds herself alone, with no family, no home—or so she believes.

Her father had always told her her mother was dead. It was just the two of them against the world, but she soon learns her mother is alive, though not well, living with her son, Constance's half-brother, in the suburbs of Paris. And that's where Constance is headed, to one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods of all of France—whether she likes it or not.

Constance speaks perfect school-girl French—her governess saw to that. She can adapt to the language, but can this innocent girl, who was never allowed to have friends, adapt to a mother she believed dead, a half-brother named Karim, a high school fraught with racial and ethnic tensions, a distressed and violent neighborhood nextdoor to one of the most brilliant cities in the world?

To find out, you'll have to read Constance's twice-weekly "letters to the World." In them, she tells her own story in her own words, those of a sheltered young woman suddenly and brutally confronted with 21st century reality. Beginning in September and across four months, you'll participate in the "remix" as Constance is reborn.

Mademoiselle Remix is Constance's autobiography, her reaching out to the World. It is also the story of a part of France that few tourists, let alone Frenchmen, know. For over twenty years, I have lived and worked there, in the "dangerous suburbs" north of Paris and I believe that's where the future of France, perhaps of the world, is being written now.

When I was seven years old, I already knew I wanted to learn French and go to France someday. Who knows what mysterious influences put such ideas in a young girl's head. And I have always loved telling stories that make people laugh or cry.

I'm hoping that's what Mademoiselle Remix will do, just as I hope you'll reach out to Constance, as Constance reaches out to you...

A vacation for the price of a metro ride

Appeared in The Republican Herald July 28, 2013

It’s official, in all the national papers and on the evening news. This year, four in six Frenchmen will be staying home instead of going on vacation. Those lucky enough to get away will be spending less and staying closer to home. Above all—and this represents a big change for the French, they’ll be cutting down on vacation time, going away for a week or two instead of a full month. It’s “la crise,” France is in crisis, as anchormen tell us almost every evening on the national news.

There was a time, not so long ago, when month-long paid vacations were the norm in France. The French language even created special words for the phenomenon. Those who set off for the month of July were the “Juilletistes” (based on “juillet,” July). Returning from vacation a month later, participating in a monstrous traffic jam extending from the Mediterranean all the way to the North Sea shores, they got a good look at the Aoûtiens (based on août, August), stalled in traffic, with motors overheating, just setting off when the Juilletistes were already heading home.

Some vacationers took off for more exotic destinations: a month on the beaches of Phuket in Thailand, an ascent into the mountains of Nepal, or a trip to the United States, a crossing of a continent in a Greyhound bus, with stopovers in places like Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, Rabbit-Hash, Kentucky, Tightwad, Missouri, or Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Those were the days. Now many who can get away visit friends or family. Those who can’t, in small Parisian apartments or small towns which don’t offer much in the way of recreation, sit at home, dreading the return of their neighbors who, once they’re back, will lavish them with stories and photos of “les vacances.”

For those of us in Paris and the Paris region, however, there is another option. Between July 13th and August 18th, using our monthly or yearly metro pass, called a “carte Navigo,” we can travel hundreds of miles throughout the region, to the borders of Normandy and Champagne, all the way north to Picardy, and all for free. Last Sunday, with my friend Karima, I tested this offer and we both returned to Paris more then satisfied. In fact, we were delighted after having spent a bright and sunny day crossing wheat fields, wandering along the banks of the Oise River, walking in the footsteps of Vincent Van Gogh.

Our destination was the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, about twenty miles from Paris and we left from the Gare du Nord, the city’s train station to all points north. There, we crossed paths with security guards, crowds heading in all directions, travellers dragging suitcases, soldiers with machine-guns, protecting us from a terrorist threat but unable to keep away pickpockets, riding up and down the escalators, hopping on and off trains, eyes peeled for wallets and purses to snatch.

After having swiped our metro card and boarded a suburban train, we were off, leaving behind that urban hive. Ten minutes later, just like in the famous painting by Monet, we were riding through wheat fields dotted with poppies, a rich tapestry of red and gold. Along the banks of the Oise River, we spotted fishermen, busy “at work,” sitting in the shade of birch trees and willows, lounging on folding chairs, their fishing rods fastened to the bank or resting lightly in their hands. Then our train pulled into a small, white station basking in the sun.

Everybody off, end of the line! We had arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise.

With no special itinerary in mind, Karima and I crossed the street in front of the station and headed up a hill, along a winding, cobble-stoned street lined with small stone homes. Some had front doors opening directly onto the street; others were enclosed behind stone walls covered with honey suckle or hawthorn. Beyond others, we could glimpse cherry trees, heavy with fruit gleaming red in the sun.

An hour before, we had been in the biggest train station in Europe. We had to blink, rub our eyes and noses (we were simply not used to air smelling so good). We were in another world, one we had not imagined so close to our front door.

But there was more, so much more! Leaving behind the narrow street, we arrived at the town’s Romanesque church, dating back to the 11th century—and we immediately recognized it. Van Gogh painted it in 1890, during his short stay in the town.

In fact, in two months, he completed seventy paintings of the church, the fields of wheat we would soon be crossing, the city hall, the banks of the Oise, and the people he came to know. One of them was Doctor Gachet. While he was under his care, Van Gogh painted incessantly. Only a short time before, he had been in an asylum in Saint-Rémy, in southern France. His stay in Auvers-sur-Oise, so productive, ended in suicide.

Climbing up a hill from the church, we were soon surrounded by fields of wheat, swaying in the breeze. In their midst, behind a gray stone wall, in the town’s cemetery, Van Gogh is buried, next to his younger brother Theo, who cared for him much of his adult life.

During the two months he spent in Auvers-sur-Oise, Van Gogh lived in an attic room in the Auberge Ravoux, an inn that still stands today, looking much as it did in the painter’s time. The building still serves as a restaurant; it is also a historic monument and houses “The Van Gogh Institute,” which organizes exhibits devoted to the artist’s life and work.

Karima and I picnicked on the banks of the Oise, where Van Gogh often painted, we walked through fields where he had walked himself, we wandered through the streets and took in scenes that figure in his paintings. All the while, we felt one thousand miles from home.

At the end of the day, we hopped on a train back to Paris, refreshed and renewed, after our fine “vacation,” for the price of a metro ride.

I have to admit, though, that I’m one of the lucky ones. Readers, I’ll be in Schuylkill County when you read this, visiting family and friends. If you recognize me in the street, I hope you’ll stop to say hello.