Often our greatest epiphanies come at intensely banal occasions. I was stalking the aisles of my local Carrefour supermarket, contemplating the distinction between citron-scented Saint Marcand fleur de citron Saint Marcwhen it struck me with alarming zest how much better the French have gotten in using American-style marketing to pry more francs from its consumers. When I first came to Paris, there were about two brands of breakfast cereal on the shelves, no paper towels and a blatant absence of fresh orange juice. The 37 distinct packages of cereal now in front of my eyes is an impressive change, but is it progress? The way the stores move around the products so you have to look longer and thus buy more is a good example of proficient contemporary merchandising. The technique of yield management of inventory from Renault Mégane to hotel rooms at the Crillon exemplifies the local and global love of profit. What is striking is that the very thing that the American in us chastises the French for not yet doing rendering over-the-top service and assuming commercial attitudes towards commerce; in short, incorporating that cocksure Yankee management style embodies precisely what many of us hate about our origins anyway. And the American things that the French have successfully integrated into contemporary life, like confusing and manipulative choices of breakfast cereal, we find to be a disappointing departure from the France that we came for. Perversely, we want the French to become the very Americans we don't want to be ourselves, while the French that we culturally embrace, weare unable and unwilling to become. Whether you thought about it like this or not, much of what contributed to your overseas move was a dissatisfaction with at least something from your former life. Even if it only meant being open enough to fall in love with someone from France, the truth is you were looking beyond the borders of your everyday existence. Your old life was too limited, your dinner guests bored you, your mother wanted you to marry or divorce someone, you hated your job or you rejected the career track that awaited you. There was something you opted for that money couldn't buy. You landed in France to everyone's envy, and mostly to your own confused delight. And whether you've been living in Paris for only three months, three years or three decades, you've been progressively disconnecting from one reality while connecting to another. The only problem with this is that one doesn't disconnect comfortably. Often, we replace "true connectness" with "memories" that are rigged with accommodating distortions, and we deny that the act of unplugging has both occurred and will continue to. We hang on and live in the middle of no place. The question is: How well do you still know the place and culture you left? The pain of admitting "no" is sufficient enough in many of us to reject the very question. No one living in Paris wants living in Paris to be like living in New York or LA. If Paris ceases to be Paris or becomes the same as living in New York or LA, then why not just live in New York or LA? The irony widens when you consider how dated our frame of reference on the US has grown. Yesterday, after getting home from the Carrefour, I had one of those quick juxtapositions of experience that provokes sudden epiphany. I tried calling the US 800 number of an Internet web site specializing in cut-rate airplane tickets. I heard a guy named Tom Parsons on CNBC talk truly American enthusiasm about the great savings you could get at his better-than-sliced-bread website. The hook was planted and I surfed onto this glitzy display where I found round-trip tickets Boston-Paris for $205. "Great!" I exclaimed. Do they work in the opposite direction and how do I get them. Led through flashing hyperlinks with the insistence of a nose ring piercing the client's nostrils, you end up having to be a member of the club, and to become a member you have to subscribe to a monthly magazine, and for this you need a US address. I reached for the phone and punched in the 800 number, which from France is accessible for a long distance fee using 880, but in the US, smart telephony knows if you're outside of a zone which the company is targeting and access is limited to where the profit potential is present. Calling from the US brings you to the six choices of pre-screened and fielded voice mail options. A question from beyond these boundaries leaves you empty and frustrated. You end up feeling stupid and spend a lot of time on hold. Believe it or not, the average American spends over 60 hours on hold each year. Every surface, angle and screen which makes contact with the human consumer is grist to the marketing gurus. The US Postal Service just announced that as of October 1998 it delivered a billion more advertising messages than first class letters, which says a lot about how we're communicating as a society. The winning economic model for the epidemic Internet is the advertising driven site with targeted message banners. It's getting to the point where it is no longer absurd to posit that "content" in daily American life has emerged as the add-on and the paid messages have taken over as the "substance." The old adage about the steak and sizzle has now entered the age where the sizzle is the "value-added" steak. And now, we, the unshepherded flock of mid-Atlantic dwellers in Paris, progressive Luddites, float in the hybrid of contradictions, longing sentimentally for good ol' American service and the qualities of la belle France. David Applefield (david@paris-anglo.com) is the editor of the Paris web site, www.paris-anglo.com and author of the guide book, "Paris Inside Out." Author of the novel "Once Removed," he also edits the literary journal Frank. |
