Amuse-Bouche No. 9 Partying With Intellectualsby Julia FreyWhat does do for fun?Every year, Jean-Pierre and Florence (Jumpy and Flo-Flo to intimates) have a fancy for their anniversary. And every year it rains.Jumpy’s whimsical invitation asks guests to bring totally imaginary dishes like . ? A (kaon), as only a serious Scrabble player would know, is a sub-nuclear particle. , apparently, is a (trendy) salad green. I finally figure out he’s corrupted the classic dish (quail) (tarragon).Who are these guys? In the US, as Bill Gates said, “It’s not cool to be smart,” but in France you can be playful, powerful, sexy, even charming, and still be (an intellectual). Their guests include a member of the , three recipients of the (including a ), , and (graduates of the , which trains France’s top diplomats and politicos). (on D-day), (it rains). Their wedding also was held (in hurtling rain). So Jumpy is well prepared: party games! But his pointy-headed gang isn’t into (blind man's buff) or (Simon says). They are fiercely competitive. These people teethe their kids on (The Unflunkables), a game whose sneaky subtext is to prepare for the Bac (national high school graduation exam). Jumpy has invented a high-level version of . He’s been collecting questions for weeks. The categories: pop culture, explorers, French grammar. The difficulty ranges from the insanely obscure to the merely unknowable.▪ “Which group of words is exclusively masculine?”a) b) c) For those without a , the answer is b).▪ “Which great Arctic explorer did Professor Jean Malaurie evoke at the end of his book ?” (Answer: himself.)▪ “Raymond Poulidor never won the Tour de France: true or false?” (True.) Everyone but me knows that one. They also know that Jacques Anquetil won the famous bicycle race five times. There’s even an expression: ” It’s very French to snub the star who wins over and over but admire a man who won’t give up even though he always comes in second. Given the recent “” in the Tour de France, the honest, hard-working Poulidor is a bigger hero than ever. (it’s great party). Everybody’s yelling out answers. ? , verbal one-upmanship is a mode of French interaction. Talk is often laced with allusions to history, philosophy, poetry and other aristocratic pursuits. According to Pascal Baudry, author of French and Americans: The Other Shore, you drop such references into conversation to discover if your is your equal. The is shared culture. Are you in or out? Should you be so foolish as to ask a question to which you don’t know the answer, judgment is swift: You are considered, says Baudry, “” (put politely, “naïve”).Luckily, although making fun of innocents is deeply ingrained in French culture, so is fighting back. Much comedy, from Molière to modern movies, is based on blasting people’s pretensions. In Ridicule (1996), a poor country aristocrat gets revenge after being made a laughingstock at the court of Versailles. For Le Dîner des Cons (The Dinner Game, 1999), a Parisian sophisticate pays dearly for trying to find the biggest idiot to bring to a dinner. You never know who’s going to end up . To be safe, I brought my sub-nuclear particles in a lead terrine.© Julia Frey 2009
