La Fête du Travail

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Yesterday was the Fête du Travail, the "work festival". Or "work party". Or any number of translations that I thought were funny -- here was a truly French holiday: one in which we celebrate not working.

Then I realized we do this, too, on Labor Day. And then it made a lot more sense but was a lot less funny. Alas.

Anyway, I had a surprisingly good day. I was doubtful. I kind of wanted to go to the grocery store (closed). The trams and buses weren't running. Even the bar downstairs was closed. Things were not looking up, in the way of entertainment.

But mid-afternoon, Franck played a show with his blues rock band, FireFrank and the Fire Starters, at the Bourse du Travail. I hadn't seen them play before, though I'd seen Franck do a variety of acoustic covers and originals. It was definitely a good show.

The weather was overcast, windy and in the mid-50s, Fahrenheit. I wished for a hair tie. My toes were cold in my sandals. This didn't really bother me, but I could just hear my mother telling me to dress appropriately. In any case, there were one euro beers and the labor union putting on the show had a drawing to give away a ham. Because that was an appropriately French prize.

After Franck's show there were two comedians who did a series of monologue/dialogue sketches with musical accompaniment. It was amusing but I'm not sure I thought it was as funny as most of the audience did. I'm wondering if there was the nuance of language at work or if French humor is really all that different. Until now I hadn't really encountered it, since there isn't really all that much in the way of French-made media, and even if there were I have no radio or television. This is not an excuse in the age of internet.

At the end of the show there were amusing scenes of drunk, dancing folk, like this one -- Franck is way into playing his guitar behind his head, while said dancers behave strangely. There was a lot of prancing, falling down, and badly handled twirls. Still, they looked like they were having a blast. Way to celebrate not working, Bordeaux. A successful fête.

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