Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Air Conditioning
August 7th, 2018
The weather in Paris has not cooled appreciably---98 degrees is predicted for today---but I promised my manifesto against air conditioning and I will deliver. (I have said on occasion that I want my tombstone to read something like "Brave Fighter in the Campaign Against Over-Air-Conditioned Spaces." It will, however, be difficult to justify such an epitaph unless I actually launch this campaign. So let this be the first call to arms.)
Air conditioning can be lovely. It can help people sleep at night. It can provide a welcome respite from stifling heat. It can even save lives. I am not anti-AC. But enough is enough. Every summer in the US, I am so sad to be unable to wear summer clothes to the office because I will spend the day shivering. I am sad when the streets empty out and the life of the city is stifled by doors and windows hermetically sealed from the summer heat, everyone safely closed inside the artificially-cooled environment. I am sad to have to always carry a sweater because I don't know how cold a restaurant or shop will be. And I am sad for the shocking use of energy to cool spaces well below a level that many people find even tolerable in the middle of the summer.
Living in Paris this summer has reacquainted me with my pre-AC existence of my childhood. Buildings in Paris are often difficult or impossible to retrofit with AC. Furthermore, Parisians have the deeply-ingrained tradition of moving to the sea or the mountains in August. Therefore, AC is practically absent. A few restaurants, some shops, some movie theaters, and some museums have AC, but neither our apartment nor our offices do. Yes, I have been hot. Yes, I have sweated. Yes, I have complained about the heat and humidity on a number of occasions. (My complaints have been more of a shared social experience rather than actual, serious grievances, though.) I have even wished for just a tiny bit of air conditioning so that I can sleep more soundly at night.
Human beings are clever at making adjustments, though. Adaptations like wiping myself off with cool water several times a day and even running a cool bath to just sit in mean that I do not find the heat particularly unpleasant. I carry a small accordion fan in my purse and use it regularly. I wear thin, drapey linen clothes that catch the breeze. On balance, I am happier with no air conditioning than with unpleasantly cold buildings in the middle of the summer (although, obviously, this all-or-nothing choice is not one we have to make in the US). I have been so happy this year in Paris to be able to actually wear these summer clothes and not have to carry thick sweaters everywhere. I have been so happy to have my windows open and walk by many others with their windows open and shops and restaurants with doors open, spilling out onto the street and adding life to the city. I have been happy to do my part to not add needlessly to excessive energy usage and climate change.
As I said, though, excessive AC versus no AC is not a choice that we typically have to face in the US. We are well-equipped to make the choice to turn on the AC on occasion when it gets really hot, but not to overuse it. We can choose to wear weather-appropriate clothes so that "I have to wear a suit to work" does not become an excuse for making many people around you uncomfortable. We can choose to, sometimes, feel a little hot, or even sweat. It's not the worst thing in the world. We can choose to try a fan or a cool shower before turning on the AC. We can choose to equip our houses with passive cooling technologies and plant shade trees around them.
Years ago, Americans were admonished to turn their thermostats down to 68 degrees in the winter to save energy. This was pitched as a civic duty, and most tried to do their part. At the time, there was little reason to admonish them to turn their thermostats up in the summer because air conditioning was relatively rare. Let me be the first: Americans, turn your thermostats up at 78 degrees in the summer, or, even, consider turning off your air conditioning! (And here I speak mostly to controllers of thermostats in office buildings, malls, movie theaters, restaurants, but you can listen, too, even if you only control your home thermostat.) Do it for energy savings! Do it for the health of the planet! Do it to bring back the linen dress and the seersucker suit! Do it for the comfort of your fellow Americans who are actually wearing linen dresses and seersucker suits despite the air conditioning! But just do it!!
The weather in Paris has not cooled appreciably---98 degrees is predicted for today---but I promised my manifesto against air conditioning and I will deliver. (I have said on occasion that I want my tombstone to read something like "Brave Fighter in the Campaign Against Over-Air-Conditioned Spaces." It will, however, be difficult to justify such an epitaph unless I actually launch this campaign. So let this be the first call to arms.)
Air conditioning can be lovely. It can help people sleep at night. It can provide a welcome respite from stifling heat. It can even save lives. I am not anti-AC. But enough is enough. Every summer in the US, I am so sad to be unable to wear summer clothes to the office because I will spend the day shivering. I am sad when the streets empty out and the life of the city is stifled by doors and windows hermetically sealed from the summer heat, everyone safely closed inside the artificially-cooled environment. I am sad to have to always carry a sweater because I don't know how cold a restaurant or shop will be. And I am sad for the shocking use of energy to cool spaces well below a level that many people find even tolerable in the middle of the summer.
Living in Paris this summer has reacquainted me with my pre-AC existence of my childhood. Buildings in Paris are often difficult or impossible to retrofit with AC. Furthermore, Parisians have the deeply-ingrained tradition of moving to the sea or the mountains in August. Therefore, AC is practically absent. A few restaurants, some shops, some movie theaters, and some museums have AC, but neither our apartment nor our offices do. Yes, I have been hot. Yes, I have sweated. Yes, I have complained about the heat and humidity on a number of occasions. (My complaints have been more of a shared social experience rather than actual, serious grievances, though.) I have even wished for just a tiny bit of air conditioning so that I can sleep more soundly at night.
Human beings are clever at making adjustments, though. Adaptations like wiping myself off with cool water several times a day and even running a cool bath to just sit in mean that I do not find the heat particularly unpleasant. I carry a small accordion fan in my purse and use it regularly. I wear thin, drapey linen clothes that catch the breeze. On balance, I am happier with no air conditioning than with unpleasantly cold buildings in the middle of the summer (although, obviously, this all-or-nothing choice is not one we have to make in the US). I have been so happy this year in Paris to be able to actually wear these summer clothes and not have to carry thick sweaters everywhere. I have been so happy to have my windows open and walk by many others with their windows open and shops and restaurants with doors open, spilling out onto the street and adding life to the city. I have been happy to do my part to not add needlessly to excessive energy usage and climate change.
As I said, though, excessive AC versus no AC is not a choice that we typically have to face in the US. We are well-equipped to make the choice to turn on the AC on occasion when it gets really hot, but not to overuse it. We can choose to wear weather-appropriate clothes so that "I have to wear a suit to work" does not become an excuse for making many people around you uncomfortable. We can choose to, sometimes, feel a little hot, or even sweat. It's not the worst thing in the world. We can choose to try a fan or a cool shower before turning on the AC. We can choose to equip our houses with passive cooling technologies and plant shade trees around them.
Years ago, Americans were admonished to turn their thermostats down to 68 degrees in the winter to save energy. This was pitched as a civic duty, and most tried to do their part. At the time, there was little reason to admonish them to turn their thermostats up in the summer because air conditioning was relatively rare. Let me be the first: Americans, turn your thermostats up at 78 degrees in the summer, or, even, consider turning off your air conditioning! (And here I speak mostly to controllers of thermostats in office buildings, malls, movie theaters, restaurants, but you can listen, too, even if you only control your home thermostat.) Do it for energy savings! Do it for the health of the planet! Do it to bring back the linen dress and the seersucker suit! Do it for the comfort of your fellow Americans who are actually wearing linen dresses and seersucker suits despite the air conditioning! But just do it!!
Monday, August 6, 2018
Last Weekend
August 6th, 2018
Our last weekend was spent doing a mix of moving-related activities with a few fun things thrown in. On Saturday, we visited the recently renovated and reopened Musée de Cluny near our apartment. We had been before---this is a museum which is housed in a combination of the frigidarium of a two-millennium-old large Roman bathhouse and a 14th Century abbey. This time we took a guided tour of the lower level of the Roman Gallo baths---an area not typically open to the public---and learned a bit about the history of Paris as well as the history of the site and the museum itself. Here is an interesting confluence of two architectures from more than a millennium apart: Roman walls in brick and stone with a classic arch overlaid with the Gothic ogival, or pointed arch, added at the time of the Cluny Monks.
And here is a photo of the underground passages below the Frigidarium.
As you may know, the name Paris comes from the Gallic tribe, the Parisii, who lived in the area when the Romans arrived 2000 years ago. The Romans dubbed the city Lutetia, although used forms of the tribal name as adjectives. The city was renamed Paris in 360 AD. Here is the first known written reference to Paris, carved into a stone during the Roman period and unearthed near the site of Notre Dame in 1711.
We also saw the famous unicorn tapestries. (I guess both New York and Scotland also claim very famous unicorn tapestries. Not sure which are the most famous.) I'm not what you'd call a huge unicorn aficionado, but I liked the tapestries pretty well. Here are a few details. (It may not come as a surprise to you that I love the depiction of the tapestry garments in tapestry in the third photo.)
We saw the Mama Mia sequel in our neighborhood movie theater on Saturday night and had one last dinner at Semilla on Sunday night as welcome breaks from the packing, organizing, donating, shipping, and cleaning.
Our last weekend was spent doing a mix of moving-related activities with a few fun things thrown in. On Saturday, we visited the recently renovated and reopened Musée de Cluny near our apartment. We had been before---this is a museum which is housed in a combination of the frigidarium of a two-millennium-old large Roman bathhouse and a 14th Century abbey. This time we took a guided tour of the lower level of the Roman Gallo baths---an area not typically open to the public---and learned a bit about the history of Paris as well as the history of the site and the museum itself. Here is an interesting confluence of two architectures from more than a millennium apart: Roman walls in brick and stone with a classic arch overlaid with the Gothic ogival, or pointed arch, added at the time of the Cluny Monks.
As you may know, the name Paris comes from the Gallic tribe, the Parisii, who lived in the area when the Romans arrived 2000 years ago. The Romans dubbed the city Lutetia, although used forms of the tribal name as adjectives. The city was renamed Paris in 360 AD. Here is the first known written reference to Paris, carved into a stone during the Roman period and unearthed near the site of Notre Dame in 1711.
We saw the Mama Mia sequel in our neighborhood movie theater on Saturday night and had one last dinner at Semilla on Sunday night as welcome breaks from the packing, organizing, donating, shipping, and cleaning.
Friday, August 3, 2018
Esther and Abhijit
August 3rd, 2018
No blog of our year in France could ever be complete without an entire entry devoted to Esther and Abhijit. I dare say that our year would not have happened without them, and even if we could have managed, it would have been more difficult, less productive, less delicious, less interesting, and much less fun.
I am tempted to just start enumerating the many ways they have enabled and eased and enriched our year, to protect against leaving anything out. I feel, though, that I must do better and try to insert a little narrative substance.
So I start many decades ago, before I knew either of them. Esther, a Parisian child of 14 or so accompanied her mathematician father on a visit to MIT. Something about the culture and the atmosphere of MIT appealed to her and she vowed to return. Some years later, Glenn and I came back to MIT to teach, at about the same time that Abhijit arrived. And then soon after, Esther's vowed return occurred when she started as a PhD student in the department. This is where I met Esther. We played squash and went to lunch and talked about career plans. Esther loved MIT, but her return to France was always "two, maybe three, years away." She was happy for her time at MIT and what she was able to accomplish professionally there that she could not have in France. Still, though, she was a Parisienne, and anticipated the lifestyle and the food and the family connections that her return to Paris would bring. She would just stay at MIT a little bit longer to reap a few more benefits before her repatriation. Long story short, the "two, maybe three, years" turned into a faculty position at MIT, and then tenure at MIT, and then establishment (with Abhijit and Ben Olken) of the Poverty Action Lab there, and then marriage to Abhijit, and .... Twenty plus years later, to our great joy, she remains at MIT and is in it for the long haul, at this point.
But of course one of the incomparable benefits of this career we have chosen in academic economics is the opportunity we have to travel, the flexibility we have to work almost anywhere, and the great gift of sabbatical every seven years. So, even though she has remained at MIT, Esther has always kept one foot firmly planted in France, now owning part of an apartment in Paris and house in Provence, setting up an outpost of the Poverty Action Lab here in Paris, teaching her children French, and traveling back regularly to give talks, attend conferences, and serve on boards and committees.
You might notice that almost the entire post has been about Esther. I do not want to shortchange Abhijit---I will get back to him in a moment---but I do this for two reasons. First, I want to offer context for how we found ourselves in Paris this year and how Esther has been so helpful, but I also want to continue on an informal theme that my blog has taken on over the year, "amazing women I know." And Esther is truly amazing. She accomplishes more than almost any two or three people combined that I could name, and she does it with an abundance of grace and humility and ease. I do not have a model for how she can produce so much high-quality research, be a brilliant teacher, advisor, and mentor to many, co-run an international network of research labs with combined staff in the hundreds, be editor-in-chief of the world's most prestigious economics journal, co-run a household with two small children, and still be a good and generous friend to so many. I could not be luckier to count her among mine.
Esther's first contribution to this year was her suggestion that we try to arrange a visit at PSE. We had started to think about our sabbatical and were weighing a number of options: London, Oxford, Toulouse, Rome, Barcelona, etc. When I found out that she and Abhijit would be visiting PSE, I immediately emailed my friend Katia to start the ball rolling. (Esther, simultaneously, put in a good word for us.) She also wrote a letter of recommendation for us (yes, for Glenn and me!) when Kate applied to her school EJM. (Probably Kate could have gotten accepted on her own merits, but I'm sure that Esther wrote us a very nice letter.) Esther suggested neighborhoods where we might like to live (Abhijit vetoed the 15th), and Esther pointed us to a particular website, book-a-flat.com, where we found our spectacular apartment. Esther, as I suggested, is a remarkably busy person, but she still found time to help with emergency French translations of contracts and leases and applications in the months leading up to our departure. Once we all arrived, she walked us through the procedure of booking tennis courts, conferred with us on our visa applications, introduced us to friends, advocated for us in various PSE matters, invited us to the circus, bought Kate clever and accessible French books, .... I could go on and on.
But I promised a discussion of Abhijit, too! Like Esther, he also is a brilliant and productive economist and a first-rate intellect. Outside of economics, he has a formidable set of skills and interests that serve, from our perspective at least, as a very useful complement to Esther's. Where Esther's knowledge of French bureaucracy can help us negotiate our cartes de sejour, Abhijit's knowledge of local bakeries can steer us towards an unforgettable gateau au chocolat. Where Esther figures out the intricacies of the Paris Tennis website, Abhijit makes sure that we book a court at least once a week for a game of doubles. Esther's sober appraisal of the subtle differences in French and US technical education is punctuated by Abhijit's claim that he has just found the World's Worst Shower in the basement of PSE or that the food at a particular restaurant is Utterly Inedible or that continuous-time models are the Single Worst Thing that has ever happened to economic theory, or some other bit of similarly entertaining hyperbole.
And finally, Esther's skills in organizing dinner parties dovetail nicely with Abhijit's wonderful taste in food and drink and his amazing skill in the kitchen. We have eaten many dinners at their apartment this year, and each has been spectacular. I especially love Abhijit's spiced nectarines, his citrus fennel salad, and his Indian street food potatoes. (I also recall a wonderful marinated cheese and a roast leg of lamb that Esther made.)
So, as you can see, it has been very important to have both of them here.
I really cannot begin to describe all of the wonderful moments we have shared and how grateful we are for their friendship. Of everything we have done together this year, though, I decided that our regular doubles matches were most emblematic of the year. Here we are before our final match. (Abhijit and I took on Glenn and Esther, as you can certainly ascertain from the coordinated shirts. I think we won, but who's keeping score?)
No blog of our year in France could ever be complete without an entire entry devoted to Esther and Abhijit. I dare say that our year would not have happened without them, and even if we could have managed, it would have been more difficult, less productive, less delicious, less interesting, and much less fun.
I am tempted to just start enumerating the many ways they have enabled and eased and enriched our year, to protect against leaving anything out. I feel, though, that I must do better and try to insert a little narrative substance.
So I start many decades ago, before I knew either of them. Esther, a Parisian child of 14 or so accompanied her mathematician father on a visit to MIT. Something about the culture and the atmosphere of MIT appealed to her and she vowed to return. Some years later, Glenn and I came back to MIT to teach, at about the same time that Abhijit arrived. And then soon after, Esther's vowed return occurred when she started as a PhD student in the department. This is where I met Esther. We played squash and went to lunch and talked about career plans. Esther loved MIT, but her return to France was always "two, maybe three, years away." She was happy for her time at MIT and what she was able to accomplish professionally there that she could not have in France. Still, though, she was a Parisienne, and anticipated the lifestyle and the food and the family connections that her return to Paris would bring. She would just stay at MIT a little bit longer to reap a few more benefits before her repatriation. Long story short, the "two, maybe three, years" turned into a faculty position at MIT, and then tenure at MIT, and then establishment (with Abhijit and Ben Olken) of the Poverty Action Lab there, and then marriage to Abhijit, and .... Twenty plus years later, to our great joy, she remains at MIT and is in it for the long haul, at this point.
But of course one of the incomparable benefits of this career we have chosen in academic economics is the opportunity we have to travel, the flexibility we have to work almost anywhere, and the great gift of sabbatical every seven years. So, even though she has remained at MIT, Esther has always kept one foot firmly planted in France, now owning part of an apartment in Paris and house in Provence, setting up an outpost of the Poverty Action Lab here in Paris, teaching her children French, and traveling back regularly to give talks, attend conferences, and serve on boards and committees.
You might notice that almost the entire post has been about Esther. I do not want to shortchange Abhijit---I will get back to him in a moment---but I do this for two reasons. First, I want to offer context for how we found ourselves in Paris this year and how Esther has been so helpful, but I also want to continue on an informal theme that my blog has taken on over the year, "amazing women I know." And Esther is truly amazing. She accomplishes more than almost any two or three people combined that I could name, and she does it with an abundance of grace and humility and ease. I do not have a model for how she can produce so much high-quality research, be a brilliant teacher, advisor, and mentor to many, co-run an international network of research labs with combined staff in the hundreds, be editor-in-chief of the world's most prestigious economics journal, co-run a household with two small children, and still be a good and generous friend to so many. I could not be luckier to count her among mine.
Esther's first contribution to this year was her suggestion that we try to arrange a visit at PSE. We had started to think about our sabbatical and were weighing a number of options: London, Oxford, Toulouse, Rome, Barcelona, etc. When I found out that she and Abhijit would be visiting PSE, I immediately emailed my friend Katia to start the ball rolling. (Esther, simultaneously, put in a good word for us.) She also wrote a letter of recommendation for us (yes, for Glenn and me!) when Kate applied to her school EJM. (Probably Kate could have gotten accepted on her own merits, but I'm sure that Esther wrote us a very nice letter.) Esther suggested neighborhoods where we might like to live (Abhijit vetoed the 15th), and Esther pointed us to a particular website, book-a-flat.com, where we found our spectacular apartment. Esther, as I suggested, is a remarkably busy person, but she still found time to help with emergency French translations of contracts and leases and applications in the months leading up to our departure. Once we all arrived, she walked us through the procedure of booking tennis courts, conferred with us on our visa applications, introduced us to friends, advocated for us in various PSE matters, invited us to the circus, bought Kate clever and accessible French books, .... I could go on and on.
But I promised a discussion of Abhijit, too! Like Esther, he also is a brilliant and productive economist and a first-rate intellect. Outside of economics, he has a formidable set of skills and interests that serve, from our perspective at least, as a very useful complement to Esther's. Where Esther's knowledge of French bureaucracy can help us negotiate our cartes de sejour, Abhijit's knowledge of local bakeries can steer us towards an unforgettable gateau au chocolat. Where Esther figures out the intricacies of the Paris Tennis website, Abhijit makes sure that we book a court at least once a week for a game of doubles. Esther's sober appraisal of the subtle differences in French and US technical education is punctuated by Abhijit's claim that he has just found the World's Worst Shower in the basement of PSE or that the food at a particular restaurant is Utterly Inedible or that continuous-time models are the Single Worst Thing that has ever happened to economic theory, or some other bit of similarly entertaining hyperbole.
And finally, Esther's skills in organizing dinner parties dovetail nicely with Abhijit's wonderful taste in food and drink and his amazing skill in the kitchen. We have eaten many dinners at their apartment this year, and each has been spectacular. I especially love Abhijit's spiced nectarines, his citrus fennel salad, and his Indian street food potatoes. (I also recall a wonderful marinated cheese and a roast leg of lamb that Esther made.)
So, as you can see, it has been very important to have both of them here.
I really cannot begin to describe all of the wonderful moments we have shared and how grateful we are for their friendship. Of everything we have done together this year, though, I decided that our regular doubles matches were most emblematic of the year. Here we are before our final match. (Abhijit and I took on Glenn and Esther, as you can certainly ascertain from the coordinated shirts. I think we won, but who's keeping score?)
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