Unfortunate events

You may have noticed that this site has been down for a while. Here's why:

I originally created this blog as a journal of our house-hunt in France, to keep all the various properties straight in my memory, and also to share a bit of my European experience with a few friends and family back home. It was never intended for a general audience. And because I never linked to it from any of my other pages, I thought it was safe from Google's gaze, since Google depends on links for its bots to discover and rank sites on the net.

When, however, Sarah posted on her own blog a single link to mine, that was enough for Google to get ahold of this page. Again I underestimated Google's algorithm, I underestimated my site's Google value, such that this page turned up much higher in the rank list than I ever would have expected.

And so our friends in Lodeve found the page, which was never intended for them, and they didn't like what I had written about them. I received a series of upset and angry comments and mails, accusing me of friendship disloyalty as well as a host of other transgressions, and also threatening me with legal suit should I fail to withdraw the site from public view. Here's an example:

I have given you NO PERMISSION WHATSOEVER to use my name and less my kids in your stupid site. If my mum slaps my kids don't you think that that is up to me and her??what are you trying to do??!! I DO NOT want to se another time my name or my kids mentionned or the deep water will start getting very cold, and maybe my lawyer could have something to say about it.

Of course the legal threats are groundless. I am obviously entitled to tell my story the way I like, and to publish it wherever I please. This was not a malicious and libelous attack, it was simply my own personal journal, and I am free to have opinions, and to give them voice. But the fact that our friends were so upset by what I'd written, that the site had inadvertently gone very public on the web, and that these friends get a fair amount of business via the internet, gave me cause to withdraw my blog from view, out of courtesy to them and for no other reason. I took the site down as a favor, because I thought it was the right thing to do.

Once the site had been withdrawn, Sarah and I wrote letters explaining the situation as best we could, but unfortunately it seems that the offense caused had irreversibly damaged the friendships we had built over three months in Lodeve. Which is a real shame, because both Sarah and I really do like the people there. I suppose if I am guilty of anything, it is writing too much about the negative side of what I experienced while in Lodeve, and not including enough of the good, the regular weekly meals which were such fun, the picnics and the kite festival, the positive episodes of our time there.

But it should also be added that while Sarah and I both took full responsibility for the lapse of allowing the site to go so public, none of the people I wrote about and who took such umbrage at my writings seems willing to take any responsibility for the actions which, on their part, made up the subject of my text. I didn't lie in my journal. Why would I? So rather than merely whip into a froth of indignation at my version of events, rather than getting all worked up and threatening legal action, rather than filling the air with accusation, perhaps they would do themselves a service to actually recognize that what I wrote was largely, if unpleasantly, true. But this is for their own consciences to decide. I did what I could to ameliorate the situation: the blog was no longer public, and my opinions and stories were no longer available online.

And I was prepared to leave it at that, in hopes that the bad blood might clear away, diluted by the steadily flowing stream of time. Until out of the blue I received a letter in my inbox, from a person whose house I once rented, but whom I have never met. The writer of this letter is a client of our friends in Lodeve, and had obviously heard about this entire situation from them. Here is what the letter said:

This website is devoted to the story of Great Pretzel, a man of many twists and turns, and many names, such as Pretzel the Magnificent, Pretentious Pretzel, and His Assholiness. Alexander of Macedon conquered the known world, and was therefore called "Great". Pretzel the Great, however, has obtained Greatness by doing nothing. This is amazing, and gives hope to all ordinary mortals whose ordinary lives could do with some Greatness. His Magnificence will explain how to become Great in his forthcoming, revised and updated website.

Like many great Americans who have read or written a book, he has taken a few simple and obvious truths and worked them into an amazing new system. His philosophy is based on the following ideas: Muhammed Ali said "I am the greatest"; Rene Descartes said " I think because I am"; Pretentious Pretzel says " I am the greatest because I think I am."

As a small child, Pretentious Pretzel (PeePee for short) was loved very much by his mummy, his daddy, his many brothers, and by all the servants and slaves on the family demesme in Clayton, Missouri. Everyone else thought he was a shit, but it cannot be denied that in school he excelled all his peers in wisdom and learning, in knowledge of philosopy, literature, mathematics, science and social issues of the day, and that was just in kindergarten.

One day, when he was grown, at least physicially, his mummy said to him: "Your Amazingness, it is time for you to leave home and travel far and wide until you find another mummy who can be your mate and truly appreciate your Magnificence and take over paying for all your expensive hobbies and pastimes." So PeePee travelled far and wide, over land and sea, until he met a woman old enough to be his mother, and who appreciated His Uniqueness, and married her. He and Mother McKenzie were very happy, but lacked one thing, a child, so they had a child, and now they were a Holy Trinity, self-sufficient in themselves. They had to name the child and discussed this long and hard. At last Mother McKenzie said" Your Excellency, you are like the sun, the moon, the stars, the constellations of the firmanent, the vastness of unlimited space. It is right that we give the child a name that will fit his role of eternally gazing on such Radiance. We will name him after a great astronomer." And so they named the child Kepler, and he was perfect.

Mother McKenzie was very proud of both her children, and took many photos of them daily, and put them on the web for all the faithful to adore. Great Pretzel's bald head can be viewed from any direction, and the pictures of the child with snot all over his face, or toileting are particularly charming.

Regretfully I have never met the Great Man, never shook his hand, never breated the same air, listened in awe to his Teaching. Would that I could stand in the shadow he casts. But I do not despair, I have what few can claim: Great Pretzel spent over a month in my house. I shall have a plaque "Great Pretzel slept here" fixed to the door, perhaps with a bronze statue erected in the village square. Once this becomes generally known, my house will become a place of pilgrimage, outshining St Jacques de Compostela, as pilgrims come to visit and pray, to walk where He walked, to see what He saw, to drink from the same cups, eat from the same plates, sleep in the same bed. The atelier will be converted into a shrine, where the faithful will pray and light candles.

Amusing? Certainly. Psychotic? Probably. The amount of time and research that went into this letter, plus the obvious care in wording, indicate someone with both an overactive sense of indignation as well as far too much time on his hands. Never mind all the factual errors, the misdrawn conclusions, the misusages and the misspellings; this is a real piece of work. But it's also malicious. To write this based solely upon one side of a story, without even reading what I had written, and to include Kepler, who is most innocent of all, I find to be in very poor taste, vindictive for the sake of pure misplaced anger, and completely inappropriate. After all, by the time the author of this mail had heard the story, my blog had already been yanked, the offending material removed from the public sphere. Mistake corrected. Why, then, attack a three year old? Bizarre. Especially considering that, by all accounts we've heard, the author's own family is far less functional than even his description of mine.

And so, in light of that fact that I am, after all, entitled to my thoughts, story and opinions; in light of the fact that I tried to do the correct thing and withdraw perfectly truthful but offending material as soon as I was made aware that it had become public; in light of the fact that after my withdrawal of well-formed opinions from the public view, worse-formed opinions of myself obviously began to circulate in their stead; and in light of the fact that the story of our moving to France does indeed continue: I am hereby reinstating the blog.

The irony is that despite this circumstance, I do still like and miss our friends in Lodeve. I have no wish to scupper any of their business or society. And so I have done my best to ensure that the page no longer Googles. Also, I will carefully review every entry I choose to republish. When I feel that an entry is unnecessary or a phrase unnecessarily harsh, I shall leave it out or amend it; and in those that still involve our erstwhile friends, the names will be changed. But the story remains true, and I have a right to communicate it. I'm sorry for any hurt feelings. That was the last thing I would have wanted. But at this point, receiving such spiteful and weird mail as I have, I feel justified in republishing my side of things by way of defense, so that anyone who might learn of it through other means can at least see for themselves and make up their own minds.

And so the story of our adventures continues. Stay tuned.