One other funny thing about Bulgaria was that Bulgarian tastes in pop music tend toward raspy voices. Almost every singer on the radio sounded like a chain smoker, whether they were singing in Bulgarian or in English. I joked to Stefka, "I bet Bonnie Tyler would be really popular here." And Stefka responded in earnest, "Oh, yes. But she was popular in the 80s." Once I was paying attention I started hearing Bonnie Tyler ballads everywhere, more along the lines of "It's a Heartache" and "Straight from the Heart" than "Total Eclipse of the Heart" or "Holding out for a Hero."

They also played this one Celine Dion song in French in heavy rotation--"Pour que tu m'aimes encore." I know it well, because I own the CD, and because it's an especially useful song for teaching the subjunctive while reviewing the future tense, because half of the song is constructed as [future+"pour que"+subjunctive]. ("Je m'inventerai reine pour que tu me retiennes./ Je me ferai nouvelle pour que le feu reprenne...) My background in foreign language pedagogy tends to ruin French pop culture for me, because I'm always noticing how teachable it is. Oh, well.

The "Grand Tournoi de l'Histoire" was entertaining. They had four categories of entrants: high school students, students at the Grandes Ecoles (sort of the French Ivy League), telespectateurs (i.e., viewers), and Celebrities, which was a very inclusive category that happened to include a playwright and filmmaker named Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Schmitt wrote a play about Diderot called "Le Libertin," which was later turned into a film. The film is hilarious and delightful, but not easy to find. My advisor had us watch it in his class after we read Les Bijoux indiscrets, Diderot's novel about a magic ring that makes vaginas talk. He also thought it would be a good idea for us to read Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's master's thesis on Diderot. I can't say I remember much of it. But I did like the movie a lot.

Anyway, there were video segments where the spokesmodel hostess gave voice-over while curators of various French cultural institutions discussed the historical relevance of, say, Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, which led to a series of questions about Marie-Antoinette. It was all very edutaining, as are most shows on France 3.