After we ate another really good breakfast in the hotel's breakfast room, I brought a little slip of paper on which I had written "Gare Bar-sur-Aube" to the woman at Reception and asked her to call a taxi for me, si'l vous plait. The same journey in reverse cost about half as much as it had on our way in – which did not surprise me in the least. When we got there quite a few people were milling around waiting for the train and it was a sunny morning. "Looks friendlier now, doesn't it?" Joseph said.
From here we got a train to Gare de l'Est in Paris, and had to do the usual dragging of luggage on and off the Metro, up and down stairs, and through long corridors to get to the correct station, Paris Montparnasse. From there we boarded a high speed train to Rennes. I've done a fair bit of train travel in the US, and French trains are like nothing like it. They get going so fast that when you go through a tunnel it makes your ears pop uncomfortably. There is a screen that gives you the current speed, and it got close to 200 mph at times, plenty faster than the fastest roller coaster I have ever been on.
In Rennes we arrived in the early evening, in good time to check into our hotel, Le Sévigné. This is the same hotel we stayed at in 2015. I remembered it being satisfactory and it's very close to the train station and subway, so I figured the easiest thing to do was book it again. We ended up in a room on the same hall as our room last time, though not the exact same room. Despite the ten intervening years, it felt familiar as soon as I walked in. We spent some time resting and then went out to get something to eat. I wasn't up for a restaurant visit or anything complicated so I suggested finding a grocery store and seeing about grabbing something interesting and offbeat. We found one and it had some vegetarian sandwiches (they were fake BLTs for some reason referred to as "le British") which we got along with some French corn-based snack called Monster Munch.
The next two days were the conference at the University of Rennes 2. As we walked toward the conference another attendee tried to ask us for directions thinking we might be students, but as it happened I did kind of remember how to get to the correct building – after a bit of a false start it came back to me. Peter Singer gave the opening keynote address, of course. The theme was the gap between the optimistic expectations of the animal rights movement of the 1970s and 80s and the relatively slow progress that has been made. Though he tried to highlight some improvements, the overall mood of it was less than celebratory. Immediately afterward it was time for me to give my own talk, as I had been scheduled for the first presentation of the first session. Everything was nearly the opposite of the 2015 conference. That time I gave a talk specifically about utilitarian and Kantian ethics and suggesting some accords the two camps could come to, which made it very "on theme" for a conference celebrating Animal Liberation. This time I had, almost on a whim, submitted an abstract outside my usual wheelhouse but inspired by my recent years teaching CMU's new(ish) "Meaning of Life" class. I had then spent most of May furiously writing my talk into the early hours of the morning each day, coming up with something that explored how a particular 1920s essay on the meaning of life by Moritz Schlick, in which he identifies "play" as the meaning of life, could be applied to recent advancements in scientific knowledge of animal play behavior. In other words, this was a riskier choice for the conference as it related less directly and clearly to Singer's work. Last time, my talk was scheduled for the last session of the conference, and was located in the main auditorium. Singer attended, and to my terror he asked a question. This time, my talk was scheduled for the small classroom (about the size of my room at CMU actually) and Singer did not attend. (The session going on in the main auditorium was more directly pertinent to his interests, I believe.)
One thing that hadn't changed as much was my outfit. I wore the same yellow button-down shirt and the same black scarf with daisies that I wore in 2015. I wore a different blazer, though it's a blazer I've had that long and longer. I did finally, after all this time, get it tailored so the sleeves are the right length, so I felt pretty good in it except for the fact that there was no iron in my hotel room and I couldn't get some of the creases out. At least they were on my back.
I got a lot of questions at the end of my talk, but they were generally not critical questions, so I felt like the audience went pretty easy on me. Some of them I just didn't know how to answer because I had prepared my talk at lightning speed and hadn't worked out all the implications. I did a lot of saying things like this: "That's a really important question. I'm in the early stages of this project and that is definitely one of the areas of my project that will need to be worked out in detail."
They feed you a lot at these conferences, and the best part of this one is that all the food is vegan so I can eat anything that looks good without having to ask what's in it. The lunch was a bit less organized this time, with people unsure at first where to sit and then just kind of spreading out in various places around the building's common areas. There wasn't a big room with tables that everyone ate together in this time, so alas, no opportunity to get seated next to Singer again, as had happened (repeatedly) in 2015. I'd had visions of attempting to make up for not having an answer to a question about Kant he had asked me in 2015, but the couple of times I spoke to him it became sadly clear he did not remember that conversation at all. He was polite but I ended up feeling a bit awkward for essentially trying to say "Anyway, about that question you asked me ten years ago..." and then blundering ahead as though we had only been interrupted five minutes ago. When he didn't really bite, I let him wander off to talk with people he knew better. I will have to live without a second chance at answering something about the Metaphysics of Morals.
I won't go into a lot of detail about the talks I attended both days, except to say they were interesting and I gradually realized I might be one of the only non-utilitarians at the conference. It seemed a bit more balanced between different flavors of animal ethicist in 2015, but this time I came to realize I was absolutely surrounded by effective altruists. Despite not belonging to this persuasion, I find their arguments and puzzles rather enthralling to listen to. I'm afraid I might not be able to say the same of Joseph, whom I kept fruitlessly kicking under the table as he nodded off.
After the first day of the conference, we went off on a mission. Joseph had discovered from the Pinball Map that there was somewhere in walking distance to our hotel that had pinball machines, most importantly Class of 1812, which is one of my favorites that I rarely get to play. I looked the place up – it is called le Grand Huit – and noticed that its Web site had pictures of carousels and fairground art, and it promised rides and performances as well as food and drinks. It claimed to be open until 1 am, useful because the conference finished rather late in the day.
It turned out to be a fascinating place. It's a little hard to describe. I called it "a hipster bar." Joseph characterized it as "if Marvin's were a barcade." It's on a back street, located in what looks like an old warehouse in a fenced-in courtyard, with some rides and things located outside. By the time we got there it was getting dark, and the rides, a couple of kiddie carousels and a swings, were done for the day, so we could only view them quiet and still. The carousel had what looked like a mixture of mostly European figures from different decades. I'm not an expert at those types of figures, but a lot of them appeared mid-20th century to me. Inside the warehouse was a bar, and that's where the pinball machines were located. Instead of the usual row against a wall, they had a circle of them arranged with their backs to each other under a canopy, as though on a carousel. There was a general carousel theme to the entire bar. A carousel's worth of horses were hung from the ceiling, rotating but inaccessible. I would prefer to see a rideable carousel, but if it's not going to be rideable it's nice that it's at least in motion, and it offered an opportunity to take photos from a very unusual angle. Some antique carousel animals were arranged against the walls, along with some very old bumper cars. Some of the seating in the bar was made by converting antique carousel gondolas into booths. There were other oddities around, too, such as a robot bartender that can serve a drink (but which sadly was not yet started up for the season, according to a sign). It was a magical feeling place that I would love, love, love to have as my local.
For some reason a lot of their pins were old Gottliebs, which are less common in our neck of the woods. The cost to play was 5 for 2 Euros (similar to the old 5/$2 Super Value that used to be common in the US but has died out) and sadly 2 Euros was all the coinage we had on us. We dropped it in Class of 1812 and enjoyed ourselves. I had a couple of underperforming games but finally managed to do about 14 million which is respectable enough. I wished we had more change, but to play any more we'd need to break some paper money by getting a drink at the bar and I didn't quite feel up for that, so we went back home. Sadly, we could not go back to le Grand Huit after the second day of the conference because it was closed for a private event that day. If I ever go back to Rennes I shall certainly visit the place if it's still there, and will try to get there during the day when more of the rides and attractions are running.
Overall, the conference was interesting and went well. I saw a lot of interesting talks and enjoyed the atmosphere of being at a very congenial conference. I had a nice lunch the second day with a couple of other participants. One of them was the woman who gave the other paper in my session on the first day and had an interest in medical ethics which is one of the things I teach now, and the other was a young woman who taught in a business department as an ethicist, so we could talk a lot about our experiences teaching business ethics. I didn't get the same lavish amount of face time with Singer that I'd somehow stumbled into back in 2015, but it would have been too much to hope that things would line up quite so lucky this time.
I think I'll call it the Rennes part of my trip report done. Next time we'll resume with the journey to Belgium for the last segment of the trip.
The campus of University of Rennes 2.
The building where the conference took place.
Entrance to le Grand Huit.
Joseph posing in an antique carousel gondola situated outdoors at le Grand Huit. The outdoor area had no one in it but us when we showed up, but we found that a few groups were inside the building.
Kiddie carousel with a diverse mix of figures at le Grand Huit.
The grounds of le Grand Huit, with rides lit up but not operating.
Carousel suspended from the ceiling of le Grand Huit.
Seating at le Grand Huit partially made from old carousels.
Antique European carousel horses in the bar area.
Old bumper cars on display.
A carousel of pinball machines at le Grand Huit! They had some other machines too, disproportionately Gottlieb games.
Joseph shooting for MILLION!! on Class of 1812.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
austin_dern) wrote2025-08-11 12:10 am
