The French verb décaler means to move around in time and space. If you're posing for a photo and are out of frame, you décale yourself into the frame. If you need to move an appointment time because something came up, you décale the appointment til tomorrow. And when you travel across time zones, then you have to manage the décalage horaire: your own movement across time and space. Those of you following along on Instagram will know that I have spent the last week researching our story in Paris. It was a good week. And I have moved across nine time zones and over 5,000 miles. That's a lot of time and space.
There's no new installment for you today. This week brings the end of our semester. Papers and projects are coming in; a student is writing her qualifying exams; all the meetings I would have had last week I have décaled, to coin a term that will make Anglophones and Francophones shudder, to this week. There's a lot of time and space to manage. My hope is to have an installment for you next week.
In the meantime, here's a riddle: what do this painting by Meijer de Haan

and this design by Paul Poiret

have in common?
Answer to follow. Not immediately, but soon.
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