Extraction: Tooth, Truth, and Technology
Jim's Musings from Paris June 2025
I have to get a wisdom tooth extracted. I suppose I should feel lucky that I’ve been able to keep all of mine this long, but nonetheless I’m dreading the procedure. The pain started about two weeks ago. I tried to get an appointment with our regular dentist, but she was booked solid and her receptionist, with a sympathetic smile, handed me the phone numbers and addresses for a couple of dental urgent care places. Given my track record with emergency rooms in France, I declined to go that route. A dental clinic (a storefront dentist office or, as Jairo calls them, a street dentist) had opened about a year ago near our apartment. As I stepped through the door, the office looked modern and clean, with bright, efficient staff, and, best of all, they were able to see me that afternoon.
The dentist was young. Very young. Twenty-six years old, but he looked about sixteen. The assistants took some panoramic x-rays and the intrepid novice began to tap gingerly on select teeth with a small hammer-shaped object until he hit one that made me scream with pain. He then told me that since the culprit was a wisdom tooth, I needed to see an oral surgeon to do a root canal. At least, he knew when he was out of his league, I thought. They gave me a prescription for more painkillers (I had already been self-medicating) and made an appointment with the oral surgeon. The medication was keeping the pain at bay for the time being, so I was not in any great hurry to get back in the dental chair.
Five days later, the oral surgeon ushered me into her office and began to prepare for the root canal. A few red flags were being raised at this point. Something seemed off in her way of injecting the novocaine (or whatever local anesthetic they were using). She gave me two shots and I didn’t really feel any sensation of numbness like I normally would. After putting the rubber dam on, she approached the tooth with her tools in hand and I immediately knew something was wrong. The pain was excruciating. (By the way, did you know that novocaine was derived from cocaine?) She stopped her assault on the tooth, gave me two more injections, and waited. I still didn’t feel the usual insensibility and when she tried again to touch the tooth, I halted the procedure, shaking like a leaf—the first time in my life I recall actually experiencing that metaphor. The anesthetic had not worked at all. The tooth had full sensation.
I went back to my primary dentist’s office and threw myself at their mercy. The receptionist was able to get the doctor to come to the front and she told me that even if she saw me the only thing she would tell me is that I needed to see a stomatologist. In France, wisdom teeth fall under the purvue of the stomatologist, not the dentist. She gave me the contact information for the stomatologist she recommends and, with another sympathetic smile, sent me away.
It had now been one week of pain. The recommended stomatologist could not see me for two more weeks. I didn’t want to stay on pain pills that much longer. The wisdom tooth had cracked and part of it had broken off, taking with it the crown of the neighboring tooth. The situation didn’t look good. The storefront surgeon had even suggested it was highly unlikely that the wisdom tooth could be saved and that perhaps the tooth next to it would also need to be extracted. With her inability to numb the tooth and her pessimistic outlook, I now understood why one should avoid the street dentists in Paris.
I went to the internet and began a search for stomatologists. What a nightmare! The horror stories I discovered! Many comments like: “Run away and keep running,” “A sadist,” “Incompetent,” filled the various files. I finally found one with a 4.9 rating out of 5. The reviews were all excellent and the doctor had responded gratefully to many of them, including the one negative review, which she identified as fake. Many of the reviews spoke of the doctor’s use of a kind of hynotherapy involving virtual reality goggles to help put the patient into a tranquil state. Being a strong believer in the benefits of hypnosis, I was immediately attracted to this practitioner. She had an opening in two days and I took it.
Jairo came with me on the warm Saturday morning to a small street in Montmartre. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? A dentist in Montmartre. The office was on the second floor of an older building, up a well-worn, creaky, winding staircase. Once inside, the interior was bright, spacious, and furnished tastefully. After a short wait, the doctor greeted me. She had studied two years at Yale University and spoke English very well. I explained my situation to her and she proceeded to explore the problem. She said there was no possibility to save the wisdom tooth and advised me to have it extracted before the infection spread further. We scheduled the intervention for the following Wednesday—that’s today. Read on.
We’ve had quite a few guests the last month or so. Jairo’s sister, Fanny, from Colombia; Viola, the oldest daughter of NWPL actors Debora Totti and Terence Cranendonk, recently graduated from Ohio State; and Jairo’s nephew, Santiago, currently living and working in Dubai. With Fanny, we went to see Pina Bausch/Tanztheater Wuppertal during their yearly residency in Paris. The piece, Vollmond, is one of the choreographer’s most sensual dance-theatre creations. Water is everywhere—and the dancers splash, cavort, jump, and roll, coming together and repelling each other, in dizzying variations of Bausch’s usual deconstruction of male-female relations. The performance was ecstatically satisfying.
Hosting Viola, before she begins a new phase of her life working in Human Resources for the Campbell’s Corporation in Lakeland, Florida, was great. We’ve known Viola since she was a baby and she holds a very special place in our hearts. We walked through several different Paris neighborhoods, played board games, visited one of the city’s great flea markets, saw a very mediocre site-specific dance event in the interesting, under the radar, Bourdelle Museum, and cooked a “Thanksgiving in May” dinner, where Viola and her boyfriend were able to interact a bit with some younger French and international friends. We were a bit sad when she took off to Portugal and on to Italy where she planned to meet her mother and sister to extend her European summer respite for a few more weeks.
As the Button Molder tells Peer Gynt in Ibsen’s play: “Youth is a kingdom the old man no longer rules.” logoslibrary.org+6 Side note: I wonder if anyone who was in my production of Peer Gynt at The University of Akron (1992) remembers how we translated that line? I can’t get to my copy of the script right now. I think we primarily used Rolf Fjelde’s version, which goes something like: “Youth is a kingdom that is no longer ruled by the old.” But, in my old age, I prefer the first version from the 1930s by Robert Farquharson Sharp. It’s more to the point.
With Jairo’s nephew, Santiago, we discussed AI, the conflicts around the world, and the messy morass that has overwhelmed the USA. Santiago works as a creative director for an international publicity firm. He showed us some of the campaigns his team has recently completed for various organizations, including the International Red Cross. We were impressed with the quality and hard-hitting social impact of his work. It was exciting (and comforting) to know that the vast resources and techniques of modern public relations and marketing can be put to use to do more than sell beer and pharmaceuticals. Santiago is doing his part.
AI is invading our lives more and more. Manu, another of Jairo’s nephews, who works in film and video production, introduced us to his ChatGPT companion, who sounds exactly like a student from The University of Akron. I shuddered. Gone are the robotic voices of Siri and Alexa. AI is making huge strides daily. Jairo’s sister uses Co-Pilot and that application, too, impressed us with its vocal range and ability to dialogue in an almost natural manner. I decided to play around with ChatGPT and downloaded the latest version of the free app. I was able to research quickly those quotes from different translations of Peer Gynt using AI. We tried getting “Kevin” (my name for the very enthusiastic companion I constructed) to help us do our French income taxes. However, I discovered that his math was all wrong. A friend later explained that the theory behind AI does not stress precision, but rather getting things in the right range of possibilities. Well, that may work for some things, but not for math. We had to redo all of our numbers on the tax form! So much for AI making our lives easier. But Kevin did do well looking up quotations and comparing translations. Hmmm. I think I’ll keep him around for a bit. We’ll see where this relationship leads.
As I’m writing this, I’m multi-tasking by rewatching Fellini’s 8 1/2. I’ve always loved Fellini’s films and, more and more, I’m struck by the similarity in aesthetic his films have with Grotowski’s early theatre productions: the heightened, sometimes grotesque, acting, the ecclesiastical references, the use of processions and other ritual aspects, and the touch of something blasphemous, almost vulgar.
The two 20th century masters were definitely contemporaries, but came from completely different cultural backgrounds and, of course, worked in completely different art forms. The similarities between the two may only be superficial, but I think they reveal a similar preoccupation with mythic, yet personal, storytelling, among other things.
Speaking of mythic storytelling, did you catch Audra McDonald’s “Rose’s Turn” at the Tony Awards? She shattered every preconception I had of that role, surpassed every other performance I’ve seen of that number, and made a vital argument for the necessity of inclusion and diversity in reimagining the theatre. I was awestruck as she embodied the history of Black female performers, effortlessly transforming from Bessie Smith to Ethel Waters to Josephine Baker to Lena Horne to Ella and Nina and Pearl. What an accomplishment! What a call to action for the younger generation! What a challenge she has set!
There’s no going back from such a “turn.” Audra McDonald’s demand for attention requires us all to look deeply at how we interact in the world—with each other and, now, with technology. Especially since it seems that AI is set up to re-create all the old myths, inscribe even more indelibly in our daily lives the tired, patriarchal structures, and continue to feed us misogynistic, racist images. We have the challenge to not let that happen. I think Audra’s doing her part.
Oh, by the way, I had my tooth pulled this morning. All went well.
In Stratford, Ontario, there is a fine restaurant called Fellini’s. He has 18 original posters of the 22 23 Fellini made. He said the ones he doesn’t have are either too expensive or unavailable. We had a great time seeing 5 fine productions in 3 days.
Ahh Claudia Cardinals, the "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia"! By the way, I watched most of Fellini’s movies in Colombia. I used to go to the matinee viewing in the theatre quarter of Medellin and when I came out it was always dark. I never knew what was more confusing, the Fellini movie or that night follows day. Your writings always brings beautiful memories. 🙏🏽