There are a few things that the French love, but all Americans--liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats--love to hate. In particular, I'm thinking of
1. Mimes
2. Jerry Lewis
3. Postmodern philosophy
I can't do much for you about items 1 and 2, but here's some French philosophizin' for ya (based on joint work with Cosma Shalizi).
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Well, I used to like Jerry Lewis, what, 40 years ago when I was 6.
And the only reasonably known mime we ever had was Marceau.
And that talk you are linking to, while happening maybe 30 min from where I am, will be give by a guy named "Andrew Gelman", possibly in an empty room (I won't go in any case).
There is one thing that american like: it's attributing to the French meme (not mimes) that never were French to begin with. Such as:
"French letter" (capote anglaise)
"Déjà vu" (we don't use that expression, except in its very litteral translation, eg "J'ai déjà vu ce film").
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose". Yeah, that what *you* say. We don't.
And right it is: the more it changes, the more you're the same.
And for the fun of it, another cliché (yes, a French word we *do* use):
- Do you know how a person who speaks three languages is called? Trilingual.
- Do you know how a person who speaks two languages is called? Bilingual.
- Do you know how a person who speaks one language is called? American.
All this with a huge smiley of course.
Cheers from Paris.
After rereading what I wrote, it occurred to me that I may not have properly conveyed the extent to which all that was totally tongue in cheek.
I hope that your talk went well and that the room was not empty :-)