Hot Days, Cool Nights

Tags

Art, Benoît Sitzia, Bois de Vincennes, canicule, Château de Vincennes, Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, concert, Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, Conservatory of Music, Ensemble Rayuela, Goa Beach, haircut, Jared, Jean-Michel Callebotte, La Motrice, La Villette, Les Gobelins, métro, meals, music, nounours, parc de la Villette, Porte des Lilas, Rayuela, saxophone, Science Museum, Teddy Bears, TGV, Vincennes, Yves

The deadly canicule that had been predicted really hasn’t materialized. It’s been hot, around 90 degrees, each of the last few days. But the nights have been blissfully cool, in the high 60s, so it’s been pleasant outdoors and we’ve been able to cool down the apartment enough to keep it liveable all day.

Jared spent Wednesday with one of his French friends. I slept in, then started working on my blog, which had fallen several days behind. I had breakfast and a light lunch at home, then suddenly realized that it was dinner time! I jumped on The Fork and found a highly-rated local Indian restaurant — Goa Beach — that offered a 40% discount on their already reasonable prices. They had no space on the terrace so asked me to wait at an inside table for something to open up. When a table didn’t free up quickly they just picked up my table and plunked it down on the spacious sidewalk. Pourquoi pas ? The meal was nice and the service was really friendly. I left a tip, which I don’t normally do in Paris.

On my way home I noticed some of the huge teddy bears that have become a symbol of the neighborhood in the windows of a building. When I looked more carefully I saw that there were many, many of them!

Nounours take over Les Gobelins

Tuesday morning we got up early because we wanted to see the last day of chamber music concerts by graduating students at the Paris Conservatory of Music (the Conservatoire national supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris) at La Villette. We got there a bit late for the first one, and the last one had been canceled, but we were in time for a wonderful saxophone concert by four young women, called Ensemble Rayuela. The first piece was written for them by a fellow Conservatory student, Benoît Sitzia. Jared found it too modern but I thought it was terrific, there being no disputing about taste. We both loved the last piece, Mussorgsky’s Pictures From an Exhibition, arranged for piano and four saxophones (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone). I really wish photos were allowed since the glinting saxophones were stunning against the black outfits of the four performers.

After our last musical experience in Paris this year we strolled through the Parc de La Villette to the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie for an exhibition on the TGV, the French high speed train, which has held the world speed record of 357 MPH since 2007. (Normal TGV trains run “only” up to 200 MPH.) The exhibit was interesting but not amazing. My favorite thing was this near-life-size art piece, which was in strange contrast to the modernity and obsessive safety of the TGV itself.

La Motrice, en avant première by Jean-Michel Callebotte, 2017

After the exhibit that had drawn us in we had the first poor meal I’ve had in Paris this year in the museum’s sad restaurant. I had to put in my ear plugs to deal with the hordes of screaming children! After lunch we wandered about but didn’t see much that was compelling until after Jared left; then I did enjoy interactive exhibits on sound and on the mind, and a presentation on robots. The museum is primarily for children, but if you remember your ear plugs there are also some exhibits of interest to adults.

After the museum I took the tram over to Porte des Lilas where I jumped off to snap a Space Invader, then stayed to get a haircut. I passed up several places offering 10 euro haircuts on the theory that you get what you pay for, but had a very nice cut, and a pleasant experience, at a place that charged me 19 euros. Once again, softie that I am, I left a tip!

At 8 pm I met Jared at the Château de Vincennes and we walked over to the absolutely stunning apartment of a French friend he had met in Boston a few years back. Yves and his partner made us a delightful summery meal, which we enjoyed on their balcony overlooking the treetops of the Bois de Vincennes.

Dinner in Vincennes with Yves.

View of the Bois de Vincennes from Yves‘ balcony, with our cheese course.

View of the Château de Vincennes from Yves‘ balcony.

After solving the problems of life, love, culture and politics with Yves and his friends, Jared and I went home on the métro, threw open the windows, and had a good night’s sleep.

More Paris Art

Tags

Afro, Afro Libio Basaldella, Art, Canal d’Ourcq, Concert for a Fly, contemporary art, David Hockney, Ecoute, Galerie Béatrice Soulié, Galerie Lelong & Co., Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Gérard Cambon, Henry de Miller, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, L'Opéra, L'Opéra Garnier, Marais, Nambia, parc de la Villette, Parc Monceau, Paris, Saint Eustache, street art, Tornabuoni

This statue, in front of Saint-Eustache, survived the five-year redevelopment of Les Halles. Click here for a pic of the work site from 2012 showing the head tenuously protected by barriers.

“Ecoute,” 1986, by Henry de Miller (1953-99), visible again in 2018

The gallery show that most strongly impressed me this year was of Afro Libio Basaldella (1912-1976), better known as “Afro,” at the Tornabuoni Art gallery in the Marais. The artist — who I hadn’t heard of — was born in Italy and worked there and in the U.S. One example is below, but if you like it please look at: [“Afro” Photo Set]

One of many excellent paintings by “Afro” at Tornabuoni Art Paris

Naturally I was interested in owning one of these excellent paintings! The price list was held behind the counter, but a gallerist offered to tell me the price of any specific work I was interested in. This one, for example, was priced at 4,900,000 euros. Negotiable, I’m sure, but still a bit rich for my blood.

These odd sculptures are from the imaginary country of “Nambia,” inspired by a bourde of Donald Trump.

« Nambias » by Gérard Cambon at Galerie Béatrice Soulié in the Latin Quarter

I was quite impressed by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in the Marais– not the art, which I didn’t find memorable until the top floor — but the gallery itself, which is a large and beautiful space.

Stunning circular stairway at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

I did respect, on the top floor, the reprise of a Palais de Tokyo show by Patrick Neu I had liked in 2015, and enjoyed a quirky little installation, which you’ll have to enlarge to fully appreciate:

Concert for a Fly, by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

A few weeks back I stumbled on the vernissage (opening party) for a David Hockney show at a newly opened branch of Galerie Lelong & Co. Some functionary tried to shoo me away because it hadn’t officially started but the gallery owner waved me in. #seniorprivilege

New branch of Galerie Lelong & Co. at 38 avenue Matignon

David Hockney show at Galerie Lelong & Co. with vernissage snacks. These are numbered reproductions of digital images Hockney creates on an iPad

I’ve many times appreciated the mostly-buried bicycle wheel at the back of this photo as I’ve strolled through the Parc de la Villette but this year is the first time I noticed the rest of the bicycle!

Buried bicycle parts in the Parc de la Villette

Street art in Batignolles

Apollo atop L’Opéra Garnier

19th Century Street Art in the Marais

21st Century Street Art along the Canal d’Ourcq

An artist and his model in Parc Monceau.

Mot du Jour: bourde. Blunder, boner, mishap.

Diary of a Flâneur

Tags

13 prairial an 2, battaile de 13 prairial an 2, Canal Saint-Martin, Charlie Hebdo, Coulée verte, flâneur, folie, folies, Gare Saint-Lazare, La Grande Canopée, mannikins, Nuit Debout, parc de la Villette, Parc Monceau, Paris, Promenade plantée, rue des petits carreaux, rue Richard Lenoir

While I’ve mostly posted on specific topics and visits this year I’ve continued to log my Paris walking average of seven miles a day. This post collects some of the interesting or attractive things I’ve run across in my wanderings (saving art for a later post).

One of my favorite walks in Paris is along the Promenade plantée (also called the Coulée verte), which transformed abandoned railroad infrastructure into a leafy linear park. It begins near the Place de la Bastille and runs several miles to the Parc Vincennes. The first section is elevated, connected with a short level stretch, through a tunnel, with a depressed section.

Even on a gray day the Promenade plantée is lovely

These Parisians know how to party!

This street sign for the “road of little square stones” is itself made up of little square stones.

The monument in the center of the Place de la Republique was totally renovated in 2010-13, then trashed after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015 and during the Nuit Debout protests in 2016. It has now been restored, ready for the next popular uprising.

The statue of Marianne in the Place de la Republique

There’s a lot of history on the plaques around the base of the monument. This one commemorates the biggest naval victory of the First French Republic, over the British fleet. In our calendar it took place on June 1, 1794, but the Revolution established a new calendar starting at year 1, including new names for the months.

Plaque on the base of the monument in Place de la Republique commemorating the battle of 13 prairial an 2

There are officially sanctioned skateboard areas all around Paris. This one is right on the Place de la Republique.

A skateboard area in Place de la Republique

A nostalgic 2CV

A field of flowers (with a secret)

La Grande Canopée, almost empty

The Parc de la Villette in the northeast corner of Paris contains a dozen or more “folies.” Some have uses but many, like this one, are purely decorative.

A folie in the Parc de la Villette

There are a lot of ancient-looking ruins in Parc Monceau. The columns themselves are fairly old, but they have been repositioned for aesthetic effect much more recently: “The Naumachie of the Park was built with the columns of the ancient Rotunda of Valois, ordered by Catherine de Medicis to house Henry II tomb.” [Source]

Ancient-ish ruins in Parc Monceau

Gare Saint-Lazare from Europe

Mot du jour: 2CV. The Citroën 2CV, 1948-90. 2CV literally means deux chevaux, “two horsepower,” but the original version actually had nine.

Cool Spring Days

Tags

apartments, architecture, Art, Bastille, Concert Hall, Conciergerie, Conservatoire de Paris, crepes, flowers, France, fruit de mer, Jared, language, Madame Bovary, meals, Metro, parc de la Villette, Paris, Philharmonie de Paris, Picard, Promenade plantée, shellfish, violin recitals, weather

We’ve had a few intervals of sun, but for the most part the weather has been cloudy and often rainy this year, and it’s still downright cold (53 degrees at 10 am on Wednesday). This hasn’t greatly dampened my enjoyment but I’m looking forward to better weather. This reminds me more of April my first year here than May in other years.

Sunday morning I caught up on my blog, then went to see an exhibition at the Conciergerie. The enormous portrait photos were powerful, and the juxtaposition with the medieval-style arches was striking, but overall the aesthetic experience was just ok.

Photo exhibition at the Conciergerie

I was more interested in the architecture of the building itself, in the reconstructed prison rooms, and in the presentation about the French Revolution.

Somewhat unwelcoming courtyard at the Conciergerie

Restored guard room at the Conciergerie

Marie Antoinette was famously imprisoned in the Conciergerie before being guillotined. Much is made of this at the museum, and in general the interpretive material strikes me as being from a rather Royalist perspective.

The nearby flower market was colorful despite the clouds and rain.

Flower market on a rainy day

On Monday I met up with Jared R at the Grand Palais for Carambolages, an amazing art exhibition that I’ve documented in a separate post. Jared R’s initial plan for the week had been to stay with Jared W, but it turned out that Jared W had been given a rather cramped apartment so Jared R decided to spend the next few days at my place instead. On Tuesday morning he brought his stuff over, then we headed to the Conservatoire de Paris to sit in on violin recitals by a couple of graduating students. These recitals are quite a big deal, performed before a jury of five professors and also open to the public. We were impressed by the performances and moved by several of the pieces. These go on, for various instruments, almost to the end of June and I hope to get over to recitals once or twice more during my stay. After the music we walked around the two concert halls, then through the Parc de la Villette.

Lobby of Concert Hall 1 at the Philharmonie de Paris

Finally, we took the tram over to Porte de Vincennes, then strolled along the Promenade Plantée back to the Place de la Bastille.

View from the Promenade Plantée

I took the métro home, since my heel was hurting by this point (possibly related to walking more than 10 miles?). After a quick shellfish pasta dinner (based on an amazing fruit de mer package from Picard) we met up with Jared W at Montparnasse for a musical interpretation of Madame Bovary. Jared R, who majored in French literature, followed most of it, while Jared W and I got the overall gist but were pretty much at sea with the spoken French. It was nevertheless a moving performance, even for those of us who didn’t understand that many of the words. Afterwards we had crêpes, then headed back to our respective homes.

Mot du jour: « fruit de mer », shellfish.

More Friends and Flânes

Tags

Albert Kahn Museum and Garden, Bastille, Belleville, Boulogne, Bullet holes, Décapsulateur, Deux Fois Plus de Piment, Elliot, Japanese garden, jardin à l’anglaise, La Pelouse, La Valse, Le Siffleur de Ballons, meals, Montorgueil, Mustafa, Opéra de Paris, parc de la Villette, Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, Paris Then and Now, Pause Café, Ravel, Rosa Bonheur, rue Montorgueil, Yunpeng

I’ve fallen behind! But it’s cloudy and cool for a change so I’ll do my best to catch you up on my Parisian adventures.

Last Thursday I decided to visit the Albert Kahn museum and garden in Boulogne, a suburb at the end of the 10 métro line. Apart from driving through in a rental car I had never been to Boulogne. It would have been a lovely day for Senlis or another An Hour From Paris day trip, but train schedules were still disrupted by the strike so it seemed best to stay within reach of the métro.

Albert Kahn turns out to have been an interesting character. He made an enormous fortune as a speculator and banker in the 1890’s, then became a philanthropist, both as a donor and as founder of various projects designed to increase world peace and happiness. He never married, and the museum commentary takes pains to explain that his heart had been broken by a young woman in his youth, and that he maintained a secret mistress in later life. One of his eccentric projects was buying up dozens of parcels in Boulogne and turning them into a series of gardens – French formal, wild and natural (which the French call a jardin à l’anglaise), and Japanese. My favorite was the contemporary Japanese garden (a 1989 replacement for Kahn’s original version).

The Albert Kahn Japanese Garden in Boulogne, near Paris.

I wouldn’t put the Kahn museum and gardens on a must-see list, but you can spend a few relaxing hours there.

On Friday I finally caught up for lunch with Elliot Marks, a friend since his undergraduate days at Harvard who lives here with his French partner. We ate at a sort of deli-that-serves-food called Le Siffleur de Ballons. It was a casual and enjoyable meal.

Elliot at Le Siffleur de Ballons.

On Friday afternoon my friend Yunpeng arrived from Norway to stay with me for a long weekend. We had met on line several years ago, and had become comfortable with one another over Facebook, but this was the first time we had met in person. In retrospect this was quite a risk, but in this case it worked out beautifully. He had been to Paris once before so he had already seen the top tourist sites. This allowed me to guide him to some more typical and less touristy areas. His first evening we ate at my old favorite Le Loup Blanc (which closed in 2014), which was as usual pleasant and good value for money. On Saturday we started with a look around the trendy Bastille quarter, then had lunch at Pause Café. Yunpeng loved his Asian salad but my pan-fried salmon was just ok.

Yunpeng at Pause Café on rue de Charonne, Bastille.

We strolled up to where the Canal Saint-Martin comes out of its tunnel, then (again!) over to my old favorite Montorgueil neighborhood, which was exceedingly lively. We had kirs at my favorite table on the terrace of the LB Café, which has a view down rue Tiquetonne as well as up and down rue Montorgueil.

An aria from The Marriage of Figaro on the terrace in front of the Compass d’Or on rue Montorgueil.

Yunpeng is from China but there is no good Chinese food in Bergen, Norway, where he is working on his PhD. Consequently, he had a hankering for a really good Chinese meal. Based on online reviews we ate on Saturday night at a Szechuan restaurant, Deux Fois Plus de Piment (“Twice the Spice”). Yunpeng enjoyed ordering in Mandarin Chinese, and to cater to my tender palate he requested spiciness level two on a scale of one to five. That worked out well for me, but Yunpeng, who is from northern China, found the food too spicy!

On Sunday morning we had an impromptu picnic at the parc de la Villette. My plan had been to take a leisurely stroll from there over to the parc des Buttes-Chaumont, but it was chilly in the wind so we took the métro home again for more clothing (which as it happened we didn’t need). My Boston friend Mustafa joined us — one of the “expected surprises” of this year’s sojourn — and the three of us set off for the parc des Buttes-Chaumont, and the Sunday afternoon scene on the terrace of Rosa Bonheur.

Mustafa at the temple de la Sibylle, in the parc des Buttes-Chaumont.

Handsome young men at Rosa Bonheur.

Yunpeng at Rosa Bonheur.

After a bottle of rosé and various other beverages we shared a nice, casual meal at a neighborhood French restaurant, La Pelouse, which has the great advantage of being right outside the park, at the Botzaris métro.

Yunpeng left on Monday morning, after a lovely visit. That evening Mustafa and I went to a concert at the Opéra de Paris at Bastille. It’s a stunning 1989 building, and the theater itself offers excellent sight lines, even for the (relatively) cheap seats in the second balcony that I had reserved. My favorite piece was La Valse by Ravel. I knew that following Bizet French music had emphasized tonal painting rather than traditional melody, but I hadn’t appreciated how radical Ravel was. This piece toys with and demolishes the very idea of a waltz. It was too hot even for Diaghilev!

I’ve been working on a project which I’d like to invite you to have a look at. I took a dozen photos of historic paintings when Jason and I toured the Musée Carnavalet a few weeks back. Since then, in my spare time I’ve been taking photos of what the same scene looks like today. The resulting pairs of photos are at this link: Paris Then and Now. Some scenes are almost identical, others very much changed, but I enjoyed the excuse to explore this lovely and historic city.

One of the paintings I couldn’t match was on Passage Piat in the diamond-in-the-rough neighborhood of Belleville. I was comforted, as I walked up a slightly sketchy street, to see a police station in the next block. My comfort level was somewhat reduced, however, when I noticed that there were bullet holes every few feet in all of its windows!

Belleville police station, with bullet holes every few feet in each of its windows.

Mot du jour: décapsuleur. For once your guess would probably be correct.

Décapsuleur, at Flunch.