Art, Food, Friends, Family, Fun

Tags

Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Élysées, Experimental Cocktail Club, Gerhard Richter, Gerry, Jacques, Lézard Café, Louvre, Marais, meals, Mona Lisa, Montorgueil, Pompidou, rue Montorgueil, Saint Sebastian by Pérugin, Tuileries

If it’s Wednesday this must be … the Louvre!  I walked Gerry over since he was still getting oriented (and still waking up around noon).  My initial thought had been to leave him to it, since I’ve been so many times, but there was hardly any line, so I was swept along into another encounter with its vast beauties.  As a first-time visitor, Gerry made a beeline for the Mona Lisa.

Mona Lisa

In case you haven’t seen it in person I made a little video to capture the experience, which is interesting from a sociological perspective, though completely devoid of aesthetic content.  As usual, my own attention was caught by other genres:

Saint Sebastian by Pérugin (detail). Around 1490-1500.

As it happened, two friends of Gerry’s were also visiting the Louvre that day so we met up with them.  They were a nice couple, but I preferred to take my separate way through the collection. Moving between works and rooms is complicated even with one other person — tho Gerry and I do this comfortably — but with a larger group I find museum-going excruciating. By coincidence we all finished around the same time and met for a walk through the Tuileries gardens, across the Place de la Concorde, then along the Champs-Élysées, to the Arc de Triomphe.

Arc de Triomphe

I had to stand in the road, risking life and limb, to snap that shot.  Postcard-worthy, no?

Wednesday evening I had dinner with my good friend from two prior visits, Jacques. Here is his photo from the French-Asian float at this year’s Paris Gay Pride:

Jacques as an Asian Prince at Paris Gay Pride 2012

He is doing great, working hard at a top accounting firm and enjoying leisure time with his long-standing petit copain (boyfriend), who knows about and accepts our friendship.  It was great to see him again, and we planned one more meal together before I leave.

After Jacques headed home Gerry and I met by chance on rue Montorgueil and ended the evening at the Experimental Cocktail Club comme d’habitude (as usual).  It was another cozy interlude, with good music and atmosphere.  We got into a lively conversation with a good-looking young man across from us until his friends said to him (in French) “are you with us or with them?”  After which Gerry and I had to make do with one another’s excellent company.

Bob and Gerry at Experimental Cocktail Club

If it’s Thursday it must be … the Pompidou!  This is a fine collection of modern and contemporary art, in a building that is itself an icon of modernity.

Miró Blues

I enjoyed seeing the permanent collection again as well as an exhibition of the remarkably varied work of Gerhard Richter (which ends on Monday).

Gerry at the Richter Exhibition at the Pompidou

Thursday evening I had planned dinner with my cousin BJ, starting with an apéro at my place.

BJ at 59, rue Saint-Saveur

She emailed that morning to ask whether some friends she had also been meaning to catch up with could join us, and of course I said yes.  The new recruits turned out to be two of her former boyfriends and an interesting older woman.  When the first ex arrived he mentioned that he had just left two of his own friends at a café downstairs, so naturally we invited them up as well.  Before I knew it I was hosting a party for eight or nine people!  Several brought wine and I had some provisions on hand so it was a convivial start to the evening.  Most of us stayed for dinner at our new favorite, Lézard Café.  It was once again a really nice experience — good food and friendly (if slightly giddy) service.  At one point I did a double take because there was a handsome young man who I didn’t at first recognize sitting at the other end of our table conversing with animation.  With a pleasant little shock I realized that he was our waiter!

After saying farewell to BJ, her friend — and our new waiter friend — Gerry and I headed over to a bar in the Marais, Duplex Bar.  It was a lively place, with an attractive and friendly crowd and relatively low attitude.  We stayed until closing, at 2 am, lingering on the sidewalk to see whether two guys who seemed to have met for the first time that evening would go home together.  They left as part of a foursome, leaving us to wonder whether they were a ménage à quatre (“household of four”, playing on the phrase ménage à trois) or, perhaps (recycling a French friend’s witticism), a manège à quatre (“merry-go-round of four”).

Champs-Élysées and the Louvre

Tags

Arc de Triomphe, Art, Café Verlet, Champs-Élysées, demonstration, Le Bouï-Bouï, manifestation, meals, Tuileries

Jason and I started out at a métro stop just beyond the Arc de Triomphe, and walked back along the Champs-Élysées. We were prevented from going up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe by a policeman who said something about a demonstration. We shrugged and continued our walk. A few blocks beyond we looked back and saw two people unfurling a huge banner from a ledge just below the top of the arch. One of them rappelled down from the ledge, hit some scaffolding, then fell several stories to the ground! It turns out that they were Basque separatists, and that the guy who fell was seriously but not fatally injured. Nevertheless, it was a strange start to the day.

After enjoying window shopping along the Champs-Élysées, and a detour through the Tuileries gardens, we had lunch at a delightful little tea shop, Café Verlet (256, rue St. Honoré, in the 1ère arrondissement):

Bob at Café Verlet.

Then we tackled the Louvre, mostly focusing on Dutch masters and Greek and Roman statues. There’s enough there for several trips — you can’t try to “do” the Louvre in a single visit.  My Louvre photos from several visits are at this link: Louvre Photo Set.

Dinner was at a restaurant in our neighborhood, Le Bouï-Bouï. We were initially taken aback by the fact that our waiter was wearing a jacket reading “Converse / Malden, MA” on the back but we were reassured when it became clear that he had no idea what that meant. I had escargot for the first time. OK, although the texture was rubbery and primary taste was the garlic butter. The main courses were fine — duck and sea bass — but the pièce de résistance was the cheese board. We had our fill, then Jason spirited away the leftovers in a handkerchief for another evening. 2019 Update: French law now requires restaurants to let you take leftovers home so you don’t have to use your handkerchief.

We may go out for a drink later … or maybe not.

P.S. Another set of photos is up, at Paris-7

Printemps à Paris

Tags

Art, date, language, meals, Monet, Orangerie, Rousseau, Tuileries, Utrillo, waterlilies

Today started out freezing but sunny, and by afternoon it was a perfectly lovely day. Cold again this evening, but c’est printemps à Paris!

A charming shop near the Opera.

(Update: La Cure Gourmande turns out to be a chain with 30-some stores, so credit goes to a corporate marketing department rather than to a local shopkeeper.)

I began my day with a remarkable exhibition, Rose c’est Paris. It is composed of an hour-long video and a series of gorgeous black-and-white art prints of tableaux from the video. The “plot” — the search by a lovely young woman for her twin, Rose — is an excuse for an extraordinary sequence of images, of Paris and of surprising and often explicitly erotic encounters.

After a quick lunch I walked over to the Tuileries and ended up at the Orangerie museum. Its “piece de resistance” is the Monet water lilies, which were charming. Since renovations finished in 2006 the presentation is lovely. Being there made me feel as though I was underwater myself.

Monet’s Water Lillies in the Orangerie Museum.

I also enjoyed the art on the lower levels of the Orangerie, especially Utrillo, who for some reason I had not previously noticed. I was disappointed to find that all the Rousseau’s were out on loan.

After getting home to check email I had a pleasant coffee date with Jacques, a Parisian I met over the Internet, after which I capped off the evening with yet another fish-fillet-with-string-beans dinner — my fifth!  Over the weekend, however, I promise to flash out and explore a few Parisian restaurant meals. (In my own defense I can only say that the last three fillets were purchased near closing time at the local fishmonger, when the guys come out onto the sidewalk offering irresistible bargains on fish that is still fresh but not fresh enough to sell tomorrow.)

It occurs to me also to comment on language, based on the three extended conversations I have now had with francophones — a future landlord and two dates. The most important fact is that in each case conversation flowed easily with only brief moments of perplexity. And when a problem did arise we switched rather effortlessly to the other language. That natural process caused the first two conversations to be mostly in English and the third to be mostly in French, simply because that was our most comfortable common language. Each of my interlocutors complimented me on my French (even though it had to be explained to me in English that this is what “félicitations” means, since I only knew the word in the context of Christmas cards). It’s curious to me how often le mot juste is there for me, considering that my only formal education was a couple of years of high school French, with indifferent grades. I’ve visited here half a dozen times, but never for more than ten days, and rarely involving long conversations. The only explanation I can offer is that over the years I’ve also read half a dozen French books, stopping to look up a word only when I feel completely lost. Whatever the reason, I’m pleased to find that language has so far been a source of occasional confusion but not a barrier. Update on 11/4/10: After reading the above a friend commented that he had taken French for two years in college but wouldn’t dare tackle a book. I’m thinking now that lack of fear is one of the reasons for my happy relationship with the language. French is very “correct” — there is in theory one mot juste for each concept and one grammatically correct way to express something. The early years of traditional teaching involve these rules being drilled in, and errors constantly being corrected. This instills a fear of failure that can be somewhat paralyzing. For me, in contrast, French is pure fun. I don’t worry overmuch about correctness — so long as I can throw in a few words that more or less point at what I’m trying to say I’m good to go. And as for reading a book, or the magazine Science et Vie, I treat it as a puzzle to decipher rather than an impenetrable thicket. If I sometimes have a distorted idea of what’s being said, so be it; I can always look up a word or two in the dictionary if I’m truly stumped. It’s also important to recognize the limits on my accomplishment. Last night the waiter said Bravo at the fluency of my French. But if you think about it one would never say such a thing to someone who was truly fluent. You say that only to someone who is obviously struggling, but making a brave attempt. C’est moi!