498 replies to this topic

[hollywood]

All right! You're back, er, you're gone. Either way, it's good.

[voyager]

Welcome home, Maurice. I thought of you often during the last two weeks when I was afflicted with a sciatic attack in Paris . As I popped pill after pill, prescribed by my now personal physician in town , I remembered your gouty discomfort, and commiserated on the sad state of being in Paris while feeling like the pits. Hope all of your aches are things of the past.

Re your airplane experiences with the younger set, and since your passion is poetry, I will share what I learned on my return flight from a three year old seat fellow:

Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed; one fell off and hit his head.
His mother called the doctor and the doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

As you have guessed, he continued to down from ten to "One little monkey jumping on the bed...." I thanked God over and over that it was a three year old who could count down from ten and not an 15 year old, who might have been able to count backwards from a hundred, as in "One hundred bottles of beer on the wall..."

[Maurice Naughton]

Paris, Tuesday, September 14, 6h00, 60 F, Sunny

Hi, There--

I got distracted in my writing last Thursday because I wanted to get the pictures from my camera, and I'd forgot to bring the USB cable that attaches the camera to the computer.

So I went for a walk down to the Boulevard Auguste Blanqui, by number 68, the site of Rodin's atelier, and where he and Camille Claudel enjoyed their fits of noisy sexual excess, and on to the rue Croulebarbe, which used to run alongside the river Bievre (Beaver, which suggests its condition centuries ago).

Not very many rivers simply disappear, but this one did. It's one of the first examples of nature destroyed by the hand of man. The Belgian dyer, Jehan de Gobelins, had a house by the river, and its brackish water helped him create a brilliant and lasting red dye, from which he made a fortune. Other dyers set up along the river, and then tapestry weavers came, to be where the dye was. Their tapestries were associated with the business of Gobelins, and thus, inappropriately, his name was attached to the industry.

Abattoirs set up along the river too, for it made a convenient place to dispose of the excesses of their practice, and then tanners came. Finally, the effluents from the tapissiers, the butchers, the dyers, and the tanners converted the river from the quiet home of beavers to a black, odiferous, rat-infested cholera-inducing sewer, and it was eventually filled in. It's still down there somewhere underground.

For supper, I made myself a salad of avocado, heirloom tomatoes, sweet onions, shavings of parmigiano reggiano, smoked lardons, and mesclun, dressed with an excellent vinaigrette, accompanied by a Kayser baguette and a couple of glasses of 1999 Pierre Sparr Reserve Pinot Blanc d'Alsace, and followed by some sliced peaches with creme frâiche. Entirely satisfactory.

Friday morning I set off for Auchan, the giant hypermarché at Bagnolet on the east edge of Paris, to get a reader for my camera's CompactFlash memory card. At the last minute, I decided it would be a good idea to take the camera along too, and I put it in the outermost zippered compartment in my backpack. The trip to Auchan takes about forty minutes, with two Metro transfers. The trains were crowded with people heading for work or shopping.

When I got to Auchan, I took my backpack off to put it in the shopping cart and saw that the outer compartment was unzipped, empty. Usually, I put my camera in the main part of the backpack, under Michelin Green Guide, my map book, and my copy of "Paris pas cher." I didn't do it this time, to save myself about fifteen seconds. Expensive lesson, hard learned. Buying a new camera would decimate my budget and force me to knock about ten bistrots off my "must go" list.

I sat in a corner for a while, trying to be stoical and reviewing in my mind all the stupid things I'd done in the last few months, rehearsing what I should have done instead. I have not grown, it seem, either in wisdom or in grace.

--

Foodies tend to look down their noses at stores like Auchan, and avoid them. But it's the most economical place to buy detergent, paper goods, and other inedible consumables, and some provisions--their onions, shallots, potatoes, leeks, oranges, and so forth are all but indistinguishable from the same stuff at the outdoor marché Auguste Blanqui at the bottom of my street three days a week.

Most big stores and chains in Paris have a fall wine sale, Auchan among them, and its prices are quite low by Paris standards--Bouchard Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Beaune 2002, 6€95; Pommard 1er Cru Les Arvelets 1998 Domaine Parent, 21€; Château Pontet Fumet 2000 Saint-Émilion Grand Cru, 10€65; Château Camensac 2002 Haut-Médoc 5ème Cru Classé, 10€99; Château Lascombes 1999 2ème Cru Classé, 20€50; Bouchard Chablis 1er Cru Beauroy, 9€99; Alsace Gewürtztraminer Grains Nobles Jean Cornelius 2000, 14€99; Vranken Champagne Demiselle brut NV, 16€56. (Vranken, established in 1976, is part of the wine marketing group that includes Heidsieck & Co. Monopole, Charles Lafitte, and Pommery.

Auchan also has an excellent fish department, with an ice table about fifty feet long and a huge selection of fish, clear eyed and sweet smelling, dorade royale, line-caught bar, rascasse, brown trout, langoustines, mussels, loup de mer, fresh sardines, perch, sole, halibut, smoked makerel, squid, octopus, oysters, salmon, mullet, John Dory, St. Pierre, scallops and petoncles, and urchins.

The deli department is equally impressive, as is their cheese selection. (They're obviously not in competetion with the great charcutiers nor with the specialist affineurs de fromage like Aleosse, Marie Cantin, and Quatrehomme, but they're better than most of the big supermarket chains.)

It certainly has a place on the itinerary of us long-term visitors on a tight budget.

I spent the rest of Friday and Saturday relentlessly pursuing an affordable digital camera, the annoyances attendant upon which process I don't intend to share. Let's just say I have been thus far unsuccessful. (My Canon Powershot 330 Elph has a street price of $350 in the US. The French equivalent, the Canon Ixus 330, costs €390 or $485.)

To be continued.

Maurice

[Kikujiro]

Perhaps one of the admins could correct the spelling of parasite in the thread title?

Maurice, great to see these again.

edit: now you'll probably tell me you mean 'notes from a fluocarbonate of the metals of the cerium group, found in small brownish-yellow crystals in the emerald mines of Colombia'.

[Maurice Naughton]

Perhaps one of the admins could correct the spelling of parasite in the thread title?

Maurice, great to see these again.

edit: now you'll probably tell me you mean 'notes from a fluocarbonate of the metals of the cerium group, found in small brownish-yellow crystals in the emerald mines of Colombia'.

I'd never actually tell you that, so let's just keep it our little secret.

[Kikujiro]

Oy. Some puns are so bad that my brain just censors them for my own protection.

[Maurice Naughton]

Paris, Thursday 16 September 2004, 65 F, Mostly sunny

Hi, There.

I'll begin with a miscellany.

"Le Pariscope," the little weekly magazine that reveals absolutely everything that's going on in Paris (except for the erotic entertainments in my next-door neighbor's apartment; she seems deservedly popular, and her dog starts barking to alert the rest of the building when the activity there becomes frenetic and noisy) used to have a five page section in English at the end, from the people responsible for "Time Out," highlighting concerts, restaurants, happenings, and films. It has, alas, disappeared.

If you've been to Paris, you might have seen some blue and white shop fronts, very austere and plain, no window displays, labeled Picard Les Surgeles, Picard Frozen Food. If frozen food doesn't automatically turn you off, there are some wonderful things to be had from Picard, like langoustines, shrimp of all sizes, and quality aged steaks. The FoodHunter (still an OA member, I think) is the one who told me that the famous Auvergnat dish l'Aligot, a mix of mashed potatoes and young Cantal cheese, freezes wonderfully and is available at Picard. Good to know if you're in Paris, on a budget, and have a place to cook. And if you're interested in ice-creams and sorbets by the liter, their cassis, studded with whole currants, is excellent.

A three hour cruise on the Canal St. Martin and its associates is more interesting, I think, than a boat ride on the Seine, because you don't see much that's already very familiar. Put together a super picnic at le Grande Epicerie de Paris (in le grand magasin Au Bon Marche, Metro Sevres-Babylone} or, if you're really flush, at Fauchon or Hediard (north end of the place de Madeleine) and have a lunch on board that will far outshine those expensive ones sold on the Bateaux Mouches on the Seine.

If you like cycles and bridges and trains and mines and optical devices and tools and heavy machinery and clocks, you'll love the Musée National des Techniques in the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Metro Arts et Métiers). It's home to Foucault's pendulum, Pascal's arithmetic machine, Marie Antoinette's clockwork puppet (playing a dulcimer), and a model of the Marly machine (look it up). There's an Echo room, where you just can't keep a secret, an illustrated history of timekeeping machines, measuring instruments, mocked up work environments, engineering tools, and electronics from the beginnings to the present. It's one of the few museums where I can happily spend the entire day without sensory overload. (At the Musée d'Orsay, you may wearily mistake a Sisley for a Childe Hassam, but in Techniques you'll never confuse an astrolabe with a steam-driven trip-hammer.)

Blessedly the French show movies v. o., i.e. version original, with French subtitles. This is not much good for me when the movies were made in Argentina or Hungary, but for English, Irish, and American movies, it's a genuine boon. There are always movie "festivals" and reprises of old American movies showing in the tiny screening rooms in the most popular tourist arrondissements, the 5th and 6th. This week, for example, is an Abel Ferrara festival, if you can imagine such a thing. Weird indie cult-movie director Ferrara is noted for his oddball, gritty, uncomfortable take on American low-lifes, and this week, self-flagellants can see his "Body Snatchers" (1993), "New Rose Hotel" (1998), "The Blackout" (1996), "The Funeral" (1996), and "Snake Eyes" (1993, aka "Dangerous Games"). Among this week's reprises are screenings of Peter Greenaway's odd and excellent "The Belly of an Architect" (1987) with Brian Dennehy, Derek Jarman's equally odd dramatic comedy, "Wittgenstein" (1993), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "People Will Talk" (1951) with Cary Grant and Jeanne Crain, and George Stevens' "Vivacious Lady" (1938) with James Stewart and Ginger Rogers. During the dinner hour, tickets generally go for 5€, a Paris movie bargain.

An impresario named Karel Beer puts on stand-up comedy in English at the old Hotel du Nord by the Canal St. Martin in the 10th, and presents musicians, generally singers-song writers tending towards the folkish, in The Sound Gallery, next to the Hotel, and a club called Java in the 10th. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, the funny man is Phil Kay and his bizarre improvisations (20€, 17€ for students and the very old me). Jack Tempchin, who used to write for The Eagles, among others, performs at The Sound Gallery on Friday the 24th (20€ cover, includes the first drink). And Jesse Malin and Tommy Stimson will be playing and singing at La Java on October 5 (22€). La Java, by the way, in a neighborhood that's fairly oriental and bordering on the slummy, is a great room, with wondrous murals from the '20s or '30s on the wall. Worth going for the room alone.

By the way, the Hotel du Nord was the setting for Marcel Carné's 1938 movie, called, conveniently "Hotel du Nord," starring Jean-Pierre Aumont and Arletty, who says, when asked why she stays at such a crummy dump, "Atmosphere, atmosphere," which has become sort of a Parisien catch-phrase excuse for one's presence in a seedy neighborhood. (One hell of a sentence, that.) If any of my readers knows where I can find a VDS tape copy of "Hotel du Nord," I'd really like to know.

Back to my peregrinations.

Saturday afternoon, I abandoned my camera hunt to go to the place d'Alegre and the covered Marché Beauvau to get a chunk of spit roasted pig with crackling and to find some heirloom tomatoes. Success. Went home and crashed.

Sunday, I went to the Puces de Saint-Ouen, the gigantic aggregation of eight flea markets at the porte de Clignancourt on the north edge of the city to meet OA friends Ed Baum and his lovely wife Lisa, for a shopping stroll and lunch. Ed collects Champagne buckets, and Saint-Ouen has lots of them, but he was disappointed to find that a couple he coveted were priced out of his market. So we stopped at a brasserie on the edge of the Marché Paul Bert (I didn't remember to write the name in my little book, but I think it was Brasserie Le Paul Bert) for a Salade Gourmande, with chicken-gizzard confit, chicken livers, tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs, pickled artichokes, olives, croutons, and, of course, a small assortment of lettuces. A little too much vinaigrette, but an altogether satisfactory repast. (The salads were huge, mine way beyond my lunchtime capacity, so Ed and Lisa got to see me do my zip-lock bag trick. This was our first meeting off the internet, and I think we meshed nicely. Very bright and charming folk, with much good conversation.

After lunch, we went to the Viaduc des Arts in the 12th. This used to be a grand brick-arched railroad viaduct that carried a little train to a now disappeared station where it connected with the old Petit Ceinture, the little beltline railroad that used to encircle Paris, now replaced by the Boulevard Peripherique.

The viaduct's arches have been enclosed and now house artsy-craftsy shops--instrument makers, linen drapers, dealers in decorative bricabrac, jewelers, glass-blowers, sculptors, and so on. The roadbed above has been translated into the Promenade Plantée, a flower-and-shrubery-and-bench lined walk that goes from the awful Opera de la Bastille to the edge of the Bois de Vincennes, where the old station was. We walked the whole length of the Promenade on the viaduct proper (I had never been that far along it before) and when I started to get weary (the Baums are just youngsters with loads of stamina), I bid them adieu and headed for home. It was one of my best Paris Sunday afternoons ever. It's remarkable how the city's aspect changes when one is in company rather than alone. I found myself looking with a keener eye and noticing details I'd overlooked before.

Later on, I augmented my saved salad with some Bayonne ham, heirloom tomatoes, and grated parmigiana reggiano and made it my supper.

I think that's enough for now.

Maurice

[Robert Schonfeld]

Good stuff, Maurice. Thanks.

[g.johnson]

the Marly machine (look it up)

I did. Cool.

[Wilfrid1]

And I'm polishing my astrolabe.

[Vanessa]

Now all we need is an orrery

v

[Maurice Naughton]

Now all we need is an orrery

v

Just for you, Vanessa.

[hollywood]

Maurice, you look a little prickly? Everything ok?

[Maurice Naughton]

Maurice, you look a little prickly? Everything ok?

It was suggested to me that I should have an avatar that reflected my personality.

[ranitidine]

L'Hotel du Nord is so elusive that inquiry by Lippy several years ago revealed that even MOMA doesn't have a print in its collection.