Sunday, April 25, 2010
A BRIEF AFTERTHOUGHT
We take EBook readers withg us whenwe travel. Easier than heavy books. Has anyone else read "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell?" It was on the New York Times best seller list. If you did get to it, did you manage to finish it?
LETTER FROM PARIS #9
It has been a bad couple of days. First downer was a comment from “anonymous” on my blog site. (I think I know who it is because she always chides me for negativity.) She said that if I had so many bad things happen from graffiti to tourists blocking my view to lack of artistic judgement of the mob at the Louvre – I “should have stood in bed.”
Next hit: Rachel and I went to the supermarket for supplies. On the way through the checkout the cashier asked me: “Allemande?” Rachel could hardly contain her laughter. She had been telling me that my accent was neither American nor Canadian but it also was not French. This otherwise charming woman at the checkout said I sounded like German!
Next: on the Metro where I am always delighted by the kindness of the French, (my wife is always given a seat by an obliging gentleman or young woman.) an older man who identified himself as once being from Montreal declared that the French only want to appear to be what they are not: polite.
The final straw. I woke up this morning and made my usual trip to the computer to read the Toronto papers. No Globe – only the Star. Yikes! It is Sunday. I have lost a whole day!
Now Rachel has only three more days. We must do something interesting: the Bon Marche! It’s a huge market with everything and it is thronged with Parisians and tourists of course. The final blow: forgetting I am not in Toronto where everything is open on Sunday, we emerge from the Babylone Metro and the place is closed! Everything but restaurants – closed.
I am getting desperate for something good. I know exactly where to find it: St. Germain de Pre. We detour first to see St. Sulpice, which is being totally remodeled. A few more blocks and we face the three restaurants most famous for being where the soon-to-be-great authors and artists met and argued. Directly ahead: Les Deux Maggot, to the left Café Flore, then our choice Brasserie Lip. We had arrived at the literary crossroads and it was time to spend money.
Just a sidelight: the best people get the best tables. Many of us call those the “yoo-hoo” tables because if you are anyone at all you can greet all the others and of course, be seen. Classically, among the elite, it is understood that the farther back you sit the less important you are. If you find yourself at the in the very bowels of the restaurant, usually near the noise of the kitchen, you are next-to-nobody. The yoo-hoo table - that you get only if your name has been on a marquee recently. Our waiter was attentive, but not fawning. The food is pretty good and elegantly served and you get linen napkins. The purpose of Brasserie Lip is not the food it is the privilege of being there.
The good day is beginning. From Lip we head to a sidewalk café for dessert. Rachel, who says she always gets “looks” orders du lait. Shirley forces herself to have a gateau chocolate which comes with a scoop of ice cream and the interior of the cake liquid chocolate bliss. My simple tarte aux pommes is beyond the ordinary,
From there another “must.” Rue Buci lined with temptations: exquisite chocolates, irresistible patisseries, and everywhere restaurants and sidewalk tables crowded with pleasure seekers.
Side note: the contrast to Montmartre, where we were yesterday, is revealing. The Montmatre crowd seemed almost all to have cameras hot-wired to their brains. The crowds at Rue Buci are just as big, but more fun, more Paris, more engaged, more amiable. I know, I am idealizing, but remembering the chastisement for carping about tourists I need some redemption. I love crowds. It all depends on why they seem to be there.
Let me simply say that Montmatre, in spite of it having been home to Renoir and Picasso is garish. St. Germain de Pre is Parisian, even though the tables where Hemingway argued with Fitzgerald (I’m inventing) and Picasso harangued Braque and where the Dadaists met to plot artistic anarchy – are now filled with everyday pleasure seekers, most of whom appear to be French. (If you are sitting down you hear them)
Meanwhile, I cannot pretend to be immune from the allure of celebrity. Where Rachel, when she saw the Moulin Rouge, probably remembers Nicole Kidman, when I see Follies Bergere I remember Jose Ferrer walking on his knees being Toulouse Lautrec. I am not immune from foolish worship. However, to maintain my standing as an angry elitist, I miss the “starving artists” who used to be in the square (now full of restaurants) and the only “artist” being of the carnival variety importuning passing tourists to have a cameo of their profile cut or a sketch of their face done. They are artists who have to make a living and they have found the mother lode. Who blames them? If it is schlock, let someone else decide.
Then came the icing on our cake-of-a-day. The corridors connecting the metro stations are very long. Entering one I heard heavenly music. There before me, and in front of dozens of others who had stopped to listen, was a string orchestra of about 12 pieces in the middle of a wonderfully played scherzo from one of the Brandenberg concertos. They finished. The crowd applauded. We had to leave and as we walked down yet another long passageway I heard the beginning of a Bach violin concerto – perhaps the double.
Not since I had the pleasure of hearing a group from the Glenn Gould School of Music play a Mozart string quartet in the fountain area of St. Lawrence Market, had I heard a performance that demanded one stop and listen. Bravo!
I may take a holiday from these letters for a few days. We have time to spend with Rachel and on Thursday our friends are taking us to Giverney. Perhaps I'll unload some of my opinions and prejudices about fine Post-impressionist art.
Next hit: Rachel and I went to the supermarket for supplies. On the way through the checkout the cashier asked me: “Allemande?” Rachel could hardly contain her laughter. She had been telling me that my accent was neither American nor Canadian but it also was not French. This otherwise charming woman at the checkout said I sounded like German!
Next: on the Metro where I am always delighted by the kindness of the French, (my wife is always given a seat by an obliging gentleman or young woman.) an older man who identified himself as once being from Montreal declared that the French only want to appear to be what they are not: polite.
The final straw. I woke up this morning and made my usual trip to the computer to read the Toronto papers. No Globe – only the Star. Yikes! It is Sunday. I have lost a whole day!
Now Rachel has only three more days. We must do something interesting: the Bon Marche! It’s a huge market with everything and it is thronged with Parisians and tourists of course. The final blow: forgetting I am not in Toronto where everything is open on Sunday, we emerge from the Babylone Metro and the place is closed! Everything but restaurants – closed.
I am getting desperate for something good. I know exactly where to find it: St. Germain de Pre. We detour first to see St. Sulpice, which is being totally remodeled. A few more blocks and we face the three restaurants most famous for being where the soon-to-be-great authors and artists met and argued. Directly ahead: Les Deux Maggot, to the left Café Flore, then our choice Brasserie Lip. We had arrived at the literary crossroads and it was time to spend money.
Just a sidelight: the best people get the best tables. Many of us call those the “yoo-hoo” tables because if you are anyone at all you can greet all the others and of course, be seen. Classically, among the elite, it is understood that the farther back you sit the less important you are. If you find yourself at the in the very bowels of the restaurant, usually near the noise of the kitchen, you are next-to-nobody. The yoo-hoo table - that you get only if your name has been on a marquee recently. Our waiter was attentive, but not fawning. The food is pretty good and elegantly served and you get linen napkins. The purpose of Brasserie Lip is not the food it is the privilege of being there.
The good day is beginning. From Lip we head to a sidewalk café for dessert. Rachel, who says she always gets “looks” orders du lait. Shirley forces herself to have a gateau chocolate which comes with a scoop of ice cream and the interior of the cake liquid chocolate bliss. My simple tarte aux pommes is beyond the ordinary,
From there another “must.” Rue Buci lined with temptations: exquisite chocolates, irresistible patisseries, and everywhere restaurants and sidewalk tables crowded with pleasure seekers.
Side note: the contrast to Montmartre, where we were yesterday, is revealing. The Montmatre crowd seemed almost all to have cameras hot-wired to their brains. The crowds at Rue Buci are just as big, but more fun, more Paris, more engaged, more amiable. I know, I am idealizing, but remembering the chastisement for carping about tourists I need some redemption. I love crowds. It all depends on why they seem to be there.
Let me simply say that Montmatre, in spite of it having been home to Renoir and Picasso is garish. St. Germain de Pre is Parisian, even though the tables where Hemingway argued with Fitzgerald (I’m inventing) and Picasso harangued Braque and where the Dadaists met to plot artistic anarchy – are now filled with everyday pleasure seekers, most of whom appear to be French. (If you are sitting down you hear them)
Meanwhile, I cannot pretend to be immune from the allure of celebrity. Where Rachel, when she saw the Moulin Rouge, probably remembers Nicole Kidman, when I see Follies Bergere I remember Jose Ferrer walking on his knees being Toulouse Lautrec. I am not immune from foolish worship. However, to maintain my standing as an angry elitist, I miss the “starving artists” who used to be in the square (now full of restaurants) and the only “artist” being of the carnival variety importuning passing tourists to have a cameo of their profile cut or a sketch of their face done. They are artists who have to make a living and they have found the mother lode. Who blames them? If it is schlock, let someone else decide.
Then came the icing on our cake-of-a-day. The corridors connecting the metro stations are very long. Entering one I heard heavenly music. There before me, and in front of dozens of others who had stopped to listen, was a string orchestra of about 12 pieces in the middle of a wonderfully played scherzo from one of the Brandenberg concertos. They finished. The crowd applauded. We had to leave and as we walked down yet another long passageway I heard the beginning of a Bach violin concerto – perhaps the double.
Not since I had the pleasure of hearing a group from the Glenn Gould School of Music play a Mozart string quartet in the fountain area of St. Lawrence Market, had I heard a performance that demanded one stop and listen. Bravo!
I may take a holiday from these letters for a few days. We have time to spend with Rachel and on Thursday our friends are taking us to Giverney. Perhaps I'll unload some of my opinions and prejudices about fine Post-impressionist art.
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