flea market

quite without meaning to, HOM and i investigate a flea market in yet another city. you get the same heady mixture of sleaze style tedium and hope, plus that throb of capitalism out to profit from the unsuspecting. although the woman selling children's books for 50 centimes each was probably truly trying to move stuff.

last dinner in paris

is at le volant basque. the boeuf bourguignon. is. orgasmic.

i feel like there should be a post-prandial syncopal attack when i stand up.

pilgrimage

why do you want to go to the latin quarter again? HOM asks me. there is a bookstore i want to visit, i tell him.

it is a messily ordered cluttered cavernous shop with books that invite you to browse your day away. it is a library of soft limp pilled and stained cushions that allow you to sink yourself onto. it is a piano in the upper room that wants to be played. it is respectfully hush hush and delightfully free of tourist chatter. it is the bewitched bookstore of my childhood.

between the museums and this place, my soul has had a vacation.

musée de cluny

the tapestries are magnificent. the stone carvings bewilder me with their intricacies. the altar pieces are idolatrous in size and scope. the paintings are gorgeous. the proportions are breathtaking. i spend an enchanted morning wandering at my own pace.

but i have say this. the pottery's better in east asia.

alzheimer - cavafy

... keep ithaka always in your mind...

but do not hurry the journey at all. 

better if it lasts for years

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting ithaka to make you rich.

ithaka gave you the marvelous journey...

she has nothing left to give you now.

and if you find her poor, ithaka won't have fooled you.

wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these ithakas mean.

(translated by keeley and sherrard, 1992)

perhaps Alzheimer is to be our generation's Laestrygonian.

la sorbonne

it looks like university students the world over have the same concerns. amidst the cigarette-smoking wine-swigging insouciant habitués of la place de sorbonne i find this little store that advertises different binding styles for term papers.

impressions of paris

1. they do love their tobacco here

2. french has very sexy sounds

3. gallic charm is real

4. french women have bad hair days too, but the tourists have more

5. they like their dogs little

6. there's a historic building in every corner

the shop assistants all call me madame here. very age appropriate, and a credit to their judgement, especially because i usually get 小姐 back home, which i always believe is due to sheer laziness.

as an epilogue, unfortunately point #1 above mitigates points #2 and #3.

the good samaritan (Aimé Morot)

here is my neighbor. unclothed, anonymous, surreal, in need, with nothing to offer in return.

here i am. inconvenienced, propositioned, burdened, sweaty and vulnerable.

may God help me be that neighbor.

a walk to remember

doing the student thing today on my own with more time on my hands than plans.

le petit palais

fine arts is an addictive cocktail.

le marché et le musée

i chance upon the open market at avenue du president wilson. the food! the cheeses! the wines! the clothes! the bags! the scarves! 45 euros, the lady says, of the colorful bit o' silk from india that tugs at my heart. 

i eventually end up at the modern art museum. the abstractions! the colors! the shades of night! the shapes! the light! fortunately for me, the indian silk loses its charm next to picasso. 

le market

in the fresh produce market sweepstakes, the winner (for agreeableness):

this one, at rue mouffetard

i have in my mind the winner for the most disagreeable but it would not be fruitful to discuss that.

traveling companion

i cannot imagine life before google, i tell HOM. that was a time of pre-trip research and printed maps and rigid itineraries. gimme a smartphone and a data plan and i get google directions and yelp and trip advisor recommendations and metro line change instructions. plus wikipedia for the background flavor. it makes me very plebeian and it enables my slothfulness. even better would be widespread free wifi.

montmartre

i want to visit the basilica, i tell HOM. we missed montmartre the last time. 

so we take the metro to abbesses, per google. i find out later that abbesses is an historic station, the deepest of them all, and access is usually via elevator. BUT GOOGLE DID NOT TELL US ALL THIS. which is why HOM gallantly pulls me up the butt-cramping never-ending spiral of steps to the exit.

the view is stupendous. the basilica is magnificent. the buskers are variable. the artists' square is full of portrait vendors. the street magicians are seedy as promised. Le Babalou delivers on its pizza, per yelp. plus, as a result, the iphone says i climb 45 storeys today. 

old magic

1. hot chocolate at angelina on rue de rivoli. a tad sweet. but the first mouthful is as orgasmic as we remember it.

2. macarons at ladurée. chewy-melt-in-the-mouth-not-on-your-finger macarons. and they come in a bigger size here! 

3. nutella filled crepe, warm. on a cold day with a biting wind. is. so. scrumptious. 

la défense

it's nice to be back, after seven years. i remember the metro, the stations, the walks, the places. this is where i finally learn to love olives. the food is even better. the present is clearer.

i remember the pain. not the sharp misery, but the blindsiding unexpectedness of a call in the middle of the night. c'est la vie.

i am blessed. one of the holidays i treasure the most, a second time over.

still alice (2014)

i watch this on the flight over to paris. a surprising choice, considering my last ten movies have been of the pixar cars variety. 

what i say is, this is beautiful. julianne moore, as she allows the layers that form the woman to dissolve until an unrecognizable shell remains. alec baldwin as he loses that about his wife which he loves, and as he loses bits of himself. kristen stewart, as she seeks the mother she knows and unexpectedly finds it possible to relate to the husk she has become.

dementia hits hard. the challenge of our generation, i think, is to come to peace with just how hard.