Running away from home: Nikki's trip to Paris
Mar 29th, 2012, 02:44 AM
#61
Original Poster
Thanks to all of you whose comments are making it easier for me to keep at this way too long report.
Ann, I kept thinking of taxi fares as just a glass or two of wine.
Marcy, I'd go back to that restaurant in a minute (if I weren't on the other side of the ocean).
Opal, I still want to get to that free midnight jam session at the Duc des Lombards. I admire your stamina; the times I thought about it, it is true that I couldn't really imagine staying up until 3 AM as you said you do.
Ann, I kept thinking of taxi fares as just a glass or two of wine.
Marcy, I'd go back to that restaurant in a minute (if I weren't on the other side of the ocean).
Opal, I still want to get to that free midnight jam session at the Duc des Lombards. I admire your stamina; the times I thought about it, it is true that I couldn't really imagine staying up until 3 AM as you said you do.
Mar 29th, 2012, 04:03 AM
#62
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"The young pharmacy student is stumped by the category of 'children of movie stars'. This gives me hope for the future."
Great comment. I wonder how the student managed to be ignorant of such an all-pervasive topic. Even with no interest and no TV, I know more about celebrities than I need to.
Great comment. I wonder how the student managed to be ignorant of such an all-pervasive topic. Even with no interest and no TV, I know more about celebrities than I need to.
Mar 29th, 2012, 04:58 AM
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Nikki this is so good. We head to Rome this year and so, probably no Paris, this year. This makes me ache.
We were seated next to Jean Jacques Sempe at Marco Polo last winter! (After we checked out early from a 3 act modern dance at Opera Garnier...it was a tad strange and were on the verge of all out laughter at some parts, we decided Italian cuisine would suit use better than embarasing ourselves and disturbing our seat mates in the box. Hey, we made it through 2 acts).
We were seated next to Jean Jacques Sempe at Marco Polo last winter! (After we checked out early from a 3 act modern dance at Opera Garnier...it was a tad strange and were on the verge of all out laughter at some parts, we decided Italian cuisine would suit use better than embarasing ourselves and disturbing our seat mates in the box. Hey, we made it through 2 acts).
Mar 29th, 2012, 06:28 AM
#64
Here I am devouring your trip report and making notes while I have my morning coffee.
The only reason that this is odd is that I haven't even unpacked yet from our trip to Turks & Caicos--had to check in on Fodors first. Do you think I'm addicted to Fodors?
The way I look at it is that when you return from a fabulous trip, it's never too early to start planning the next!
You always provide such insight to Paris and it is much appreciated. No matter how many times we visit, we always find something new from the Fodorites to check out.
The only reason that this is odd is that I haven't even unpacked yet from our trip to Turks & Caicos--had to check in on Fodors first. Do you think I'm addicted to Fodors?
The way I look at it is that when you return from a fabulous trip, it's never too early to start planning the next!
You always provide such insight to Paris and it is much appreciated. No matter how many times we visit, we always find something new from the Fodorites to check out.
Mar 29th, 2012, 07:33 AM
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tpayt writes: "The way I look at it is that when you return from a fabulous trip, it's never too early to start planning the next!"
On the second day of my first trip (as an adult) to Paris, I had lunch in a café while I planned my next trip to Paris.
Is it any wonder I ended up living there? ;-)
On the second day of my first trip (as an adult) to Paris, I had lunch in a café while I planned my next trip to Paris.
Is it any wonder I ended up living there? ;-)
Mar 29th, 2012, 07:48 AM
#66
Original Poster
Monday, March 19, I meet Mimi, Miki, and Dick at Au Pied de Cochon for lunch. http://www.pieddecochon.com/ This landmark restaurant is located near the old site of Les Halles and is open all day and night. I order the formule for lunch: a terrine of pig's feet in honor of the name, and then pig's knuckle with lentils, which is quite good. Mimi's onion soup and seafood platter are quite good as well.
After lunch, Mimi, Dick, and I walk past the construction zone that is the site of Les Halles today, and enter the Centre Georges Pompidou to see the exhibit Danser Sa Vie. This wonderful multi-media exhibition is worth quite a bit of time. At the entrance to the exhibit a male dancer is writhing on the floor in slow motion next to a Matisse triptych. There are fascinating videos, including one of a choreographer demonstrating the geometrical aspects of dance movement. Displayed in this gallery are drawings that look like the ones I used to design on my spirograph as a kid.
There are paintings that have been inspired by dance, and dances that have been inspired by paintings. By the time I run out of steam, a couple of hours have passed, and I find that Mimi and Dick have already left the museum. I try to buy a catalogue of the exhibit, but they are all sold out. So I walk to the department store BHV and pick up some fun items, including a few drawer pulls for the cabinets in the kitchen that have needed them for almost twenty years.
From there I take the bus to Café Constant in the 7th arrondissement. http://www.cafeconstant.com/1.aspx Mimi and I are meeting our internet friend Marcy and her daughter Kerry here for dinner. We have arrived at 7 PM so as not to have to wait for a table, as this restaurant does not take reservations. Mimi and I both met Marcy at a get-together in Boston which we calculate must have been nearly ten years ago, and it is a real treat to be able to get together again here in Paris.
I love the food at this place. I start with a dish of squid with chorizo and artichokes, and for a main plate I have pigeon, served with lentilles du Puy, the same French green lentils that were served with my lunch. It must be the season. I finish with a cheese plate. Marcy is scandalized to see that there is only one type of cheese on my plate. It would be nicer to have an assortment, it is true, but that does not stop me from enjoying what I have.
After a couple of hours here, we feel it is time to leave and let someone else have our table. We move two or three blocks down the street and find ourselves at the Bar du Central, 99 rue Saint-Dominique. Marcy asks if we can stop in for a glass, and the friendly waiter says, "or two, or even three!" so we seat ourselves inside and continue our evening.
As we are placing our orders, the waiter is very helpful. Mimi tells him he is perfect. He denies it. I tell him that when a woman tells him he is perfect, the appropriate answer is "merci". He turns to Mimi and says, "Merci beaucoup, Madame".
We close the joint down, and by the time we leave, Mimi is kissing the waiters.
After lunch, Mimi, Dick, and I walk past the construction zone that is the site of Les Halles today, and enter the Centre Georges Pompidou to see the exhibit Danser Sa Vie. This wonderful multi-media exhibition is worth quite a bit of time. At the entrance to the exhibit a male dancer is writhing on the floor in slow motion next to a Matisse triptych. There are fascinating videos, including one of a choreographer demonstrating the geometrical aspects of dance movement. Displayed in this gallery are drawings that look like the ones I used to design on my spirograph as a kid.
There are paintings that have been inspired by dance, and dances that have been inspired by paintings. By the time I run out of steam, a couple of hours have passed, and I find that Mimi and Dick have already left the museum. I try to buy a catalogue of the exhibit, but they are all sold out. So I walk to the department store BHV and pick up some fun items, including a few drawer pulls for the cabinets in the kitchen that have needed them for almost twenty years.
From there I take the bus to Café Constant in the 7th arrondissement. http://www.cafeconstant.com/1.aspx Mimi and I are meeting our internet friend Marcy and her daughter Kerry here for dinner. We have arrived at 7 PM so as not to have to wait for a table, as this restaurant does not take reservations. Mimi and I both met Marcy at a get-together in Boston which we calculate must have been nearly ten years ago, and it is a real treat to be able to get together again here in Paris.
I love the food at this place. I start with a dish of squid with chorizo and artichokes, and for a main plate I have pigeon, served with lentilles du Puy, the same French green lentils that were served with my lunch. It must be the season. I finish with a cheese plate. Marcy is scandalized to see that there is only one type of cheese on my plate. It would be nicer to have an assortment, it is true, but that does not stop me from enjoying what I have.
After a couple of hours here, we feel it is time to leave and let someone else have our table. We move two or three blocks down the street and find ourselves at the Bar du Central, 99 rue Saint-Dominique. Marcy asks if we can stop in for a glass, and the friendly waiter says, "or two, or even three!" so we seat ourselves inside and continue our evening.
As we are placing our orders, the waiter is very helpful. Mimi tells him he is perfect. He denies it. I tell him that when a woman tells him he is perfect, the appropriate answer is "merci". He turns to Mimi and says, "Merci beaucoup, Madame".
We close the joint down, and by the time we leave, Mimi is kissing the waiters.
Mar 29th, 2012, 01:53 PM
#69
Original Poster
Tuesday, March 20 I wake up and listen to the oldies radio station, Nostalgie. They are playing the Herman's Hermits hit "No Milk Today", which I haven't heard for about forty years. And now I can't get it out of my head. Was it always this silly? I guess if you don't speak English, you can't tell just how silly it is, but what was my excuse?
I head to the restaurant Au Vieux Chêne for lunch. http://www.vieuxchene.fr/EN/index.htm This old workers' bistro in the traditional furniture making district of the eleventh arrondissement has an excellent chef and a well priced lunch menu of 15 euros for two courses. I start with a terrific onion tart laced with lardons, and finish with rabbit confit.
Then I take the bus to the Collège de France for this week's class on Baudelaire. I arrive too early, but you can never be too early for these French audiences. There is a line outside the door an hour and a half before class is scheduled to begin. I use the time to read some more Baudelaire and write in my journal.
Today's subject is Baudelaire's theory of art. One aspect of this theory is that the art of caricature expresses modernity. We see slides of famous caricatures by Daumier and others. I have trouble as I did at the Sempé exhibit appreciating the visual humor. I come away with the notion that Baudelaire saw art as the search to find the epic in the ordinary, in the comic aspects of life.
The second hour is taken up by a very young guest speaker who introduces her talk by saying how awed she is to be speaking in this prestigious institution in front of such a large audience. She then goes on with a perfectly confident presentation of Baudelaire's aesthetic of existence. Something about art augmenting forms by putting them in a frame, and about the struggle between form and the exceeding of boundaries. It sounds much more aesthetically pleasing in French.
I take a bus to the Comédie Française. I have some time to kill before the performance, so I wander through the stores in the Carrousel du Louvre, the mall underneath the courtyard of the Louvre. I pick up a small bag of chocolates at the Maison du Chocolat and eat them to tide me over until after the play.
The Comédie Française is being renovated, and during the period of construction plays are being presented in a temporary building which has been erected in the garden of the Palais Royal. While the frame is exposed within the structure and you can see the boards holding up the seats as you walk toward the front of the house, this is a very solid theater with comfortable seating and a full-sized stage.
A father with two young daughters sits next to me. The younger one is wearing red tights and a red sweater and holds a stuffed animal whose species, shape, and color are no longer ascertainable. The big sister is maybe nine years old and is wearing the jeans and boots that show she is closer to grown up than the little sister. The big sister, in a gesture of affection, kisses the little sister's toy.
The little sister keeps saying, "We have the best seats!" as we are seated in the first row of a section behind a railing and there is nobody in front of us. But when the usher suggests they all move up to a group of seats closer to the stage, the father gathers them up and they all move down. The usher invites me to move as well, but I am happy where I am. I agree with the little girl and like my seat. This is an aspect of French theater etiquette that I have been noticing all week. Just before the start of a performance, everybody moves to fill in any empty seats. So that feeling of lucking out when the seat next to me is vacant is short-lived.
An intensely distracting young boy in the row behind me spends the entire two hours of the play kicking the seats, putting his feet up on the seat next to me, and generally fidgeting. So much for the myth of the unnaturally well behaved French child.
I find myself fidgeting a bit as well. This is my third Molière play in four weeks, and maybe I don't need to see any more real soon. But it is entertaining and I am glad I came.
Tonight's presentation is Le Malade Imaginaire, the last play Molière wrote. Molière was acting in the role of the imaginary invalid while he himself was critically ill. Knowing that, he disguised his pains in the fourth performance as comic grimaces, dying several hours later. The show must go on.
I toy with the idea of going out for a late dinner after the show, but I must be pretty tired. I get turned around on the métro, end up on the wrong platform one time and the wrong train another, and get home at 11:30 too tired to do anything but hit the leftovers in my kitchen. Duck pâté with a layer of foie gras, an assortment of cheese, cold coquelet-- my leftovers are pretty spectacular.
I head to the restaurant Au Vieux Chêne for lunch. http://www.vieuxchene.fr/EN/index.htm This old workers' bistro in the traditional furniture making district of the eleventh arrondissement has an excellent chef and a well priced lunch menu of 15 euros for two courses. I start with a terrific onion tart laced with lardons, and finish with rabbit confit.
Then I take the bus to the Collège de France for this week's class on Baudelaire. I arrive too early, but you can never be too early for these French audiences. There is a line outside the door an hour and a half before class is scheduled to begin. I use the time to read some more Baudelaire and write in my journal.
Today's subject is Baudelaire's theory of art. One aspect of this theory is that the art of caricature expresses modernity. We see slides of famous caricatures by Daumier and others. I have trouble as I did at the Sempé exhibit appreciating the visual humor. I come away with the notion that Baudelaire saw art as the search to find the epic in the ordinary, in the comic aspects of life.
The second hour is taken up by a very young guest speaker who introduces her talk by saying how awed she is to be speaking in this prestigious institution in front of such a large audience. She then goes on with a perfectly confident presentation of Baudelaire's aesthetic of existence. Something about art augmenting forms by putting them in a frame, and about the struggle between form and the exceeding of boundaries. It sounds much more aesthetically pleasing in French.
I take a bus to the Comédie Française. I have some time to kill before the performance, so I wander through the stores in the Carrousel du Louvre, the mall underneath the courtyard of the Louvre. I pick up a small bag of chocolates at the Maison du Chocolat and eat them to tide me over until after the play.
The Comédie Française is being renovated, and during the period of construction plays are being presented in a temporary building which has been erected in the garden of the Palais Royal. While the frame is exposed within the structure and you can see the boards holding up the seats as you walk toward the front of the house, this is a very solid theater with comfortable seating and a full-sized stage.
A father with two young daughters sits next to me. The younger one is wearing red tights and a red sweater and holds a stuffed animal whose species, shape, and color are no longer ascertainable. The big sister is maybe nine years old and is wearing the jeans and boots that show she is closer to grown up than the little sister. The big sister, in a gesture of affection, kisses the little sister's toy.
The little sister keeps saying, "We have the best seats!" as we are seated in the first row of a section behind a railing and there is nobody in front of us. But when the usher suggests they all move up to a group of seats closer to the stage, the father gathers them up and they all move down. The usher invites me to move as well, but I am happy where I am. I agree with the little girl and like my seat. This is an aspect of French theater etiquette that I have been noticing all week. Just before the start of a performance, everybody moves to fill in any empty seats. So that feeling of lucking out when the seat next to me is vacant is short-lived.
An intensely distracting young boy in the row behind me spends the entire two hours of the play kicking the seats, putting his feet up on the seat next to me, and generally fidgeting. So much for the myth of the unnaturally well behaved French child.
I find myself fidgeting a bit as well. This is my third Molière play in four weeks, and maybe I don't need to see any more real soon. But it is entertaining and I am glad I came.
Tonight's presentation is Le Malade Imaginaire, the last play Molière wrote. Molière was acting in the role of the imaginary invalid while he himself was critically ill. Knowing that, he disguised his pains in the fourth performance as comic grimaces, dying several hours later. The show must go on.
I toy with the idea of going out for a late dinner after the show, but I must be pretty tired. I get turned around on the métro, end up on the wrong platform one time and the wrong train another, and get home at 11:30 too tired to do anything but hit the leftovers in my kitchen. Duck pâté with a layer of foie gras, an assortment of cheese, cold coquelet-- my leftovers are pretty spectacular.
Mar 29th, 2012, 05:49 PM
#73
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<i>get home at 11:30 too tired to do anything but hit the leftovers in my kitchen. Duck pâté with a layer of foie gras, an assortment of cheese, cold coquelet</i>
That's all you had to subsist on?
That's all you had to subsist on?
Mar 29th, 2012, 06:02 PM
#74
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yipper, We had wonderful time in Paris. It's amazing how it all came together. We all booked separately and only after that discovered we would be there at (more or less) the same time. Serendipity.
Mar 30th, 2012, 03:40 AM
#76
Original Poster
Wednesday, March 21 I have lunch at A La Renaissance, the place in my neighborhood. On the lunch formule, the starter of os a moelle consists of one marrow bone (at dinner the other night there were two). No dogs are eyeing my plate on this occasion. I then have a very good onglet, steak with shallots and dauphinois potatoes.
The bus takes me to the Orangerie. This time I resist the temptation to get off at any stops along the way and I make it all the way to the Place de la Concorde and enter the museum through the Jardin des Tuileries. I enjoy the Monet waterlilies and the excellent permanent collection of post-Impressionist paintings, but it is the special exhibit on Debussy that has brought me here.
There are works by the artists in Debussy's social circle and art that was inspired by Debussy's work, as well as some of the art that inspired Debussy's music. I am drawn to a striking print by Félix Vallotton of a flutist and a cat. I used to have a cat named Twinkie who would climb up on me when I played the flute as if she were trying to get as close to the source of the sound as possible. The cat in this print appears to be following the same musical instinct. At the museum bookstore I see a tote bag from the exhibit with this print on it, and I buy it to carry my music.
My feet are shot. I end up in a taxi driven by a madman. I give him the name of my street and I see him looking it up on a map. I tell him I can direct him there and he tells me there is no need, he knows where it is. Still looking through his maps. He is muttering to himself and barely missing bicyclists along the way, and I shudder to remember our passage through the Place de la République. He sees me grasping the armrest and tells me not to worry. He then approaches the one way street from the wrong direction and I tell him to leave me at the corner. We both fumble the change I give him in payment and it ends up all over the floor. I am relieved to get out of that cab.
It is almost 5:00 PM so it is getting cooler out but it has been a warm enough afternoon for me to go into my garden and sit with my feet up sipping a Coca Light.
Tonight I am meeting a group of friends at Le Comptoir du Relais. This tiny bistro at the Carrefour de l'Odéon is almost impossible to reserve, but Abby and Tomas are back in Paris and spending their last nights in the attached hotel. Hotel guests have priority in getting reservations, so we are taking advantage of their status for a festive gathering. Mimi is there, as well as two people I have not met before, Fodors poster Sandi (Traviata) and her husband Ed. Miki joins us briefly as well, but has to leave before the meal begins.
It takes us all a while to figure out that the little figurines of chanterelle mushrooms on the table are knife rests, not party favors. There is a post card in front of each place with tonight's dinner menu printed on it. There are no choices; the price for the dinner is 55 euros apiece before drinks.
First they bring out some wonderful cheese puff pastries, thin slices of sausage, and bread. Then there is an oeuf mollet, a not quite hard boiled egg, with mushroom duxelles and mousseux café foie gras, foam made from foie gras and coffee. Then there is a fish course of wonderful trout from Lac Léman in Switzerland, followed by a meat course of veal with braised endive and parsley mousse. This is followed by a huge platter of cheese from the Pyrenees, which they eventually take away before we finish the whole thing. There is a fabulous dessert of grapefruit in light cream and Campari aspic, accompanied with lait ribot, a fermented milk that is a bit lighter than yogurt. I would not have ordered this if I had read the description, but it is wonderful.
After dinner the chef spends quite a long time sitting at the table next to us, chatting with some very attractive young French women. Tomas tells us the reason he isn't coming around to our table is that he does not speak English. Well, all right, but I do go up to him outside as I wait for my taxi and thank him for the terrific meal.
In the taxi I suddenly hear the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It is the driver's cell phone. She is a stunning young black woman, cheerful and talkative. I comment on her ring tone and she tells me how much all the young French people love this movie, how they think it is hilarious. She loves movies in general. But she hasn't seen The Artist, which just won the Oscar for best picture, because a friend of hers is an actor who lost a role to Jean Dujardin and she has stayed away from Dujardin's films out of loyalty.
We pass some very tipsy people in the street, and the driver comments on how she gets to see everything driving the streets of Paris at night. She is somewhat disgusted by how more and more she sees women drunk in the streets, while it used to be mostly men.
Back to my apartment and time for bed. Only two more full days before I fly home. But I am starting to feel that I will be ready to go.
The bus takes me to the Orangerie. This time I resist the temptation to get off at any stops along the way and I make it all the way to the Place de la Concorde and enter the museum through the Jardin des Tuileries. I enjoy the Monet waterlilies and the excellent permanent collection of post-Impressionist paintings, but it is the special exhibit on Debussy that has brought me here.
There are works by the artists in Debussy's social circle and art that was inspired by Debussy's work, as well as some of the art that inspired Debussy's music. I am drawn to a striking print by Félix Vallotton of a flutist and a cat. I used to have a cat named Twinkie who would climb up on me when I played the flute as if she were trying to get as close to the source of the sound as possible. The cat in this print appears to be following the same musical instinct. At the museum bookstore I see a tote bag from the exhibit with this print on it, and I buy it to carry my music.
My feet are shot. I end up in a taxi driven by a madman. I give him the name of my street and I see him looking it up on a map. I tell him I can direct him there and he tells me there is no need, he knows where it is. Still looking through his maps. He is muttering to himself and barely missing bicyclists along the way, and I shudder to remember our passage through the Place de la République. He sees me grasping the armrest and tells me not to worry. He then approaches the one way street from the wrong direction and I tell him to leave me at the corner. We both fumble the change I give him in payment and it ends up all over the floor. I am relieved to get out of that cab.
It is almost 5:00 PM so it is getting cooler out but it has been a warm enough afternoon for me to go into my garden and sit with my feet up sipping a Coca Light.
Tonight I am meeting a group of friends at Le Comptoir du Relais. This tiny bistro at the Carrefour de l'Odéon is almost impossible to reserve, but Abby and Tomas are back in Paris and spending their last nights in the attached hotel. Hotel guests have priority in getting reservations, so we are taking advantage of their status for a festive gathering. Mimi is there, as well as two people I have not met before, Fodors poster Sandi (Traviata) and her husband Ed. Miki joins us briefly as well, but has to leave before the meal begins.
It takes us all a while to figure out that the little figurines of chanterelle mushrooms on the table are knife rests, not party favors. There is a post card in front of each place with tonight's dinner menu printed on it. There are no choices; the price for the dinner is 55 euros apiece before drinks.
First they bring out some wonderful cheese puff pastries, thin slices of sausage, and bread. Then there is an oeuf mollet, a not quite hard boiled egg, with mushroom duxelles and mousseux café foie gras, foam made from foie gras and coffee. Then there is a fish course of wonderful trout from Lac Léman in Switzerland, followed by a meat course of veal with braised endive and parsley mousse. This is followed by a huge platter of cheese from the Pyrenees, which they eventually take away before we finish the whole thing. There is a fabulous dessert of grapefruit in light cream and Campari aspic, accompanied with lait ribot, a fermented milk that is a bit lighter than yogurt. I would not have ordered this if I had read the description, but it is wonderful.
After dinner the chef spends quite a long time sitting at the table next to us, chatting with some very attractive young French women. Tomas tells us the reason he isn't coming around to our table is that he does not speak English. Well, all right, but I do go up to him outside as I wait for my taxi and thank him for the terrific meal.
In the taxi I suddenly hear the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It is the driver's cell phone. She is a stunning young black woman, cheerful and talkative. I comment on her ring tone and she tells me how much all the young French people love this movie, how they think it is hilarious. She loves movies in general. But she hasn't seen The Artist, which just won the Oscar for best picture, because a friend of hers is an actor who lost a role to Jean Dujardin and she has stayed away from Dujardin's films out of loyalty.
We pass some very tipsy people in the street, and the driver comments on how she gets to see everything driving the streets of Paris at night. She is somewhat disgusted by how more and more she sees women drunk in the streets, while it used to be mostly men.
Back to my apartment and time for bed. Only two more full days before I fly home. But I am starting to feel that I will be ready to go.
Mar 30th, 2012, 06:19 AM
#78
Original Poster
Thursday, March 22, I have lunch at Le Pré Verre because it is a block away from the class I will attend this afternoon at the Collège de France. The formule at lunch is 14 euros for two courses including wine or bottled water. The starter is a salad of red cabbage, grapes, and walnuts followed by a main course of sautéed lamb.
It is a beautiful, warm day. I wander a bit in the neighborhood, browsing in a book store's sidewalk display and coming away with an art book about the Fauves and a book with views of Paris in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This will be the last neighborhood on earth to sell books when they have disappeared from the rest of the planet. I am attracted by some shiny things in the window of a jewelry store I have inexplicably overlooked.
I go into a pharmacy on my quest to purchase the single use breathalyzer tests that are available inexpensively in France and unheard of in the US. I have a request from home to bring several back, but the new law requiring drivers in France to keep a supply in their car has apparently depleted the stock. I have been looking in grocery stores and pharmacies and have been told they are all on back order. This pharmacy had offered to order some for me when I came in a few days ago, but when I go to pick them up I am told they were unable to obtain any. They check their computer for pharmacies that might have them and come up empty. I have two anyway, and will have to dole them out.
This afternoon's course on the origins of God in the bible focuses on the centralization of the worship of God in Jerusalem under the reign of King Josiah. In this period, the kingdom of Judah had been greatly reduced to Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings. The closing of the "high places" ordered by the king reflects a political reality.
But what else is going on, the instructor asks. What explains the text? I am reminded of the realization I had in law school that the Supreme Court decisions we were studying reflected social, political and economic realities although they were clothed in the language of abstract theoretical considerations. The instructor constructs a fascinating argument that leads to several possible conclusions. He makes the point that archeology is not always more definitive than Biblical interpretation based solely on the text.
I head back to my apartment early enough to enjoy the sunshine and have an early supper in the garden.
It is a beautiful, warm day. I wander a bit in the neighborhood, browsing in a book store's sidewalk display and coming away with an art book about the Fauves and a book with views of Paris in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This will be the last neighborhood on earth to sell books when they have disappeared from the rest of the planet. I am attracted by some shiny things in the window of a jewelry store I have inexplicably overlooked.
I go into a pharmacy on my quest to purchase the single use breathalyzer tests that are available inexpensively in France and unheard of in the US. I have a request from home to bring several back, but the new law requiring drivers in France to keep a supply in their car has apparently depleted the stock. I have been looking in grocery stores and pharmacies and have been told they are all on back order. This pharmacy had offered to order some for me when I came in a few days ago, but when I go to pick them up I am told they were unable to obtain any. They check their computer for pharmacies that might have them and come up empty. I have two anyway, and will have to dole them out.
This afternoon's course on the origins of God in the bible focuses on the centralization of the worship of God in Jerusalem under the reign of King Josiah. In this period, the kingdom of Judah had been greatly reduced to Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings. The closing of the "high places" ordered by the king reflects a political reality.
But what else is going on, the instructor asks. What explains the text? I am reminded of the realization I had in law school that the Supreme Court decisions we were studying reflected social, political and economic realities although they were clothed in the language of abstract theoretical considerations. The instructor constructs a fascinating argument that leads to several possible conclusions. He makes the point that archeology is not always more definitive than Biblical interpretation based solely on the text.
I head back to my apartment early enough to enjoy the sunshine and have an early supper in the garden.
Mar 30th, 2012, 11:21 AM
#79
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This is one of my favorite TR's. I agree with whoever said they like your writing style very much.
The artist Félix Vallotton is not known to me so here are some works for others who share my ignorance--really lovely pieces:
http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=487
Nikki, how do you keep your French speaking current?
The artist Félix Vallotton is not known to me so here are some works for others who share my ignorance--really lovely pieces:
http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=487
Nikki, how do you keep your French speaking current?
Mar 30th, 2012, 12:04 PM
#80
An intensely distracting young boy in the row behind me spends the entire two hours of the play kicking the seats, putting his feet up on the seat next to me, and generally fidgeting. So much for the myth of the unnaturally well behaved French child.
I find myself fidgeting a bit as well. This is my third Molière play in four weeks, and maybe I don't need to see any more real soon. But it is entertaining and I am glad I came.
Tonight's presentation is Le Malade Imaginaire, the last play Molière wrote.>>
Nikki - it was thanks to you that we went to see this too, and enjoyed it very much, though it stretched our french to the limit, and a bit beyond! I thought the production excellent, which overcame the language problem somewhat, and seeing where other people are laughing helps too.
but I too had a problem with another member of the audience sitting just in front of me, who kept fiddling with his phone all through the performance, turning the screen on and off, which was very distracting.
your dinner at le comptoir du relais sounds excellent - a good reason to stay at the hotel, by the sound of it. so many fabulous places to see - and eat at, and so little time.....
I find myself fidgeting a bit as well. This is my third Molière play in four weeks, and maybe I don't need to see any more real soon. But it is entertaining and I am glad I came.
Tonight's presentation is Le Malade Imaginaire, the last play Molière wrote.>>
Nikki - it was thanks to you that we went to see this too, and enjoyed it very much, though it stretched our french to the limit, and a bit beyond! I thought the production excellent, which overcame the language problem somewhat, and seeing where other people are laughing helps too.
but I too had a problem with another member of the audience sitting just in front of me, who kept fiddling with his phone all through the performance, turning the screen on and off, which was very distracting.
your dinner at le comptoir du relais sounds excellent - a good reason to stay at the hotel, by the sound of it. so many fabulous places to see - and eat at, and so little time.....
