Happy Birthday

 

In the United States, members of the Teamster's Union take their birthdays off. That's a great idea, so Kaaren took the day off from writing Paris Play. Instead, she and our visiting friend Tristine, for two days made the rounds of Paris publishers, then had two celebratory dinners, one with Tristine, her friend Barbara, and me at our friend Richard's marvelous Lebanese fusion restaurant, Savannah, the second with a group of friends from my French school, L'Alliance Française.

In place of her prose, here's a tribute to the god Hermes, the god of liminal spaces, of entrances and exits, of passages, of doorsills and of windows. Paris has so many doors and windows, in styles from gothic, to baroque, to rococo, to plain, they are an endless fascination: Where do they lead? What do they hide? What do they reveal? How long have they been in service? Do they squeak, or are they smooth operators?

Today, Paris Play is wordless, a silent door or window into our Paris.

--Richard 

 

Writing in Cafés

Most of the time, I write at home, but the other day, mulling over a journal piece I intended to write, I thought, why not try writing in a café today? Especially since the journal post included the mention of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, who used to escape the chill of their apartments by writing in Café de Flore or Les Deux Magots at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

I would have to try out a few cafés to discover which has the best ambiance, the best conditions for writing.

It’s the hottest April and May on record in Paris, so open windows were one requirement. A good table for writing was another. And not too noisy.

After a brisk 25-minute walk, I arrived at my chosen café. Already, one advantage of writing in cafés was apparent—a good walk stimulates the mind.

What was it Friedrich Nietzsche said? “A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.”

The café was crowded and noisy, but perhaps it would be quieter upstairs. I asked the woman at the cash register, “Are you serving upstairs?”

“Oui, Madame,” said a blonde woman whose hair was unusually short for a French woman.

The upstairs floor was L-shaped. A woman sat at the head of the “L,” a man in a corner at the foot. Both were focused, writing and reading. I picked a table halfway between the two and arranged my notebooks, colored pencils and pen on the table before me.

Behind me there was greenery in the open window that muffled the sounds from the street. In spite of the heat, a slight breeze brushed my shoulders.

A waiter appeared shortly. He was warm and twinkly, if a bit nervous, and took my order for a Badoit and green tea from Japan.

What luck! I’d found my perfect writer’s café on the first try!

I caught up on my soul-map, the daily mandala I draw of twelve colors, a daily check-in that keeps me on track in the twelve realms of my life.

The waiter returned. He seemed nervous, and sure enough, he spilled the sparkling water. But he swiftly recovered, grabbing the bottle, apologizing, drying the table, and wheeling off to bring me a replacement. Nothing on the table had gotten wet.

By the time he returned, I’d finished my mandala, and opened my notebook, ready to begin writing.

A kite string of fluttering women were heading up the stairs. I couldn’t see them yet, but I could certainly hear them, shouting in Italian. They must be on the way to the bathroom, I thought. Such noisy revelers would find no one up here to observe them and little to observe.

But no! Like a gaggle of chattering mockingbirds, they twittered past me, one male among them, and crowded around a table two tables away. Another straggled past in a red shirt, red jeans, a voice like a fire alarm.

How far away could I move and manage to outdistance their voices? I carried my Badoit, tea and notebooks to the opposite end of the room, and slid into the farthest booth. No, still too loud. I moved to the table opposite, directly in front of the two open wings of the window, poured my tea, took a sip and lifted my pen.

A man in a gray suit came up the stairs, looked around the spacious room, and slid into the booth I’d just vacated, directly across from me. He arranged a notebook and book on the table, then stood up and closed the two leaves of the window.

“Oh non, monsieur, s'il vous plaît, il fait trop chaud pour avoir les fenêtres fermées[1].”

He nodded pleasantly and opened one of them, leaving the other closed. “Voilà!” he said.

It was still too hot at my table. I looked around the room. There were at least three other windows, but all were too close to the noisy Italians.

I finished my tea, packed up my bag, and headed downstairs. The man in the gray tailored suit leapt up and reached the stairs just ahead of me. What was he doing?

While I paid at the register, he stood beside me and chatted with the cashier.

I walked a ways to the next appealing café. This one had no upstairs floor. But look! There in the corner, out of the main flow of people and traffic were two empty tables.

Just as I settled in at one, a man signaled me from halfway across the room, accompanied by a younger woman.

He gestured, Was the table next to mine available?

Yes, I nodded. He maneuvered his way through tables and chairs and took a seat against the wall next to me. He turned to me and grinned, as if happy to have company. But where was his female companion…?

I glanced outside and saw that she was the hostess of the restaurant.

A handsome humorless waiter came to take my order: a Perrier and a fresh fruit salad.

“Are you together?” he asked the man to my left.

“Oui,” he said, and pushing his table up against mine, said to me, “Vous permettez?” 

Was I going to humiliate him in front of the waiter and other diners? No.

As soon as the waiter took his order for a beer, he introduced himself.

I told him I was here to write, as soon as I’d finished “supper.”

“Oh,” he said. “You’re a writer. I’m a painter.” And he pulled out photos of his paintings for me to admire.  He looked Spanish, like Javier Bardem, stocky and dark-haired, but his accent was pure Parisian.

Did I have children? he asked.

“No,” I said.

Was I married? 

(If my wedding ring were any thicker it could be refashioned into a bracelet.) “Yes,” I said, “very happily married.”

 

“Ahhh,” he said, with heightened interest.

“Not just married,” I said. “He’s my soul mate.”

“Ah ha!” he said, with even greater relish. (Nothing like a challenge for a hunter.)

My fruit salad and sparkling water had arrived. I would talk to him while I ate, then excuse myself to write.

“And you,” I asked, “have you found your soul mate?”

“Yes,” he said. “She’s older than me. A writer. No children. We’ve been together for a year.”

And then came the key piece of information: “And she’s out of town till Monday.”

“I see,” I said. (And I did.)

“She would like us to live together but I prefer to keep my own place.”

I bet you do, I thought. Lucky woman, I thought, with such a devoted mate.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We were now in tedious territory.

Did he ask for my number? Of course he did.

Did I give it? Just guess.

How much more interesting a conversation would be if a woman said what she was really thinking: An older writer, is she? I must be your type.

Well, yes, as a matter of fact you are.

Just think, if I hadn’t met Richard, and you had met me before your girlfriend—let’s call her Diane—I could be the one begging you to move in with me, and you could try to seduce Diane the instant I left town!

I don’t follow you.

Oh, you know, women are pretty interchangeable, don’t you think?

Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far…

Monsieur, I have an idea. Let me guess ten things about you.

Who would turn down an invitation like that?

All right, he said.

But you cannot speak while I guess. All you can do is tell me how many of my guesses were correct, after all ten. I don’t even want to know which.

All right! he said. You’re on!

1)      You’re alcoholic. (The smell of addictive drinking is different from a beer or two on the breath.)

2)      You have never been faithful to a woman in your life.

3)      Your greatest gift is your lovemaking. You’re not even interested much in painting.

4)      It’s easy for you to pick up women because you’re very handsome.

5)      You feel sad about your life, but you’re not sure why.

6)      You hate solitude.

7)      You think psychotherapy, introspection of any kind is stupid, a waste of time.

8)      There is an emptiness in you that nothing fills.

9)      You have herpes (I can see it on your lip).

10)    You hope that you’ll stumble upon some woman who is not only smart, but wise, to help you make sense of your baffling life.

Nine, he said. But this, he said, touching his lip, is not herpes. I cut myself shaving.

I nodded. It appeared to me that he hadn’t shaved in several days.

I ate my fruit salad, then told him politely that I needed to write.

He smiled and scribbled down his website. “Come to my art show!” he said, then waved goodbye.

I smiled, and took out my notebook, but the writing focus had flown. So I packed up my notebooks and pen, and walked home.

But I cannot tell you a few truths I sensed about him without telling you a truth about myself: the encounter pleased me! We women are divided creatures. We want to get our work done without annoying interruptions. When we’ve found our true love, wild horses can’t tempt us away. Yet, what delight to know we’re still considered fair game for handsome hunters.

The next day I stayed in and wrote for four hours straight. And then had a delicious evening with my true love.

The street art photographed in this edition of Paris Play is primarily by Tristan des Limbes, who has recently been blanketing Paris with marvelous, and occasionally grotesque, drawings.

---

[1] Oh no, sir, please, it’s too hot to have the windows closed.

Der Himmel über Paris

Imagine that you are the two angels in Wim Wenders’ film, “Der Himmel über Berlin,” (“Wings of Desire,” in America, though himmel translates as both "sky" and "heaven"), but instead of Berlin, you are in Paris on the evening of May 17, 2011. You can fly anywhere in the city and overhear conversations inside apartments you pass, or linger and watch and listen to the thoughts of the humans.

You might feel compassion for every human in every dwelling place you pass, including the men and women who make their home on the streets.

But surely there would be certain scenes you'd find more compelling than others. Even angels have preferences.

Surely if you’d passed by the windows of a certain apartment on Boulevard Saint-Germain, and saw a queenly woman dressed in black, with a humorous, wry expression on her face, seated on a divan facing a gathering of men and women eager to hear her stories, you would perch on the windowsill to listen. For this was a woman who’d traveled widely, and interviewed many of the leading artists of our time.

She wore big red sunglasses, red lipstick, and a scarf with a design like black and white piano keys. She wore sandals like those Gertrude Stein wore. She wore a black and white turban on her head like the ones Simone de Beauvoir wore.

And her first story was about Simone de Beauvoir.

Edith Sorel was living in Cuba, married to a Haitian, earning a living as a translator for Fidel Castro of his speeches.  Since he paid by the word and discoursed at length, it was a good job.

Jean-Paul Sartre came to speak in Havana, accompanied by Simone de Beauvoir. The state newspaper, Revolución, wrote an article about the noted writer, Sartre, and his companion, de Beauvoir, without a word about de Beauvoir’s accomplishments.

Edith wrote her first-ever article and fired it off to Revolución, detailing Mme. de Beauvoir’s importance as both a writer and philosopher, whose 1954 book, The Second Sex, was a clarion call for a feminist awakening.

The article was published the next day, and voilà, she received a call the following day from Simone de Beauvoir herself, inviting her to visit them at their hotel in Havana.

Edith knocked at their door, and de Beauvoir opened. She was quite beautiful, with dark hair and blue eyes, yet her voice was shrill. Whereas Sartre, who was the ugliest man Edith had ever seen, had the most beautiful voice.

Edith arranged for the French couple to meet Che Guevara, who now had the post of director of the National Bank. The meeting occurred at 4 a.m. in the bank, and Edith said that because she served as translator among the three of them, she doesn’t remember a word of what was said.

So began her career as a journalist—all because Revolución had not understood the importance of de Beauvoir, but Edith had.

She was hired first by Revolución, then was swapped for a French journalist, and sent to work in Paris. Since she wasn’t paid much, the newspaper supplemented her pay with winters in Cuba.  Her first "major assignment" was covering the 1961 Adolf Eichmann trial.

For years, Edith had lunch in Paris every six weeks with de Beauvoir. The writer liked to break from her work for lunch later than most, for exactly two hours, then return to her writing. She was very disciplined, Edith said.

And throughout the time she knew de Beauvoir and Sartre, they always looked at one another as if they’d just fallen in love, each alert for every word of the other, each acting as if they were seeing the other for the first time.

From Paris, she was sent to interview Pablo Picasso in Vallauris for his 80^th birthday celebration.

She was immediately struck by his piercing eyes. Scorpio eyes, she said. Everyone brought him huge, extravagant gifts. Great bottles of champagne and massive quantities of food. Even a large painting painted by the children of the local potters.

Picasso got down on the floor with the children and discussed every detail of the painting: “This bull is very fine, but perhaps his ear could be changed like this…”

He was full of curiosity and excitement, said Edith, just like a child, always curious about everything.

Later, as she was walking in the street with her photographer, a long Lincoln Continental pulled up beside them.

“Hola, chica,” came Picasso’s voice from the back seat. “Get in.”

They climbed in, went with him to a café, where he asked Edith, “Did you like my birthday exposition?”

The photographer kicked her under the table.

“I haven’t seen it,” she said (although she had).

“Then I will take you to see it right now!”

And so, just as the photographer knew would happen, the two of them were led through the show by Picasso, who told them all about each painting while the photographer snapped photos.

Henry Miller… Edith was assigned to interview Henry Miller in Pacific Palisades. He was close to 80 years old at the time, and his wife was nearly 50 years younger than he.

Before Edith could get to her first question, Miller said, "Sex.  Right?  You want me to talk about sex."

She was taken aback, but only for a heartbeat.  "No.  I want you to talk about love." 

Miller looked pleased.

“You married five times. Why did you marry so often?”

“Because you had to marry women then to sleep with them.” (Does this remind you of anyone else, say, Elizabeth Taylor?) “But my great love was a woman I didn’t marry. She was 20 years older. I was 19 at the time.”

(Although Miller may have married for sex each time, his last wife, it is reported, refused to sleep with him because, "You are an old man.")

Everywhere you looked there were paintings, Edith said. Covering all the walls, and even on the ceiling. Henry Miller painted a water color every single day.

Edith made an appointment three months in advance to interview Ingmar Bergman the director of famously angst-ridden films. He was directing a play in Munich, Germany. When she arrived, the Nazi-like guard at the playhouse stopped her. No, she did not have an appointment. No, she could not see Bergman. She asked to speak to his secretary. No, he did not have a secretary.

She raised her voice, in German. The guard made a phone call. Down came Bergman’s secretary, who was appalled; apparently she had forgotten to write the appointment in Bergman’s calendar. However, Bergman’s home was not far from the theater. Perhaps she’d be willing to meet him there? This was even better, Edith said. She always liked to meet people in their own homes; it was more revealing. When she arrived, he was not there, so she poked around, and even read one of his letters.  (Or so she told him, though perhaps she didn’t.)

Bergman was a man with big ears and a big nose, so in photos you couldn’t see how attractive he was.  His height and figure and face all together were quite arresting. He was in an anguish of apology with her. He offered her a drink. She had her usual Scotch, and so did he. Still anguished over the forgotten appointment, he apologized, and then as they talked, they laughed and laughed, and had a wonderful time. The master of Scandinavian angst was a man of tremendous humor and joie de vivre.

The interview with Bergman was in sharp contrast to her interview with the comedian-filmmaker Woody Allen ("He had flaming red hair, you know.") in his apartment in New York City. You would recognize it from “Annie Hall,” "Manhattan," and “Hannah and her Sisters.” All the familiar rooms.

She began by asking him about his prolific output, making a movie once a year.

“Yes,” he said.

She asked him various questions, to which he responded “Yes.” Or “No.”

He offered her a drink. It was only 11 a.m., but she needed a Scotch. It was apparent to her by now that she’d need the skills of both a dentist and a psychiatrist to get Woody to talk.

She asked him about the films of Ingmar Bergman.

“Bergman!” said Woody Allen. “He’s my god!”

“Have you met him?” Edith asked.

“No,” said Allen.

“Well, I have,” said Edith, and then, beginning with her stories of Bergman, the interview flowed.

We who were perched on the windowsill wanted more stories from Edith. But a documentary is being made about the ABCs of her great life, and perhaps we’ll hear more of her stories then.

Even angels have to wait for things to come forth in their own time. And we have all eternity to receive them.

Roots and Branches

It is fascinating to see how, in moving to another continent, the web of relationships and rituals in my life continues in certain respects, and in others is broken. I could never have predicted how my most treasured relationships would grow deeper, the thread between us stronger, in spite of the distance between us.

Yet in another sense, what I assumed would continue unbroken--certain rituals of daily activity, created over the years and made effortless by repetition--must be recreated here in Paris as if they’d never existed.

The web of relationships continues in Paris. Here I see an acupuncturist, Helen Divov, who was recommended by Dr. Maoshing Ni, my acupuncturist in Los Angeles. Dr. Mao and Helen were trained together some years ago in Los Angeles. After practicing there, Helen fell in love with a Frenchman and moved to Paris.

In our last session, I told her how hard I’m finding it to recreate certain habits here that were second nature a few months ago in the U.S. For instance, stretching in the morning. Lifting weights. Avoiding certain foods that I’ve found are best for me to avoid. Fitting in errands. Getting enough sleep.

It was the same way for her, she said, during her first year in Paris. Her eating habits changed, and her exercise rituals were no longer in place.

Helen sees patients in a small, lovely courtyard apartment in Paris, then spends the weekends at her home in the country. She’s a devoted gardener, and told me a story of how, gardening one day, she noticed that a tree she'd replanted a year earlier had not put out leaves or flowers.

Then, suddenly, during the second year, it was full of green and flowers too. 

She realized that the first year a tree is giving all of its energy into putting down roots. Then it can reach out and up with its branches and leaves. And she saw that it was the same with human beings. In our first year in a new place, most of our energy is invisibly putting down new roots; then we can return to all the ways we’ve found to support our own blossoming.

 

Rub It For Luck

It is good to rub and polish your mind against that of others.—-Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

Just around the corner from us, and a few blocks west down rue des Écoles (street of the schools), is a tiny public square, named for Paul Panlevé, a mathematician and physicist, and not terribly competent French prime minister, circa World War I.

The square is probably more famous for the life-sized statue of Michel de Montaigne, father of the essay, a rich and distinctive prose form which still enchants writers (and readers) to this day.  The statue of a seated, pensive Montaigne faces the front door of the Sorbonne, across the street, probably the most famous of French colleges, part of the University of Paris since 1257.  It was the Sorbonne and other schools of the early Middle Ages that taught in Latin until the French Revolution, giving our neighborhood its most common appellation, the Latin Quarter.

If you look closely at the Montaigne sculpture, you'll see that his connection to French education continues to this day, if not in the halls of the Sorbonne (we jest, of course he is taught there), at least in urban legend. The statue's bronze foot is worn to a golden patina because students believe it's good luck to rub his foot before an exam.

Are urban legends mere falsehoods, or real lies?

Who can say? But this tradition has crossed the Atlantic, too, at least as far as the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, the second college in the American colonies.  There, students rub the shoe on the marble statue of the bewigged Lord Botetourt, the former English governor, also in the hope of good luck going into a big test or final.

And there's yet another French statue-rubbing tradition, this one in Paris' 20th arrondissement.

A couple of miles northeast of us (a brisk Sunday walk) is Père-Lachaise, Paris' largest cemetery, whose most famous tenant is probably the American singer Jim Morrison.  It also houses (among others) Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Alice B. Toklas, Colette, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret (side by side), Sarah Bernhardt, Isadora Duncan, Edith Piaf, Stéphane Grappelli, Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Doré, Paul Eluard, Max Ernst, etc., etc.

And the writer Victor Noir.

Who?

To make a long story short, Noir (real name Yvan Salmon) was in 1869 a Paris journalist for a Corsican-language newspaper which, by insulting the long-dead Napoleon I, drew for its editor a challenge for a duel from the late emperor's grand-nephew, Prince Pierre Bonaparte, cousin of the then-ruling Emperor Napoleon III. The editor sent Noir and a buddy (both armed) to the prince's house in January, 1870, to work out the duel's terms, but, rather than acting as seconds (a sort of best man, or groomsmen at a duel) they mixed it up verbally with the prince, who, offended at the lack of proper custom, slapped Noir and shot him through the heart.

The prince was acquitted, of course, as he was rich and a Bonaparte, because Noir was armed, and because the prince testified that Noir slapped him first.

Noir was buried in another cemetery, but was later (1891, following the fall of the Third Republic and the Franco-Prussian war) disinterred and reburied in Père-Lachaise, honored with yet another life-sized statue (the French like life-sized statues).  The sculpture, by Jules Dalou, depicts Noir as he fell, flat on his back, top hat next to his right hand.  (And no weapon of any kind visible.)

Now, for some reason, perhaps because the statue is SO lifelike, and Noir was said to be something of a roué, the urban legend arose that rubbing Noir's rather prominent (but discreetly covered) private parts would cause the infertile to become fecund.  In addition, placing a flower in the top hat and kissing his lips would add to the mojo.

Voila, Noir's endowment is burnished gold, just like Montaigne's foot.

Perhaps there is a real scientific study to be done someday by someone who has passed his or her finals at the Sorbonne.  Let them choose their local urban legend and have at it.  Falsehood, or real lie?

Whichever, the Noir-rubbing tradition, too, has crossed the Atlantic to New York.

There doesn't seem to be any reason for it, other than its size and prominence (his penis is about face-level on the average American), but the 12-foot-tall bronze Adam by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero in New York's Time Warner Center is also developing a distinct shade of Noir-gold, thanks to the rubs, pats, and who knows, maybe kisses, of New Yorkers and tourists alike.

Then there's Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield, Illinois, where people touch the tip of the bronze nose of the former president's likeness, also allegedly for luck.  But that's too long a walk from our apartment to investigate.