A piece of Paris trivia:
We'd heard about the famous restaurant, Maxim's forever, but when
we drove by it, we discovered that next door to Maxim's is a café
called Minim's. Cute.
Thursday, April 16th: First on our agenda today was to see the Henri Rivière exhibition at the old Bibliothèque Nationale near Bourse.We'd been seeing the posters for the exhibit all over town and several people had recommended it to us. So off we went.
The
first thing we encountered upon entering the exhibition was this
illuminated screen with the silhouettes of three struggling characters.
The zinc cut-out was done by Rivière for the famous Le
Chat Noir cabaret in the Montmartre district (just down the
street and around the corner from our apartment).
Later, as he developed as an artist, he began to play with depth of field and lighting in the Chat Noir shadow plays. Then he began to work in woodblock prints, in the manner of the great Japanese artists, Hiroshige and Hokusai. The exhibit had dozens on display, along side a few select samples by the mentioned Japanese masters. Most interesting to me is that the technique of printing allows for the artist to "interpret" each print differently, as can be seen by the two versions of the same image below. It was a fascinating to see his progression as an artist and a well-designed and lit exhibit.
Our plan was to leave the Bibliothèque Nationale and catch a bus to L'Auberge Nicholas Flamel, about 1250 metres east towards the Centre Pompidou. Whoops! Here's what greeted us as we emerged where Rue du Quatre Septembre becomes La Bourse for a block before it renames itself Rue Réaumur:
Lucky us. We were getting a first hand view of someone (we think it was the municipal gas and electric workers) holding a protest strike. Since this was the only West-to-East bus route within 500 metres, we "opted" to walk, and worked up a very healthy appetite in the process.
The menu (the daily special) consisted
of goat cheese in a delicate pastry concoction that simply burst
with color, aroma and flavor. Here's a close-up:
We accompanied
the meal with a 2005 Crozes Hermitage, a lovely wine. We'd ordered
a 2006 Cotes du Rhone from the wine list, but they were sold out
and substituted this at no extra cost. Nice folks.
And great food! The main course was escallop de veau in a Roquefort
sauce which was poured from a carafe onto each plate. When I motioned
for a bit more, the waiter (the only one we've seen in all of
our visits) simply set the carafe on the table. Yum, yum! And
the desert on the menu du jour was supposed to be a sorbet of
some kind, but "just to make sure you return" he delivered
two of these luscious creations (below, right). I do believe we
will be back.
Friday, April 17th: Our goal today was the Bois de Vincennes and the Parc Zoologique. This is one of two huge "forests" (bois = wood) just outside of the city "limits" of Paris. Vincennes is in the southeast. We took the #1 Metro line to its end at Chateau de Vincennes (only to discover that the zoo is closed until 2012. We should have checked. Still, we had nice little lunch at a bar by the metro station and took a leisurely bus ride home through parts of the city we hadn't seen.
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| Near the Parc Zoologique (the Zoo) | Chateau de Vincennes |
Saturday, April 18th: We met
Laura Maroto Mas and her husband José Mas at the Place
de Clichy this morning and we went shopping at the Marche Biologique
on Blvd. des Batignolles. José had been the high bidder
on a copy of ImageS #1 that I put on eBay and we were to deliver
it in person. We picked up the ingredients for a Spanish Omelette
a la Laura, and I added four Saint Jacques (scallops in their
shells with their roe) to serve as a starter for the lunch. We
talked about art and comics and her father, Esteban Maroto, and
they departed around three to connect with a gallery near Montmartre
which had been exhibiting some of his art. Alas, I took no pictures
of either the folks or the food.
One thing I have forgotten to mention is that
last Saturday, the day that Francisco came to lunch, we had acquired
a new addition to our apartment. At the beginning of the market,
just as we came to the first sellers, there was a gentleman with
a selection of oriental carpets for sale spread out on the sidewalk.
The one on top was "the perfect size and colors" according
to Karen. I gently reminded her that our financial manager had
advised us "not to spend a lot of money decorating the apartment
in Paris," but Karen (and I, too) has been of the philosophy
that if you find the "perfect" thing, you should just
buy it. To be fair, Karen bargained him down by about 16% and
he agreed to "livraison" after the market closed. You
can see the results below:
Now, since I am catching up on things I've missed, I got an email from Kathleen chiding me for not showing a picture of the "pens." Okay, I'm POSITIVE that no one BUT Kathleen cares about this, so I'm going to put the pics of pens on a separate page. If you're NOT Kathleen Lane, please do not click on the link. Honest, there is NOTHING there but a picture of some plastic Pentel pens. These are VERY boring and of NO interest to ANYONE. I swear it.
This is the LINK. Think about it. You're going to waste precious moments out of your life if you click it. Please think twice. Okay?
Hey, just remember, "I told you so!"
Sunday, April 19th: Today we had a rendezvous with Daniel
DuClos at the Petit Palais to see the William Blake exhibition.
Photographs were not allowed. And, yes, that's the SMALL Palace
below. The Grand Palais is across the street.
We
were allowed to take pictures in the regular exhibit space
in the museum, so here we are in one of the beautiful Art Nouveau
stairwells with a bronze statue. Plus two more views of the Palais.
There are statues everywhere in Paris and almost all of them are
well-executed versions of the human form. Made us wonder why such
things are so out of fashion in America.
Blake was quite the mystical artist and, while not my favorite, has influenced quite a few other artists and writers. In fact, there were several books set up for perusing in the small apreschamber after the exhibition. Among them was Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's "From Hell." Unusual to see comics in any form in a U.S. museum, but they're standard stuff over here. And someone involved with the Blake exhibit was familiar enough with the graphic novel to make the connection with Blake and include the book for visitors to see after viewing his art.
We met up with Daniel at about 2:15 and waltzed right into the exhibition. When we exited a couple of hours later, there was a line down past the tree in the photo above, and even longer lines across the street for the Warhol exhibit and another called Tag in the main hall of the Grand Palais. All of Paris seems to turn out for art exhibitions - just one more reason to love this city.
After we left the Petit Palais, we went across the Seine, past Concorde, to Place Madeleine, where we had lunch and coffee with Daniel. Then it was back home to rest and regale you with our exploits of two weeks previous. I had to get something posted because our friends Sarah and Paul were due to arrive the following day and we would all be VERY busy.
