Saturday April 9th.
After a breakfast at Damiani's, we decided that we were rested enough to be sociable. We arranged to meet Florence at the Marches aux Puces at Vanves tomorrow and Jean-Claude Mézières sometime next week, answered some other email, and then I went searching on-line for the orange ergonomic laptop screen-raiser I'd seen in the Herman Miller office. Jim's First Law: "Nothing is Easy" and this certainly wasn't. Either they don't make it any more or it is a sacred jewel only shown to the privileged few - which didn't include me.
Rendezvoused with Francisco San
Millan (gazing out the BHV window above) at Super Hero comic shop
in the Marais near Centre Pompidou. Took a 20 bus instead of a
29 bus crosstown on my way and walked down Rue St. Martin towards
the Seine. Passed within two doors of Auberge au Nicolas Flamel,
more on which hopefully later.
At the shop, I bought a new book on Sergio Toppi's animal drawings with an "ex libris". Super Hero is famous for its commissioning of signed "bookplates" (small drawings signed by the artist and inserted into the new books) of which they have hundreds. We wandered about the first and fourth, stopping at FNAC at Les Halles to see if they had something to raise my laptop into a more ergonomic position. Then we went to BHV on Rue Rivoli to look for same. Nada.
We did see the above room decorated with bright spring/Paques (Easter) creations all made from recycled plastic containers. It reminded me of the "recycle monsters" over by Jardin du Plantes on our first trip in 2006. Here's a close-up of, looking up at the "leaves" of the tree. They appear to be old Badoit bottles misshapen by heat.
We walked over to Île Saint Louis. It was a hot day and I was all for some Glaces de Berthillon, but it was a Saturday and the touristes were out in droves. The lines were 20+ people long and we gave up and crossed to the left bank to visit another comic book store near L'Album. With Francisco, we usually avoid buses and Metros, so I was just about done in and it was nearing 7 PM. We bid adieu at the Maubert Mutualities Metro and I went home to Karen, dinner and wine.
Sunday, April 10th.
The flea market at Vanves with Florence and her friend Susanna. She was born in the U.S. but has spent most of her adult life in Europe. We envy her bi-lingual fluency. She seems to think in both French and English and hops between them with such ease.
While
I didn't find anything old, I did discover two CDs, the existence
of which I was completely unaware.
The first was the sixth in Rick Rubin's American recordings of Johnny Cash. Who knew?
The other was a new Jerry Lee Lewis album wherein he does duets
with a stellar list of musicians including: Eric Clapton,. Sheryl
Crow, Merle Haggard, Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson, Willy Nelson,
Keith Richards, Mavis Stables, Ringo Starr, Robbie Robertson,
and more. Wow! Or, if you're under 25, Who?
We actually had lunch at Au
Timbre Poste near the flea market. Below are Susanna, Florence
and Karen in front of the restaurant. At right is one shot of
the interior. As we were eating our lunches, we watched a man
arrive with a meter-long scale model of a jumbo-jet that was probably
destined, after careful cleaning and restoration, for a place
of honor wherever they could fit it in amongst the other memorabilia.
Here's a preview of
Florence's new book devoted to the reality of "Mother's Day"
celebrations. We're invited to the debut party on May 5th.
Dinner that evening was the usual
melange of bread (a small loaf of nut bread from the organic market),
fromage (Comte, Brie de Melun, Saint Agur, Roquefort), foie gras,
pate les legumes, olives, onions, salad and a mildly interesting
bottle of Rully.
What a tough day!
Monday April 11th.
A day of rest, writing and work on the graphics for the web
update. Karen started researching the logistics of our planned
trip to Prague and Moravsky Krumlov in the Czech Republic to see
the 20 massive murals by Alphonse Mucha that comprise his "Slav
Epic". We also checked on-line to discover that my Mirra
chair was due from Germany in the morning. We did some shopping,
including getting some French coats for Jaime and Giovanni, who
like the Cosmopolitan look.
Tuesday, April 12th.
We thought we'd have to hang around
all morning waiting for the chair to be delivered, but it came
promptly at 9:30 - just as the tracking site estimated. More on
it later. We suddenly had the day free and we jumped at the chance
to run around Paris. We had a 2:30 appointment at our bank over
on the Grands Boulevards, so we set off to revisit the Herman
Miller showroom to see about the laptop stand. They weren't open.
We tried a FNAC and a helpful man there eventually told us to try Surcouf, nearby on Boulevard Haussmann. First we had lunch at a restaurant enroute to the bank, Brasserie Haussmann, where we each had the plat du jour of white fish, risotto, and café gourmand for 15 Euros and glass of Cotes Du Rhone.
We did our banking stuff, went to Surcouf and found a laptop cooling stand that raised the computer in a fashion similar to the device I'd seen at Herman Miller at, I'm nearly positive, a MUCH lower cost. Voila! Add the wireless keyboard that I already had and I was set for ergonomic splendor - and so it has proven to be. All that PLUS four more USB ports!
Wednesday, April 13th.
A busy day. First
was our revisit to The Musée des Arts et Métiers
in the third Arrondisement. Here's Karen in front near the human-scale
model of the Statue of Liberty. Before the French Revolution of
the 1790's, it was a monastery and the abbot managed to save the
building by proclaiming that henceforth it would be a museum dedicated
to human ingenuity and creation - and so began the accumulation
of a collection of machines and inventions that boggles the mind.
The first time we went was on our fall 2010 trip and we only
visited the 3rd floor of science and instruments. This time we
stayed on the ground floor and saw the transportation section:
planes, trains and automobiles. They've got the world's first steam-powered vehicle, a huge
military car that cost a million dollars in 1770. It is fully
25 feet long and couldn't be steered properly since that necessitated
turning the front wheel AND the boiler. It ran into a building
and that ended the project.
Down
the hall was the first helicopter and this model of a very beautiful
steam engine that exists only in this prototype.
It
was a fascinating display and in the original abbey is Foucault's
original pendulum, a towering, multi-level display of automobiles,
the original model of the Statue of Liberty, and several airplanes
suspended above it all. Marvelous.
Here's Karen watching the pendulum swinging, about set to knock over the last of the AA batteries that had been set up for a demonstration that was ending just as we entered the Abbey. She declined to make the climb to the heights just to see some old cars.
Our next stop was to be Rue Mouffetard in search of the elusive fine Burgundy wine. Having skipped breakfast, we stopped for lunch at a very nice Vietnamese restaurant at Maubert-Mutualité. It's next door to Au Phil du Vin, but we wanted to go for something new. As Karen put it, "Jim had a caramelized pork dish and I had a rice noodle bowl with minced beef and a great blend of herbs and spices." Personally, I think I got the better deal. Both were delicious and the restaurant had been pointed out to me by at least three friends as being excellent, so we weren't being as adventurous as it might appear.
We took the bus to
Censier-Daubenton (near Gobelins and Le Refuge de Passe) and walked
over to Rue Mouffetard. We'd been told last year about a good
wine shop there by our friend Sylvain, so we thought we'd check
it out. The woman who ran the place was enthusiastic and helpful,
but we ended up with the same story as everywhere else - they
don't make wine like that any more. Disappointed, but unbowed,
we stood in front of the store knowing we'd have to report to
Sylvain and contemplated our next move.
It was made for us
as we looked up and saw Sylvain striding towards us! What are
the odds that, with five million people in the city, you could
run into the person you had just spoken of? Remember, he called
me just after Germanico had mentioned his name at L'Album last
week. The man is eerily aware of someone talking about him...
Recall, also, that he is the one who introduced us to Caféothèque. He was on his way to, wait for it... Starbucks. It was more in the way of a drug fix than a gastronomic experience, but we it wasn't as bad as we remembered. The conversation was excellent, as always.
Our next stop was BHV to get some new sheets for the bed. Enroute we passed this street just off Rue Rivoli and I had to take a picture for Niki at Clocktower Coffee. We'll get one of the restaurant, too, Niki. Promise.
We eventually went home and eventually had a dinner and eventually
made the bed with the new sheets, but I don't remember the details.
What a busy day!
Thursday, April 14th.
Today we went to the Czech Tourism Bureau to learn about what a trip to Prague and the Mucha murals might entail. We had not been able to get precise information regarding the murals on-line, but the helpful lady at the Bureau was able to access (and translate) the web page of a museum in Prague which was currently displaying five of them. It seems that the Mucha murals we want to see have been split up: five are in Prague and fifteen are still in the Moravský Krumlov castle. Said castle is in the middle of nowhere and it's too complicated for our weak minds to figure out how to get there ourselves. We don't normally use travel agents, but this time, if it's going to happen, someone else will work it out for us. With luck, we'll go next week for a few days. A trip to a recommended Eastern European travel agency the next day gave us more information and we left a tentative agenda and our phone numbers - trying to make it clear that we wanted to see the murals in both cities.
We
decided to go to Berthillon for ice cream, by way of La Caféothèque.
Still wonderful coffee, and when we finished I wanted to show
Karen a little store around the corner that sells food stuffs
from all over the world. Fascinating. So, walking down this little
street in the Marais, we passed a restaurant that Sylvain had
recommended. It being lunch time, we had to stop. Jim had 7-hour
lamb and Karen had boeuf tartare and we shared a 2005 Burgundy
from Daniel Rion. 2005 was a very good year, and we hadn't seen
a Rion wine in 20 years. Wonderful lunch, but we never did get
to Berthillon. Mosey-ed back home with full tummies.
Friday, April 15th.
Laundry, worked on the website (in my ergonomical space) and relaxed. Got the information from the travel agency that convinced us that planning a bit further ahead would make good economic sense and also that it would be best if we waited until all of the murals were in one place. Perhaps a better trip for the fall. C'est la vie.
Saturday, April 16th.
The highlight of the day was the evening and dinner we spent
with Jean-Claude Mézières at his studio and apartment
near Gobelins in the 13th. Some white wine and conversation in
his studio where he shared paintings from his upcoming album and
then down a flight to his apartment and some salad and pizza and
red wine made by a client and more talk. We made a promise to
visit the Stanley Kubrick exhibition at Cinémathèque
when he gets back from his trip to his country home outside of
Paris.
Sunday, April 17th.
We finally decided we "needed" to go to ÎSL and get some Glaces de Berthillon. Good weather for a walk, so off to Seine and the Île Saint Louis. The Maison Berthillon was closed, as it seems to be more often than not, and we ate inside at one of the dozens of shops that advertise Glaces de Berthillon. Karen had Chocolat noir and Caramel au beurre salé and I had Pistache and Caramel. Tres bon. All the shops have windows to serve cones to the sidewalk trade and the goal is to somehow start a queue. Once they get a line going, it is self-perpetuating. There was no one outside when we arrived and this is the sidewalk when we left.
More later - à bientôt.
