April 15 - while many of you were
slaving over your taxes, we took a wonderful boat ride on the
Canal Saint Martin, Paris
from
Bastille, Paris to Parc de la
Villette, Paris.That's French for "Oh, darn! The chair broke!"
In order to work on ImageS while we're here, I bought a little computer desk and chair last summer. The desk and chair were a set that cost about $80 (not so cheap, but not TOO expensive). Well, the day before yesterday, one of the legs broke off the chair while I was in it. Fortunately, I wasn't hurt, but my ability to work at the computer is diminished. So this report may not be in so much detail.
April 15 - while many of you were
slaving over your taxes, we took a wonderful boat ride on the
Canal Saint Martin, Parisfrom
Bastille, Paris to Parc de la
Villette, Paris.
At left, the tour boat is just pulling away from the dock at Bastille Harbor. In the background you can see the Colonne de Juillet ( the July Column) which celebrates the storming, at the start of the French Revolution, of the Prisonne Bastille which stood here. The structure that crosses the canal at the beginning of the tunnel is the Metro Station, Bastille. The first two kilometers (1¼ miles) of the journey is through this tunnel. If you look at Google Earth, just follow the green line that extends NE and then NW from Bastille. The promenade is the covering for the canal, with regularly spaced pairs of green "gardens" that protect the openings that provide light and air for those making the journey along the canal.
The trip takes about 2½ hours and involves eight locks, each of which raises (or lowers if you're going the other way) the waterway three meters (about ten feet).
Here's the view from just inside
the far end of the tunnel, approaching the first lock. All along
the rest of the journey, through the locks and beyond, folks would
line the bridges and take photos of the quaint Parisian canal
locks bringing loads of quaint Parisian boat tourists who are
taking pictures of the other quaint Parisian pedestrian tourists.
Rather quaint.
At the other end of the trip, we reached the Villette Basin which is 24 meters higher than the Seine. This is the home of large park/museum/playground complex. In the picture below you can see the museum, the exterior of the 360º theater, a full-scale submarine (at right below the red building) and a small portion of the park grounds which extend on both sides of the basin.
Giovanni and Jaime, our nephews
who came with us last summer, will recognize the huge dragon slide
next to the museum. Here's me with the slide. I know, which one
is the dragon?
From the Paris photo archives,
here's a pic of the twins (Jaime on the left and Giovanni on the
right) to give you a sense of scale. It's a big, long slide.
Back to THIS trip: when we disembarked at the
end of the boat ride, we just took the metro from Stalingrad Station
to Place de Clichy to La Fourche and so to home.
The next day, Thursday, we set off to re-visit a portion of Paris we hadn't been to since our initial visit in 1973. That year we stayed with Florence Cestac and Etienne Robial of Futuropolis, an early Parisian comic shop at 130 rue du Theatre. Rue du Theatre is in the 15th Arrondisement, in the general vicinity of the Eiffel Tower. I first got the address wrong (which comes from trying to remember something from 35 years ago!) and took several pictures of 138 rue du Theatre. It didn't look right, but things do change in that amount of time. We then walked down Avenue Emile Zola to the Charles Michels Metro station which just HAPPENS to be on the #10 Metro line. The #10 line just HAPPENS to go to Mabillon, which just HAPPENS to be where Da Pietro restaurant is. So guess where we went for lunch?
I will tell you something very Parisian: you know when you have become a real customer at an establishment when the proprietors greet you with a handshake and the formal kiss on both cheeks. Today we became "official" at Da Pietro. Tres cool.
My friend Francisco San Millan
was going to join us later in the day and he called just after
we finished lunch, so we met him at Mabillon. It turns out that
HE knew the correct address for the old Futuropolis, so went back
to get a photo AND to revisit a little puzzle shop on Avenue Emile
Zola called Puzzle Michèle Wilson. Proving once again that
you can't go home again, even the proper address on rue du Theatre
was completely unfamiliar. It's now a shoe store.
The puzzle shop is a delight. They make wooden puzzles of various sizes and complexities - from a small 3"x4" 40 piece owl to a nearly three foot by four foot 5000 piece replication of Van Gogh's Le Café le Soir. Puzzles are in the shapes of animals, fans, even Tutenkamen's gold mask. The most fascinating aspect is that EACH puzzle is hand sawn making every copy a little different. The master puzzle makers are diabolically clever in making the pieces follow the coloring, so that assembly is a real challenge.
Just take a look at some of the shapes below. They are NOT interlocking and the makers are insidious in their attention to the shapes and colors within the images. Where there is little color differentiation, as can be seen along the bottom edge, then they repeat the same basic shape again and again. The saw must be incredibly fine and the puzzle-cutter incredibly experienced to bring about the final product - which is something you can really hang on your wall - which is exactly what we were after.
Karen bought a 500 piece replica of Gustave Caillebotte's Les Raboteurs de Parquet (The Floor Scrapers). It's about 10"x15" when assembled. The original is in the Musée d'Orsay and it was supposed to have been painted in the Batignolles area, which is where we live. We still have the challenge of turning the finished puzzle over and fixing the pieces in place. Perhaps a trip back to Avenue Emile Zola is needed in order to get some hints.
After we bought the puzzle, Karen
returned home while Francisco and I visited some books and comic
shops. We went to L'Album to discover that 19 out of the 20 copies
of B&W ImageS #4 had sold in the four weeks since I'd delivered
them. That was good news for both Mike Haack, the manager there
who purchased them, and for me - as it insured orders for future
issues.
You've heard a lot about Francisco, so now
you can meet him as we take a short respite on the Left Bank across
from Notre Dame.
And as a small panacea for those of you in the US who are discouraged with the price of gasoline, please pity your poor European cousins who are paying about $8.50 a gallon - as can be seen at left.
Around 7PM, we ended our day by agreeing to meet on Friday
for a visit to a large antiquarian book fair at the Grand Palais
and to a visit with a bookseller friend at her home business.
My Friday
rendezvous with Francisco was in the afternoon, so in the morning
Karen and I went back to Bastille to visit the open air market
that sets up on the plaza along the covering of the canal. Lots
of vendors of food and clothing - we each bought a new hat that
is more a la mode than our berets. I think I bought some olives,
but not much else. It was more of an exploring expedition than
a shopping trip. We saw a street performer who was dancing continuously
and energetically with a pink jug of water on his head. Here he
has engaged a member of the crowd to dance with him. He was really
moving and the water was really sloshing around, but that jug
stayed right there throughout. Great balancing act.
At right is Karen in her new stylish hat.
Francisco and I met at the Champs-Elysées/Clemenceau
Metro Station outside the Grands Palais, Paris.
This is where the book fair was being held and the setting was
simply stunning. Here's just one shot of the interior of the Grand
Palais to give you a sense of the massive scale. We get a second
view of Francisco, too. Sorry, my friend, for the intrusion.
There were books from as early as 1200 (hand-made, of course) and even an eclectic item from around 1970 called the Erotoscope, which is a book of about two dozen photos that are spiral bound and cut into four sections each that can be mixed and matched for humorous effect. An odd little item that I actually picked up while in Paris in 1973. Here is was being offered for sale at 1200€ (or $1900). Very crazy.
One thing that definitely caught my eye, once Francisco had pointed it out, was some original art to the 1906 French edition of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. These are by an artist named Alvim (sic) Correa and are some of the earliest depictions of the Martian machines. You can see others from the book HERE.
I found a few dealers from America, including one from Sebastapol,
California- about 80 miles from Palo
Alto - and spoke to several others in good-old unaccented 'Merican
English.
After exploring the fair and meeting and being introduced to a dozen or so of Francisco's friends, we were off to visit the shop of Michele Noret, who was not exhibiting at the fair. Her home (and her business) are on the Rue Saint Dominique, just east of the Eiffel Tower. We took the bus for a change. Michele specializes in 20th century children's books, but her tastes were obviously from the 1920s onward. While she could appreciate the material in ImageS, and I could admire her stock, it was obvious to us both that we weren't on the same page, artistically. We talked a lot about the business of book selling and catalog production and I am SO glad I'm not involved in that any more. It is much more fun to browse than to sell (or to try to sell).
On the
way back to the Metro from Michele's store, we passed a very important
intersection. I HAD to get a shot to share with Roger and Yakshi.
By the way, Roger, you never sent me the email address for Yakshi,
so I can send these ramblings directly to her.
Another sight we passed, just after we crossed the Pont d'Alma to catch a Metro was this full-size (supposedly) replica of the torch from the Statue of Liberty. Hard to gauge scale when something's so high as it is in NYC, but this looked a little small to me. FWIW.
And so home to dinner, some work on this missive, the breaking of the chair and to bed.
Saturday, April 19, was another excursion
with Francisco. This time we were going outside of Paris to a
place called Ozoir La Ferriere, France,
which is about 15 miles to the west of Paris. There we were to
see and exhibition of the work of Jean-Claude Mézières, whom we
had met when Ken and Joan Steacy were here last Fall. We took
the RER which is a commuter train system that connects the suburbs
with Paris proper. I am certainly glad that I had Francisco with
me as I would have been lost several times over AND I would not
have persevered when we came to our destination and discovered
that there were no buses running on Saturday and no taxis available,
either. It turns out that it was "only" a mile to Espace
Horizon where JCM was having his exhibition. It was the next to
the last day and he was present to meet the attendees and to sign
and draw pictures for them. Needless to say, despite the distance
from Paris, it was well-attended.
Photos were not permitted in the hall, so I am using a picture of Jean-Claude in his studio that was shot last summer by Ken Steacy. Thanks, Ken.
Jean-Claude is the creator, along with Pierre Christin of Valerian, agent of the Space-Time Police. The 20th album and a three-volume collected reprint are due out this year. We hope to have dinner with him next Wednesday at La Refuge du Passe. Yum (oops, I forgot I wasn't supposed to talk any more about food...)
Sunday,
today (for another 45 minutes anyway) we met Florence Cestac at the Vanves flea market
and spent several hours perusing the brochant (French for "junk")
and other goodies. I found some French magazines similar to Scribner's
and Harper's from 1914 for one Euro each and a nearly complete
1874 edition of L'année Terrible by Victor Hugo
for seven Euros and change. This is the first edition with the
illustrations by Daniel Vierge and Léopold Flameng, just
two years after the first publication. A day well spent.
Florence invited us to her home for dinner before we leave. All of a sudden we are getting popular - perhaps BECAUSE we are going? I don't know. All I do know is that any day with Florence is a fun one.
More to come next week.
