French 75

Hiding in Plain Sight

Summer approaches. You'd know it for sure because it stays light nowadays til nearly ten at night, and because the leaves, seeming to have breathed more deeply now of chlorophyll, are well and truly green. You wouldn't know it however from the weather, which is officially "iffy" -- our balmy May springtime delirium has been replaced with standard-issue Parisian forty-shades-of-gray and afternoon showers.

But June, she is tomorrow! And no matter the weather you know summer is coming because Paris is filling up ever more rapidly with a lot of people, a lot of them in groups. Not that those shuffling hordes don't have every right to be here, bien sûr, but still. The buses. The clots of them on the sidewalk. The teenagers, for heaven's sake. The chatter. The obliviousness. It is a challenge to my aspiring -- i.e., precarious -- Buddhist equilibrium.

Times like this it's good to have a few places up your sleeve where you can catch a few minutes of solitude. Sometimes hiding in plain sight is the best way to get away from all of it. All of them.

So here's one of my favorite non-hidden hideaways. Perhaps you know it.

It has six benches -- two of which offer a view onto the rather large display windows of a nice bookstore. The subway station to one side seems to soak up most of the human traffic that might otherwise be coming or going. It's a perfect place to cop a moment of calm. To escape Mr. Sun on a steamy day. Or to eat a sandwich in peace. Picnicking in some of the more obvious locales -- the Tuileries or the Jardins du Luxembourg -- entails getting hassled by aggressive pigeons. Which is kind of...I don't know...irritating and bad for my digestion. Nothing ruins a meal quicker than watching two pigeons preparing to peck each other's eyes out over a stray shard of cheese that has tumbled from a sandwich.

This spot, rather, has little chickadee sort of birdies hanging out. The cute, soft buggers, that cheep-cheep-cheep and hop silently over to you, tilting their heads quizzically as if to say, "I'm thinking one crumb would really hit the spot. Can we make a deal?"

Do you know where this is? I will give you some hints. It's on the left bank, near Socialist Party HQ. It is a leafy little cranny (or perhaps a nook), conveniently along the trajectory from the Madeleine to Montparnasse. No secret handshake required to find it, it's just off a busy street with like 100 different bus lines that pass by. It's named for a journalist-historian I'd never heard of until I had read the plaque on the side of the little place.   

It is also located at a sort of deceptively dangerous intersection. No kidding. So look both ways twice before you cross the boulevard.

Happy hunting.

Answer on Tuesday.

"Sex and the City" Premiere Photos

"Sex and the City" opened in Paris yesterday. And yes, bitches, I wuz there. I am here to report that not only did I go; but rather, that I went big. With tickets purchased in advance, on a computer, and in the company of four -- that's right, un-deux-trois-quatre -- devoted escorts. Boo-ya.

Which permits me to offer you my very own "Sex and the City" premiere photos, below. (As for the what-are-you-wearing question, I think one of them had on something Dolce. The rest is a mystery.)  I do it less out of die-hard fandom of the show (way less than less), than as a token of love for my pals. (And one of respect, I suppose, for the complete saturation that the "Sex and the City" marketing and P.R. machine managed to achieve. Their sheer domination of the collective pop-cultural unconscious and media landscape over the past six or so weeks I put on a par with the most merciless carpet-bombing campaigns: so powerful and devasting that everything, absolutely everything, has been blasted away. Only numbness and boredom remain.

Truly. I live several thousand miles away from New York, in the opposite direction of the United States, no less, and I could feel it from here. I can only liken it to the sunburn one has as the end of an overcast day spent outdoors. It just doesn't seem possible, but there you are, cheeks reddened -- with shame or UV rays, no matter -- and with a newfound respect for the searing rays of starpower. Bang.)

So here is the Sex and the City Premiere photo. As advertised.

Apart from resenting a little this sensation of drowning in its ubiquity (or inevitability?), my feelings on this cultural phenomenon are hardly what I would call complicated. They are about as complicated as my feelings for Nutella, or for Voici magazine. Although that does not preclude my having opinions on it as a subject.  As you know, despite my having spent several years there -- in New York, in the nineties, in the watering holes of Upper and Lower Manhattan, very much in the demo -- my character was written out of the show in the early phases of development. Shrug.

But anyone who believes that the show's main characters represent the only archetypes of single women in turn of the century urban America is either a simpleton, or born after 1978. Or both. Those are the people -- girls, more like it -- who mistakenly took the series for a role model, some kind of how-to, and not for what it actually was. A sitcom.

The film -- don't worry, no spoilers here -- acknowledges (and I suppose encourages) this delusion, opening as it does with a Carrie voice-over saying that how since time immemorial women in their twenties have flocked to New York looking for "the two L's" -- labels and love. Which is not so much erroneous (though it is that) as it is a self-referential nod to the fact that since the first season of the show was released on DVD, women in their twenties have gone to New York hoping to "be" -- or to "become" -- Carrie or Charlotte or Samantha. (Because no one wants to be, or become, Miranda.)

I moved to New York a million years ago, before anyone had heard of Pastis or Jeffrey or Spice Market. Because in pre-history, they didn't exist. I was 28. Candace Bushnell had yet to begin writing her column in the Observer, and thus my image-repertoire was 100% Sex and the City-free. I didn't want to "be" anyone in particular. And as far as I know, I have only become myself. Amen.

I was looking for neither labels nor love. (Of course I hoped that I would fall in love, but that's something I always hope. I hope that everywhere and always. Who doesn't?) I moved to New York looking for a city that eluded me, somehow -- one that I had only glimpsed in fragments during two prior and brief visits, and in dozens of cultural references that offered hints, suggestions, inspirations, but certainly no definitive answers (nor any role models). Among them: "That Girl;" the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler;" Harriet the Spy; the photos of Alfred Stieglitz and Helen Levitt, among others; the B-52s; the Village Voice (esp. the joint weekly effort of Guy Trebay and Sylvia Plachy); the Talking Heads; Edie Sedgwick; Dorothy Parker; Spy Magazine.

It was in a similar spirit, and with a heart full of nearly identical hope (although a very different set of references) that I set off in search of Paris. To say that neither place met my expectations is not to suggest that they have disappointed me. Far from it. But rather, that my expectations, being woefully human, are simply no match for what I have come across -- most often, transcendent beauty -- as I have made my way I-don't-know-why.

I don't know what I was looking for, really -- neither long ago in New York, nor more recently here -- but thank heavens I didn't go looking for a pair of Manolo Blahniks or "my" Mr. Big, let alone anything I could name. Feh. Had I been looking for something so contrived, I might have missed out on a dozen random moments, among them the monumental and unbidden sensation (not unlike falling in love) of standing last night in the middle of the Place de l'Opéra with four friends, watching the sky turn a deepening pink. As if just for us.

A nice Cosmopolitan pink? A Parisian pink? Or just pink, a blessing from above? Depends on what you are hoping to see.

Prochaine arrivée

So we've already had tulip time, lily-of-the-valley time, lilac time (all too brief), and now we have peony time. Right on schedule for la Fête des Mères, which is today. I was wandering around this morning, delighted by the sight of so many floral deliveries being made on foot. Back home that all tends to happen by truck. But hereabouts, your local neighborhood fleuriste sends somebody over. And they all looked to be in a big damn hurry.

That was this morning.

And then later, multiple generations of families out to lunch.

(from top to bottom: Bercy; Bercy; rue Vavin)

Packing Essentials

A follow-up question from the French 75 reader who will be spending several months this fall in Paris.

Your packing list was really interesting. With hindsight, is there anything you'd change about that? And did you bring everything in checked baggage or ship some things? (I'd like to avoid the expense of that, especially for only three months).

So to answer the last part of the question first: no. You do not need to ship anything. Save your money. I arrived in Paris on December 29, 2005, assuming that I would be staying for the year. I had two suitcases (one big, one carry-on), a stuffed-to-capacity purse, and a laptop. All of it came with me on the plane. That was it.

I am happy to say that I neither over- nor under-packed, and I hope the same for you. I'm glad I brought along my own supply of sticky lint rollers and of L'Oréal mascara (both of which are pricey here). I'm glad I brought along the chef's knife: I use it every day. (Except for that day in March when I didn't use it, and ended up slicing off the tip of my ring finger with a viciously sharp IKEA paring knife that belongs to my new apartment.)

There are very few packing errors that you can't correct with a trip to the BHV, le Bazar d'Hôtel de Ville, anyway. It is a relentlessly useful department store on the rue de Rivoli in the fourth arrondissement. (With a nice view of the area from the cafeteria upstairs.) There you can buy accessories for your computer, adapters, light-bulbs, sheets, towels, picture frames, hand lotion, stockings, bicycle helmets (even though they are not super-popular here, your American self knows its a bad idea to zip around without), desklamps, stationery, pens, books in French and in English. You will visit more than once during your first weeks here -- this is half of the fun of settling in.

(An aside: because this is Paris and because apartments are small and closets are smaller, give a minute to consider where you are going to store your suitcases once you have emptied them. Many apartments have a basement storage locker called a cave; others still do not have room under the bed for much storage. Ask your landlord before you leave: a relationship with duffel bags may be in your future.)

Speaking of corrections: once you get here and start converting everything into euro it's all going to make you the tiniest bit nauseous. Just roll with it. To my mind "I want" and "I need" should never be seated next to each other at a dinner table. They get up to no good at all. And yet that is the remarkable power, I find, of our piteously weak dollar: it can make one better at establishing priorities. Simple cross-referencing of the list of things one imagines it impossible to live without, and the list of things that cost way more than seems right, can yield an even shorter list of what one needs to live well and happily.

The other part of packing is asking yourself what will come with you to make your furnished rental feel like home. I am reminded of an article my sister sent me by Elizabeth McCracken about the peripatetic life she and her husband led (12 moves and seven countries in five years):

"We learned to travel with fewer outfits and more homey objects, though in our case 'homey' meant our favorite marionette named Mr Sartorius...a small doll named Horace...a bust of Hans Christian Andersen...and a collection of tiny, plastic gold figurines of important figures from the French Revolution that came with a can of coffee."

"Home," she says, "is where your puppets wait."

If you ever went to summer camp, or to boarding school (or both, as did I), you already know plenty about personalizing a space that only belongs to you temporarily, and of the steady comfort that something familiar -- like a puppet -- can offer in an otherwise unfamiliar landscape.

For years in Los Angeles I kept on top of my stove the Le Creuset casserole in the shape of a tomato that my mother had given me in 2001. She had come for a short visit with my dad after I had moved into the little cottage on Sunset Drive in Silver Lake. It turned out to be the last home of mine she ever visited. She had admired my kitchen (tiny though it was, just a corner of the main room) all in red and white. I had bought a toaster and coffee-maker to match the red tiles in the backsplash. It was cute. A few days after they left I received the heavy box from Williams Sonoma, and the gift enclosure inside with the message that made me laugh. "Snazzy" was so one of "her" adjectives -- a word of praise and appreciation, but mostly of enthusiasm.

I hung onto that little card, and at some point framed it. Before or after her death, I no longer remember. The casserole went into storage after I sold my apartment. (It weighs a ton. And it's from France in the first place. No point in shipping it all the way back here.) But the little framed message is in my kitchen. Rather than being a stand-in for an absent red enameled casserole, the frame is more like a tin can tied to a very long string. I don't even need to lift it up to my ear to have a comfort of home -- one which, as it happens, cannot be replaced nor recovered. Nor bought at the BHV.

My mother's voice.

Renting in Paris

A reader and friend in Los Angeles will be spending three months this fall in Paris. She is looking for an apartment to rent, and asks:

I'm somewhat familiar with the city, but are there any areas you'd recommend avoiding?  I don't need to be anywhere fancy, just need something safe and convenient to the Metro and hopefully close to active street life - shops, cafes, etc.

I thought that the answer to this question could be of interest to the room at large, so here you go with my subjective list of neighborhoods that might appeal to the long-term visitor. It is based on my two and half years of residence here, as well as the four vacations enjoyed here prior to my arrival, during which I rented (or borrowed) furnished apartments in various areas.

Bear in mind also that I am very Goldilocks in my approach. I am looking for something not too cool, not too far, not too pricey, not too complicated. I am looking for a just-right place to serve as base camp for all kinds of adventures.

That said, I recommend that you avoid renting in...

...the 1st, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 16th arrondissements. They tend to have very high visitor/local ratios, very high numbers of American families, and/or very high rents.

...the 10th. It is up and coming, and, to my liking, has really yet to arrive. I am not too hot on the parts of the 18th and 19th adjacent to the tenth, either. Neither. This opinion will not be met with universal agreement locally. And I am fine with that. 

...the 20th, even though it is one of my very favorite arrondissements. I find it leafy and interesting and I also find it at the top of a big damn hill.

I recommend the following areas...

(Open up a Metro map and follow along. Don't have one? Here you go).

...the ninth arrondissement. I have a lot of friends who live and/or work up there. If you draw a rectangle more or less from Place de Clichy across to Anvers, down to Cadet, west to Trinité d'Estienne d'Orves, and back up again to Clichy, that's a nice bunch of streets. Among other bright spots, it features the rue des Martyrs, the Musée de la Vie Romantique, the Love Hotel, and the rue de Douai (aka guitar row). It lacks terribly in green space but offers other ambient qualities.

...the third arrondissement, overlapping a bit in to the eleventh. Imagine a trapezoid connecting Republique, Voltaire, Bastille, Arts & Metiers. The rue de Bretagne, Picasso Museum, the Cirque d'Hiver, and plus-que-trendy Haut Marais are all in here, as is the colossal Richard-Lenoir market.

...a slice of the fourth-eleventh-twelfth. Imagine a zone around Bastille that extends west to St. Paul and east to Ledru-Rollin. That's pretty good. I like the rue Saint Antoine a bunch. My personal map of the fourth arrondissement, though, has a big black "x" on it where the Marais is. Nothing against Kiehl's and MAC nor the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, but those narrow, ancient streets can get mighty crowded.

...the second arrondissement is complicated for me by its proximity to the big eyesore slash bad vibe magnet known as Le Forum des Halles. That said, there is a slab of it from the St Eustache church N/NW that works for me. This area is delineated by the rues Montorgeuil, Etienn Marcel, Montmartre, and des Jeuneurs.

...I like the 17th a real lot, too. But I find it underserved by the Metro, and in some parts seriously overserved by the Bugaboo. I like Montmartre, too, in random patches. But I do not like that the metro stations up there have endless, endless stairs. And every time I get off at the Abbesses or Lamarck-Caulaincourt stations I always think to myself that it would be kind of a pain to live with that every day.

On the other side of the river, I happen to know the fifth and 13th arrondissements very well, having lived in this general vicinity, and happily, for two years. Draw a big rectangle from Place Monge to Tolbiac, up to Port Royal and back to Monge again.  This shape intentionally skips the medieval part of the fifth closer to the river, the Sorbonne, and Place de la Contrescarpe (student bars, student noise, students vomiting), and the high-rise, mind-boggling "new" parts of the 13th. A friend of mine explained that the high-rise monsters on the Place d'Italie were put there to protect the Butte aux Cailles, a charming and winding little idyll, from being over-run. And then it all made sense.

The fourteenth arrondissement. Where I call home now. The zone delineated by the Port Royal, Mouton-Duvernet, Gaité, and Montparnasse Stations. There are about 35 screens worth of movie theater in Montparnasse, good marketing on the rue Daguerre, and a quick escape on the RER to the center of town (Courtesy of the RER B one can be at Chatelet in about 5 minutes). I didn't include Plaisance and Pernety because I don't like to have only one choice of metro line.

The charms of the fifteenth arrondissement can be elusive. I know people who have lived in Paris forever and never set foot in it. There is sort of a triangle that covers La Motte-Piquet Grenelle, Volontaires, and Charles Michels that is pleasant and well-served by the subway (farther out than that, the metro stops get fewer and longer between). I like the rue Saint Charles and the rue des Entrepreneurs and the rue du Commerce -- all pleasant, useful, and devoid of fabulousness. I am never dressed wrong to shop over there.

Happy hunting to one and to all.

Viva Mexico

San Angel, Mexico City.




Church of San Jacinto, Mexico City.





Nueva Vallarta, Nayarit, Mexico.





Saturday.