Tales of Two Cities

Holiday Serendipty

 

It was already December 17 and I just wasn't in the mood for Christmas.

Not that I wasn't looking forward to the holiday.  Our son will be with us for a week, we will spend time with our daughter's family (including in-laws and Emily's half siblings).  We will raise a glass with friends and neighbors.  These are all experiences to look forward to.

Alas, Christmas also brings stress.  Trying to get boxes into the mail in time for them to be received for Christmas.  Shopping for those closer by.  Buying and decorating the tree. Cooking, cooking, cooking.  Shopping, shopping, shopping.  Wrapping, wrapping, wrapping.  Dealing with the demands of everyday life that drain our energy and swallow up our spare time.

On the day in question, we received an email from a friend offering us free tickets to the Boston Pops Holiday concert at 4 that afternoon and asking if we wanted to join her.  Charles and I looked at our schedules and figured we simply couldn't take the time to go.

Naturally, we said yes.

Although we have lived in the Boston area for more than 50 years and in the city for almost 30, we had never attended one of the Holiday Pops concerts.

As it turns out, the concert was a joy.  Symphony Hall looked glorious.  The program, performed by the Boston Pops and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus was spirited and uplifting.  The conductor for our performance was James Orent. 

Some of the highlights:

The Gifts of Great Meadows: This was a lovely medley of Christmas music arranged by Gus Sebring, the principal horn player of the Boston Pops.  What made this piece particularly moving was that it was illustrated with evocative photographs of natural ice sculptures projected on a giant screen.   Amazingly,  Mr. Sebring used his cell phone to take the pictures while cross country skiing on the Sudbury river flood plain last winter. (Cell phone photography is one of the newest rages in photography.)

The Twelve Days of Christmas. Mid-way through the second half of the concert, the Pops and the chorus began to perform this familiar piece, even though it wasn't on the program:  Before long I realized that I wasn't listening to your everyday Twelve Days of Christmas.   The arrangement, by Broadway composer David Chase, was an audio pun in which the familiar lyrics were matched with music from various well known classical pieces (e.g., "five golden rings" was sung to the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and "nine ladies dancing" to the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy).  It was very cleverly done to the delight of the audience and performers alike.  Mr. Orent explained that the Pops traditionally performs a surprise encore in the middle of the concert.  This version of The Twelve Days of Christmas was introduced in 2007 and has been popular ever since

The grand finale was a sing-along of Christmas favorites.  I always love it when I have the chance to sing at full voice without fear of being heard.  Obviously (and fortunately) almost everyone else felt the same way.

After the concert, Charles and I smiled all the way home despite the bitter cold and brutally strong winds.  

The long list of "to dos" before us was no longer daunting. 

The spirit of Christmas was upon us.

About time, too.

This is such fun!!

Be sure you have your sound on to get the full impact of this Animoto short video called "The Moods of Miss Em."

Sunday Street Performer - Place de la Contrescarpe

April in Paris Means ...

... really large crowds.

This is the third year in a row that we have spent April in Paris. As in Boston,  April can be (but is not always) a lovely month as winter gives way to a glorious spring. But it is also the month of school vacations throughout Europe and the city bulges with tourists of all ages.

I don't want to be a curmudgeon about it.  After all, I too am a tourist.  But it does give those of us who have a bit of claustrophobia or who tire of standing in long lines, or who grow frustrated at not being able to see this or that piece of art because of mobs of people, many barely older than my granddaughter, taking photographs with their cell phones instead of actually looking at the art. (Well, ok, I am being a curmudgeon.)

With all of this in mind, we were perplexed about how to deal with Easter weekend.  Staying in our apartment for three days was not an option.  We decided to pick things to do that would either avoid the crowds or would make them part of the show.  And we agreed that we would do lots and lots of walking. Happily the weather cooperated.

Good Friday (Vendredi Saint) we had lunch at Au Bourginon du Marais with our Versailles friends, June and Robley.  We were introduced to this restaurant by Paul and Pam, two of the most knowledgeable people I know on the subjects of food and wine.  This second visit confirmed their opinion.  You can find it on  rue Francois Miron about a block from  the St. Paul métro walking in the direction of the Hotel de Ville.

After a delicious lunch accompanied by a fine wine chosen by June, we headed for the nearby Hotel de Sens to see an exhibit of photochromes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  In most cases, photochromes are mass-produced lithographic color prints obtained from black and white photographic negatives.  The collection included stunning travel photographs and postcards with idyllic images from around the world as well as reproductions of works of art.  While the exhibit was not free of other visitors, it was not mobbed and we were able to take our time enjoying works by unknown photographers whose work must have amazed a hundred years ago.

Next it was back to the rue Francois Miron to Paris Historique, a small store dedicated to preserving and educating the public about the history of Paris, in particular the Marais area. Visitors are encouraged to go downstairs to view remains of a 13th century abbey that is undergoing renovation by volunteers. Seeing it  gives just a hint of the ancient history of the city and of what still exists hidden below many of the buildings we see as we wander through the streets of the Marais.  Be warned, however.  Although it costs nothing to walk into the store and visit the ruins downstairs, you will most certainly not leave without purchasing at least one book about  Paris.

The Saturday before Easter, we decided to see what was up at Notre Dame, knowing  that visiting the inside of the cathedral would only be possible if we were willing to wait in line and put up with the mobs inside.

As we had anticipated, there were hundreds of people waiting patiently to enter the Cathedral.  We contented ourselves with wandering through the garden where I cheerfully joined untold numbers of other owners of fancy cameras taking photographs of the flowering trees and the beautiful cathedral, while trying, with limited success, to stay out of other people's shots. 

Where do all these people with DSLRs come from?

Easter Sunday was a day of walking over familiar terrain and just enjoying the lovely weather.  We strolled along the Bassin de l'Arsenal, looking at all the boats moored there:  private barges, large motored craft and a few sailboats.

 From there it was across the Pont d'Austerliz to the Jardin des Plantes, where I took pictures and Charles checked out the progress of the plantings.  Spring has definitely sprung!  

A leisurely lunch at Le Contrescarpe was followed by a walk past the Panthéon, down the rue Soufflot (named after Jacques-Germain Soufflot, 18th century architect of the Panthéon) to the Jardin du Luxembourg.

An outdoor concert by a brass band was just ending as we entered the gardens.  The last piece, Handel's Sarabande and Variations in D Minor, was followed by loud applause then a rhythmic clapping demanding an encore.  Although some of the musicians had already put away their instruments, the conductor complied and those still able to play launched into a spirited performance of the final variation of the Sarabande. 

While many of the flower beds are still not planted, the garden was looking beautiful, full of people sunning themselves in the chairs provided for public use, talking in animated groups, meandering along the many paths and watching as children sailed small sailboats on a large pond.

And, of course, there were lots of folks with cameras recording it all.

Much as I love the Jardin des Plantes, the Jardin du Luxembourg is to me the loveliest public garden in Paris. 

Postcard du Jour #4 - Spring 2007 - Daily Pleasures Great and Small

Because we are in Paris for a limited time, we try to do something interesting each day.  Sometimes that means simply walking for hours, getting to know Paris better, particularly areas that draw few tourists.   Sometimes we do more. 

L'École Bontanique at the Jardin des Plantes

The Jardin des Plantes encompasses a number of wonders.  Not only are there vast expanses of lawn bordered by tidy flower beds, shaded paths for strolling and jogging, an extensive menagerie, stately buildings housing a variety of museums (including the magnificent Hall of Evolution), huge greenhouses, a potager (vegetable garden),  and, appropriately, a statue of the author of  Paul et Virginie. There is also a rather wild looking fenced-in area called the École Botanique.  A descendant of the more modest medicinal herb gardens common in monasteries of the middle ages, the École Botanique was one of the first public botanical gardens in France established to aid in the teaching of botany and medicine.   (The first was founded in Montpellier in 1593.)   We love to walk through this section of the Jardin des Plantes, checking out the deep pools teeming with plants, frogs and fish.

We were delighted this visit to learn that two Thursdays each month from April through October the gardeners who lovingly tend the École Botanique give a two-hour walk and talk on various subjects related to the plants found in this special area as well as the potager, where original varieties of vegetables are grown.  We spent a fascinating afternoon with roughly 20 other people (all French) learning about the Latin classification system originally established for the garden's plants (it has not been and will not be modernized) and being introduced to certain specific types of plants and the requirements for their care.  We were shown the garden's treasures, including a Corsican Pine planted by the French botanist A. L. Jussieu in 1774 (photo on the left) and the plant shown on the right, which comes, I believe, from Mexico.  Alas, I did not take notes during the two-hour, highly technical tour and have not retained most of the information.  One burning question was answered for me though. Why does this part of the otherwise pristine Jardin des Plants have an unkempt appearance?  Answer:  This part of the garden is maintained for educational purposes with the result that plants are permitted to live their full lives, which includes letting them fade and die in place as they would in nature. 

Dawn in Montmartre and by the Seine

We got up more than an hour before sunrise twice during our stay, loaded up my camera equipment and tripod and joined the very early commuters in the métro as we headed to spots that we thought would be good for photographing the city at dawn. 

The morning we went to Montmartre was quite chilly but we were warmed by the climb up the stairs to the Basilica Sacré Coeur.  (The photo at left was taken half an hour before sunrise.) At the base of the Basilica  we found the street cleaners working on an absolutely amazing amount of trash which, we later found out, had accumulated over days as a result of a strike by the street cleaners in the 18th arrondissement.  We spent almost an hour and a half overlooking the city, taking photographs, and watching the lights of Paris go out as the sun rose and began to throw a gray light on the rooftops.  Despite the fact that no great photos resulted and we ended up with icy hands and cold feet,  it was a lot of fun. 

A bit more successful photographically was our trek to the banks of the Seine where I took pictures of the Conciergerie and surroundings at sunrise.  I experimented with taking panoramas and captured a number of nice shots, one of which was a Photo du Jour.  Afterward, we treated ourselves to breakfast at Le Flore en Ile, a café on the tip of the Ile St. Louis overlooking the back of Notre Dame.  We paid an outrageous price for coffee (chocolate for me), a small glass of orange juice for Charles and tiny, warm, wonderfully buttery croissants, but it was worth the view.  Not only was it a very pleasant end to our dawn adventure but it was a great beginning to the day.

Les Grandes Eaux Musicales

We spent Easter Sunday at Versailles enjoying  "Les Grandes Eaux Musicales" with our friends, June and Robley, Americans who own a pied à terre in Versailles.  On Saturdays and Sundays from April through September, for one hour in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon, selected fountains are turned on accompanied by period music broadcast over loudspeakers.  June had researched which fountains would be in operation during each show, which allowed us to scurry around and see almost all of the fountains in action.  This turns out to be a lot harder than one might think.  The gardens are vast and many of the most interesting fountains are sheltered in "bosquets" where they are not visible from a distance.  In between shows, the four of us picnicked on the grass in the shade of a tree overlooking a large pond created by the Swiss Guard at the behest of Louis XIV. Happy to give our feet a rest, we sipped bubbly from the Loire Valley, munched on sandwiches fresh from the boulangerie and talked and talked and talked.  Altogether, it was a lovely day. (The photo on the left, known affectionately as "the white blob," shows the centrally located Fountain of Apollo in operation.)

Chateau d'Auvers

Truthfully, Chateau d'Auvers, located along the Seine about 30 minutes outside Paris, is not a place that I would encourage you to go out of your way to visit. For our purposes, though, the Chateau  was a perfect raison d'être for spending a very nice day with our friend, Gérard. 

None of us knew what to expect when we set off from Paris together except that the Chateau houses a museum about the life and times of the Impressionists .  The Impressionist works on display are not original and, because they are often greatly enlarged, they are not even good reproductions.  Clearly, if you want to focus on the art works themselves  your time would be better spent at the Orsay or, if you seek a rural setting, in Giverny.

Nevertheless, Chateau d'Auvers offers some small treasures.  My favorites were a cutaway, furnished miniature model of a 5 story, 19th century, Parisian building (store on the ground floor, living quarters on the floors above), a train ride into the country (the scenery moves, you don't), and the outstanding restaurant where we enjoyed a leisurely, absolutely delicious meal under a tent.  A leisurely walk through the grounds after our meal added to the pleasures of the day. 

Walking Tour of Belleville

It seemed like such a neat idea.  A small blurb in the Saturday paper advertised a walking tour of Belleville, a neighborhood that straddles the 19th and 20th arrondissements and includes bits of the 10th and 11th.  Reservations were necessary.  It cost 12 euros a head.  The ad promised that we would not only learn about Belleville, but would also personally meet merchants who make their livings there.  It sounded serious and it played into my interest in the history of this part of the city and my ongoing project to photograph the Belleville of today.   

We met our group outside the Jourdain métro stop in the shadow of the imposing Église Saint-Jean Baptiste de Belleville (shown on the left).  Our guide explained that we were standing in the center of what was once a farming village outside of the Paris city limits.  Like many other villages that now give their names to streets and métro stations (Couronnes, Ménilmontant, etc.), it lost its rural character over time and by the late 19th century it had become a part of Paris. The 20th century brought waves of immigrants:  Armenians in 1918, Greeks in 1920, German Jews in 1933, and Spaniards in 1939.  Algerians and Tunisians arrived in the early 1960's and today Belleville includes one of the two Chinatowns in Paris.

Despite the constant influx of people from different cultures, Belleville has retained its village identity.  The question today is whether it will be able to continue to do so in the face of increasing gentrification.  Our guide, an attractive, young, woman resident of Belleville with lots of enthusiasm and absolutely no talent for giving guided tours, asked each of us to give our idea of the requirements for a "durable" environment.  What she seemed to be getting at was the question of what makes it possible for a community to retain its coherence as a community in the face of constant change.  It was a thought provoking question which was never answered.

We stuck with the group for more than two hours, but our leader, fearless though she was, could not be heard over traffic and showed little awareness of where her group was as she spoke with her back to most of us.  Worse was that she was unable to control the group of some 20 people as we walked down the narrow streets of Belleville.  The situation became even less tolerable during a visit to a shop on the rue Rébeval run by two earnest women promoting fair trade.  A couple of the folks in the group hijacked the discussion with a heated debate about whether it makes sense to try to sell third world products at a fair price when even conscientious buyers will purchase cheaper alternatives.  It wasn't too long before people in the group started drifting away.

Ever hopeful,  we decided to stick with the tour, suspecting that there was more to see and learn. Our optimism was not rewarded.  The group was directed into a little dead-end street and left to stare at the back of a modern building on one side and into the yards of some cozy little houses on the other, listening to the continuation of the fair trade debate while our guide stood mutely in the background. We threw in the towel and headed for home.

So, not all adventures turn out to be winners.  Even when you are in Paris.   In retrospect, I realize that all was not lost.  We learned something about an area that interests me and we did lots of walking.

 

Postcard du Jour - Weekend of Contrasts

Europe's 23d Journées du Patrimoine took place this year on September 16-17.  During this annual event, cities and towns throughout Europe invite the public to visit monuments, churches and institutions, many of which are not routinely accessible.  We were introduced to les Journées du Patrimoine three years ago in Tours and enjoyed the event again in Paris in 2004. We were excited to be in Paris for this year's event.

Our favorite visit this years turned out to be to "Le Regard de la Lanterne," a small stone building just below the highest point in Belleville and not far from le parc des Buttes Chaumont. The attractive building is tucked in among modern high rises and abuts a small, unpretty playground.  Walking by it you would be curious about its origins but, unless you knew what it was, you would have no idea of its historical importance.

We were curious about the fact that the building was called "un regard."  We checked our dictionaries and the closest we could come to a translation was "manhole."  We learned from the literature provided to us on our tour that "un regard" is a "sort of visitable room, often appearing to be more or less important from the outside, where conduits of water arrive or depart." I suppose one could think of it as a fancy, roomy manhole.

The Regard de la Lantern (named for the lantern at the top) provides relatively easy access to a deep well, three small conduits that feed spring water into the well and the beginning of the underground stone aqueduct that used to carry fresh water downhill to many of the fountains of Paris, including the one at the Place des Innocents. The system dates back to at least the 12th century and is part of a network of fresh water sources that, for many centuries, fed the northern sections of Paris. The building, as we see it today, was rebuilt between 1573 and 1613.  It was classified as a "Monument Historique" in 1899.

Our visit included talks by members of the voluntary Association Sources du Nord - Etudes et Préservation and a tour inside the regard.  The deep well has a wooden floor and our guide explained how the system was cleaned.  The inside was lit by a gas lantern, some faint electric lights in the tunnel and a little daylight from the top of the building.  A trickle of water ran from one of the three springs feeding into the well but, at the moment, at least, no water flowed into the aqueduct.  We were allowed to walk into the tunnel housing the aqueduct where we could see it disappear into the darkness. 

Although some "regards" remain from the elaborate system of water distribution,  modern construction has resulted in numerous breaks in the aqueduct system.  Six regards, including Le Regard de la Lanterne, can still be seen today in the 19th and 20th arrondisements.

In a juxtaposition that seemed somehow quintessentially French, the Saturday of the Journées de Patrimoine also featured the 3d annual Techno Parade. Huge trucks, each surrounded by "dancing" and arm-waving fans, put out techno music at decibels that hurt my ears and bass notes so intense that they reverberated in my chest. Participants and onlookers numbered between 15,000 (according to police) and 200,000 (according to parade organizers). (Charles estimated the crowd at closer to 25,000.) The parade began at the Place de la Bastille, wound through the Marais, passed through the Place de la République before making its way back to the Place de la Bastille, bombarding many of the sites opened for les Journées du Patrimoine with thumping music that could be heard for blocks. 

Of special interest to us, besides general people watching, was getting a close look at how  the young people managed to climb onto and off of the Colonne de Juillet, the monument in the center of the Place de la Bastille.  We saw crowds on the monument last spring during the student demonstrations, but hadn't watched them actually climb up and down. Obviously, good athletic skills, especially arm strength, is needed,  but also help from other revelers.  One wonders how the first person gets up to the second tier without anyone to help pull him (or her) up.  I suspect that friends boosting from below is the answer.  We were amazed that no one seemed to get hurt, despite the need to climb over a tall spiked fence and the significant drops involved. 

The photos on the left are enlargements of the picture above showing some of the maneuvers.  The one on the right is of a young woman who was apprehensive about dismounting from the fence.  Her friends refused to help her and she finally jumped.

'Twas an interesting day.  Vive la France!

On the Lighter Side - News from France

News from the Music World - Here it is complete with amateur video - the song that currently tops the charts in France.  Coupe de Boule is a bouncy but monotonous ditty that makes light fun of France's loss in the World Cup finals and the infamous head butt of the Italian player Marco Materrazi by the captain of France's team, Zinédine Zidane.  As you may recall, France's beloved "Zizou" was ejected from the game and Italy went on to win.  Eventually, both players were sanctioned and fined, Zidane for the head butt and Materrazi for having said whatever it was he said that provoked it.  (All we know is that he apparently didn't call Zidane a terrorist or insult Zidane's mother, which leaves lots of room for some very interesting name calling.)  I could be wrong, but I think it is the first time that a player has been sanctioned and fined for a verbal insult during a soccer game.  Interesting precedent since verbal intimidation is very much a part of the play. 

What a Beach!  No Thongs? - Sacrebleu!!  The powers that be of the City of Paris have warned Paris Plage visitors that topless sunbathing by women and/or wearing thong bathing suits (by men as well as women?) may result in the levy of a fine. This is surprisingly puritanical for the French and Paris where photographs of buff, thonged bottoms and shapely bare breasts look down on the populous from giant advertising posters on the street and in the métro.  By the way, I didn't see anything as interesting as a thong bikini or topless sunbathing when I visited Paris Plage last year.  Perhaps it was too cold.  (I did see navels and a belly ring, though! See photo.)

News from the Literary World - On the French best seller list: the recently published Témoinage (Testimony) by Nicolas Sarkozy, leading center-right candidate in next year's presidential elections.  You can read the International Herald Tribune's review here. The Economist reports that "[t]his is [Sarkozy's] pre-election diagnosis of the French -- too work-shy, too gloomy, too anti-American, among other things -- mixed with a personal pitch to be understood as a straight-talking guy who wants to put things right."  The left's leading presidential hopeful, Ségolène Royal, has written a book that is due out in next month.  I guess I know what I'll be reading while we are in Paris this September. 

Happy Birthday!

In is hard to believe, but on January 27, my first born turned 43. The top song on the pop/folk charts the week he was born was the exuberant, bouncy ditty Walk Right In performed by The Rooftop Singers. It played constantly on the radios in my ward during the three days I was in the hospital. The world and my life have changed a lot in the last 43 years.  But hearing the song -- or just remembering it and some of the lyrics -- always makes me smile and brings back happy memories of the day that I first became a Mom.

Postcard from Home - Appalachian Spring on a Winter Afternoon

One of the true pleasures of living in the city is the ability to walk to concerts, movies, Red Sox games, New Years Eve parties, a huge variety of stores, the Charles River Esplanade and the Public Garden.   Sunday, we enjoyed an afternoon walk in mild winter temperatures to Jordan Hall to hear the Boston Symphony Chamber Players' second concert of the season.  (We missed the first one in October because we were in another wonderful, walkable city - Paris.)

The program was outstanding.  Bach's Brandenburg Concert No. 3 in G started off the concert.  The first half also featured a pleasing Stravinsky with which I was unfamiliar:  Concerto in E-flat for chamber orchestra, Dumbarton Oaks, 8 v. 38, and a piece by Copeland,  Quite City for trumpet, oboe and strings, with the haunting sounds of the horn and woodwind that Copeland does so well.  The concert ended with Appalachian Spring in its original version for thirteen instruments.  Listening to the alternatively serene, rhythmic and energetic passages was like discovering this minor masterpiece for the first time.  What a totally transcendent pleasure.  I particularly enjoyed watching the piano player go from being a a solo voice to being a percussion instrument giving depth to the voices of the other instruments.  Appalachian Spring got a standing ovation from the crowd - a first at at a Chamber Players concert in my memory.

The site of the concerts is the New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall, renowned for its acoustics.  Located just a block from Symphony Hall, it was renovated in 1995.  The beautiful organ, of which I took a picture prior to the concert (see above), is inspired by the organ in Santa Maria della Scala organ in Sienna, Italy.

We always enjoy the walk home in the evening, especially the views of brightly lit Back Bay high rises.  They look particularly beautiful from the open area by the Christian Science Church where I was standing when I took this picture. 

Words Melting in my Mouth, Utterances Scattered about on my Teeth

"It is my desire,    it is my wish
    to set out to sing,    to begin to recite,
    to let a song of our clan glide on,    to sing a family lay.
    The words are melting in my mouth,    utterances dropping out,
    coming to my tongue,    being scattered about on my teeth."

Prologue to the Kalevala, the national epic of the Finns, compiled by Elias Lönnrot.  This lyrical translation is by Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., a World War I Ace who died in 1979.  It can be purchased in a reprinted paperback edition on Amazon.

When I read these words I hear in my mind the soaring sounds of Sibelius' Legends from the Kalevala and I am deeply moved. And delighted and inspired.  And, most of all, humbled.