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My last public post was ages ago. People not on the f-list are probably thinking that I fell down the rabbit hole, which isn't totally wrong - my laptop died, and my actual life has become pretty busy, and work is picking up. November is going to be chockablock with work, actually, so future picture posts (except obviously those involving my cherished Sunday afternoons with Julia) are likely to be of exciting books. And places wherein there are books. And not so much Paris street life. However, my regularly scheduled not-doing of my dissertation research in favor of enjoying Paris will resume mid-December, when I will be seeing the lovely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vitabeata and also! my! mom! who has finally agreed to postpone her visit by a few weeks so she can mend up a bit more from the broken ankle (and also from her recently diagnosed ulcer, yikes!. I love you Mom! See you soon!) and will likely be doing nothing but running around in my own delerium of Parisian Christmas season joy. I have to tell you people that the seasonal baked goods are already beginning to come forth and damn, they are very very fine indeed. Also, I like being somewhere frostsnap cold wherein there are still market carts piled with clementines so fresh that their stems are still sticky with sap and the leaves on them still crisp and green.
Today I went to see a movie called La Vie Moderne, which I guess is supposed to be post-ironic or something, because it was all about dairy farmers in France and it had no narrative arc or really much dialogue at all. And it was awesome. I loved it, and I loved my conversation with the woman I sat next to, which I struck up after the movie while the person I actually went with attempted to snap out of his stupor. She and I had both been cackling in places where nobody else was laughing. As it turns out, we're both from the country. At least by Parisian standards. I understand that by the standards of many Kansans, I have always been a cosmopolite, coming from a town that has more than 5000 people in it. It's all relative, see. Because technically, Manhattan Kansas has a population of 51,000. However, apparently more than 50% of that is college students going to K-State. So, you know. Whatever. Anyway, I told her that I was enchanted to discover that French farmers and Kansas farmers have the same kinds of smiles. I mean seriously. If you showed someone a clip of a French farmer laughing (or whatever, just not talking) to a Kansan and asked the Kansan if the laugher was French, they'd never guess yes. And the same brand of graciousness - which involves plying the guest with baked goods and beaming at them nonstop. I mean, like, nonstop. I have never seen such happy French people. So I was glad I went.
Although there was no dramatic narrative, no real storyline to speak of, and not a lot of dialogue, just a lot of the camera looking at people who looked back at it, bemused and laughing, it was completely perfect. I could have sat there and watched three or four more hours of it. I like looking at people a LOT, but in real life you can't really stare at people and just totally get your fill of them and all of what they are to be looked at, all of the little idiosyncracies and teeny details, everything that makes them perfectly imperfect and divinely human and unique and transcendently beautiful in all their ordinariness - without being creepy and/or totally impolite. So this kind of documentary is a thing that I love. Deeply.
The guy I went with tried to convince me to see the new Woody Allen movie and I actually said "HELL NO." Then I said, somewhat more graciously, "You go ahead, really, I gather that when I asked you if you wanted to see *this* movie you didn't know it was a two hour long documentary about rural French dairy farmers that was IN FRENCH." (And I didn't know at the time that he hasn't GOT any verbals in French, just reading). Oh well. He slobbered on my cheek during bisous and activated every single one of my cringe muscles, behold my passive-aggressive revenge.
My computer died a few days before Halloween - but I haven't any pictures of Undead Invasion: Paris edition, because my camera doesn't like taking pictures at night or really even in kind of dark conditions, which is starting to really irk me, because Paris is pretty much overcast all the time and it's nighttime - I mean pitch black skies - by around 5. And getting earlier every day.
But the day before, I was in the Place Republique picking up a new pair of pirate boots (yes, I already destroyed the first pair - wore the tread down to flat and busted out a zipper) and the skies were amazing. For about 10 minutes, the sun came out like it was the hour of freaking judgment upon us, and I saw this:
I took a ton of pictures but my white balance was so whacked out by how many different lights were up in my camera's grill that not a single one turned out perfectly, and I haven't even tried to fix it with Photoshop yet. This is what it looked like. Right after I took this one, a gypsy girl came up to me and started that annoying sidereal dental drill whining. Vous parlez anglais? she whined at me. NEIN, I barked at her, relying on my evidently very Teutonic eyewear to do the rest of the convincing. She scuttled off. Seriously, Paris gypsies annoy me. They have none of the charm I expect from a gypsy. When they start wearing brightly colored costumes and dancing with black fire in their eyes while their men whistle through their teeth, I will start giving them Euros. I did, in fact, fall in not once but TWICE with more colorful gypsies - once in France and once in Boston - and had remarkable experiences both times. But I do not like the drab whining variety. At all.
It was in preparing for tomorrow's Sunday With Julia that I realized I hadn't uploaded pictures in more than a week. Yikes. So here are *last* Sunday's pictures with Julia.
First, pictures of Julia:
I can't remember if I've mentioned it, but she's a medieval historian from Moscow. She already has her Ph.D. and does pure research, no teaching. She works on late medieval French didactic treatises for children. I've been editing translated material for her and her research actually sounds totally fascinating. I won't say anything more about it here since I don't know how much of it has been published outside of Russia yet. She is a microhistorian. I want to be one of those. But I've been told that in America, you can't actually say that out loud in a job interview and get hired. Strictly late-career rockstar activity. Sigh.
As you can see, Julia is readily identifiable as a Russian chick because of her gorgeous bone structure. The second picture gives her way more of a Leno chin than is actually the case, but mostly when I aim the camera at her and she sees it she ducks or gives me anti-paparazzi jazz hands, so I haven't had much luck getting off a shot yet.
Julia found a book, titled something like "Paris: Lieux Secretes et Insolites" - hidden and secret Paris places. She proposed a walkabout to the best of these. I readily agreed! You choose, I said. I will ride along! She chose: a 13th century tower on rue St. Martin, the homeless shelter built by Nicolas Flamel in the 15th century - which is the oldest house in Paris, built in 1407 - which is now a restaurant. And is, furthermore, right across the street from my freaking laundromat and, um, I never noticed. Go me. Not noticing the alchemist's wicked ancient house and all. Also, she chose a place where they did a lot of medieval justice/killings, near the eglise St.Gervais-St.Protais, and then we went in and I took more pictures in than out. And a plaque where Abelard and Heloise's house was. And the true-false medieval house made new of really old parts, and a mobilisation poster from WWI still stuck in a poster holder on the Rue Royal, and last but certainly not least, the oldest public toilets in Paris. Which are all fancy and posh and under the Eglise St. Madeleine, just down the block from the Laduree near Place Concorde. WHO KNEW. We didn't get any pictures of that because there was a large woman who pretty much scowled like she would to beat us down if we did and we believed her.
My favorite shots of the day were, as usual, mostly random:
( Lots and lots of pictures! )
( More pictures... )
Not so much here.
Strange Fruit, Original Flavor.
Seadog?
Dogsea?
If the zombie apocalypse happens while I'm in Paris? Look for me here. I will be holed up with a three month supply of Candia Viva milk and Bonne Maman lemon tartlettes and my tiny can of mace.
This Sunday, we're going to a fabulous Russian orthodox church, and the Maison de Chine, and then Laduree on the Champs Elysees for tea and macaroons, then to Cluny for a concert by a medieval ensemble named L'Obsidienne. Pictures to follow. Hopefully more promptly than this set!
vitabeata and also! my! mom! who has finally agreed to postpone her visit by a few weeks so she can mend up a bit more from the broken ankle (and also from her recently diagnosed ulcer, yikes!. I love you Mom! See you soon!) and will likely be doing nothing but running around in my own delerium of Parisian Christmas season joy. I have to tell you people that the seasonal baked goods are already beginning to come forth and damn, they are very very fine indeed. Also, I like being somewhere frostsnap cold wherein there are still market carts piled with clementines so fresh that their stems are still sticky with sap and the leaves on them still crisp and green. Today I went to see a movie called La Vie Moderne, which I guess is supposed to be post-ironic or something, because it was all about dairy farmers in France and it had no narrative arc or really much dialogue at all. And it was awesome. I loved it, and I loved my conversation with the woman I sat next to, which I struck up after the movie while the person I actually went with attempted to snap out of his stupor. She and I had both been cackling in places where nobody else was laughing. As it turns out, we're both from the country. At least by Parisian standards. I understand that by the standards of many Kansans, I have always been a cosmopolite, coming from a town that has more than 5000 people in it. It's all relative, see. Because technically, Manhattan Kansas has a population of 51,000. However, apparently more than 50% of that is college students going to K-State. So, you know. Whatever. Anyway, I told her that I was enchanted to discover that French farmers and Kansas farmers have the same kinds of smiles. I mean seriously. If you showed someone a clip of a French farmer laughing (or whatever, just not talking) to a Kansan and asked the Kansan if the laugher was French, they'd never guess yes. And the same brand of graciousness - which involves plying the guest with baked goods and beaming at them nonstop. I mean, like, nonstop. I have never seen such happy French people. So I was glad I went.
Although there was no dramatic narrative, no real storyline to speak of, and not a lot of dialogue, just a lot of the camera looking at people who looked back at it, bemused and laughing, it was completely perfect. I could have sat there and watched three or four more hours of it. I like looking at people a LOT, but in real life you can't really stare at people and just totally get your fill of them and all of what they are to be looked at, all of the little idiosyncracies and teeny details, everything that makes them perfectly imperfect and divinely human and unique and transcendently beautiful in all their ordinariness - without being creepy and/or totally impolite. So this kind of documentary is a thing that I love. Deeply.
The guy I went with tried to convince me to see the new Woody Allen movie and I actually said "HELL NO." Then I said, somewhat more graciously, "You go ahead, really, I gather that when I asked you if you wanted to see *this* movie you didn't know it was a two hour long documentary about rural French dairy farmers that was IN FRENCH." (And I didn't know at the time that he hasn't GOT any verbals in French, just reading). Oh well. He slobbered on my cheek during bisous and activated every single one of my cringe muscles, behold my passive-aggressive revenge.
My computer died a few days before Halloween - but I haven't any pictures of Undead Invasion: Paris edition, because my camera doesn't like taking pictures at night or really even in kind of dark conditions, which is starting to really irk me, because Paris is pretty much overcast all the time and it's nighttime - I mean pitch black skies - by around 5. And getting earlier every day.
But the day before, I was in the Place Republique picking up a new pair of pirate boots (yes, I already destroyed the first pair - wore the tread down to flat and busted out a zipper) and the skies were amazing. For about 10 minutes, the sun came out like it was the hour of freaking judgment upon us, and I saw this:
I took a ton of pictures but my white balance was so whacked out by how many different lights were up in my camera's grill that not a single one turned out perfectly, and I haven't even tried to fix it with Photoshop yet. This is what it looked like. Right after I took this one, a gypsy girl came up to me and started that annoying sidereal dental drill whining. Vous parlez anglais? she whined at me. NEIN, I barked at her, relying on my evidently very Teutonic eyewear to do the rest of the convincing. She scuttled off. Seriously, Paris gypsies annoy me. They have none of the charm I expect from a gypsy. When they start wearing brightly colored costumes and dancing with black fire in their eyes while their men whistle through their teeth, I will start giving them Euros. I did, in fact, fall in not once but TWICE with more colorful gypsies - once in France and once in Boston - and had remarkable experiences both times. But I do not like the drab whining variety. At all.
It was in preparing for tomorrow's Sunday With Julia that I realized I hadn't uploaded pictures in more than a week. Yikes. So here are *last* Sunday's pictures with Julia.
First, pictures of Julia:
I can't remember if I've mentioned it, but she's a medieval historian from Moscow. She already has her Ph.D. and does pure research, no teaching. She works on late medieval French didactic treatises for children. I've been editing translated material for her and her research actually sounds totally fascinating. I won't say anything more about it here since I don't know how much of it has been published outside of Russia yet. She is a microhistorian. I want to be one of those. But I've been told that in America, you can't actually say that out loud in a job interview and get hired. Strictly late-career rockstar activity. Sigh.
As you can see, Julia is readily identifiable as a Russian chick because of her gorgeous bone structure. The second picture gives her way more of a Leno chin than is actually the case, but mostly when I aim the camera at her and she sees it she ducks or gives me anti-paparazzi jazz hands, so I haven't had much luck getting off a shot yet.
Julia found a book, titled something like "Paris: Lieux Secretes et Insolites" - hidden and secret Paris places. She proposed a walkabout to the best of these. I readily agreed! You choose, I said. I will ride along! She chose: a 13th century tower on rue St. Martin, the homeless shelter built by Nicolas Flamel in the 15th century - which is the oldest house in Paris, built in 1407 - which is now a restaurant. And is, furthermore, right across the street from my freaking laundromat and, um, I never noticed. Go me. Not noticing the alchemist's wicked ancient house and all. Also, she chose a place where they did a lot of medieval justice/killings, near the eglise St.Gervais-St.Protais, and then we went in and I took more pictures in than out. And a plaque where Abelard and Heloise's house was. And the true-false medieval house made new of really old parts, and a mobilisation poster from WWI still stuck in a poster holder on the Rue Royal, and last but certainly not least, the oldest public toilets in Paris. Which are all fancy and posh and under the Eglise St. Madeleine, just down the block from the Laduree near Place Concorde. WHO KNEW. We didn't get any pictures of that because there was a large woman who pretty much scowled like she would to beat us down if we did and we believed her.
My favorite shots of the day were, as usual, mostly random:
( Lots and lots of pictures! )
The world is quiet here.
Not so much here.
Strange Fruit, Original Flavor.
Seadog?
Dogsea?
If the zombie apocalypse happens while I'm in Paris? Look for me here. I will be holed up with a three month supply of Candia Viva milk and Bonne Maman lemon tartlettes and my tiny can of mace.
This Sunday, we're going to a fabulous Russian orthodox church, and the Maison de Chine, and then Laduree on the Champs Elysees for tea and macaroons, then to Cluny for a concert by a medieval ensemble named L'Obsidienne. Pictures to follow. Hopefully more promptly than this set!
