Futility Now

Here is a frittata that Hazel made last weekend.

Here is a delicious soup I made on Tuesday.

Here is a tableau from it’s creation.

Here is Yoshi hitting the sauce.

After stumbling out of the Louvre we tried to go to Musée des Arts décoratifs, but it was closed, because there is nothing the French love so much as being closed. We instead wandered into The Tuileries Garden and had some sort of frozen melon beverage that made Gray’s Papaya look like some kind of fancy juice bar. Thus invigorated we staggered to Musée de l’Orangerie where we looked at a bunch of paintings of a frog pond.

Downstairs from its most famous exhibit, l’Orangerie contains the collection of a man who was more or less the French Donald Trump of the turn of the century (the last turn of the century, not this most recent one which is really only a mid-80s rehash anyways.) It was very charming, except when it served to remind us by comparison of how degraded out times are.

In the evening we tried to go out in the Marais, but we went down the wrong Rue .* Temple, and couldn’t find the place we wanted, and were disappointed in the substitute we tried out. Instead we went to a bar immediately outside our metro stop and had a grand time. Because it was our last evening in the first hotel, I pointed my camera wistfully out of the window.

After The Fleas we went to Montmartre.

Sacre Couer was, as you might expect of a Sunday, incredibly crowded. At first we opted to avoid going into the church itself and just hit up the dome and crypt. While we were in the crypt, singing began in the main level and echoed down the sealed off staircases. The effect was appropriately otherworldly and very beautiful. Hazel warily sampled the red velvet prayer kneeler and one of the old confessionals (sadly, there were no takers for her sound advice).

Ascending the spiral stairs to the dome was, actually, a religious experience. By the way.

(not pictured: Stunt flyers from the Paris Air Show that we saw drawing the French flag in colored smoke.)

On the way down from the dome we realized that we’d stumbled into the middle of a whole-nine-yards type Catholic service, complete with smoking censer, dudes in funny hats and dresses, and a massive singing procession. In addition to the fact that the singing was quite beautiful, the commotion allowed us to sneak into the interior of the church without waiting in line in the blazing sun. We didn’t stay long, but we were pleased to have gotten the opportunity.

We were tempted to check out Montmartre a bit more, but even away from Sacre Couer the whole thing was, shall we say, frantic. As this was not in keeping with our romantic notions, we demurred. Instead, we got a flight to Toulouse via the internet to make up for the fact that we couldn’t get a train to Beziers. I guess that wasn’t terribly romantic either, but there are far worse problems a person could have, mais oui?

The afternoon interlude involved finding another hotel for our newly-extended stay. Luckily our neighborhood was full of the quirky (hommes sleeping on a mattress behind the front counter) places where a room can be had for 50 euros a night, if only you can figure out the strange policies through French conversation. As in, of course you can stay here, but you can’t reserve now, and I won’t take your money for some inexplicable reason, but just come back on the day you need a room, at 2:00. It was difficult not to feel like maybe we were being a little tricked, but mais non. C’est ne pas de probleme.

Then we had tapas, which was notable for the pitcher of sangria. Maybe you know this already, but cold and drink are not by rule a happy couple in France, especially as regards water. The chilly sangria, on the other hand, was basically nectar from the gods. We also ended up going to a couple of bars, one of which was run by a woman who must have been in her late 70s and early 80s. The place (and the madame) were run down. There was a wonderful cat.

There were pictures of the bar from earlier in her career as its proprietor (she’d owned it for 35 years) and it had been quite beautiful. I wasn’t sure if it was magnificent that she was carrying on, or sort of sad to think about how different it had once been. As is invariably the case in such circumstances the right answer probably involves a mix of each, although the exact proportions of important things are always difficult to gauge.

Naturellement.

(For various reasons too boring to recount, you can only name one author per post, but we both worked on this.)

On Sunday we gave up on improving our transit situation and went to Marché aux Puces, which are these massive flea markets up in the north of Paris. To start out we had terrible coffee in the bar across the street from out hotel, which looks like this from said bar.

When you get to the markets you start by pushing through a ring of stalls that sell shoes and mobile phones, just like any street market in the world. Eventually you get to these sort of arecade-y (in the old sense, not the video game sense) buildings and everything gets Franch Franch Franch (“and Peru!”)

Then we ate delicious quiche because we’d been wandering around for hours and were well on our way to being tres fatigue.

So, here are the places we went with friends last night:

Matchbox Lounge,

Pok Pok,

The Pix on Division.

Hazel and I have, in the past, made several concerted efforts to love The Matchbox. It’s fairly close to us, and its cocktails vary from pretty good to quite good. Also, the house drinks are all enormous. The service, however, is pretty shoddy, even by Portland’s rather relaxed standards, and through the filter of forgiveness provided by my many years in service. Also, everything we have gotten to eat there has been pretty unremarkable. It does, however, make a totally suitable place to sit while you wait for a table at Pok Pok.

Pok Pok is hilariously set up. I’m not sure if it’s the result of whimsy or expedient, but by the time you get to your seat in that place you’re expecting to be seated next to a guy with a bull’s head. We were very happy with both the beverages and the snacks there. I guess I had one quibble, which is that I got a negroni that was a bit heavy on the Campari. Campari is a real nuance killer, so you have to ration it rather closely in mixed drinks. Once you’re over the line, no amount of punt e mes is going to bring you back, and the whole thing may as well have been Campari and soda. Which I guess is great for sixty year old Italian ladies, or something. Also, whole fish is almost always awesome (alliteration!)

Pix is, of course, very charming. The one we went to is a bit close, which was exacerbated last night by the fact that approximately 8 MILLION people were in there clamoring for confections of various kinds. I have been made to understand that the proprietor of the Pix empire is trying to unload it. While it definitely seems like a low-margin store, this is probably more of a too-much-work problem more than it is a not-enough-money-problem. I hope that the outcome to this situation is that things stay largely as they are, which is, I suppose, a positive sign in itself.