Half a glass

The strikes, well, strike again. After going to the conversational group for probably the last time this visit (Tuesday evening I expect to be too preoccupied, and by Wednesday afternoon I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic), and lunch and a bit of crashing, I rode out to Bercy to the Cinémathèque Française, intending to see the 1935 Renoir film Le Crime de Monsieur Lange. Ha. Not happening. The strikes. (Is there a projectionists' union? Are they out in sympathy?)

I did, however, take the consolation prize of going through the current exhibition, "Brune/Blonde," which, interesting as it actually had looked online, exceeds expectations. When you have examples from Mucha to David Lynch; from film of 1970s feminist marches in New York and Paris and of Angela Davis in Africa in the 80s saying Maureen Reagan didn't speak for her, to Marilyn singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," you have a really fascinating winner. All about (women's) hair, basically--but about all the symbolism and coercion and eroticism and repression and racism and fantasy that has involved. It took a long time to go through, a) because it was packed, and b) because there was so much to see, and much of it was film clips to watch standing or taking turns sitting. Medusa, Hitler Youth, Rita Hayworth--you name it. http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/expositions-cinema/brune-blonde/

And just as I begin to feel a bit comfortable, a wee bit familiar with my immediate surroundings, on my arrival back at Châtelet station, which is a huge freaking maze, even though I take an exit to a now-familiar street in Les Halles (la Ferronerie), I get tangled up so that I wind up all the way down at Pont Neuf again. Because I just don't get an opportunity to do enough walking. At least the cold rain falling off and on today is not, at that point, and of course I do have to stop halfway across to sip the amazing view of the lighted Eiffel Tower in the distance, the river, with boats humming past, the sky.

Because confusing and exhausting and maddening as the city is--the country can be--when I realize I'm leaving in just a few days I feel a flare of panic. Of unreality.

So I'm drowning my dejection in a salmon and mozzarella sandwich from one of the touristy bars/cafes along Rue d'Arcole I was lucky enough to find still open (I've had only coffee, still, at Le Quasimodo on the corner, but I've eaten twice now at the Esmeralda creperie . . . does that mean something?).