The Pillow Project

Belatedly...came and performed at Spoken Word LAST week (17 October): http://pillowproject.org/

Weather report

Well, there’s something you don’t see every day in Paris (nor at home in Louisiana, this year, sadly). I’d only just looked up to notice the sky had gotten dark, when there was a clap of thunder, then another, then the downpour. The quite impressive thunder and lightning continued, for some ten minutes or so, as people, caught unprepared, ran here and there for shelter. Little bits of—sleet? tiny hail? bounced off the windowsill outside. Water rushed down the street.

And now the sky is mostly blue again..

Spoken Word, 24 October, 2011

with photos: http://spokenwordparis.blogspot.com/2011/10/spoken-word-paris-report-24102011.html

Article

...posted on my Facebook wall by a friend. "Lost" certainly applies, though I'm much more of a novice at Paris than he is (obviously). I HAVE eaten at Le Bistrot du Peintre, though : )

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/travel/lost-in-paris.html?ref=travel&src=me&pagewanted=all

There and back again

Wednesday. Up and out early, but running a bit later than I’d intended—so hustled over to the Cité Métro doubletime to head for Gare Montparnasse. After its labyrinth and buying the ticket to l”Aigle, the platform wasn’t yet posted for my train, so cooled my heels on a bench till it did show up (and here I have to note that the sight and sound of destination boards in train stations rolling over as they’re updated are a visceral symbol of travel; I hated to read, a while back, that they would be gradually phased out (King’s Cross in London, I think, among the first to go) in favor of thoroughly digital ones). Which posting sent me off again, hurrying to a platform in a distant substation (certainly if you measure by the number of moving sidewalks’ distance) of Montparnasse—the Gare Vaugirard, actually. Huffing and puffing yet again, I was eventually there along with everyone else,, waiting for the doors to open. The train was sparsely populated; but how lovely, that it’s a service to people who need transportation regardless.

As we rolled into Basse Normandie, I couldn’t help thinking how like where I live, where my Normandy ancestors wound up (the direct ones, anyway) it looks—not the grain elevators; not the chalk sublayer glimpsed on hillsides (prompting other thoughts about earth’s matching puzzle pieces and tectonic plates); but the fields, the woods, the little towns. When we arrived in l’Aigle after not quite an hour and a half, I knew I had over an hour’s wait for the bus to Tourouvre. One just waits, in a little shelter at the far side of the station parking lot, if the bus isn’t yet there. Which it wasn’t, of course (another driver was helpful in explaining where my bus would appear. Except that, much later, it didn’t appear in that spot; when it was fifteen minutes before departure, another kind man helped me discover it in another slot). It was a cool, brilliant day, with big forecast clouds rolling in from the west. (I didn’t get a photograph, but I have to record for posterity the house for sale directly across the street, its lower windows all shuttered, but with large dolls (large—like half life-sized, some of them) looking out of all the upstairs windows, one with hand raised to wave. Very—strange, if not creepy. And weirdly hilarious at the same time.)

The bus system for Orne, managed by the area council (are you listening, police juries? school boards? and this is not unique to France; I remember seeing rural bus service in Scotland that worked the same way) serves everyone: the public, random tourists, as well as schoolchildren as school buses. There were only four or five of us on board (two, actually, until our first stop), including a woman who had just missed her proper bus (as it started to rain). But then we stopped at a junior high school (collège) and a high school (lycée), as the rain came down harder, and the bus was filled with damp whispering, giggling passengers. Who were then gradually deposited at various stops in or near two or three other hamlets (communes, more than likely) and towns.

Tourouvre oozes charm. Old (though hard to gauge quite how old; I’m sure very little survives that’s as old as the actual church, Saint-Aubin, where many of the émigrés to Quebec were baptized; several wars rolled through the area in the almost 400 years since, among other things: there was a Nazi massacre of civilians here in 1944, for example, and the burning of part of the town; the main street is named 13 Août 1944, in fact), clean, pretty (well-kept flower beds and boxes dotted everywhere). There were several bistros, brasseries, and restaurants of one sort or another, though I’m getting ahead of myself; a bit worrying that not one was open by late afternoon, and what had been a Moroccan one was out of business and up for sale.

But back to chronological order: when the bus stopped for me, a little way out a residential sort of side road, I made sure to ask whether that was where I would catch the return bus to l’Aigle. The driver told me no, to catch it at “the church.” Okay.

I walked back to the main street and headed toward what seemed the center of town. Before very long, there was the combined museum (the Musée de l'Emigration française au Canada that I wanted, and the Musée des Commerces et des Marques, under the same roof)—a modern building for them, only five years old. And there were the first drops of rain. The museum wasn’t supposed to be open until 2:00 P.M., which it wasn’t quite yet (nor on Tuesday, more misinformation from its website), but as I took off my backpack to get out my umbrella, I noticed a man coming out of the main entrance. It was open (since 11:00 A.M.!), and I was no sooner inside than the rain poured down. Very good luck and timing.

The museum is small, and consists largely of information panels accompanying reproductions of historical documents and paintings. But the information is well-researched, and the visuals are interesting. There’s an area with a long video presentation by a Native American and a “period” Frenchman, which I didn’t sit through; in the same room are other displays pertaining to Native Americans. There’s a room devoted to the whole new cultural vocabulary the French settlers had to acquire to survive in Canada, which really makes the transition they had to make hit home: almost every fish, plant, and geographical and climatic feature would have been something they had to learn, intimately, quickly. And there’s a map showing the land grants, the seigneuries, in and around Quebec, as of 1803. At the end of the course through the museum, there’s a “reading room” of sorts, where I did spend a little time, watching the sky grow black and another, even harder, downpour come and go, through the glass wall in front of me.

Finally leaving there, I walked on further into town, looking for “the church,” for one thing (the woman at the museum incredulous when I asked her what church he’d meant, as if it were obvious). The little neat old town center, a couple of detours down side streets for the hell of it, coming to cemeteries and, quickly, to the edge of town with beautiful country vistas beyond. The disconcerting lack of food. And, of course, Saint-Aubin; I went in and walked around the small old church, with its windows and plaques here and there dedicated to the mass exodus in the seventeenth century to Canada.

From a very nice small boulangerie/patisserie down the block from the church I finally bought a small quiche. That, the other croissant in my backpack, some chocolate, and the rest of the bottled water I’d bought in l’Aigle served as a very late lunch, eaten in a little glass-enclosed enclosure up against the church where the bus would come . . . in an hour or so. In the meantime it also became (obviously not unusually) a hangout for teenagers, three, then two giggly, flirty girls plus several guys all tough with the cigarettes and passing around a bottle (that one of them went away on his motorcycle and brought back). One much older man, mid-thirties? grilled me about what I was doing; his and all the very fast slangy talk went more than half past me. I think I left them with the impression I was English, in hindsight. Subdued, the girls spoke a little English to me once or twice, even asking me what time the bus was supposed to come as if it somehow concerned them, too. As evening came on it was getting decidedly colder.

The bus came, with the same driver. A genuinely Nice Guy, who clearly knows his area and the people personally. I immediately noticed a set of keys on the first seat, which I handed to him. After we’d made an obligatory circle around downtown, he pulled over and quickly found the young man who’d left them—this in addition to his having taken the woman in l’Aigle who’d missed her bus to connect with another of the same route at the lycée.

Keeping in mind all the while that the setting sun was gilding the landscape seductively, I’d still say Orne—Perche—is beautiful country. I did not, for the record, see a single Percheron—horse—this visit, though they are still bred and promoted.

Then there was the train to Alençon. In my car there were only me and a man who’d said “bon soir” to me as he came into the station where I was pacing around, bored. Then the train stopped, and somewhat flustered, he told me he hadn’t realized that train was headed for Argentan, said goodnight, wished me a pleasant trip, and got off. Now, this train had just rolled in at the time mine was supposed to and I’d gotten on; there’d been no announcement. So, all alone now, speeding through the night, I of course began fretting that I, too, was on the wrong train: nervously checking my watch for the time we were supposed to stop at Surdon (where I would change trains), as we seemed to continue picking up speed rather than slow down.

Well, long story short, we did stop—very briefly—and I was left to contemplate whether it might not have been better to continue to Argentan (except for the fact that I had a hotel reservation in Alençon). There may be a “there” there, at Surdon (though if you Google it and see the photo at Wikipedia, you’ll see exactly what I did, only by day). But on a night when the temperature was headed for the upper 30s, Fahrenheit, a dozen or so hapless travelers were left on a platform in the middle of nowhere, in the dark. I fished the sweater out of my backpack and put it on over the long-sleeved knit shirt, under the vest, under the (thank goodness I’d checked the Alençon forecast that morning before leaving Paris, at least) woolen coat. I added the cap and gloves. The little lighted glass shelter offered only the illusion of a degree or so more of warmth; I suppose I would have been grateful if it had been raining. As it was, I could see a few stars. I had to laugh at how utterly ludicrous the situation was.

It really was only fifteen minutes or so before the next train came. We rolled into Alençon sometime after 9:00 (or 21:00, as they say). I checked the lighted map outside the station to orient myself and set off hiking toward Place Charles de Gaulle, a major roundabout, and my hotel.

The hotel restaurant was closed, along with most everything else, but the nice young man did direct me to a place a block or so away. This bar/restaurant specialized in—well, fondues, raclettes, that sort of thing. They did have pizza, which I ordered, though soup would have been very nice. There was an impressive list of rum shooters on the wall beside me, but I was already so wasted I didn’t think I should risk more than the glass of wine.

Amazingly, it turned out to be one of the body-tries-to-catch-up sort of nights. Maybe this was partly due to the fact that at 8:00 A.M. it was still quite dark out, from a combination of latitude, season, and lingering clouds, I guess. And a cold morning it was, too.

I can add “lost in Alençon” to my repertoire, now—only in trying to find the Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle, in my defense. On the way there I did stumble across the Basilique de Notre-Dame, by virtue of first stumbling across (okay; truthfully, I threw plans to the wind and followed all the people converging with market baskets and little pull-along carts) a most wonderful open-air market. It was large and very busy. It was beautiful. In two separate locations I saw men standing continuously opening scallops, shucking them the same way one does oysters. There were all the gorgeous fruits and vegetables, the cheeses, little strawberry plants and flowers for planting, pumpkins, heaps of wet shiny mussels. On another level, closer to the basilica, there were clothing vendors.

At great length, after a ridiculous amount of walking, I did find the museum. The lacework really is incredible; there are examples dating to the seventeenth century. How many poor women went blind accomplishing this intricacy? At the other extreme, there are several updated couturier versions from as recently as 2005. The “Beaux Arts” part is mostly more interesting for its historic recording than extreme artistic value, I would say (though to be fair, I did give that part only a cursory walk-through). The whole thing is housed in a magnificent surviving cour carrée, said to be a former Jesuit school. There are other, similar buildings in the old town; the whole cobbled area is very nice.

The afternoon I spent in the Archives Départementales de l'Orne. These are in every way impressive: professional, obviously well-funded, housed in a modern building. Let alone that they contain records for the region going back to the eleventh century. I’d already determined online that there were no parish nor civil records there for any surnames I was interested in, though, leaving “only” recorded minutes of council meetings. Unindexed. Day by day, document by document, from 1545 to 1634 . . . I’ve done this before. I could do it again. But it would be the work of weeks, not hours. Hours weren’t even enough to create the Rosetta Stone in my head, to begin to be able to decipher more than a fraction of the archaic French written in idiosyncratic script. On top of all that, I was forcefully reminded, yet again, just how long ago the Juchereaux, et al, had left this region (as in, oh, when I had to specify I was interested only in records up to 1634). Yes, some of them had not remained in the New World; they had, in succeeding generations, returned to France, prospered there in the military or some other profession. Etc. But those would be very, very distant relatives, indeed. Mine, my direct ones, had left even Canada so long ago that they were a hundred years gone by the time that landholding map at the Tourouvre museum had been drawn (other siblings’ descendants were there, but not our line). I dutifully combed through a smidgen of a couple of folders (two- and three-inch thick folders) in a couple of large boxes. I consulted another couple of obscure secondary sources, long out-of-print books in French. And then I went and caught an hour earlier train than I’d originally planned.

For the first time (for me), it was a TGV back to Paris after LeMans. Unlike the other trains, this was packed, with assigned seating. Many of the passengers wore suits, or were otherwise well-dressed. When we were passing through a railroad cut or forest, without long-distance vistas to appear slow-moving, there was the sensation that we were going to just keep accelerating and accelerating until we levitated, we were going so fast. I’ll call it worth it, even though it struck me finally that I’d been neglecting to claim my discounted fares for age the whole time, what with there always having been something else preoccupying me.

And so back to Montparnasse, back to l’Île de la Cité, incredulous that I’d left less than forty-eight hours earlier, the backpack straps becoming excruciating (as I’d gradually added a book here, a newspaper there, the vest and shirt when the day had warmed up . . . on top of the laptop, the genealogy folder, the essentials). Maybe renting a car will be the way to go another time.

Blog world

Again I have NO idea what the blog site is doing: posts that are copied and pasted as a whole from
Word show up here with one paragraph single-spaced (always the last one), one double. My apologies.

More randomness

Random notes:

The beggars’ new gimmick is to have animals. This is so disturbing. One or two seem actually to feel attachment to them, but in general they are there as props, to entice more donations. They spend all day, every day, in one spot. Some of the more upsetting ones, to me, have been the man with a cat, on a leash, thrashing around wanting off the leash (it had its own little “dog” house, and food, though, and other than being kept on a leash in one spot all day, didn’t appear to be being mistreated. Or the man on the Pont Saint-Louis lately with a mother dog and her puppies. Trelys has seen one with a rabbit. When I brought this up at the conversational group, Parisians were dismissive, saying these beggars are part of one organization that has instructed them to have the “pets.” But what happens to them eventually? Or even now? I expect they came from a pound somewhere; is no life better than a poor-quality one?

Everywhere in the city construction is underway—renovation, restoration, repair. On both sides of the street between me and Notre-Dame, buildings are faced with netting and scaffolding, and the days are filled with the sound of saws and hammers. Somewhere in the back of my own building, or one adjoining it that shares the courtyard, there is construction work underway; the debris has to be brought out by wheelbarrow. Work is happening on the—power grid, I think, in places all over; temporary barricades block sidewalks, or metal panels cover sections of sidewalk when the work is not actually in progress, as on the weekend.

Random Encounters

Saturday. How stunning, to have, suddenly, one of those “small town” moments in Paris. Getting off to a late start by trying to force my body to acknowledge it was too early to be awake, early afternoon found me heading across the Petit Pont toward the Left Bank, thinking I’d at least check out whether anything might be going on at Shakespeare and Company, before hitting the market for provisions. In the middle of the bridge, literally halfway across, someone said “Carolyn.” It was Trelys, from the Spoken Word group.

We wound up walking together, talking all the while, for over two hours: all along the lower bank on that side toward the 13^th arrondissement, which I’d never seen, where it’s landscaped and there’s a bike path, and little mini-amphitheaters right next to the water where she says there are performances, and at one, on Sundays, tango dancers. Through the Jardin des Plantes, or a portion of them (the day was cool in the shade and almost balmy in the sun; hordes of people were out taking advantage of possibly the last comfortable weather). All the way to the Gare de Lyon and through it. Among the funnier highlights, that made it into her “happy report” at the next Spoken Word, were the man on the bicycle wearing a complete little plastic shed over himself, like those on baby carriages; the man who came up to us waltzing as we sat for a minute, as if asking us to dance; the shoe tree in the Jardin; the baby lizard I lifted out of the path and set to the side in a bed.

Feeding the Senses

Wednesday. Still apologizing to my body for the previous day’s mistreatment, I decided actually to seek out one of the restaurants I’d noted in a book of recommendations. The Bistrot du Peintre, in the Bastille area, turned out to be the very one on the corner where I’d turned off the rue Ledru-Rollin to reach the new temporary Spoken Word location a block farther on, two days earlier. The Bistrot has been there since 1907; the large front windows with their Art Nouveau framing and muntins are convincing evidence. It’s comfortably a little shabby around the edges, but the service is very fast and attentive. It was still very busy after 1:00 in the afternoon (with very few people at the outside tables on a chilly day), but “un couvert” was immediately available at one of the tiny tables in a row along the wall. To my right was a couple—I’m guessing he was French, but she was American, though she spoke French like a native. To my left (and we’re talking in that practically-in-each-other’s-laps way, a middle-aged French couple. They were in from the suburbs somewhere, friendly and joking (she warned me about bones in the fish, which I ordered, after I’d asked her how it was; I could hardly pretend not to have seen what she’d been eating). Later, when the place had emptied out somewhat, the waiter in our area, clowning around, took a quick poll of where everyone was from (the other couple had left by this time). Just in the immediate area there were the French couple, a table of people from Germany, and a Swiss group. And me.

The fish was delicious and there was a lot of it, plus excellent vegetables (and wine).I declined coffee, explaining I was going to have to have coffee elsewhere—because I had only about twenty minutes by then to make it to the conversational group at the pub in Saint-Germain. Which I got to a few minutes late, actually, because I stayed on the Métro as long as possible, I thought to expedite matters; coming at the Marché Saint-Germain from the Odéon stop, though (I may have known this once, but hadn’t come that way in a long time), I came to the opposite side of it and had to walk around.

Thursday. The day had started out cool, but with the sun out, reverted to Indian summer. I walked after noon to the Centre Pompidou for the Edvard Munch exhibit. There was a line, because it’s a popular exhibit, but nothing like that at the Grand Palais had been (indoors, for one thing; fast-moving, for another).

The exhibit is fascinating and informative. It focuses specifically on the premise (on proving the premise, by example) that Munch was very aware of the world around him, curious and quick to try out new technology and techniques, contrary to the long-held presumption that he was withdrawn and isolated. There are amazing bits of film he shot with an early movie camera, as well as many (many) photos he took, in addition, of course, to the paintings.

Walking back, it was a take-off-the-jacket, t-shirt kind of afternoon. Crowds of people were out.

Friday. A chilly, windy day had blown in overnight. I decided it was time finally to try the falafels on Rue des Rosiers in Le Marais. For the second time the much-touted l’As du Falafel was closed, but another place just up the street was doing great business (their own plus l’As’, I should think). I wanted it to go, which meant figuring out what I wanted, stepping inside the little restaurant to place my order and pay, then going back outside to wait in the line at the window. The whole assembly, when it’s done, is huge—well, in terms of consuming it, certainly. As soon as I had mine (topped with eggplant), I scurried off, meaning to eat it at Place des Vosges. Which is not that short a walk, and I did want some semblance of warmth left in the meal, so a brisk walk. But there it was, and a bench in the shade (though the wind was chilly), and a leisurely lunch. A delicious, filling lunch.

Pigeons kept an eye on me, hoping for handouts or mistakes. One had the audacity to perch on the bench beside me; it even took a bit of pita from my hand (way too tame for its own good). They did the same routine with a couple who came and sat on the next bench, who were also suckers for the birds. By then little sparrows had arrived, too; it was fascinating and hilarious to watch the interplay. The pigeons outweighed them five to one (at least), but the sparrows were quick and smart, eventually making it standard practice to immediately fly off to one of the grassy areas as soon as they got a morsel of something. Otherwise, they’d also perfected a little indignant poor-me squeak if one (or more) of the pigeons tried to steal, let alone succeeded in stealing, what they’d gotten.

Other people sat and lay in the sun on the grass. Teenaged students, free from school, congregated over to one side, fooling around and laughing. Pedestrians came and went, cutting through the square.

L'après-midi and everything after

Much later. My body seems to have adopted, maybe in self-defense against abuse, some bizarre rhythm in which it wakes me far too early after far too late nights for several days running, then wants me to recover all the lost sleep at once. Like today, Tuesday, October 18, when to my own astonishment I slept very late by my standards, woke to full knowledge that there was really nothing but fruit, cheese, and yogurt (well; and oatmeal, but I just couldn’t) in the place for food, gauged that I could just make it to lunch if I hurried, and did that. Wine for breakfast these days, followed eventually by a jolt of strong coffee (much too early in the day for my caffeine sensitivity, even on a full stomach), is not really the best of ideas, either, though it trumps not eating to the point of low blood sugar, I suppose (a repeat visit to a little salon du thé just a couple of blocks away, one I hadn’t tried last year. The placemats are a 1940 photo of the same place, looking virtually identical to itself in 2011, with one exception being, of course, the formule lunch’s being listed on the chalkboard in the photo as starting at 10 francs, rather than 12 Euro). Then to a bakery for tomorrow’s breakfast as it began to rain (what are the people upstairs doing? violently rearranging the furniture, it would seem) and home. Where I promptly feel desperately drowsy again, full night’s sleep and coffee be damned.

But the train and bus schedules are perused, a hotel reservation in Alençon is made, and I leave tomorrow morning for my long-postponed whirlwind trip into Basse Normandie. So I should try to recall and piece together as much as I can of the past week, whether anyone else ever reads of it or not, for my own memories.

Tuesday (October 11). In the afternoon I finally went to take part in a “Parler Paris” après-midi, which happens once a month upstairs at La Pierre du Marais, a restaurant in, obviously, Le Marais. It was cool and overcast; I took the Métro to the Temple (all these references to “Temple” in the Marais refer to the “Temple” of the Knights Templar, remnants of which still turn up from time to time when buildings are renovated or any excavation is done—as our speaker for the afternoon reminded us) exit, and without too much trouble found the place. Making me twenty minutes early, a rare occurrence; first on the scene, remarkably, so early the proprietor inquired as to why I was heading up the stairs. There were only, at that point, a couple of businessmen’s meetings still in progress up there, so I sat quietly and started in on coffee while waiting.

Eventually the businessmen departed and the overly-warm room filled with “Parler Paris” faithful (the tastefully finished and painted walls studded all over with rough stones, per the restaurant’s name; inquiring minds want to know whether they were already there or added for effect). I was a little disappointed that in my corner everything proceeded in English only for the duration, but not at all in my conversational partners, a young couple, he a physical therapist from New York here for a year with his wife, who’s from Taiwan (!), here on a fellowship to do research on 19^th-century tapestries. No; I wasn’t really familiar at all with the concept, or had never given any thought, certainly, to the existence of 19^th-century tapestries, so we had an interesting conversation. Whether helpful or not, I passed on the (apparently; to me at least) connected thought of the tapestry-like painted frieze by Jan de Beers I had just seen the preceding week at the Petit Palais.

Home to regroup, because that evening was the poetry reading. It was only in Les Halles, only slightly past the language school where the conversational group usually meets, so I walked (even in pumps). In spite of myself I found the little side street, but by the time the street numbers had reached 28 on the right, while I was still looking for 17 on the left, I stopped to ask directions. A couple of young men assured me to just keep going, and sure enough, there it finally was. “It” being a—well, disco club, pretty much, that can be rented out for private parties. A bar, with various small dark rooms. Dark rooms. Dark. The woman in charge of the combined event, in fact, advised us just to sit down and wait “upstairs,” when we were on the ground floor, meaning we would eventually descend somewhere else, because they hadn’t yet managed to turn off the disco music in the reading room. Wherever there were steps, and that was often and everywhere, their blackness was outlined in red strip lights, which for me at least served only to take away all depth perception.

But the gradually gathering people were, as always in my experience in Paris, friendly and welcoming. The woman with whom I’d found Spoken Word that first night in Belleville was there (networking, as she has some workshops coming up herself for which she’d of course like participants), and then an American couple came and sat by me and we chatted.

Finally we were invited to come down to the readied room. After a full descent to another, deeper level, there was another bar room, and then the reading room itself, with stools and chairs set up in addition to the bench around the wall. The gloom was alleviated a bit by a few uplights, and what an intriguing room it was. Cellar, it was. Surely it was always some sort of storage space, for the whole vault over our heads, though whitewashed now, was of rough, jagged stone. In one far corner there was a low, narrow arch, through which you could see the beginning of a twisting flight of steps.

The reading itself was—to summarize—intriguing, very interesting. Some of the poetry was a bit too cutting-edge and experimental to move me, but how often do I get the chance to hear it? and because of that it pinged places in my head to jar assumptions loose, shake things up a bit. “Like fernseed after fire,” to quote Jane Lewty, who I don’t always understand but will certainly be looking for from now on.

(For the record the reading was sponsored jointly by Ivy Writers and Poets Live, and those reading, in addition to Jane Lewty, were Anna Arov, Megan Garr, Kate Foley, and Sarah Ream, all currently Amsterdam-based though they’re from the U.K. and the U.S.; and Lars Palm from Sweden. Megan also established (she’s thirty-two!) wordsinhere, a literary community organization, in Amsterdam, and Versal, a literary journal now celebrating its tenth year of existence, “named one of seventeen ‘Indie Innovator’ presses by Poets & Writers Magazine” in 2010 (quoting from the reading’s publicity).)

And so I staggered home, this day having been the cautionary tale of not eating enough, of hardly eating at all, and then on an empty stomach deciding to have a Nutella crêpe in addition to coffee while at the “après-midi” gathering, throwing my blood sugar completely out of whack for all the remainder of the day and evening. Dizzy? Mais oui, mes chéris. Absolutely no alcohol necessary, though there’d also been that glass of wine at the disco club for good (or not) measure.

In La Bastille

Monday: A little relapsed. I feel silly, of course, acknowledging the dismay at an email halfway through this past week, announcing the moving of the next “Spoken Word” event to a new location. I’d had that Belleville location, now; Culture Rapide (the bar/café) was now a cinch. Well, I guess I’m glad I saw it that once, red walls plastered with what looked like the Northern Sun catalog exploded, body-sized tight spiral of a stair down to the wee rudimentary toilet in the cellar. In hearing, gradually, the explanations for the seemingly abrupt move, I gathered (well; more than gathered; David Barnes finally explained it all explicitly to the assembled) that after years at that location, the break had been coming since June.

It may turn out to be a moveable feast, at least for a while. Next Monday’s venue is still TBA. This Monday’s was not hard to find (!), in the Bastille, or just past Bastille, area. We started very late, again; maybe this is normal, but also there was a certain amount of bumbling around, trying to determine a “stage” area, where there could be a spotlight (which in the end, for this evening, was done without entirely), etc. Eventually the café was packed to standing room, again. Alberto, who is Italian, presided rather than David (this can be deduced, not just from the standing in front, announcing each participant, and ringing the bell for time-warning and time-up, but by the wearing of the top hat, like a circus ringmaster).

I signed up, and in due time, read. The group is very kind, very supportive of everyone. At the break, waiting to order at the bar, I wound up talking—mainly listening—to a homesick graduate student at the Sorbonne, originally from Minnesota, but at present from the University of Florida. She loves poetry, but doesn’t write it. At all. I thought that bore mentioning.

The evening didn’t end until after midnight. Pedestrians were sparse by then, shops and restaurants closed. A little look-over-the-shoulder inducing, after one brief encounter with two guys, but completely uneventful in the end except for the tired, tired aspect.

In and Out

Friday: The source of the weakness became clear when I woke up ill, and was pretty much confined to bed the entire day with a stomach bug, feverish and wanting only to sleep. So much for the Grand Palais exhibit and the Argentine film.

Saturday: Maybe I should just change the name of the blog to “Lost in Paris.” I ventured out, finally, still a little weak and washed out the way one is after a stomach onslaught. I thought it wouldn’t be too taxing to go see the Marché des Enfants Rouges, Paris’ oldest surviving market, bearing that name from a 16^th-century orphanage nearby where the children wore red uniforms. And it probably wouldn’t have been, just the walk to Hôtel de Ville and then what looked like a not too long walk from the Métro stop Filles du Calvaire (a story—history—in every name!) to the market. I could see on the map I needed to make, not an acute-angle right turn, but a right-angle one, and somehow once on the ground, that apparently is not what I did. I did get a somewhat longer tour of the neighborhood, all around the Place de la République (whose connotations for me were previously: where I finally got my bearings that infamous Nuit Blanche 2010; and where I landed to go check out the Canal St.-Martin once) and several of the streets near it. When I’d just about abandoned hope, as often happens, I stumbled across the Rue de Bretagne and the market. It’s small, it’s charming (flowers, including masses of sunflowers; the smell of fresh fish the way New Orleans’ French Market used to be, when it was real), it was packed, even in afternoon, it being a Saturday, with locals and tourists, largely at that point because it also has food vendors (Lebanese, Japanese, Italian, etc.) and communal tables. The food looked and smelled wonderful, but still very leery of anything not completely bland for my stomach, in the end I bought only two mini chocolate (not entirely logical) cannoli and two almond cookies. And—walked all the way home.

Sunday: My seller had again offered to take me with him to a brocante, so even though it was rainy, I got up promptly and got ready. But when he finally called, he’d come down with a cold, in addition to the fact that it was raining, so we agreed on a, well, rain check until next weekend. By then it was almost noon. An indoor afternoon at a museum sounded like a good idea, and the Grand Palais currently has the exhibition “L’aventure des Stein,” the collection of the Stein family, of Picassos, Matisses, Cezannes, etc., etc., collected when those artists were relatively unknown. Think about it: a vastly popular exhibit that’s only recently opened, on the spur of the moment. On a Sunday. Afternoon. I did, in the copious time I had to repent of my stupid idea, standing . . . standing . . . in the line without previously-bought tickets. On the hard concrete. There was a clarinet player trying to amuse us all; though his tone was klezmer, he was otherwise quite good. And we got to hear, I think, his entire repertoire. There were a couple of Venezuelan women just behind me who were pretty hilarious; we bonded, after a fashion (they first came to my attention when one of them was singing the words to some South American—I would have said Argentine, maybe, because they sounded like tango, but maybe they’re just well-known everywhere—songs he was playing). “L’après-midi le plus long de ma vie,” as I finally felt very justified in saying. You know how these things go: once you’ve thrown away one hour of your life, you’re loath to give up, but hang in there doggedly in hopes of making it worth it.

The exhibit is very good. Obviously. Knowing what I know now, I would have turned back and waited for another day. Some day when there would be not quite so much “there” there.

I Vant to See the Etchings

Thursday I invited myself over to look at some guy’s etchings. Well, guys’: Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach, elder and younger. Quite the group, though they didn’t even know I was there.

It was the first rainy day—the weather had been getting cooler for a couple of days, but this morning I woke to find it had rained a little already. The sun was implying it might soon break through the clouds, though, as I walked to the Hôtel de Ville Métro stop. As the escalator reached the open air coming out of the Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau station, however, a few drops of rain were spattering down—which within seconds turned to a downpour. I managed to whip out my umbrella and get it open, but the rain and wind were so hard my jeans were wet to the knee by the time I walked (quickly) the short distance to the portico of the Grand Palais. It was the Petit Palais I wanted, but any port in a storm, and quite a few other people had had the same impulse.

Not more than ten minutes later we were back to only a sprinkle, and I crossed the street to my intended. Destination. What can I say? That, in my humble opinion, Dürer “wins,” if only because his etchings seem—warmer, more expressive? I found the small etchings exhibit only after walking through the beautiful glassware exhibit (as in René Lalique and Émile Galle, etc., swooningly beautiful Art Nouveau pieces, or surviving ancient ones), the pretty garden while it wasn’t raining, the (how is it Russia follows me?) gallery of Russian (and Greek, for the record) icons—not the treasures of the Tretyakov, but interesting, and most stunning of all, somehow, a Jan de Beers that took up a wall (I wasn’t familiar with him, but after reading up a little, know he was a Belgian realist painter of the late 19^th century, whose paintings were so photograph-like they became the cause of a huge controversy when he was accused of merely painting over photos—leading in turn to much discussion of the acceptance of photographs themselves as art. Etc. That, in fact, being what is so arresting about this painting, “The Funeral of Charles the Good,” in the 12^th century: how disconcertingly photographic it is, the kneeling monks, the expressions on the knights’ faces—some pious (or pretending to be), some bored, some glancing directly at the viewer, and so on. There’s something mesmerizing about it, as if a photograph had in fact been possible that day.

Exiting into the not-rainy-but-still-overcast-and-windy day, I decided to walk on to the Eiffel Tower. It wasn’t that far (as a crow flies. Relatively speaking. For someone who hadn’t gotten up that morning feeling unaccountably weak); I’d looked on a map before coming; I could see it “right there,” in the not-too-far distance.

Once past the exuberant gilt of the Pont Alexandre III (Russia, again! and coziness between monarchs: visible in various films (A Very Long Engagement, though I’d never realized that—underneath—is where that shooting takes place; Midnight in Paris . . . ), the series of little parks all along the Seine walkway contain various monuments—to Lafayette, to Russian (!) troops who fought with the French in World War I, to the victims of the Armenian genocide.

Cross Pont de l’Alma, and before long you stumble (maybe literally) across the outdoor exhibit of the “Photoquai” biennale exhibit by the Musée de Quai Branly, breathtaking, amazing photos by photographers from around the world. Which, because you are (I am) now twice as tired and the Tower is still teasing, there, between the trees and buildings, only extremely slowly drawing any nearer, you quickly view only two or three of these artists’ (yes) work. One of them, of course, Irina Popova, from somewhere between Europe and China that needs no introduction. Whose series “Anfisa’s family” caused an uproar in St. Petersburg when it was published.

But moving on . . . finally, finally, there it is, tourism central (along with my own neighborhood, admittedly), and the parked buses, and the amateur paparazzi. Though on this damp, almost chilly day, and approaching from the river side, through the trees and shrubbery, this is as minimized as it’s ever going to be. I’d ignored it completely last year (the tower); had only been here once before, my very first time in Paris, and that at night. It’s really, really big. Massive. And beautifully detailed for all its immensity, in a way more modern, brutalist architecture has no patience with. And there, indeed, was the huge inky-black crow, there long before me, strutting and eying me smugly.

The Monument to Peace at the opposite end of the Champ de Mars is very minimalist and serene, unfortunately reachable these days only by running a gantlet of the young gypsy “deaf-mute” scammers who are everywhere. No exaggeration: I’m sure I was approached by at least ten of them. I fell for one last year at the Centre Pompidou, before I learned what they were about. Now, though I feel a bit sorry for their being exploited, I just wish they’d leave me alone.

Spoken Words

Monday. The weather continued warm and sunny—remarkable, and the Parisians reveling in it. I walked to the Châtelet station, where I was sure of finding a human ticket seller and being able to use my American credit card to buy a carnet of new Métro tickets. Then I promptly used one of them to save personal wear and tear just a bit by riding to the St.-Paul stop in the Marais, to buy bread and a few groceries. And a salmon-and-spinach quiche, too, as it turned out, which became dinner.

The main event of the day was actually the evening, and a “Spoken Word” event at a tiny café/bar in Belleville. What is a first visit to a new neighborhood without wandering off for over half an hour in the wrong direction? In sandals, not walking shoes? I did check that I was on the correct street at the beginning, but in retrospect, apparently right where the street veers, or diverges. So I got quite the tour of Ménilmontant, or its main thoroughfare, just after twilight: working class, very ethnic. In the first sixty seconds I must have met three men striding by in caftans. Even after retracing my weary steps, back to the Belleville station, and climbing the hill of Belleville (Edith Piaf’s birthplace, if you didn’t already know that), I made it to the next station without having found the café. Utterly frustrated and aching, I was on the verge of reluctantly giving up when, halfway back down, I encountered another woman looking for the place (David: your directions suck). Putting our two befuddled heads together we actually found it within another five minutes or so, around a corner with its wide unmarked patio extending toward rue de Belleville.

I’d been following the activities of this group for a while online, getting notices of its events via email. The evening started quite late, most of the participants are young (by varying definitions), and from all over. Though, other than for my locating partner, who’s from the States rather vaguely but lives in India, I spent more time talking with Trellis, an older (older than me!) Black Canadian woman of some French descent who’s a longtime regular, than anyone else. When the readings finally got underway (limited to five minutes) the place was packed to standing room only (and, it goes without saying, WARM). “Reading” being imprecise, because there were musical offerings as well. Almost everything was in English, with (this night) the exception of one young man who played guitar and sang in Swedish.

There were some really excellent readings. Some not so excellent. Some were not original; one girl read Yeats, another (with feeling) from The Cat in the Hat, which brought down the house, so to speak (it was hilarious). There were a couple of fragments of plays in progress presented. Usually there are three separate sets with breaks between, but not enough people had signed up for the third this time, so they were combined with the second. No, I did not get up the nerve to read myself, it being such a new environment. I will next week, though (as of this night they’re getting together weekly, now). I did get a new poem out of the Métro ride there, though, which made it all more than worthwhile; I think I’ll dedicate it to them when I do read.

In fact, it’s looking as if the jaunt to Normandy I’ll push back another week. I’d meant to go next week, say Tuesday, but after the Spoken Word next Monday, I’ve gotten an announcement from them by email of a special poetry reading (Lars Palm, Megan Garr, and Jane Lawty) Tuesday, and then Wednesday is two different conversational groups. Hard to tear myself away.

Phèdre et Psyche, together at last

Sunday. The ballet, at Opéra Garnier: Psyche and Phèdre, two separate short pieces. The magnificent gilded froth of the place itself is distracting, humbling (I’d only ever set foot in it once before, and then not for an actual performance), and makes you feel underdressed. You feel like a character in some period film. Even the loges are divided into tiny boxettes, four seats each (even unto the very top, I observed, unlike, say, the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, where at that height you get a common bench). Any more dressed up, though, and I would have felt compelled to break down and take a taxi. I was wearing a skirt! all the concession I could make, all dressier options being too warm for the still very warm day and public transit. On a first visit I definitely wouldn’t have found my seat without the helpful young usher(ette), behind one of many narrow, gilt-numbered doors, two flights up. By arriving a bit breathless and a bit sweaty, though, I felt justified in extracting a folding fan from my purse (the program just not getting the job done); its cheap painted paper and metal having to stand in for lace or feathers, lying there at rest on the wide edge of the balcony.

Next to me, just beyond the divider in the next compartment, sat the daughter of the harpist (not over three years old) and her father. She behaved beautifully throughout the entire performance, only waving repeatedly to her mother whenever the lights were up, who would wave back. Unfortunately some child across the way, seemingly in one of the boxes, was not so civilized, or socialized, speaking out loudly and at random repeatedly—and staying for the whole show.

Just—Wikipedia the place itself (there really was an underground lake that had to be drained to build it, among other things). I will say that I think the Chagall paintings in the center of the ceiling are interesting and charming because they’re out of sync with the style of the rest of the house, bringing a flavor of another era to it.

The ballets themselves—well, Phèdre is extremely stylized, all the choreography and even costumes dictated by Jean Cocteau, so that you get whole groups in matching costumes of odd color combinations down to gloves and wigs that carry out the theme. The dancing is very professional, but I will concede the man next to me had dozed off and I was feeling a bit sleepy myself. After the “entr’acte,” when I wandered around our floor of the building and took some photos (and found the ladies’ room), Psyche proved to be more traditional, considerably more sentimental and even corny—but very pretty. And of course the dancing was superb. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/arts/dance/paris-opera-ballets-phedre-and-psyche-review.html?_r=1 , if you’re more of a balletomane)

When I’d de-Cinderellaed and arrived back home via subway, the red geranium petals scattered on the sidewalk from my neighbor’s window box reminded me of the rose petals that had fluttered down at the close.

Le Jour et la nuit

Saturday: Scurried off to the old conversational group in the morning (startled to have overslept, rushing through the essentials), happy to cross that side of the river again, happy to be striding up Sébastopol toward Les Halles. I saw four familiar faces for sure, not all in my room. Sobering, it is, how much gets lost if it’s not used regularly (that saying is true). I can still process simple questions and answers with no trouble, but attempting to hold forth on the appalling wealth distribution in the U.S., or give those heading out to La Nuit Blanche in the coming evening a heads-up about the Métro’s reduced schedule long before it’s over (based upon painful experience) taxes the vocabulary. And anyone speaking at (Parisian) speed will just have to accept the fact they’re going to have to repeat, for the present.

Afterward I wandered—deliberately not caring about getting lost since I know I can get unlost, in the Marais, in the daytime—vaguely in the direction of La Bastille and Place des Vosges. I intend to keep doing that, in fact, becoming (more) familiar with the Marais being one goal. And I kept my word, because I was promptly disoriented, though in the process found Rue des Rosiers, which I had wanted, at some point at least (though l’As du Falafel was closed, I grabbed a pirojki to go from another nice little shop I hope to make it back to (there were also all sorts of interesting sweets), which I ate in a small park (Square Georges Cain) where other people were eating, idling, a couple of sets of parents entertaining toddlers in the little central grassy part). I thought I’d found Rue St.-Antoine, which I remembered as one of the main thoroughfares; when I realized it was Boulevard Beaumarchais, I knew I was completely turned around. I missed Place des Vosges this time entirely, but made it to Place de la Bastille, whereupon I had my bearings again, and wandered up and down, in and out of a few places including a Monoprix, till the body was requesting relief.

La Nuit Blanche. Still psychologically scarred from the last one, I went for moderation—which wasn’t really even all that much a case of denial, because not all that much looked compellingly interesting. Nothing, really, at all on the island, which I briefly confirmed on foot before crossing over to l’Hôtel de Ville. The cathedral was dark (well, as usual, with a line of tourists waiting to enter nonetheless; nothing like last year’s massive mob), there was nothing at the Hôtel Dieu, nothing on the Pont St.-Louis, it being ¾ blocked at the moment for resurfacing. Nothing at the Hôtel de Ville, for that matter. BHV had a similar light display to last year’s around its façade; I could never make out the words (not Marcel Duchamp quotes, at least); perhaps related to the “Noël Québecois” it’s promoting? Or not. Which culminated repeatedly in a sort of lighted skyline.

So from there, I walked as briskly as crowds would permit up Rue du Temple, past another massive line for something I’d seen online and decided to pass on (as in, I really don’t even recall what), till reaching another line that, judging from the block it was in, I was pretty sure was for the installation at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme, so I started standing in it. We moved pretty quickly, and eventually, through a security check, were in its courtyard, where the Polish artist Miroslaw Balka’s “Heaven” was. It resisted photographing well, and I doubt my words will do it justice, but it was magical: long twists of—mylar? or something similar, suspended on invisible strings all through the court, catching light in the darkness and constantly turning, some appearing to fall twisting till they disappeared, like rain that doesn’t make it to the ground; others, lower, seeming to rise from the earth like steam or smoke that dissipates.

After a little while there I made my way back to the Hôtel de Ville and its Métro station, heading for the only other installation I’d chosen to see. Line #1 (the infamous early closer of memory) to Concorde, then 12 to Abbesses (and that in itself a little wondrous and nostalgic; it had been years since I’d simply traveled to Abbesses—not that the crush of La Nuit Blanche and the children’s carnival rides set up right outside its entrance, I’m guessing related to Montmartre’s Fête des Vendanges that begins Wednesday (yes! there are still vineyards in Montmartre) did much to cater to that brief inclination). As in the past, the crowds kept swelling and gradually becoming more raucous as the evening wore on. The Square Louise-Michel is the one in front of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur; once there, I snapped a couple of photos of the basilica above by night, but couldn’t see any candles. Moving around the left side toward the stairs, I was about to ask a guard when I heard someone else confirming that this was, in fact, the way to the “bougies,” and followed. There were a lot of people waiting for the funicular to the top, which I thought I’d disdain as always and climb—but then thought, that’s stupid: it’s warm, you’re already tired, plus you’re—well, old. The same ticket that gets you on a Métro is good for the funicular (and wasn’t I glad I’d saved all those leftover tickets from last year), so there was only the wait. Which wasn’t too terrible. Until we were shoehorned into the car when it had descended to us, giving “pressing the flesh” a whole new meaning. Similar to, but exceeding, the really crowded Métros. I’m sure there was a lovely view as we ascended, but it was a couple of dozen people away from me. The initial reward was the great drop in temperature when we exited at the top; it was cooler everywhere by then, of course, but markedly so that high up.

And there, far below near where I’d seen the guard and heard of the “bougies,” they were: Renaud August-Dormeuil’s installation “I Will Keep a Light Burning.” Not candles, precisely, but little oil lamps, scores of them, in a representation of the Paris night sky as it will appear one hundred years from today, one for each star. Do I need to employ the word “magical”? Wouldn’t that be overkill?

Slowly jockeying for position, fending off some strange young man (several times; the words “Quel est votre problème? J’ai des enfants plus agés que vous” finally got used), snapping photos, descending a little (in the dark, and there were no lights at all on the steps, I assure you, it was caveat emptor all the way), snapping from another angle, and just—looking, ensued. Till I was right upon the installation, which was no less magical at close range. I hope maybe a photo of a young boy raptly looking, too, his face reflecting the glow of the lights, turns out.

Rose

It’s a sign, I suppose, of settling in when you glance over your shoulder while busy cooking and are startled to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame there. Not taking for granted, not feeling superior (there’s still FAR too much I don’t know), not losing awe and wonder; just—feeling a bit of belonging. Of just being here, going about normal daily activities.

Even on half an hour of sleep, and once the shuttle driver and I had uncrossed our wires and finally connected at Charles De Gaulle, coming in I kept smiling to myself. A little smog lay over the whole area; it was bright, sunny, already warm in mid-morning. So many sights and signs and places were familiar (we came in through Bercy, past the huge indoor arena where the Métro deposits you on the way to the Cinémathèque Française, for instance). And then once we crossed the Seine past Bercy and began driving down the Left Bank, what a burst of joy. We were closing in fast on the little part of Paris most familiar to me; before I knew it there was Notre Dame, we were crossing back over Pont de l’ Archevêché, and I was home (omitting the fact that this driver had much less a grasp of the Ile de la Cité than drivers last year, not realizing my street is one way the opposite way from that he’d apparently meant to go: backing up when I kept telling him there was a police station right there).

And the apartment, feeling as if I’d been away from it only days, not an incredible eleven months.

It’s very warm—not the blinding, mind-numbing, soul-destroying heat of this summer just past where I live the rest of the time, but quite warm, around 80 F. And sunny. And dry. There are hordes of tourists still, and everyone in shorts, t-shirts, tank tops, sun dresses. Except for the occasional inscrutable person in long sleeves—which, normally, would include me. As it is, I wear sunblock and walk in the shade as much as possible. I forgot (or never thought) to bring a (straw) hat, and am grateful that at the last minute I threw in a cotton skirt, more t-shirts, and a pair of pedal-pusher-length pants. Last year it was already cool here, followed by one week of sort-of Indian summer, though not as warm as it is now.

You actually can’t go home again: I’d thought (after grabbing a couple hours’ sleep) to create a ritual by having my first meal in the same restaurant as last year, facing Place de Jean XXIII. But the sun was hot, there was no breeze, intermittent jets of cooling mist were spraying from under the awning toward the sidewalk, and though the smoked salmon was good and there was a lot of it, the eggs weren’t done. The waiter looked at me as if I were crazy (should I use subjunctive? doesn’t that imply the statement is contrary to fact?) when I ordered tea, when all around me people were ordering Coke on ice or drinking chilled wine or walking up to the sidewalk display for ice cream cones. The people-watching was excellent, as always, and the little bit of caffeine helped.

Making a first trip to the market followed; I’d brought my backpack to the restaurant, in fact. Or also preceded: I’d bought the heavy bottles of water from the little convenience shop next door, right away (and popped some Zyrtec: whatever has been setting off my allergies in the States is apparently here as well). Like the sane person I’m apparently not, I stayed up till 1:00 reading Slammerkin, that I’d brought and started on the plane.

This morning, Friday, I talked with my friend who’d been here a couple of weeks, but we wound up not getting to have lunch together after all; she was too busy helping her daughter pack to move back to Los Angeles. They’re both leaving tomorrow. So I walked up Blvd. St. Michel, the long hill toward the Jardin du Luxembourg, in search of a computer center I’d found online. Though I could have sworn I’d already printed out the ticket to the ballet, it was definitely not here, so I needed a printer. For once (unlike the search for a fax last year) it was ridiculously easy, and took five minutes once I’d found the shop. Then, of course, I wandered through the Jardin, teeming with people at around 1:00 P.M., walking, jogging, sitting, and one immense group of students, high-schoolish age, sitting on the grass. I found a chair in the shade on the far side and sat for half an hour or so myself. A cool breeze came up. Two young women gossiped and giggled loudly to my right. My nearest neighbor, another young woman, sat with her bare feet up on her chair, eyes closed, listening to her iPod. People watching was again superb. There was one not-young woman, wincingly tanned (her shoulder blades! looked like mahogany), wearing tiny shorts and high heels. A woman covered nearly from head to toe in a very formal suit with a below-mid-calf skirt, a hat, glided by into the trees. Surely she was very hot?

After half an hour or so I wandered back past the French Sénat, through the streets between Boul’ Mich and St. Germain, and eventually to Ile St.-Louis. I was intent on bread and some sort of pastry, but by then was desperate for my own bit of ice cream. At one of the various Berthillon outlets I stopped for a cone of raspberry à la rose—how odd it is to taste roses. La vie en rose, indeed.

Fáilte Annex, Part VI

(A whole month in Paris and I didn’t max out my camera’s memory card. One week in Ireland and I have to upload it all to Snapfish for safekeeping so that I can purge the card and start over.)

May 17, 2011

Dublin feels like a much larger city than it is. Even after the economic crash it is at every moment visibly, audibly international, and the bustle is Manhattan-scale. Today large swaths of it were an armed camp.

I knew Her Royal Dowdiness was coming; who could not, with The Visit occupying the news for days, now. The Irish Times had informed us before I left Limerick that the public would not be allowed anywhere near the Queeene at any time. Yesterday, trying to get into Trinity College, mainly to visit the Page of Kells (as it is drily known, since that’s the extent of the Book available for viewing), I discovered it had been closed to the public Sunday, not to re-open until tomorrow, Wednesday. Manhole covers were being sealed, my cab driver had told me. There were beginning to be an awful lot of Garda everywhere (their day-glo chartreuse jackets being a dead giveaway, though of course everyone realizes those are only the uniformed ones).

I stopped in a shop for a sandwich, then, and proceeded to the National Gallery. Which has a really impressive collection, Goya to Vermeer to Picasso—but of course the one I was most looking forward to was the lost (and re-found) Caravaggio, “The Taking of Christ.” And it did not disappoint. Just as the Mona Lisa transcends the very best color photographs of it, this painting actually before you is breathtaking: so much color and light and power and emotion wedged so tightly into one small space.

But what is a trip without getting lost, losing all sense of direction (the sun wouldn’t stay out long enough—or at all, yesterday—to help with a sense of direction. The light seems to be from everywhere, hazy and diffuse, lingering until well after 9:30 P.M.)? Walking through St. Stephen’s Green in the opposite direction from that you think you’re going helps. Eventually I made it past Grafton Street, past Temple Bar, to Christ Church Cathedral, and past that to St. Audoen’s (“the only surviving medieval parish church still in use in Dublin,” named for the patron saint of Normandy), though by that time it was closed. There’s a beautiful little garden beside it, also inside the fence. By then, what all that country walking hadn’t done, a few hours’ pounding of city pavement had, and I was really ready to call it a day.

Today I got up planning to try to avoid the royal hoopla as much as humanly possible. Had a full breakfast in the hotel, trying also to atone to my body for near-fasting yesterday, as it turned out. I walked up O’Connell Street, already fully blocked off to vehicles and eerily quiet, pedestrians still allowed, but corralled by metal barricades into crossing it only at certain points. There were literally hundreds of Gardai out, massed in their chartreuse everywhere, eyeing every one of us suspiciously as we passed—particularly when I stopped to shoot a number of photos of the Easter Rising headquarters, the General Post Office, which they were blocking as much as possible. They lined the barricades, but there were plenty of them to form random clumps in various places as well.

I gradually left most of them behind when I walked east along the river toward the Customs House, where the “Famine” group of sculptures is located. Someone had laid bouquets of flowers at the feet of the haunting, emaciated figures. I crossed the Liffey and found the “Linesman” sculpture, too. As long as I had come that far, I tried—I really did—to find the statue of Patrick Kavanaugh beside the Grand Canal. With a woman’s assistance and a great deal more walking, I made it to the canal, but then I had still before me a bewildering amount of potential. I finally decided I needed that energy for the National Museum and the rest of the day (including making it back to base), so I abandoned the hunt.

And the National Museum (just the history and archaeology site; decorative arts are in another location entirely) was a high point of Dublin. I passed on ancient Cyprus and Egypt in favor of in-depth study of Ireland’s past. Whether wood or metal or stone or gold—or human remains found in bogs—it was thrilling (including the actual small, beautifully carved mace head—carved of brittle, flaky flint—found at Knowth, and only pictured there), Neolithic through medieval. Watching the locations of the finds, it was evident that the art, the technology, the social system were island-wide, for the finds ranged from the Giant’s Causeway on the north coast to Cork in the south, from Galway to Kildare. All the while I was fascinated by the elaborately beautiful old building itself, opened in 1890, its scrolled metal roof supports, ornate iron columns, and mosaic floors peeping around state-of-the-art exhibition set-ups.

Heading home, wanting to get off my feet, managing a few shots of the “Molly Malone” sculpture at the beginning of Grafton Street (having to have permission from the Garda to step behind the barricade to do so), I asked the policeman if it were possible to get to O’Connell Bridge, since that would have been my preferred way. He said yes, to go one street over. Well . . .

Yes. It was possible to get to O’Connell. It was even possible to inch one’s way across it, squeezing through a rapidly packing crowd. Unlike the Ha’penny Bridge, to which access was blocked completely. But when one reached the other end of the bridge, it was not possible to cross the street there, Bachelor’s Walk. My hotel was right there, half a block away, and I could not get there. I’d seen the motorcade making its way down that very street from the other side before I’d crossed the bridge, then turning to go up O’Connell Street to the Garden of Remembrance. The police told us they’d be able to let us through in “twenty to twenty-five minutes.” After about twenty minutes, the motorcade in fact came back down O’Connell, passing across the bridge in the opposite lane, the poor dim old thing waving her little robot wave, apparently under the impression we were all there willingly. Pity she couldn’t hear what was actually being said. One woman was relaying cellphone updates from her sister, who was watching “on telly.” Over an hour and a half later, the Garda was still keeping hundreds of increasingly irritated, disgusted, angry people behind the barricades for no comprehensible reason. Mutterings had become shouts, vulgarity, and open derision. One tiny old lady with a shopping bag was permitted through for some reason, and hobbled off up the street. “It’s the Queen!” a man shouted. One angry Irishman shouted it was all a load of bollocks, and called the policeman directly in front of us (who seemed to be barely keeping his tongue, as well; several policemen were seen to be rolling their eyes at the stupidity; at least they were being paid to be standing out there) a wanker. “Are we Irishmen or what?” he yelled. “Nick me if you like; you know I’m only telling the truth.” No one contradicted him; in fact quite a few of us agreed. One large group of police squeezed through the crowd across the street, heading in the direction of where chanting had broken out. I asked (only slightly rhetorically), “while they’re off beating them up, can’t you let us through?”

The royal pain had by this time visited Trinity College, left, and, along with her vast entourage, driven up the opposite bank of the Liffey, behind us, and we were STILL not being allowed to cross. Hundreds of us (“hundreds were out on the street today!” as one man sarcastically predicted the evening news). The one policeman before us (the wanker) agreed we had been very patient; he was obviously very frustrated and also thought it was ridiculous, but was waiting for orders. (No more ridiculous, mind you, than that—AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER—the snipers were still on roofs along O’Connell, including the—one would think—sacred ground of the Post Office, and that a helicopter was still hovering above us, when the woman was long gone.) There were men beside me from Liverpool, in town for soccer; they were disgusted. The Irish were venting about the 30 million euros spent on security for The Visit. One American, yours truly, lost quite a lot of already tenuous patience with a useless, expensive anachronism. When, finally, the Garda began moving barricades aside, the only cheer of the day went up.

Fáilte Annex, Part V

Sunday, May 15, 2011

What to tell? It’s been a very relaxing twenty-four hours at friends’, with no timetable or much of an agenda, no particular responsibility for a change. Which has certainly been a welcome relief after the preceding night, the most wretched I have ever spent in any hotel anywhere. In the aftermath the hotel was very apologetic and cancelled all charges for the night; during the night itself sleep was pretty much out of the question, what with a large group of VERY LOUD people (mostly drunken men) partying at the top of their lungs—seriously, literally: yelling, laughing, singing—in the corridors from about 3:00 A.M. to just before 7:00, no one on duty at the hotel desk, and even the police unwilling to come unless the hotel itself requested assistance. I know; it sounds unbelievable to me, now, too.

But a train (two, technically, since most Limerick trains have to change at Limerick Junction), a cab, and another, commuter train later, I was in Leixlip, settled in, and walking into town along the River Rye for lunch. Before crashing for a truly marathon sleep.

Today was a long-awaited visit to Newgrange, including a tour of Knowth, another of the three major sites in the Brú na Bóinne complex, or area, at any rate (clustered near the River Boyne on high, windblasted hills with spectacular 360º panoramas of the surrounding countryside). Both are, simply put, amazing. Knowth seems more complex, more intricate, with numerous smaller burial mounds around the large one, and it had a long and evolving history of use. Precious Neolithic art and objects found there are now in Dublin museums. Inside the admittedly rather claustrophobic (if you have such tendencies) interior of the huge Newgrange mound (still open, towering, and breathable compared to the narrow, narrow passageway that gets you there), the guide points out that although it seems a small space, it’s huge by passage tomb standards. A cathedral among passage tombs (she didn’t say that; I did). Then she points out that the massive, interlocking dome over our heads, tons upon tons of stone, is simply a layered, balanced structure, completely without any sort of mortar or external bracing, that after more than 5,000 years still does not even leak. “Primitive,” brilliant engineers. It took my breath away. Then she turns off the modern electrical lighting, plunging us into total darkness, until another light demonstrates how the rising sun, for seventeen minutes, would illuminate the interior from the entrance on the winter solstice.

Fáilte Annex, Part IV

Friday, May 13, 2011

Having walked over to the White House pub, not far from me, because it allegedly has poetry readings and live music, neither of which it apparently was offering tonight, I will therefore direct my wine-induced (enhanced, really, because exhaustion does a rather good job on its own) stupor to recording.

: D A left-driving virgin no more! I’m taking great pleasure in the knowledge that untold synapses were activated today. I haven’t been as scared of anything in a long time. Trip to stones and Celtic sites aside, I know that I DID accomplish a trip far—far—outside my comfort zone. Motorway, city, rural roads, country lanes: I’ve done them all. Decades of massive amounts of driving kick in (though it had also been over two years since I’d driven a stickshift at all). But then everything (bear with me if you live in the U.K., Ireland, or Japan) is reversed for a U.S. driver, not just the lanes. The stick itself; the way you go around roundabouts; and there are recurring waves of oh, my god, I’m on the wrong side of the road! Or else that sensation that it must be a multiple-lane highway and I need to be looking over my shoulder. Well, I do, but not that shoulder. Because the left lane is the slow lane (reversed, right?). A certain amount of swearing, shouting, and screaming did occur (some things are best learned alone). I had problems with third; it was rarely where it needed to be (this was a Fiat, mind you). One roundabout (early on, in Limerick) may have been circled twice because of missing the right exit the first time. The N20 became the M20 and appeared to be taking me to Tralee and Killarney (despite my having jettisoned them for lack of time before coming to Ireland), though shortly after I exited to try to correct that “mistake,” there was the turnoff to Croom. And then the country fun began.

I admire all over again the audacity of Gaël Audic’s country driving in 2008; I get as far over on a tiny lane as possible, then freeze in place like a rabbit, letting the oncoming driver figure out the rest (though this evolved slightly during the course of the outing). Without the decades of conditioning in the “other” version of driving, it’s hard to distinguish exactly where the opposite edge of your own vehicle is, especially while moving, especially along a high stone wall.

Lough Gur is gorgeous, in and of itself. The whole surrounding countryside is. The visitor center, for me, sat there uselessly locked up. I walked and walked and walked (yes; I’ve had about enough walking for a while; I’m glad I’ll be taking a train early tomorrow). And climbed. And sort of skidded in mud (because the weather came in full rotation, of course, from brief downpour to warm sun, and always with strong wind—not as cold as yesterday. Except when it was). And stood on a stone wall and seriously contemplated climbing over a barbed-wire fence to see what was up the hill from the locked center (I ultimately didn’t). I asked directions twice before finally finding the stone circle, which I came to last (had come to the eerie wedge tomb first, with no effort at all). I think it was a function of having come the way I had, which was intended to avoid the center of Limerick; the other route down, via N24, would have brought me in from a different direction.

And it was a good, profound conclusion. Dating to ca. 2100 B.C., its stones are not as huge as those of Stonehenge, but many of them larger than those of Avebury. The largest is most definitely cut. Most are not. There are 113 stones in all. There is an avenue of stones leading in. The summer solstice sunrise shines down into the center; two stones on the southwest side and the entrance are aligned with sunset on Samhain. I and a group of three were the only people there.

Fáilte Annex, Part III

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Two days in one. Maybe—if I don’t fall asleep first.

Well, the huge disappointment of NOT making it out to the whole Rathcroghan/Cruachan Ai area. The tour was cancelled: too new a tour, too early in the season, evidently. Going out without a guide seemed pointless, besides being moot, since a rental car was unavailable on same-day notice. Really, really grrr. Considering that had been my first motivation for basing in Galway, the first tour I’d booked, before the Cliffs. Finally consented to go on the afternoon tour out to Clonmacnoise they’d been offering as a consolation prize (with partial refund). In the spirit of How the Irish Saved Civilization.

So after walking around Galway a bit, snapping photos of the River Corrib (shortest in Europe) and its swans, at 1:30 or so I headed out of Galway (in a mini-van this time; even this isn’t the draw the famous Cliffs are—nerd tours, I tell you! (because speaking personally, it certainly wasn’t a pilgrimage of faith. Even though the decentralized form of Christianity that developed in Ireland is certainly more interesting than the extremely centralized version that was spreading from Rome)). Our guide, Fergal, a trainee guide about to be turned loose on the public, a German couple who spoke almost no English, and a—well, too abrupt, too bigoted, too ignorant Australian who’d offered to buy me a drink followed by quasi-propositioning me twice before the van left. Before it arrived.

And a very interesting contrast in guides this was. Fergal (who is, oh, in his forties? Maybe 50-ish?) has lived in the U.S. and Australia (briefly), and has a huge and comprehensive knowledge of history. Very interesting to talk to (um, yes, speaking history nerdishly, though he is not dry, but quite funny as well). But had a whole different style, which did not include stopping at little out-of-the-way views or obscure objects like Desmond, but whizzing right across the medieval bridge, past another of the (over 14,000 in that area, he said) little ancient ring-forts.

Clonmacnoise I won’t tell you all the stuff about you can read anywhere, either. (But walking down a street in Limerick today, a young mother exclaimed Ciaran! and grabbed her little boy’s hand; it all keeps coming full circle.) It was eventually sacked many times by Vikings, by Irish kings, finally utterly destroyed even before Cromwell (a bad word and a curse, in Ireland). What they were all after, in the vast ecclesiastical center Clonmacnoise had become at the literal crossroads of Ireland (the Shannon and the Esker ), the monks left behind when they climbed into their towers for safety (which didn’t always save them). Their treasures, the ones they tried always to save, were the manuscripts, the copies of ancient documents and the newer writings. For Clonmacnoise was also a center of learning in the Dark Ages and medieval period.

The backstory of the crossroads was very interesting. The Midlands of Ireland are the basin that is one vast peat bog (and we passed a couple of peat—harvesting, mining operations). The ancient roadway across it, east to west, was the Esker Riada (Highway of the Kings), a high glacial moraine. Clonmacnoise was built, quite deliberately, near where the Shannon, a great north-south means of transportation, and the Esker intersect. If there had been no ruined churches, high crosses, walls to see, the view across the Shannon and its marshes from the higher ground would have been worthwhile. As were the base of a high cross inside the visitor center (some of the most important ones have been moved indoors, replaced on the grounds by replicas, since they’re made of sandstone and are already very eroded) with a representation of Cernunnos carved into it, or the sheela-na-gig in the “Nun’s Church” a little outside the grounds. (And that’s a whole amazing “Helen of Troy” sort of story I knew nothing about, a queen whose “taking” (probably not) led eventually to the beginning of English invasions of Ireland; so that she is also a despised figure to the Irish, her building of this chapel in penance notwithstanding: Fergal told me the Gaelic name there on the sign translates more nastily to something like “Hag’s Chapel.” He’s of the opinion the sheela-na-gig was not original, but added by—someone.)

On the way back we stopped at Killeen’s Village Tavern in Shannonbridge (home to the aforementioned medieval bridge and a Napoleonic-era fort: you know, so that the French couldn’t attack England by sneaking into Ireland first), a tiny, funky local completely unspoiled by gentrification. There’s a tiny general store through a door, worn unmatched chairs, people of all ages coming and going.

After resting a bit (not that I needed it), I made myself go out to hear a little Irish music—which I found, on a Wednesday night, at Taaffe’s. The three musicians were young and played very well, I thought, though I also eventually thought their selections were a tad boring (picky, picky). The place was packed, of course—I’m sure largely with tourists. Had my half of local Hooker ale (named for the little sailboats that carried most of the trade around Galway Bay and the Aran Islands; one of the buildings of Galway Technical Institute is faced with large panels supposed to be a tribute to their sails, sort of à la Sydney Opera House. (I also loved, at the Cliffs, how inside the visitor center, a railing on an upper level was made of irregular plexiglass panels that beautifully referenced and updated the vertical slabs of limestone used as barriers outside.)

So. Anyway. Made it to Limerick in an hour and a half on the express bus—leaving the newspaper I’d bought to read on the hotel front desk at checkout; having the (rather cranky) driver point out that the woman in the station had issued me a ticket that said Galway Airport instead of Limerick (though she’d then told me the exact number of the Limerick bus—which I already knew—to look for), though he relented and let me ride if I was sure Limerick was where I wanted to go; and the backpack zipper that appeared broken as we arrived in Limerick—though I finally managed to get it to reclose, fingers crossed—aside. In the rain. (There’s an ad campaign I’ve now seen on the side of a Dublin bus and on a small billboard, I think for ice cream, that says “Feck the Rain.”)

The Railway Hotel is a historic (i.e., old) hotel directly across from the station. Which is exactly what I wanted, even though in listing it Lonely Planet said it “will remind you of a time when everyone smoked.” That it doesn’t; if my nose can’t detect tobacco in the room, it’s not there. What was there upon pushing open the front door downstairs was cabbage, in the pub/restaurant. How homey and funky can you get? The utilitarian room was freezing when I first arrived, and I couldn’t get the radiator to work (I expect it just doesn’t, in the daytime). The wi-fi doesn’t quite make it to the rooms (believe me, I’ve tried), so I went and sat at the bar for quite a while, checking email, looking up rental car places. Even with the apparent head woman there giving me dirty looks, having told me it was about to be the lunch rush. For which there was never any shortage of seating. And the young woman at the front desk had told me I could access their wi-fi in there.

Anyway . . . have a car reserved for late tomorrow morning. Because the visitor center at the Grange, the large stone circle, is not yet open, and may not be “for weeks,” despite its website saying it’s open May through August. Ireland tourism needs a little goosing. The lavish treatment given to the Cliffs of Moher, even to the Burren, never mind, say, all of Dublin, is utterly lacking at Rathcroghan and the Grange. There is literally no way at all to even get out to the Grange (and I’m using that as a shorthand for that whole area’s sites, as at Rathcroghan) except by private car. Limerick: why is someone not jumping on this and promoting the hell out of it? Even on an occasional basis, to start? Have you seen what goes on at Stonehenge?

I still have to get out to the car place, mind you; a woman at the tourist information center I stumbled across on my way to King John’s Castle and St. Mary’s Cathedral suggested the Shannon Airport bus, and just ask them to drop me off at Ennis Motors. We’ll see. If I can just survive getting out of the city, I think I’ll be fine in the countryside. What should have been a “get on one road and stay on it back across the bridge and all through Limerick” proposition is ruined by that major street being utterly torn up at the moment right downtown (I know; I had to cross it earlier). So will have to zig-zag around all that, leaving more room for error.

Lalala . . .