Terrasse

Pieces and Bits

This week has been a series of small occurrences that link together in a delightful chain that by Friday had me smiling like a crazy person.

First up: Corgi in a gym bag.  I got on the metro monday morning, on my way to meet clients for a tour at mister louvre only to sit across from a lady who had a Welsh corgi stuffed inside a gym bag.  The corgi didn’t seem too alarmed that his 30 lb bulk had been squished inside something that would normally carry two tennis rackets and a pair of smelly shoes.  Not at all.  Instead, he was smiling at me all the way to work.  I was giggling to myself ceaselessly, probably convincing all my fellow metro-commuters that they were sitting next to a young woman in the midst of a mental break, but I didn’t care.  And I didn’t care that my constant corgi-directed gaze was probably alarming mister corgi’s owner.

I didn’t have my camera with me, so I’ve instead tried to recreate the effect here (please excuse my drawing):

It’s not great, but you get the idea.  It’s a corgi in a gym bag.  Then you have to imagine a tiny French woman attempting to lug this chubby pup through a busy metro couloir.  No easy feat.  And fairly amusing.

Later on in the week, I spotted this little gem in the window of a local shop:

This is the funniest “ass plate” yet.  Mister Cooper and I had a good giggle over this.  You may recognize the shop from an earlier post.

Of course, then there’s been the amazing fall weather.  Autumn and Paris are the best-matched couple I’ve ever met.  I hope they stay in love and live a long, harmonious life together.

Dustin and took a walk in the Bois de Boulogne to check out Paris and Autumn’s love child (a sunny sunday):

Mister Cooper walks in the woods.  Note fall coat.

I’m not sure what this man’s hoping to catch in that stinky pond, but he sure looks relaxed.

Everyone was basking in the warm, orange sun.

I love watching the ladies gossip and elderly couples out for a sunday stroll.

Last night I wanted to take a picture of this really beautiful, old-fashioned storefront in the 9th, but this guy wasn’t having it:

I kind of wish he was more in focus so I could really center on his disapproving gaze.  (it kind of cracks me up).

At any rate - these are just a few pieces from my life of late.  It’s been beautiful and happy and I’ve been feeling more contented and warm than I have for a good while.  Paris is its own theater, and it seems I’ve been endlessly entertained this week.

Amazing Site-specific Project

Check out this amazing project by a design studio in the Czech Republic, where a group of artists have cached sound-producing sculptural works in the forests surrounding Brno.  Their works are fantastic and industrial at the same time, playing off both natural (wind) and industrial (train tracks) phenomena.  The website itself is beautiful and imaginative, make sure to turn your volume up.

There are more interesting works than the one pictured above: podvedomim

Home (Paris) Again, Again

Just returned from two amazing weeks in North Carolina.  Already missing it.  While I didn’t grow up there, my sister and her fiance went to grad school at Duke, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time visiting and it feels comfortable enough that I even sort of think of it as a second home.  Durham specifically has all my key ingredients: good food, heat, informal, great music and art, small town vibe.  I like it.  I could wear a tube top and flip flops down to buy a popcicle.  Unlike this town where I live, where I need to be fully clothed and made up to purchase a Berthillon ice cream cone.  In short, a trip to the states did nothing to appease my chronic homesickness.

BUT, that’s besides the point as the purpose of my visit was the marriage of two incredible people: my sister and her mister.  And they put on quite an event.  For all the stress and anxiety they faced the final days before hand, the wedding sure paid off. AMAZING.  I cried until the dancing started.  Cried from joy and, of course, also loss - missing the mama something fierce.  Hard to believe how life keeps moving without the one who seemed to move it before.

After all the beautiful celebration (culminating in my husband, my sister, her husband and me drunkenly awaiting a cab at 3 am in downtown Durham - last ones standing) we all headed out to the outer banks for a week on the beach, where my sister and her mister procured us a HUGE beachside castle to share.  Though constant social interaction can wear me down (particularly when I’m feeling a tad emotional and having a mild mama freakout), the week was truly wonderful.  Favorite moments: swimming with sister+mister, my dad, my man, riding bikes with my 75-year-old dad and my own mister cooper, beautiful dinners on screened-in porch, quiet time with my sister all to myself.

Loving the beach and heat and tan skin and my people, it has been a rough 24-hour welcome back to Paris.  I am missing family fiercely, missing convenience and familiarity, missing the burritos.  And I’m coming back to a Paris where the small community I built up over the last year has entirely dissipated, everyone having returned to their own respective corners of the world.  So in some ways I feel again as if i were starting all over, though I now have regular activities to occupy me.  But, I continue to take on this project of trying to establish life here in Paris, determined as ever to embrace its alienation, its blessed anonymity, its quirks, charms, and luscious vices.

La Rentree approaches, and all the Parisians return from vacation.  And with them the art wakes up from its own month-long nap.

Reentering the Territory

My first day back to the territory - this image pretty much sums it up (Marina, hand bloodied from a fruitless search for who-knows-what in the cave, chaining Sergio to his chair [photo courtesy of Katie Brockman]).

I knew, when I returned from my long stay in California, the Territory would be a changed beast. My first clue that this assumption was correct: a new walkie-talkie greeting me at the door. Katie let me in, informing me that Sergio had thought I was the new “systematizer/multi-tasker,” Simone when he viewed the top of my head through the surveillance camera at the gate. So he and Marina were beautifully surprised when I poked my little face through the studio door. They both flashed me lovely, warm, genuine smiles and I felt happy to be home. We sat down to a cup of tea and caught up on the happenings. Apparently, it has been an eventful month for the Territory, with much rearranging of both furniture and people. Of course, I expected this.

The Territory is always the same because nothing is ever the same. Its consistency lies in its malleability; its constantly shifting, malformed, bestial little body. I’ve become familiar with this body and returning to find it in a changed form was only natural.

So, sitting nicely with our tea, Sergio briefly recounted the happenings of the last month: his right arm no longer works so he must draw with his left, Katie has taken over as his apprentice, Marina is renewed after a visit from her mother, prayers to St. Theresa have been pinned to the walls (bear in mind that his painting is a Hillary/Theresa mash-up), and evil spirits are living in the photo studio - so we need an exorcism.

Strangely, the state of the Territory resonates with my own inner-space and an exorcism doesn’t sound half bad.

Where I’m Coming From: a return to the California gold country

Well, I spent my holiday in the land of dial-up internet and so was unable to update my blog as I would have liked. I of course returned home to California for the holiday for a lovely visit and to take in some local flavor.  Despite what you may have heard, not everyone surfs in California. In fact, I come from a town that probably is more akin to rural middle America in many ways than the sea side settlements of SoCal. We had a farm on the high school campus, one coffee shop on the main street, and an affection for the town’s history as the gold mining capital of California. We often lovingly refer to one of its 19th century names, “Old Hangtown” or “Dry Diggin’s,” but now it is simply called Placerville. So while Paris was being reconstructed by Baron Haussemann, Placervillians were building brothels, taverns, and gallows all to support the booming gold rush. As you can see from my pictures, things haven’t changed much: