It's been raining the whole day, and I spent it half-cooking, half-studying and some bits socializing. I had a phone call from my friend Pauline who is moving in next month with her boyfriend, who's himself starting his own business as a landscape gardener. I never met him, but will probably the week-end after this one. She's never been really happy in her previous relationships but this one seems rather sane compared to them. So, I'm all swelled with good feelings for them. And excited to be in January when she'll throw a big party for both her birthday and the flatwarming.
I am drinking herbal tea, eating almond/honey/orange water/pear tartlet that I made myself, listening to a KRCW podcast with the Flaming Lips (as my regular program Folk ad Hoc on RCV-Lille radio is not on tonight).
And this is going to be a picture post from my adventures in Paris and suburbs last week-end.
This is the map of the Père-Lachaise Cemetary, where a certain number of personalities are buried, from 19th century French history:
to 20th century idols:
going through writers and poets (I saw Apollinaire's and Eluard's and Musset's graves), but came across this one, too:
Georges Rodenbach was a Belgian writer, whose Bruges la morte, I read for my university classes a few years ago. I liked it a lot, partly about the way it mixed pictures to narratives, I guess it's all about what I am doing through this journal. Anyway, it's also quite an interesting grave regarding the statue on it.
But the Père Lachaise is also just a cemetary at Fall, with golden leaves all over, built on a hill from where you can see but graves, trees, and the City, whose alleys you can wander around, through Jewish memorials (one per concentration camps, that's freaky), through wars and catastrophe memorials, through pretty art nouveau or exotic or just anonymous graves:
I had meant to go there for so long I was happy to do it, on my own, right after coming into Paris by train.
Then, I met my brother and spend the end of the afternoon at the "Lanterne magique" exhibit I mentioned in a previous post. It was a very nice display of old machines and paintings people used to have as the only images form the world, hand-painted and projected. So at first it all seemed witchcraft, and fantastic. I think it tells a lot about the way people used to represent the world, I think much more beautifully than most movies or news shows do nowadays.
I headed to Hélène and Lucie for the evening. We had diner (homemade safran risotto) and then went ou for a drink and a digestive walk in Paris.
This is the view from Hélène's window, the morning after:
We went to an Art Nouveau's exhibit at Orsay Museum, where they had some original extracts from Aubrey Beardsley's Salome, among many other pieces like Art Nouveau furniture, and its posterity in the psychedelic movement, etc.
And before I jump to the Halloween party, I want to post a few random pictures taken on the way, not commenting them, just, well maybe let them speak for themselves.
Oh, and keeping random for a while, here is some more:
I visited my uncle and his companion and their two girls last week. Along with apples from their yard, I got the nice feeling he enjoyed my LJ, as he mentioned he was still reading it.
I went to one of my classes today which is about writers/artists and the way they present/account for their work. Like what would be their manifesto if we were to put together bits of what they might have said about it in letters, speeches and so on. Anyway, the teacher is inspiring, and some of the extracts she gave us to read were fundamental for me as a creative/convinced by arts person. But then she confided in us she was going through a nervous breakdown, so she might not be able to teach all classes 'til December. It confused me a bit, all the more so she gave me the feeling she was not confident in what she professes anymore. Still (and maybe even more) do I relate to her and value her class.
I am sorry I don't have pictures of myself at the Halloween party, because I was once more the only one taking pictures, and it makes me nervous whenever it happens within a small audience, especially when friendly, and you feel no one is here to be exposed. So I just "stole" glimpses of the evening, and did not ask to have my picture taken, even though I was wearing a vinyl mini-skirt, with gilded thighs, leather thigh boots, a leopard top, and red lipstick (very Rocky Horror Show). I let you imagine.
It turned out lots of the expected guests did not come, either because they had pig flu, they were on vacation, and many various reasons. But my brother and Candide were cat and dog-sitting for Candide's boss so on top of Alexandre:
who did not have a costume and is here wearing the pig nose from Charles' (I don't have a picture of Charles) and the horns Candide made him wear (he was my fellow-witness at the wedding), Rebecca and Jérôme:
Thomas, Candide, Ambrosia, Cattleya, Louise, Lilith and me (some of them you can see on these pictures), were Eleazar (a kitty from Candide's who now lives with her boss), and Peanuts and M&M's, the two poodles.
This is Peanuts, and it's really hard to like her. First, we all agree that when it does not go over your knees, a dog is not one, if I may say so. Then, welln Peanuts is especially scared all the time, not a social dog at all, maybe because she has a problem with her vertebrae, but anyway...And the other one was always crying at me whenever I put somthing in my mouth, like she was not beeing fed. I do like dogs, but these ones would just be a pain to live with.
I still want to steal Louise:
Things to look forward to:
- a dance show at the Opera on Friday with Anne-Sophie
- seeing Claire, a friend from high school I bumped into a month ago (not on facebook!) at the university where she is taking a psychology MA, who's coming for lunch on Friday
- starting my paper on Fernando Pessoa now I am done (or quite so) with the one on strange architecture
- less fear and more happiness