The France Epic-Episode IV
THE FRANCE EPIC-Episode IV
Friday 20 June
Despite plans to get going earlier, we accidentally slept until noon and didn’t manage to leave the flat until two o’clock. Silly us! Then we took the metro to Notre Dame, bought a “hot dog” (a sausage on a baguette topped with cheese and toasted. God, I love the French.), watched a man miraculously making crêpes, and walked around until we found the famous bookstore Shakespeare & Co., which was part of the reason we wanted to go to Paris in the first place. It’s this crazy cool place run by an American, George Whitman, who’s been doing it since 1951; but an earlier incarnation of the store was run by a woman named Sylvia Beach, who published Joyce’s Ulysses before anybody else did. Now it’s this amazing place absolutely filled, floor to ceiling, with books (vaguely organized by subject matter), and with little beds stashed in nooks and crannies. You can actually stay there, and sleep there, as long as you make your bed in the morning, read a book a day, and help out in the store for a few hours. It’s my kind of place. In fact, Sam & I considered staying there, and if it hadn’t worked out at Pascal’s for one reason or another, that would most likely have been the next place we tried.
But for some reason it didn’t feel like we were really there. I think we didn’t spend enough time there; or perhaps, in order to really ‘get it,’ you need to spend the night. As it was, simply walking in, buying a few books, and walking out again just wasn’t enough. It could have been any (quirky, beautiful, eccentric) bookstore. So I hope to go back someday and get the full experience.
After leaving the bookstore, we kept walking around and stumbled on this church called Saint-Séverin, where there just happened to be a recital about to start of performances by voice students from the Sorbonne. It was amazing-very old music, from as early as the mid-1200s, and to hear it in this beautiful little church, entirely by accident, was absolutely the coolest of coincidences.
Well, actually I don’t believe anything’s a coincidence; if something happens, it’s because it’s meant to happen.
After sitting in this cool, dark church with watery stained glass and twisty columns, it was a shock to go back outside, but we tripped back out into the light and walked along the Seine, past the postcard & trinket stands, and finally going to the Armenian church where Pascal’s friend Vincent was singing in a concert. We met Carla and Zalie there, and afterward we all went to a café in Vincent’s neighborhood, where all his acquaintances were very puzzled by my and Sam’s presence. We made a good story.
Interesting tidbit: the director of Vincent’s choir was Coline Serreau, the French film director who made the original “Trois Hommes Et Un Couffin,” which was remade by Leonard Nimoy as “Three Men and a Baby.” Cool!
Friday 20 June
Despite plans to get going earlier, we accidentally slept until noon and didn’t manage to leave the flat until two o’clock. Silly us! Then we took the metro to Notre Dame, bought a “hot dog” (a sausage on a baguette topped with cheese and toasted. God, I love the French.), watched a man miraculously making crêpes, and walked around until we found the famous bookstore Shakespeare & Co., which was part of the reason we wanted to go to Paris in the first place. It’s this crazy cool place run by an American, George Whitman, who’s been doing it since 1951; but an earlier incarnation of the store was run by a woman named Sylvia Beach, who published Joyce’s Ulysses before anybody else did. Now it’s this amazing place absolutely filled, floor to ceiling, with books (vaguely organized by subject matter), and with little beds stashed in nooks and crannies. You can actually stay there, and sleep there, as long as you make your bed in the morning, read a book a day, and help out in the store for a few hours. It’s my kind of place. In fact, Sam & I considered staying there, and if it hadn’t worked out at Pascal’s for one reason or another, that would most likely have been the next place we tried.
But for some reason it didn’t feel like we were really there. I think we didn’t spend enough time there; or perhaps, in order to really ‘get it,’ you need to spend the night. As it was, simply walking in, buying a few books, and walking out again just wasn’t enough. It could have been any (quirky, beautiful, eccentric) bookstore. So I hope to go back someday and get the full experience.
After leaving the bookstore, we kept walking around and stumbled on this church called Saint-Séverin, where there just happened to be a recital about to start of performances by voice students from the Sorbonne. It was amazing-very old music, from as early as the mid-1200s, and to hear it in this beautiful little church, entirely by accident, was absolutely the coolest of coincidences.
Well, actually I don’t believe anything’s a coincidence; if something happens, it’s because it’s meant to happen.
After sitting in this cool, dark church with watery stained glass and twisty columns, it was a shock to go back outside, but we tripped back out into the light and walked along the Seine, past the postcard & trinket stands, and finally going to the Armenian church where Pascal’s friend Vincent was singing in a concert. We met Carla and Zalie there, and afterward we all went to a café in Vincent’s neighborhood, where all his acquaintances were very puzzled by my and Sam’s presence. We made a good story.
Interesting tidbit: the director of Vincent’s choir was Coline Serreau, the French film director who made the original “Trois Hommes Et Un Couffin,” which was remade by Leonard Nimoy as “Three Men and a Baby.” Cool!