Booksellers on the Seine (Post card version)

I love my collection of vintage Paris postcards.  I add to it every time I am in Paris, usually at lingering but somehow way-too-short trips to the Marché aux Timbres or the Marché aux Puces at Vanves.

This one, of a bouquiniste (book seller) on the banks of the Seine, appealed for a very specific reason:  I have a painting from almost the same vantage point.

Here is the post card:

And here is my painting, which I wrote about here.

Cool, oui?  I love how the shadow angles are the same.

Some collectors prize unblemished cartes postales, i.e.,  those which have no writing on them. Shame on me, maybe, but I love the post cards and greeting cards of yore with messages to friends, family, lovers, and -- in this case -- colleagues.  I get a glimpse of French life -- someone else's life --  in a brief message. (Or sometimes not so brief, but that's another story.)  Am I just a voyeur into others' past lives?  Oh well.

Here is the flip side:

Translated, it reads
"Best wishes to all the team.  Work,  work work. Fun, Fun fun!  Hi to everyone."

And the other cool thing that I discovered was that this company, Rhovyl, still exists in Tronville.  I wonder if anyone there remembers this co-worker.

I was trying to figure out the date of the post card, and so I hunted down the stamp.

Ah, it turns out it's not just any stamp.  This is none other than the Marianne Stamp designed by Jean Cocteau for La Poste in 1961.

 How cool is that? (Marianne, of course, is the symbol  of la République.  In the U.S. we have Uncle Sam, who is unfortunately kind of fixed in a goatee and hat.  Marianne is always evolving. One beauty after another.)

Heureuse Année!

A lovely, if somewhat dark, 1928 carte de voeux that I found at the Marché aux timbres in Paris.

Bonne année cards haven't always been images of popping champagne corks, fireworks, and glittery Eiffel Towers, I guess. This one is just serene.

And on the flip side, a sweet and somewhat traditional message returning good wishes for the year.

I think that in France one normally doesn't wish Happy New Year until after the stroke of midnight.  After that, you can wish Bonne Année for the entire month of January.  I like that.

Anyway, here is the message side.

It reads:

"Ma chère Renée,
Je vous remercie bien vivement de vos souhaits qui m'ont fait le plus grand plaisir.

Je vous envoie, ainsi qu'à ma cousine, mes meilleurs voeux pour cette nouvelle année et vous prie de croire à l'assurance de mes sentiments très affectueux.  Je vous embrasse de tout coeur."

Loosely translated:

My dear Renée,
Thank you so much for your good wishes, which made me so happy.

I send to you, and to my cousin, my best wishes for this new year, and beg you to believe in the assurance of my very affectionate sentiments.  I send kisses with all my heart."

(I just love the French sign-off on letters, don't you?  So flowery and elegant.)

And so, mes amis, I beg you to believe in the assurance of my warmest wishes for a happy and healthy 2015.

Bonne année to all!!

High-flying Sunday on the Seine

Denis Josselin  photo © Caroline HENNEL

If you are in Paris this Sunday, April 6, do yourself a favor and hightail it over to the 12e arrondissement to the Quai de la Rapée to see acclaimed tightrope-walker Denis Josselin cross the Seine 100 feet up in the air. "Between the Seine and the Sky" is how he describes it.

In what promises to be a spellbinding and entertaining event, M. Josselin will make the traversée at exactly 3:30 p.m, going from Port de la Rapée to the Port d'Austerlitz, near the Pont Charles de Gaulle.  You'll want to get there early.  And definitely not late!  The 575-foot trek will take about 20-30 minutes -- plenty of time for photo ops and frissons.

Tight-rope walking (le funambulisme) has a great tradition in France -- and Denis Josselin has been part of that tradition:  the last time the Seine was crossed by a funambulist, 10 years ago, it was M. Josselin himself.  Trained in mime, dance and circus arts, he first "stumbled" into the profession of tightrope walking in 1988 and hasn't looked back.

There is a whole afternoon of activities on the banks of the Seine this Sunday, all designed to get you to see this incredible highwire performance, and much of it FREE.

Bateaux Parisiens and Batobus are offering free 25- minute rides between the Musée d'Orsay and the Jardin des Plantes.  First departure from Musée d'Orsay at 1:30 p.m., last departure from Jardin des Plantes at 6 p.m., every 45 minutes.

The cabaret boat Mistinguett will stay docked at the quai (Port d'Austerlitz) but will offer free can-can demonstrations, and you can visit the interior for a look-see.  Beverages will be offered.

Marina de Paris is offering  four free boat rides, between Quai de Bercy and Quai d'Austerlitz, leaving Bercy at 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. and returning from Austerlitz at 4:15 and 5:00.

Vedettes de Paris has limited space for a free one-hour Seine ride from their dock at Suffren (near the Eiffel Tower) to the Quai d'Austerlitz, leaving at 2 p.m., arriving in time to see the tightrope event, and returning to Suffren at 5 p.m.  Includes a selfie contest and free cotton candy.

Seine Avenue (which has smaller  elegant ChrisCraft-style boats in gleaming mahogany that will make you feel like you are a wealthy yachtsman!)  is offering free mini-trips on board.

Let's see -- tightrope walking, barbe à papa, can-can, peniches, cruises on the Seine on a Sunday afternoon.  How Parisian is that?

Boulevard Clichy, 1950s

This painting of Paris, entitled “Boulevard Clichy, Paris,” hung in our house all of my childhood. To me, it was Paris – everything that Paris could and should be. The café –its servers and clients – the gendarme, the sailor, the Morris column (Colonne Morris) advertising the next Maurice Chevalier show, the flaneurs, the street signs. My parents acquired it, I think, during a trip through Europe in 1959 or 1960.  Hmm. Is it real or mythologized Paris of that era?

Gendarme

But it was always a bit in the background; that is, I never really studied it too closely, but rather soaked up its total Parisian-ness. Did this influence my Francophilia? No doubt. But mostly I remember wondering, at a tender age, why the words “Café- Billard-Chocolat” were backwards. And the epiphany: because we’re looking at the back side of the awning.  Brilliant young moi.

When I moved to my first apartment after college, my father gave me this painting to hang in the living room. It was an instant inspiration. I loved the frame, which is a distinctly French style that I can only liken to a mansard roof perhaps seen in some Madeline books?): the edges curve up toward the center. I loved the bustling street life of Paris. The Modiste, the Cinema, the Société Générale, everything.

By the time I moved to Paris for three years, I had carefully placed the painting in storage. It wasn't until after my return that I studied it anew. Wow. Some revelations.

1. First, it really is a kind of “Where’s Waldo?” (Ou est Charlie?) of Paris café/street life in the late 1950s. So many details to discover.

French sailor with red pompom hat

2. Second, the artist got a number of details wrong. I count at least three, and that’s without spending too much time on it. Can you spot them? (I don’t include sloppy painting details -- such as the man’s umbrella impaling that poor woman -- in this tally.) It makes me wonder if it was painted en plein air or from memory.  Zoom in and check them out and tel me what you think.

3. I have figured out (I think) that this was painted from under the canopy at the famous Wepler. It certainly had a café and billiards at the time.  Any thoughts?

4. The cocher (coachman) and horse were about to become extinct. The last horse-drawn carriage in Paris (from the original fiacres) was in 1965.  There have been some attempts at tourist-y revivals since then.

5. The man in sunglasses reading a newspaper entitled La Bourse Parisienne may have indeed been reading about the stock market, but there was no such newspaper, so maybe he was using that as a cover? On the other hand, the guy hawking Le Rire is valid; it was a satirical journal published in Paris through the late 1950s.

But some things never change.  I love this lady feeding her dog at the table.

I think I might make this the new banner for Polly-Vous Francais? Just because. What do you think?

How do you say "Boo!" in French?

Like this:

Pasteur statue, place de Breteuil. 

Fermeture Annuelle: photos

We all know by now, don't we, that Paris more or less shuts down in August.  Some of us revel in the peacefulness of a quiet Paris.  Others are challenged by the many, many boutique and local-shopkeeper closings.  Still others are away at vacation retreats and don't notice the difference.

But it is a rite of summer.  It is Paris.

A few years ago I commissioned some enterprising photographers to capture the signs posted in Paris shop windows announcing their summer closings. Even the convents post a "Fermeture Annuelle sign!

Here are a few of those signs. (Gentle reminder:  all copyright Polly-Vous Francais) 



Bonnes vacances!

A few iconic views of Paris

Most of this recent visit to Paris, I just wasn't interested in taking photos.  It seemed too clicheed, too... I don't know what to call it.  Everybody and their brother are taking photos of everything there is to see in Paris.  What could I document that wasn't already documented by a hundred thousand instagrams, Facebook photos, and more?

So I revisited Paris mostly with my eyes, ears, and heart. I absorbed Paris in my pores.  Wow, did it feel good.

My cautionary tale:

The summer I was 19 I returned to France to revisit the wonderful friends I had made the previous summer, which had been my first and tremendously pivotal experience in France.  That subsequent summer, I borrowed my mother's Zeiss Ikon 36 mm camera and took 6 rolls of film, to document all of the magic that I had lived the year before.  Returning home, I had the film processed -- only to discover that the camera's shutter had stuck after the second frame,  and I had zero pictures.  Zero.

On that awful day, I vowed never to live a moment through the lens of a camera... NEVER.  I understood that the moment lived is far more important than the documentation of it ... to me.

How could I have envisioned 2013, when not a moment goes undocumented and immediately shared with friends?  Sometimes I want to just chuck the camera (and everyone else's) and then some times I'm so grateful for those fleeting moments captured by camera.  It's a toss-up.

That said, I did take a few photos of recurring sights of Paris that I simply had to document for posterity. All from the vicinity of my rental apartment on the Esplanade des Invalides.  When you walk out the door and this is what you see every day, you simply have to take a quick snapshot, eventually.  Too breathtaking!

Old French post cards

A favorite Paris pastime is browsing through the Marché aux timbres on avenue Gabriel.  In my mind, it is one of the best shopping places for authentic bits of France that are almost impossible to find outside of the Hexagon -- at least in terms of selection.  And which you can take home without weighing down the luggage.

For about an hour I took shelter (kind of) from the dripping rain under a number of tents of stamp and postcard merchants.  If my nice leather flat shoes hadn't been soaked, I would have stayed longer.  Yes, some of us must suffer: caught in the Paris downpour!

This postcard, from around 1910, caught my eye:  a manif!  "Place de la Concorde (Manifestation)."  With the Eiffel Tower in the background.

There are so many comments and complaints from expats and tourists about "oh those @#%*& demonstrations in Paris."  And I share the frustrations.  Kind of.  Because, as this points out, really, they are just a part of Paris tradition.  Well before 1910.

As regular as rain.

But I have no idea what the manifestation was about.  Any ideas to help solve the mystery?

Paris Reborn: the making of Haussmann's Paris

Those who know and love Paris, and think they know all about haussmannien architecture in Paris, will be delighted and informed at an unimagined higher level when they read the absolutely splendid new book by Stephane Kirkland, Paris Reborn:  Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City.

I am only three-quarters of the way through the book, which to me is a gripping narrative, a page-turner. If you love Paris as she exists today, you will simply devour each page.  Stephane Kirkland takes his readers through beginnings of Paris modernization and through the city's massive transformation during the Second Empire.

A few highlights:

"Napoleon... had a large new slaughterhouse built on the edge of the city, with one important consequence:  As of September 15, 1828, it became prohibited to drive cattle through the center of town."

Ponder that for a few moments.

Or Queen Victoria's comments on her visit to Paris in 1855:  "What could I say about this most wonderful city in the world?" in an era when Paris was first learning what it meant to be a tourist destination.

Or Baron Haussmann's disagreements with Hittorff.

There are far too many excellent chapters in the life of  19th-century built Paris to enumerate here, so I simply recommend the book. Over and over.

Kirkland captures the drama, both social and political, and opulence of Paris in the mid-nineteenth century, and begs the reader to ask what Paris would have become if Baron Haussmann had not persisted in his determination to carry out the expansive and visionary urban-planning ideals of Napoleon III.  

For those who love Paris today-- all the many millions of you -- this book is a must-read.  You will always walk down the streets and grand boulevards of Paris henceforth with a knowing and appreciative understanding of how they got to be where they are today.

For those who yearn to know and discover Paris, this is a superb architectural primer on the creation of the most beautiful city in the world. (Yes, of course I'm biased.)

Official publication date is April 2, but you might not want to wait that long to order it.  Ask me!

Hidden Gardens of Paris

One of the most amazing secrets about Paris was imparted to me in the first week after I moved there.  At a dinner party, a well-known French author/photographer of luscious French coffee-table books told me, "All courtyards in Paris are legal to enter if the courtyard door opens. It's the law."  I was still bashful about the notion, but somewhat emboldened to give it a try.

Because, of course, some of the most fabulous intimate outdoor sights in Paris are hidden from view from the casual passerby, and require some knowledge and audacity in order to see them.

Mostly we spend our days in Paris walking down the cold stone sidewalks and simply wondering about the greenery on the other side of the wall.

I spent three happy years in Paris on my daily walks trying my best to discover all those hidden spots that serendipity tossed in my path.

But who needs serendipity when you have a copy of Hidden Gardens of Paris?  The hidden gardens included in this great guide range from not-so-hidden (Luxembourg Gardens) to tucked-away treasures, and I can only say that I am never going to meander around Paris again, EVER, without this gem of a book in my arsenal.

Author Susan Cahill artfully organizes the gardens geographically around Paris, and includes places and restaurants to visit nearby.  "Aha!"  you might say, "She didn't include one of my favorites!"  And, yes, it's true, because Paris has so many wonderful hidden green spaces, how could any 220-page tome include them all?  (Picpus Cemetery is one of my favorites, for example.)  But you will not be disappointed - there are ample new places to discover.  This book will simply give you more reasons to keep discovering Paris.

Hidden Gardens of Paris includes so many cultural and local references, it really is a must-have for any trip to Paris if, like me, your vision of Paris includes exploring on foot, outdoors.

From London to Paris Photo?

M --, a dear friend in New York, called this evening as she was heading to JFK to go home to London, to see her mum.  M is a superb photographer, and does know Paris a bit.  She had hopes to see Paris Photo next weekend but wasn't sure of how to make it work at the last minute.  "Polly, darling, can you help me?" asked M.  "Just the logistics on getting to Paris Photo from the Eurostar.  Last time I went it was in the Carrousel du Louvre."  Not sure of internet or time availability in the next few days, she needed Polly-Vous Francais to the rescue, and to email her all the information.

Ah.

Ah!

This is my idea of the best possible way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  

So here is what I wrote.

Dearest M --

Here is the information (more than you need!)

Paris Photo

DATES: 15th -18th NOVEMBER 2012

Location: Le Grand Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris
Thursday 15 Nov. - Sunday 18 Nov. From noon till 8pm.
Full price : 28 €

If you take the 8:30 am Eurostar from St. Pancras, you'll arrive in Paris at around 11:45.  Eurostar arrives at Gare du Nord.  Take a taxi  from the taxi stand outside to the Grand Palais, about 20 minutes.  Have the driver drop you off at the entrance to the Grand Palais on avenue Winston Churchill.  Cost?  Not sure, maybe 15 euros?  20? Note: Not all Paris taxis have credit-card machines (like NYC), and even if they do, will not accept payment by credit card (carte bancaire) for less than 15 euros.  And the machines are with the drivers, I think, not mounted in the back seat like in NYC.  So best to have cash, in any case,

_________________________________

Or, in a pinch,  if the taxi line is too long or no taxis seem available (which is sometimes the case!) or you're just feeling adventurous, you can take the # 42 bus, which goes directly to the Grand Palais.  To get to the bus stop, from inside:

• Follow the Gare du Nord station exit signs for “Est” onto rue de Dunkerque, then go left onto rue du Faubourg St Denis. 
• Walk about 200 meters to the bus stop.  You'll want the # 42 bus heading toward ("direction") “Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou." You can buy the ticket on board the bus (1,7 euro) with exact change (as long as you say “Bonjour, monsieur” to the bus driver first!!) or buy in the train station at a place that says "tickets RATP."   
• Take the bus (about 18-20 minutes) and get off at the stop “Champs Elysees-Clemenceau".  The Grand Palais is to your left as you look up the Champs-Elysees.

I am a big fan of the Paris bus system, as long one takes it in the right direction.  "Direction" always means where it's going, not where it's coming from.)

 ____________________________

If you want to have lunch when you arrive, a great cafe is LeMinipalais, which is located in the Grand Palais itself.  It opened a few years ago and is quite good - fabulous decor and setting, and delicious food.  I don't know how crowded it will be during Paris Photo.

Otherwise, if you take a slightly later Eurostar, of course you can always lunch on the train.  Is the Eurostar train food good?

By the way, there are some great local restaurants near the Gare du Nord, but they are cheek-by-jowl with others that are too touristy and lackluster; so I think better not to waste time figuring those out.

If you finish at Paris Photo and have some time left over before you head back to London, across the street at the charming and glorious  Petit Palais there are also some photography exhibits, and entrance is free for the permanent collection, and very reasonable for special exhibits.  Discounts for those who are 60+,  but you are so young... I'm not asking!

And of course my beloved Pont Alexandre III is right there.  You must take at least a quick stroll, and take some photos.

Have a safe trip!  I hope all is well with your mother!

   

Let me know how it goes.

Bises,

Polly

_______________________

Did I forget anything?  any other recommendations for M?

The Charm of Paris

Today I did something I've never done before.  I bought a charm for a charm bracelet.  Not just any charm, but a silver miniature Eiffel Tower.

I found it in a bowlful of charms for sale at an Upper East Side rummage sale, and it was perfect inspiration for a project that has long been on the back burner: to transform my childhood charm bracelet, and update it into a necklace.

When I was 12 or 13, my father gave me this sweet silver charm bracelet.

A horseshoe, for good luck, with my birthstone, a garnet, which has long been missing.  The great state of Tennessee, where I spent my early childhood.  A cruise ship, for the transatlantic trip our family took when I was five, ultimately arriving in Beirut to spend a year in Lebanon, where I learned my first French.  An airplane (don't you love the propellers?!) for all the shuttling back and forth between parents that made me an ace traveler at an early age.

This bracelet has been relegated to my keep-forever jewelry box, but never worn in many, many decades.  I don't really wear much silver jewelry, and noisy tinkling bracelets on my arm are so distracting.

BUT.  I've seen a few charm-bracelet necklaces with mixed gold and sterling charms and found them to be  ... charming!

So next all I need to do is to find a gold (fill?) chain like this at an appropriate length, and then add  meaningful charms as I find them.  I've already decided not to use any charms with enameled color, but to stick with gold and silver.

And now I have my Paris charm -- the Eiffel Tower.  Yes, a cliche, but so much more delicate than the Arc de Triomphe. Right?

What do you think?  Any advice?  I don't even know how to remove and add the charms.  I am a total novice in the jewelry-making hobby.

I need help for charm school!

Paris Patterns #2

Paris is a constant kaleidoscope. Of course there is the magnificence of  the 'capital-a' Art, grand architecture, and masterful sculpture; but there is also the adrenaline rush of people-watching, le lèche-vitrines (window shopping), patterns, and 'small-a' art everywhere.

In homage to small-a Parisian art, here are more Paris Patterns.
This time more linear, angular.


Lattice-weave mosaics on a doorway of a residence near Vavin in the 6e arrondissement.


Screws and nails on display at the Marché aux puces at Vanves.


Ceiling at the Sainte Chappelle.


Exterior mosaic of a café on boulevard St. Germain in the 7e.




Windows of an office building at Montparnasse.