mim’s blog

Here are some more pictures taken from the walls around my apartment. These ads have been around for much longer than Mel, which makes me think that this might be the oldest blog(g) in the world!

Actually, according to the internet, Blogg and Littauer were partners in a clothing manufacturing business, specifically making cloaks and suits, starting in 1901. The building next door to me was built in 1911 and the pair moved their business into it in 1912 and stayed until 1924. Presumably, the ad was painted on somewhere around 1912. There was even a movie made about these guys in 1928.

You wouldn’t believe it, but I just got back from Paris. Ok, maybe it was last weekend, or my birthday weekend. I had a great time staying with Joanne in Elsa’s apartment in the 18th arrondissement. Joanne is on an extended European tour flitting from one music cognition conference to the next. Somehow we managed to fit an aweful lot into three days.

I took the red-eye Thursday night and arrived Friday around noon with no trouble at all. The terminals were eerily deserted on either end. Joanne picked me up at the airport and we went to drop off my stuff at the apartment and had a wonderful lunch of all sorts of French foods: cheeses (my favorite was apparently called St Nectair Fermier), breads, foie gras, rabbit-in-a-can, fruits, and so forth. Due to bad planning, I had completely gorged myself a full three days before this meal at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, but still had trouble getting it all down.

I think I dozed off after that, and awoke in time for dinner, which was at a great place on the left bank called Bouillon Racine. It was built in 1906 and thus was full-on art nouveau, with mirrors on all of the walls framed by organic green trellises of wood. The tables and chairs matched the decor and the food was excellent to boot. After dinner, we scaled the Eiffel Tower, all 700 steps of it, at least to the second level, where we enjoyed the view of the city, the first of many memorable views, and the view of the menu as le Jules Verne. Our descent proceeded with more haste, as we were in danger of missing the last train(s).

Saturday, we purchased Paris museum passes, which were good for two days and admitted us to some thirty odd museums, monuments, and places of interest in the city. We made it to: the Pompidou Centre, the Conciergerie, the museum of the Middle Ages, the cathedral of Notre Dame, the archaeological crypt of Notre Dame, the Musee d’Orsay, the Pantheon, the Picasso Museum and Sainte-Chapelle.

The Pompidou center was showing some relatively interesting video art, but the best part was perhaps the view of the city from the escalator. As my mom said, the building is really much more impressive than the collection. The Picasso museum was very cool, although I remember seeing Guernica there with my parents and yet it’s been in the Prado in Spain for years. I did like the various statues, including one of a monkey with its head made out of two toy cars embedded in concrete. The Musee d’Orsay was also excellent, I could have spent a lot more time there than we actually did. We got to see a sculpture of a polar bear by Francois Pompon that I really like, as well as Rodin’s plaster of The Gates of Hell.

The cathedral of Notre Dame was stunning, as were the gargoyles on the exterior. The crypt was alright, but did give an interesting overview of the 2000+ year history of Paris as an unfortified city. Speaking of basilicas, we also went to Sacre Coeur, which was a short walk away from Elsa’s apartment. I had no idea that it was built so recently or that any basilica had been, for that matter. The mosaics inside were incredible, as was the view of the sunset from the front steps. Saint-Chappelle was a spectacular chapel, with 50 foot ceilings and stained glass nearly the whole way up. When the sun was shining through it, it was like nothing I’ve ever seen. In addition to being built in the 13th century and housing the “real” crown of thorns and a piece of the true cross, the butresses holding up the ceiling were nearly invisible, and everything that wasn’t made of glass was painted to look like cloth or the sky.

Next door was the Conciergerie, which was mainly the prison where they kept Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution, but also included dinner seating for 2000 soldiers. The museum of the Middle Ages had some amazing tapestries of a women, a unicorn, and a lion. There were six of them, representing the five senses plus one for good measure, and they filled up an entire room with variations on the composition,
the iconography, and the expressions on the faces of the subjects. They were also incredibly good looking for textiles their age.

Then there was the Pantheon, which was also incredible. It’s a little bit unclear of what it’s purpose was, either to be a church or “civic temple”, but the result is a giant cross-shaped building with nothing inside save a few statues and walls covered in murals, floor to ceiling, of scenes from french history. The spaciousness allowed
Léon Foucault to dangle a big brass ball on the end of a very long wire to show the rotation of the earth (just a little too late). Curiously, his pendulum only rotates through 270 degrees in a day, possibly attributable to the lattitude of Paris. It was getting late and we were forced to choose between the crypt and the dome. We chose the latter and got our third panorama of the city. We also spent some time in the Jardin du Luxembourg and took a boat tour along the Seine.

For dinner one of the nights we tried to go to creperie Josselin, which Jessica recommended to us, but it was closed and its little sister, le Petit Josselin, was fairly mobbed by the time we tried to line up. Since we had to walk down an entire street of creperies (rue du Montparnasse) to get there, we settled for going across the street to la Creperie bretonne for some pretty good crepes.

Quite a trip, let me tell you. If you still want more, I think Joanne is going to post some pictures.

This is the view from my kitchen window. Someone keeps painting Mel Gibson’s stencilled portrait on the next building. That blue paint that matches the brick so well, that was to paint over the previous rendition, which did not beg forgiveness. This most recent version seemed to appear right after Mel got himself into the tabloids, so my question to you is this: is it the repeat graffittist or Mel Gibson who is asking us for forgiveness? Also, don’t you think there’s a slight resemblance between this likeness of Mel Gibson and those stencils of George Bush, with the Homer Simpson sort of snout?

The other night, for Joanne’s party, I cooked up some tapioca pearls I had lying around the cupboard. The boring half I made into tapioca pudding, which was still quite tasty. The exciting half I made into bubble tea bubbles, because that’s really why I’d bought the tapioca to begin with.

Then I had a great idea, I’m going to a party with bubble tea balls, why not mix them into cocktails instead of tea? Thus was born the “Bubbletini” and the “Bubble G and T” (or should it be “G and Bubble T”?). Just remember, when these are all the rage next year, you heard it here first. Unless they’re already all the rage, in which case, I’ll retire to my study to await my next flash of recycled inspiration.

I went to the halloween parade on monday night and had a lot of fun. Walking around in costume, it was always fun when people noticed the fake blood on my face. Headaing to the parade down 7th ave, it was hard to tell who was in costome and who wasn’t. The gaff, “what are you supposed to be?” ranks right up there with “are you pregnant?” But there were a lot of people dressed up as cops that were pretty convincing. They must have had a hell of a time figuring out if anyone was really injured or just faking it. The night before, I had spilled half a bottle of fake blood on the sidewalk outside my building, which made for a nice effect, although I don’t know if anyone even noticed.

The parade itself, I could take or leave. Since anyone could march if they showed up early, the marchers were about as dressed up as the spectators, but harder to see. One strange thing, however, was that the crowd was really quiet. I felt like they were watching TV, just zoning out, waiting to be stimulated. When people started marching by, the crowd didn’t cheer or anything. Maybe it was just our block, up around 14th st, because I could hear some noise coming from down the street. I was expecting debauchery, but only found passivity.