London and a Birthday

The Eurostar train takes you from Gare du Nord station in Paris to the center of London in just over two hours time.  We are staying in a modern short-term apartment building in EC1 - just north of the LSE campus on Rosebery Avenue.  We arrived on Marlow's birthday so a celebratory dinner at the River Cafe was first on the agenda.  

Departing Gare du Nord

Arriving London Underground

Time for laundry in our London flat

Birthday dinner at the River Cafe

Attacking the grouse

Birthday Boy

Scenes from our last days in France

BM and Wes

12th c. glass windows

Before leaving Paris we wanted to visit Chartres Cathedral located just an hour south of Paris.  Our friend Bernard insisted on driving us and it was wonderful to have not only a chauffeur for the trip but a well informed guide as well!  Among the Cathedral's many distinctions is that it is extremely well preserved - the magnificent stained glass windows are original dating from the 12th and 13th centuries.  And the facade and interior is pretty much the same as it was when constructed in the 13th century.

Chartres exterior

We couldn't leave from our apartment in Montmartre without an evening of chansons, so enjoyed desert in a classic cabaret-bar down the street.

Caught checking e-mail - again!

View from our apartment of Batteau Lavoir artist studios
used by Picasso and Brancussi among others

Montmartre apartment

Rainy night in Paris

J'aime les chansons

Montmartre, 5 November 2013

Montmartre
5 November 2013

We are in London. It is wonderful. But there was more to tell about Paris. Here it is...

We were at the Salle Pleyel on two evenings for concerts. It is a large venue. Two thousand four hundred seats. We selected our seat locations so as to be near the stage where what we might lose in optimal balance is made up for by the visceral thrill of seeing the musicians's faces up close and feeling the strong vibrations of the powerful sound rattle our bones.

For the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra we were in the second row. Riccardo Chailly, from Milan, conducted a symphony and a concerto by Johannes Brahms. Chailly, in his youth, was a jazz drummer.  His rhythm was to me like the course a river runs from it's source to the sea. Think of the Continental Divide where rivers originate. Their ultimate destination is determined. During the journey they are at times more wide or more slender. They twist and turn or they straighten out.  Their velocity races or slows, but they never stop. Relentlessly in motion, their destination is inevitable.

For the Budapest Festival Orchestra, we were seated above and behind the orchestra, facing it's conductor, Ivan Fischer. Recently, he made headlines. He composed an opera on the subject of eliminating anti-semitism in the current Hungarian government. His concert began with an Homage to Bela Bartok—somber, reflective, mildly folk tune laden. Continued with Beethoven's fourth piano concerto. And concluded with Dvorak's eighth symphony. We once visited Dvorak's Prague, particularly the house that he was born in. It is in a verdant hilly countryside. Our guide said, "Dvorak did not have to search for inspiration, he simply opened his window and wrote what was outside."  Budapest is similarly beautiful. The orchestra has those images in their blood. Their Dvorak was ravishing and in it's ending where the music sounds like laughter the players gave an audible in unison hearty "ha-ha-ha" before the ecstatic joyous circus finale. Then came the encores. First, a gentle, tonal, old fashioned waltz by, surprisingly, Toru Takemitsu, a challenging modern composer. Next up was a Brahms Hungarian Dance. It was no-holds-barred, all heck turned loose. Mayhem. Danger. Fischer's body went low on the podium, a whirling dervish, his baton a lion tamers whip that he lashed at the players, he began shouting things to them, Hungarian vulgarities, I imagined. They became gypsies with their caravan wagons in a circle, campfire blazing under the midnight moon, slashing at fiddles, slapping on basses, they were possessed. I've never heard anything like it. 

After ten days in the Marais apartment we moved uphill to Montmartre. From the second floor we had a view. (Napoleon is under the dome, right of center)

The neighborhood made me swoon. So much history concentrated in so few blocks. On our immediate corner, nineteen year old Picasso invented cubism and Van Gogh lived still with two ears. Five or six blocks away Bizet wrote Carmen then died at thirty-six,

and Renoir painted canvases of colorful dances beneath the moulins (windmills) and of little girls, rosy-cheeked, swinging under trees in a garden. The Moulin Rouge inspired Toulouse Lautrec to drink, carouse, fall in love with music, faces, capes, red scarves, can can girls and everything he put into his huge colorful posters. Berlioz lived in a little cottage around the bend and wrote Harold In Italy so Paganini could show off his Stradivari viola and he was visited by his friend, "chopinetto mio"—Frederic Chopin. Closer to our time, violinist, Stephane Grappelli played jazz with Django Reinhardt's guitar at Le Roulotte, which means gypsy wooden caravan wagon.  

Henri Murger, a writer, in the Latin Quarter perfectly spot on captured it all in his short stories in eighteen-forty-two He created Marcel and Schaunard and Colline, starving artists—painter, composer, writer. Fifty years later, Giacomo Puccini made himself and the "bohemians" famous when he turned Murger's short stories into an opera, La Boheme.

Montmartre is steep and hilly with twisting narrow cobble stone lanes that glisten in the rain. During our stay it was overcast, drizzly and rainy. Which heightened the "bohemian" ambiance. Much has changed. Much remains the same. There are artist studios aplenty, garrets with banks of extra tall windows. There are lots of tiny apartments for creatives to settle into, to struggle and work hard in. Hungry for food, shelter and for the day the public will discover their genius.

Next stop London.

Marlow and Wes
Montmartre
5 November 2013

Paris Apartment #1 and Maître Alain

Marlow and Wes
1, rue Saint-Claude, Paris
31 October 2013

We were staying in the Marais for the first ten days. The small building was elegant. Our ground floor unit, (see open door in the photo,) a one-

bedroom, opened onto a tree-lined cobblestone courtyard. Beyond the distant wall, through large green doors—large enough for your carriage and horses—is rue Saint Claude. A few paces to the left is a small barber shop. More than a barber, really. As per his card, his title is, "Maître Barbier Coiffeur." (Master Barber Hairstylist.) His name is Alain. He offers "coupe personnaliste, taille de barbe, rasage à l'ancienne." His shop is a "salon musée."  The walls are hung with antique porcelain bowls, for washing hair, each with a crescent shaped indentation (like this)

to accommodate a human neck. For several days we walked our unruly hair past his windows. We peered in. He peered out. He knew we needed him. We made appointments. He was polite and formal.  He wrapped us in capacious robes of flouncy fabric.  Christening gowns. Classical music wafted. Our hair was washed in warm water with soothing hands. After a quick rub with a towel the snipping began. Quick, confident, without conversation, and finished in ten minutes. I have to admit we looked great. Maître Alain was

pleased. Seeing us daily through his windows, he knew he had skills we needed. What will we do without him.

Marlow and Wes
1, rue Saint-Claude, Paris
31 October 2013

Monuments of Paris

Paris, 1 November 2013

Take several handfuls of watercress leaves. Put them in a pot. Add an onion and water. Simmer. Purée. Voila! Watercress soup.  That was the start of dinner at the Café des Musées.


In Spain, they raise small black pigs within an oak forest. Their entire diet is acorns. They are pampered. Their meat and fat taste subtly of nuts. On my plate is the filet mignon of such a pig. It is tender. It is juicy. Surrounded by cloves of roasted garlic. On the side is a ceramic dish of gratin potatoes smothered in cream, or is it butter, and cheese.

Across the table is a Staub cast-iron miniature dutch oven. Inside it are vegetables. Green beans. Carrots. Turnips. Mushrooms. Cauliflower. Pale green, pointy tipped broccoli. Onions, red and white.  They are cooked individually and lightly then layered inside the oval pot. On with the lid and into oven. The flavors meld. And it is our main course number two.


We have eaten here before. The chef does clean honest cooking. The meats are cooked perfectly. Even the steak tartare is just right. The seasoning is moderate. The flavors of the main ingredients speak for themselves. We are happy.

Earlier today we visited the salon de thé of Dalloyau on the rue Faubourg du Saint-Honoré. It was four in the afternoon. Quiet and calm. We gorged on Baba au Rhum and Financier and Chantilly cream.  Everything rich and decadent and what the cardiologist bans. We were happy to flout the doctors advice for the afternoon.




Before the pastry-fest we ate lunch at the Breizh Café. It's owner has come to Paris from Brittany, in the north, and brought with him the special cheese, the special ham, the special eggs of the north which he converts into galettes. A galette is simply a crêpe made with a buckwheat batter. We ate our galettes

and each drank a small bowl of fresh, fermented, hard cider made from the fresh crop of apples.

Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? Not in Paris.

Marlow and Wes
Paris
1 November 2013

Paris: Lang Lang, Place des Vosges, 31 Oct 2013

Wes and Marlow in Paris

31 October 2013

It is Thursday, October 31, Halloween in Paris. We are inside the Theatre des Champs-Élysées. In thirty minutes, we will hear Mr. Lang Lang play Chopin while the soloists of the Houston Ballet dance beside and around his piano.

This theatre was built in 1913. In it's first season, on this stage, Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russe gave a performance of a new ballet by a young composer. His name was Igor Stravinsky. His ballet was called, Le Sacre du Printemps. The Rite of Spring. It ends with a young woman in a dance so frenzied that it kills her. The premiere scandalized the music and the dance world. So primal. So sensuous. That was in nineteen-thirteen. We once met a woman, Beatrice Wood, who was at that famous performance in this exquisite theater and she told us what it was like.

The theater is looking good in it's hundredth year. It is Art Deco. Elegant. Gold leaf, Lalique glass, marble, rose-color walls. Every seat on the first two levels is an individual armchair: wood framed with brass tacks and velvet upholstery.  We are sitting in them.

one hour later ....

It is lovely program. Mr. Lang Lang gets to play and play. Uninterrupted. One beautiful Chopin work after another while the dancers dance.  Only a few streets away from this theater, delicate and sickly Frederic Chopin lived, taught, composed and induced swoons from the elite who attended the salons where he played, where he dazzled. Tonight, too, has a salon ambiance. The interior of the theater is round. The chairs are typical of a living room. The lighting gives the room a warm glow. It feels intimate.

The sixteen dancers began and ended the show together on stage.  In between, there were solos, duos, trios and quartets. Typically, during a dance concert the musicians will follow the dancers. In this instance, with a celebrity piano soloist, the dancers were obliged at times to follow the piano when he'd get in a lickity split mood. In these days when dance companies cannot afford live musicians, the Houston Ballet must be under a lucky star.

We have been in Paris for one week. Everyday we walk in the Place des Vosges, a square with former royal apartments and a park in the center. The park has double rows of trees on the perimeter and in each corner is a two-tiered fountain and lawns. In the center of it all is a circle of chestnut trees surrounding a stone statue of King Louis the Thirteenth on his horse (which is anatomically correct).

The current statue was erected near 1830 as a replacement for a bronze statue installed in the sixteen-thirties. That statue was pulled down and destroyed during the French Revolution.

There is in the Place des Vosges an outstanding hotel, the Pavillon de la Reine. We stayed there twenty-five years ago, in our youth. We stopped in this week to have a look, rekindle a memory. If one wants to splurge it is a great place to stay. You'd never have to leave the square. There are restaurants, an art museum, the park to promenade in, and there is the residence of Victor Hugo, the author of Les Miserables.

Place des Vosges is an elite address. The apartments, no longer royal, are still palatial. On the ground floor are various restaurants. I peeked into one. It is called L'Ambroise. Sumptuous. Luxurious. Intimate. Living room like. Velvet, mahogany, brocade, gold leaf, every material the best of it's kind. I read the posted menu. Here are the general prices in US dollars: appetizers, $130; main course, $200; dessert, $110. And that is the Place des Vosges.

Wes and Marlow in Paris
31 October 2013