Ah, the pull to be with people! I never understood how potent it is, how much it defines our thinking, until the pandemic grabbed us by our scruff and locked us inside. I'm sitting in the breakfast room and I'm done with my croissant, my pain au chocolat...
... and I would so much like to just linger, to take in snatches of the conversation unfolding around me -- French, Italian, Spanish -- but I know I shouldn't. They need to space us here and so if you're done, you'd be kind to leave and assist in creating that space. They don't ask you to get going, but the observant diner will know that this is her job -- to leave. So I go, but oh so reluctantly! Back home, I don't yet eat inside public places and so these breakfasts feel so indulgent!
* * *
I learned a new word on this trip -- I am a flaneur in Paris! A stroller. Or, to borrow from someone's more precise definition -- a wanderer, an observer, a documentarian, one who is streaming life, who makes the whole world their home, who seeks meaning.
I first came across this term in the title of a little book I picked up in support of an apartment rental outfit in Paris that was losing money too quickly during the pandemic -- a Flaneur's Guide to the Left Bank. It's interesting, albeit not exceptionally useful. And then today, I encountered the term again. In a museum. I'll get back to this later.
* * *
Since I went north and west and south and west in my first days here, I decided I should head east. No destination in mind. Just east.
(And I did my selfie in my hotel room. I'm getting tired of taking photos of me in my jacket!)
You know perhaps that I always stay in the same hotel -- Le Baume. Unassuming but beautiful. This one:
I'm literally on the rooftop this time around!
you know already that the hotel is on the Left Bank, in the 6th Arrondissement. I love the location! Importantly, it's two minutes from the Luxembourg Gardens and it is equidistant to all my favorites places in Paris. Some people will say that the 6th Arrondissement is a little staid, or even bourgeois. Maybe, but not where I live. I'm half a block from the first building of the Sorbonne. The campus stretches to the east and of course, into the funky Latin Quarter, so there is plenty of young action all around me, though not of the kind you tend to associate with college life back home. Very social, but very serious too. It has to do with this particular college's reputation as being incredibly cerebral. It's free (or nearly free at under 200 Euros per year for undergrads and only slightly more for masters and doctoral students), but it's very hard to get into. The party scene is very tame compared to what I've seen at our campus back in Madison, or elsewhere in the US, or in other countries.
So, today I cut through to the Latin Quarter, steering myself toward the river Seine again. I avoid the noisy streets.
And as long as I am here, I may as well walk over to the calm Ile Saint-Louis - the second of the two natural islands in the middle of the Seine.
(My idea of personal responsibility: trusting that not you nor your kid will bike straight into the river.)
(Island life...)
And now I'm just blocks away from that lovely part of the Right Bank -- the Marais. Let me meander over to it.
(Stopping at a shop that is reserved for artists selling their stuff. A group of three or four get the shop for two weeks, then leave and the next group comes in. I especially like the tiny woolen scarves with beads...)
The wider boulevards in Paris are a total chaos of cars, scooters and bikes. You have to be vigilant crossing them!
* * *
And now for a very long digression, except it's not really a digression at all! Fate has once again put me in the thick of a discussion about
photography. I am strolling the streets of the Marais and I come across a light crowd. They're congregating at the entrance to a museum: The Musee Carnavalet, which displays stuff on the history of Paris. Normally, I'd pass on this, but I see that there is a special exhibition this month: the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the person who pioneered candid street photography. He is often described as a flaneur.
I'm going to give you a digression within the digression! I ask where I can get a ticket. The attendant tells me -- only on line. Apparently the Museum is free, but you need a ticket, acquired online, to get in. The special exhibit (on Cartier-Bresson) is 11 Euro. Also to be purchased only online. Okay, I admit to being perplexed. Much of life in Paris requires access to the internet. Many cafes no longer have menus: there is a bar code on the table and you use your mobile phone to scan the code and look at the menu. Online. But to require a free ticket to be "purchased" only online?
A lingering gentleman offers to help me by giving me his, at which point the attendant breaks and gives me one such free ticket that she happens to have in her pocket and so I go inside where, guess what? You can purchase a ticket to the exhibition!
(I walk through just a couple of rooms from the history of Paris. There is a street name from ancient times that I find amusing, and a painted wood board that shows me the longstanding love affair Parisians have had with food.)
Now back to photography and the exhibition of Cartier-Bresson, although I have to admit -- I'm just slowly taking it all in.
There was so much to admire!
The text was equally important. I watched, for example, a short video where Henri (forgive me for calling him by his first name -- it's easier) commented on the act of taking pictures. He tells you that you can't ask the subject for permission. That would be portraiture. Candid photography is an entirely other kettle of fish.
(Here's what he said about this photo of Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie: I rang the bell, the door opened, I saw this, I shot the image and said hello afterwards; it wasn't very polite.
Candid photography is rarely polite, though you can gain brownie points by being polite afterwards. In my case, that means agreeing to erase if the subject asks me to do so.
Henri never left his home without his camera swaying from around his neck (sounds familiar!). Of course, these days, everyone has a mobile phone camera and other digital devices and abuses have led to rules about what you can and cannot photograph. In France, if you followed them strictly, street photography would die. (Wait, in France, is strict rule adherence even a thing? Let me remind you of my mask comments earlier.)
My own compromise here, in the land where "we French value privacy" is that I follow the principle of implied consent. My camera is big. Over the years, it has grown, like an overstuffed groundhog. It's hard to miss it. Most people notice my picture taking. If they want to protest, they can and, following the rules, I'll erase. Henri was less bothered about photo protest. I saw in the video the subjects waving fingers at him. Nonetheless, he held firm.
Of course, I understand the reasons for distaste on the part of the subjects. They don't know what your intentions are and they dont know if you're making fun of them in some fashion. Too, it would be horrible if everyone acted like paparazzi and stuck cameras in your face as you walked by (not that most people care about taking pictures of strangers; they just want themselves, in front of lovely scenes from their travels). But if you agree to step into the shoes of a street photographer, you have to go on. Because imagine the paucity in our understanding of life and human nature if we wiped out candid photos of people completely. My week in Paris could well be titled Paris: is the pandemic done with us? There is an obvious benefit to photographic recordings. But even without the drama of the pandemic, photos of street scenes are valuable.
I'm not as bold, nor nearly as good as Henri was and so I place limits on what I allow myself to do: I try hard to respect the subjects, to not demean them, indeed to offer an appreciation and admiration for their lives. I'm sure I dont always get it right, but in Paris or back home where I photograph family, I wont post stuff that isn't in some way beautiful. And frankly, that's not too hard, because I find great beauty in the faces all around me.
A few more examples of Henri's work and then I'll move on to a funny epilogue to my photography story. This one is not of Parisians, but still, it is a familiar sight, isn't it?
(And some candid people shots.)
Epilogue:
I leave the museum and I feel inspired to try harder. To not shy away from using my camera more. I see a group of high school students. I pause. Young people are so expressive! I snap.
One of the boys from the group (such a handsome guy!) runs up to me and I am sure I am going to get the protest, so I launch into a preemptive apology, telling him that I understand that some people don't like to have their photo taken. He shakes his head -- no, not that. I just want to ask you -- are you going to monetize that photo? Because I'm not okay with that! I smile and assure him that I'm not. As you know, I do not make money off of Ocean (much to Ed's chagrin). So we part friends.
But I do think that it's terribly funny to be challenged on street photography right by the museum with the exhibition on it, where lots of Parisians admired the work of a man who spent his life doing what they, in their everyday lives, seem to scorn so much.
* * *
It's an Italian day for me! I'm in the Marais at lunch time and I look around for some outside seating at any popular eatery. Since there are so few tourists in town, you can use this as a good barometer of how the locals feel about a place. Le Petit Italien could not be more perfect. There is a table facing the sun. There is a delightfully Italian menu (the French do Italian food very very well!). The place is almost full (but for this table).
Did you notice? We are having another very pretty day, weather wise.
I sit down and order a risotto with seasonal mushrooms.
It is my eternal dismay that for Sunday family dinners I have a group where at least three out of the five guests do not like risotto (Ed is one of them). How this can be puzzles me no end, and perhaps I should be grateful because with risotto, timing is everything and there's all this last minute stirring that must take place -- this is not a happy combination when kids are asking this, grownups are relaying a story about that, and Ed is somewhere out there chopping wood or feeding cats, threatening to be late for the meal. Still, I think a good risotto is fabulous and so now is the time to indulge. This will be my Italian meal number one today. There will be a second one.
* * *
It turns out I am just a few blocks away from Place des Vosges.
("Young people are so expressive," continued.)
It's peaceful, it's pretty. But I don't linger. It's better to sit down in a park near where you live, so that you don't stiffen up too much and grow reluctant to do the long trek home. This is the 68-year old me talkin'.
I cross the river...
... to get back to the Left Bank. And the Luxembourg Gardens.
... where I do plonk down with all those Parisians (and non Parisians) who want to catch wisps of sunlight on this beautiful October afternoon.
* * *
And yes, I eat an Italian dinner. I'd noticed this restaurant before -- Marco Polo, it's just about three blocks from my hotel -- but I'd never read anything about it. Most of the time I like to have at least one other person recommend a place for me. This one had no one, not in pamphlets, books, common conversations, emails, newsletters, blogs -- absolutely no one mentioning it. But yesterday, I saw that it was full at lunch time. And when I asked about dinner, I got the regrettable no for that too. So I booked a table for tonight.
It has just a handful of outside tables (under heat lamps!) and they are really close to the street so you get to see cars and the occasional buses do a very sharp turn just before your eyes!
And the food is wonderful!
I eat beef carpaccio with arugula, followed by spaghetti with clam sauce and fresh tomatoes (so good!)...
... and finally a molten chocolate cake with ice cream. Heaven.
Not too many evening photos for you. As Henri said (when asked why he never took night street photos) -- there's not enough light!
* * *
I worry about this city a little. So many are just ready to be done with masks! But of course, the pandemic is not over. High vaccination rates lowered their infection rates, just as they did in Madison last spring. But so long as there is still a pandemic in this world, some minimal precautions have to stay with us, if only for the sake of those who are still likely to get very sick. I don't know what precautions are still needed here, but I do know there is a mask mandate. I'm heartened to see that most observe it indoors. I hope the few that don't do not rock the boat too much for the rest.
The moon shines brightly over Paris tonight. I hope it will shine brightly tomorrow and the next day and the next year. On us all.
With love.
