Thu 18.Apr.2013
Paris, France
Has the sun reached where you are yet? Brought the light and warmed up the cold?
It reached Paris the third day after I did, the day I checked out of my hotel at mid day,
and had until ten that night to wander the city before my night train departed for
Spain.
Prologue: En route home from Paris last February. Couldn't resist the shop name;
it suggest's a
friend's blog-cum-web-site.
Even on a dull grey day, Paris has flashes of flair to brighten the spirit.
Though I arrived here to weather and temperatures similar to what I had
left in February, the wind had lost its bite. It felt almost perfunctory.
And of course Paris has words that must mean something slightly different in French.
An electric sarod, the most interesting of the many buskers and street musicians
outside Centre Pompidou on a cloudy afternoon.
From here on, we are on that sunny Sunday afternoon before the train.
Place de la Contrescarp, a colorful rag-tag neighborhood behind the university
district.
Arenes de Lutece, the remains of a Roman arena, now a park.
Down to the Seine. The nearby Big Sights are already flooded with my fellow
turistas, while locals enjoy the banks of the river itself.
Notre Dame, and the box it came in.
The padlocks-on-the-bridges business has gotten out of hand. The book stalls along
the Seine display new padlocks along side their old books. Vendors hawk them on the
Pont des Arts itself, with signs about "love locks".
For the literarily inclined, Place St. Sulpice provides two salutes to
writers outside the mainstream.
Harkening to the days when Rambo was nothing worse than a surrealist poet.
Georges Perec"s novel
A Void
is a
tour de force of wordplay and linguaphilic loopiness, as well as
a thoughtful surrealist novel, and arguably several other things. It isn't for everybody.
Even for thems as it suits, it is not an easy read, but it
is a hoot. This sneaky
tribute sign is probably more understood in Paris than any other city, which is saying
little enough.
If I knew where to get a copy - of the sign, that is; I have the book - I
would do so.