[La Vienne] La douceur et la lumiere

The question was "Quelle est la chose la plus importante du mode?" Of course, we all agreed it is "l'amour" mais I also have to be true to my own stated philosophy. Hence, the subject line of this blog (as translated to French by my teacher).

My mother's dog Bella, who I loved dearly and knew best when she was a puppy in California, was killed by a car this week in St. Pierre. We are all devistated, especially little dog. On the one hand, I keep seeing the movie-style flash backs of when she was small (she grew up to be a huge yellow lab), but on the other hand, she is just gone. It is an almost palpable absence.

Alogny is breaktakingly beautiful, but I feel like I am going to lose my credibility for saying that about everything. I stayed in the tower room, painfully romantic for a lone occupant. The air has gone cold, but the flowers are still in bloom and the trees not quite turned to fall colors. The fields are mostly reaped and brown exposted earth in clean gently curving lines.

Here, we walk, eat, sleep, drink, and talk all the while enjoying the views in all directions. If it were a little warmer we would probably also swim in the pool. Nothing about this life is hard. But we discuss the homeless in San Francisco, American politics (when we can stand to), racism, substance abuse and mental illness, not to mention the various interpersonal betrayals and heartbreaks that each of us has endured.

My teacher in Paris sings in clubs. I have enjoyed having some contact with the alternative music scene there (which I am sure is very well developed but I might not have otherwise learned about right away). I didn't understand the words, but I think it is sort of standard acoustic rock with goofy lyrics.

Last weekend was the nuit blanche when everything stays open all night and artists put installations throughout the city. After a mojito at Place des Vosges, we began to wander the streets with hundreds of other people. It reminded me of a kind of pedestrian critical mass. People flowed like water from one installation to another. First we saw a huge turning pink tea cup in the courtyard of a traditional parisien building. It glowed under the lights.

Long lines of people waited to see the other exhibits, and finally we waited in one. The courtyard had steel drummers playing classical music, a quote shown in light on the pavement, and two different exhibits to enter. One was a little movie, with Parisiens being asked to say various silly things mostly in English. The second was about a dozen TVs set up to play video montages in loops. One was a cartoon, a guy morphing into other things and back to a guy again. In another, someone (anyone who wanted to) moved around a city with a mouse, through the streets, up and down the buildings, etc. Yet another clipped together images from TV commericals of flowers blooming, women eating, whatever (by activity). It made me feel all sorts of strange things including hungry. The Metro stopped running at 1, so we caught it and got a good nights sleep despite the exciting alternatives (that is, to stay up all night and see more art).

Last Sunday, we saw an exhibit of clothes made out of bread. There was also a bakery, and the designer had designed the clothes for people working there -- ladies had exposed midrifts and exterior corsettes made of basket reeds. We were most excited by the window blinds made out of baguettes.

Monday, we went to the Cite Universitaire, where dozens of buildings each representing a different country (US, Holland, Cuba, Greece, Cambodia were a few) gather around a central pedestrian roadway, each with a unique architectural style. There was an exhibit on Le Corbusier... buildings designed like bottle racks for apartments to be inserted according to the needs of its residents. Of course, he designed the units to be inserted, which included loft beds for the parents above the common space, and we argued about the desirability of that arrangement (I think lofts are silly and impractical unless they can be made completely private, though I admit they seem fun). The common space has huge glass doors that open onto a large balcony so that in summer the family can feel like they are living out of doors. The children's bedrooms were long and narrow. Each unit had 2 floors and overlapped in the middle.

I return to Paris tonight, arriving around midnight. I am sorry to be leaving here already. I am sorry that the summer is gone and the leaves are falling off. I am sorry for the chill in the air and that everyone is going back to the states. In San Francisco, I love the fall, but here it makes me a feel a little sad. Maybe I just don't know what's going to happen next.