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On Friday, I met my friend Louise for lunch at the BHV, which is one of my favorite stores in Paris. You never know what you'll find there, especially in the phantasmagorical hardware department in the basement. It is a maze of steel, plastic, wire, and LED wonders that I don't know how to use and never knew existed until I discover them as Columbus discovered Havana and said, "I like the rum here. I think I'll stay." Not to mention that the big secret about BHV's cafeteria is that it has a divine rooftop view of Paris, looking out at the Hotel de Ville and the Pantheon beyond.
I never thought of myself as a hardware person until I started going to this Tool Wonderland in Paris that also must be like falling into Terry Gilliam's mind. I saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus yesterday, and it reminded me that I'd like to meet Gilliam and exchange some brain waves with him. I like this director's bent style, which echoes my own. Get thee to a movie theater to see this wondrous film. And, yes, another dwarf is part of the talented cast. Heath Ledger gives a brilliant performance. It is a tragedy that it was his last.
But Louise and I met each other at the BHV cafeteria, where we talked about our memories of going shopping with our mothers at big department stores, mine were in Little Rock and hers were in Pittsburgh. Mother was a good and fast driver, and it was about a two hour trip from Batesville, Arkansas in any one of our sequence of white station wagons to get there. Part of the ritual of the day was having the treat of a department-store-shopping-trip lunch. In our case, it was at Franke's Cafeteria that was just down from the Lafayette Hotel. I don't remember what I ordered, but I know my mother, Bobbye Arnold, licked her lips for the Eggplant Parmesan and Egg Custard pie. Franke's was known for them.
These are poignant memories, because those days are long gone and seem old-fashioned now. I asked Louise if she went shopping with girlfriends here in Paris, and she replied, not really. Me neither. But Louise and I decided we would revive this girlfriend shopping and lunch date for ourselves.
After we finished our salmon and salads and got our hardware department fix, Louise surprised me with a ticket to the preview of the Salon du Vintage. Since we are both vintage fans, it was a bus ride of anticipation to get there.
Images from the Salon du Vintage:
A trip to Little Rock with my mother meant shoes from Kempner's and dresses from Pfeifer's and Cohn's. It meant I left my world in Batesville to go to the city. Now the city I live in is Paris, and my mother is buried in the Batesville ground.
Louise and I had a great girlfriend day.
Podcast created by Beth Arnold.
---Beth Arnold in Paris
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