Beth Arnold

Letter From Paris: On Location--At Versailles

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I know...I know...Versailles.  Who really wants to go, right?  Once is enough.  That had been my position. 

But since I've lived in France, I've consumed a lot of French history and was totally compelled by the biography of Marie Antoinette that Antonia Fraser penned (and Sofia Coppola spoiled with her frivolous film, including its miscasting--Kirsten Dunst...please.).  So a few years ago, I wanted to see the guillotined queen's pretend village Hameau de la Reine before it was closed again for renovations, and the Lone Wolf and I made a trip out to Versailles.  We were not disappointed.  One could almost see and feel the aristocratic shepherdesses skipping to and fro along the lake by Antoinette's tiny faux village.

A year and a half ago, the Jeff Koons exhibit at Versailles didn't lure me in, though my friends who went sang its praises.  And I must admit I liked the artistic juxtaposition of Koons' work with the Sun King's milieu that I saw in photos.

Gates into Chateau de Versailles (photo by Beth Arnold)

Letter From Paris: A French Idol and His Daughter

Image by mauren veras via Flickr

Crossposted at HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included her.

The biopic of Serge Gainsbourg, titled Gainsbourg (Vie Héroïque), has opened in Paris, and the French are flocking to see it like Americans used to beat it to Woody Allen movies.  (That is before Woody basically had an affair with and married his adopted daughter and became his natural born son's brother-in-law....Not to mention his films were getting a little boring.)

Unknown French actor Eric Elmosnino is playing Gainsbourg, who remains a beloved figure in France, and the actor's resemblance to the singer/actor is said to be uncanny.  The film covers Gainsbourg's entire life and is getting some criticism for the inclusion of M. Gainsbourg's alter ego (representing his insecurity about his looks) as a cartoon that speaks to him.

I haven't seen the film yet--but why not, I say?  The alter ego sounds cool to me.  I'll have to watch the film before I make my final judgment, but I can see this mixture of medias could add excitement as well as enhance the story and mood. 

Gainsbourg was a chain smoker of Gitanes, which added to his mystique and image.  The alternate movie title to go with the alter ego could be "Have Gitane Will Travel."  See movie poster below:

Letter From Paris: What I Miss in Paris #3

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Back in Paris, I am putting away all the gifts, items, and gadgets I was given and bought in the United States of America for myself and our new apartment.  The unpacking of clothes, mobile office, and miscellaneous toiletries, etc. usually takes me a couple of days.  Yes, I know I'm slow, but I want everything put back in exactly the right place.  Because you see I LOVE to be organized!

Yes, it's true.  It's a handy little obsession of mine, which I've had almost my entire life.  I was president of my student council/student body in high school.  I ran into one of my successors a few years after I'd left, and he told me how well he found all the documentation of my governance and the school's business that I'd handed down to the organization.  Well, I thought, not bad.  You see I want things to be perfectly in place before I start working or doing anything else, and after the pristine beginning, I can mess it all up or turn it around while I know where it is. 

So what do I miss in Paris?  THE CONTAINER STORE!

Letter From Paris: Old Parisian MacDonald's Farm

Image by gamp via Flickr

Two days to go, and I'm off to the USA for the holidays and daughter Bret's college graduation.  Cool, no?

You better believe it, sisters and bros!

But this morning I was meeting my friend Martin in the Place Gambetta to deliver some things back to him.  He lives in my neighborhood.  In fact, he found this apartment for us.  His knee was somehow gimped up, and he had surgery and was hobbling.  It was the least I could do.

But when I walked up, I didn't even notice him, because there was a farm show going on in front of the mairie (town hall) of the 20th.  Mom and Dad with daughter and son--the perfect farm family--with little ones dressed as miniature farmer and farmerette with pens full of rabbits, geese, ducks, and chickens, a big goat or two and two precious baby goats, two little lambs, huddled ducklings, one chick, and a darling piglet.  (I've most recently seen little piglets in the butchers' windows, and it was all I could think about.)

Letter From Paris: The Leaves of Père Lachaise

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The weather in Paris has turned cold and gray, and I find myself wishing for snow.  I'd like to make a trip to Alsace--to wend through the Vosges Mountains (photo at right) and stop at pristine villages, drink vin chaud and wander through the fairy-tale Christmas markets. 

Parisian fall leaves have almost gone, though a few still cling to their branches.  On a walk through the Père Lachaise Cemetery a few weeks ago:

Letter From Paris: Wham! Bam! Cut 'em Down!

Cover of Fargo (Special Edition)

It was Sunday two weeks ago, chilly and gray, and the Lone Wolf and I padded briskly up the rue des Pyrénées.  We walked past the market where two lovely women sell their homemade baguettes, cakes, and tarts.  Man, are they good! 

We walked by streets where young designers and artists have started businesses.  And suddenly we found ourselves at the scene of a whir and blur of activity. 

There were men in trees.

Letter From Paris: The Season for Cèpes

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Ten years or so ago, I was entranced with Monet's Table: The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet that lived happily in my kitchen with the other cookbooks that I collected, which lined my white shelves.  This particular book was a favorite because I loved France so.  She  had long since sung her siren call to me, and I had called my Arkansas snort back to her that I was doing the best I could to get there.  (This was before I'd thought of the book that the Lone Wolf could write that did get us here called Chasing Matisse.)  I lingered over the pages in the book and soaked up the beautiful photos of the Monet house and gardens as well as the luscious recipes the Monets served their artist celebrity guests.  Even with the painter's strict schedule, the Monets frequently entertained--at lunch--and were generous hosts and servers of feasts.

So I decided in the middle of May of that year that I would give myself a French fix by throwing a long Monet lunch.  On the record, the lunch was 10 hours long for those who hung in there until the drunken end.  (You can read about it in another book my husband wrote called If These Walls Had Ears: The Biography of a House.)  And by late afternoon on that Sunday (which is a key bit of information since we couldn't buy any liquor), we were out of champagne and, yes, driving to the houses of friends in an enormous chocolate Cadillac to inquire whether they happened to have any cold bottles of bubbly that they could loan us.  It was purely and deliciously glorious.

This magic book of Monet's life and recipes carried me away to the painter's house in Vernon and made me dream of good food and France. One of the recipes that I turned to over and over again was for cèpes. 

Letter From Paris: The Building That Grew Up Around The Tree (and other stories)

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Parisians have been enjoying a glorious fall.  Leaves are turning into golden airplanes that sail to the ground on wisps of wind blowing through town.  The sun has graced those hungry for its shining rays, though the temperature has dropped and many of us have been fettered with colds. 

French farmers have taken advantage of this good weather by setting bales of hay on fire to protest their growing debt and slumping grain prices, most notably on the busy Champs-Elysees.  If only I'd seen this!  The good fall weather has also been used to great advantage by alleged double-murderer Jean-Pierre Treiber, who escaped from prison last month hidden in a cardboard box and is cavorting around France unhindered, to the dismay of the authorities.  The accomplished woodsman has placed himself in something of a "Robin Hood: The Reality Show" niche, and he has reportedly sent letters to his girlfriend and media organizations extolling the joys of living in the wood:

"...At the moment I am in a very beautiful forest, I think all the different species of trees are here and it's really very lovely," Treiber wrote to his girlfriend. "It is nice with the mist and the deer and the boar."

                                                              ---The Guardian

He signed them "Jean Jean of the woods." 

Back at new chez moi, which I must name, the news of the day is that I'm trying to pull the decor of our new home together.  I'd like to report a successful trip to the puce--the flea market--at the Porte de Vanves.  I met up with American friend Mario, Swedish friend Andreas, and new British friend Paul, and we jumped on the Metro and climbed up the stairs to a perfect fall day.  Unbelievably, the market wasn't even crowded. 

Dog on Cards at Porte de Vanves

Letter From Paris: France Telecom & Other Dilemmas

I love my new apartment, which is like a little maison in Provence--instead of urban Paris--and I know I'm going to get my neighborhood's groove when I have the chance to dance out in it.  So far, I've been kept steadily busy as the latest recipient of the France Telecom World Champion of Internet Service Screw-Ups. The incompetent utility has somehow rerouted my Internet service from my new apartment back to my old one--and then in a second foul up, canceled the Internet altogether at my new place. 

How does this happen?  Some un-well-meaning employee does it just for spite--or they can't fill out the form?  In the numerous discussions I've had with the utility, I've been totally clear about what I wanted.  They have repeated the order back to me.  I hang up, and the order is mysteriously changed.  Ergo, my Internet is still not working.  I can't watch Apple TV and do other things I actually need to do!  I'm sorry, but I'm addicted to movies.  If I don't watch them, I have painful withdrawal.  (The video above is by the Lumiere Brothers, who were some of the early filmmakers in France.)

Letter From Paris: What I Miss in Paris (continued)

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I am moving this week.  Does anyone in the world like to move?  I mean the process of moving, not the end effect--which can be nice once you're there and have everything put up and decorated.  For anyone who actually likes the process of moving, sorry, but frankly there's something wrong with you.  Freak.  We're all freaks in some ways, but liking the process of moving is freakish in the S & M category.  Look it up.  It will be under the definition of Moving neuroses, conditions, and symptoms.

There is one thing about moving I like, and that is that I wash and clean everything--including things I'd forgotten I have and may not have been seen or cleaned in years.

I must buy a new bigass refrigerator with bigass freezer for my new apartment, because currently there's only one of those 1/2 jobs that in the United States of America only students would use.  I can't live with 1/2 of a refrigerator.

What Beth Arnold misses from the USA: 2. A refrigerator with icemaker--and I mean a model that one puts his or her glass in the door and the ice, cubed or crushed, comes crashing into your glass and may even spit out on the floor.  Heavenly.

Here's to ice: