Beth Arnold

Letter From Paris: Summer in The City 2011, No. 8

by Beth Arnold

I realize that many of the scenes I've been most attracted to this summer are of inviting places where people can sit, enjoy the fresh air, and read...

It wouldn't necessarily be quiet here in the Jardin de Tuileries with scads of people walking by, but there is still a certain serenity to being by the water under a sunny sky.  Being lost in a good book is a pathway to transcendence, this through a written page.

Letter From Paris: Books on Paris and The French

Cover via Amazon

by Beth Arnold

I happen to be reading Malcolm Cowley's book Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920's. This book was first published in the U.S. in 1934, then revised and expanded in 1951, and has been republished regularly since then. What is the allure? Why do generations of Americans keep reading it? For one, Mr. Cowley has taken his own personal journey as a member of The Lost Generation, who Americans fell in love with nearly 100 years ago, and explains the forces that drove them to Paris and then sent some of them back home. He writes about his and others' individual motivations, social influences, and the culture, both in the United States and in France, that culminated in the marvelous poetry and prose that came from this period, as well as mediocre work that hasn't survived.

One fact remains constant: Our love affair with The Lost Generation continues. We Americans see these writers and artists as courageous and curious, artistic, open-minded, passionate, undisciplined, and rowdy--even a bit bohemian for taking a walk on the wild side by dropping out of the New World to experience and explore the Old World, which seemed much less inhibited and exotic than the Puritanical United States. World War I had literally blown their world apart, and the end of it gave these young people a window of time and opportunity to step though. They were used to a level of adrenalin and excitement that they intended to funnel into new literary explosions.

Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920's

Letter from Paris presents...The Sound Hunter

Image via Wikipedia

 

STREET MUSIC IN THE FAUBOURG SAINT-ANTOINE

 by Contributing Editor Des Coulam. Recording the street sounds of Paris attempting to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed.

WALKING ALONG THE RUE du Faubourg Saint-Antoine from Bastille towards L'hôpital Saint-Antoine, past the clutch of wonderful half-hidden passageways, it’s easy to slip back in time.  Since the 13^th century the Faubourg Saint-Antoine has been full of artisans plying their trade. An exemption from the Medieval guild membership and the associated fees and taxes attracted carpenters, cabinetmakers, blacksmiths, ironworkers and a variety of other craftsmen to the area. Even today, if it’s furniture you want, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine is the place to be.

Letter From Paris: Three Wise Books

Galeries Lafayette - Image via Wikipedia

The holiday season is upon us, which means our yearly eating, drinking, partying, shopping, spending blow-out has begun! I have to admit that I love Christmas. My parents, Bill and Bobbye Arnold, didn't give us every single thing we wanted all year round, but, yeah, baby, at Christmas, they loaded us up! Oh, the decorations, the trees, the cookies and candy, the high spirits, creamy baked oysters, the singing of carols, and reading of stories conjured up Santa and his reindeer for me.

I will also admit that I adore giving gifts. There is nothing as fun as finding a present you know is perfect for someone you love and/or appreciate. With our modern lives and the extraordinary demands on our time that both enrich and deplete us, that's not always easy to do. But there is one store that I know I can find something for everyone to be delighted with, and that, my friends, is a book store.

A book is always a gift one can be proud to give--an array a king might be delighted to present his subjects, from courtiers to worker bees. There is power in words. There is romance, travel, mystery, science, adventure, solace, encyclopedic information--stories that compel us in every way, as well as transform us.

And in that spirit, I am presenting three books that I happily recommend for Christmas pleasure:

The first one is Choosing Easy World: A Guide to Opting Out of Struggle and Strife and Living in the Amazing Realm Where Everything is Easy by Julia Rogers Hamrick.

 

Letter From Paris: Graphic Reality

Image via Wikipedia

Crossposted at HuffPo.  Comments not included here.

A couple of years ago, I became interested in graphic novels because I have an idea for one. But my time has been short, and it isn't yet written. I would like to say it's coming soon.

Of course, I read comic books growing up. Superman was my favorite. The man of steel, who could save the day when the worst happened. I read Archie with Betty and Veronica--Richie Rich and Batman.

There were others, of course. What were they? I'd like to look at them now. I am sure that my mother, who was a pack-rat, saved them for us, her children, who grew up--while she is now dead, and these comics lost.

Was this interest of mine what drew me to American Widow? I don't remember, but when I read about 9/11 widow Alissa Torres telling her nonfiction story in the format of a graphic novel I thought it was a brilliant idea.

It also didn't hurt that my mother was a widow at age 41 with three teenagers to raise by herself and that her husband, my father, died in a tragedy, although not so public with so many others killed. It was an accident that killed my father and not an act of terrorism. I am drawn to sorrowful stories since I know my own map of grief so well.

Letter From Paris: Patti Smith and Just Kids

Cover of Just Kids

My friend, J, recently lent me her copy of Patti Smith's Just Kids, her memoir of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe--the story of their love and life as artists and of finding their way through the fringes and upper echelons of New York City together. 

Dear Patti,

I'm not being a bad patron of the arts and the artists who create so diligently with fever and pitch, love, hate, and remorse, joy and vitality.  These bringers of an enriched reality who soak themselves through with blood, sweat, and tears to do the work they are compelled to do for themselves and for us, this throb of creation that they long for the world to see. 

Don't worry, Patti.  Not only am I ordering my own copy of Just Kids today, but I'm also sending one to each of my daughters.  It's important for them to read this record of your and Robert's life as artists growing up together and of this transforming crack of time in New York when young women and men came to our greatest American city and soared like eagles in the sky before flying too close to the sun, burning their wings, and falling to the earth dying or dead.  A generation of genius lost...not forgotten.

Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe (from Just Kids)

Letter From Paris: A Visual Poet

The Lone Wolf and I were strolling along the rue de Bretagne, and I was drawn to this beautiful book--Paris Venise Paris--in a store window.  These stunning photographs are of Carolyn Carlson, an American modern dance choreographer and performer of Finnish descent, who has been working in France since the 1970's.

Carolyn Carlson:  Paris Venise Paris  (Photo by Beth Arnold)

I was intrigued.  Do you know her work?  This is a short clip.

Letter From Paris: Meet The Neighbors--Gertrude Stein

I was standing to the side of the grave waiting for the small group of people to leave so I could take a clean photo, clear of them and their energy.  One thing I am doing since I've moved to the 20th Arrondissement is repeatedly shooting photos of scenes and things that interest me--on different days with variance of light or change in season, or maybe because I see an angle that I didn't notice before. 

When I lived in my beloved 2nd Arrondissement, we didn't experience the seasonal metamorphosis to the same degree.  Sensory information that naturally envelops us when we step outside here was harder to come by in the historic quarter in which we lived, though I am a lover of its worn stones and the life that was carried out on them.

But on this day I was impatiently waiting to the side of the grave I had come to photograph for this group to be on their way, when a 20-ish-year-old man said in a British accent, presumably to his mother, "Who is Gertrude Stein?"

Wash your mouth out with soap! I wanted to say.

The Lone Wolf would call this fellow a younger-the-dumber.  I had to clamp my jaws together to keep my mouth shut, but I'm sure I was making an appropriate face as I am wont to do.  The mother who had not educated this child properly, in my opinion, starting moving them away from earshot.  Truly, I think she was embarrassed.

Has it been so long that Ms. Stein has been gone (1946) that younger generations no longer know who Gertrude Stein is?  If this Brit didn't know, what about an American of the same age?  For God's sake!

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