It finally occurs to me...

My wife and I headed over to the 15th to see what it was like, with an eye toward finding an area we could live in for a year or more.




 

The day was clear and spring-like warm.  Finally.  After weeks of overcast weather and cold rain, this was a welcome surprise.  Perhaps the Mistral is finally subsiding?

We walked a fine area in the 15th and had a chance to spend time talking with a shop owner in the quartier.  His family shop sold specialty items.  What brought us in were the honeys they had on offer.  Once we looked around, we realized there were several fun and interesting things to choose from.  The shop keeper was engaging and shared with us a few samples of his food and ideas on living in the 15th.

After making our purchases we headed across the street to a brasserie that the shop keeper recommended.




 

We sat in the sun out on the veranda and took in the scenery over lunch.  A recent MotoGP was on the tele and it looked there was some fine racing that day.  The company was great and the food wonderful.

It was then that I could feel the thing I needed to feel:  I now understand that I have something that the president of the company I was laid off from will never ever have.  Happiness.

Such an incredible feeling it is to be completely content and know that all is right with the world.




 

It's sad that certain corporate "leaders" are driven to try and destroy other people's lives as a way of assigning blame to the wrong things.  It's sad that these "leaders" push so hard to cover for their mistakes so that the CEO won't see what's really going on and fire them for their mis-deeds.  It's sad that so many fine employees are trampled under the foot of these bastards and that life is made as miserable as it can be.  It's sad that they tell you to sign a statement saying you will never speak ill of them nor the company, otherwise you will not receive severance as they lay you off.


But, on this day, at this time, none of that really mattered.  I wasn't there slaving away in a cube to try and keep a job and make a little money toward retirement.  No.  I was sitting in an Avergne run cafe on the left bank in Paris, drinking a bit of wine, eating a bit of food, talking a little with the locals, sitting in the sun, enjoying the hell out of the fact that I am quite simply alive!

After lunch my wife and I returned to the shop and picked up chocolate covered raisins and a small bottle of Thym Sauvage.  I wish I had the words to describe how good these things taste.  Really.  I do.

Anterieur Futur...

My wife and I visited the "galerie du jour agnes b."  to see the show called "Anterieur Futur ~ retrofuturisme/steampunk/archeomodernisme".

If you follow my photographic adventures, you already know that some of my Steampunk work has been published internationally.

So it was with great interest that we went to visit the agnes b.





One of the two finest Steampunk mask makers had four of his incredible creations on display.  There were movies and posters and animated creatures too.


  

Some of my favorite works of art were the several models artists made.  One was of the Jules Verne submarine (from the commonly available drawings that may have originated or were used by Disney in their 20 thousand leagues under the sea movie).  The other model that impressed me was a rather interesting torpedo shaped blimp.  Both were incredibly detailed and were a delight to see.

 

After spending time in the gallery, my wife and I spied an artisan beer shop across the street.  Of course we had to pay them a visit too.

In any event, I am hopeful that we'll be able to connect with Paris' creative arts communities so I can make a few more images before they plant me in the earth for the longest rest...

Liberalism and freedom from thought control...

We not been here three weeks yet, and I can already look back and see the effects of controlled access to information.  That is to say, in the US what we see and what is widely available comes nowhere near the full spectrum of intellectual thought, human feeling, or action.  It feels like everything, particularly information, is carefully dry-cleaned for your protection.

You can't feel the fullness of what it means to be a thinking breathing, critical, aware human without crossing someone's "politically correct" boundary.  The media prints only that which it feels is fit for your consumption.

Last night, my wife and I visited Shakespeare and Company down the river in the 5th.




What a contrast to our prior experiences of visiting book stores.  Even in the seemingly liberal city we came from, nothing compares with the broad range of political, philosophical, and poetic expression that can be found in this tiny, well visited, bookstore.


I nearly wept as I browsed the poetry section.  So many outstanding expressions of human creativity and feeling in word and prose.  If you have the time, you can even sit down and read a few passages and reflect at bit on what it means to feel or to think.  There is a chair in the poetry room.

I was then humbled by reading the last paragraph of a book, more a pamphlet really, by a WWII French soldier.  There were several copies of these small books on a shelf in the political section.  The books are devoted to talking about his participation in "la lutte" against any and all suppression of human liberties.

His final paragraph says that the forces of suppression have gathered again.  This time, freedom is at risk from an all pervading media that directs what and how we are consume.

I could immediately understand what he was saying.  Looking at the US, isn't the media is all about consumption?  Isn't it all about redirection away from ourselves and our freedoms and liberties?




The US media narrows the field of discussion by dictating discussion topics.  The US media narrows the fields of human expression by lionizing captains of industry and their role in "job creation", while ignoring the role of greed in culture and the way it drives nearly all behavior.  The US media narrows the range of human feelings to just those that stand out strongest, limiting feelings to hatred or titillating sex.


It was a moving experience to visit Shakespeare and Company.  It was incredible to sample a few passages from such a broad range of texts.  It was fascinating to know a human life can be so much more than what is bought and what is sold.  It was good to realize "la lutte" for liberty and freedom lives.

A nice way to spend time...

On our flight over from the States we learned of something called a cafe arose and I knew I had to try it.

Backing up a bit in time to last September, my wife and I visited the cemetery at Montparnasse.  We were just inside the gates and started working our way down the line of graves when I heard a group of nuns bustling their way between the grave stones, apparently intent getting somewhere quickly.  I heard the lead nun call out "suck it in, girls!"

I laughed and shouted over to her that that was the best thing I'd heard all week.  They all laughed and waved.






A little while later, the same group of nuns came down the wide path to where we were standing.  The conversation was great and we learned that the Addams family grave site wasn't 100 feet off.  That's where they'd been to place a photo from the original TV show.


We also learned that sœur Rosalie was their founding sister and that she was buried in the same cemetery.  She is known to help people if you left a note at her grave site.  So we did this, with our intention listed on the back of a business card I just happened to have.

Six months later, my wife and I now live in Paris.

We needed to thank sister Rosalie and so, today, we went to the Montparnasse cemetery.  We left another business card with our thanks written on the back.  It was a moving experience, no matter what a person "believes".  Our original request was still there.  So I placed our thank you on top of the old weathered card.






After a little photography around the cemetery, we headed over to a cafe to try our hand at an afternoon cuppa.  My wife had a decaf cafe allonge and I had a decaf cafe arose.  No, we can't handle the caffeine in the afternoon.  We can handle a wee-dram, however, but only if it's the right stuff.


We have discovered a rather proper mid-afternoon relief.  Coffee.  Calvados.  Mixed.  Yum.

I wonder if this is what the French mean when they say they're "killing the worm?"

I think I'm beginning to look forward to tomorrow's adventure.

Not 24 hours has gone by, when...

My prior post extolling the foods of Europe over the cr*p found in the US was, perhaps, 24 hours premature.

The world is now aware of Mad Cow disease found in California.

If you know statistics and if you follow the sampling rates of USDA inspections in the US you will know the odds for tainted beef entering the food system.

If you're sleeping well at night and if you are eating beef that is not true grass fed cattle, you're not awake or don't care.

This is very frightening stuff, this.

Now, what was I saying about the US food system being broken?

The food. Oh, the food...

Talking to friends and family back in America, it's very difficult to explain to them just how good the food is here.

Mind you, I'm not talking about going to a Bistro or a Brasserie and ordering something off the menu, even though food in those places are typically good.  No.  What I'm talking about is the food we purchase from vendors and out of small markets.




 This sure beats the h*ll out of that cheap cr*p
communion wine those priests handed out every sunday!!!


My wife and I buy as much "organic" food as we can for our meals.  Here in France "organic" foods are labeled "bio" for biologique.  When we shop carefully, we can find biodynamicly grown or prepared foods.  The organic food production extends into beers and wines.

In fact, tonight we started in on a bottle of "El Vinyer d'en Parlou", vin de pays des cotes Catalanes.  The label says "produit issu de raisins de l'agriculture biologique."  It goes well with, um, everything!

The price?  Just over 6 Euros.  Do the conversion to USD and you'll perhaps see what a steal that is.




 Be still, mon petit poulet... your flying days are done...


Food tastes like real food here.  Broccoli tastes like sweet corn.  Chickens taste like, well, vraiment chicken.  Pork and beef taste better than the grass feed and organically raised meats in the US.  Beer is good.  I found I like "blonde".  Organic, of course.  Sweet potatoes are very sweet.  The fish is fresh and wonderful... and so it goes... including buying a baguette traditionelle every day.

By comparison, we feel that the American food system is broken.  Completely and utterly broken.  How could it be anything but broken for the tons and tons of chemicals spread over the land and left to the wind as well as for the oceans of antibiotics injected into cows, pigs, and chickens?  How could the US food system not be broken for how people love fast food and no longer have the time (supposedly) to gather around the dinner table and share meals with a family?  How could it not be broken for the amount of corporate investment that is made into the US political system to ensure laws sway to the advantage of corporate farming?



 Oh be quiet! This won't hurt you as much as it hurts me...


Perhaps the biggest surprise to us is that the cost of food here in Paris is very comparable to what people pay for cr*p food in the US.  Yes.  It's true.  There's no getting around seeing just how badly people in the US are screwed.

I'm very happy that my wife has been such a good cook for all these years and that we can prepare our own meals.  Nearly every night we look at each other over a meal and marvel at how good food tastes here.

It's worth the effort to cook our own food.  You can't believe how good it is.

I have to leave this blog entry with one final thought;  DOM (Deus Optimus Maximus!!!) Benedictine (not that B&B cr*p) in the States costs $40.  My wife started us on a slow drip of this incredible elixir some time back.  So imagine my surprise when, in our very first visit to Monoprix, we found DOM Benedictine for $20.  The drip rate has been "upped" a bit since this discovery.

Being Here...

Looking out the apartment window this evening, something started to sink it; the enormity of what we've accomplished.  It was just a hint, mind you.



When I was 28 years old and recently started a new job in aerospace, I took my very first vacation.  American Airlines brought me to a place I'd only read about.  Hemingway and Sartre had much to say about this city.  Their books lead me to believe that this was the most incredible place on earth.  During my first two week trip to this place of magic I started to discover a Paris of my own.

Many years later, I wondered if it might be possible to live there.  I'm not sure I ever fully believed it was possible.

Now that we're here, it's still hard for me to believe it was possible.  Strange how the mind works, isn't it?




Yet, tonight, I as the sun sets and casts a warm glow on la tour Eiffel and as the birds chase one another around the sky and as we've just finished a simple but marvelous meal, I'm faced with having to believe that our seemingly impossible dreams has come true.