Michael O'Shea's Paris Journal
Paris Kiosque - December 1997 - Volume 4, Number 12
Copyright (c) 1997 Michael O'Shea - used with permission
Part III - (Part II -
Part I)
We can hear music nearby. We follow the sound through two courtyards until
we reach a fairly wide one where there is a four piece Jazz band playing
under a little marquee. It finally strikes me that it's the Fete De La
Musique today. There is a little crowd there sitting around on little stone
walls or standing. The band is playing some rather bouncy stuff and the
general mood is cheery and light. Just to make everything absolutely
perfect, there is a little restaurant a few meters away from the band. We
sit down on the terrace and order food. Vicky gets the seafood Quiche and I
get a Pave de Boeuf Au Poivre Vert, that's a fat slab of steak with a
pepper sauce. I eat mine rare. We get a bottle of Rose wine. The food is
fine and we eat while the band plays on.
If I'd tried to plan this it would never have worked out so well.
Everything is happening so smoothly we just can't believe how nicely it is
going. We just smile blissfully at each other almost laughing it's so
great. The band has two drummers. While one plays, the other one sits at a
table near ours. At one point the drummer who is playing launches off into
a wild solo. After a few seconds he stands up, jumps back behind his stool
and strikes it a few times with his sticks then hops back a bit and
continues on the cobblestones ! He is beating a completely frantic rhythm
on everything he can reach. He tries to play a bit on a glass he was
drinking out of but the glass explodes, he moves along the ground doubled
up, drums up along a drainpipe, moves onto the bars across a window, passes
onto the cases he stows his drum kit in, back on the ground, follows just
behind a couple walking past the band, loops back, beats a bit on a
delighted little boy's bicycle, reaches the restaurant tables, beats on
them and the ashtrays resting on them, moves to the table where his drummer
friend is sat and passes him the sticks. The crowd applauds the first
drummer loudly, whistles and shouts. The second drummer retraces his
friend's tracks back to the drum set, the beat never slowing. Everyone in
the crowd is amazed at the wildness and dexterity of these two men who are
having a wild time fooling around. The drummer finally sits down at the
drum set and continues a solo that the first one had started off. The crowd
applauds again. The drummer calls his friend back who grabs another pair of
drumsticks and starts playing on the same set ! We have two drummers
beating away like madmen on one set of drums ! The one which had been
sitting on the stool stands up and starts running around the drums. The
other one follows in hot pursuit, they keep on drumming as they run around
the drums, hitting anything they go by in an incessant and seamless rhythm.
The one who started all this off finally sits down again after having stood
up at least five minutes ago. Another noisy round of applause from the
crowd. The rest of the band finally pick up again and the people in the
courtyard can catch their breaths again.
We finish our meal, pay and go back over our tracks because I forgot to
show Vicky the
Place Des Vosges. We cross and exit the place by the
north-west corner and bump into a crowd. This is the more common face of
the Fete De La Musique : huge crowds of people pushing and shoving,
terrible bands all playing the same old covers of the same old Legends of
Rock. The concept of the Fete is great, every little band can come and set
up in the street to perform and have a good time. Sadly, bands playing
anything interesting are far and few between. One year I actually did see a
choir of at least fifty people who just walked around and would stop at a
street corner when they felt like it and started singing beautiful hymns.
Another year I saw a string formation counting about a dozen musicians play
some superb music on a little square.
I'll stop being dull right now and keep on with our stroll ! We go back
onto the rue de Rivoli, walk along to St Paul and turn towards the Seine.
On the pavement along the riverside we walk past some book merchants who
sell anything from cheap paperbacks to collection items. I spot two
space-opera type comic strips which are out of print and buy them. We keep
on walking and cross a bridge over to the Ile St Louis. It's starting to
rain so I deploy my massive umbrella. The rain is coming down in torrents,
everyone is running for shelter. The musicians have to pack up their
instruments and scarper. We cross the bridge between Ile St Louis and Ile
De La Cite and enter the little park at the back of
Notre Dame cathedral.
This is a good way to approach the church. I usually would arrive in front
of it by the square (the Parvis De Notre Dame), enter, visit the inside and
walk away forgetting completely about the flanks of the cathedral on the
outside. This time I pay much more attention to the finely balanced and
proportioned masonry supporting the sides. The buttresses enable the walls
to be lighter, therefore allowing for larger windows than those churches
with no buttresses. What is incredible is that this impressive piece of
architecture was built during the 12th century !
We join a crowd of people entering the church. The place is packed, the
rain has driven hundreds of people inside. We walk around the church with
our heads tilted all the way back to admire the high ceiling and the huge
circular stained glass windows. Vicky is positively baffled at the beauty
of our surroundings and it surprises me again how expressive her face can
be. I snap away from the spell that comes over me when I look at her and
shift my attention back to a chapel and the statue of the saint that
inhabits it. After a while we go back out and head towards Hotel De Ville.
The
Hotel De Ville is the central town hall of Paris. It is a superb
building built in white stone with high windows and covered with sculptures
of beasts and human figures. The building has a steep sloped black slate
roof with a multitude of sculpted chimney stacks protruding from it. It is
in fact a palace with huge board rooms full of tapestries, golden leafed
furniture, sculptures, and paintings on every single wall. When the people
beheaded the king in 1789 the new political figures just moved in and took
their place, benefiting from the same extravagant lifestyle as those they
had replaced. To this day, nothing has changed : the French just elect
their king now.
We're feeling a little thirsty now so I take us to Chez Richard. We leaf
through my comic books for a while, drinking beer. I finally manage to get
through to Hafid who's been out all day. He tells me to come around to his
place as soon as possible. We take off and go to Place Voltaire on the
Metro and join him at home where there's a bunch of people having a drink.
Fred the DJ is there. Sabine, Hafid's girlfriend, is there. We drink wine
and talk about all sorts of things and get up to date on each other's news.
I do my best to avoid Vicky getting too left out but she insists that it's
fine. Bruno, one of the other people I only know vaguely, can speak a bit
of English but which isn't quite enough for a real conversation. Vicky and
I decide to go to a Moroccan restaurant nearby while the others go and hook
up with another group of people in a bar somewhere.
The Moroccan restaurant is made out like the place is in a soukh. There are
baskets and various types of containers hanging off the walls. Tresses of
dried chili peppers and other things are hanging off the beams and posts.
Arab style ornaments can be seen everywhere. We're not in Paris, we're in
Marakesh. We both order a Tajine. I have a lamb, prune and almond Tajine
and Vicky has the chicken and veg one. We drink a bottle of Gris de
Gerouanne, a Moroccan wine. By the time we've finished eating we're feeling
quite tired and decide to go back to the flat. Unfortunately we miss the
last Metro and have to walk about a mile to the flat. Christelle is all for
going out to some night-club or a bar somewhere. We chat for a while,
trying to make our minds up but Vicky and I decide we're too tired from
lack of sleep and all the walking we've done and we go to bed.
We wake at something like 11 on Sunday morning, the sun is out. Christelle
comes with us for breakfast at the Piston Pelican. I introduce Jacques
Gerard to Christelle and we all talk about unimportant things in the peace
of the cafe. Realising that Christelle works in a bar J.G. offers her to do
some extras in his place. They agree to talk about it more seriously.
Christelle is not very happy with the working conditions at the place she
works currently and is very interested by the offer. We finally manage to
drag ourselves out of there. Had we not had plans to go and see places we
could well have stayed there a lot longer. Christelle goes back to the flat
while Vicky and I go and take the Metro to Place de l'Etoile.
We go up to the street by an exit on Avenue De La Grande Armee which is on
the opposite side from the
Champs Elysees.
There are hardly any tourists on
this side (as if this side of the
Arc De Triomphe was just a blank brick
wall). We go all around to the Champs Elysees and use the pedestrian access
tunnel to get to the middle of the roundabout at the foot of the Arc.We
traipse around the base for a while. A flash shower passes overhead and we
get a bit wet. More clouds are looming up behind that one, damn, I forgot
the umbrella. We set off down Avenue d'Iena towards the Tour Eiffel.
There's nothing much to see along the way. The buildings look rich but they
represent no artistic feat. It starts raining. We stop underneath a bus
shelter for a moment while the rain comes pounding down. When it eases off
a bit we scarper off to Place Du Trocadero. We go to a cafe I know has the
best view on the tower and sit on the terrace under the awning. We order
two double espressos which we are charged something like 60 francs for !
Hey, that's the price you pay for a view like that on the terrace of a posh
cafe. Anyway, I always knew I'd splash loads of money in Paris.
The rain stops and we walk around the Place to the Trocadero itself. We
start walking across it towards the stairs down to the river and see a
performer get ready for his show. We stop to watch. The guy performs
acrobatics on a bike. People generally think of BMX bicycles when
acrobatics and bikes are mentioned. In fact, this discipline has existed
for at least a century and was created in France ! The bicycle has the
proportions of a racer but is special in the fact that the front sprocket
is the same size as the back sprocket and that you can pedal backwards. The
sport was all the rage with young aristocrats last century. It was part of
the things every young man did to keep fit along with cane fencing (yes!)
and good old athletics. There are still a few schools surviving somewhere
which teach the art. People use these bicycles to play Football and do
acrobatics. I'm not joking when I say football, they pedal around
frantically after a ball which they can control with any part of the bike
but that they must not touch with their bodies. This guy gives us a display
of his abilities. In fact it's his acting which makes most of the show.
He's quite a laugh in the way he interacts with the crowd and the way he
fools around. I'm sad to say for the respectable old disciplin but BMX
free-style is a lot more versatile than this. Anyway I put ten francs in
his hat when he's done.
We walk down the stairs to the level of the fountains then on to the river.
We cross the Pont d'Iena and arrive beneath the
Tour Eiffel. An enormous
display board has been fixed to the tower across its entire width just
below the first level. Its a countdown of the number of days left before
the year two thousand. We look at the queues to the lifts and decide we
can't be bothered to wait an hour to get up the tower. We zigzag around
with our heads thrown back looking at the tower from underneath then lie on
the gravel at the point we guess is the middle of its base. We take a
couple of pictures then go to call Christelle. We're not going to have
enough time to go back to her place to get our bags then go and eat before
our train leaves so Christelle offers to bring us our stuff. That's what I
call a friend.
A bit later we're at the Metro station Bonne Nouvelle (literally "Good
News"). We're really hungry so I offer to go and get us a crepe (pancake)
to keep us going until we eat. I get two sugar and lemon crepes from a
stall on rue Montmartre. Meanwhile Vicky goes to buy some tobacco and
rolling paper from a 'tabac' across the street. We sit down inside the cafe
we've agreed to meet Christelle and Alex and look around chatting until our
friends join us ten minutes later. They have our bags with them. What a
pair of stars ! We have a quick drink then cross the junction to go to
Chartier on rue Montmartre.
I'd never been here before. We go through the dingy entrance to a
courtyard, through the courtyard to a big revolving door with brass
fittings and walk into a restaurant. The place has a quite strange
atmosphere. The light is peculiar, the space is peculiar. The light is
diffuse and comes from the ceiling which is one gigantic skylight. The
restaurant is one huge rectangular room with a ceiling which is over 4
meters high. There is a mezzanine section in the corner to the left of the
door which overhangs about a quarter of the surface of the whole
restaurant. The tables are set very regularly along two aisles which run
the length of the room. What look like the overhead luggage racks one would
see in a train run along the median line of the room and along the walls at
head height. These ones are made of polished brass and the pillars that
support these racks are topped by clusters of globe lights (again!). The
walls are covered with wood panels which reach halfway up to the ceiling.
This place is at least a century old.
We go up to the mezzanine and sit down. The table top, under the cloth, is
solid stone and the frame it rests on is cast iron. We look at the menu.
The food is pretty straightforward. I have a plate of sauerkraut, Vicky has
a Nicoise salad, ChristeIle has a 'chinese' salad and a side order of king
prawns and Alex has a dish with chicken in it. We drink red wine with our
meal. It's a bit disorienting, it doesn't feel like we're in Paris inside
this place. There is a quietness about the place which seems to come with
the light. Maybe it's the fact that the place hasn't changed at all since
it has been built. It may even have to do with the fact the place is
removed from the street.
After we've finished eating Vicky and I have to run for the train. We say
goodbye and thanks in front of the Metro staircase and leave. Back on the
train I feel like a diver who has gone down deep and needs to return to the
surface progressively. Three hours will be just about enough time to avoid
the shock of getting back to London from being too uncomfortable. What
compensates this slight downer is that the memory of these two days is
going to stay with me for a long time. Yeah, Paris is the romantic city !
End of the 3rd and final part
Michael O'Shea, lived in
Paris for 7 years between October 1989 and April 1996 - roughly a third
of the 20 years he has lived in France. When he moved from Strasbourg,
he went to Paris pretty much as any other provincial going to the city.
Although he is not French by nationality,
he is in almost every other way, with a French
education, French body language and spoken French sans accent.
He currently lives in London.
