Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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It is that time of year –
August – when it can, especially on Sundays, be a challenge to find what you
want in Paris. Yesterday, the copy center that
was supposed to be open on Saturday afternoon (according to its web site) was
closed. The owners probably are on
vacation. So we went to Telephone pas cher again and were
joyfully assisted by the round little Pakistani man. Once again, the place was a crowded and hot
beehive of activity. Many of the
customers are foreign, and most come in speaking broken English to the little
Pakistani man. This morning, I just spent an
hour walking all around this half of the arrondissement looking for a copy of
Le Parisien Dimanche. I failed in my quest. I only found one newsstand
open, and of course it was sold out of Le
Parisien. If I were searching for a
baguette, it would have been much easier.
That’s due to a law that was passed in 1790, after the Revolution. The government wanted to be
sure that there would always be bread available in the capital. Bread, back then, was the basis of the
French diet. And even back then,
middle-class Parisians liked to all go on vacation at the same time, in
August. Bakers are all middle-class
Parisians, so the government had to act to be sure there would not be a
famine in August in the capital city, where hungry masses might once again
overthrow the government. Together, the government and
the professional association for bakers decide, street by street, every year,
which bakers may go on vacation in July, and which may go in August. The individual bakers themselves have no
say. They just take their assigned
vacation time and go. Well, they can try to have a little bit of say in the
matter. If they really want a change
from their assigned vacation time, they can file “dérogations.” A baker may or
may not have their request granted, depending on whether or not their absence
will cause a neighborhood to be deprived of bread. If they close for vacation
anyway, without an authorized dérogation,
they can be fined anywhere from 11 to 33 euros per day. Fourteen bakeries
were fined last summer. These days, some bakers are not
taking any vacation at all. That’s
because they are afraid that if they close, their customers will get used to pain industriel (ordinary bread that
one buys in the grocery store) rather than their pain artisanale. The bakeries that close
properly will have a polite sign posted in the front window or on the metal
security curtain. It will explain to
dear customers that they are sorry, but they are closed for vacation, and it
will give the addresses of the two nearest bakeries that are open. I think the newsstands try to
coordinate their open and closed times, but they apparently are not so
strictly regulated. Another August phenomenon Paris
is free parking, almost everywhere except in the very center of the city, the
touristic hot spots, and intensively commercial areas. If you’re not sure whether
you’re parking in an August free zone or not, you press the yellow button on
the closest parking horodateur and
if the screen says “stationnement
gratuit,” you don’t have to pay the horodateur. You may leave your car parked there for up
to a whole week. I find it much easier to have
no car whatsoever. For three months of
each year, while we are here in Europe, we do not drive cars. That must take something off of our carbon
footprint. August is also the time for yet
another cursed exhibition glorifying graffiti artists. This one is called “Art Urbain” and it is
on rue de Ménilmontant in the not-so-nice 20th
arrondissement. Even if some of these
artists are very talented, the presence of their graffiti just invites more
graffiti. The total effect of all the
graffiti is detrimental to the neighborhood.
Graffiti is one of the the last things the 20th
arrondissement needs. So I won’t be
going to that show. August brings the beginning of
the banning of vehicular traffic on the boulevard de Charonne as part of the
expanding “Paris Breathes” project. As
far as I can tell, up until now the “Paris Breathes” project has been very
successful and fairly well received as a way to makes the city more
pedestrian friendly and cleaner. But
the boulevard de Charonne, which forms a border between the 11th
and 20th arrondissements, is also home to one of the many open-air markets
in the city. The closing of the
street to vehicular traffic may be hurting business at the market too
much. We shall see if this part of the
project sticks or not. August has also brought Dan’s
and Mary’s departure from Paris. They
had three weeks of glorious weather for exploring the city. We had a last-dinner-of-the-summer with
them at the Commerce brasserie last night, where the food was good but the
service was deranged. This year, we decided to act like
Parisians by leaving Paris in August, at least for several days. Tomorrow, we fly to Berlin where we will
explore for five days. We’re taking no
computers, so there will be no Paris journal and no Facebook entries from me
until the end of the week. Cheers! |
Sunday, August 2, 2009
This garden wall facing the street on the rue Verneuil
in the 7th arrondissement is covered with graffiti (above and
below). In this area, this is a most
unusual sight, and I think the neighbors are not amused.
This Henri de Bourbon was born the illegitimate child
of King Henry the Fourth and his mistress, Catherine Henriette de Balzac
d’Entragues. Even though illegitimate,
he was born at the Chateau of Vincennes, and he was “declared legitimate” at
age two. He was made duke of Verneuil
in 1663, and became ambassador to England in 1665.
Bamboo in the garden designed by Gilles Clément at the
Musée du Quai Branly. |
