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The
monument on the grave of Bartholdi, the sculptor who
Madonna
and child on a building on the rue Cassette, near |
Monday, September 17 The Institut de France did open its doors to us and the
rest of the public but they only let us see the more public areas. Tom had wanted to see where the immortals
sit, but those meeting rooms were off limits.
We did see a video that showed us those rooms, however, as well as a
number of properties throughout Elisabeth and Ron went with us. That made the trip a lot of fun. Ron knows a lot about architecture, and so he
had some interesting comments to make.
Elisabeth knows French, has lived in It was a stunningly beautiful day yesterday. After leaving the Institut, we all walked
up the After lunch, we walked back to our neighborhood along
the boulevard. Tom suddenly remembered
that the workshops for the restoration of St. Sulpice were open for Patrimony
Days, so we went there and saw how they are making lots of new carved stone
pillars, capitals, cornices, statues, etc. for the church’s north tower. After a while, the bright sunshine was more
than I could take, so I went into the dark, forboding St. Sulpice (remember The DaVinci Code) to sit and listen to
an organ restoration specialist talk about his work and about organs in
general. It was fascinating. What was even more fascinating was the
crowd of people listening with me.
They had the most serious, instense looks of concentration on their
faces. I learned some things about organs. As the temperature rises, the pitch of the
organ rises. For this reason, and
because organs are so darned loud, they cannot be used as part of an
orchestra. In the heat wave of 2003,
the organs of Sheep from a hundred years ago had different skin
characteristics from today’s sheep, so when replacing sheepskin in parts of
the organ, this can cause complications.
Some more modern materials can be used to repair or replace certain
parts; when it is called for, even plastic can be used. (This statement caused mutterings in the
crowd, and one man even shouted out in horror – NO! he said, griefstricken at
the thought of plastic in an organ part.) Each organ has its own “temperament.” When the small lady in front of me asked
our talkative young restoration specialist what he thought of the temperament
of the organ at St. Gervais (near the Hotel de Ville), he begged off the
question, explaining that he doesn’t play the organ as much as his
colleague. He asked his colleague, who
is older and more experienced, to say what he thought was the temperament of
the St. Gervais organ. The colleague
answered, “Less and less.” That
brought some giggles from the crowd.
The lady who had asked the question smiled broadly. I think she had played that organ once. The older colleague then said something to
the effect that the problem with that organ at St. Gervais might have
something more to do with whoever plays it regularly, and that made the lady
smile even more. I think she wants the
job currently held by the organist at St. Gervais. Tom finally came to find me. He listened for a while, too, and then we
went back to the apartment for a bit of a rest. We went out again to find dinner,
determined to try Le Cherche Midi, a restaurant we’ve noticed because it is
always crowded. We tried to call for a
reservation, but the staff had left the phone off the hook so they could eat
in peace before the crowd arrived. So
we just went there, arriving at 5 minutes before 8, and the staff was still
eating. A few other people waited with
us, on the sidewalk in front of the shop next door. The Chef appeared at the door and belted out a couple
bars of the Hallelujah chorus. When he
stopped, I sang the next couple bars.
He didn’t seem surprised at all.
Tom said I sounded much better than he did. I must say, it is fun to hear your voice
ricochet off the walls of the stone buildings on a Tom had seen a couple mentions of celebrities visiting
this restaurant. Maybe that is what
attracts the crowd to this tiny Italian resto, but I’ll tell you, it
certainly is not the food. The meal
was magnificently mediocre. Oh, I’ll
say a couple good things about it: the
bread was good (probably from the nearby Poilane bakery), the restaurant is
entirely non-smoking, and Tom’s veal was good. But his veal dish was too skimpy – and we
are NOT people who like large servings at all. His broccoli was overcooked. The antipasti dish was bland as could be. My main course was a ravioli, and it was
okay, not great, and the tomato sauce was okay, but not finished yet. It needed to cook for another hour or
so. I can make a better tomato sauce
any day of the week, and I’m no chef. The couple sitting behind Tom (who looked like
celebrities) were served pasta that really requires a spoon in order to eat
with any delicacy at all. But no large
spoons were provided for twirling the pasta.
The long strands of tagliatelli and spaghetti were all stuck together,
too, and it did not look very appetizing when madame had to work away with
her fork to separate the glob of pasta into something that could be consumed. The servers were mightily obnoxious. When our server removed my plate he asked
me how it was. I avoided his eyes, did
not smile, and I said it was okay, with a slight shrug of my shoulders. He got the message. We decided not to reward the place by ordering dessert
or coffee. The barman had seen me
making notes now and then during dinner, and so he tried to be especially
nice when he wished us a good evening at the end of the dinner, but it did
not work. I smiled and said a pleasant
thank you and goodbye to him, but I will not, under any circumstances,
recommend this restaurant to anyone (unless I don’t like them, that is). Ah, that felt good.
While I’m being negative, I’ll complain, too, about the newspaper
kiosque on the Now today we are waiting for a FedEx package from WW
Norton, which probably won’t come until tomorrow. I think we’ll give up at noon and go to the
Salon de Collectionneur for an afternoon of looking at beautiful things. |
