Paris Journal 2014 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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I adore you people who read this journal. Hugs and kisses to all of you, especially those who click “like” on my Facebook posts! Today is devoted to responding to some of your comments and questions. Cynthia asks why I don’t swim at any of the many pools in Paris. I am a long distance swimmer, you see, and when I’m on Sanibel Island I swim two kilometers a day. The answer to her question is twofold: 1) Swimming here just isn’t the same thing as swimming on Sanibel Island, and 2) a break from swimming is good for the body. That’s a little oversimplified, so let me elaborate. Swimming is not just exercise for me; it is meditation. Getting ready to swim and simply strolling a short distance down the street to the community pool is very easy. There is no changing at the pool, and there are no locker rooms to deal with. There are few, if any, other people at the pool. People who are there usually are calm and quiet. The pool is not covered or caged. Since half the time I’m swimming backstroke, that means I look at the sky while swimming; the south Florida sky, with all its birds and dramatic clouds, is glorious. The pool there is surrounded by native south Florida vegetation. As long as nobody’s grandchildren are at the pool, it is a serene, peaceful experience to swim there. If someone’s grandchildren are there and they are loud and obnoxious, all I have to do is wait for a while, or try the other community pool. (Our blessed neighborhood has two of them.) An urban, indoor pool (or even the couple of uncovered outdoor pools in Paris) is a whole different experience. It may be interesting, and the exercise may be just as good, but it is not serene. There are also many more chemicals in such a pool, because more people are using it. Even at the Sanibel Recreation Center’s fine pool, the ambiance is not serene. When you swim like I do, and there are other lap swimmers nearby, some of them just have to be all competitive. I hate that; competitive vibes ruin serenity. I’m powerful, but I’m not there to race anyone. Secondarily, any athlete knows that it is good to take a break from one’s typical workout and do something else. Here, in Paris, we walk more; in summer, the weather in Sanibel is not conducive to walking. Even with the dinners at all these French restaurants, I typically lose a few to several pounds each summer. That’s because swimming makes my muscles bulkier. Walking without swimming does the opposite. That’s how it works for me, anyway. I follow the news about the various swimming pools in Paris. There have been problems with several of them, mostly related to their age and the fact that so many people use them. One of the great pool facilities that went into disrepair and disuse for a while is the Piscines Molitor, over on the Right Bank. I read a blogger’s article recently about the rebirth of this pool complex as part of an Accor art deco hotel and private club. Tom and I plan to go there for lunch (I heard it is possible to have a table near one of the pools) sometime, to check it out. The blogger also said that the outdoor pool is populated by thin, tan people wearing bikinis who are there to be seen. That environment is not too good for a long-distance lap swimmer who seeks serenity. But it would be fine for lunch ambiance! What scenery it would be . . . . A couple of friends also commented on a recent New York Times article about a guy who plans to bring a swish group of shops (upscale baker, butcher, produce vendor, etc.) to the rue du Vertbois in the 3rd arrondissement. Or, in the words of the NYTimes reporter, he proposes stores “peddling high-concept foods from mod spaces using biological products sourced only from French farmers.” Some people in the area criticize his plans, calling them “gentrification” which will make the area unaffordable to current occupants. What I said to one of my reader-friends was, “We were in this area recently, and I'd say it needs this project. It needs the jobs, it needs the investment, and it needs these kinds of businesses. That neighborhood needs this for diversity's sake; it is at risk of turning into a slum.” Put simply, a neighborhood without a really good fromagerie nearby is not attractive to middle- and upper-middle-class Parisians. One of Paris’s best attributes has almost always been that in almost all neighborhoods, you can find all classes of people. But when a neighborhood becomes too swish, or too slum-like, it is not so good – and, I’d argue, it is not so Parisian. It’s all about balance – or equilibrium, as the French would say. When I lived in a city in Ohio, I deliberately chose to live in the inner-city and to work toward enhancing historic districts in the urban core because those districts were the only things keeping any middle-class people in the middle of the city. Without the historic districts, the urban core would have turned entirely slum. A few decried the districts as “gentrification,” but I heartily disagreed. The middle-class folks there were hardly gentry; they’d work hard all day, and then come home and work on restoring their old houses. Not gentry at all. And it was all about balance. Something had to be done about the racist white flight to the suburbs; cool, urban professionals in their funky and quaint historic districts were the answer. These were far from gated communities; they were a great and wonderful mixed bag. And that’s one of the things I love about Paris: the great and wonderful mixed bag, almost everywhere we go. For the friends who keep suggesting places for us to go and things for us to see, I say, keep the suggestions coming. But we do have to work, so we won’t get around to doing all that is suggested. Still, I love to hear from you all. We get more work done here than we can in Florida, because we are relatively uninterrupted here. You don’t read much about the work because, quite frankly, I don’t want to bore you. And work is not the subject of this blog. Don’t think of us as being on vacation here; we are not. (Tom’s editor in New York will be pleased to hear this.) Think of us as living here for three months, not travelling, and not sightseeing. Typically, we work most of the day each day, and then go out wandering later in the day. The blog is about living here, and exploring Paris in the afternoons and evenings, and occasionally during the day. Oh, and here was another reader question, about the Berges de Seine pedestrianization project: what did Paris do with all the traffic that used to be on the expressways on the riverbanks? Here’s my answer: You know that saying, “If you build it,
they will come”? I think one could
also say, “If you take it away, they will go away.” In the past couple decades, the City of Paris
gradually chipped and chopped away at the expressways on the riverbanks, so
that when the most recent big pieces of the Berges
de Seine Project were implemented, it didn’t make such a huge impact. Drivers had already been learning other
ways to go. The Berges de
Seine project is only one of many pedestrianization
projects in the city, although it is certainly the biggest one. I know that 17
years ago, our friends who own this apartment kept a car in the parking
garage down the street. But I think
they got rid of the car 13 or 14 years ago – it just wasn’t practical to have
a car in Paris. The same is true in
London and New York, I think, and maybe in some other big cities, too. But of all those big cities, Paris is the
one with the best reputation as a city for walking. So, the pedestrianization
projects here are done with zeal. Yesterday was not such a good day for walking, due to windy rainstorms in the afternoon. But the skies cleared by dinnertime and so we strolled down to Bistro 121, which is always open, even on a Sunday in the middle of August. We had a delicious dinner starting with crab raviolis in a bisque, then grilled swordfish with puréed potatoes for me, and jarret de porc for Tom. Dessert once again was the Bistro’s incomparable profiteroles with their dark, superrich chocolate sauce. August in Paris; life is good.
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Monday, August 11, 2014
Statue
and painting in the Petit Palais’ permanent
collection.
Portrait
of Adolphe Alphand, by
Alfred Roll (1846-1919), also in the Petit Palais
permanent collection. Alphand (1817-1891) worked in collaboration with
Haussmann. He was charged with responsibility
for developing green spaces in Paris.
Starting in 1871, he supervised all the public construction
projects. When the Universal
Exposition of 1889 was planned, he was put in charge of that construction
work as well – the final big project of his career.
Portrait
of Mademoiselle de Lancey by Charles Durand aka Carolus-Duran
(1837-1913). This 1876 painting in the
Petit Palais permanent collection was donated by a member
of the de Lancey family.
Pool
with pink and white rose petals, in the Petit Palais
garden, which is surrounded by the building.
Simply
grilled swordfish in a little pool of melted butter with puréed potatoes and
a few olives, shallots, tomato pieces and chives – at Bistro 121 on the rue
de la Convention. Below, the Bistro’s
wonderful profiteroles.
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