we'll always have paris.
i went to barnes and nobles when it reopened for the first time after the storm a few weeks ago. mmm. it was nice to have barnes and nobles back. no older gentlemen approaching me at the new fiction table. it just felt good.
i picked up this book from the new paperback fiction table because i was struck by the name. we'll always have paris. obviously i thought about brett and the promise i made to him that i would one day see paris with him. that was our phrase, borrowed from the movie, casablanca (which i'm ashamed to say i've never seen). i bought the book. it's by an australian writer who dropped everything to move to paris to follow a woman that he had fallen for. (romantic, much?) and then wrote about it.
he writes like i write. very stream of consciencness. he'll start a chapter by telling me about a move to a new apartment in paris. and in the next 10 to 15 pages will talk about the buildings, the street, the cafes in the arrondisment - who once walked there, who once ate there, who once passed out there. the writers, the artists, the love affairs, the vices. along the way, he takes you back to the paris of the 20s and 30s.
i've never been to paris, but if it is ANYthing like this book describes, i know i'm going to be a sponge when i go.
i'm pretty sure i could never pick up and move to paris. (not like i could pickup and live in england, anyway.) i don't think i could get completely used to the lifestyle, the people, or the politics. the culture, yes.
i realized though that the reason i am absorbed by this book is because i do live in this paris that he describes. kinda.
saturday night, after the french quarter fest, we wandered around the quarter looking for a place to sit and watch the election results come in.
(honestly. i don't think you could find that anywhere else. half a city watching the news in bars. i couldn't make that up if i tried. we live in a city where we live below sea level, we eat crawfish, and we treat a mayoral race like a sporting event.)
we duck into this bar called "sidebar" (cute, right?) tiny place. we didn't stay because there was no place to sit down. but on the walls there were old pictures, the lighting was subdued, people were talking to the people at the next table (despite political convictions). there was a side alley that looked like the one vangogh had painted in his "cafe terrance at arles" we walked up to bourbon street, but that wasn't where we wanted to be. we walked back to a few dimly lit, old school, new orleans niches. i was reminded of the bar thats in pirate's alley. right next to st. louis cathedral and this great used bookstore called "the faulkner house" (appropriately named - william faulkner actually lived there. they have a vintage absinthe advertisment with vangogh's self-portrait on it (ironically, the selfportrait done AFTER he cut off his ear. be careful with the green fairy, vince)
an article right after katrina in the weekly standard mentioned this very nook in a litany of places - some of which we discovered and talked about that night... "
"Or if you've ever downed Pimm's cups and oyster Po' Boys at Napoleon House on Chartres, one of the most hospitable places on the planet to kill an evening. Or if you've ever pulled an all-nighter in Pirate's Alley off Jackson Square, with fantasists in buccaneer shirts clanking their broadswords after dipping too deeply into the bourbon."
john baxter has his paris. i have my new orleans.
i picked up this book from the new paperback fiction table because i was struck by the name. we'll always have paris. obviously i thought about brett and the promise i made to him that i would one day see paris with him. that was our phrase, borrowed from the movie, casablanca (which i'm ashamed to say i've never seen). i bought the book. it's by an australian writer who dropped everything to move to paris to follow a woman that he had fallen for. (romantic, much?) and then wrote about it.
he writes like i write. very stream of consciencness. he'll start a chapter by telling me about a move to a new apartment in paris. and in the next 10 to 15 pages will talk about the buildings, the street, the cafes in the arrondisment - who once walked there, who once ate there, who once passed out there. the writers, the artists, the love affairs, the vices. along the way, he takes you back to the paris of the 20s and 30s.
i've never been to paris, but if it is ANYthing like this book describes, i know i'm going to be a sponge when i go.
i'm pretty sure i could never pick up and move to paris. (not like i could pickup and live in england, anyway.) i don't think i could get completely used to the lifestyle, the people, or the politics. the culture, yes.
i realized though that the reason i am absorbed by this book is because i do live in this paris that he describes. kinda.
saturday night, after the french quarter fest, we wandered around the quarter looking for a place to sit and watch the election results come in.
(honestly. i don't think you could find that anywhere else. half a city watching the news in bars. i couldn't make that up if i tried. we live in a city where we live below sea level, we eat crawfish, and we treat a mayoral race like a sporting event.)
we duck into this bar called "sidebar" (cute, right?) tiny place. we didn't stay because there was no place to sit down. but on the walls there were old pictures, the lighting was subdued, people were talking to the people at the next table (despite political convictions). there was a side alley that looked like the one vangogh had painted in his "cafe terrance at arles" we walked up to bourbon street, but that wasn't where we wanted to be. we walked back to a few dimly lit, old school, new orleans niches. i was reminded of the bar thats in pirate's alley. right next to st. louis cathedral and this great used bookstore called "the faulkner house" (appropriately named - william faulkner actually lived there. they have a vintage absinthe advertisment with vangogh's self-portrait on it (ironically, the selfportrait done AFTER he cut off his ear. be careful with the green fairy, vince)
an article right after katrina in the weekly standard mentioned this very nook in a litany of places - some of which we discovered and talked about that night... "
"Or if you've ever downed Pimm's cups and oyster Po' Boys at Napoleon House on Chartres, one of the most hospitable places on the planet to kill an evening. Or if you've ever pulled an all-nighter in Pirate's Alley off Jackson Square, with fantasists in buccaneer shirts clanking their broadswords after dipping too deeply into the bourbon."
john baxter has his paris. i have my new orleans.
posted by Catherine at 12:17 AM
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