Walker's Paradise

I suppose the only reason to create a list like this one is to start an argument, but on the whole, I'd say that this particular instance is actually pretty anodyne. Still, if the second best walk in San Francisco is the Financial District, we are on notice with a scandalous truth--that is: San Francisco, whatever its charms, is not that-all great a walker's city. Okay: some of the neighborhoods have their charm, but they tend to be isolated, a bit hard to access, and on the whole not as exciting or charming as you might guess for all the hype (and let's not talk about hills). Market Street is a slum, and if you must have a slum, there is a far more interesting slum on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley across the Bay (even without Cody's). Indeed, it's hard to think of any American city--okay, I will grant you Manhattan--that has the persistent seductive appeal of Rome (my #1) or Paris (#2) or Prague (#3) or Florence (#4)--at least if you find those moments when they are not inundated with others such as yourself trying to enjoy their walker-charms.

Nice to see Portland so justly well represented, although I never realized before that this is called "Hosford" (if it is). Years ago, one of my students (an ex-Reedie) pointed out that Portland was one of the best cities in America to be poor in. After the depredations of a generation of high-tech wealth, this insight surely isn't as true as it used to be. Still, I'd say Portland persists in conveying more in the way of scruffy, grass-roots elegance than any other city in America.

Appreciation: Malcolm Cowley on Paris

“This book is the story to 1930 of what used to be called the lost generation of American writers.” So begins the prologue to Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920’s, by Malcolm Cowley. On the cover of the Penguin Paperback edition, you find a picture of the Pont Marie bridging the Île Saint-Louis to the Marais in Paris.

From this sort of evidence, you might infer that the book is about “the Lost Generation”—about Gertrude and Alice, and Hem and Ezra, and Sylvia Beach and Kay Boyle and all those Americans who fled from their American homes to hang out after World War I in Gay Paree.

You’d be disappointed. Granted that Paris and the losties do play a role in this memoir, still that role is a lot smaller than you might expect. What you have instead is an autobiographical account, necessarily idiosyncratic, of one person’s sojourn from Western Pennsylvania to Paris—and then back again to New York and Connecticut, during which time he read a lot, hung out with some famous and not-so-famous writers, and generally tried to make sense of his life.

What saves the book is Cowley’s extraordinary shrewd capacity as in observer—so remarkable you can only wish he offered more. He’s got about the best two-or-three page summaries showing why Joyce and Pound are important—and why Pound is not—as you’re likely to find. He offers equally wise and often funny insights into his friends and other strugglers trying to figure out a way to make a living while making a life. And he has some instructive thoughts on Paris itself: unlike so many who have written about Paris in the 20s, he seems to have a sense of history, and a capacity to put he 20s in context as an episode in a long tradition. He speaks, for example, of

…the Paris of the international revelers and refugees. … the crazy Paris which, to its own people, seemed the innermost city; in truth it was the outmost and the youngest. It was not the Paris of Villon or Cyrano or Rameau’s famous nephew, who were wastrels too, but in a different fashion. It was a Paris that began to flourish under the Second Empire, when the landlords and suddenly enriched speculators of all Europe came flocking toward a world capital where they could spend their profits and be ostentatious in their vice. From year to year this Paris became more feverish and gilded—but there was a time after Louis Napoleon fell when it suddenly ceased to exist. “Wonderful indeed,” wrote Karl Marx in 1871, “was the change the Commune had wrought!” …

But this was only an interlude. Soon the police and its Conservative friends reoccupied Paris, after executing thirty thousand of its inhabitants. Son the burglaries began again; soon the wealthy exiles reappeared on the boulevards; and for half a century their special city continued to grow.

Its population, however, had changed since the World War. The Russians still formed part of it, but they no longer had any ex-serfs to provide them with incomes—the Irish absentees had disappeared, after losing most of their estates—the British landlords, with heavier taxes to pay, were living at home—the Southern ex-slaveholders were dead and their descendants had joined the middle classes. Their places in the international set had been taken by the sons and daughters of Northern bankers, by Swedish match kings, by Spanish grandees—and also by strange new people, Chinese mandarins and war lords, Egyptian cotton growers, Indian maharanees, even a sprinkling of Negro kings from Senegal Their places were also taken by a few French nobles … [A]ll these people had this in common, that they lived at a great distance from their sources of revenue; that their money came to them, not smelling of blood, sweat and the soil, but in the shape of clean paper readily transformable into champagne and love. They were spending it faster and faster, but also more aimlessly. In everything they did there was now an air of uncertainty and strain. Something, the war, the Russian Revolution, had given them a sense that their order was crumbling and that they belonged to a dying world.

—Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return 262-5 (Penguin ed. 1994)

Et in Akkadia Ego

It's too late to do anybody any good, but I can't resist offering a word about the Louvre's “Babylon” show, which closes June 2.

In one sense, it is a marvel, something that perhaps only the Louvre (or perhaps the Shiekhdom of Dubai) could bring off. The core is any array of objects from the Ancient Mesopotamian, spanning the millennia from 2000 to the time of Alexander the Great. They're intelligently displayed with a lot of helpful commentary (although too much of it has to be in the vein of “we have no idea.”) The space is pretty tight for the crowds it handles, but that is perhaps inevitable any more with any blockbuster show.

But all this undoubted achievement is shadowed over by two kinds of marketing hype.

One is the very idea of “Babylon”--as if the near 2000-year span represents one civilization, even if in one place. The designers themselves seem to have a bit of a guilty conscience—they gloss over the 900-pound gorilla of Assyria which inserts itself in between the two separate and discontinuous Babylonian hegemonies.

The other is a bit more devilish. The Babylonian collection itself,though stunning, is fairly small—one long room. Evidently the marketers told them they couldn't mount blockbuster show on so small a res. So the planners fleshed it out with another corridor, devoted to cultural responses to Babylon. The fulcrum here is the Biblical book of Revelations, represented by an impressive array of illustrated manuscripts; then other stuff down throw the ages, including a Brueghel Babel, a Blake drawing of Nebuchadnezzar as he becomes a beast, and even a bit of D.W. Griffiths film.

This is all good fun and some of it is first-rate stuff, although hardly as stunning as the first part. The trouble is that the relation between the two is only notional. The author of Revelations himself can hardly have known anything about the “real” Babylon, except as filtered through a highly stylized Biblical tradition, already several hundred years old. Everything else is even farther removed.

It seemed to me that the crowd thinned out pretty fast after the first cramped but brilliant corridor. Can hardly blame them. There is only so much culture you can take in a day, and after the ancient finds, the second batch seemed like something of an afterthought.

No Wonder the Grass is so Green

Overheard in Paris:

--SHE: Oh look, there's a sign for the Tuileries.
--HE: That's "toilettes."

Compassionate Tourist Advice of the Moment

There is a clean, free, restroom in the basement of Louvre Antiques, across the street from the Louvre (link)--Louvre Antiques, which may also be the most overpriced junk shop on the planet. Look for the maps, and locate the yellow (lower) level.

Snooty French Service

A word about snooty French service: it's gone, or almost. With one exception (infra), every server I've met here has been cheerful, helpful and polite. My only complaint is that they all seem to speak English, so I don't get a chance to practice my dreadful French. Or if the server doesn't, the guy behind you in line does, and will chime in to help.

Only exception: the five-star Pigonnet Hotel in Aix-en-Provence, where they were mostly sullen and passive aggressive in the old-fashioned way. I was loudly American in the old-fashioned way, which didn't help.

Otherwise--hey, the guy who serves me my espresso in the morning flashed me a smile of recognition when I came back on the second day, and said "au revoir" when I left. What kind of country is that?

The Neil Diamond Effect Hits the Columbian Guerilla Movement

Paris newspapers are giving a lot of ink to the death of a leader of FARC, the Columbian guerilla group. More about just why in a moment, but first I want to pay attention to the new FARC leader, as described in this morning's edition of Metro: "Un 'Intello' prend la tête de Farc"--an "intello" (sic?) takes the helm at FARC.

His name is Alfonso Canon. Metro says he "is an intellectual communist, considered the ideologue and the strategist of the movement." He's 59; he studied anthropology and law after entering the university in 1968.

Excuse me, but isn't this an instance of the Neil Diamond effect coming to the land of revolution--another tired old guy famous for showing up, still fresh in the memories of other tired old guys who grew up with him? Maybe they could book him with the Kingston Trio, on PBS.

And by the way, why do the French care? The answer is Ingrid Betancourt. You've forgotten Ingrid? The French have not. She is a sometimes Columbian politician and anti-corruption activist, kidnapped and held captive by FARC since 2002. Turns out she is a French citizen (via marriage); the French government has been working to effect her release. Her picture is on poster in front of the Hôtel de Ville.

Champs-Élysées Watch

Ladurée, the high-end French candy store, and McDonald's, the American purveyor of salt and fat,are catty-corner across from each other on the Champs-Élysées. But if you go into McDonald's, tourists do not press their cameras against the window to take your picture.

Senegali Hawkers

You know the Senegali street hawkers who have populated the tourist sites of Europe for the past generation? And you know they are apparently from some sort of Muslim sect whose doctrine seems to center on the sale of tchatchkis to visting Americans? I first saw them outside the Louvre in the 70s. They'd work in a team; one would stand lookout while the other spread out his picnic cloth. He'd peddle until the watch yelled a warning; then he'd grab it all up in a bundle and run away while the police chased--not very enthusiastically, I must say, for I never saw them catch one.

If it is a sect, today I think I discovered the mother church. Its on Rue de Montmorency at the corner of Rue de Temple in the Marais. There are a bunch of "bijouterie fantasie"--costume jewelry?--shops. There's always a gaggle of the Senegalis--okay, maybe they are Ghanans going to and fro, in an out. They've got duffels an wheely carts. They show every signs of being street men back for restocking.

Only two thing puzzle me. One, a lot of these shops seem to be run by Asians--Japanese? Are they part of the action, or am I looking at the wrong shops?

And two--aside from the wholesale district, where are the hawkers? We haven't been back to the Louvre this week but we've been all over the city streets--past Notre Dama half a dozen times--and we have yet to see one of those guys actually out there hawking his wares.

The French and their Kids

I wonder if perhaps the French are at their best with their kids. The Brits bully their kids and the Italians aee bullied by theirs, but the French seem to strike the right note. Last week, we shared an antique archaeological site with flock on a school outing. They were energetic and giggly but why not? They were kids. They were scrambling around to identify particular objects for their worksheet. They were focused and purposeful, but also polite: they would wait their turn, and say "merci" when you stepped out of the way (and not only can the little nippers speak this amazing language, they can read it as well, which never ceases to amaze). Altogether, a design feature, not a bug.

But I do remember some years ago being at a chichi private luncheon party over in the seventh arondissement; midway through the meal, a door flew open and a shadow hurtled past. Quick as a flash, our hostess abandoned her guests to follow. On explanation later, we learned it was the daughter, maybe 20 or 25, just home from the morning of a critical exam; evidently things had not gone well, and the first thing the child wanted to do was to run home to maman.

More on French Food (With a Swipe at California)

I said the other day that Californians don't need to go to France for great food (link). I think I'll revise that: you don't need to go to France for great cooking. But we've been shopping in the street markets for the past few days here in Paris, and I am reminded again of a guilty not-so-secret: California ingredients are not as good as they should be. Granted we are the vegetable basket of the nation, but way too much of our stuff is watery and bland. And it's not just Safeway: in the Palookaville farmer's market, there is really only one guy who consistently delivers the kind of stuff you find every day here in Paris, or, come to think of it, in Florence or Rome (can't say about other places).

It must be doable. There is one great wine bar in Palookaville. I eavesdropped one night while the boss undertook to explain to the new server what a great job she had. "Anybody can whip up a fancy recipe with stuff from the supermarket," he said. "We are the only restaurant in town that takes care about our ingredients." Right enough, and if you take care with the ingredients, you don't need the fancy cooking.

Fn.: just had a super espresso at the brasserie at Rambuteau and Beaubourg, southwest corner.

Great Moments in the Paris Métro

I'm remembering my first trip to Paris back in the 70s. I was in a Métro station out on the Rue de la Convention, looking more or less like a clochard. A cop stopped and asked for my papers I dutifully presented my passport and my carte orange. He asked me how long I had been here. Mustering up my best French, I responded:

Je suis arrivé demain

He snapped a salute and cracked just a glimmer of a smile as he responded: "Bonjour!"---and sent me on my way. It was ten minutes or so before i realized I had told him "I arrived tomorrow."

What Happened to "Let Them Eat Cake"?

Basic French bread—the simple baguette and bâtard—sells for 85 cents euro. In a town where takeaway hot dogs go for five euros and votive candles go for two, that's cheap. The basic product has much to recommend it: crusty and chewy. But it tastes like air, perhaps leavened with just a soupçon of sawdust. And it's not that the French have lost the knack for bread: a lot of the pricier stuff is just wonderful. All of which makes me wonder: do we have some subsidy action going here—some sort of basic lifeline that goes back to a time when bread was, oh, say, 85 percent of their income on food?

[Uh, 85 percent? Actually, I have no idea. I'm sure it was a lot higher than today, but exactly how high is above my pay grade—and in any event, I suspect subject to controversy.]

Any Day Above Ground is a Good Day

Birthday dinner last night with Mrs. B's buddy and husband---if by "dinner" you mean salad and cheese and paté and Champagne. We were all in a merry mood and why not? It's Paris in the spring.

But more than that--for some reason or other, we had the good luck to be aware of our good luck. We're all in our 60s or 70s surprised, nay flabbergasted, to be prosperous and in good health and, yes, still alive.

I believe Epicurus says that the right attitude towards the end of life is gratitude. And if you aren't grateful, he adds, why would you want life to go on anyway? And he says that one of the marks of a good life is sharing a meal with good friends.

Spring Sunday in Paris

A lovely Sunday morning in Paris, temp in the 20s, a bit muggy, lightly overcast for protection against the sun. Ibegan my day with a café in a café: the garçonette seemed annoyed that I didn't order more. "Fromage? Jambon?" Non, et non. Two Asian guys at the next table, conversing with intensity and gestuculating with cigarettes (the pack says: FUMER TUE: smoking kills--makes me think of the signs that Freud admired on the power lines of italy: touch and you die).

I'm not hip enough to judge business here, but it didn't look great. From the line outside the Pompideau, you'd infer that the dollar is trading at a nickel to the Euro and that everyone is on vacation--but on second look these are all locals, queueing up for some sort of film festival. Further on, you see that the double decker buses are full topside only. In the touristy cafes along the river, the omelettes and salades appear to be flying out of the kitchen, but you can probably get a table if you wait a minute or step next door. As you listen, you realize that an awful lot of them are not speaking English, or at least not flat, hard mid-western American. In the Shakespeare & Co bookshop, American paperbacks sell at a premium of about 50 percent on the home price. The thinking man's equivalent of the Big Mac Index? Anyway, not much of anybody seems to be buying.

We did pick up a bottle of Champagne so Mrs.B can help a buddy celebrate a birthday; later, we'll flatten the cashflow with a free concert at Saint Eustache.

Meditation on French Food

Don't ask why but several times in the last couple of weeks, I have had the privilege (ahem) of attending multi-course French banquets—fish plus meat plus dessert with undocumented starter and closer plus (once) a separate cheese course.

It was all astonishing and done with great craft and care but—well for one thing, the food, although good enough, never quite lived up to the preparation. If you come from California (or New York), the truth is you just don't have to go to France for great food.

Marcella Hazan has a theory about French culture and French cuisine. She says that the French are a public people who are into display; the fanciest restaurants tend to be the best. Italy, by contrast, is a homebound culture, and the best cooking is simple and direct: find good ingredients and make sure not to get in their way.

This afternoon in Paris, we shopped the street market on the Rue Mouffetard. We picked up lettuce and tomatoes and cheese and a nice light Rhone red. With a bit of that Arabic olive oil (see previous post) and the leftover breakfast baguette, we had about the best meal I've had in two weeks. OH, and anchovies, did I forget to mention anchovies.

They do Oil?

Our chichi Marais digs come equipped with salt, vinegar, cocoa, tea, strawberry jam--anything you could want except (a) olive oil and (b) a corkscrew. I assume the last tenant (a) drank the olive oil and (b) nicked the corkscrew. Anyway, I betook myself to our marché habituel and (with a bit of pantomime) acquired a tire-bouchon and the most reasonably-priced bottle of huile d'olive I could identify. The olive oil bore a label in Arabic script which, for all I know, says "death to the infidel!" The brand name, in Latin script, is Al Jazera. Wonder what happens if I take three ounces of that through airport security?

Checking in: Paris

Well, we've left the Roman ruins behind us, at least for now. This afternoon we flew up from Marseilles to Paris & tucked ourselves into a friend-of-a-friend's cavernous pied-à-terre behind the Pompidou Center. Seamless except for an absurd and costly directional error in the cab from Orly, as much my fault as the driver's but he insisted on eating the whole thing. Still on the subject of eating the whole thing, we ended the day at a comforting Sephardic deli in the Marais: if you fancy eggplant dip, this is for you More anon.

Off Again

They say one important key to promoting blog traffic is to be dependable: post regularly in a way that will let your readers know roughly what to expect. Okay, that's one (maybe two) more reason(s) why Underbelly remains just a tiny clan of the stubborn and faithful, huddled around the campfire to find off the dark: I don't take care of business, I keep going away.

I'm off this morning for three weeks in France. We'll be mostly down south in Provence, and I give you my absolute word that I (a) will not buy a ramshackled old country house; and (b) will not restore it into a twee bed-and-breakfast for all my upscale American friends. No; rather we will mostly be looking at stuff like Roman aqueducts, continuing to indulge our curiosity about ancient ruins (but I wouldn't be suprised if we knock back a bottle or two of the health-giving ordinaire along the way). We'll end with a few days in Paris, which sounds like about as profitable as taking a freight car full of $20 bills and setting fire to them, but perhaps a bit more fun.

Once again, I will be taking my baby laptop, but perhaps not using it. OTOH using Google's new "delay" command, I (think I) have set up a few items here for posting over the next couple of weeks, so as to give the appearance of continued life. Nothing earth-shattering--mostly old notes that I culled while I was cleaning up my office yesterday. Anyway, enjoy, and (Lord willin and the creek don't rise), I'll be back the first of June.