A day in Paris

One last travel post...I'm back to California and its schizophrenic weather (furious winds, fog and jacket wearing temperatures immediately followed by solid blue skies and digits in the 80s). While getting back into my life, which sometimes feels like putting on clothes you haven't been wearing for a long time, it's nice to still think of the sweetness of being in France.

I ended my trip with a day in Paris, most of it spent following my friends around as they were strolling around shopping, slowly making their way to Gare Saint-Lazare where they were to meet another friend and I'd hop on the metro back to their place.

The weather was muggy and wet, it even rained a few times. But it made for a pleasant walk, and a quick little taste of the city. We took our time though, and stopped for lunch, and saw all the terraces full of lunch eating Parisians, it was somewhere between 12 and 2, and you knew they were soon going to empty out after that...

Here are a few things that caught my eye:

(that's how all that good meat travels)

spices

window ears

the Opera's newly refurbished angels

where all the cute shoes live...

...at the Repetto store.

wouldn't it be nice to play there one day?

or to walk through a film shoot

full of 1930s beauties.

saw the mosaics of the Printemps store

and the restrooms at the Ritz!

***

When I found myself on my own again, I walked into a Fnac for a last minute book and music browse. I came out with another Emmanuelle Pagano (Les Mains Gamines) (I loved this one before), an Anna Karina CD of songs from movies, including this sweet lil' one - and the last Jean-Louis Murat album, Le Cours Ordinaire des Choses.  I listened to it that evening - while smoking cigarettes at the windowsill, taking in those rooftops under grey skies and the late nightfall - and have been listening to it a bunch since. There are two obvious hits - the title track, and the second one, Falling in love again, which had tickled my ear when I heard it on the radio a few days before - but also a few other beautiful numbers, like La Mésange Bleue ('on n'aime plus...d'amour') or La Tige d'Or, and at least one funny song, Comme un cowboy à l'âme fresh. I don't know that many albums of his, but for this one Murat went to record in Nashville and it came out so very well produced- yet never over the top or tasteless, but close to perfectly balanced. It's like he went in there and brought all his favorite Neil Young albums for reference, and got those guys to work on their guitar solos. Even though there is much more to it than just guitar solos.