But I’d like you to remove your rose-colored glasses for now as I lead you into the shadows that are the subject of my new VoiceMap audio tour Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: The Dark Side of the City of Light. Along with the charm of its route through the central Right Bank of Paris, this is an unflinching journey through France’s dark past, where torture, assassination and terror are among the building blocks of the beauty that surrounds you.

The route passes major landmarks, vibrant streets, inviting cafés, alluring pastry shops and boutiques, soaring churches, and the playful Stravinsky Fountain, as it reveals both the enchantment of the present and the cruel events of the past.

Watch this video introduction before reading on.

These aren’t ghost stories or legends that I tell; these are historical events that shaped Paris as you see it today. In understanding the terrible building blocks of the City of Light, you’ll gain an important appreciation for how its beauty and brutality have coexisted throughout history.

Here’s one location covered on a tour, a memorial garden inaugurated in the summer of 2025:

The Dark Side of the City of Light now joins my VoiceMap audio tours to the Luxembourg Garden, the Tuileries Garden, and the Champs-Elysées as another of my essential self-guided walking tours to major aspects of Paris and its culture, splendor, history, and life today.

Though VoiceMap is primarily designed to provided GPS-guided audio tour for use on site, I’ve uploaded photos for each of the tour’s locations to allow armchair travelers to fully follow along. So you can listen from your home computer or your iPhone or Android anywhere even if you don’t have Paris plans. Then use the downloaded tour again whenever you do make it Paris.

The VoiceMap Touring App is available from the Google Play Store and the App Store. On your home computer just go to VoiceMap.me. Once you’ve signed up with VoiceMap and purchased the full tour, you can listen to it on your phone, tablet or computer, or all three, on site, on the road or at home.

Even without signing up, you can listen to the first three locations before deciding whether you want to download the full tour.

If, after downloading the app, you don’t land directly on one of my tours, you’ll find them easily by searching “Gary Kraut” in the VoiceMap search block, or by clicking or tapping directly on the author’s page of these Paris audio guides.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: Exploring the Dark Side of the City of Light appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Harvest Festival? Yes, there’s a vineyard here. It’s a nod to the centuries when the village of Montmartre overlooked fields and vineyards to the north of the capital. Yet the festival, held over five days leading up to and including the second weekend in October, celebrates far more than grapes and even more that Montmartre itself. It’s a colorful, get silly, raise a glass, fun for the whole family, express your individuality, honor community, share in the joie de vivre district-wide celebration of the 18th arrondissement.

Ava Kabouchy, an American photographer and travel writer living in Perpignan, “rose” to the capital to drink in the pleasures of this year’s festival and capture its colors for this photo reportage for France Revisited.

Photo above and at top of page. One week prior to the festival, children in schools of the 18th arrondissement, supervised by their art teachers, along with the French artist known as OJAN, painted stairs to the top of Montmartre to announce the year’s theme: egalité (equality).

Having climbed the stairs with an upward view to Sacré Coeur, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which looms over Montmartre like the top of a wedding cake, visitors crowd along the steps to take in the view of the city below.

Entrance to Clos Montmartre, the vineyard at the origin of the celebration. The Clos Montmartre (a clos is a walled vineyard) was created in 1933 on the steep northern slope of Montmartre to stem the disappearance of green space in the area. The fields and vineyards that once dominated the landscape had all but disappeared since the city’s annexation of the village of Montmartre in 1860 and the urban developments that followed. To preserve the space from building, this parcel at the corners of Rue Saint-Vincent and Rue des Saules was planted with vines.

The annual harvest festivities began one year later, in 1934. This photo is from the festival of 1939 (Wikipedia Commons). France was at war at the time, a “drôle de guerre” (phony war) indeed, but for just a few more months.

Clos Montmartre now contains about 1700 vines, with 30 different grape varieties present. The wines are blended in the basement of the District Hall of the 18th arrondissement. The vineyard belongs to the City of Paris and is managed by the local non-profit Comité des Fêtes et d’Actions Sociales de Montmartre (or du 18ième arrondissement de Paris). All proceeds are donated to local charities providing assistance to children and the elderly.

Clos Montmartre produces red and rosé wines. During the festival they can be bought by the glass (7.50€). Bottles—the current vintage is sold in 50 cl bottles at €30 for the rosé and €35 for the red—are available at the Musée de Montmartre, which overlooks the vineyard at 12 rue Cortot, and online here for delivery in France. But when first released, the price is limited only by participants’ generosity at the invitation-only auction that’s organized by the Comité des Fêtes in October. Jean-Manuel Gabert, left, historian and lecturer, recounts the history of Montmartre and its vineyard.

Dozens of musical, artistic, theatrical, culinary, wine and costume events, large and small, take place over the course of the 5-day Harvest Festival. There are concerts, street theater, a tasting trail of food and drink, a ceremony where couples come together to say “non” to marriage, brass bands, a Freddie Mercury look-alike concert, and much more more. One of the major events is the Grande Défilé, the Grand Parade, when more than fifty groups show off their finest attire. Among them is the La Confrérie des Chapeaux Fous, The Brotherhood of Crazy Hats.

Sisterhood, too, of course. As well as childhood.

Samantha Quentin, left, the Ambassador of Paris 2022, and her glamorous companions. Samantha was also chosen as Miss Cinema for the Cannes Film Festival this year. Celya Vlieghe, fourth on line, is this year’s Miss Songeons (Songeons is a village in the department of Oise). On the right is Ava Wlady, Miss Montmartre 2022.

Members of the Jardins Familiaux de Stains, the Family Gardens of Stains display communally grown produce and flowers. Stains is a northern suburb of Paris.

During the 1920s, as the uncontrolled development of the industrial revolution was taking place along with the loss of farmland and rural life, two architects, Eugène Gonnot and Georges Albenque, set about designing affordable housing and space for “workers’” gardens in the Paris Region. In Stains, 600 such gardens continue to thrive. They serve as cultivated spaces in a dense suburb as well as a gathering place for the community.

Parody, silliness and humor guide the Commune Libre de Montmartre, a non-profit association founded in 1920 by artists of Montmartre to maintain a festive, village spirit in the district. Their slogan: Pour ce qui est contre… contre ce qui est pour, For what is against… against what is for.

The Republic of Montmartre was founded in 1921 by a group of artists with less silliness in mind since its goals were and remain both cultural and charitable. Cultural in its desire to maintain and promote Montmartre traditions while keeping a wary eye toward modernism. Charitable in its support of causes benefiting disadvantaged children and others in need. Together, through culture and charity, along with a good dose of festivity, the members/citizens of the Republic of Montmartre foster a sense of community centered around solidarity, friendship and mutual assistance. The Republic’s motto: Faire le bien dans la joie! Do good in joy! The members dress in the style of Aristide Bruant, a singer at the Chat Noir, a cabaret in Montmartre frequented by Toulouse-Lautrec, who created the famous poster featuring Bruant sporting a red scarf and a black cape.

Within the festival’s theme of equality and its salute to individuality, there’s certainly place in the parade for a zebra. Meanwhile, this accordionist entertains passerby with his music and his cat.

While the Montmartre Harvest Festival naturally celebrates the wine from Clos Montmartre, the abundant wines of Beaujolais are also often associated with festivities in Montmartre. Brouilly (gamay), the largest and best-known of the 10 Beaujolais crus, is one of the wines most at home in Paris bistros and brasseries, so it’s not out of place here, as these cask-carrying fellows can attest.

Just up the street from the vineyard, La Bonne Franquette is one of Montmartre’s most noteworthy hilltop restaurants. It maintains a tradition of cheerfulness, conviviality, good bistro fare and an easy-going tour de France of wines, staying faithful to its motto Aimer, Manger, Boire & Chanter (Love, Eat, Drink and Sing), as this group of celebrants was doing during the festival. The restaurant, a gathering place for the Montmartre elite and local non-profits as well as for tourists, has belonged to the Fracheboud family since 1971. A book about the La Bonne Franquette‘s place in the history of Montmartre by Gérard Letailleur, a specialist on the history of eating and drinking establishments in Paris, has just been published in French.  A la bonne franquette, by the way, is an expression used to apply to meals that are informal, unceremonious and without any fuss or pretension.

The weather may cool at night but the atmosphere heats up in one of Montmartre’s most famous cabarets, Au Lapin Agile, a hovel of a hotspot located across the street from Clos Montmartre. Presenting talent old and new, through song, literature and poetry, Au Lapin Agile keeps alive the Montmartre cabaret spirit of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Well after night falls, while inside Sacré Coeur the Benedictine nuns who live in the priory next door help maintain the basilica’s mission of continuous adoration of the Eucharist, the crowd outside enjoys earthly delights as they continue to gather on the steps overlooking the city of Paris.

Photos © 2022 (Ava Kabouchy with the exception of the photo from 1939). Captions by Ava Kabouchy and Gary Lee Kraut.

The post The Montmartre Harvest Festival, a Photo Reportage appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

My audio tour is available on the VoiceMap touring app. VoiceMap’s audio tour app for iOS and Android uses your device’s GPS to play audio automatically, at the right time and place. Just install the app and download my tour, then go to the starting point just outside the gates of the Tuileries Garden and begin your walk. And since I’ve included 30 beautiful photos you can even tour with me from your computer at home.

The Champs-Elysées tour starts right where my Tuileries Garden VoiceMap tour ends so that you can segue directly from one to the other.

Watch this video to learn more about my Champs-Elysées tour.

So download the tour from the VoiceMap touring app, put on your walking shoes, and join me for an enjoyable, informative and eye-popping stroll through the glory, glamour and glitz of the Champs-Elysées and its monumental bookends, Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe.

You can even listen to the first three locations of this 33-location, 90-minute tour free of charge.

This essential Paris walking tour from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe starts … right here.

I’ve also created Paris walking tours to the Luxembourg Garden and the Tuileries Garden, along with a unique exploration of the Dark Side of the City of Light on the central Right Bank, all available on the VoiceMap app. Find all of my VoiceMap audio-tours here.

FAQ about Gary’s Paris Walking Tour for the VoiceMap app

How do VoiceMap tours work?
VoiceMap’s audio-tour app for iOS and Android uses your device’s GPS to play audio automatically, at the right time and place. Just install the app and download your tour, then go to the starting point and begin your walk.

Do I need to follow a route, or can I start the tour anywhere I like?
Tours have a fixed starting point and follow a route to a fixed end location. This allows the tour to provide turn-by-turn-directions and improves the accuracy of automatic playback. It also allows me to tell a better story as one location leads to the next. But the VoiceMap app does have a Resume option, and this allows you to pick up a tour from the closest location and carry on with it whenever you like.

Can I use tours more than once?
You can listen to your tours as often as you like using both the VoiceMap app and the VoiceMap website. Your access to tours doesn’t expire.

Can I listen to tours at home?
Yes! That’s why I’ve included 30 photos for this tour. You don’t need to travel to a tour’s starting point to listen to it. In the VoiceMap app, just select Virtual mode on the screen that displays after you download the tour. You can also listen to the whole tour at voicemap.me.

How do I access a tour using the VoiceMap app if I purchase it through the VoiceMap website?
Once you’ve purchased a tour, it’s added to your VoiceMap library. If you sign into the app using the same method you used at voicemap.me, you’ll have access to your full library of tours. This works the other way too: if you make in-app purchases using the VoiceMap app, you can access these on the VoiceMap website.

Do I need mobile data to do a VoiceMap tour?
No, VoiceMap works entirely offline if there’s no data connection, so you don’t have to pay roaming fees. Just download the tour over WiFi before you get started. And be sure that your phone’s battery is charged before you set out.

The post VoiceMap Tour: The Champs-Elysées, from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

… her streets were cold and gray. It was March 1952. My husband had been recalled for the Korean War and sent to France as part of a bomber wing Eisenhower promised NATO in the early days of the Cold War.

Twenty-four years old at the time, married almost a year, I arrived in the city of my dreams ready to be seduced by her warmth and historic charm. Expecting beauty and light in a city with echoes of Victor Hugo, Degas and Maurice Chevalier, we got somber darkness and bone chilling weather. We drove through grim streets, rundown houses on either side, to our hotel, a turn-of-the-century hostelry with a shabby lobby and a cage elevator. My husband had selected the one-star Napoleon Bonaparte, partly for its price, 3500 francs (about $10) for a double room, and partly for its view. The 1952 Michelin indicated that it overlooked the Arc de Triomphe. Obviously, M. Michelin had made his notes on a clear day. On this day, fog and drizzle prevented us from seeing more than an outline of that venerable monument or anything else. Looking out the hotel window, my only thought was: what was all the fuss about? I had traveled thousands of miles on the North Atlantic in February, retching all the way, to celebrate our first anniversary in this renowned citadel of love. For this? In 1952, my feminism had yet fully to emerge. Tired and disappointed, I had only one recourse. I burst into tears.

Luckily, my husband, who was also let down at his first view of Paris, had been trained for bravery in World War II. In his if-we-have-to-be-in-Paris-for-our-first-anniversary-let’s-make-the-best-of-it voice, he said, ”Let’s go out to dinner.”

We did, and even before we had our first sip of French champagne and realized it wasn’t imported, the joy of being together, wherever, prevailed. In the remaining three or four days of that first stay, although the dreary weather didn’t lift, our spirits did, and despite the gloom we started to feel some of the magnetism Ernest Hemingway or Gertrude Stein must have felt.

Notwithstanding the gloomy weather, it was heartbreakingly apparent France had still not gotten her act together. In 1952, six and a half years after the end of World War II, the grime of war coated even the most beautiful buildings, causing them to appear proud but worn. The Louvre, Notre Dame and Sacré Coeur were like elderly actors who hadn’t worked for a long time. The Champs-Elysées was only beginning to wake up with a few fashionable shops occupying some of the large storefronts that had been shuttered for many years during and after the war.

Even if I had not been wearing a bright yellow topcoat (from my trousseaux) when all the Parisian women were still in black, we would have been very conspicuous driving our 1950 Pontiac. Few Frenchmen had cars at the time, and we had ours only because the Air Force, which wouldn’t pay my way over to join my husband, was willing to pay his car’s way over. So much for family values in 1952.

Because there were so few automobiles in Paris and so little traffic, diagonal parking was allowed on the sidewalks along the Champs. Wherever we parked, we would come out to find our car surrounded with curious onlookers. The French were fascinated with American cars. People would touch the doors, the hood or the windows as if to share ownership for a moment. These observers who had no idea how our car had gotten there must have seen us as a rich American couple. Little did they know that the car was owned mostly by the bank, and the exchange rate was so advantageous that a Second Lieutenant’s salary allowed us to, if not quite live it up, indulge in a few more ooh-la-lahs than we might have at the same time in the U.S..

We could afford to eat in restaurants then we could only dream of today: Lapérouse, La Tour D’Argent, Lasserre. We could walk right into any museum or the Eiffel Tower, no waiting. We bought fine leather gloves for $5 a pair and with the purchase got a handful of samples of the leading French perfumes: Chanel #5, Arpège, Shalimar.

On that first visit, VE Day was still a living memory, and we were the symbols of liberation. We were treated with respect and admiration; the general thinking of the day seemed to be: if we were American, we had to be good. Not too hard to take for a young soldier and his bride. Rain and all, Paris had begun to claim our hearts.

The next time I saw Paris was in May of that same year. We drove up from Bordeaux, where my husband was stationed, with a windshield that had been shattered by May Day demonstrators. The Communists were expressing their opposition to the American military presence in France. Spare parts for our car were only available in Paris. Tough assignment. We had to go back.

The sun shone for the four or five days we were there. The trees were in leaf, the flowers were in bloom, the Boulevards looked Grand: the buildings that had appeared grim and sad only two months before, although no cleaner, now seemed resplendent with their softly rounded corners, balconies and mansard roofs. Lovers walked along the Seine, kissing in public. We held hands. Book stalls dotted the quays, and the Bateau Mouche had begun regular trips back and forth on the river. We were smitten. We hated to leave.

Once my husband had been transferred to Laon and we lived in nearby Soissons, 62 miles northeast of Paris, we were only an hour by train or car to the capital. Weekends, we would pack a bag, toss it in the car, and drive into “town.” Since our living costs in the small hotel where we were staying in Soissons equaled my husband’s salary (married couples without children were not given living quarters by the Air Force, just an allowance for housing) we depended on the small commission checks forwarded by my husband’s previous employer, and the favorable rate of exchange, to finance our weekend excursions. Mindful of our limited resources, we would find a small hotel, nothing as grand as the Napoleon Bonaparte, ask to see a room, check it out for fleas by shaking the curtains and bedspread, and if it proved to be insect free, check in. From here we would get dressed in our stateside finery and go out on the town to the Follies Bergère, the Lido or a small club with walls draped in dark red velvet where Edith Piaf, the Little Sparrow, sang in her sad waifish voice. Very often we would end up at Les Halles for onion soup at two o’clock in the morning before returning to our creepy but flea-less room.

By the time we were shipped back to the States, or rather my husband and his car were—I went on my own—Paris had become a part of us. Never mind the tourists who had come before. Forget those who would come after us. It was our town; our love.

The last time I saw Paris, her streets were cold and gray. It was April 2001. My husband and I had celebrated our fiftieth anniversary in March and decided to go back to the scene of our first anniversary. Remembering the weather on our first trip, we decided to wait until April. But the day we arrived was misty and overcast, and that was the best day of the week. On the drive in from De Gaulle Airport, we saw industrial plants, hotels, ordinary buildings. Except for the signs in French, we could have been entering any American city, until, all at once, in the distance the Eiffel Tower came into view, and then the street names became familiar: We were crossing the Rue St. Honoré, the Rue de Rivoli. We were at the Place de la Concorde, and suddenly we were driving over the Seine to the Left Bank. Our taxi driver took us to the Boulevard St. Germain where he turned onto a narrow street, Rue de Jacob. This is where our small Hôtel des Marronniers stood. This time I didn’t cry, but a few tears did gather as we entered the lobby and the tiny garden restaurant beyond. Because we were not alone. Having an early breakfast was our whole family: our two daughters and their husbands, and their children, our grandchildren. They had come to help us celebrate our fiftieth anniversary.

It rained off and on all week, even sleeted one day. The temperature hovered at 50; the lines were blocks long at the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. Our umbrellas dripped as we entered the Café de Flore for an aperitif. The view from the top of Notre Dame was mostly of other tourists. The banks of the Seine were flooded because of the “unusual” rain. It didn’t matter. We were here surrounded by our family. Paris never looked lovelier.

© 2021, Lyla Blake Ward, for first publication on France Revisited, francerevisited.com.

The post 1952: The First Time I Saw Paris… appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Preface

A homeless man was living under the awning of the restaurant downstairs while it was closed during the fall Covid lockdown. He was one of those ageless fellows you sometimes see living on the street, with a scruffy beard and unruly salt-and-pepper hair that rose high over his ears. Could have been 40-years-old, could have been 70—couldn’t tell. I’d walk by him while leaving and entering my building, especially in the evening since he was often gone during the day, and furthermore I was in the habit of taking evening walks during that period. Bonsoir monsieur, I’d say on my way out. Bonne nuit, I’d say on return. I tried several times to engage a bit of conversation—asking him how he was doing or if he’d eaten that evening—but in response he just half-smiled, half-nodded. I guessed he didn’t understand French. Perhaps it’s better that way. I mean, how friendly do you want to get with someone living on the street?

I can’t imagine what it’s like to walk a mile in his shoes, but he wore a pair of old sneakers that didn’t look to be holding up too well as the autumn damp took hold, so I took him down an old pair of shoes that I should have gotten rid of long ago. He just sort of looked at me and nodded when I set them down beside him. He didn’t try them on in front of me, just nodded.

The next day he was wearing them.

He never looked at me as though he was asking for anything. Thankfully. Anyway, I’m sure there are organizations that provide clothing for the homeless. He actually had a nice fall jacket, grey with fur-like lining. It looked warm enough in mid-November. Nevertheless, I also took him some socks, some underwear, a couple of pair of old pants and a few t-shirts. We’ve all got too many t-shirts. He was smaller than I am but not by much; I figured they’d fit. Nothing special. Honestly, I am not a generous guy, but there he was, and I had some stuff… You know how it is, right? He never said anything when I brought him these things, just a kind of a nodding greeting or maybe thanks, a slight mumble, a sort of nmmn.

He slept on an old mattress placed on top of lots of cardboard to keep the mattress dry, and he used other big sheets of cardboard as a blanket. The cardboard had images of bicycles on it because bike shops were receiving lots of them in preparation for Christmas sales.

In late November the weather turned colder and damper. I had an old tattered blanket in the closet, so I took it down one afternoon. I left it for him between the mattress and the cardboards. Just an old blanket—I hadn’t used it in years.

He also had a little three-legged stool that I’d see him sitting on some evenings. He’d sit there eating dinner that an association for the homeless brought by or that he’d brought back from the make-shift soup kitchen up the road. And here’s something curious: Sometimes, late in the evening, I’d look out the window and see him sitting on his stool just beyond the edge of the awning, in the light of the streetlamp, writing in a notebook. Occasionally he’d be writing when I went out from my nighttime walk. I once asked him what he was writing (after all, I’m something of a writer myself) but he just nodded, mumbled a little nmmn, then sort of stared at me until I said good night and walked away. As I say, he didn’t seem to speak French.

People go to sleep so early these days, and I like writing at night myself, so I’d be up in my flat writing and the only other person I knew who was awake would be him, down on the sidewalk, writing in his notebook, just beneath the edge of the awning, in the light of the streetlamp. I felt a strange kind of communion. Like we were the only two people on earth to describe the world as we respectively knew it at that moment.

One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, when he was absent, I took down a notebook—I have plenty—and left it on the stool for him, along with a few pens. That’s pretty much it. End of story. It wasn’t as though we were buddies or anything.

But I do wonder where he’s gone. You see, he stopped sleeping there sometime during the past week. I don’t know when exactly because on December 15 we entered a new curfew period where you couldn’t be out without a valid reason from 8pm to 6am and my view of his dwelling space is blocked by the awning of the restaurant below. I didn’t see him at all during the day this past week, though that wasn’t unusual. I’d look out my window at night hoping to see him seated on his little stool beneath the light of the streetlamp, writing in his notebook. But he wasn’t there. This troubled me, and it kept me from working. For a few nights I went downstairs toward midnight to peek out the front door just to see if he’d returned—feeling a bit clandestine just stepping out onto the street—but he hadn’t. Could someone who lives on the street be subject to curfew? Maybe he’d been given a bed in a shelter. Or else he just moved on.

This evening I saw that all of the items that made up his dwelling area had been cleared away. The mattress was gone. The big cardboard sheets were gone. The three-legged stool was gone. The city clean-up crew must have taken everything away. Just a few scraps of cardboard remained on the ground along with a mask, an empty milk box, a plastic-wrapped sandwich….

Then I saw, peeking out between two pieces of cardboard, the notebook that I’d left for him earlier in December. The brown-beige cork-like cover of the notebook is the same color as the cardboard, so I guess the crew didn’t see it when they cleaned the area.

I picked it up and saw there was writing inside. So I brought it upstairs. I feel like a bit of a thief, to tell the truth, but apparently he isn’t coming back and eventually it would have gotten trashed if left outside. I can always give it back if I ever see him again. Inside there’s writing in all directions and in different types of characters: Latin, Greek, logograms, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and even some figures that look like Neolithic wall painting. And strangely enough, there are a few pages written in English. Imagine that: for the six weeks that he’d been there I’d been walking by him and saying a few words to him in French—Bonsoir monsieur, Comment allez-vous? Vous avez besoin de quelque chose? Vous avez mangé ce soir?—and it turns out that he speaks English, or at least writes in English. So while I was trying to speak to him in my second language, we could have communicated better if I’d used my first.

Among the pages in English, there’s a poem. It’s near the back of the notebook, unless it’s the front—depends on how you open  it, because it starts in one direction then you have to turn the notebook over to continue reading. It’s entitled On Winter Solstice Night… which is weird because this is December 21st, night of the winter solstice.

Here’s the poem I found:

On Winter Solstice Night

‘Twas the night of the Solstice, when all through the flat
Not a creature was stirring, not even the cat;

Cute, right? You recognize that? Riffing on a visit from Old Saint Nick. But it’s more than that. Better that I read it to you. Give a listen. Sit back. I’ll start again.

Audio – A Reading of On Winter Solstice Night, Author Unknown
Read by Gary Lee Kraut

Preface, audio, poem © 2020. All rights reserved.

The post On Winter Solstice Night (Includes Audio) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Watch the video interview below to understand the dual nature of Sofia Falkovitch and her work, at once alien and fully connected. She speaks here of her childhood in the former Soviet Union, her decision to pursue cantorial studies in Berlin, the experience of leading a service in a predominately Orthodox synagogue in Germany, and her vision of music and song as a way of bringing people together, not only within the Jewish community but within broader society. She also speaks of her love of Paris as an exciting “platform where cultures and religions meet.”

The interview was filmed in the main sanctuary at the Copernic Synagogue in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. Home to the Union Libérale Israélite de France, Copernic is France’s oldest Liberal or Reform synagogue, dating to 1907. It is Falkovitch’s local synagogue since she is married to Rabbi Jonas Jacquelin, one of its religious leaders. (They have two children.) Falkovitch is not, however, the cantor at the Copernic Synagogue, nor is she permanently employed elsewhere. She has opted for an international career singing both liturgical music and classical works. Indeed, Falkovitch is also an accomplished concert mezzo-soprano who has performed in synagogues, churches, concert halls and theaters around the world.

For those unfamiliar with Judaism, the cantor or hazan is the synagogue official who sings liturgical music and leads the congregation in chanted prayer. The three main currents in Judaism, called Orthodox, Conservative and Reform in English, are called Orthodox, Massorti and Libéral in French. While Reform and Liberal may be used interchangeably, and in fact both are part of the overall movement of Progressive Judaism, individual synagogues and practices will vary due to cultural and community influences.

The equality of men and women is an essential value in the Progressive movement. Though Progressive Judaism is well established in the United States, it has been less prominent in Europe, and particularly in France, until recently.

Beyond the alluring color of her voice and the elegance of her presence, Sofia Falkovitch is an articulate representative of this current of Judaism while also carving her own path as a singer. Having grown up in Moscow, studied in Germany, Israel and Canada, and now living in Paris, her mastery of seven languages (French, English, Russian, German, Yiddish, Hebrew and Spanish) itself speaks volumes about her sense of the importance of communication among individuals, faiths and cultures.

Watch the interview here:

See Sofia Falkovitch’s website for further information about her work, upcoming concert dates and information about her latest CD, released in 2019, entitled “The Voice of Sacred Heritage,” in which she interprets psalms and sacred Hebrew music.

The Copernic Synagogue and Organized Jewish Life in Western Paris

The Copernic Synagogue is located at 24 rue Copernic in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. (Synagogues in Paris are commonly referred to by the name of the street on which they’re located.) Visitors interested in attending services or a concert at Copernic must contact the synagogue in advance. Services at Copernic are accompanied by an organist and a choir.

The above interview took place in the synagogue’s Art Deco sanctuary built 1923-1924. Despite opposition from some in the community who have fought for the sanctuary’s preservation, the community’s board has elected to replace it with a new sanctuary as part of a future expansion of the synagogue complex. The project is currently in the fundraising phase. Questions of preservation aside, the planned expansion is a sign of the evolution of the infrastructure.

In the same vein, on the far edge of the 17th arrondissement, Kehilat Gesher, a bilingual (French-English) Liberal community, is about to move into its new synagogue at 11 avenue de la Porte de Champerret. American-born Rabbi Tom Cohen is the driving force behind that community. He’s married to Pauline Bebe, France’s first female rabbi. See the article A Couple of Rabbis in Paris.

The 17th arrondissement and its neighboring suburbs have increasingly become a hub of Jewish activity of various mainstream currents, both in residential and organizational terms. In October 2019 the European Jewish Center was inaugurated in this same district by President Emmanuel Macron.

Bei Mir Bistu Shein

Let’s end with two minutes of Yiddiskeit at the Copernic Synagogue. In the video below, The Moscow Male Jewish Cappella, led by its founder and artistic director Alexander Tsaliuk, performs Bei Mir Bistu Shein (בײַ מיר ביסטו שיין; To Me You’re Beautiful).

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Interview: Sofia Falkovitch, France’s First Female Jewish Cantor appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

You’re sitting at your desk 24 hours after the outset of the fire at Notre-Dame after being up much of the previous night, first having dinner with a friend, then standing in silence on Ile Saint Louis watching the blaze peter out, then speaking and texting with family and friends six time zones away, then having a Skype interview with NBC 10 Philadelphia during which you’re asked to describe how you feel, and you’re thinking you should stay in for the evening to work up a text on the subject of the monumental blaze for your website when you remember that you have an invitation stating that Prince Robert of Luxembourg, owner of Château Haut-Brion, would be pleased to have you attend that evening at a secret location in Paris the celebration of the new vintage and branding of Clarendelle wines, and you think WTF, you’re in Paris, you have the rest of your life to describe your relation to a monument that you’ve been inside a thousand times and seen 10,000 times from a distance, where you’ve taken hundreds of visitors of all ages and where twice you lit a candle, furthermore you’ve already posted a picture on Facebook and gotten dozens of likes, loves and teary-faces, and Notre-Dame is going to be alright.

So you take a shower and get dressed and put on your father’s old cap and take the metro a few stations then walk toward the secret location that was announced on the second invitation (the first invitation having said that Prince Robert de Luxembourg’s people will give you the address of the secret location if you accept that first invitation to receive the second), 13 rue de Sévigné, in the Marais.

Inspired by Belmondo

Passing the National Archives along Rue des Francs Bourgeois you sense that someone is walking beside but you but don’t pay attention because an important thought whips through your head about Notre-Dame and you stop to set it down in your notebook. Walking again you’re aware that a man is moving alongside you at the same pace and he may or may not be the person who was walking beside you before but you don’t look over because another brilliant thought about Notre-Dame is now whispering in your ear, so you stop to write it down.

Walking again you glance over to see the man, a young man, is now alongside you again and you turn a second time to look at him curiously in the eye and he looks at you boldly in the eye and says that he likes your look, a lot, and that it reminds him of Belmondo in some Belmondo movie that you’ve never seen, and his smile invites you to slow down to absorb this as an enormous compliment, and since you’re 60 and he’s, what?, 25?, and really just looks like a sturdy good-looking kid, perhaps with some Asian blood, who happens to be a fan of Belmondo in that Belmondo movie, you say, both of your still walking, Thank you, I’ve never heard that before, it must be the cap. Really, I mean it, sincerely, that’s a great look, he says, so relaxed in his offering complimentary gift, so pleasantly, naturally, confidently, flatteringly present there alongside you that you can only think to thank him again as you walk abreast.

He now asks if you’re a journalist, which is such a surprisingly specific question that you stop and tell him the truth: Sort of, you say, sometimes. How did you know? Because you kept stopping to write something down, he says with clarity and ease and you ask if he’s a journalist too and he replies No, I’m a poor student. You pretend to not pick up on the word “poor” and ask if he’s studying journalism, to which he replies No, applied mathematics and social sciences, and you’re incredulous that neither the gods, nor the prophets nor the saints speak with such bright-brown-eyed, round-shouldered assurance as this young man with dense jet black hair who now says, again, that he really likes your look with that cap. You reply that you need it so that your bald head won’t get cold whereas he certainly doesn’t have to wear anything to get by, and in saying so you resist reaching out to touch his perfectly healthy, vibrant black hair because this isn’t just any student, this is a poor student, and the secret location that you’re going to is in the Marais.

You continue to walk together, you asking about applied mathematics (Is that as difficult as it sounds? In fact I’m not starting until September. Easy then.), he asking about journalism (What are you writing about? Notre-Dame. I could have guessed.), until he says he’s turning right on Rue Vieille du Temple and, slowing down, you bid each other a good evening, after which you’re nearly disappointed that he didn’t actually show you his gigolo card so that you don’t have to wonder as you walk on, resisting the urge to look back, if you’ve just missed out on the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Inspired by Terror

Nevertheless, you feel flattered, and happy – how often does someone compliment you out of the Paris sunset blue like that – and spring is definitely in the air – and Notre-Dame, Notre-fucking-Dame, well, it’s not like after the November 2015 terrorist attack where 24 hours later you could still hear the echo of gunshot at the end of your street and had to deal with fear. Everything’s going to be alright here – everything is alright. Not only that, but the fire will be a blessing for tourism, money is already being promised by obscene millions, the French Catholic Church is bathing in a new identity as a survivor, French firemen are being praised in terms normally reserved for describing their pectorals and buttocks when their annual semi-nude calendar comes out, and everyone knows that Notre-Dame was in need of a structural makeover anyway.

You remember when in the wake of the terrorist attack NBC then MSNBC called for an interview, but you didn’t get much airtime because you didn’t respond on cue with the sought-after soundbites of tears, despair, defiance and hope. You were simply there, nearby, thinking, looking forward to dinner with friends. And the Catholic publication that called some time later because they wanted to know how someone like you, living in a martyred neighborhood, felt about the neighborhood after the attack, and what you felt by then was that everything was going to be alright, really, now that same publication has called again this afternoon to ask how you felt when you heard that Notre-Dame wouldn’t collapse from the fire and you may have again missed the mark because you told the journalist that you never believed that it was going to fall, that yes you were concerned that the rose windows might come crashing, which would have been the sad indeed, but that you never doubted that the structure would stand because there it stood, growing in international stature as you watched its crown of fire diminish in the night.

Inspired by Rejection

And here you are walking with your pseudo Belmondo look along Rue des Francs Bourgeois without imagining terrorists with semi-automatics rounding the corner, and what a lovely evening it is, the light of the setting sky playing with the stone of the Carnavalet Museum to the left and the Paris Historical Library to the right, Place des Vosges in the distance, with the promise of a wine launch party at a no-longer secret location on Rue de Sévigné, where you’ve arranged to meet an acquaintance who asked you last week to be her plus one – though you told her that you couldn’t be her plus one because you received your own invitation (which specifically denied the possibility of you bringing a plus one) and will have your own name on the guest list.

Except that once you’ve nodded your way past the bouncer with a nonchalant “I was invited,” the model-tall young woman at the guest-list desk asks for your first name and you mistakenly give her your last name because the last time you were at a party with a list alphabetized by first names was in the third grade, but your last name isn’t there so you redirect her finger by giving her your first name (realizing that it’s only natural that a Prince Robert of Luxembourg event would alphabetize by first names since he probably shuns any soirée where his name might be listed under L) and you find that neither your first name nor your last name, nor, just to case, your middle name, is on the list, leading the stylish guardian of said list to ask Who invited you? The PR rep from New York, you reply, after which she raises the bar and asks for his name, which you don’t remember because you’d never heard of him until he sent you the first invitation to suss out your interest in attending the soirée at the secret location that was then revealed in the second invitation accompanied by the joyful note That’s wonderful news that you will be able to join.

You now understand why there was no “us” at the end of that phrase, because when you ask to speak with the PR rep from New York you discover that he’s not there express directly how he feels about your not yet being able to join anyone. You look on your phone to retrieve his name from one of his messages but can’t find any, so you tell the tall guardian of the list that you’re here for Prince Robert of Luxembourg’s wine launch party, to which she replies from a height undoubtedly accentuated by heels that you’ll understand that this is an exclusive, private party and she can only let in those who are on the list.

Actually, you’re inside the party already and can see nearly the full scope of the place, and while she’s checking the name of someone who’s arrived behind you, you examine the loose group of about 50 people standing in pairs or threesomes, wine glasses in hand, talking and drinking with no apparent interest, and you sense that whatever list these people are on it is neither an A nor even a B list, but how could they be since you were invited?, that with the exception of a 4- or 5-piece band playing a worldwide hit from the 80s, meaning some effort was put into planning this event, the soirée doesn’t feel the least bit exclusive, and that the location isn’t so much secret as rented, meaning that all that’s left of the point guard’s original description is “private,” which isn’t a very enticing adjective in and of itself since it could just as easily be attached to “toilette” or “Idaho” as it could “soirée.” So you politely wait until she looks down at you again then say that you were invited as an American journalist by the PR rep in New York whose name you don’t remember but it’s really not that important so if she’d like you to leave you will, at which point she says Just a moment and goes to get someone from the sparse crowd because she knows as well as you do that the only person who would want to crash this party is an alcoholic and she really just wants you to produce a name and get on with it.

Inspired by Acceptance

The woman who now approaches you is a midsize brunette with glasses and a non-smile, meaning that she can only be the Paris PR rep. You expect her to ask your name but instead she asks who invited you, to which you reply Prince Robert of Luxembourg through his NY PR rep whose name you can’t remember, which leads her to say that she can’t let you in without knowing that person’s name because you must understand that this is a private party. At least she’s dropped the pretense of it being “exclusive.”

You have three choices: you can pull an Oprah (listed under O?) after she’s been told that a Hermès handbag wouldn’t go with her skin color and let your (79) followers know that you’ve been judged by the way you look (apparently not enough like Belmondo in that Belmondo movie), which would likely lead to you losing several of your followers who would accuse you of being insensitive to racism or, worse, of comparing your feelings to Oprah’s; you can leave with your ego intact because you never bring your ego to such events and really don’t care whether or not you’re allowed in other than the fact that you came all this way, which would lead to several sub-choices as to what to do if you do leave—walk over to view of the carcass of Notre-Dame, go to a bar, seek out the math student?; or you can search through your email on your phone again to find the PR guy’s name, which you do because, what the hell, it’s in there somewhere and you’re just one name-drop away from a glass of wine and some canapés.

Eventually you find it, you show the guy’s email signature to the beautiful giant who goes to retrieve the Paris PR chick, who mildly apologizes in a mildly annoying way by saying You understand we just needed a name because this is a private party, which lets you know that she’s not the boss at the agency because any boss would at that point consider the matter closed and lead you graciously to the bar instead of immediately disappearing into the crowd – or trying to but the crowd is too thin to disappear into – and as she walks away you think you would have had an easier time getting admitted to a press conference about the stability of Notre-Dame.

Inspired by Haut-Brion

You see another sort-of journalist you sometime run into at events involving wine and food and go over to say hello, followed by a handshake and an exchange of ça-vas, and you tell him that you see from his recent articles that he’s all over the place, in a good way, which he accepts as a compliment without offering in return anything but a look that tells you either that you never really knew each other so no need getting too chummy now or that he’s been hitting on the girl standing next to him and you’re clouding his image, probably both, so you go to the bar and ask for a glass of one of the six Clarendelle wines “inspired by Haut-Brion” on tap that evening, the merlot.

Prince Robert of Luxembourg is nowhere to be seen, not that you’d recognize him, but if he were here you’d surely notice someone fawning over him, yet no one appears to be fawning over anyone, let alone the wine. Everyone has a glass in hand, but no one is explaining it or examining it or discussing it, as the band now plays something hummable from the 90s that sounds no different from their take on the 80s. You stand among the others like extras on the set waiting for the stars to arrive, but it’s clear that they won’t be arriving because this is the party. The event is a reflection of the merlot itself: well-groomed, pleasant enough, needing something more than flower-topped canapés, sans plus, but here you are, not disappointed just hoping to catch someone’s eye so as to share a moment.

You reach for a canapé on a table beside a women standing alone and ask which wine she’s tasting. She looks at her glass as though surprised that she has one, says The bordeaux, then gazes off into the distance though the room is too small to have much distance to gaze off at, and you realize that your Belmondo look from that Belmondo movie is not having the same effect on her as it did on the young man on the street. Or would Belmondo try harder? If you had the nerve you’d ask if she’s a journalist then tell her that you’re a poor student in applied mathematics and social sciences, and you laugh at your own spinelessly unspoken humor, which makes her walk away.

Inspired by Mourning

You carry your glass to a room that you couldn’t see earlier from the guest-list desk and a woman sitting on the couch in there waves at you. It’s the acquaintance who’d asked you to be her plus one, whom you’d forgotten about and whose name you should have dropped from the get-go. You didn’t see me when you came in a while ago, she says, as you faites la bise, and you tell her about the trouble you had getting into the exclusive private party at the secret location. You mean here? she says, that’s strange, but it’s good that they know you now, you’ll want to be on their good side. Contemplating that you reach toward the plate of flower-topped canapés that’s just been placed on the coffee table before you but a young woman stops you with a shark’s smile so that she can take a picture before you destroy the plate’s symmetry, leading you to conclude that you’ve either just taken your first steps into being initiated among the Illuminati or this is a primer event for influencers with under a thousand followers.

You and your non-plus-one talk a bit about Notre-Dame, and she tells you that she couldn’t bear to look at it burning and that she doesn’t want to drop a bombshell on you but her father died the other day, but it’s okay, I mean it’s not okay, but he died, I’m here, he was 87, it’s alright, I’m glad I came out. You sympathize and let her know that you know it’s tough and that it’s good she came out this evening, you’re glad to see her, to have a drink together. You’re engaging without being intimate, and she understands that her sadness is her sadness, not yours, and you’re cool with letting her talk about it if she wants or not talk about it if she doesn’t want, and when she says that she visited Notre-Dame just the other day after learning that her father had died because he was Catholic, you almost put your arm around her but instead say It’s good you did that. A pause follows, and after a moment you ask which wine she’s been drinking and she looks at her nearly empty glass and says the Saint Emilion, it’s quite good, and you say you’re going to try some and would she want anything while you’re at the bar and she says she’d like to try the rosé, would you mind getting her a glass.

Inspired by More Wine

In the short line at the bar you try to have two conversations about the wine but neither the man ahead of you nor the woman behind seems interested. You wonder who these people are but the answer is clear: they’re people just like you who showed up because they were invited, and you further wonder if maybe more beautiful people were due to show up but thought it inappropriate to go to a wine tasting while Notre-Dame smolders, but still, why is no one interested in communication even if they don’t pick up on your Belmondo look?

You return to the mourner and hand her the glass of rosé, for which she thanks you, and the two of you have an insightful conversation about the wine and food and journalism/influencer business—yours, hers, theirs. The two of you have a good laugh—well, you laugh, she’s not really in the mood—about the tagline “inspired by Haut-Brion” on each of the Clarendelle wines because it’s such a ballsy way of saying “the producer of this wine owns Haut-Brion, one of the world’s most prestigious wine châteaux, so consider yourself lucky to get this close to the real thing,” but what the hell, it’ll surely work in wine marketing among a certain set, and the Saint Emilion really is quite decent, nearly elegant, just trying too hard to be something it’s not – Haut-Brion, for example. But what do you know? The rosé is quite nice, she remarks, she who has had Haut-Brion before.

Eventually you both get up to go to the bar to try the sweet “amberwine,” grabbing canapés along the way, and, new glass in hand, your drinking companion is thoughtful enough to introduce you to a friendly member of the Paris PR team who says how pleased she is that you could come, asks for your card and, unaware that you’ve already met her less welcoming colleague, re-introduces you to the midsize brunette who still thinks that it’s a good idea to half-apologize for not letting you in immediately because it’s a private party. The amberwine is pleasingly sweet and smooth, something to enjoy with friends rather than the PR team, so you and your soirée companion return to the other room and take a seat. Dessert canapés are promptly set before you.

You talk some more about Notre-Dame, and you tell her about your interviews with NBC 10 Philadelphia and the Catholic publication and remark that if you’d only learn to express sadness, fear, anger, despair or hope on cue you might get more airtime and print space, and she says, Well, men aren’t very good with emotion, and you say, No, that’s not it, they all want you to say how you feel but never how you relate, who are you with respect to this?, what is this with respect to you?, isn’t that the question? Besides, we live in Paris, where everything’s going to be alright, and you both take a final sip of your smooth amberwine.

As you’re leaving, the friendly half of the PR team practically dances over to tell you both how glad she is that you could come—if there were more people here with her enthusiasm it might have felt more like a party—and gives you “a little gift” which is actually quite generous: a box of three bottles of Clarendelle wine inspired by Haut-Brion. It feels like a first key to a series of locks that will eventually lead you to drinking Haut-Brion (inspired by itself) from a holy grail saved from the fire at Notre-Dame.

Once outside you say good-bye to your acquaintance-cum-friend, adding a final word of sympathy and expressing hope to see each other again soon, with a bise.

Inspired by Nudity

Alone on Rue de Sévigné you consider the various paths home. If you weren’t carrying a box of wine you’d go over to see Notre-Dame, a 10-minute walk from there, but heavy gift in hand you elect to return the same way you came, along Rue des Francs Bourgeois toward the Rambuteau metro, and when you arrive at the corner of the Carnavalet Museum and the Paris Historical Library, one of the most expressive corners of the Marais, you notice coming in the opposite direction, an old acquaintance whom you haven’t seen in years.

Hey, it’s been a while, you tell each other, and you faites la bise and ask each other what you’ve been up to this evening, and you tell him that that you’ve just come from private party at a secret location nearby and he says that he’s just had dinner with one of his nude models, because it turns out that he no longer runs an art gallery but is a photographer particularly inspired by nudity and it turns out that you are too, just not as a photographer.

You were introduced a long time ago by a mutual friend because he’s American, you’re American, he runs an art gallery, you work in tourism, but you’ve probably only met four or five times, when he invited you to an opening at the gallery or, as here, by accident in the street, so you never really knew each other, yet you find yourselves chatting away like old friends catching up after many years. For 45 minutes you swap stories at the corner when he suddenly says, You look great in that light, can I take your picture?, don’t move, and you don’t move, except to follow his instructions to face that way, now turn your eyes to me, now hold it, hold it, I’m waiting for the rabbi to get closer, he looks like you, don’t turn to him, hold it, stay with me, hold it, great!

You ask him to send you the picture so that you can see if you look more like Belmondo in that Belmondo movie or like a rabbi in this Marais street, and you talk some more under the Paris light at the picture-perfect corner of Rue Pavée and Rue des Francs Bourgeois, eventually exchanging phone numbers and promises to get together soon, maybe do a photo shoot, ending with a bise.

Inspired by Home

As you reach Rue des Archives you see coming up the street the number 75 bus which can carry you home, so you hail it down at the stop and hop on, say bonsoir to the bus driver, ding your Navigo, slide into a seat by the window and reach for your phone to check the feed but don’t take it out because what more do you need from the world right now?, and WTF, you live in Paris, you’ve been told you look like Belmondo, you’ve been told you look like a rabbi, you’ve been given three bottles of Clarendelle wine, you might someday pose in the nude (again), you aren’t in mourning, Notre-Dame is going to be alright, you’re headed home, and if someone were to ask how you feel right now you’d say Inspired.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Still Life in Paris, Inspired by Notre-Dame appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Preface

For over 150 years, from the mid-19th century to the early 2000s, eastern Paris was been home to a dense, working-class population, both native and immigrant, including Italians, Jews from eastern Europe, Portuguese, Muslims and Jews from North Africa, Southeast Asians and Chinese, and others. But as real estate pressures in Paris have pushed prices upward, recent arrivals to the area are more likely to be professionals and entrepreneurs with easy access to 20-30-year bank loans.

Part 1: Chadors, Communists, Cannibals

On a bright and quiet Sunday afternoon, two visitors in Paris, strolling down rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud in the 11th arrondissement after languishing over brunch at Benoît Castel further up the hill, were surprised to come upon several shops selling head scarves, formless robes and Muslim prayer rugs.

Hajibs, she said. Shaylas, khimars, chadors, abayas.
Are those vocabulary words we were taught at the Alliance Française? he said. They’d met the previous fall in a conversational French class at the Alliance back home.
No, I learned them from my friend Shandra in yoga class.
How about burkas? he said.
I don’t see any burkas. You can’t wear them in the street in France, so maybe they’re sold in the back.

There were pictures of the Koran and of Mecca in one window. There was an Arab-language bookstore across the street.

Is this the hipster area you wanted to show me? he asked.
It’s the right street, Jean-Pierre Timbaud, but I didn’t expect to find Islamic shops, she said.
Or is it Islamist? he said.
Depends on who’s wearing them or is making their women wear them. Some just call them modest.
Yeh, he said, Isis.

She was blonde, athletic, in her late-40s, and wore a purple-and-yellow-striped knee-length summer dress. He was a few years older, in decent shape for a CFO, wearing knee-length shorts and a polo shirt.

He removed the cap from his Nikon and took a picture of the headless mannequins.

Among the articles that she’d printed out to bring on this 6-day trip to Paris she’d brought along two to guide them today. One was an article about Benoît Castel, the pastry chef in whose shop they’d just enjoyed an excellent brunch, from France Revisited. The other was an article about hipster hangouts and trendy boutiques on rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud from The New York Times. She took out the Times article and looked at it again.

Strange, she told him, this doesn’t mention anything about Arab shops in the neighborhood.

He was now taking a picture of the Cannibale Café whose terrace splayed across a street corner at the base of a handsome beige brick building. It was one of those nonchalant café terraces that makes you want to live in Paris.

These people don’t looked like they shop for chadors, he said of the men and women scattered among the outdoor seating.

Cannibals, she said with a laugh. That’s more like it.

Walking on, they look down an opposite side street.
Bar Al Muslim, he read. I didn’t think Muslims were supposed to drink alcohol.
Dar, she said. There must be a D behind the “For rent” sign. Dar. It means place or something like that.
How do you know that?
I’ve had a life, sweety.

They were both divorced, with grown children. He had learned French while in Brussels for work for three years. She had studied French in high school and college and had continued to learn the language when she and her ex-husband lived in Lyon for two years for his job. They began dating a few weeks after meeting in French class at the Alliance Française. This was their first trip to Paris together. They both felt that their French was quite passable and headed toward fluency. They tried to refrain from correcting each other’s mistakes and pretended not hear each other’s accents. He never let on that he thought his French better than hers; she never let on that she thought hers better than his.

Just ahead the street open to a long square formed by the juncture of two nearly parallel streets.

Here we are, she said.

There were lots of bikes parked on one side, and near them a pharmacy, a pizza place, and a café called L’Arbre Jaune, the Yellow Tree. Seated in the café were the same types people as at the Cannibale, the same that stood in line for brunch at Benoît Castel, the kinds they both thought of as Parisian.

Beyond the Yellow Tree café was a building called Maison des Métallurgistes, which was divided into two parts. While she looked in at the part indicated as a cultural center operated by the city, he walked on to the other part.

He was examining the window display of what looked like Soviet-era pictures when she came over to him.
Metal workers union, he said.
Steelworkers, she corrected.
Right, steelworkers. Communists.
Are you reading that or just saying that.
Remembering that, from French class.

That’s the name of the street we’re on, she said, pointing to a plaque dedicated to Jean-Pierre Timbaud.

Parisian steelworker, she read, union militant CGT.
CGT, that’s the name of the union here. Communists.
Killed by the Nazis.

By the bus stop, where a woman with a head scarf waited beside a woman in a bright red-and-white African robe, there was a statue.

They read the title of the statue but for a moment neither of them ventured a translation because stuck on the word “répit.”
Must be “rest” of the worker, she said.
Respite, he said, of the laborer, with seven weeks paid vacation.
It doesn’t say that, she said, hitting his arm. Silly.

I wonder where Communists go on vacation these days, he said.
They probably vacation in France and complain about the system while enjoying cheese and wine, just like us.
Do I complain about the system?
Well you should. But you won’t as long as the system is lifting your stock portfolio.
My adorable lefty, he said. But you’re right about one thing, he said as two women in gray hajibs walked by in one direction and two African men in knit skullcaps passed in the opposite direction, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
That’s for sure, she said. Not a meth addict or a white supremacist slogan in sight.

They stood by a multi-colored water fountain observing people crossing the square in one direction or another: men in beige robes and slippers half off their feet; a woman with a green and yellow robe with an infant swaddled on her back; a group of young men in jeans and t-shirts hanging out by the bikes; a man wearing a yarmulke; a biracial couple.

It’s a melting pot, she said.
Some things don’t melt, he said.
I don’t like when you sound like my Nazi brother-in-law.
Just saying, he said. I’m enjoying this as much as you are.
He motioned to the Yellow Tree, where sat men and women dressed the same way they did back home, just neater and in smaller sizes.
It looks like the people in the café were just teleported there, he said, because there’s no one dressed like that walking in the street.
More cannibals, she said, confusing herself with her own joke.

They’d examined the buildings on the one side of the square and now they visited the other. There was a public nursery school next to the Saint Paul Catholic School next to the Omar Ibn El Khattab Mosque.

He’d noticed a sign on the wall of the mosque and got up close to read it. It was a simple but official-looking printed piece of paper with a letterhead in Arabic and a notice in French.

Advice to the faithful, he read aloud.
Notice, she said coming alongside him. Notice to the faithful.
He continued: We inform you that counting from Friday 29 December 2017, following to the decision of Mister the Prefect of Paris, the occupation of the public space during the prayer of Friday is strictly prohibited.
She took over: This decision will be applied by the presence of forces of order.
Enforced by the police, he said. We invite the faithful to take their dispositions…
To make proper arrangements, and to come close to…
No, to go to another mosque such as the caserne fish shop door…
That must be the name of the mosque—in the 18th arrondisssement or the mosque of Porte Bagnolet.
Thanks for helping us to preserve our mosque.

I wonder if this is where they filmed that video, she said. Every time I post a picture of France on my Facebook page my cousin in Israel sends me the same video of Muslim men praying in the streets of Paris, with the title “America Next” question mark.
She must be friends with my cousin in Oklahoma, he said. When he heard that I was coming to Paris he sent me a video like that entitled “Death to the West.”
They looked around the quiet square. The only people passing by were two joggers in shorts.
It’s a slow death, she said.

Or maybe not, he said.
He pointed to the Amen travel agency at the end of the square, with a picture of Mecca on the wall.
From what I gather, she said, the young professionals are the ones moving in. But what bothers me is that while our cousins tell us that every Muslim is a potential terrorist, the New York Times Photoshops the Arabs out from a travel article about a neighborhood with a mosque and a dozen Muslim shops.
Maybe the Times thought it would scare off American tourists if they mentioned it, he said. Everyone’s got an agenda.
What’s yours?
He winked at her and took her hand.
They both laughed.
God, I love Paris, she said.

Text and photos © 2018, Gary Kraut

Continue to Part 2, The Wall of 3 Crowns.

The post Paris Street Talk: Chadors, Communists, Cannibals appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Part 2, The Wall of 3 Crowns

Two road diverged after the Yellow Tree café and they, standing by the Amen travel agency, they took the one less traveled by buses, thinking wrongly that it was the continuation of rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. No matter, it was just as fair, and they soon spotted a colorful wall down the block there.

Birds and words had been spray painted on the wall against a bright blue background. Along the wall was an open door.

If an open door is an invitation, she said, what’s an open door with a Doberman lying across the threshold, a guarded invitation?
A sign that the door is being repaired?

The dog’s coat was as black and shiny as a burka the beach. It gave them a lazy look and incuriously set down its chin.

That’s not a Doberman, he said. That’s a mutt hoping to find some pinscher or weimaraner in his 23andMe report.

They looked beyond the open door. Within was a cheerfully graffitied space between two buildings, with dozens of potted plants and a cabin of sorts in the back. It was altogether about twice the size of the Airbnb they were renting in the Marais. Two men sat at opposite ends of a long wooden table, one reading a newspaper, the other leaning over the table. They appeared to be waiting for Godot. For a moment neither looked over.

Bonjour, the man and the woman said from the threshold.

At one end of the table, a bearded fellow of about 30 looked up to them, muttered bonjour, then immediately turned back to what he was doing: drawing with a blue marker on the table. The other, probably in his 50s, got up, picked up a piece of paper from the table and brought it over to them.

You can come in, he said. Visit. Take pictures. Sit down. Whatever.

He sat back down at the opposite end of the table from the man who was coloring the table with a marker. He picked up the newspaper and began reading.

The man and the woman looked at each other and entered.

It disturbed him that the fellow had mentioned that they could take pictures, as though he saw them not as strollers idling by on a Sunday afternoon but as sightseers seeking photo-ops. Then he realized that his Nikon was hanging from his neck.

He read aloud, in French, a heading on the little brochure he’d been given: The 3 crowns collective, what is it?

The older man had apparently been waiting for the question. He turned to them and explained: This was an urban wasteland where people used to throw trash and was occasionally squatted by homeless people and tagged. Now it’s a project run by the Collectif 3 Couronnes, all volunteers, to lodge one or two homeless people at a time until suitable permanent housing can be found, while welcoming all comers to rest, gather and socialize and some to make graffiti. He’s one of the graffers, he said of the fellow with the blue marker at the other end of the table.

The graffer didn’t look up. Both the man and the woman thought he might socially stunted.

Which of these graffiti did you do? asked the man.
The graffer, pointing with his marker, said he’d done Coluche here

and Guardians of the Galaxy there.

How do you choose your subjects?
It’s for the fun of it, he said. You can’t take yourself too seriously. Keep it colorful.

The Guardians were obviously superheroes—he recognized Rocket Raccoon. But who was Coluche? He looked up Coluche on his phone as the men returned to what they’d been doing: drawing on the table and reading a newspaper. Coluche, he found, was a popular comedian and the founder, in 1985, shortly before his death in a motorcycle accident at the age of 41, of Les Restos du Coeur, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help and assist the poor and the destitute, particularly by providing free meals and participating in their social and economic insertion.

How long do they stay? she finally said. The homeless.

It depends on how long it takes to find more permanent lodging, said the older man, and if they’re willing to stay.

We couldn’t get some to stay here at first, said the graffer. They didn’t like the place.
There’s no electricity, said the other, and that’s a dry toilet over there behind the curtain.
But it’s shelter? said the man with the camera. And they need shelter.
You might think so, said the graffer. But if the goal is to get real lodging of the kind we all deserve—and that’s the goal—then this is unacceptable to some. And some didn’t like all that was going on in the neighborhood, you know, out in the street, up there.
It’s calmed down though, said the other.

She realized that the graffer, far from socially stunted, had been sizing them up before speaking.

Where else do you do graffiti? she asked.

That led to a conversation between the two of them about the evolution of graffiti-friendly neghborhoods in Berlin, Budapest, Tokyo, Boston and elsewhere. As they spoke, the man with the camera took pictures. Listening to the conversation he was as surprised by the graffer’s knowledge of the world as he was by her apparent knowledge of the places he spoke about. She’d never mentioned knowing anything about street art or that she’d ever been to Budapest.

The graffer spoke about art squats, squatters, travel and graffiti. She thought him too well traveled to have ever been homeless in a needy sense. He seemed to be more of a traveler, seeking out people, places, experiences—someone on a personal quest. She politely asked how he lived, meaning how he managed the economics of his life, and he mentioned his paid decorative work for clients.
What do you like about squats? she asked.
Studio space, he replied, and the people. We need to help people—help each other—on a local basis rather than look for mega solutions from politicians. Money doesn’t help in that case, it corrupts.

She, for her part, believed in mega solutions and in the importance of education, statistics and the fight against demagogues and fake news. Helping people individually, we should all do that. But only top down had significant results. Didn’t the French think that? Or had she misunderstood something.

Sometimes I think about leaving the city to live in a small town and help people there, he said.

There was a pause in the conversation. She got up and examined the potted plans while he continued to take pictures.

The older man had said little since she’d begun speaking with the graffer. It was as though they took turns entertaining the guests. The graffer then brought him back into the conversation by saying it was he, the older one, who cared for the plants.

We ask the person we’re housing to take care of the plants when I’m away, but if I come back after a two- or three-week absence they’re dead.

I hope you mean the plants, said the man with the camera, but the fellow didn’t seem to get the joke. Where do you go? he asked.
I leave, said the gardener.

I’d like to take a wide shot with the table in it, he announced. Do you mind if you’re in it?
I don’t want to be in any pictures, said the gardener, getting up from the chair.
How about you? he asked the graffer.
I don’t care, he said. I don’t believe in copyright.

They chatted with the men a bit more then nodded to each other that it was time to go. They shook hands and said good-bye. They stepped over the dog and out to the street.

Did I ever tell you how good your French is? he said to her.
Yeh, the first time you tried to get me into bed.
Well it is. I just want to say it again, sincerely this time.
He offered his hand and she took it.
I guess it’s true what they say about visiting Paris, she said.
What’s that?
That it even turns pigs into romantics.

Text and photos © 2018, Gary Kraut

Return to Part 1, Street Talk Paris: Chadors, Cannibals, Communists.

The post Paris Street Talk: The Wall of 3 Crowns appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

You’ve looked up at the wedding cake basilica of Sacré Cœur. You’ve looked down at the grey rooftops of Paris. You’ve sidestepped a beggar. You’ve seen a guy standing motionless like a statue. You’ve seen the mosaic Jesus inside the church. You’ve dodged marauding portrait sketchers as you then walked to Place du Tertre. You’ve wondered how a piece of tourist art might look in your bathroom. Perhaps you’ve had coffee, ice cream, a beer or, god forbid, lunch on the square.

You’ve been there alright. But have you done that?

Certainly not. Butte (Hilltop) Montmartre, as it’s known to Parisians, concerns the entire surrounding hump of the hill, not just the crowd-pleasing hilltop chart-toppers.

In order to “do that” you might set off on a treasure hunt to find the following:
– the Love Wall,
– the Bateau-Lavoir, a maze of studios that was a hotbed of creativity in the early 1900s.
– the sculpture of the man who walked through walls, in honor of the writer Marcel Ayme,

– the vineyard,
– the cabaret Au Lapin Agile,
– the sculpture of the man who walked with his head in his hands, in honor of Saint Denis,
– the bust of the Dalida, an Egyptian-French singer who was a cross between Maria Callas, Judy Garland and Cher,

– two or three windmills,
– the monument to Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, an artist, anarchist and cat-lover,
– the statue of the Chevalier de la Barre, a knight who was tortured then beheaded for blasphemy and became a symbol of the intolerance of a religious majority,
– and the bust of Francisque Poulbot, an illustrator of posters and other images featuring Parisians and particularly street kids, as well as one of the founders of the Republic of Montmartre.

There, I’ve just outlined many of the sights and characters you’d meet on my 3-hour Montmartre tour, minus the café, the bar and a church or two. But rather than take you on that tour in this article I wish to lead you directly to the location of the bust of Poulbot, the last on that list. Your treasure hunt ends here.

While all of the others on my list can be seen from streets and squares, you have to enter the garden at the Musée de Montmartre (the Montmartre Museum) in order to meet Pouilbot.

The Montmartre Museum is just 300 yards from Sacré Coeur and Place du Tertre yet it feels well off the beaten track. As it should since this is a connoisseur’s museum with a quiet garden café.

The museum’s permanent collection occupies a 17th-century building within a small park, just behind a zone of former studio-residences. Those studio-residences once hosted Auguste Renoir (he painted Dance at the Moulin de la Galette at this address), Suzanne Valadon, Émile Bernard and other artists from the heydays of the Montmartre art scene.

The museum pays homage to the artists associated with Montmartre from 1870 to 1914 (i.e. much of the period covered by the Orsay Museum) and to life in the cafés and cabarets during that time.

In the permanent collection you’ll meet the likes of:
– Alfred Renaudin through his painting on 1899 prior to the construction of the steps leading up to Sacré Coeur,

– Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), an artist who was drawn to the bohemian and often debauched life of Montmartre,

– Yvette Guilbert (1865-1944), an actress and singer associated here with Montmartre’s café-concert scene of the 1890s. Hear her sing here.

– And can-can dancers, of course.

You’ll see posters. (The famous illustration for the café Le Chat Noir is by Steinlen, mentioned above.)

Including the Moulin Rouge, of course.

The gardens surrounding the museum offer a view of the vineyard of Montmartre from one corner,

a secluded picnic table in another,

and mostly an airy portion around a central basin, where visitors can get a drink or a snack from Café Renoir.

The current temporary exhibition at the museum, until August 26, concerns Van Dongen and the artists of the Bateau-Lavoir.

So where’s the bust of Pouilbot? I leave that to you to find on your treasure hunt.

Musée de Montmartre, 12 rue Cortot, 18th arr. The museum is open daily 10am-6pm, until 7pm April-Sept. Café Renoir, which serves snacks and drinks in the museum’s garden, is open daily noon-6pm May-Sept., Wed-Sun. noon-5pm Oct.-April. Entrance to the museum and the temporary exhibition is 12€.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Montmartre Treasure Hunt: Been There, Not Done That appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.