Spring wanderings

Yesterday was a gorgeous spring day, sunny and about 10 degrees Celsius above average. The trees are by now all leafy. JD and I did some walking around in the Marais, including a gallery that was showing some pretty cool works by this guy Ciro Rizzo. The next artist they're featuring, in May, just happens to be the granddaughter of Cezanne!

Far less successful than those works was the Pompidou Center. I hadn't been there before, so it was neat just to go and see the building and the unparalleled view of Paris from the top of the external escalators. But we were not much impressed by a lot of the art, and the exhibition on LA, which we both expected to have more photos of LA, was a total bust. Eh.

Incidentally, while I was walking past the Pompidou a couple of weeks ago, I realized that although the look of it is in some ways very similar to the Forum des Halles, the latter is so much more dated-looking and ultimately unsuccessful as a public space, while the Pompidou still is vibrant and lively. Telling, perhaps, is the fact that a google for "forum des halles" turns up this damning criticism from something called the "Project for Public Spaces."

Last night we went to Café Solo with friends Tn and M, remember Tn is the cool American engineer with the cute dog. (More on the dog below.) It was a name-that-tune night, purporting to be of music from the eighties, but it wasn't the eighties that I lived through. A lot of new wave, and of course French music. I only recognized two or three songs. By the end of the evening there were so many people crowding the bar that we couldn't hear the music. Still, it was nice to hang out with Tn and M.

And...they're going to Turkey for a week, and I'm going to watch their dog! She's very calm and friendly, and I'm very glad I'll get to have some doggie in my life without making a major commitment to a lifestyle change. I'll watch her at Tn and M's house, which is up only one flight instead of my six flights, and is in the 14th.

Today I'm going to get to the market, and then we'll see from there. I have lots of ideas... I got this great book yesterday which is in some ways even more useful than Paris Pas Cher ('Inexpensive Paris'); it's called Paris 0€. It not only has free things to do in and around Paris, but it has a calendar for free events happening this year. So for example, there's a weekend of art openings in the 13th next weekend, free jazz in the 6th the two weekends after that, and the eleventh annual Fête du Pain all over the city May 10th through the 16th. Chouette!

And speaking of "chouette," which literally means 'owl' but also means 'great!', yesterday we saw a doormat with an owl on it, saying "Chouette! Vous y êtes!" ("Great, you're here!"). :)