Paris at a Certain Age

Springtime in the Streets

It's the ninth annual Festival of Arts in the Streets in the 10th arrondissement where we've been staying.

Canal Saint Martin is draped with fluttering banners in shades of blue: sky blue, marine blue, blue violet. Art events are scheduled all weekend from the marvelous sprawl of Villemin Park, to the restored inner square of Hôpital Saint-Louis (that dates from the same period as Place des Vosges and is constructed in a similar style), to Espace Jemmapes (in spitting distance of Hôtel du Nord), to Place Raoul Follereau. There are performing artists everywhere you look. And the citizens of the 10th are out in force to enjoy it. This city uses its parks to full advantage. And they support the arts in word and deed.

We saw all sorts of performances for both adults and for children. Everywhere you looked there was something going on. Some people walked from one venue to another while others spread out blankets and settled in on one performance space to watch the events or just the other people or even the clouds reflected in the glass of a nearby office building.There was an old-fashioned amusement ride with real baskets for kiddies to sit in, powered by a man turning it by hand.

But it was last night's event that took my breath away and hardened my resolve to find a way to live here permanently.

As dusk fell over the canal, a fantastical white ship floated up along the side of the canal, accompanied by haunting music and a kind of surreal scat singing. It was preceeded by towering white creatures out of a dreamscape and citizens of the 10th followed it in pied piper fashion.

Atop the dreamship, acrobats performed, accompanied by the fanciful music and song. As they traversed the length of the canal and crossed over one of its bridges to return along the other side, more and more people followed, Mardi Gras style. Residents hung out of balconies. And of course no traffic was allowed, so the streets were full of people swaying and dancing. We were all in a fugue state of joy and enchantment.

The ship 'docked' by the park at Square Villemin and the crowds poured in to watch another acrobatic performance there in the park. There were sparklers and light effects and the stilted creatures jumped rope over a string of lights.

For a finale, an enormous sinuous tube wormed onto the field and erupted with a great gush of bubbles that flowed like lava, covering the surface until we were surrounded by tides of bubbles. Adults, children, even dogs danced and swam and pirouetted in the sea of bubbles which shimmered in the reflected light. It was such a magical experience that I expected the crowds to drift upward and fly off into the night.

Metro Gals

I saw these two metro gals sharing their iPod and it reminded me of my teenage friend, Gina Pocekay. I see her in my mind's eye, here in Paris on the metro with her iPod, and I smile.

Going Postal

I had the opportunity to visit the post office today, always an ordeal no matter what country you're in. There are usually long lines in Paris branches, just like in the US. But the post office has a little chart posted outside advising which hours are the least busy, so today's visit was at 9 AM to avoid the crowds. There is a separate commerçante line for storekeepers or business folks.

On a previous visit, I experienced the famous 'Line-Jumpers-of-Paris', folks who brazenly cut ahead of you with clever excuses, ordinary chutzpah or sheer rudeness. The clerks have little sense of being rushed and take all the time they need to complete each transaction in methodical sequence. No multi-tasking here! You can spend 45 minutes in line and then be told it's impossible to send what you want to where you want in the container you want.

But while in line you get to examine how different La Poste in France is from the US Postal Service. Not only are there cash machines, change machines, photo machines, greeting cards and school supplies for sale, there is an entire BANK in the post office. You can get a friggin' mortgage there. As well as telephone cards and ATM cards. And you can arrange to have your computer data backed up through one of their services.

Before I left the apartment for this postal visit, I had carefully packed my carton and sealed it with super-duper tape and made certain it could survive the trans-Atlantic and trans-continental trip it would be making. Only to discover that if I used one of the special La Poste boxes it would cost 30 euros less to mail. I was ready to be told to take my Amerikanski box and go home and return with a real French box or pay the 30 euros extra. But no: the postal guy was not only very cute, he was utterly charming and slowly and methodically sliced open my surgical taping and then slowly and methodically repacked the whole thing in the much more chic French box. All the while being very discrete about the weird crap I had stuffed inside. Not only that, but he was complimentary about my crude French and chatted about Northern California versus Paris (slowly and methodically, of course). Another wonderful lesson on Life in Paris.

Fête d'Aligre

On Sunday, after traipsing along le coulée vert (as Tricoquine mentioned is another way of referring to la Promenade Plantée), Iz and I wandered down Boulevard Ledru Rollin. We stopped for sandwiches à emporter at a traiteur and headed to Square Trousseau for an impromptu picnic. Surprise! La Commune Libre d’Aligre was having a neighborhood fête.
There was a wacky band playing Triplets de Belleville and other fun pieces. The band was composed of all ages and they had flutes, horns, saxophones and even a tuba. They hammed it up playing to the crowd while little children roared with laughter and joined in the clowning. Periodically one of the band members would jump off the stand and hold high a posterboard with lyrics so the audience could sing along.

Booths lined the square: political causes, snacks, neighborhood preservation groups, etc.
There was an area for childrens’ fingerpainting with their work on display, taped to trees. Others played ping-pong or clambered over climbing structures and slides. Older folks were out in force and tapped their toes to the beat of the music while lunching with family. A good time was had by all. The public spaces in Paris are well used by the citizenry and designed for joie de vivre.

The Commune Libre d’Aligre is one of four communes of Paris. Montmartre is another (does anyone know the other two? Info would be appreciated). There is a strong history of resistance to oppression in this commune, dating back centuries. Today they are a very active community with a film festival (Cinémaligre), community gardens (Aligresse) and proposals for a café/community center. What a joli quartier in which to live!

Everything is different in Paris

Even the news-anchors in Paris look different! Off the shoulder blouse...Can you imagine such a sexily attired news-anchor in the US?

Manifestation

We left the apartment on Tuesday the 7th, heading for a museum, and ran smack into a demonstration (or ‘manifestation’ as they say in French) at Place de la République. First we saw a line of garbage trucks, then clots of police, then heard the loudspeaker thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of music. Next, festive groups of people with signs and posters appeared. At first I wasn’t sure if this was a concert or maybe a parade. Just goes to show the American perspective. But when we saw a large crowd following a banner (“It’s not better than nothing. It’s the worst of all!”), we finally realized it was a demonstration.

There were no materials delineating what was the worst. Clearly everyone else knew the issues and needed no explanations. It was also obvious that demonstrations happen all the time; the police and garbage men and traffic cops (‘circulation’) treated this as no biggie. We noticed this entrepreneurial guy selling baguettes from his homemade plastic bin.

We left for the Louvre as hordes of people were vomiting out of the metros. Later that day I discovered that this was one of 160 demonstrations across France against the CPE (Contrat première embauche) or First Hire Contract. This is a plan by Dominique de Villepin, France’s prime minister, in response to the riots in the suburbs last fall. Unemployment is very high in France, particularly for the young and there is a network of byzantine regulations regarding hiring and firing. Supposedly Villepin is trying to foster job creation for the young with this law which allows employers of more than 20 people to hire workers less than 26 years old in their first job with the ability to fire them at will in the first 2 years.

Pro-CPE forces see this as a softening in the rigid regulations that will encourage employers to take more risks and hire the young (they say it’s impossible to fire someone under the current system). Anti-CPE forces see this as the creation of a two-tier system which treats the young as second class workers and delays their ability to qualify for loans, mortgages and other critical measures requiring job stability. Meanwhile I will try to translate news stories of interviews with young job-seekers and frustrated employers and hopefully learn more about the issues involved.