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I did a photoshoot with the amazing Elena Hmeleva in Paris earlier this month because I needed some updated professional author photos, and these are some of the results. I was quite uncomfortable at first, but she was a pro and got me to relax and enjoy myself. I especially love how Elena managed to evoke the spirit of Paris in so many of the images.
Where Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises. I know it’s utterly cheesy, but I had to do it.
I’m writing this newsletter on a bright Autumn day in front of the fountain at the Jardin du Luxembourg. The park is filled with people lounging in the metal green chairs, soaking in the soft rays of an early October afternoon. Sunglasses and berets, artfully wrapped scarves, puffer vests under sport coats, Converse high-tops, and the occasional striped bateau, which the French wear unironically. I watch people with their feet up, their eyes closed, their AirPods in, and their faces turned up to the brilliant blue sky. Some eat baguette sandwiches. Others converse with animated hands. The tech addicted stare down at their phones, cupping their hands above their screens to block the glare. In front of me, four schoolgirls sit together on the sand beside the fountain. Behind me loom two large potted palm trees, their wide fronds swaying with the breeze on these last balmy days before they are rolled indoors for the winter. The bell of the clock on the palace chimes every fifteen minutes punctuating the steady crunch of footsteps on the pathways. The soundscape is completed by symphony of chattering voices, bicycle wheels, children’s squeals, cawing crows, and stray digital ringtones. Continue reading…
So I was in Montmartre yesterday and I was thinking that I should head out to one of Paris’s famous flea markets to do a little typewriter hunting. On my way to the metro, I popped into an antique shop and saw a pretty beat up Remington Portable, made in the USA for the German market with a QWERTZ keyboard, dating from the 1920s or 1930s. I think it’s a Portable #2, but I’m not sure yet because I haven’t located the serial number. In any event, I spoke to the proprietor in Spanish and it was clear he had no idea how the thing worked. (Paris tip: NEVER speak in English when you want to bargain for anything. The French are much nicer if you start in another language and then come to English as a third common language. They are very sensitive about English linguistic imperialism, and I really don’t blame them. All over Paris I hear Brits and Americans speaking loudly in English and just expecting locals to understand it.)
Anyway, I bargained for this lovely machine in Spanish, and the proprietor gave me a reasonable price for a machine in this condition. I am looking forward to restoring it and addition it to my growing collection.
So delighted to see my former Bowdoin College student, Julia Mead, who is now a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Chicago. She is currently doing archival research in Prague and we rendezvoused in Paris for the Gender and Materiality conference at Sciences Po. We found some time to enjoy the pleasures of the City of Light –embracing the numinous!
Well, if it wasn’t for this bloody pandemic, I would have been in Paris this month!
In Paris after a hard day’s work with Francisca de Hann, Chiara Bonfigioli, Sara Panata, Jocelyn Olcott, and our fearless leader, Ioana Cirstocea. I learned so much in one day; it was well worth weathering the jet lag and the heat wave to attend this seminar.
While I am in Paris for 3 days, I am working on a few soundscapes. Here is my first from the square in front of the Sorbonne University. I am in the cafe cross from the fountains.
