curi·ous {Old French curios} Drawn to investigate, prick up the ears, ponder for the sake of pondering. Enticed by mysteriously labeled bottles.
vo·luptu·ary {Late Latin volupturius} A lass devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. An unabashed epicurean, hedonist, libertine, sensualist, lotus-eater.
Today is an editing day, so I offer photographs of the second half of our Sunday. Cimetière de Montmartre was built below street level in the hollow of an old gypsum quarry and opened on 1 January 1825. It is the final address of Truffaut, Picabia, Nijinsky, Foucault and courtesan Marie Duplessis, among others. On [...]
A day of research and Dim sum began at Pere Lachaise and unfurled for hours of treasure-hunting throughout the city.
The cemetery was set-up by Napoleon I in 1804, but didn’t become a coveted permanent address until a marketing strategy involving relocating the remains of Molaire and La Fontaine there.
We’ve visited this village on several occassions [...]
A trip to Deyrolle, cabinet of curiosities which I am delighted to report has risen from the ashes of the 2008 fire that threatened it’s demise. Some of the rough-around-the-edges charm is gone, but in it’s place is a more polished, self-aware magnificence. Which I ’spose means Deyrolle grew up.
Began the day with a trip [...]
I discovered a love of trains in the years I traveled from NY to Philly and Washington to teach. Train travel is like moving through time, rather than space, or outside time. It conjures not quite longing, but a feeling equally layered and illusive. With a soundtrack, I would have been my own earnest 80s [...]
The molecule hour, chez moi.
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Spent time in Marais and Île de la Cité today, loafing about among the fromage and canard.
For lunch: galette complète (sans oeuf) at Breizh Café, with cider. Noted for next time, falafel at Chez Marianne.
Chez Julien, where my honey and I had old-school French dinner (I spose means lots of butter [...]
View from lunch at Nepenthe, named for the mythical drug inducing a forgetfulness of pain and trouble, from Homer’s Odyssey.
I’m guided by a signal in the heavens/I’m guided by those birthmarks on my skin/
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons/First we take Manhattan then we take Berlin.
~ Leonard Cohen
cafe honoring Austrian playwright Joseph Roth, who lived next door. (click to expand)
Its utterly sock-knocking to be back in a proper international landscape after so [...]
The kids packed the rental car with a year and a half of life à la ChittyChittyBangBang, and headed off to Berlin, by way of Toscana. Joyful, sorrowful, thrilled, about to be older, not likely much wiser. Here is some footage from last weekends visit with Manfred, Peggy and Stefan, hiking the Creux du Van.
(Ta [...]
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View from the prison tower, the oldest building in Neuchâtel, with foundations from the 10th century.
In 1688 Swiss doctor Johannes Hofer introduced the term nostalgia for the condition also known as mal du Suisse (Swiss illness) or Schweizerheimweh (Swiss homesickness), because of its frequent occurrence in Swiss [...]