Bright Song for a Dark Night

I posted something lighter-hearted earlier today; now that seems inappropriate. Maybe it will come back on a better day.

Tonight there can only be Piaf, the Little Sparrow and her "Hymne à l'amour."  I have to believe, no matter how the awful the moment may be, love will win. It seems a fine and correct coincidence that the film this is from is called Paris Still Sings.

Maybe not tonight, but it will again, and soon. Love wins.

Ballad of the Sad Café

Ah, the things one finds when clearing out one's cell phone memory. We passed this little place near our friends' flat in Paris and decided it should definitely be filed under "Restaurant Names, Unappetizing."

Even if it really is a C and not a G after all, all I can think of is the Monty Python joke - "What's brown and sounds like a bell?"

Sorry, darlings; it's been one of those days. I'll endeavor a return to our usual higher plane tomorrow.

Doctor, Doctor

Yet another travel snap, from the cemetery in Montmartre. This rather arresting monument is just down the way from Dalida's and was, it seems, the inspiration of a Dr. Pitchal. My money is on his having been a Magritte fan.

I love Google! Writing this, I thought of looking him up. Well, it turns out that Dr. Pitchal's widow has written up their great affair - and she claims to have been Dalida's best friend on top of that. She sounds like rather a character herself:

"Jacqueline's life is rich in adventures; whether at the court of the Shah of Iran, or in Los Angeles, Palm Beach or Dubai. From the ministrations of a healer in Marrakesh which almost left her blind to her kidnapping and ransom in Saint Tropez in 1982. Jacqueline Pitchal has truly lived many lives in one."

And to think I thought Mr. Muscato and I had a colorful life. You really need to read more about her; it all made me need a nap. But not as long a one as that on which Dr. Pitchal has embarked...

Service With a Smile

So I'm finally having time to dig through our travel snaps, weed out the blurs, the duplicates, and the flatout failures.

This one is for all my fellow expatriates here across the Gulf; it's the sort of thing that, after a while, could bring tears to your eyes. Not merely because it is a lovely, old-fashioned Continental sort of shop; not merely because it undoubtedly stocks a range and quality of pork goodies that we never see or chickens that weigh more than two pounds. No, the thing that you could sweep the width and breadth of the Arabic Gulf, from Kuwait to Yemen, and not find is what's contained in the promises on the awning: "Conseil - Tradition - Service Soigné".

It's a fantasy to us, you see - the idea of strolling into your local shop and actually encountering someone who knows about the goods they sell; who is pleased and eager to help you purchase them; and who, in so doing, could offer anything even vaguely resembling service that is soigné.

Oh, I suppose I shouldn't complain, I know, but I was spoiled by a childhood of grandmothers both of whom had a legion of "lovely men" - as in "well, of course I have a lovely man who keeps an eye out for the kind of filets your grandfather likes," or "that lovely man at the market saved me these three quarts of black raspberries..."

So we put with up with the choatic, haphazard supermarkets or the occasional forays to the traditional souqs - but, as they say: we'll always have Paris.

Beauties and the Beasts

Well, I feel terribly remiss, and a bit dim. I returned to the office and was busy leafing through back issues of Hello! catching up on some important reporting when I discovered a major story!

I had known that Sheikh Hamad of Qatar, an amiably portly monarch with a distinct resemblance to a shoe polish-dyed S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall (or is he more John Candy?), had paid a state visit to Paris while we were there...

But I didn't know that he wasn't, as Gulf royals often do, traveling stag! No indeed - he brought along his (principal) wife, the rather divine Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser, the woman who keeps Queen Rania of Jordan awake nights as they vie for recognition as most stunning Arab consort. She's seen here shielding something more than thirty percent of her husband from photographers.

Had I been even halfway paying attention, I would have realized that it made perfect sense for her to come along, if only so she could size up the European competition, in the form of the lovely and multi-talented Mme. Sarkozy.

As indeed she did, while Monsieur cools his (elevator) heels in the background. It rather looks as if they've hit it off.

And, during dinner, while Carla studiously reviews the text of the Sheikh's speech (or her latest lyric), someone does a little sizing up of his own. Doesn't he look just exactly like Pepe LePew here, about to pounce?

All the more reason for the ladies, as dinner ended, to head out of the dining room à deux. "Oh, darling," sighs the Sheikha, "let's dump Shorty and Fatty and grab some of your husband's Champagne, go upstairs, get out of these rags, and try on jewelry. I just know you have Eugenie's and Marie Antoinette's stuff up there..."

Another surprise was that the Qatari couple didn't travel alone; they brought along at least one of the children.

Sadly, it would appear that her father's genes rather outweigh her mother's. Fab Chanel, though, I'll hand her that.

And to think we were just across town while all this was going on. Such a tiny planet, no?

A Girl Who Gets Around

I swear, today was going to be my day to be all cultural. Mr. Muscato had plans of his own, so after lunch (which itself followed a vigorous morning of shopping at Printemps and the Galeries Lafayette, frustratingly the day before the big annual sales start) I headed off across the Tuileries and the Seine to the Musée d'Orsay.

Once there, however, I found enormous queues of exceedingly regrettable types touristiques. I decided I simply couldn't stand waiting in line for an hour more and was, therefore, forced, forced! to move to my Plan B.

Which was to visit the Musée de la Poupée, which turns out to be one of the hidden gems of a capital full of them. It's a miniscule private museum tucked into a tiny street near the Place Beaubourg - only half-a-dozen rooms or so, but all packed with every conceivable kind of 18th, 19th, and early 20th century doll (and a generous helping of teddy bears, doll furniture, and associated treasures). They are all displayed in enchanting and extremely creative dioramas - an Edwardian parlor, a Victorian classroom, a Trip to the Zoo, etc., and are just adorable.

I had been attracted by an advert for the museum's current temporary exhibition, "Rêve ta vie avec Barbie", a comprehensive look at Mattel's fair-haired girl's enviable career over the past half-century. If you're in Paris before the end of September, you really ought to stop by.

In one of those little happenstances that makes life interesting, this infinitely twee destination is just next to, of all things, the Jardin Anne Frank, a hidden oasis of calm and green in one of Paris's most congested neighborhoods, where if you like you can sit for a while and think sad thoughts. I did.

But then I went and found Mr. Muscato and, as usual, felt much better.

Piaf

She's on my mind.

C'est Paree!

While our exuberance may not quite equal Marie-Claude's (seen here attempting the world's first can-can-mambo-jazzercise routine, all to the mellow rhythms of Herr Maier), we're having a lovely time.

Dalidamicalement

As part of our goings-on this week in Paris, Mr. Muscato and I carried out a long-time resolution.

We started by fortifying ourselves, having taken the Metro up, up, up to the further end of Montmartre, with a little something for luncheon at a very nice little neighborhood spot called, charmingly, Ginette de la Côte d'Azur.

Having polished off an excellent terrine de lapin and assorted other goodies, we proceeded through the hilly, leafy streets of the quartier, up a flight of vaguely baroque stairs, and reached:

Yes, it's true: we had embarked on one of the lesser, but more intense pilgrimages known to music lovers, the Tour de Dalida. We started in the lovely square that has been named in her honor, an irregularly shaped space of dignified apartment buildings, venerable trees, and, in the center:

This lovely sculpture, with, it must be admitted, more emphasis on the bust than most busts.

It's a popular spot. We weren't alone with our thoughts for five mintes before tourist groups started coming by. The ones who lingered were, I can't deny, more on the elderhostel end of the traveling scale, but they were having a wonderful time.

I was especially taken with this dear lady, who dutifully took notes in her little red notebook. I admire how she has so sensibly stashed her handbag under her very practical spring coat. Either that or that's one hell of a sanitary appliance.

Then it was on to the nearby Rue d'Orchampt, a tiny lane with a sharp elbow turn, at the very corner of which you find:

Chez Dalida itself, commemorated with this touching plaque. It really is a marvelous house:

Called, for reasons I have not discovered, the House of the Sleeping Beauty. It's currently, it seems, having some kind of overhaul but appears to be in private hands. We thought about trying to talk ourselves into its vestpocket garden, but instead decided to move on, through the narrow streets filled with odd shops, desultory galleries, and dark bars, down to our final stop - and hers.

The Cimetière de Montmartre is a densely packed necropolis, chockablock with mausoleums, marble slabs, obelisks, and other funerary monuments. It has a distinguished roll-call of residents, ranging from the original Lady of the Camellias and Dumas, who immortalized her, to the fabulous painter Gustave Moreaue, the great Taglioni, the playwright Feydeau, Truffaut, and even (although I'm ashamed to say I didn't seek her out), the inimitable Musidora.

Of course, we had but one goal in mind:

I'd only ever seen head-on photos of the Diva's magnificent tomb, which make it seem as if set to itself, in some pastoral setting. Much more fitting for this quintessential girl of the city is the reality, which has the tomb at the very edge of the cemetery, with views of Montmartre.

She is surrounded by ordinary Parisian families, whose relatives must wonder - even if they themselves do not - at all the hullabaloo she has brought to their quiet little corner. The grave itself is beautifully planted, and it is surrounded, to the point of spilling over to its neighbors, with flowers, plants, and all sorts of tributes and memorials.

I was especially taken with this little china book, placed now on the nearest flat slab next to Dalida's tomb. I think I will do all possible to popularize the cordial use of "Dalidamicalement."

So it's in this spirit of Dalidaffection that I offer a final image of the great lady herself - depicted as the Apotheosis of Cabaret, Our Lady of the Music Halls, a diva in its truest meaning: goddess.

The rest of our day (and night) was rather in the same spirit, albeit carried out in the district that today is as louche as Montmartre was once, the divine Marais. But more of that anon...

Movin' On Up

Sorry for such a long interregnum - we've been very busy. What can I say? It's Paris, bitches...

La Vie Parisienne-Aquatique

Sylvie-Christine was just never quite right after she kissed that frog...

Genêt

Or, to her friends - and they were legion - Janet Flanner. Along with the Murphys, Cole Porter, Gertrude and Alice, et al, she was expat Paris between the wars, and brought the news back in her wonderful writing for The New Yorker. She had a kind of slightly austere lesbian chic; she was debonair.

I'm trying to imagine the occasion that would call for pajamas, top hat, and a pair of masks; it must have been quite a night.

Chez Elle

If, I suppose, I had to dwell somewhere other than the Villa Muscato, I might do worse than to settle down in the onetime flat of Mlle. Coco Chanel, a cozy retreat full of Venetian mirrors, crystal bibelots, and buckets of tulips.

The only downside? It's actually located in her fabulous headquarters at 31 Rue Cambon, which means Karl Lagerfeld as a neighbor.

Just another confirmation of that old proverb: there's no place like home. I don't see Karl and Koko getting along...

Eternal Glamour

Why settle for a simple headstone? Dalida certainly didn't.

The only thing that could make this more perfect would be to have "Les grilles de ma maison" (my personal Dalida fave) playing in a never-ending loop.

Although I suppose that could be rather wearing for her less-starry neighbors...

Les Girls!

Since we seem to be on a kind of francophilic kick today, how about a flash mob of fierce Frenchosity? These ladies are formidable in more ways than one:

Mistinguett

de Beauvoir

Colette

Chanel

Moreau

...et bien sur, la Môme.

It must be something in the water...

Le Train Bleu

"As far as I can know or learn, no other railroad station in the world manages so mysteriously to cloak with compassion the anguish of departure and the dubious ecstasies of return and arrival. Any waiting room in the world is filled with all this, and I've sat in many of them and accepted it, and I know from deliberate acquaintance that the whole human experience is more bearable at the Gare de Lyon in Paris than anywhere else."

- M.F.K. Fisher, Not a Station but a Place

Image du Jour

Mother and Child Reunion

From last summer's trip to Paris, a snap I took at the Pride Parade. The lady on the right was just tickled to have her picture taken with the drag queen; they're not really family, but at that moment, they sure were. The expression on the face of the lady's husband as he took their picture was even more priceless.

All in all, it was a nearly perfect day.