Merry Christmas From Me and Mr. Bean

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Nowhere and Nothing

From my favorite Funny Frenchman, VinVin (of the sadly abandoned but still hilarious Bonjour America!), came the pleasure of this video. I realized when I saw his post heading, "j'adore", that Europeans really romanticize the American West.

I remember my British husband was desperate to be a cowboy. The minute he got to Arizona he bought the requisite boots, hat, belt, snap-buttoned western-tailored shirt. He already had the suede fringe jacket (I pretended I didn't know him when he wore that), and the bow legs too. Not sure how he got the legs, having never been on a horse in his life.

Anyway, suddenly, after living in Europe for a while, I watched this video through European eyes, and I could grasp the romance, the rustic, desolate openness of it all. And I realized that the "cowboy way" isn't really a myth - made up in the minds of outsiders, or manufactured in John Wayne's Hollywood. I've personally viewed all those scenarios in the video. The bronco and bull riding, the dust from the arena settling on the trucks in the parking lot and the steel-bar corrals. I've leaned on the fence and smelled hay and horse sweat. I've watched the horses' heaving sides, their flexing muscles, listened to their snorting breath, as they flummoxed by me on the way to skirting the next barrel.

I've been both pilot and co-pilot in many versions of that old GMC truck.

You can look at the video images of undulating, golden dust prairie and imagine that these places hold a steady silence. But all you have to do is stop your truck and stand on the side of an empty road, just for a minute or so, to let the world settle around you, and you'll know that this is a silence chock full of sound. Pebbles scuttling down mountain sides, birds cawing in the distance, wind - hot or cold, depending on the time of year - wafting against your ears, stirring your hair. In Arizona there are large hawks who work in pairs, with one in a tree top or telephone pole, the other on the ground. As soon as the lookout spies a mouse or other prey, she makes a sound the likes of which I've only heard at 3AM in dingy honky tonks when some guy is puking in the bathroom. At the sound of the puke, the hawk's partner takes off after the prey on the ground and catches it for both he and his partner to enjoy.

And when it's 120 degrees in these parts, you can almost hear the pavement sizzle, the cicadas rub their legs together at amazing speeds and the rocks slowly crack. At night, the desert comes alive, with hooting owls and coyote howls.

I don't miss America. But I had a little stirrin' in my heart for the peacefulness of this certain kind of nowhere, this plentiful nothing.

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Me And The Clouds Of My Breath

It's Christmas time in Paris and I love it. The 3 Euro ($4) lobsters are back in their long tubes in the frozen section of my local Franprix, bringing back memories of last year's New Years feast. I've already had one of them steamed in a mushroom-filled Asian broth. It did wonders for my nasty cold.  I plan to have many more before the season ends.

The blue lights have been strung between the buildings across rue Poteau, and late the other night, as I walked home from the Metro in the drizzling rain, I was mesmerized by the reflections of those blue lights on the wet pavement. The corner that I was standing on, with my back towards Jules Joffrin Metro station and the Mairie or town hall of the 18th arondissement, and my scarved and corduroy-hatted front facing down rue Poteau, is usually bustling with people. When the cafe to my right is open, it has an outdoor seafood station full of oysters, and even in the cold weather, people are sitting at little tables, smoking their recently-banned cigarettes, sipping a glass of Sancerre or Rosé or a hot Cafe Creme, and enjoying freshly-shucked oysters. But on this late night, I was the only one there, just me and the clouds of my breath stirring the silence. I took some pictures so that you could enjoy this moment too.

The first photo is looking down rue Poteau. The second photo shows the golden reflection of light on the pavement, with just a little hint of a blue reflection too. The third photo is after I walked a little ways down rue Poteau until I came to rue Letort, where they have strung some blue lights on the trees in front of Cafe Reinitas, a great place to sit outside and watch people go by as they shop in the outdoor market on Wednesdays and Sundays. The fourth photo is standing at the same place, but looking down rue Letort.

 

  

  

 

A couple of weekends ago, during the Beaujolais Nouveau celebration, they closed one whole section of Poteau so that wine, cheese, bread, fois gras and other vendors could set up shop. I came home early one evening from an appointment and discovered the street market and called a friend so we could walk along and gaze at the gorgeous food. At an olive stand, where they also had huge bowls of tapenades, the vendor handed me a hunk of crusty bread covered with sun dried tomato tapenade and it melted in my mouth. He encouraged me to taste a pickled gralic clove and I thought it would be too strong, but it was incredibly mild and delicious. I told him I'd be back to buy some but never made it back, and now I wish I had. I wish I'd bought a gallon!

I took some pictures that evening too, although they're a bit overexposed. This one works though:

It started to get a little too cold and windy, so we bought a warm baguette and I splurged on a beautiful Rosé, bought directly from the wine maker. As the vendors in their stalls began putting away their wares for the night, we hurried back to my warm apartment to break the bread and sip the wine.