Paris is not burning

The thing about Paris is that it isn't supposed to change. And, in most neighborhoods, nothing does 

 

really change. The picturesque Place de la Contrescarpe, a piece of jewelry shining in the distance as I approached it by foot coming from the Jardin des Plantes, looks so quaint and pristine, perhaps a little too quaint and a little too pristine. But that's the point isn't it? Make a place look historically timeless by painting its buildings white and closing it down to traffic, or, as in the case of this square (or circle), making it difficult for cars to drive through it. 

Here, in an older photograph from a blog about Hemingway, is a photograph of the same square (from the 1920s I assume). Not quite as quaint, not at all pristine. 

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Another thing about Paris is that it considers itself the center of the world, as the mail slots at the local post office can attest. You put your mail either in the "Paris and suburbs" slot or... the other slot, which is for mail going to the provinces and the rest of the world. Nice alignment.  

One thing for which I am grateful in its timelessness is the abundance of really good bookstores, from tiny neighborhood ones that carry the latest prize winners alongside the classics and some more obscure titles that might escape one's attention, to the bigger ones like the Librairie Pedone, around since 1838,  which specializes in law books as it is located near the law faculty. But its window was so delightfully done up for the holidays, it attracted my gaze on that same walk through the 5th back to the 6th where I was staying this time around.

Bookstore Pedone on the rue Soufflot

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The meanderings of night time included this church just outside the Italian Cultural Center, again in the 5th. I love the reflection of the woman standing inside the Cultural Center (where I attended a baroque concert) overlapping with the leaning bicycle.   

Eglise Saint-Séverin

I also attended a concert by the French group Moriarty, which specializes in vintage sounds --American bluegrass, folk, country western performed by French musicians headed by a vintage wearing and sounding Franco-American singer by the name of Rosemary Standley. 

They played their music to the projected images of Robert Doisneau, known for his window reflections, taken from inside and outside various shops,  and photographs of France and its countryside that also project a timelessness.

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My wanderings always include, of course, visits to consignment shops. Good old reliable Cherche Minippes on the rue du Cherche Midi in the 6th still has a good selection of middle to expensive brand clothing. 

I also encountered yet another Kilo Shop on the Grands Boulevards (Boulevard Montmartre) where its wooden floor was the most beautiful of its timeless contents. 

high heels in the workplace

And now this, go Province of Alberta, Canada, the normalization of high heels for women is being addressed.

late November early December

Thrifting on 5th Avenue, Park Slope

I'm in New York City once again, post Thanksgiving which means Pre-Christmas with black Friday and cyber Monday as early indices of that not so subtle transition from gathering humans feeling thankful (verging on the meaningful and spiritual) to the cold material lure of consumption.

                                             

Pop up flea market, Prince  and Broadway

Love the vendor's "Honfleur" skirt 

     

                                                   On the R train heading to Brooklyn



         

     Beacon's Closet, 5th Avenue, Park Slope. The sign says "Focus on Winter."


I did cave for a necklace at the pop up flea market.

I had been looking for something that would emit a bit of light off of my neck, as I am becoming sensitive about my aging face, especially when it ends up in other people's photos, and I am totally unprepared. Anyway. There it was, among the glim, the glam, the toc as we say in French, there is a lot of ugly cheap jewelry out there. I do enjoy chatting with the vendors, when they really know their trade. Apparently, this necklace (silver and glass beads) is from the 1960s. I can picture Goldie Hawn wearing something like that on "Laugh In."

1968 nostalgia. Aging mama. Returning to her old digs (I lived in lower Park Slope in the early '80s). Chatting with a high school friend (I went to the French Lycée). Looking back seems normal when you reach a certain age. Besides, the past is a big part of our identity. Best to examine it before we completely forget it if we are still trying to figure who we are.

from the French weekly, L'Obs

Holy vintage

https://o.nouvelobs.com/lifestyle/20181119.OBS5621/mode-deco-musique-le-nouvel-age-d-or-du-vintage.html?fbclid=IwAR1qb8dUjJ40J2Rdepqy3v3Xb0B1eUVT6ceh5M_qLZ0ikyGIIfUjGTJbFWw

Comfort clothing

Winter has come early to Northern New England. We never really had a fall, so basically, we went from summer heat to really really cold and...snow already already. Before Thanksgiving. My instinct is to cocoon myself in comfy loose warm clothes. Like this Eileen Fisher sweater I picked up at the Pink Alligator (I think) worn over a Cut Loose skirt from the aforementioned store named "Folk" that closed its doors recently. 

Eileen Fisher signifies old lady not wanting to show body, apparently, according to a character in Nicole Holofcener's recent "The Land of Steady Habits" (2018). What a downer of a film, and heck, if Eileen Fisher gets you out the door  and off to work, which she does judging by her successful clothing line, then all the power to her. Loose clothing has always been my style, ever since I can remember. It has nothing to do with age, it has everything to do with comfort. I like that fabric has lines, drapes, gathers, like the sweater that is longer in the back than in the front, and channels the flapper of the 1920s. Let us celebrate the centennial of the flapper!

Birkenstocks are everywhere, too, so it seems that I am not the only one craving comfort clothing.
Finally, as we enter multiple trips to the supermarket season so that we can feed our family and friends, this sign gave me a bit of solace...

...especially when people were actually taking bags out of their cars and heading into the supermarket. And, yes, that is snow, in mid-November, in West Lebanon, NH.

Halloween

This Halloween I finally found the courage to dress up, not once but twice. First there was the pantsuit that I had purchased on eBay before the 2016 election and that I had decided not to wear because I had some foreboding that the election would go the wrong way. Anyway. It did -- the election -- and the pantsuit hung in my closet until this year. I thought it could become a costume referencing someone else besides Hillary of whom I wasn't even a fan in the first place (Bernie, on the other hand...). So slowly I accumulated the accessories that would make a good David Bowie costume: patent leather boots from "The Second Time Around" on Houston Street in NYC, and a patterned silk blouse from J.Crew via the Pink Alligator in Hanover NH. Meanwhile, another garment was hanging in my closet unworn, a long Girbaud dress hand me down from my mother. The Colette (author) biopic came out in the fall of 2018. So, the weekend before Halloween, I wore the suit (more Warhol than Bowie once the wig was on), and Halloween evening I channeled Colette, more Claudine than the author, but oh well. 

This moment is fraught with disgusting prejudice, language, actions, behaviors modeled by our evil politicians (Hell has come to the surface of the earth), so I decided to change my FB profile pic to :

With my daughter, who ended up wearing the patent leather booties; I'm channeling Bowie/Warhol, another era in an I.Magnin suit made in Italy. 

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This coming Tuesday, Americans will vote again. I can only hope that the elected assholes will be departing, and sane, civil people will replace them. Loads of women are running, minorities, even a Somalian refugee who has a beautiful voice. We must resist. We must vote. We must vote these awful people out of office. I am in disguise, I am hiding behind other personae in order to fantasize, briefly, another era where progress was considered a good thing. Colette, Bowie, Warhol and gender bending, fluidity of identity, freedom to be whom you want to be, except, perhaps, a horrible person who hurts or even kills other people and mother earth.  

Clothes swapping

My friend Judith, seen here celebrating the chance encounter between matching  top and booties, hosted a clothes swap over the weekend. Clothes swapping, beyond the gathering of women sorting through each others' clothes in search of something "new," all the while helping each other decide whether to acquire the garment (nothing is at stake, really, it's a perfect exchange of well loved but no longer wanted goods), gives one a chance to sort, triage, discard, PURGE. I had gone through my entire winter wardrobe before the swap, forced to face my inability to resist the acquisition of second hand clothes, an addiction to the used and abandoned. I went home with more of these lovely frocks, but this time, they each had a story, a non monetary value added that clothes acquired in shops, anonymous, hanging, do not have (yet).

One black, mid calf dress was recognized as having belonged to another friend who had moved away. It became a stand in for this friend, but also a symbol of the whole exchange, as it changed hands (and body) once again.

 Clothes swapping is also a therapeutically supportive moment. The body is exposed to others, but others do not judge it. It is the body that we have, to change according to our individual will, not to the will of the clothes that are not fitting us.

 Friend Julie was noticing, as she was trying clothes on, how the design of clothes is dictatorial and misogynistic. Why does this skirt open up all the way to my upper thigh? Why does this tee-shirt cling around my waist to the point where every bodily roll protrudes? The solution to this quandary lies in layers.

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 Yet, when it came to a pair of Fluevog, high heeled shoes, several women took delightful pleasure in looking at themselves in them: it was noticeable, the leg is elongated, the look, elegant. Yet, the shoes did not find a new owner. Off they go to a consignment shop where, perhaps, somebody with few steps to take in their daily perambulations will acquire them.

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   Happiness is gathering, laughing, and being supportive of each other's body (image, be damned).

Happiness...is a new jacket.

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Part of my new loot: A J.Crew blouse and a chocolate brown cashmere cardigan, worn with an old CP Shades Skirt and Frye boots. Scarf from a local store called Folk that is now closed, after forty years of selling eclectic clothing from all over the world. 

Dim Sum in Boston

I visited a friend who has moved to Boston, Somerville MA, more precisely. First stop: dim sum in Chinatown, just a few steps away from South Station. It was fun checking out what I will simply call "going out for dim sum" fashion. The two people in matching plaid shirts were simply walking out of the bus station, happily setting out to explore the city.

 Ordering dim sum at Winsor dim sum cafe on Tyler Street, right by the arch

Crossing over the Charles River, Prudential Tower in the background. I had never noticed that the windows had shades!