Jazz in the parc

Paris never ceases to amaze. Just when I think I'm starting to get a feel for it I discover a new hidden gem. This weekend, that gem was the aptly-named "Parc Floral" in the Bois de Vincennes, just to the Southeast of the city.
(doesn't this look like scenery straight out of Jurassic Park?)

For the month of July, the park is hosting a weekend Jazz Festival. This meant that our 2.50 euros provided access not only to the beautiful gardens, ponds, forests and picnicking fields, but also relaxing music to enjoy while we explored. The photo below shows the stage where the performers were based, on the island across the lake. The sound carried to the surrounding fields however, so like many of the other jazz fans we opted to find a sunny spot to sprawl rather than join the standing crowd.
We layed out our picnic blanket on this hill overlooking a heavily lilly-padded pond and basked in the sunlight.
Close-up of the oddly tall water lily plants:
The huge leaves of these tall flowers were bowl-shaped to collect water:
I found a more traditional water lily lurking beneath some lily pads:
An ol' coot and some coot-ettes!
The obligatory cute couple shot:
Bumble bee on a sunflower (known in French as a "sun-turner" because they pivot to follow the sun)...
Once the music had ended, we took an hour or so to wander around the back of the park. We found a really cool playground (featuring steep slides and a giant, bouncy spider web that you could definitely never find in modern, sue-happy America):And an enclosed butterfly garden:

Over the rainbow

Last Saturday was Paris' "Marche des Fiertés", or Gay Pride walk. In spite of the heat, it was a joyful, colorful celebration:
Anyone who wants to fight discrimination and intolerance was invited to join the walk, so it was hard to tell at any given point who was gay and who was just accepting. Which is a pretty cool blurring of boundaries. In any case, there were many, MANY marchers (I later read estimates of tens of thousands). The crowd was definitely skewed young, too--I'm not sure if that speaks to my generation's tolerance or just our eagerness to take part in demonstrations, but I'd like to think it's the first one.

(Okay, so I might have overgeneralized...it wasn't ALWAYS difficult to tell who was gay...)

The walk's drag queens were, of course, balanced out by a political presence. This is also where the older walkers tended to congregate--around Amnesty International or other activist groups marching to make a statement.

This group is walking "in memory of deported homosexuals":
Sign translation: "Preacher, imam, rabbi--don't block my way" (note the Scissors Sisters shirt on the right):
Activist bumper stickers abounded. My favorites were stickers modeled after the very prominent labels that come on packs of cigarettes here, although instead of saying "Tobacco tue" (tobacco kills) they said "Homophobie tue" and gave various statistics about suicides, hate crimes and legal inequality.

This was a Uganda political sticker:


One of the groups had a really effective float tactic of using hangmen silhouettes to represent every country where homosexuality is still punishable by death:

Chilling close-up:
Sign translation: "My brother is GAY and I'm proud of it"
Nice shoes:
A group of lesbians that were chanting "Xena! Xena!" and drumming up support for their heroine from the bystanders:
There were a surprising number of women with naught but taped Xs on their chests. (there were also a lot of men with "blow me" or "I'm single" written on their chests, and "entry" written, with a down-pointing arrow, on their backs).
At one point, everyone stopped (and the pumping techno turned off) for three minutes of silence
One of a continual series of gladiator angels on stilts, bearing Mentos banners
Cruella deFabulous
Gothic angels seemed to be the theme of the day.
Translations of the signs: "Love doesn't discriminate: not by gender or by race!" "My liberty ensures yours!"
Wavin' the flag with pride:
I kid you not, the gay motorcycle club of Paris:
Aww. Slash I was totally too afraid to take a picture of this tough and muscled couple from the front:
This roller blade-r was distributing fliers for a gay club--but only to attractive young men:

What would a Pride parade be without a giant inflatable condom? (surrounded by
volunteers passing out lube and condoms of a slightly more manageable size)
After the four epic hours of parade were finally over, the streets were a wreck. The cleaning crews were on the scene immediately, in order to speed up the reopening of the many major roads along the parade route. What a weird and wonderful afternoon in gay ol' Paree!

Fête de la Musique

Monday night was the annual summer music festival known as Fête de la Musique--a day/night where Paris gives herself over to hundreds of musicians for free, open-air performances. I emerged from the metro at Chatêlet to be engulfed by a white-clad group of Africans on a percussion parade, who swept me dancing over the Seine to St. Michel:
It was the perfect lighting for a few night shots of Paris
I met up with friends at Notre Dame, and we wandered around until about midnight, pausing at various points to listen to, among other things, a Southern rock band (complete with a badass mouth harmonica player), a heavy metal band, the world's most terrible Nirvana cover band, and some drum and bass club beats. The quality of the music wasn't always stellar, but the streets were packed with jolly, drinking 20-somethings of all nationalities, and the atmosphere was great.

Goin to the salon to get my tastebuds did

At one point last semester, my grammar teacher launched into an unprovoked rant about how Americans are too out of touch with the means of food production and don't have enough respect for their farmers and other small family businesses. In contrast, she held that (and my commentary is in parentheses) the French are much more aware and appreciative of their farmers (in a distant, idyllically reverent way that no longer quite reflects the growing industrialization of the market...they're turning more and more to frozen and processed foods) and their animals and produce (less pesticides, more markets, fresher and more organic products, yes--but they still do quite a bit of international produce importing and you can't tell me that force feeding a duck to make foie gras out of its liver is much kinder than cooping up chickens). She also said that the French have a greater appreciation for regional products, even if they might be more expensive than the big box brand. This last one, at least, is very true. As is evidenced by the "appellation d'origine contrôlée" seal (which is the reason why America produces sparkling white wine instead of Champagne and blue cheese instead of Roquefort) the French are very cognizant and fiercely protective of their regional products. Our teacher's proof for her claims was the French love of the annual "Salon d'Agriculture", which is essentially a classier version of a state fair that's been drawing huge hoards of Parisians (and an obligatory appearance from the President) for the last fifty years.

That was several months ago. Now it's "salon" time, so a few other curious students from that class and I got up early (at our professor's urging...it gets crowded) to check out what France's agricultural realm had to offer. Like an American fair there was a livestock area and a produce area, where prize specimens were displayed, urban children had their first petting-zoo style contact with the natural world, and demonstrations were given. However, I popped my head in these pavilions only long enough to rediscover the clothes-satiating smell of rotting hay and animal sweat before I headed on over to the gastronomie pavilion. And Oh. My. God. I was in foodie heaven.

The massive, two-floored pavilion reminded me of Disney's Epcot, except that instead of representing different countries' cuisines, this represented different regions of France (and, limitedly, its overseas "departments"). Having paid our 6 euro entry, we wandered from booth to booth for endless tastings: ciders, apple liquors and soft cheeses from Normandy; red wines from Côtes de Rhone and Bordeaux; lavenders, perfumes, honeys and rosé from Provence (which made me super nostalgic for Nice); dry whites and sharper cheeses from the Loire; sweet whites, cured meats and champagne jelly from Alsace; apples and mushrooms from Île-de-France; mustard and melted cheese creations from Bourgogne; and bread and foie-gras from, well, pretty much everywhere. There was a really heavy emphasis on region, with booths grouped together geographically and many sporting maps with highlighted areas that were always indicated by the salespeople. The best part was talking to these salespeople, who were genuinely proud of their products and could describe the production process and subtleties in the taste in great detail. They were also, for the most part, very willing to educate and feed you even if you didn't seem interested in buying--meaning I got the chance to try some expensive wines and foie-gras that I wouldn't have otherwise.

I left around 2pm, just as it was starting to transition into weekend crowds (my professor wasn't kidding: the French love this place). My wallet was significantly lighter, but my bags were rich with treasure: aged chevre, a bottle of pear cider, some gourmet chocolate, groseilles (red current) jam, a saucisson sec (salami, sort of) and a Corsican sausage sandwich. Miam miam! (yum yum!)

Feux d'artifice

This weekend has been the Festival de Vendages (grape harvest festival) up around Paris' only in-city vinyard in Montmartre. Last night was the peak of the festivities, so Phinn and I went up to the Basilique du Sacré Coeur to snag a good view of the fireworks. With its great panorama of Paris and its proximity to the narrow, bohemian-turned-tourist streets of Montmartre, the Basilica is already somewhat of a tourist mecca. Last night it was crazy busy, with tents and booths set up everywhere offering pricey wine/cognac tastings and even pricier bottles, and--only in France--little platters of escargot to go with the wine.

Luckily, like most of the French attendees we had come prepared with our own wine, and after borrowing a tire-bouchon (corkscrew) we joined the picknicking masses with glasses and bottles spread out on the grass of the butte (with Rufus Wainwright's 'Complainte de la Butte' in my head the whole time, of course). The crowds, good spirits and children on their father's shoulders anxiously awaiting the show made for a 4th of July atmosphere (except instead of independence we were celebrating alcohol DEpendence...har har har).

Afterward we went to our friend Laura's nearby apartment to hang out with her and her boyfriend Remy for an hour or so before all heading over to a bar in the 11th, where we met up with Thibaut and a few other Americans. We left the bar just in time to miss the last metro home, giving Stephanie and I the chance to try out the Noctilien night bus system for the first time. Bursting with a ragtag, jolly crowd, the bus was definitely an experience, although it took us two separate buses to get us to Porte D'Orleans, leaving us still a good 15 minutes' walk away from home. The whole process took a little less than two hours, which is a good argument to either make the effort to make the metro next time, or to familiarize ourselves with the city's Velib' free bike system.

Art Insomia

Saturday night was an annual event in Paris called “Nuit Blanche.” In French, to have this “white night” is to pull an all-nighter, and the idea of the event is to utilize public space to celebrate modern art (read: film and light installations) from 9pm until 7am the next morning. Across the city, parks, universities, religious buildings and even pools opened their doors to a crazy band of glowstick-adorned art-lovers, insomniacs, street musicians and more.

I met up with Pascal and Thibaut (the French guys from the bar last week) and a few other random friends (Antoine, from Toulouse, Daniel, and American film student, and a girl from Greece) at Luxembourg. The streets were packed with a cheerful, chattering young crowd and dotted with equally jovial policemen who had pretty much given up on trying to clear a path for cars. It was really surreal to have so many people out and about at midnight, and there was a real sense of life and electricity in the air. The line to actually enter the Luxembourg gardens wrapped all the way around the block, although you didn’t have to be inside it to see the main attraction: a huge disco ball, suspended from a crane. Strategically placed searchlights refracted off of the ball’s many faces onto the eerie purple clouds and full moon, giving the impression that tonight, Paris itself was our nightclub.

With Pascal as our guide, we trekked around Paris to see what we could see, speaking French all the while. My favorite destination was the Grande Mosquée, whose central garden hosted an x-ray video installation (one of the only ones I enjoyed…I really need someone with some film background to teach me how to appreciate those because right now I just think most of them are stupid) and a laser installation piece that combined the visuals of the moving lasers with audio voiceovers of the history of the earth and a strong scent of roses. (More art should be scented. It’s like that adult version of those scented markers that were really cool in the early 90s…fun!). The exhibits were cool, the locale was beautiful, and the calm reverence of the crowd in response to our surroundings presented a strange contrast to the delightful chaos around Luxembourg.

Around 4am, my blisters from the previous night’s boat adventures were starting to hurt and my fatigue was beginning to interfere with my French. The boys and I walked up to Chatelet to catch the night buses home…only to find that French bureaucracy, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to suspend almost all of the night bus lines on the one night that they were really needed, opting instead to keep the 11 and 14 lines running (which both lead away from where I live). The result was that I took the metro and then a bus to Pascal’s apartment in Levallois (a cute, upscale Parisian suburb), where we stayed up for another hour or so discussing Sarah Palin (did anyone else know she got punk'd by a a couple of Quebecois radio DJs?), Ségolène Royale and South Park before I gratefully crashed on an air mattress.