The one hundred and twenty-three euro bottle of wine

---

I was prowling around in a wine shop in Paris in October, looking at the pretty liqueur bottles, when I heard the proprietor say, “That’ll be 123 euros.”

 

 

 

I was curious to see what cost 123 euros, so I came around, and saw –

 

 

 

A single bottle of wine.

 

 

 

The buyers were an older couple, probably around my age. I’d heard them a few minutes before, asking the proprietor advice on what to buy.

 

 

 

Evidently the proprietor had conned them into buying this gold-plated bottle of nectar. “So,” he said. “This is for dinner tonight, you said? What time?”

 

 

 

“Around seven,” the husband said, a little nervously. “Maybe seven-thirty.”

 

 

 

“It makes a difference,” the proprietor said huffily. “Are you going to drink the whole bottle tonight? You should. It won’t be good tomorrow, if you open it tonight.”

 

 

 

“No, of course not,” the husband said, and he and his wife both giggled nervously, and glanced at me, as if to say: Isn’t this fun?

 

 

 

“All right,” the proprietor said. “I’ll open it right now. You come back in ten or fifteen minutes, and I’ll recork it. If you serve it at seven – or even seven-fifteen – it’ll be just right. No later than that, mind you. All right?”

 

 

 

“All right,” the couple said meekly.

 

 

 

 

And they paid their one-hundred-and-twenty-three euro, and they left.

 

 

 

 

I noticed that the proprietor was in no hurry to decant their wine after they left. He turned and waited on me, and we chatted for a while. (He told me that it was too much trouble, too much micmac, to ship things to the USA, what with the duty fees and the paperwork.)

 

 

 

And, as I left, I glanced back and saw the one hundred and twenty-three euro bottle of wine sitting on the counter, glowing with promise.

 

 

 

I hope it was worth the money. I hope it changed the lives of the people who drank it.

 

 

 

Or at least that it wasn’t as sour as hell.

---

 

For Sunday: "archy at the tomb of napoleon," by Don Marquis

---

The first time I went to Paris was in March 1984. I was hopping from the USA to Morocco and had only about six hours to waste, so I raced into the city from the airport, had a cup of coffee and a brioche, and visited the Hotel des Invalides, which houses the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

 

 

Why? Because Archy the Cockroach went there back in the 1920s and wrote a whopping good poem about it.

 

 

 

Partner and I visited the Invalides again in October. Napoleon is still there, in his gigantic stone tomb that looks like a cross between an overstuffed sofa and an enormous old-fashioned radio. And, like Archy, we left feeling “solemn but likewise uplifted.”

 

 

 

Herewith: “archy at the tomb of napoleon,” by Don Marquis.

 

 

 

paris france

i went over to

the hotel des invalides

today and gazed on

the sarcophagus of the

great napoleon

and the thought came

to me as i looked

down indeed it

is true napoleon

that the best goods

come in the smallest

packages here are

you napoleon with

your glorious course

run and here is

archy just in the

prime of his career

with his greatest

triumphs still before

him neither one of us

had a happy youth

neither one of us

was welcomed socially at

the beginning of his

career neither one of

us was considered much

to look at

and in ten thousand years from

now perhaps what you said and did

napoleon will be

confused with what

archy said and did

and perhaps the burial

place of neither will be

known napoleon looking

down upon you

I wish to ask you now

frankly as one famous

person to another

has it been worth

all the energy

that we expended all the

toil and trouble and

turmoil that it cost us

if you had your life

to live over

again bonaparte would

you pursue the star

of ambition

i tell you frankly

bonaparte that i myself

would choose the

humbler part

i would put the temptation

of greatness aside

and remain an ordinary

cockroach simple

and obscure but alas

there is a destiny that

pushes one forward

no matter how hard

one may try to resist it

i do not need to

tell you about that

bonaparte you know as

much about it as i do

yes looking at it in

the broader way neither

one of us has been to blame

for what he has done

neither for his great

successes nor his great mistakes

both of us napoleon

were impelled by some

mighty force external to

ourselves we are both to

be judged as great forces of

nature as tools in the

hand of fate rather than as

individuals who willed to

do what we have done

we must be forgiven

napoleon

you and i

when we have been

different from the common

run of creatures

i forgive you as i know

that you would forgive

me could you speak to me

and if you and i

napoleon forgive and

understand each other

what matters it if all

the world else find

things in both of us that

they find it hard

to forgive and understand

we have been

what we have been

napoleon and let them laugh that off

well after an hour or so of

meditation there i left

actually feeling that i

had been in communion

with that great spirit and

that for once in my

life i had understood and been

understood

and i went away feeling

solemn but likewise

uplifted mehitabel the

cat is missing

archy

 

The Moulin Rouge

---

Before we left for Paris, Partner got us tickets for the Moulin Rouge. The tickets were hard to get; the show sells out very quickly.

 

 

And now I know why.

 

 

First of all, the neighborhood is exactly what you want it to be: it’s a slightly less grubby version of the old Times Square in Manhattan, or Boston’s late lamented Combat Zone. We arrived early and had a drink in a sidewalk café, and watched a pretty young prostitute pick up a nice young man at the next table. Romance!

 

 

The show was old-fashioned burlesque: big costumes, big musical numbers, and a little dash of Cirque du Soleil. The theme was “Feerie”: Fairyland.  There were two jugglers, one serious, one very funny. There was a big “exotic” musical number that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be Indian, or Chinese, or Japanese. There were little ballads. There was, of course, the Can-can. (We were seated at a table with two very serious Frenchwomen, who only applauded the Can-can.)

 

 

Then there were the breasts.

 

 

They were everywhere, and they gave me quite a turn. I think I must have seen seventy or eighty of them. They were (mostly) very pert. (There were lots of bare behinds too, but they made less of an impression on me, for some reason.)

 

 

There was very little beefcake. There was one very nice number with two handsome acrobatic male dancers, one shirtless and the other in a t-shirt, who did elaborate handstands and carries. I could have done with a little more of that.

 

 

Upon leaving the club, I realized I’d left my American cap behind. To hell with it! I thought. I went to a street vendor and bought a very rakish hipster hat for seven euro.

 

 

So now I take a piece of the Moulin Rouge wherever I go, and my little American cap is floating around Montmartre somewhere.

 

 

Who knows? Maybe that prostitute has it.

 

 

Vive l’amour!

---

 

 

Montmartre

---

Our very first day in Paris – though we were both still deathly weary from the plane flight – we went, on foot, up into Montmartre.

 

 

 

(This seemed appropriate to me, since my favorite composer, Erik Satie, used to walk back and forth between le Chat Noir (the Montmartre bar in which he worked as a cabaret pianist) and his home in Arcueil (south of Paris) every day. He drank his way from bar to bar on both trips, and he carried a hammer in his pocket, just in case he was attacked on the way.)

 

 

 

So we climbed Montmartre. It was a brilliantly sunny early-autumn day. Partner knew the way, as he’d visited it several times on Google Earth, and he amazed me; he knew exactly which streets to take.

 

 

 

We ended up in front of Satie’s house on the Rue Cortot:

 

 

 

 

Next door is the Musee de Montmartre. It is a huge rambling old house, in which Renoir worked, and Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo lived, and Aristide Bruant, and many others.

 

 

 

It is beautiful. All of Paris is laid out at your feet. Look:

 

 

Partly we were still dazed and jet-lagged. But partly also we were wandering in an earthly paradise. If I didn’t have a photographic record of it, I’d swear it was a dream.

 

 

 

Two of my friends in Tunis used to call me “Hajj” as a joke; it’s the title of respect given to a man who’s visited the Holy Sites in Mecca.

 

 

 

Well, I’ve earned the title, because Montmartre is my Holy Land.

 

 

 

But don’t call me Hajj.

 

 

 

Call me Monsieur Hajj.

---

 

 

Return from Paris

---

Alors: nous sommes retournés!



We got back just this evening. Paris was cool and foggy this morning, well on its way into autumn; Boston, when we arrived this afternoon, was warm and almost muggy.



All this after flying over Greenland and Newfoundland!




My mind’s racing. I need to process the trip. I was making notes the whole time, and taking pictures (over five hundred of them).



I was dreading this trip. I always dread travel beforehand; it disrupts me. But once I’m on the plane, I give myself over to my own higher power, whom I think of as the Great Perhaps.



And the Great Perhaps rewarded me richly this time round.



This was one of the great vacations of my life. Every day was several hundred experiences, one after another.  Some days were several thousand experiences. Not since my Peace Corps days have I had such a good time.



I won’t bore you with my Paris stories all at once. I need time to write them down and shape them a little bit. Also, I have some thoughts about the upcoming Presidential election, and a few ideas about other topics in the news.



Anyway: we’re back!

---

Off to France

---

 

Attention, mes copains et mes copines!

 

 

Partner and I are leaving for France today. We will be there for about ten days; we will mostly be in Paris, with an excursion to Normandy (Caen, Honfleur, Rouen, Bayeux). We already have a dinner reservation for Friday evening at a really charming-looking place in Caen, Le Bouchon du Vaugueux, with a tremendous menu which includes rabbit and local fish and Norman cheeses. We have tickets for the Moulin Rouge in Paris. We have tickets for EuroDisney.

 

 

I know you cannot live without me, so I have set up automatic posts over the next few weeks, on general topics, which you can discuss among yourselves.

 

 

I will come back from la belle France with beaucoup d’histoires, you can just be sure.

 

 

Think of us as Eloise in Paris.

 

 

Oh my lord!

---