DV8 - To Be Straight With You

I got to one Festival d'Automne event so far this year, thanks to my friend and theatre critic Molly Grogan. It was the punchy, innovative performance by British theater-dance company DV8 - but go to the Paris Voice site and read her excellent review. Except she forgot to complain that the show started 5 minutes early, to the dismay of the 60 or so people who arrived together from the Creteil metro station exactly on time and had to wait 20 minutes to get seated...little enough to complain about in these days of juggling recession/inflation, Obama/McCain, polar bears/SUVs.

If you like Molly's review, see more at www.paris-theater.blogspot.com.

To everything there

Turn, turn, turn - it's the season for change, and not just in the colour of the chestnut leaves or global economies. Got a new pair of glasses, gained a clean new vision, none of the scratches and scars from the old ones, beloved as that view was. Amazing how long we can hang on to our comfortable if sometimes flawed ideas and habits. Took a new friend to push me into a new look, but unabashed self-interest got me into taking a course last week in InDesign, helped to shake up the immobility of what-next after breaking off with both Meetic Man and the OECD Observer.

So what next? Why not more training - who doesn't love learning new things, new skills? Will polish skills on Photoshop, watch some free training videos from the IDEA fitness conference last summer, learn how to spiff up my fitness website, try to understand the mysterious process of publishing at OECD, and why not spend some time in Rome or Pisa or Naples, and strengthen my Italian.

Nice saying came up the other day: if you rest, you rust! Get out the oil...

Roman holiday

Now, why did I expect Rome, the eternal city and my favourite city in the whole world, to remain exactly the same since I was here two years ago? For almost 10 years I came back here two or three times a year for a week, a weekend, and every time I arrive at Termini station, I inhale and fell re-born, refreshed, re-grounded. If I could only meet a man in Paris who makes me feel this way!

Meanwhile, it was sometime in 2006 that I was here last and oh my, there are changes. At the Roman forum, where I used to be able to just ramble through on my way from the Colosseum side of town to the Pantheon area, there is now an entrance fee - and a queue to get in! This morning at the cafe the man behind the counter asked if I wanted a cappucino con choccolati or normale - even though I asked for normale, my accent gave me away and he sprinkled chocolate powder on it anyway. But what ecstasy that coffee was, so much that when I climbed up to the Campidoglio bar/terrasse, I ordered another one. Changes there, too, now the city has installed a couple of glass elevators, at a staggering 7 euro fee. Tant mieux, it means I got the climb up the stairs to myself.

Oh, and at Piazza Navona they're renovating the Bernini fountain AGAIN. Via Nazionale is ripped up and hard to cross, there are a lot more vendors on the via that leads from the Jewish quarter to Piazza di Fiore, and what an amazing coincidence of American accents. In the end, it's the same chaotic, busy magnificent place. And hey, I finally achieved my ambition of buying something at MaxMara - walked in, confessed I needed some elegant pants that would NOT need hemming for a lunch date in 20 minutes, and walked out with a big smile in a beautiful pantalone that got me a few masculine smiles and murmured compliments along the way.

The sunshine, the people, the food and the wine, none of the best things in Rome have changed, and la vita e bella - buona compleanna a me!

New debuts

Well, it's the Paris rentrée, a time for transforming vacation energy into new projects, new ideas, new life. And this September, special pizazz is guaranteed.

Great news, but keep it hush-hush: Yves Riquet is sneaking his speakeasy into the revered, if recently sullied, sanctum of the Slow Club this fall! Live swing music every Monday and Tuesday night, with vintage 1920s cocktails and high-calibre rye whisky. Best, Yves has got saxophonist Marc Laferrière and friends to reprise their 15-year gig (1957-1972) as the Slow Club's house band. For a preview, check out the excellent disk, "Marc Laferrière au Slow Club" or, better yet, "Jubilé", featuring his favourites, including Sidney Bechet's classic Petite Fleur, to a jazzed up Disney theme, Heigh Ho Heigh Ho.

Crossroads for me, too - how much time should I commit to this jazz adventure? Shall I cut back to a half-time bureaucrat and expand on life's fun: write articles for cash, teach more fitness, do some personal training, organise events, become a speakeasy groupie? Or shall I rather retreat into the OECD sludge of bureaucratic security with the blessings of retirement pension and paid sick leave, sign a contract for full-time handcuffs?

Ditto on the romantic scene: am I just not made for a full-time long-term commitment? Why does putting up with a man's idiosyncracies seem just as sludgy? Would the smart woman simply bite the bullet and settle with Meetic Man?

Double-digit birthday coming up, and I still identify as a Libran looking for balance and meaning. Guess this calls for a weekend of serious reflection on the beach at Cap d'Agde. Heigh ho!

Morocco mileage

It is another adventure on another continent, going from a ministerial meeting in Seoul to a road trip around Morocco. Presently at an Internet cafe in a little town south of Fez, Sefrou, camping with my Internet friend and his (grownup) kids, heading slowly towards the Atlas mountains. Lots of small adventures, from the drive down through Spain to the heights of the rock of Gibraltar, a lovely evening in Tarifa, and the ferry ride to Tangier, where we couldn't stop for long because we couldn't lock the car because the window wouldn't roll back down.
We stayed with a Moroccan family in Rabat for two nights, participated in a musical therapy rite, got my fortune told, and have bargained in the souks in Meknes and Fes. We have visited the only mosque in Morocco that is open to non Muslims, and toured royal palaces and roman ruins. Fantastic stuff, and we still have two more weeks!
Photos to come...

A little bit of Seoul

Three months later, and where did I land - in KOREA! Here for the OECD ministerial meeting on Internet Economy, and what a blast! Working half for press, half for the bookstore, there were two days of high life, touring the Seoul markets, getting lost near city hall and wandering through the anti-American-beef protests, zenning out in a calm temple complex nestled among shiny skyscrapers. and then gearing up to meet the rest of my colleagues.

Tonight after the preliminary NGO forum, I'm all sore feet, sleepy eyes, sore back from standing all day, but it is all worth it. What a blast chatting with people about IT and development, politics and culture, with everyone who stopped by the OECD booth. Wild, a woman who organises a yearly World Women's Forum here who reads Adrian Leed's Paris newsletter; the Pakistani guy who co-founded the project to get cheap computers to developing countries; a rep from AT&T talking about the American strategy of getting kids into computers instead of to war.

Working with a sharp volunteer student, Yeon-su Kim, who is guiding me through the intricacies of dealing with the locals, and keeping me from any more faux pas - apparently Koreans do not say "excuse me", they just indicate it with a smile, she says. When they want to excuse themselves they say "I'm sorry". Too bad, I was getting pretty good at that phrase, easy to remember: "silly amida". Now I understand the grins.

And tonight the Seoul mayor, the OECD sec gen, and a number of ministers, including the Australian minister of communications - no, of broadband - who showed up at the conference earlier in a t-shirt and shorts, hosted a huge dinner for everyone. The drinks were Korean - rice wine, plum liqueur, a sake-type drink and a lovely rice-and-hawthorn-berry wine (a bottle of which I carried away with me), but the meal was western. The entertainment was just as yin/yang - started with a quintet of young Korean girls playing a traditional harp-like instrument, seguing into a couple of Beatles' tunes (Let it be and Obladi-Oblada), and then backing up the B-beat boys, a rap/hip-hop dance team. The suits found it hard to jam, but a few of us were having a GREAT time.

What else? Tomorrow is an early day, have to be downstairs by 7:30am for a 9:30am gala opening because the riot police are screening the guests. Korea's prez is supposed to attend and the same protestors who've been upset about American beef are expected to come and beef at the head of state. It may be exciting! Unlike this early evening - I'm off to my lovely bath and bed, hope I make it. Carol and Sabrina, y'all take care of Fred Hoffman who's teaching body-sculpt tonight, will ya?

Contradictions and conspiracies

Didn’t make it to rue Cler this rainy Sunday, got held up at the ACP working the Palm Sunday crowd, and checking out my Meetic contact actually attending church!!! How did that happen? I suspect a conspiracy.

The date with George on Thursday night at Tribeca was, after a nervous start, really fun. Partially because it was with someone from my g-g-generation for a change, no need to feel embarrassed referring to culture from the 70s. Partially because George is actually quite attractive, intelligent, friendly, fun, curious, lively, and HAS A MOTORCYCLE.

So here’s the way it works. You make a date for an early drink so that if it doesn’t work out you excuse yourself and escape. If it is worth spending more time, you agree to dine together. I was very pleased when George suggested we stay for dinner at Tribeca, and at 22h30, I wondered aloud, “So what happens next?” He laughed and said Meetic doesn’t provide an etiquette guide, and he didn’t know either since the other two dates he’d been on didn’t have a what-next (2 points for my side!). So we improvised and I climbed on to his motorcycle for a spin through the city lights, YES, can it get any better?

It did. Saturday night we feted the Ides of March and dined at the Italian restaurant on rue Grenelle, chatting until we got kicked out at closing time. And the next morning there he was in church. The thing is, Meetic is generally known as the Meet Market, as in everyone goes there for casual bonking. Yet my female co-explorer in this Internet romance scene has received a sincere email from someone wanting to shoot up some serious religion together.

You know what I think? It's a conspiracy of Meetic missionaries. Fundamentalist males are delving into the devil’s shopping cart and sneaking away a few souls to personally deliver to the promised land – not the PL the women are expecting. In a way it would be like a fisherman dropping a hook into a pet shop aquarium, gotcha!

Well, if it is a plot, I like the bait, will let the contradictions work themselves out while my new friend and I plan a two-wheel getaway. Vroom.

Voting for adventure

Voting day and all is calm on rue Cler – doesn’t help that it is grey and rainy. So I broke habit this morning and ordered a bright orange juice and settled down to wait for colleague Sue’s arrival.

Happy to see that both the young bookstore guy and the news vendor are back in their usual places, she’s crying “N’oubliez pas votre journal, l’Express et là!” Two infants in strollers pull up to a front-row table, and the itinerant Peruvian pipes band shows up, except with only one flautiste and a CD, takes him a bit of screeching and scratching to get warmed up before the harmonies turn breathy and smooth. Tough way to make a living.

Next to me a young guy in a beret offers Laura the waitress a packet of photos as he leaves. She shows them to me, turns out he is an adventure photographer, they are all breathtaking mountain shots – Everest, Ararat, Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc – from the “International Year of Mountains”, 2002. Never thought much about how that kind of remote wilderness shot gets taken, to need both artistic and athletic skills. Oh, and courage.

Meanwhile, it’s a bit nervous thinking about calling a Meetic contact this afternoon – note of advice for singles: Match.com is aridesque and Meetic thankfully doesn’t seem to be the sex-driven site it’s known for, although it’s early days yet. But of the three people I’ve exchanged emails with, two are exceptionally interesting and sympa guys, not a bad ratio!

So with a nod to those who live a little on the edge, wherever that personal edge may be, I buy some luminous yellow jonquils from the young guy standing out in the rain next to Tribeca, and come home with both colour and a bit of borrowed courage, to make that phone call. A suivre...

Seasonal signals

Damp, breezy, fresh, the first Sunday in March feels like winter is reluctantly ceding its seasonal lodgings in the city. Rue Cler is empty-ish partially because of the also-cyclical vacances scolaires, so I easily slip into a ringside seat on Tribeca’s terrace and watch while volunteers hand out more of the same political pamphlets and argue about the municipal elections next week. As changing temperatures have made me unusually lethargic, I thought of simply writing about the spectacle of online dating. My tentative steps on Meetic and Match.com the last few days have been curious, giggly, a mix of feeling humble and nervous, while technology isolates us all in a weird voyeurism…

Instead, I get distracted when the Tribeca blackboard-menu topples BOOMing onto the street, a pigeon flies out from somewhere under the canvas overhang, a lanky resident of the market street at rue Daguerre walks past, an ACP-er shows up to chat about the fitness workshop last week. Meanwhile, a couple of French women greet me as they sit down at the neighbouring table and a friendly dad orders hot chocolates for his two young boys seated next to them.

Murmurs are overheard that Rachida Dati will also be making an appearance today, as signs are placed across the street, “La greffe DATI ne prend pas dans le 7ème” – grafting Dati onto the 7^th arrondissement won’t take. Brochures add the phrase “le 7ème LIBRE”, whose pitch seems a bit over-stated coming as it does while I’ve been reading up on the Roman republic and Julius Caesar’s assassination.

Ah, and down the street I can see a small crowd in black, must be the justice minister herself, as a couple of unmistakeable security guards have posted themselves in front of the Café du Mars next door. Suddenly there is loud chanting, “Panafieu au boulot, un toit pour les séropos” and “Panafieu – elle s’en fou!” and a handful of young guys in political t-shirts, notably “ActUp”, push by, almost too quickly to read their signs calling for AIDS funding.

As Dati’s group sloooowly approaches and the street gets increasingly crowded, a shrill trilling of bicycle bells announces another political campaign as five velibs manage to roll through, each attached to a gaggle of bright pink balloons that broadcast “Laurence Girard and Bertrand Delanoë”.

And now amid cameras flashing and popping arrives the glamorous Rachida Dati and her entourage, again evoking images of Roman politicians and their obligatory following of clients. Tribeca’s owner comes out to greet her, and – it can’t be accidental! - she spots the two adorable boys at the next table and hey-presto it’s an instant photo op. She holds back from actually kissing them, but they delightedly get hugs as the customers all smile, and the press eats it up. Then she drifts inside, a blonde also holding a bouquet follows, first greeting my neighbour, shaking hands with us all. I shake back, everything quiets down as the journalists hover and wait for her exit, and I find out that I’ve just shaken the hand of Francoise de Panafieu.

Diverse-city

Got to rue Cler late today, had to stay and hear the sermon twice this morning at the ACP - the pastor actually addressed out loud the issue that’s been silently eating away at the congregation, the question of homosexuality and Christianity. Without getting into details, despite confessing that he is one of those who consider homosexuality biblically forbidden, he was able to preach unity, love and tolerance. And he accomplished it with grace, dignity, humour and intelligence, and more - I wasn’t the only one who had to dig for tissues. Hats off to pastor Alex Aronis.

But the kicker for me was that afterward I looked for cheer in the faces of my fellow supporters of gays in church matters, and found instead glum looks of “he didn’t go far enough”! They sounded as stubbornly suspicious and intolerant as the homophobic members of the congregation!

So at noon, walking in the blinding sunshine away from the church, I met and spoke with my 3^rd floor neighbour, discussed the upcoming elections – is Rachida Dati really being parachuted in by Sarko? – and the diversity topic came up again. How the 7^th arrondissement risks losing its community feel because no one but the rich can afford living here anymore. She said there is discreet government housing in the 7^th – one apartment building right on St. Dominique - but everyone knows that it goes to people who know the right people, who hardly need cheap rent.

There are still surprises here, though. As a bike races past me, I look up and the cyclist is not a flashy guy in tights, but an elegant businessman in an impeccable black suit, pedaling fast. Heading down rue Cler, where gypies are selling jonquils and street entrepreneurs are hawking sunglasses, I find the usual diverse Sunday strollers along with politicos and their cameras, and even more circus than usual despite the vacances scolaires starting this weekend.

Eating lunch at Tribeca with next-door neighbour Vincent, we wonder, how far does diversity go on a personal level? Cheap rent would be great but do we want to live next to those who can only afford it with financial support? We’ve all had neighbours from different cultural backgrounds whose mode de vie clashes with ours – late-night partiers, smelly food-lovers, early risers who blithely turn up the radio at 6am. Love thy loud, smelly, obnoxious neighbour? That’s a challenge – and we’re talking on a trivial level, let’s not even try to figure out places like Kosovo and Israel.

Then a big American thrusts his way into the conversation of the French trio dining next to us: “You gotta great dog, your Pekinese, does he bark at people he meets like mine does?” Speaking too quickly, he repeats himself, “does he bark at people?” Smiling, the dog-owners are trying to compute the word “bark”, I translate, everyone is happy – they thought he said “bite!”

And monsieur tells a great story about going through airport customs coming off a Paris/NYC flight, jetlagged, tired, and the agent asks his reason for the visit. His brain is sluggish, so turning to his companion in line behind him, he asks loudly, “C’est quoi le mot pour vacances?” And 100 waiting Parisians yell out, “holidays!” Big laugh from the douane, as he waves him through.

Diversity – culture, language, wealth, sexuality – despite the hiccups, in the end it’s half the fun of being here, isn’t it?