read a good poem: lilac sunday

at la closerie des lilas, may 29, 2011.

oh, it's like fate. or internet voodoo.

the very day after i post about la closerie des lilas, the writer's almanac delivers a poem about...lilacs. does that seem like an amazing coincidence to you, too?

in any case, it's my excuse to post one more photo of a sweet older couple (and share more sweet words).

***

lilac sunday

Let us agree to meet
here some winter
when the park

gates are locked,
and the arches thinned
of their vaulting green

to climb the wall,
thaw the icicles
and watch the rain

like flowering
cherry and lilacs
that kissed your hair;

some winter
when the fog is heavy,—
to return to this light.

--Diana Der-Hovanessian, via the writer's almanac

***

ok, one more:

"He looked very fine, Marshal Ney in his top-boots, gesturing with his sword among the green horse-chestnut leaves."

--E. Hemingway, "The Sun Also Rises"

photo: may 23, 2011

inspiration: la closerie des lilas

la closerie des lilas. may 23, 2011

© anita aguilar

i've fallen into an unfortunate pattern on tuesdays at work. it goes something like meeting-meeting, meeting-meeting-meeting. by the time night falls, i am burning for inspiration.

on a walk home some months back, i tried to think of ways to re-align "the tuesday" so that ended on a finer note. i remembered: tuesday nights in paris were open poetry night for hemingway and his coterie at la closerie des lilas. fantastic-- i'd make it my poetry night, too.

in that spirit, i wanted to structure it toward writers that had some connection to the place. naturally, i started with hemingway. his verse, at least from what i could find online, is pretty awful, or at least not what i cared for, sort of cold and aggressive. i tried others from an earlier time (appollinaire, andre salmon) but didn't get much of a feeling for their work either (too weepy, too structured, too not-translated-into-english). it was a disappointing start. but it felt like a good exercise and i've kept it up (while giving up on the closerie-specific writers). in that way it's become my own "open" poetry night.

here's a favorite, writing-related one from last night. hope you like it.

on punctuation

not for me the dogma of the period
preaching order and a sure conclusion
and no not for me the prissy
formality or tight-lipped fence
of the colon and as for the semi-
colon call it what it is
a period slumming
with the commas
a poser at the bar
feigning liberation with one hand
tightening the leash with the other
oh give me the headlong run-on
fragment dangling its feet
over the edge give me the sly
comma with its come-hither
wave teasing all the characters
on either side give me ellipses
not just a gang of periods
a trail of possibilities
or give me the sweet interrupting dash
the running leaping joining dash all the voices
gleeing out over one another
oh if I must
punctuate
give me the YIPPEE
of the exclamation point
give me give me the curling
cupping curve mounting the period
with voluptuous uncertainty

-by elizabeth austen via the writer's almanac

paris postcard: brief encounter

there was one day during my stay in paris when the sky seemed to promise a storm. it was so haunting and magnificent, of course i had to try to make a worthy photo.

i couldn't get the balance quite right--to get the true color of the clouds meant the foreground was almost completely obscured; to expose the street and cafe meant the sky would appear too light. i gave up after a few shots and trained my lens on a line that was forming in front of cafe de la place. there was a little "annex" -- a crepe take-out window!--that i hadn't stopped to notice earlier in the week. there was steady business there, especially considering how quiet the neighborhood was that morning.

i stood across the street for several minutes, trying to get a shot of "the scene." and then the yelling started. it was the crepe maker-- he waved me over. it wasn't angry yelling--though my first impulse was, still, to flee. but then i realized, he wasn't really gonna be able to do anything to me, trapped in that little glass box as he was. so i approached him.

he wanted to see the photos. i dreaded this, only because i knew they weren't so good. he gave me grudging nod. in between crepe-ing, he started a nice talk.

monsieur crepe-maker is joseph karadeniz, and when he is not making "the best crepes" (in montparnasse? in paris? i don't remember exactly how broadly he defined it, but he definitely said his are "the best"), he is a photographer. (he incidentally informed me that the canon lens i just bought, the 24mm-70mm 2.8, was "the wrong one." everybody's a critic.) his takeout space is decorated with really nice black and white photos that he took of his customers and friends.

i really didn't mind his judgment--i thought it was funny. i was mostly pleased that he wanted to chat. i don't speak french, so most interactions i had while i was on my own in paris were limited to nodding and sign language. this was a welcome exchange, the kind of encounter that wasn't anticipated --nor was it really necessary. but in retrospect it gives some dimension, a local touch, to the collection of memories from the trip. and i'm grateful for it.

it wasn't long before he'd convinced me to try one of his sugar crepes, even though i wasn't hungry at all at that moment.
i love crepes when they are lightly dressed with sugar or with lemon and sugar. this was my first crepe of the trip--i would only have one more--so, hard to vote "best." but it was good, and it will remain a sentimental favorite.

***

cafe de la place is located at 23 rue odessa, in montparnasse (at the triangle between boulevard edgar quinet and rue du montparnasse, and near the entrance to the edgar quinet metro stop, on the 6 line)

***

and you can check out joseph's photos here

paris postcard: pedal pushers

"anita can't ride a bike."

that's one of our big family secrets/jokes. i mean, i can. now. sort of.

we moved to paramus when i was in the second grade. we lived in a new development of two-family houses, on the edge of a cul de sac. we had lived in the bronx before then and play time outside was always a coordinated event after school or at a park, so it was neat to have, with the mere sliding of a glass door, a wide green space for cart-wheeling and a whole block that we could own in the afternoons. all the kids had bikes, and so my sister and i learned to ride, too.

i don't recall needing training wheels for too long--it was the turns got me. i always felt like i'd fall over! i'd breeze along, on my hot pink number, with the hot pink and white striped banana seat and the little vanity plate (which, trust me, took forever to find in paramus in the 1970s) and at the end of the cul de sac, i'd hop off the bike, walk it around the turn, and then get back on.

ridiculous, embarrassing, and no one in the family could figure out how i -- such an athletic little thing-- couldn't navigate a damn turn. it must have taken me a really long time to learn it--or it was just that compelling a picture--because it fed into the "can't ride a bike" reputation that haunts me now. part of me must believe it too, since it doesn't seem like a natural activity for me to pursue.

but paris makes you dreamy about such things. i considered renting a bike a few times during this trip but i remembered a promise to my aunt, that i'd send her a post card. i couldn't possibly risk riding along the streets of paris until i wrote to her...dear tita celia. paris is in full bloom. i love the big sky and the strong coffee. i thought of you as we dined at closerie las lilas. will rent a bike this afternoon...xoxo...

***

some cool riders

first bike shot.

ooh la la --lace dress!

in st. germain

riverside--left bank

in st. germain

rue bonaparte...

in st. germain

in st. germain

my favorite guy: in montparnasse

paris postcard:"le week-end"

enjoy yours...

in montparnasse

may 27, 2011

© anita aguilar

paris postcard: an untrue, but favorite thing...

is this poster for the hangover 2:

at the station montparnasse bienvenue...

may 27, 2011

oh so untrue of our time, i swear! but it made me laugh every time i saw it. (and it was pretty much everywhere.)

***

and, because i still like them, two paris posters from previous trips:

***

all photos © anita aguilar

paris postcard: market scene, montparnasse

on wednesdays and saturdays, the narrow island that divides boulevard edgar quinet in montparnasse hosts a market where neighborhood folk can purchase gorgeous, locally grown fruits and vegetables and flowers. the meats are plump and tempting...

i'll take a quick spin through tomorrow for cherries (cerises!), before heading to roland garros, but here are a few shots from last week:

may 21, 2011

all photos © anita aguilar

paris postcard: from the balcony, night 1...

the tour maine-montparnasse was, until 2011, the tallest skyscraper in france. at 689 feet (59 floors), this monolithic slab dominates the view in montparnasse (and it serves an effective landmark for us, but skyscrapers were banned in the city center two years after its completion).

may 19, 2011