Paris Werewolves

Chez Papa, 7th Arr. I've lamented elsewhere that professional jazz is bumping up against a cruel arithmetic logic—namely, the paying audience gets older each year, with more listeners going to their rewards than are replaced by younger fans going to the shows. That seems true for jazz played in concert venues and recorded for albums (or whatever passes for albums these days), but less so for jazz played purely for the joy of listening to or making music—that is, jazz as a form of folk art or communal expression. Two things have got me thinking about this lately. The first is that we've fallen into a nice routine of having lunch occasionally at Café de Mars, a neighborhood place that has a jazz duo every Saturday. The duo consists of an immensely talented guitarist who is joined by a few rotating accompanists on violin, cello, or second guitar. The set list is jazz standards, played usually in the Hot Club style with touches of Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and Barney Kessel. ...

Invasion, Champ de Mars, 7th Arr. In the 1990s, street artist Invader began affixing tiled images of "pixelated" video game characters to structures in Paris. As of today, there are more than 4,000 little appliqué invaders in 82 different cities--and another that made it aboard the International Space Station. Like other street artists such as Banksy or Shepard Fairey, Invader's popularity has propelled him (all indications are that Invader is a him) from strictly guerrilla to mainstream, with public commissions and now, in Paris, a dedicated indoor museum space. If you admire street art largely for its audacity--the surreptitious entry into private spaces, usually under the cover of darkness, at great risk of arrest for trespassing or sustaining bodily harm in falls from ledges, ladders, and other high altitude precipices--this is a letdown. But cheer up; there was not much in the installation to interest any art collectors/speculators. No original invaders had been rem...