Paris Werewolves

Though I would never consider myself a gourmand, I'm by no means a fussy eater. But traveling in Europe and living in France reminds me that the typical American palate is actually pretty narrow--particularly where animal protein is concerned. Basically, Americans eat mostly cows, chickens, pigs, sheep and some fish and seafood. And with few exceptions such as tripe, caviar, and chopped liver, they mostly eat the muscles rather than the internal organs. These exceptions are important. How else would we know the boundaries if no one ever crossed them? But in the US, crossing those boundaries means doing some work to seek out the delicacies in specialty stores, rather than expecting to find them on any given menu or front-and-center in a typical chain supermarket. A whole store for snails. The difference in France's cuisine is in both the breadth of common ingredients and their ready availability. Snails, rabbit and blood sausage ( boudin noir ) can be had in the US, but they rar...

In Paris, I'm sitting at latitude 48 degrees, 50 minutes and 57 seconds north. For comparison, the only "major" cities in the U.S. that far north are Seattle, WA and Fargo, ND. Today (June 24), the sun rose at 5:48 AM and will set at 9:58 PM. That makes 16 hours and 10 minutes of daylight--or more than 17 hours of light using the conventions of "first light" and "last light." May 16, 10:16 PM Having always lived in more southernly latitudes (from 40 degrees N in New York to 34 degrees N in Los Angeles), these long early-summer days are bizarre. There are lots of people out on the streets--but that's usually true everywhere in Paris, all the time. Streetlights don't really come on until very late, and you get a good view of the bats working the trees late into the night. The warmest part of the very warm days (30 celsius today, 85 Fahrenheit) comes at about 5 or 6 PM, so it's not as if the evenings offer much relief in terms of temperature. ...

The Great God Pan in the 7th Arr. A few years back, I read Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908) for the first time. I was not surprised that the book was very different than the story told in the 1949 Disney cartoon The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad , which was then my only point of reference. But I was not prepared for chapter 7 , in which Rat and Mole, after searching all night for Otter's lost child, have an eerie encounter with the great god Pan. “Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?” “Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!” Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.  It seems like an odd passage in a children's novel, and Pan doesn't reappear anywhere else in the book. Then again, it may be the key to the entire story, especially if the cover of the book's first edition is any indicati...

Earlier this week we took in one of the shows at this year's Festival Jazz à Saint-Germain-de-Prés. Trumpeter Erik Truffaz's quintet was playing at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, a space for "les comédiens français" inaugurated by Marie Antoinette in 1782. Ceiling by André Masson (1965). The show was great, mostly an homage to film scores of classic noirs, the French new wave, and spaghetti westerns. For me, it really settled in about midway through when the program steered back to club jazz, including a duet for guitar and trumpet in the vein of Barney Kessel, and an accompaniment for two songs by a torch singer (whose name went past me in a blur of mumbled French). I could not bring myself to take photos during the show (etiquette, being present, etc.). From up in the balcony it was clear that many in the seats below were essentially recording the entire gig on their phones. I'm often struck by how much scorn is heaped on younger people for use and over-use ...

In Strasbourg's Parc de l'Orangerie, massive white storks ( Ciconia ciconia ) nested atop roofs and topped-off trees. There were dozens in all, cleaning and preening the nurseries, soaring high above, and swooping down to their roosts like pterosaurs. The white stork is one of the iconic symbols of the entire Alsace region, spanning both France and Germany. All the same, the population almost disappeared until preservation efforts began in the 1980s--centered on dedicated sanctuaries such as the park. I guess it worked--we seemed to be the only people showing much interest in the living dinosaurs clattering above.

  This mascaron caught my eye not just for being freaky, but for being carved wood. It's befitting for the timbered architecture of Strasbourg, but wood carvings just aren't as common in Paris. An example from the park on l'Île Saint-Germain near our apartment drives the point home. I can't tell if it's supposed to be Bigfoot or Ben Grimm The Thing. It might be clobberin' time.

We don't consciously seek out places that look like Castle Dracula. Well, actually we do. And compared to places like the Cathar castles in Queribus and Peyrpeteuse that we visited down south years ago, Strasbourg's cathedral really delivered. Château de Quéribus, Cucugnan Château de Peyrepetuse, Rouffiac-des-Corbières But that was not why we took a side trip to Strasbourg, in the Grand-Est region (formerly Alsace), just across the Rhine River from Germany. We had hoped to visit the famous Christkindelsmärik (Christmas Market) last winter, but got organized too late to get an affordable hotel room. So we contented ourselves with a post-May Day trip, principally to enjoy the Alsatian architecture and cuisine. Of which we got plenty of both. We stayed in a 16th century, half-timbered building that was the site of a continuously operating apothecary (later, pharmacy) from 1298 until 2000 (La Pharmacie du Cerf). The ground floor now houses an ice cream shop--which is probably a the...