Trip Report Part Five: Back in Paris

I've been promising the final installment of our trip report, so here it is!

Mark and I like to begin and end our overseas trips in the same place. This is partly practical, of course, since it's usually more cost effective to fly in and out of the same city. But I think it's nice to end one's travels in a place that doesn't require all the initial effort that getting to know a new place as a traveler usually does. After an easy train ride from Brussels-Midi to Gare du Nord (during which we ate sandwiches and some of the chocolate I'd bought), we easily exited the station (no complicated navigational moments) and walked down the hill to the same hotel in the 10th. It was too early to check in, so Mark went to check email, and I sat at a cafe and had a croque monsieur and a cafe creme, even though it was a little late for cafe cremes.

Another reason to return to a place you've already been to is because, inevitably, there are things you haven't done and seen that you want to do and see. Once checked into our hotel, we walked down to the Marais to visit the Carnavalet Musée de l'Histoire de Paris. The museum is in an old, Renaissance style hotel, and is full of paintings and other objects related to, duh, the history of Paris. The photograph above is a small section from Dubois' "L'espoir du bonheur dédié à la Nation." On the boat are Louis XVI and Jacques Necker. I am not sure who the robust, bare-chested ladies are supposed to be.

That evening, we headed down to the Latin quarter with Joe and Laura for some drinks and food.

By the time we got to the actual food part, it was rather late, but that didn't affect the taste of my duck confit, or the cheese plate we shared at the end of the meal. I wish I could remember where ate, but I see why that restaurant is a favorite of Joe and Laura's--it was warm, inviting, full of people, and served thoughtfully prepared versions of classic French food.

The next morning, we headed out to the Bois de Boulogne for a picnic, where we met Cole Swenson and Laura Sims and her partner. I don't think I'd seen Cole since Mark and I moved to San Diego. And even if my memory is wrong, it had certainly been a long time. It wasn't especially sunny, but we managed to talk, eat pate and lounge about successfully. Joe and Laura's son, Julian, played with the travel hoop I'd brought with me--it's the orange and red thing you see on my bag.

That evening, Mark and I had a very lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant back in the 10th, just off the canal. I don't enjoy going out for Italian food usually, especially in San Diego, where it's usually mediocre, overpriced and the waiters push bottles of wine on you that you don't want. I think that, somehow, the mediocre overpriced Italian restaurant is really a definitive element of San Diego food culture--and probably all US cities. Mediocre overpriced Italian food is ideal for those with unadventurous taste looking for a fancy meal. But enough of my rant. We had a leisurely meal of basically just a pasta course and some wine. The waiter didn't chastise us for only ordering one course, didn't try to sell us another bottle of wine, brought us a second carafe of water when we needed it, and generally left us alone to have a pleasant evening together.

On our final day in Paris, we went to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Mark emphatically joked that he wasn't going to kiss any slimy tombstones, which was fine, but we did see evidence of other people kissing tombstones. I confess that I might have tried to at least touch the memorial for Abelard and Heloise, but it was being restored, so I couldn't get close enough.

Oscar Wilde's grave had the most kiss marks and attention--even more than Morrison's grave, which only had a trio of German punk girls burning candles.

No one was visiting Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, or even Colette, which was the last grave we visited:

I'll leave out the irritating story of our many failed attempts to eat lunch after our visit to the cemetery, and also of how difficult it was to buy tickets in advance for the train back out to the airport. Instead, I'll skip right to the end and tell you that we visited Joe and Laura again that evening for a drink and some final goodbyes, and that we made a salad for dinner in our hotel room.

So, how was our trip to Paris, Belgium and Amsterdam? It was wonderful. Alice Notley didn't move to Paris until she was in her 40s, so I have a bit of time to plan how Mark and I might move to Amsterdam (or Brussels, or Paris, or Barcelona--which we didn't visit on this trip, of course, but which is nonetheless one of my favorite places). Until we move, though, we'll just have to scheme about how to go back. Soon.

Trip Report Part Two: Ghent

This second installment of my trip report is a bit longer than the first, and more detailed. Why? Because--admit it--you probably know nothing about Ghent, so a few extra details won't hurt.

On July 9th, Mark and I took a train from Gare du Nord to Brussels and from there a train to Ghent. For the past three years I've had a substantial number of French-speaking Belgian students, mostly from Brussels, in my EFL classes. But Ghent is in the Flemish part of Belgium, a place where most of my French-speaking students have never been, so I was glad to experience this other part of the country first hand.

Belgian politics is quite complicated--there are six separate governments (and parliaments), each with their own federal, regional and linguistic divisions. Some things, like education, are dealt with by the linguistic divisions. Roads and infrastructure are managed by the regional divisions and the federal divisions deal with things like finance and law. Even though there's currently no working national federal government, the country operates very smoothly.

Things did seem to be running very smoothly in Ghent. The city has a well-preserved medieval center but it also has a large university and much larger than Bruges, to which it's inevitably compared. Even in the summer with many of the students gone, Ghent felt like a thriving small city.

We were fortunate enough to say with Helen White during our visit. I initially "met" Helen virtually, through the work that she does with Krikri, a fabulous organization that highlights a range of contemporary poetic ativity through festivals, performances, projects and workshops. In 2008 they organized the Zaoem festival, and Helen was kind enough to use some of my pieces for the visual poetry exhibition. More recently, Helen organized Infusoria: an Exhibition of Visual Poetry by Women from Three Continents, which brought together work some of the most compelling contemporary visual poets from Belgium, Canada, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United States. My special edition of Foursquare snuck in there, too.

So, Helen is clearly a stellar organizer and curator. She's also a fabulous host, which I'll talk more about in a minute. However, I also want to mention her own work. Helen's visual poems manage to be complex and delicate at the same time. One of my favorite pieces by her is "A Planet Like Pluto":

You can learn more about Helen and her work through her website.

Helen, as I said, was a fabulous host. During the three days we spent there, Helen took us all over the city, cooked tasty quiche, and maintained a refrigerator stocked full of cheese and beer. I won't tell you about every beer we drank or every cathedral that we went in, but here are some of the highlights of our time in Ghent.

1. Beer. Belgium's reputation for good beer is completely justified. While in Ghent, I drank numerous Trappist and abbey beers that I'd never had before, as well as a variety of lambics and gueuzes. My favorite was by far Rochefort 8. Rochefort 8 is perfectly malty and not at all boosey. We sat outside, even though it was really very cold, and drank beer at Het Waterhuis Ann de Bierkant:

We sat inside at Trollekelder and drank beer when it was raining. Helen very wisely chose to have a coffee:

We had beer with lunch and dinner, beer with friends, beer after the reading. You get the idea.

2. The reading was incredibly fun. I'd never before read to an audience of predominately speakers of languages other than English, so it was a challenge to put together a performance that would work in that context. Mark performed some pieces from Temporary Worker Rides a Subway as well as The End of America. I performed some sections from Terminal Humming and also my 2006 Dusie Chapbook, Diverse Speculations Descending Therefrom.

This photo is blurry, but it captures the mood of my performance quite well:

After Mark and I performed, other people in the audience also came up and gave short readings/performances. I was grateful to hear work from so many poets who were new to me. Here is Jelle Meander, a poet and musician--and one of the other Krikri organizers--performing a sound poem:

Xavier Roelens, Olaf Risee, Tine Moniek, also performed that evening, as well as (if I remember correctly), two other men who recited some more traditional Flemish poetry. The event ended with an improvisation around the pig we'd all been admiring. There's a lot to be said about the work people performed that evening, and especially about the context of sound poetry in Belgium (and, as we later learned, the Netherlands). In a country with three official languages (Flemish, French and German) and rather intensely local debates about what language is spoken where and by whom, sound poetry seems both daring and practical. Mark and I talked about this a lot on the trip, with each other and with the poets we met. You can read more of Mark's thoughts on the subject at his blog.

And then, we went to the bar, drank beer, and played with a mysterious blue balloon. It was a very late and lovely night. (Left to right: Lies Van Gasse, Tine Moniek, Xavier Roelens & Olaf Risee):

3. Medieval and Renaissance Architecture and Art. As I've already said, Ghent has a well-preserved medieval downtown. On just about every walk, we spent a lot of time admiring the buildings and the canals. The Sint Baafskathedraal (Saint Bravo Cathedrdal) was especially interesting. The cathedral was built, of course, in stages over hundreds of years. We went there to see "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb," an early Flemish polyptch panel painting by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. My favorite panel depicts the pagan writers and the prophets of the Torah rushing forward to worship and adore the mystic lamb of God. Virgil is in there somewhere. I love how calm and unexcited their faces are.

Sint Baafskathedraal is also lovely in its own right.

We also went up the tower of the Belfort in Ghent. I'm not especially afraid of heights, but even I was a bit daunted by the height and the very narrow walkways along the outer edge of the bell chamber. Here's the view overlooking the town hall, which is the large building on the left.

3.2 Helen, Mark, Xavier Roelens and I took a trip to the Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Ghent, which has a great collection of Medieval and Renaissance Flemish work, including several by Hieronymus Bosch (but not "The Temptation of Saint Anthony," which we saw in Brussels, and which I'll write about later). Bosch's work is beautifully detailed and grotesque--it did look proto-surrealist, although his depictions of heaven and hell are probably pretty consistent with the medieval literature of his contemporaries.

The museum also had an exhibition of works on paper by Raoul de Keyser, the artist in residence. In retrospect, I realize I was a bit familiar with de Keyser's work because of an exhibition of his paintings about two (or three?) years ago in New York. I didn't see the exhibition (because I live in San Diego), but there's a brief article about it in the Brooklyn Rail. Most of the pieces at the Museum voor Schone Kunsten were pencil or charcoal on paper, and I could see how he moved from doing work that was mostly figurative to work that is more abstract.

4. Mark and I had read about jenever, a kind of gin, before we'd left on our trip, and were eager to try some. With Helen, we went to a bar that specializes in jenevers, next door to Het Waterhuis Ann de Bierkant (where we first drank beer). There are two types of jenever: "Oude" (Old) and "Jonge" (Young). Confusingly, though, this distinction has nothing to do with age, but with distilling techniques. Either way, I prefered aged versions of both types, and in general prefered the oude jenevers to the jounge ones. Some jenevers are flavored with fruit or chocolate, but those weren't my favorites. On a rainy afternoon or evening, of which there are many in Beligium, sipping a jenever in a warm, cozy bar feels perfect.

5. Helen took Mark and I to meet Godfried-Willem Raes and his robot orchestra at the Logos Foundation. The foundation specializes in collaborative music and dance concerts that involve interaction between people and the robots. Godfried and his team have developed not only the robots, but a variety of human interfaces, including microwave radar and wireless gesture control. Yes--wireless gesture control! Although he's still working on perfecting this technology we saw Godfried conduct the orchestra with very subtle movements of his hands. These are some of the instruments:

And here's Godfried in the back setting up the orchestra to perform. Note all of the wires coming out of the computer.

Several composers have written pieces specifically for the robot orchestra, which now has forty robots, including organs, bell-machines, a double string hurdy-gurdy, the player piano, a vibraphone, an accordeon and a sousaphone. You can read a more in-depth description of the robots here on the Logos Foundation website. Finally, Helen, who has performed with the orchestra, wrote a longer piece about it for the Infusoria blog that I urge you to read.

I'm grateful to the creative energy and generosity of Krikri, and especially Helen, for making our visit to Ghent possible. I think that I'll have to find a way to be back in Ghent sometime soon.

Look for the third installment of this trip report, on Amsterdam, in the next few days.

Trip Report Part One: Paris

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Mark and I have been back in the San Diego for about two days. I've sorted through most of our digital pictures and am nearly over my jet lag. I'm conscious enough at least to do a trip report.

Paris looks exactly like Paris. And by that I mean there was nothing surprising about, for example, the blocks and blocks of mostly apartment buildings that unfailingly had their ground-floors devoted to cafes and retail, or the Cathédrale de Notre Dame, the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, the Seine, or the signs above the Metro stations in their gorgeous art deco lettering. Even the geography of Paris felt familiar--I knew that 27 Rue de Fleurus was in the 6th Arondissmont, that the Bois de Bologne is the bois of Nightwood, that Kiki was from (duh) Montparnasse.

Of course, having knowledge of and accurate expectations about a place isn't the same thing as actually being in that place. Here are a few highlights and observations of the first part of our trip:

1. The blocks and blocks of cafes and bars--they're a very pleasant combination of public and private space. People hang out in them like many Americans hang out in their living rooms and kitchens. A cafe is where you eat, of course, but it's also where you meet your friends and family, relax at the end of the day, do your reading, etc. Most cafes have very similar menus, so you can sit down almost anywhere and know that you can eat at least a reasonably competent version of an omelet, crepe, or stew. For the most part, there are no TVs and no music, even in bars, just the constant sound of people talking to each other.

From July Paris-Ghent_Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris 2009

2. People really make use of their available public space, especially in the warm weather--I think this is what I loved most about Paris. Mark and I sayed in the 10th, near our friend Joe Ross and within walking distance of Gare du Nord, Gare de L'Est and the Canal St Martin. There were people sitting by the canal all day, every day, but especially at lunch time and in the evening. It was especially warm during our first few days in Paris, and the scene at the canal was like a huge block party. Anyone who didn't want to be in a cafe or couldn't afford it was eating, drinking, and talking down by the water. In some cases, people bought a drink from a cafe and then took it down to the canal, or they brought some food with them and brought it into a cafe to eat with a drink.

From July Paris-Ghent_Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris 2009

2.1. Mark and I spent a great evening in Belleville, just on the other side of the canal, with Nicholas Manning. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this evening because I managed to drop my digital camera and the memory card fell out. I didn't realize the card was gone until the next morning. Ugh. The 10th and Belleville were, to me, the most livable neighbourhoods we visited in Paris. The 10th is more gentrified than Belleville, but both neighbourhoods are multi-ethnic and mostly residential (i.e. there are no major tourist sites in them).

Unlike Brussels, which I'll write about in a future post, Paris does not fully embrace food from other cultures (except various kinds of kebabs--and most kebab shops also sell crepes, which is telling). Part of the point of the cafe culture is--yes, to socialize--but it's also to be able to eat simple, reliable French food. Most cafes aren't about culinary or cultural adventure. In Belleville, though, you'll find Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian and African resturants, and a variety of people eating in them. Bellville is still inexpensive enough to allow people from, again, a variety of different contexts to live there. Bellville was even more like a block party than the Canal St. Martin.

3. There is art all over Paris, and it's inevitable that you'll happen upon an interesting object or place without even trying. While wandering around Montmartre, for example, we saw this house which built for Tristan Tzara by Adolf Loos.

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3.1 And here's mark in front of Victor Hugo's house on the Place des Voges:

From July Paris-Ghent_Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris 2009

4. We went to the Louvre and the Tuileries out of a sense of duty, but I enjoyed the Rodin museum and garden much more. I love the way that modernism starts creeping into his work, and how many of his pieces just seem to be crawling their way out of the stones. There were numerous casts of Victor Hugo, always with the same stern face no matter how much busy-ness might have been going on in the rest of the sculpture. There was also a cast of Balzac in a monk's robe, which struck me as deeply hilarious.

From July Paris-Ghent_Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris 2009

5. The museum also had several rooms devoted to Camille Claudel. I remember renting and watching Isabelle Adjani's film version of Camille Claudel (1988) during my first or second year of high school. But, beyond that, I knew very little about her. It was good to see so many of her works on display.

From July Paris-Ghent_Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris 2009

6. Our reading went well--I wasn't expecting much of a crowd, because Paris really empties out in July. However, there was a very pleasant number of people there, including many folks I hadn't expected to see who were in Paris on vacation or visiting family--including Mark Lamoureux, Susan Briante, and Farid Matuk. Mark read from a variety of different books and manuscripts, including Notes from the Center on Public Policy and Felonies of Illusion. Felonies of Illusion is one of my favorite Mark Wallace books, but I'll have to blog about that another time. I read from Terminal Humming, of course.

6.1 Here are several folks milling about after the reading: Mark, Joe Ross, Nicholas Manning, Andrew Zawaki, and in front a woman I was never introduced to. (She seemed interesting, and I think she said she was from Boston. Does anyone know who she is?)

From July Paris-Ghent_Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris 2009

6.2 After the reading, Mark and I went to get some food with Michelle Noteboom, Frederic Forte and their very very new baby. Mark and I shared a huge, decadent plate of charcuterie. I'm certain that I could happily (though not healthily) live off of cheese, charcuterie, bread and wine. Fred's a member of Oulipo, and it was interesting to talk with him about that, and about publishing in France. Once you publish a first book, then you can count on someone publishing really every book that you ever write. Fred has a press ready to publish his manuscripts in progress. There isn't much of a chapbook culture in France, or even a small press culture--in part because writers don't seem to feel the need for one. This theme came up again and again in conversations with writers and artists in Ghent, Brussels and Amsterdam, too. I'm split between outright jealousy at the huge amounts of support and respect that writers in Europe recieve from their governments, pulishers, and art organizations, and an acknowledgement of the benefits of DIY culture here in the United States. I have more to say about this, but it's enough to constitute another post, so I'll return to it later.

7. Mark and I spent a lot of time with Joe Ross, Laura, their two children, and their dog, Ceasar. Joe is an old friend of Mark's from Washington, DC. (Incidentally, Joe and Laura moved from DC to San Diego before eventually moving to Paris. I find this fact comforting). It was really wonderful to be able to visit with them. I was also quite smitten by Ceasar:

From July Paris-Ghent_Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris 2009

In Ghent

And having a lovely time....I suspect I won't be posting many pictures, notes, comments, reflections about this whole trip until after the trip is over, but they're coming!

I would, of course, be happy to divide my time between somewhere and somewhere, but I wouldn't use that phrase in my bio.

My European students all tend to speak multiple languages. They started studying one or two foreign languages as early as age 6. They come from families that are multilingual. In most European countries, you can drive a few hours or take a quick plane flight and be in a different country with a different language. Or, in some cases, you can go to a different part of your country where people will speak a different language.

The only reason I speak multiple languages is because 1) my dad's engineering job took us outside of the US 2) I was lucky to receive foreign language instruction in middle school and high school (i.e. before I got to college) and 3) I attended a bilingual school in Mexico City 4) I attended a French school in Guangzhou 5) At university, I spent 10 class hours every week-and sometimes more-- studying nothing but Chinese language. Most Americans don't have my luck, opportunity, or, perhaps, obsessions.

Some white people here in San Diego speak Spanish, but not as many as I expected, given that this is one of the few places in the US where you can be in another country within an hour. I rarely use Spanish here. I tried a few times when I first moved, but people were offended--I've blogged about this before. For three years now I've been buying bread from a guy at the farmer's market. Finally, yesterday, I spoke Spanish with him--but only because it was obvious that I'd understood an entire Spanish conversation he'd just had with someone else in front of me. He charged me a whole $2.00 less for the bread.

In a few weeks, when Mark and I are in Paris, I'll get the chance to use French again. I've been reviewing some grammar and vocabulary. Still, I know that the first few days will be frustrating and I'll barely be able to speak or understand anything. But after those first few days my linguistic memory will kick in, and 90% of what I know will come back. It always does, rather mysteriously.

Language and poetry communities are on my mind because of this upcoming trip and because of recent conversations on Exoskeleton. Mark and I will be reading in Paris and Ghent, and we'll be visiting people and poets in both those cities as well as Amsterdam and Brussels. I'm well traveled, and I've lived a substantial part of my life overseas--but most of the traveling I did was payed for by Bechtel, the company my father worked for. Perhaps you've heard of them? They're certainly not going to pay for me to travel for art. And even if they would, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable taking their money.

It's not like I get to go to Europe every year and give poetry readings and talk to other writers in the flesh. I do not "divide my time" between anywhere and anywhere. I would, of course, be happy to divide my time between somewhere and somewhere, but I wouldn't use that phrase in my bio.

In fact, it's colder here than NY, DC, and most of Ohio

I grilled a pizza (with leeks, sage, wild mushrooms and fontina). It worked reasonably well, but the dough was too puffy. And sticky. I'm used to focaccia dough being difficult to handle, but not pizza dough.

I am a zombie after the last three weeks.

Mark and I are going to Paris this summer. Terminal Humming will be out soon--I'm sending final files to Rod tomorrow. It's been a good spring.

But What Book Should I Take With Me?

I took Lester to the vet to be boarded this morning. He's boarded there plenty of times, but this was only the second time we'd made the trip via train and bicycle. He loves the train, and after about a minute of settling in on the bicycle, he seems to enjoy it--he sang most of the ride. There were two iguanas, two bunnies, one hamster, and five parrots (plus a lot of people) in the vet reception area, and Lester seemed to enjoy that, too. Everyone seemed nervous, and at one point there were two parrots flying around the room because they didn't want to step up onto the scale to be weighed. Lester, however, preened, ate some millet, and sang "Lester's a pretty bird" and "salt peanuts" over and over again, which got him a lot of attention. And, of course, he loves attention. When I'd finished putting all his favorite toys into his boarding cage, he willingly climbed off of my shoulder and got in. I'm glad that he's so well-adjusted and confident.

Today I need to:

1. Exercise
2. Clean
3. Pack
4. Print any remaining things for the trip
5. Go to Trader Joes to get something to eat tomorrow when I'm traveling

The oldest daughter of my oldest cousin on my mother's side is getting married

I not really a wedding person, but I'm not not a wedding person. Either way, I'm going to Maine tonight on a redeye. Think of me at 6:30 am on the east coast, when most of you will be asleep. I'll be in Newark trying to get some breakfast and waiting for my flight to Portland. It's been ages since I've been in the Newark airport. Ah, nostalgia.

San Diego to Maine is about the longest trip one can take in the continental US--but Maine can be beautiful this time of year, and I'll see family that I haven't seen in a long time. Maybe 10 years for some of them. I'll post pictures.

And I'm still, yes, still, writing up notes from Vancouver, which will appear here eventually.

xo

I've uploaded most of the pictures from my trip to DC & NY.

I got a manicure today

It will be chipped by Wednesday, but it was nice. The nail technician looked at my hands and said, "you don't get manicures very often, do you?" I'm more likely to be scolded when I go in for a manicure than when I get my hair cut. Then again, I get my hair cut at Supercuts--it's not in their interest to be snobby with customers.

Trying not to over plan my time on the east coast. In addition to reading, I know that I'll go to Bridge Street Books, Moby Dick's House of Kabob (the original Georgetown location), Bistrot du Coin for an afternoon Ricard, and down to the galleries.

We still have a few more days of vacation

But we're back in North County. I'll write a proper reading/travel report tomorrow.

Actually, there's more to be said about this, but I'm on vacation.

Portland, my Portland, my eyebrows are changing color. They used to be dark brown and they are now approaching dirty blonde. What does this mean?

The sun came out today.

Mark and I had fun at our reading. Compare Portland to DC.

We had fun on Monday and today, also.

Last of the famous

I watched "America's Next Top Model" last week and that show about the Pussycat Dolls, who, I'll admit, I'd never even heard of until seeing the promotions for the show, although I did hear the "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me" (which I often mis-speak as "don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like me") song in Oman on New Years Eve at a bar full of equal parts rich British girls and their pretty boy boyfriends from Dubai spending a fashionable holiday in quaint, nearby Muscat, men in various forms of Islamic dress, prostitutes, and engineers (both men and women) from India. The dance floor was crowded and the grope-factor was high, so I stayed away. My kind hosts bought me a monstrously expensive scotch, which I didn't really drink because everyone else was super blasted, and I designated myself the designated driver.