A Moveable Feast

Chet Baker

Sorry for the too long break, and thank you for the comments and emails to encourage me to continue this. After return from Xmas vacation I was without internet for a while, the neighbour apparently had "picked my line" and it took France Telecom four weeks and several visits to get me a new line. By that time I had gotten used to not posting any more and then kind of lazy about this blog. But a lot is going on (while I am still working for the same restaurant) and the desire to share and write down events and thoughts is returning.

My last post was about music and so will be this "I'm back" post.

Music has always been an important part of my life, and sometimes accidental circumstances bring new inspiration. Like the unforgettable taxi ride with Leonard Cohen last year. This week life brought Chet Baker to me. And while I am writing this, I am watching the "Let's get lost" documentary. I found the circumstances amusing, amazing and worth sharing. Actually Chet Baker was first brought to me by my friend Sarah in Grenoble, who knew that I secretely had a little crush on my Saxphone teacher (my mother had met him once and then used to say, she would not have been able to concentrate on music in his presence). Sarah found an album with a photo of Chet Baker on which he looked exactly like my saxophone teacher at that time, and offered it to me as a birthday present. I am not sure I listened actually to the CD, what a shame, but I did like the cover...

Anyway, a couple of  years have passed since then, I have moved from Grenoble to Paris and therfore have a new Saxophone teacher (very very nice, but no crush-potential). Last week, before the vulcano cloud, I booked a hotel in Lucca in Tuscany for the upcoming weekend. I chose the hotel together with my friend Nina over the phone who I am going to meet there (still depending on the cloud). We figured the hotel Universo had a good price/quality ratio, ideal location and nice tripadvisor comments. I already loved the music of the hotel's website, and then found on the room description site, that room #15 was the one Chet Baker has stayed several times in, and thought this was a nice coincidence and was even more happy we had picked that hotel. I also thought I need to get out this CD from Sarah now and listen to Chet Baker. And I could end the story here.

A couple of famous photos exits of Chet Baker sitting in the window of the hotel Universo. This one's from the hotel website and I found another one on the back cover of Sarah's CDs. Nice, but still not the end of the story.

Today I told my (new) Saxophone teacher, that next Monday I will be in Tuscany and therfore we'd have to postpone my lesson, unless the European flights keep being cancelled. I mentioned that I'd stay in the same hotel as Chet Baker. The he smiled "I knew Chet Baker". Me : "No way !" Sax teacher : "Yes, we dined several times together". Me : "No way !" Sax teacher :"Actually he lived several years with my godmother in Paris, that is how I knew him" Me : "No way".

Ok I have to admit here that my contribution to the conversation was not very original, but I was just fascinated and surprised about this story and how normal it seemed to my Sax teacher. I asked him to tell me more about his godmother, a French actress, about her relationship to Chet Baker and researched later on web to find out more. So actually Chet Baker had left the US to follow his love Liliane to Paris. This was in 1955 and there are a couple of Paris concert recordings from that time. I also found a beautiful photo of the couple.

I proudly present Chet Baker and the godmother of my Saxophone teacher. I think this is cool.

For the moment this is the end of my little story. The big question is, will I actually get to Lucca on Saturday morning, the Paris airports are still closed...

This post however cannot end without the beautiful music of Chet Baker....

 

 

They said there'll be snow at Christmas...

This is a special greeting to my sister Gabi Doktor Bosse, who is working during Xmas in the hospital.

In anticipation of Aug 12th 2010..... Merry Xmas kleine Schwester !

a magic moment

Sometimes there are situations that you can't anticipate, and that provide maybe for that very reason a magic moment in life. I just had a 15 minute lasting magic moment, that I want to capture. A long day in the restaurant, happy customers, among them my friends Allison and Paul, my team (I have now an apprentice and a commis) working hard, a flawless service, and my decision at 0:30 to let the last metro go and rather give some more time to clean the kitchen thoroughly and share a glass of wine with the waiters. Finding a taxi at 1:30 a.m., rather uncomfortable if not scared, because as a woman I always feel the metro is safer than a taxi, at least in Paris (there have been some "incidents").

I explain to the driver where to and how (!) to drive me home. Usually I would then pull out my cell phone, and type wildly nonsense prentending to text, just to give the taxi driver the feeling that he can't kidnap me without consequences. But not this time. Suddenly a huge wave of inner peace overwhelmes me by the beautiful music that is playing from his CD. After a while of silence between us I say : "what is the music, it reminds me of Leonard Cohen." And indeed, it is the London 2008 concert, and the taxi driver increases the sound level and tells me how much his wife and daughter love this music and that I must buy the DVD. Then we both listen in awed silence again.

We are driving by the opera house, the Palais Royal, the Louvre and its Pyramide, crossing the Seine on the Pont du Carrousel, with Notre Dame to the left and the muséee d'Orsay to the right, and all this to So long Marianne and Suzanne. I know it's very sentimental, but the moment almost made me cry and be grateful to be alive and live in such a beautiful city.

 (photo by Arnaud Frich, www.arnaudfrichphoto.com)

Daniil Simkin

I still haven't decided whether I am going to stay in Paris or not, but then there is also no pressure to decide. Sometimes I am playing with the idea to move to Lyon or to Bordeaux. Especially on the 30th of each months the desire grows, when I see the rent for my tiny space for a bed and a shower disappearing from my bank account.

But then, when I attend an event like last weekend, I am reminded how lucky I am to live in this city. For ten years Le Theatre de Champs Elysées has been hosting the Gala des étoiles, a gala of ballet "superstars", the most talented dancers from around the world. Last year I went already and was so fascinated by a young Russian dancer, that for him alone I wanted to return this year.

Daniil Simkin is only 21 years old, and yet the most amazing ballet dancer I have ever seen in my life. Difficult to describe in words : beauty, perfection, grace, elegance, precision. Whenever he did one or several of his incredible (double, triple, etc.) leaps and pirouettes, the whole audience was screaming, especially the women (author included). It felt more like being at a Beatles' concert, rather than at a classical Ballet presentation in Paris. Get an impression of his talent watching this variation of Don Quixote I found on Youtube (and this was already a couple of years ago at age 17 or 18 I believe).

Next to me sat a writer of an American Newspaper (Newport something ?), and she said that she would write in her review, that whenever you find yourself somewhere near Daniil Simkin (which included for her living in RI, when he dances in New York) you shold make everything possible to go and see him dance. I would confirm this 100%. Since 2008 he is a soloist at the American Ballet Theatre in New York...

He has been called "Baryshnikov's reincarnation" but I don't like this type of comparisons. He is Daniil Simkin. Period. However, I am convinced he will be THE most famous and wanted ballet solo dancer in the next 10-20 years and become a lengend. I know it.

 

The other dancer that impressed me most was Polina Semionova, also from Russia, now prima ballerina at the Staatsoper Berlin.

I hadn't heard of her before, but she seems to be already famous in Germany, probably since her appearance in the Herbert Groenemeyer video clip (one of my favorite German musicians).

 

 

I was so glad I had brought my new toy....

Beirut - Nantes

This is a song that was played a lot during the Omnivore Food Festival in Deauville (http://www.omnivore.fr/?p=1367) I attended this week with Diane and Cathleen. Beirut, a group I never heard of before, founded three years ago by a then 20 year old guy from New Mexico. Even if it is not the type of music I usually listen to, I got addicted to it and it has finally replaced Viva La Vida as my new favourite song (Kate : don't mention it to you know who...;).

 

Door #4 - a night a the opera

Paris has two amazing opera houses, the beautiful Palais Garnier, and the very modern Opera Bastille. Tonight I had tickets for Mozart's Magic Flute at the Opera Bastille. I try to take advantage of Paris cultular offer as long as I am still here, it won't be forever...

Mozart is one of my favourite composers, (right after Bono and Mark Knopfler) and the music of the Magic Flute touch me in particular, because I practiced them a lot myself many years ago.   

As anticipated it was one of my cultural highlights lived in Paris, even though the production and the stage decoration (by the Barcelona theatre company la fure dela baus) were too modern for my personal taste, lots of video and text projections etc.. I realize I do sound old or old-fashioned, but that is the way it is. But the music was perfect, thanks to Wolfgang Amadeus, to the Queen of the night, who hit without flaw all the impossible high notes in her famous aria (always a moment of suspense), and to my surprise a German conductor, Thomas Hengelbrock.


The futuristic Opera Bastille from outside and inside.

  

 

Pictures taken between the two acts ("entracte")

 

The German conductor's desk

 

Tamino

Beginning of the second act

Pamina flying around in a mountain climber harness during Queen of the night  aria

Coldplay - Viva la Vida

Yesterday night, when I was as usual watching Jay Leno at home after my shift to wind down a little, the featured band was Coldplay with Viva la Vida. And I thought WOW, what a great song ! Need to hear that again ! I searched it on the internet and played it several times. So I went to bed with this song in my mind. This morning my radio alarm goes on and they play Coldplay with Viva la Vida. Isn't life strange sometimes ! I couldn't stop humming it all day, and so I have to declare this song my new favourite song (of the moment). I read that the album was produced by Brian Eno, who also produced some of U2s greatest albums, and that Chris Martin is a big U2 fan, so at the end not surprising that this song caught me completely.

  

Amy Macdonald - Mr. Rock & Roll

This song is currently playing in an endless loop and quite loud whenever I am at home (and not sleeping between services). It reflects my current good mood, or manages easily to get me into it...

Just because it's Valentine's day...

To whom it may concern.....

Colbie, Carla and all that

Time to move on to a new favourite song, that I picked up on French RTL2 radio yesterday, titled "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat.

I am back in my beloved strike-country since a couple of days.

What's new : actually the strikes are over (for now), it is bitter bitter cold, too much difference to the Carribean, the Colonel G. and with him heated political discussions about the new government have left Paris and the number one topic is the president's new love. Le president is known to love "les pipol" (Frenched "people", the stars), so it was just a matter of time that he was "discovered" with a famous beauty at his side, Carla Bruni, a French/Italian singer and ex-model, they were seen this weekend at Disneyland together...For those not knowing her and having to guess about the significance of this event, just imagine Barbara left George 5 months after he had been elected president, then 2 months later George dates Jennifer Lopez, and this is discovered at Disneyworld. See ? This raises so many questions, and is much more interesting to discuss than the state of economy and social problems of this country. Yes. Make love not strike !

To get an impression of our new current potential future second first lady, admire her in this great performance with Bryan Ferry.

Beautiful song.

I have not written about food and my culinary career and projects for a while, but starting tomorrow this should change, just as my life will change again dramatically. I am very nervous before my first day working in a restaurant, feels like I have a knot in my stomach. Everybody tells me I'll be fine, but it doesn't help... At the moment I just think : "What the hell have I done ?" Need to survive the first days, hopefully I can sleep tonight.