IMG_0086.JPG, originally uploaded by maitresse.

this is the street I live on in Paris. It’s really cute and very conveniently located. I walk just about everywhere in Paris, at just about any time of day. There are five different metro stops within a five to ten minute radius of where I live. Shops and restaurants and bars abound. And Nicholas Flamel lived across the street back in the fifteenth century. These are all great reasons to stay in an apartment, right?
Wrong.
I’m going insane from living in such a tiny studio. I think I need to move within the next couple of months. The prospect of bringing my dog to live here with my in january has me breaking out in the sweats. And besides that– everything keeps breaking! The plumbing, the heater, the armoire– I just can’t take it anymore.
Sorry to be a grouch on this Sunday afternoon.

watching the morning news on “the” european channel (“euronews”). It’s a relatively slow news day thus far… Yassir Arafat appears to be ill, it’s the anniversary of the Oslo accords, peace still looks very far away, there was an explosion in siberia, some italian fellows played football. oh, and the boston red sox won the world series.

sorry, what?

The concert last night was superlative. I don’t know of any other musician who even comes close to Rufus: in terms of the beauty and scope of his compositions; or his consummate mastery of the piano; or his inimitable style, his ability to make a song his own, from Debussy to Leonard Cohen.

It is imperative that you listen to something of his if you aren’t already familiar with his music. A french friend asked me yesterday what kind of music he writes–jazz? pop? classical? I don’t know; all three. It defies genre.

I do hope this posting doesn’t read like a fan site. I’m really not one of those people. and I’m not, like, following Rufus around the country or stalking him after concerts. I just think he’s one of the greatest voices out there, in a musical moment that’s glutted with talentless pretty faces and derivative neo-punk/New Wave bands, and I think you should think this, too.

the window in my apartment faces onto a courtyard, where the building next door is only about 15 feet away. Consequently, my neighbor and I have been scoping each other out since I moved here three weeks ago. He is american; this I know from hearing him speak. He is gay; this I also know from hearing him speak, but this is borne out by the “girlie man” (to borrow a phrase from ah-nold) photos adorning his wall. today, this is presently being re-confirmed by the fact that he is playing the soundtrack to “phantom of the opera.” I want to strike up a conversation with my compatriot and fellow musical theatre fan (even if “phantom” does represent one of the low moments in sir andrew’s career, tho some might disagree with this assessment). but I’m too shy! so I’m hiding behind my laptop and pretending not to see him.

He also has a Kerry/Edwards poster up on his window. This is a particularly interesting thing to put on your window when 1. it looks out on a courtyard and 2. your immediate neighbor (me) is american. is this for my benefit? who else does he imagine is seeing this poster? or is it just for his own satisfaction?

curious. it is nice, however, to hear “phantom” being played… I don’t think I’ve listened to it since the last millennium. But I can’t deny that I’m irrationally excited for the film adaptation to come out this christmas!

sing, my psychotic angel of music!

tomorrow night I’m seeing Rufus Wainwright play at Cafe de la Danse. this is the man who works such memorable lyrics as “life is the longest death in california” into a catchy pop song. I love him dearly. A huge thank you to my cousin Neil and his colleagues at Interscope for getting us into the show!

Rufus will probably be doing songs from his new album, “Want Two,” but I’m hoping he’ll include “The Tower of Learning,” from “Poses,” in his set:

All the sights of Paris
fell inside your iris
tip the eiffel tower with one glance
stained glass cathedrals with one glace
you smashed them with your eyes

it would be a shame for him to leave that one out…

am in mourning.

am a little behind on the news as well, but as you may or may not have heard, the evil team from boston with the colored footwear has edged past my yankees to win a spot in the world series.

someone remarked to me recently that rooting for the yankees is like betting on the house. (this person has clearly spent too much time in boston)

my yankees habit has waned on and off over the years…. I’ve never been really interested in sports, although I can occasionally muster the energy to pay attention to a football [soccer] match or a basketball game. But I’ve always liked baseball. I like watching the ball get thrown around the field– there’s something balletic about the way the players reach out to catch it, or lunge while they throw it. I like when they slide into a plate and whoever’s on that plate has to touch them with the ball. I like that they have to touch.

My maternal grandfather, despite being from the Deep South, became a Yankee fan the minute he moved up north. This did not strike me as odd until a few years ago, after his death. In any context other than baseball, the word “Yankee” was an epithet. My mother, having grown up with the Yankees, every baseball season, would have them on in the house somewhere, whenever there was a game on. She gets very into the games and has been known to shout, cheer, and crow at the television when she feels particularly moved.

My sister inherited the Yankee blood. My father, on the other hand, was, in his boyhood, a diehard Brooklyn Dodgers fan. When they moved to LA, he felt abandoned, and took up the Mets as a consolation team. He can therefore never be a Yankee fan, and he’s not authentically a Mets fan.

For a few years, following a series of relationships with boys from Long Island (read: Mets fans) I thought I was perhaps a Mets fan. this I think was equally an attempt to commiserate with the boy and an act of rebellion against my yankee background. But back in 2000, my family took me to a Yanks game, where I lost all will to resistance when I saw the way Bernie Williams could catch a ball way in the outfield. That was it.

And so maybe being a Yankee fan is like betting on the house– but at the risk of sounding terribly like a weekly columnist, it’s my house I’m betting on, gosh darn it! it’s all about family! I haven’t spoken to my mom since the defeat– I’m giving her time to mourn.

By far the funniest judgment of Dan Brown’s writing I’ve yet to read, courtesy of petite anglaise, a charming Brit who found her way here not long ago.

Most to-the-point opening of a review article: Tony Judt in NYRB: “Talk of “empire” makes Americans distinctly uneasy. This is odd.”

Review of the day: James Wood on David Lodge on Henry James

(the string and eggshells, you’ll recall, is a reference to H.G. Wells on James.)

am I lazy or what? all I did was round-up other people’s fits of literary genius and put them on display! What a hack!

From the Letters to the Editor page of The Guardian, 12 October 2004:

Your obituary of Jacques Derrida (October 11) includes his statement: “I cannot use a sign – a word or a sentence, say – without implying that it pre-exists and will outlive me.” It appears on the same page as the solution to a crossword set before his death, and containing the answer “DERRIDA”. Did DERRIDA pre-exist and outlive Derrida? Discuss and, if necessary, deconstruct.
Phil Myerscough
Exeter

Good for a chuckle, no?

and then, there’s this…just before I left for France I reviewed this book for Publisher’s Weekly. My review is about halfway down the page… the buggers don’t give bylines, but it’s mine!

ummmmmmm…… I’m listening to the Beastie Boys’ new album TO THE FIVE BOROUGHS while getting ready to go out….and oh it’s making me so homesick! It’s all about context: at home, if you said the letters LIE and BQE to me, memories of traffic jams and long car rides back and forth over the length of long island would come flooding in and I’d probably start twitching. But here– in my studio in Paris with its seventeenth century exposed beams– it just makes me awful nostalgic for good old NYC.

“brooklyn bronx queens and staten/from the battery to the top of manhattan/asian middle eastern and latin/black white/new york, you make it happen”

Word.

check out the link above– an old friend (and flame, somewhat, but that’s a long time ago and a bit of an inside joke) from the theatre days. Back then he had more letters in his name. maybe I should drop a letter from my name. That “i” never did much for me. what if I change my name to Elkn?

then, of course, there’s Michael Musto’s column. Apparently he’s gotten over the heartbreak of it not working out between us all those years ago…

Anyway. thoughts on a lovely autumn afternoon in paris. (how nice does that sound? I’m almost jealous of myself)