A couple of days ago I caught the 96 bus over to St. Paul in the Marais. I wanted to go to the Italian bookshop, La Tour de Babel, on the Rue du Roi de Sicile. The bookseller had recommended Dacia Maraini's books to me a year or two ago when I ran out of Elena Ferrante, and I wanted to buy another of her books to read--it's my way of gradually improving my Italian, a few pages a day--or much more if I really get into a book.

So I found another book, one he'd warmly recommended two years ago, which I had turned down in favour of something shorter and more plot-driven, and now it's sitting on the table waiting for me to begin it. My errand accomplished I wander up and down the rue des Rosiers, discovering a hidden park, then met a friend for a drink behind St. Gervais, and walked back home across two islands filled with people sitting in cafes in the late afternoon sun.

Neighbours

 I was going out to run an errand when I noticed my ground-floor neighbour's door was open, and since I hadn't said hello to her I called from the door, but she didn't hear, so I called louder and she came out of her kitchen and ran to let me in. Madame B is in her 80s, she rides a bicycle around, she is small and wiry and proud of it, and she is a talker, so I knew that I could give up on my errand, if I wanted to be back when Concepcion came to clean at 3 pm. 

The last time I saw her, last fall, we'd had a talk about keeping our shutters clean. I told her I always was amazed how clean hers were (at street level, so visible). Today she wanted to show me her shutters, the ones on the street that she'd cleaned recently. She said she kept all her old soiled kitchen sponges for jobs like that. She said she climbed up a ladder and then she stepped onto the window ledge (her ceilings are very high) and she cleaned them. I said it must have taken a whole afternoon to do them. She said, oh no, she'd done them in the morning, so nobody would see her, which she hastened to say was foolish, because really nobody would care if they saw her cleaning her own shutters, but still. She said she was going to do the courtyard shutters too, in the morning.

Paris Notes

The shadows are sculpted into the stones of the church across the street. The sun also is telling me how dirty my kitchen windows are. Yesterday I traipsed back to the Flower Market on the Ile St Louis behind the Hotel-Dieu, with my shopping trolley, to find myself a Mexican Orange Tree for the kitchen porch. I also pulled a few weedy catalpa shoots out of the cobbles, the offspring of the ones that line the square. Two of them look like they might survive. 

Loud car radio music in the middle of the night. I was awake, listened, went back to sleep, closing the windows on the street and opening the kitchen one. This morning, Saturday, the street is calm. I like the noises, cars cruising for parking spots, people whose offices expand to the sidewalk and their cell phones, a child talking to a parent, a clock striking the quarter hours. I think I'll go to the Centre Pompidou later.

Paris in September

Life repeats at shorter or longer intervals. After nine months away it is good to be back and a little startling how quickly one adjusts to the change of setting, the feeling of having left just a few days ago. True, the people sleeping in the side door to the church have changed: now it is a family of Roms, by the look of the colourful bedding and the women's gypsy skirts. They turn in at nightfall--it takes them a while to set up camp, tuck themselves in, hang their laundry to dry on the railing, and when at 2 am, some yobs arrive in a noisy car, park, shout, get out, piss, toss beer cans about, one feels a little nervous for them, but no, they have other things on their mind, and I close my window and quiet myself again.

Just a reminder--I'll be reading on Tuesday the 27th at Shakespeare and Company, in the 5e, with Charles Boyle, Laura Pawson and Will Eaves.

Sunday's Hike

Saw a great little bookstore while hiking in the Glen Park neighbourhood of San Francisco on Sunday.

News about books and readings

Back from London last night, with news about CB editions' upcoming publications and readings, including a couple I will be part of.

London

Rain--gentle rain falling all night. A sound I love...for a few days. Yesterday my daughter took me to evensong at St Paul's, on our way home from the Tate Modern.

Love the Tate--as opposed to a more traditional museum--I'm also hoping to go and see Hockney's portraits at the Royal Academy--it's organized to make the visitor feel like part of the creative process. It's chaotic to the right degree: curated chaos, I guess you could call it.

Shakespeare and Company, the Paris bookshop, has posted the notice of our CB Editions Reading in September, with all the info. I'll be reading with Charles Boyle, the publisher and writer, Will Eaves, and Lara Pawson. Follow the link for more info, but also take time to explore the rest of the website. It's a great bookshop, with a long and fascinating history. I'm really excited, hope you can be there!

Yves Bonnefoy

Yves Bonnefoy, one of the French poets whose books I have translated, died in Paris on July 1. He had just turned 94. Cynthia Haven asked me to write something about M. Bonnefoy, which she has published on her Stanford literary blog, The Book Haven.