Paris day 5 (last full day)

We went music shopping again. This time we looked under variétés françaises, and found things. We bought: Uztaglote (a humorous take on traditional French music), Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collection (African-Belizean project of some sort, nice beat, good stuff), Angelique Kidjo (African, funky beat, lots of guest musicians), Camille (recommended by Graziella), and Olivia Ruiz (also recommended by Graziella).

We had lunch at a mediocre brasserie near Place St. Michel. It was fine, but we could have done much better. Tony: Salade Parisienne (with emmenthaler, ham, and carrots, and one dirty piece of lettuce). Eric: Salade de gésiers (which was overdressed); pièce de bœuf with sauce au poivre (well-prepared steak, but lackluster sauce; overall pretty good). Coffee but no dessert.

The we wandered around St Germain de Prés, crossed the Seine at the pedestrian bridge, and went in the Louvre courtyard. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, but we looked into the sculpture gardens through the windows. Mostly the sculpture is classical, but some new stuff was among it... it one room we saw lots of people with clocks for faces standing on the stairs. In another, I saw a man holding a boom (I figured they must be recording something while the museum was closed), and he stood so still, I thought he might be a statue... and then I realized in fact he was a statue.

We continued through to the courtyard at the Palais Royale, where we sat for a moment. Then we wandered through the 1st some more, stopping at a post office to buy stamps, and passing through Les Halles on the way to Samaritaine, which we did just to see if it was still open. (Of the three buildings, the auxiliary two are open but hold boutiques like Celio, Etam, Sephora, and Zara; the primary building is closed for a long period for safety repairs. I don't know what the story is.)

Then we headed back (eventually) to the apartment, where Eric showered and I took the laundry to the laundromat for drying. (The washer-dryer in our apartment washes OK but doesn't seem to dry in the least. The process at the laundromat was, by comparison, shockingly fast.)

We left to go to the concert, stopping at Café Rostand again for drinks (Kir for Tony, Sancerre for Eric). This came with popcorn and olives, and was sort of our dinner. (Aside from the sausage I ate at the apartment.)

The concert was in a theater called Le Trianon, which is more or less at the foot of Montmartre, on Blvd Rochechouart. It was a pretty nice theater, though the seats were crowded and shockingly hard and uncomfortable. Though we were in the upper balcony, we could see well and weren't too far away. Rufus performed mostly music from the new album, with a few classics thrown in. He had a full backing band, which is generally better in our experience. The band was all male, which meant the backing vocals didn't always contrast the way they ought, or that they sometimes sang falsetto.. the backing vocals may have been the weakest part, but they weren't really bad. He had a bassist, a drummer, a horn section (sax/flute, horn, and french horn – yes, one guy who was there just to play the french horn), and two guitarists (one guitarist/pianist,banjoist, etc, and an electric guitarist who I believe is the same guy who tours and plays with Duncan Sheik, the one Lynn calls "scary ghost"). Rufus bantered in French, a little babbly but more in control than last time I saw him. (Possibly because he couldn't think of what to say in French as easily as in English.) The main part of the show was in two parts... after the break he come out in lederhosen, just like on the back of his album. (Apparently when he came to Paris to do his reproduction of the Judy Garland concert, he had a sore throat and had to skip two songs. He felt he still owed them to Paris, so he performed them tonight, which was sort of a treat for us.) Then, for the encore, he came out alone in a robe and performed a couple of songs alone at the piano.

After those two songs he stepped up to the front of the stage, put on rhinestone earrings, lipstick, and high heels, and then stepped to the back of the stage. His band came out in tuxedos, and set themselves up around the stage, one of them obscuring him as the lights went out, and he put on a hat and took off the robe, and when the lights came up, there he was dressed as Judy Garland – tuxedo jacket and black hose, white blouse and rhinestones. Music was piped in and he sang "Get Happy" while the band danced around. It was enormously fun! Then he sang Gay Messiah, still in drag, and thus ended the concert. We gave him a standing ovation. I admit I stood up partly because the seats were so uncomfortable, but he did deserve the ovation. All in all a very fun experience.

We took the train back and looked for a place to have a bite and some wine. We went to Café Soufflot, the same place we'd gone to earlier for the internet. Unfortunately the kitchen was closed and so we just had some wine. We we home and had toast and cheese with a little sausage and some radishes.. and nice end to a night! Only now it's very late....

Labels: france, journal

posted by Tony at 11:59 PM