Day 33: Paris

Highlights:

• Argument in the local Monoprix
• Film conversation with Isabelle
• Bar Dix with Marthe and Siemen
• Wayne Shorter at the Salle Pleyel

So I think I've made a good attempt at paying my way here. I mean, Lewis has provided the apartment, the scooter, he cooked most of the food and provided the Leonard Bernstein Symphony 60 disc boxset, but I went out to get the croissants again this morning whilst Lewis went to buy an iPhone. The normal Boulangerie was shut (it's a Saturday after all !) so I walked down Rue de Levis (Rue de Lewis) and stopped off at the Monoprix and then an alternative bakery. A young cashier was coming out of the storeroom in a huff. She was hobbling, and had obviously been asked to do something she didn't want to, like stacking shelves presumably. She stormed in front of me saying 'Je ne comprend pas!' a few times. I queued quite patiently for a while, with only one cashier in service. The lady was buzzing for help but no one came for 10minutes. Eventually her younger supervisor came out, and reluctantly helped out, then immaturely called the trolley man over and started whispering in his ear and then laughing whilst looking pointedly at the older lady. I wanted to deck him on her behalf. Dick.

I came back to the apartment and made Lewis a coffee (PAYING MY WAY) and sat speaking to his housemate Isabelle. She's originally from outside of Paris and had spent four years in Boston when she was younger, so her English is particularly good. Her dad was a Mathematician, and her mum was CEO for Sodexo's International business. In a slightly different style, Isabelle was studying film editing, though she admitted she had a natural ability for maths like her dad but it bored her. I told her about my attempt to plough through Bernstein's 60 discs over the next few days, and she said she'd been put off classical music after 7h car journeys being forced to listen to it by her dad as a kid. I reciprocated with my story about how my Dad had Johnny Cash's greatest hits stuck in his car cd player for 2 years. Similar.

Isabelle had spent a few days in the country with her parents for the holiday, but had come home a little early when she'd reached her family-time limit. We had a good conversation about Hitchcock (my new favourite Director, after seeing three films in a week at the BFI Festival this summer. 'The Lady Vanishes' was both of our favourite of his films. So much funnier and clever than I could have imagined) and then a good chat about the Alien trilogy; apparently the reason the Jean Pierre Jeunet (Amelie and Alien: Resurrection director) instalment was so awful was that no one respected him as a director. He was a mild, unassuming French guy without a great level of English, so the actors just didn't listen to him and did what ever they wanted. Hence Alien: Resurrection, which I haven't seen because I've heard it's the pits.

Lewis had work to do (though I suspected he spent a good few hours spending Angry Birds on his new iPhone), and I was meeting Marthe and Siemen later, so I kicked back with some good Camembert and read my Idiot's Guide to German. I've got a fair few of this series, clearly. Perfect for travelling and picking up nifty facts. Interestingly (you may all know this already but I'd call it my find of the day), I learned that the German for Thunder and Lightning is Donner und Blitz. Like the Reindeer. C'est tres interessant, oui?

I went to meet Marthe at my favourite Bar Dix Sangria Bar. They'd spent the day at the Sacre Coeur on Montmartre enjoying the view over Paris, probably the best place for it. We had some Sangria and reminisced about Essex University (our American friend Amanda falling down a muddy slope whilst wearing flipflops, then falling again when she tried to turn over and stand up, and Marthe crying with laughter for the next hour. As we talked about it, Marthe burst into peels of laughter again). Siemen told me about a series of airport security checks he'd been subjected to. A blonde, blue eyed dutch guy who somehow gets picked on around the world, then makes it worse by cracking up with laughter during questioning. The Chinese thought he didn't look like his passport picture (because all Westerners look the same) so he got taken to the side and had to sign his name five times to verify it was him. He was laughing the whole time of course.

I had to get back, so we left at 6.30pm and caught the Metro from L'Odeon, passing another mega queue in front of the cinema. They bloody love it here. On the Metro Marthe and I were trying to remember how to say 'The Laughing Cow' in French (yeah, the red laughing cow with cheese earrings. That's the one). Marthe commented that it must have sounded ridiculous to the French passengers to just hear an English and Dutch accent repeating (Le Vache Qui Rit!) again and again, and then cracking up with laughter, and repeating it again. Bloody tourists.

I was running late, so I actually ran back to the apartment from the Metro, sensing from Lewis' terse one word replies that he was annoyed at my timekeeping. I inhaled a plate of pasta (trop vit!), used the opportunity to put on my nice dress for the second time this trip, and then walked with Lewis to La Salle Pleyel on Rue du Faubourg (I recognise the word Faubourg from the Edith Piaf song 'L'Accordeoniste', but will have to research it later to give you and interesting fact about it). We were going to see Jazz Legend Wayne Shorter in concert with his quartet. I don't know much about Jazz. Lewis played some in the summer when I was getting ready for a temp job interview. It was hot, late on a Friday afternoon and I was trying not to drown in misery at being back in a suit. It was awful. The music was so unfamiliar, complex and hard to follow, that in my stressed state of mind I couldn't even begin to WANT to understand it. That was apparently Wayne Shorter (Lewis told me this after we'd bought the tickets for this show) but I figured a month of holiday had put me in a better frame of mind to understand it. This whole trip has been about trying new things, and taking advantage of whatever the cities and countries had to offer. It's led me to Kafka in Prague, photography in Krakow and Ballet in Budapest. And so Jazz at a famous venue in Paris seemed perfect. Lewis had played me some Wayne Shorter over the week and whilst I didn't completely get it, it made a bit more sense to me than before and I'd begun to enjoy it.

So Wayne Shorter is now almost 80, and had a famous period playing with Miles Davis in the 60s, and then (I've just learnt) playing on 10 studio albums for Joni Mitchell, as well as an expansive career with various other musicians and as a composer. He's primarily a Saxophonist in performance, though is by all accounts one of the greatest Jazz musicians alive, if not ever. Read more about him here if you're interested - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Shorter.

We arrived just in time, and the hall darkened, with just some sportlights on the four instruments on stage. The quartet (pianist, saxophonist, double bass and then drummer) came out to a huge applause and began to tune up and play. I couldn't follow the first piece. It was about 20minutes long, and I couldn't work out what was happening. It was like four threads of separate music were playing, and I wasn't sure where they joined to make music. The dim light made it hard to focus, and the warm room started putting me to sleep. But then the next piece began, and I focussed and thought about it - what was happening visually and musically, and what it might mean - and (whilst I'm not sure this is the interpretation Lewis or any other Jazz fan would ever have about this music) I put my own reading to it, and it became exciting and crazy and so powerful, it was almost overwhelming. The way I saw it was that unlike a standard rock album or pop concert or film score, the Jazz seemed a much more realistic soundtrack to life. I mean, you don't walk down the street to the building sounds of a violin crescendo, or to nifty little songs about emotion; you walk down the street to sounds of birds, mixed with traffic, and shouting and rainfall. Each sound is very independent of the other, and don't quite appear beautiful or even musical! But then sometimes the threads of sound cross over and you can suddenly hear them work together in complete harmony. Like those two snorers in Ljubljana who at one point sounded like a dubstep beat. Or the beginning of Little April Shower from Bambi (bear with me on these weird, unsophisticated reference points). So I began to listen to this Quartet like I was listening to these sounds in someone's life. But what would normally be the sound of traffic was instead a phenomenal piece by this incredibly talented drummer, and what would be rainfall was this cool, complex and unusual build up by this amazing pianist. And you could focus in on one instrument at once, or sometimes two that worked together, or then even three if you were paying attention. And then at these perfect moments, all four came together and it was absolutely incredible. Without looking at each other, they all completely lost themselves in their own and each other's sounds, with complete trust and respect, and began to play something amazing. And I found myself grinning, and laughing and sitting on the edge of my seat and completely lapping it up. The drummer was bouncing about on his stool and when he sledge-hammered on one drum, the double bassist seemed to be physically forced back from him for a nanosecond, before diving back onto his instrument with a battering that felt like he was joining the drummer in battle.

This may be the ponciest thing you've ever read, but I'm not really sorry as this is what I felt and thought whilst I was watching, and what made it a powerful and exciting experience for me. I'm so, so glad I went, and had someone to introduce me to a genre I never thought I'd get. The quartet played for 1hr 45 solid (this guy is 79!), and then came on for an encore. This older guy next to me (not Lewis) was buzzing with excitement. He let out a 'Wow' at some point as he grinned away, and literally leapt out of his chair to applause at the end. It was really endearing, and it felt an honest reaction rather than a show he was putting on for other people, which is sometimes what I sense at a gig.

We poured out with the rest of the audience, a bit stunned and walked home, having a quick glass of some poor supermarket Bordeaux I'd bought, and then hitting the hay. I eventually fell asleep after one of Lewis' neighbours ended their heavy bass-filled party and my body stopped rattling.

End of day 33.