The Lizard King meets goat cheese chic

Day 6

Friday May 20

Our late-night escapades from the previous evening kept us in bed a little longer than usual, BUT there's no class today! We leisurely decided to head to Saint Germain, the trendy downtown-ish area Heather had shown us, to check out another bookstore and have a lazy cafe lunch. The bookstore, Village Voice, has an entirely different vibe than Shakespeare and Company. Village Voice feels more modern, more American. They do, in fact, have books by many American writers, including the 5 volumes of poetry that Cecelia has published. That was fun to see. 

Suddenly starving, we ventured down some side streets to find the less touristy (aka expensive) cafes, and we plopped down outside at a nice one on the corner off Rue Bonaparte. We ordered croque madame (toasted bread with ham, cheese, and a fried egg all melted together) and leffe (belgian beer). Then we head to Pere Lachaise Cimetiere to visit Jim Morrison's grave. Jim isn't buried there anymore--his family had his body moved back home to Washington--but his grave remains a draw for locals and tourists alike. 

Cemeteries in Paris are straight out of haunted hollywood nightmares--they're all above ground. They range from a sort of raised coffin shaped platform to full monuments big enough to fit three people in the built-in chapel. Navigating through these crypts was a little tricky. When we finally found Jim's spot we were a little underwhelmed. According to Diana's guide book, Pere Lachaise keeps surveillance on this grave because Jim Morrison fans have the propensity to do drugs and have sex on site. A strange homage. When we found it, all we found were flowers. Granted, they were the only flowers in this ancient cemetary...

Graffiti tree to the Lizard King at Pere Lachaise

We popped open a bottle of wine, sat down, and within 5 minutes a crowd of about thirty people had formed around the area. It was funny, but sad somehow. The people were from all over the world. We met a nice Hungarian named Barnabus who told us he was in Paris for Congress... we figured out later he meant he was here for a conference. Even while we were under the impression he was a congressman of some sort, we didn't have time to get drinks with him when the cemetery closed. 

We had another poetry reading to go to, but we didn't know where it was. Our plan was to get on the metro home to see if we could google it, but while we were on the train, Barnabus called and gave us directions! Poetic, right? Ha. Who makes friends in a cemetery? Poe, maybe. And us.

So Barnabus' directions take us to Espace d' Typographie, an art gallery five minutes from our apartment. The gallery is beautiful, kind of rustic warehouse chic, with loose paintings of the view of Paris from the artist's window. The whole scene was urban and lovely, but I got the sense that this particular reading was a very "see and be seen" kind of event. Diana and I were the youngest people in the room, and we met a very glamours, name-dropping older woman. I believe she thought we were "cute."

Espace d' Typographie at the Alice Notley reading

After readings by Etel Adnan and a french poet that I couldn't understand (except for the words "Beverly Hills" and "cocaine"), Alice Notley stepped up to the microphone. She reads her poems very well, and the story she tells of "mean girls" who feed glass to the dog still makes me sad. 

We scooted from the reading right when it ended, not stopping to mingle with the posh types that make social events of poetry readings. Instead we picked up some goat cheese and leffe from the supermarche, and went home and feasted. 

We found a bar in the latin quarter, Pub Saint-Hilarie, where the students at Sorbonne hang out, and met some very nice physics Ph.D. students. Again, we missed the last train (bars here close at 4am and the trains stop at 2am on weekends), so we wanted to get a cab home. Unfortunately for us, if you speak to a cabbie in english, he wont take you anywhere. Luckily our new friends told him where to go, and we were home in 5 minutes. How convenient. Annnnd Day 6! Voila!