Summer's Over - What's Next?

On a Southern Beach, Still

by Ric Erickson

Issue 2.35:- Metropole Paris - Monday, 1. September 1997:- What a wonderful way to come back! Summer finished yesterday and fall starts today, on a Monday. The calendar is seldom as tidy as this.

As you will recall if you have been reading the past couple of issues of Metropole, I was on 'holidays' until Saturday; which I cleverly followed with a little drive through a great deal of France from northern Spain to here, where I am supposed to have arrived sometime yesterday.

This morning one of my two kids has gone back to school and the other has been stashed somewhere until his begins. This is called the 'rentrée' and it is not tidy at all.

In fact, if all went according to plan I feel wretched while you read this - if you read it today - even though I am writing this about 30 days in advance because I know I won't be able to write it 'today.'

To tell the truth, I don't feel like writing about how wretched I feel or about how wretched the 'rentrée' is; I wrote about it a year ago and it is the same this year. At the end of this week when I write 'Au Bistro' for next week's issue - using all the stuff I crib from the Paris papers - I'll probably have to wade through a week's worth of moaning by Le Parisien.

For them, every 'rentrée' is a brand-new one. Except for the people who are starting their kids in school for the first time, it is the same old hassle and the less said about it the better. But if it is new to you, you can check 'Metropole One Year Ago' at the bottom of this page and read what I had to say about it last year.

The city has sent me their preliminary program for this fall, but I am not going to include the details they've furnished because I don't know what the context is. Judging from the variety of it, some of it may coincide with an anniversary of a historical event, but I'm just guessing.

There are going to be many cultural events having 'Paris-Berlin' as the theme. One long exhibition will explore Heinrich Heine's life and works which have a Paris connection. In this vein, there will also be a companion show at the Maison Européen de la Photographie, featuring the works of Karl Blossfeldt. There are several other shows planned before year's end, and some early next year as well.

Metropole's editorial plans for the fall are vague. In fact, my plans for next week are in the same category.

At the end of last spring I was talking to some interesting people - as usual - and a lot of ideas were coming in this way. I was going to write that it is unfinished business, but really, it will be new business - subjects that haven't been treated before. Sorry if this seems like tease, but as I write this my mind's a blank as far as details go.

I hope you have all had your private fun during the summer if you are in the northern hemisphere, and if you are in the southern, I hope all this 'holiday' business has not been too tedious. But I suppose you've been having winter instead and that is a compensation.

Starting next week right here: the new Paris season.

Metropole One Year Ago

Issue 1.28 - 2. September 1996 featured the column - Metropole Diary and 'Au Bistro' - Batten the Hatches, Here Comes the Rentrée!. The article in the issue was 'Doing Nothing, Thinking About Less - In the Second Best
Place After Ratlands.' There were two 'Posters of the Week' and Ric's Cartoon of the Week rounded off the issue.

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