A See-Art Week

Not the 'See-Art' part, but the palms in Paris part.

Metropole's Wine is Online

Paris:- Monday, 9. June 2003:- On Saturday it was mostly sunny and pretty humid, and it felt a lot hotter than it was. It cooked on into the night. The forecast storm dropped a lot of rain in the morning, and Sunday was cool and gray with some showers.

Despite the dubious forecast for hot and humid weather today, it has been clear and blue, with the temperature being just right no matter what it was on the thermometre. I wish I could have gone out to play instead of wrestling with this issue.

But for the future, the crystal ball is cloudy. This morning's Le Parisien warns of storms and humidity for Tuesday. Tonight's TV-news weather forecast calls for sunny to change to partly cloudy, with the high temperature to be about 25 C.

Both the paper and the TV forecasters agree that Wednesday should have a day-long sunny period except after sundown - to be about 21:55 - and they also agree the high temperature will be 28 degrees. All fine and good.

Thursday will be the problem day. It will be hot - either 28 or 30 - and sunny will turn to only partly as the air gets heavier and thicker, and damper, and maybe even becomes unstable. Le Parisien says we will have an immense barbeque, and the potatoes will be roasted.

The TV-weather news didn't want to go out on a limb about Friday. The paper shows a slightly lower temperature, but says your pet penguin will not want to go out for a stroll.

The weather isn't like horse races. You can't begin to predict the future by relying of past performance - except to say that predictions and forecasts have been wrong somewhat more often than right. This situation will continue, I think.

One thing is true though. The overall weather this spring has been a lot better on average than we've had for a good many years.

Café Life

Line paints water. She goes over to the west of Ireland where there is a vast view of the Atlantic Ocean and then she comes back to her tiny apartment in the 14th and paints the water in the ocean.

Last Thursday evening an exhibition of her paintings was inaugurated at the café Village Daguerre. I broke off writing the day's club meeting 'report' to check this out, and found the tidy café to be full of the usual crowd of Daguerréotypistas.

Most of them were in the bar area of the café, because Dimitri was sitting at a table with five ladies in the dining part of the café where the paintings are hung. The free wine was there too, so if a Daguerréotypista needed a refill they could look at the paintings too.

It was a very warm evening. The kind of evening when Daguerréotypistas like to hang around in cafés a long time because cafés usually serve cool drinks, free or otherwise.

Normally Tina, who runs the Village Daguerre singlehandedly, shuts her doors at 22:00 so that she can open them again early in the morning. This also allows Daguerréotypistas to recuperate for a new day too, but Tina seemed ready to continue the successful 'vernissage.'

Retreating back to the editorial office, I ran into yet more Daguerréotypistas heading for a view of Line's paintings. After that, I haven't seen any of them. Unofficially, I guess it was a pretty successful opening. The exhibition continues until mid-July. Line might be back from Florida by then, maybe with some new views of the Atlantic Ocean.

Most people probably think the only things going on in the Place Denfert-Rochereau are street demonstrations or great lines of the curious waiting to get in and see the wonders of the Catacombs.

I kind of thought so too until I saw a small sign in front of the Nicolas shop pointing to an otherwise unobtrusive office, which has lent itself to a small show of paintings, photos and sculptures - many of glass - done by artists working in Slovakia.

Besides showing off excellent craftsmanship, many full of playful whimsy, the show is meant to draw attention to the plight of distressed orphans in the region, by Les Enfants du Danube association.

If you are not currently involved in a street demonstration or waiting to see the Catacombs, drop in to see the show at the southwest corner of the place.

You'll find it in the Espace Natkin, at 16. Place Denfert-Rochereau, Paris 14 - just beyond the little cinema. The show continues until Friday, 13. June and its hours are from 13:00 to 19:00. Métro: Denfert-Rochereau.

It would be possible to do a 'Scene' column every week, if I did nothing else. But it makes more sense to do it every couple of weeks, just so long as you remember read the 'until' dates carefully and don't try to see events that are over and gone.

This week I picked up a particularly rich number of new summer items, and I haven't had time to stuff them all in yet. The column will also have to be broken into two parts, to be just a little bit handier.