Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2006 - 12:58 p.m.

So, I had a totally surreal, Twilight Zone moment today. And I know people say they have surreal moments, but I mean actually surreal. Like, look around and brace yourself for Rod Serling to step around the corner surreal.

I went to take pictures of the Metro entrance at Porte Dauphine, the only surviving enclosed entrance designed by Hector Guimard in the late 1800s. I had dawdled on the way to the station, taking pictures of my stairwell and the 190x carved entranceway across the street and a cool doorknocker down the street, and the battery in my watch is dead, so I was wondering what time it was as I came down the steps to the Metro platform at Lourmel. I checked the direction sign hanging from my side of the platform from the top of the stairs, but it wasn't displying the time of day, so when I hit the bottom of the stairs, I glanced all the way down the platform to the other side and the direction sign there, to see what time it was, and I thought to myself that I really spent a lot of time taking those pictures, and I'd better get a move-on, coz I was burning daylight, and as I was thinking that to myself, I reached the first bank of chairs on the platform, and as I walked past the very swarthy, dark-wearing guy seated in the second chair, he looked up at me and quietly said, "Tick, tock."

That's all. Nothing else. Just, "Tick, tock," and then he looked back down at the package between his feet.

I got a total shock for just that second, and then I was like, what the fuck? I mean, seriously, who the hell does that? And I'm not even sure the men sitting on either side of him heard him, because neither of them reacted in the slightest. It was like one of those movies where everyone else slows down and some sort of freakish bubble blocks out everyone but the star and whoever else is the focus of the scene, and like through this tunnel of slow-mo tracers, this total stranger locks eyes on me and very clearly says "tick, tock." It freaked my shit out, people. I sat in the next bank of chairs and looked down the platform towards the guy, and the guy I looked past in the chair next to me did a double on whatever my face looked like, and then I stared at the platfom beneath my feet and was like, "what the hell does tick-tock mean?" So I asked the girl next to me, and she's like, it means the ticking of a clock, stupid, duh, and I was like okay, thanks, and then the train pulled up, and I thought, you know, I'm good; I'll get the next one. So everyone on the platform streamed onto the train, and then after everyone but me and him had cleared the platform, the tick-tock guy stood up and picked up the red paper shopping bag between his feet, and he got on the train, and I was like, whoa. I sat there for about a minute, and then I went and called Em, but she wasn't answering, so I left her a voice mail, I left one for the housemate, and then I went back down and got on the next train.

And discovered that while the weather in your part of Paris might be perfectly fine, if a little spotty, sun-wise, other parts of Paris may be enjoying rain. So I was totally bummed and couldn't get any pictures of Port Dauphine, because while it's enclosed, the thing to take pictures of is the outside, so standing underneath it? Not so helpful. The inside is pretty too, but not in really blue/grey light. It's orange and yellow, so it really needs good bright light to show it off. The light I had just looked muddy, so I opted to go back next week, when hopefully the weather guy knows his bacon, and it will be partly cloudy, which means also partly sunny. Yay, sun.

So I figure well, it must be raining, then, despite the fact it's not supposed to rain until late tonight, so fine, I'll go home (as opposed to going to Montmarte). And I get home, and it's all partly cloudy, not totally grey and raining. This is the weirdest weather I've ever experienced. So I'm walking through the station at Concorde to make the connection from Line 1 to Line 8, which is a long trek, and I swear behind me, I hear Ernie - from Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie - go "Bert! Bert!" So I glance back over my shoulder, and this guy about my height and probably weighing 30 pounds less with really spiky hair pops me this big, sunny grin, and I totally start laughing. I ask him if he speaks english, and he shoots me the look that guy in Ferris Bueller shoots Ferris in the parking garage when asked the same question, and he says, in like the cutest garbled-french accent ever, "But of course." So I tell him about Bert & Ernie, and he starts laughing, and it turns out he's a freak for film scores, and he spent nearly my entire trip home talking to me about movie music composers, of whom it would seem we are in agreement that Elmer Bernstein is the best and freaking RULZ. (Though we both also give props to James Horner and John Williams.)

Overheard On the Streets of Paris:
I keep meaning to relate to you guys the following conversation I overheard while I was snapping pictures of that doorway on rue St-Louis en l'Ile the day I took pictures at Notre Dame. I assume it took place because the printer's where the book in question was first published back in the day was nearby. This is the sum of the entire conversation taking place within my earshot.

Guy 1 - "That's great. You mean Ulysses S. Grant?"
Guy 2 - "No, Ulysses."
Girl - "The other one."

That just cracked me up.

I am not one to cast aspersions on my fellow Parisians or their bathing habits, but holy god. The guy who lives next to me smelled so badly today that I could smell him inside my apartment. I spent an entire hour trying to figure out what that gawd-awful smell was, and I found out it was him because as I mentioned, I was taking pictures of the stairwell, and as I was doing so, he came out of his apartment and stood directly behind me to talk to two other men, and you guys, the stench was such I really thought I was going to keel over and die in what would one day be re-enacted in cartoon representation as a thick green cloud of noxious fumes. I'm not kidding. It was unbefuckinglievable. Had you told me, I would not have believed any one human being could ever smell so entirely repugnant. It was a mix of 3 month old perspiration, decades old garlic, some kind of ethnic food, god knows what else, and probably some form of alcohol, all just seeping out of the man in a palpable mass of putrefaction. And I so wish I were exaggerating. When you can smell your neighbors inside your apartment to the point that you are desperately trying to hunt up the source of the stench and get rid of it, there is something really, really wrong somewhere. I'm just sayin'.

So it's supposed to rain every single day all day long from now until Monday or Tuesday of next week, so it will be museums for me the rest of the week. And there are worse ways to spend your rainy days, I know. Tomorrow, I'm going to the l'Orangerie. It just opened up after 6 or 7 years of renovation, during which they discovered remains of a fortified wall dating back to 1547 or so (if I remember correctly, and it's entirely possible I do not). I was bummed it was supposed to be still closed (according to all my guidebooks), because it's where Claude Monet's waterlilies live, and I really wanted to see them/it, so I'm pretty happy it actually opened back up in May, and I can go. And hopefully take cool pictures, though just seeing those paintings will be awesome. Monet is actually my favorite Impressionist, if not my favorite painter, so it will be really cool to see the Nymphea paintings. Then, when MP gets back, we're taking a day trip to Giverny, to see his garden, where he painted them. :)

Peace out,
Katie

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