Light light Lisbon

India seems to be everywhere, presenting herself sometimes in highly unlikely forms like this restaurant in central Lisbon that marries Bengal with tandoori food. The mascot: dancing Shiva. Well, why not?

I check into my hotel on Liberty Avenue on Wednesday afternoon and decided to make the most of the remaining sunlight. I’ve been to the city once before for five days so I decide I can make it without a map. Within two blocks I tire of the traffic on the main road despite the large shady trees and the two teenagers in a sweet embrace by a fountain. I turn off into a narrow side street and find myself at Alegria Square where a madman is directing the odd car here and there. The park in the square has a seedy feel, a corner theater announces some kind of doubtful spectacle featuring women and dance. Lisbon is hilly and soon I recognize a set of stairs leading up to another level of the city. If memory serves me right then I’ve been here six months ago after dinner with some friends. Despite the wind and the cold we sat in the open night and had lemonade. At that time I hadn’t been able to figure out how we got there so now I give up all hope of orienting myself toward the Chiado and just continue to where my nose takes me. Soon I’m on a narrow street with tramways and even narrower sidewalks. I’m expecting somehow to reach a large square in the Chiado with nothing but the compass that was included in my urban brain at birth. The light is beautiful today as always, the patch of green on the Principe Reale that was closed off last fall is still out of bounds. No construction workers are in sight so it’s likely that prohibitive green netting will hide the city’s most magnificent vista overlooking the old fort for many more months to come.

Paris is the city of light. So how come Lisbon has this kind of light? A light light. An unavoidable pun that you must excuse. There is a lack of heaviness in Lisbon’s light morning, noon, and dusk. It’s not because of the sea. After all Greece is on the sea. It’s not the proximity to Africa. Morocco doesn’t have this light. My own theory is that the undulating off-white tiles that pave all of Lisbon’s many sidewalks have much to do with the quality of this city’s luminescence. They bounce off the light differently than the sidewalks and buildings in Paris (for example). The red roofs tinge the light with a rose accent and round it off. If the lumière in Lisbon is light and young and fresh there is a lot in the buildings and the roads that is old and sage. Even with little understanding of Portugal one can end up feeling nostalgic and old world when one is here. Beauty is to be found in hidden corners and by the way. Nothing announces it. Nothing celebrates it. That is Lisbon’s charm. For a walker like myself it is impossible not to notice the uneven undulating sidewalks. A few black stones provide shapes and patterns against a background of white. The sidewalks are functional and the stones are all in place but they rise and dip, there are no straight lines. A topographer would be able to map as much relief on the sidewalks as on the very hills of Lisbon. The tiles are wavy along both a two dimensional and a three-dimensional axis and I’d like to ask an expert in optics if flat even stones would create a different effect and alter the light. Even as I ruminate over this I’m spit out into the square I’ve been anticipating but from the opposite direction that I expect. This happens again a few hours later. Walking after dinner I wait for the Chinese pavilion, an odd eccentric nightlife venue with an improbable collection of objects to loom up on the opposite side of the streets but it is to my left just ahead of me. The next night heading to Buenos Aires, one of Lisbon’s small, charming, and perpetually overbooked restaurants I huff and pant up the steps once again approaching it as if in a mirror. To be in Lisbon for me is to be at once lost and not lost, to recognize something familiar and yet to find myself perplexed. For these and other reasons I know I will come back many times.

The 8th arrondissement

I came across this statue for the first time yesterday on a walk near the Grand Palais. There was a mysterious plaque nearby saying that the maple sugar (tree?) was a gift from Montréal to Paris. I’m not sure whether this had anything to do with the statue which seems an allegory of sorts. Babyji was officially released yesterday in Paris (Thank you to all who sent me good wishes). Here’s a photo of la vitrine indienne of the Librairie Privat-Julliard where the signature was held. I'm signing tonight at Violette & Co (102 blvd de Charonne. Just as an fyi my interview with Frédéric Ferney of Le Bateau Livre is viewable this week online.(Why? But O! Why do I have such a hard time consistently following the rules of accord? Can a foreign tongue learnt in adulthood ever become entirely instinctive?).

Paris noise

If you’re feeling nostalgic about the last time you were in Paris then here’s a quick update. The Seine is more swollen than I’ve ever seen it before. Several of the lower quays are flooded, the sun is out, the sky is blue. At the Maison européenne de la photographie you can see yourself diffracted and refracted on nine different television screens in an installation by Catherine Ikam/Louis Féri. Few people on opening night yesterday (Merci, Sylvie!) really wanted to see themselves from the several unflattering angles promised. On the top floor you can chuckle at the black and white images by Richard Kalvar whose works display an acute sensitivity to many things including humor, topography and dissonance. They never bore and they have the advantage of being beautiful. Then descend to the basement to find out all you wanted and more about celebrity Trash. Bruno Mouron and Pascal Rostain rummaged through Halle Berry’s and John Travolta’s garbage for you. They sorted it, they classified it, they placed it on a black surface, and then they photographed it from far up to give you a pretty picture. The Making Of film shown in the small room beside the trashy pictures was, for me, a lot more fascinating than the images themselves. There’s also something for those of you who get pleasure from seeing photos or videos of stimulated people. To each his own! If you are in Paris tomorrow then I’m signing my book and you’re welcome to drop by for a drink at La Librairie Privat-Julliard next to the metro Solférino, 229 boulevard Saint-Germain in the 7th arrondissement which in addition to the Matignon and several other very ministerial structures also is home to two of Paris’ most personal museums the Rodin and Maillol museums both of which have exceptional exhibitions about which I hope to talk about soon. My access to the 7th arrondissement yesterday was during peak evening traffic from the bridge (shown below) at Place de la Concorde to the Assemblée Nationale. The picture is about as noisy as the experience was.

France Musique

Here's a photo of the Luxembourg Gardens on an early morning.


Also, if you're interested in Indian classical music I'm invited to François Castang's program A Portée de Mots (France Musique) later today. You can tune in on the internet at 6 am EST or 11 am GMT and click on the "direct" mic. If it's archived I'll place a link later.

Paris, Paris, Paris

I've overcome the fear of exposing myself to total ridicule by starting a French blog. So if you read French then by all means go there. Though my posts will be a lot shorter in French than in English they are going to take much longer to write. So I'm keeping with the image-heavy word-light accent this blog took on in India.... Here are three store fronts in the 6th on rue du Dragon, rue Bonoparte, and rue Jacob.