“Forget Crossing Through The City By Car,” says the Mayor of Paris as automobile eroticists squeal and howl.

Anne Hidalgo is not backing down. Other articles on the topic have pointed out that in terms of Parisian voting districts, the mayor's most strident automobile supremacist critics live outside the central arrondissements, and her support is highest in the center where these changes are occurring.

Paris Mayor: “Forget Crossing Through The City By Car” by Carlton Reid (Forbes)

In the first major interview since her re-election as Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo told Le Parisien that her manifesto promise to crack down on motoring in the French capital would be kept.

“We must forget the crossing of Paris from east to west by car,” she told the daily newspaper.

‘The city needs to evolve,” she added.

Comfortably re-elected in June for a second term, she said she intends to create permanent curb-protected cycleways and expand the number of lockdown cycleways, known in French as “coronapistes.” At an urban planning conference later this month she also plans to reveal plans on restricting petrol-powered motoring on the usually car-clogged highways on the upper quays of the Seine.

Paris created 45 kilometers of coronapistes during lockdown, and now a further 10 kilometres of wand-separated cycleways will be added.

Of course the auto supremacists lurk in Paris, too.  

Not everybody is happy with Hidalgo’s plans. In the run-up to the mayoral election, Pierre Chasseray, leader of 40 Millions d'Automobilistes, a group with a claimed 320,000 members and which lobbies against speed cameras and other “anti-motoring” initiatives, said:

“[The Mayor] is wrong to take advantage of the health crisis to accentuate its anti-car policy.”

On the contrary, the “epidemic requires giving space to the car,” he added, more in hope than expectation because space for motorists in Paris has been much reduced over recent years.

As for Reid's conclusion, we know of at least one (local) mayor who remains oblivious. 

The plan, it seems, is for motorists to become an endangered species in many parts of the Paris of the near future. Mayors in other major cities around the world are watching with great interest.

Sunday Fact Fest, Episode 03: "How the ‘15-Minute City’ Could Help Post-Pandemic Recovery."

Automobile supremacy is a virus, too. 

How the ‘15-Minute City’ Could Help Post-Pandemic Recovery, by Patrick Sisson (CityLab)

A new C40 Cities report touts Paris’s model for putting essentials within close walking or biking distance as an economic boost for coronavirus-ravaged municipal budgets.

The Covid-19 crisis in the U.S. has torn a hole in city budgets, decimating urban economies across the country even as infections continue to roar back and the specter of second-wave lockdowns loom. Las Vegas faces “the most serious fiscal crisis” it’s ever faced. The pandemic is hitting Houston’s finances harder than Hurricane Harvey, according to Mayor Sylvester Turner. Tallahassee, Florida, city officials are trying to “defuse a time bomb” due to $23.4 million in lost revenue this year. Local governments may face a cumulative shortfall of hundreds of billions of dollars, small businesses are closing at staggering rates, and when the temporary boost in unemployment benefits expires, municipal sales tax shortfalls may get even worse.

An international coalition of cities believes that the only path forward for mayors is funding green stimulus plans focused on job creation. The newly released Mayors’ Agenda for a Green and Just Recovery, released July 15 by C40 Cities, an international coalition of urban leaders focused on fighting climate change and promoting sustainable development, was developed by the organization’s Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force. The far-ranging series of plans offers a green prescription for financial stabilization that emphasizes several familiar pillars of progressive urbanism — renewable energy investment, energy-efficient buildings, improved mass transit, and spending on new parks and green space. One core idea: Cities are the “engines of the recovery,” and investing in their resilience is the best way to avoid economic disaster.

One of its recommendations has a more novel ring to it. The agenda recommends that “all residents will live in ‘15-minute cities.’” That term echoes the transformative ambitions of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who has doubled down on car-free transit and pedestrian infrastructure in the French capital. Hidalgo made the idea that Parisians should be able to meet their shopping, work, recreational and cultural needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride a centerpiece of her recent reelection campaign. The C40 proposal suggests that following such a model would help global cities live up to the document’s promise of equitable access to jobs and city services for all, and rebuild areas economically hard-hit by the pandemic.

“Fifteen-minute cities, micromobility, and more space for walking and biking are innovative solutions that will help our cities rebuild and restore our economy while protecting lives and cutting dangerous pollution,” Carol M. Browner, former EPA administrator and board chair of the League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement supporting the agenda ...

"The tradition of open-air, secondhand and antiquarian bookselling in Paris."

Personal collection, 1985.

Paris is synonymous with books. One might say "the arts" in general, though as a reader and admirer of the post-WWI generation of American expats in the French capital, it's always about words first for me.

The efforts of current mayor Anne Hidalgo to reduce the number of cars in the Paris city center can only enhance traditions like these outdoor book stalls.

The Bouquinistes of Paris (Atlas Obscura)

The tradition of open-air, secondhand and antiquarian bookselling in Paris dates back to the Renaissance.

 ... In 1762, the word bouquiniste first appeared in an edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, then simply meaning “bookseller.” It was later used to exclusively denote the antiquarian booksellers of Paris. During the French Revolution, editorial production dropped dramatically except for newspapers and brochures. Bouquinistes were warmly embraced during the revolution by aristocrats and the clergy, who yearned to read and acquire antique books for their collections. Under the reign of Napoleon I, the docks were embellished, and the Bouquinistes’s area of operation spread from the Quai Voltaire to the Pont Saint-Michel along the banks of the Seine.

And, for good measure, a famous Parisian bookstore of the more conventional bricks 'n' mortar variety.

What would it take to make Paris (or anywhere) a ‘15-Minute City’?

Inconvenient facts for Glasser & Speck.

Ultimately, the "15 minute city" (or less) is is the goal.

It's not taking away your car, just lessening (in ways great and small) the necessity of using is as much as you are now, because there are only benefits to this lessening in the sense of health and well-being for everyone.

Right now, where we live on Spring Street, many amenities are within walking distance. With improved public transportation, there'd be more. Grocery shopping remains a challenge, but if I could leave the car parked most of the time, then use it once or twice a week for groceries, that'd be an improvement. We might find it unnecessary to have two cars, and already have discussed selling one of them.

What has to occur first is this: One must be able to imagine another way, unlike car-centric opinionating bloviators like Lindon Dodd and John Gilkey. As for me, I'll continue to try to offer alternatives to the absence of creative thought so sadly lacking in my aging white male brethren. 

What It Would Take to Make Paris a ‘15-Minute City’ (CityLab):

So close, yet so far: Imagine a city where all your essentials are just a short walk or bike ride from your doorstep: the doctor, your local boulangerie, even your office job. That’s the vision behind a 15-minute city, which is at the center of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s re-election bid. The plan calls for creating a more thoroughly integrated urban fabric, where stores mix with homes, bars with health centers, and schools with office buildings.

It's a bold plan that counters the planning orthodoxy of separating residential areas from retail, manufacturing, and office districts, and would require reversing car-centric, suburban-style zoning, writes Feargus O'Sullivan. But Paris isn't the first city to explore the concept. Cities from Barcelona to Portland, Oregon, are taking steps to curb car dependency and boost hyper-local development. The question is: Can a city like Paris expand neighborhood amenities without leaving people behind?

Charles Marohn went to Paris and learned a lot of simple things that elude us in America.

"I’m not suggesting it would be easy or straightforward for North American cities to become Paris, but as my friend John Anderson has said many times, we don’t need to be Paris, we just need to be a slightly less crappy version of America."

I've trimmed this down a bit, hoping Marohn doesn't mind that I've left his five central observations intact.

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The Streets of Paris, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

1. Street Trees
Especially here in my hometown, I’m constantly hearing how we can’t have street trees, largely for maintenance reasons. The leaves drop and mess up the drainage. The roots damage the pipes. They are in the way for people in wheelchairs. Car drivers will hit them. And my favorite: If we ever need to widen the street, they are in the way.

And, of course, there is the persistent criticism of street trees: They won’t grow. My response to all of these criticisms has been to point to amazing places full of street trees and say, “If they can do it, why can’t we?” Paris is full of street trees, and it has been doing it successfully for a lot longer than any modern North American city has existed.

2. Ubiquitous Bollards
In the United States, our civil engineers often insist on a clear zone on each side of the street. You can ‘t place anything in the clear zone because, by the theory of Forgiving Design, if an automobile is driven off the driving surface, the sudden stop from hitting a fixed object will harm the driver and any passengers of the vehicle. This thinking is rightfully applied to highways and areas where we want traffic to move fast without the potential for conflict. When we apply Forgiving Design to local streets, though, we get absurdities like breakaway light poles along sidewalks. There isn’t a clearer statement of the North American engineer’s values than that.

I actually encountered an engineer once that didn’t allow a sandwich board sign because of the hazard it presented to automobiles should they strike it.

Needless to say, Paris has gone far in the opposite direction. Seemingly everywhere a vehicle could operate at speeds that would injure people, they have erected obstacles to keep the errant car from striking a human. Absorbing the kinetic energy of a collision is the responsibility of the car and driver, not the people walking along the street. This is cheap, easy, and really effective.

3. Narrow Streets
In the United States, we use transportation funding as a mechanism to address public safety concerns. Our fire departments often operate on the theory that if you can respond to an emergency quickly, the public is safer. European countries have a much different approach, one that emphasizes prevention over response time. Here in the United States, we require wide lanes, wide shoulders and wide clear zones along our streets so that emergency response vehicles travel unhindered to any emergency. The concept of a clear zone is ridiculous in Paris.

I’ll note that you are far less likely to die in a fire in a European city than an American one. Ditto a traffic collision. Two of our classic Strong Towns memes apply here.

4. Slip Lanes
When a design prioritizes building wealth in a place instead of moving traffic, the basic geometry of the public space shifts. In terms of wealth creation, I really like how this street is designed. There is human space on the edge; wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side and meet a pair doing likewise coming from the opposite direction. They are protected by bollards along the entire stretch. Then there is a one-way slip lane for drivers seeking a place to park a vehicle — these lanes are constrained to ensure slow speeds. Then there is a parking lane, although with a decent amount of that space given over to scooters and bikes. Then a boulevard to provide some vertical framing for the street in the form of street trees and nice lighting. The center has two driving lanes with opposing flow, and then it all repeats along the other side.

For cities that want to make their stroads into wealth-creating streets, this is a great cross section to utilize.

5. Shared Space Intersections

Finally, I’m a huge fan of shared space intersections—intersections that lack traffic markings, including stop signs or traffic signals—and I ran into a great one in Versailles. With tired kids and wife, I didn’t get to linger as long as I would have liked to, but in the short time I was there, I did see the humane mingling of humans and vehicles induced by slow speeds and the more chaotic design.

The idea of a chaotic design is anathema to everything North American engineering practice stands for, yet when drivers are less sure of their own path—let alone the path of others—they do remarkable things like slow down, look people in the eye, and yield. It’s a beautiful thing to watch; it’s just too bad there are so few examples here in the United States.

Here's a trick Irv and the trucking magnates missed.

The article goes on to say that in terms of Parisian voting districts, the mayor's most strident critics probably live outside the central arrondissements -- where her support is highest.

Paris's Car Debate Gets Personal, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Pro-car protestors publish Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s direct telephone number. But that doesn’t mean she’s prepared to listen.

If you’re sick of Paris’s traffic jams, go ahead and tell the mayor directly. That’s the gist of a motorists’ campaign launched Monday, which shared Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s direct phone number in a bid to encourage protestors to jam it.

Working under the hashtag #disleaAnne (“#tellAnne” in English), the motorist pressure group “40 Million Drivers” plans to do to City Hall’s switchboards what they say the administration has done to the roads: clog them up. Their goal is to ensure the mayor can no longer ignore their calls, and, more generally, force her to the negotiating table over the future of Paris’s streets.

The spat—and the distinctly personal assault on one figure—is a sign of how heated the city’s debate around cars has become. The invective has unquestionably come from both sides. Striking an anything-but-conciliatory note, last week Hidalgo suggested that some of her detractors were “big machos,” while others came from the “fachosphere”—the sphere of the extreme right.

So why all the hubbub? In recent years, Paris has adopted some of the most systematically anti-car policies of any major world city, with a pro-bike, pro-pedestrian ethos that has so far has only been surpassed by smaller cities like Copenhagen. Older cars have been banned from the roads during weekdays, part of an ongoing plan to remove more polluting vehicles from the city. The lower quays of the Seine, until recently one of the busiest east-west routes across the city, have been pedestrianized, while the Rue de Rivoli, the next major east-west axis to the river’s north, is due to have its car lanes reduced as well.

Car space is being slashed in many major squares, while car-free days have been introduced annually as a form of publicity campaign for a future without automobiles. The overall, frankly declared goal: to reach a point where the city is essentially car-free—a potentially reachable goal in a country which plans to ban gas-fueled cars by 2040.

30 years ago today: Springtime in Switzerland. First, a weekend in Lausanne.

Previously (catching up on earlier installments): 30 years ago, April 20: Amsterdam amid the Heineken.

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Day 8 ... Thursday, April 23
Amsterdam → Paris ... disaster, Yasmin couscous, liter of house wine, scant accommodations

The word "disaster" evidently was supposed to remind me of something important, and my vague recollection supports that it had something to do with "scant accommodations."

In 1987, on a fast train, it would have taken about five and a half hours to ride from Amsterdam to Paris. I'd have arrived at Gare du Nord in early afternoon, much later than I preferred when it came to scoring inexpensive bunks, but since it was April, surely the competition wouldn't be fierce.

Au contraire. Amid the cobwebs, I remember that I was told by the folks at the budget bed booking agency that while Thursday night was possible, the entirety of hostel spots in all of Paris was booked during the coming weekend. It was a student spring break, or holiday, or some such.

I was annoyed, but accepted what was offered. Arriving at my building, I was asked if I'd share a two-bed room with a complete stranger, who turned out to be a young citizen of West Germany who spoke excellent English and told me stories about his experiences as a conscientious objector, doing alternative work in the countryside.

It had been my plan to remain in Paris for a few days, but this was looking improbable on a budget. Besides, I'd be coming back later in the summer with my friends Barrie Ottersbach and Bob Gunn.

Consequently, two things needed to happen.

First, strategic planning. A consultation with the Thomas Cook European Timetable showed that if I caught the TGV from Gare de Lyon a little after seven on Friday morning, I could be in Lausanne, Switzerland just after 11:00 a.m. Obviously, it was time for the mountains.

Second, it also was time to comparatively splurge on a stress-relieving meal with wine, and this meant navigating to Rue Xavier Privas and Yasmin, the North African joint cousin Don had introduced to me in 1985. There I ordered the basic tagine with bottomless couscous (pasta) and a liter of house red.

Later in the narrative, there'll be a bit more about the myriad joys of the couscouserie, but for now, know that I returned to the hostel feeling no pain, and found that my German roomie hadn't returned.

It was a gorgeous spring evening and the window had been left open, curtains parted. As I packed for an early Friday alarm, there was a sudden ruckus on the street, and seconds later a rock came through the window and skidded along the floor in front of me.

Off went the light as I sidled over to the window to see what was happening. There was a red-faced young Frenchman who seemed quite angry, and he was yelling in the general direction of our room, which was three floors up. Being drunk myself at the time, I surmised he was, too; the rock likely was a lucky heave, and it probably had to do with a girl -- which I wasn't.

Perhaps management would be interested in knowing, so I descended the stairs and began telling the story to the first person I saw near the desk, who listened for several seconds before reminding me he was an Irishman staying at the hostel, not working at it, but if I wanted to join him in going out and confronting the angry Frenchman, he was certainly up for the challenge.

There was a pause. I laughed, he laughed, and he reached behind him into a bag and produced a Kronenbourg: "Or, why don't we just stay right here and have a beer."

There were no more rocks in our room when I poured myself atop the sheets.

---

Day 9 ... Friday, April 24
Paris → Lausanne ... TGV; hostel. 

I made the train on time and arrived in Lausanne on what probably would have been considered an unseasonably warm and sunny day for April.

This typically prosperous Swiss city sits on the shore of Lake Geneva in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. There was an affordable hostel vacancy for the weekend, and relieved of my backpack, lunch beckoned. Owing to the sun, it simply had to be a picnic. I walked to the center, toward the lake.

I found a grocery and bought bread, meat, cheese and a six-pack of Cardinal lager beer, stuffed it all in my day pack, and made for what appeared to be a park area by the lake. Lots of other people had the same idea. It was midday, and many of them obviously were on lunch break. Some may have only worked the morning hours.

As I crossed the street, I was walking behind a shapely brunette. Sexism aside, at not quite 26 years old, you tend to notice these things.

She was dressed conservatively in a long, dark skirt and blouse, no doubt having emerged from her place of employment in an office or bank. When we reached the park, I seized the first open bench I saw and began fishing for my opener.

She stopped about 10 feet in front of me, pulled a blanket from her over-sized handbag, and spread it over the sand. Her skirt dropped to the ground, revealing a bikini bottom. The blouse was next, revealing -- well, nothing, as she was now topless on her blanket applying suntan lotion.

It quickly occurred to me that I loved Europe madly, and I proceeded to consume two whole beers before remembering I'd brought sandwich materials.

Lausanne was intended as a less expensive base for seeing surrounding sights, which I commenced doing on Saturday. This photo may have been taken in Lausanne, or perhaps Geneva. Everywhere in Switzerland, the Alps are there, on the horizon

Next: Weekend day trips to Geneva and Montreux.

30 years ago today: Exterior memories of the Palace and Park of Versailles.

Versailles, here we come. 

Previously: 30 years ago today: Chartres by day, couscous by night.

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Day 98 ... Wednesday, July 22
Paris. Versailles. More couscous across the street.

Listen, I know we took the suburban rail twelve or so miles out from Paris to the Palace and Park of Versailles.

The Palace of Versailles was the principal residence of the French kings from the time of Louis XIV to Louis XVI. Embellished by several generations of architects, sculptors, decorators and landscape architects, it provided Europe with a model of the ideal royal residence for over a century.

Looking at these photos, I'm getting the strong impression that we didn't enter the palace and chose instead to walk the grounds. There are no interior shots.

Perhaps we paid our way inside but there was some sort of "no camera" edict, or a photography licensing fee (yes, this sometimes occurred). Maybe I didn't bother taking photos because I'd already been to the palace, two years before.

Except that my photos from 1985 (below) also were entirely outdoors, and a ticket in my scrapbook proves that I actually went inside.

Beats me. Could the amassed reflections from all the gilded and mirrored opulence have overwhelmed the light meter on my primitive Pentax camera?

It may have been simple, encroaching fatigue. At some point during my travels, the palaces started blending together into one coddled image of royal privilege. I no longer can tell them apart. Things can get only so posh.

Which is to say: memories of Versailles in 1987 are exceedingly scarce. I can remember buying sandwiches and beers at a shop and consuming them outside the palace grounds. I'm drawing a blank otherwise.

My cursory trip diary informs me that we returned to Paris and found ourselves yet again on Rue Xavier Privas, although evidently we feared being seen too often at Yasmin and dined at a North African place across the street -- literally an arm's length away, given the narrowness of the alley.

It was our last night in Paris. On Thursday, we were off to Bayeux to visit the D-Day beaches.

Next: Bayeux and the fabled day on the Mulberry beach at Arromanches.

30 years ago today: Chartres by day, couscous by night.

Previously: 30 years ago today: Paris, and some time (and wine) with Mr. Mojo Risin'.

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Day 97 ...  Tuesday, July 21
Paris. Day trip, Chartres. Couscous at Yasmin.

Ever since our stay in Munich, I'd been sharing previous travel experiences with my two friends. Being a concierge was great fun, but on a Tuesday in Paris we three split for the day, with Barrie and Bob exploring the classic contours of the Paris city center while I took the subway to Gare Montparnasse for an hour long train ride to Chartres, and a look at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, one of Europe's most renowned medieval structures.

Chartres Cathedral

Partly built starting in 1145, and then reconstructed over a 26-year period after the fire of 1194, Chartres Cathedral marks the high point of French Gothic art. The vast nave, in pure ogival style, the porches adorned with fine sculptures from the middle of the 12th century, and the magnificent 12th- and 13th-century stained-glass windows, all in remarkable condition, combine to make it a masterpiece.

On my early trips, I was invariably fascinated by these man-made mountains of piety, which always seemed to me to have a very secular aim of reinforcing the theocratic society. It would have been relatively simple to make the argument that the immensity and splendor of such cathedrals couldn't be possible without heavenly sanction.

However, human engineers were the ones trying to determine how the weight and pressure of a stone ceiling several stories high was to be handled. They arrived at a solution.

Malcolm Miller was a prime reason I wanted to visit Chartres. His cathedral tours and lectures were legendary even in 1987, and as of July of 2017 -- surely well into his eighties -- Miller is still at it.

Medieval symbolism is more oblique to modern visitors, though, so I recommend the help of a good local guide to illuminate your visit. Historian Malcolm Miller has dedicated his life to studying the cathedral and teaching visitors its wonders. In high season, Malcolm and his understudy Anne-Marie Woods give excellent daily cathedral tours for a small price.

Imagine your life and career in one building.

I remember that moment: the afternoon of July 19, 1968. After nearly seven months in an English hospital and six operations, I took a train from Paris back to Chartres; I saw the cathedral and wept. I knew that this is where I should spend the rest of my life.

On the day of my visit to the cathedral, Miller spoke for at least an hour, maybe longer, on the history of significance of one group of stained glass windows. The erudition and passion was staggering, so much so that apparently I neglected to record any of it on film.

In due time I returned to Paris, and we reunited at Yasmin, the couscouserie where I'd dined on my way through the city in April. From the 1985 travelogue, here's a description of the introductory magic, as undertaken with my cousin Don.

Note that Yasmin no longer operates on Rue Xavier Privas, if at all.

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But in truth, we’d actually taken the trouble to spend seven hours on trains for a far too brief stop in Paris, and then to cut short our sightseeing in the city, for only one reason: To eat and drink. 

Specifically, we were to find a North African joint and eat couscous – strictly speaking, tagine (stew) with couscous, although I didn’t really learn the difference for many years.

Couscous, tagine, merguez … these were not staples of the diet in Georgetown, Indiana. A cultural sonic boom was about to occur.

Don knew where to look for sustenance, and so had Arthur Frommer of $25-a-Day guidebook fame. Both recommended the Rue Xavier Privas, a tiny, narrow street on the Left Bank named for an early 20th-century French poet and songwriter.

In 1985, several North African eateries were located on Rue Xavier Privas. Googling the area these many years later, I am encouraged to see that at least one of them still operates.

Whether the Yasmin couscouserie was Moroccan, Tunisian or Algerian is lost to me now. However, I recall the décor being simple, the patrons atmospheric, and Don’s suggested choice of communal meal absolutely outstanding. We ordered the least expensive menu option, which yielded a mound of granule-sized couscous pasta accompanied by an urn of tagine, and chose a liter bottle of house red wine to go with it.

When the couscous ran out, it was replenished as part of the dish’s asking price. The tagine seemed destined for an early exit, but proved richer than it first appeared, and every last drop was absorbed with the help of crusty bread.

The first bottle of wine was depleted and repeated, too, although we happily paid for a second, because after all, while constituting a splurge, I still spent less than $15 dollars for the meal. I was lucky, as the dollar was strong against European currencies in 1985.

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By 1987, the dollar had noticeably declined in value against the French Franc, but couscous still was an affordable splurge -- and this is an apt introduction to the Wednesday itinerary, because on the following day, we'd decided to explore the palace and grounds at Versailles.

Next: Exterior memories of the Palace and Park of Versailles.

30 years ago today: Paris, and some time (and wine) with Mr. Mojo Risin'.

Previously: 30 years ago today: From Munich to Paris by Rhine and train.

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According to my notes of brevity ...

Day 96 ... Monday, July 20
Paris. Jim's grave, sleep-a-thon

In Paris, we'd make do with whatever accommodation could be found for us by the room-finding agencies at the train station, which I believe was Paris Gare du Nord.

In my recollection, these help desks were intended for those students and youth (still plausible in our cases) flooding Paris in summer, and usually placement in hostels or university dorms otherwise unoccupied during school breaks.

It worked out relatively smoothly, and we scored relatively cheap digs in a triple bunk room near the Seine, and to the southeast of the Pompidou Center. Location wasn't that important. Youth accommodations needed to be functional and inexpensive, and public transportation took care of the rest.

It's unlikely we were able to check into our hostel so early in the morning. My guess is we stowed the bags somewhere, either station or hostel itself, and waded into the city.

What I remember with confidence is that we decided to visit Jim Morrison's stone pad, and toward this end, raided the shelves for wine and picnic items at a mom 'n' pop grocery down the block from the Metro stop across from Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

As with the Rhine River cruise, it would be my second experience with the rock singer's final resting place. Before relating what happened next, here's the tale from 1985: Lizard King in the City of Light.

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In all honesty, the only Parisian shrine with true resonance for me was one having least to do with the city, and where a bottle of wine proved handy: Jim Morrison’s grave, located in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and tucked away behind mausoleums and chapels.

Naturally, the remainder of the cemetery has quite a lot to do with French (and European) history. Among the interred are Proust, Chopin, Molière, Piaf, Delacroix and Oscar Wilde. The Communards’ Wall, where 147 revolutionaries were executed in 1871, is a must visit for anyone fascinated by the history of rebellion.

However, it was the Morrison’s legacy that drew me to Pere Lachaise to pay my respects. The lead singer of The Doors died of a heroin overdose in Paris in 1971, when I was eleven years old. Much of it was lost on me until Danny Sugarman’s book “No One Here Gets Out Alive” was published in 1980. Only then did the long-defunct band and its resident poet/shaman/singer begin to appeal to me.

(Did you know that the late Sugarman married Fawn Hall, who as Oliver North’s document shredder of a secretary became involved in the Iran-Contra scandal?)

You might say I was going through a phase, to the point of Mute Nostril Agony -- pulled from a Morrison lyric -- serving as one of my college intramural basketball team’s names. Consequently, when I learned that his grave was a place of pilgrimage, international rock music solidarity and drinking, it was clear I’d have to go there.

To find my way to the grave site, I merely followed the “Jim lives” and “break on through” graffiti scrawled everywhere until voices and music could be heard. The immediate scene has changed since then, but at the time, there was open space around the grave, with room for a couple dozen people to congregate.

A bust of Morrison donated by a Croatian sculptor had been placed atop the block-like marker a few years prior to my visit. It was frequently painted and repainted, stolen and replaced, and later permanently removed. It was a messy area filled daily with Doors parishioners busy partying, much to the annoyance of local officialdom. Candles, cigarette butts, food wrappers and empty wine bottles were all around.

One of my fellow mourners offered me a puff from his pipe. I politely declined. Strange days had found me, and it was okay, even if my shirt smelled of ganja the rest of the day.

---

In the aftermath of an overnight train journey, we were tired, dirty and fairly bedraggled, so it's small wonder that our preparations were sloppy. Arriving at the cemetery gate, we found it manned with primly uniformed guards -- and these uniformed guards were not pleased seeing bottles of wine in full view. They were polite, but firm: No entry for us.

Well, there had to be a back way, right?

Our bottles now hidden, we began walking the wall's perimeter, and sure enough, ten minutes later there was a secondary entrance, sans security. Groping through the colossal city of death, directional graffiti soon became visible, and it led the way to our destination.

It was strangely quiet. Perhaps the gendarmes at the gate had succeeded in repelling the frontal assaults. We'd been just a bit too crafty. It's nice to win every now and then.

As a bonus, here are two previously unseen 1985 photos of the same shrine. Think about it: in 1987, Morrison had been dead only 16 years.

Soon it began to rain. Bob Dylan, another famous 1960s musical personality, once wrote about "shelter from the storm," though I'm not sure "Charmin from the Storm" would have been nearly as poetic.

That's really all I have to say about it.

Writing about our Pere Lachaise visit these many years later, I'm consumed with one thought. When was the last time I wore a jacket on July 20th in the Ohio Valley?

Exhausted, we returned eventually to the hostel and slept for a very long time.

Next: The cathedral at Chartres, couscous, Versailles, and even more couscous.

A $700 meal in Paris: "This one will also leave me with memories. They are bleak and troubling. If I work hard, one day, with luck, I may be able to forget."

From the article.

Perhaps this review isn't quite up to the lofty timelessness of Pete Wells' immortal (and savage) take-down of Guy Fieri.

"It doesn't matter whether Guy Fieri's new Louisville restaurant has good beer because none of us will be going there anyway."

Still, Jay Rayner piles on the laughs as he reviews Le Cinq, a three-star Michelin restaurant.

There'll be just a few zingers in the pull. Brutal stuff. Positively brutal.

Le Cinq, Paris: restaurant review (The Guardian)

It was supposed to be a joyous trip to one of France’s famous gastro palaces – what could possibly go wrong?

Le Cinq, Four Seasons Hôtel George V, 31 avenue George V, 75008 Paris (00 331 49 52 71 54). Meal for two, including service and modest wine: €600 (£520)

There is only one thing worse than being served a terrible meal: being served a terrible meal by earnest waiters who have no idea just how awful the things they are doing to you are. And so, to the flagship Michelin three-star restaurant of the George V Hotel in Paris, or the scene of the crime as I now like to call it. In terms of value for money and expectation Le Cinq supplied by far the worst restaurant experience I have endured in my 18 years in this job. This, it must be said, is an achievement of sorts.

And:

The dining room, deep in the hotel, is a broad space of high ceilings and coving, with thick carpets to muffle the screams. It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you.

And:

Other things are the stuff of therapy. The canapé we are instructed to eat first is a transparent ball on a spoon. It looks like a Barbie-sized silicone breast implant, and is a “spherification”, a gel globe using a technique perfected by Ferran Adrià at El Bulli about 20 years ago. This one pops in our mouth to release stale air with a tinge of ginger. My companion winces. “It’s like eating a condom that’s been left lying about in a dusty greengrocer’s,” she says.

And:

My lips purse, like a cat’s arse that’s brushed against nettles.

And:

The cheapest of the starters is gratinated onions “in the Parisian style”. We’re told it has the flavour of French onion soup. It makes us yearn for a bowl of French onion soup. 

In Paris, "We Are the Oracle." In New Gahania, we are fa-mi-ly.

Another staff meeting on Eastridge.

Is Warren "Gatekeeper" Nash taking notes?

The jocular saying is that, in England, "everything which is not forbidden is allowed", while, in Germany, the opposite applies, so "everything which is not allowed is forbidden". This may be extended to France—"everything is allowed even if it is forbidden" —and Russia where "everything is forbidden, even that which is expressly allowed". While in North Korea it is said that "everything that is not forbidden is compulsory."

Everything that isn't required to be divulged is way down on the down low.

But let's party.

Partying Underground in Paris’s Secret Corners, by Sara Lieberman (New York Times)

PARIS — Inside an abandoned seven-floor, 70-room house near the Arc de Triomphe, more than 650 revelers in floor-length gowns, curly white wigs and feathered masks gathered on a Friday night in January.

A nearly nude woman with a giant bouffant and flower-adorned underwear performed a sultry dance with pink wings, while a contortionist spouted French obscenities. At the bottom of a sweeping grand staircase, a four-piece band performed while couples waltzed.

For five years, a renegade group known as We Are the Oracle has been hosting such semi-secret parties in elusive sites throughout Paris, including the catacombs, empty railway tracks and abandoned chateaus. And not always legally.

Paris: "Seeing the city in another way than through the use of cars."

Photo credit: City Lab

Or, "divert(ing) motor traffic without kick-starting Armageddon."

And, concurrently, adding parkland that reinforces, not defeats, adjacent businesses.

Just because things work the way they do now, doesn't mean they can't work differently ... better ... to achieve multiple outcomes, not just one.

In Paris, Plans for a Seine Reinvention, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Paris seems to be getting less and less motorist-friendly by the day. Following a set of promises to slash diesel usage, extend lower speed limits and bar polluting cars from the city core, Mayor Anne Hidalgo this week announced a plan to thoroughly reclaim the quayside on the right bank of the River Seine for pedestrians. With cars already banished from a long strip of the Left Bank, the Seine in central Paris will as of summer 2016 be entirely encased within two lush, motor-free parkland buffers. Sounding more French than ever, Hidalgo described the plan as “an urban, almost philosophical project, which consists of seeing the city in another way than through the use of cars.”

Here's one for Louis le Francais: "Paris Leads With Innovation in the Streets."

It now appears we need a little more Frenchness downtown; photo from the Louis le Francais Facebook page

Think of it as a corrective for those who insist that automotive rights come before quality of life. Livability in the whole city? What a concept.

Taking the Next Step: Paris Leads With Innovation in the Streets, by Stephane Kirkland (Project for Public Spaces)

In a 180-degree change from previous decades, during which public space was thought of mainly in terms of facilitating automobile circulation, the City of Paris has been implementing an ambitious strategy to rethink the role of the car in the city. The new approach, which puts the quality of the urban experience at the heart of urban policy, has led to a complete redefinition of Paris’s urban spaces ...

... The City administration feels that Paris’s current default speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour (31 mph) is simply not compatible with shared use of public spaces. So it has set its sights on a major milestone: the implementation of a 20 kilometer per hour (12 mph) speed limit within the entire city limits, except for a small number of designated major arteries. Already it has started an aggressive expansion of the existing 20 kilometer per hour zones.

The City has started implementing a new “shared space” concept. Several streets have been given this new status, in which vehicle traffic does not have the right of way and all users are expected to share the space equally.

“Creative types don't want bourgeois homogeneity.”

The current edition of The Economist includes a thought-provoking essay on the rivalry between London and Paris, and surveys the reasons why London seems to be “winning” the race. An extended excerpt is provided.

The rivals: Two great cities are about to hold mayoral elections. Which has the brighter future?

Perhaps most important, the city (London) has adopted a guiding creed that belongs neither to the political left nor the right: openness to change. “London has flourished not because it has sorted out its transport, or its city management, but because it opened its borders,” argues Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics. These days, there is nothing particularly British about London, bar its tolerance of chaos. It has embraced globalisation to become an international city, while Paris has remained unapologetically French.

Nearly 700,000 extra foreign-born people have made London their home since 1997, bringing the capital's total foreign-born population to over 30%. Not counting illegals, Paris has fewer foreigners (about 14%) and, crucially, it is the more educated ones, whether from India or Poland, who head for London. (In total, Britain has attracted more skilled and professional immigrants: 35% of them have a college education, according to a recent OECD study, against just 18% in France.) The energetic renovation of newly fashionable districts such as Hoxton and Shoreditch is not only spurred by sky-high property prices elsewhere; it also owes something to the friction and renewal of London's messy, cosmopolitan mix.

“Creative types don't want bourgeois homogeneity,” says Mr. Travers. “They want edginess, and space to grow.”

In the fashion typical of my favored news magazine, all sides of the coin are duly considered, and I’m not in lock-step agreement with every aspect of the story.

Also, it is worth conceding that analogies are treacherous, especially when considering two major world cities on the one hand and places like New Albany on the other.

Yet …

The last sentence in the preceding excerpt aptly summarizes the New Albany conundrum for me. Bourgeois homogeneity does not lend itself to creativity, which is what we need more than anything else, and in large measure this creativity must be pried from the cold, dead hand of bourgeois homogeneity, which has proven to be entirely unwilling or unable to offer solutions to problems beyond expressing eternal contempt for creativity and the necessary things that stem from it.

For me, there is nothing more indicative of bourgeois homogeneity than the recurring insistence that the sole value of a human being lies in his or her willingness to pay taxes.

Unfortunately, the past year’s public discourse in New Albany and in Indiana has been predicated on precisely this misreading of the social contract. New Albany’s bloc of Luddites will continue to babble phrases misappropriated from the likes of Ayn Rand, and I – quite possibly alone, which is fine by me – will continue to respond that the task of the local politician is to serve all the people, not just those whose participation in a civil society is defined solely by incessant threats to drown government in a bathtub if their narrow interests are not properly addressed.