Saturday, July 7
Our first day off is spent costume shopping, starting with the giant flea market, Marché aux Puces de Montreuil. A dozen or so of us scour the hundreds of stalls, then frip (vintage) stores, for outfits ranging from a newborn babe's to Van Gogh's. I pass Fontaine des Innocents, the last Renaissance fountain standing in Paris, look to the sky and take a deep breath. The clouds move in extraordinary ways here - easy to see why so many artists find their inspiration - and why so many lovers kiss - beneath its spell. Something tells me to turn onto a tiny street on Île Saint-Louis, where I discover one of Paris' only bio (organic) restaurants, and treat myself to a respite from the carnivorous (albeit exceptional) local cuisine. I pass the sixth French version of an American friend on the street, smiling at the thought of my parallel existence here, and learn that Notre-Dame Cathedral has a Gregorian mass the following morning. Being the sucker for chant I am, I add it to the agenda.
Sunday, July 8
An overcast Sunday morning which I spend with music legend Jean-Luc Ponty, his daughter Clara (my host) and her daughter, Clémence. I head to the Montparnasse Flea Market (Marché de la Porte de Vanves) for finishing touches to my mafiosa costume, then take an impromptu turn toward Cimetiére de Montparnasse, where Ionesco and Beckett truly wait for Godot. There is something very right about a country where the road to the graveyard is lined with sex shops... la petite mort indeed! I come upon Bobino Theatre, where Piaf sang and Josephine Baker played her last show before dying in her sleep. A nearby trio croons I Can't Give You Anything but Love outside Paris en Chansons, a fantastic exhibit of France's greatest singers, from Minstinguett to Azanvour. I pass a hare krishna fair where I am gifted with a free vegan dinner. The city holds me in her hands today.
Monday, July 9
Our afternoon at school begins with a series of games (le jeu). If you lose, or are denounced by a classmate for lying about losing, you are subjected to a series of international tortures by Gaulier: Paris shampoo, Chinese acupuncture, Guantanamo! We sing a chorus as 1977 Miele washing machines, parade our costumes (alternately lauded and eviscerated), then follow with clown interviews conducted by yours truly playing Monsieur Loyale (The Ringmaster). This is a role for which I am praised for days... Intriguing. I dash out of Étampes to Montmartre, where I shop for an alternate suit and borselino hat for my gangster clown... more fripperie! The sun sets, yellow and radiant as Van Gogh's fields, at 10 o'clock.
Tuesday, July 10
A morning of unexpected beauty as I head to Musee d'la Orangerie, which turns out to be closed, strolling instead through the Tuileries. The city is quiet and I have left my map at home. The statues that flank this royal walk have seen more than I ever will and contain such motion in their stillness. Winding through an abandoned fairground, I stop in a tiny Algerian patisserie for breakfast, happy to see morning motorcyclists in form-fitting suits smoke beneath their helmets. Appreciation flows freely and I am filled with it today! I walk into what I don't realize is the private showroom of Cartier jewelers. Scanned by security, my clown training seems to be assimilating as I do a genuine triple take at the sight of the sparkling gems, trying to mask the Chekhovian squeak of my shoes with a cough. I walk, dazed, past the Comédie Française and a British period film being shot in the Place des Vosges, then head to Étampes for a day of blockages and (tiny) breakthroughs in class.
Overheard (in mixed French and English):
Not enough pleasure to be an artist.
Does she exist in your eyes, or not at all?
You are forbidden to have a child - too boring!
Fantastique? Or really fucking heavy?
You cling to the stage like a crab on the pubic hair of the Archbishop of Canterbury!
Wednesday, July 11
No Gaulier today, he has a doctor's appointment to check if I have another 500 kilometres in this vehicle! Three classmates and I rent bicycles at Versailles, thanks to the suggestion of Joan Juliet Buck. Riding for hours through golden fields, farms, majestic gardens and ponds where coy swarm for breadcrumbs near the surface, we stop beneath a tree for the best cherry gelato I've ever had, then tour the gargantuan estate of Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV. It is astonishing. This is the day I realize that something isn't working in my clown, but I don't know how to change it yet. A tipping point?
Thursday, July 12
Morning trip to Pére Lachaise, the most ornate of Parisian cemeteries. Proust, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and Sarah Bernhardt, whom I've learned is a distant cousin, rest here. On my way to school, a Moroccan beggar drags sickled feet through the train, ululating for food. The song haunts me for days.
After a successful exercise as a dancing chorus, the afternoon turns to tears for many students. We've reached a primary breaking point as the room temperature rises 20 degrees and the floor seems to melt like Dali's. For the first time, Gaulier discusses when a person should question if clown is the route for them... after 10,000 tries! During our break, he asks if I am Jewish, and we discuss Sasha Baron Cohen, one of his students, and the Marx Brothers, all of whom, he says, have a special soul. I am the first student to ask him direct question at the end of class, and it breaks the ice for others. Gaulier tells us of the time his troupe performed in The Czech Republic and their plate-breaking routine was considered a revolutionary statement by the government.
Overheard:
To surprise yourself is a great beginning. To surprise others is great!
If you are bad without a dream, mon petit lapin, you are nothing.
We don't love people who aren't happy. If you aren't happy, you have to leave the stage!
I'm not going to be nice today, as usual!
You think it's funny to say you're horrible? (Pause.) Yes it is, I love it!
When you speak, it must taste something like a strawberry in the mouth - not this boring voice of a Sunday school teacher.
Her voice is "Ay, yai, yai, fantastique," or "Ay yai yai, my balls"?
In the name of erections everywhere, kill her!
When you watch him, are you proud to be a human being? Or you start to doubt your very existence?
Do they have the quality of a good chorus... or that of a tiny, tiny shit?
Thank you, this group... you break my balls!
Two friends and I visit Au Lapin Agile, the Montmartre tavern where ten French musicians entertain per night. Picasso came here for inspiration; Steve Martin wrote a play about it. We end the night, quite by accident, tucked into a small Venezuelan wedding party, welcomed like family over arepas and honeyed lemonade.
Friday, July 13
Today's theme brought to you by Meister Eckhart:
It is not by your actions that you will be saved, but by your being.
Last day of school for the week and we play a complicated game of tag which I win for the group - then we have an exam, Gaulier says with twink. The exercise involves the pleasurable entrance of the clown, presentation of his character's "motto," then the clown's satisfaction for putting over his character's motto so well. Gaulier gifts me with a surprise ovation from the class, in order that I discover the notion of a clown's pride after performing poorly. It is very moving. The concept of wanting to be bad in order to embody the poetry of the bad student is difficult to embrace, particularly for those Chinese and German students who are culturally indoctrinated to be "good" at all times. This training is the opposite of the poise we normally force on ourselves, yet it is strangely the seat of all things authentic.
Overheard:
When you rush, you escape being ridiculous in front of the audience and we don't have time to love you.
A bad clown is a pianist with glue on his fingers. A light touch, a tickle for the imagination, allows us to dream around you.
If your pleasure doesn't exist, neither do you.
A shadow on the pleasure is no good for the clown! We want to see your genuine pleasure - not your pleasure "Made in Hong Kong."
The little boy who doesn't know what to do is the beginning of clown. He who "knows something" is just an idiot.
A clown is not ashamed to be an idiot. The worse the clown, the more he dreams of decoration.
When you go through a flop, you learn a lot!
She was boring, or am I drunk?
Don't dribble on her balls!
Philippe explains that he must reschedule another day for a hospital procedure. I worry for him. On my way out, a British student, Hattie, says she loves my -ness. When I ask what that is, she says your Erik-ness! I explore Paris bars for the first time, and am invited The Fireman's Ball - a large outdoor charity event for les pompiers. Hundreds of frogs and I dance beneath under a canopy of colorful parapluies in the rain.
Saturday, July 14
The Marché aux Puces de St-Ouen is peppered with buffets in celebration of Bastille Day. Among 15 acres of every collectible and not-so-collectible imaginable, from doll's heads and hotel soaps to exquisite furniture and taxidermy, I happens upon a vintage postcard vendor. Scanning through dozens of vedettes of stage and screen (including one Miss Poppy Wyndham), Pierre Brasseur leaps out at me. Though we've never met, I'm drawn to him and purchase the card. The saleswoman turns it over to reveal a handwritten note from the actor, explaining that the collection was purchased from his great-great-granddaughter. He becomes my mascot for the trip. I walk with Brasseur to the antique glass section, where the marchande and I discuss the poster of Gena Rowlands on her wall. She, too, is a fan of one of my favorites, and tells me about a Cassavetes retrospective in town.. Ambrosia! A short browse through Montmartre for a crépe au miel (honeyed crepe) before meeting classmates for a performance of the neocircus, Compagnie XY, at Parc La Villette. Easily the best circus I've ever seen - netless, truly death-defying feats of acrobatics by this exceptional company. They embody the complicité Philippe speaks of; love for the audience and for each other as they hold each others' lives in their hands. Something gels about the clown work tonight. After the performance, we watch fireworks from a peak near Sacré Coeur.
Sunday, July 15
Chance meeting with Pierce Brosnan on my way to the sunbaked majesty that is Jardin du Luxembourg. Among an impressionistic palette of carousels, donkeys rides, and dogs doing dressage to calliope and accordion, I am mistaken for the son of the chief puppeteer of the marionette show! Again I am struck by the notion of well-tended public gardens bearing direct relation to well-grown societies. On the streets of Paris, 20,000 bikes are available for rent from automated Vélib' vendors, encouraging residents to soar when they want to, returning their wheels anywhere. I attend an Hommage John Cassavetes screening of A Woman Under the Influence and walk through St-Germain-des-Prés with classmate Edan, chewing exquisite Nutella nougat as the sun sets over the Seine.
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