Marilyn from her visit

dear friends -

i was born in indiana.  one of the great joys of my life has been eating fresh nuts.  as a young child in indiana i went with my parents, older brother david and perhaps my younger sister christine to collect nuts.  a shellbark hickory nut is a treat and i was never fortunate enough to find a good hickory tree anywhere outside of indiana.  obviously they must exist.  (david might recall a time we climbed a fence to collect hickory nuts and were chased off by a bull.)  betsy took me to dinner the other night at a nice little local restaurant.  for dessert we were served a monastic cheese, trappe ergourgnac, a cheese flavored with hickory nuts!  i was immediately transported back to the sweetness and simplicity of childhood.

calvin played hooky and spent the day with me earlier this week.  among other things we visited an old parisian museum, arts et metiers.  the original sight, but of course, was an abbey founded in the 6th century, st. martin of the fields.  over the next centuries it evolved into a newer and newer church, but was eventually slated for demolition.  this would have been in the 1790's.  but science was all the rage then, and arts et metiers museum was established in the church and adjacent buildings.  a royal collection of precision instruments was the beginning of the exquisite collection.  calvin and i loved the measuring devices.  sextants, time pieces, measuring sticks, scales, thermometers, barometers, ...  one thermometer, for instance, is nearly a meter high.  instead of a bulb at the bottom, there is a glass spiral about two inches wide which turns in on itself six times.  the instruments are breathtakingly beautiful.

the floor of the newish adjacent building has a small trolley track built into the floor.  models and cases were moved hither and yon for demonstrations.  it is enchanting to have a little trolley in the building.

there is a marvelous collection of counting devices.  everything from abacuses to the ultramodern 1985 cray supercomputer.  the cray isn't nearly as much fun as the brass calculators which are two and three feet across with tubes, rings and dials.  calvin was much intrigued with the simple and intuitive display of the binary system.

but most wonderful of all is the display in the chapel.  foucault's pendulum (his 3rd or 4th) is suspended from the ceiling.  also suspended from the chapel ceiling are an airplane and autos!  four recently renovated see-through levels zigged and zagged by stairways take you past the first pint-sized statue of liberty and more very old motorized vehicles up to spitting distance of the chapel ceiling.  it is incredible.

chris' mother grew up in a big family as i did.  glennell, like my mother, is a very good cook.  and cooks without fussing.  when we vacation together, glennell always impresses me with her calm and efficiency at helping get one good meal on the table after another.  chris, betsy and the boys all also cook with aplomb.  it is fun to cook here; everyone has something to contribute.  the boys and i have made a few batches of fruit sorbets.  i always tell the boys the recipes are old family secrets, though my guess is that not many in my family other than alan, my grandsons and i make sorbets.  but here is the secret recipe.  put two parts sugar (perhaps 2 cups) into a saucepan with a bit less than 1 cup of water.  bring to a boil, then cool.  add fruit (juice, grated zest, pulp, puree, whatever) to a portion of the syrup.  add more syrup, water or fruit extract to taste.  freeze for at least 6 hours.  remove from the freezer 15 minutes before serving.  we have finished the lemon and pistachio sorbets and are working now to finish grapefruit and nectarine.  tomorrow carter and i will make mango.

perhaps when i get back to baltimore, i'll make sorbet with victor.  only three, he is already a passable cook.

love,

m

Marilyn on 'geometry and junque'

dear friends -

in the 1600's william congreve wrote "Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak."  it is, no doubt, true.  music is a great balm, comfort and delight.  however what soothes, comforts and stimulates me far more than music is geometry.  with algebra and calculus thrown in for good measure.  i thrive upon patterns, derivatives, mysteries and mathematics.  paris is one of the best places in the world for someone of my ilk.

the other day i went to st. germain des pres, perhaps my favorite spot in all of paris.  a church was first located on the sight at st. germain des pres, on the left bank of the seine in paris, dozens of years before congreve wrote about the charms of music.  various buildings have been erected and destroyed since then.  the current church is romanesque.  an old slate roof on a large church needs mass and strength in the structure beneath for support.  flying buttresses are the marvelous device which allows the most famous of the world's old cathedrals to support massive roofs and have space between the columns for glorious stained glass windows.

st. germain des pres predates the flying buttress.  instead the slate roof and night blue ceiling with stars of st. germain des pres are supported with columns like multi-storied sheaves of wheat.  each stalk is painted with soft geometric patterns in rich and muted hues.  golds, mulberries, teals, midnight blues, wines, grays, etc.  some stained glass windows were added a while ago, of course, as the church was repaired and renovated.  but the windows i much prefer are the simple, geometric leaded glass windows.  never washed except by rain and sleet, so they provide a softening, gentle and quiet urban gray light to the interior of the church.  notre dame is bigger, brighter and more bustling, and it should not be missed.  unless one is inexplicably drawn to geometry.  st. germain des pres always makes me happy.

but so also do all the doors, windows, gates, grates, covers, racks, shutters, rails and fences strewn about on every street and alley in paris.  the scale of manufacture here is so much smaller than in the u.s., so hand made and special order are more the norm here.  (to me appealing) geometric metal work, brick work, woodworking, textile artistry and stained glass abound here.

today betsy, chris and i spent part of the day at the famous paris flea markets, just outside of the paris city limits.  the flea markets are amazing.  monday is a slow day in any case and it rained all day.  we saw a small but select portion of the more than seventeen acres.  it is no longer a place to get magnificent bargains, but neither is it only rag and bone dealers.  movie set designers go to the paris flea markets to get anything they might imagine they want.  we shopped mostly for antique housewares and jewelry.  it was tempting to bring home a small set of beautifully carved two-headed wooden stocks, an eel skinner, an elaborate 8 foot wide chandelier, a 15 foot high marble fireplace or a highly polished airplane propeller and matching ejector seat, but we confined ourselves to what we could both carry and afford.  and couldn't live without.  chris was perhaps less interested in shopping than betsy and i were, but he both is a good sport and was excused early to pick up the boys from school.

my birthday is in june and i was treated to a nice new little digital camera just before i came to paris.  as it is, my house looks a lot like a parisian flea market shop.  it is far more frugal and practical to fill the disk in my camera with images of large curved axes, spools and spindles of thread, sharpening steels, plumb bobs, jingle bobs, antique cork screws, shoe lasts, sets of typeface and cobblers' benches than it is to purchase and pack (into suitcase and then some non-existent space at home) any of these treasures.  i have uploaded some photos onto my facebook page (marilyn may miller karr) and will upload/download some more.  actually i'll have betsy, chris or one of the boys help me do this.

for now, though, i'll go to sleep.

love,

m

Marilyn's update

dear friends -

i spent a good part of the day today shopping all by myself.  chris gave me detailed instructions - which i didn't manage either to bring with or even read.  even so i got just where he sent me and had wonderful fun.

les halles is the sight of the ancient market in paris.  in the 1100s a more permanent structure was built for farmers who came to market.  about 1970 the more permanent structure was removed and the markets moved to the suburbs of paris.  the area is still one of the best possible places to visit if you love food.  in a nearby eatery french onion soup was first made.  merchants who had worked through the night selling their wares to stores, restaurants and institutions had little enough left for themselves: bones, stale bread, onions and perhaps a bit of cheese.  just enough to make a superb bowl of soup.

there are any number of restaurant supply stores in the area who sell almost every pot, pan utensil or implement one might need or want in a kitchen.  or if one wants the best pate de fois gras, one would come here.  or the most highly rated bakery in paris.  or any number of delectable comestibles.  i am modest in my desires and came away more than happy with a boning knife, something i'll put to use as a knoon (combination knife and spoon), a cheese sandwich and fresh fruit.

in the midst of these gastronomic delights is an exquisite parisian ribbon shop.  i am a sucker for ribbons and this place is beyond compare.  few folks get to look inside my drawers upstairs in baltimore, but my daughters and grandsons know i have a large and colorful collection of spools of thread.  perhaps five drawers, each with hundreds of spools of silk, cotton and linen threads in every hue.  this small cabinet has always been one of my grandsons' favorite places to explore and each time they open the drawers to check out the threads i end up with a tangle of several dozen yards of thread to clip and discard.  it hardly seems like a waste when the boys and i get such pleasure from unwinding a bit of thread.  visiting the parisian ribbon store gave me the same great pleasure.  i bought a few yards of ribbon for myself and took some photos.  (it might be a week or so before i have time, but i'll get the photos online for everyone to see.)

the second largest church in paris is st. eustace at les halles.  according to wikipedia (and i fully concur) st eustace is another gothic gem in paris.  not quite as old as les halles, st. eustace became a parish in the 1200s.  while it is a gothic gem and has much regal and ceremonial history, it is also a church which is far more plebian than notre dame.  it is dedicated to, among other professions, fishmongers, orange sellers, egg merchants, corn carriers, salt scrapers, and second hand clothes dealers.  huge, stately, serene, showing her age, and still showing much glory, st. eustace is a lovely spot.  the organ has an array of 8000 pipes! and is breathtakingly beautiful in its symmetry and precision.  even without hearing a note played.

a fire station is situated on a narrow street adjacent to st. eustace.  since my grandsons and i like to visit fire stations, i have noted on earlier trips that there seem to be almost no fire stations in paris.  true.  fire codes must be very stringent because fires are infrequent here.  but today there was a call and the fire trucks had to wind their way out of one narrow street onto another.  parisian fire trucks and ambulances are runts compared to their american cousins. of course, paris is filled with nooks and crannies of shops and apartments which would burn to the ground if they were dependent on gigantic fire vehicles which couldn't negotiate streets and alleyways barely wide enough for auto traffic.

it was a wonderful day.  i am tired and happy.

love,

m

Marilyn describes the start of her visit

dear friends -

once again i find myself in paris. and as usual i am as happy as can be. starting when i was a teenager i've been to paris probably a couple of dozen times. if i could come twice that many times in the next 20 years, i would never find myself bored.

my son-in-law chris met me at the airport to get me and a prodigious amount of luggage back into the city. i napped a bit in the afternoon and we headed off on our first adventure. after school my grandsons carter (10) and calvin (7) play with their friends on the courtyards and parks near the school. apparently residents in apartments surrounding these courtyards and parks are not always delighted with the happy sounds of a dozen dozen young children racing about playing games. albeit the dozen dozen kids in france scream, shout and call out to each other in much quieter tones than american kids are wont to do.

as sometimes happens, a soccer ball ended up on someone's balcony. many of these soccer balls go to jail, go directly to jail and do not stop to pass go. they do not reappear. but as this balcony was not so high off the ground, we were inspired to try to retrieve it. chris vetoed sending a child who climbs as well as a monkey up the side of the building. so calvin wrote some letters of abject apology and we folded them into paper airplanes. sailing paper airplanes onto a balcony isn't as easy as one might imagine. fortunately an agile, athletic and tall friend, franz, happened along. franz climbed up without worrying chris excessively, put our paper airplanes on the balcony, realized he was acrobatic enough to retrieve the soccer ball, did so, and collected our apologetic paper airplanes.

yesterday betsy and i slept late, and then hurried over to catch the tail end of the saturday market. parisian markets are marvelous. french farmers select the produce for you, bag it and weigh it. for americans it seems as if you wouldn't get just what you wanted this way. au contraire. the farmer always asks when you will eat the bananas/melons/avocado/

whatever and selects produce of the desired ripeness for you. any idiot can come home from a french market with perfect produce. much french fast food is exquisitely prepared meats, vegetables, salads, spreads and sauces available at every market. betsy and i stopped for a couple of spreads. betsy asks for a bit of feta and herb spread. when the farmer asks what size container she wants, with a sleight of hand movement he picks up two small slices of french bread and slathers them with a tomato and cheese spread for us to taste. he scoops the container of feta and herb spread for us while we order some tomato and cheese spread. when asks what size container we want, with another slight of hand we are presented with yet another delectable sauce. of course we came home with a tasty selection of sauces. chris and betsy are both imaginative cooks. we eat wonderfully here. chris made a terrific pork curry for us when i arrived and betsy whipped up a lovely picnic yesterday. we met friends for a perfect late spring picnic in the shadow of the eiffel tower. four other families also threw a little something together, brought a bottle or two of wine, stopped for fresh bread and converged with us on the champs de mars. when darkness falls the eiffel tower lights up. just about the time you appreciate how very lovely it is lit against the early night sky, the lights begin to twinkle for several minutes. the sight is enough to make you believe in magic. (and last evening we retrieved the soccer ball which got stuck high in a tree by kicking another soccer ball into it, utterly without the invaluable assistance of franz - but after 45 minutes of trying.) this afternoon we went on a sort of treasure hunt/mystery/history adventure in the city. for hundreds of years frenchman wanted the prime meridian to pass through paris. the paris observatory, the french academy, the louvre and any number of other notable parisian landmarks are all on the same meridian. in the 1880's greenwich in london, of course, won out and greenwich mean time is where the day begins. with 23 other equally spaced meridians marking the time around the globe. but in fairly recent memory the french have more permanently marked the paris meridian. within the city limits more than 120 brass medallions (arago is the astronomer who did significant work on the meridian - his name and indicators for north and south are on each medallion) were installed on walkways, courtyards, floors of public buildings and posts. we spotted 15 medallions today. the paris meridian runs from barcelona to dunkirk, and outside the city the paris meridian is being marked with a line of trees. we are now all tuckered out. but i think of you and look forward to being back in the u.s. in a short time. love, m

Marilyn is here

Just sneaking under the "blog stale for one month" wire, here's an update from Marilyn, who's in town for a couple of weeks and is a much better documenter of our experiences than we are!

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dear friends -

on sunday afternoon we took a constitutional, we walked on a perfect spring day in as lovely a setting as one could want on sunday afternoon we took a constitutional, we walked on a perfect spring day in as lovely a setting as one could want.  promenade plantee (planted stroll in english) is an old railway right of way which is now a lithe and lovely garden pathway on the east edge of paris.  there are calm stretches of exotic greenery, cascades of early summer blossoms, shaded arbors of grape and wisteria vines, vegetable and herb plantings to incite the palate, occasional light clouds of fragrance along the path, grottos with trickling waterfalls, and expansive parks now and then which open onto lawns, playgrounds, soccer fields and the city itself.  much of the promenade is elevated, some heads directly through the old train tunnels.  a bike path accompanies the promenade, sometimes taking the high road and sometimes the low road.  a long stretch of viaduct has promenade above, and installed in the arches below are ateliers with shops for artists and designers of all sorts.

on the way home we stopped for gelato.  the fruit flavors are exquisite.  though so are the nutty flavors and those with chocolate.  i'm glad i don't have to choose between the sensual delights of the promenade plantee and delectable french treats.

both my darling grandsons love to cook.  calvin spent a late afternoon shopping and cooking with me this week.  he is an excellent chopper and will taste what he's preparing infinitely many times.  the watermelon was cut to my specifications - at least two sides of each piece had to be smaller than the width of calvin's fingers so that it was politely bite sized.  calvin had to check any number of times to confirm that bite sized pieces did indeed fit comfortably into one's mouth.  and we made a nice potato salad with apple, radishes and lightly cooked carrots.  the sauce calvin tinkered with a dozen times til he got the right balance of mayonaise, mustard. vinegar, celery salt and habanero sauce.  in addition we had fresh bread, fine pates, cheeses, blini, caviar, borscht, wine and company.  it is hard to beat such a combination.

french schools are quite different from american schools.  progenitors are tolerated as necessary but they are more or less held at bay by the schools.  children are dropped at the gate in the morning, and at about 4 there is a sort of parental feeding frenzy.  a child is only released to a guardian outside the gate when the teacher has made eye contact with the designated adult.  carter is in the upper school now.  the same drill holds there too.  though with the proper paperwork, an older child can leave without the requisite eye contact.  carter is now documented and can be released on his own recognizance.

french schools are more regimented and standardized than american schools.  there are significantly more tests and fewer alternatives as a result of one's test results, pretty much for the rest of one's life.  in addition to national tests in almost every subject, there is an international math test which is administered to all but the earliest grades.  this is the kangaroo math test, designed to stimulate interest in logic and mathematical thinking.  (the kangaroo test is available in the u.s., but it not widely taken by american kids.)  carter loves math, is competitive and enjoys being tested.  he ranked 74th out of more than 23,000 kids in france who took the kangaroo test.  the #1 student got 100 euros for his achievement.  even finishing out of the money, carter was very pleased.

both of my grandsons are great delights.  to me and many others.

love,

m

Clown school

Here are Calvin and Jakob clowning on their way to school yesterday.

Weekend update

I (Chris) was in Munich for the holiday weekend, visiting roughly 16 breweries in 4 days with Jenny & Thomas.  Details and pictures to follow as they become less hazy ...

Meanwhile, Betsy and the boys went impromptu camping to Burgundy with friends, and she posted some pictures here.