Lux Lotus

On Landings

Do you remember those old shots of astronauts coming back from space, bobbing up and down in the waves? The thing that was always impressed upon me was the danger of re-entry: would they make it, or burst bright into flames? I guess I did. So what's next?

Letter From Paris

Tomorrow: CDG-EWR. Repatriating for a cheeseburger.

Postcard From Paris

There's an enticing concert at the Opéra Royal tomorrow night–– the great debate: do we cab it to Versailles? 

Postcard From Paris

Champagne, Courbet, chandeliers glittering as garlands across a Belle Époque ballroom... musing on the mysterious sixth unicorn tapestry, "À mon seul désir," (to my sole desire), echoes of another favorite inscription, spotted inside a pin of unknown provenance: Autre ne veut (I want no other). A perfect afternoon on the Left Bank.

Letter From Paris

Tomorrow morning I had planned to swing by a symposium on publishing organized by Le Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication et le Centre National du Livre, featuring some bright lights from New York, most of whom I know, and then visit a class on social media, focusing on "social capital," my stock in trade, at the American University of Paris. However, my mother's flight has been delayed. Triste. So I'll be at my flat, sleeping in and waiting for the bell to ring. For a bit of cheer, here's a photo of me at a market in London last week, modeling my new fake fur hat.

Letter From Paris

According to the windows at Deyrolle, on my way to le marché, stuffed parrots are so right this season. I'll pair them with the perennial Vogue Paris trends: exposed breasts and smoking.

Postcard From Paris

Enjoyed lunch at les éditeurs with the former editor-in-chief of Canada's National Post, who's lived here on & off for 25 years. We then went to Bon Marché and talked about Catherine Deneuve.

Letter From Paris

My theory of happiness, happily confirmed: it is, in fact, walking down the street in Saint-Germain-des-Prés with a truffle in one hand and a five Euro note* in your pocket, a whole day looming ahead with absolutely no obligations to anyone. Certainly, a galaxy of riches I could only fantasize about through most of my twenties. January is the month for sales in Paris, and so I did a little window-licking, as one must. Ruby red and imperial violet never looked so sumptuously good as they do on display at Yves Saint Laurent on Place Saint-Sulpice. I often have crumpled bank notes loose in my purse, unfortunately not four thousand of them or I might have bought something there, or at Gerard Darel. No matter, I thought, there will be other years, and other fortunes, and other fates, yet to reveal themselves. I have, in fact, looked longingly in that exact window at YSL before, under very different circumstances. So perhaps some day in the future, I will take it all. Or like today, I'll go to Monoprix (something like Kmart) for tights and underthings and beauty creams, tempted to fall at the feet of the wise woman perusing thongs while happily munching a ham sandwich, and stop for an armful of magazines before zig-zagging under awnings on a rainy afternoon, my one constant thought: gratitude for this moment, these days. Tonight I'm going out with a gang of Americans, including Elisabeth Fourmont, whose La Coquette I've delightedly read and admired for years, and Anne Marsella ('Remedy, my first novel, is set in Paris and recounts the adventures and musings of its eponymous heroine, a devout but unorthodox Catholic girl...'). On Thursday, my mother arrives and we'll be off to the races:  tea at Mariage Freres, Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature (aka the taxidermy museum), Versailles, the treasures of the Medicis, et al. And then Monday, it's back to New York, and back to work: I've already agreed to speak at two or three universities in the city next month.

*When I was in my early mid-twenties, and had just started out freelancing, my income was in the very low five figures, and I was living in Tribeca with a man who was rather more successful, and each day, just before he left for work I would open my eyes and sleepily say, 'May I have five dollars for breakfast?' And it became something of a joke for us, that one day my memoir would be Five Dollars for Breakfast. A five in hand still makes me grin like a girl.

Letter From Paris

Thinking about what I'd like to do tomorrow: sleep in, natch, and then breakfast at maybe Flore or Magots, a short stroll past Karl Lagerfeld's art book store and Debauve & Gallais and then hang a left at Sonia Rykiel... perhaps afterward a loll in Jardin du Luxembourg (one of my favorite photos of me is there, wryly sneaking right out of the frame), The ideal agenda: one with nothing on it. I was reminded of a dream I had, of coming to Paris, when I had no heat in New York. Leaving for the month of January was the smartest thing I ever did; I may never spend the dead of winter there again. And then I read on Criterion that today was the day that Jules et Jim was released. Cosmic? Always.

Postcard From Paris

Spent the afternoon lingering over hot chocolate at the Art Deco gem, Hotel Lutetia, with my friend Eva, who had to go home and pack for Luxembourg, leaving me to grapple with the eternal question while I arrange tulips chez moi: who'll take me to the Ritz?