Today marks a week that we have been here now. I am still waking up around 9:30 – 10am – will have to break that somehow. Paul and I have our computers set up side by side here in the studio. They are even linked to allow us both to connect at the same time to the internet. He is busy now yacking to Jean-Philippe and that is going into my right ear and into my left, the traffic of rush-hour Paris with a glass of wine between thoughts and sounds. Today we had two destinations: the catacombs and the François Mitterand Library. We stood in line for over an hour to access the catacombs and at the library we were interrupted by only one guard who told us not to ride our bikes in the plaza area between the buildings. Piles of bones, piles of books, but the catacombs were much more lively and I think if I brought my own light, reading there would be more interesting too. The library consists of four giant columns of windows blocked on the inside by wooden panels and all connected by a sunken garden of chained trees and an upper open deck of wind-swept, un-peopled space. Very bleak. No wonder there are fewer and fewer readers. In the catacombs, verses of poetry were carved into plaques accompanying the piles of bones. A humbling place. On the way out, our bags were checked, making sure that no bones other than our own were leaving with us. The exit was some distance from the entrance and I was surprised to find we had spilled out into a tiny residential street with no touristy fanfare insight. We were all there checking our maps, to find out where we were.
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