La Samaritaine

A party on K's terrace last night, the gas heater on (because suddenly the weather has changed again & it's cold, standing there in our little summer dresses), watching the clouds rush over the edges of Paris. K mentions the Samaritaine department store that's still closed, one year later; it used to be a great place to drop into after giving a tour through the Louvre, you could browse through the perfume and handbags, or buy a pair of stockings. We compare rumours of what's happening to the building: was it really closed because it didn't meet the fire code regulations? Then why did the company spend so much money renovating the store two years ago? The main rumour persists, that the owner wants to turn the building into a five-star hotel--it's a nice location, smack in the middle of the city, overlooking the Seine and the Pont Neuf. But a hotel wouldn't be so good for the Art Nouveau interior of the store, gorgeously designed by Franz Jourdain in 1906 --the soaring 6-floor open atrium, with its painted turquoise peacocks under the skylights, may not come through a renovation intact. Same goes for the building's Seine-side facade, the 1928 Art Deco "cake" by Henri Sauvage (who so loved ceramic tiles on other buildings around Paris), along with the wonderful iron grill sign at the top of the building. No sign yet of any renovations to bring the building up to standard, so probably the sale/hotel theory is as good as any. I wonder if founder Ernest Cognacq's ghost is wandering through the empty shop, wondering what happened to the old water pump and Samaritaine sculpture that used to sit on the Pont Neuf?

In this great city, dark and silent in the rain, in this Paris of which she was ignorant [the department store] blazed like a lighthouse; it seemed to her the only light and the only life in th city. --Emile Zola "Au Bonheur des Dames" (1883)

A Bad Year for Journalists

this is the cover of my new book of poetry, A Bad Year for Journalists, which came out this spring from Frontenac House. i had a great time at the book launches in Calgary and in Toronto (mucho thanks to all involved, especially to my great editor, Rose Scollard!)

the cover is a photograph by Neil Petrunia of a Chinese resto; he photoshopped it to get this nice eerie green colour.

i keep meaning to update my blog, come up with a witty new design, etc etc but life keeps getting in the way.and i can't complain, because some of the things in the way are pretty fabulous...including the astonishing news that The Globe & Mail reviewed my book (hence the brief excerpt below). and the plan to turn the book into a theatre piece seems to be gaining speed. we have funding from the Toronto Arts Council & the Canada Council--hallelujah! the theatre project is a collaboration with Emily Pearlman, Bremner Duthie, and Craig Desson, and i can't wait to get to Toronto in October to get our plans in motion. meanwhile, it is impressively hot in Paris, but there is a lot of cool jazz in the city to keep temperatures at bay (especially after the madness of the World Cup).

"By turns sympathetic, critical, darkly funny and painstakingly lyrical [...] Pasold's colloquial, cynical squint is refreshing, disarming and often funny (reporters making up guidebook titles: "Let's Go Mogadishu")... In an increasingly hyperbolic idiom where everything is so conveniently unspeakable, Pasold speaks up, conveying more than impressions or exaggerations; these poems "explain what it was/ not what it was like." - Katia Grubisic, The Globe & Mail (Toronto, July 8/06)