Some family and friends lamented that my blogging has not been updated :) I now have less than 3 weeks left in Paris...I haven't really bragged about the Paris weather, knowing many of my friends and family in New York and Japan are having a horrifically hot one... Paris is average of 18-20C (around low 60F) and very, very beautiful this August. Besides I spend most of time indoors without a window in air-conditioned studio, so I decided to do a day of tourism for change.
I went on wondering about in my neighborhood the Marais. It is a posh area, with many fashionable stores that I would probably have nothing I can afford :) Here is a beautiful store of beads; like any women (sorry if I'm mistaken) I have entertained the idea of making my own jewelry and failed, or at least I am never confident enough in wearing my own creations in public! But I do proudly wear ones my kids make for me :) This store could revive my imaginary hobby again.
As my brother-in-law Frédéric suggested, I went to Paris Musée Carnavalet, the city museum of Paris. He said that it has a very good description of the French Revolution from the point of view of Parisians, and it was true. I could not help but to stop and be grateful to the people of this country for the "liberté, egalité, fratanité", seeing many panels of the "Rights of Men", and feel the amount of blood that was shed. When you walk on the streets of Paris, you feel it. There was a drum which played the rhythm "liberté, egalité", the hand-made ladder that was used to break through the infamous Bastille prison. The real objects that were touched by people, the evidence of people's kinetic memory can transport you to that time, more than any description of the revolution. 
I am now composing and preparing for my upcoming appearances, incorporating the tools that we have developed together. Some are still 'under construction' but as I remind my collaborators, I am the one on stage and things have to work :) It is simply not acceptable that a program works 'most of the time'. It has to work 150% of the time to be on stage. I take robustness and crudeness of the program over an elegant program that looks good but crashes sometime! Or an old version that works over a new version that is unstable. Those of you in Paris, you are welcome to attend my 'exit' presentation on Thursday, September 2nd at 12:00 at Salle Stravinsky at IRCAM. Please let me know as I need to make a guest list.
My host at IRCAM Norbert Schnell and I have been having some late dinners; in general people eat late here. Or maybe even in NYC we eat earlier than 'grown ups' without small kids! This is the famous L'As du Fallafel where there usually is a huge line during the day. I was told it is the "world best" including the middle east. I could eat here everyday. I also had a very nice Tajine near Belleville, again with Norbert after we fixed some of my bugs even on a Sunday.
I'm preparing for my life after IRCAM, now using all my own equipment to make sure things run on my own. After my presentation at IRCAM on September 2nd, I will go to Radio France in the same afternoon and record an interview, planning to perform with my own system. It'd better work. :) The broadcast will be on September 5th while I am going to be sitting in the airplane back to JFK.
ps. This is a tea store called Mariage Frères, one of my favorite stores. I don't know if my husband remembers, but when we just started dating he asked what he could bring from Paris. I said, "Please go to MARIAGE Frères, and get me a kind called EROS". Poor man, he really didn't stand a chance :)
