All September, in the last of summer’s warmth and sun, Paris has been particularly séduisant.
Despite understanding that life here can be as difficult as anywhere, that misery and violence are present, too, in their usual forms, it has been impossible not to be seduced by the sight of couples lounging on the grass in Place des Vosges in the late afternoon light, or the little boy holding his mom’s hand, swinging his green and orange stuffed turtle as they walked up rue de Turenne.
In front of the Pompidou Centre a man dipped a string threaded between two rods into soapy water and drew out giant bubbles, while a nearby violinist performed the Meditation from Thais.
On the Pont des Arts, the padlocks that lovers fasten to the fence to symbolize their commitment shone in the sun, and a man displayed a radio powered by the reaction between sunlight and the silicone in a hoisted CD.
At the exhibition Photo Quai, along the river, a mom carrying her toddler contemplated pictures of veiled women while a couple embraced behind the display walls.
I like a phrase—casual beauty—that I found in A Photographer’s Guide to Paris, published on the web by Philip Greenspun. “Paris,” he writes, “is...a city whose casual beauty makes for rich material to anyone willing to walk around slowly and observe carefully.” But even when we walk quickly and are not especially observant, the beauty informs our senses, lifts our spirits—seduces us.
Today the gilded figures atop Opéra Garnier gleamed in the sun on the street where we caught a bus, and where we got off, a group of school children waited among a scatter of the first fallen leaves for the light to change.
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