Médiathèque Gustav Mahler

Matt's visit, as I've mentioned before, was all about two things: research and food (in that order). And for someone writing a dissertation on the reception of Gustav Mahler's music in the US, there could be no more obvious place to do research in Paris than the Médiathèque Gustav Mahler (MGM). But it turns out that this "médiathèque" (multimedia library) also has a lot to offer someone working on a non-Mahler topic. So I was only too happy to explore MGM's collections with Matt.

Matt was super excited to arrive and twice as sad to leave. MGM has tons of clippings of reviews of Mahler performances from newspapers all over the world. Luckily we managed to photograph most of them, which means Matt can continue his archival research from the comfort of Cambridge!

MGM's rooms are quite a bit nicer than those of any other library I've been to in Paris. It helps that the place is a former apartment in the ritzy 8th arrondissement, just around the corner from Parc Monceau (which ups the ritzy factor immeasurably). They also have open stacks for all their books (not a humongous collection, but completely respectable) and, as you can see, their vinyl and CDs. Wow.

This is the hallway that connects the two "reading rooms." Notice the lovely tile floor and the bust of Mahler in front of the mirror at the end. It's so pleasant to work at MGM, and they have such useful archives, that since Matt left I've actually taken to spending the majority of my time there. Unlike at the Bibliothèque Nationale, MGM makes it possible to: 1) listen to music while looking at a score (printed or manuscript); 2) read newspaper articles off of something other than microfilm (aka hold newspaper clippings in your hand); 3) stay awake thanks to bright (and mostly natural) lighting; 4) do your own photocopying, and for slightly cheaper. They also have some archival materials that the BN doesn't have, which is the main reason I'm spending time there.

The BN has some advantages over MGM (notably providing archival sources for non-20th-century material) but for ambiance and certain requirements of my own project, MGM is the place to be.

Don't Eat Here

Paris may be a city filled with fine food, but there's also a lot of terrible food out there. We're usually very careful to avoid that food, mainly going to restaurants that are recommended and/or that we've researched. (We rarely pick a restaurant once we're already out, because every time we do, we pick poorly.) Despite all this, we do have bad meals once in a while, and we feel it's our duty to tell you about them.

Polidor is a famous Left Bank establishment with 100-year-old décor and numerous guidebook recommendations attracting Parisians and tourists alike. Founded in 1845, it has served such literary luminaries as André Gide, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac, and it remains popular with students, which is no surprise given its relatively low prices and proximity to the Sorbonne. We went on a recommendation from our landlord (who falls into the student category), whom my mom, Cathy, and I met briefly at Berthillon Glace.


The décor was delightfully old-fashioned and the ambiance certainly qualified as "boisterous" as befits a popular bistrot, but we were pretty disappointed in the food. Cathy was excited to try escargot, and they turned out to be mediocre. The reasonable prices turned out to be high relative to the quality of what we ate, and we were especially disappointed in the desserts, which were dry and somewhat tasteless. So if your guidebook claims you have to go to Polidor, go for a drink or something, and get dinner at nearby Fish La Boissonerie, which remains one of our three favorite restaurants in Paris.

Our other culinary misadventure came during Matt's visit. After consulting Jesse's List, which has proven to be one of our most reliable sources of restaurant recommendations, we decided to try a place in the 9th arrondissement called Carpediem. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures for you, but suffice it to say, nothing was really photogenic enough to merit documentation. Things either tasted or looked bland, and the dishes that attempted to combine unexpected flavors mostly failed. Apparently we weren't the only ones to notice - on a Thursday night, the restaurant was mostly empty from 7:30 to around 10. Not a good sign.

So there you go - two restaurants to avoid the next time you're in Paris. We'll keep recommending alternatives, and hopefully you'll manage what we couldn't: all good food, all the time.

Paris Day Trips: Lyon (Part Play)

Yesterday I described the work Matt and I did during a day trip to Lyon. Today, I focus on the other focus of our trip: food.

Knowing that we'd need sustenance to keep focused during this long day of research, I solicited restaurant recommendations from several Lyon natives. What came back was a suggestion that we try any restaurant run by Paul Bocuse, perhaps the 20th century's most famous chef. His three-star restaurant, L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges, is both outside the city and outside our price range. But there are also four Bocuse brasseries in the city, each serving food from a different culinary tradition. Named after cardinal directions, Le Nord offers "traditional" cuisine, Le Sud Mediterranean cuisine, L'Est seafood, and L'Ouest "island" cuisine (as geographically disparate as Japan, the Antilles, and Majorca). With fixed-price menus around 22 euros, we couldn't help but try two, lunching at Le Nord and dining at Le Sud.


Le Nord was pretty great. We both got soup to start, the name of which escapes me. My salmon (bottom left) was perfectly cooked, and the cream-based sauce was delish. Matt's magret de canard (bottom center) was a little dry, but again the sauce and potatoes were excellent. I ordered the moelleux au chocolat for dessert, which was dramatically melty inside (as moelleux are wont to be).

I took a terrible picture of Matt's dessert, which he wanted to describe himself: "At Paul Bocuse's Brasserie le Nord, they were all out of one one [sic] of the prix-fixe desserts. So they offered us two a la carte desserts at no extra charge. I chose the Gaufres [waffles] with a hazelnut sauce. They were crispy and buttery." As you can see, the waffles also came with separate pots of molten dark chocolate and whipped cream. Yeah.


The most photogenic part of dinner at Brasserie du Sud was the tablesetting. We couldn't get as excited about dinner, in part because the 3-course menu offered many of the same things as at Brasserie du Nord, just cooked slightly differently (ie, there were salmon and duck dishes, and the desserts were almost exactly the same). But the food was still quite good, and if we hadn't been such gluttons and had just gone to "Le Sud" we would have been mighty satisfied.

Luckily there was the beauty of Lyon at night to appease us. It really is a great city, worthy of a visit much longer than a single day. Until next time, Lyon!

Paris Day Trips: Lyon (Part Work)

Matt's visit three weeks ago wasn't just about galavanting around Paris - he came to get some research done as well. So early in the morning on his second day in town, we embarked on a research expedition to Lyon, a two-hour train ride from Paris.

Lyon is the second city of France, known for its rich history (it was the capital of Gaul under the Romans), its beauty (thanks in part to the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône rivers), and its gastronomy. But all that could wait until after we got some work done at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon, or Lyon Conservatory (second only in prestige to the CNSM de Paris).


The Conservatoire is located in a former convent, built in the 17th century, that was appropriated during the Revolution and became a veterinary school. We spent all our time in the reading room, which was well-appointed, quiet, and provided easy access both to internet-enabled computers and listening stations, two things the BN's music library needs to work on.

Matt and I had come to the Lyon Conservatory's library because it houses a nearly-complete collection of scores formerly owned by Nadia Boulanger, a composer, concert pianist/organist, conductor, and famous composition teacher. We were interested in determining whether Boulanger had annotated scores of works by the composers we're studying (Matt is working on Mahler), either for conducting or teaching. It turns out that she only rarely wrote in her scores, and frequently only to indicate mistakes in the editions. But in a few cases, it looked like she had done some analysis (perhaps with a student), and we noticed other interesting characteristics of certain scores.

For instance, in this score of a Beethoven piano concerto, Boulanger wrote in instrument names, probably to help her cue various performers while she was conducting. Notice also the heavy wear on the corners of the pages - this is something she played through or conducted a great number of times. Finally, we realized that some of the scores (like this one) had been bound after purchase, which might indicate that the score was in worse shape, or that someone wanted to protect it. Believe it or not, all of these details can prove useful to a musicologist . . . but ultimately Matt and I didn't find too much that was useful among all the scores we studied in Lyon. Still, we had to look, just to make sure.

Not at all discouraged by our findings (or lack thereof), we took a little time to enjoy the city's gastronomic offerings and lovely old city. To be continued tomorrow . . .

Guest Post: Matt

Matt and I bet on Panda's poop schedule, and Matt lost. As punishment, he had to write a guest post.

Mugshot's Eiffel Tower Tips (re: Eiffel Tower Tips)

After reading Louis's cynical post about the Eiffel Tower experience, and as their last houseguest for a while (I hear they're not hosting anyone for some time — maybe even a week), I just had to offer a rebuttal based on first-hand experience. Get ready to take out your Paris scorecard and put about 50 checks in the "resident" box.

1. Steal a map from the apartment. If you stay with Louis and Maggie, note that they have several beautiful maps of Paris. Make sure it's rainy outside. Find the key to the living room cabinets, which is hidden in a Grand Theft Auto computer game box under their bed. Open the cabinet and take the most expensive-looking map you can find there. Down the half-bottle of Bordeaux they were saving for a special occasion. In your excitement, forget to lock their apartment door, and start your adventure toward the Eiffel Tower. (You will also need a bullhorn and around 10 Euros.)

2. Walk four hours in the rain in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower. I love walking, and there's nothing I like better than walking when my socks are extremely wet because of rain and puddles. If you pass all the sites marked on the map below, you will clearly be following the best route to the Eiffel Tower, which is important during bad weather. If you get lost, that's OK. Since it's very cloudy, you won't be able to see the Eiffel Tower and just go toward it. But you can consult your stolen map and watch as it disintegrates in the pouring rain, and then you can try to stumble toward the next waypoint on the map below.

3. Tell as many tourists as you can that the Eiffel Tower is closed. There won't be many out there since it's raining. But as Louis pointed out, people at tourists sites are to be avoided if you want a good experience. Therefore, in your best English, yell at anyone you encounter on your walk that they can't go up the Eiffel Tower during inclement weather, so they should really leave the area. (This includes people who you think might not be tourists — you never know.)

4. Spend some of your Euros on a ticket to go up the Eiffel Tower. This is a crucial step, as Louis also pointed out, because without a ticket to something like the Eiffel Tower, it is difficult if not impossible to go up it. The best way to get a ticket is to say to the ticket person, "Je aller Eiffel Tower," and then point up. This is an example of very good French, so he or she will know what you mean. You should definitely walk up, because nothing feels better than ascending 600 steps to the second floor after you've already walked 20 miles. When you get to the first floor, make a beeline for the gift shop and spend the rest of your Euros on a jambon crudité — you will need it in a minute.

5. Create a diversion. Most of the members of the Eiffel Tower staff are focusing on the elevators. I don't know why this is. But anyway, when you get to the second floor, you'll see that there are lots of barriers blocking access to the third-floor sairwell, as well as signs saying things like "accés interdit" (I don't know what this means!). But if you create a diversion by throwing that jambon crudité down the elevator shaft, you can easily go up the remaining steps to the third floor. When you reach the third floor, take out the bullhorn and declare to all of Paris that you fooled the city and that you can go up the Eiffel Tower in inclement weather. Then, enjoy the crystal clear view of the stunning iron latticework and of your hands. And oh, yeah, sure, that is definitely the Sacre-Coeur whose outline you're seeing in the distance.

In conclusion, I hope you enjoyed reading these Eiffel Tower Tips. I am confident that if you follow these simple steps, you will certainly make a trip to the Eiffel Tower. And probably to the Eiffel Tower Jail.