La mer de pianos

This is a great little video I found on Kottke.org about the oldest piano parts shop in Paris.



This man is awesome – he's been working there for almost 30 years. When he gets his hands on an old piano, he holds onto it so that he can sell the parts to others who have that same piano and can't find replacement parts.



The sounds are my favorite bit – the music, of course, but also the wood rattling as he pulls a keyboard and action out of a piano, the metallic reverberation of assorted parts dancing around on the strings while someone plays. The attic of skeletons.



I felt a bunch of things while watching this – delight, longing, fondness, worry, regret – how about you?

Thank you, Alex!

The beautiful Alex came back this week from a month-long sabbatical in France; she was working on her thesis at our Paris office. This is one of the things she brought back with her:


It says a bunch of things about the origin of my name, what my lucky number, day and perhaps flower are, etc. She said it's a ruler, but I think I'll use it as a book mark. I love this, because I have never been able to pick up any souvenirs with my name on them in places when all my friends did on class trips and things. Thank you, mon ami :)

Stay tuned, I found one of my old journals last night and there are a bunch of neat things in there from a couple years ago.