Fête de la Musique.

Monday, June 21st was summer solstice. Yeehaw! I being, so far north, am now closer to the sun than ever before! This means the sun rises at about 5:30am and sets at 10pm - the sun is bigger in the sky, and I have been soaking it up after a winter bundled in 18 layers.

To celebrate, about 25 years ago, the French Ministry of Culture decided to organize a free, outdoor musical extravaganza. It has now spread and is all over the world!

I went with a friend Kitty, and we toured mostly the 5th and 6th arrondisements. We started at the islands [there are two islands in the Seine that house Notre Dame and the count as the epicenter of downtown], had a plastic cup of shared wine on the river quai and then headed on. These arrondisements are the Latin Quarter and St. Germain de Pres, respectively. The Latin Quarter is where all of the universities are, and thus home to a large artsy-frenchy student population. Here we saw a couple of 20-something rockers playing Iron Man [ACDC], some Latin Flava jiving, and a Beatles/Rolling Stones cover band of 50-somethings. Over in the 6th we saw a great Rockabilly 3-piece band; and man am I sucker for the stand-up bass. I love it! They played Johnny Cash and a couple doo-wops.

It was definitely a great experience, even for someone like me who enjoys music, but is definitely not an officionado. It just brings to mind people like my sister, Pamela, and brother-in-law, Kyle, who really are musical officionados - and how much MORE fun it could have been with such cool folks.

All-night Art Festivals [think back to October with Nuit Blanche] and Music Festivals like this one really do strike me as having become a Parisian. [To a degree: I know my way around - I ditched carrying a map in May, but I am not exactly as surly as necessary to fool some Parisians.] But truly, THIS is culture. This is what makes it Paris, and I am so blessed and so grateful for such awesome memories to keep and to share.

Thanks for reading.



http://www.fetedelamusique.culture.fr/site-2010