Saturday, May 16, 2009

Apres Marche Reading





It was a treat to be back in Corona del Mar market today, after 2 weekends of early days in LA. Today I did all blue and green on the front; net bags and baskets, and two cache pots of blue hydrangeas to set it all off. I would have taken more photos if it had been sunnier....It was nice to have a few surprise visits from friends and green-associates too!

I got home with a few produce items from the market, as well as some of my favorite fresh lemon-spinach ravioli from "Kelly the pasta lady." It's a little grey today, so I don't feel guilty about having a little down time and getting home "early" at 2:30.

If I have down-time or vege-time, it's often spent with a good book. I used to buy books constantly, in New York and Paris, new or used or very used; Rizzoli on 57th and the bookstore at the Louvre are favorite places to shop or just browse. Now every shelf I have is full, so I shop more carefully. I used to buy old French magazines (Maison et Jardin helped me learn French!) or World of Interiors' issues on 6th Avenue in the Village, from the street vendors who also sold incense (still have all those magazines and refer to them). I kept my syllabi from the Ecole du Louvre and I slowly track the books down since some of them are out of print or hard to find. From time to time I buy chez FNAC in Paris or online; it's expensive, but the only place to go if you're looking to complete your collection of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, for example, which could only be read in original French and comes in beautiful small blue linen bound books; exquisite! I'll have to do a post on the French and their books one of these days. Now I like to look for decor and style titles at Juxtaposition, Rogers Gardens and Anthropologie, and online at 1stDibs' Required Reading; I like to read just about anything except fiction (yuck!). But when I buy, the first place I look is Alibris, for used books. I used to like to shop at Strand in NY, which was new and used, and I still love to find new books at a discount to list.

Today I bought a book I've been meaning to buy, Nicole de Mazery's French Interiors. It has a fine collection of photos, including a beautiful series of photos of Hubert de Givenchy's chateau; I have photos of it in a French book entirely devoted to Givenchy, but this is the first time I've seen some of these photos in the US. I have a few of Nicole's titles already, and in French; if I have my choice I will always buy a book in French over English if the subject matter is French; in this case I'll buy in English and check it out later in France. I always come home from France with several coffee table books.

I am still looking for photos of Christian Lacroix's new home, or is it a chateau? There was a brief article in the New York Times about it a while ago, with Lacroix sitting on the sofa with his mother and his Parson Russell terriers. The canape was covered in a rich leopard velvet, and behind the sofa was a table with several fabulous taxidermy leopards, surely from Deyrolles. It was entirely fabulous and entirely French!

This evening I have to go see Erin to go over instructions for Brentwood and give her a few supplies; tomorrow I will be in Palisades for my first time, so we'll be out the door before 6am.

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