Evening with Nazanin

November 23rd, 2017

Last Friday evening, I went out with my friend Nazanin Moghbeli.  She is a cardiologist in Philadelphia, but she is in Paris this year because her husband, an academic physician, is here on sabbatical for the year.  (They have three children, Roya, Cyrus, and Ryan, all of whom are with them in Paris.  Roya is in adaptation with Kate, and they have become fast friends this year.)  Nazanin is taking the year off of practicing medicine and has spent a lot of time rediscovering her interest in art.  (She has not only been making the rounds of Paris museums, she also maintains a studio here.)  She suggested, then, that we could go see the current exhibit at Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art museum.  

Before going to the museum, we met at a small Italian restaurant near there, Ancora Tu.  We shared an antipasti platter with grilled vegetables, fresh mozzarella, and speck.  We both had pasta for our main course---I got the gnocchi with Gorgonzola and spinach.  We had the chocolate cake for dessert.  The restaurant was lovely, and the food was quite nice.  The gnocchi, in particular, were delicious, as soft and light as a feather pillow.  

As we were walking through the neighborhood after dinner towards the museum, I remarked on how dominating the Eiffel Tower is from this part of town---you are walking down the street and turn the corner, and there it is, surprisingly large and beautifully bright and sparkling at night.  It just kept happening over and over that it would pop up when I was not expecting it.  (We can see a tiny little version of the Eiffel Tower from some places in our neighborhood and from Glenn's office window.  It is very far away and not at all imposing, though.) 

The Palais de Tokyo is actually open until midnight, so we had plenty of time after dinner before closing.  (Art museums open until midnight is an excellent idea, I think.)  We had a lovely time there.  The exhibit was structured around days of the week, where each room, filled with disparate elements, some of which were clearly art and some of which were not, represented a day.  It was inscrutable, but a lot of fun, nonetheless.  One of the rooms had a large number of the artist's earnest responses to mass advertising and spam emails she had received.  Some of the responses were philosophical.  Some were more formal in tone.  Some truly heartfelt.  All hilarious.  One of my favorites was the patient description of her lack of other options for transportation on a particular evening in response to Uber's form email thanking her for using Uber.  Or her diatribe against gendered expectations of beauty in response to her Groupon for body waxing.

We also saw some very nice sculpture, and we both agreed that the museum and the display space itself was dramatic and interesting.  And the museum shop was great.  I think I need to make another trip back just to go to the museum shop.