MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Last fall while 8 months pregnant, I got a call from a friend who works with Woody Allen's editors. They were looking for French accordion music for his latest film, Midnight In Paris, and knew my friend had an accordionist friend in Paris....moi. So she put us in touch. When they asked me if I had any recorded music in this genre I promptly said "Totally. I have tons."

CUT TO: FRANTIC PHONE CALL TO FB

ME: Come home right now.
FB: Why? Is everything ok?
ME: Yeah yeah, the baby is fine. I just need you to lift my accordion onto me and set up my studio.
FB: Why?
ME: BECAUSE I JUST TOLD WOODY ALLEN'S EDITORS THAT I HAVE TONS OF FRENCH ACCORDION MUSIC AND I NEED TO WRITE AND RECORD SOME RIGHT NOW, AS IN RIGHT NOW THIS VERY SECOND. I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I CAN PHYSICALLY PLAY THE ACCORDION ON MY BELLY SO I NEED YOU TO COME HOME RIGHT NOW. EMERGENCY.
FB: What? Woody Allen? How did that....
ME: I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR QUESTIONS! JUST. COME. HOME. Oh, and pick up some duct tape.

A few hours later teetering in a semi-reclined position with FB's help and some creativity duct taping a 50 lb. accordion onto me, I pulled myself together, went to my quiet place and said "YOU GOT THIS. YOU'RE GETTING IN THAT MOVIE. RIGHT NOW." To my unborn child I explained, "Look pal, I'm about to play accordion basically on your face soooo....I'm not sure if you'll like this or not but this is who I am and I gotta get this job and this is what trying harder means so you'll just have to sit tight in there and enjoy the new sounds....cause it's gonna be loud."

And with that, I spent the next weeks in a constant stream of hobbling in and out of my accordion, writing and sending songs, revising others, pitching new ones. Every time I played, the baby would kick like crazy inside, putting me in a constant state of burping. Play, kick, burp, play, kick, burp. In the end, Mr. Allen asked me to cover the French classic "Parlez Moi d'Amour". Three versions later, I got the email at midnight.....my piano and accordion version is in the final cut featured under the romantic scenes.

I stood up, one pregnant transplant New Yorker, went to my window, leaned out far enough to see the Eiffel Tower and just smiled and rubbed my belly. It seemed the perfect culmination of my time in Paris. Sometimes life makes a perfect sweet circle. Today I can say I am in the opening film at Cannes.
Score. :)

BYE BYE 75

It's official.

Tomorrow we are moving out of central Paris. No more Eiffel tower and no more Louvre.



We are moving into the banlieue of Montreuil, just east of Paris. Moving out of a 6th floor walk up/tiny one bedroom apartment and into a house with room to throw concerts and parties in. Something feels momentous about moving out of the middle of the city and into the fringe. FB is on an overnight trip to get our things out of storage tonight and I'm sitting in the dark in a near empty apartment drinking a beer next to my two month old sleeping son and feeling sentimental. I took him on a walk today to say goodbye to an arrondissement he will never remember and I was filled with contradictory feelings. On one hand, I feel burned by this area. The lightning speed and intense colors of my life in New York has been replaced with the slow burn of an elusive Parisian candle. Friends have come and gone here and in my solitude I haven't yet found the equivalent of the fiery humor and tree trunk solid of my NY circle. I know it's here somewhere, hidden like the garden my window looks out onto, the garden where nobody has gone in the two and a half years I have been staring at it.




We walked today, my son strapped to my front looking at the world with fresh eyes and me having a big think. As we passed by the infamous taxi stand where two sets of people stole a cab from me while I was in labor in the middle of a snowstorm, I got enraged all over again and thought that most of all, I will not miss the lack of community in this area and the general frosty and negative attitude. BUT....I WILL miss walking a block to the Seine river, the beauty of my surroundings, my boucher and cheeseman but most of all, my dearly beloved and worshipped Eric Kayser bakery, also known as the best bakery in the entire universe and beyond. It's currently donut season there so I ate 12 of them yesterday in honor of my departure....

Au revoir little apartment in the sky on the left bank.
You were kind to me and a lot of music came out of these walls.
As I move onto my next Parisian adventure, I will always remember my time here with a smile...