my workspace in cussy-la-colonne------------------------>
above: view of the next house down from me in Cussy
FRANKISHI’m not exactly psyched to leave this place—it’s peaceful, about 8 deg. cooler than Paris, clean and simple. But, my work here is done for now. I have 4 new songs to show for it, one of the recordings I think is so peculiar and vibe-y that I may just put it on my next record as it is. I went for a final walk in the countryside last night at twilight, the perfect time to be out in the misty fields. I went thru a fence break and walked across the grass, rolling away from me in every direction. I made my way to a line of trees and took in birdsong and the bizarre colors of the place at this time of year. I keep thinking that Syd Barrett would have done a photo session here and it would come pre-psychedelically colored: the dark pink of the sky, the explosive green of the grass, the blackness of the silhouetted trees, still leafless in the cool of April.
A strange phenomenon that I noticed on several occasions walking back up the hill towards the village is that I encountered alternating breezes, some brisk and fresh, and some oddly warm, like the
Chinook wind, but always gentle. It was a truly odd sensation. I didn’t see any unusual wildlife but of course the birds are constantly twittering and flickering everywhere you go. Yesterday I saw two
European goldfinches, called
chardonneret in French, which aren’t really very golden but they sure are purty. As happens every night—the streetlights go out at midnight; on cue, a number of animals start to make noise. The squeaks of bats are constant, and there were some other avian noises I couldn’t identify, but it really it like a tiny jungle out here in the campagne.
Most days I would get up around 8 or 9, and head down to put on coffee and shower. Frederic, Didier’s wife, had left some
confiture de cerises for me in the pantry, which was happily consumed. I would work a bit until the afternoon lunch break; work another hour and half 'til a mid afternoon email break.http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif I found I could get wifi by opening the second floor window—the second floor was where the music studio was; the ground floor is kitchen and bathroom; the third floor was the loft with bedrooms. This worked well, except for the fact that during the daytime, emailing was often interrupted by lost or curious bees. One day, outside a closed window, I saw the legendary
European hornet, called a
frelon. It was almost as big as a Chapstick.
My roommates here in the house also included some spectacularly oversized arachnids (at least I thought they were real!!)—the biggest I saw was hanging out on the bathroom door, when I took a pee break late last night watching the ‘original’ (quotes inserted by request of the estate of Bram Stoker, who successfully sued to have the film taken out of theatres) version of
Nosferatu—his/her timing couldn’t have been more astutely chosen. It was a wolf spider I suppose, with the legs it was almost as big across as a pocket watch.
On Thursday, Didier and I took a road trip along the ‘
Route des Grand Crus’ (which I surmised could be shortened to the ‘Grand Cru-ise’ warf warf) thru the legendary domaines of Bourgogne.
The first stop was Montrachet, which straddles one slope of a hill called, not surprisingly, Mont Rachet.
I stood at the patch of wine-snob terra sacra that is called
Chevalier-Montrachet (the gate at the top actually says
Chevaliers-Montrachet), and looked down on the regular
clos Montrachet and
Batard-Montrachet. You can read the mythology of these names online. What is shocking is how tiny these patches are; it’s just an oversize garden, Le
Chevalier.
It’s amazing anyone can get these bottles at all. The be-all-end-all Domaine,
Domaine D’Auvenay, is something like €700/bottle
if you can find it. I’ve never seen it. The individual patches of each Domaine inside the larger appellation are not marked. I am not sure how Bouchard and Auvenay tell whose grapes are whose. Hmmm. Later in the day we went to the estate
d’Auvenay. It’s a gorgeous little farm on a country highway quite a ways from Montrachet. The gate was locked, not a soul was present. Not much going on at this point, Chevaliers for example was completely untended.
A few other workers were out in other vineyards, but really it’s just sit and wait I suppose—the vines are barely visible at this stage, just a few leaves on a tiny seedling coming out of the old trunk. There were a few
corbeaux (ravens) guarding.
Above the
Chevaliers clos, Mont Rachet is just a scrubby bit of wilderness. I hiked up pretty high and the view of Puligny-Montrachet and the surrounding vineyards was fantastic—most of the area is flat, so you can see for miles and miles. There is a trail that goes to Beaune—like 12 miles away. Two uniformed school girls or girl scouts came walking up the hill and passed me, disappearing into the brush, I think they were kind of like girl scouts.
We drove on, thru Meursault, Pommard, etc. We stopped in Beaune and looked around. Beaune is a mix of charm, money and tourists. Evidently one of the most popular tourist spots in France, not sure why tho'. There’s no beach. The center is tiny. It must be for wine…has the world really become that oenocentric? I hope not—it just drives the prices up…hey, let’s make a new snob fad…onyx, or baskets or some crap I don’t care about. After Beaune, we stopped at Vosne-Romanee, not quite ugly as described by ………… but not the most handsome village. I don’t know where the Illuminati of Romanee-Conti hide, but they weren’t apparent today. Nobody seemed in the village at all, in fact. Afterwards we stopped in St. Romain, which is surrounded by incredible cliffs—there was a little music venue/restaurant atop of one that looks down on the entire village from about 800 feet up—until it was discovered that no building permit had ever been asked for or granted for building a place two meters from a cliff face.
I didn’t do any tasting—it’s not quite like Napa—and that suits me fine. The less user friendly, the fewer tourists. Didier kindly surprised me with a bottle of Montrachet while I snooped in a shop in Beaune. We saw a bird smashed on a car’s grill, looking rather similar in mortal repose to the
archaeopteryx fossil famously found in a German quarry.
I spent this morning packing up and cleaning the place. Lunch was some oreilles de cochon and a…beer—I never drink the stuff but it seemed like Sunday afternoon in France thing to do. Plus, in
Cockney Rhyming Slang, pig’s ears are beers.
OK, I have time to throw some photos in this blog and post it; Laurent isn’t due here for a couple more hours.
Love
KS
Cussy-la-Colonne FRANCE
