Suzanne Vega . . . Close Up In Paris . . .

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If you'd like to try some fine reading matter, and haven't been there already, I can only recommend that you stop by Steve's place, Bloggertropolis. Today he used the word "curmudgeon", and allowed that he is becoming a deeply ingrained curmudgeon. Any blog that uses the word "curmudgeon" is fine in my book. I think I too am becoming a curmudgeon. This morning the first thing la Grenouille told me when I got up was that a truck had backed into my car where it was quietly parked in front of our humble abode, caving in the driver side door, and shattering the window in it. And then drove off. Without so much as a "I beg your pardon". Oh Joy ! Hours to be spent calling the insurance agent, the garage, the police, waiting for the police to come, to ask their questions. No we did not see the truck. Maybe it was a wild boar for all I know. Taking the car to the garage. Going to the police station to finish filling out a written report. Oh glorious day ! Yep, I'm a curmudgeon alright. I think I might have been capable of bludgeoning that barbarian brute of a truck driver with a baseball bat, had the occasion presented itself. But it didn't. So I'll just blog about it in my best curmudgeonly manner. This is what the fractured safety glass of the window looked like this fine morning.
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Our cat Noisette, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less. Perhaps it is better to be a cat than a cur-mudgeon ? She sat stoically meditating over autumn leaves in the yard.
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But cats and curmudgeons are not what I had intended to blog about today at all. I shan't let a boorish barbarian deprive me of a deep, nearly divine pleasure. What I really wanted to share with you all was what we did last night. Which was to get in the car, before it had been so grievously abused, to drive into Paris and go to a show at the Théâtre Marigny, near the Champs Elysées.
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To see a concert in fact . . .
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And who was on the bill last night ? None other than one of my favorite singer songwriters, Suzanne Vega.
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Inside the theatre lobby there were digital screens also announcing her Close Up Tour. Though the screens looked normal to the human eye, to my digital camera something strange happened, and with no post-processing whatsoever, the image looked like it had been through a photoshop magi-mix session with chopped mushrooms on the menu.
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On the next try the black and white screen went pale green. I gave up trying to shoot it after that.
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Suzanne was in dazzlingly fine form last night in Paris. Her voice is clear and strong and liquid, no signs of aging there at all. She was marvellous. And what I really love about Suzanne Vega, other than her fluid voice, tantalizing lyrics, and passionate guitar playing, . . . yes, what I really find utterly charming and disarming about Suzanne . . . are her dimples. She has dimples that animate her face and give lyric expression to what she is singing that simply floor me. Yes, I admit it, I was mesmerized by her dimples. Oh, and the music too.
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She did most every song I could have imagined wanting to hear, old classics like Luka, the Queen & the Soldier, Tom's Diner, Small Blue Thing, Solitude Standing, Calypso, as well as a surprise in Serge Gainsbourg's Bonnie & Clyde, which was well received by the Parisian audience. A few hours of unrivaled pleasure !
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Oh, those dimples ! Especially when she is concentrating hard on the intricacies of her hypnotizing rhythms.
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She was accompanied by a gentleman named Gerry Leonard who performed some guitar magic of his own, perfectly complementing Suzanne's acoustic guitar.
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And the sound man, we mustn't forget the sound man who kept it all perfectly balanced.
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After the show Suzanne very graciously appeared in the theatre lobby and was more than willing to sign autographs and pose for photos with fans. How many musicians in her league do you know that will do that after a show ?
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So I couldn't resist asking her to sign one of our tickets . . .
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She was obviously enjoying talking with fans . . . while hiding a smile dimple behind a strand of hair. Sorry for the slightly green tint, the lobby lights were not giving off white light.
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Shooting photos with no flash in a dark concert hall is more of a challenge than one might think. Even by pushing my Canon camera's ISO setting as high as it would go to 1600, I still amply proved to myself that I have a long way to go toward taking a higher percentage of good photos in such settings, by producing far more thoroughly blurred images than crisp, sharp ones. Even when the spotlights were at their brightest the fastest shutter speeds my camera could muster were between 1/40th and 1/60th of a second, while more often they were at 1/25th or 1/13th. As you know, if such matters are of interest to you, unless you are using a tripod and your subject is holding very still, that is not fast enough to avoid blurring, as your hand cannot hold a camera still enough. So, like any poor artist, which explains why Rolling Stone is not beating down my door to pay for my services, I'll blame my equipment. I need a higher performance camera, with higher possible ISO settings. 3600 would have been better. With a faster lens. Openings of f1.8 would have been welcome. Even with the limited depth of field they offer. But all that is going to have to wait. Guess I'll just have to live with a blurred image or two. Actually, I sort of like this last one. It may be my favorite. Blurred dimples and shining eyes !

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Suzanne, should you ever see this, I'd like to thank you for a magical evening in Paris. And I'm looking forward to hearing Chinese Bones the next time, as you promised.

:-)
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