In the months since my last missive, I’ve been settling into the new apartment and the new neighborhood, getting everything set up, figuring out my favorite shops, cafes, my metro routes. My cat Gertrude loves to perch on one of the five mantels or on the balcony overlooking the street or go galloping down the long hallway connecting the front of the apartment to the bedrooms that my friend Joey had dubbed The Bowling Alley.

And it turns out the new neighborhood is quite a bit more lively than the old one. I discovered one morning at 4 am (don’t ask why was up that early) that the cafe across the square from my apartment was not just open but buzzing. I checked their hours on Google Maps, and it turns out they’re open 24/7/365. Good to know in a pinch. Fortunately my bedroom is in the back, away from the hubbub.

In between all of that, there have been, um, a few trips — to the Dordogne for a queer writing retreat, to London to see theater and art, to the French Basque country for a spiritual retreat, to Sete on the Mediterranean coast, to the US to see family and friends, and to Denmark with friends because it’s almost legally required to vacate Paris in August.

(Photo credits for the last five photos: Kris Martin, Sara Gorr, Randy Schwartz-Diaz, Randy Schwartz-Diaz, and Dawn Niederhauser. Oh yeah, and the rainbow bagel photo is courtesy Dani DiPietro.)

And in between all of that, more hikes outside of Paris and more art exhibitions. Speaking of which, this past Saturday, Dani and I went to one at the Musee du Jeu de Paume called “The World According to AI.” Which was very cool. Everything from AI-generated portraits to AI-generated poetry to AI-generated films to AI-generated botanicals photos of plants that don’t exist.

One of the things about art exhibitions in Paris — they don’t exist in a vacuum, they are talking to exhibitions past and possibly also exhibitions future.

Because the Jeu de Paume exhibition made me think of other exhibitions I’ve seen in Paris, such as one at the Grand Palais from 2018 titled “Artists and Robots,” about robots designed to create art and artworks that incorporated robots.

The first two photos below are drawings by a robot of (if I remember correctly) a taxidermied fox and a bird of some sort. It was fascinating to watch the thing work — I wish I’d gotten a photo of the whole apparatus. Then Dwain going deep into the Matrix. And finally virtual flies buzzing around to replicate the image of me and Dwain being captured by a video camera.

And then it also reminded me of another from 2019 called “Computer Grrrls,” a feminist exploration of art and technology, at the Gaîté Lyrique. Ranging from the history of women in computing (going back to its earliest beginnings), to digital artwork by women artists, to women artists using technology to imagine more positive futures, to women artists’ critiques of technology. Quite a range and often quite funny and surprising as well.

And then there was another exhibition around art and technology at the Gaité Lyrique before that. And now Dani and I are planning to check out a new exhibition at the Centquatre next month called “Illusions Found: New Utopias in the Digital Era” (https://www.104.fr/fiche-evenement/les-illusions-retrouvees.html). Looks amazing and can’t wait to see it!