Everyone I've been to Paris with (nearly) has visited Pippa, a great little bookstore/publisher/art gallery near the Cluny museum. There is a lot of cat-related content, which first drew my attention. But there are beautiful books on many subjects, all independently published. It has been run for 10 years by a marvelous woman who is also a writer, publisher, and humanitarian. Below is a copy of their business card and their Facebook cover page:
There is also a nice article about the store and the owner at https://parisianfields.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/pippa-pouch-and-a-paris-publisher/
(someone else's blog).
I paid a visit in the morning, and the proprietor was busy in a meeting with some writers, downstairs in the gallery area, but she seemed to recognize me from last year (!) (I did buy a drawing last year) and welcomed me to look at the latest art work. I then had a chat with the young woman working there-- she was from Belgium, working there for the summer, and came to Paris to work because of its great literary reputation. I then bought two books-- a loyal customer! I'm pretty sure I will visit again before I leave.
That afternoon, I went to the museum at the Curie institute, which is near my apartment. It has limited hours (Wed-Sat 1-5) but is free. They had an art-related exhibit going on, the poster for which drew my attention, but I found the permanent exhibits more compelling, being a chemist by training.
(The art exhibit was based on an interesting premise: a group of scientists had invited a group of artists to look at a group of scientific images -- DNA sequencing scans, stained cells, etc. -- and to create art inspired by them independent of their scientific content. A good idea, but I wasn't that impressed with the results; I liked the originals better. Nerd alert!)
A section of the permanent exhibit dealt with commercial products that were made containing radioactive substances (including makeup!!!) before people really knew better. (The notes stated that it was primarily a marketing gimmick in the skin products, so the levels were so low as to not be really harmful... still.) One of the products that looked all too familiar, because WE HAVE ONE, is this clock with glow-in-the-dark paint on the hands:
Ours has a cover that goes over the face... and our radon test came out ok, so...
This mahogany, lead-lined box was used to present a gift of one gram of radium to Madame Curie from the U.S. government:
The most striking thing, I thought, was this purple desiccator. A desiccator is used in the lab to keep things dry (as the name suggests), but we never had a purple one in any lab I worked in. (It's actually preferable to be able to see what's inside.) Here, the notes indicated that "the glass became violet as a result of radiation emitted by the radium".
The art exhibit was held in the garden outside, which contained this statue of the Curies:
And finally, here is Madame Curie's office!
I thought I would add on a few things that I've come across and found interesting enough to photograph.
The first two are related. While I am loath to criticize anyone's awkwardness with a non-native language, I found these store names entertaining:
[Updated:] Here are a few more, and they were all taken within a few blocks of each other. Apparently this area is where you go for bags, and as long as the word is somewhere in the name of the store, you're good.
Here is a colorful and interesting seafood display at an outdoor market:
and a cute doggy sign! ("I'm standing guard", essentially.)
I've taken a fair number of flower pictures too, at the Jardin de Luxembourg and the Jardin des Plantes, but I will save those for later.
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