Time for Chili

PARIS: Saturday, November 17 - I don't have much driving me these days except a desire to keep warm. Friday was wonderful with a temperature of 11 degrees, but between sun up and sundown there wasn't much time to enjoy it because I skipped the morning part, in favor of staying warm.

Dennis called me up and said he was making chili, from a new recipe, in his bathtub. He said he would bring me a jar of it if I was going to the record competition at Paris Accordéon, between Dimitri and the owner, Patrick Quichaud. They had an argument of some sort, maybe about the sound quality of 78-rpm records, and there was to be a playoff.

So there I was last night, waiting for Dennis to show up with the jar of chili.

Paris Accordéon is a neighborhood shop, 'founded 1944,' full of accordions, concertinas, accordion music, CDs, sheet music, photos of accordion stars, and musical knickknacks. Every neighborhood should have an accordion shop. Some of them look like portable jukeboxes.

There was a table set up with Friday night snacks; crackers, peanuts, sausage, chorizo, wine, more wine and spare wine. I had some chorizo to put me in a chili mood. Then Dennis arrived and he didn't seem to be carrying any jar of chili. "Where's Dimitri?" he asked. "Having a cocktail at the Bistro 48?" 

Which he was, because everybody is late, he said.

He put a musette record on his turntable, the newer one, but one with the 78 speed. With a small amp it was loud. Kind of like country jazz, done with accordions, maybe one Martin Cayla recorded in 1929.  Other records followed, very listenable, even while nibbling crackers. More characters showed up and more wine flowed.

Patrick cranked up his record player. It seemed to lack power, possibly because it lacked electricity. But it was fun to watch, and it worked fine. Then Dimitri put some more sides on his machine and there was some dancing. He started to complain that they were making his needle hop and asked if anybody had a level.