🚀 go-pugleaf

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</w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable  {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";  mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;  mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;  mso-style-noshow:yes;  mso-style-priority:99;  mso-style-parent:"";  mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;  mso-para-margin-top:0in;  mso-para-margin-right:0in;  mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;  mso-para-margin-left:0in;  line-height:115%;  mso-pagination:widow-orphan;  font-size:11.0pt;  font-family:Calibri;  mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;  mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;  mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;  mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style><![endif]-->   <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve written earlier that there are <a href="http://www.blogger.com/[http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2012/04/something-for-journey.html]:" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fewer and fewer itemsunique to a place</a>; that is, there are fewer items worth bringing back from somewhere that have some connection to it, which can’t either be bought cheaper back at home or that have any real connection with a place.  For instance, I once picked up furlane, the Venetian brocade slippers with soles historically made from old bike tires, on a trip to Italy, but they were from a Gallo shop in Milan, not from Gianni Dittura in Venice.  Americans will also  find that, due to exchange rates and higher sales tax outside the US, most designer items, foreign wines and so on are cheaper at home than abroad. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">A recent magazine article advising tourists in various cities what a dollar would get you reminded me that, contrary to the <i>EuroTrip </i>spree sequence in Bratislava<i>, </i>there are no cheap luxury souvenirs.  The Wedgwood cups at the Heathrow duty-free tout their British heritage but are now made in Indonesia, a lauded Mitteleuropean confection may be tooth-chippingly inedible, the cheap leather jackets in a Florence market may be made in China, and most of the shops selling suspiciously reasonable suiting cloth and cashmere around Regent Street in London are selling either nasty patterns or nasty quality.  <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Thus, those looking for souvenirs in Paris nowadays may find themselves as surprised as the thieves in <i>The Lavender Hill Mob</i> were to discover that souvenir Eiffel Towers were being made in England.  In light of the above, I can quickly tell those looking for a cheap souvenir there to buy a box of verbena (<i>verveine</i>) or linden (<i>tilleul</i>) herbal tea or a bottle of Volvic citron citrus-flavored water.  In the United States, at least, those can’t easily be found, and the tilleul also has the pretention points of being the tea which impregnated the madeleine of Proust’s narrator with unexpected, evocative memories of lost time.  <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To remember another bygone time, I used to relish visiting the tobacconists A la Civette, founded in 1716 and named for the fragrant musk that emanates from the rear end of the civet cat.  I believe civets are actually mustelids from the weasel family rather than felines, but in any event they are present at the shop in the form of its sinuous brass door handles.  I don’t smoke regularly – every few years I buy a few cigars and smoke them until I remember why I don’t smoke more often – but the weekend experience of sauntering to my shirtmaker in Place Vendôme, then down rue de Castiglione to rue Saint-Honoré all the way the base of avenue de l’Opéra to choose a cigar at this shop for the stroll home across the river is itself a fond memory.  Which makes this ashtray, depicting A la Civette’s 18<sup>th</sup>-century storefront, an enjoyable souvenir for me.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">While I suppose I am unduly sentimental about objects that have some meaning to me, I don’t have room for items – souvenirs or not – that I don’t use.  As mentioned above, I don’t smoke often.  However, sellers of decorative ashtrays have seized on the opportunity to cast their objects as valet trays or <i>vide-poches</i>, places to empty your pockets of their essentials and keep them in one place at home.  As such, I’ve found this tray extremely useful to stash wallet, keys, pen and passes at the end of the day in order never to have to search for them the next morning.  Like those sold for much higher prices by Hermès and ST Dupont, this ashtray was made in Limoges and is a nice porcelain with a pretty design.  I believe Rubinacci, which may have aspirations to be the Neapolitan Hermès, has also come out with <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/thingshelllove.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">similarly ornamental ashtrays in Capodimonte porcelain</a>.  This ashtray does work fine for cigars, too: the extremely useful little ST Dupont metal cigar rest brackets can clip on and fit if you can ever find them for a non-insulting price.  The underside of the ashtray displays a short history of A la Civette which notes that in earlier times civet musk was thought to enhance the experience of smoking.  </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Although you can’t smoke there, you can partake of a cup of Kopi Luwak civet cat-processed coffee at the coffee shop Verlet half a block away.  (Indochinese civets eat coffee berries and defecate the beans, a gimmick of the coffee-drinking world like working buttonholes are in the men’s clothing world.) My favorite coffee shop in Paris, it will make you a cup from any of the different varieties of beans it sells.  The cat coffee taste is a bit winey.  But you can try it to complete the experience, for the memories.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: right; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Words and photo by </span>Réginald-Jérôme de Mans</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><!--EndFragment--><div class="feedflare">
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<p><a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ASuitableWardrobe/~3/suuRRPNIehE/souvenirs.html">Link</a>