Octaves: A Paris Labyrinth

In Montparnasse between the wars Kiki Queen of Montparnasse danced and sang; Prévert created Baptiste there; Desnos travelled astrally then woke to harvest the crop; painters - Kisling Pascin Foujita Modigliani Derain and others - laboured and partied there; Bronia came from Holland destined to meet Radiguet Cocteaus Boy Wonder; later she would marry René Clair; Satie opened umbrellas there always hoping for rain. There are triumphs infatuations liaisons marriages deaths. As the Carousel of Montparnasse turns John Watson deftly notes its music - like Anton Walbrook in La Ronde or Jean Renoir in Les Enfants du Paradis. The octave at once same and different like a waterfall suggests the verse form as unvarying as Ravels Bolero and orchestrated in two thousand tetrameters