Hi Ad,

Great report.

>Bueys’s was a piano with elephant feet ....

Gives new meaning to the phrase, "She has legs like a piano".

((I))

Maybe he is planning to do bowling pins next.

Brilliant report.
I love it.
Fodors could never have a writing competition - there are so many good ones here. This writer is able to evoke so much in what seems like a simple phrase.

Thank you, you are all very kind.

Aduchamp, I like your style !
Very amusing trip report. Keep it up.

M

I've just copied and filed your Jasper Johns quote. Love it and your descriptions/comments on the art at the Pompidou. J.

Louvre

We have all seen those zombie movies where the zombies walk en masse, with an arm extended, dragging a foot, eyeball dangling, and dressed in tatters seeking their next victim. This is the scene at Louvre but the walking dead mumble “Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa” as they limp without distraction toward Leonardo’s masterpiece. The sole difference being the extended arm has a digital point and shoot attached at the fingertips. Since I am the last living human yet to see or read “The Da Vinci Code” I am at disadvantage to understand the charm of the painting beyond the painting. I know it has something to do with the unusual trio of Opus Dei, Mary Magdalene, and Tom Hanks.

A friend of a friend who lives in Paris was kind enough to accompany me to lunch and share some of her vast knowledge of the City and the museum. We went to Bistrot Vivienne at 4 rue Des Petit Champs near the Palais Royal. I had the duck which was done to a turn accompanied by mashed potatoes with truffles and a spectacular bourbon sauce. (I assume it was a bourbon sauce, since I do not think there was ever the reign of Jim Beam in France.) On top of her recommendation, I add mine. She showed me a covered gallery that was built in the 1820’s as a shopping area to protect Parisians against the mud and the horse crap of the streets outside. The arched arcades with glass ceiling allow the light in to touch the small adornments and wide windows of the shops. There were once 120 of these galleries in Paris and now only 12 exist. The rest have been restored as malls near suburban Minneapolis.

We head for the Louvre. She could see my disdain for I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid. She explains there were a few reasons for his decision. There is an Egyptian obelisk from the Napoleon campaigns nearby so a pyramid is offers archaeological symmetry and the design allows for light to brighten the entrance for the museum. I always think of 20th century pyramids as manifestations of New Age thinking which like all things become Middle Aged with a glass equivalent of a paunch and unwanted wrinkles. But I.M. Pei is a genius and I have to pay to get in.

The entrance to the Louvre is a wide expanse filled with the frenetic energy of a train terminal at rush hour. The museum itself it is a reminder of the excess that led to the Revolution. This, the greatest repository of art in the world, gallery after gallery, floor after floor so crowded with extraordinary works that they almost touch one another, leaves little time for reflection or enjoyment. The idea is to overwhelm not consider.

The quality and quantity of the Egyptian collection, the Greek and Roman antiquities, and the French classical artists are extraordinary. I photograph the still vibrantly colored terre cotta ceramics of Della Robbia. I forget to visit the Code of Hammurabi.

On the way to the Metro there is a concourse of modern stores. I drown my troubles with milk and dark chocolate bars from Maison du Chocolate. Darker is better.

The following framed post card resides on my desk (the Jasper Johns quote is on my bulletin board) and fortunately or unfortunately reflect some of my reactions:
http://www.marcelduchamp.net/L.H.O.O.Q.php

(CHUCKLES) :)

Tres amusant !

To people who find the pyramid inappropriate (very few people do these days), I have always asked what they think should have been put there instead. A little fake Roman temple? A rococco miniature copy of the Garnier opera? A glistening black cube? Nobody has ever been able to tell me what they would have put there instead.

Just the way flying butresses support walls for large stain glass windows, I assume modern architectural techniques would allow for a brick edifice to allow massive amounts in. The brick edifice would be jarring as the pyramid with regard to its surroundings.

Day Whatever It Is

My sister-in-law is well traveled in Italy and Spain but has never been to France. For reasons known only to her, she holds stereotypes of Paris somewhere between a Gene Kelly and Jerry Lewis movie, with Edith Piaf thrown in. I was unsure where to eat near Ste. Germaine. I wanted to go to Le Procope and since I hadn’t been there since 1972, I wanted to ask for my regular table but it was too expensive for a joke that only I would get. But then I found a restaurant that justified my sister in law’s stereotypes, Café Thug.

The waiter looked like one of those thugs from a 1950’s film with a full head of black hair and a five o’clock shadow that appeared as soon as finished shaving. The type that started smoking right after his first bottle. He waved at every other thug that passed down this side street. True to the Thug code, they waved back. No matter how bad the food, I was not sending it back.

The food was just a shade above the law. The onion soup was missing things like onions and instead of gruyere on top there were two little floating scorched pieces of bread, mismatched breasts if you will. The minute steak was 30 seconds past due and the crème brulee was as dense as the owner.

From there I started my self-guided literary tour.

Oddly enough my first stop was an art atelier where Picasso painted Guernica (7, rue de Grands Augustins), the grotesque rendering of the bombing of that town during the Spanish Civil War. An apocryphal tale surrounds that painting. A German soldier walked into the studio and asked Picasso if he did that. Supposedly Picasso responded, “No you did.”

Next was a restaurant now called Azabu (3 rue Daphne) where George Sand, Flaubert, and Turgenev gathered for dinner and cigars. Unfortunately whenever I now think of Flaubert, I think of the brilliant book by Julian Barnes Flaubert’s Parrot. Part of the work is about obsessions, one of which was finding the stuffed parrot that Flaubert once kept on his desk. This worries me. My tour is about the facades of buildings, many of which have been razed, rather than the interiors where they wrote, eat, drank, and worse. What is my obsession?

The next site was something from Baudelaire. I have never read Baudelaire, why would I want to see his building? And with my sense of direction it is taking me twenty minutes to find a building next to one another. So I detoured to the Seine to change the itinerary. Besides I am reading Pere Goriot by Balzac which is a true insight in 1830’s Paris. It speaks of a middle class boarding house and other social conventions.

Almost immediately I pass the Hotel de Voltaire where Baudelaire lived, as did one of my favorite wits, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wagner who played Mendelssohn with gloves on so his fingers would not touch the music of a Jew.

I cross the Seine into the Tuileries and I was told that I must purchase tickets for L’Orangerie at the FNAC on the Champs. I pass the Place de Concorde where there is a statue of Louise Colet with whom Flaubert had a tumultuous relationship.

Walking the Champs, I decided not go to the parade on Bastille Day. There were metal barriers yards away from the center of the street. I would have to get there by 8 AM for a parade that did not start until after 10 and the Metro along the boulevards was closed that day for security reasons. As you walk through Paris, you hear many languages but on the Champs I heard the distinct Valley Girl dialect. That sing song yeah that is now being used at Gitmo instead of water boarding. But I wonder if there is Loire Valley accent that drives the French insane? When I finally arrive at FNAC, I am told there are no available tickets until after I leave Paris. A conspiracy.

That evening I return to the Marais for the world’s best falafel and lemonade. This part of Paris is dominated by Sephardim, which are Jews more or less from Spain and the Mediterranean. Ashkenazi Jews are from Eastern Europe, knishes, bagels-Sephardim falafel, schwarma. Since I do not eat falafel often, it was the best I ever had and only waited 10 minutes. The pita was filled falafel and cabbage, cucumber, eggplant, and other veggies. (No onions.) The lemonade was fine, I am not prepared at this time to say world’s best.

On the way back to the hotel I pass rue de Buci where Verlaine once lived and Place des Vosges where at various times Victor Hugo and Georges Simenon resided. (Did you know that Simenon wrote by lining up hundreds of pencils and as one became blunt he would throw it aside and pick up another one until he completed the work which he tried to do in one sitting without sleep.)

That sounds like the way I write trip reports.

More thoughts on the pyramid. If I were an architect I would see what other materials are permeable for light. It would also be interesting to have a Chartres blue on some panels which would cast an interesting glow. It is after all a grand museum not only dedicated to light but color, composition, and perspective.

And I would have put protected artifacts in the main entrance so it does not look like a train station. And the artifats would also be meeting points as well.

Hi A,

> She could see my disdain for I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid.<

A man after my own heart.
................................
K writes,

>Nobody has ever been able to tell me what they would have put there instead.<

Sometimes, doing nothing is the best course.
..............................
Great report, A.

So, how many minutes did it take you to do the Louvre?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011801620.html

My personal best is 10 min 14 sec.

((I))

Dear I

You personal best may still prevail as a world's best. I could not even get in and out of the door in that time.

Final Installment

My friends get angry with me because I prefer dead authors over live ones. I guess death is like a Consumers Report, the reviews are complete for the most part. In keeping with the activities of the dead I visit the cemetery at Montparnesse.
When we went to Prague, I carried a huge rubber bug and put it on the tombstone of Franz Kafka for a photo. I had many ideas for Man Ray and Samuel Beckett, but they were not convenient. For Man Ray I needed a naked woman with a bass violin painted on her back to sit on the tombstone. For Beckett, I wanted an old boot. But for different reasons neither would fit in my suitcase.
When I arrived at the cemetery of Montparnasse, I found the official map to be useless and the place poorly marked. I could not find Man Ray, for example, who was sandwiched among with many other graves. If were not for some other American tourists who saw my bewilderment and asked if I was looking for Man Ray, I would still be fumbling about. I just put a package of lens cleaner on his tombstone for a photo and for Beckett a handwritten note-Act II.
I looked for the grave of Alfred Dreyfus, but it could not be found. There were few visitors in any part of the cemetery but a French woman who speak a bit of English and I looked for him without luck. There was, however, a gravesite that said, it was available, where Dreyfus was supposed to be. I read some time ago the grave site was disguised a bit in fear of consecration. But I can barely order in French, let alone explain and defend such a position. So she thought I was just another idiot when I suggested that he was buried there despite the “For Sale” sign.
I walked the Montparnasse area including the Luxembourg Garden a grand and well traversed tiered park. There were very few places open for lunch until I reached Boulevard Montparnasse where I found a Chinese restaurant. I had lemon chicken, and just the way I like it, extremely tart, otherwise it was very New York.
I went back to the Marais that evening, where I found a Jewish wedding in the Place de Vosges and in near rue des Rosiers, Orthodox Jews trying to convince other Jews to prey wearing tefillin. Teffilin are black leather boxes with straps that contain portions from the Torah. They are also called phylacteries. All in the midst of the falafel wars.
The following day was Bastille Day. I knew the main activity was on the Champs Elysee but I walked to the Place de Bastille where absolutely nothing was going on except the usual flow of traffic. Even the McDonald’s was quiet. I did, however, watch some of the big parade on TV. There was Sarkozy, with a general standing in a jeep and waving. There were brigades of troops and other oddly dressed Frenchmen waving swords and engaging in other activities of deference.
The United States is the most aggressive military nation in the world and our parades have floats with cartoon characters, bands playing unidentifiable tunes, and young woman in what amounts to bathing suits throwing metal sticks in the air, but no tanks, missiles, or masses of troops. The French long a second rate military power have
flying paratroopers, tanks, and kepis. I guess whenever the US becomes a second rate military power we can expect the Watermelon Queen and the Mickey float to be replaced with our most advanced and prized ancient weaponry.
I took the Metro to Sacre Couer. Parisians travel with their dogs. There are not service dogs but their pets. It seems Parisians are more tolerant of dog and their leavings than poorly spoken French. If they are so close to their dog, the dog should pay and have the dog put the ticket through the turnstile.
This was the first time I visited Sacre Couer and the Pigalle. The tourists pour out of the Metro and buses like a rat hole being exterminated. There were three card monte games near the church. In NYC a three card monte game involves at least 5 conspirators, the dealer, a shill, a least one pick pocket, and two look outs. They did not need a shill; the huge crowds were filled with potential suckers.
I then walked up the Boulevard de Rouchechuart. More impressive than the amount of sex shops are all the people that support block after block of sex shops. Even in the hay day of Times Square we could only support a few blocks of that stuff.
My final day was spent gathering gifts at Fauchon and chocolate shops. I must have remembered a different Fauchon. There were limited offerings and no ortolans or other exotic foods. I purchased chocolate at Jardis a famous shop. It was quite good but not the best I have eaten.
I saved my splurge meal for my last supper. It was at Temps au Temps. I had a carefully prepared chicken breast in its own juice and butter on a nest of the most delicious carrots and lettuce. For dessert I had a gateau of chocolate with a touch of banana ice cream. A very nice finish to my trip to Paris.

Details
I stayed at the Best Western Marais Bastille on Boulevard Richard Lenoir. The staff was extremely kind and attentive. The room’s only window was on airshaft but the bathroom for the price large. 100 Euros for the room and 13 Euros for a breakfast which includes bread from Poilane’s. There is a Metro stop a block away and the Bastille stop about a five minute walk.

I flew Vueling from Paris to Santiago de Compostela. CDG is an unmarked madness where a traveler is supposed to know by osmosis where and when to go the proper places. The flight was an hour late with no explanation and no signs. They “lost” my bag in Santiago, since no one told me it was at the ticket counter rather than the baggage claim.

I have an account with an international bank and took money out of the magic wall without any problem. I did, however, call when in the United States to inform them of my trip.

I want to read this over the weekend!

After NYC to Paris by train, maybe you are ready for London to NYC by bus: http://www.oz-bus.com/itinerary-ny.html

Hi A,

>Dear I

You personal best may still prevail as a world's best. I could not even get in and out of the door in that time.<

According to Art Buchwald, the World's Record is held by Peter Stone, who did it in five minutes and 56 seconds.

I've enjoyed your report.

One minor note, "Teffilin are black leather boxes with straps that contain portions from the Torah".

The portions from the Torah are in the boxes, not the straps. :)

((I))

Ira is correct my grammar is incorrect.

I will be in London for one afternoon on the way home and will consider the bus as an alterbarive.

Great trip report Aduchamp.