Thursday.
Got up early! Almost the same time as the workers next door.
Had croissant from Fouchon.
Went to meet group for walk of the St. Germain Des Prais quarter.
Aliz is queasy. Find pharmacy. Pantomime upset stomach – voila, maalox!
Hurray!
Met with group
Walking and talking
Lunch
To Germaine des pres
No show we want to really see
English bookstore. $$$ ouch!
On walk home hit Fauchon again.
Tres biens.
Hot hot hot weather.
Arrive home to nap, etc.
It starts to rain, pour, hail.
Still raining.
Lucky we have stopped at fauchon.
Dinner was lovely,
Hors derves
Chicken and beans,
Cheese and fruit course,
Chocolate biscuit
2 kinds of wine, water.
The rain has stopped and the city is cool, calm, recovering from the heat, and the hail. The building across the street from us is mostly glass. It seems they have a large crack!
The sun is setting, finally, it is after 10pm, and just beginning to change. I can see the color beginning to paint it’s way softly across the sky, as I sit at the desk looking out the window. So for now, gentle reader, au revoir!
Friday
I got up early, cross referenced all our guides on food and put stars in our new book of the ones we had recommendations from other sources. A bit obsessive, well yes, but I am not in France to eat mediocre food.
Walked to amex office, behind opera,
Found the perfume museum, packed with people – it’s free
Went into the gift shop, too smelly.
Back to our errands.
Walked towards the Pompidou, on our way found a sandwich place - with a line out the door. Bought very nice sandwiches, ate them in the park near les halles with a lovely perfectly ripe peach.
Found the internet place that takes our drive – uploaded the blog,
Walked further
Long white skirts. Terry would like for me to have one.
On sale all around us.
Walked over the canal, found the professional camera store.
Film is still super expensive here! $9.00 a roll for 120 – at home it’s 2.5, and about 5.5 for 35mm. Even here they venerate the name B&H and our lovely salesman, Alex, hopes to journey there one day.
Had a cherry ice cream in the place des voyages
Lovely!
Walked to the Pompidue, open till 10pm – yeah!!!
Tickets for the Africa remixed show!
Took escalator to the top floor – nice view of Paris, but the tubes are tres!!! Hot and stuffy! Major design flaw. Sat in the café on the 6th floor, had espressos – looked out over the city. Very nice, lovely! Apparently a good place to see the sun set – if it’s setting before 11pm!
Africa remixed is pretty fab. Quite varied – some artists we know and love – some new artists. Some are excellent, some are fine – or perhapse just not to my taste.
Walked to Willy’s wine bar.
Excellent food. Maybe the best we have had.
Came home – sleep.
Saturday
Melons – French melons
Sunday
Rodin musee
Strolled along the Blvd st germain
Got a Duke update from both rob and Bina He seems happy to be going to work with Bina and Rob found a nice yard/park for him to play in right behind their Apt.
Had a beer next to the Sorbonne
Dinner at a Moules Frites place that had great Belgian beer but the frites were really british chips
Its Monday and I think I am ready for some out of the city time. Perhaps Versailles but really I am ready for our south of France adventure to begin. It is so hot in the city and the 10-15 hour a day marchof beauty is getting exhausting. We would never try to do so much in a day or even a week in NYC.
Monday
Shopping!
Too busy,, too $$$, We don’t like department stores in the US wonder what made us think we would here?
Lunch,
Went to a Pharmacy and got codeine for cramps and back ache
Found small antique camera place with many stereo viewers available.
Walked, bought fancy foods at terroir place
Came home
Napped
Batman!
Yeah very good.
Sephora
Dinner! At sommelier place around the corner. We were toolate for the 5 course tasting menu with matching wines so we had their regular menu. It was great really an amazing meal. Wow what a meal I had the rabbit and an OX cheek for starter, Aliz had the mussels starter and red tuna for dinner. Great cheese course with matched wine by the charming sommelier. Great desserts with again a mystery pairing wine. This is why I came to France, to eat like we can’t even in NY. Maybe the French Laundry guy could top it but I think it would just be different, not better. We are going back on Thursday night before we leave forhe south. I need to remember to get the name of the dinner wine we had.
We decided to get a wine decanter here, with funnel etc. for a souvenir.
Tuesday
Anniversary!
Got up late.
Very hot!
To Eiffel tower we go.
Picnic on the grounds after buying supplies at rue cler
Then to dinner?
So full from last night I’m still not really hungry.
Wenesday
Versailles
A perfect day for it
Aliz did the tour and I went straight to the gardens and shot both tourists and the gardens themselves
We got bikes and the weather couldn’t have been better for biking around
Discovered Marie Antoinette’s faux village and went photo crazy
Performance, Race, class, gender, picturesque, and sublime at the garden of Versailles.
Yesterday we went to Versailles and I re-discovered the play ground of Marie Antoinette. It is a simulacra within a simulacra. It fits so well with what I am doing in the studio that I freaked and shot tons of film, 120 B&W pinholes and 35 mm color pinholes. MA had a fake medieval village built in the remotest part of Versailles so she could play peasant. It was a little hobbit village as Aliz said. The thing that interested me was the idea that she simulated a life that dealt with both class and lifestyle over 400 years ago. The most privileged woman of her time wanted nothing more than to be a peasant. Of course it wasn’t the dirty hard life of a real peasant it was an idealized version of it.
Versaille’s gardens are the most organized gardens organized ever conceived and Marie Antionnette wanted to put some chaos and working class back into it. The images that Atget made there, of a decaying garden being taken back by nature, are nowhere to be seen. They have been fully restored. Of course there is subtle joke that the temple of love was under construction as well. We also came across a bunch of soldiers playing toy soldier in the garden on their way to the grand trianon palais. Most likely to receive medals or other forms of recognition.
There are class, race and gender issues here. There is a clear simulacra theme going on and issues of the sublime and the picturesque as well.
Of course, it also deals with international tourist space in a fundamental way. It is crawling with tourists like ants on a picnic. It is a destination and there is no other reason to go to this town except to be a tourist.
Then theres the spectacle of it all. Originally conceived as the greatest spectacle of Europe it retains its sense of spectacle. This is where the Society of the Spectacle began. Sure there had been the 7 ancient wonders before it but this was meant to impress others not only to be functional like the great wall of china.
The whole garden also seemed to deal with all the idealized versions of pictorial and picturesque in a very straightforward way. This is the 19th century version of the picturesque created in the 16th century. The symmetry of the main garden, the trimming of the shrubbery to keep it under control, the squared off allays of trees, the sculptures echoing Greece and Rome. There semm to be “views” everywhere you turn. You can almost sense the original garden designers thoughts of imperessing the visting dignitaries of the power of the realm.
We also had a storm threatening day which brought to mind the ideas of the sublime in the sky dealt with by constable and the English painters. On one side of us was a blue sky and the other side a black storm cloud.
There were goats, sheep, mules and chickens but they were there for effect not food. Even a hay wain in a faux barn with a motorcycle parked near it.
It is a Hollywood style set. All the parts are perfect simulations of the real thing yet not for actual use but instead for the visual effect.
It now seems no surprise that Guy DeBord was French. Versailles is the first Disney or Las Vegas, a perfect Society of the Spectacle. A playground for the wealthy and powerful to keep them occupied and their thoughts away from politics. It is perfectly clean and nature is kept on a leash so that it seems pleasant to stroll in, not powerful or scary. They even had “rides” a faux grand canal simulating the venetian canals to keep the nobility occupied. The whole culture of France seems to thrive on spectacle since the Sun King. From Paris as the city of light to Versailles to the Caves of Lascaux (which have been duplicated for tourists and the original sealed off) it is all spectacle with little content inside it.
France is America’s past and our future. A country which we modeled our own revolution on and currently a country that was once the world’s most powerful trying desperately to cling to that one time glory and power.
