Last Photos of Lovely Paris

Well, this is it, my last posting in this blog dedicated to my wonderful four weeks in the City of Light, Paris. I am not the most traveled person in the world, but at least from what I have seen, by far Paris is the most beautiful city of them all. Having had this time to really explore the city, live in an actual apartment building in a real working neighborhood, interact with the French people -- buy that unparalleled fresh food in the Bastille market! -- I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

These last photos are from those taken once my lovely Carol joined me. Many of them will be from places I've already shown you on these pages -- but, hey, I at least can certainly stand seeing them all again! So please enjoy these last photos from this magical place:

Here's my sweetheart at the 18th century fountain on the Rue du Faubourgh St-Antoine, right across from where the Passage du Chantier opens onto the street. The fountains are still running here in mid-November, so you can tell it's not winter yet -- when it is, the fountains are turned off!














This was taken while wandering through the streets of the Marais district. The impressive church in the background is the Church of St. Paul on the Rue St-Antoine.
















Hanging across the street here are the first Christmas decorations we saw. So even the French get a bit of an early start on the holidays since this was mid-November -- but, hey, nothing like the Christmas stuff on display in the stores in the States in September...

It's a little funny that we'd see the first decorations here since the Marais district is pretty much the Jewish quarter of Paris, eh?




This is taken in the courtyard of the Hotel Sully, one of the old palatial residences in the Marais district built in the 17th century distinguished by their courtyards and gardens.
















We ended up going back to the St. Michel area on the Left Bank several times. We had spent quite a bit of time in this area when we first visited Paris in March, 2001, and it still remains a favorite part of town.

This is the fantastic fountain in the Place St-Michel. In spite of how it might look, this was built after World War II to commemorate the French who fought in that war and the ultimate defeat of the Nazi occupiers.










While the St. Michel and neighboring St. Germain des Prés areas are loaded with things to see, I have to admit that the main reason we kept coming back was for the food. The streets immediately adjacent to the Fountain of St. Michel are full of great little restaurants and food stands, all very moderately priced.

The menu board here is typical of how things are done in many restaurants in Paris. Every day there will be two or three set menus at different price ranges, each with three courses, and you pick your entrée (which is an appetizer -- an entry to the meal, yes? -- in France), plat (main dish) and désert (just what you think) from about four selections in each category. Yum!





Somebody couldn't resist the pastry shop...













And then somebody else had to try one of those gyros...

Gyros are French, aren't they?
















This is on the Ile-St-Louis again just before you cross the bridge onto the Ile de la Cité.













Sure enough, the musicians were out there on the bridge playing that jazz again!

Parisians are such musical people. Even the beggars are musicians. When you ride the Métro, not infrequently all of a sudden someone (a beggar) will enter the car, in a loud voice "declare" themselves ("Mesdames et messieurs," and then state their name and their situation), and then sing or play an instrument for handouts. And they're all good! They're usually quite happily rewarded by their audiences.

Of course, we had to hit the big museums again. That's the Musée d'Orsay, the great Impressionist museum, seen from across the beautiful Seine River.










And of course the Grand Louvre. The glass pyramid is where visitors enter the museum (going below ground to the entrance level) and that peaked roof on the left is the end of one wing. You have to understand that there is another wing just like that one to the right, outside of the photo, and then there is a whole quadrangle of the building behind where this photo was taken. You have no idea how huge this complex is. But then, what would one expect of the complex that served as the royal palace for eight centuries, eh?


The French are not only all musical, they're all artistic. The very first night we stayed in Paris the first time we visited, the first thing I saw outside our hotel window was a man oil painting in his apartment across the way! The museums here are full of students like this one copying the Old Masters. And just like the singers in the trains are all good, so are the art students, as you can see!





On this run through the Louvre we actually saw several areas we'd not been able to get to before, including the apartments of Napoléon III. This is old Napster III's living room. Might do...















Here's the dining room.

I have a feeling that this is more where Carol would like to be while I'm whiling away eternity in that little brick house at The Bagatelle...














And then those phenomenal views from the Centre Georges Pompidou! Here's part of the Paris skyline seen from a "sculpure park" on the fifth floor.










Between the lighting and the viewpoint, I was able to get a whole series of photos like this that are absolutely surreal. For whatever reasons of optics, the whole series came out looking like magical paintings or drawings rather that photos -- but I swear these are photographs!

The large building in the center distance is the wonderful Church of St-Eustache I've mentioned before that is just now being restored from the devastation wreaked on it during the Revolution and the Commune period.


More natural surrealism. This is a photo of the Forum Les Halles, a great shopping center that extends three levels underground and totals 17 acres of shops and eateries. And right next door to that great old Church of St-Eustache and Napoléonic period buildings. Where else but Paris...







Of course, we visited that wonderful open-air market at the Place de la Bastille and bought our supplies for the last few dinners at the apartment. Oh, man, look at that seafood!










And we ran up to the butte of Montmartre our last day of sightseeing and got this nice photo of beautiful Paris under light just breaking through the clouds.










Just to go out in style, we spent our last two nights in a really lovely hotel called the Little Palace. This is the view to one side of our balcony window overlooking a cute little park and more of those majestic Parisian buildings.










And Carol enjoying the view on the balcony.


















And looking to the right from our little balcony, the Rue Sebastopol as the sun began to set on our last evening in this lovely city.












And that's it, except maybe to leave you with a last photo of myself. Can you tell I'm in my element?








As the French say, Bonne journée!

Catching Up The Blog!

Carol and I are back in the States after a last wonderful week in Paris. I thought I should probably get back on and make a start at catching up all the photos yet to post.

Before I do that, I want to again thank Jim Dietz of San Diego, CA for making his great little Parisian studio apartment available for rental. I can't tell you how much better my stay in this most beautiful city was because I was able to live in an actual neighborhood with wonderful French neighbors. Let alone that I was able to stay for four weeks for about what a week in hotels and restaurants would have cost. And then, if I'd stayed in hotels and eaten in restaurants, I never even would have ventured into those wonderful Parisian open-air markets and tasted all that fantastically fresh food! So thanks again to Jim for making all this possible, and I can't recommend him highly enough. If you think you'd like to spend a few weeks living like a real Parisian, contact Jim at: http://www.jimdietz.com/chantier.html

Anyway, on the the photos, this first batch from my wanderings in the Bois de Boulogne (see "Songs from the Wood" below):











It's really easy to forget that, in spite of 2100 acres of woodland and parkland, you're still right in city -- as the two photos below show. The photo below with the busy roadway is what's just to the right of the first photo!

















A ways into the wood I came to The Bagatelle, which is the formal grounds surrounding an old estate (a minor estate, mind you). This next group of photos are from The Bagatelle grounds, comprising a rose garden and an Orangerie (a building sheltering various citrus trees -- yeah, the one that looks like the houses you see in 19th century American estates like the Huntington Garden in Southern California!).













































































Then I left this beautiful garden area through a pathway that was really more a tunnel through the dense, low-hanging foliage of the trees lining it and came upon this wonderful little house, which I assume was part (probably servants' quarters or something) of the original 18th century estate. This is the house I indicated below that I want to live in after I've died and gone to heaven (and, of course, been properly laid to rest in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise):

















































Mon dieu...

And then across the lovely garden from the little house is what I believe was the "big house" of the original estate, which now houses the lovely Restaurant de Trianon:


































Walking on from the "big house," I came to The Trianon, which is a later addition to the estate that is used for various art exhibits, with, again, its own lovely grounds:














































































They have so much artwork in France, they don't know what to do with it. Here are a bunch of sculptures just sitting around The Trianon in bubble-wrap. I don't know whethey they're from a recently closed exhibit, one coming up, new pieces for the garden... There were just as many more on the other side of the walkway, and then even more a bit further!

















Leaving the Bois de Boulogne, I again walked along the edge of the wooded and park areas making my way to a different exit. Again, you can see how beautiful the fall foliage was even with all the traffic:
















As I've said several times in these blog pages and undoubtedly will again, the great thing about Europe is you only have to walk a few steps and look in another direction to see some fabulous view. Another few paces along this road and this famous Parisian landmark came into view:





















That's it for this posting on the Bois de Boulogne. Check back, because there'll be at least one more with photos from the last week as I tried to show Carol as much as I could of all the wonderful things I'd seen -- and as we discovered even more!

She's Here!

Well, my beautiful Carol arrived right on time yesterday at Charles de Gaulle International Airport, so things have been busy between showing her "the neighborhood" and converting that little studio apartment into something suitable for two instead of one! Today begins the whirlwind of trying to show her as much of everything I've seen in the past three weeks, so I may get behind on blogging (and I know I still have Bois de Boulogne photos to post). Worse comes to worst, I'll catch up when we're home. But otherwise, stay posted!

Songs from the Wood

Wasn't that an old Jethro Tull title?

Anyway, today I took the No. 1 Métro almost all the way to its most westerly stop and spent three magical hours wandering through the Bois de Boulogne. Another beautiful, beautiful day of exploration -- and, of course, lots of photos. The Internet seems to be running slowly at the moment, so uploading photos is difficult; as a result, I will post the Bois de Boulogne photos and commentary as soon as I have a sufficient block of time. For now I have to get back to the apartment and do a bit of cleaning up -- because my lovely Carol will be here tomorrow morning! It's going to be wonderful having my beautiful wife here for my last week here in Paris. I'll probably end up exhausting her entirely. After all, I'm going to have to show her almost everything I've already seen!

Check back soon for the Bois de Boulogne.

Père-Lachaise: The Final Chapter (As They Might Say in the Movies)

Written the afternoon of Wednesday, 11/9. It's clear and beautiful again this morning (11/10).


Still rainy here in Paris, so a good afternoon to finish writing about the great Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.

Coming back up from the subterranean columbarium hallways, the next notable is the great modern writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922). The sickly son of wealthy parents, his writings are considered masterpieces at connecting one’s external world and actions to his internal consciousness. Proust was the lover of composer Maurice Ravel and wanted to be buried with him (apparently not in this cemetery; at least Ravel isn’t on the “A” list), but his parents wouldn’t allow it – and, obviously, here he lies with the family.




This is the gravesite of Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), who studied law at the Sorbonne, but decided he’d rather write – and spent all day and most of the night writing, sleeping for only a few hours in the late afternoon. Along with his noted works, and to avoid starvation, as is the case with many writers, he wrote pulp novels under a pseudonym. Living in a cold, spare room during his time of greatest poverty, he adorned his meager surroundings by writing on the walls – “Rosewood paneling with commode” in one spot, “Gobelin tapestry with Venetian mirror” in another – and “Picture by Raphael” above the fireplace. Along with him is buried Polish countess Evelina Hanska, who he married only a few months before his death after an exchange of love letters for 18 years.
Below the bust of Balzac, lying on a shelf, is a sculpted book with a quill pen lying on top of it. The title chiseled into the spine of the marble volume is, appropriately, “La Comédie Humaine” – “The Human Comedy.”


Here’s another bit of color and light along the pathway.



















Here lies the man who was the greatest inspiration to many of the Impressionists, the great French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). Delacroix is one of the masters of the Romantic movement. He once said, “If you are not skillful enough to sketch a man falling out of a window during the time it takes him to get from the fifth story to the ground, then you will never produce a monumental work.” Delacroix must have been very, very skilled because he produced many monumental works, his entire output exceeding 9,000 paintings, drawings and pastels.


Ah, these temperamental artists! The next site on the list is the grave of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). Ingres entered the studio of Louis David (coming up later, folks!) at the age of 17 and then won the Prix de Rome only four years later. His technique broke from the traditional and he was alienated from the Parisian art scene as a result, working in Rome until 1820 and in Florence until 1824. In spite of this disapproval, he was named the president of the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Art) when he returned to Paris, which caused a great degree of animosity between he and Delacroix (above). In fact, there was so much animosity between the two that Ingres refused Delacroix’s handshake until well into his old age. Even if you don’t know it by name, you’d probably recognized what I think is Ingres’ most well-known work: Odalisque with the Slave.





This one puzzles me (the small tomb at the foot of the "towers"). Either the guidebook got the wrong Lalique or there is another tomb nearby which I was unable to find. The guidebook says this (or something in the area…) is the grave of René Lalique (1860-1945), the well-known glass artisan and jewelry designer from the Art Nouveau era. There are two individuals named Lalique buried here, the only one of which has a name at all similar to René Lalique is Georgette Renée Lalique, obviously a woman. Close, but no cigar.











Here’s the family plot of famous painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875). Corot didn’t start painting until age 30 and was regularly exhibiting at the Salon of the Barbizon School, primarily a group of landscape artists, only five years later. Corot was another artist greatly influential on the Impressionists, but he didn’t receive any real acclaim until well into his fifties. When he was forced to sell one of his paintings to get money, he exclaimed, “Alas, my collection has been so long complete, and now it is broken!”




Sculptor, painter and lithographer Honoré Daumier (1808-79) is just a few rows behind Corot’s plot (seen in the background of this shot). Daumier was known mainly for his satirical political work. An 1832 cartoon in which Daumier depicted Louis-Philippe as Gargantua swallowing bags of gold extracted from his subjects actually got him imprisoned for six months. Daumier was a member of the realist school and was much admired by other French artists. Balzac once said of him, “This boy has some Michelangelo under his skin.”



This is another incredibly evocative tomb along one of the pathways.


















Tucked into a tight little corner among other small graves next to one really huge monument is the grave of Sarah Bernhardt (Henriette-Rosine Bernard, 1844-1923), one of the most famous stage actresses of all time. After being raised in a convent until age 13, she entered the Paris Conservatory and then made a badly received acting debut at age 17. She then went on to international acclaim by virtue simply of her perseverance and even became a silent film star in the last years of her life. An observer said, “For days after what seemed like Bernhardt’s last public performance, mourners stood in line in the cemetery to get a view of where she lay dead, just as they had made the box-office queue to see her alive on the stage.

In matching adjacent tombs surrounded by a fenced enclosure lie Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-73), the greatest of French playwrights, and writer of fables Jean La Fontaine (1621-95). In his attempts to promote this cemetery after its poor start, Frouchot bought these supposed remains to appeal to a better clientele. In his many satirical plays, Molière attacked church as well as state, so the Church refused him burial in consecrated ground, which was said to extend 14 feet deep. King Louis XIV then ordered his grave dug to 16 feet – but no one really knew where he was actually buried; in fact, there is a legend that he disappeared before he could be put into that 16-foot-deep grave. As a result, it’s considered likely that M. Frouchot was taken for a ride when he bought Molière’s bones. Most think that if Frouchot was duped regarding remains, he probably was with La Fontaine’s as well. La Fontaine’s 12 books of fables, by the way, were so popular that 137 editions were printed within his own lifetime.

And last on my guidebook's list of noted sites is the memorial of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). David’s first attempt at the Prix de Rome failed and he attempted suicide. He was saved by some fellow art students who found him in his room before it was too late. He did win the Prix de Rome in 1774 and went to study painting in Italy. He returned to Paris in 1780 and became very involved in politics. David revolutionized art with huge, huge paintings that were often commentaries on current events. His Coronation of Napoléon takes up most of one wall in the extremely large exhibit rooms at the Louvre. He became so involved as a painter of Napoléon that he ended up exiled in Brussels when Napoléon fell.







I can’t tell you how affected I have been by this cemetery. 99 acres of headstones and monuments itself has a staggering effect. This is truly a city of the dead – and yet the sound of children at recess in a school just outside its walls ringing through the cemetery, the light of the morning sun, the colors of the many, many flowers as well as the natural beauty of the grounds and their plantings also make this a city of life. The artwork is so poignant, so fully conveys man’s deepest longing for the eternal – and his despair over the fragility and shortness of his span of years. Walking among these stones old and new, of rich and poor, of noted and unknown through so many centuries in just this one place puts both the position of the individual and the continuity of humankind in stark perspective. And I have been in few, if any, places that instilled so much of a sense of peace, and gratitude for precious life. I suspect that the memories and impressions gained from touring this wonderful place will be what stay with me longest from this beautiful city of Paris.

One last memorial. This one, of a young man named Valerio who died in 1988, probably struck me more than any. He would have been only eight years younger than I am, which I’m sure hit home. But I think what resonated most deeply was the inscription at its base: “Il aimait STENDHAL PAVAROTTI GAMINE les PINK FLOYD mais à 29 ans…” – “He loved Stendhal, Pavarotti, Gamine, the Pink Floyd; but at 29 years…”











What an incredible and beautiful gift -- however brief -- life is.

And in case you'd like to virtually walk along the actual pathways of this great place, try the incredible virtual tour at: http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.php?lang=en (thanks, Linda!).

Père-Lachaise Part 2

Bonjour! It’s a rainy day here in Paris (of course! The barometer on my wall says, “Sunny”…), so now’s a good time to continue on with the tour of the wonderful Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Allons!


Moving on from paying homage to “The Lizard King,” we come to the very unimposing gravesite of Nadar behind a bench on the roadway and between two bushes. Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon, 1820-1910) was perhaps the greatest photographer of the 19th century, remembered for stunning photographic portraits of such luminaries as Hugo, Baudelaire, Delacroix, Bernhardt – many of who are buried here – as well as the ever present George Sand. Nadar preferred not to photograph women (obviously, there were exceptions) because the photos were “too true to nature to please the sitter, even the most beautiful.” He eventually gave up photography and took up hot-air ballooning (what a guy!), but ended up taking his camera aloft and shot the first bird’s-eye photo of Paris.

Obviously still very much revered by Parisians, this is the tomb of the Little Sparrow, Edith Piaf (1915-63). Piaf was a very expressive and powerful singer who began her career on the streets of Paris and in the cafés at the age of 15. She became so well loved by her fans that Jean Cocteau, famous artist and film maker, wrote a play for her. She not only rates flowers and candles, but fans have even left photos of the noted chanteuse.






This is another along-the-way photo of an elderly man tending a gravesite.


















This grave, one of many in the same style in this section, is that of noted painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). Modigliani’s elongated forms, now so familiar and beloved, were neglected during his lifetime, and he did not gain notoriety until well after his death from tuberculosis – aggravated by drug and alcohol abuse. The primary inspiration for his very individualistically styled forms was African sculpture.











The following four photos are of some of the several monuments throughout the cemetery to those who died during World War II in Nazi concentration camps. These monuments, one for each of the camps and its inmates, are very, very poignant and remarkable works.










The grave to the left is that of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), the writer who is best known for her line “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” (which I never knew was hers!). She was a friend of many, many notable writers and artists, and was the host of the most famous literary salon in Paris. With her brother Leo, she was a trendsetter in the art world and had one of the best private collections in Paris at the time. She claimed to have discovered Picasso; of the two Picasso works she displayed, she said that if her apartment ever burned down and she “could take only one picture, it would be those two.” Her writing was intended to be the literary counterpart of cubism – found unintelligible by most readers. Her most noted work is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

By the way, that vacant looking grave next to Stein’s is not; it’s the grave of none other than Alice B. Toklas, Stein’s lover. Famous only because of her liaison with Stein, she takes second place even in death: the inscription for her grave is on the back of Stein’s headstone!

This very unique, Art Deco monument is the resting place of famous novelist, playwright, aesthete, dandy and humorist Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). His many works include The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, and, interestingly, his fairy tale collections! Wilde was imprisoned in England for two years in the late 1890s for homosexual practices. One day while in prison, standing handcuffed in pouring rain, Wilde declared, “If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, then she doesn’t deserve to have any.” So there! I believe I’ve mentioned before that his dying words in his Paris hotel room were, “Either this wallpaper goes or I do”…

You’ll notice what looks like pink polka dots all over the base of Wilde’s monument. Those are lip prints! You see those periodically around this cemetery on markers, but they are rampant here. Apparently, though, most of those have been left by gay men in homage to Wilde’s imprisonment.

The next part of my walk was into the columbarium, which comprises not only a square of sections like this one, but then goes on for several floors underground. This is the only place where I was unable to find particular markers indicated in my guidebook, those of Max Ernst and Richard Wright.

Max Ernst (1891-1976), originally a psychology student, took up painting psychotics and referred to himself as Dadamax. Having come to Paris in 1922, he lived in the U.S. from 1941 to 1949, where he was briefly married to Peggy Guggenheim of art museum fame, but then returned to France, where he remained until his death.

Richard Wright (1908-60) wrote the African-American classics Uncle Tom’s Children and Native Son. Wright was invited to come to Paris by the French government in 1945. Although he had great difficulty obtaining a passport from the U.S. State Department, he and his wife were greeted by the American ambassador when he finally did arrive – and by none other than Gertrude Stein, who had written him a letter saying, “Dear Richard: It is obvious that you and I are the only two geniuses of this era.” Wright died in Paris and was cremated with a copy of his novel Black Boy.

Although I was unable to find Ernst and Wright, I did find the niche containing the ashes of Isadora Duncan (Dora Gray Duncan, 1878-1927), the flamboyant dancer. Duncan is the one who wore a scanty Greek tunic, draped herself in flowing scarves, and then danced barefoot to music that was not written for dance. They hated her in the U.S., but loved her in Paris, where she came in 1922. Her fame spread throughout Europe. Duncan died in a gruesomely appropriate way: She drove off in her brand new Bugatti race car wearing her favorite long, flowing red scarf – which became entangled in one of the car’s wheels. Her last heard words, curiously, as she drove off in the Bugatti, were, “Je vais à la gloire!” – “I go to glory!”







Last for this installment (still about a third to go!) and last in the columbarium is the niche of Maria Callas (1923-1977), the famous operatic soprano and long-time mistress of Aristotle Onassis. Born in New York City, Callas moved to Greece at age 13, where she studied voice. She debutted in Verona in 1947, made her first Metropolitan Opera appearance in 1956, and went on to thrill the operatic world – mostly because she not only sang well, but was one of the very few (if not the first) operatic heroines who was slender and beautiful! I found Callas’ stone especially having just been to the museum at La Scala, which contained a number of paintings and photographs of her, as well as several of her costumers from La Scala productions.

The air in the columbarium space underground, being an enclosed space, is overwhelming with the scent from the thousands and thousands of flowers left there by visitors.

And then, just to leave off this segment with another of those amazingly poignant memorials found throughout this wonderful cemetery:





















Check back for Part 3!

La Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

What a wonderful day! The barometer on my apartment wall said it was supposed to rain all day -- and I've learned that reality is always exactly the opposite of what it says. Which it was: absolutely clear and glorious all day. Once the morning's work was done and feeling like getting out for a walk on such a nice day, I decided to head back to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise and take the "celebrity tour."

I've posted comments and a few photos before from my previous brief visit to this amazing cemetery. This 99-acre piece of land was originally the country retreat of Père François de la Chaise d'Aix, the priest-confessor to Louis XIV. About 200 years ago the land was purchased by one Nicolas Frouchot, who promoted it as a cemetery for the rich and famous -- even though his first customer was an errand boy!

When I had finished my walk, which seemed to go by so quickly, it turned out that I'd been walking for three and a half hours and had taken 227 photos! This is going to be a major undertaking, so I may have to break it into more than one posting, but I'm going to take you on a hopefully less time-consuming version of that "celebrity tour," greatly indebted to a copy of Frommer's Walking Tours-Paris that I came across in a remainder house ages ago. Other than on one or two occasions, this book not only provided the necessary directions to all the "major" sites, but provided great information on those notables themselves. The gravesites are listed in the order I was directed to them.


Sidonie-Gabrielle-Claudine Colette (1873-1954), known as Colette, a writer who was the first woman president of Goncourt Academy and the second woman to be made a grand officer of the French Legion of Honor. Most of her writing was for and about women, the best known work being "Gigi" (1945). Colette attributed her success to her mother's constantly telling her "Look, look!" instilling her sense of wonder at life and keen sense of observation. During Paris' worst thunderstorm in nearly 75 years, Colette pointed to the sky from her deathbed and said, "Look, look!"






Look at the wonderful color and light on this beautiful fall day in Paris! This is the tomb of Giacchino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868), composer of such famous operas as The Barber of Seville and William Tell. Although he became wealthy, Rossini was a common man. A group of students tried to raise money to have a statue erected to him in his old age. Rossini is reported to have said, "Give me the twenty thousand and I'll stand on the pedestal myself."




Louis-Charles-Alfred de Musset (1810-570) was, I believe, a French writer. The Frommer's guide describes him simply as "infatuated with George Sand," who, of course, was the famous female novelist who wrote under that pen name in order to be published. Apparently there were quite a few men who were also "infatuated with George Sand."






The lady sitting immediately behind de Musset and to his left is de Musset's sister.















This touching effigy is next to that of the sister of de Musset, apparently unrelated.

















Just a view along the way. I'll probably put in a few of these because it was just so pretty out.








This is the family sepulchre of the Rothschild family, the famous European financiers. The family fortunes began with Mayer Anselm in 1743, in Frankfurt, Germany, who became wealthy by lending large sums of money to various governments and princes. His five sons expanded the business to Vienna, London, Paris and Naples. The Paris branch was started by Jacob, whose money funded the building of the French railroad. Many of the works of art in the Louvre were donated by the French branch of the family.














The grave of Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), the oldest member of the Impressionist group. He moved to Paris in 1855, being born in the West Indies to a Jewish father and Créole mother. Because of his being older, Pissarro served as a sort of father figure to Monet, Renoir and Cézanne; although not the most noted of the Impressionists, he was the only one to be exhibited in all eight Impressionist exhibitions.











You've seen this one before: the tomb of Abelard and Heloise, the great medieval lovers, seen here in the beautiful morning light.







Abelard and Heloise rejoined finally in the tomb (as it says on the side of the monument).


According to the Frommer's guide, it wasn't until Frouchot obtained the bones of these two that business started picking up for the cemetery. Then, as the guidebook says, "Plots began selling like hotcakes."











Just more light and color along the way...













Obviously still held in high regard (all those flowers!), this is the resting place of composer Frédéric François Chopin (1810-49). Chopin gave his first Paris concert at the age of 21; by 29, had written 24 preludes, one in each major and minor key and none longer than five minutes in length; and is noted for introducing the piano as a solo instrument (believe it or not). He's also another of those who had a "turbulent affair" with apparent "femme fatale" George Sand.











Just a few sites away is another composer, Maria Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842). Cherubini was primarily a composer of sacred music, who had already completed several masses and choral pieces by age 16. He is said to have profounded influenced Beethoven's vocal compositions. Cherubini became the director of the Paris Conservatory at age 60.

Supposedly Cherubini hated flutes and said that the only thing worse than a flute was two flutes...









The tomb of painter Théodore Géricault (1791-1824). This is quite a remarkable tomb with a statue of the artist, palette in hand, reclining on top and reliefs of some of his works around the base. His most famous work, The Raft of the Medusa, depicted the 1816 shipwreck of the Medusa and was one of the first large-scale paintings to depict a newsworthy event. He was one of the first to break traditional painting technique and influenced the famous French master Delacroix.













The imposing tomb of Gaspard Monge, comte de Péluse (1746-1818). Monge was a friend of Napoléon instrumental in founding the École Polytechnique in 1794 who is best known for his research in geometry. His work was foundational to the mechanical drawings produced by today's architects. This large monument is one of several along a curving pathway in this part of the cemetery. Although not mentioned in the guidebook, I'm pretty sure many of the names I saw here were also associated with Napoléon.









At the base of what at first seems to be a statue of the Madonna a child is the grave of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the founder of the positivist philosophy and humanism. Comte is credited with coining the term sociology, and indeed his work forms the basis for what has become modern sociology. The goal of his writings was to bring about a peaceful society in harmony; in fact, he believed in a society that made a religion out of worshiping humanity. Confronted with his death, Comte reportedly said, "What an irreparable loss!"

The statue, by the way, is entitled "Humanité."






And here, in a very small, out of the way grave is one James Douglas Morrison (1943-71), better known to those of us who grew up in the '60s as "The Lizard King" -- Jim Morrison of The Doors. The guidebook said the easiest way to find this obscure site is to look for the crowd of people that's always there -- and even at 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday in the off-season, sure enough, I found it by sighting the small group of people there. Apparently the French aren't always happy Jim is here: the area around this grave is often very crowded and graffittied, but he qualified for "admission" because he died here in Paris -- of a drug overdose when he was already way down the road of alcoholism and drug abuse. Quel domage...




At this point I've been writing and uploading these photos for over an hour, so I'm getting a bit stiff. And I'm only about a third of the way through all the celebs! So, I will finish up this tour in installments over the next day or so. For now, it's time to head back to the little studio apartment and fix some dinner.

Well, one more "along the way photo" because it was just so beautiful out:

The inscription below the dancer says:

"Que devient le rève quand le rève est fini" -- "What becomes the dream when the dream is finished." Whether that is intended as question or statement is apparently left to the observer.

Check back for Part 2!

Milan Photos Part 3

Okay, more photos from day 2 in Milan:




Walking toward the center of town from the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio, I turned a corner into this huge piazza and look what I saw! You have no idea how gigantic this piazza is. That's the Duomo, the city cathedral, in the distance. Its front is mostly shrouded while repair work is going on.



This is the nave of the Duomo packed with people for mass on the feast of St. Charles Borromeo, the patron of the church.



I don't know if this was a special exhibition or always the case, but huge Renaissance paintings were hung between the columns on both sides of the nave. Pretty impressive!



The relics of St. Charles Borromeo in their crypt under the altar of the Duomo. The Duomo is built with a large ambulatory around the periphery of the church with all sorts of interesting side altars. Being a major church, that means, in this case, the complete remains of various saintly clergy from the past resting in full view in their glass cases.



Here's a detail photo of part of the exterior of the Duomo. You can imagine what the facade would be like without that construction shrouding!




Taking a stairway down from inside the Duomo, you can visit under the piazza the remains of a "Paleochristian" baptistry. The ruins below are actually from the 4th century and include this baptisty (many think it was here that St. Ambrose baptized St. Augustine) and parts of an early church dedicated to St. Thecla. The baptismal pool should settle the debate on whether early baptisms in the Catholic tradition were by immersion or sprinkling.




Here is the Galeria Vittorio Emanuelle, one of the world's first shopping malls. If you go back to the shot of the Duomo in the distance as I entered the piazza, this is what's to the left of the Duomo!



One of the exterior corridors of the Galeria with the Duomo right next door.



Inside the Galeria Vittorio Emanuelle.



Then, just outside the Galeria at the back was a nice small piazza with this statue of Leonardo da Vinci and, presumably, other notable artists (perhaps from Leonardo's studio?).



And across the street in the direction of Leonardo's gaze, the famous Teatro de la Scala.



And finally, the courtyard of the Brera, a very interesting compound that seems to include a school, a library, and, upstairs, the Pinacoteca di Brera, which houses a truly impressive art collection of Northern Italian work from the late Middle Ages to the present. What an interesting place to go to school!

And that's it for a sampling of photos from Milan.

A Quiet Day -- and a Peaceful Night in Paris

After two weeks here, I seem to have transitioned from being a tourist to a resident. By that, I mean that, having returned from Milan, rather than hitting the streets here in Paris again, camera in hand and intent on seeing everything there could possibly be to see, I had absolutely no desire to do anything other than fix up the apartment a bit, get my laundry done, head to the Monoprix on the corner for groceries (Monday: the outdoor markets were all closed).

Once that was done, I headed over to the St-Michel area again – no camera – to hunt down an English-language bookstore and perhaps pick up something else to read. As it turned out, the morning overcast cleared up and it turned out to be a very pretty day, so I probably should have taken the camera…

Anyway, bookstores here in France are quite different than in the States, except in very, very small used bookstores at home. Rather than the large, open shops with orderly cases of books, bookstores here are tiny with barely enough room to walk between the stacks – which is literally what there are. The particular bookstore I found, called The Abbey Bookshop, is run by Canadians and reportedly has 20,000 books. Well, I’d say there were probably 40,000, and they were literally stacked from floor to ceiling. I ended up buying nothing; not having anything specific in mind, I find it way too difficult to browse when thousands of books are literally piled or shelved back to back in front of you. And I have to say it does get a bit claustrophobic in such tiny shops with nothing around you but piles and piles of books.

The St-Michel area and its adjacent area, St-Germain-des-Prés, are some of my favorite parts of Paris. St-Germain-des-Prés particularly is the Latin Quarter, the oldest part of Paris other than on the two islands in the Seine. The sun had come out, as mentioned, so I took a nice walk around. I came across the church of Saint-Séverin. St-Séverin is another beautiful gothic church from the 13th century, in that case a working parish church even today. While I was walking around, the organist was practicing up in the loft – and it really is a moving experience to walk through one of these wonderful old churches and hear the organ playing while doing so. I’m starting to find these gothic churches rather contemplative places, which I think is due to the fact that they’re built with an ambulatory around the central nave. The nave is the area facing the altar in which the parishioners sit during services. The ambulatory, as the name implies, encircles the nave and sanctuary, and are areas where you can walk and come across a multitude of side chapels, each usually with a particular theme or saint artistically portrayed, many with tombs of notable parishioners from times long past, memorial monuments, relics of saints, etc. I am starting to think that much of the contemplative nature of Christianity must have faded with the end of ambulatories being part of church design.

Next I walked along the Boulevard-St-Germain-des-Prés, which is lined with cafes, boutique stores, etc. Eventually I came to the church of St-Germain-des-Prés itself and, of course, went inside. This is actually the oldest church in Paris and was originally the church of a Benedictine abbey. Although modified from the time of the building of Nôtre Dame to adopt the new gothic style, the basic structure of the church is an 11th century Romanesque building. What can I say – another beautiful and ancient church. I then headed up Rue Bonaparte to the Seine, walked back to St-Michel and headed home.

This morning I’m writing before heading off to Starbucks to post and I’ve heard a couple of interesting reports on BBC radio. First off, the rioting in Paris and its suburbs finally abated last night. Thank God. While no one likes the violence at all, a poll shows that 70 percent of the French think that the complaints of the minority populations in the rioting neighborhoods are legitimate and that the government has not dealt seriously with those complaints. Let’s hope something productive comes from all this.

The other story relates to the movement of human populations and what often seem paradoxical results of those movements. This story had to do with a Muslim minority in China, the Uighurs, who are presently undergoing a lot of oppression in that country. Today’s Uighur population are related to the Turks and are considered foreign in China – but originally they were Mongol people who ended up in the area of Turkey (where they later adopted Islam) as part of the invading hordes of Genghis Khan that swept all the way into Europe. The Uighurs have always been a historical favorite of mine because they, among all those Mongol hordes, were so violent that the English word “ogre” was derived from their tribal name! So nowadays these originally Mongol people are being discriminated against as foreigners back in the same part of the world they originally came from. Just like Hinduism, which is probably considered the height of “heathenism” among monotheistic Caucasians, is the original religion of the Aryan people in India – yep, the same Aryans that we think of when we think of “white folk.” Or that Buddhist art, which is seen as being so distinctively “Eastern,” actually did not exist until Alexander the Great’s Greeks brought Hellenic esthetics to Buddhist lands, and Buddhist art then evolved from original statues of the Buddha and boddhisatvas (in the so-called Ghandharan style) made in the Greek style. Fascinating, at least to me.

Milan Photos Part 2

It's been a nice leisurely day here in Paris getting things caught up since returning yesterday. I'm having a nice caffe latte at Starbucks with a bit of extra time before cooking dinner, so here are a few more photos. These are from day 2 in Milan.



This is Il Cenacolo (left) next to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The Cenacolo is where Leonard da Vinci painted his famous "Last Supper" on one of the walls of the refectory (dining hall) of the Dominican convent attached to the church. You can tell there wasn't a huge crowd there at about 8:00 a.m. that Friday. By 8:10, when the door opened, there were about 40 -- but without a reservation, no entry for me...



The inside of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a very pretty church at one time intended to be the family mausoleum of the Sforza family.



The Basilica of Saint Ambrose (Sant'Ambrogio). This was a truly fantastic place to visit. It is considered the model for all Romanesque architecture in Italy, and the oldest portions of the church go back to the 4th century when Saint Ambrose was bishop here.



The corridors leading up to the doors of Sant'Ambrogio are lined with all sorts of old inscribed stones, sarcophagi, and even this old fresco, many of which are built right into the walls.



The interior of the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio. Obviously, this style of architecture, which predates the gothic by centuries, is very different from it (also the case with Santa Maria delle Grazie). The "pulpit," the large white marbel "box" right of center in the photo, is actually considered the oldest thing in the church -- probably a sarcophagus of an ancient Christian martyr that was adapted to be the ambo (pulpit).



The skeletal remains in the white pontifical vestments above are the remains of St. Ambrose himself, flanked by two (there's one on his other side too) earlier martyr saints whose remains Ambrose had himself brought to the church for interment. The three saints rest in the crypt below the high altar of the basilica.



This is the little 11th century church right beside the basilica that was built when the canons and the monks got upset with each other and apparently decided they'd have nothing to do with each other -- in typical "Christian" fashion!



One more view of the basilica from its courtyard.

















The monument here, a monument to Victory, is right next to the basilica complex. On the morning I was there, a whole variety of military types, band and all, in every sort of colorful dress uniform you can imagine was massing in front of this monument. I never did see or hear anything happen, so I have no idea what that was all about. But here are some of the "troops" collecting in front of the monument. Off to the left from where this photo is taken is a very large building which is now a Catholic university, but originally was the monastery attached to the basilica. Based on size alone, there must have been a lot more monks than canons when they got into it over at the basilica, so no wonder the canons ended up with the little church.

Have to run and start cooking at the moment, so check back for Milan Photos Part 3. There's still a lot to come!

Photos From Milan -- Part 1

Here are some of those long-awaited photos from Milan that I was never able to upload using the wireless Internet connection I had there. These are from the first day there.







This is the Hotel Delle Nazioni, where I stayed. Great pizzas through room service and, overall, a nice place to stay. As is typical in Europe, the rooms are small -- maybe half of the room I have in my little Paris studio apartment.















Parking a la Milanese!














Street scenes, wandering around the first afternoon.
















































"Il Giorno" is one of the major magazines published in Milan.











The late afternoon sunlight sets off the pretty colors of the Natural History Museum. This first afternoon was the only time I was in Milan when it wasn't very overcast or heavily raining.













Here are a few shots of the very lovely public gardens (Giardini Pubblici) surrounding the Natural History Museum.





















































Back on the streets.













Promotional posters on the Via Afredo Capellini, the street my hotel was on. That's "Bob Dylan and His Band" coming November 12!




And that's a selection from my brief wanderings on the first afternoon. In Milan Photos Part 2, I'll put up many more photos from all the great sightseeing the second day. At the moment it's getting on in the morning, so I've got to get to my various chores for the day (laundry, groceries, etc.) after returning from Milan. Check back for the next installment!

Synchronicity

NOTICE: The following is something I wrote last night reflecting on the "riots" here in Paris. It has definite political overtones; if you're here for my travel accounts and would rather not read my notoriously "left wing" interpretations of world events, please skip this posting!


Synchronicity

While Paris is undergoing its “riots” as, at least originally the expression of complete exasperation by its lowest socioeconomic (up to 75 percent unemployment!) community and while the so-called “Summit of the Americas” ended up being not at all what George Bush and the other advocates of the so-called “free market” system had hoped it would be (largely because the economy of its host country, Argentina, was completely ruined a few years ago precisely as the result of the implementation of an American-sponsored “free market” agreement), I just happen to have grabbed a book entitled “Bread & Hyacinths” off my bookshelf (one of only two brought with me) right before leaving the house to head here. This book, by Paul Greenstein, Nigey Lennon and Lionel Rolfe, is subtitled “The Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles.”

Probably unbeknownst to most of you, not only did Los Angeles very nearly elect the first Socialist mayor of a major city in America in 1911, with the full support of a burgeoning labor movement, but after his defeat – the story of which is the stuff of legend – Job Harriman went on to establish the first non-denominational cooperative community (read Socialist community) in America right out in the Antelope Valley. Both Harriman’s last minute defeat in his mayoral race and the ultimate demise of the Llano del Rio Cooperative Community were due to the final crippling blows to the American labor movement in the wake of an important criminal case against two brothers named McNamara.

Having literally at the last moment chosen to take this book along on my trip while economic class warfare was to break out in Paris and while corporate America’s “free market” policy finally hit a bit of a bump in the road in Argentina seems an interesting bit of synchronicity – which Carl Jung defined as “meaningful coincidence.” Indeed.

In short, here’s what happened in “Utopian” Los Angeles. By the early 1910s, socialism and the workers’ movement in Los Angeles had grown to the point where Harriman’s election seemed a certainty. In the primary election, he had easily beaten his nearest competitor, incumbent mayor Alexander, by about 50 percent of the latter’s vote. At that time, Los Angeles was pretty much the last place in the country to become unionized; workers worked ten-hour days, six days a week, with absolutely no job security or benefits of any sort and for $1 to $3 a day – when unionized workers in San Francisco made $4 a day. L.A.’s labor movement up until this point had been held at bay by a group of local capitalists of whom the leader and most ruthless was Harrison Gray Otis, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Not only were workers kept economically at risk, but vocal support of the labor movement often brought physical violence upon its advocates by thugs hired by Otis and other capitalists – and we’ve always been brought up to think the labor guys (think Teamsters) were the thugs!

In any event, in January of 1910, in the very early morning hours, a bomb went off in “Ink Alley,” the alleyway next to the L.A. Times building. The resulting explosion not only destroyed most of the Times building and its equipment, but killed 20 of the employees who were inside working on the next morning’s edition. Ultimately, two men, John and James McNamara, highly active in the national labor movement, were arrested for the Times bombing. Originally Job Harriman was hired as the lawyer for the McNamaras, but Samuel Gompers, the leader of the American Federation of Labor, hired the famous Clarence Darrow to take over the defense of the two brothers – and Harriman announced his candidacy for major of Los Angeles.

As mentioned, by October, when the primary was held, Harriman had been essentially off the case for months while running his campaign, and the primary results, again, indicated he was virtually guaranteed to win the election. And the reason was because, from the get-go, almost everybody in Los Angeles suspected that not only did the McNamaras not plant the bomb, but that the explosion had been engineered by Otis himself! This was because Otis had been so rabidly anti-labor for such a long time – and because it turned out he’d ignored warnings from his employees for ages about the pervasive smell of leaking natural gas in the plant, had already started construction of a new plant, but still had upped the insurance on the old plant just days before (honest, folks…) – that nearly nobody put past him the idea that he’d destroy his own plant just to stop the movement.

Here’s where the McNamara trial comes in. Without anyone ever consulting Harriman, who was still technically counsel of record (Darrow later told Harriman it was because nobody wanted to tell him because they knew it would cost his election), Darrow and the prosecutors led the McNamaras to believe that unless they pled guilty, two other major labor leaders would be implicated and all would be convicted and get the death penalty. While all along the McNamaras had insisted on going to trial and proving their innocence, after being held in confinement for months without any other contact they relented and agreed to plead guilty, thus (they thought) sparing the two others – and, of course, saving themselves from hanging (which Darrow, of course, thought was his only concern as defense counsel).

What nobody ever told the McNamaras was that the only stipulation to the deal was that it would not be announced until the prosecutors chose to – which they did four days before the election. The public felt so strongly that the McNamaras were innocent – and, of course, Harriman’s campaign was associated with that sentiment – that it is said the next day there were literally thousands of “The McNamaras Are Innocent! Vote For Harriman!” buttons strewn in the streets of the city. And of course, Harriman was defeated four days later.

Now, the reason why I’m bothering to write all this at this particular point in time, and the reason I see a tie-in both to the Paris riots and this weekend’s Summit is because the book also had a quote in it from one John J. McNamara, the one of the two brothers who served his sentence and lived long enough to later comment on it (brother James died in Alcatraz during his). Here’s how John J. explained what he thought had happened:

“Before Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the days of so-called unrestricted private enterprise, it was almost impossible to organize the workers. Theywere so intimidated by their employers that they were afraid to be seen talking with a labor organizer, much less attend meetings. Most corporations hired spies to report organizational activity and professional thugs to beat up those who attempted to form a union. The enslavement of the worker in those days was nearly complete. Such conditions forced organizers to adopt methods which violated the law. On both sides it was war to the knife and knife to the hilt. Outrages were common, but they were justified by labor organizers as means to the end.

“Under Roosevelt workers were encouraged to organize. Labor organizations were legalized. As a result more than fifteen million men and women are union members. If these workers were intelligent and voted as a political unit, they and their friends could capture governmental power and with that power effect social and economic changes that would assure everybody a square deal. The opportunity to do this by organized labor, in my opinion, is the supreme good it has accomplished for the working class. Instead of demanding hours and wages, organized labor should demand economic education for its members. Every union should constitute a class to study and understand the social forces which govern and guide the social process. With that understanding will come intelligent action. If intelligence does not possess and direct the labor movement, it will disintegrate and its members will again revert to their old condition of industrial slavery (my emphasis).”

I emphasize that last section because, of course, that suggestion has never been adopted by American labor – or, really, labor even in countries (every industrial country other than the United States) where it has established a political presence – and here we are in the “free market” area. The divide between the Bush base of “haves and have-mores” and – well, everybody else is growing at home. France’s poorest are “rioting” because of an unemployment rate that is so high it is almost unbelievable – just months after the “leadership” of the European Union tried to push a constitution in which a more capitalistic, “free market” economic structure was featured. All but five of the national leaders at the Summit of the Americas voiced support for the American “free market” platform – in spite of the fact of the resulting collapse of Argentina’s economy after “buying in.”

After commenting as above, McNamara was then asked, “Suppose labor fails to avail itself of its opportunity?” See if McNamara’s response rings any bells in light of present-day circumstances:

“In that case reaction will set in, monopoly capital will seize complete power, either through the Democratic or Republican party, and what we will have in this country will be fascism. Then the worst fears of left wing labor will be realized. Corporation dictatorship will rule, labor enslavement will be complete, and the government of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt will no longer live.”

By the way, a number of investigations of the Times bombing have been undertaken in subsequent years. The overwhelming evidence from these investigations indicates that, indeed, General Harrison Gray Otis most likely did arrange for the destruction of his own plant to ensure the defeat of the Socialist-Labor cause in the 1911 election.