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April 29, 2002, 1900 hrs Well, it's been an eventful few days since my last writing. Thursday I went to an exhibition of surrealist artists at the Pompidou Centre. Very good really.. very large exhibit. Original works by Max Ernst, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, and Rene Magritte. They started with the very beginning - mixed media projects that remind me of the stuff I saw in college art studios. It was very interesting to see the evolution of the artists thinking (and skills) over the course of ten or fifteen years. I was singularly unimpressed with Joan Miro's early work, but the later work (like ten years later) was definitely very well done. Of course, one has to see the surrealist revolution in the light of their times - it must have been eye-popping to the art critics and art lovers of the time. They played Un Chien Andalou on a loop at the museum, and I found it just as upsetting as I did the first time I saw it. I can't imagine what it must have been like in 1929. I went with my friend Kim, her boyfriend and another student from my French class, Mark. Here's a photo of Kim showing off Notre Dame on our walk to the Pompidou: Friday was the last day of classes and I invited my whole class to my new studio for a party the evening of the 10th of May (a Friday night). Should be a nice occasion to talk French. Saturday I rented a car with the Brazilians and we set off to visit the Loire Valley and some of the great chateaus. I discovered that these particular Brazilians could neither read maps, nor drive particularly well so a trip that should have taken 2 hrs took 4 just to get to the Loire. Eventually, we got to Chemonceau in early afternoon and spent a couple of hours exploring it. While the chateau was great, exploring it with my Brazilian friends proved very trying (and tiring). The positive aspect of their character - the joy for life - seems to be accompanied by a lack of respect for others and for laws. I'm not the most law-abiding type of person, but perhaps because of my love of history and things historical I found it shocking when they sat on some of the furniture in the Chateau and used flashes on their cameras. These things are forbidden because if thousands of tourists a day were to do it it would quickly lead to the destruction of these national treasures. Yet they didn't seem to care. Here's a series of pictures I took at Chamonceau. The original idea was to have a grand walkway to span the two banks of the river Cher. But after the king's mistress (Diane de Poitiers) was dispossessed of Chemonceau (after the King Henry II's accidental death in a tournament of arms - killed by the Captain of his Household Guard if you can believe it) the King's wife (Catherine de Medici) decided to build a structure on top of the walkway, greating a grand gallery. For financial reasons, the structure on the other side of the river was never built. The galley served as a grand dining hall (with matching fireplaces on either end - the one on the far bank is a dummy). During WWII, Chemonceau served as a hospital and there are oblique references in the literature to the gallery having an interesting history during the war. You see, the far bank of the Cher was Vichy France ("Free France") and the Cher served as the dividing line between Nazi-occupied France and Vichy France. Yet another of those stories I want to research. Apparently, all the windows at Chemonceau were destroyed by a bombing during WWII, including the stained glass in the Queen's chapel (where I found carved on the walls a couple of aphorisms by Mary Queen of Scott's household guard). These replacements were created by a master craftsman in 1954. I don't know if they are true to the originals or not, but it's still a nice chapel. I took this without a flash, and then enhanced it in Photoshop so it may be a bit grainy. Here are two details from the same room. The first is a painting of the Sun King (Louis XIV). Not so amazing a painting, what is more interesting is the frame! It's a work of art, and constructed from only four pieces of wood (by the artist LePautre). I had to look at it for a few minutes to take it all in - a work of art in itself. Donated to the owner of Chemonceau by the King after he stayed there.. The detail on the chimney (the salamander of François I and stoat of Queen Claude) was just lovely bas-relief. As a side note, much of Chemonceau's artifacts were saved by Madame Dupin, grandmother by marriage of George Sand, during the French revolution. After visiting Chemonceau I asked if we could visit Le Clos Lucé. It was a small chateau (more a maison à la campagne) given to Leonardo de Vinci in 1516 by François I. There Leonardo spent the last three years of his life. He brought a couple of disciples with him and three canvases. One of which is known to have been the Mona Lisa. He finished it at this chateau. It's not a very grand place (so I didn't take photos) but I've been fascinated by Leondardo and his inventions for a long time so I was really looking forward to my visit. I explored the chateau and visited the basement where IBM has generously built some of this inventions from his drawings (as scale models in most cases). I didn't know he invented ball bearings and the transmission (for autos)! Absolutely amazing. He designed paddle wheelers three hundred years before they could actually be built (insufficient motive power). A nice side-trip, and I bought some postcards and Leonardo books to take home (yes, I know, extra weight but I couldn't resist). Books will always be my downfall. We stopped in the nearby town of Amboise (very charming) to get some cash and then we had the mother of all arguments. I said, "let's hit the road back to Paris" in French and they said, "no, let's stay the night". I said I wasn't prepared to (no overnight baggage) and that I had plans for Sunday (a rendezvous with alumni from Reed for brunch). Well, this just didn't fly and after half an hour of arguing in French they agreed to take me to Tours so that I could take the train back to Paris. Boy, was I pissed. Not much I could do about it and so I had to trust them to return the car in good order (it was on my credit card). I still don't know if they rang up extra charges and probably won't for a couple of days. They dropped me in Tours at the SNCF station and I found that I could take the TGV to Paris (1 hr trip!) for only 8E more than the regular slow SNCF train. No contest. I reserved a seat and ten minutes later was on my way to Montparnasse on the TGV (very nice ride, I must say). I got back to town and bought myself a nice (but not too nice) dinner at an Italian restaurant in St.Germain de Pres before heading home. All in all, I tried to end the day a bit better. I thought that I wasn't going to let this whole thing spoil the experience of visiting the Loire. Next time, I just have to go alone or with people more sympatico. Sunday was interesting. I met Bianca (an alumna from Reed) for brunch on Rue des Petits Carreaux in the 2nd. It's about 10 minutes walk from my new studio as it turns out and its an absolutely lovely area. It's been made into a pedestrian area and on Sunday it was full of people out shopping and looking for breakfast. So I've found a new place to visit on Sundays (and other days when I'm looking for a good breakfast). Just what I needed to restore the spirit. We hung out for a couple of hours and drank a lot of good coffee, then she showed me around the Marais. I learned a couple of very interesting facts from her: first, large areas of the Marais are open for business on Sunday (they paid for the privilege) and second, that every neighborhood must, by law, have one boulangerie open on Sunday. Bread is life! I snapped this photo while walking to the 1st arrondisement. Much of Paris is converted to walking streets now on Sundays. A very nice idea. Many of the businesses (except the Marais) are closed. I've decided I quite like this. I used to think it was a pain, but it's good to have a day when you have to just slow down. Here is a lovely little ketch I photographed moored to a quai along the Seine near Pont Neuf (the "new bridge"): We parted company after a couple of hours of walking about so that I might go see a movie with my new friend Angus. We were to rendezvous at Odeon but he didn't get my message in time and I waited fruitlessly for an hour. Having given up, I decided to go see a print of the Shop Around the Corner (which was recently re-made into "You've Got Mail"). This was a new print, so it should be good quality. Walking to the cinema someone grabbed my sleeve. I turned around and it was Bianca and her friend, Sofia (they are in that order on the left side of this next photo). The photo to the right is of a BMW scooter (yes, a scooter) with a built-in enclosure to protect one from the weather. Apparently, it costs as much as a small car.. Paris can be small sometimes. So they invited me to meet some more of their friends at a nearby pub and I went with them (better to meet more people than to watch a movie, I thought). We met at a pub called Stolly's and had a couple of pints and then went for dinner at a little Israeli falafel restaurant in the Marais. Good falafel - even if they insist of putting carrots with it! A nice end to the day and I came home ready for a good night's sleep. I've been sleeping better of late - probably because I've simply turned off the alarm clock and I now sleep as long as I need to. I discovered this afternoon when I notified the management here that I was leaving the morning of 1 May, that the Alliance Française had made a mistake and booked me in for four months (until the end of August). I guess no one read my letter. I certainly didn't notice it until I went back and noticed on the paperwork that I was confirmed for one month of classes and four months of residence. I had naively assumed that one couldn't stay in the student residence unless one was a student. The manager is being pretty pissy about it (the concierge was quite understanding once he saw the paperwork), but there isn't anything I'm inclined to do, since it isn't my fault they got it wrong. But the upshot of it is that he wants me to check out tomorrow noon, rather than on 1 May (it's National Worker's Day, so a national holiday in left-leaning France). So I'm going to take a hotel room for one night, maybe two, in the Marais not far from my new studio. I was worried about getting a taxi on May Day anyway, so this may be for the best. The phones aren't working (again!) but as soon as they are I'll upload this update and then I'm back to my packing.
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