The Songs

This week, I came upon a cool park right here in the 11th called Square de la Roquette.  It has many beautiful tall trees and curvy paths.  

The park has a history to it, like everything around here and I'll warn you that this history has some sadness to it. The spot once held a prison called Petite Roquette that opened in the 1830s.   It was a prison for kids who were forced to spend their days in solitary silence. Later the Petit Roquette became a prison for women.

Grande Roquette, a men's prison, opened up nearby around the same time.    

There are some stone slabs, still visible today, in the street next to the park that were placed there to give stability to the guillotine when they rolled it out for public executions.  Public executions were outlawed here in 1939, and I was sad to learn that France has executed more people with the guillotine than any other nation.  

During World War II, 4000 French women who were part of the Resistance were imprisoned in Petite Roquette. Most of them were later killed in concentration camps.  I read an article today about how some of these political prisoners formed a choir and would sing together in solidarity and in protest.  The nuns who ran the prison weren't crazy about some of their song choices, so they would run at the women and hit them with sticks, but the nuns could not silence them for long.  

The prisons were demolished in the mid 1970s and now the 11th has a beautiful park with lots of greenery. When I visit Square de la Roquette next, I'll listen for the strains of brave songs while I watch the kids climb on the playground structures and enjoy the camaraderie of the pétanque players. This is a kind of music with staying power. 

The Hearers

Rodin owned this Van Gogh painting.  
https://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/musee/collections/oeuvres/pere-tanguy

Rodin also owned these feet.  He collected old odds and ends. 

While I walked around the 4th today I listened to Ezra Klein's interview with Ruth Ozeki.  Ruth has a new book out that sounds fascinating. Its title is The Book of Form and Emptiness.  In her talk with Ezra, Ruth chatted about writing, Buddhism, Agency of Materials, Marie Kondo, Jane Bennet, Hearing Voices, Hoarding, Desire, Interbeing.  Stuff we love, in other words. I highly recommend that you listen to this podcast if you feel like it. Ruth's book is about a kid who hears the materials around him speaking. 

Speaking of hearing things, I learned about an interesting new syndrome this week called Exploding Head Syndrome.  It's a condition where you hear loud crashing sounds in your head when you're trying to fall asleep.  It can be annoying, but it's basically harmless and you won't need any treatment if you get it.  I would love to talk to someone who has Exploding Head Syndrome.  I myself have developed "hypnic jerks," where a part of my body, usually my hand, jerks up as if it has a life of its own.  It's annoying but infrequent.  Many people experience hypnic jerks. 

 

The Bourse

 Mari Homme took a morning off for a change and walked with me to Bourse de Commerce.  The Bourse de Commerce used to be a grain exchange, but the history of the Bourse is not the focus of this blog entry, so let's leave it at that. I'm simply trying to provide some historical context.

Salma Hayek's father-in-law, Francois Pinault, renovated the Bourse. As of 2021, the Bourse is open for business as the showplace of the Pinault Collection of contemporary art.  Pinault has a 50 year lease on the Bourse.  I hope he can keep up the good work.

We loved Urs Fischer's melting wax sculptures and David Hammons' assortment of assemblages. We'll go back next month to see the Charles Ray show. 

This Charles Ray sculpture is a little preview for all of us while we wait for the new exhibit.  There's a sign next to the sculpture that asks us not to climb on it.  Who would do that?  

The Noisies

 I walked to Parc Bercy today. It's near Gare Lyon.  I saw it on a map so I figured I'd walk over there.  Wowza.  The place is incredible, even in this wintry time.  Fountains, and ducks, pansies and labyrinths and a small vineyard. There's a movie theater nearby designed by our own Frank Gehry. Some French kids had their gym class in part of the park and had to run around a rectangular path.  The same path I happened to be walking on.  As small groups passed, we smiled and said, "Bonjour."  When a group of boys approached they started singing loudly. I had to smile at them, but their teacher, across the rectangle, yelled out for them to pipe down.  The boys ignored him and acted like they couldn't hear.  When they got around to his spot, quiet descended on the park once again.  I felt for the boys and I felt for the teacher too.  They were adorable, but there are limits to free-for-alling in shared spaces. 

Husbandman and I enjoyed listening to the workers drywalling the hallway during our lunch time.  They were so noisy in their language which I took to be some kind of eastern European number.  Or maybe Russian. Their laughter was nearly constant and surprisingly uproarious, considering their task was drywalling. During lunch, it was impossible not to laugh when the sounds of their riotous cackling filled our apartment.  After lunch, when we were trying to work, the cackling wasn't as much fun.  Husbandman opened the door and asked for quiet and they cooperated, despite the language barriers.  I would never have opened the door and asked for quiet.  It's just not my way. Sometimes I think I'm slightly too wimpy, but at least I'm not as keyed up about noise as Patricia Highsmith who serendipitously wrote about noisy people in a book that I'm reading now.  I'll share her words thusly: 

"I do not understand people who like to make noise, consequently I fear them, and since I fear them, I hate them. It is a vicious emotional cycle." 

The CRT

 I read an interview about Critical Race Theory in schools with Terry Gross and Tyler KingKade yesterday. I'm fooling around with a new story that has to do with all the crazy hubbub about teaching about "divisive topics."  (AKA race and gender).  Tyler says that many parents were not happy when they listened to their kids' teachers talking about race and gender during pandemic remote learning sessions. 

So now some of these parents and that freak on Fox think teachers should wear body cameras so that discussions can be monitored.  

To be honest, I'm not crazy about the idea.  What do you think?  Should I wear a body cam while I'm teaching or not? I write a weekly newsletter on my teaching blog where I share the social justice books we discuss as well as other fascinating topics about classroom life.  Isn't that good enough?  If I have to wear a body cam, I'm definitely NOT doing the weekly newsletter as well.  

On a happier note, my walk around the 2nd arrondissement was fabulous today. I walked through many covered passages.  The oldest was built in 1817. These covered passages are very lovely. There are shops and eateries in these passages.  Here's one I liked.  And here's another. Nice, right?  

The Recommendations

 I have loved these harlequin paintings by Picasso since way back when.  It was fun to see them at the Morozov exhibit at the Foundation Louis Vuitton.  The Morozov brothers were Russian art collectors.  They bought a lot of art from our favorite artists and kept these masterpieces on the walls of their mansion in Russia, but don't worry, they're in museums now.  I highly recommend you click here to see more paintings collected by the Morozov brothers. These guys knew what they were doing.

I finished My Year of Rest and Relaxation today. It's a novel by Otessa Moshfegh.  She has written several novels now and many stories, so I don't know why I'm just now finding out about her.  Somebody dropped the ball and I'm looking at you, Friends Who Read Novels All the Time.  I agree with Dwight Garner's comments:

"Moshfegh writes with so much misanthropic aplomb, however, that she is always a deep pleasure to read. She has a sleepless eye and dispenses observations as if from a toxic eyedropper."^[13]

I believe you should read this book if you feel like it.  I haven't enjoyed a novel this much in awhile. 

We took a sunny morning walk yesterday down to the Latin Quarter, where we watched kids kicking soccer balls around Lutece de Arrennes.  In the evening we had a beautiful dinner in the Marais, close to the apartment.  Things are going well here. 

The Evolution

The Grand Hall of Evolution contains a ton of taxidermy.  If you're thinking of switching careers, taxidermy might be for you.  First off, you don't need to go to school for long. A course might take a month or so, and then you apprentice for up to a year.  When you're done with that, you can start plying your trade.  A motivated taxidermist can earn a six figure yearly income.  

It takes a long time to go through the taxidermy process.  It might take 6 months to a year to mount a deer.  You would charge about 2000$.  

I was surprised to find out that it's more expensive to mount a brown bear than it is to mount a grizzly. Don't you think that's strange?

One other thing.  Most people don't find the results of pet taxidermy to be satisfactory.  

Les Jardins

Jardin du Palais Royal

 We're being a bit more careful this month and you know why.  I've been walking into various gardens around the town.  A favorite was the Anne Frank Garden, which was new to me.  There's a chestnut tree there that was grafted from the tree that Anne used to look at from her hiding place.  She wrote about it in her diary. 

There's a lot of cool stuff like this around France.  I love all the history and remembering everywhere I look. When we are home next year, I think we should have some plaque making workshops.  We need everyone to remember the important stuff we're doing or might be thinking of doing. 

The Preview

Leopold Rabus
La lumiere ne brule pas dans un vieux poteau.
The light doesn't burn on an old pole.

Hand and egg shell could be a good #twintuesday combo for tomorrow on Insta.  I saw this piece of art through the window at a gallery in the Marais.  I took the photo and then later thought it wouldn't be appropriate to post the photo without crediting the artist. So I went searching all over tarnation for the gallery later in the week.  Could not find it so I gave up the search.  Then a few days later, I came upon the window by surprise.  It was nowhere near where I had been looking. Note to self --- stop trying to find things and also write down artists' names when you photograph their creations.

I have been reading about Leopold Rabus and looking at more of his artwork here.  Leopold is Swiss and he's 45 years old. I couldn't find much about his love life but he was married to a woman named Anna Hirsch a few years ago. I hope they're still together. 

 

The Bonding

 I walked down to Jardin des Plantes today.  It's close to the apartment and it's also a beautiful place for a walkabout.  I haven't wandered into the museums there yet, but I will. Nor did I enter the garden's small zoo, but there is one path where you can stand near a mob of wallabies in a big grassy enclosure.  I bonded with the wallabies for quite some time. I even considered freeing them somehow but they actually looked pretty content.  Wallabies have extremely small arms.  

The Love Life of Wasily Kandinsky

 Spent some time at the Pompidou Center today with a few other vaccinated people.  They are holding a retrospective of the work of Georg Baselitz.  I was not familiar with Georg.  Come to find out, his paintings are remarkable.  I started out on the 5th floor visiting with all our faves:  Matisse, Kandinsky, Chagall, Cornell, Tanguy, Delaunay and Delaunay, Modigliani, Miro, Klee.  I know I'm leaving people out, so forgive me, Artists.  Then I found my way up to the sixth floor to see Baselitz.  The ticket taker said I got the wrong kind of ticket and couldn't come in to the exhibit.  I exhaled an exasperated, whining groan and she said, "Do you want to see this?  Go on in." WooHOO. Groans and whines get the job done once again. 

Georg loves his wife Elke and he has painted some beautiful and fun pictures of the two of them together.  One painting/collage has them wearing actual panty hose. 

In the afternoon I got to wondering about the loves of the artists I love.  I read about Wasily Kandinsky's love life.  He married a woman named Anna and they were doing fine.  But then he met a student artist named Gabrielle Munter and they had a long term affair, but WK didn't feel like leaving his wife.  Munter was an incredible artist and she did a lot to support WK, but he just wouldn't commit.  Munter was often embarrassed because people threw her shade because she wasn't married.  Finally WK divorced his wife, but he still wouldn't go with Munter.  Instead he married another woman 27 years his junior, whose name was Nina.  Munter was brokenhearted and angry as all get out.  She wouldn't give WK back his paintings, but that ended up being a good thing because she took care of them and hid them from the Nazis.  After the war, she gave most of them back.  I love the work of WK, but I wish he could have stayed with Munter.  She loved him very much. 

The Luck?

 Edith Piaf was abandoned by her mom when she was an infant.  Her dad had to go into the first world war, so he left Edith with her grandmother.  Her grandmother owned a brothel.  The brothel workers helped look after Edith and even pitched in for some medical treatment for extreme vision problems Edith had.  In her teens, Edith ran around the streets, singing for cash. 

Wouldn't it be great to tell people that you grew up in your grandmother's brothel?  That's going to get listeners to sit up and take notice.  My kids basically have to tell people that they grew up in a midsized midwestern college town with 2 parents and their elementary school was right across the street. 

Some people have all the luck. 

The Missing Vim

 My walk today featured visits to the graves of Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf.  I love that Pere Lachaise Cemetery.  I'll probably go there 6 more times.  It's moving to see the flowers and song lyrics and notes on the graves of these beloveds.  Someone put a beautiful yellow rose on Edith's grave this morning.  I wish I had brought some type of tribute. Maybe I will some time.

After a nap this afternoon, I spent some time reading about Jim Morrison.  I wish he hadn't struggled with addiction. He lived near here so I'll swing by his apartment tomorrow.  I also read about Modigliani, one of my fave artists.  He's in Pere Lachaise too, but that place is vast and I didn't see him today.  I will. He also struggled with addiction and he used to strip naked at parties. 

I'm feeling kind of tired today.  I don't have my usual ex-Pat vim and vigor.  I'm lucky that I can just enjoy an afternoon reading about the dead people of Pere Lachaise.  

The Strolling

 Yesterday (January 1) was a day when people in Paris became legally mandated to wear masks even when walking around outside, or face the consequence of a 135 euro fine.  Most people do have their masks on, but I'm sad to tell you that some people are not following the mandate.  I am desperate to see someone get fined, but so far, no such luck.  When I pass a mask wearer I send them silent thanks.  When I pass a non-masker, I wish them good luck and good health, which is nice of me considering these people are hell bent on destroying civilization as we know it. 

On Friday I visited the eglise of St. Eustache.  Fantastic.  We walked to Bois de Vincennes yesterday, a beautiful park where you can take off your mask.  We walked around a lake and saw a peacock sashaying about.  There's a Buddhist temple in the park that reminded me of our Buddhist temples in B-Town.  Today we visited the Institut du Monde Arabe.  Saw a great exhibit about the "history of Jewish communities in the Arab world." I learned that the Jewish tribes of Medina were doing just fine in Saudi Arabia before the prophet Muhammad appeared on the scene. Another big surprise was learning about Renee Dangoor, the Jewish beauty queen of Iraq, crowned in 1947.  After the museum, we walked to Shakespeare and Co, where Husbandman bought a book.  

Last night we watched The Last Daughter, which was good and a little sad, but Olivia Coleman once again knocks it out of the park with another stellar performance.  Well done, Olivia Coleman!