Fables

One of the things that I most enjoy about traveling is being placed outside of the narratives that I know. Although much of Paris feels familiar and negotiable, one is confronted daily with stories and cultural traditions that don't resonate. I think, for example, of David Sedaris' hilarious recounting of how America's Easter traditions differ from France's--"The teacher sadly shook her had, as if this explained everything that was wrong with my country. "No, no," she said. "Here in France the chocolate is brought by a big bell that flies in from Rome." I called for a time-out. "But how do the bell know where you live?" "Well," she said, "how does a rabbit know?" All this leads to a statue that I found in a playground outside of the Marmottan Museum. It seems to be retelling a fable, something about a crow with a coin in its mouth, and a fox. The statue had no explanation, and the man in the statue, who I assume is the author, clearly isn't Aesop. Does anyone know the story or the author?

---update

Thanks to Yakbeard the Pirate, the fable came from La Fontaine, probably retelling an Aesop fable, called Le Corbeau et le Renard. The title is Le Corbeau et le Renard

Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage.
Maître Renard, par l'odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage :
"Hé ! bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau.
Que vous êtes joli ! que vous me semblez beau !
Sans mentir, si votre ramage
Se rapporte à votre plumage,
Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois."
A ces mots le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie ;
Et pour montrer sa belle voix,
Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
Le Renard s'en saisit, et dit : "Mon bon Monsieur,
Apprenez que tout flatteur
Vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute :
Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute. "
Le Corbeau, honteux et confus,
Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus. 

The Crow and the Fox

Master Crow perched on a tree,
Was holding a cheese in his beak.
Master Fox attracted by the smell
Said something like this:
"Well, Hello Mister Crow!
How beautiful you are! how nice you seem to me!
Really, if your voice
Is like your plumage,
You are the phoenix of all the inhabitants of these woods."
At these words, the Crow is overjoyed.
And in order to show off his beautiful voice,
He opens his beak wide, lets his prey fall
The Fox grabs it, and says: "My good man,
Learn that every flatterer
Lives at the expense of the one who listens to him.
This lesson, without doubt, is well worth a cheese."
The Crow, ashamed and embarrassed,

Swore, but a little late, that he would not be taken again. : 

Christmas time, once again

I'm usually not a big fan of Christmas; I grumpily accept it for the kids, but I personally am turned off by the mixture of consumerism and religion, as well as the transparency of so much Christmas cheer (God, I sound like Scrooge). However, when I first visited Paris with my family during the holiday season two years ago, I found myself softening a bit. Maybe it was the cold, maybe the wine, but something felt a bit more cheery than the average mall Santa. This year I continued to begrudgingly accept the season by visiting the Christmas market out at La Defense. La Defense itself is a rather graceless, antiseptic part of the city, but when they put up a few holiday lights and a sprawling Christmas village, it almost makes one want to whistle a holiday tune. Below are some pictures of the village, with the arc of La Defense in the background. The andouillette baguettes there were simply wonderful. 

Still in Paris

I'm home now, in California, but I'm still in Paris, at least mentally. I'm going to continue this blog for awhile, working my way through the many thoughts and 1000+ photos, at least until I've repatriated fully into the USA. Lately I've been thinking quite a bit about the village of Bercy and how it represents so many French ideas. I've already included pictures of the Passarelle bridge linking Bercy to the hideous Mitterand library district, as well as pictures of the Frank Gehry building that now houses cinema expositions. Bercy, until the middle of the 19th century, was outside of Paris, and up until the 1970s it was best known as a wine processing district. To me it really helps illustrate how Paris is a series of villages, loosely held together. In France, deconstruction actually means something, unlike here in America, where it has become a pop cultural phrase denoting anything that is confusing or postmodernish. In French urban planning, though, deconstruction is an actual strategy. Urban spaces show the inherent contradictions that compose a city like Paris. Take, for example, the "village" of Bercy. The pictures today show how they have maintained public gardens and wooden bridges, amidst  glass structures and Frank Gehry's architecture. Over the village park looms the Palais Omnisport, a large glass and metal stadium wrapped in vertical grass lawn [and note the homage to I.M. Pei's Louvre pyramid, which in itself is an echo of Napoleon's 1798 Egyptian campaign). Like all of Paris, Bercy is a palimpsest, where past and present coexist--but they coexist because of public policy, and this coexistence strains coherence. I love this tension throughout the whole city. The Champs Elysee still has artifacts of its pre-revolution status as the place where aristocrats escaped the city, and the glory of the middle of last century gives way to modernization, as you can buy your Hermes scarf and then walk into a McDonald's for a Big Mac. Haussman's grand boulevards codified the bourgeoisie into the city, but it also created pockets of poverty which, over time, either became worse (the banlieues) or became priveleged for not being bourgeouisie (Montmartre, the Latin Quarter, etc.). Ok, too much rambling. By the way, the large taco seller statue was part of the Dennis Hopper exhibit in the cinema exposition hall located in the Gehry building.