Bridges

Because Paris is a city divided by a river, bridges have always played an important role in the city. I have two groups of pictures for this post. The first is of the Pont Neuf, or new bridge, which ironically is the oldest bridge in the city. It was ordered by Henry IV, whose statue stands at the headway of the Ile de la Cite. It's an important bridge because it connects the left and right banks, via the Ile. One of the oldest squares, the Place Dauphin, is located right next to the bridge, on the Ile. The pictures are of the bridge taken from the right bank, and then there's a close up of some of the metal work on the light posts. Since I included the oldest bridge in town, I though I'd also include the newest, the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir. It's a footbridge that connects Bercy Village with the newish Mitterand Library. I'm no architectural historian or aesthete, but to my tastes most modern French architecture is soul-less, but I think they got this bridge right. I love the way it dips up and down, and the wood contrasts the sterile glass buildings that it leads to. Bercy, on the other hand, is a lovely green area, although there's a Frank Gehry building right after the park. Again, not to my taste, but his style of deconstructionist architecture seems to be all the rage. At any rate, the Passerelle was an unexpected surprise, as was the two girls on the bridge who wanted to take their picture with me. I'm not sure who they thought I was, but I think it made them happy. 

Two scary animals

Having just finished going through the last of the 245 Paris Metro stations (seemed more like 400 hundred, to be honest), now I'm playing the role of the flaneur, the man who strolls the streets without purpose, observing all that he sees. I'm off to dinner, but here are two picts from today that can only be paired because of the incongruent use of animals. The lion/dead ostrich is from the Luxembourg Parc, while the alligator is a the quay across from the Conciergerie, the prison where many, including Marie Antoinette, were imprisoned before losing their heads.

Where I'm Staying

If anyone's interested, I'm staying in an apartment in the Latin Quarter. I'm about 30 seconds from Saint Severin Church, which was started in the 12th century, and about two minutes from Notre Dame. I'm on Rue de la Huchette, which is a "tourist trap" kind of place, but it also is more authentic than much of Paris. It was marked as "unhealthy" during Hausmann's time, but luckily escaped being plowed under. My apartment has 16th century exposed timbers, and the original well is hidden in our little dirty courtyard (pictures tomorrow). My friend Terry Hall asked for video of the area at night, so here are a couple of Saturday night videos--sorry for the shaky video. 

Picpus

A couple quick pictures for today, then I'm off to a jazz club for the night. The pictures are both from Picpus Cemetery, one of the more obscure cemeteries in Paris. It's out past Place de l Nation, and can't be viewed from the road. You wouldn't really know that it's there, unless you go looking for it. The cemetery is very small, and is only really known for two things: it's the mass burial place for nearly 2000 victims of the guillotine during the French revolution (which was set up at Nation, which at that time was called Place du Throne) and their relatives in perpetuity, and it's the burial place for Lafayette, the general who helped the U.S. in the Revolutionary War. The first picture is of Lafayette's grave, and the second I took to use when teaching Wilfrid Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est"--

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

I'll leave you with that cheery thought.

A night out

As A.E. Housmann once wrote, "malt does more than Milton can, to justify the ways of God to man." Never one to argue with a poet, I decided to go out and have a beer tonight (actually 2, one larger than a pint). I wandered into a pub, sat down with my beer, and looked up to see one of the few remaining guillotines in paris, in the pub le Caveau des Oubliettes. I've attached a short video, but I'll try to go back at a better time for a picture. Later in my evening stroll, I came across a fountain on Place Maubert. It's been too cold for most of them to be turned on.

French rudeness

I have no doubt that in a city the size of Paris, one can find rude Parisians. My experience, though, has been the exact opposite. Even when I do something I shouldn't or find my rudimentary French unable to express what I need, Parisians have been warm, patient, and extremely helpful. Two examples: last night I must have grabbed the wrong bottle of wine at the Monoprix, and I was charged 38 euros for the bottle (I thought it was around 4 euros). I didn't catch this until after paying, so I stopped by the exchanges desk. They were so apologetic, and even wanted to go check to make sure that I wasn't right about the price, and when, alas, I was proven wrong, they quickly and happily refunded to money. Have you tried exchanging anything at Walmart lately? Secondly, today I stumbled upon the "Pavillion de l'eau", the museum of water. When I walked in, I was immediately greeted and given quite a spiel. I caught enough to nod knowingly at times and say things like "les mechaniques, oui". At the end though, he asked me a question that I just couldn't make out and was a afraid a "oui" or "non" wouldn't suffice, so I had to admit my feeble grasp of his language. He immediately apologized several times and redid the spiel in English, although his English was about as good as my French. I wonder how many times somebody at a smaller museum in SoCal is simply told "no Espanol" and sent on his way? While so many other French stereotypes may ring true (seldom do they pick up their dog poop, they smoke too much, everyone must have a closet of black coats, etc.), I've always been impressed with the friendliness I find in this large city. Pictures today--A closeup of Oscar Wilde's freshly kissed grave (not by me, mind you), the Eiffel Tower in the background of Cemetiere Passy, and my favorite lunch, fresh breton oysters and brown bread with a glass of sancerre. Au revoir!

Paris, Tuesday

Well, I had my first semi-frightening moment on the Metro today. I popped into a car only to find myself in an already tense situation. A bum was swilling from a bottle of wine and cursing at the top of his lungs. At least I understood merde, and assume the other words were curses. I figured no problem--this is just like any day in San Francisco. But then he pulled out one of those serious looking, wood shafted Euro knives. Everyone had already been paying attention to him, but this seemed to cause everyone in the car to sit up a bit and pay attention. Not to worry, though; he soon took off his boot and went to work repairing the sole, singing something about shoes or wine or something like that. The next stop all 20 of us in the car emptied out, just in case any of us looked like a pair of boots. Pictures today are of a girl sculpture in front of the Petite Palace, a rather large and unexplained gold statue holding a tiny dancer (or genie) in it's hand, that I found way out by the peripherique. There is also a picture of the Tuileries in snow, and of a boy about to joyfully murder a carp from the Pont Alexander, the most beautiful bridge in the world (sorry Golden Gate, Ponte Vecchio, Charles Bridge and Tower Bridges, but it's really no contest.