Not Quite the Last Word

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... should have posted this a month ago...



Saturday, August 14, 2010.


I’m tired of writing the travelogue thing. Here’s a list of our activities over the last days:

Tues. John not feeling well; hung out at home, cooked dinner (chicken), Eiffel Tower by night

Wed. Anne not feeling well. Museums day 1: Rodin, Pompidou - dinner in Rue Rosiers (Marais)

Thurs. Museums Day 2: Louvre, Orangerie - to Montmartre for dinner and evening

Fri. Museums Day 3: Orsay, Cluny (just Anne, to the latter)

Sat. Walk to Isle de la Cité, line to Notre Dame tower too long, ice cream, Saint Chapelle, walk to Arene de Lutece, Mosquée de Paris, Rue Mouffetard, home

The “not feeling well” was a bit of stomach upset. More on that later, along with foot care (guaranteed to be an exciting post).

We bought a four-day museum pass, which must be used on consecutive days, so we had to start Wednesday so as to keep our last day, Sunday, open. I’m quite sure there used to be a three-day pass, which would be about perfect. Now there are two-day, four-day and six-day passes. A driven sight-seer could get by on a two-day pass for €36, but to make it worth the price, you’d have to visit four to six museums, and I don’t see how you could do any of them justice at that pace. The four-day pass is €48, pricey to say the least, but it paid for itself. One advantage is that passholders skip the long line-ups at most museums.

So, we’ve had four days of Museum City. The list is above (day four being Saint Chapelle)

I’ve been to most of these museums before. I remember the artworks. I remember the emotional resonance. And I remember the frenzy around certain pieces (notably, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, both in the Louvre). What I had forgotten was the trance state inspired by artwork (and their homes, once away from the frenzy).

We grew up in churches and temples where we were told to hush. We grew up with librarians who shushed us. We know about the hush of certain places. All the world knows, it seems, because there are still certain places where people just shut up, no matter who they are. Art museums are among those places.

The Pompidou Center is a multi-purpose building whose fourth and fifth storeys hold a modern art museum. You ride the escalator, on the outside of the building, up and up, and enter the hush. The ceilings are high, the hallways wide. Everything not art is white, which seems to disappear. The first piece, facing you from the wall as you enter, is a 3-D rendering of a fairytale-cum-electronic-age woman’s dress. Huge, like nearly everything here. La Jaconda (the Mona Lisa), a mere 77cm high, would be lost in these galleries. And she wouldn’t have a lot to say.

Art has moved (a long time ago, now) from the realm of beauty to the realm of statement. Maybe art always made a statement, but from my perspective the message of very old art is unclear, while the beauty is paramount.

The art of the Pompidou is about statement, apparently to shed a light upon our existence. There is a room of films projected on the wall, one of which is of a woman who beheads a chicken then holds its body by the feet for several minutes while it flaps and spews blood all over her naked body. Several people watch from a bench in the room, transfixed. Other films in the room are similarly disquieting.

I went looking for the huge tryptic by Francis Bacon, in front of which I had sat and taken photos, with myself in reflection, back in 2004. The Bacons have been moved, so the same reflection shots with the better camera were not an option, though I got what I could.

The other piece I remember from that last visit was a multi-sensory installation of a mass of cinnamon balls hanging in long nylon tubes. It was a little past its prime, even back then, so it was no surprise that it was now gone. In its place—its place in memory, at least—is a room of “sound” pieces, the best of which is a pair of stringed boards on the wall, electronically charged so that a hanging ball struck them at erratic intervals. People passing through were impatient, and swumg the ball into the strings, bringing the guard running. I imagine that particular guard spent much of his daily shift running. Ne touchez pas!

By the time we left the Pompidou, I was completely spaced out, transported. The cavernous rooms, the reverberating sound, the surreal art—who knows what creates that sensation. I only hope the people working in that environment don’t hop in a car to drive home at the end of six or eight hours—it wouldn’t be safe.


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I wrote most of the above on August 14, two days before leaving Paris. Then I ran out of steam. Now, today, September 19, I just want to get it posted. I will, hopefully, write about the other museums in detail at a later date.

August 15th, Sunday, Paris rained. We stayed in, other than to go for dinner at the Restaurant Polidor, a wet walk away. It didn’t seem quite right to hang out in an apartment in . . . Paris. That we did was a sure signal that we had had enough. We were ready to go home.

August 16th, the taxi arrived at 4:00 a.m. Sixty euros later, we were at the airport. Fifteen hours after that, home. Vancouver, pleasantly sunny, with the most comfortable air of anywhere I’ve been.

The trip over, there is still a lot to process. I’ve been lazy about writing, but I will get down to finishing what I’ve started, bit by bit. In the past month I haven’t written, but I’ve gone through the more than 3000 photos and several hours of video. John comes up from his music cave to find me grinning at the computer, and he knows I’m back in France, reliving some amazing moments.