We missed a couple of days of blogging due to complete mental and physical exhaustion. We slept thru the Gay parade on saturday, emerging around 7pm in time to see the dissapating crowds of jockey-short clad men and rainbow flag waving women wandering thru our neighborhood. (Hey, we're here, we're actually not queer, we got used to it.) We did buy a copy of Cabaret on DVD to add to the flat's odd ecletic library and that certainly should show our pride.
The Carnavalet, holding a chronilogical history of France, was actually the home for Mme Sevigne, for whom our street was named, for the 20 years preceding her death. She was actually an author, a celebrated letter writer, and I found that more than re-assuring as one of my goals for this trip was to finish the novel I have been working on for over two years. I don't expect it will be ready for the editors just yet, but I just wanted to be able to write "The End" while in Paris. I brainstormed the plot and its potential with the girls the other day and they actually both gave me some excellent ideas for furthering the story I readily admit I came here not knowing the end of. In the museum I saw lots of inspriational items, a coat of arms I wanted to levrage for a graphic and the highlight for me, the Fouquet Jewllery Boutique, lovingly reproduced in its 1900 Art Nouveau splendor.
Today, Monday, when many shops and museums are closed, we went to the infamous Pere LaChaise cemetary and joined others making the pilgrimage to seeking Jim Morrison's final resting place. We didn't find it. However, we were successful in locating Fedora's destination of Oscar Wilde's grave. She came prepared with garish magenta lipstick to add her lip prints to the hundreds of others on the massive monolith and left a handful of stones in the Jewish tradition.
So all the "Sale" signs went up in all the shops this last week and I wish I could get more excited but I'm too busy investing in gelato and wine. We continue to go through museums, two days ago it was the Cluny which holds "one of the finest collections of Medeivil art in the world" and Sunday the Carnavalet which is actually on the corner of our street. At the Cluny I was overhwlemed by my commercial self, wondering why no one had developed salable 'gift' properties out of things other than the widely reproduced Lady and the Unicorn Tapestires. For instance, why had no one thought the 16th century carved and painted 'towel bar' depicting a maiden, couldn't be an exclellent toilet paper holder? I mean, I can see it at the Bed Bath and Beyond now, can't you?
The Carnavalet, holding a chronilogical history of France, was actually the home for Mme Sevigne, for whom our street was named, for the 20 years preceding her death. She was actually an author, a celebrated letter writer, and I found that more than re-assuring as one of my goals for this trip was to finish the novel I have been working on for over two years. I don't expect it will be ready for the editors just yet, but I just wanted to be able to write "The End" while in Paris. I brainstormed the plot and its potential with the girls the other day and they actually both gave me some excellent ideas for furthering the story I readily admit I came here not knowing the end of. In the museum I saw lots of inspriational items, a coat of arms I wanted to levrage for a graphic and the highlight for me, the Fouquet Jewllery Boutique, lovingly reproduced in its 1900 Art Nouveau splendor.
Today, Monday, when many shops and museums are closed, we went to the infamous Pere LaChaise cemetary and joined others making the pilgrimage to seeking Jim Morrison's final resting place. We didn't find it. However, we were successful in locating Fedora's destination of Oscar Wilde's grave. She came prepared with garish magenta lipstick to add her lip prints to the hundreds of others on the massive monolith and left a handful of stones in the Jewish tradition.We also found Proust (we saw his bedroom reproduced at the Chatavalet) and the Columbarium where Isadora Duncan's ashes were, although we didn't find her specific box among the hundreds. I love cemetaries and always have. This one was extra fabulous with its Gothic crypts and black granite slabs. I appreciated the mix of old and new- 1808 next to 2008- and the Protestants, Catholics and Jews all laying eternally together in peace. Even without the famous, this place was an amazing diarama of history and culture.
Back in the hood we hit the super market and Plez whipped up some pasta and I enjoyed an amazing bottle of wine for 2 euros while we watch 'Chocolat' and ate, well, lots and lots of cheap and sumptious chocolate, happy to be alive and in Paris.
1 comment:
oooo Pere Lachaise is my favorite place in Paris! i'm glad you gals went!
i have a photo of Jim M's grave if the girls wanna see it when they get back. it's small and unassuming.
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