Above It All Part 2: Why Stairs Were Invented By Satan

See I have a logical process.
Heaven is up, right? That's what those crazy Jesus freaks tell us. Stairs were invented by Satan so that getting up towards Heaven would be as difficult and painful as possible.

This was proved a few days ago when I and two victims made our way up up up to the top of Notre Dame. 400 steps. I didn't count them, owing to my brain slowly dying from lack of oxygen. Every time I thought we were getting close, it turned out we were only at the giftshop. We were not allowed to leave the giftshop until the subliminal tourist-aimed messages had penetrated our brains to the point of making us spend a certain amount of euros. It almost worked on me, luckily I realized that a Fleur de Lemon or Notre Dame pin might mark me as one of the aforementioned Jesus freaks.

I also wanted the 1500 piece puzzle of the Paris skyline at night, but the last time I tried to do a puzzle at mom's house, she killed me.

"Come join the gods, come join the gods, who wants to come with me and come join the gods?"

But we got up there and it did slightly resemble heaven. The view was amazing and we kept going higher and higher until we were getting smacked in the head by cell phone satelites. We met a lot of gargoyles who strongly resembled my family members. And there was a man in a Quasimodo mask doing street theatre for the people in line. Very funny. Today I picked up a very very cheap copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame just for giggles. The lil bunny took many pictures of me and of pidgeons.

"High in the sky, high in the sky, who wants to come with me and hide in the sky?"

It rained and winded and there were loud obnoxious koreans and also some very very fat americans. I swear to god there are only four of them and they just made thousands of clones of the same 8 months pregnant man with a fanny pack and dressed in shorts and sunglasses tied to his head with one of those cords I had to wear when I was a kid so they wouldn't break when I fell off of stuff. Also his fat, ill-groomed, hyperactive children. Usually two, a girl and a boy. And his wife, usually wearing the exact same clothes as her husband, desperately in need of a new hairstyle and some skin-softening cream.

Going down was harder then going up, as the steps were very slippery, and we were already quite shakey. Afterwards we found the mommy-doll and she and the three semi-catatonic dolls went to get drinks. My legs were being very vocal in their opinions of my activities, and refused to stop shaking. I firmy believe that they were trying to escape from further torture. They calmed down when I fed them a coke, which I would happily have killed for to change my poor appendages from jello back into Fedora.

Many other exciting things have happened in the last two days, but that's for the next time mom nags me into typing something that isn't a puzzle pirate command.

Pictures are courtesy of the lil bunny, big church is courtesy of Jesus, big city is courtesy of the Romans. The lyrics are System of a Down. Yeah, that's right, I like them. And I'm sick of people missaying their name! It spells SOAD! It's not hard! And the next cultural studies professor who gets it wrong is gonna get bit!

Above it all- Part I

So I have finally gotten some pics from P that she took at the carnival. She's been doing well with the pictures...my camera and my computer both stopped functioning within the first week, so F has saved the day by sharing both her camera and her comp. I give the girls credit for imploring me to let them go on the sketchy looking rides and enjoying the carnival after our long museum day, but the selling point was there was a 'Bar' tent where I could sit out the action.
It is not that common for women to sit 'alone' at a bar, but that wasnt going to stop me, of course, and the place was a classic tent with the 'bar' being made up of the plywood shipping boxes from the carnival. There was a woman about my age pouring who I became endeared to when I translated 'white wine' for two loud, pushy American men who were demanding 'Chardonay'. (At a carnival you get red, you get white, and it's out of a box in the fridge.) After they left we shared a giggle. She spoke no English. My French is limited to basic food and beverage vocab. Still, somehow, we had a good time. On starting my second glass of red wine, the temperature inside the tent had dropped and she asked me if I wanted it hot. I thought, did I get that right? Hot? So I said, sure, and she topped off my glass and took it to the steam wand on the espresso machine, brought it back and put a half packet of sugar in it and stirred. Ok, this was heaven. It was fabulous and warmed me up.

There is a jazz festival throughout Paris this month and there was a classic 3 piece Gypsy band with a brunette singer with dangling earrings and swirling skirt that began to play in the tent. In between the gypsy classics (think soundtrack to Chocolat), there was Louis Armstrong's hits, of which only one or two lines in English were known, but repeated over and over. F and P dashed in, rosy cheeked and laughing and asking for more money for more rides. They were like little kids and it made me smile, and the bartendress too when she saw the classic 'Mommy gets out her wallet' move.

The boss of the carnival was a woman about 60, dressed all in white men's clothes (pants, and loafers too,) which matched her white cropped hair and she came over and stood very close to me and spoke in French, welcoming me. Everyone greeted her as they came in the tent and I could tell these folks had been around a long time, and were a summer tradition. I noticed a canvas across the back of the room painted with her portrait and another woman next to her, not a daughter. This gal was perhaps mid 30's, thin and pretty in jeans and pointy cowboy boots, she sang a song with the band and then later as the evening wound down, and the girls had come back to sit and inhale a crepe, she came over to me to ask me to come back again. She flirted with me and I flirted back and in a mixture of Spanish and English and she told me about them.

Nine generations of their family had run this fair. They were Russians and traveled all over, doing a month in different European cities. The rides and games and food and music were all operated by the family or extended members. This was the real deal: carnies, gypsies. Everyone knew each other and had a grand time, laughing, drinking, clapping in time. I felt like we had stumbled onto a family gathering and were lucky guests. My new friend apologized they would have to close early because of the rules of the park (it was 11:00 pm) but as they were drawing the tarps around the tent I guessed fun would continue for quite a bit longer. But we were tired and cold and ready to go. I put down 20 euro for my 16 euro tab and bid fairwell to them all with thanks and assurance we would would return while in Paris. The girls gathered up the trinkets they had 'won' at the game booths and we headed off to the metro. It was an evening you would not find in a travel guide, hospitality as only a family would offer, and a moment where- on the ferris wheel above a twinkling Paris, or sipping hot wine on the rickety boards of a tent bar-we all got to run away with Gypsies.

Suffering for Art

Wednesday was the first day I actually ached from head to toe. We walked and walked and walked and there was that moment coming home this afternoon where we all eyed the 4 floor walk up and groaned in unison. The Centre Pompidou is several blocks from where we are staying and although we had walked round the outside of it our first weekend here, today we ventured inside to see an amazing collection of Modern Art. (12 euro for me, free for the girls!) This is my genre and I was beside myself with the beauty of the gallery set ups, the space, the lighting and the work itself, a grouping unmatched in my viewing since maybe the (Peggy) Gugenheim in Venice, Italy.

There was an entire room devoted to the work of Philppe Starck, including an aray of 'prototypes' of his more recognizable home furnishing items, which sat on a ledge above the final production models. Talk about an education in industrial design! I was lucky enough to stay in the Paramount Hotel in NYC a couple of times, where the entire place, down to the sinks and soaps had been designed be Starck. I think you can find many items in 'homage' to him in the aisles of your local IKEA.

F is less of a fan of 'modern' art, but was a goood sport as we wandered through it all. P shared my joy at seeing some lifetime-worthy masterpieces. We all picked favorites. It was easy for me, an amazing large canvas I recognized from a book, 'Slave Trade' by neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat. His short career was prolific, but there are very few publicly shown works, and this was a thrill to see. (And huge, at about 5ft high and 8 ft wide!)

"Every line means something." - Jean-Michel Basquiat. And how.

Thursday- Musee d' Orsay

In an attempt to avoid the crowds we went to this amazing museum at 4 pm because it's open Thursdays till 9pm. A converted train station, the place is HUGE and the lighting unbelievable even late in the day. It is just across the Seine from the Tuileries Gardens, where we walked from the metro stop through a carnival we had watched getting set up last week. (More on that later when I can get the pics from P.) We decided to split up so we could all see our various interests and meet back under the two story high gilt clock in 2 hours. The crowds were there- but all hovering around the Van Gogh and Renoir rooms listening to their tour guides give them a crash course in art appreciation. ("Got it- got it- got it...") I bee-lined for the Art Nouveau rooms (almost empty!) where furnishings, sculpture, paintings and -SIGH- glass (Lalique! Galle!) were set in scaled tableaus and cases. If I was born in a previous time, it was the late 1800's. In fact, the clowns that dance across my back are from a 1901 book and not only my favorite orange and green, but classic of the 'noodle' design lines of the era.

My new favorite artist has become Georges Lacombe, who is identified as a sculpture primarily. His series of four carved wood rectangles depicting the cycle of life really were breathtaking and tucked unceremoniously in a hall way between rooms. My favorite was L'Amour. (A poor pic here above, but look at the d'Orsay archives on line for more...www.musee-orsay.fr) He must be my "guide" on this trip as I remember his stunning grave at Perre Lachaise, black marble near Proust- where I stopped to read his name twice, before I realized it was not spelled the same as my pricey cosmetics. As I was on my way out of the d'Orsay, I saw his "ISIS" which was oddly prophetic and made me tear up a bit before I pressed on to meet the girls and venture into the dusk and the sparkling lights of the Gypsy's carnival.