Reforming museums

With all due respect, I have some constructive criticism to offer the French in how they present museums. We've spent the last 2 days exploring the d'Orsay and Louvre and I really must say that the curators need some good old American marketing assistance to help us exhausted tourists. For example, at the d'Orsay I was almost too exhausted to see straight and spent too much time staring stupidly at one exquisite albeit incomprehensible painting only to turn a corner and smack straight into a favorite Degas ballerina or Impressionist landscape with absolutely no forewarning. Too much for the senses I tell you - too much!

And it was worse at the Louvre, where I'd powerwalk through galleries filled with dark depressing paintings of biblical history which I am too ignorant to comprehend or yet another beheading or even stranger, weird paintings of butchered game and fish??!! I couldn't make sense of any of it on a good day, let alone while jet-lagged. Then, just as I was about to give up, I'd run smack again into some masterpiece (the Mona Lisa - lovely, Venus de Milo - very nice, or best yet the Winged Victory aka Nike - a true masterpiece). Warn me, for heaven's sake!

So here's my advice - the French should set their museums up like we do our Wal-Marts or K-marts! No, seriously, bear with me here - you could keep ignorant art history-less tourists intereststed by setting up the works of art like window-shopping displays. Group them, arrange them artfully and most important of all - price them!! That way I could go around comparing prices of works of art and that would keep me endlessly interested and feeling smug while "saving" money on real deals. Case in point - after a couple hours in the d'Orsay I insisted that we get food and take a break before I passed out from fatigue. After an excellent bistro meal, we wandered in the Nordstrom of Paris, Le Galleries Lafayette with the amazing dome in the middle of the store, and suddenly I was rejuvinated! Price tags, grouped displays - it was great! It took us over an hour just to get through the gourmet food section! If the d'Orsay was set up like that, I'd have powered through the entire building in a fraction of the time it took to get through 2.5 floors!

And as for the early warning signals of upcoming masterpieces, I think they should adopt the flashing blue lights like they used to use in K-mart to signal shopper specials. That way a tired tourist would know that something really excellent was coming up - like a lovely madonna and child or Napolean's cornation (which is seriously at least twice as big a my 3-car drive way!) - instead of walking blindly and totally unprepared into beauty.

Clearly, we Americans are exporting all sorts of pop culture into France (I see posters of Hell Boy, High School Musical 3 and Chimps in Space everywhere!). For once, let's export something useful - the best of the American shopping experience applied to French museum curating. Happy tourists = spending tourists and with the exchange rate what it is, the French can't help but love that!

jour 2.0

Ahhh... Paris!

The combination of jetlag and high, morning-sun-blocking-buildings in an uber-urban setting lends itself to mornings wasted away in bed... luckily the "keeper of the flat", Hildi, needed to stop by at the un-Parisian hour of 0800 to pick up our cleaning deposit... hildi doesn't speak english; I don't speak french; but we both speak spanish, so it was all good: Saturday (sábado), before we leave (salir) we need to take out the trash (basura) and turn of the lights (la luz)... no worries! I feel so international....

after the effort of getting up that early (it is bed time in my native time zone so give me a break) I tried to go back and take a nap, but then Peg woke up--that woman always surprises me by doing the thing I least expect her to do!

So, off to the subway and la basilique du Sacré-Coeur... a nice big church on top of a big hill--second highest point in Paris after the tour eiffel, of course, it is no l’Alpe d’Huez, but it has an impressive view nonetheless, and a bit of history having to do with various famous artists (if you want to know more get a book and come visit!)... while in the church you can, for the small sum of €2, light a candle in support your current prayers--unfortunately, as Peg was trying to light her candle off of another already burnng candle, the wax melted prior the the wick lighting resulting in large globules of liquid hot wax that effectively put out someone elses prayers... an auspicious start to the visit I'd say.

After that we were hungry and decided we must eat, and in attempting to find a nearby guidebook-rated-cannot-miss eatery we came to realize that the guidebook may have decent recommendations, but the associated directions and map leave much to be desired--things are rarely where the guide indicates they should be... very odd...

later, after lunch, after window shopping, and after walking for miles on end, we took a well-deserved nap to prepare ourselves for the next outing--dinner! On the way we came across this recumbent fellow in the park... I went deep!


A postprandial promenade bought us to a well-known English used bookstore in the Latin Quarter--thing is, most of the books we were interested in are available for less $/€ at B&N back home, let alone the heft of a good paperback when dragging your suitcase across paris. So, we browsed, didn't buy, and then wandered home via some lovely and romantic bridges and chocalte crepes--vacation is wonderful!

Jour 1.5

Paris is undoubtedly home of world-class museums and unparalled architecture, but the most amazing thing we've seen yet is a grown woman zigzagging around the Marais dressed in a pair of white and blue children's pajamas while wearing a red clown nose! You'd think I was making this up, but I managed to snap a picture of her sitting on a park bench while reading an upside down magazine in La Place Vosage. So much for the fancy Reniassance architecture...I was fascinated by this nutball who seemed perfectly at ease amongst all the civilized French women and men on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon!


And if that wasn't weird enough, we snapped another picture while on Ile St. Louis of a street performer's accessories comprising some rope, a mask and a very large cucumber - those crazy French!


Alas, Paris...too much for the senses, that's for sure! We made it without incident from the airport looking like pros thanks to Sohela's excellent directions. I even requested the two bus tickets in perfect high-school level French (I got a C in the class)! Although I'm sure the ticket collector was just being kind like everyone else here - they all speak perfect English and are very nice about humoring my bad French. The flat we are renting is lovely and quite spacious on a quiet side street a few blocks form the Louvre (that damn museum is HUGE!).

After ditching our bags, we wandered over to the markets on Rue Monturgoile (sp?) and bought a real baguette and few other items. Then we walked all the way up the Champs Elysees despite being totally jet lagged. I tried to get into the Hotel Crillon, where Lance stays when he's riding the TDF, but the bouncer threw me out when it was obvious I wasn't exactly checking in. We made it to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and watched amazed at all the tiny cars swirling around the traffic circle (my VW bug looks like a semi-truck compared to the tiny cars they drive here). We wandered back via the Rue St. Honore which was a truly humbling experience in terms of $$. After stumbling up 4 flights of stairs, we collapsed into bed where I slept for 14 hours straight!

Sunday afternoon (I slept the entire morning through!) found us wandering La Marais watching crazies and eating yummy falafel. We also found Hotel Sully and Hotel de Ville and even took the time to wander through the photography museum (Dennis liked it - I was bored and tired with all the weird modern art!). We made our way to Ile St. Louis and finally Notre Dame (at least the outside; we'll go inside when it is less crowded) and finally inside the St. Chapelle where I was rendered speechless (no really!) by the expanses of stained glass windows. Totally unprepared for the beauty! A quick powerwalk through parts of the Latin Quater to gather provisions for a picnic along the Siene under the Point Neuf at twilight rounded out a very lovely but footsore afternoon.


Wandering back towards the flat found us in the couryard of the Louvre where we stumbled onto a quartet playing one of my favorite concertos inside an archway. The acoustics were amazing and even shut me up so we could listen in awe as we watched twilight settle through the glass of the Pyrimide. It doesn't get much better than that...



So now it is getting to be 9:30 PM and I'm wide awake!! Time for bed though because the nosy caretaker is coming at 8 AM tomorrow to make sure we haven't trashed the place. Which reminds me, the one thing I really want to bring back home is the wall-mounted towel warmer in the bathroom!! It is the coolest thing ever and I've even warmed my aching back on it to try and relax my spasing muscles!

Bon soir!