Artful reflections.

10.02.2007

Quote of the entry, that I steal here from some graffiti viewed from Parc Guëll in Barcelona: “Why call it tourist season if you can’t [even] shoot them?!”

Most of you know, I was in Spain last week, for 8 days. This entry will treat the subject of art—not the art of living, that’s what I usually write about; rather, art in its visible form.

I could write and talk about all the architecture I saw, but I won’t bore you all (or at least most)…I have pictures to do that for me. 2 notable mentions: Antonìo Gaudi, from where the word ‘gaudy’ comes from, was a genius, I now contend. If you don’t know him or his work, look it up. I also bought a little book so I will show it when I come back. 2^nd mention—the city of Toledo in Castilla-La Mancha (not in Ohio), a complete medieval treasure with streets narrower than the hallways in my house and great hills, skyways, churches, synagogues…

But, back to the subject at hand.

I don’t really know what it is: Russian intelligentsia education, my AP art history class, some sort of elite snobbishness, etc. All of these help explain why I go to art museums or museums in general. Perhaps it’s my quest for knowledge or something.

In any case, I managed to see at least 7 museums in 8 days, if not more (with so many, I may be forgetting). One thing to note. In the US, each painting/work of art has damned near an essay written next to it. I always that that was a good thing, up to a point, but really I was taught that nowadays one was supposed to appreciate art by looking at it and not learning about it. That’s not to say that I don’t read the notes. On the contrary, knowing me, I do. Not only do I read the notes, I play a game with myself trying to guess the name of the work, the artist, date, city even…
In Spain (and in France for the most part) there are no explanations. Hell, there frequently aren’t even signs telling who and what, which really helped me feel the artwork. Now I don’t mean ‘feel’ in the ‘small American liberal-arts college’ way, but to really react to it. That’s really all it takes to appreciate it.

I’ll try to be brief, but there are a lot of museums to go through, so please be patient. Notable omissions: Museu Xocolatica in Barcelona. Yes, unfortunately the Chocolate Museum closed at 3pm on Sundays (probably for siesta) and I was unable to visit it. Apparently there was also a Dalì (Domenech) museum somewhere in Barça, but I didn’t really see it. Also, the Nou Camp stadium where Barcelona plays, though I did see the Santiago Bernabeu stadium where Real Madrid plays, if only from the outside.

We’ll go in chronological order to simplify:

1. Museu Picasso—Barcelona’s version, because really every culturally self-respecting city has one. Like everything in Barcelona, they focus on the artist’s work in Catalunya, and not really anywhere else, go figure. Still, a cool old building and a large collection yielded for a good overview of all of his different styles from childhood to modernism and surrealism before his death. No real chef d’oeuvres (on the ‘you damn well better know this’ level).
2. Fundacìo Joan Mirò—Barcelona in Parc Montjuïc. I like some modern stuff, so this was pretty good. Miro is perhaps the best-known Barcelonan artist. It helps that I did a project on him in Art History at MHS. He’s pretty surreal and expressionistic, so Ben and I decided maybe one time was enough. Still, it’s famous. No real chef d’oeuvres.
3. Casa Mila or La Perdera—the Gaudi architecture museum, inside this masterpiece. This was awesome because it really showed how he used non-Euclidean surfaces to build in a new style. The roof rocks and it kind of looks as if one is on Easter Island, standing on it. A chef d’oeuvre in itself.
4. Victorio Macho and El Greco museum—Toledo, in a beautiful Spanish-style (duh) villa overlooking the Tago river. Frankly, this was kind of a small collection. For as well-known and prolific of an artist as Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco), I kind of wanted more. Still, beggars (tourists) can’t be choosers. One of the views of Toledo was there, and a bunch of portraits of Saints** (see below). No chef d’oeuvres.
5. Museo Sefardi—Spain’s Jewish Museum. Little did I know, this was probably the best (probably) Jewish museum I’ve ever been to. Located in an old synagogue (Synagoga La Transito), because Toledo had a large Jewish community before the expulsion and all that. Never mind that it was all in Spanish, the exhibits were truly well put, well done, and quite interesting. I managed to learn a lot and really improve my reading Spanish.
6. Museo de Prado—the jewel of Spanish museums and universally renowned. Let’s be honest, the outside looks like shit. Unimpressive is an overstatement (think the Met, the Hermitage, the Louvre…even the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, come on people. Then again, their royal palace in Madrid looked like someone had just hung it out to dry, not pretty). Inside though, it was wonderful. Imagine a museum where there were really only artists you knew, liked, and wanted to see; and what’s more, a lot of the works you liked and styles too were there. That’s the Prado. Though focusing on Spaniards mainly, the Prado does a great job of showing a lot while not showing too much, and of course, no explanations. I can go on and on, but chef d’oeuvres: 1) El Bosco’s (Hieronymus Bosch’s) Garden of Earthly Delights, definitely as cool as it looks in the books; 2) Velasquez’s Las Meninas, pretty cool, though I kind of like it better in print; 3) Francisco Goya’s May 1, 1815 (the one with the shootings and the martyr-looking peasant), definitely cool.
7. Museo de Reina Sofia—Madrid’s MOMA. All the modern art, specifically Spanish, with some post-modern mixed in. Lots of Picasso, Dali (full name, interestingly: Salvador Dali Domenech), Man Ray…even Henry Moore (hearkening to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden) and a Kandinsky that I didn’t think was really Kandinsky. If you like modern art, it was great. But, as Igor wisely, or perhaps unwisely said about a 1/3 of the pieces there, “[with some work], I could do this myself.” Chef d’oeuvres: Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, epic and cool better than in the books.

Well, this concludes the guided tour of multimedia Mavis Beacon.

Hope y’all aren’t asleep yet. I do appreciate the random emails, messages, wallposts, and etc. Even if they’re just to bitch at me for not blogging (khem Ilya).

I want to send a shoutout to all the MMSSers and AEPiers reading this (for no good reason really). And also to all those who have commented on the blog. You all rock.

And I conclude by wishing all a happy new year, once more, and a happy Tabernacle: that is to say, a swell festival of Booths. (Edwin and John Wilkes of course).

The first two days of spain

Some have complained I don't update frequently. You're right. enough said.

25.09.07

Oh Barcelona, Barcelona.

As usual haven’t written in a while, so apologies…

I have reached that intermediary period in my France-borne education where I’m not quite not a student, not yet a worker (yes, pun on horrible Brittney Spears song/album). That is to say, my vacation.

Why of all places am I going to Spain? It is cheap-ish. I have 2 very close friends there, Ben and Igor. I am bad at planning—didn’t buy my ticket back until 1 day before I left, nor did I reserve lodgings for more than one night at a time, nor did I think about what I was going to do until the night before the flight (or should I say mere hours before a flight). But, so far so good.

First to tell of getting there. To dispel some myths: low cost travel does not mean bad travel, it means inconvenient, though cheap travel. Hence a 9am flight necessitates a 5am awakening, a 5:40am metro train to the edge of town (Paris that is, not the Paris MSA), a 1.5 hour, 13Eu bus to Beauvais (read middle of nowhere), in a different Région (read state), 70 kiloms away. The airport, though reminiscent of Arlanda in Stockholm, in a bad way, could double as a large house, small warehouse, or medium-sized restaurant—it is tiny. At least there are a lot of people who do things as crazy as I and fly RyanAir. Surprisingly, the flight landed in Barcelona (Girona) 10 minutes early! But wait, 12Eu and another 70 kiloms and same 1.5 hour bus ride later, I’m in the center of Barcelona with hot weather and facing its very own Arc de Triomf. (Needless to say, all of this was fun on 3 hrs of sleep and Yom Kippur the day before).

To stop my patter…Barcelona is beautiful: palm trees, pretty girls, nice architecture, public art…and I happened to come in the middle of the year’s biggest deal—the festival of Mercì, an ancient Catalan tradition.

Before going further, I must clarify: Catalunya the province/region where Barcelona is located believes firmly in autonomy (understatement). Now, I’m all for regional movements, especially with their own languages, cultures, traditions, and cuisines. This is not regionalism, people; this is se-pa-ra-tism. But enough said.

This means, everything is written in Català, the local tongue, and sometimes Spanish, and generally not in English. Now some of you know, my knowledge of Spanish is limited to reading, and to very select 1^st grade vocabulario. So, I’m doubly screwed. Thankfully, Ben’s Spanish is good and we can get around.

In my absentmindedness, I left the address of my hostel, along with the list of attractions I had written out the night before, at home, in Paris. So, I proceeded to traipse from the bus station to where I perchance thought my hostel might be. I wasn’t completely poking in the dark as I knew the street name, Carrer d’Arago, and I knew the number was in the 200s somewhere. Needless to say, the first 2 times of walking through the 10 blocks that make up the 200s didn’t get me anywhere. I was really starting to feel like an idiot (well more than starting), and then Ben called and everything was ok.

Happily my phone is now out of minutes so don’t try calling/texting until I’m back in Paris, another one of those happy traveling moments.

Now for the good news: my hostel, Omni house, once I found it, is sweet. The people working are genial, breakfast is included, the cost is cheap, the lodging effective…

The festival that’s going on means all the locals don’t have work today, Monday, so Ben doesn’t have class. Also, there is live music and performances outside all over; many museums are free; fireworks and live shows every night.

Highlights so far—

o Museu Picasso—the Picasso museum. Definitely worth it, and it was free. It gives a great view into the art most people don’t know about: the very early, the very late, and the sketches, as wells as some ceramic pieces. A chronological arrangement, lending itself to learning about the artist’s life, introduced us to his Barcelonan presence and his earlier work which is an interesting mix of 1850s realism and 1940s-1950s American Regionalism, in my opinion. And we saw some famous ones too: Margot and the las Meninas sequence (a huge derivation on Velasquez’s work).

o Fireworks show(s), especially today’s at Avengida de Reina Maria Cristina, and Parc Montjuïc. Not only were the fireworks sweet, and I judged pretty shrewdly, but there was also a ‘tribute to pop and rock music’ playing in the background, which did everything from contemporary hits such as ‘Jesus of Suburbia—Green Day’ to name a good one, or ‘Girlfriend—Avril Lavigne’ on the other side of the spectrum, to ancient things. There was a water show with a large ornate fountain and a castle in the near background involved too. And did I mention the crowds—this makes Parisian riots seem miniscule.

o La playa—the beach. Lots of beachfront, though somewhat rocky, on the ever-beautiful Mediterranean. Lots of people tanning and some swimming. The setting is surrounded by apartments, modern 5* hotels, and odd looking modern public art (then again when is modern public art not odd looking?). Ben and I tanned and relaxed for a little and then we swam. The waves were rather large and the water rather salty, but fun anyway. Also, did I mention top-less was more than accepted here? Enough said.

That’s a good note to end on for now, that’s always a good note to end on.

Lions, tigers, bears, Oh My! (asyndeton).

09.08.2007

In the past 9 days I’ve been inside 6 châteaux (castles) and seen countless others from the outside. None of them have been within 10 miles of Paris. Pretty much all were royal at one point or another.

Personally, I am a fan of castles and palaces—and why not? Sheer richness, magnitude, art, furnishings, secret passageways…all hearkening to a time far (or not so far away). Before the narrative, I’ll give the interesting particularities of the French castles I saw as a whole:

• All have little letters carved into the ceiling/decorations signifying in one way or another who built them. For example, a salamander and a big ‘F’ for François I; a porcupine and an ‘H’ for Henri II; a big ‘N’ for Napoleon III.
• Fontainebleau was the first palace/castle that I have ever seen a royal bathroom in. This particular one was lived in as late as 1870 I think, by Nappy III who was a big builder and modernizer, but the bathroom dates from the time of Louis XIV. The bathtub was regal and the color was cool, though I couldn’t come close enough (glass/cordon) to see the WC, though I assume it exists.
• This point deserves special consideration—I’ve been to an awful lot of Palaces in Russia and elsewhere, and none had bathrooms open to the public.
• My opinion—Louis XIV ‘the sun king’ was a pretty damn smart guy and he liked the luxuries of life == the royal bath and adjoining crapper.

o Dancing in every château (at least 1 spin) was obligatory.

o I learned that I am not a big fan of tapestries as an art form, save perhaps the Bayeux tapestry and the tapestry of Martin the Warrior from the Redwall series I adored in childhood (Yeah Brian Jacques!).

Rendering distance obsolete

09.06.2007

Sorry I haven’t written for awhile—2 trips this past weekend and 2 presentations and an interview this week.

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Don’t worry, this isn’t a treatise on science (philosophy maybe).
It’s merely some shoutouts of the people I’ve seen in the past 3 weeks who don’t live in Paris, but are part of my life…

…to Steve Gorodetskiy for traveling with his family and having to do touristy things with Russian tour groups. Believe me, we’ve all been there. I always happen to see Russian tour groups on the bridges between Quartier of Boulevard St. Michel (Latin Quarter) and the Plaza in front of Notre Dame.

…to Ben Brabston for studying in Paris for a month, living on the Seine, and having a great time overall.

This one requires a story: “Serendipity” or “Just another day in Paris”

So Monday night, nothing to do, I decided to go with a friend from the foyer/program to Monmartre. I hadn’t been, and it was around nighttime and I figured it’d be cool. All of the metro stops west of Monmartre are surrounded by Cabaret establishments (eg. Le Moulin Rouge, and other Moulins) and noticeably strip clubs and sex shops.

We climb the ‘mount’ of martyrs or whatever, the Cathedral Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) is amazing, at night even. Plus, from there you can see the whole center and south of Paris, breathtaking. There was also mass at 22h00 for some reasons, but, you know, why not?

Leaving the cathedral, we find the square where you can get your portrait drawn, and then turn down the other side of the hill. A couple blocks, and sufficiently far from the tourism, we turn into a dark looking road. Walking along, I start staring at a girl walking on the other side of the street. My companion tells me to quit it, that I should ‘leave the poor girl alone’.

However, it turned out to be Mariel Vinge from Minnetonka. How’s that? Shit like that always happens to me, serendipity. She was en route from Amsterdam to Bonn, Germany.

I’m all for chance encounters.

Ching-Ching to all further encounters. (The French say ‘à la santé’ –to your health, or tching-thcing (the sound glass makes if it gets hit together) when they drink, brilliant).

...More encounters to come...soon.

The supreme law of the land & My (il)legal adventures

08.28.07

The supreme law of the land.

Prologue:

The first week of class (Aug. 20-24), we had a wonderful professor of French History, he taught the French Revolution until the end of the 3^rd Republic, i.e. WWI. His name, coincidentally, was Pascale Cauchy. You couldn’t find one better for me—2 mathematicians in 1 guy…we all know Pascal’s Triangle and the Cauchy-Schwartz Inequality.

He was overall a truly engaging and amazing professor, and we’re going to Fontainebleau, a chateau about 40mi. from Paris, this Sunday, with him. He also sported a double collar, all 4 days of class, which for a middle-aged guy I thought was a bit blasé, but in France…

End of Prologue.

…this week we have Nicolas Picarnat, who is not as good a professor, in my humble opinion, and the subject he’s teaching, the French Constitution, is nowhere near as interesting as The Terror or the 2 Napoleons. The French Constitution has a lot of articles, and though they’re short, it doesn’t compare with the relative terseness and clarity of our beloved US document.

I’ll cut to the chase…

On Monday (08.27.08), during my 1.5 hour lunch break, I was sitting in the bathroom outside of the classroom, and thinking to myself, “Damn, I wish we were still learning history,…I could wipe my ass with that constitution….”

Low and behold, as I reach down for the (obviously one-ply) toilet paper, I see that it is curiously white and blue, and has cartoons and words all over it. Low and behold, I realize, holy shit, the constitution is printed on the sheets of the toilet paper!!!

I thought at first, bizarre—wouldn’t that be desecrating the so-called ‘sanctity’ or dignité of the document? Then I realized, the French government, (or l’État as it is affectionately dubbed), was just trying to educate the electorate, using innovative methods.

Very good idea, Mr. Xavier Darcos (Minister of Education); civics class 3 times a day!

My (il)legal adventures.

(This vignette should directly precede the entry about food establishments closed on Sunday).

Sunday. 2pm. I finally amble out of my foyer (code for dorm with personal bathroom) after a late night Saturday. I decided that after a week of hanging out with other Americans in my program and general fun, I was going to spend Sunday alone walking around, living life, and eventually going to the library to do some research.

A nice and sunny day, I get into the subway, ready, awake…Ride 2 stations to Montparnasse, where I was planning to get off and go to a Paris city museum (gratuit by the way—free) about a sculptor similar to Rodin.

It’s a fairly sizable subway station, so I wander a bit finding the correct exit. Almost nearing it, I see a line of clean and nice looking ladies and gentlemen checking, what I had assumed were IDs.

Yes. This was the national police. No. They did not want my passport (read: unlike Russia); they wanted my train ticket. Fine, I showed them my pretty orange card case and ticket…and SLAP! €25 s’il vous plait (please).

What? How? Did I manage to be hustled out of my money by the police twice in one year? Yes.

Apparently, it was illegal for me to have been carrying the subway-card case I was carrying without affixing my photo and signing my name. As usual, I could do nothing but sign my name and fork over the money.

At least this time they didn’t get me just because I was an American—they got me because I was a stupid American. I hate giving bribes.

PS. I do have to add that French police were ostensibly nicer than those Russian thugs from Moscow, they even said Merci after I paid them, and gave me a receipt, so that if I were stopped again, I wouldn’t have to play double jeopardy, how nice.

Sundays – or ‘le Dimanche’ chez le français.

08.26.07

Now I am aware that Sunday is the day of rest, supposedly, technically, really only a Christian/Unionist invention.

And I understand that in the early 1900’s, in the good old days of the Progressives, getting Sunday off and taking the newly-constructed tramways into a suburb, or the countryside perchance, was the sublime conclusion to a 70-hour weekly toil in the factory.

Still, this is 2007, not 1911. Thing should be open on Sunday.

Again, I would understand if I was in, you know, a suburb of Little Rock, AR; where the only thing open would be the Walmart.

But I’m in the middle of freaking Paris—there’re more tourists here than residents, (especially in August).

Why do I rave bitterly? Probably because after walking for 30 minutes around Montparnasse, a fairly well-to-do and hip districts with people around during the middle of the day Sunday, I wanted to eat. Natural I suppose. Now by eat I didn’t mean plopping down 25€ for some sub-par pasta, or oysters (that I can’t even eat anyway), and sitting there and eating for 2 hrs, because once again it is Sunday, and only one waiter is working. Everything else was closed, and I passed at least 35 other eating establishments.

Needless to say, I solved my hunger problem indirectly—I went to a sculpture museum for 1.5 hours and then, after another 15 minutes of walking stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall with exactly what I needed: Panini or Sandwich + Sweet Crêpe + Orangina = 5€. Golden, why couldn’t it always be like that?

Nice and integrated.

08.18.2007

Nice and integrated.

Even though I’ve only been here 3 days now, I feel I can somewhat generalize already about the French as a whole. (Typical American approach, btw.)

First, all that talk of snootiness, holier-than-thou, liberty fries attitude we come to expect from this crêpe-loving country, has, in my experience been very unfounded. Every person I have talked to has been nice and helpful. People voluntarily say ‘bonsoir’ or ‘bonjour’ in the elevator and there have been no rude waiters, salespeople—even the street vendors have a refined air and treat the passerby with dignity. (Funny thing, you need to have a permit to ‘vend’ on the street, as I saw one arrested by the police today 300 yds from the Eiffel tower.)
If you think they’re only nice to me because I address them in French (just like I first thought), just listen to my current French, a shade above atrocious, and you will discover this is not the reason (as have I, L).

Second, and perhaps no less shocking, the overall societal integration. If New York City is the melting pot of the world, then Paris is like a Jackson Pollock work—lots of colors dabbed over the whole canvas with many unlike colors pairing up instantaneously. Seriously though, a more integrated city I have not seen. Certainly not in the US, or anywhere else I’ve been. People seem to coexist here unlike elsewhere. Lots of interracial/interethnic couples (and thus children). Interesting.

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Lots of demographic studies show that Europeans in general are having fewer kids than their immigrant counterparts and thus altering the makeup of the continent.
Have these demographers ever been here then, to Paris at least???
Every group of people I see that isn’t a couple has a stroller. And I don’t mean the tourists (most tourists have older children with them). Clearly the French, their proud selves, have decided to show up those demographers and naysayers by bringing out, showing off, and strolling all of the available infants and toddlers.
Now did I get a representative sample? Perhaps, I’ve walked around for a good 15 hours the past 3 days, outside: that’s a lot of f-ing strollers. Way to go French people, reproduce at will.

A brief shout-out.
Oslo. Spring 2005. Sam Richter and some younger girls and I completed a 5-6 hour walk around Oslo, starting roughly from Henrik Ibsen’s grave, getting lost, finding a park, then a river, some hobos, and then finally finding our way back to the hotel.
Paris. Fall 2007. Apparently, I wanted some more of that. It’s one of the best ways to see a city—just to wander around. Today, I saw the Eiffel Tower and surrounding Martian Fields (Champs de Mars, Marsovo Polye). That’s where the tourists are. Damn, that’s a lot of people. Then I walked around about ¼ of the city, seeing nothing in particular and everything in general for 5 hours.

I highly recommend this sort of tourism.