Day 1
I went to the museum of Paris today to give a series of talks to a group of American high school students about the founding and history of the city. I said, “The guillotine played prominently in the historical narrative of the city around revolution time.”
“Could you request to be guillotined face up?” one youngster with coke-bottle glasses said.----- -----
After my talk at the museum I read Sherwood Anderson’s Parisian diary in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and it was probably one of the worst things I have ever read. I knew that Hemingway satirized Dark Laughter with The Torrents of Spring, pretty much ruining Anderson’s career, and after reading his Parisian diary, I was glad Hemingway did it. Hem’s shot reminded me of my own forgotten New Year’s resolution, which was to tell more people to go fuck themselves. I decided to finish the afternoon with a chess match, and I was pared against a man that worked his whole life to kill reality. You guessed it. Karl Lagerfeld.----- -----
Day 2
I saw a video projected on to the wall of a naked woman hula hooping a hula hoop made of barbed wire today. She was bare-ass naked and the barbed wire was cutting the shit out of her. The piece was created somewhat recently in 2000 by an Israeli artist named Sigalit Landau. In the next room over there were works of art, mainly from the 1970’s, that focused on vaginas. These works of art tended to reaffirm the feelings I get from the decades of my lifetime. All the decades of the latter twentieth century can be approximately described using the f-word: 1960’s - Lets Fuck, 1970’s - Fuck You, 1980’s - We’re Fucked, 1990’s - We Don’t Give a Fuck. The Pompidou also had some works by Salvador Dali, one of my all-time favorites.----- -----
I saw a show on TV about a French lady who is an alcoholic. She started drinking at age seven and had already had five drinks by the time they interviewed her at eleven AM. The show was sad but a good exercise for listening comprehension because the woman spoke French slowly. After the interview, they let her get in her car and drive away. Reversing, she slammed the car ass-end against the wall of the parking garage and the airbag deployed.----- -----
Day 3
I took one of those boat rides around the Seine today and saw many Parisian monuments from the view of the water. Let me tell you, our tour guide was one spiffy feller. He had some of the best manners I have ever seen. Whatever lucky lady brings him home to mom and dad will have a mom and dad saying, “You better marry that spiffy feller.”
The spiffy feller’s best line was, “It is interesting to know that when the Eiffel Tour was first built, Parisians thought that it was ugly and they were afraid it would fall on them.”
He asked for tips at the end and I would have given him one, but I didn’t have any liquid cash on me.----- -----
Day 4
I thought my experience in the park at Butte Charmonte couldn’t get any better, but I was wrong. After a brief snooze, I opened my eyes to see a black and white cat jumping and leaping and having the time of its life. He was so free and I loved him more with every bound that he took. A Parisian woman in her early sixties came over and started talking to me. She was the owner of the cat and said that his name was Domino. She said that she takes him for walks around the neighborhood, and he is more popular than she is. He was extremely well mannered when he came over to me and I couldn’t believe how soft he was. I had no trouble seeing why he is so popular. The lady said that she is surprised that she has never been asked to train animals for the movies, with the way Domino turned out and all.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said, “That shit is cutthroat.”
Day 5
I walked through the Pere Lachaise Cemetery today and all the death bothered me less than my sagging pants which needed a belt.
I saw a fat kid sitting by Jim Morrison’s grave, wearing a Jim Morrison t-shirt, burning a fat doobie. At least in my college circle, it was a faux-pas to wear the t-shirt of the band that you were going to see in concert that night; to wear an artist’s t-shirt to their grave seemed to take it to a new level.
Day 6
I went walking in the Bois de Vincennes today. I didn’t know it until I arrived, but there is an enormous and stunning Buddhist temple in these woods. A kind looking robed man greeted me as I entered through the temple gates. Next to him were bananas and bottles of water, free for visitors. On a day so hot, the gesture did not go unnoticed. Several of the buildings had a natural look, earth tones as I believe they say on HGTV. The buildings looked so organic that it seemed to me like they were growing and emerging from stagnant trees and greenery around them. I entered the temple itself and wasn’t sure what to expect. What I got was a twenty foot tall golden statue of Buddha. Three Asian women prayed on a mat while a dozen other white people, tourists like me I’m assuming, looked around the place wide eyed. I would have loved to quiet my mind and meditate, but I was spending too much energy trying not to offend anyone. (Hopefully that is not an offense itself?) As I left through the gate, the man in the robe was gone and I was sad that there was no one for me to thank. I looked at the bananas and water bottles by the gates, glistening with condensation and sitting unattended on this hot summer’s day. I pictured the robed man asking with a sweat and frustration on his brow, “Did you seriously take a second banana?”----- -----
Outside of the temple was a large field at the beginning of which had a sculpture of several Zen Buddhist men. The statue was rather large, the men life-size. If I am translating the inscription correctly, the statue was made by a Japanese artist named Seiichiro Takahashi in 1972 and is dedicated to those on an endless quest for truth. To the right of the statue, two girls in matching black dresses and heavy Goth looking eye shadow were doing some sort of interpretive dance. I have to say they were quite talented; doing handstands and dive rolls on the ground with all their movements synchronized. Their dresses were backless and as I watched I thought about how itchy the grass was going to make them afterwards. After watching them for about a minute, I noticed among the dozen or so onlookers, a man wearing a white robe, an amulet of some sort around his neck, and the same dark eye shadow as the girls. His robe was not legit looking like the man at the temple and the way he was smiling and nodding his head up and down made me think that perhaps I was witnessing the commencement of some up and coming cult. In front of the statue I saw something equally bizarre. There were five French guys tossing around an American football. I wasn’t sure which sight was more unusual. I think the guys were more endearing because the whole time I was there, I never saw them complete a single pass.----- -----
I sat on a bench by the lake in the Bois de Vincennes for some time and watched people pass by in canoes. I have a love/hate relationship with canoes because when I was eleven, I was canoeing and a snake bit me in the leg. It was sleeping under my seat and I must have done something to startle it. The good news for me was that it was not poisonous and the scar it left was small. There is a French proverb I learned that says ‘a scalded cat fears cold water.’ In my case ‘a bit boy fears an empty canoe.’
Day 7
I boarded the plane for Miami. With the $$$ I made giving the talks, minus accommodations and two expensive restaurant meals, I was down only $300. The trip was a wild success.
I went to the museum of Paris today to give a series of talks to a group of American high school students about the founding and history of the city. I said, “The guillotine played prominently in the historical narrative of the city around revolution time.”
“Could you request to be guillotined face up?” one youngster with coke-bottle glasses said.----- -----
After my talk at the museum I read Sherwood Anderson’s Parisian diary in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and it was probably one of the worst things I have ever read. I knew that Hemingway satirized Dark Laughter with The Torrents of Spring, pretty much ruining Anderson’s career, and after reading his Parisian diary, I was glad Hemingway did it. Hem’s shot reminded me of my own forgotten New Year’s resolution, which was to tell more people to go fuck themselves. I decided to finish the afternoon with a chess match, and I was pared against a man that worked his whole life to kill reality. You guessed it. Karl Lagerfeld.----- -----
Day 2
I saw a video projected on to the wall of a naked woman hula hooping a hula hoop made of barbed wire today. She was bare-ass naked and the barbed wire was cutting the shit out of her. The piece was created somewhat recently in 2000 by an Israeli artist named Sigalit Landau. In the next room over there were works of art, mainly from the 1970’s, that focused on vaginas. These works of art tended to reaffirm the feelings I get from the decades of my lifetime. All the decades of the latter twentieth century can be approximately described using the f-word: 1960’s - Lets Fuck, 1970’s - Fuck You, 1980’s - We’re Fucked, 1990’s - We Don’t Give a Fuck. The Pompidou also had some works by Salvador Dali, one of my all-time favorites.----- -----
I saw a show on TV about a French lady who is an alcoholic. She started drinking at age seven and had already had five drinks by the time they interviewed her at eleven AM. The show was sad but a good exercise for listening comprehension because the woman spoke French slowly. After the interview, they let her get in her car and drive away. Reversing, she slammed the car ass-end against the wall of the parking garage and the airbag deployed.----- -----
Day 3
I took one of those boat rides around the Seine today and saw many Parisian monuments from the view of the water. Let me tell you, our tour guide was one spiffy feller. He had some of the best manners I have ever seen. Whatever lucky lady brings him home to mom and dad will have a mom and dad saying, “You better marry that spiffy feller.”
The spiffy feller’s best line was, “It is interesting to know that when the Eiffel Tour was first built, Parisians thought that it was ugly and they were afraid it would fall on them.”
He asked for tips at the end and I would have given him one, but I didn’t have any liquid cash on me.----- -----
Day 4
I thought my experience in the park at Butte Charmonte couldn’t get any better, but I was wrong. After a brief snooze, I opened my eyes to see a black and white cat jumping and leaping and having the time of its life. He was so free and I loved him more with every bound that he took. A Parisian woman in her early sixties came over and started talking to me. She was the owner of the cat and said that his name was Domino. She said that she takes him for walks around the neighborhood, and he is more popular than she is. He was extremely well mannered when he came over to me and I couldn’t believe how soft he was. I had no trouble seeing why he is so popular. The lady said that she is surprised that she has never been asked to train animals for the movies, with the way Domino turned out and all.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said, “That shit is cutthroat.”
Day 5
I walked through the Pere Lachaise Cemetery today and all the death bothered me less than my sagging pants which needed a belt.
I saw a fat kid sitting by Jim Morrison’s grave, wearing a Jim Morrison t-shirt, burning a fat doobie. At least in my college circle, it was a faux-pas to wear the t-shirt of the band that you were going to see in concert that night; to wear an artist’s t-shirt to their grave seemed to take it to a new level.
Day 6
I went walking in the Bois de Vincennes today. I didn’t know it until I arrived, but there is an enormous and stunning Buddhist temple in these woods. A kind looking robed man greeted me as I entered through the temple gates. Next to him were bananas and bottles of water, free for visitors. On a day so hot, the gesture did not go unnoticed. Several of the buildings had a natural look, earth tones as I believe they say on HGTV. The buildings looked so organic that it seemed to me like they were growing and emerging from stagnant trees and greenery around them. I entered the temple itself and wasn’t sure what to expect. What I got was a twenty foot tall golden statue of Buddha. Three Asian women prayed on a mat while a dozen other white people, tourists like me I’m assuming, looked around the place wide eyed. I would have loved to quiet my mind and meditate, but I was spending too much energy trying not to offend anyone. (Hopefully that is not an offense itself?) As I left through the gate, the man in the robe was gone and I was sad that there was no one for me to thank. I looked at the bananas and water bottles by the gates, glistening with condensation and sitting unattended on this hot summer’s day. I pictured the robed man asking with a sweat and frustration on his brow, “Did you seriously take a second banana?”----- -----
Outside of the temple was a large field at the beginning of which had a sculpture of several Zen Buddhist men. The statue was rather large, the men life-size. If I am translating the inscription correctly, the statue was made by a Japanese artist named Seiichiro Takahashi in 1972 and is dedicated to those on an endless quest for truth. To the right of the statue, two girls in matching black dresses and heavy Goth looking eye shadow were doing some sort of interpretive dance. I have to say they were quite talented; doing handstands and dive rolls on the ground with all their movements synchronized. Their dresses were backless and as I watched I thought about how itchy the grass was going to make them afterwards. After watching them for about a minute, I noticed among the dozen or so onlookers, a man wearing a white robe, an amulet of some sort around his neck, and the same dark eye shadow as the girls. His robe was not legit looking like the man at the temple and the way he was smiling and nodding his head up and down made me think that perhaps I was witnessing the commencement of some up and coming cult. In front of the statue I saw something equally bizarre. There were five French guys tossing around an American football. I wasn’t sure which sight was more unusual. I think the guys were more endearing because the whole time I was there, I never saw them complete a single pass.----- -----
I sat on a bench by the lake in the Bois de Vincennes for some time and watched people pass by in canoes. I have a love/hate relationship with canoes because when I was eleven, I was canoeing and a snake bit me in the leg. It was sleeping under my seat and I must have done something to startle it. The good news for me was that it was not poisonous and the scar it left was small. There is a French proverb I learned that says ‘a scalded cat fears cold water.’ In my case ‘a bit boy fears an empty canoe.’
Day 7
I boarded the plane for Miami. With the $$$ I made giving the talks, minus accommodations and two expensive restaurant meals, I was down only $300. The trip was a wild success.
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