BORDEAUX

Last weekend I went to Bordeaux.  The south of France is very nice, as it seems southern regions typically are.  I arrived late from Paris, walked a bit, and retired.  In the morning, I began my day:

breakfast, writing...
city centre
beautiful fountain, homage to the Roman heritage of Bordeaux

the Garonne River, wide and reminiscent of the ol' Mississippi...

near the square where I lunched and ended up with terrible sunburn
one of the old gates of the city
the opera

On Sunday, I went to the country house of a friend.  We had a wonderful lunch and generally relaxed.  I picked these little berries, which are tart and delicious.  I forget how to spell their name...


a typical French country house
12th century church in the the village of the gite
last train back to Paris...

I very much enjoyed Bordeaux, and a rest from Paris.  Besides the wine, it is a fun city, with lots of history and culture.  Highly recommended!  

LUCIE'S 13th BIRTHDAY

Lucie turned 13 last week, and on Saturday, we celebrated with a lunch.  Early in the morning, Bruno and I went to the neighborhood organic market.  It was a really beautiful day out.  We walked through the park next to the Seine with the dog, enjoying the early sun, and all the wonderful things at the market.  Sorry there are no photos of that, but I don't think the vendors really like it when you take pictures.  I picked out a hoard of flowers to make Lucie a bouquet, which turned into two bouquets, because my eyes were a bit bigger than my vases.  Then we clamored everything home, and the children were awake, and fighting, and we cooked, and everyone had a generally marvelous time.  Somehow, I missed getting a photo of the birthday girl, but anyways, you get a look at a traditional French lunch.  And thanks to my friend Eralda and her blog, The Split Pea, for the inspiration of close-up food photography.  I need a better camera...  Enjoy!  ... I sure did...

THE SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF CULTURAL ECONOMY

I think that my little postmodernism project will now proceed from this title.  There are vacancies for groupies if anyone is interested.  Right now I am reading Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation.  In he says, 

"The great event of this period, the great trauma, is this decline of strong referentials, these death pangs of the real and of the rational that open onto an age of simulation... It is into this void that the phantasms of a past history recede...  to resurrect the period when at least there was history, at least there was violence (albeit fascist), when at least life and death were at stake... Therein objects shine in a sort of hyperresemblance that makes it so that fundamentally they no longer resemble anything, except the empty figure of resemblance, the empty form of representation.  It is a question of life and death: these objects are no longer living or deadly."

In asking, "how far is too far?" we are limited by what he is talking about here, and it gets to what I think is one of the big problems with postmodernism, that because we are nearly refusing to define anything, how can we even begin to address what is what... And if we don't know what is what, or don't have the tools to say so, how can we say how far is too far, what "too far" is, and, arguably, whether or not we should care if this "line" is breeched?  But it does seem to me that there is a leak in the hull, and if someone doesn't find it, eventually, the direction that we are going is certainly down.  We need these "deadly" objects in order that we be able to say, "Don't go there!  That shit will kill you!"  

It seems to me that as the present economy collapses, we should be aware that something in that system is broken, and focus on what it is that we want to rebuild from the wreckage.  Rather than allowing the momentum of technology and capitalism say where culture goes, culture needs to use the present state of the world as an opportunity to make a radical shift in the direction of civilization.  I think we (specifically my generation, who now, more than ever, is enrolling in art school, thinking that there is another way of life than to study business, taking an interest in politics... although I don't think we are aware of the power we have, that it will be us running the planet, generating the money, in just a decade or so) could potentially transgress this old way.  But we must be able to define "way."  One idea (yes, mine, you thieves) is that it is culture's momentum that should decide where the curious energies of science, technology, and economics should be directed, and not the other way around.  If those aspects of civilization were brought under culture's roof, housed in its ethics of humanism, then what kind of civilization would we be?  I think that potentially this could decrease the discrepancy of Eastern and Western, and add a lot to what it now means to be a consciousness.  Richer, Higher, in my opinion.   

I guess this is pretty idealistic coming from my little mouth, but I'm trying to adapt Chesterton's idea of pessimism/optimism into my workings, so bear with me...

LOVE AND SQUALOR

If this doesn't bring a smile to your face, well....  (I guess we already knew I'm not that funny...)

Napoleon, 1813

Today, Noé and I went to the Musee de l'Armée, or, the Invalides.  The exhibit featuring Napoleon I-III had re-opened, and as he had no school today, it seemed a good way to spend the afternoon.  It is always surprising to me how many details of family trees, battles, and ranks and measures a ten year old boy can have in his little brain.  Relatively uninterested in the survival powers of swords and guns and armor, my little charge guided me through the exhibit, dutifully explaining the dates and purposes and import of everything that we viewed.  I must say, it was the best tour I have ever taken.

I came across a painting there of a young commander.  I think I fell in love.  Something about the painting, from an unknown artist, really captivated me.  I don't know if it is because I saw in his face one of Vermeer's women, or if it was the slightest sneer of his lip, that, combined with the creativity in his eyes I saw some simulacra of a young King David, but it was very moving, hiding in its corner.  I think he died, early, following the figure depicted above...

TIGHTENING THE CIRCLE

Yes, folks, I have indeed joined forces with some of the "literati" here, and we are coming up with some ways to take our machinations public.  It's nothing new, really- or at least I do know it's been done before.  So all you critics of my pretention, just stop reading now, and check back next week for some easy-on-the stomach travel logging.

The purpose of this little group is tackle postmodernism (which those of you who know me are probably too familiar with my late-night whiskey-fueled monologues ranting and reeming its flaws) in a democratic way.  A little *ah-hem* maturity and the rigor bestowed upon me by my philosophy studies demand that I take it far beyond my tendency to preside over barroom discussions, and open the floor for the supporters as well as the denouncers.  One question I keep asking myself, especially as concerns literature, is, "How far is too far?"  While the Shock Wave that seems to be quite prominent in literature these days doesn't exactly offend me, (I am, after all, just as desensitized as the rest of my generation), it does make me curious about the ultimate purpose and effectiveness of all that this traumatism suggests.  I know many of my readers are much more qualified and competent at contributing to this, both formally and informally- so please be thinking on it.  As I feel that I am better qualified to act as mediator of sorts, I welcome commentary here, but also be aware that a publication will hopefully ensue in the fall, in which I will be looking for submissions.  After that, the goal is to host round-table symposium-esq events biannually, the first we are thinking will take place in London in December.  Basically, we want to engage writers, philosophers, scholars, etc. in a conceptual version of TED.  

While this is a very loose sketch of what's taking place here in Paris, be sure a concrete structure is on the horizon, so be ready for intervals from pictures of sailboats and pretty buildings...

DIEPPE

Dieppe is a tiny little town on the Normandy coast.  There is really not much to report, but that was kinda the point of going there.  Hiatus from Paris, and some sea air.  I did eat a delicious moule, and visited a really weird bar.  But mostly, it was just quiet...

ART

Although I am inhabiting a city with some of the greatest collections of artwork in the world, I have not seen even a tenth of it.  This is partly due, yes, to the overwhelming amount of it here (the sheer proportions of which one would have to devote an entire lifetime to absorbing), but also due to my own laziness.  Today for example, would be a great day to spend in a museum as it is quite grey and rainy, but instead I am doing laundry and blogging.  This morning I did read Stefan Zweig's novella "Chess," which was interesting and cataclysmic despite only being 75 pages.  Anyway, my lack of museum-perusing began at first by not wishing to try to consume Paris' sights, but allowing them to seep into me, in the efforts of being of the spirit of a mug of tea rather than a culture-vulture.  Now that I have been here about three months, and my french is beginning to become passable, I think it may be time to concentrate on the artworld a bit more.  I did go and see an exhibition of William Blake, and was pretty amazed.  Most of the pieces were actually quite small in dimensions, but nonetheless his child-like representations of rather dark material were quite striking.  But my favorite part of the exhibit was one of Francis Bacon's paintings of Blake's self-made "Deathmask."  He did a few versions of this, and I post here the one I saw, although the quality of the color does the painting no justice.  It was hanging on a wall at the end of the exhibit proper, next to a flat-screen which had about 45 seconds of Jarmusch's "Dead Man" in which Nobody encounters William Blake and asks, "How can it be?"  Over and over on repeat, this little clip sort-of got Bacon's painting stuck in my head, so I share it here.

On Saturday, a fellow Memphian came to Paris, as he had bored of London and the business that had taken him there.  I took him to Le marche aux puces de Saint-Ouen, where we had a nice lunch with my boss and son.  We then went to Montparnasse looking for Oscar Wilde's favorite bar, which my friend had visited the last time he was in Paris 15 years ago.  We were unsuccessful, but enjoyed some American beverages nonetheless.  After that, we had a break for naps and rejoined another in the evening.  We took a trip up the Eiffel Tower at night, which was pretty nice with all the lights and the full moon.  I realized in this day with a comrade a few things about my internal self, most notably that, well, I've changed a lot.  Imperceptible to the self which has demanded a lot in terms of "improvement" (see the post CHRONIC OBSERVER), ideas, no, the structure of thought has made a movement.  Most likely, this is entirely lateral, but it was interesting enough to witness it, and to note that it takes a comparative devise (such as a person from "home") to be able to perceive the movement.  I'm not depressed enough this morning to go into the details here on the blog, but believe that I was stricken and that it IS recounted in vol. III of the cumbersome journal.  Here are a few photos from the excursion.