Paris Summer 2019

Today was our last full day in Paris. we got to go back to our favorite breakfast place on the corner Rue saint-Jacques and Port Royal. It's nice to have that sort of bookend on either side of our trip to Paris. We started with a good breakfast, and we ended with a good breakfast. The only thing that we had on the schedule today was going to lunch in the park together. I'm really sad that we hadn't found that sandwich place earlier, because that lunch was amazing! That smoked salmon sandwich, MMM! I've never had one better and I don't think I will ever again. I liked being able to sit down in the Jardin du Luxembourg all together, eat our lunch, and sort of take inventory. Today, I will sort of ready to be home. Jace and I had decided that 19 days, three weeks, was the perfect amount of time to be in Paris. But I was a little unsure after we all eat lunch together, especially after I heard Herman getting all emotional, I don't think I was ready to leave anymor

Today was a really really cool day. The first thing we did today was go to a place called L'Atelier des Lumieres. I can barely describe what we saw there. I meas, it was essentially a multi-projection immersive audiovisual experience. We saw three different shows there, a Van Gogh show, a Japanese art show, and a nebula show. I personally liked the way the Japanese art show utilized the space and the projectors that they had, but the Van Gogh show had the best overall experience. The music that they used during the Van Gogh show was incredible-- I actually looked it up afterwards and found the audio programming that they used so I can add it to my Spotify later. I wish that the nebula show was longer, because I really think that it had something special, but it was really difficult to tell because of how short it was. It kind of felt like a preview. It made me think about this piece that I saw in the Pompidou, this immersive punk rock collective exhibition. That exhibition used a

Picasso, the avant-garde, and absurdism is definitely my strong suit. Today, we went to the Picasso Museum was pretty much all that was on the schedule until the play tonight. the Picasso Museum was pretty cool, but not because of Picasso at all they had an exhibit that presented Calder pieces alongside Picasso pieces and it really made me realize why I like Calder and not Picasso. Sony exhibit revealed and touched on the concept of the void a lot, especially how the two artists represented it. And I realized that Calder created art from the void its present in all his work which all essentially contain the illusion of substance. He worked from the void up. Picasso, however, worked from representation down. Like, Calder reconstructed while Picasso deconstructed. he dealt with lack (and emasculation) by visually disintegrating the female form in his work. Gross. anyway, after the alarm went off and we went back in left, Jason. I got do-it-yourself Magnum ice cream , which was really

Back to the Pompidou today! After being in the Twilight Zone for a straight, like, nine hours yesterday, all I wanted to do was to go back to my happy place! So we got a super cheap and super yummy breakfast, and I set off! no hitches besides a little bit of a wait to get in. still as wonderful as when I first saw them. This is going to be a treat yourself day. Okay, so it did not end up being a treat yourself day. I loved being able to see all of the art again it just really is my happy place. I felt especially touched by Felix Gonzalez-Torres's piece about life, death, decay, and renewal. It's just so bittersweet, gentle, tender, and kind. he just does such a great job with taking everyday objects, and placing them in a familiar form in their own function and uses their inherent properties to speak about life and death.. I think he's my favorite artist. also, yesterday I got homesick bad. I walked circles around the Marais for 4 hours looking for somewhere to eat and

Today was the 14th of July! Jace and I decided to ditch the city and have a picnic, and we were originally planning on going to the Bois de Vincennes, but Jace ended up buying us tickets to the Shakespeare Garden's production of Midsummer Night's Dream (la songe d'un nuit d'ete), so we ended up going to the Bois de Boulogne. It was a journey. So, we had to go get food and print out our tickets first; we did that in the morning, but apparently we woke up in the Twilight Zone. It was nice weather in that it was cool and overcast, which is good morning weather! I got my khakis to dry, and I got to wear my denim jacket it wasn't super hot! But the ambience was weird. Like, the streets were empty. EMPTY. all the storefronts were closed. It was sort of cold? A tumbleweed passed by. Like, everything was off. And then when we got to the Metro, and we had to walk between the Musee D'Orsay and les Invalides, and we ran right into the parade. literally. RIGHT into it.

EAT (and I cannot stress this enough) THE RICH Apparently my love for art can be easily overshadowed by my hatred for rich people. I got to go to the most amazing Museum today, Le Musee Gustave Moreau. He has the range! The impressionists could never ! He has a very expressive style-- he uses these rich, deep, and often dark colors, and has a thing for Orpheus. It's like neoclassical subject matter meets impressionist style meets symbolist sentiment, you know? And the paintings were huge! And you could see his sketches a lot of the time, which I really love. There was this painting of Mary at the site of the crucifixion, and her expression broke my heart. I also wonder what "victims" was all about, she was so striking. also, the bathroom was super cool (especially the sink). the floor is created a symphony. (Also was Moureau gay?) I have so many questions I will be googling later. now I'm sitting on the steps of the church very small in the middle of the rich part