Tuesday catchup

Today was our last day with Marilyn visiting. She left on the 13-hour train ride to Madrid at about 7:45pm our time. This trip she has a direct, so hopefully she'll return rested and ready for the rest of her adventure. All of us accompanied her to Gare d'Austerlitz, at the end of one of the Metro lines that stops by us. It's a very shabby station, and the boys were a bit sad that she was not on a TGV this time. But we did get to walk all the way down the quai to her car, and even hop onto her car for a couple of minutes to check out her 2-person (shared) sleeping compartment - not glamorous, but functional. We stood outside and waved goodbye until the train was moving, then chased it as it sped up, still waving franctically with her at the window. The boys and we are sad to see her go, but we know she'll come back soon.

Earlier today Marilyn and the boys ventured down to meet Betsy at her office for lunch. I stayed and got the grocery shopping done - it was getting pretty bare with all our adventures, compbined with the holiday weekend. I hear they had a very fun time, stopping to take a few rolls of pictures, and having Cambodian food for lunch.

Here's the catchup on recent days, but it's already late here, I'm off to bed quite soon, I haven't downloaded the pictures we took, blah blah blah, so this will be terse. Hopefully I'll polish it over the next couple days, but the boys are still "on holiday" all week so we'll be out and about doing more too.

Yesterday (Monday) was a national holiday, so Betsy had the day off and we went wandering through the Iles and St-Germain. (Here's a brief description.) We started toward Ste-Chappelle, but were stymied by the line. We headed over to Notre Dame, first wandering through the beautiful flower market on the island. After taking the stroll through Notre Dame, we managed to find some Berthillon ice cream, even though the main shop was closed for the holidays. We went back to Ste-Chappelle only to find the same situation, so we consoled ourselves with a stroll through St-Germain and a tour of St Sulpice. (Apparently it's become a popular stop on the Da Vinci Code tour ...) After finally refreshing ourselves with a lovely stop at a corner cafe, we headed home for dinner. Betsy and I actually ended up going out for Thai food, a well regarded place, but disappointing given our taste for agressively seasoned Thai dishes.

Sunday ... gosh, I know we went to the market, let me see what else Marilyn emailed people about ... ah, here's an excerpt. Kidding, it's the whole thing. Oh, if you're wondering, Calvin and I went to Chinatown in lieu of the Louvre. I'm signing off, so enjoy Marilyn's reprise of our weekend.

betsy, carter and i went to the louvre on saturday.
and not just to use their fine toilet facilities. it
was a rainy day and we had the same excellent idea as
10,000 other folks about going into the louvre instead
of wandering in the drizzle. nevertheless we had a
wonderful time and got to see a lot of terrific stuff.

(to put this all in perspective, we saw a few hundred
works of art and spent three hours touring perhaps 10%
of the collection. but we did see a superb 10%.)

to prep carter, we told him about the three most
famous pieces of art in the louvre: the mona lisa,
venus de milo, and winged victory. the first, of
course, is leonardo da vinci's famous painting. the
other two are ancient statues by unknown artists. we
saw each of them.

winged victory has stood in the same location for
almost as long as the louvre has been a magnificent
art museum. at the end of a long corridor with very
high ceilings is a long, wide stone staircase. winged
victory is a massive statue which stands at the top of
that staircase. one can see it for almost the length
of a football field. venus de milo is smaller and in
a more contained (though still huge) space.

the mona lisa has been moved since i first saw it. it
is a small painting, life sized, of a woman. so it is
not much taller than from your elbow to the top of
your head and only a bit wider than from shoulder to
shoulder. when i first saw the painting it was on the
side wall in a long corridor sort of a room. now it
is in the center of a very large room. so folks who
want to see it can stand in longer lines and get
tantalizing glimpses between the heads.

the three pieces are wonderful. but in many ways you
can see their striking beauty in ordinary
reproductions. what makes each so breathtaking is
that a moment has been captured in art. movement,
thought, grace and the human body have been caught as
if with the human eye. not in stone or on a canvas.

we talk of someone standing still as a statue or stiff
as a statue. which indeeed is the way most statues
look. and most portaits in any medium have a
stiffness and a formality which often lack warmth and
life. the winged victory is without head, arms and
one foot. but she still looks so real you'd think she
just landed with care and grace. there is no pose,
just life in the statue.

venus de milo is missing a few body parts too, mostly
arms and hands. but she too seems just to have been
caught in the act. art historians think she was one
figure of two in the original piece of statuary. she
too is in motion, though it could be almost anything
she's on her way to doing.

the mona lisa is known for her smile. but the smile
is only one aspect of the painting which is so real.
it isn't the sort of smile one uses in a pose. it is
a response to something you or she just said, but a
tiny part of a conversation of which you want more.
her body and the smile are so momentary.

carter was enchanted with all three. he was so
pleased that we had gotten an english language guide
to the louvre for betsy as a gift. he will go back
again and again.

today we found a magnificent museum none of us had
ever heard of before. a longish walk from the house,
but a short metro ride away. musee guimet. norm and
julie, next time you get to paris (i know it'll be the
first time too) you must spend a couple of days at
musee guimet. outside of the far east, this is the
best collection of asian art in the world.

the museum building is a beautiful, old parisian
building from the exterior. not much more beautiful
than hundreds of other parisian buildings. but the
interior has been completely renovated. it is
stunning. light, open and accessible. you move
naturally from one culture to another. from
afghanistan and pakistan, though tibet, viet nam,
nepal, india and korea to japan and china. guimet was
a wealthy industrialist who wanted to show cultural
and religious commonalities from nation to nation.
the collection is wonderful for being able to see how
concepts and deities and values flow from one place to
another.

so many of the works of art are exquisite in their
calm beauty. the other day calvin had told me he
wanted to see the chinese art at the louvre. so we
went to musee guimet in part because we thought calvin
would love it. he did. but not more than anyone else
of us.

it's again late and i am again tired. a good
breakfast of fresh french bread seems to give one more
capacity to absorb more beauty.