Lest we forget

It is 11 November. In the US, that means Veterans Day, when we honor those who have served in the armed services. In much of Europe, it’s Remembrance Day, honoring the armistice that went into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, silencing the guns of the 1914-18 war.

(It wasn’t for another 30 years that people realized they’d have to start numbering wars of mass destruction.)

What we now know as the First World War was utterly catastrophic for pretty much all the nations on the European continent. It led to the collapse of the Russian empire and its replacement by a Communist government. It broke up the Astro-Hungarian empire, resulting in the creation of a dozen or more small nations with no experience in self-governance or running modern economies; the "nations" were created arbitrarily by the winning powers, without regard to cultural or ethnic composition and we're still feeling the effects. It ended the Second Reich of Germany without establishing any kind of political or economic stability. It kneecapped the British empire, sucking dry resources from all over the globe in service of the fight against the Triple Alliance. And it destroyed much of Northern France and cost the French the deaths of about 25% of its men.

Not bad for four years of fighting without benefit of real armored tactics, only rudimentary air power and no computers at all.

So it’s no surprise that this day is still serious business here in France, even 104 years after the event. (It is in Britain, too.)

French composer Gabriel Fauré wrote his Elegy for cello and piano in 1880, but its mournful themes surrounding a fiery middle make it appropriate for this occasion. Here’s cellist Harriet Krijgh playing it with the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz orchestra.

 

Bon eats

On my way to the musée des Arts Décoratifs to see the exhibition of Elsa Schiaparelli fashions, I came across this line on avenue de l’Opéra:

Turned out it wasn’t to buy the new iPhone—although this was splashed on part of the Louvre complex:

No—it was for a boulangerie/patisserie that is apparently quite the hot stuff.

As I passed Brentano’s, next door, a guy came out and said to his friend, “The queue’s not really very long,” and they joined it.

I guess.

 

 

To die for

At the time of writing, the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections is unknown. It may be for a while, and even after known, there are way too many rightwing whackjobs who’ve already served notice that unless their side wins, the election will have been stolen.

So here are some pictures I shot at Alyscamps, in Arles.

“Alyscamps” is the Provençal word for “Champs Elysées”; Elysian Fields. It’s a Gallo-Roman necropolis that was used by Christians for a few centuries after. All that’s left now are some empty stone sarcophagi and a chapel or two, but up until around the 11^th or 12^th Century, Alyscamps was the place to be buried, and bodies were shipped in from all over Europe for interment.

But here’s what I really like about Alyscamps: in medieval times, local farmers took many of the old sarcophagi and used them as troughs for their herds and flocks.

I really wondered about that, because you’d have to really, really want a sarcophagus to schlep it over to your farm.

Also—how, exactly, did they do that? Those troughs must have weighed a whole lot; how did they lift them and what kind of cart was sturdy enough to carry them? Were they that much better than what a farmer could make on his own?

But, also—the French are so pragmatic. “Look at this old empty stone thing, Mathilde. I could make use of that to water the stock. No one’s really using it. Let’s take it.”

 

 

 

Arty Avignon

One of the museums I visited while in Avignon was the Angladon, a collection amassed by turn-of-the-last-century couturier Jacques Doucet. The guy mentored Paul Poiret and created fashions for the likes of Sarah Bernhardt and Liane de Pougy. His tastes in art ranged across a spectrum, but he liked Art Déco right much.

Here are some of the pieces I liked.

Black mask and crocodile mask, 19^th Century Guinea:

Portrait of a woman, possibly Mary Stuart, 16^th Century French School:

(What entranced me was the headpiece that seems to grasp her at the ears and center of the forehead. How does that even work?)

Bookcase, with books double-shelved:

Filing cabinet:

Bronze owl, André Derain, c1925:

Portrait of his wife, Tsuguharu Léonard Foujita, 1917:

Brush rest, China, from the time of Emperor Kângxi, 1661-1722:

“Rat Scarecrow”, China, 19^th Century:

Snow in Louveciennes, Albert Sisley, 1874:

Half-open Door, Édouard Vuillard, 1891

This is just a reflection on the case holding the Vuillard and Sisley paintings:

 

Gratitude Monday: day-to-day

Huh. My second Gratitude Monday on this trip to France.

May sound trivial, but I’m grateful that I have so far managed my way through quotidian French life. Like buying a train ticket from Arles to Avignon at an automated kiosk. Believe me—it’s not at all the same thing as doing it online; even that had its challenges.

(My Lyon-to-Arles trip could have been TGV, but I somehow went local. It took me nearly three hours to go 300km; about twice the time the journey from Paris to Lyon, which is 465km. However, I was not in any particular hurry, and rather enjoyed the puddle-jumper.)

I also successfully bought a bottle of Perrier and some butter biscuits at the Monoprix around the corner from my hotel here in Avignon. It was self-checkout, and I did require the intervention twice of someone behind me to point out that I’d put the Perrier in the wrong place after scanning, and then that I had to cancel out of the EnterYourPIN part of the transaction. But, tbh, this was not markedly more palaver than I encounter when I tried (once) the self-checkout at Wegmans, which is why I will not use them.

So, I looked almost like a local. A somewhat backward doofus local. I can be grateful for that.

I’m also grateful that “kir royale” needs no translation, as it’s my quotidian go-to apéritif. Viz:

To clarify, the third-to-last is made with peach liqueur, next-to-last with blueberry liqueur and the last is actually plain kir, as the restaurant doesn't serve champagne. 

Still grateful.