Cycling, Cubism, Computers And Commerce In Paris

I am certainly not the first cyclist to notice that pedaling enhances the senses.  We can see and hear more vividly, and whatever we taste or touch (or touches us) is more intense.  And we all know that our favorite foods and drinks taste even better during and after a ride.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that I found myself thinking about these phenomena as I pedaled around the Place des Vosges and through narrow streets lined with sandstone-colored buildings:  My morning's meanderings ended at la Musee Picasso.

So how are my ramblings and ruminations connected to the creator of Demoiselles d'Avignon and Guernica?

Well, actually, I started to think about the way we receive sensory details--on or off our bikes--on Saturday, while looking at an exhibit of Cubist painters in the Centre Pompidou.  The way Picasso, Braque and others dissected (visually, anyway), faces, objects and vistas, then re-assembling them in new ways, does not reflect the way our eyes see--or, at any rate, the way we are accustomed to thinking that our eyes see.  Rather, those artists were showing us how something besides our sensory organs--call it the mind, the intuition or the spirit (I mean that in a secular sense.) senses the world around us--which, of course, cannot be a re-creation of the object, the face or whatever we see.  

It makes sense when you realize that the words on this page, or any other words, cannot transmit the things they are supposed to communicate or represent.  All they can do is convey something--a code, if you will-- that the mind turns into an image or idea of whatever the words are supposed to convey.  The mind doesn't do that simply by taking in the sequence of letters that form the word; it turns them into something that the mind or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, can use to portray an idea or essence of whatever that word is supposed to represent.  If you see the word "house", your mind provides you with an image of a house because it turns the letters of the word into something your mind can re-assemble into a visualization of some house or another.

I am not a neuroscientist, so I have been able to describe our conscious processes only in the language I could find in my own intuition, such as it is.  And I know even less about the way computers process data, so please forgive me if what I say next makes less sense than anything I've said before.

Here goes: It occured to me, while riding afterward, that Cubism may well have been a prototype of how computers process data--and, in particular, how information is conveyed through computer systems and, in particular, across the Internet. As I (mis)understand it, what I am typing right now won't be posted directly to my blog:  It must be changed into a format that can be sent and re-assembled into the intended message or content.  And that format, as I understand it, bears no resemblance (at least in terms of logic or syntax) to the language we use and has to be rearranged in ways we never would (or could) do in order to convey our message.

So..Could the Cubists have been proto-computer scientists?  

Anyway, riding is always a great primer for looking at art, or almost anything.  And within steps, literally, of the Picasso there are two other museums.  I was going to go to the Carnavalet, but it was closed for renovations.  So I went to one I visited on my previous trip to Paris:  the Cognacq-Jay.

Like the Jacqmart-Andre, it was the residence of a wealthy couple who collected art and objects.  The collection was on display, but there was also an interesting exhibit about "l'art du commerce."  It shows how artists like Jean-Antonine Watteau were instrumental in bringing about what we might recognize as marketing in the 18th Century.

The convergence of a few factors made it possible. One was, ahem, colonialism, which gave France and the rest of Europe access to a wider variety of materials--and designs they'd never before seen.  Another was the means to reproduce the exotic objects that came from afar, mainly the Middle and Far East.  Then there was the development of merchant and middle classes --whose tastes and demands drove these new markets--and, last but not least, a group of artists and other creative people.  

This is the era in which, essentially, department stores and catalogues began. That is why artists like Watteau others of his generation were so suited for this development: They had sketch-like techniques developed for creating portraits of  merchants, bankers and other professionals:  the sorts of people (and their families) to whom marketing was directed.  So, in some weird way, you can thank (or blame) Watteau for Amazon--or, if you're of my generation, Bike Nashbar, Performance, Supergo and all of those mail-order shops that sold all of those exotic and unaffordable bikes and parts we couldn't find at our neighborhood Schwinn dealers.

Could it be that the bicycle developed from the draisienne to what we ride today because of the l'art du commerce?

A Bike Ride As Preparation To See A Master

I've known and ridden with cyclists who could or would not ride by themselves.   Whether they went on organized treks with clubs or impromptu sprints with friends and acquaintances, they simply could not conceive of a solo spin down their local streets or in a faraway locale.

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I am not that kind of cyclist.  And I have never been.  Oh, there are times when I like to ride with one other person, or in small groups. (I haven't done a big organized ride like the Five Boro Bike Tour in a long time.)  But I am also content when my ride is simply me, my bike and my surroundings--whether that backdrop is a winding lane in the hills, a road along a seashore or a boulevard in a fashionable (or not-so-fashionable) part of a city.

The last clause in the previous paragraph describes the riding I did this morning.  I rode down arrow-straight residential streets near my hotel to rondeaux at la Place de l'Opera, la Porte de la Vilette (where African immigrants waited for contractors to hire them out as day laborers), la Bastille and la Republique before heading down to the Boulevard Haussmann in the 8th Arrondisssement.  You can't get much more fashionable than that.

I did not, however, go there to be seen--especially being dressed the way I was!  Instead, at the suggestion of Jay and Isabelle, I checked out a museum that I now cannot believe I never entered in my previous visits to (much less in the time I was living in) Paris.  It was like going to la Musee Cognaq-Jay (which I visited two and a half years ago), only on a much bigger and greater scale.

The similarity is this:  the Museum is a mansion , like the Cognaq-Jay, named for the people who lived, and collected art, in it.  Edouard Andre came from a prosperous French Protestant family and developed a love of art.  Nelie Jacquemart, on the other hand, came from a Catholic family of modest circumstances.  She became a painter of some renown who made portraits of some powerful and influential people of her time.  Andre--who was known for his taste as well as his means of acquiring art--commissioned her to do his portrait.

I know this sounds like a period-piece romantic comedy movie script, but they got married.  Whether he was taken by her portrait of him, or she by his taste (which may have included said portrait) was never made clear.  What is known, however, is that they shared a passion for art and artifacts and, never having had any children, spent the rest of their lives travelling to acquire such pieces, and promoting the work of artists and musicians who were their contemporaries.  As a guide said, "They made their lives a work of art."

He died about two decades before she did and he left everything to her with the stipulation that she would be prudent with their heritance.  Her will, in essence, stipulated the creation of the museum.

I can't help but to wonder about the artist who was featured in a special exhibition.  Their collection consisted mainly of late-17th and 18th Century artists, which collectors were starting to favor a century later, during Andre's and Jacquemart's lifetimes.  

The artist featured in the exhibition--which will run for the rest of this month--did this painting:

The man in the picture is with himself, reflecting on the state of his soul.  It's hard to see in this photo, but there is a crucifix in the background which is even hard to see when you are face-to-face with the painting.  And, unlike other portraits of saints, this one has a halo that's barely visible.

One of my regular readers (hint:  he lives in Finland) surely knows the creator of this image.  I am sure that some of my other readers do, too.  For everyone else, I'll tell you his name:  Michelangelo (no, not that one) Merisi, better known as Caravaggio.

Contrary to what you may have heard, he did not invent the "chiaroscuro" technique of painting, in which the subject is set against a dark background, so that there are no "props", if you will, to distract the viewer.  But he probably used it to greater effect than anyone else.  One of the best examples of it, in my opinion, is the painting of St. Francis in meditation I showed above.

Some might opt for this one, of St. Jerome translating the Bible.  I wouldn't try to change their opinion:

or the opinion of anyone who prefers this one, of a young John the Baptist with a ram:

or either of the Mary Magdalen portraits he did:

Somehow, I think he could have done some very interesting portaits of cyclists alone on a mountain pass or the Boulevard Haussmann.

A Market, A Canal, A Church And A Fountain

My bike ride today took me to alternative universes in Paris.  That's what they seemed to be, anyway.

I encountered the first one after riding some side streets near the Place de Clichy, I wandered up some cobblestoned streets (that were really more like lanes) and found myself at the Porte de St. Ouen.

If you are cycling, walking, driving or taking any other kind of ground transportation, you enter or leave the city through those "portes", which are usually passages under the Peripherique, a highway that rings the City of Light. The location of the "portes" are said to approximate the location of openings in the walls that surrounded the city itself and those outlying towns in earlier times.

Anyway, just after passing through the "porte", I saw a sign for "puces".  No, the French highway folks aren't telling you where to find fleas.  Rather, it's shorthand for "flea market" (marche de puces).  So, of course, I followed it.

I hadn't been to the St. Ouen-Paris flea markets in some time. The hyphenated designation isn't just marketing hype:  Although most of the market's stalls are indeed in St.Ouen, a whole section of stalls lies within the Paris city limits.

Notice that I used the plural:  "flea markets".  That's because there are in fact over a dozen different markets, each of them arranged along different streets of the city.  Or, you might say that the markets are like a city of open-air malls.   The only shopping experience that even remotely reminded me of St. Ouen is the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.  Of course, they are very different because the GB is covered and, of course, because of the disparate cultures (even if some of the sellers at St. Ouen are Turkish). I don't know which is bigger, but they both dwarf any flea market I've seen elsewhere.

In both places, it's possible to buy just about anything, though there are certainly more antique and vintage-item sellers in St. Ouen than I recall seeing in Istanbul.  But St. Ouen made me think about the term "flea market", which is a direct translation of "marche aux puces". (The French usually call the markets "puces" for short.)  The term is said to have originated because the sellers in the original markets were often homeless, and covered with fleas.  According to what I've read, their practice began in the latter decades of the 19th Century, when much of the city was rebuilt under Baron Haussmann.  (He's the one who replaced the serpentine medieval streets with straight thoroughfares that radiated out from plazas and parks:  Think of the "Etoile" in which the Arc de Triomphe is located.)  As a result of this realignment, many old buildings were torn down, and their contents were left lying  in the streets--where they were scavenged.

Now, I must admit, some things indeed looked as if they were brought in by people (or even dogs or cats) with fleas.  But some other things certainly didn't.

And, while many of the structures that became stalls were old industrial facilites, others looked like they might have given a bourgeois lady or gentleman quite a view.

There are also some interesting contrasts, such as this:

I like it a lot, but it's kind of funny to see the kind of graffiti art you might see in Bushwick or Mott Haven on a building in which old paintings and prints are sold.

Speaking of structures, later in the day, at the other end of town, I encountered a church unlike any I've seen in this city--or anywhere else.

All right, from the outside you might think it's just another late-19th (or early-20th) Century church built in the Romanesque style.  And, in fact,it is, deliberately so:  It was built to replace another church similar in style--on the outside.

Once you get inside, the church still shares some characteristics with other Romanesque churches, including the high, vaulted ceilings--which, of course, are designed to get parishoners to look upward and be reminded of the vast power of God.  But then there's something you've never seen in any other Romanesque church--or, probably, any other church:

Steel girders!  If someone were to build a Romanesque church in Manhattan's Meatpacking District (when it was indeed a district where meat was packed) or Soho (when it was still industrial), I might expect something like this--maybe.

The girders inside the Notre Dame du Travail (Our Lady of Work) were taken from the Palais d'Industrie constructed for the 1855 Universal Exposition and torn down in 1891.  And the stone on the outside was taken from an earlier church that had become too small for the community it was serving.

Even though the city made a rather detailed historical marker for it, and the church offers pamphlets and other materials explaining the church's history, I guess they don't expect tourists to visit, as it is on the far southern end of the city, far from better-known sites.  Thus, the marker and the printed materials are only in French--which, fortunately, I can read, so I was able to write about the church (however sketchily) here. 

Along the way, I made other stops at interesting spots--and for a picnic lunch on the Quai de Jemmapes, by the Canal St. Martin.  And near the end of my ride, I stopped at Place Felix Eboue to hydrate:

Well, if I were my iPhone or laptop, I guess I could have hydrated there.  I enjoyed it nonetheless.  It's different and it's Paris, after all! 

What The Gilets Jaunes Couldn't Interrupt

Yesterday, I went for a short ride--not much more than an hour--through side streets and alleys in and around the neighborhood in which I'm staying.  One reason is that I limited myself to riding in one direction--north and east of where I'm staying--because of police checkpoints and barricades in the other direction.  Also, I had a date with old friends in the afternoon.

I actually wondered, though, whether I would make it to our planned rendez-vous:  When I was about to cross the Place to get back to the hotel, a seemingly endless procession of police vehicles descended from the Boulevard de Clichy into the Plaza.  As the line of gendarmes' cars and mini-vans extended as far as I could see, I really wondered when I'd be able to cross.

But, of course, it did pass, and I was able to return to the hotel, where I stashed the bike and showered and changed clothes.  I'd thought about riding to my "date", but realized that I'd probably stay out late (on a Saturday night) and might run into a stream of drunks or gilets jaunes along the way.

Well, I did encounter the latter as Jay and I sipped juices in a cafe near the Centre Pompidou.  But it didn't take them as long to pass as the police procession took to get through the Place de Clicy, and--as I expected--they didn't care about Jay, me or anyone else nursing juice or tea or whatever in that cafe. They yelled their usual slogans, like "Demacronization 2019!" (Emanuel Macron is the President of France.), but on the whole, seemed no more menacing than any other large group of people.

Before that, Jay and I sauntered through one of the Centre Pompidou's galleries, where some Cubist works, and those of artists who influenced them, were on display.  I had seen a few of those works before, and several more in reproduction.  Some others, however, were not familiar to me, including this wood cutting from Paul Gauguin, long one of my favorite artists:

The work is titled "Soyez Mysterieuses," which translates as "Be Mysterious."  One thing I've always liked about him is that he could control a line or brush stroke in the way Bach could control a melody but still create an almost dreamy--mysterious--atmosphere.  That quality was evident in the woodcut, which I don't recall having seen before.

Anyway, after our Pompidou visit, drinks and our front-row view of the gilets jaunes, his wife Isabelle met us.  She teaches and in France, most kids go to school on Saturday mornings.  After her students were dismissed, she had to attend a meeting at the school.  

I knew Jay when he had all of his hair--and Isabelle when, well, she was Isabelle, only younger.

We hugged. I did not want to let go.  Nor did she.  And Jay would do nothing to discourage either of us.  I met him before he met her, and he surely knows that the love she and I have for each other is entirely intuitive--like the love I feel for Jay, as she surely knows.  Probably the only other couple with whom I have ever had this sort of relationship was the one I had with my friend Mildred (who is caring for Marlee while I"m gone) and her late husband, John.

The only other relationships--save for some members of my family--that have endured the trials and other changes I have endured are, perhaps, the ones I've had with my cats (including Marlee) and with reading, writing and Paris.  And France--and cycling.

I Ride My Rental Into History

So, here's where I went yesterday:

Take a closer look:

No, I didn't come home early from my trip.  This replica of the Statue of Liberty is on the Ile des Cygnes, a manmade island in the Seine under the Grenelle Bridge.  

(Now I'll make a confession:  I am one of those New Yorkers who's never been to the Statue of Liberty in my hometown's harbor.  When I have made that confession elsewhere, I have been called a disgrace to the human race, and worse.)

Another difference between this one and the one in New York is that you can ride to this one. Well, almost:  You have to walk down a couple of flights of stairs from the Grenelle Bridge. (When I had a mountain bike with a suspension front fork, I probably would have ridden down those stairs!)  And I rode to it--well, actually, I didn't intend to visit the statue. But it happened to be along my ride.

Yes, I rode a bicycle--but not one from Velibre.  One of the hotel staff told me about a site called Bim Bim Bikes, which can locate a bike rental for you anywhere in France.  When you reserve it, you can pay directly with your credit card or with PayPal or other services.  (I used PayPal since my card is linked to it, which makes things easier.)  The shop--Paris Velo, C'est Sympa (which lives up to its name) --is in a neighborhood I know well, near the Canal St. Martin. A six-day rental cost me 65 Euros (about 75 dollars at current exchange rates).

For that price, I got this bike:

a basic "city" bike from a company called "Arcade".  It's slow and handles like a truck, but  I'm not going for speed or even distance on my rides here.  I could have paid more for a "name brand" bike like Giant, but I figured that even if I got a lighter, sprightlier bike, it still wouldn't be my own.  Perhaps this sounds counter-intuitive, but a more performance-oriented bike might make me wish for my own more than a basic bike like the one I'm riding--which, of course, can in no way resemble my Mercians.

But it rolls over cobblestones--and grips to ones slicked by the light rain this city has experienced for most of the day--nicely.  Plus, it includes, in addition to the lock, this interesting bag

that fits onto a Klick-Fix attachment used with some other bags and baskets.  It loos rather like a purse and includes a shoulder strap for carrying it when I park the bike--which, of course, I did at two cafes and a store.  

(I have to admit that I cried at the store.  A young woman was cradling a kitten who looked like Marlee when she first came into my life!  When I stroked that cat and rubbed its nose, that young woman said, "'s't v'avezoon chat, vrai?" (You have a cat, don't you?) in that Parisian equivalent of New York speech that seems, at times, to have more contractions than actual words.

The drizzle I that colored most of the day was interrupted by bouts of rain and overcast sky. But there wasn't any wind, and it wasn't terribly cold (8C high temperature).  Best of all, the low clouds made for an interesting view:

Since I've lived in, have visited and have friends in, this city, I don't think of myself as a tourist.  So I always promise I myself I won't take another picture of the Eiffel Tower.  But I figure the one with the low clouds is justified.  Heck, I can even rationalize another photo of the Arc de Triomphe.  At least I'm approaching it, just like the riders at the end of the Tour de France.

Hey, I even rode around the rond--twice!  I have to wonder, though, what it would be like if they made those Tour riders pedal through the cobblestoned bike lane. Hmm...Maybe they could think of it as training for the following Paris-Roubaix race.

Finally, I'm going to do something I often do when I travel: subject you to a history lessson.  Two, actually.  The first I encountered on the Metro, on the way to pick up my rental:

I had to transfer from la ligne 2 to ligne 5 at Stalingrad.  That's what everybody calls it, but the official name is la Place de la Bataille Stalingrad.  The city was known by that name at the time it staged one of the major conflicts of World War II.  For centuries, it was known as Tsaritsyn; today we call it Volgograd.  I find it interesting and ironic that the name "Stalingrad" cannot be found in Russia, but it remains part of the appelation of the intersection of Paris' two main canals (St. Martin and Ourcq).  

The sign is also interesting because it's in a style that's disappearing. When I first came to Paris in 1980, most signs inside the city's Metro stations were in that style.  Now most of them look more like this:

Now for more history:  Along the way, I stopped at this square:

named for the French officer falsely accused and imprisoned for passing military secrets to the Germans.  He just happened (yeah, right) to be Jewish.  So was the writer who fought for his release, and the reversal of his guilty plea:

The avenue on which Dreyfus park is located bears Emile Zola's name.  He is right that the truth wins out.  Sometimes it takes time--and it comes too late for some people, including the  victims of the terrible incident this statue commemorates.

I have mentioned Jews who were rounded up and detained in the Velodrome d'Hiver (known to locals as Vel-Deev) before they were deported.  That is, if they survived the head and unsanitary conditions inside the velodrome.  

As Zola said, the truth marches on.  And this is its color:

Or so I like to believe.  That sign is found on one of the streets that form one of the Dreyfus Park's boundaries.

Descent From The Grand Boulevards

I'm staying in a place just off the Place de Clichy--where the 8th, 9th and 18th Arrondissements meet.

The 18th is best known for the Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre and its many winding cobblestoned streets. And the Moulin Rouge.  And, oh, the Place Pigalle. My uncle, who spent time in Verdun, France with the US Army, told me that when he and his fellow soldiers had their leave, they headed for Paris  and from the Gare de l'est, straight to the Pigalle.  The cab drivers, he said, all knew the drill.  But as for me, I went only to the Montmarte.  Really, I did!

The 8th is often nicknamed "Elysee" because the boulevard, and the President's residence are located in it.  So are many of the world's best-known fashion houses and France's largest corporations.  The 8th also shares the Arc de Triomphe with the First.  And the 9th is often referred to as "Opera" because the Garnier (not to be confused with the Bastille) Opera house is found there.  It's also called the "Grands Boulevards" district because some of the city's more iconic thoroughfares, including the Boulevard Haussmann, lace it.

I walked down a few of those Boulevards today on my way to Paris Bike Tour.  Along the way, I encountered this:

Now, I know Milton is a common name in English. I couldn't help but to wonder, though, whether the person who named the street was thinking of the poet who wrote Paradise Lost--especially after I encountered this a couple of blocks away:

These scenes of the creation, fall and expulsion of Adam and Eve are behind the pillars of this church:

the Parish of St. Vincent de Paul, next to the Franz Liszt Square.  While the Sacre Coeur de Montmartre is actually located atop a hill, the St. Vincent de Paul only seems to be because of its placement on land that was built up.  Thus, while it stands over everything else in a neighborhood that doesn't have (thankfully!) high-rise buildings, it doesn't dominate the way the Sacre Coeur or even the Notre Dame do in their environments.

Interestingly, the church's organists have included some distinguished musicians.  The one you are most likely to recognize, though, is one whose name you associate with something else:  Louis Braille, the inventor of the tactile writing system for the blind still in use, virtually unchanged.

From there, I passed by the Place de la Republique.  Given that any number of riots or rebellions (depending on your point of view) have begun there, over every sort of cause imaginable, it's not surprising that some of the gilets jaunes have protested--and probably will protest again--in that square.  There, I found something one of the gilets jaunes--or people who are in completely different parts of the political, social and economic spectrum--might have written:

La France est un dictature!! La resistance est un devoir!  You don't need to know much French to get the gist of that:  France is a dictatorship!  Resistance is a duty!  Actually, you could substitute the name of many other countries, including my own, for France: Most countries, I think, are dictatorships, whether of political leaders or the economic elites.

After some more walking, I reached the Centre Georges Pompidou and enjoyed a crepe and coffee in a nearby cafe.  Then I walked to Paris Bike Tour, just across the pedestrian- and bike-mall known as as Rue Rambuteau from the Centre.

The first thing I noticed is that they occupy a smaller space than I recall from the last time I rented one of their bikes.  And it was closed.  Turns out, from December to March, they are open "only by reservation."  In one way, it's not surprising, as there probably isn't much demand for their tours during the winter.  But I had to wonder whether Velib, Ofo and other services have eroded their rental business.

So, I guess I'll be using Velib after all: I don't want to spend too much of my remaining time in search of another rental outlet.  Or, perhaps,  I'll get lucky and find a cheap used bike somewhere.