Dateline France, 22 October, 1990 Report 28 I still have a few more notes to get written up here before they go completely stale. Here I report on mostly events around Paris. While I was in Berlin, Paris had its "Music Day", when various musicians and ensembles play music outdoors and in the subways. I think each of the 19 "city halls" organizes some kind of music presentation, as well. The musicians all play for a pass of the hat--there is some funding for organization and publicity. Kaye and the kids caught a few groups on a trip into Paris. Le Vesinet celebrated the Feast of Marguerite at the end of June, which is the town festival. They celebrated 15 years of sister cityhood with Outremont, in Canada. I caught part of a fireworks display with music, spotlights and portable fountains. It rained lightly during the whole affair, but that didn't seem to bother many people. In town during the day there were stilt walkers (going in and out of the shops, even) and someone in an African costume that I can best describe as a "human broom". June seems to be wedding season in France much as it is in the US. We saw several wedding parades, where all the cars have lace bows tied on them to let people know they are part of the group. Sometimes the bride and groom's car is taken to a florist to get special treatment with the lace. One of our Saturday trips took us to the chateau at Ecouen, north of Paris, which dates to the Renaissance. Most of it is now a museum, featuring crafts of the period: woodcarving, leatherwork, glass, ceramics, gold. There is also a famous series of tapestries giving the story of David and Bathsheba, and a wonderful 3-D embroidery of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The chateau was built by Anne of Montmorency, who lived from 1492-1567. He (yes, he) served under French kings from Louis XII to Charles IX (six kings). He fought beside Francois I, Henri II and Charles IX. He was a Duke, and controlled many other offices during his lifetime (field marshal, constable of France). At times he was the second most important royal person in France. At other times his enemies would have the king's ear, and he would be in temporary disgrace. He inherited the chateau at Chantilly, and did much to fix it up. I learned a couple more royal logos at Ecouen. Henri II had three interlocking crescents and Catherine de Medici had a rainbow. Speaking (writing?) of crescents, the next morning we found two croissants in a bag on our doormat, along with a copy of the Sunday Figaro, and a note asking us if we wanted to subscribe. Ate the croissants, read the paper, didn't subscribe (croissants weren't great). The French continued to amaze me in their ability to organize festivities. The latest was a PR event organized by the future farmers of France. It involved growing wheat in thousands of pallets, trucking it all to the Champs Elysees one night, and turning the portion between the Arch of Triumph and Place de Concorde into a Champ de Ble (field of wheat). We went down to take a look--there was an incredible crush of people in places, because of barricades that cut off part of the sidewalk space. That evening, at sunset, came the Moisson (harvest). We watched it on TV. First came people harvesting by hand, then with antique harvesters, then with modern combines, followed by balers for the straw and trucks to haul it away. (I think the wheat was to be baked into loaves to be sold to raise money for some cause.) The machinery was followed by a parade of farm youths, carrying giant ears of wheat. One of my co-workers took a dim view of the whole proceedings. He said that the farmers were worried about the bad publicity they had been getting from demonstrations where they snarled traffic around airports with slow-moving farm machinery. So what do they do to improve their popularity? Block off the busiest street in the country for 24 hours. Nevertheless, I was amazed by the logistics of the whole thing--getting all the wheat trucked to Paris, laid out overnight, harvested, and cleared away, never having done anything like it before. (Did I mention they laid sod at the sides of the wheat?) The French are indeed masters of the celebration. When the crowd got too much for us at the Champ de Ble, we headed over to the Guimet museum, which features Asian art: Japan, China, SE Asia, Korea, India and Pakistan. I kept Sarah amused by having her find renderings of multi-armed gods in the various cultures. Most of them seemed to have some form of multi-armed god, sometimes just 4 arms, sometimes as many as 1000 (each with an eye in the palm). There were also some neat ones that had 6 or 8 arms and three elephant heads. Shortly before we left France, there was a big flap because Bernard Pivot, after 15 years, was going to retire from hosting the show Apostrophes. He had done 724 shows. He invited authors of all kinds of books onto his show, and he read every book he talked about. He said he spent 10 hours a day reading. To hear the press mourn his retirement, one would think that no French writer will ever sell any more books, and all Frenchmen will cease reading. It was treated as a cultural tragedy. Most of you probably heard something about the world cup. There was some interest in it in France, even though France didn't qualify a team. Many players on French teams are actually foreign nationals, and were playing for their national teams. We could hear the people of Cameroon cheering all the way up in Paris, when their team made the quarterfinals. What you probably didn't hear about was the Casque d'Or, the playoffs for the American-style football title of France. It was won by the Paris Castors (beavers). We met up one Wednesday with Jacob Stein at the Louvre. He was over for TOOLS '90, and was playing hooky from the sessions. We mostly looked in the wing that had the rooms of period furniture. We also saw a necessaire made for Marie Antoinette's attempted escape from France. It had toiletries, tea service, sewing kit, bed warmer--everything you need for a light escape. Kaye had been reading about the escape, and it was a study in misplanning. It was arranged by Marie's Swedish lover, with the help of his current mistress. Marie insisted on having a special, extra large coach made (so as to draw attention to Louis and herself), new clothes made (to delay their departure) and take half a pantry of food along (to slow down the horses). Along the way they would wave at the peasants and sometimes stop and talk (to make sure they were recognized). They were amazed to be caught--after all, hadn't they disguised themselves as servants? In the Louvre, we also went down into the basement to see the foundations of the original castle, excavated when the new entrance and glass pyramid were added. While we were still in the museum, there was a terrific thunderstorm, which cut the power for a bit. It dropped so much rain that it flooded eight Metro lines. Fortunately, our line home was running. One excursion I missed was a tour Kaye and the kids took of the sewers. I did see a TV special later about underground Paris--the people who hang out in the sewers, train tunnels and quarries that run under the city. To celebrate my birthday, Kaye and I went to the Lido. It has one of the most elaborate stages in the world. When the show starts, the first three rows of diners sink into the floor, the lamps retract into low walls and the chandeliers rise up into the ceiling, to give better sightlines. During this show there was a helicopter (big enough for two people) on a track overhead, out of which someone descended, then got into a submarine that surfaced in the pool that rose up out of the stage. Another time there was a fire breathing Mayan statue (about 20 feet across) which turned into a waterfall (all to the beat of Beatles music in Mayan rythyms). Lots of costumes, including one with lasers in it. Expensive, but captivating (plus the food is mediocre). One of the last Sundays were were there, we had lunch with Fernando Velez and his wife at his house, along with Paris Kanellakis. After lunch, we went up to the park at St. Cloud. There used to be a chateau there were Marie Antoinette hung out a lot, but it is all gone now. The park leads up to a bluff, where there is a panoramic view of Paris from the west. Next time I'll report on our last overnight trip, to Avignon.