Saturday, April 12, Day 11

I strolled down Rue de Turenne and window-shopped on my way to Le Marché des Enfants Rouges (39 Rue de Bretagne), a small street market located on the north side of the Marais. All the little restaurants inside the market smelled great – the Japanese bento box, New Orleans boudin stall, Italian trattoria, French bistro  were cheek by jowl with the fish monger, cheese shop, butcher, boulangerie and flower stall. It had a wonderful atmosphere.

I wanted to try the Moroccan stand, but couldn’t figure out how to order a kebab that wasn’t spicy. I would’ve had the b’stilla (pigeon and almond pie scented with cinnamon and wrapped in cracklingly thin layers of pastry like a feuille), and intensely sweet mint tea, if I could have carried over to the park across the street. My long ago days traveling through the Moroccan deserts came back to me with the first whiff, an olfactory  madeleine. There was something that looked like a cross between a pancake and Indian nan, being cooked on an upside down wok over coals, with something melting on top of the dough. Not a crepe exactly. I tried iTranslating the menu board from French to English, but even Google was stumped.  I ended up with a slice of apricot tart and some version of ham and cheese on baguette. I’m going to hit that Moroccan stand next week.

Off to eat in the tiny park in front of a grand church veiled with scaffolding. I unwrapped my baguette and was instantly besieged by sparrows. They flew up on the ends of the bench, darted under my feet, and one flew up and hovered right in front of the baguette in my hand. Cheeky buggers. I threw a few crumbs away from me as a diversionary tactic. Hitchcock came to mind. They were just as interested in the tart.  Glad I’d brought a little packet of wipes because I was good and sticky and greasy afterwards. Emphasis on good.

Figured out a metro route thanks to the extremely helpful Paris Metro app  http://www.ratp.fr/en/ratp/r_90747/visit-paris-by-metro/ Don’t leave home without it, folks.

Here might be a good time to note how helpful the iPhone has been. Working out routes on the fly, translating for irritable taxi drivers and puzzled shop clerks, used more often than my excellent camera to take photographs, Googling historic info, checking weather, museum hours, listening to the official Louvre audio guide, writing trip notes, uploading photos to FB and email.  It’s been a major trip enhancer. And that Mophie case that doubles the battery life? Get one.

Walked from the Lafayette Metro stop to the Musée National Gustave Moreau (14 Rue de la Rochefoucauld). It’s in the painter’s home, which means the walls are blanketed with drawings, photographs, prints and paintings. They are pieced together as tightly as jigsaw puzzle, from the egg and dart moldings to chair rail.

The second floor is the was one big open, airy room, high-ceilinged and bright from a wall of windows.Tall canvases lined the other three walls. The paintings were certainly large and parts of them drew my eye, but they seemed an odd mashup of classical, surrealism, and impressionism. To my eye, they lacked coherence.  Neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat, as the saying goes, but in all his works Moreau was trying to tell a story, and that gave me a thread of connection. I sought out what I could admire.

I raised an eyebrow at the explanation of his painting The Daughters of Thespius. “In gratitude to Hercules who killed the Nemean Lion…King Thespius offered that he sleep with all of his fifty daughters in one night. The hero, shown here in a meditative pose very reminiscent of Michelangelo, readies himself for the great procreative act. ”

Truly a Herculean >cough< feat.

Yeah, right. Dream on, M. Moreau. Do the math; that’s nine minutes and six seconds apiece, from wham to bam to thank you ma’am, aaaand next! Figuring eight straight hours, with no breaks. Even if Hercules could do it, why would he want to? But I digress.

I had paid my due respects and am about to upstairs to the studio when I notice a row of dark green café length velvet curtains pulled across cabinets under the windows. I look behind the curtains and eureka! The cabinets hold multiple wooden panels that can be pulled out and opened like the pages of a book. Each panel has many drawings. Goddesses, youths, monkeys, horses, vultures, elephants, hydrangeas, and landscapes, just to name a few. Paydirt! Lovely, lovely stuff. From extremely detailed and shaded work on toned paper, to rough outlines. There are complete scenes where he’s considering the composition of one of his grand scale paintings and pages where he’s working out various angles and perspectives on a hand gesture. Some of the drawings are gridded, some are obviously studies from the Louvre (hello, La Belle Ferronnière). I grab a low wooden stool and start working my way through them. I feel like I’ve struck gold.

            

When I’m ready to go, I use Uber for the first time, and it works just like Boston. I order a car, and see the familiar map appear with driver confirmed. The driver is an Algerian engineering student, with impeccable BMW and lovely manners. Twenty-five minutes later I arrive on my street, buy some fresh raspberries and yogurt (in a glass jar) for dinner. Talked to Robert tonight. Just needed to hear his voice. He hasn’t read any of this blog, he’s been really busy with the show closing down until the next season and shepherding his equipment onto other shows that are gearing up. But he has looked at the photos. And he misses me. And he’s glad I am happy. It’s all good.