June 27 PRIDE and the Louvre, pt1

It's Pride weekend! But it’s not quite as exciting and extravagant in France, probably since A) everyone here seems to be quite proud to be at least a 1 on the Kinsey scale, and b) most people are constantly acting more homo than they actually are. It’s great. Go France!

During a more thoughtful moment of my day, this article about Storme in the NYT made me excitedly weepy. There’s always a swell in me that, without fail, manages to blindside me when I read about people that stand up for truth, beauty, and goodness with the entirety or his/her mind, body, and soul, especially in the face of disgusting, overwhelming, myopic opposition. It made me want to revisit Stone Butch Blues and go find a theatre with the new Stonewall Uprising film. I’ll probably have to wait til I get back to the USA for that though.

And I'm off for my day of photo album restocking. The Louvre is actually open. The last time I was in Paris (which was also my first time), it turned out that I chose my one day to visit unwisely, and the place was closed. Not this time, even though the website announce that “ due to a strike, the museum may or may not be open” - how so very French.

So we got in line to get in (James tagged along), and while we waited, a girl leaving the museum gave us tickets to get in. Score.

The main entrance to the Louvre is through I.M. Pei's pyramid. Which looks cool, but is like a huge greenhouse. And here I was thinking I was going to escape the sweltering 91 degree day that it was in Paris into a nice, cool museum. Instead, the first few galleries were sauna hot and smelled like armpits. I was literally about to start crying.

Luckily, the deeper into the beast we crept, the cooler it got. And this place is truly a beast. People will tell you that you could come here every day for a month and not see everything. Sure, it's harmless hyperbole, but with James and I getting lost every five minutes, it doesn't seem far off.

That's the Mona Lisa back there in the distance. Color me unimpressed. The Mona Lisa experience the museum allows you to have is muted and cold. It is a piece of art in a police state (I suppose ML has a lot of perceived and cultural value, but does it really warrant two guards and a barrier to keep you 20 feet away in ADDITION to the two panes of bulletproof glass? The Pieta says yes, I say, probably not.).



This reminded me of a James Ensor's "Vase with Skull and Flowered Hat"

This painting was bigger than the short side of most people's homes. That girl is a normal sized girl that I didn't shrink in Photoshop. Man, Napoleon must have been a huge dickhead. This is a painting of his coronation.

This is me trying to take a picture and getting punched by a security guard. Then I got thrown out as they yelled "no cameras!"

Actually, I got through the Louvre without getting yelled at or kicked out. Finally.

These guys tried to entertain us on the way home. Behind the bench is a cart with an amp bellowing a midi accompaniment. Man, no one can play without backing tracks these days.

We made it back, but didn't think about buying some food before trudging up the 112 stairs to our flat. How many stairs in a mile?


The trip down is a lot fast than the trip up. In the French grocery we shuffle around, not really sure what to get. Everything is so expensive in Paris, so just buying with French printed all over it and hoping for the best is a bit more of a dubious experiment, since it requires some financial backing. I end up with a can of cassoulet and crossed fingers.

It definitely wasn't the Haute Dish duck-in-a-can I was dreaming it'd be.