A Final Photo

You might not believe this since I'm currently typing from a McDonald's while currently listening to Michael Jackson, but I will miss this foreign city. A lot.

Lists

If there's one thing I've learned living in Paris alone, it's that sometimes you just gotta go with the flow. Can't read a word on the menu? Just go with the flow and point to something. Got off at Les Halles metro and found yourself in an impossibly large underground shopping complex?

Yeah, I got lost in this thing.

Just go with the flow, and ride around on some elevators (seven, to be exact) 'til you find a way out. Your local boulangerie is out of pains aux chocolat? Cry a little, and then just go with the flow and order a croissant. Then smother it in Nutella to compensate.Your place of residence, your home for the last month, refuses to let you check out on a Sunday? Just go with the flow, begrudgingly, and find a new room to crash in for the last two nights. A room that won't be nearly as cool as your little room in the 15ème. Having to find new accommodation on such short notice really made me realize how much I don't want to leave this family-friendly neighborhood I've grown so accustomed to.

With two days left, here's a list of things I will/won't miss about Paris in general and the 15ème in particular.

This city sucks. I certainly won't miss:

1) Living next to a hospital. Ambulances here have a siren that's higher pitched and generally more friendly-sounding than their U.S. counterparts, so whenever I hear one rolling down the street, I'm always like, "Oooh, where's the ice cream truck?!" You don't know how bitterly disappointed I am once I realize it's just another emergency vehicle on it's way to some lame emergency, that probably doesn't involve ice cream at all.*

2) Being clueless about cutlery. While lunching recently in Giverny (more on that later), I managed to use my fork, knife, AND napkin incorrectly. And I also poured my wine in the water glass. Took care of that though by pouring the wine back into the carafe as soon as the waiter wasn't looking. Classy.

This city rocks. I'll definitely miss:

1) Living 100 feet away from THREE different baby clothing shops. And all their baby-patrons.

2) Eating a pain au chocolat every morning without having to answer to anyone.

3) Beautiful boys on bikes. And not on bikes, for that matter.

4) Wonderful little "lost in translation" moments. Like how Tina Fey's movie "Date Night" is called "Crazy Night" here; they probably changed the title because, based on the amount of PDA I've seen, every night is date night in Paris. Oh, and Waldo of "Where's Waldo?" fame goes by Charlie here. Probably because Parisians just can't fathom how anyone could come to have such a dopey name like "Waldo."

5) Taking a 40-minute train ride into the countryside, and promptly forgetting that the city even exists.

Poppies and hills in Giverny, where Monet once reigned as man-about-village.

6) The drinking age. I think I'll finish off that Bordeaux now ... And I find it quite amusing that the standard "the abuse of alcohol is dangerous for your health" warning is printed below most lists of beers in the cafés I've frequented. Never, however, have I seen this message accompany a list of wines. Not surprising for a country that collectively spends 15 percent of it's annual income on the luscious liquid of the grape.

7) All the roses on steroids. Seriously, what are they feeding these flowers?

Climbing roses in Auvers.

And thats about it, besides other things like the art and the architecture and the pastries and the poulet and on and on and on. Please note that the will-miss list is over three times as long as the won't-miss one. Yep, that sounds about right.

*Well, probably not as disappointed (and/or dead) as the person who actually needs the ambulance.

YUM

Lunched at Le Pied Au Cochon today. I had the house special, which was, you guessed it, le pied au cochon. Don’t know what that is? For my non-French speaking readers, here’s a hint:

Yep that’s a pig foot. It tasted like … a bunch of skin and fat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really complaining, I love skin and fat as much as the next clinically overweight American. But I kept pushing this thing around on my plate look for a hunk of meat that I had to be missing. Nope – my main meal of the day consisted of pig skin, fat, bones, and one giant hoof. Oh, and French fries.* French fries always make everything go down easier.

As with the other slightly exotic meals I’ve had here – andouillette, rabbit, duck liver pâté – my queasiness over the couchon was late to set in, but set in it did. When I’m at the dining table and a steaming plate of intestines is set in front of me I’m totally gung-ho, but, in time, my stomach always turns sour. At first I’m like, “Oh hey, look at me being all culturally immersive.” And then, three hours later, I’m wondering if anyone would notice if I vomited discreetly in the corner of the metro car. I don’t know if my stomach’s that sensitive or if it’s all just psychological. Either way, I don’t have the guts (or the intestines) to try the motherload of nausea-inducing standard Parisian fare: la tête. The head, or more accurately the brains, of any four-legged creature. I have two nights left in the city; should I go for it? In the mean time, I’ll stick to the pastries featured a few posts back.

*But they’d be better with KETCHUP, not the weird aioli stuff you gave me.

It's Party Time

A typical evening for my usually involves picking up some dinner before heading back to my room, where I promptly change into my pajamas. Which means I'm usually wearing flannel pants by 7 p.m. Okay, sometimes 6. And there was that one time the pajamas went on at 4:30.

But not tonight. June 21st marks the summer solstice, which in the Gallo-Roman days was celebrated with lots of music, dancing, and human sacrifices. Forever honoring tradition, not much has changed about this celebration in Paris (although they've toned down the whole human sacrifice thing).

Today was designated as the Fête de la Musique. Concerts, both planned and impromptu, crop up all around the city, but things don't start really heating up until nightfall. And because I resisted the warm and fuzzy calling of my p.j.'s, I decided not to let my effort go to waste and jumped on the next metro to Pont Alexandre III. People on the metro were singing, and all the teenagers were huddled together blocking walkways while talking excitedly about all the concerts I'm not cool enough to know about.

Then coming up the elevator of Metro Convention (my home turf), I heard guitars and singing and clapping -- the concert they were setting up when I left was now in full swing. A crowd squeezed into the little square, made up of all those too young and too old to go to whatever hot international act was playing at the Champ de Mars. Middle-aged mothers encouraged their children to get up the guts and go dance in the front, leaving them to sip their rosé from quart-sized water bottles in peace. The band played some crowd favorites (although I couldn't tell you what they were), and coincidentally some of my favorites, including a delightful rendition of Britney Spears' "Toxic." Oh, and the singer even tried rapping some old-school Eminem (I'm going to file that away under "one of the top ten funniest moments I've ever witnessed in my life").

I'm tired, it's well past my bed time, so all I have left to say is that it was really cool. And I'm looking forward to being serenaded to sleep by whoever is playing the saxophone outside my window.

Pastry Roundup

So the Fates must've been pretty ticked that I managed to write an entire blog post yesterday about death without ever really talking about death -- nothing meaningful or meditative here. I say this because when I visited the Musée Maillol today in the 7th, I was confronted by skulls in every room, of both the human and artistically manufactured variety. The exhibition was called "C'est La Vie!" Don't be fooled; it wasn't about life, but rather death and how death is a part of life -- you know, memento mori and all that jazz. Standing in front of a sculpted skull* by Damien Hirst, I was unexpectedly filled with a saddness/scaredness/relief in recognizing my own immortality. But of course that's not what I'm going to write about tonight; that would be too un-superficial of me.

Musée Maillol is situated in a pretty ritzy part of town, and walking through the streets of the 7ème most definitely had me lusting after all I saw in the windows -- Prada, Diane Von Fustenburg, Yves Saint Laurent, etc. And while I can't afford those designer do-dads, I can afford designer pastries (well, some of them). Here's a roundup of what's been tickling my tastebuds lately.

1)

While only from my local patisserie, this guy still looks (and tasted) pretty good. This tower of chocolate-filled heaven is called a Religeuse, aptly named becuase eating it is what convinced me there must be a God.

2)

This here is a Saint-Honoré Chantilly, purchased at one of the several "Dalloyau: House of Gastronomy" locations in Paris. What you're looking at is a big dollop of Chantilly cream resting on some pastry puff thingys. And the inside is filled with something that tastes as good as the outside looks. There also might be some caramelized sugar involved. Can you even caramelize sugar? (Clearly, my food-writing skills need to be further developed).

3)

Pictured above is a macaron. But not just any macaron -- it's a milk chocolate and passion fruit Mogador macaron made by zee one and only Pierre Hermé. I couldn't eat the thing without pursing my lips and raising my eyebrows, not so much because it's sour, it's just surprising. Like "I never knew this flavor existed" surprising. Mmmmm.

Now excuse me while I go into an confectionary coma, for I actually bought both of the last two sweets today and tried to eat them back-to-back. Which also means I spent a third of today's food allowance on dessert.

But don't worry, I'm still keeping it real by picking up greasy plats a emporter (take-out) like this for dinner:

Note the tiny fork provided for the fries; the French absolutely despise touching their food. I used the fork, but still ended up smearing ketchup all over the side of my hand.

*Sculpted of what, you ask? Why resin and thousands of dead flies, of course.

When I'm Dead and Gone

Spending my Saturday night listening to my collection of country music (currently playing: Brooks and Dunn's Hillbilly Deluxe. Ohhh yeahh.), and since I can't bring myself to write about anything uniquely Parisian in this context, I'll wax poetic on something a little more universal: death. More specifically, how I want to be commemorated in stone once I'm stone-cold dead, inspired by the sights of Cemetière Montmartre.

Here's how I don't want it done:

Here lies Emily (Insert hot husband's name here); may she rest in peace while

forever scaring little children and anyone remotely suspicious of clowns.

It's Russian dancer Nijinsky's tomb, so I guess the clownish costume is kinda appropriate, but can't you just imagine a pair of Parisian lovers out on a midnight stroll through the otherwise tranquil cemetery getting the bejesus scared out of them by the strange little man with the sunken-in eyes chillin' on a tombstone? 'Cause I totally did, and it was three in the afternoon.

Oh, and I definitely do not want anything like this:

Here lies Emily (Insert hot husband's name here) beneath a pile of rocks.

I'll hopefully have contributed something to society worthy of a commemoration a little more refined than that (fingers crossed).

This is more of what I'm looking for:

I'm referring to the tomb on your right, not Edgar Degas' poor excuse for eternal housing on the left, nor the phallic symbol between them. This tomb is home to Contesse Marie Potcka, Princesse Soltikoff. Here's a better angle of the the wonderful (and I'd say absolutely necessary) gilt-work.

I deserve a tomb fit for a princess, right?

... right?

Mounting the Mont

Headed over to Montmartre today and made the mistake of getting off at Abbesses, also known as the metro station with the most steps to the exit. I should have known it was going to be bad when I actually saw elevators next to the stairs.

Quite a hike later and I was at the foot of the Basilica Sacre Cour. Since it's Greek (or Roman, or something slightly exotic like that), there was a Friday morning service going on, which gave me the perfect opportunity to rest my feet at the end of a pew. I walked in right when the priest guy was about to eat a wafer of bread, symbolizing Christ's transconsurmation* or something like that, but to someone who skipped breakfast this ritual invoked less spiritual rumination and more hungriness.

So I left the confines of Christ's abode in search of duck confit, which I found at a little café that served the canard accompanied by golden-fried potatoes drenched in garlic butter. Suddenly wasn't so jealous of the priest's snack.

Saw some weird stuff in Montmartre, including a fashion photo shoot involving a dapperly dressed monsieur wearing a frighteningly realistic horse mask. Also, this:

No, this is not a statue of a priest, but a man dressed up like a statue of a priest and then offering to pose for pictures in exchange for a few euro coins. Somewhere up above God is probably getting a kick out of this.

And I carefully traced my walking route the night before I headed out so I could be sure to avoid all the sleaze and the sex shops cloistered around the Boulevard du Clichy, but still somehow managed to walk past the Moulin Rouge (yes, that Moulin Rouge). Oops.

* This is a made-up word, made up just now by me.

Note: this post probably would have been longer and more informative if I hadn't just spent most of my time "reading" up on the hottest French soccer players. You know, for cross-cultural research.

The Naming of Cats is a Difficult Matter*

Not much to blog about today, besides the fact that I'm quite full from eating some of the most famous bread in the world. So I took a look at my photo archives, and I noticed some themes popping up in my amateur photography: rose bushes, bathroom fixtures, and ... CATS! Without further ado, the cats of Paris.

This here is Butters; he kept me company when I lunched on rabbit a while back on the Ile-St. Louis. He refused a front-facing photo because he swears he looks better in florescent light.

I met Simon, above, when I was strolling through the streets of Auvers-sur-Oise yesterday. While settled at the bar counter in Le Comptoir, we shared stories and a pichet of merlot (vintage Margeaux, 1976). Turns out Simon's claim to fame was that he inspired the character of the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees in Andrew Lloydd Weber's moody musical, Cats. He called for another round after grumbling something about never getting those promised front row tickets. Probably should've cut him off when he tried to show me one of his magic tricks (pulling a coin out of my ear didn't go over well, as you can imagine, since it's pretty hard to handle a coin without posable thumbs).

And here's Heathcliff, who I also ran into in Auvers. He declined to join Simon and me for a drink, so I don't know much of his back story.

And since I didn't have fast enough reflexes to whip out my camera, I had to settle for taking a "mental picture" of the man walking his cat, who I saw from the window of the airport bus into the city. Let me repeat: he was walking his cat. On a leash. And this was my first introduction to Paris. The cat's name was probably something like Pierre, and he probably would like you to know that he was actually taking his "owner" for a walk, and not the other way around.

*It isn't just one of your holiday games. You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter when I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES! (I was too lazy/uncreative to think up three).

Above the Fruited Plains

I was all up in those amber waves of grain today in Auvers-sur-Oiese, a tiny hamlet physically just north of Paris, but metaphorically many miles away. Van Gogh must have been pretty depressed to spend 10 weeks in Auvers and then still commit suicide. Temporary getaway for Van Gogh, Pissaro, Cézanne, and others, this sleeply town, filled with slopping side streets and climbing rose vines, markets itself as the "cradle of impressionism."

Thomas Kincade wasn't making this stuff up.

Even with all the obvious self-promotion (most local signs are labelled in a brush stroke-y font), the town doesn't feel like just one giant tourist trap. Perhaps this is because I caught the earliest train* possible to avoid the loathsome other tourists. Worked like a charm (even though I arrived before the tourist office was even open), and I had all the wheat fields to myself. I was so alone, in fact, that I didn't even have to sneakily snap a MySpace-style photo. I left my finger lingering on the camera button for as long as I liked.

Wow, it's not blurry!

I understood immediately the draw of Paris's surrounding countryside on the impressionists; these fields were like softly swaying beds of gold. For men obsessed with capturing the subtle nuances of light and color, the fields provided an obvious opportunity: the wind rides over the rows in waves, each new breeze revealing tawny, sea foam, lavender.

I was so in love with Auvers that I didn't even mind the foul smell emitting from my andouille sausage-filled (aka tripe chitterlings) crepe. But perhaps that's just the absinthe talking, sipped at the world-renowned Absinthe Museum* (just kidding, they don't give out free samples. I asked).

And even though I was the only one in the museum, the fields, and the cemetery (!), I never got that chilling "Oh God, I'm completely alone ... or am I?" feeling. Not even when I saw this:

Because Children of Korn and Jeepers Creepers haven't already covered the whole

"you're gonna die in a rural farm setting" thing.

Guess these fields really do have a medicinal effect, as Van Gogh claimed.

*A note on today's transportation:

When I jumped on a random train for my return trip from the Auvers station, did I know what line the train was on?

No.

Did I know where the train was going?

No.

Did I even have the right type of train ticket?

No.

Did I get home safe and sound?

Yes.

Am I invincible?

Guess so.

*True story: one of the museum's prized absinthe spoons made a cameo in Francis Ford Cappola's Dracula.

WTF Art

Today, I'd like to share with you a little sample of all the WTF art I've encountered lately. WTF Art (Weird or Terrifying Fine Art) is everywhere -- from confrontational pieces in chic galleries to statuesque statues* in stately museums. Wherever installed, this type of art is forever making viewers stand back and say, "WTF?"

1) Piece: Greek/Roman statuette of a man gutting what may be a cow.

Place: the Louvre

While it no doubt took some ancient dead guy great artistic skill to carve out this little slice of life, who thought it was a slice of life that needed to be preserved for all of eternity, forever making museum goers throw up a little in their mouths?

2) Piece: Les Vitraux des Innocents by Sarkis

Place: Centre Pompidou

What you're looking at is an Orc action figure (from Lord of the Rings) that Sarkis photographed in his studio and then transferred to stained glass, elevating this 6th-grade craft project to Art by titling it something vaguely sounding like it came from the Bible.

The informative plaque placed next to the piece sheds some light on it's brilliance:

Behind the explicit violence of this bloodbath is the paradoxical question of who the innocents actually are. Are they the one in the Vitrine being attacked by the warriors? Are the Orcs of the Vitrine transfigured by the stained-glass panel? Does the warrior become a saint? Are they transformed into innocents by the stained glass?

Is Sarkis out of his freaking mind?

Excuse me while I go arrange headless barbies in shadow boxes in the name of Art.*

3) Piece: Nude Study of Balzac, by Rodin

Place: Musée Rodin

How often does one see the study of a fat man? And a supremely smug one at that? Enter Honoré Balzac, muse to Rodin. I'm loving the haughty lift of the chin, the smartly crossed arms, the tastefully obscured man parts (or perhaps they are just hidden by the overhanging belly). Balzac gazes down at the viewer from his perch on the pedestal, and it's like he's saying, "Why yes, I broke new literary ground with what are now considered timeless masterpieces and because of it, my hefty form was sculpted by the hands of the undisputed master of modern sculpture. What have you done today?"

Mocked you in my blog, Balzac. So take that.

*I wouldn't describe a statue any other way.

* I shall call it: Walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Get it? Cause it's a shadow box.

Identity Crisis

Fill in the blank:

The 8 ème's Parc Monceau is ...

A) a recently unearthed center of Roman conquest, revealing the most important (and in tact) archeological wonders of the past half century.

Including this here arcade of crumbling columns.

B) a place for the surrounding wealthy residents to go when they just want to "get away from it all."

It's tough living in a posh 19th century hôtel particulier, but someone's got to do it.

C) the inspiration for smash-hit Nintendo video game "Duck Hunt."

Shoot!!

Answer: All of the above, clearly. But if I had to choose, I'd go with A, 'cause nothing else explains this:

No, this is not some ongoing construction project -- under closer examination, I concluded that the large cement blocks inexplicably scattered around this (insert whatever this pyramid thing is here) were actually supposed to look like that. As in, like the crumbled remains of some ancient civilization. Leave it up to the French to wax nostalgic over the Gallo-Roman days.

Airing Dirty Laundry

Two weeks in, and I thought today was as good a day as any to do laundry. While I live right across from the laundry room, I decided to do my laundry in the sink instead because I didn't feel like googling the translation for "May I have some laundry tokens?" I thought I'd do laundry for an hour or so, then maybe go grab a coffee at the corner café and try and get caught up on some writing. But one hour can easily turn into four hours when you have a small sink and rinse each sock individually.

I still haven't cleared the still-damp underwear from my bed.

I had just finished wringing out the last of my 12 pairs of underwear (and thinking how my wrists have never hurt so bad), when I had a sudden urge to look at the back of my detergent bottle. You know, just because.

Turns out it wasn't detergent -- it was fabric softener.

This is not a joke.

I had just "softened" all my clothes by hand for the last four hours.

So then I thought, "Screw this, I'm gonna go watch the sun set over the Seine."

I felt a lot better after that.

Go Team!

So today was the USA-UK soccer game,* and while I didn’t watch it, I showed my support for grand old America in other ways.

First I went to the Centre Pompidou and saw American greats like Jackson Pollock’s paint-splattered masterpieces. And I also took some touristy photos at the top of the escalator, blocking traffic and causing mumbling among the non-tourists, like all great Americans do.

Worth it.

And then I had dinner at a place called Breakfast in America, whose tagline is “an American diner in Paris.” While I sat at the bar and chomped on ketchup-drenched fries and a cheeseburger (which I did not cut up with a fork), I read the New York Times conveniently left next to the salt and pepper shakers. Amidst all the stories about bombings and child molestation, I came across a gem featuring rising hip-hop star Drake, or as he is known to me, Jimmy the angsty basketball player-turned-wheelchair-ridden (of course) star of Canadian teenage soap opera Degrassi.

Give up already.

Drake’s road to hip-hop stardom has been a rocky one, for he’s had to work through all the problems that sprung up when he quit the show – like how he’s really bad with names now because he worked with 50 bajillion costars and could never keep who was who straight.

See? 50 bajillion wasn't that much of an over estimate.

And nothing could be more American than a story like that, proving that if anyone works hard enough they can achieve the American dream. Even Canadians.

And when I got home, I spent a few minutes in the common room watching a dubbed-over episode of THE greatest American sitcom of the past few decades, Friends. I didn’t think Chandler could get anymore uppity and condescending until I saw him speaking French.*

And while I wasn’t brave enough to wear it out in public, I’m going to sleep tonight in my all-American Steve Miller Band t-shirt, also known as the most obnoxious shirt ever made.

Why yes, those are bubble letters. Shooting out of a guitar-shaped rocket.

And all I have left to say is: USA! USA! USA!

*I wrote this post yesterday, so if USA won I'd like to take some of the credit.

* Kidding!

A Study in (Dis)proportions

Doing the museum circuit these past two weeks, I've inevitably run into a lot of tourists, but I've seen a lot of the artsy folk, too. The young art students show up in full force with weathered sketchbooks, settling in some remote museum corner to dash off a few studies of whatever sculpture happens to be nearby.

They make it look so easy. They make it look like anyone could do it. That maybe even I could do it.

So today I tried. Strolling through the resplendent Luxembourg gardens, I took a seat in front of a grand sculpture of famed Romanticist Eugene Delacroix. What with the dappled light and play of shadows, I couldn't help it, inspiration soon struck.

I had my reservations of course. One being that I hadn't had an art class since seventh grade. But, dang it, a lot of these impressionists never had formal training -- in fact, a lot of them spurned and spit on formal training. So for all we know, within my nubby fingers could rest the potential for greatness. You decide.

Here's the inspiration:

And here's my humble homage:

And here's a close-up so you really get a feel for the simple grace of the lines:

I call it "Scribbles."

You may say, "keep your day job," to which I reply, "gladly, if I had one." In my defense (although I'm not sure it's worth defending), I had to sketch really quick because I was quite scared some passerby would take an interest in the artist at work and come over and peer into my notebook, cause that's totally what I do to the artists in the museums all the time. And I don't think I could survive the ensuing embarrassment of watching the inevitable shock and awe (light on the awe) register on their faces.

And just because, here's a photo of the Fountain des Medicis, clearly crafted by someone with a steadier hand than me.

Complete with baby ducks:

Everybody say awwww.

How the Other Half Lives

Or once lived. Wandered through the mirrored rooms of the Musée Carnavalet today, which chronicles the history of Paris from muddy swamp to City of Lights. All the info was in French, though, so I didn't learn much.

I did, however, pick up a few design tips.

Is your room missing that little something that turns a house into a home? Throw some babies on the wall. Everyone loves babies. Even if keeping candlesticks in an upright position for all of eternity technically constitutes child labor.

Make sure the gold-embroidered chaise is made of tough, resilient fabric. You know, to withstand the claws of all your forest friends.

Because a dog is just too bourgeois.

And if you think it's all just a tad too much, it's not. It's just enough.

Subtlety is for suckers.

After a day filled with all that's glitzy, gilded, and gold, I find it nice to come back to my own understated, yet elegant, residence.

Exposed pipes are all the rage right now.

There are many stereotypes of Parisian lifestyles, and I've just opted for the "starving artist" one. Which, in a way, is kind of romantic. I'm living like a heroine in one of those beloved French classics; like Claude Lantier in fact. I can just hear him saying, "Who needs anything ever owned by any of the Louises, when we've got central heating and leaky faucets to lull us to sleep?" Both of which I have, if "central heating" is euphemistic for a lack of air conditioning. But everyone knows that from destitution comes inspiration.

I think I'll go write a poem about that leaky faucet right now.

Why I'm Here

So again, the museum I visited today (Musée Marmottan Monet) didn't let me take pictures, so I can't distract you with my flashy photography and, thus, must actually focus on my words. Let me tell you why I'm here.

I received a school grant to come to Paris and carry out a writing-based project, one part critical and one part creative. For the critical part, I'm exploring the texts and contexts surrounding 19th-century naturalist Émile Zola's novel The Masterpiece, which chronicles the life of impressionist painter Claude Lantier while he struggles to live up to his genius and produce a painting that will "shatter the Louvre" (spoil alert: he doesn't). While the book is technically fictional, it reads like an autobiography; Claude's character is reportedly a composite of Zola's close friends Manet, Monet, and Cézanne. And so, in between eating baguettes and getting lost on the metro,* I've been wandering around Paris soaking up the sites and paintings that inspired the book, questioning how seeing such things in person influences my understanding of Zola's work.

The words "impressionist painting" connote, for most people, soothing pastel colors, water lilies, and a bearded man who bears a striking resemblance to Santa.* But at one time these paintings really rocked the art world. The young revolutionaries, fed up with the Academie des Beaux-Arts' strict ruling on what is art and what's not, wanted a change.

Specifically, they wanted a change from this:

To something more like this:

The contrast between the two schools couldn't be starker than in the Musée d'Orsay, with one room filled with dark, historical genres and the next blinding with the revolutionary treatment of light and use of pastels. It's all so dazzling that I want to take a picture off the wall and make sure the curator didn't install some light to illuminate it from behind. The luminous quality of the works -- from Monet's haystacks to Van Gogh's self-portrait -- is lost on the pages of textbooks, so when I walk into one of the rooms for the first time, the paintings confront, startle, and dazzle me. I swear, the central figure in Manet's Le dejeuner sur l'herbe must have been colored with paint laced with some sort of magnetic dust, her stare is so halting.

Zola spends a good part of his novel expounding on the virtue of the Open Air school's original treatment of light, but I didn't really get what he was talking about until, well, yesterday. Museum trips this last week have just been one long, euphoric "aha!" moment, for I realize how monumental the break form the academy really was.

Monet and the rest of the gang bring a whole new meaning to the term "luminaries."

*That's a lie, I'm actually ridiculously good at navigating the metro.

*FYI, I'm talking about Claude Monet.