paris postcard, day 1: stealth shots, the orsay

when did the orsay outlaw the taking of photos? i don't recall a ban in 2008...

i defied them this time, i just couldn't resist taking a few shots while we took a rest/tried to get our bearings (and second wind):

this one, i had to take because of the christian marclay "clock" exhibit, which will elude me forever, but will continue to inspire...i also wanted to commemorate the time we were there: 6:30pm

i love the toes in this one...

i imagine this is my cousin, jenny, working one of her crafts...

the only downside of a trip to the orsay on this day in may was that many of the best impressionist works were out on loan to the hotel de ville (which we may try to see tomorrow) and major renovation forced the rest of the collection to be re-presented throughout the lower floors.

while the current configuration reinforces the awareness of the orsay's array of heavy hitters--one masterpiece next to another--there is little space in-between for a breath, let alone a deep thought about them...(the mental lingering starts in earnest much later). but the museum remains a must see if you're in paris.

bonus for 2011 travelers: through july 17, there is a major manet retrospective. manet: inventeur du moderne (the man who invented modernity--it sounds better en francais, oui?) is worth the extra euro and a long queue. i liked manet's work before, but i have new appreciation for his mastery of form and style, and some new favorites: the dramatic still life renderings (asparagus) and his more dramatic, photo- journalistic pieces, like the execution of maximilian and the velasquez-like "dead toreador."

***

a few au revoirs:

may 19, 2011

all photos © anita aguilar

read a good poem: voyage

l'evasion de rochefort. edouard manet (1832-1884). circa 1881. oil on canvas.

***

I feel as if we opened a book about great ocean voyages
and found ourselves on a great ocean voyage:
sailing through December, around the horn of Christmas
and into the January Sea, and sailing on and on

in a novel without a moral but one in which
all the characters who died in the middle chapters
make the sunsets near the book's end more beautiful.

—And someone is spreading a map upon a table,
and someone is hanging a lantern from the stern,
and someone else says, "I'm only sorry
that I forgot my blue parka; It's turning cold."

Sunset like a burning wagon train
Sunrise like a dish of cantaloupe
Clouds like two armies clashing in the sky;
Icebergs and tropical storms,
That's the kind of thing that happens on our ocean voyage—

And in one of the chapters I was blinded by love
And in another, anger made us sick like swallowed glass
& I lay in my bunk and slept for so long,

I forgot about the ocean,
Which all the time was going by, right there, outside my cabin window.

And the sides of the ship were green as money,
and the water made a sound like memory when we sailed.

Then it was summer. Under the constellation of the swan,
under the constellation of the horse.

At night we consoled ourselves
By discussing the meaning of homesickness.
But there was no home to go home to.
There was no getting around the ocean.
We had to go on finding out the story
by pushing into it—

The sea was no longer a metaphor.
The book was no longer a book.
That was the plot.
That was our marvelous punishment.

--by tony hoagland via the writer's almanac