Everything Adjustment

I’m feeling a little jealous right now of all the wonderful blogs I’ve been reading! I’m in Paris, I feel like there should be everything to do yet I have nothing to do. I don’t feel like I’m getting what I should out of this experience; so far, It’s only been a week. But I feel rather useless, when it comes to the language barrier. I’ve been reading a lot this weekend and I went out a few times to the Louvre and for walks but I feel lost in such a big place by myself, how can you not be lost its Paris everyone else around you is either intensely kissing someone three inches from your face on the metro or making rude hand gestures at you, the city of ‘love.’ lol

Everyone at the Musee is very nice though and it’s a wonderful museum, although I have not been able to see the other collections yet except for where I work in the photo archives. I got to meet with Cartier-Bresson’s granddaughter this week. Henri-Cartier-Bresson is a very big name in French photography he was an early photographer and often photographed much more casual in the streets, he’s often credited with starting photojournalism. Cartier-Bressons granddaughter, she only goes by Cartier-Bresson I have no idea what her first name is I expect she likes being recognized, is putting together an expo (show is exposition en français) and wanted to come to Carnavalet to collect some photos and make notes, so we pull the photos she wants to see and we all wear white gloves to protect the photos from the oils on our skin, which reminds me of the glove for hamburger helper! And another pretty big name came this week also, Louis Vuitton, they are making an expo of photos to juxtapose with fashion so they came to see some pictures too, most of the ones we have at the Musee are closer to 100 years old!





I was amazed this week when I went through a box of photos that was mailed to Carnavalet and most were a century old, it’s just so amazing that someone would sacrifice their memories, or the fragments they have left from their ancestors to Carnavalet it seems very egalitarian in a way, donating these slivers of their origins toward a greater public knowledge of Paris. So I was pretty mystified going through this box, I especially love the portraits. I went through an entire box of just portraiture from the early 19th and 20th centuries and they were mostly of women, when photography was a luxury and you would go down to the studio all costumed up and have your ‘likeness’ taken.

They were all young women, I assume before they got married. It was so sublime to look at their faces and think, what uninvited spectator will be gazing at my image? They never intended for their images to become public, would they be embarrassed to know how often they are looked at? Or bask in the knowledge of their remembrance? I don’t know which I would choose. I don’t know what it was but I felt such a strange connection with those frozen women, what happened to them? Where did their lives take them? You could write a truly amazing novel about those photos and make up entirely fictitious lives out of Carnavalet’s collection.

These portraits are the exception though most of the photography is more documentary in nature, of buildings, streets, demolished sites and parks; All very interesting too, to see how sights have changed and how life has changed. Many of the images have horses and buggies, and street vendors with children playing in the street; it looks more like something out of “Angela’s Ashes” at times.

I think I feel a little disembodied also because of the moves, I just moved today from the apartment I was being loaned by my supervisor, Françoise, into a new space that is close to Carnavalet and I will be- in part- sharing with the British girl who owns it. I’m glad that she speaks English and she’s very nice but I guess I just got used to the other space and now I’ve been uprooted again so I need to re-everything adjust myself again. But I can ride my bike to work using the Velib system from this apartment- it’s a system of bikes owned by the city that you can rent very cheaply and the stations are all over the city and outside it. I enjoy that, the rides are exhilarating, you don’t get stuck behind immensely slow tourists doddering along, and you can kind of weave around traffic when you need to its very fast and everyone here knows how to drive with cyclists so it’s very safe, as far as riding a bike with no helmet on in the traffic of downtown Paris can be! :) and I love the room itself its very cute with an ancient tiny fire place and big French windows and a little chandelier, it’s practically Versailles!



But I may have written so much that no one will ever attempt my blog again! So bonsoir while I re-screw on ma tete!