Category: Arts

Proust Letter About Neighbor’s Sex Lives Up For Auction

Marcel Proust is famous for transforming an evocative sensory experience into literary brilliance: I am writing, of course, of the nibble of a madeleine that catalyzed his immortal stroll down memory lane in “Swann’s Way.”

The author also, apparently, could turn an unwanted sensory intrusion into fairly amusing epistolary material. Among an astonishing collection of French literary miscellanea that will shortly go up for auction in Paris — the archive, which currently belongs to prolific collector Jean Bonna, includes first editions of works by Samuel Beckett and Honoré de Balzac, as well as correspondence from Victor Hugo and Gustave Flaubert — is a letter from Proust to his landlord’s son in which he objects to a certain unwanted auditory phenomenon in his apartment [ . . . ]

More at Source: Proust Letter About Neighbor’s Sex Lives Up For Auction – The Forward

Paris’s Hidden Treasure 

The Room Dufy

[ . . .] Despite having been regulated to second-class status, tourism-wise, the City of Paris Modern Art Museum contains what is arguably the single most interesting room in any museum in Paris: the Room Dufy.

The Room Dufy is a room large and triangular, with rounded points and about 600 square feet of floor space. The museum’s website, rather depressingly, says it can host dinner for 50. The walls are 30 feet high and made-up of 250 panels, all painted by Raoul Dufy. Dufy was perhaps the greatest colorist who ever lived, and the room is a shiver and silence-inducing explosion of color. [ . . . ]

Read Full Story: Paris’s Hidden Treasure | The Weekly Standard

Family Pictures | Maison Européenne de la Photographie 

Family is sacred and is often the first thing we capture on camera. And the Maison Européene de la Photographie is exhibiting candid family shots taken by many eminent artists. For example, Harry Callahan’s devotion for his wife Eleanor; who he photographed naked from all angles in magnificent chiaroscuro. Richard Avedon’s admiration for his father when he was suffering from cancer, is expressed in a series of seven modest and respectful portraits which nevertheless caused a scandal when they were exhibited for the first time at MoMA in 1974. [ . . . ]

Full Story & Slideshow: Family Pictures | Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) | Art in Paris

Fear and hope

Henry Moore (1898-1986), Refugees, Tyssen Museum, Madrid, detail

Are the two verbs opposed? Given the enormous challenges the world has to face (among other things: the announced death of the planet, the vast migratory movement that is still in its infancy, the destructive identity withdrawal, the new poverty engendered by a type of globalization ), Fear can make us flee, incite us to melt into the mass, to wait and, above all, not to take responsibility. But it can also provoke the opposite. We mobilize, oblige us to understand and analyze the issues, roll up our sleeves and take our responsibilities. More than ever, we are at the juncture between two worlds, the old and the new: there is an urgent need for a return to politics.
Christmas announces peace; It is to be constructed. By refusing that events decide for us, that others think for us. By creating opportunities for reflection, listening to others, questioning, exchanging at the risk of dispute, but benefiting from learning from them and moving forward together, deciding what is to come and living Of hope.
Daniel Duigou / Saint Merry

Source: Fear and hope – Saint-Merry

Are the French rude? Wherever you go, there you are

This ridiculous article from the New York Daily News really ticked me off,  for several reasons. Firstly, if there are any people who should be sensitive to an underserved reputation for rudeness, it should be New Yorkers. I’ve dined in Paris and New York, chatted with waiters, and asked for help from strangers in both cities. My own experience is that Parisians and New Yorkers are for the most part friendly and accommodating to visitors, mainly because they are so proud of their city, I think. Secondly, if this NY Daily News reporter had a bad experience in a Paris restaurant, how unfair is it to label “the French” as rude?  I once received a smart-ass remark from a waitress at the Carnegie Deli, but I didn’t blame every New Yorker from Times Square to the Catskills.  Worse, what if I blamed “the Americans” because Sophie the waitress was having a bad hair day? I’ve always liked the saying, “Wherever you go, there you are!” 
Read this story below from the New York Daily News, and please comment. I’d like to know what you think!
[ Mike Stevenson / Pas De Merde]

The French were so rude to me in Paris that I had to seek out American eateries | NY Daily News

I went to Paris, but ate like a New Yorker.

Blame the French. My first experience in the City of Light was met with a wave of rudeness — particularly in restaurants — despite how reluctant I was to believe the stereotype that the French are cold.

It’s tough being an American in Paris. Especially when the only French words you know are “Bonjour,” “Merci” and “Au Revoir.”

My sister and I made an effort to greet everyone we met with the proper pleasantry in French, but despite our attempts at speaking the language, we weren’t exactly treated hospitably. [ . . .  ]

Read more of this nonsense at:http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/french-rude-paris-opted-american-food-article-1.2928043