Since I decided to take a summer break from the French classes, I was very happily busy this week visiting some really interesting museums. Three of the most beautiful were located in mansions that were built or bought by the aristocracy during the 1800’s to house their magnificent art collections of mostly 17th and 18th century art. Once again, so much of Paris is about the pendulum swing between the aristocratic class of kings, noblemen and financiers that amassed such great wealth that money was no object and created the most beautiful and stupendous architecture, both hard and landscaped; then the pendulum swung back during the revolutions of the masses, and suddenly it all belonged to everyone.

The particular mansions and collections that I visited --- the Jacquesmart-Andre, the Marmottan (with the largest collection of Monet in the world --- that I could have stared at all day) and the Nissim de Camondo were all bequeathed to the Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs(Central Union of Decorative Arts). What a beautiful experience --- to actually get to walk through the “house” practically exactly as it looked --- with all of the furniture, artwork and gardens intact.

Yet with all the beauty, there was a sadness at the Nissim de Camondo museum. It was the story of a wealthy Jewish family, originally from Constantinople, that came and created an unbelievably opulent life in Paris on the Park Monceau as the first generation; the third generation’s head of the family was Moise (Moses) who built out the mansion and collected the art. After his short lived marriage to Irene, who left him for an Italian Count (the drama of the royal romantic entanglements here in French history really put People magazine to shame ---it’s not surprising with their history, that the French think it absolutely ludicrous that what went on between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky is a reason to impeach a President,Moise was left to raise his two children Nissim and Beatrice. As a young twenty something Nissim died in combat during WWI; Beatrice who married and had two children moved from the mansion, where Moise then lived a very grief-stricken lonely life until he died in 1935.

In 1944, during the German occupation, Beatrice and her family were deported by the more than willing French police to Drancy, with a reputation as one of the worst internment sites, and later died in Auschwitz. How sad it is that the family only enjoyed the mansion for barely three generations, and then they were all gone.

By a really weird coincidence, on the way to the Marmottan museum, I was reading a book on the subway about the history of Paris. I was on the chapter about the Jewish deportations when I read that the first stop for them was a city outside of Paris, named the Cite de la Muette (the Quiet City). It was a complex that was half built before the German occupation, meant to be a model Parisian suburb. Instead, for several months it became an internment site with over 7000 people living there, in a space meant for 700. In any case, I realized at that moment that La Muette was the subway stop to get off for the museum. As I walked out of the subway and through a gorgeous park, a chill ran up my spine. I flashed on a train station in Prague that Maury and I had visited some years ago, and the guide, very innocently saying, that as a child he had watched from a platform above, the trains filled with Jews being deported to the camps. Oh my God, I thought, chances are they used this subway for transporting the Jews as well. As I dug deeper, it turns out that the place that the Jews were taken to, eventually leading to 25% of French Jewry being killed, was not the La Muette subway station, but the complex by the same name. In any case, it was real reality check on just how tenuous one’s life and one’s possessions can be. In the most beautiful of places, where one feels as safe as can be, the most horrible things can happen.

For some reason the past week, other subway experiences jumped out at me as well. The homeless, who can be found on subway benches sleeping facing the wall with their back turned to the platform, are virtually ignored. There are also gypsy women who are dressed all in black shrouds, who literally prostrate themselves face down on the pavement for hours with a little Dixie size cup in front of them (when I first saw them, I thought it was a pile of black drop clothes) that people glance at and walk by -- I’ve never seen one cent in the cups; the wandering musicians that step into the subway car schleping their amplifier and microphone and give a heart filled howl of a song, and when finished, walking up and down the car with an open hand are met with stone filled, silent expressions; and the musicians that are really good, like the seven piece band & vocalists that are belting out Russian songs (one of which was part of the hora music mix at my son Max’s wedding) in the subway tunnel leading from one station to another, don’t even get the time of day from anyone. Talk about no guilt about not taking “care” of the street people. I guess that’s how the Paris populous is “taught” had to deal with them --- just completely ignore them and pretend that they’re not there.

Also, having heard for the 100th time about pickpockets on the subway, especially teenage kids under the age of 14, that for some reason, it is nearly impossible to prosecute here, all teenager are now suspect. I’m holding onto my purse across my chest for dear life!

We also went to a couple of French movies this week, in a beautiful theater called La Pagode (the Pagoda). It was a great way to practice our French sitting in a theater that is part of a rather huge Pagoda that dates back to the 19th century when it was bought, deconstructed and brought back to France by Monsieur Morin, a director of Bon Marche ( a beautiful department store here), as a gift to his wife. Now that is what I consider a great gift to show ones love and affection! And I’m sure it won’t surprise you that there was no snack bar at the theater, so nobody eating or drinking inside, except for Maury and I with our few dry roasted Trader Joe almonds --- non, non, non (as opposed to oui, oui, oui) as they say here in France, people had their expressos or little glass of mineral water before the film, in the beautiful attached garden to the theater.

I have also had a lot of fun this week doing my own investigation of French cheeses, which number here anywhere from 250-500, depending on who you ask! French cheese production is classified under four categories, fermier (single farmhouse cheese), artisanal (cheese produced in small quantities combining milk from local farms), cooperative (local milk producers joining together to produce big quantities of cheese) and Industriel (using milk from all over France making cheese factory style. Once processed, they are fresh (not aged), soft with a natural rind, soft with a washed rind, pressed, pressed and cooked, goat, blue and processed (blended). You get the idea, it’s terrifically complicated.

Fifty six cheeses are classified, protected, and regulated under French law.

So with my checklist of 56 in hand, telling me what region it came from, what type (cow, goat or sheep) --- sometimes, of course from only a specific type of cow, goat or sheep) I went to a nearby "fromagerie" to see how many I could identify. Thank goodness it was really crowded so no one really noticed me lurking around staring intently at this beatifically displayed case. It didn’t me long to realize the chunks of Monterey Jack, Chedder and Swiss that we have eaten such copious amounts of, probably don’t even qualify for last on the list of the Industrial category!

I was never much of a cheese eater, but I certainly am now as Maury and I sample through cheese from the different regions of France. And I certainly have a better appreciation of the cheese plate at the end of a fine meal here, which is a course all on its own, complete with the pairing of the best wine and bread to bring out the taste of all three.

Stay tuned! Chocolate is next on my list of delicious ways to spend the afternoon in Paris!

After a two week break to be with friends and family in Agoura Hills, NYC and Philadelphia, we came happily back to ave Marceau and the quiet beauty of Paris in August. “They” weren’t kidding when they said that “everyone” goes on vacation during July and August. In this respect France lives up to its reputation. Though there are a lot of people about the major tourist hotspots, by and large we have noticed a drop in about half the people on the streets and the Metro, and many of the restaurants and stores are closed.

As I alluded to before in past blogs, it’s really interesting to be in a place where leisure/vacation time is an integral, accepted and expected part of ones time, especially during the summer. As Cesar (our house agent) told us yesterday, “blue collar take off in July, white collar in August,” --- he was packed and ready to go on vacation today for two weeks with his family. So far the weather has been absolutely lovely, without the expected heat wave, that is also famous in Paris in August.

An aha moment that we realized this week was that here in France, is that we get literally no junk mail. We assume that the cost of mailing catalogs and other advertisements is prohibitive, as well as “it’s simply not done,” but in the 10 weeks since we arrived, we have received exactly four pieces of mail. Two were from the bank with our individual pin numbers for our debit cards; one was from the immigration office with paperwork and an appointment date for an interview and one was an insurance policy that Maury arranged while here. Aside from a few FedEx deliveries with some stuff I shipped from the U.S., our “personal mail” is now all electronic. It’s strange to find an empty mail box day after day. Maury commented that the one day we can remember that happened in Agoura, we were sure that something was wrong at the post office!

Another similar system that is in place, are with very high gas prices and highway tolls that keep cars small and extremely gas efficient and highways beautifully maintained. It’s all about economics, I guess, and having a homogenous and obedient populous that accepts it!

Maury is continuing with his French classes and is deep into it, with the seriousness and intensity definitely ratcheted up this month. I’ve decided to take a break and concentrate on get to know Paris with a deeper study of its culture and history (i.e. spending a lot of time in museums and cultural events) and concentrate on my writing.

I have thought for some time about the intersections of Judaism, Israel and environmentalism and am attempting to put some thoughts down on paper. It seems a little disconnected to be in Paris doing it, when my usual haunts are my foundation projects on the west coast, east coast and Israel which I define as my true “center” --- but of course, I’m not complaining! Paris has been a spot of great inspiration for so many, and I can certainly feel it as well.

Part of my inspiration to do so, came from a book I recently completed, “Writers in Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light.” Particularly the 100 years from around 1840-1940, it’s clear that the space and place of Paris became a moment in time almost unequalled in literary output that had such huge ramifications on not just the style of literature --- whole movements such as Dada and Surrealism, for example --- but the wild and wooly behavior that accompanied it was absolutely without borders ---they fought for each other on obscenity charges, they slept with anybody and everybody, they critiqued each other’s work with impunity. They did it all with complete abandon, melting into each other endlessly in cafes, restaurants, theaters and artist’s and music studios and political rallies in and around the core of Paris. Perhaps this is why so many of their stories use as context, not just the streets of Paris, but the specific buildings, because this is literally where their inspiration came from, feeling at the core of something extraordinary. They accepted each other in all of one another’s craziness, bound together in their own world defining a new type of freedom of expression. Time and time again the book described how such famous authors (in no particular order) such as Emile Zola, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, James Faulkner , Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, Simone de Beauvoir , Jean Paul Sartre and dozens and dozens more felt magnetized to come to Paris ( a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind) as young, and more often than not penniless, feeling that they had a story to write. Their impact is still felt today, as many of their homes and apartments are now museums, which I look forward to exploring.

Sadly, World War II and the German occupation, like so much else, put an end to this era, especially for the American writers of the 1920’s-30’s that found their voices here as writers.

Another recent inspiration was a book I read by Henry James (another writer that came to Paris for inspiration as a young man), “A Little Tour in France.” It was originally published in 1884, about a six week tour James made in the south of France. It was absolutely a delightful book, where his descriptions of where he’d been and what he’d seen (mostly antiquities and castles) were so descriptive, and yet so moving at the same time. This to me, is travel writing at its best.
In a detailed description of the Pont du Gard as an example of the Roman proclivity to “overshoot the mark, and I suppose a race which could do nothing small is as defective as a race that can do nothing great,” he concludes with this sentence:

“When the vague twilight began to gather, the lonely valley seemed to fill itself with the shadow of the Roman name, as if the mighty empire were still as erect as the supports of the aqueduct; and it was open to the solitary tourist [James] sitting there sentimental, to believe that no people has ever been, or will ever be, as great as that, measured, as we measure the greatness of an individual, by the push they gave to what they undertook.”