Paris 4

Passing by a carousel at the bottom of the stairs leading down from Le Sacre Coeur, I walked south down a street filled with tourist and souvenir shops. Outside the shops and on the corners, men jangled Eiffel Tower key chains on rings the size of dinner plates.

I passed through different rings of the city. First, more residential, with open air fruit and vegetable markets, and then more commercial, name brand shops, H&M, Prada, Gucci, etc. Finally, I moved into the museum area, right before the Seine, with the Louvre, the Tulleries, etc.

I walked along the Seine as the sun went down, past the bookstores, past the love-locked bridges. I got to the Eiffel Tower right as the lights were coming on. I tried my best to get a vertical shot to fit in the frame, and took one from underneath as I walked by all those waiting in line to go up in the tower. I didn’t linger, and I tried to imagine the number of photos and selfies that are taken at the tower on any one day.

I headed towards the Boulevard Saint-Germain. I stopped for a coffee at Les Deux Magots, a café famous for its literary patrons, ranging from Hemingway, Joyce, and Stein, to Sartre and de Beauvoir. I sat out on the terrace, enjoying my coffee and the ambiance, watching the people walk by and listening to the conversations in France. I got the bill and found out that my double espresso cost 6,90 euros and tried not to let that upset me.

I was looking for Hemingway’s and Stein’s apartments, which are both located around Saint-Germain, in the 5th and 6th arrondissements. The literary pilgrimage is at once historical and personal. On the one hand, there is the pure historical value of seeing where a particularly talented person did his or her own work. On the other hand, the personal hand, the matter is a little more complicated. If one believes that he or she is an artist of some sort, it seems to me that there is a certain commonality that he or she feels with other artists, no matter when they lived.

This commonality is a conductivity, a receptivity to Life, that when all goes well, when sparks fly, beautiful and affecting things are created. And so it seems that there are areas where these sparks fly more often, where inspiration pops out in more places, where the voltage is cranked a little bit higher. This leads to more creation, more art, more ideas.

Paris is, and has been, one of the most turnt places in the Western world. To visit the residences of the masters is to hope that it rubs off on you, that the streets, the rhythm, that inspired them will still have enough juice to at least give you some tingles if not full blown illumination. 

I found Stein’s apartment that she shared with Alice B. Toklas, on what is now a calm and residential side street, with a group of people that may have been homeless on the other side. From there I went east, circumnavigating the Jardin du Luxembourg, and passing by the Pantheon where there was some sort of protest going on, with a medium sized group holding flags and yelling in what seemed to be Arabic.

Hemingway’s first apartment is in the Latin Quarter, which appeared to be quite the hip place.  It was less posh than a lot of Paris and seemed to be cheaper on the whole, with lots of cool bars and restaurants, especially more ethnic offerings.  I found Hemmingway’s apartment, took a picture, and then immediately went into a wine bar across the street, bought a glass of Bordeaux so I could use the bathroom.  Relieved, I sat out on the terrace, drinking my wine and nibbling on the bit of cheese they gave me, feeling pretty damn content with my life.