Choosing a Christmas Tree...

No, that's a Christmas Bush...

And this one is just too small. Sorry little guy, maybe next year...

How about this one?

Maybe...

Or maybe not... but what's this over here?

Success!

Now get to work...

A Touch of Light in Downtown Ferndale

This weekend marked what is the official start of Christmas celebrations for us. Every year, we head up north with a couple of our friends and bring back our Christmas trees. I have photos from the day, and I will post them tomorrow.

Today, I want to plug a local artist. His name is John Fitzpatrick. He lives a half block away from me, but his studio is in downtown Ferndale.

John is the owner/resident artist at Touch of Light. He is amazingly talented (that's his work on this post), and an all-around nice guy.

We stopped into his shop yesterday to buy some Christmas gifts for some family members, and ended up being invited into the studio for a cup of coffee and to watch John work. It was fun, fascinating and very relaxed, and if we didn't need to get shopping done, I could have sat there all day. As it was, we sat there for almost two hours.

So if you're in the area and you need a unique gift, stop into Touch of Light. Support a local artist and give someone a work of art. If you're there, be sure to tell him Ryan and Nicole sent you!

23426 Woodward Avenue
Ferndale, MI 48220
(1/2 Mile south of 696 on Woodward Ave.)
(248) 543-1868
Web site (with a gallery)

I think we all knew the robot invasion would come someday...

We, as Americans, have known for a long time that we can't trust Europe. It now seems like they are up to something again, this time involving giant robots.

The European Union is on the forefront of robotics research right now, apparently because of the fact that the countries there are able to play nice with one another.

Among their robotic constructions hellbent on taking over the world is HYDRA. HYDRA is a robotics project based out of Denmark and is purported to be an Honest-To-God Freakin Transformer! From the article:

It is made up of modules, each containing its own processors, batteries, sensors and actuators, which can attach and detach from each other so the robot can change its physical form. Such a robot could be used, for example, in relief efforts after an earthquake, said Henrik Hautop Lund, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark and HYDRA's coordinator. Having driven to a site, the robot could transform into a crawler to climb over debris, a snake to get through a hole, or columns to hold up a collapsed building and protect a survivor.

Give me a call when he figures out how to change from a sweet robot to a wicked Trans Am.

Link

And now for something unbelievable...

I was at a karaoke bar with some friends last week, and while people were suggesting songs for each other to sing, Unbelievable by EMF was suggested.

I was in high school when that song came out; I got the cassette for my birthday (incidentally, the rest of the album blew, and EMF readily earned the title of One-Hit Wonder). It had heavy rotation both on the MSU’s radio station and at the club we went to every weekend. It was a decent song that quickly faded to being a minor sports anthem.

This particular night at the karaoke bar, when it was suggested, one of the girls at the table greeted the suggestion with a blank look. When I told her the age of the song, she replied, “Oh, I was five when that came out. No wonder I don’t know it.”

As if that wasn’t enough to make me feel old, I heard the song on a commercial this morning. But it gets worse.

One thing that’s good at making one feel old is when a song you’ve known, loved, and grown with is in a commercial for something that you feel is targeted toward an older demographic. When Psychic TV was featured on a Volkswagen commercial, I didn’t flinch; they were trying to sell me a Volkswagen by using my music, and that put me in a young hip demographic.

When Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life appeared in Carnival Cruise line commercials with the “liquor and Drugs” cleaned out, it hurt a bit, as did the appearance of the Clash's London Calling in a Jaguar commercial. Still, these songs were out for a while before I discovered them.

Now, EMF’s Unbelievable made an appearance on a commercial; not just any commercial, it's a commercial for Kraft cheese. Not only that, they either got the band or a sound alike to recut the vocals, and now the commercial for Kraft Cheese Crumbles boasts that this particular cheese is “Crumbelievable.”

Now, the cheese product in question may indeed be Crumbelievable; I’ve not tried it. I do know that this commercial makes me feel a bit on the ancient side, though.

Link to Kraft’s site, where they are lauding the merits of this Crumbelievable cheese.

Things that make you go "Blak"

In an attempt to appear hip and edgy while maintaining a stranglehold on the world soft drink market, Coke will be launching a coffee/cola concoction next year.

The drink, called Coca-Cola Blak, will be a low-calorie, coffee-infused version of Coca-Cola Classic. Intended to compete with Red Bull and Starbucks at the same time, the drink will launch in France in early 2006, and go worldwide later in the year.

Here's the "buzz" from Coca-Cola's corporate site:

Coca-Cola Blāk is not just a flavor extension. It is a blend of unique Coke refreshment with the true essence of coffee and has a rich smooth texture and has a coffee-like froth when poured. We believe we have created a new category of soft drink – an adult product in a carbonated beverage – and a whole new drinking experience.

Coffee and Coca-Cola; two great tastes that taste "Blak" together.
Link to news story.

Day 5 - Just a lazy day in Paris

Welcome to Day 5! Sit back and relax.

Unlike our prior days in Paris, we had reached the point where we wanted to have a lazy day; we wanted to enjoy Paris at the rate it was supposed to be enjoyed. With no place to be, we headed off to Montmartre.

Sacre Coeur and Montmartre

Situated further away from the city center, The Basilica of the Sacre Coeur is a cathedral high atop the the hill of Montmartre. Aside from being a beautiful site surrounded by a neighborhood that feels like authentic “old world” Paris, the neighborhood surrounding Sacre Coeur was and still is a haven for artists.

As you exit the Metro station you realize that you are at the bottom of a very steep hill. Although we were pretty sick of climbing at this point in our trip, at least we were ascending an incline rather than stairs. It didn’t hurt so much.

After a steep climb through a block or two of shops, you reach the base of the hill actually leading up to Sacre Coeur.

Sacre Coeur is a bit of an anomaly. Despite the appearance of its architecture, construction only began on it in 1875, with it being completed in 1914. There are also all sorts of controversial reasons for its construction; some even suggest it was built to atone for the behavior of the artists in the surrounding area, and that their loose living may have even lead to France’s loss in the Franco-Prussian war.

Regardless of the reason for its construction, it was a beautiful place and a great place to spend a day.

At the front of the church, which is a shrine to Joan of Arc, we encountered a blend of the sacred and the profane; a Japanese model in hot pants was posing for a photo shoot by doing the splits on the stone steps in front of the church. I was taken aback a bit, and I apologize for not having a photo of this, but I was using my video camera at the time.

Inside the church, I once again encountered the thing that had most perturbed me at Notre Dame – the lack of respect for a holy place. Bear in mind that Advent had just started, and not only were people carrying on with the usual things I had complained about at Notre Dame, they were doing so oblivious to the fact that Mass was going on! Next Sunday, go down to the local Catholic church during Mass, and wander about, inspecting the art. Talk loudly as you do so. See how much of an ass you feel like, and wonder how others can be so oblivious.

Walking through Montmartre

As we left Sacre Coeur, we wandered through the streets of Montmartre. At this point, I must deliver the highest amount of praise for Rick Steves’ Paris 2005 book. Its walking tour of Montmartre was exemplary in that it not only called out the traditional sights that every book called out, it also pointed out the sights that we wanted to see, and yet books fail to mention because they are private residences, not tourist attractions.

So, not only did we see the Place du Tertre, the courtyard where artists sit outside selling their paintings, we also were able to find Le Bateau-Lavoir, the laundry boat, a block of houses that used to be an artist compound. It was here that many people who would become famous artists lived and played, and it was within these walls that Pablo Picasso invented cubism.

In addition to Le Bateau-Lavoir, we saw the house where Vincent Van Gogh lived with his brother Theo, and our favorite – a non-descript little house where Toulouse-Lautrec lived…

where every night he would dress up and wander down the hill to what is still, within a few blocks of the Cathedral, Paris’ red light district. As we reached the bottom of the hill, we stumbled upon the Moulin Rouge. There is very little glamor to it. It sits on a strip of seedy strip bars and sex shops. That being said, we of course wandered down the street scoping out the sights, spying a French prostitute here and a dirty old man there, then we boarded the train at Pigalle (pronounced “pig alley”, and a more appropo name does not exist), to do a little shopping over by Sacre Coeur, then it was back into the city proper.

After a bit more last-minute shopping by the Louvre, where I got into a scuffle with a Japanese tourist. Yes, that’s true; although it was actually more of a shoving match than a scuffle… not proud of it, but it happened…. Then it was time for a drink.

Harry’s New York Bar

One sight we had promised Nicole’s dad we would take in was Harry's New York Bar. When he was in Paris, it was one of his favorite places, and a stop for a drink fit well with the pace of the day.

Harry’s New York Bar was opened by an American in 1911. it was one of Ernest Hemingway’s favorite hangouts, and rumor has it that the Bloody Mary was invented here. With this in mind, this is what we ordered.

First off, that was probably the best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had! The bartenders are masters of their craft. No only were the Bloody Marys made from scratch, while we sat at the bar we watched the bartenders, in white lab coats, make an array of drinks from scratch, including a mojito where the bartender first ground up the mint leaves with a mortar and pestle.

The walls were adorned with pennants from every American university you could think of, and the placed just oozed with class, albeit an American brand of class. You could really feel why American expats have made this their watering hole through the years. Even the price (the Bloody Marys were $12.50 a pop, but well worth it) didn’t turn me off of the place.

Now it was back to the hotel for one last drop off, one last freshen up, and a glass of wine before our last meal in Paris.

We wanted our last meal in Paris to be extra-special, so I consulted Rick Steve for another suggestion, and found a restaurant he raved about for its “traditional French dishes”, which is what we had been eating all week. I would never go so far as to say that Rick Steve steered us wrong at this point; I just wasn’t expecting what we’d find. A glance at the menu on the door outside revealed that the place specialized in tripe dishes, as well as a few other items made from organ meat. While it was traditional, it wasn’t what we were looking for, so we moseyed on.

Our second choice looked very nice and we walked in and sat down. When the menu came, we realized that, although it was a nice restaurant, it was a nice Italian restaurant, and we really wanted French food. It was now nearing 11, and in a bit of a panic, we simply chose the next restaurant we saw.

Le Bistrot du 7

Le Bistrot du 7 looked like a nice enough place, and they did offer a price-fixe menu. This is the way we ate almost every night. Price-fixe simply means you choose an appetizer, entrée and dessert from a set list, and there is a set price for the trio.

At first, we thought we were getting bad service here, but after observing a bit, we realized the waiter was simply brisk and formal with everyone, and he was actually quite nice.

The food was the best we had in Paris! We started with a tomato, basil and mozzarella salad, and the tomatoes were the freshest I’ve had since August. Once again, I had duck; this particular duck was a leg and thigh that had been soaked and then cooked in duck fat. It sounds odd, but it’s very rich and very tender. Nicole had veal in a mushroom cream sauce, served with pommes frites, of course, and we finished the meal with crème brulee of course. Add a bottle of excellent wine, and it was a great meal to finish our trip.

Hustling back to a Metro stop in order to get on before the trains stopped running, something wasn’t right. According to my map, we should have been by a stop, but we just weren’t seeing one. I asked a passing pedestrian for help:

Me: Pardon, s’il vous plait. Ou est la metro? (Excuse me, please. Where is the metro?)
Woman: La metro? (The metro?)
Me: Oui. (Yes)
Woman: Ici! (Here!)

She then pointed at a point 10 feet behind where we were standing, where, sure enough, the stairs of the metro went down below the street. I gave her a laughing shrug which is the universal symbol for “I am a drunken idiot!” and we laughed and went on our way.

Not too bad for the final conversation of the trip completed entirely in French.

That concludes our trip journal. The next day consisted of checking out, taking a cab to the airport, and flying for nine hours. A liberal amount of bourban facilitated this flight quite nicely, and we slept through most of it.

Thanks for playing along at home during this special miniseries, and we take you now to your regularly scheduled blog.

La vie Boheme

December 24th, Nine PM
Eastern Standard Time
From here on in I shoot
without a script
See if anything comes of it
Instead of my old shit…

I saw Rent last night. The film this time. I’ve been to the play twice now, so this is the third time I’ve seen it in some form. I can’t hear the music from Rent without feeling reborn, re-inspired and sad at the same time. Rent is the Hair of my generation. It’s the story of a bunch of close friends who are living life at the close of the 90’s.

How do you document real life
When real life is getting more like fiction each day?

Rent reminds me of a house in Kalamazoo 10 years ago. There were about eight of us living there. We were broke and starving, and the house wouldn’t get warmer than 40 or 50 degrees all winter. But we were really happy.

Dearly beloved we gather here to say our goodbyes
Here she lies
No one knew her worth
The late great daughter of mother earth
On this night when we celebrate the birth
In that little town of Bethlehem
We raise our glass - you bet your ass to
-La vie Boheme

As long as there was money for beans, rice, and a case of Huber Bock (seven dollars for a case of bottles back then), we all had a great time. It didn’t matter that at least once a day our cat would give us a mouse or a bat she’d found in the basement, or that we moved our mattresses to that same basement to sleep next to the furnace where it was warmest. I have really fond memories of that time.

To days of inspiration
Playing hookie, making something out of nothing
The need to express, to communicate
To going against the grain
Going insane, going mad

I was going to film school, and I was going to make documentaries. Hell, I was going to be a frickin’ artist and I was going to write the great American novel, and die poor but loved forever by other poor Bohemian artists. I worked the door at a bar, and at 2 am there were always a bunch of us back at one of these old houses, drinking, smoking and figuring out where to go next.

To loving tension, no pension
To more than one dimension
To starving for attention
Hating convention, hating pretension
Not to mention of course, hating dear old mom and dad

We were the biggest bunch of freaks, and everyone knew it. Years later, we still meet people who remember being at our house for some gathering or another, and yet I never met. I like to think I was THIS close to being a legend, even if it was only in my own mind. There was not much further to go… some of you guys who read this were part of those days. Remember Julie’s birthday party when the Mad Butchers played in that basement with its six-foot ceiling? Remember Nicole’s birthday where everyone had to dress up as an associate of the Kennedy family or part of the assassination conspiracy? It was all high weirdness, but fun.

To riding your bike, midday
Past the three- piece suits
To fruits, to no absolutes
To Absolut, to choice
To the Village Voice
To any passing fad
To being an us-for once-, instead of a them –
La vie Boheme

What happened? I never planned on ending up in automotive advertising. Hell, advertising was a tool of the man. It was never something to trust; marketing was mind control. I was meant for bigger writing pursuits. The music from Rent turns me back toward these pursuits for a while.

I'm shouting in my sleep
I need a muzzle
All this misery pays no salary, so
Let's open up a restaurant in Santa Fe
Oh sunny Santa Fe would be nice
Let's open up a restaurant in Santa Fe
And leave this to the roaches and mice

I sometimes wonder where it changed. I wonder if there was a point, one single point where this was all determined, and I missed it. I sometimes wonder if it’s not time to call it quits, to make that film, to write that book, to open that bar, and then I wonder when I’ll have the time…

We'll pack up all our junk and fly so far away
Devote ourselves to projects that sell
We'll open up a restaurant in Santa Fe
Forget this cold bohemian hell

And then sometimes, when I think about it, it hasn’t changed at all. I have a new circle of friends, and we have day jobs, but they are still the most amazing crazy bunch of dumbasses to be around. We talk about music and art, and we create music and art. We read, write and drink. The artist community is still there; we just grew up a little bit, and we can afford to drink better stuff. I would do anything for these guys.

The opposite of war isn’t peace.
It’s creation.

I think this post is getting really cliché, so I’ll end it with this: Go see Rent. It’s that good.

Also, if you think this post was pretty artsy fartsy, humor me and keep your frickin' mouth shut.

Today I am a fireman...

I'm putting out some fires today, so Day 5 will be up tomorrow morning. So sorry to keep you waiting for the last installment of the trip. Thanks for your patience!

Detroit's Homeless Animals Need Help!

UPDATE: Apparently the animals will not be euthanized, but I don't think this is the end of this. The current statement is that Animal Control will be locking its doors for two weeks, and no animals will go in or out during that time, but existing residents will be fed and watered. There has been no official statement as to what will happen when the doors reopen, or if they will accept any more animals. As it stands, city services are in dire straits, and we'll see what happens.

This latest clarification came from Detroit Health Department Deputy Director Dr.Vincent Nathan, in a conversation with Joe Sowerby, who is chairperson of the Detroit Animal Care and Control Advisory Board.

We'll just wait and see.

This is Josie. She's a young Shepard mix currently residing at the Detroit Animal Shelter, but unfortunately not for long.

The City of Detroit is bankrupt, and has been for a while. As a result, they have decided to cut all "non-essential" services. According to the City of Detroit, Animal Control is not essential. They are closing on December 17, and all of the animals are slated for euthanasia.

It's really not fair that the animals are being forced to face the consequences of a city that has been poorly managed for so long, and with no end in sight. So I am asking all of my local readers to do what they can. If you can't adopt (we can't; we have a dog and a cat taking up too much space as it is), at least spread the word to everyone you know.

I received this message today from the people at the Michigan Animal Adoption Network:

All of the Detroit Animal Control (DAC) animals are slated for euthanasia on Dec. 17, unless area rescue groups can pull them. The devastating news came today from DAC employee Patrice Reed. As you may have heard in recent media reports, in an attempt to save money, the city is cutting "non-essential" city services for certain blocks of time. Guess what folks? Animal control in the city is considered a "non-essential" city service. Detroit Animal Control will completely close down for the last two weeks of December, starting Dec. 17. DAC has beautiful cats, dogs, kittens and puppies. If you or anyone you know is in a position to pull animals from the facility, please do so. This is beyond an urgent situation. If you have any questions, please contact me at (248) 545-5055.

Thank you,
Amy Wettlaufer
Network Manager
Michigan Animal Adoption Network
PO Box 20523
Ferndale, MI 48220
Off: 248.545.5055
E-mail: info@mi-aan.org
Primary Web site: http://www.mi-aan.org/

Animal Control is non-essential? I wonder what they're going to do with the packs of wild dogs in the neighborhoods now.

Only the Lonely...

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Roy Orbison. While I was never a Roy Orbison fan, I thought it would be a fitting tribute to bust out these photos of Mark and I with the Roy Orbison car we found in Kalamazoo this fall.
Shorts and sandals... those were the days...
Rock on Roy, wherever you are.

Happy Birthday Wanxing!

This Wanxing. Today he is one year old. He is apparantly disinterested by fire. Link

Paris Recap, Day 4- In which we hit both the low point and the high point of the trip...

Due to the previous night’s adventures, we slept late this morning; not too late, though, and we were out the door and on the Metro by noon. Our first destination for the day was the Paris catacombs.

The Catacombs

Paris sits on a rather soft foundation of limestone that was quarried for rock since Roman times. After hundreds of years of mining for rock deep below the city, tunnels started collapsing, and people started to realize that perhaps digging under their houses was not the wisest way to procure building supplies. Mining for rock below the city ceased.

In 1786, certain neighborhoods in Paris were being plagued with disease, caused partly by contamination from cemeteries where bodies had been buried in shallow mass graves. It was decided that the bodies could be thrown in the now vacant tunnels. Under the cover of darkness, members of the church spent over two years digging up 3 million bodies and dumping them in the tunnels.

Over the years, bodies of those killed in the riots would be dumped in the tunnels, as well as casualties from various battles. Over time, the body count in the tunnels would rise to six million. Eventually, in the 19th century, city officials made order of the bones, creating the ossuary that can be visited today.

In a non-touristy neighborhood, the catacombs can be entered through an unassuming door. You pay an attendant €5 and enter a narrow spiral staircase. Like Notre Dame in reverse, you descend a few hundred feet below the street, and end up in an old mine passage.

The passage winds for several thousand feet before you enter an atrium bearing the inscription Arrete, c'este ici l'Empire de la Mort (Stop! You are entering the Empire of Death). This is the entrance to the ossuary.

Simply put, the skeletons have been piled several meters high and several meters deep along the tunnel walls, arranged by the era in which they were placed in the tunnel. It’s deathly silent (no pun intended), the only sound being the rock crunching beneath your feet and the sound of water dripping from the low ceiling.

It was an eerie experience, although very cool. One couldn’t help but wonder who all these people were, what they did, what they were like. It was really an amazing look at… something. Grasping mortality? Realizing that we’re all going to end up in a bone yard somewhere? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it was just a cool chance to look at some bones.

As you make your way out of the catacombs, you ascend the same number of stairs and are spit out in an alley a few blocks from where you started. The business of the city goes on around you, oblivious to what is right below.

This is the only section of the tunnels open to the public, but unofficially people have been exploring the tunnels for years, even living down there. There are tunnels that were used by both the Nazis and the French Resistance during WWII, and there are all sorts of organizations that have been illegally documenting these tunnels. Here's one.

After leaving one of the least-know tourist attractions in Paris, it seemed right that our next destination was one of the best known…

Eiffel Tower


Built to be the entrance at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, the tower is both an eyesore and an amazing architectural feat. It’s an exercise in symmetry; everywhere you look there is a beautiful intersection of angles, and of course the view from on the tower itself is amazing.

You could definitely get a nice view of football practice from up there...

There’s really not much to say about the tower – it is what it is.
Bonjour!

Centre Pompidou

After a quick snack it was time to visit the Centre Pompidou. Centre Pompidou is the modern art museum, picking up where D’Orsay left off.

Another place that may or may not be an eysore, the Centre Pompidou looks like a Habitrail on the outside.While we were there at night, I swiped this photo for reference.

Those hamster tubes on the outside are the tubes which take you to the top, where the collections are housed. We were also treated to a views of the spastic Eiffel Tower lights, and a lit-up Sacre Coeur (which is on tomorrow's itinerary) on the way up.

Currently the art is displayed by theme, rather than chronologically. It’s a really cool way to view the art.

While I won’t pretend to understand a lot of modern art, some of it was powerful. Some of it was funny. Some of it was just damn cool. And, yes, there were some where I said “what the hell?”

I did yank a few of my favorites to show you, though.
Probably one of my favorite pieces there was Slave Auction, by Jean-Michel Basquiat. My interest in him stems largely from the movie Basquiat, in which David Bowie played Andy Warhol, but Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work is very amazing.

Speaking of Warhol…
Electric Chair

Another crazy cool piece was Grafted Garden, by Tetsumi Kudo. It’s an installation where body parts are being grown in a garden setting. I don’t know if it’s about man’s inhumanity to man or if it’s a statement of personal and political activism, but I do know it’s wicked cool.

I also wanted to point out one more; this is La Toilette, by Frau vor dem Spiegel. I like it because it looks to me like a similar study to the Toulouse Lautrec piece with the same title we saw a few days prior.

There is a virtual walkthrough of the exhibition here, should you be so interested.

At this point, it was pushing 10, and we were dragging. So we stopped in a brasserie (most restaurants are closed on Sunday evening so our choices were limited; even though Frommer’s said restaurants were closed on Monday and open on Sunday, we found the opposite to be true. Then again, Frommer’s sucks.) for some lamb chops. Nicole also had l’hericot verts, or green beans. Leave it to the French to perfect green beans! They were tasty, buttery, garlicky and quickly consumed.

Then it was back to the hotel for a glass of wine and some well-earned sleep.

Thus concludes Day 4… See you on Day 5!

Greetings from Notre Dame!

Day 4 will be posted today. For now, here's a photo of Nicole and some friends from the top of Notre Dame!

Paris Recap - Day 3, God, Shopping, and Rock and Roll

If you've come here first, here are the links to Day 1, and to Day 2...

Day 3

You’ve all been so patient waiting for the continuation of my Paris recap, so here’s Day 3! Unfortunately, you’ll have to do without photos for now, but I will get some new photos up soon. I figure you’d rather read this without photos than wait another day. I did, however, add a few photos from the web.

The day was sunny, but snowy. The concierge at our hotel would later tell us that snow is a rarity in Paris because of the pollution. We didn’t mind, because it wasn’t too cold, and the snow was the big fluffy kind that makes everything a little magical. We hopped the Metro to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame in the snow was amazing, but the plaza in front was crawling with panhandlers seeking to hit the tourists up for a bit of their vacation budget. I don’t mind the people who work for your donations; the street musicians and performers are amazing, but there is also the breed of beggar who feels that they can simply come up and ask for money. I have little patience for this.

Perhaps it’s because I am living in Detroit, but when a homeless person walks up to me and starts rattling off a spiel that sounds pre-rehearsed, I know it’s the French equivalent of “Sorry to bother you but my car is broken down around the corner and my three kids are inside it and I just need 43 cents so I can get bus fare to Pontiac for a job interview and buy some gas to fix the flat tire…” and I simply shake my head and keep moving.

Nicole is the same way. When a homeless woman walked up to her at Notre Dame while Nicole and I were talking, the exchange went like so:

Beggar (in a thick accent): Do you speak English?
Nicole: No. (Turning back to me) So, anyway, what I was saying was…

Don’t think we’re callous and insensitive, but you have to realize that where we’re at, we are set upon by people looking out for handouts on a daily basis. I have no problem sharing leftovers when I leave a restaurant, but if I gave money to every sob story I’ve heard, I would be living worse than I do now.

So on to Notre Dame. Words can’t describe what a massive building this is on the outside or the inside. This is a massive cathedral built with the idea that in order for God to hear your prayers, you need to get as close to God as possible. It was amazing on the inside.

I’m not sure, though, how I feel about these places being tourist attractions. While not necessarily the most devout Catholic, I was raised Catholic, and there is a portion of the beliefs that I subscribe to. Even if this were not the case, I recognize this cathedral is, to many, a holy place. I removed my hat when I entered. I was quiet, and respectful, and didn’t use my camera. Why is this a foreign concept to so many people?!?!

There were people who didn’t take off their hats, who used a flash, who marched into the roped off area reserved for people who were about to attend mass. They were tourists of all kind: Japanese, German, British, French and American. There Muslims and people who appeared Christian. Why is it so hard to show respect to a place that the Catholic Church does not have to make available to the general public?!? Ok, that’s how I feel about that.

In Notre Dame, we lit a candle for Nicole’s mom. She was an amazing lady who lost her battle with breast cancer a few years ago. She loved Paris, and the whole time we were there you could really feel her there.

Exiting Notre Dame, we walked around the side to climb the tower. This was a narrow stone spiral staircase that climbed over 400 steps and over 200 feet into the air. The staircase was cold, the steps were worn from hundreds of years of feet and it was claustrophobic. That being said, we climbed and climbed… to a gift shop!?!?

I was little perturbed about it at first. While interesting (the area pointed out the location of Esmerelda’s cell from Hugo’s The Hunchback of Nôtre-Dame), I couldn’t help but people had been scammed into paying an amount of money (it was covered by our museum pass, but those who didn’t have one had paid) to be herded into a place to make them spend money. Fortunately, my feelings were ill founded, because then they let us up the rest of the stairs.

At the top, there are two amazing things: first, you have an amazing view of the city spreading out for miles, and second, you are face to face with hundreds of gargoyles of all kinds. Almost all of the gargoyles that you are familiar seeing are from Notre Dame, and there are tons more. I think that was the first time I realized that these, the original gargoyles, were all hand-carved, not cast, and each one is different. It was an amazing view of the city.

Then, of course, we had to go down all of those stairs once again…

Leaving Notre Dame, it was time for breakfast. It was nearing noon, and we hadn’t eaten yet. Lunch was at a little café around the corner from the cathedral where we had a bottle of wine (of course), I had a crepe with ice cream, hot fudge and walnuts, and Nicole had French onion soup. After a cup of espresso, we were ready to tackle the city once again.

Q: You know what the French call French Onion Soup?
A: Onion Soup.

Sainte-Chapelle

Sainte-Chapelle is another beautiful Catholic church. My ire toward tourists in this on was lessened by the fact that A.), I had just had a few glasses of wine, and B.), in Sainte-Chapelle you only tour the upper chapel, with its hundreds of stained glass windows rising high into the air. It was like being inside a kaleidoscope, and I imagine it would be even more amazing on a sunny day.

The stained glass tells the story of the bible beginning from creation and going all the way to the Apocalypse. There is also a section detailing the construction of Sainte-Chapelle, and of the King traveling to Constantinople to purchase Christ’s Crown of Thorns, which was stored within Sainte-Chapelle. The King paid three times the amount that it cost to build Sainte-Chapelle for them!

Once again, I have to highly recommend Rick Steves’ Paris 2005. His book pointed your attention to many of the high points of the detail in the stained glass windows, which included a rather graphic depiction of Cain clubbing Abel.

We also went to a lesser-known monument of Paris; the Holocaust monument. Situated in a small park behind Notre Dame is a monument to the French who died in the Holocaust. It was a very powerful moving design.

After all this culture and religion, it was time to worship at the altar of capitalism. It was time to go shopping!

Rue De Rivoli


Rue De Rivoli is like the average person’s version of Avenue des Champs-Elysees; it’s cool French fashions at a more realistic price. Nicole was able to begin the purchase of a new wardrobe here.

After a few hours of shopping and a snack of bread, cheese and wine (I could seriously live off this diet!), we dropped everything off at the hotel and headed out for dinner once again.

The Bastille and Rue De Lappe

The Bastille neighborhood is a very raucous area (I just used “raucous” in a sentence!), and this where we chose to find food this evening.

First of all, in an experiment, we had the names of two restaurants right by one another. One was Bistrot Les Sans Culottes from Rick Steve’s book, and one was a restaurant from Frommer’s. Frommer’s pick? It was out of business; there was a pizza place there.

Rue De Lappe. That's the Bistrot Les Sans Culottes on the right.

Bistrot Les Sans Culottes was amazing, but the service was not so good. The waiter was sort of ambivalent to our presence, but the food was frickin’ amazing. We started with escargots served on what was either polenta or mashed potatoes, followed by a beef dish, and for desert we had a frozen fruit concoction served in a puddle of… crème brulee.

It was unbelieveable, but like I said, the service was quite slow.

Dinner service in most restaurants in Paris is slow by American standards. This doesn’t bother me at all; it gave us time to enjoy wine and talking and having a relaxing meal. As it is, dinner last about two hours in a typical French Restaurant. The diner at Bistrot Les Sans Culottes lasted three, and the waiter repeatedly forgot our café, so we opted to just leave.

Also, the French eat quite late by American standards; most restaurants are still seating people at 11. This also agrees with me, but now it was 1 am, and we were finishing diner. This meant we would need to take a cab back to the hotel (the Metro stops at 1), which meant we had time to find a nightcap.

The Bastille neighborhood is very much a young people’s bar-hopping neighborhood, so there were bars everywhere. We wandered down an alley, then down another, and the down one more. There, we were greeted by a little hole in the wall called Le Fanfaron. It had Iggy Pop posters on the window, and American garage rock blaring from inside.

We popped in, and felt like we’d been transported to a Detroit hole in the wall bar. None of the chairs or tables matched, but the beer was good and the music was great. The walls were covered with Russ Meyer posters, sci-fi posters and posters of American garage rockers. It was a total dose of home, and we also felt like we were somewhere that not many tourists get to.

After the bar closed at 2:30 we wandered back to the Bastille. Here’s where we found a flaw in our plan.

The Taxi Stand

In Paris, one doesn’t hail a cab. One goes to the cab stand (like a bus stop), and a cab picks you up. When you have waited until the bars close in a neighborhood like the Bastille, you discover that the line for a cab reaches around the block. We stood in line for 45 minutes until it was our turn. We had gypsy cab drivers try to offer their services for exorbitant sums. We watched a drunk get in a fight with a phone booth and try to pick fights with people in the line as well as climb into cabs with other people.

Eventually, it was our turn. My coworker gave me a tip that I used, and I want to pass on now. If you are ever traveling in France, or any other place you are unfamiliar with, carry a piece of paper with the name and address of your hotel on it. This way, I was able to get in the cab and say “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak French very well. Please take me to my hotel,” and hand the driver the paper. It works very well.

Finally, home at the end of the day, it was 4 am, we had a glass of wine, and collapsed.

See you on Day 4!

More grumblings from the fuzzy little army...

I know that many of you turn to this blog for news items that may portents of the upcoming apocalypse, and these items definitely fit in that department. I am of course talking about recent events, separated by thousands of miles, that may be hinting at the plague of rodents about to descend upon us.

First, in Belfast, where the BBC is reporting that a plague of "cat-sized" rats is starting to take over a neighborhood:

They come out in daylight. Nothing seems to scare them. If a bus was coming, the rat would just dilly dally along the road. Nothing seems to deter them. They don't seem to be frightened of human people.

Odd quote, that. It seems to imply that the rats are afraid of non-human people; and really, aren't we all? Link

Second, we turn to Russia, where a group on squirrels mobilized enough to descend en masse upon a stray dog, tearing him to shreds:

They literally gutted the dog. When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking pieces of their kill away with them.

While some experts theorize the squirrels may have carried out the attack as a result of a food shortages, I think we, as realistically-minded Americans who've seen movies about large groups of predatory rodents know exactly what's going on. And we all know the dire predicament we'll be in if these two armies are aware of each other's existance and choose to forge ahead in order to unite in an allied, fuzzy, beady-eyed army. Link

A few more Paris photos

I am unprepared for the Day 3 Recap today. Watch for it on Monday.

I will still be posting today, but it will be my usual weirdness, no trip recap.

To tide you over, I do have a few more Day 2 photos... I should also be putting up some other photos this weekend, so check back!

Nicole doing what she does best, outside the Louvre.

The back end of some French Police outside the Louvre.

This is Nike of Samothrace. She is one of the things Nicole looked most forward to seeing. Nicole is up there in the throng somewhere, getting photos and shoving Japanese tourists.

This is Bacchus. He's my homeboy.

Face off! Heh, heh... face off...

Busy night tonight. Nicole and her sister will be attending the Sinead O'Connor concert at the State Theater tonight (the tickets were a birthday gift, so her birthday just keeps coming, don't it?), and my brother-in-law and I will be nearby at the Joe Louis Arena, watching the Redwings face off against the Calgary Flames.

It will be interesting, if not a bit sad, to see, as Darren McCarty comes back into town to play his old teammates. He was a solid member of the Wings lineup for so long, it was a bummer to see him get traded.

In other Redwings news, Jiri Fisher, the defenseman who collapsed on the bench (previous post here), experienced a "brief, abnormal cardiac rhythm" on Monday while he was resting at home. I really wonder if he'll be coming back to play ever. Link

Other Face Off News

After talking about it for months now, some doctors in France got off their asses and finally decided to do one of those face transplants. The patient was a woman who had been disfigured in a dog attack.

They are saying that the woman will not look like she did before, nor will she look like the face donor; she look like a combo of the two. That would suck if you were really attractive before, and they gave you an ugly face, but then again, it's better than dealing with the disfgurement as well.

If this is successful, it will definately pave the way for this procedure becoming more common. It probably won't ever reach the point where you can get it done just for the hell of it, though, as there's the issue of donors. From the article:

The transplant would have to come from a beating heart donor. So, say your sister was in intensive care, you would have to agree to allow their face to be removed before the ventilator was switched off.

Does the person really have to be brain dead, though? If not, I can think of a few people who I'd volunteer to be a face donor...
Link

Paris Recap, Day 2 – It’s all about the Art

(Day one can be found here)

For the flight to Paris, we had a few beers at the airport, and then more drinks on the plane, so we could sleep through the flight. I wish I’d had the forethought to bring more wine to the hotel, because my body was still running on Detroit time, and I only got two hours of sleep.

I was unwilling to let this phase me, and we got moving to see some sights today. We caught the train to the Louvre, and stopped for pain au chocolate, which is a flaky pastry filled with chocolate. We ate this in the statue garden outside the Louvre.

The Louvre

It was sunny but very cold that morning; the puddles had a skin of ice on them. We walked about looking at the statues. It’s an amazing thing about Paris; the city is so old with such a rich history, that it’s really easy to take for granted all of the amazing things you are seeing. That being said, it’s amazing what tourists find interesting; while we were looking at the statues, giving them names (Man hanging head in shame because he realized he forgot his pants today, Man sniffing his pits before a date, Man who has yet to realize that fighting in just a cloak is a bad idea), a throng of tourists were surrounding a pond with a fountain. What had them so riveted? They were watching the guys clean it! They were seriously watching these guys in waders drag a net through the pond, and they cheered when they pulled a piece of patio furniture out! For this they came all the way to Paris? Don’t they have ponds filled with patio furniture at the trailer park?

Nicole at the Louvre

Inside the Louvre

First of all, if you ever go to Paris, there are two things you should buy; one is a train pass, so you don’t need to worry about buying train tickets, the other is the Museum Pass. Not only does the Museum Pass grant you admission to about 20 museums, it gives you VIP status, and by that I mean you don’t have to wait in line!

So we cut to the front of the Louvre and prepped for our whirlwind tour. Don’t get me wrong, I love art and history, but we had a lot of ground to cover in just a few days, so we breezed through the pottery and artifacts, and went straight to the sculpture, our plan being to see the statues and paintings of the Louvre first, then pottery, artifacts and decorative French art as time allowed. It was a solid plan.

Another thing about the Louvre is that it was originally a palace, and not a museum. Because of this, the rooms themselves are covered with murals and garish decorative accents. You are often so overwhelmed that you’re not sure if you should be looking at the architecture of the room or the art in the room.

The statues

The Louvre is filled with halls of statuary, and it’s all amazing. One thing I often forget when I look at a statue is how long it must have taken the artist to complete. The artist may have even made mistakes on prior attempts, and had to start over with a new block of rock. I often forget that it is rock, and how much effort it must take to get the stone so smooth, with the appearance of it being soft to the touch.

In order for an artist to put the time into creating a statue, they have to be wholly committed to the idea that they want to create this piece.

Which brings us to the Hermaphrodite.

This is an honest-to-God statue of a hermaphrodite. I wish I had taken another picture of him/her from the other side. This is a very sensual statue. She/he is stretched out, his/her face has a come-hither look, and there is an ample amount of curves.

When you come around the statue, you see the boy plumbing.

Why did the sculptor create this? Was it someone he knew? Was he trying to document it for art or science? Was he attempting to play a practical joke on the viewer by creating two distinct views of the piece? Whatever his motive, it took him a long time to create this piece.

Another piece I liked was one I like to call Kid Choking a Duck.

And of course, Ms. Thing herself, Venus De Milo.

Paintings

The Louvre has a lot of classical paintings. A lot. And we saw them all. Let’s just leave it at that.

Or not. My favorites are with everyone else’s, I think. I loved Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, David’s The coronation of Emperor Napoléon and Empress Josephine, December 2, 1804 (which is the largest painting in the Louvre, and it’s frickin’ huuuge!), and Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, as well as all of the pieces by names I knew from Art History: Giotto, Caravaggio, Fra Fillipo Lippi, and Fra Angelico.

The slides and art history books misrepresent two things; these paintings are massive, and the three-dimensional qualities the artists captured are amazing. You couldn’t take photos of the paintings, in any of the museums, but the work of these artists is all over the web. I am linking to them where I can, and swiping some images to show.

This is a good time to mention the small number and nature of my photos. Nicole is a professional photographer (which is why every photo I take shows her holding her camera). As a result, I don’t take a lot of photos (I did take about an hour of video), and they are mostly snapshots, so there will not be a lot of photos in my posts. Some of Nicole’s photos will most likely be part of an exhibition in February, but there will be more on that later…

Oh, we also saw La Joconde. We know her by a different name, though.

Full of art for the time being, we wrapped up with the Louvre. At this point, I will launch into my mini rant:

Frommer’s Sucks, aka Why Frommer’s Sucks, aka Frommer’s Sucks and This is Why

We traveled to France with a half-dozen books. These included French phrasebooks, guidebooks and brief histories. One of these books, Rick Steves’ Paris 2005, was essential and full of great information. Another was Frommer’s Paris from $90 a day; which was worthless. Here is the first time we decided it was worthless, but it wouldn’t be the last.

Looking for a place to eat, we referred to Frommer’s for a recommendation. They said that below the Louvre were shops and restaurants. While this was technically true, what they should had said was that, below the Louvre was museum gift shops and a freaking food court. We left and went to another café for sandwiches and wine.

Musee D’Orsay

I love art. I loved the Louvre. But if I were pressed to choose a favorite museum, it would be the Musee D’Orsay. This is one of my favorite periods in art, because this was artists were really starting to say something, to break out and explore expressing themselves. Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Renoir, and one of my absolute favorites, Toulouse-Lautrec, were all here.

The cool thing about the way France displays its art is necessitated by the fact that they have so much of it. Because there is no more room at the Louvre, D’Orsay starts where the Louvre left off. This means Realism, which is simply more contemporary artists painting and sculpting in the classical styles. Aside from some famous pieces, such as Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, and Millet’s The Gleaners, which was most famous for being a painting that dealt with a dreary occupation rather than the lofty themes most artists were doing, we rushed through Realism.

I can’t begin to put into words what these pieces did for, but because it would piss you off if I simply ended this right here, I will try.

It’s amazing to actually see a piece of art you know by an artist you love. It’s even more amazing to see a piece of art by an artist you love that you’ve not seen before.

For example:

Starry Night



We’ve seen it before, but we know it and love it, so it was amazing to see it in person, but I had never seen…

The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet



Which was also by Van Gogh, and blew me away. I had never seen this piece before and to see a Van Gogh, for the first time, in person, was unbelievable.

I loved Degas’ artwork of the dancers as well, but Toulouse Lautrec was again one of my absolute favorites. He was such an interesting, amazing character, who lead the kind of life I think I would have lived, and to see his work, the way he created stylized depictions of everyday events, and his subjects being the dancing girls he associated with, it was all very cool. One of my favorites:

La Toilette



It's like a candid moment with a person you know very well. It's not a grand pose, just a simple sketch of everyday life.

Wrapping up D’Orsay, it was decided we needed less culture, so we headed to Champs d'Elysee for some shopping. There was little here we could afford, it’s a very ritzy neighborhood, like 5th Avenue in New York, but we were in the mood for a bit of the lèche-vitrine, or window-shopping. (Note: it literally means “window licking”, but this is what the French call it.) Champs d'Elysee is all lit up for Christmas right now, and is very cool.

We stopped at the Virgin Records to scope out some French Music. While I found some interesting stuff, most notably by French rocker M (check him out when you have a chance, he’s a bit of a rocker with some sweet hair), CDs were €20-30, way out of my price range.

Scooping up some wine, and stopping at the Championn (a grocery store by our hotel) for a baguette and some cheese, we went back to the hotel for a snack before heading out for dinner in Latin Quarter…

More on why Frommer’s sucks

Using Frommer’s reccomendations for a restaurant, we went to the address. The restaurant was no longer there. So we wandered a bit, reading menus, as we passed one restaurant, the owner walked out a waved us in. Note to self: the next time someone is on the street begging you to come into their restaurant, don’t go.

The appetizers were excellent, raw oysters and shrimp cocktail (the shrimp still had their heads on!), but the entrees were very mediocre; my duck was a little tough, and Nicole’s scallops were not so good. The crème brulee was overtorched. That being said, it was still Paris, and we still had a great evening.

Thouroughly exhausted, and a little drunk, we made our way back to the hotel for some more wine, and a much-deserved sleep.

And that, kids, is how Nicole and I travel. Are you exhausted from reading it? Stay tuned for Day Three!