Observations from the Window 10.1

Saturday I mentioned how one of the fun things about the NY Art Book Fair is its lack of auctions, super high priced items, and "celebrity" booths. I hadn't read my brochure ahead of time so I was in for a bit of a surprise when we walked downstairs. In the basement was a faux library called "Homage To Mike Kelley" and assembled by Larry Gagosian. Kelley died of an apparent suicide in January of this year. The room was dominated by two cases filled with books and music selected by friends from Kelley's personal collection and included a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, Nietzsche's The Birth Of Tragedy, and a complete collection of The Stooges' CDs. It was a cool idea, even if Gagosian came up with it, so I suppose I was pleasantly surprised.

Another fun element of the NYABF is watching people deal with the cash only policy. There was a time I loved going to flea markets and yard sales back in Pennsylvania, collecting old CDs and books, so I'm totally used to that. Art people in New York don't often seem to have cash so after dropping whatever they have on a vintage program or book they madly scramble for the one ATM machine in the building.

Than there is the Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society. Leave any questions you have on this in the comments, otherwise some other time.

Later I was again pleasantly surprised, this time by a movie we watched after dinner. I'm in no way a fan of Woody Allen but I really wanted to see Midnight In Paris, probably as much for the gorgeous scenery as anything else. Well now I can honestly say I have seen a Woody Allen movie that I would watch again, actually I already have. Most of the nostalgia scenes take place in the Montmartre district, the same district of Paris as Christopher Moore's "Sacre Bleu" just forty years later, so next time I'm in Paris I must go there at midnight, I'll meet Hemingway yet. If you haven't seen it yet it's well worth renting, the cinematography is at times is just totally stunning, and it's a fun story to think about.

Before I finish, one line that did irritate me, yes even movies do irritate me sometimes, was when a present day intellectual type says that nostalgia is nothing but denial of one's present life. Now it's true I can be nostalgic to a fault sometimes, so that was one irritant, but I also figure that if nostalgia is denial than art history is denial on a grand scale. Than I had to remember that it was a Woody Allen movie and I also remembered why I don't like him. That 'I want to be somewhere else' feeling sparks creativity in more artists and writers than almost anything else, in all likelihood including Woody Allen.

At some level I could just relate to the movie. Seriously, who wouldn't want to drift back in time and visit some heroes in their element? 

Observations from the Window 8.17

This is going to be a pretty messy post because I'm going to throw together a few I have started in an effort to clean up a little before my trip which begins in about 24 hours.

I had some things I wanted to write about before my trip if I had time. As always my mind wanders constantly and has been totally into the Olympics of late. Politics seems to be on the back burner for now more because I'm so tired of the endless fighting that leads nowhere than any other reason. If the Democratic Party is smart it will call the GOP bluff and let them take the country over that proverbial cliff at the end of the year. But there is plenty of time to talk about that when the November election gets closer.

Before I get into anything else I have a major announcement to make. Truth be told I forget what the hell I wrote that for or what the announcement was so it couldn't have been all that major and was probably a wonderfully sarcastic remark. The only announcement I have tonight is that I still don't have my passport. I'm going to have to get up early and drive to my dad's than drive right back to the Village which makes my Saturday itinerary New York, Pennsylvania, New York, Paris. Sweet jesus.

It's a strange feeling when you have a dream and that dream is about to come true, even if it is only partly coming true. In my dream I only have a one way ticket to Paris. Still the first time I stand by I. M. Pei's
Pyramide du Louvre and look at the museum itself, well,
all bets are off.

To me Paris has always been as much about Hemingway as about art. You might wonder why I of all people  have an obsession with Hemingway, well it's time you knew. When I was little, yes I was little once, my parents read to me every night but I didn't get Dr. Seuss like most children. My mom would read everything from Shakespeare to Dumas but my dad would always pull out his favorite author, Hemingway. Like many things I blame on my dad Hemingway became my favorite author too but somehow I just seem to relate to Hemingway. I'll finish with one of my favorite stories because in the same situation I would probably think the same thing he did.

In 1846 a monster hurricane assaulted Key West and pushed so much sand ashore it seemed to move the Key West Lighthouse inland. Many years later Hemingway bought a house in the shadow of the lighthouse and direct sight of Sloppy Joe's which was his favorite drinking establishment. "As long as I can see that beacon," Hemingway once said, "I'll always be able to find my way home."

Like I said, I can relate.

Observations from the Window 8.1

I love to fly and I always have but its been a long time since I flew anywhere let alone a flight the length of JFK to Paris. I thought this would set some kind of record for me but the close to 8 hour flight time to Paris is still an hour short of the 9 hours from Chicago to Honolulu. When I think back that trip seems like an entirely different life but it did land me on Kee Beach on Kauai, still what I think is the closest this planet gets to perfect. Getting back to this life, due to the crazed world of time zones this flight is still going to be something totally new to me. As of now I'll be leaving JFK around 10PM and arriving at Charles de Gaulle around 10AM the next day. According to the Air France website "hot and cold drinks, with or without alcohol, are served."
Without alcohol? Seriously? Why?

I'll be staying in the Montparnasse area of Paris close to where Ernst Hemingway rented an apartment on the Rue du Cardinal Lemoine and about a thirty minute walk to The Louvre. I'm going to load A Movable Feast on my netbook and maybe see if I can find some of the spots. I don't expect to run into Hemingway's ghost but if I should I have plenty of questions to ask him about his years in Paris but also about his third wife the journalist Martha Gellhorn. Still if I don't see him I'd be perfectly happy to run into his very much living great-granddaughter Dree, that would work for me too.

At the turn and early part of the 20^th century the Montparnasse was the heart and soul of artistic Paris. A list of its more famous inhabitants includes not only Hemingway but Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Ezra Pound, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Montparnasse and its cafes was also the social center of the large American expatriate community in Paris of which Hemingway wrote so much. Marc Chagall said he had gone to Montparnasse because at the time "The sun of Art then shone only on Paris." Living in the Village it may seem strange but at times I think the same thing.

For now beyond that I haven't made any major plans. Work, walk, shop, walk to the Louvre, and try not to look too out of my element doing it. The shopping may be a major plan because I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get anything. I toyed with the idea of taking an empty bag but with the Paris weather all over the place, 60° one day and 75° the next, I have no idea what to pack.

Finally, a friend sent me this video, totally gets me in the mood ....

Paris In Motion (Part I) from Mayeul Akpovi on Vimeo.

Soundtrack: Angel - Massive Attack, Mezzanine (awesome tune)
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© July 2012