Last Tango in Paris

No matter how stressful the work may be on this assignment, Paris is always a good idea. I stole that line from a really bad remake of "Sabrina", but it's still true. Walking today through the 4th Arrondissement, I passed tiny little medieval streets that miraculously survived the many clearings since Napolean, including Rue Nicolas Flammel, for Harry Potter fans. It was rainy and the usual black and gray sported by fashionable Parisians was allieviated by brightly colored umbrellas. I bought myself a vase at Au Printemps, the enormous department store, and red tulips in the Metro, so my room suddenly looks like a residence instead of a hotel. Assignments are what you make them.

Last Sunday, I went to the incredible Musee d'Orsay. If you love impressionist painting, this former railway station-turned-museum is the Omphalos, the world navel. Never will you see such a combination of Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Degas, Cassett, Morrisot, Boudin and Gaughan, including some iconic pieces like my very favorite, "Olympia." I turned a corner and there she was, the reclining nude with her African maid behind her bringing in flowers from some admirer. She looks directly out of the canvas, however, at the viewer: bold, assured, challenging. This was painted in the Victorian era when people covered chair legs out of embarrassment and any nudity in a painting had to be covered in mythological allusions. These sanitized nudes looked like pink-and-white china figurines, all coyness and unreality. Olympia surveys her audience directly and without shame. She is the first intimation of a modern woman. "Olympia" was so shocking to the Establishment that Manet's painting was refused at the yearly Salon.

Turn another corner and you will see Seuret's wild, pointillist vision of a circus, the colors jumping out at you like the acrobats. On another wall hangs Degas' "Ironers", their hands at the small of their backs or rubbing their necks, a bottle of wine at their elbows and stacks of laundry yet to do. You can feel the heat coming off the painting. Monet's haystacks and the cathedral at Rheims at all hours, Toulouse Lautrec's seamy Moulin Rouge denizens--it's all there and more. Spend a couple of hours at the Musee d'Orsay and you'll fell as if you've been immersed in the demimonde of the last half of the nineteenth century. There's nowhere else like it.

Unlike today, it was a clear day and I strolled back along the Seine. Black-headed gulls rode the river or perched on the canal boats moored below the quay. The trees were still bare, turning the sky into Mondrian's leaded fragments. I'm in Paris, I thought, but I kept running into familiar faces. Thomas Jefferson stood on the Left Bank at the edge of the bridge to the Tuilleries, his bronze knee britches and lace jabot very correct for his tour of duty as our second American ambassador. (Ben Franklyn, that old roue, was the first.) Down the river, a tiny Statue of Liberty decorates the bridge below the Eiffel Tower. I looked up river to Notre Dame's two, square towers and remembered that Shakespeare and Company is still directly across from the cathedral, selling English language books just as Sylvia Beach did when Hemmingway used to cadge a couch at night. Paris is woven into our history and our pysche like the Frontier and the American Dream.

Paris in the Winter

It's just past ten o'clock in the evening on my first day in Paris and I'm running on adrenaline. I arrived to a very gray and wintery city, as you can see from this photo of the park in front of the Musee Marmatton where a wonderful collection of Monet's paintings, particularly the last, almost not-representative water lilies, shimmers from enormous canvases. I'm writing from my hotel lobby, the only place in the hotel with free WiFi to the accompaniment of rather loud, Jim Morrison tracks from the early Doors.

I can't say that I'm loving this hotel, which is about six miles out of the city center and was a 12 Euro taxi ride to and from the Monet Museum. It's comfortable, but the area is industrial, grim and under what appears to be permanent construction. With the somber weather, it's a bit depressing. It's not even close to the project offices; I have to take a bus because it is outside the metro radius! Not acceptable! I'm told, however, that there is a hotel with kitchenettes right across from the client's offices with a negotiated Fluor rate of 100 Euros, as opposed to the 99 Euros here, so I think I'll change in a day or two.

The winter in and of itself, though, is rather nice. The trees are quite bare, so you can see their structure in the parks, like bones in a huge x-ray. People are wrapped up in jackets, wooly hats, mitten and scarves--mostly black. Good thing I stocked up on black and gray clothes. I was asked for directions twice this afternoon, so I must fit in better than I expected. Until, of course, I open my mouth.

I had a charming, slightly rowdy dinner with seven of my team members tonight at a local bistro--fois gras du canard avec pommes. Why does everything sound better in French? The dish was absolute heaven, but I think it wouldn't have been quite so like an angel's kiss if it had been labeled sauted duck liver with apples.

I'm taking advantage of my day off tomorrow and trying to decide whether to go to the Louvre or the Musee D'Orsay. Either one would be superb, but there's this amazing restaurant at the D'Orsay, so .... I'm already reminded of the journal I kept when Keith and I first came to Paris in 2000, "France on 5,000 Words a Day." I had meant to write about all of our experiences, but when we reread it, we realized that we were mostly writing about the food.

C'est la vie!

Ahmed the Elephant

Ahmed might be the most famous animal in Kenya. He was a forest elephant who lived for 55 years--a good, long life for wild, bull elephant--in the Marsabit National Reserve. Marsabit is famous for its extraordinarily large elephants. Ahmed became a symbol for the people of Kenya after independence from Great Britain, making them aware of the importance of both wildlife and ecotourism for their nation's future. Ahmed has magnificent, ivory tusks, as you can see in the old photo of him in the preserve. The people of Kenya became so concerned for Ahmed because of the danger from ivory poachers that many wrote to their first president, Jomo Kenyatta, asking him to protect Ahmed. President Kenyatta assigned two, full-time game wardens to follow Ahmed day and night to guarantee his safety. Everywhere Ahmed roamed, his two guardian angels watched over him!

When Ahmed died of old age in 1974, a death cast of his body was made and the full-sized replica was made and placed in the Kenya National Museum. That is where the title picture was taken. I am 5 feet 2 inches tall and Ahmed towers over me!

Elephants still roam the Marsabit Reserve, wild and free, along with lions, leopards, buffalo and rhinoceros. There are many such reserves here in Kenya. I am going to one this afternoon for the first time, Nairobi National Park. I don't know whether or not I will see elephants today, but I will certainly see lots of big animals. When I do, I will think of Ahmed and what a gift he was to all of us.

La Dolce Far Niente

The sweetness of doing nothing. No matter how much I try to emulate this famous Italian saying, I'm just not hard wired for it. Here we are in a gorgeous hotel located on a stunningly lovely bay on a tropical island, surrounded by beauty, and I'm mentally tapping my feet. Despite the heat which gently (or not so gently) urges you to slow down, I want to be up and doing. The Caribbean culture in general, and Martinique in particular, do not really support anything but a leisurely approach to life!

Perhaps that is why I have been unable to settle down to blog any earlier on this trip, which started on the even less touristed island of Guadeloupe. No matter how hard you concentrate, you just can't do a lot of things here. For one thing, everything closes down between 12:00 or 12:30 and 3:00, no matter what the printed tourist information tells you. On Saturday, we took a taxi to the sugar plantation where Josephine Napolean was born and spent the first sixteen years of her life. Posted as opening after the mid-day siesta at 2:00, it actually opened at 3:00. For another, it's simply time-consuming getting from place to place. Traffic is difficult and the roads are slow. Despite our best efforts, we are spending a lot of time spending time.

Now, it is not a tragedy to be forced to watch the rain blow the palms around or to enjoy a leisurely sunset with a cold drink in my hand. This is not a complaining blog--or not too much of one--but it is a self-enlightening one. Not for me the South Pacific atoll or the Caribbean paradise, unless I'm strenuously hunting for a life bird or performing some other Type A activity. For me, la dolceza sta farcendo qualcosa. The sweetness is doing something.

The Tower of London

The first time I came to London, I was an eager, young history student and the city both disappointed and disconcerted me. I longed to step back in time and feel the past all around me. Instead, I was confronted by a pastiche of eras and traditions from pre-Roman to all-too-modern. Bauhaus, post-modernist ice cube, Jacobean and Georgian architecture were jumbled together cheek-by-jowl. I could hardly see Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, for the tatty office buildings around it.

While my views have changed somewhat and I have come to embrace the layers of history that this most fascinating of cities has to offer, the Tower of London does not disappoint the history seeker. Sitting on the banks of the Thames where the eastern edge of the Roman walls of Londinium ended, it is almost a shock to see it's massive, Norman towers--twenty in all--and enormous moat. The original buildings were started in 1086, twenty years after the Norman conquest that displaced the Saxon dynasty. Edward I, the "Longshanks" you might recall from "Braveheart", extended the walls, gatehouses and the moat to its present size. Henry VII added the Tudor buildings lining the green inside the castle. The Tower of London, in fact, is also a compendium of historical times and styles.

What makes the Tower different, however, in spite of the tourists and the gift shops, is that you step into a flowing river of history which continues unbroken from the past. The yeoman warders or Beefeaters who walk you around are there primarily as guards, not guides. The reason they are dressed in their peculiar, red uniforms is that these are what they wore to guard Elizabeth I when she was imprisoned by her sister, Mary I, in the tower. The reason that they are all retired non-commissioned officers is because the Duke of Wellington, the hero of Waterloo who defeated Napolean for good, only wanted trusted men of battle in charge of the ultimate defensive building in London. Wellington had been made Constable of the Tower as a mark of favor and reward for his long and distinguised military and political career. It wasn't a comfortable sinecure, but an important, working position.

The Beefeaters actually live inside the Tower with their families. They have their own doctor and their own, parish church, St. Peter ad Vincula, or St. Peter in Chains. Their children have the right to be baptised and married in that church even after their yeoman warder father passes away, a right that continues for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren in perpetuity, since anyone baptised in St. Peter ad Vincula can be married there as well. This makes the Tower of London the most exclusive village in England with the possible exception of Windsor Castle.

Somehow, it's easier to come close to English history here than just about any place else. You can, for instance, see the carvings in the stone of the Beauchamp tower made by state prisoners to mark their imprisonment with verse or coat of arms or, in the case of Robert Dudley, a later favorite of Elizabeth I, a cunning Latin play on his name and an oak leaf. You can also see Henry VIII's massive armor--he had 54 inch shoulders and a 51 inch waist the last time he managed to struggle into it. You might also talk to Dave, a yeoman warder who guarded Rudolf Hess, a prisoner in the tower after World War II until he was removed to another location. The British army was concerned that his guards disliked him too much and might harm him. Dave, our guide, told us that he believed him to be an unrepentant Nazi to the end. This is history with a vengenance.

My point is that in spite of the moving walkways that take you past the crown jewels in the tower vault, the Tower of London is the real deal. It is as close to living history as we will ever get. Except, of course, for the history that we all live through. Because today's current events are tomorrow's history. Like it or not, we are all living in the Tower of London.

Jews Court

It is so easy when traveling to fix on the things I see. Sometimes it feels like I am in a travelogue, moving from one amazing sight to the next. Walking up Steep Hill in Lincoln is a bit like that. Whether it is the Cardinal's Hat or Jews House, the Castle or the Cathedral, it's just one early Norman structure after another. From immediately after the Conquest in 1066 to about a hundred years later, the Normans were in a frenzy of building, using the remains of the Roman colony, Lindum Colonia (Lin-coln) as a convenient source of dressed stone to do it. I got so caught up in antiquarian delight that I forgot to think of the town as a place where people once and still live.

On the way down, however, I stopped at the book store now housed in Jews Court, at one time a synagogue before Edward I decided that Jews in England had already loaned him as much money as they possessed and had them expelled. Jews were directly under the king's protection, which made it difficult for them to refuse to finance royal military adventures as long as they had assets. In a neat move that foreshadowed today's financial shenanigans, Edward decreed that all monies owed to the Jews would henceforth be payable to the king. It might be considered as nationalizing the banks, if the concept of a nation, instead of a fief, had actually existed. In one stroke, the king made an entire people redundant. Jews Court stands next to Jews House and until 1290, this was the heart of a small, but important community. Now the two buildings house a restaurant, a used bookstore and the Lincolnshire Historical Society.

I was just looking for a Margery Allingham novel, an obscure and delightful mystery writer from the 40's who can be difficult to find at home. I was successful, but found myself talking with the proprietor about Jews Court and then, without warning, we were deep in an hour-long conversation about Cromwell, intolerance, the American Civil War, the rise and fall of Lincoln as a city, labour politics and primary source material. It was one of those far-ranging discussions where your brain has to skip to keep up with the lightening flashes of connection.

The owner admired Cromwell, a generally unlovable figure, and detested Charles II. "A waste of space," was how he put described that charming and lazy Royal. It wasn't just the rise of Parliamentary authority that he approved. He reminded me that it was Oliver Cromwell who, in spite of his strict Puritanism, allowed a group of Sephardic the Jews to remain in London in 1656 at a time when they would well use a safe haven. We moved on to Gettysburg and Robert E. Lee's fatal military mistakes at that turning point. He did not admire Lee, whom he considered at prig and a traitor to his oath of service to the United States.

Hmm. What about Cromwell's oath to King Charles I as a member of Parliament and outlawing Christmas revels once he became Lord Protector? Traitorous? Priggish? More intense discussion ensued, ending with a recommendation that I read Antonia Frasier's biography of Cromwell, which he conceded was very even-handed for a Catholic. Startled, I said that surely that kind of personal allegiance didn't matter to a modern historian. "Oh, no," he protested. 'You must remember that Lady Antonia was a Pakenham, a famous English Catholic family."

Clearly, I was wandering in unfamiliar forests of social history and personal bias with surprising glens of tolerance. I wondered if the 13th century was contagious. We talked on until closing, shook hands and parted, having exchanged everything except our names. As I walked down Steep Hill, it occurred to me that this is what is missing from history, the complex, emotional quotient. Just like my new acquaintance, Edward Plantagenet, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Stewart and Robert E. Lee all had their individual prejudices and quirks and should be painted, as Cromwell once said, "warts and all." Wherever there are people, there is politics, but also, an internal psychology that both resembles our own and is wildly, almost unintelligibly different.

Cuthbert Tunstall

Unlike other Castles, Durham is located directly across from Durham Cathedral, barely a stone's throw across the green. This is because it orginated as the dour fortress of the Prince Bishop of Durham, tasked not only with opiscopal duties, but also the defense of the border against the Scots after the Norman Conquest. William I thought a bishop, dependent on the king for both appointment and succession, would be a safer alternative to a baron to hold this strategic position.

Today, because Durham Castle has become "Castle" College, one of the several colleges of Durham University, you can't just wander about on your own. Instead, a student well-versed in Durhamiana escorts you through the impressive warren of 11th-to-19th century buildings. Our guide had loads of fascinating stories to impart about hidden Norman arches and the Tudor kitchens, but my favorite came at the very last as we rested our weary feet in the chapel.

Hanging descreetly on the wall beside the choir stalls, was a strange portrait of Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, who was appointed to office just four years before Henry VIII broke with the pope and made himself the head of the Church of England. In the painting, the bishop holds his hands up awkwardly in front of his chest, just slightly apart. That's because his portrait used to show him holding a rosary.

Turnstall succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as Bishop of Durham and undoubtedly did not wish to continue that pattern after Wolsey was arrested for treason. Wolsey died in prison before his trial, but there's little doubt that he would have followed Sir Thomas More--now Saint Thomas More--to the block if he hadn't acquiesced to Henry. The rosary was hastily painted out. Tunstall was long-lived and survived both Henry and his sickly son, Edward VI, into Mary's reign. When Mary returned England to the Catholic fold, Cuthbert Tunstall followed her lead and the rosary was painted back in his portrait.

An octogenarian, Tunstall was still in office when Elizabeth I came to the throne and the country was once more Protestant. His portrait was again adjusted to fit the prevailing mode.

It seemed a bit late for heroism after so much accommodation to the prevailing political winds, but Cuthbert at last made a stand. He refused to take the Oath of Supremacy and was imprisoned in Lambeth Palace. Like Wolsey a generation before him, Cuthbert died in captivity at the age of 85.

The interesting thing, however, is that although the rosary was painted in and out with changing fortunes, the hands maintained their stiff, unnatural pose. How easy would it have been to pose them in prayer or fold them diplomatically! Throughout his life, however, the bishop continued to hedge his bets.

It's a measure of how uncertain the times were and how of how hard it is to understand them when we have the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight. After all, we know how the story turned out. It seems unthinkable to us that Elizabeth might have been overturned or that her successor, James I, would have followed Rome. It wasn't clear to Cuthbert Tunstall and many others. This painting with its strange history, made me feel that insecurity.