Unity

The weather of Paris is not what I expected. Actually I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I expected something unique, sui generis like the rest of the city.

Instead, Paris weather is a mishmash of other weather I’ve experience. The crisp autumnal air in the morning makes me remember the Northeast. That it rains often recalls Stanford. And that the weather can’t seem to make up its mind, whether it wants to ruin days or make them, is Rochester to a T. Not that any of this is bad. It’s not Rochester in the winter, still the worst weather I’ve experienced for a sustained period of time. But I guess it could be more pleasant.

The amazing thing is, despite the intermittent yet daily rain, Parisians still appear as well-dressed as ever. Maybe their clothes repel rain?

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The oldness of Paris’ architecture astounds. Even more astounding is the aesthetic unity of old and older. We can forgive the disjunction with the modern aesthetic because of the unity of the rest of the city, especially since modern buildings occur so rarely. Why aren’t our cities like that, asks the woman in Witold Rybczynski’s City Life.

The simplest reason is the least helpful. Paris is older than all modern American cities, so of course there would be fewer things that are really old. But this, if anything, should make it easier to embrace the positive aspects of Paris’ unity. If one can build from scratch, one can have the whole panorama in mind. Why did the Kings, Napoleon and Baron Hausmann, despite differences of time and ideology, have such a consistent and harmonious vision?

The reason for this is that American culture and French culture have different emphases. Americans practice business culture; French practice aesthetic culture. Everything’s closed on Sundays here and everything closes early relative to America. Or glance at a Parisian map—I did today. There’s only one arrondisement, the second, without a park. Some of those parks occupy prime real estate. That’s why the song “They paved Paradise and put in a parking lot” comes from America. The consequence of this attitude is that for Americans, some things will be torn down and others not, resulting in a mishmash of styles. Furthermore, of course, style is not even a consideration for many buildings or planning. Whereas Parisians have style in mind for everything, and hence they want their city’s style to be harmonious.

But the business/aesthetic divide does not account for everything. Also important is the relative historical domination of the national government over regional governments in France. Even more important is the individual rights tradition and the space of America. If someone tried to impose a plan similar to Parisian ones in America, there would be a ton of anger and recrimination. Or one would move and set up one’s own system. And that leads to stylistic hodgepodge rather than unity.

Our site visits are excellent examples. Take the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand. First, I doubt a project as relatively expensive as the Bibliotheque would get approved the first place. But if it were, then the equivalent of Patrice Higonnet’s article wouldn’t have been written. It would have focused on the whole wooden shutters system and the inefficiencies of construction rather than the ugliness of the building. Furthermore, in Higonnet’s article, he weaves together form and function as symbiotic, whereas an American would probably see the two as separate.

Higonnet is right on one count, though: the building is quite ugly. It is so ugly that the only way to confront its jumbled ugliness is the jumbled ugliness of mixed metaphors. The glass building itself looks like someone’s stereotypical vision of a modern building, and putting the wooden shutters in is like never taking your Corvette past first gear: it defeats the whole purpose. Meanwhile, the patio looks like the world’s biggest deck; I expected a barbequing convention to break out at any moment. The garden is nice enough, but hiding your best assets from view is obviously foolish. And to top it all off, they did not even have the audacity to build a complete disaster: the interior is quite nice and entirely reasonable. You can see the politics and conflicting visions everywhere you go, and that’s probably why it was nicer to be Napoleon from a city planning perspective. All of this doesn’t doom the building from a functional perspective; its purpose is sound, but it is quite an eyesore for a city whose main attraction is its easiness on the eyes.

The best new Parisian architecture blends in or outright appropriates older architecture. The Musee d’Orsay is a good example. It is worth noting that that is the same method used by many of the older buildings. So the Cluny baths became a cloister became a museum; the old church became the Pantheon, the secular church for the Republic’s heroes. And that works.

Americans, by contrast, don’t recycle their buildings as much, because of the business-oriented culture. The new is efficient and modern and hence well-suited for current business needs. Parisians would rather have a park.

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The great pastry experiment is on! As an American, I applaud individual directedness and experimentation. Freedom, basically. Combine that with another American trait, that of capitalistic exploitation of every available resource—every patisserie has a formule with sandwich, drink, tart, and you get the great tart experiment. The experiment is this: try a different tart or pastry every time I visit a patisserie, which, believe you me, will be often.

Today’s was a tarte aux pommes (apple tart). It had an apple crumble top. I hope this description is able to convey how good it is, otherwise I would have to resort to purple prose, and that would be too many authorial sins too often, now wouldn’t it?

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You know, everyone’s trying to be fashionable in Paris. Everyone’s trying for some sort of look. Big change from college, where rolling out of bed and eating lunch or going to class in your pajamas is perfectly acceptable. But I think that trying stretches some people’s aesthetic sense. So, you, Mr. Dress Shirt With Pink Roses and Sweater Tied Around Neck, maybe try to tone it down next time?

Incidentally, I sense a recurring feature.

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Paris is not defined by neighborhood. It can be further divided, by street. One street, you’re in a Parisian neighborhood, with pleasant and affordable cafes. The next, you’re in the presence of invaders, really. They drive up prices. I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s such a strange, random phenomenon. There are no rules to it, one simply crosses a block and it’s like you’re in a commercial: there’s an absurdly dramatic change between “Before” and “After.”

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One thing the Parisians don’t translate for the benefit of foreigners is soap. Also, apparently, they don’t have American brands of soap here in France. Therefore, shopping for soap is a challenge unlike any other. I believe I have guessed right, and if I haven’t, I got the cheapest of whatever it is, so I haven’t done too much damage. One thing I am sure about is that whatever this bottle is, it was directly next to the lubricant shelf (yes, an entire shelf to itself), and says it’s for men. So whatever it is, it’s meant for my gender at least.

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Speaking of translations, movie titles suffer in translation from English to French. As a result of English’s German roots, many titles have a pleasant directness about them. “Vertigo,” “Chinatown,” “Star Wars,” and the all-time best example, “Snakes on a Plane.” I mean, the last one was successful strictly because of the title. French, though, clogs up the entire operation. “I Am Legend,” the Will Smith-fights-zombies film has an affirmative, Hemingway-esque simplicity. “Je suis une legende” is too much, both on the level of extra words and extra syllables. “28 Weeks Later” is similarly, its change to “28 Semaines Plus Tard” similarly superfluous sounding. No wonder French translators often choose their own titles. But that suffers its own problems: then people like me become confused. And if there’s anyone French movie translators should be thinking of, it’s clearly me.