Celebrity

Being in the presence of an acknowledged masterpiece is like being in the presence of a celebrity. I felt that conscious thrill—I know that, I’ve seen that! I was in front of the Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, the Renoir at the Musée d’Orsay watching the crowd in the painting and avoiding the crowd clustered around. They, like any celebrity-watchers, ogled it and snapped their pictures. Their greed, both in space taken and rules broken, degraded the experience for everyone.

It always annoys me when rules are broken for petty greedy things like these. I approve of breaking bad rules—heck, I’ve jaywalked and consumed substances I legally should not have. I can understand why, although I don’t approve, someone would break a rule for a vast sum of money or a grand passion. But taking a picture is neither a bad rule nor a grand passion; it is chipping away at a grand edifice, taking the resulting pebble, showing it to your friends as if you’ve conquered everything, whereas the truth is, you’ve only succeeded in defacing a beautiful thing. The colors lose their grandeur and their power after a procession of tourists take pictures of it and their inevitably need restoration, which is a good thing for the restoring business, I suppose, but not so good for the value of the art. Would it really kill you that much not to take the picture?

All that would be bad enough if those paparazzi just took the picture and appreciated the photo; it appears, however, that they are in it for the trophy—look, I have seen Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series!—rather than some genuine appreciation and contemplation of the art and the meaning and styles thereof. They snap their picture then move on to the next famous work—they are more faithful to their itineraries than their welfare.

Add that up, and those tourists simply promenade through at a brisk pace—the Musée d’Orsay, for its perfect French classical architecture, resembles a factory in execution yet not in spirit. The Musée d’Orsay remains my favorite museum in Paris, and it’s because of that that I’m so frustrated about the casual trophy-hunting of the tourists in the museum. I’m not sure what the point is behind these drive-by appreciations of the exhibited art: if it is to remember, appreciate and comprehend, then that is useless as they have only glimpsed; if it is merely to trophy-hunt and to see, then that also is useless as in their haste to find the next masterpiece that they recognize they miss the forest for the trees.

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I finally went into Café Indiana, the Tex-Mex bar/restaurant/pool hall with the Indian-head logo. Of all the places in Europe I’ve been to that attempt Americana, this was the best in terms of décor—I can’t speak as to the quality of the food. The Native American pictures had just the right amount of irony, with 60’s phrases creeping up the edges of the photos. The pool hall portion featured red felt and crimson lights and looked like some Puritan vision of a gambling hell. Even the French dressed appropriately: there was a mix of irony T-shirts, leather jackets and other Americana. Overall, it was perfectly faithful: there are translations that are too slavish and forced; this was neither, it felt appropriate.

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Perhaps the most clever technique for pacification of a baby that I’ve seen—Paris has so many babies and toddlers that I feel I’ve seen the gamut—occurred today. This baby was not satisfied by the pacifier. So the father whipped out his cell phone, and dialed up a picture of…the baby. She pointed at it, transfixed, and the pacifier dangled out of her mouth like a cigarette dangles out of the mouth of a movie star. Problem solved.

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Traveling in the Metro this evening, we passed a group of Asian girls, heavily made-up, in identical white jump suits. We boarded our car and found that they were going the same direction as us. Turns out we were sharing the car with the Singapore Rope Skipping Association. I didn’t know such an entity existed, nor that it had reason to go to Paris, but there you go.

Now, I’ve seen jump roping on ESPN 2 in the afternoon—I’ve also seen stacking, Scrabble, dominoes and cheerleading (trust me when I say that it, like all daytime TV, is hypnotic)—but I’d never extrapolated the idea from the abstract (there are jump roping competitions) to the specific (there are actual people who do jump roping competitions). I think I’d have the exact same reaction if I met someone on Dr. Phil’s, Maury’s, the People’s Court, or any other shows like that. Really? How do you make those decisions? What inspired you?

You know, because it’s so strange, I think the decision to become a professional jump roper (I assume because I see adults jump roping that they are at least semi-professional) is more authentic. Heck, they did it without expectation of fame or fortune or approval. If you become, say, a lawyer or banker or something, people will understand even if they don’t approve. But then, you can say, inverting the whole paradigm, they might have purposely chosen it to seem more authentic and hence aren’t authentic at all. This is why worrying about authenticity is bullshit. If we really wanted to be authentic, we’d all be in the African savannah relearning our hunter-gatherer skills.

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Finals tomorrow: Nalbandian-Nadal. I would’ve preferred to see another Fed-Nadal matchup, but Nadal is a pretty great player to see, and Nalbandian will certainly test Nadal at the very least and has a pretty good shot to win.

And how about Nalbandian evening up the career series with Federer once again at 8-8? When I saw this statistic, I’m like: “Hmm, Federer might be slipping a bit.” Then I realized that Federer still won three of four majors this year and is doing fine, OK? That we can even consider this slipping is testament to how inhumanly dominant he has been: only one guy has the upper hand (Nadal, yet that upper hand is debatable), and only one can consistently beat him (Nalbandian): the rest are proud to beat him. Federer is a machine, pure and simple. BNP has a great advertising series that sums up Federer: for every player, it shows the player’s shot in action, with animals as totems trailing the swing. So Gasquet has horses racing along the edge of his racquet, bulls charge along in pace with Nadal’s serve, a dragon breathes fire with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, etc. Federer is the only player with people, and not just anybody: the spirits of the former tennis greats accompany him: there’s Bjorn Borg, Agassi, Sampras, etc. The only comparison that can be made is with the glorious past, and all of it. Federer is great in his own time.

Hell, Federer’s so great I’m writing about him even though he lost.

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A mediocre meal is forgotten soon afterwards; a good meal forces you to acknowledge it long afterwards.