We began our second day in Paris with a visit to that most important of establishments, the Musée Yves St. Laurent. Laura’s favorite designer, and I had no idea the lengths to which he propelled women’s fashion. The pantsuit. The trenchcoat. The safari jacket. Whatever YSL got his hands on, he transformed into a clarion call of women’s liberation.
We followed it up with the Palais de Tokyo, a modern art museum with a few very interesting but otherwise, frankly indecipherable exhibits.
However, the most well-done exhibits covered mental illness and Israel’s War on Gaza, two subjects rarely discussed in the United States without some major caveats.
I was struck by the dichotomy of the two, and how the end result of both culminates in a display of power that ultimately only hurts innocent people.
After that, a circuitous route thanks to construction for the Paris Olympiccs got us to the Musée L’Orangerie, one of Laura’s favorite spots on earth. Of much greater interest to me than the wall-to-wall Monets was Robert Ryman’s white room.
Surely I have seen some of his art before, but the L’Orangerie put together a considerable collection for its retrospective. When we walked in to the gallery a quote from Ryman comparing himself to Monet struck me as rather pretentious.
What unfolded before my eyes was a frankly ridiculous display of repetition, like Bruce Lee practicing the same punch a million times. Ryman was surely mad, or perhaps saner than the rest of us, for his laser focus on white, perhaps beige, and how the lighting and texture hit the surface of his canvases.
This retrospective strikes me as a death knell for minimalism, because it surely can’t get more glory than this. We see the pendulum swinging back in everything from Hokas undercutting Nike to furniture and popular clothing, even music.
An early dinner at Brasserie Le Bourbon across the Seine of duck magret accompanied by an insane amount of table olives, so many Laura was disgusted by me.
Countries lived and died off olives. The olive tree made Athens mighty. I will not tolerate slander of nature’s bounty.
We returned to the hotel before I went out for an awesome 5K back to — you guessed it — the Jardin du Luxembourg.
My health has always been a big struggle for me so this was a big win for me, especially after a long day. You will never regret going for that walk, run, whatever.
I never have a problem putting others first. But I hope my fitness journey will encourage me to be a little more generous with myself.
Laura and I grabbed a late night snack across the street from our hotel at Café de la Place, a serviceable but ultimately forgettable spot. Decent wine list.
