Ma Journée du Patrimoine: Part 1
>> Thursday, September 29, 2011 –
adventures,
paris
My mother always tells me that I have extraordinary luck when it comes to being in the right place at the right time. Really, I think it is more a matter of being in very large cities at any time, because there are always odd festivals going on in vast metropolitan areas. Or, you know, all of Europe.
Two weekends ago was a confluence of many such events: Le Fête de l'Humanité, at which Joan Baez strummed some songs about peace and happiness as though the seventies had never packed their bags; and Les Journées du Patrimoine, a Europe-wide celebration of... itself. Because it is very easy to forget your European heritage, you see, when one is flanked by vaulting Gothic cathedrals and medieval statuary on every corner. It's like that perceptual blindness test with the invisible gorilla sashaying through the room, only the gorilla is Notre Dame and the room is Paris.
Anyway, the grand benefit of this annual event was that lots of normally-closed historical buildings are open to the public (like the Hôtel de Ville, which from the look of the queue outside would play host to all of the public except poor little me) and admission to every museum in the city was free (which it already is for me, leaving me with very little to lord over the tubby tourists this weekend). I would imagine that it is much the same deal in the other participating cities on this fair continent, except I think Podunk, Holland's program of events couldn't be used as a doorstop. It was, ah, difficult to decide quite where to begin, so I started at the beginning and went with my gut instinct to the oldest restaurant in Paris.
La Petite Chaise has very not-petite prices, inspired perhaps by its neighbors, Yves-Saint Laurent and Laboutin. Even though the tourguide was ill, the waiter was kind enough to point out the significant features of the restaurant, which turn out to be the barred windows on the outside that date it to the 17th century. So the oldest restaurant in Paris is identifiable because it looks like a prison. Apparently, Louis XIV mandated that all wine-selling establishments "protect" their wares in this manner, leaving me to speculate that the good ol' Sun King just didn't want no sun shinin' on him while he made insidious purchases.
My companion and I then hopped over the Seine to listen to the dulcet tones of an organ concert in the holy halls of L'Eglise de Sainte Eustache.
Of course, we managed to get lost for ten minutes in the feeding frenzy of Les Halles, which only amplified the splendor of emerging triumphant from a massive mall to find myself faced with an enormous Gothic edifice. I always forget how much I love churches until I step inside. The scale is just overwhelming; somehow enclosing that much open space in vaulting stone makes me all the more aware of how much of it there is. The not-so-secret point of churches is to make you feel really small in the face of god's awesome power, but I'm far more inclined to feel really small in the face of several metric tons of limestone, which some very talented humans saw fit to carve into intricate shapes.
This picture should give you some idea of the size of the place. That teensy little keyboard on the right hooked up to those massive pipes and man, it was more deafening than the bass at a Jay Z concert. I feared for anyone with a pacemaker.
So on the right we have your standard organ, and on the left an orgue de barbarie, or ina less romantic but possibly more politically correct language, a street organ. I, only ever having played a piano with a paltry 88 keys, was completely put to shame by the dexterity of the organist. Just when I got over the sheer number of keys present, I realized how many buttons there were, and then, how many pedals. Every single one of the wooden slats beneath his feet has a tonal function. Luckily I had a conservatory student with me who could point out all of these features, who also snickered at the delicacy with which the organist clapped, so as to imperil his hands the least.
The orgue de barbarie is much, much easier to play, since I think the only requisite is the ability to turn a wheel at a constant rate. The sheet music does it all, since the little gaps in the paper (which reminded me of computer paper from the nineties) determine how the little mechanical keys sound. Here's a sample, recorded on my camera. I didn't record the larger organ because it probably would have blown out the teeny little microphone.
Anyway, the grand benefit of this annual event was that lots of normally-closed historical buildings are open to the public (like the Hôtel de Ville, which from the look of the queue outside would play host to all of the public except poor little me) and admission to every museum in the city was free (which it already is for me, leaving me with very little to lord over the tubby tourists this weekend). I would imagine that it is much the same deal in the other participating cities on this fair continent, except I think Podunk, Holland's program of events couldn't be used as a doorstop. It was, ah, difficult to decide quite where to begin, so I started at the beginning and went with my gut instinct to the oldest restaurant in Paris.
La Petite Chaise has very not-petite prices, inspired perhaps by its neighbors, Yves-Saint Laurent and Laboutin. Even though the tourguide was ill, the waiter was kind enough to point out the significant features of the restaurant, which turn out to be the barred windows on the outside that date it to the 17th century. So the oldest restaurant in Paris is identifiable because it looks like a prison. Apparently, Louis XIV mandated that all wine-selling establishments "protect" their wares in this manner, leaving me to speculate that the good ol' Sun King just didn't want no sun shinin' on him while he made insidious purchases.
My companion and I then hopped over the Seine to listen to the dulcet tones of an organ concert in the holy halls of L'Eglise de Sainte Eustache.
Of course, we managed to get lost for ten minutes in the feeding frenzy of Les Halles, which only amplified the splendor of emerging triumphant from a massive mall to find myself faced with an enormous Gothic edifice. I always forget how much I love churches until I step inside. The scale is just overwhelming; somehow enclosing that much open space in vaulting stone makes me all the more aware of how much of it there is. The not-so-secret point of churches is to make you feel really small in the face of god's awesome power, but I'm far more inclined to feel really small in the face of several metric tons of limestone, which some very talented humans saw fit to carve into intricate shapes.
This picture should give you some idea of the size of the place. That teensy little keyboard on the right hooked up to those massive pipes and man, it was more deafening than the bass at a Jay Z concert. I feared for anyone with a pacemaker. |
The orgue de barbarie is much, much easier to play, since I think the only requisite is the ability to turn a wheel at a constant rate. The sheet music does it all, since the little gaps in the paper (which reminded me of computer paper from the nineties) determine how the little mechanical keys sound. Here's a sample, recorded on my camera. I didn't record the larger organ because it probably would have blown out the teeny little microphone.
Sufficiently awestruck, I wandered around the Musée Carnavalet for a bit afterwards, but not being much in the mood for a musuem, amused myself instead with my camera. In lieu of riveting facts about medieval Paris, I present to you a funny picture through stained glass.
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| I like to imagine that the Sun King dressed his gardeners like cabana boys and sat around his garden with a martini, watching them trim the hedges. |
