Scotland, Ireland, or one of those Celtic places, anyhow:

Saturday afternoon we attended skellington's and partytrick's local wedding luncheon at the Harp Irish Pub in Roswell. No dancing this time, but it was nice to see the Atlanta-based contingent who couldn't make it to the wedding in Raleigh. Jaime's parents and sister came down to visit, and we got to meet Keith's brother, sister-and-law and nephew--not, however, his new neice, the reason they weren't in Raleigh!

Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or one of those Viking places:

After the party, we went to Oglethorpe University for the Scandinavian Festival. I discovered a vendor selling jewelry made of pewter thread and reindeer leather. I learned later that this is traditional Sami (or Lappish) artwork. I ended up with a barette and a pair of earrings, but I'm tempted by the more costly necklaces displayed on their website.

Hong Kong, or one of those Asian places:

Sunday itarille came over for lunch, and I pried her life story out of her for use in a homework assignment (which I really need to get to writing).

And finally, some art:

After itarille left, I took a walk around the Brookhaven Arts Festival. I don't normally make it a point to go to things like this, but hey, it was right down the road, and the weather was so nice this weekend, it seemed a shame not to spend some more time outdoors.

So now I am all cultured out, and feel a strong need to watch Beavis and Butthead while eating Triscuits with Spam and spray cheese. (Not really.)

celticdragonfly sent me this a long time ago, and I just now found it again.

Having just seen some of the world's greatest art, it's particularly funny.

Who says there were no superheros in the Renaissance??

Saturday, January 28, 2006: Paris, France:

The Louvre is the mother of all art museums. I have been there no less than five times now, and still haven’t seen even half of everything that’s there.

There are several ways to attempt to storm the Louvre: you can take one of the guided highlights tours in your language of choice, you can use a combination of a guidebook and the museum map to go on your own highlights tour, or you can close your eyes and wander aimlessly until you fetch up somewhere in Egyptian Antiquities, searching desperately for the way out, or even just a bathroom.

Since Aaron had never been, I took the second course, and gave him a brief "this is the Venus de Milo and this is why she’s important" tour. Well, when I say brief, I mean, less than three hours, which is a bare minimum time frame for the Louvre no matter which option you choose.

First, though, I showed him one of the best-kept secrets of the Louvre. This is not in any guidebook I’ve ever seen, and I have no idea why, because it truly is one of the coolest things there. The Louvre, before it was a museum, was a royal palace, and there's been a royal residence, in one form or another, on the same site for hundreds of years. So in addition to piles and piles of art, you can also visit the excavations of the medieval Louvre, the castle of Charles V. Giant stone walls, more than 10 feet high, are just the foundations of the 14th century fortress--the walkway around them puts you in what would have been the moat.

Then we hit the famous highlights: Venus, Victory, Mona Lisa, and Famous French Paintings of Famous French People.

Someday I'm going to come back to Paris, spend a week, and go to a different section of the Louvre each day. I might get through about half of it that way...

Saturday, January 28, 2006: Paris, France:

Plans for the day included the Louvre, but first I had decided I wanted to show Aaron the Centre Pompidou. It’s only two metro stops up from the Louvre, it’s a great neighborhood for lunch and a little shopping, and the Stravinsky Fountain is a hoot. But Aaron likes modern art, and was seized with a desire to actually go into the museum. The guide book said it took about an hour, so why not? The Louvre is open late on Friday nights, so even after our tour of local pay phones, this gave us plenty of time.

The Centre Pompidou, if you’ve never seen it, is built in a style called “exoskeletal,” which means all its infrastructure—pipes, electrical wires, etc.—is on the outside. So it's kind of like a very large lobster full of modern art. It’s also got a network of hollow plastic tubal walkways that would excite even the most cosmopolitan of hamsters, and from which one can see a panoramic view of Paris. (It’s not hard to get above the rooftops of Paris for a panoramic view, since most buildings aren’t more than four or five stories.)

A note regarding my last visit to the Pompidou: I hadn’t hitherto been interested in modern art, but I had a guide book that made me think perhaps I ought to give it a try. I was with my ex-boyfriend Morgan, and we both approached the place grimly determined to keep an open mind, and see what we could learn. At one point we entered a dark room, where there was a repetitive whirring, clicking noise. Ah, we thought, installation art. It invokes childhood fear of the dark, primitive night terrors. Very effective. Truly, we are art connoisseurs. Then the film finished rewinding and the slide show started.

I’m afraid I dragged Aaron out of there in a hurry. There’s only so much weird art I can take in one day. Me, I like my modern art traditional. I understand Chagall, Picasso, and Dali (as much as anyone can be said to understand Dali). I do not, generally, understand performance art, such as the looping tape of an admittedly attractive woman named Lucy making horse noises. I also do not understand those large single-colored canvases named things like “Blue.” I mean, it’s a very striking shade of blue, yes, but surely you could get it at Home Depot.

I am going to Art Hell.

We actually ended up missing the fountain, since it was on the opposite side of the museum from where we exited, and we were in a hurry by that time to get to the Louvre—“plenty of time” had not included quite so much time in Weird Art Land, and we had to get back to the room in time to change for the evening show at the Lido (they have a dress code, and we hadn't wanted to lug Aaron's suit jacket and dress shoes around with us all day). We were also trying to spend as little time as possible standing around outside in the not-quite-yet below freezing temperatures, so we descended into the bowels of the metro to head to our next stop.