IS THERE ANYTHING NEW TO SAY ABOUT PARIS?

MAIS ABSOLUMENT!

French version

NOTICING WHAT IS USUALLY SKIPPED REVEALS ANOTHER STORY

And leads to questions we rarely think to ask.  

Uncredited photos are mine unless otherwise said.

The Saint-Denis gate, which most visitors have never heard of and whose meaning few Parisians recall, announces a neighborhood where 72 languages are said to be spoken.

This is a guidebook that by showing the importance of observation for the present and the economic base and role of the masses for the past, presents an approach that applies to other cities. My credentials: I'm an American who has lived in the city for decades, in the U.S. was a college professor of history and here am a tour guide (for seven years a member of the Office of Tourism).

There's space for comments at the end of each page: I would very much like to know what you think. Robust conversations welcome welcome.

TRAILERS TO PART I,

A CITY OF INSURRECTION

Many people think the figures in an iconic painting are storming the Bastille...

La Liberté guide le people by Eugene Delacroix, 1830-1831 (cropped) / zoom

But in fact, the Revolution of 1830 inspired the work. Its three days of combat finished what the French Revolution had begun: eliminating nobles' power, which let capitalism take wing. That is almost never mentioned. Capitalism isn't either.

• Revolt would be endemic in mid-19th-century Paris. For a story that is almost never told please click here. 

      Combat à la porte Saint-Denis, anonymous lithograph, 1848 / zoom 

The "June Days" of 1848, the first major working-class revolt (5000 dead), is forgotten, as is the terror with which the privileged viewed "barbarian" rebels. One effect: the advent of the most autocratic regime in Europe then (the Second Empire, 1851-1870). Another: the town's transformation (1853-1869). Observing that metamorphosis shows its military priority. That's not done. 

 

• The last and most tragic upheaval led to the Paris Commune, when inexperienced young leaders whom humble people backed ran City Hall from March to May 1871.

          Proclamation de la Commune le 26 mars 1871, anonymous engraving / zoom

In spite of war with the national government, a siege and the flight of seasoned administrators, they kept the continent's largest city running (population a million and a half). At the same time they sketched out a vision for a genuinely democratic society under workers' control.  

"They failed because of their great decency," Marx said of these idealists. Their nurses tended the wounded on both sides, they succored widows whose men had died fighting them  —  and they left the gold the fleeing government left untouched.

The government recouped itself and repressed them with a brutality known as La Semaine Sanglante (Bloody Week). It announces future genocides.  

Un peloton d'exécution [firing squad] versaillais pendant la Semaine sanglante by V. Sarday, "Friends of the Paris Commune" / zoom  ("Versaillais:" The government had fled to Versailles.)

The painting made a generation later is based on illustrations of the time and adversaries' grudging respect.  

La Commune still inspires the left. For the historical museum's take, please click. 

  Commemorative parade, 2021  

# # #

AS BRANDS DOMINATE THE CENTER,

CREATIVITY MOVES TO THE OUTSKIRTS

There relatively affordable rents attract artists in all domains and innovation, as    here, here and here. Yet the usual image is a postcard view of the central city.

Immigrant creativity is even more overlooked. Take La Goutte d'Or, a part-African neighborhood at the city's northern edge. There “looks” can be compositions with which to communicate :

Seen on rue Doudeauville, "Main Street"

That energy explains the barbershops and beauty salons, the stores selling the bright prints associated with Africa, wigs, beauty products etc., and young tailors behind their sewing machines. 

• Barbershop signs propose innumerable styles. Their origin: African market signs...

Sign at the Abidjan's Treichville market, 1973. Notice the "Kennedy" cut.

• Soccer players adopted them to be identified on television during the 2014 World Cup and they immediately spread world wide.

Mathieu Debuchy and Bakari Sagna, Équipe de France / zoom

• Black barbershops remain the place where styles in cuts, beards and moustaches begin. Other neighborhoods' much rarer hairdressers in timidly follow. 

Bouno coiffure, 51 rue de la Goutte d'Or, 18th

"Art must reveal a philosophy. Otherwise it is just decoration," an art critic told me. The coiffures, beards and costumes express an upbeat affirmation of individual uniqueness, and the signs a context of a homogenous, supportive community. 

Traditional shops reflect that philosophy. How they present their wares does not matter, since clients come because they know the vendors and may stay on to keep them company. Good humor is omnipresent — for an example of kindness when I least expected it, please click. 

People support each other: that’s key to surviving in a world that is often harsh.

# # #

TRAILER TO PART II,

AN ECONOMIC APPROACH TO HISTORY

Ostentation erases revenues that might otherwise be invested.

       A Royal Army on the March,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum

Traditional horsemen in Northern Nigeria / zoom (click for original image and photo information.)

History from Fresh Perspectives explains.

# # #

This is a "blook,"a book that makes its points briskly through headlines and pictures.

It includes drawings by Harald Wolff. Like the vast majority of Parisian artists he is foreign (German), and lives not in the places associated with them (Saint-Germain, Montmartre, Montparnasse) but in a plebeian suburb (Montreuil) where rents are lower. So he is part of the reality that these pages describe. 

The index, under the menu on the right, gives immediate access to the main ideas.

Contents lets you click directly into specific pages. 

Epilogues suggests their wider relevance.

*    *    *

Next,

0.1.

How these views began