MAIS ABSOLUMENT!
Noticing what makes no sense or is left out changes the story and applies universally.
- For example, when houses crowded up to the facade of Notre-Dame Cathedral...
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Twelth century, Grez computer image |
The space in front of the church was used for a market, for religious performances and for the condemned to ask pardon before execution. But it was small.
...the edifice surged up over daily life, the impression its builders intended.
Claude Abron
- But the huge esplanade of 1853 leads to seeing it from afar. It then seems smaller and less imposing, and the reminder of eternity vanishes:
Uncredited photos are mine.
The space was meant for massing troops in case of insurrection. That used to be explained. Not anymore.
- Other pages that challenge the usual view concern the Sacre-Coeur, Napoleon's tomb, the Arc of Triumph and the Opéra.
- Or go beyond it, as for the Louvre (here for the visit, here for the palace), place des Vosges, Palais-Royal, pont Neuf, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Versailles.
- Or concern important sites that are usually missed (Louis XIV's arc at the Saint-Denis gate, the church of Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, a band of gardens that pierces eastern Paris and another that covers over a canal).
- "Contents" gives the complete list.
For two wider topics that are minimized or omitted, please scroll down.
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This "blook" (book-blog) makes its points briefly through headlines and pictures. It stresses observation for the present and the underlying economy for the past. For those methods' wider relevance, please click.
My credentials: a French-American who has lived in Paris for decades, a professor of history in the U.S. and a tour guide in Paris. Once a member of the Office of Tourism (for seven-years), I know the usual story well.
There's space for comments at the end of each page: political discussions welcome.
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TRAILERS
THE MODERN CITY:
THAT ADS AND BRANDS
OVERWHELM THE HISTORIC CENTER
IS NOT SAID...
...OR THAT CREATIVE ENERGY
HAS MOVED TO THE OUTSKIRTS...
Take the 13th* on the city's southeastern fringe. Once exceptionally miserable, it is now a hub of innovative art.
The passage under the aerial métro in the 13th, illuminated by voters' choice through 2026.
*To skip repeating "arrondissement" or "district," I say simply "13th," or whatever the number, as the French do.
It also hosts two major festivals: 10 days of innovative arts and ethnic performances, described here. and three weeks of the Chinese New Year. A few media finally noticed the Chinese parade in 2025, after 40 years, but the celebrations that surround it are still skipped. Residents are almost alone to know of the arts festival.
Boulevard Vincent Auriol, 13th
...OR THAT THE INVENTIVITY OF THE GREATEST CONCENTRATION OF ASIANS, MAGHREBIS AND AFRICANS IN EUROPE IS IGNORED.
Yet the Maghrebin neighborhood of Barbès, with its flourishing market under an aerial métro, pulses with energy. During Ramadan crowds come for the sumptuous specialties proposed along the tracks.
Especially during Ramadan, when sumptuous and very inexpensive specialties appear. For the exuberant ambiance then, please click here. For my own experience with seemingly scary youths, here.
And La Goutte d'Or, the largely African neighborhood on its border, may well be the most creative place in Paris.
- It is a heartland of urban and world music: Walk into a grocery store and hear African percussions on the radio, pass performers in the street, see posters that announce concerts in the immense periphery.
A concert that will last until 4 a.m.
- It is the core of a new art in which personal appearance becomes a composition that communicates:
- The unique prints that are sold there are beginning to reach the mainstream...
"Wax" prints at the entry of the Louvre, 2022
- ...and workshops of a flourishing couture industry and tailors' workshops dot the streets.
- Innumerable barbershops on whose facades are posters that derive from African market signs let immigrant youths choose flamboyant styles that "Gauls" timidly copy:
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| Bouno coiffure, 51 rue de la Goutte d'Or, 18th One of four that cluster together and stay open until 10 or 11 p.m. |
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Panel from Abidjan's Treichville market, 1973 (notice the "Kennedy" haircut).
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Tip Top Couture, 84 rue de Ménilmontant 20th (a trendy neighborhood) |
An esteemed critic said, "Art must express a philosophy, or it is just decoration." And the Communards (please scroll down) defined it as any creation that adresses the public and is done with passion.
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| On rue Doudeauville, "Main Street" |
By expressing an upbeat affirmation of individual uniqueness in the context of a homogenous, supportive community, the "looks" invented in La Goutte d'Or fit those definitions.
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THE MAIN REASONS FOR THE CITY'S ALLURE: KINGS' GRANDEUR AND ELITES' DREAD OF INSURRECTION
Yet kings are reduced to anecdotes. Except for the Louvre, a former palace that is impossible to ignore, the majesty they bequeathed is forgotten.
Insurrections are so minimized that many people think the figures in an iconic painting are storming the Bastille, though the forgotten Revolution of 1830 inspired the work:
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La Liberté guide le people by Eugene Delacroix, 1830-1831 (cropped) / zoom
*Clicking on "zoom" leads to the original image and information about it.
Almost nothing is said of...
- Europe's first conscious massive working-class movement, the upheaval of June 1848...
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Le combat devant la porte Saint-Denis, anonymous lithograph, 1848 |
...brought the unprecedented urban transformation that began a few years later: the space in front of Notre-Dame to assemble troops is one aspect of a metamorphosis that is usually explained as "modernization."
- The last, most tragic and most important of the upheavals, the Paris Commune still resonates.
Proclamation de la Commune le 26 mars 1871, anonymous engraving / zoom
Military defeat and government myopia brought an explosion by which young idealists, backed by the humble, took control of Paris for 72 days in 1871. They kept the continent's largest city (population a million and a half) running in spite of the flight of most seasoned administrators, siege and war, and sketched out a society that was genuinely democratic.
The appellation "Bloody Week" recalls the ferocity of their repression.
Un Peloton d'exécution [firing squad] pendant la Semaine sanglante by V. Sarday / zoom
A painting made a generation later, based on prints of the time and opponents' grudging statements of respect.
La Commune still inspires the left.
Commemorative parade, 2021
The official narrative dismisses the violence of the past. The musée Carnavalet (the historical museum)...
- presents the French Revolution as almost peaceful.
- relegates 1848 to a single sentence at the back of a room and turns its barricades into a game for kids.
- sandwiches La Commune into a four-meter passage that connects rooms about elites. On one side are portraits of people that were marginal to the event, or even completely irrelevant: a huge image of a woman who became a rebel's girlfriend later and was 13 at the time of la Commune, takes up much of the space. Reflections on a glass showcase hide the only reference to carnage.
For schoolbook views click here and here. For how even a Social-Democrat municipality presents the victors' point of view, here.
For why such bias can be involuntary, please see the example here and the explanation on the last page.
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Behind that bias is a mentality that globalized capitalism promotes and that ads reveal.
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Pont d'Arcole in central Paris
They implicitly reject the collective action that can effectively oppose the overclass. The messages...
- applaud irrationality: No logical reason is given for purchases, a mindlessness that empowers choice by emotion and leads to accepting authority.
- glamorize isolation: At a time when economic transformation increasingly weakens traditional ties, the figures are usually alone (here the exceptional partner is shadowy).
- make the outside world a void that individuals cannot affect.
- suggest that all is well.
By unveiling what is almost never said because it contradicts that mindset or provides an alternative to it, these pages join a fight that is taking place wherever giant capitalism holds sway.
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BLOOK II:
AN APPROACH TO THE PAST
THAT IS CROSS-CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC
It shows how societies of precolonial Africa and pre-industrial France reacted in similar ways to the destabilization brought by economic growth.
One example: elites use ostentation to destroy profits that if invested would bring a new class that would challenge them.
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A Royal Army on the March,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum |
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History from Fresh Perspectives changes how the past itself is viewed.
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I am grateful to Harald Wolff for drawings that illustrate many of these points.
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 is more detailed.
Epilogues and Economic History, a Tool of Enlightenment say more about their relevance.
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Next,
