Version française
MAIS ABSOLUMENT! BY REVEALING THE CRUCIAL AND SKIPPED
Most views of Paris contain major omissions. Revealing them leads to reinterpreting much of the French past, to seeing the city differently — and to awareness of distortions that in their broad strokes are universal.
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Showing those absences reveals a reality more complex than we think...
The Mariage of Sainte Ursula by Cristovao de Figueiredo, toward 1525 / zoom
Black musicians centuries before we expect them
...leads to deciphering unfamiliar mentalities...
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The Flight of Louis XVI, film for television by Viktor Lazarevski, 2013 |
Louis XVI tried to escape revolutionary Paris by fleeing to the border (in 1791). He was caught, and the impact of the knowledge that he had tried to betray the Constitution he had sworn to protect was as great as taking the Bastille.
Historians skip aspects of his flight that seem aberrant. But those puzzles reveal the traditional monarch's goal, and suggest that what seems mad may be a clue to unknown realities.
...and highlights fundamentals that are deliberately suppressed, such as:
- The Parisian insurrections, which were endemic through much of the 19th century and that contributed to shaping the modern world:
Many people think that these iconic figures are taking the Bastille (in 1789). In fact, the Revolution of 1830 inspired the work:
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Liberty Guides the People by Eugene Delacroix, 1830-1831 (cut to highlight the figures)
It finished what the French Revolution had begun — overthrowing the nobles to let capitalism take wing — but that tie is usually overlooked, as is capitalism itself.
- The military transformation of the 19th-century city, to make repressing such insurrections easier.
Take the vast 19th-century space in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral that makes the giant church seem smaller and less imposing than when medieval houses huddled up to it. Built after the first conscious working-class revolt (in 1848), the empty expanse let troops assemble to repress any future upheavals.
Nothing is said about it.
- Irrelevant data and omission characterizes schoolbooks, the City Museum, monument descriptions and the 700 historical panels that dot the city :
This one, next to the Church of the Sacré-Cœur,* substitutes an imaginary drama for the eruption of an insurrection and civil war (the Paris Commune of 1871).
*The church that towers over northern Paris and is a major tourist destination.
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These pages also highlight modern energies that are largely overlooked:
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| Paris Bossa Nova / François Bibonne |
Music in an 18th-century wine cellar, on the southeastern fringe
An artist's studio in Ménilmontant, far to the east
- Those peripheries are where important initiatives are launched, such as a center for world and urban music in disregarded La Goutte d'Or and a ten-day festival of unstandardized arts in the overlooked 13th district.
- They are where immigrant energies flourish.
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The coiffures, mustaches and beards that young men have universally adopted began with the barbershop posters in Black neighborhoods (please click here). For street musicians, watch from a café terrace on rue Doudeauville in La Goutte d'Or on a Saturday afternoon.
For the color that illuminates sober Parisian streets, visit Europe's largest "Chinatown."
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Odd as it may seem, the giant ads that hover of the city led to this blook (book/blog). Smiling young models follow an order for which no reason is given, except that buying the brand will make them happy.
Ad over a central city crossroad in 2022
Such ads began in 2011.
Such promotion of gullibility is part of a pattern.
Anthropologists have shown how all elements of primitive societies combine. They could say the same for France's Old Regime, when commoners took nobles' superiority for granted: Please click and scroll down.
With us, trusted authorities reinforce the coma-like mindset. The media rarely mention topics that show creativity unconnected with the powerful. Schoolbooks, museums, monument descriptions and historical street panels show a past divorced from tangible reality.*
*Paris's historical museum (the Musée Carnavalet) announces on its French web site that it is the "world reference on the French Revolution" and it does devote four rooms to that upheaval. But they show mainly proclamations and portraits. The irreconcilable opposition between increasingly powerful entrepreneurs and hereditary landowners is left out, and street fighters' striking force is relegated to a few small drawings at the back of one of the rooms.
For more examples, please click.
Ignoring the economic interests behind political change is the most important omission of all. It has become still more pronounced since the 1980's, as globalized capitalism blows off all that stands in its way:
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| Harald Wolff |
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Highlighting energies that have nothing to do with elites and understanding the economic transformations that social classes back or contest, vaccinates against indoctrination.
In doing so this blook shows Paris, France and the past itself in an unexpected light.
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Wrong information is like a wrong map, and following it leads to places where you don't want to go. This blook presents a different map that leads to a different place.
If you find it useful, please pass it on!
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I should introduce myself
I grew up in New Jersey, where my French Maman ignored my saddle shoes and Seventeen and detested Elvis Presley. She raised me as if I were French — the ways of Middlesex County and Paris were so different! Dealing with two truths encouraged reflection.
My junior year was in Paris. I loved its past, which I saw as a series of exploits by individuals in largely political contexts. But a young man I met at the Sorbonne thought differently: to make sense, he insisted, events, attitudes, beliefs had to be placed in their underlying economic contexts, with the practical interests they reinforced or challenged. “And that,” he said, "comes from Karl Marx."
My fascination for Paris lasted longer than our marriage and I have lived in this magnificent city ever since.
My father was a professor and I expected to become one (B.A. Vassar, Masters Harvard, Ph.D. Columbia, all in history). But teaching in a French university then was impossible without a French degree. So I became a tour guide, and this blook is the result.
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A memory
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| Harald Wolff |
"Eisenhower is an old trousers of a general." "No!!!"
Toward 1955, a French aunt, Magda Trocmé,
whom my dad called "Hurricane Magda"...
came to visit us in New Jersey while on a speaking tour. She and her husband, André Trocmé, were well-known for their anti-Nazi pacifism and after the war were critical of President Eisenhower's Cold War policies. My father, a stoical New Englander, would leave after dinner, leaving Maman and Aunt Magda to "discuss."
I would listen from the top of the stairs and remember their enthusiasm for exchanging ideas, without expecting to persuade. (But the discussion may have nuanced their extremely vehement points of view.)
There's a space for comments at the end of each page,
and I'd like to know what you think.
Political critiques are welcome.
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Thanks...
Especially to Henry Aubin and Carolyn Ristau for their invaluable critiques, to Claude Abron for years of picture-taking and to Harald Wolff for his drawings
For other direct help...
- With their photographs: Baroness Danuté, Béatrice Genaudeau, Joëlle Finkpon, Bill Knight, Alain Leiblanc, Cyprian Leym, Camille Mazoyer, Carlton Perrett, Elisabeth Rawson, Ramsay Casadesus Rawson, Carolyn Ristau, Jeannine Sike-Ngangue, Félix Sinpraseuth, Pamela Spurdon, Monique Wells, Jeanne Wikler and Irina Zwergler.
- For factual information: on military history, Marc Ambroise-Rendu; for introducing the "Coulée verte," Paule Girardeau; on Parisian neighborhoods, sites and history, Pascal Payen-Appenzeller; for obscure but important details on monuments, Philippe Schmitt-Kummerlee.
- For computer help, Tony Khosravi, Dong Truong Dang and Ramsay Casadesus Rawson
To those whose pictures come from the Internet...
Photos: Pierre Benite, Luc Boegly, Sigismond Cassidanius, Mathew Fraser, Corey Frye, Juan Francisco Gonzalez, Philippe Guignard, Laurent Grandguillot, Ronald Halbe-Yatzer, Jebulon, Daniel Jolivet, Pavel Krok, Laurence Krongelb, Daniel Lainé, Stephane Lagoutte, Thibault Le Hégarat, Brian Lin, Bernard Matussière, Baudouin Mouanda, Richard Nahem, François de Nodrest, Andrea Notte, Paris Zigzag, Hanna Romeo, Tangopaso, Alexander Sarlay, Ralf Treinen, Gary Walsh, Jan Wenner and Zig Zagueur.
Drawings: Victor Locuratolo and Alex Varenne.
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Details
- "Zoom" under pictures means that they have been taken from the web. Clicking leads to enlargements and to official data. When the Internet gives no further information, I say so.
- Modern images are credited to the artist or photographer. Photos without a credit are mine.
- For historical information I cite the source, and give page numbers for information that you might want to check.
- Ads, shop windows, street art, haircuts, exhibits etc. change. I give photos' dates when relevant.
- These pages began in 2012 and keep evolving.
As an American
I sometimes compare France and the U.S.,
but this blook is meant for all.
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