IS THERE ANYTHING NEW TO SAY ABOUT PARIS?

MAIS ABSOLUMENT!

French version

NOTICING WHAT IS USUALLY SKIPPED REVEALS ANOTHER STORY

And leads to general questions that 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 guidebook stresses observation for the present and the economic base and role of popular mobilisation for the past. My credentials: an American who has lived in Paris for decades; in the U.S. a college professor of history; here a tour guide (as a member of the Office of Tourism for seven years, I saw its priorities from within).

For the wider relevance of that approach, please click.

There's space for comments at the end of each page: robust discussions 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, which is no longer 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 had left untouched.

The upheaval was due to the French defeat by Prussia a few months before. When Bismarck freed 100,000 P.O.W.s to strengthen the conservative government, it repressed La Commune with a savagery remembered 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 take by the historical museum, please click. 

  Commemorative parade, 2021  

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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.

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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.

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Next,

0.1.

How these views began

0.1. HOW THESE VIEWS BEGAN

I GREW UP IN NEW JERSEY...

Where my French maman ignored my saddle shoes and "Seventeen" and detested Elvis. 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.

# # #

A memory: 

Toward 1955, a French aunt, Magda Trocmé, 

whom my dad called "Hurricane Magda" 

came to visit us when 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."

Harald Wolff

"Eisenhower is an old breeches of a general."  "No!!!"

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.

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Next,

0.2.

Thanks!

0.2. THANKS!

ESPECIALLY TO...

Henry Aubin, Glenn Holliman and Carolyn Ristau for their invaluable critiques, Claude Abron for years of picture-taking and Harald Wolff for his drawings.

Harald Wolff

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 African-Americans, Monique Wells.

• 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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Next,

0.3.

Details

0.3. DETAILS

"ZOOM" UNDER PICTURES MEANS THEY COME FROM THE WEB

Clicking leads to enlargements and to official data. 

         Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-1505 / zoom

When the Internet gives no further data, 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, displays, street art, coiffures, exhibits etc. change. I give dates if pertinent.  

• Titles of French books and paintings appear in that language, since many words are the same or have the same roots. English translations appear in brackets when they don't. 

• The dates at the top of the pages allow organizing them. They were not created then.

• This blook began in 2012 and keeps evolving.

# # #

 I sometimes compare 

France and the United States,

but these pages are meant for all.

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Next,

0.4.

Contents