So I've been here for a month and have taken about six pictures (and half of them were in the dark and, because I couldn't believe my eyes and felt I needed some record of the moment, feature a fat, naked pan flute player -- so those don't count).

Partly because I already have a million pictures from last year's trip and I figured they'd all be the same; partly because I'm a crappy photographer (and there's nothing I hate more than ruining a moment by ripping out a camera and trying to capture it) so I figured there wasn't much point. 

Lucky me, it turns out that one of my friends here is a pretty amazing photographer.  So now, thanks to him, I can show you guys a little of why I love this city so much. And why I'm so sad that by this time tomorrow, I won't be here anymore.

People are always asking me what my favorite thing about Paris is, and the only answer I can come up with is "Paris." Which I realize sounds asinine, but hear me out. It's the physical reality of the city streets -- the buildings, the smells, the traffic, the people, the cafes, the monuments, the bridges, the trees, the river...the city. My favorite thing about Paris is the simple fact that I can walk out my door into this:












Or many, many more at his website, www.emud.org.

I'm promised that somewhere, on some undeveloped roll, there may indeed be a couple pictures of me.  If I get them, and they're not embarrassing (or are embarrassing in a particularly entertaining way), I'll post them here. If only to prove to myself, once I'm back in Brooklyn, that I was actually here.

This is how Sophie Calle explains herself at the entrance of her amazing exhibit, “Prenez Soin de Vous”:

I received a break-up email. I did not know how to respond. It was as if it was not intended for me. It ended with these words: Prenez soin de vous. [Take care of yourself.] I took this recommendation literally.  I asked 107 women, chosen by occupation, to interpret the letter from a professional angle.  To analyze it, to comment on it, to play with it, to dance it, to sing it. To dissect it.  To exhaust it.  To understand it for me.
To respond in my place. Giving me a way to take the time to break up.  At my speed.
To take care of myself. (1)

Now I knew, from this description, that the exhibit was destined to be awesome. But I could never have guessed how awesome.  First of all, the resulting works fill a giant space in the historic Bibliotheque Nationale, making for a spectacular juxtaposition of old and new, traditional and modern.

Here's a taste that doesn't do it justice:

        

But the true surprise was the content of the exhibit. From what I'd read ahead of time, I'd thought that the women all submitted some abstract, high-minded artistic interpretation of the phrase "Prenez soin de vous" that would bear only the most tenuous connection to the concepts of love and rejection.

Uh, not quite.  As it turns out, she sent them each a full copy of the break-up email -- and they responded in turn with some extremely specific, often scathing responses. Some were artists, singers, dancers -- but there was also a psychologist, a journalist, a translator, an editor, a lawyer, a crossword-puzzle maker, a mathematician, all of them supplying exactly what you expect your friends to supply post-break-up: a feverish analysis, from their own distinct point of view, of what could possibly be wrong with this idiot.

My two favorite responses -- first, from a criminal psychologist:
"This letter...is apparently written by a manipulator, seductor, who enters into relationships with others for the purposes of domination and power...he's authentically perverted and psychologically dangerous." (2)

Then, from a child:
"What I see is that he loves her.  He says that he's going to love her forever.  If he loves her, I don't know why he's leaving her." (3)

You said it, kid.

This is, I can only imagine, every guy's worst nightmare: An international cabal of women vomiting up any and every explanation they can come up with for precisely why and how much you suck. (I read the letter: Trust me, he sucks.) But it's more than that, especially in the combined effect of all the responses jumbled together. It puts you inside the headspace of anyone who's ever been at the wrong end of a break up -- a crowded, confused, noisy space filled with a million different conflicting explanations, defenses, excuses, regrets, and desperate attempts to understand.

I imagine you could see this project as empowering, or you could see it as obsessive.  Personally, I see it as someone taking a rejection and turning it into an act of expression and creation. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is a triumph.

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1) If you don't trust my clunky translations and think you can do better yourself (or just want to see how much prettier it all sounds in the right language), the originals are all posted behind the cut.

via Bookshelves of Doom, I think I now have a new favorite artist. This guy makes art out of pages from discarded books. (Which, for someone like me who's in love with old and rare books but never knows what to do with them once she's splurged on them, other than stick them on the bookshelf never to be seen again, may offer the perfect fusion of literature and art.)



See them all at his website or