13 Comments on “Burt Travels: Part 1 — Paris” - Post your own?

Anthony Zedan says

Dear Burt,
I am an Amer­i­can livng in Kobe, Japan, work­ing as a con­ver­sa­tional Eng­lish teacher. My friend, his mom and I went to Paris together about two years ago. Here is a poem that I wrote after spend­ing the after­noon at the Rodin Museum in Paris.

The Artist’s Stu­dio is in the Body

A black ham­mer and chisel pound the air as atten­tive pasty chil­dren gather
around the deaf­en­ing silence and lis­ten as best as they can, watch­ing the naked
room fill with puffy white dust– as if those mar­ble bod­ies need explaining

The second-graders sit around an older stately woman who sits in an
uphol­stered arm­chair much like a por­trait and she says in French how
the stat­ues were made and demon­strates how to hold the heavy tools

The teacher stops to catch her breath as the feisty kids pass weath­ered
tools around with plas­ter laughs. Scram­bling for sit­ting space, wide-eyed
blond chil­dren on a field trip set­tle down on the floor of a for­mer bed­room,
huge-eyed and barely able to con­tain their ques­tions, crowd the space

the curves of the lovers’ backs and arms embrac­ing each other engage
the senses like wet grass newly mown caught up in a sum­mer breeze
com­ing in through immense dou­ble win­dows– lips slightly open

To the thrill of those stone stares, soft skin with veins, sub­tle mus­cles,
fin­ger­nails and hair come into being like an end­less story she keeps
the kids mes­mer­ized with– vig­i­lant eyes that hover over read­ing glasses.

A spark rises in her as she expounds on the man­i­fes­ta­tions of eter­nal love
exem­pli­fied in the mas­sive sculp­ture, a pas­sion not extin­guished by cal­en­dars,
clocks or astro­nom­i­cal cycles. Her know­ing smile sub­tly recounts brazen
after­noon encoun­ters while keep­ing the kids enter­tained; she schools us all
on the kiss, the youth­ful arms, the eyes con­nected, the evo­lu­tion­ary desire
that lies dor­mant and undis­cov­ered in their small bod­ies and yet fully and
art­fully played-out in hers

At the front entrance, two old men cut in line, one apolo­getic, the other
wav­ing his cane like an anx­ious aris­to­crat, which gives me just enough
time to fum­ble through– Je voudrais un bil­let, s’il vous plait– not as mag­i­cal
as chant­ing verbs in high school French, but some­how sweeter as it dis­solves
in my mouth like hard fra­grant candy from a pur­ple oval tin bring­ing back
bow-tied Mr. Hast­ings, embod­i­ment of all the sunken trea­sures in this murky
chan­nel span­ning Mid­dle Eng­lish and Mod­ern French, whose per­fectly
combed grey hair, starched striped shirts, linen jack­ets and pressed trousers
could not reduce him to a car­i­ca­ture, even after two decades; He opened my
mind to pun­gent rounds of cheese, min­eral water bub­bly in tinted glass,
sur­real films, exis­ten­tial angst, crusty baguettes, corny jokes, fancy tins of
Foie Gras and tons of moldy books, post­cards and fad­ing pho­tographs along
the river bank– what more could a pre­co­cious pub­lic school teenager desire?

Here I stand alone a man just shy of forty, turn­ing the lever of Metro doors
open­ing and exit­ing at Varenne, fol­low­ing the sculp­tures and signs to a gar­den
and for­mer Baroque hotel full of life cap­tured for all eter­nity– the born thinker star­ing at the bronze one won­ders how the chap­ters of his life have brought him to this page, here in the heart of Paris on this gar­den path at the end of spring enjoy­ing
even the cool shade of branches heavy with new leaves and the tall proud roses
pale with anticipation.

The artist’s stu­dio is in the hands of a blind man feel­ing the eter­nal toes, see­ing
more than I could ever imag­ine and sens­ing the per­fec­tion of our bodies.

Rosie says

I“m very glad to know you are enjoy­ing all your trips

Rosie

Burt Travels: Part 2 - Oman | The American Monk says

[…] 9th, 2008 by amonk Read more about Uncat­e­go­rized In part 1 of this series, I shared my expe­ri­ence trav­el­ing to Paris. Today, I shall be talk­ing about my expe­ri­ence vis­it­ing Oman, an amaz­ing Mid­dle East­ern coun­try in […]

Neil Warner says

Hi,
Been there many times.. But I live in Water­loo, Bel­gium, 350km from Paris. I love & Hate the city. Paris is full of muse­ums and his­toric places, shops, caffes, and inter­est­ing places. My favorite place is ‘Notre Dame’, with the gar­dens by the Sena river. Just sit­ting there and enjoy the view of the vit­reaux win­dows. Or take the boat (Bateau Mouche) that does the sena river at sun­set.
What I don’t appre­ci­ate much is how the local peo­ple treat the tourists, although I can under­stand that behave like that because they are out­num­bered by tourist every sin­gle day of each year.

Victoria says

I was there in May of 2001…it felt right…it felt as if I went home…as if I knew every street and every corner…as if it was my child­hood all over again with bloom­ing chest­nut trees and trips to St. Peters­burg (then known as Leningrad)…I also hap­pened to have the most mirac­u­lous sequence of syn­chronic­i­ties there that left no doubt in my mind that there is no such thing as a “coincidence”…

Carli Bauzá says

I was there for work inside research facil­i­ties for three days in Decem­ber 2004, so not much sight­see­ing. The high­light was walk­ing on the Champs Elysée, and it was beau­ti­ful. I must go back with more time to spare!
Thanks for your story, Burt!

Sean says

I’m a New Jer­sey native, but have lived in Lon­don for the past 9 years. I’m mov­ing to Sin­ga­pore this Jan­u­ary and have seen a good bit of the world.

I love Lon­don and con­sider it my home, but Paris is the most beau­ti­ful and sophis­ti­cated city in the world. And to my sheer joy, I have never been treated badly by any Parisian. I think that they are as proud of their city and their cul­ture as any­one else is of their own — so they should be — and expect vis­i­tors to be respect­ful of that.

Once you get there and immerse your­self, you feel like one of them. It’s a great moment.

Fun­nily enough, my favorite place there is Shake­speare Books, which is the largest Eng­lish lan­guage book­store in France. It’s old and dusty and has loft beds for starv­ing authors pass­ing through. It was fea­tured in the movie “Before Sun­set” with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. I think it’s a must for any future Paris trip. It’s on the Left Bank, just by Notre Dame.

I’m head­ing there next week. Woohoo!

Take care and all the best!

Andy (UK) says

I once passed through on a train, — that was close enough for me .… . Just kid­ding we British have a long his­tory with our close rel­lies over the chan­nel its a love hate rela­tion­ship of at least 600 and prob­a­bly more like 1800 years stand­ing! Whilst hate is per­haps too strong a word (cer­tainly for today), lets just under­stand that we and they have a knack of being able to annoy one another with­out effort. ‘C’est la vie!’

José Guilherme says

I’ve been in Paris 6 years ago with my daugh­ters. Had the chance to visit EuroDis­ney. We all loved it and it is a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence.
Even my young­ster recalls Madeleine, Sacré Coeur, amongst many sites we vis­ited, although, at that time, she was only 8 years old.
I do recomend a visit to Paris as gas­tro­nom­i­cal / his­tor­i­cal / cul­tural hol­ly­days (not nec­es­sarly by this order), and intend to go back there in the near future.
All the best to you all,

yogidodie says

yes my sis­ter and i went there for her birth­day a cou­ple of years ago. it was great

Koorosh Vahabi says

Hi Burt,

Awe­some post. Your a very good writer. Your descrip­tion made me feel like I was there.

Have you ever been to Dubai?

sine metu says

Twice.
First time was in sum­mer of 1994. One of the hottest times in Paris as they told me.
Had lunch at a restau­rant in the Place du Tertre (Mont­martre), seen the Lou­vre, and walked the city with a group of friends.
It was nice to know where we were going but find­ing unex­pected parts of that beau­ti­ful city while walk­ing our way.

Sec­ond was in 1998. Autumn. Cold and windy. Went to more muse­ums, D’Orsay, Orangerie, Jeu de Paume,
Had a Negroni at the Cafe de la Paix, in front of the Opera.

Nice mem­o­ries.

Victoria says

I hap­pened to be a very ordi­nary young lady. Upon cel­e­brat­ing my Birth­day in Paris last Feb­ru­ary, I fell in love with this city of ele­gance, sharm and relaxed lux­ury. I have been con­sid­er­ing mov­ing there ever since!

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