Montmartre - "I sing the body electric"

June 10th 2009

After a hard afternoon in the net cafe, a couple of beers in a bar, where two women are having a serious discussion, ah, these French intellectuals:



The book:

"Je chante le corps critique: Les usages politiques du corps" de Claude Guillon

Usé par le travail, génétiquement modifié par les polluants industriels, formaté par la publicité, la mode et la pornographie, le corps humain a-t-il un avenir? ... A l'heure où la mondialisation brouille les lignes de conflits et les territoires, le corps peut être un lieu de réassurance et d'expression, voilà ce que nous chante cet hymne à la révolte du corps critique.

http://www.amazon.fr/Je-chante-corps-critique-politiques/dp/2845471793

Roughly: "Worn out by work, gentically modified by industrial pollutants, shaped by advertising, fashion and pornography, does the the human body have a future? At a time when globalisation blurs the lines of conflict and territories, the body may be a place of reassurance and expression, it is to this that we sing this hymn to the revolt of the critical body."

The title alludes to a Walt Whitman poem in "Leaves of Grass":

I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.
...
http://www.bartleby.com/142/19.html

The bodily context of such intellectual deliberations:





Then it's over to Montmartre to meet Len, who has a room he's kindly going to let me use next week, above this place:






Magret or Magritte ?



But we have a meal in a nearby Indian restaurant and chat about Eurotrib and the state of the world. I decide to go back to my hotel in the Marais via Place du Tertre on the Butte Montmartre. Len advises me to get a bus - an electric one! It's plugged in when I get to the stop, so I go across the road to a bar for a glass of red, from where I can see the bus while waiting.




But the bus driver gets in and pulls away quickly - damn his electrifying speed! I get a cab instead. The driver doesn't seem to understand when I ask for "Place du Tertre" and he starts driving in the wrong direction. I point this out and say it's near the Sacre Coeur. He puts that in his GPS and it directs us to turn round and then we head up the Butte and he drops me in Tertre.

Of course there are a lot of tourists, but it's still a nice place and reminds me of my first trip abroad, when I was an art student. A friend and I hitch-hiked to Paris, where we slept out in sleeping bags on the banks of the Seine and in the Champs Elysee. The police weren't too happy about it, but let us get on with it as poor young Brits. I liked Pace du Tertre then, and we used to stay on after most of the tourists left in the evening and some young Spaniards, who did portraits of tourists, got out guitars and wine and there was a little bohemian celebration each evening.








Back then I took a photo of a girl having her portrait drawn, like this one:





"Smile - while you can":








I did a little painting in this street, in the rather dull, Camberwell Art School style of the time. An American tourist took it from me and, to my astonishment, said: "What have you got there boy? Oh, you're not finished yet." Gave it back to me and ambled on.





The cafes are closing, time to head back:









On the Metro there are a lot of people dressed in white:



I ask a guy about it, he tells me that 10,000 people in white had a picnic in Place de la Concorde - how apt. Later I read that these "white nights" are held each year, the location announced at the last moment, flash-mob style, and people (police say 5,000) bring their own tables and chairs.



Je chante le corps festive.