An American Rant in Paris

The Rant has just returned from Paris where we quietly celebrated our 60th birthday.¹ This post will contain no selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Mona Lisa, nor will it feature us hilariously posing like Rodin’s The Thinker in front of Rodin’s The Thinker. Not that we didn’t witness all of the above approximately 6 million times. While wandering the endless miles of the Louvre, we also witnessed a woman doing her best impression of a Greek marble in a skin-tight, floor-length, white dress while posing in front of the monumental history paintings of Jacque Louis David.² Her sidekick took endless shots on her phone (Insta gold!) while the woman kept repositioning her remarkable black hair from one shoulder to the other. Not once did The Rant see her take even a passing glance at David’s stunning work. C’est la vie.

We’ll spare you the endless travelogue; your pretentious cousins home from college can do that. You know, the ones that say, “I feel like I’m really French in my soul,” after saying the year before, “I feel like I’m really Italian in my soul.” The Rant assumes it’s really crowded in there. Maybe one of their souls could finally feel a major.

So let’s summarize: the city is as beautiful as advertised, the food is even better than advertised, and the citizens of Paris are delightful if you don’t yell English words at them over and over believing they will suddenly start speaking in tongues if you achieve the correct volume. Although we do enjoy people talking slower and slower in the hopes acquiring a foreign language is just a question of pace. It’s like becoming convinced you will master astrophysics if the professor just keeps writing the mathematical formulas larger and larger.

The Rant had only two must-see destinations. First, the Orangerie, which houses Monet’s incredible series of water lily murals, and are exhibited in two galleries that form the infinity symbol. Monet designed every feature of the galleries to project a sense of peace and total immersion. The project occupied Monet’s imagination for nearly two decades before he even began painting. He had to finish his beloved Japanese garden; a new studio had to be built to house the immense canvases; a pulley system allowed the works to be moved so Monet could work on specific sections; during their creation Monet battled problems with cataracts and underwent several medical procedures.

But what astounds The Rant more than anything is Monet completing this masterpiece in his 70s and 80s, all the while not knowing where the paintings would reside because the French government didn’t want them,³ despite the fact Monet offered them as gift to the country after World War I. Only the dogged efforts of Monet’s friend, former Prime Minister George Clemenceau, finally made the Orangerie museum a reality. Imagine working in the final days of your life on a transcendent piece of art just under 300 feet long and not knowing if it will be viewed for generations to come or rolled up and stored in anonymity. We won’t even try to describe the experience, because until you sit in those rooms, there exists no method to convey the utter beauty and perfection of Monet’s vision.⁴

Our second destination concerned a bar, because of course it did. Have you learned nothing about The Rant? But not just any bar, Harry’s Bar, the haunt of the Lost Generation, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and countless writers and artists searching for some mojo, or at least a memory-erasing hangover. The Rant always found it odd that Hemingway, a singular Manosphere decades before testosterone and quack elixirs addled Joe Rogan’s brain, favored the Daiquiri as his cocktail of choice. The Rant could practically hear whispers of Papa pontificating in the corner, when right on cue a Tech Bro from America began lecturing some unfortunate French IT people on the wonders of his brilliance and the fact he had been involved in every major tech advancement ever made while spouting an encyclopedia of business buzz-words past and present. The French contingent politely nodded and tried to slide in a comment when Mr. Tech had to occasionally inhale, only to be informed they had gotten Absolutely Everything Wrong. We considered taking him outside for a good old-fashioned fist beating a la Ernest, but then we realized part of visiting an American bar in a foreign land is watching obnoxious, insecure bros like this wander in to try and re-inflate their egos . Speaking of Hemingway . . .

The odd creatures on the right are International Bar Flies, I.B.F., the mascots of Harry’s Bar. They have helpful rules printed in the drinks menu for potential members, including: “Remember, nothing is on the house but the roof;” “It is respectfully suggested to Bar Flies that they do their weeping in the toilet, and also bring their own mops;” “Members bumping their chin on the bar rail in the act of falling are suspended for ten days.” The bartenders wear spiffy white coats that convey a Cocktail Chemist vibe and bespoke Harry’s Bar ties. The Rant could easily retire and work as a barback there, keeping the peanut and cornuts bowls⁵ filled and dreaming of the day we might be allowed to make an old-fashioned, the gleam in every barback’s eye we’ve ever observed.

The picture at the top of the post contains a section of Rodin’s Gates of Hell, commissioned for a museum that was never built. It includes a Fun Size version of The Thinker. In our youth, The Rant marveled that the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City had somehow managed to acquire the one and only Thinker for their collection. Then we learned how making bronzes works, and as long the artist doesn’t break the molds, there can be Thinkers for everyone. Which basically happened. The Rant realizes at this point we should enter into a long reverie about the Gates serving as a representation of the chaos facing America, but come on, look at all the things getting done. The Devil does misery and torture, and he does it in a world-class way. He doesn’t shut down Hell in a ploy to add more sulphur to the fiery lakes of the damned or throw a tantrum to get all the credit while ignoring the contributions of his demons (all of them immigrants and the real heroes of Hell, he likes to say with a maniacal laugh). If the government could run with the efficiency and single-mindedness of Hell, we’d be living, dare we say it, in Heaven.

The Rant found much more to ponder in Rodin’s tribute to civic responsibility and courage, the Burghers of Calais. In 1347, the city of Calais had been reduced to certain starvation after a long siege by Edward III of England. Rather than destroy the entire city and everyone in it, Edward offered mercy if six leaders of the city (burghers), would don sackcloth and nooses, parade through the English ranks, and submit to execution. Remarkably, six burghers did just that, marching out to the city to the English army so the rest of city could be saved. Unlike most history of the Middle Ages, this event has a happy ending. Edward’s wife, Queen Philippa, begged Edward to relent and save them from generations of bad luck, including their unborn child. The burghers won their freedom.

But none of them knew that as they walked out of the city. Rodin does a masterful job of capturing that moment. There is no stoic heroism or looks of moral superiority. The men exhibit anguish and sorrow at their fate but sill walk to their death for the sake of their city. Imagine being forced to create and wear the means of your own execution. The Rant immediately wondered if we could find one, let alone six, politicians to agree to a similar sacrifice in this moment.

We can only imagine the frantic pleas for money, as we are forced boil our shoes for food, from politicians telling us they need funds to determine the correct course of action in these dire times (what if the wrong type of burghers score political points from this, causing us to lose our burgher Majority for Freedom? Besides, do you know how much black market filet mignon is going for right now? I’ll wait while you finish those laces). To save themselves, a narrative would be created that sackcloth is for losers and would make us look weak. Much better for everyone else to be slaughtered with dignity while the burghers slip out the back gate (by the way, could we ask for just one more donation to begin our new life grifting a city not under siege?) Questions would be raised if all citizens were really worth dying for. Could a work requirement⁶ and proof that you have been starving for a least six months be instituted? After all had perished and the city burned to the ground, the burghers that had escaped dressed as English soldiers would begin their new lives proclaiming how they had refused to let the English use sentimentality for human life and the beautiful Calais to keep them from doing nothing.

The Rant wonders if we should have stayed in Paris.

1. That’s right, we went humblebrag right out of the gate. With all the discounts we’re pulling down from AARP for things we never wanted, The Rant answers to no one. Wait . . . we’re being told the CEO would like to have a word. Also the cleaning crew. Apparently we answer to everyone.
2. With all due respect to the life-size poster of Taylor Swift in your daughter’s room, or your’s, we won’t judge, David worked on a scaffolding required scale. His Coronation of Napoleon clocks in at 33 feet wide, 20 feet tall. David’s work was so overwhelming, even Napoleon was forced to use an exclamation point: “You could walk right through this painting!,” admiring both its size and realism.
3. The French choose to ignore this part of the narration. The text at the museum would make you believe all of France was giddy to see the completed work. Given the fact that people who know nothing about art know about Impression, we often forget how roundly despised its initial reception was, especially by French critics that continued to demand the historical realism of artists like David long after it had degenerated into formulaic mediocrity. The Rant finds it a bit sad we no longer appreciate how transgressive the ideas of the Impressionists appeared and their bravery in refusing to back down from a new way of depicting the world. There would be no Modernism, Cubism, Picasso, or Matisse without their courage.
4. Afterwards, The Rant felt a strong desire to punch Jeff Koons and the other hacks like him that try to convince us that their shoddy creations impart “concepts” so profound we must agree with their own declarations of genius. Yawn. Although stainless steel balloon animals may be all we deserve. Slow clap for Jeff everyone. Although we remind you the clown at your kid’s fourth birthday bash executed the same while wearing comically large shoes. The Rant probably needed more time in the Orangerie. A rant cleanse if you will.
5. While we’re on the subject, what the hell has happened to the peanuts and popcorn at American bars? You never have to ask in Paris, and the bartender munches right along with you, happy re keep re-filling the bowl unto all eternity as far as The Rant could tell. We really think you could gain a lot of traction running on a free bar snacks platform.
6. Loyal reader and our Inside Man for the federal workforce, Warner, informs us victims of the government shutdown are being told by the Administration they should have seen the President’s monumental incompetence coming and saved up. So not being able to take care of your family and going bankrupt are really your own fault. Satire has become impossible brothers and sisters.