Here is the locker we kept our stuff in whilst being overcome by insouciance.

(Man, that is so insouciant!)

Here are the beskated feet of me and C.

(Man, those are so beskated!)

We also went to the Portland Art Museum to check out the rather remarkable The Artist’s Touch and the Craftsman’s Hand exhibit. Unfortunately, everything in that exhibit was (understandably) behind glass, so my photos from it are crap. Instead, check out these pictures of “special” babies from the Renaissance.

Now we’re at Ocean Haven again, and I’m sure I’ll have something to say about that soon.

(standoff fish?)

Pictures from that cool little park at the end of Skidmore.

Here is Yoshi stepping on my face.

I’m not sure what exactly this sculpture that someone near Alberta had in their yard says about man’s inhumanity to man, but it’s certainly something.

I got a rather severe spider bite on my ass last week. Attributing the incident to pants that had been sitting in the back of the closet for some time, I took everything out and washed it. Unfortunately, there isn’t a conveniently-located dry cleaners, so my 1960s Brook’s Brothers suit is still sitting around for Yoshi to use to demonstrate his habit of sitting in the worst possible places.

The other thing that I’ve been listening to a lot lately is a 2 disc collection of the incomparable Jonathan Richman. People make a lot of Richman’s break with the material from his first record, and his decision to do more lighthearted material, but the fact is, that material doesn’t necessarily cohere as an oeuvre any more than the pre and post break material do together. Johnny Rotten wouldn’t have been any more likely to forget the words to “Hospital” than he would “Rockin’ Government Center.” Considered stylistically, there was never any tradition from which to break.

What is recognizable about Richman, and the thing that holds all epochs of his production together, is. . . well, it’s sort of hard to explain. It’s the fact that how he thinks comes across really clearly, and it’s really weird. But also awesome. He also has an apparently naive but incredibly exacting command of language. I think my favorite example of this is “The New Teller,” where he rhymes “teller” with “well” by adding “er” to it for the first iteration of the line. Subsequently he leaves it off, leaving the first instance to create the rhyme in the listener’s mind while simultaneously making a little self-deprecating joke (“I didn’t really do that, did I?”) Guy sure writes great lines.

(Note about tags: I chose two from “Roadrunner” not to privilege that track, but because listening to this record makes me nostalgic for Amherst; pretty sure that’s the definition of senility.)

Then we made our way reverently throughout the galleries. This was the only place where we made sure to check out everything, and even though we took a break in the middle we were really on our last legs by the time we were finished. Hindsight being 20/20 we probably should have gone on an earlier day when we weren’t already exhausted from previous excursions, but whatever. It was amazing.

For our last night we went and had like a real meal instead of like massive salads or whatever. Hazel had lamb and I went for delicious steak tartare. Everything was very nice, and we managed to get to bed fairly early, because we knew some grim business was on offer in the morning.

Once the train business was settled (hopefully for good), we proceeded to the Musée d’Orsay for some good old-fashioned modernity. Because everyone loves the impressionists, the place was packed. While our passes had allowed us to skip the line at The Louvre entirely, the d’Orsay attracts a similarly forearmed crowd, so we had to sit in line for something like half an hour. Well, I guess our vacation needed a unifying theme.

As the sort of prickly modernist who loves Stockhausen and Soviet monumentalism it’s hard for me to take the collection at the d’Orsay very seriously. I mean, it’s great to have a starting point that is so obviously wonderful that even the most abject cretins enjoy it, but obviously I crave a bit more nuance than Courbet or Monet is going to provide me (although the turkeys are still as charming as ever), and longtime readers of Joaquin’s internet presence will know that I will spit on your shoes if you fail to loathe colonialist pedophile jagoff (and mediocre painter) Paul Gaugin. Nevertheless we kept our heads up and managed to find some charming pieces by painters who are wonderful despite being loved by everyone and their god-damned mom.

Being fatigued by so much popular art we sought out French pretense-boutique Collette and ate at its incredibly popular basement restaurant. The food was very good, but the people next to us were consumer-level fashion types and talked about outrageous crap at top volume, and the store as a whole was filled with faux innovation at prices that were supposed to justify themselves. To summarize, Collette is the Long Island vineyard of the fashion world.

After that we headed to our rain check at the Musée Arts Decoratif, or whatever, which is basically three floors of chairs with some assorted desks and other bullshit thrown in. Hazel thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, so maybe she can give you a better sense of what was going on there. Here she is sitting in an incredibly modern chair.

Then we managed to stumble back to our old hotel and drag our bags around the corner to our new hotel. Here’s a picture of the new hotel.

We just sort of schlubbed around that night. We’d earned it.

Downstairs from its most famous exhibit, l’Orangerie contains the collection of a man who was more or less the French Donald Trump of the turn of the century (the last turn of the century, not this most recent one which is really only a mid-80s rehash anyways.) It was very charming, except when it served to remind us by comparison of how degraded out times are.

In the evening we tried to go out in the Marais, but we went down the wrong Rue .* Temple, and couldn’t find the place we wanted, and were disappointed in the substitute we tried out. Instead we went to a bar immediately outside our metro stop and had a grand time. Because it was our last evening in the first hotel, I pointed my camera wistfully out of the window.

Once inside Apizza Scholls we were astounded at how few people had ordered the truffle oil pizza. Even in Portland, most people are total fucking savages.

Hazel shaved her head. You can see coverage from the local paper (and a photo) here.

The yard, however, would brook no such negligence.  A very wet spring (yes, even for Portland) meant we’d avoided being outside much at all, but once the heat & sun did arrive, our plants seemed to think it might be their only chance to grow — ever.  So they did.  Luckily, “the mum” (as jmags calls her) came up for a visit and provided the guidance and confidence we needed to really tear some things out. As you can see.

All this brute labor convinced us we deserved some sitting-around-in-bars time. When I managed to look away from this suave fella I found some captivating color palettes.

tomato red, pale warmish grey, milky chartreuse, black

goldenrod, slate grey, caramel brown, more tomato red

caramel smoky brown, shadowed orange, black and brick

And I’ve been holding on to colors from an image that I couldn’t catch on film because I happened to be driving when I saw it: stormy slate grey (sky), emerald green (painted side of brick building), ivory and black (striped power cable overhead crossing them both).  I wonder if I’m being drawn to color groups just because of the really marvelous light we’ve had in Portland lately, or if it’s because my own work is so achromatic that I’m working with a vitamin deficiency?