Le Louvre etc.

I've been in Paris for something like 2 months, and I am ashamed to admit that I have visited absolutely no museums until today. Sure, there were a couple art exhibitions, but this did not include any of the serious museums for which the city is famous (among a few other things, I guess).

This morning Mido and I attempted to see the Turner, Whistler, and Monet exhibition, but the line was long and we decided to try another day. Instead we went to the Lourve, where they had several temporary exhibits that we had not seen and only a short line.
*L'Italie à la Cour de France, if I understood correctly (always up for question), was about the Renaissance in France and how it influenced the great Italian Renaissance artists (de Vinci, Rosso, Primatrice, etc.).
*Then there was an exhibit of Islamic art on long-term loan from the Met in NYC. Mido liked this one best. I was particularly moved by a plate with a nursing goat, the mother goat appearing to respond by biting the kid's behind creating a kind of interesting circular composition, and a certain flower, which I have never seen in nature, that looks like an hour-glass shaped tulip and decorated a variety of tile instillations. The exhibition was comprised mostly of tapestries, tiles, and ceramics. I thought that Islam forbade the illustration of "God's creatures" requiring it to only depict imaginative decorations (which I like a lot), but this collection must have been before that philosophy was implemented bc it included lots of images of real living things.
*Finally, we viewed an extensive exhibition on Primatrice, maitre de Fontainebleau (a Renaissance artist as mentioned in the first bullet). This was my favorite. Primatrice's work was collected and punctuated with the work of a contemporary artist. Primatrice's work outshown the living artist's but I particularly enjoyed the interpretive video he made, and both works had a element of eroticism which spoke to me in a certain way.
At this point we were exhausted and headed home to the communist suburb of Montreuil (this city is very close to Paris and its citizens have elected a communist government since its creation).

The day was a success on another front. Mido purchased 5 Chagal prints for the living room walls (although it appears that the vision for the room is transforming by the minute).

The weather has been "cold and clear" which is actually lovely. I can't say enough good things about the light here. This apartment is also a great place to enjoy it, being on the 8th floor on a corner with no building across the street (alas, it is a parking lot -- apparently this city wants to build something there, but one land owner (an apartment building with a pharmacy on the ground floor, very pretty actually) refused to sell and the community would not support an eminant domain kind of thing here). But this gives us a wonderful view of the central square and city hall.

As usual, everyone speaks perfect English, but Jean Pierre insists that at least the French people speak French. He likes to pretend that he doesn't understand English at all. It is good for me. Unfortunately, when people speak French I generally assume that they are not speaking to me. In fact, when the day gets old, I can bearly understand the English that is spoken to me. On the other hand, out in public I feel quite annoyed when people speak to me in English, even if it is clearly their native language.

The clouds look like someone painted them there.