Almost gothic in Springtime Paris

The clocks confuse me.

Here at the Gare Saint-Lazare train station is an installation by Arman of supposedly-bronze-but-now-blackened-with-time clocks. My hotel is here somewhere. The under-stately, reverse-posh Hotel du Havre, lost among the Parisian shops, cafés and doppelganger boutique hotels in Rue d’Amsterdam in the French capital. Second midnight in Paris and my head is filled with alcoholic fog, mounting sleepiness, and the nagging feeling I left my discounted half-eaten Subway sandwich in a cab somewhere, bolognaise chips keeping it company.

A prediction: a kindly Congolese window-cleaner would help me find my hotel, rescuing me from a night in the cold, clammy ruts.

What should be another Law of Thermodynamics: Things have a way of screwing themselves up.

I woke up early that day. Had a breakfast of strong black coffee, stony bagel and ancient cheese. Louvre, first on the agenda, then Musée d’Orsay. The former train station now devoted to 19th and 20th century art is holding an exhibition titled “Ange du Bizarre,” featuring the darker side of Romanticism from Goya to Max Ernst. Right timing. Dark art in the City of Lights. Maybe squeeze in a stop at the Musée de l’Erotisme.

After Louvre and D’Orsay, I would get coffee at Café de Flor on the Left Bank. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote feverishly here from 9 a.m. until noon. Had lunch until 2 p.m. Hung out with friends until 4 p.m. Wrote until 8 p.m. The French philosopher spent all day in the café because at that time he was living with Simone de Beauvoir in some crummy digs. And there’s something quite Sartrean about my hotel room, existentially-speaking. My hotel window overlooks a brick wall. So very No Exit. Here’s the plan, Stan: I’d sit in the café, sip an espresso, and muse about the Meaning of it All. Or I could play 4Pics1Word on my iPhone. Whichever has more depth.

That was the Idea — and quite a beauty at that. But Reality is the boring sister who always wins. Wins big.

The Louvre, turned out, is closed on Tuesdays. All the tourists who didn’t get to see that ever-mysterious Mona chick flocked to D’Orsay. I got to the museum by cab, and the line was soooooo long, snaking past the bars and patisseries. A box-office smash. What were they showing in there… Iron Man 3? But that’s the thrill of European life: art draws people in. The Impressionists are still as hot as the Avengers. The Expressionists could give the Justice League a run for its money. Mona is way, way cooler than Gaga.

So, here I am: outside D’Orsay, looking in. Prediction no. 2: an airport magazine will come in handy. Aéroports de Paris has a feature on — aside from the great Keith Haring whose oeuvre is being honored in Paris with a retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris — contemporary works right on the streets of Paris. No need to line up to get tickets. Just walk around one of the most picturesque cities on the planet and gaze at public art.

The tour of the black clocks Gare Saint-Lazare is one. Walk like Solomon Grundy and you’d see a seemingly storm-uprooted oak (the bronze work of Guiseppe Penone) at Jardin des Tuileries, where I always, always get asked if I want to buy some drugs. Yes, something that would make you all go away. At the UNESCO garden is a work by Alexander Calder. Then there’s the centaur sculpture, an homage to Pablo Picasso by César. Imagine a mythical creature made of scrap bronze bravely facing the sweet Parisian spring.  

One of my favorites is Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle’s Stravinsky fountain — black machines by Tinguely gyrating with the colorful appendages by De Saint-Phalle. Maybe those 16 sculpture-fountains resonate with the wild jungle boogie of The Rites of Spring, which nearly caused a riot when it was first performed in 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. My Viber friend, the Yellow Girl, back home would love this. She dreams of, makes, and adores cute, annihilative art — Yayoi Kusama meets Princess Bubblegum. The day I arrived in Paris, I was texting her frantically but my companions in the van (two Philippine government officials) kept regaling me with tales from their salad days. “Igan,” said one, tapping my leg to make sure I was paying attention. “The first time I visited Paris in the Eighties...” A formation of “Zzzzzz’s” almost exited my mouth.

I am halfway done with my “Paris: An Open Air Museum” tour, when it starts raining. I run through the sidestreets and alleyways, looking for cover, imagining Iggy Pop singing Lust for Life. Right, left, another right, another left and — bam! I get stunned by the sight of Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, rising gothically at zero kilometer into the blackened clouds. The entire city, it happily turns out, is a museum. The Gallery of Chimeras seemingly telling me to simply dig the moment — even wetly. Like the ghosts of philosophers, dreamers and lovers before me.

This, dear readers, is Being.