Three weeks ago, Susie's son and daughter-in-law gave her a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Paris in the evening as a birthday present. This morning we completed it and I reproduced below a picture of our work. It is far and away the hardest puzzle we have ever done, in part because since it purports to be Paris in the evening all the pieces are some version of dark with little glimmers of light here and there. I did not want all you earnest folks to think that I was wasting time just because I have not been blogging as much in the past few days.
It’s beautiful! Congratulations to you and your wife for completing it.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I have been to Paris and France only once, in 1995. Paris was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its liberation from Nazi Germany. We had an absolutely wonderful and memorable time, marked by a poignant visit to Normandy. We also spent a very exhilarating and stimulating evening at the Lido, which culminated in an exciting evening back at the hotel, and produced a wonderful bonus nine months later. We yearn to go back, and bring our bonus with us.
Looks nice. I wonder if any chairs and tables are pink in Paris, but I believe the artist did that for the sake of contrast. I think it would be a truly picturesque photograph to have someone take a shot of the sun setting behind the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower also looks very imposing in the puzzle's background.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in the Army in the Fall of 1965, I was stationed in Washington but was sent to Paris for six weeks temporary duty (TDY). I didn’t have any money, so all I did was walk, walk, walk all over the city. My longest jaunt was on Thanksgiving. We had the day off, but it was just another Thursday in Paris. I walked just about all day—from our hotel on the Rue Marbeuf a few blocks to the Arc de Triomphe, on up to Sacre Coeur and Monmartre, across the city to Place de la Bastille, down to Isle Saint-Louis across a footbridge to Notre Dame, browsed in Shakespeare and Company (which I thought was the real thing—the haunt of Hemingway and Joyce) along the Left Bank, keeping a keen eye out for Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus, and eventually on back to the hotel.
ReplyDeleteI had only guidebook French and felt comfortable ordering only one kind of food: sandwich jambon avec fromage, and one drink that I was introduced to in the hotel bar: Cognac avec Perrier. By the time I got back I was both exhausted and half plastered, having stopped numerous cafes for a sandwich and Cognac avec Perrier. It was a horrible thing to do to Cognac, but what did I know and what did I care? I was in the City of Light!
Michael Llenos,
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle appears to depict a vision of Paris from a bygone era, with women wearing dresses and skirts, and car models from long ago.
Besides, Paris is more than a city. It is an idea. To paraphrase Dalton Trumbo's Marcus Licinius Crassus on Rome (and Joe Biden on Israel), if Paris didn't exist, we'd have to invent her.
(A quick search surprisingly turns up a few recent-ish photos of cafes or restaurants in Paris with pink chairs out front.)
Spartacus, based on a book by Howard Fast, screen play by Dalton Trumbo, directed by Stanley Kubrick (!), staring Kirk Douglas as Spartacus, Lawrence Olivier as Crassus, Charles Laughton as Gracchus, and Jean Simmons as Frau Spartacus. A great movie. Kirk Douglas gave Dalton Trumbo the break he needed to end the McCarthy blacklist.
ReplyDeletePersonally I have nothing against pink, but I still think the artist chose that pink (no matter how realistic) to give the story of the lower-mid-left part of that painting more contrast and therefore more emphasis.
ReplyDeleteRe the first comment, excuse the nitpick, but Paris in 1995 was likely celebrating the 50th anniv. of the end of WW2. The liberation of Paris itself occurred (I just checked quickly to make sure I remembered this) in August 1944.
ReplyDeleteI have been in Paris twice, both times (cough) quite a while ago, once as a teenager and once in my late 20s. The details of the first visit I don't remember all that well, though I prob have some notes on it somewhere and I do recall liking the Rodin Museum. I think our group also went to a famous club one night, maybe the Moulin Rouge (if it let teenagers in).
The details of the second visit I have probably blocked out to some extent, since it was part of a trip to France with a friend that was marked by some tension betw us. However, I do recall going to the Pompidou Center, among other places, on that second visit. I'm sure I did a lot of other things that tourists in Paris do, incl some walking around the city, but I don't have a particularly crisp memory of it at this point.
L. F. Cooper,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. I stand corrected. My wife and I were in Paris in August, 1994, not 1995. This is confirmed by the fact that the bonus I referred to arrived in April, 1995, which (barring a miracle) would have been biologically impossible if we had been in Paris in 1995.
@ J LaRosa
ReplyDeleteglad to be of help here ;).
This came up on my Facebook feed.
ReplyDeleteBarney
https://www.facebook.com/grumpyoldgits/photos/a.539911189404514/3830603403668593/
Nice. Last week I had the crazy idea to buy a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, a cover of the New Yorker magazine. To my horror I found it will not fit on my dinette table. Anybody out there interested in a puzzle??
ReplyDeleteSend it to Marlago.
ReplyDeleteNow try a jigsaw of a Rothko painting
ReplyDeleteOr better yet, a Jackson Pollock painting!
ReplyDeleteTo DDA,
ReplyDeleteJackson Pollock jigsaw puzzles come with anti-psychotics and tranquilizers.
RE: Mungojerrie I do have something I'd like to send to Mar-a-Lago but it ain't a jigsaw puzzle.
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ReplyDelete