Baudelaire wants us to get drunk...

Oh, hello Napoleon

Day 5
Thursday May 19
Class did not start until 3 today, so Diana and I decided to go to the Picasso museum, which was only a 15 minute walk from our place. At this point, I start to realize how awesome our apartment is: its a bohemian poet haven, it has an elevator, there's a bar/cafe under our building, a thousand bars/cafes/museums/nightclubs within walking distance, the metro is thirty seconds away, its super safe and centrally located, AND it has THE BEST crepe stand right down the street. So we head to the next block and stumble upon a giant yellow mansion that turns out is the Picasso museum...under renovations until 2012. How do you say UGGHHH in French? Actually that sounds kinda throaty-angsty ala France. UGGGHH.
Fortunately walking dejectedly in the other direction for thirty seconds lands us in front of the Musee d' Carnavalet (Museum of Paris history). Okay, lets check that out. There were a few pieces in there that legitimately cracked me up. Example: a giant hanging black metal cat that looks like it put its tail in an electrical socket. Apparently its an icon around here: Chat Noir.
Another example: a bust of Napoleon that they put on a 5 foot pedestal, so the overall effect is Napoleon's face...taller than me. Ha.
Yet another example: I have decided to search for dopplegangers of my family and friends in Parisian art museums...I found a few good ones. Beware, my friends...you are not so cute in powdered wigs and puffy shirts. 


Then, baguette au saumon et crudite (yummm) and off to class. For homework, Cecelia had us write blazons, a type of poem (see "L'Union Libre (Free Union)" by Andre Breton). Heather came back to hang out with us and teach the workshop (yay!), and she taught us all about Baudelaire (scandalous dandy that I would want to be friends with) and absinthe (she does not recommend it) and about how to write a directive poem. Directive poems give the reader advice, and they can start with a phrase like "one should always (__insert advice here__)" Heather asked us to free-write a directive poem draft for 15 minutes in class, and she gave us permission to make them very bad. Excellent. Now there's a parameter I can work with. But when we read them out loud, they were very good and very Baudelaire, which in English nerd-speak is a very good thing. We are a talented bunch... we are also minor-ly irreverent. Baudelaire would be proud. Perhaps we would have thought to censor ourselves just a little more in front of a distinguished poet like Heather, but fortunately for us, she is tres cool. She laughed, applauded, and read us her free-write, "One should always conjugate." 
At the end of the day, we continued to honor Baudelaire by picking up middle eastern flatbread sandwiches, tall cans, and a couple bottles of wine, heading to a friends apartment to people watch and enjoy our aperitif. After it finally got dark around 10:30, we headed to a bar down the street to mingle with the locals. Unfortunately we got distracted and missed the last metro, and realizing we needed a little more training on using the bus system, we started walking...for forty five minutes...lesson learned. Day 5. Voila!