Le Tumbleweed: Creepin on our faves

Day 16
Tuesday May 31

lover, Apollinaire

Class and workshopping as per usual. Once again, this stupid sestina is kicking my ass, but I suppose I'm making progress. Diana, Rose, and I decided to go back to Pere Lachaise to visit the graves of Apollinaire, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf (the french version of Billie Holiday), and our ole' bud Jim Morrison (again). Champagne in hand, we began our search for Apollinaire. Apollinaire is one of my favorite poets--he is one of the founding fathers of the surrealist movement, and he writes the most beautiful (without being sappy) verses and caligrams. It took us about an hour to find his grave, but when we did I was thrilled to find my favorite "my heart is like a flame upside down" (“Mon Cœur pareil à une flamme renversée”) poem inscribed on it. Ah it was meant to be, Apollinaire. We popped our bottle and toasted surrealism and Paris and Pere Lachaise, and had a little drink with our (my) favorite. Then, off to Oscar Wilde--his tomb is a giant white monument that is COVERED with red lipstick graffiti, messages from adoring female admires of the literary variety. For a split second, I debated leaving a lipstick kiss mark on the stone, but then it occurred to me that kissing a grave that has been kissed by a thousand other girls in recent history is a little disgusting. I refrained. So off we went to Edith Piaf's grave, which is more modern and covered in flowers (a rarity for this cemetery), but Pere Lachaise was about to close, and of course we had to see Jim, so we booked it to the other side of the park and found his spot. Again, it had a mixed-bag crowd of fans and groupies. We posted up with our bottle and The Doors playing on our iphones, but we only got through the chorus of "break on through to the other side" before being asked to leave. The park was closing...we didn't get "kicked out."

Ala Oscar, All Art is Quite Useless. word.

Fine. So Diana and I went home and napped and wrote a little for class. Then a friend taught me how to make risotto and veal and all about fancy french cheese (they take it very seriously here). But we had a very early wake up call the next day (leaving for Normandy at 7:30am), so it we called it a night.