on m'a volé

went to the musee picasso.

it seems like it wouldn’t take that long, but 1. that fucker lived a long time and 2. that fucker painted a lot of shit. and then made a lot of stuff. out of bicycles and other crap.

it’s pretty great, as you’d expect. when you’ve got a guy who’s a notorious cheapskate and who tries to but everything with little sketches he’d draw on napkins which later end up being sold on costco.com, then you end up with a lot of art in his museum.

which is fabulous, but you end up spending much more time in the museum. instead of one or two hours, it took us four hours to wind through the whole thing, which is quite labrynthine and winds its way up and down three floors (and a basement).

lots of wives, lots of women, and lots of pictures. i particularly liked the one with the little girl leading the blind minotaur by the beach. if the little girl represents the feminine while picasso identified with the masculine aspect of the minotaur and the spanish bullfights, what does that mean, exactly? how does it read next to all his depictions of the death of the torreo, the female bullfighter, her dead body being lifted by the bull (masculine) and the gored horse (feminine)?

later that night, hmc couldn’t sleep. “let’s go out!” she says.

ok, we go out.

around 3am, we hit le batofar, which is a little club inside a tugboat on the seine. they’re playing minimal electro and techno. it’s pretty sweet in there, a tiny little place to rock out. some guy keeps yelling out, “allez!” enthusiastically.

the best part is when some girl asks us, “you smoke the joint? i smell the joint. i don’t have, but i want the joint!”

i can’t tell you how cool it is to be dancing to some music and to be able to look through the porthole and see the seine at night.

the worst part of the night is at the end, when almost everyone clears out at about five in the morning. suddenly, i realize that my coat is gone.

it was just there five minutes ago.

my leather coat, rolled up in a bundle, seemed to be pretty safe where it was. in plain view. safer than everyone else who just left it in the other room, or piled up anonymously with other coats in a booth. just as safe as the other coats around the room.

but somehow, not quite. you do an assessment of the place you’re in, the people you’re with, to figure out how much you have to worry. everything seems no sketchier than other places i’ve been, other clubs i’ve been to.

unlucky, i guess.

the awkward part is that they nicked my phrase book at the same time, so we couldn’t figure out how to say, “someone stole my jacket” to the staff. all we could remember was “he lost his jacket,” which doesn’t quite have the same punch.

on m’a volé mon veste.

not only my leather jacket, but my stripey kangol hat, and my recently re-found wool diesel gloves, both of which were presents from hmc. and also worst of all, my red rei one jacket. the one that i love and that’s perfect for everything. for going out, for snowboarding, for going to paris. for on m’a volé.

i don’t even think they make it in red anymore.

merde.

Posted at March 5, 2005 8:59 PM