Thomas and Bettina on a Paris Evening, a set on Flickr.
One week ago, I wandered the Seine on a clear night illuminated by a full moon. Illuminated further, I was returning to my hotel after visiting with friends that I will inevitably spend a lifetime following as we traverse our respective paths. We both converged on Paris, enjoying a fine lunch buffet at Bon and a fine exhibit at the Grand Palais on the Steins (Gertrude et al) collecting artwork of the Parisian avant-garde, in between a perfect walk from Avenue des Champs-Elysees to the Louvre Museum. I reflect to remember that the setting befits the more important point that friendships are worthwhile to cultivate and to affirm in our efforts to connect with the world around us. In short, the perfect sort of blueprint for how to spend a Sunday.
Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l...
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