Antiquity, Renaissance, and the 3rd grade art fair

Allow me to recount the first ten minutes of my morning today in the form of a one-act play.

Act One

Scene: a small but comfortable apartment in the heart of urban Paris. Camera pans down the hallway and around the corner into the bedroom of our heroine, who is sleeping soundly beneath a charmingly tattered quilt. The tranquility of the early-morning tableau is broken by the obnoxious ring of an alarm clock, in whose direction the heroine grapples groggily, knocking it onto the floor in the process. Sighing, she swings her feet over the side of the bed and, with prodigious effort, lumbers toward the closet.

A few minutes later, now dressed, the heroine stares bleakly at her morning emails and absentmindedly runs a brush over and over the same section of hair.

Voiceover: I hated Wednesday mornings because they represented all that was wrong with the world. There was first the struggle to wake up, to heed the jarring cry of the clock so diabolically opposed to my night owl preferences. Then, once awake, there was the additional, anticipatory fatigue of the six near-straight hours of class that stretched out before me like miles of unrelenting ocean, and I a faltering swimmer with gazed fixed on the distant shore. And then, just as I was rubbing my eyes for the last time and preparing to make peace with the morning, there was always the inevitable thought, the crushing final blow that lent a definitively oppressive weight to my slow and shuffling steps: we're only halfway through the week.

Heroine rises from chair and makes her way into the kitchen. On the way she mumbles incoherently to herself.

Sara: Toast... don't want no stinking toast, every day with the toast... toaster doesn't even work anymore, doesn't keep the bread down... not even toast then, just bread...

Upon entering the kitchen, the heroine views a miraculous sight that causes her to stop dead in her tracks and emit what can only be described as a squeak of joy.

Sara: OMG CEREAL!

I hope you enjoyed that little vignette. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a box of Muesli in my life. But, in keeping with the mysteries of food a la my host family, one key ingredient seemed to be missing from the coveted breakfast equation. Where was the milk?

I searched high and low, but there was no milk on the table, in the fridge, or the pantry (milk isn't always refrigerated here). It was then that I noticed the carton of unsweetened yogurt that had been set out near my cereal bowl. Was I supposed to mix it? I decided it was an acceptable course of action, but when my host mom came bustling into the room a few minutes later I tried to shield the contents of the bowl from her view, just in case I was supposed to eat the elements separately. You really just never know.

Today was Susan's class, so we once again made the trek to the Louvre and spent the afternoon viewing famous works of art, most of which have been composed according to the strict Epic Painting checklist utilized by most 17th-19th century artists:

-Exposed breast(s) (min. 1, max. 3) = Check

-Unrealistic theatrical poses = Check

-Political/historical allegory and/or metaphor = Check

-Toga (min. 2) = Check

-Greco-Roman god(dess) (min. 1) = Check

-Putti/cherubim (preferable), OR chubby human babies (min 5) = Check

-Inexplicably bland expressions, esp. in scenes of warfare (all) = Check

It was my day to lead discussion, so if you have any questions about David's The Intervention of the Sabine Women, I am now an expert. Also I got to wear the guest lecturer badge that Susan always wears when she's leading discussion in the Louvre, which was fun because passersby looked at me like I must be a knowledgeable museum tour guide. Little did they know I was merely reading from my hastily-scribbled notes and throwing in colorful comparisons to romance-novel cover art.

Whenever I charge into battle to stop my fellow Romans from killing my Sabine families, I always bring armloads of babies and leave them writhing at my feet.

"Romance-novel cover art?" I hear you wonder aloud. "Where'd you get that from?"

To which I would reply, let us take a closer look at this personage on the left:

What exactly are you suggesting there, Mr. Big Sheath Man? If you don't believe me, also consider the following:

A savage hope indeed. Now maybe a giant rowing staff is just a giant rowing staff, but I think I know what Freud would have to say about these two works of art.

Speaking of art, we saw some more of it today-- specifically of the famous variety. The considerate people at the Louvre put it in places of prominence so that impatient visitors can do a whirlwind tour of the good stuff without having to get sidetracked by too much other culture.

The area around the Mona Lisa is roped off in a giant arc so that no one can get too close to her. In person it's hard to understand why she's so famous-- the painting is small and relatively unimpressive. We don't get it.

Then we've got Winged Victory, everyone's favorite headless Grecian:

And last but not least we followed some intriguing signs for the Children's Art Exhibition, which turned out to be exactly what it said it was-- a gallery of art made by kids ages 4 and up!

Molly's laughing at this kid because his picture description said he wanted to be a bus driver.

In this imaginative scene the world is populated by seagoing giraffes, cats, and panda bears.

The author of this piece expressed a wish to visit the U.S. to see the Native Americans, depicted here in cohabitation with the buffalo and what appear to be members of the Ku Klux Klan (upper right).

This was titled something like "In the Future," which apparently will be the stage for mass Telletubby-alien invasions.

So there you have it: the best of the best at the Louvre. Tomorrow I'll be taking you to a really old church (except for the parts that have been totally redone) that is rumored to have been consecrated by Christ himself (even though he'd been dead for 700 years). You won't want to miss it.