Mes chers amis,

You will laugh at me. In looking for a quiet air-conditioned place to eat and read, I entered a Parisian department store – Bon Marché and found their café. A small pastry and an elegant bottle of Norwegian water later – I spent 8.8Euro or $13 for the privilege. I’m too aware of prices which cramp my style but… meanwhile, I can sit here and write this letter to you and they can’t chase me away. I am resting my, oh so tired, feet and gather my strength.

I spent most of the day in the Louvre. The I. M. Pei pyramid and its circulation system manages the crowds very nicely. The distances are enormous and my feet – and everybody else’s – become a focus competing with the paintings. (I was particularly drawn to the big smooth marble and granite feet on Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculptures.) I fell asleep in one of the lower back supporting couches. I’ve been in Paris for almost a week - I have yet to have a decent conversation with anyone. I called my friends on the Côte d’Azur and they will meet me at the railroad station next Sunday. They are very dear people – best friends from Grad School and resuming our friendship will more than compensate for my present dry-spell.

Last night I dined at a guidebook recommended restaurant, L’Encrier, near the Gare de Lyon. I selected a complete meal and it was way too much food. Of course, I consumed it anyhow. But, it was the first and only carefully prepared dinner I have had. The main course was, as I was surprised to discover, calf’s liver in a sauce which perfectly complemented its flavor. And then I walked home and had the best night’s rest.

Today is the final of the Tour de France. Instead of standing along the Champs-Elysées, I visited the Musée de Quay Branly, near the Tour Eiffel. It just opened and contains a collection of materials from non-Western cultures.

The building, designed by Jean Nouvel (the architect of the monstrous Opera Bastille) is sited along the Seine between the Champs de Mars (with it’s Tour Eiffel) and my now cozily familiar Musée d’Orsay. It was completely designed from the outside and presents a provocative composition of forms which describe their contents and respond with whit and imagination to their immediate context – an office wall covered with moss and greenery constantly bathed by a gentle and almost imperceptible flow of water qualifies an office wing facing the Seine. The exhibition volume – a russet boat-like form -floats above a park on a few dark and discretely cylindrical columns.

After a ¾ hour weight – the attendants promised an hour-and-a-half, perhaps their way of reducing the crowd - I bought my ticket and entered a white volume with a white ramp that passed through a dark passage and I was in the exhibition volume itself. The collection is magnificent and well displayed – although there were some strange amorphous leather-like forms dividing exhibits and guide circulation and which morph into seats with their associated video monitors. An important feature of the façade is a group of volumes projecting out toward the Seine. Inside, they provide small exhibition spaces removed from the general flow of circulation and are each specially and uniquely organized to display special objects, but somehow too precious an idea often competing with the remarkable objects they are intended to present.

Actually, the relation between volumes, textures and landscape is quite satisfying and Nouvel displays tremendous resourcefulness in handling forms at this scale. Perhaps, two or three clear organizing elements in the interior of the exhibition space could have supplied a stronger sense of orientation. Once in the exhibition volume, floors continued to slope – I could never figure out to what purpose other than as another distraction. Last night, I walked past the Opera Bastille on my way back from dinner. There, I expect the interiors were very carefully worked out. Here, I feel it’s quite the reverse.