Hi folks,
J'arrive a Paris. Excuse the lack of correct apostrophes and grammar. My Year 9 French grammar only takes me so far in written form.
After a cruisy night train journey from Chamonix we have spent a marvelous day in Paris. Apparently it has been raining forever and it is meant to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, but we have been lucky and strolled the streets all day.
In particular we have enjoyed our time in Le Marais - a trendy area spiced up by a strong Jewish and Gay influence. It is great to see a Yiddish bakery next to a Lebanese falaferia carrying a rainbow flag up the front. The contrasts and seeming juxtapositions are obvious, yet seemingly intermingled in a harmonious way. Of course, there seem to be some disagreements with this statement in the suburbs where tourists like me don't venture, but on the whole I am impressed by Paris’ integration of new and old influences.Even the Louvre has incorporated aspects such as audio guides.
In NLP we talk a lot about the representational systems – visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and auditory digital. To an art novice with an historical background the paintings of the Louvre really came to life as I was getting an indepth auditory description of each painting, outlining the allegories, symbolisms and metaphors inherent in each picture. In this way three of my internal rep. systems were being stroked. With a real, living guide with passion, gestures and personal stories to tell, I am sure even more of kinesthetic experience would have been triggered. Of further notice was a painting from the 17th century by Jan Swan, a Flemish painted, of a jester with an earlier version of a guitar. Of particular interest was the fact that he was accessing his ‘auditory construct’ in the picture, the same way we describe eye accessing cues in our NLP certification courses. So, even in the 17th century, painters were at least unconsciously ‘aware of this phenomenon’.
More on audio guides – the Da Vinci Code footsteps has become a smash hit at the Louvre, attracting a new generation of visitors. Even the conservative Louvre has had to buckle under commercial demands and now over 20% of audio guides leased out have only the Da Vinci Code areas of interest on it. This means a streamlined and fast/furious version of the Louvre covering unconventional areas such as the bathrooms where Tom Hanks’ character escapes in the movie, and missing more conventional areas such as the Venus of Milo etc. The good news is that people still take in art in this way, albeit in a more takeaway/fast food kind of way. Truly Generation Y style. They want the good stuff, and they want it yesterday.
Until next time, stay tuned
Anders
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