165: Americans in Paris
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It's a gray rainy day in Paris. A sulky line of tourists waits on the grounds of an old medieval palace, now one of the most famous museums in the world. I'm with David Sedaris, who lives nearby. So David, so explain where we are. We're at the Louvre, and this is the closest I've ever come. I've never set foot, never set foot inside the Louvre. So you've lived in Paris for how long? Two years. But I still haven't visited it, I didn't see the point. Welcome to Paris and go to the one place where you're not allowed to smoke. As a matter of fact, it's my goal to be the only person who's come to Paris and who's never set foot in the Louvre. You live how far from here? I'm probably about a 12-minute walk, 15-minute walk from the Louvre. But I'm close to Notre Dame too, but I've never gone in there either. And it just doesn't interest me. I mean, I think so many people come here and they feel like they have to do certain things because somebody told them to do it, or they're going to go home and people would say, "What do you mean you didn't see the pantheon? What do you mean you didn't go into the Louvre?" So I'm guessing that a good number of these people are just standing here because somebody told them that they should do it. I mean, I don't think that they're all museum goers at home. I don't know, do people like look back and remember the experience of standing in front of a painting? I don't remember eating something, or buying something, or seeing something like an accident, or somebody who's really twisted up in some way, but not looking at a painting. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, maybe just qualify for them. It doesn't get any better than this, but I don't know. I just, from people that I know that have come here, they go to the Louvre because somebody told them that they have to. Today in our radio program, where you might go in Paris instead of the Louvre, I spend three days with David Sidaris, who writes a lot about what it's like to live in France. We never saw the Eiffel Tower, or the Red Dam Museum, where they're famous cemetery where Marcel Proust and Jemara Center buried, no historical sites, nothing having to do with the culture or language of the people of France. But if you want to know the best place to buy a model of a rotten tooth, or a collection of leeches, or a life-sized replica of a human head with the top cut-off so you can see what's inside, David did show me that. This is a pretty good medical supply store, like these body parts that they have here. They're handmade and hand-painted. They're not nearly as expensive as you would think that they would be. Like I got my sister Gretchen, a stomach, or a backbone. I got her a backbone, made out of paper mache for Christmas, and I think it probably cost about $60, which was a great price for a backbone. Today in our program, Americans in Paris, and how our Paris sometimes has very good to do with the one familiar to the locals. From W.B. E.C. Chicago, it's this American life, American glass.
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