Oh, you know, just chilling with Simone de Beauvoir, NBD

Today, after learning how to do laundry in Paris (1. laundromat, and 2. hanging wet clothes on available surfaces in one's apartment to dry) I hopped on the line 6 Metro, which is the line that goes the closest to my apartment, and I got off at the Cimitiere Montparnasse. And this may seem strange, but it was amazing. Really. The cemetary is huge, and has its own map to show you where famous people are buried - Serge Gainsbourg is there, as is Jean Seberg, who was in "A Bout de Souffle," directed by Jean-Luc Godard (who is buried somewhere else, probably the Montmartre cemetary, because famous French people seem to be buried in one of the two places), Baudelaire is there and Man Ray and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I was most looking forward to seeing Man Ray's tomb, but almost as soon as I entered the cemetary - it's crazy - a beautiful veritable city of tombs and mausoleums and it's very bright and full of trees and yes, beautiful - I practically tripped over Simone de Beauvoir's grave. She's buried with Jean-Paul Sartre. Anyhow, I stood there and just kind of stared at it, like, that's Simone de Beauvoir. Right in front of me. People had left little notes and Metro tickets on her grave, and someone had kissed it and left behind a huge pink mouth print.

And I don't know why, because I haven't read The Second Sex or anything, I'm not a rabid Simone de Beauvoir fan, although I do think she was cool, but seeing her grave and the notes on it made me stop and stare and I almost felt like crying, not because it was sad that she was dead or because it was depressing, but because there was something so beautiful about this tomb and the idea of someone being so affected by the things that she wrote that they would kiss her grave or bring notes to it years after her death. That in itself is really amazing to me. I don't know why, but it is.

After Simone, I looked around for Man Ray's grave, but the cemetery, like many things in Paris, was very confusing, and I kept thinking to myself, "Where the hell are you, Man Ray?" But he continued to elude me. Which is fine. His photos mean more to me than seeing where he's buried anyhow.

And then I remembered that Man Ray is buried with his wife, who changed her name to Juliet Man Ray, and I have always found that kind of ridiculous. I mean, Man Ray was a name that Emanuelle Radnitzky assumed as an artist, it wasn't a real name and it definitely wasn't a last name. It would be like assuming your husband's first name, but not even that, because come on now, there will never be another Man Ray. It always struck me as kind of stupid. Especially considering that Man Ray's long-term mistress in Paris was a woman named Lee Miller, who was also a photographer and who we hear nothing about. I wonder why Juliet Man Ray chose to call herself that. I don't know what she did for a living or if anything makes her notable, and I find that sad. It also makes me sad that although Man Ray's work as a photographer is amazing and kind of my favorite, Lee Miller's work doesn't seem to exist.

And then I thought of Simone de Beauvoir. Maybe I responded to seeing her grave the way I did because she is identified through her own accomplishments, not Jean-Paul Sartre's. After all, her grave doesn't say Simone de Jean-Paul Sartre. In Paris, great artists and philosophers of the past are typically men, and the women that they spent their lives with typically labeled as "muses." Exhibit A: Camille Claudel and Lee Miller, artists in their own right, lovers of male artists of much greater renown.

So amen to Simone de Beauvoir. Kisses and notes on a tomb just for her, because of the things she wrote, and Jean-Paul Sartre is there too, but you go to see both of them. That's how it should be done.

After visiting Simone de Beauvoir, I walked from Montparnasse to the Eiffel Tower. Because I felt like it. I was out for nearly four hours, fortified by a butter and sugar crepe, just wandering the city until I had gotten to the Eiffel Tower and it got too cold and dark to not descend to the Metro and head home. And it was nice to get off in my neighborhood, away from the spotless, chichi buildings of the central arrondissements. I was thinking about Simone de Beauvoir, and Man Ray, and this guy I call the Bob Marley troubadour who rides line 6 a lot, and only seems to know how to play one song - "Redemption Song."

Paris has given me so much to think about.