Yes, I'm back from Paris.
Thanks to Diane Werts and Eric Gould for keeping things running while I was gone (all I wrote were BEST BETS, while watching the view out my window of, sigh, the Notre Dame cathedral. I'm enjoying, and blocking, the view, at right.)
And thanks to another Eric -- long-dormant TVWW contributor Eric Mink -- for writing a terrific first-week analysis of Keith Olbermann's new show, a column you can read HERE.
And after reading that, return to this column for a picture or two from Paris... including those magical time-travel steps in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris...
Before I went to Paris, I set two geeky goals for myself, both tied to my love of pop culture
One was to get a Dobie Gillis pose in front of Rodin's The Thinker.
The other was to find the steps where Owen Wilson's character in Midnight in Paris found himself wandering and waiting at midnight when a car wound up the winding street to whisk him away on a magical mystery tour into the Parisian past.
Check and check.
I don't have the Rodin photos transferred yet, but -- figuring that others may have loved Midnight in Paris as much as I did -- here is my 12-step program to finding the marble stairs featured in the movie. Actually, there are nine steps on that staircase, and only three in my list, but you get my drift.
Step One. See Midnight in Paris, or none of this will make any sense.
It's playing nationwide right now in the States, but it's also playing in Paris. Again, by accident, I found a theater playing it in that city (see photo at top), but who needs to watch the imported version when it costs less for the domestic?
Notice the details on the photos with Owen. The railing in the background. The curved steps. The curved street. The stanchions, or whatever they are, dividing the street from the stone walkway.
Step Two. Check out this photo of me, taken while enjoying my first of many amazing baked treats of the trip. (Papa's Got a Brand New Baguette!) The building in the background at far right is the Pantheon, which should give anyone familiar with Paris all the information needed to find this particular street. Streets spread out from the Pantheon circle like spokes from a wheel. One of those spokes is the street on which I'm sitting.
I'd give the name of the street, to make it official, but I don't want it on my conscience that, by identifying the road on which Woody Allen filmed Owen Wilson's character being picked up and whisked to the past, I might singlehandedly turn Paris into some sort of tourist destination.
It's perfect just the way it is. Who needs tourists?
Step Three. Anyway, the view looking down the street from the steps is shown below, at the end of this column. Compare the details to those in photos from the movie, and I rest my case.
And, once again, my feet...
