Wednesday, April 20, 2022

April in Murat

On one beautiful April afternoon we took a drive through the mountains and valleys of the Auvergne region and discovered the little town called Murat. Small towns in this region are interesting because they are like architectural and sociological time capsules. The towns are comprised of buildings, art, and streetscapes that both engage and educate you about life and its priorities from another time. Although medieval towns like Murat have been updated for modern times to meet modern needs, travelers can appreciate the old stone buildings that are a wonder of engineering ingenuity and artistic creativity. (The building with turrets is a 16th century mansion called Maison de la Faune.)

This picturesque medieval and Renaissance town is built onto the basaltic rock of Bonnevie, which towers over the historic center, and is surrounded by two other volcanic mountains: the Bredons Rock and the Chastel-sur-Murat Rock. In the Middle Ages, Murat was a fortified town and a major road hub, which encouraged trade. Many fairs and markets were held there.

The entrance to Murat leads directly to the center of town where the city hall, cafés, hotels, and apartment buildings provide amenities to residents and visitors alike. Further up the hill lay the shops and the medieval church.

The City Hall and Office of Tourism stand majestically at one end of the central city square while a monument to the ending of slavery stands about 100 yards at the other. War memorials are usually placed in the center part of a town. This memorial is the first of its kind that I've seen in France.

The Tribunal was a former Dominican teachers convent built in the 17th century. (It is located next to the church.) Fire destroyed it in 1771 but it was reconstructed in the style of Louis XV (1715-74). During the revolution (1789-99), it became the tribunal of Murat and would remain so for the next three centuries. Two notable little niches situated to both sides of the round window are characteristic of the Louis XIII style (1610-43).

The buildings in Murat are constructed with local volcanic rock. Three kinds of this hard, gray stone are used extensively throughout the town: basalt, trachyte, and phonolithe for slate roofs. These buildings and the fountain pictured here go back to the Renaissance.

The Collegiate Church of Our Lady of the Olive Trees (Notre-Dame-des-Oliviers) was built between the 12th and the 14th centuries with statues and altarpieces made in the 17th and 19th centuries.

Here is a traditional knife shop. The knife (couteau) was an indispensable tool for defense and cutting food and materials. Legend has it that the Auvergne crusaders brought back knives from the East. During the Middle Ages adults possessed a knife for eating and for doing multiple daily tasks. Since the 13th century Thiers in central France has been the chief knife-making center for the country where 70 percent of the instruments are sharpened and sold. In the early 20th century, housewives bought their knives separately because they were not considered part of basic cutlery as they are today.

The Blessed Mother holds a prominent place in France and can be seen almost everywhere. In Murat, a statue of Our Lady of Haute-Auvergne is placed on top of a prominent hill that provides a natural enclosure on one side of the town.

A 16th century house with a stone staircase.

Apartment buildings are sited along the sides of the main square with a bus transit stop located in the middle. Apartments in France are typically bought and sold rather than rented as they are in the USA. However, the big challenge for these buildings is to provide parking for the residents' cars. Small walking towns can make access to and from the places that accommodate the essentials of daily life reduce the number of cars.

Balconies and open windows and shutters allow people to look out their windows in a more obvious way. I've become intrigued by these scenes and sneek a snap of my camera on this woman surveying the town center from her window. By the way, windows in France don't have screens, so they make hanging out the window easier. Of course, these beautiful windows invite insects inside.

Resources

https://www.france-voyage.com/tourism/murat-167.htm

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Circus! Circus!

We celebrated St. Joseph's Day (March 19) and the first day of spring (March 21) by going to the circus. It had been the first circus I'd seen since I was about 10 years old with the Girl Scouts. Actually, my Aunt Frances and Uncle Marcel took me to my first Shrine Circus when I was still a pre-schooler, and it impressed me so much, I can still remember the day--including the men wearing the dark red fezes with a sword imprinted on it and a tassle hanging on its side

The Shrine Circus was held in Olympia Stadium (the same arena that housed the Detroit Red Wings national hockey team). It had three rings for the performers and several tiered seats for the crowds. The last act after the animals, trapezes, clowns, and pink elephants was the man who was shot out of a huge and loud cannon. Olympia Stadium no longer stands, but the fond memories of the circus--and the Ice Follies for that matter--came to mind as I watched my first French circus, the Amar Circus, provide a bevy of animal acts and daring artists balancing and swinging their bodies high in the air. The circus provided a fun and nostalgic afternoon. Below are a few highlights of the various acts.

The first act featured lions

These Mongolian camels stole the show with their high-stepping dances. Below is a video of a small portion of their act.

During intermission, children were allowed to take two turns around the ring on a camel.

The Big Wheel (above) thrilled the crowds (click here to see the video) while the clowns (below) played jokes on each other and the audience.

What would a circus be without cotton candy? People lined up patiently for a serving of it.

As people waited for the circus to begin, vendors sold illuminated pinwheels. Children worked them as music from French cabaret singer Edith Piaff's songs were played. Click here to see the video.

This man was the animal trainer and performer. He seemed to love the animals as he shared their various tricks with the audience. He wore different costumes for each of the different acts.

Of course, no circus is a circus without people balancing on round objects or swinging on ropes.

Click here to see the Double Rings act.

This couple performed tricks on roller skates and a small platform, which showed their prowess and balancing ability.

The Amar Circus was comprised of a small group of people performing with some magnificent talent. It was small and intimate, and children were excited and attentive (when they weren't staring at their cell phones). Adults seemed to have fun, and I'm so glad I witnessed this French-style circus!

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Josephine Baker—an Advocate for Racial Justice and Freedom

On Tuesday, November 30, Josephine Baker was inducted into the Panthéon in Paris, an honor reserved for French heroes and notables like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Èmile Zola, Marie Curie, and Jean Moulin (French resistance fighter). A coffin containing soils from the U.S., France, and Monaco—places where Baker made her mark—was carried by French military pallbearers down a long, red carpet to the monument. The pallbearers stopped several times along the way for multi-media presentations that played Baker’s songs and highlighted her achievements. Then, before the coffin entered the Panthéon, a luminary display was projected onto the monument to tell her life story.

The event was planned by French President Emmanuel Macron who embraced a petition not only to give homage to an exceptional figure in French history, but to send an anti-racism message to all of France.

“She embodies, before anything, women’s freedom,” said Laurent Kupferman, author of the petition in an Associated Press interview.

What Josephine Baker means for Americans, however, is the embodiment of the spirit of racial justice and freedom, persistence in following one’s dream, and an illustration of what one person can do to make a difference in the world.

Initially, all Missouri-born Josephine Baker (née Freda Josephine McDonald in 1906) wanted to do was sing and dance. She got her start in show business on the streets of St. Louis and then joined a Southern vaudeville circuit called the Dixie Steppers. She became a teenage chorus girl in the 1921 production of “Shuffle Along”, which led to subsequent work with the Chocolate Dandies in 1924.

However, Baker was denied greater opportunities not for a lack of talent but because of the color of her skin. Undaunted, she moved to Europe at age 19 where she not only found work, but acquired fame, fortune, and love. She even lived in a castle and was a frequent guest of other famous entertainers and elite families including Princess Grace of Monaco!

Starting in the 1920’s she danced and sang in cabarets in Munich and Berlin and was a stupendous hit. Her dancing was considered exotic and exciting, unlike anything ever seen before after she was told to do something “tribal,” “savage,” and “African-like.” For her, it was a blend of Southern jazz with comedic steps and bizarre facial expressions--which were a totally-conscious mocking of the colonial biases of her audiences. Her costume consisted of a banana skirt, a skimpy top (sometimes not), and a beaded necklace topped off with a short, slicked-down haircut. However, when the Nazis took over the German government, their discriminatory policies prevented the Black dancing girl from performing. So, Baker went to Paris where she was wildly accepted both for her color and her performances.

She continued as a singer and dancer in Paris and later in the United States where she appeared at Carnegie Hall and on Broadway. Her last performance was on April 8, 1975, and four days later she died of a brain hemorrhage. She was buried in Monaco where her body remains today.

In one of her 1930 performances at the Casino de Paris, she sang what would become her most famous song: “J’ai Deux Amours” (I have two loves) where she posed as an African native girl torn between Paris and Africa since French colonist, played by Adrien Lamy, wanted to take her back with him to France. Later this song was interpreted as her life between the U.S. and France.

She returned to the United States and was contracted to perform for segregated audiences while she was also denied access to hotels and restaurants because she was Black. However, later, as her star grew, she stipulated that unless her audiences were composed of Black as well as white patrons, she would not show up. The theatre managements capitulated.

In 1937, she became a French citizen after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion. By then, she was known as an international entertainer, and she could speak five languages.

In 1939 after France and Britain declared war against Nazi Germany, she volunteered to serve as an ambulance driver and later as a spy for the French Resistance by traveling, getting close to officials, and sharing information hidden on her music sheets, according to French military archives. Researcher and historian Géraud Létang said Baker risked the death penalty or the harsh repression of the Vichy regime in order to live “a double life between, on the one side, the music hall artist, and on the other side, another secret life, later becoming completely illegal, of intelligence agent.”

In 1940, her operations included inviting several spies into her troupe to work for the Allies, which allowed them to travel to Spain and Portugal. She also gathered intelligence for General Charles De Gaulle in North Africa.

She also raised 10 million euros ($11.2 million) to support the French Resistance and organized concerts for soldiers and civilians near combat zones. After the defeat of the Nazis, she went to Germany to sing for former prisoners and deportees freed from the camps.

The French recognized her courageous and generous contributions to the war effort by awarding her several French military honors, including the Croix de Guerre. She was the first American-born woman to receive this honor.

After the war she adopted 12 children from different countries, races, and religions to show that diversity could be an avenue toward “universal fraternity”. She called her family the “Rainbow Tribe” and purchased a castle in the southwestern French town of Castelnaud-la-Chapelle in the Dordogne region to house them. When she ran into financial trouble and lost her properties, she received support from Princess Grace of Monaco, who offered Baker a place for her and her children to live.

As the Civil Rights Movement in the USA emerged, she fought against segregation and was named Woman of the Year by the NAACP in 1951. However, during a performance tour of the U.S., she became a target of the FBI, was labeled a communist, and was banned from her homeland for a decade. President John F. Kennedy lifted the ban in 1963 just in time for her to attend the March on Washington where Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. She was the only woman to speak that day, which she called “the happiest day of my life.” She wore her French Air Force uniform with all her medals pinned to her chest. It was a stunning moment for the Civil Rights Movement.

Josephine Baker showed what one woman could do in the fight for liberty and justice for all people. France has consistently showed its appreciation for her endeavors--and the United States should, too!

Josephine Baker Inducted into the French Panthéon

On Tuesday, November 30, Josephine Baker was inducted into the Panthéon in Paris, an honor reserved for French notables like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Èmile Zola, Marie Curie, and Jean Moulin (French resistance fighter). President Emmanuel Macron was the only speaker at the brief but dignified ceremony.

Josephine Baker (1906-1975), an African-American woman by birth who emigrated to France when she was only 19 years old. She was a daring dancer and singer, an acclaimed actress, a French resistance spy, a Civil Rights activist, and an adoptive mother of 12 multi-racial, multicultural, multi-religious children.

A coffin containing soils from the U.S., France, and Monaco—places where Baker made her mark—was carried by French military pallbearers down a long red-carpet to the monument.

A band and choir perform at one of the stops outlining Baker's life.

The pallbearers stopped several times along the way for multi-media presentations that played Baker’s songs and highlighted her achievements.

Before the coffin entered the Panthéon, a luminary display (a common French art form) was projected onto the building to tell her life story.

The coffin enters the Panthéon in dramatic fashion down the long aisle to be placed in the rotunda.

The French recognized Baker's courageous and generous contributions to the war effort by awarding her several French military honors, including the Croix de Guerre. She was the first American-born woman to receive this honor.

The pallbearers set down the coffin to lie alone in state in the rotunda of the Panthéon with Baker's medals on top of it.

President Macron and his wife, Brigitte (right), stand next to Prince Albert of Monaco (center) who is standing next to one of Baker's 12 children. Below after the ceremony, Macron greets Baker's children.