Sacred Musings: September 2024
My favorite Paris museum; more SOPHIE; FKA Twigs; and the 'Musical Time Machine'
Bonjour à tous et à toutes,
C’est la rentrée, back to school season, the autumn equinox. Whatever marker you subscribe to which signifies the end of summer and a return to a colder, more serious attitude.
I myself have returned to Paris, where I learned just a few days ago that my new residence here bestows me the right to a new title: Ludovicienne. Rest assured I will be wearing it out.
Earlier this month, I was hosted by the eternally chic Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles for a screening and discussion of Jean Cocteau’s 1932 classic, Le sang d’un poète. It was a packed room! I remain humbled by the amount of people who show up for these such events — and then who show up again by asking engaging, amusing, and very thoughtful questions during the Q&A portion of the evening. For those of you who weren’t able to make it, you are in luck: I will be dropping a video from the event soon.
If you’re curious as to what I sound like yapping about Cocteau — I’ve also recently guested on the Interlocutor podcast, which you can listen to here.
One of the inevitable side effects of splitting time between Los Angeles and Paris is that I am constantly asked for recommendations for places to feed both mind and body in both cities.
As I am currently in Paris — and with Art Basel Paris coming just around the corner — I’d like to sing the praises of what I think is the best museum here, one of my favorites in the world: the Musée Carnavalet.
Located in the Marais mansion of the iconic Louis XIV-era gossip the Marquise de Sévigné, this is the museum devoted to the history of Paris. While it recently reopened following several years of closure for renovations, it is a very old museum, and as such has an incredibly varied, rich — and bizarre — collection in its possession. The museum’s layout gently leads you through the history of the city chronologically, and so any visitor will see artifacts such as prehistoric canoes and arrowheads; medieval stonework celebrating the end of the Plague; Voltaire’s favorite armchair and inkwell (inscribed vivre libre ou mourir); a lock of Marie Antoinette’s hair; an original Phrygian cap; a full reconstruction of Marcel Proust’s bedroom; and so, so, so much more.
The Carnavalet is immersive, strange and wastes no space on filler. I return to it again and again and find myself amused and educated each time.
And did I mention it’s free?
While I’m on the subject of recommendations, I’d like to share one that was made to me by the lovely artist Russell Young: an app called Radiooooo (that’s five ‘o’s). It bills itself as a “Musical Time Machine” and really is just that. It allows you to select a country and decade, and will play for you a playlist based on the music popular there at the time. The options are endless — I’ve enjoyed 1960s India, 1940s Egypt, 1920s Paris, and so on, and so forth. I cannot believe I didn’t know about it sooner.
A couple final music recommendations, while I have you:
— I am a millennial of a certain age, who was a radio DJ at a certain time. As such, the new Future Islands song “Glimpse” is, inevitably, on constant rotation.
— I wrote previously about the posthumous SOPHIE album, now released. “My Forever” is a song I heard her play the one time I was lucky enough to see her live. Thank goodness I can stop listening to it via a crappy Soundcloud rip.
— FKA Twigs is an artist I adore, from visual to sonic to her advocacy for herself in the public sphere. (We share a close mutual friend and I am also happy to report that she is extraordinarily kind, thoughtful, and curious IRL.) Songs from her last release, Caprisongs, have been on repeat in my house since it was released in 2022, and I am absolutely buzzing in anticipation of her new album Eusexua. If the title track is anything to go off of, it’s a modern classic in the making. The short film she made to accompany it is a must watch in particular for fans of modern dance.
À très bientôt,
Chloë Helen America Cassens
Had the same thought about those same earrings at the Carnavalet when I visited last year! I would have bought them in a second if they were on offer... Love Proust's bedroom and all the writers honored: Gertrude Stein's desk, as well as Voltaire's. Hugo's standing desk (that he made himself) at Maison Hugo rounds out the group nicely...