Ghosts of Stein, Picasso and Hemingway:
I Discover 1920's Paris

By Arnie Greenberg
Contact Arnie at
ultours1@gmail.com

Arnie leads a final trip to Paris to rediscover all his favorite places. To join his tour, May 12-26, 2008, email him at the address above.

One of the things that drives us to unknown places is mystery and another is adventure. It is the unknown, the places that are different that we seek out.

The odd-shaped buildings, especially in Barcelona or Spain or France. The foreign places, languages and legends draw me as do the historical facts. I've traveled to more places than most, and I'm always intrigued by the differences. If I wanted something similar, I might have stayed home.

But in some far off places, we find a spot for ourselves. We fit right in and feel at home. France is such a place for me, since I speak the language and spent 37 years teaching mostly about Paris.

(Arnie Greenberg in front of the famous Shakespeare & Company bookstore, in Paris, where ghosts really live)

I understand the shock that Frenchmen must have felt when, in 1871, the heads of the Germanic States knelt before the Prussian Kaiser and swore their allegiance to the new nation, GERMANY. The shock was that it happened at the Palace of Versailles on French hallowed ground, the place where the great French Kings once lived.

I was moved when I saw pictures of the German Army of 1941 marching down the Champs Elysees. I walked on the Place de La Bastille and remembered the French Revolution. I remember the historical allegiance between France and the United States through General Lafayette.

Paris: "The place we had to be."

But in more modern times, I came to revere Paris as the place where the great names of American, British and French literature, lived, partied, frolicked and fought. I spent most of my adult life teaching about the years during and after WWI, when poets, writers and musicians flocked to Paris. It was, as Gertrude Stein said, "The place we had to be."

I remember Steven Longstreet's book, We All Went To Paris, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast" and Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return. They were all about the great names who went to and won over Paris. It was a mythical time to be young ant to be in the city of light.

Through Hemingway, I found Stein. Through Stein, I found Picasso, and through them all I found Paris. It was where I too had to be.

(Through Hemingway, Greenberg found Picasso)

Now, as I plan a final trip to the land of wine, truffles, foie gras and poppies, I remember other trips and other discoveries. I return to Paris with my trusty little address book. I have hundreds of addresses showing where fertile minds once lived.

Hemingway Had Many Homes in Paris

For Hemingway there are many homes. For Gertrude there were only two in Paris and a third near Lyons. For Picasso there are both houses and studios. Add Matisse, Chagall, Isadora Duncan, Sylvia Beach, Ezra Pound, But there were other giants of art and literature who lived in Paris to drink in the atmosphere of creation. It was here that James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot lived, Miro, Braque and Henri Rousseau painted works of art here.

Lesser-known artists struggled and won fame here. Kees Van Dongen, that "big gesticulasting double-jointed devil," won fame here. So did Eric Satie, Hans Arp, Guillaume Appollinaire, Anais Nin, Henry Miller and Modigliani. The list goes on.

(Hemingway himself)

I have hundreds of creative artists listed in my Paris address book. The people are long gone, but when we tour Paris, we bring them back to life for a moment. I stand outside 27 rue de Fleurus and talk about the Saturday night soirees at Gertrude Steins. We visit the site of the Bateau Lavoire on rue Ravignan where Picasso began his great discovery. We walk along rue Cardinal-Lemoine and look up at the fourth-floor apartment of Hemingway.

Even the shop below is still called 'Under Hemingway's'. Joyce worked in a borrowed apartment right across the road. On rue Notre Dame des Champs we walk in the shadow of Hemingway, Joyce, Dos Passos and Ezra Pound.

There are still places in Paris where these giants drank, ate and laughed. We still hear them at The Dome, La Coupole, Le Select or La Rotonde.

We see the bookstore where they borrowed, sold and published their work. Shakespeare and Co is a flagship for 1920's writers.
There are museums that still show the works of the expatriate artists. We visit the Picasso Museum and stand in awe of his genius. Other names come up on the fly as we pass the homes of Man Ray, Thomas Wolfe, Dos Passos, Mondrian, Moise Kisling and, of course Leopold Gottleib with whom Kisling fought a dual.

Searching for Diego Rivera's Hangouts

We search for Diego Rivera's hangouts, the home of F Scott Fitzgerald, Sergei Diaghilev, T.S. Eliot and two of my favorites, Harry and Caresse Crosby, millionaire publishers with a bizarre lifestyle. He eventually shot himself. A lost soul…

(The Crosby signature)

There isn't time enough to see it all, but there is time to spend an afternoon visiting the graves of many at the Pere Lachaise cemetery with Edith Piaf, Modigliani and Gertrude Stein.

This is what I do in Paris. I see other places of interest along the way, but it's the memory of greatness that draws me to Paris again and again in the museums, their homes and the streets and bistros that draw me like a magnet.

(Edith Piaf)

Spend an hour in La Coupole, Les Deux Magots, Brasserie Lipp or the Lapin Agile. You'll know what I'm feeling. You'll feel the same way in George Whiman's Shakespeare & Co bookstore just opposite the Notre Dame Cathedral on the left bank. Here's where the ghosts really live.

(Les Deux Magots restaurant in Paris)

My tour to Paris, the Loire, Dordogne and Bordeaux is May 12-26, 2008. Call if you're interested. Toll free in North America at 1 888 387 7878. Just tell them to send you the information. Leave you're telephone number. I'll call you back, or write to me. I'll tell you about a unique trip at a popular price that you can take from your own home town. Registration has already started!

To contact me, email: ultours1@gmail.com.