I was standing to the side of the grave waiting for the small group of people to leave so I could take a clean photo, clear of them and their energy. One thing I am doing since I've moved to the 20th Arrondissement is repeatedly shooting photos of scenes and things that interest me--on different days with variance of light or change in season, or maybe because I see an angle
that I didn't notice before.
When I lived in my beloved 2nd Arrondissement, we didn't experience the seasonal metamorphosis to the same degree. Sensory information that naturally envelops us when we step outside here was harder to come by in the historic quarter in which we lived, though I am a lover of its worn stones and the life that was carried out on them.
But on this day I was impatiently waiting to the side of the grave I had come to photograph for this group to be on their way, when a 20-ish-year-old man said in a British accent, presumably to his mother, "Who is Gertrude Stein?"
Wash your mouth out with soap! I wanted to say.
The Lone Wolf would call this fellow a younger-the-dumber. I had to clamp my jaws together to keep my mouth shut, but I'm sure I was making an appropriate face as I am wont to do. The mother who had not educated this child properly, in my opinion, starting moving them away from earshot. Truly, I think she was embarrassed.
Has it been so long that Ms. Stein has been gone (1946) that younger generations no longer know who Gertrude Stein is? If this Brit didn't know, what about an American of the same age? For God's sake!
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