<<< May 07, 2003 >>>

Despite four months living on the outskirts of Paris last year, I'd managed to put off going to the Louvre. Monday, on a bank-holiday return to the capital, I got the "rainy day" I'd been waiting for. Because of my ankle injury, I elected to visit only one small section of the hypermuseum. I hobbled past ancient trinkets and giant masterpieces, ending, of course, at la Joconde. That Da Vinci began his painting exactly 500 years ago was one of the many facts unknown to me and, I suspect, most of those who jostled for position in front of the bullet-proof case to take snapshots ("Me at the Mona Lisa!"), even digicam movies ("Me standing still for several minutes at the Mona Lisa!"). Da Vinci's innovative portrait of an unknown woman is famous for being famous. Were it not so, I probably wouldn't have stopped to look for very long, dismissing it as unremarkable, darkened, even gloomy. Mabye that's what's so funny.

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