“Where are you Oscar? You scamp,” I muttered to myself as I gazed upon the endless rows of the dead at Cimetière du Père Lachaise.
It made me smile. Oscar, I’m sure, would find it funny. Someone he’d never met searching in vain for his lipstick covered tomb.
“You know Oscar, I l spent a debauched summer in a place where you supposedly once stayed in Halifax. So I feel, like, you know . . . we have a connection.”
An Italian couple were also searching for you. As I was about to give up, a little knot of people in the 6th district gave you away.
Only two people in this cemetery provoke so much attention — you and Jim Morrison. I’m sure you’d be chuffed to know you’re still drawing crowds more than a hundred years after your death.
I have to say your tomb is kinda disappointing Oscar. Your naked winged angel (hearkening back to an ancient Art Deco Assyria) now kept behind a huge Plexiglass shield — to keep the adoring masses at bay. All this effort to find you and now we can’t even get close to you!
Somehow vibrant shades of scarlet still decorate your tomb — where did they find a ladder? — and the angel’s puckered lips are coloured and ready for her eternal closeup, Mr. DeMille.
As you once said: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Perhaps, it’s the same in death.
If you go
(and you really should!)
Location: 8 boulevard de Ménilmontant in the 20th Arrondissement — do walk if you can. I just love exploring Paris by foot for hours!
And the entrance cost is FREE!
For more information: Cimetiere-du-Pere-Lachaise
© Jennifer Robinson and BulaHoop.ca, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jennifer Robinson and BulaHoop.ca with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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