Musée de la Poupée

If you thought my abouna puppet was creepy, my friend, you ain't seen nothin' yet. After class today I wandered over to the Musée de la Poupée, a small exhibition of antique dolls originally collected by a couple of guys named Guido and Samy. The dolls were made of bisque, leather, and cork, and some had been passed from mother to daughter for at least four generations before ending up in a collection. The captions in this museum are actually great -- they describe the preferred appearance of dolls in given time periods, the makers' marks found on the dolls, and the contemporary fashions that influenced the dolls' outfits. Some dolls had little dogs with actual fur to accompany them (a couple of which doubled as candy dispensers). There were even African dolls, which became increasingly popular as a result of colonization. Attached to the antique exhibition was a pretty cool display of Barbies, starting with the one from 1959 and including Dallas-inspired and rock star editions. My favorite was definitely a Ken doll wearing a shiny shirt and posed next to a hot pink unicorn.

Although they don't allow photos in the museum, there is no way I could deny you a taste of the toys' glassy eyes and murderous smiles. So here are some images I swiped off of the postcards sold in the gift shop.



I can't decide which of those dolls more closely resembles the antichrist. And look at the choppers on this one! Some of the dolls I saw today had TWO rows of nasty little picket fence teeth.



I also wandered down to one of Paris's more famous English language bookstores, The Red Wheelbarrow. It is, of course, named for the William Carlos Williams poem:

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

The store has only been open since 2001, so it's not the most historic of Paris's bookstores, but it has a great selection of books to browse. The small space is absolutely crammed with books, which are packed into every centimeter of shelf space and piled high on tables in the middle of the room. It's well worth a look.