Part I: Milo and the Lion
I never cared much for the Palace of Versailles — all that suffocating excess topped with swarms of tourists. It’s like hot chocolate drowned in whipped cream: rich, cloying, and utterly exhausting. But the gardens? Yes, please. I could wander that green labyrinth for hours, half-convinced the sculptures start watching me the moment I stop watching them.
One caught me this time: Milo of Croton by Pierre Puget (well, a copy — the original lives at the Louvre). The legendary Greek athlete is shown in his twilight years, trying to split a tree trunk. According to the myth, his hands get trapped in the wood, leaving him helpless — in this version, to a lion who’s biting his behind.
It’s dramatic, emotional — classic Baroque. But also darkly funny, as if Puget were whispering, “One day you’re taming lions; the next, they’re chewing your ass.” I felt that.
One day, I was sprinting up the stairs to Sacré-Cœur — no sweat. The next, I was doubled over on a Parisian sidewalk, clutching my side, disoriented, and, of course, it was Saturday.
I found a clinic (open till six, I was told). I made it by five, explaining to a cheery man behind the counter my agony in agonizing French. His English wasn’t much better. The part I understood — “All doctors gone.”
Wandering the streets again, pain mounting, I spotted a line of cabs outside a swanky hotel — all reserved. None would take me.
A phrase from an old Soviet comedy floated up: “Saving those who are drowning is the responsibility of those who are drowning.”
So I walked into the hotel like I belonged there — and went Baroque. I yelled that I was dying and needed a hospital. It worked.
The hospital saga? I’ll spare you. After a CAT scan confirming a kidney stone, a brief doctor’s visit, eight hours of idling, and a bill that could buy a painting, I left with painkillers and a “bonne chance.”
Back at my Airbnb in the Latin Quarter, I collapsed. At 3 a.m., pain woke me again — along with the drunken chorus of a la vie est belle crowd outside. I whispered, “The show must go on.”
In my arsenal of proverbial lifebuoys, I have a handful of quotes for moments like this.
But pain doesn’t negotiate. Whether it comes from the inside or outside. Years ago, I worked at the Marjorie Kovler Center for survivors of torture, and if I learned anything there, it was this: our capacity for cruelty is vast — and so is our capacity for compassion.
My pain wasn’t inflicted. It came from within. And honestly, I feared spending the rest of my trip in bed more than passing the damn stone. So, I pleaded with my body — vehemently — and by morning, with some cursing (always helps), it passed.
By the next day, I felt like Milo in his prime again — sipping a latte, quoting Woody Allen: "Life's like Vegas. You're up, you're down, but in the end the house always wins. Doesn't mean you didn't have fun."
For a few days, I lived as if nothing had happened — until I saw the sculpture again in Versailles. Then I remembered: the lion is always waiting.
And that’s not all. Sooner or later, your hand — or both — gets caught in the tree of our everything-happens-at-once lives. What’s left is to hold, with whatever you have, to the edge — between myth and surrender.
The museum was closing. It was time to go. I gave the gardens one last look.
Power is fleeting. Wonder isn’t.
Part II: The Music of Chaos
On the train back to Paris, I listened to Les Élémens (The Elements) by Jean-Féry Rebel. Composed in 1737, it opens with Le Chaos — a radical movement: every note of the D harmonic minor scale played at once.
Discordant. Jarring. Magnificent. The four elements — earth, air, fire, water — colliding in primordial confusion.
Versailles, with its gilded symmetry and manicured order — beauty wrapped around power — seemed like a temple to Louis XIV’s obsession with control and harmony. Rebel had served there, head of the elite 24 Violons du Roy. He knew the rules — he wrote by the rules. But at 71, he broke with them.
Not to start a musical revolution — but perhaps because, at last, he understood the quiet necessity of dissonance.
We tolerate chaos in music now — Stravinsky is my guy — but in life? Not so much. Western culture loves comfort, resolution, the major chord. When things fall apart, when relationships go sideways, when our bodies betray us, we panic or feel disillusioned.
But let’s be real — constant harmony is stifling. Without dissonance, there’s no tension. No depth. No movement. No growth.
As the train was approaching Paris, I thought of physicist Ilya Prigogine, in his Order Out of Chaos, where he explains how systems evolve through instability — not in spite of it. Chaos isn’t the end. It’s the compost from which new order grows.
New order… I noticed my shoe was untied; I fixed it without much thought, continuing my musings. One caveat: chaos is not only stressful, it’s expensive. It burns energy the way my ’76 Mercury Marquis (you never forget your first car) burned gas — fast. And energy is precious. Our brains cling to habits for a reason: they save effort. Tying a shoe without thinking twice — isn't that a blessing? Even our bad habits can be economical. Comfortable.
But dissonance? Dissonance cracks things open.
Sometimes it’s a kidney stone. Sometimes it’s a lion.
Either way, it’s the unexpected that jolts us awake. On occasion, it also reconnects us with art, meaning, and each other on a much deeper level. Breaking is part of dying — and part of becoming.
So yes — dissonance is underrated. Maybe it’s the invitation to break old patterns, to tune into what’s real, to feel more intensely — and more honestly.
What compelled Jean-Féry Rebel to create his piece, we'll never know. He wasn't some young rebel in leather and eyeliner I stumbled upon outside a subway exit. But one thing is certain: the aged, white-wigged composer pushed the boundaries of sound when most of his peers were polishing their court manners.
Play Rebel. Be one.
From page to thread — a story you can wear
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