Friday, May 15, 2009

Tout Va Bien . . . All Is Well . . .

Shot this broken toilet one morning while out walking in Paris a few years back. . . another "revers du décor" piece (the reverse side of the decoration) I can remember hollering with laughter at this desolate defunct toilet that had keeled over spilled its guts in the street. Some things in life just don't turn out as you planned ; this toilet surely never dreamed it would end up like this ! After having served faithfully and having submitted to god only knows what indignations over the years . . . there is little justice in life . . .
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But remember, no matter how bad things get, wherever you may be, whatever is going on in your world : TOUT VA BIEN. . . All is Well, here on planet Earth, this best of all possible worlds. I'm sure it was Voltaire's ghost who plastered these posters all over Paris for a while. . . and then disappeared again back to his grave. (and I like the comment about television too, reminds me of that line from "Working Class Hero" by J. Lennon : "They keep you doped with religion and sex and TV, and you think you're so clever and classless and free. . .")
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7 comments:

Steve said...

Even a broken toilet in Paris has a sense of class and style...!

Owen said...

Steve, you are a man after my own heart; it takes a special eye like yours to see class and style in a broken, fractured, shattered toilet... but imho this toilet exhibits a rare degree of nobility even in its reduced condition here. Ahh, Paris, the City of Light, the City of Noble Broken Toilets !

William Evertson said...

Wait a minute - I thought a few posts ago people were complaining about the lack of toilets in Paris. On a more somber note - It's hard to pick a Lennon favorite but that is right up there. My wife and I were somewhere in that crowd scene after his shooting-one of the saddest of days.

Margaret Pangert said...

Loved the video. Pretty much sums it up. My favorite song was "Let It Be," and I taught it to my English students at Ecole Berlitz when I was living in France (Versailles).

Margaret Pangert said...

btw, I didn't know you were allowed to pack in Paris!

jeff said...

@Steve : Sacré steevie !...

Tout va bien !... sex, net and rock n'roll !...

Cat said...

I always smile when I see an abandoned toilet! When I was a teenager my grandmother was furious with my grandfather for not removing a toilet from behind the back porch. He was working on replacing an entire bathroom and just left it sitting. She poured potting soil in it and grew petunias in it that summer. They grew to be the biggest we had ever seen. My poppaw made sure it was gone in the fall after all the jokes had run their course and he didn't leave any kind of container around again!