A Dog Day Afternoon . . .

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This Sunday afternoon, as fate would have it, there was a conspiracy of vectorial forces which combined to bring the authors of five different blogs all together at the same time in front of la Maison Européenne de la Photographie, where they then proceeded to enter said establishment to see the exhibition, on its closing date, of Elliott Erwitt's personally chosen "best" photography from over a period spanning nearly 60 years. And what a show it was. Elliott Erwitt has long been a hero to me, so it was an immense pleasure to see his work in such a fine setting, and in such good company. More on all of that soon, but I wanted to get this up before I go hit the sack, in humble homage to one of the greatest living photographers of all time. Erwitt was a prolific photographer, travelling the world over in search of the images he captured, many of which feature our canine friends. I took this first photo in Montreal, Canada, in 1988.

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This next is in Paris back around 1991, and I've often wondered if this gentleman had only one leg, and was hopping along beside his dog . . . although I can't for the life of me remember if that was actually the case.

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An Extinct Breed . . .

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In the post just below this one, I offered what I had thought were going to be some tantalizing yet insoluable clues as to the identity of an automobile which is older than I am, that we had encountered while out walking in our village, Sunday a week ago. But to my great astonishment, Arnaud of Random Shots came back just hours later with the correct answer; he was absolutely right, it was a Panhard. I was literally dumbfounded. I usually prefer my dream cars (see "dream cars" in the labels list in sidebar) to have a little more rust on them, this one had almost none. One can't always have everything, I guess . . .

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One interesting detail of these cars is the front doors which are hinged at the back edge and thus open in the opposite way from most cars we are familiar with. Just goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat . . . (not that I want any cats skinned ! Certainly not ours !) Panhard cars ceased to be built in the 1960's after a buyout . . . so gems like this one are the last remnants of what will become an extinct breed, as they are no longer reproducing.

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When Zebras Roam In My Dreams . . .

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Last Sunday morning, just after posting the piece about Karine Arnou's lovely zebra painting under the title of Blue Zebra Moons, la Grenouille and I went out for a walk through the village. Imagine my total stupefaction when I found myself face to face with a real live zebra, a realio, trulio, zebrio zebra. Zebras are not native to this region of northern France . . . but the circus was in town ! Which only happens once in a blue moon . . .

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So, for your ultimate zebra viewing pleasure, you get the front view, the side view . . .
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And the rear view . . .
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There were even painted portraits of zebras (not as nice as Karine's though) . . .
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And not only zebras, but llamas and camels too ! A menagerie . . .
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Send in the clowns ! (quoth Switters !)
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After leaving the circus, and walking quite a way up the road, in an unexpected place we stumbled upon an ancient and beautiful automobile, from back in the far-gone days when things were actually built to last. Now I know from experience that there are one or two experts on old automobiles out there, so I'm going to give you three details of the car we saw, to see if these are enough clues for anyone to identify the beast . . .
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A tail light gleaming like hard candy . . .
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And finally a tailpipe like the paw of some strange animal . . . a chrome covered ostrich maybe ?

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