Thursday, September 29, 2011

Wings . . .

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After the last rather long, and perhaps a bit exhausting, installment in this ongoing menagerie of a blog, I thought I'd spare you and keep it simple this time. These two butterflies, or flutterbyes, have been waiting patiently since July to walk on stage here. You could say they've been waiting... in the wings.
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Saturday, September 24, 2011

Misbehaving In Paris !

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A twist of fate took me into Paris today, and I confess, I behaved very badly. I spent the entire afternoon walking hither and thither taking photographs wherever I could find them. Strangely enough, I found rather a lot of them, over three hundred if you must know. Given that this week marks the third birthday of this blog, and that it also marks the second birthday of James Weekend Reflections, I thought I would dare to share with you a rather large dose of today's photographic bounty, if you can bear it, from a day spent misbehaving in Paris, including rather a few photos containing reflections of various sorts. I hope you won't catch a bad case of sensory overload and bail out on me before the sunset. So, without further ado, the walk started (and ended) at the Place de la Concorde, as there is a convenient underground parking space there, almost immediately in front of the American Embassy. Ah, Paris. What is it about Paris that makes people from all over the world want to come here ? Is it because Paris may be among the most photogenic cities on earth ? I don't know how many hundreds of cameras I saw today, in all sizes and forms, but they were everywhere I looked. Collectively, I wonder how many photos are snapped in Paris on average every day ? Millions ? More ?
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I have to admit, and Grenouille please forgive me, I can't help but look at the ladies when walking around Paris. Along with cameras, there is an abundance of lovely ladies to admire in the City of Light.
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Couldn't help but stroll through the Tuilleries park, one of the highlights of which are the people who come out with sailboats to rent for sailing on the fountain ponds.
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For some reason these ancient sailboats always make me think of the book/film The Red Balloon. Paris from another age.
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A red headed boy set about launching his ship across the circular sea. Some forty years ago I too was a red headed boy in Paris. Funny how some things in life go full circle, returning to where they started. You may want to start counting the reflections from here forward.
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Another time-honored tradition in Paris parks . . . feeding the pigeons. Were it Wednesday I would have put this in for World Bird Wednesday. Anyway, not sure an ordinary Parisian pigeon would be suitable birdlife for that venerable venue.
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What walk in Paris would be complete if it didn't get to the Louvre at some point, that focalisation of fine arts from throughout history. One can feel the weight of culture in the air. Or is that just pyramid power ?
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Not far from the Louvre, I liked the looks of this bar, called Bar N'Importe Quoi... which I read as basically meaning "Anything Goes". They seemed to welcome hats, judging from the two in the window, and a third in a reflected form... who was that masked man ? (That's what the ladies looking out of the poster were asking.)
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Perhaps I will add angels to the list of abundant visual gastronomy in Paris, along with cameras and ladies. For unfathomable reasons, I saw quite a few angels today. At many angles. These two were beseeching me to deposit any loose coins I might be carrying in their treasure chest.
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In a church near the Louvre . . . Sainte Genevieve, patron saint of Paris . . .
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It being rather warm this afternoon, after a few hours of the incredibly hard work which is seeking out photographs waiting to be stolen from the greedy jaws of passing time, I took a break in a café, ordering a tall cold panaché. (that's half beer half citronnade for the un-initiated, very refreshing) The interior decoration of the place consisted nearly entirely of portraits of Native Americans. Someone went to a lot of trouble to collect all those portraits and have them nicely framed. My hat was off to whoever it was that cares enough to want to keep their memory alive, while so many would rather simply forget the whole tragic story.
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My path led me past the Paris stockmarket building, which is not open to the public, as I was informed by a perfectly nasty doorman. No wonder ; they wouldn't want any outsiders to see all the shenanigans and black dealings that go on inside those circular walls. Much better to be out sailing a sailboat in the Tuilleries than to try to make any sense of the convoluted chaos which worldwide stock markets have become. Bands of thieves and lairs of the larcenous, working with virtual derivative tools so complex that even the criminal minds which conceived them no longer control the monster they have created. Thumbs down on investment bankers and traders everywhere. Throw them to the lions, I say. The world would be better off without that breed of leeches who create nothing of value, they just suck the life blood of others. (sorry for ranting, but it really infuriates me that the very small holding in stock I have - err, had - is worth ZERO today, thanks to irresponsible market forces, driven by speculation, managed by people with six or seven digit salaries and bonuses) Outside the stockmarket building I saw this stack of road signs, and figured these must be the directions the traders are following. No wonder we are in such a MESS today.
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Putting that behind me, I wandered on, and stumbled on two damsels with their heads in the clouds, dreaming, dreaming of a better world. This may be the most ethereal reflection photo I've ever taken. I'm not one for patting myself on the back, far from it, but I am rather pleased with this one. Perhaps also because there is almost a glimpse of décolleté here.
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A building is being torn down outside and above the Forum des Halles, the old market of central Paris. Fortunately, they hadn't torn off all the reflecting panels on the outside yet, leaving a vast array of reflections shining just a little bit longer there.
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One sees the strangest sights on side streets in Paris. Lions . . .
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And bears . . . (I was keeping my eyes peeled for tigers)
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Funny, apparently I am not the only one out there with strong feelings about banks and traders ! Yo !
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Urban street art appears in many forms all over Paris. Rarely fails to capture my full attention.
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I mentioned angels earlier. This sidewalk chalk artist was well along in an angelic rendering in the square by the Centre Pompidou.
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Adjacent to the angels, another artist was busy on a large mural.
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He was accepting alms from passersby to put food on the table. I tossed a coin in the tin. I hope he makes enough to survive on for some years to come. Producing art on Paris promenades seems a worthy calling, imho. An honest undertaking.
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"Je suis an Artiste" he proclaimed. "I am an Artist"
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The famous fountains by the Pomidou Center. One of the most photographed sites in Paris no doubt, up there with the Eiffel Tower and Jim Morrison's grave.
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There she was again, that cryptic messenger . . . It's a bit hard to read, but the bubble says , "Things Got Out of Control".
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This enigmatic face was in the Eglise St Merry, or Saint Merry's Church, a block from the Pompidou Center. Which just happens to be where la Grenouille and I got married 19 years ago come December.
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Another trip in reflections. And there is that guy in the hat again. He seems to be everywhere I go.
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On the footbridge across the Seine between the Ile Saint Louis and the Ile de la Cité, behind Notre Dame Cathedral, a gentleman was creating large soapbubbles, using two sticks with strings between them. What better way to entrance all those people passing by who may still be children at heart ? (Like me ?) I won't tell you how many pictures of giant bubbles I took.
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Crazy undulating forms in irridescence.
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At the far end of the bubbling bridge, a strangely decorated form of locomotion awaited me. A rebel on a mission. He didn't like traders either.
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An unbelievable assortment of objects adorned his most original vehicle.
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The Memory Factory... err, the Souvenir Factory... so this is where they all come from.
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Did you ever see a tree with legs ? Well, there's a first time for everything.
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By the time I got to the far end of the Ile de la Cité, the sun was already going down behind the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
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And by the time I got back to the Place de la Concorde, night was falling fast. With that I bid you good night ; for traipsing about Paris making hundreds of photographs is exhausting work, errr, fun, and I'm ready for my beauty sleep. I hope you enjoyed an extra long installment on this continuing creation, and that it didn't prevent you from doing anything important you needed to get done today.
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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Chic Chick . . .

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The Italian politician Berlusconi has been in the press a lot lately because it is alleged that various people provided young women to serve the role of escorts for him at his lavish parties. They chased up chicks for him, apparently. I hope I won't be accused of anything similar for having offered up this sexy and fashionable most chic chick for the rightly revered Mr Springman's perusal at his World Bird Wednesday party, going on right now. May have to get myself a red leather jacket and some big necklace type jewelry. As for this chick, I had to go all the way to the south of France to find her. And though she may not be a spring chicken, she could now be considered a Springman chicken. Enjoy ! Just imagine how good she'd taste after a spell in your oven and laid out all saucy like on your lap ? Errrr, on your plate, I meant. (sorry, guess I'll just pluck off now...)(please don't henpeck me too much for this momentary lapse of reason)(and don't call me a turkey either !)
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Monday, September 19, 2011

Exploring Dark Places . . .

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Where to start ?
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Work kept me more than busy into the wee hours of every morning last week, then Saturday rolled around and daughter needed to go shopping for school things, papa had to open up the wallet at the store. Then all night long la grenouille and I were rocking and rolling, dancing, sipping wine and nibbling cheese (what else is there to do in France ???), and conversing in very, very good company. Sunday morning rolled around and I rolled out of bed, headed right back out to go visit an abandoned sugar factory, for the second time, and it was as sweet as it sounds. More on that soon.
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The only trouble is that the "more on that soon" topics have been accumulating for years now, and I still have simply tons of photos to share with you from all over, the old black and white film days, Haiti, la Réunion island, abandoned factories in the USA, Brittany, and odds and ends from all over. I'm beginning to think another two or three lifetimes will be necessary to do all that I want to do. Sigh. Well, we do what we can, while we can, and that's it.
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I would like to mention a continuing source of inspiration, and that is the Tumblr site of TomB... he continues to post very tasty samples of his simply delicious work. And I couldn't help but think of Tom this afternoon when I spied an old stone house with bare rafters way out in the middle of a rainy farm field. There was only one thing to be done, and that was to go take a closer look. The photos that follow show what I saw. (oh, and please do tell ten or twenty friends to go take a look at Tom's pages, his photos are sublime. Just imagine, if all ten thousand people who visit here every day were to tell just ten other people to go visit Tom's page, why, that would give Tom's site a hundred thousand page hits... wouldn't that be way cool ???)
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So, who lived here in this small stone home long ago ? Where did they go ? Will anyone ever live here again ? I'm willing to bet there may a few souls out there who would love to take this on as a fixer-upper project. Just look, those roof beams are still standing strong, just need to slap a new roof on them.

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I have to admit, we may want to find a new interior decorator, I have some doubts about the last one whose work is visible here.
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The roof on the farm shed behind the house may also need a bit of freshening up.
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And now for something completely different. I'd like to add that for quite some time I have been keeping an eye on Rima's blog The Hermitage, and am simply in awe of her artwork and down to earth approach to life on our planet. Several weeks ago she did a beautifully long post about a painting she did which has become the cover art for a book called Dark Mountain, which is a recent production of the Dark Mountain Project. After reading Rima's post, and taking a look at their website, I ordered a copy of the book, both to have one of Rima's paintings in the house, and to discover the writing from the Dark Mountain, which imho, is well worth discovering. Do take a look if you're curious, and if hooked like I was, then order the book. It is perhaps the most thought provoking work I've come across in quite some time. This is the cover, by Rima.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Wheel of Fortune and Other Signs of Our Times . . .

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This strange little numbered disk was on a door in an abandoned sugar factory "visited" recently early one Sunday morning. I cannot fathom what its purpose was, other than to remind us that the wheels of fortune are turning, turning, and not much we can do to slow them down. Something oddly beautiful in its numbered simplicity, or so it seemed to my simple mind.
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The next one says entry is forbidden to anyone foreign to this service. That does not apply to you. For you, entry is free, absolutely free here, as often as you like, as often as you can put up with my flights of fancy.
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Although very hard to read for all the rust on it, the below sign also says entry is forbidden. That didn't stop me, I couldn't read the sign. Anyway, I didn't practice "entry", I just "slipped" in. It didn't say slipping was forbidden.
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This last one was the strangest of all. Spotted on the door to a farm courtyard, it has apparently been there for at least the past 46 years or more. It proclaims boldly in red that these stables are free from tuberculosis. I wonder if they got a new disk every year or every two years ? Tuberculosis in Europe was a fearsome disease until not so long ago, but I hadn't realized until seeing this sign that animals could catch it too. Their letter slot amused me, a bit of a hatchet job.
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Monday, September 12, 2011

What's On Her Mind ?

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Sometimes you see a pretty face, or even a picture of a pretty face, and just feel compelled to turn it into a photograph. This young lady was encountered while strolling the streets of the small Brittany city of Morlaix one day in August. I was wondering what was on her mind, when the sun came out, and all became perfectly clear. She was thinking about the colorful old houses across the way, and how much she'd like to live in one of them someday. Her reflections on the subject were rather brilliant I thought. And speaking of reflections, am just nipping in here at the tail end of James Reflections Weekend. Better late than never.
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