Strange Delights . . .

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A garden of earthly lights, right in the heart of Paris, along the quai Branly, by the museum. No wonder people call it the City of Light.
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More Orange For the End of Autumn . . .

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Anybody up for some pumpkin pie ?
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Take Me Down to the Sea Again . . . to Sail in a Ship of Dreams . . .

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...The Lost Lady of Locquénolé
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How many times did we run out to sea
Out to the British Channel
Descending the Bay of Morlaix
So early in the morning
With the tide just starting to turn
And every time we motored by
The Chateau du Taureau in the fog
That fort out on a cold rock
In the middle of the bay
I swore I heard the ghosts of prisoners calling
Those who drowned while trying to swim
From that accursed jail out on the wide water
Where chill currents could drag a man under
Never to be seen again in this world
Those prisoners from fine families of old
Who had found no useful place in life
And turned to gambling and liquor and gold
Or maybe those ghostly cries were from
The souls of 114 men who drowned
When the Alcide went down in 1747
Two days before Christmas
The bay is full of hungry water and cold bones
Yet we motored on out to sea
Time and time again
Day after day, year after year
In fog and all sorts of weather
Reading the compass bearing due north
Heading for open water
Seeking the spots where the sea bass rise
Pulling up traps full of lobster and crabs
Dreaming of mackerel while mending the motor
Some days simply just drifting
Watching the wind play on the waves
Our faces weathered by salted spray
But nothing lasts forever
We grew old and grey
Feebled and hobbled
Our lady put to sea no more
There she lies tied to the shore
For years she'd float when the tide came in
But now she floats no longer
Graffiti grafted on her sides
Perhaps the ultimate insult
Time's cruel work persistant
Broke open her joints, splintered her planks
Before long there will be naught but the engine block
Rusting away in the mud and the flood
And the dream of a seagoing lady
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The photos above were taken in 2008. The hull was still fairly well intact, I don't know if she could have been restored from that state, but perhaps at least salvaged to sit on dry land to be admired for some years to come. But that was not to be, and this past summer I took the following photos as she lay split open and filled with water with every high tide. She will surely soon disintegrate. From dust to dust.
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A Small Show In Paris . . .

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It is a great pleasure to share with you here that a small showing of four photos that I took this past summer in the south of France has just begun in the Canon Photo Prony store at 55 rue de Prony, 75017 Paris, and will be up for the next few months. I would like to give a big "Thank You" to Gilles and his team there. We got to talking last summer one day, and I mentioned that some of the photos from the trip in July to Florac and the Causse Méjean could be seen here on the blog. It was a very great and positive surprise when a couple of weeks later he asked me if I could do some large prints in order to hang them in the store in Paris. So shortly thereafter I delivered four big prints, measuring 45 by 60 cms, or roughly 18 inches by 24 inches. And as of yesterday they are hanging in the store. The first public showing ever of any of my work, in printed form of course. This blog is where it started, in virtual format. But there is no comparison between a print done on fine quality photographic paper, and what can be seen on a computer screen. In any case, should you happen to be in Paris in the near future, please do drop by to say hello to Gilles and the team at Photo Prony, and take a look at the prints of these photos. These are the four photos thus exposed.
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C'est un grand plaisir de partager l'info ici avec vous qu'une petite exposition de quatre photos faites cet été dans le sud de la France vient de commencer dans la boutique Canon Photo Prony, au 55 rue de Prony, Paris 17ème, et sera visible pendant quelques mois. J'aimerais dire un très grand Merci à Gilles et son équipe au magasin. Nous avons commencé à parler cet été à propos du sejour que j'avais fait dans le sud, et du fait que quelques photos de ce voyage étaient visibles sur le blog. Imaginez ma surprise quand quelques semaines plus tard il m'a demandé si je pourrais fournir quelques tirages en grand format pour exposer au magasin. Peu de temps après j'ai livré quatres grands tirages, format 45cm x 60 cms, et depuis hier ils sont joliment présentés dans la boutique. C'est la première fois que mes photos en format papier sont exposées quelque part, il n'y pas de comparaison entre la qualité d'un tirage sur papier de bonne qualité et une image sur écran d'ordinateur. Bref, si vous êtes dans Paris dans un avenir proche, n'hésitez pas à passer par le rue de Prony pour dire bonjour à l'équipe Photo Prony, et voir ces photos de plus près. Voici les quatre photos.
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The rue de Prony begins just opposite the main entrance to the Parc Monceau in the 17th arrondissement, shown here. The round columned building here primarily houses public toilets. (just in case !)
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And just a few short blocks up the rue de Prony from the Parc Monceau you will find the Canon Photo Prony shop.
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Merci BEAUCOUP Gilles !
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Symphony in Orange Minor . . .

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Just from this first image, can you identify the subject matter here, without looking further down ?
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For the anatomically minded among you (who can't help but be a little fascinated by anatomy, when confronted with the marvellously intricate workings of the natural world, including our bodies ?) the finely filigreed lace work of this structure may conjure up memories of distant biology classes, fractals, and all the studies of the most incredible designs that Mother Nature pulls out of her seemingly infinitely wondrous bag of tricks. And no, it is not a tomato behind a dried out leaf.
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Is it clearer now ?
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The wonders that surround us never fail to floor me. Just take the human eye, for example. Compared to the human eye, even the finest of digital cameras with their millions of pixels and an assortment of lenses from fisheye wide angles to super telephotos and everything in between, still cannot compare to what the human eye can capture. And in such a small package too. The lens opening and thickness of the pupil is tiny compared to the lens on any camera, and the retina with its most amazing array of color and light sensibility is still far superior to any film or digital sensor, not to mention the visual processing areas of our brain which leave the software in a camera back in the stone age. How lucky we are to have such wonders already pre-installed as standard equipment at birth, they don't even have to be ordered as options.
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Yes, these are the fruit of chinese lantern plants. (Physalis alkekengi) They showed up unannounced in our garden last year for the first time, maybe the gift of a passing bird (?), and this year there were even more than last year, so I guess they multiply themselves. Last December I did a couple of posts about them, here, and here. This past weekend I was poking about in the garden, and saw that this year's crop had already ripened, many had gone beyond ripe, and were already showing their skeletal structures. So it was well time to harvest them.
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What better favorite plant to decorate a blog called the Magic Lantern Show ? As I delved deeper underneath their wide leaves, I found more and more lanterns in all states of ripeness, many with their fruits visible within, some empty, though with no sign of possible exit for the fruits, leaving me wondering if they had been eaten by gluttonous little scavengers ? Apparently the fruits are good to eat, richer in vitamin C than lemons, according to one website I read today, and full of other therapeutic herbal qualities. If they are not only fun to look at but healthful as well, I may have to plant more of them !
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An autumn breeze blew in a cluster of red leaves around the lanterns that had piled up outside.
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Here they are back in August already well formed, but in varying degrees of advancement. Who knows what mysterious laws govern the transformation from green to gold to rich orange while the fruit seeds develop within ? Who wrote the notes that form the pages of that long slow symphony in orange minor ?
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Finally at the end of an afternoon spent contemplating their mysteries, they whispered to me, "Take us inside, place us in a safe place, enjoy our beauty through the coming winter..." What could I do but obey them ?
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So they have now taken up residence in pottery platter on our coffee table where one can sit and ponder over them regardless of the weather out of doors, where their fine lace forms will perhaps last longer than had they fallen to the ground in the autumn rains, and withered under winter snows.
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As I sat and watched them this November evening, my eyes became unfocused while listening to the soft strains of their gentle orange ballad, and a flowing orange dream took possession of my drifting mind.
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Orange winds blew me further out upon an orange sea . . . where orange waves lapped merrily. ("Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream"?)
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May your autumn days be graced with luminous orange bliss. (for those of you in the southern hemisphere, where Spring is well along now, replace "autumn" with "Spring", and gloat a little :-)
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