I used to think Austin was the world’s biggest small town, but now I’m starting to think Paris is. During the first week of classes this semester, I saw three different students from my photography class at three separate locations around town. One was shooting photos near Les Halles, two was at the Richard Avedon exhibition at Jeu de Paume, and three was on the same Metro car with me – the one that broke down at Opéra.
Also in the first week I was here, I saw this big guy we played basketball with a few times at Gymnase Japy near Bastille. Then, about three weeks later, I saw him on the complete other side of town as I was coming out of work. He said he was going to boxing practice.
One night, we were coming home on the Metro from eating a noodle bowl at Higuma, and we looked directly across from us on the train car, and Matt and Jayne’s friend Florian was sitting there. We didn’t recognize him because he was wearing stage makeup, but he recognized us. He’s an actor.
Then there’s Edward. We ran into him for the first time at a party in Montmartre in November of last year. Then, we saw him at the Parsons-Paris fashion show in May. Then, the other night we found him drunk in the street around the corner. Turns out he lives about two blocks from here and he is Serbian. I would have bet he was from Detroit. No matter, he agrees that the tradicion cereal at the bakery on the northwest corner of J.P. Timbaud and Parmentier is the best fresh-baked bread in the neighborhood.
L’Observateur : CFB on the Internet Edition
Last month, I bought the 9.99 Euro-a-month ESPN 360 package so I could maybe get to see the Oklahoma Sooners play every once in awhile. Since then, I’ve fallen in love with it. I can watch about 30 games a week live on my laptop, and switch back and forth between games whenever I want. It’s like having ESPN Gameplan for American cable TV, except I’m in France.Then, this past weekend I discovered something called justin.tv, which is, I think, people broadcasting online what they are currently watching on their American TV. Either way, it’s great, because I was able to watch the Oklahoma/TCU game and the Alabama/Georgia game in split screen in the middle of the nuit on Saturday.
Oklahoma and Alabama are currently #1 and #2 in the college football polls, and if I had it my way, it would stay that way forever.
L’Observateur : Tour Bleu Edition
These days, the Eiffel Tower lights up blue because it’s France’s turn to be head of the European Union or something like that. When sitting in our kitchen at night, you can see the Tower’s rotating spotlight beaming over the building across the street, and since there are siren sounds about every 10 minutes, it really gives you that “jailbreak” feeling.Last semester I had the worst mailbox in the office. Ground level, right behind where people stand to use the photocopier. I assumed it was for “the new guy,” and that I was being hazed, but it turns out that the boxes are alphabetized, and two people who have last names which begin before “H-O” have been hired by the school since May. I am now upper left, eye level, directly in front of the doorway.
I’m fairly certain that the French I.T. guy at my work hates my guts. It was the same at my last job, but the I.T. guy was American.
The phrase “Old Punks Turn to Reggae” rings true for me.
L’Observateur : Transpo Edition
We rode our bikes to an aperitif party at our friend Laurent Zylberman’s place in the suburb of Montreuil last weekend. A woman from the neighborhood walked in, addressed Laurent in French, and said something about how there was no one from the neighborhood at the party. Laurent introduced us as Americans living in the 11th, and she responded, “Oh, from the other side of the peripherique, I hate that,” and promptly turned her back to us.My first bicycle commute of the semester was a real wake-up call. Crossing République on J.P. Timbaud, I was sideswiped by a motard who tried to pass me on the right – like, between me and the curb. My foot got caught on his moped and he propelled me for about 15 feet before I broke loose. He offered some words in French and then I mocked his Frenchiness. About 15 minutes later on Rivoli near the Louvre, a taxi tried to make a right-hand turn through the bike lane and his front right wheel made contact with my boot as I slid by. If either of those things would have happened to me in Texas, I would probably be dead or at least maimed. But for some reason, around here, it just sort of passes.
They are re-painting the bike lanes on Boulevard Magenta. I hope it is an effort to make them more obvious, because that scene is ridiculous.
There are also some newly painted-on-the-pavement signs in some of the bus/taxi lanes that have a bike with huge red “X” through them. Not cool.
L’Observateur : 365 Edition
Today is the one year anniversary of my arrival in Paris, so marked by the Photo du Jour 365 you see above. All things considered, I’m really proud of myself for having managed to put up at least one photo every single day for an entire year. Now, for my next trick, I’ll try for two. If I could somehow manage to do it for the rest of my healthful life, that would be something.
I spent the better part of the last three days biking and walking around Paris looking for a car or motorcycle with the contiguous digits “365” on the license plate for the Photo du Jour, but to no avail. The odds of those digits occurring are better than 1-to-900 (I think), but nevertheless, it never happened. So, I’m going with tonight’s sunset instead.
Carrying my Nikon D-40x camera around with me every single day for the past year has been a huge pain in the ass, but all things considered it has paid off in untold ways. People who look at this web page have some idea of what I’m seeing every day and that is way more important to me than anything else... sharing the little bits of my life that I wish you could see with me. I’m getting verklempt.
No matter, one completely unforeseen outcome of all this shooting is that I get to have a photo show in a few weeks, which is a huge honor and privilege. Turns out, the content is not Parisian, but 14 photos from Real de Catorce, Mexico that I shot over the past summer, most or all of which appeared on this page. I never thought that’s what the show would be, but after looking back through the 40,000+ photos I shot over the last year, those are the ones that stick out and will play the best to Pepe Le Pew and Company. So be it. (Some French people really do stink, by the way, but only in summertime.)
If you can make the opening, that would be great.
I spent the better part of the last three days biking and walking around Paris looking for a car or motorcycle with the contiguous digits “365” on the license plate for the Photo du Jour, but to no avail. The odds of those digits occurring are better than 1-to-900 (I think), but nevertheless, it never happened. So, I’m going with tonight’s sunset instead.
Carrying my Nikon D-40x camera around with me every single day for the past year has been a huge pain in the ass, but all things considered it has paid off in untold ways. People who look at this web page have some idea of what I’m seeing every day and that is way more important to me than anything else... sharing the little bits of my life that I wish you could see with me. I’m getting verklempt.
No matter, one completely unforeseen outcome of all this shooting is that I get to have a photo show in a few weeks, which is a huge honor and privilege. Turns out, the content is not Parisian, but 14 photos from Real de Catorce, Mexico that I shot over the past summer, most or all of which appeared on this page. I never thought that’s what the show would be, but after looking back through the 40,000+ photos I shot over the last year, those are the ones that stick out and will play the best to Pepe Le Pew and Company. So be it. (Some French people really do stink, by the way, but only in summertime.)
If you can make the opening, that would be great.
L’Observateur : Rentrée Edition
The other night I was in a bar in Belleville with some friends and a dude walked through the door wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a Huichol Indian visage of a magical deer on it. Not resisting my urge not to talk to him, I discovered that he had spent a few months in Real de Catorce, Mexico – though he was from Ecuador – and that he had come to Paris to see some of his family who happen to be living here. I got to practice my Spanish, which was nice after falling all over my French for five days.The Dutch woman we are renting our flat from is an authority on Napoleon Bonaparte and she has strange taste in home furnishings – a mash-up of classic French and Middle Eastern. The shower is so small that when I turn around, my ass shuts the water off.
Pear and chocolate pie differs in its’ French and Mexican incarnations.
It’s difficult to find a Parisian grocery that is open on Sunday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)