Full-page feature on the “Eurobus” project (and other projects by the Chairman of the Bored) in the March issue of a French beaux arts rag called L’Oeil. FWIW, that’s La Photo du Jour 1451.
Showing posts with label Wow What Are the Chances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wow What Are the Chances. Show all posts
L’Observateur : Wow, What Are the Chances?! [École Militaire Edition]
On days when the weather is nice and I can ride my bike to work, I sometimes sit on a park bench in the Champ-de-Mars and eat and read before I go to class. Facing the École Militaire with the Eiffel Tower at my back, I opened my New Yorker to an article by Adam Gopnik titled “Trial of the Century,” and the first line read:On a January day in Paris, in 1895, a new ceremony was enacted in the courtyard of the École Militaire, on the Champ-de-Mars, that still shocks the mind and conscience to contemplate ...Wow, what are the chances?!
L’Observateur : Wow, What Are the Chances?! [Fall 2009 Edition]
Turns out, there are some public clay courts the 19th, which is great for a variety of reasons: 1) The ball bounces higher, 2) It’s easier on the knees, 3) You can easily defend line calls because the ball leaves a mark in the clay, and 4) Our French Open fantasies have come to life.The first time I went, I said “bonjour” to a 6'7" middle-aged man playing on the adjacent court, and he startled me with his response: “What’s up, dude?” Turns out, he’s an American writer (living in France for 28 years) who has co-written with Roman Polanski and used to play professional soccer in Europe. When I asked him if he left the U.S. for the same reason Polanski did, he replied, “no, nothing that fun.” I’m still not sure what he meant by that, but the very next week Polanski was arrested in Zurich on 32-year-old statutory rape charges. No matter, the end of The Tenant is still my favorite film finale of all time (“No one does it to you like Roman Polanski”), and I am now one degree of separation from the man who directed Chinatown.
Speaking of Chinatown, after four months of living out of our backpacks, we finally moved into a nice apartment in the 3rd (159 Rue du Temple, caddy-corner to the Square du Temple, just down the street from Marché des Enfants Rouges). The flat has a loft and is situated in a centuries-old building. And this is our landlord. Oh, and it’s related to Chinatown because there is a mini-Chinatown two blocks away on Rue Maire which features the oldest remaining building in Paris (1300 A.D. [subject to some debate]), which now has a Vietnamese phô restaurant in the ground floor and there is an amazing new banh mi shop next door. ¡Viva colonialism!
The Fiery Furnaces blasted through town again a few weeks ago and I had the brief pleasure of hanging out with their bass player Jason Lowenstein, which was really cool as I always quite liked his Sebadoh material. We talked at length about the timeless value of The Minutemen and SST Records and generally hit it off.
I went to one of my favorite Paris thrift shops the other day, and the Men’s button-up section had been replaced by a rack of disgusting, used-blanket-quality flannel shirts – which are unfortunately back in style. Then, when I Googled “style, flannel” to find a link for this – the final paragraph of another spell-binding edition of “L’Observateur” – the first hit was a blog post featuring a photograph of none other than Jason Lowenstein and Sebadoh. Wow, what are the chances?!
L’Observateur : Wow What Are the Chances Edition
Franz Ferdinand and their newly minted gold recordsLast week, our friend Eleanor invited us to come see her boyfriend Alex Kapranos’ band play. We were backstage after the show when they were presented gold records for their album which came out last week. Apparently, the last time they were presented gold records, they got into a no-holds-barred fistfight, so everyone in attendance was a little expectant. No matter, the point of this anecdote is that two days later I was at the FNAC bookstore when I opened a book of aperitif trivia questions (expecting to see liquor-related tidbits), and the answer to the question on the random page I chose was “Alexander Kapranos” ... wow, what are the chances?!?
Later that night, we happened to see our friend Mark in the street. This happens in Paris more than you might think, but still ... what are the chances?!?
The night after that, we randomly chose to eat in the same restaurant as our friends Andrew and Laurence ... but running into three of the twenty people we know in Paris on consecutive days? ... what are the chances?!?
Then the next day, (about 15 minutes after I was browsing at the FNAC) we were bicycling down Rue de Rivoli by the Louvre and randomly spotted Robin, the girlfriend of one of my friends from Oklahoma (Allan), waiting for the crosswalk light to change ... seriously ... what are the chances?!?
[Update: We just ran into John and Sara on the canal.]
Thom Tom Club
About six months ago we saw Thom Yorke at the Louvre. And then last night, we saw our pal Tom Hudson from Austin, Texas in the exact same spot. Wow, what are the chances?!
The Bicycle Thief 4 : Earth Day
Riding a bike is fun, and it’s the best way to get around a city like Paris, where there are loads of bike lanes, small cars, and slow-moving traffic. As previously stated, it’s loads better than riding the Metro, the bus, or walking – and these are only a few of the reasons why I’m sad to report that yesterday, I had myFOURTH BICYCLE IN
TEN MONTHS STOLEN
from a rack at the corner of St. Roch and Rivoli. They cut the iron lock – without irony – on Earth Day. And now, whatever lingering, dangling dingleberry of faith I have left in humanity is officially one hair from a permanent home in the sewer.
L’Observateur : Bizzaritz Edition
Armed with a Tsingtao and a Leffe tallboy we headed over to the Tuileries to sun ourselves in the freezing-ass cold of the seemingly endless northern European winter. There was a gigantic metal spider in the middle of the jardin and the Tsingtao can featured what might have been the planet’s last flip-top lid.
The word baguette can mean “drum stick” or “baguette.” This word refers to a specific shape, not necessarily bread.
ATAC is a large grocery store not unlike a Hyper Casino. Except it’s two stories and the spices are well hidden. I asked the stocker, “Ou est l’épicé?” Or: Where is the spicy?
There is a raging debate in France regarding the appropriate hour to begin saying “bon soir.” Similarly, the Mexicans debate “buenas tardes.” No matter, the concierge and I ran into one another on the neverending staircase:
Me: Bonjour.
Her: Bon soir.
Me: A quelle heure c’est bon sois?
Her: [Undecipherable]
Me: [Struggling]
Her: Arrêt! [Followed by a French-language lecture justifying her certainty that the “bon soir” hour had no doubt begun.]
Two hours later, I went out to get a baguette and a random woman in the foyer greeted me with “bonjour.” The debate continues...
One of my students at Parsons was captain of Iceland’s U-21 Women’s soccer team a few years back. When she talked about it, she got that “eye of the tiger” look and I was a little bit scared. (Speaking of Iceland, the Sigur Rós documentary/concert film Heima is a triumph.)
The Badger snail-mailed me a copy of “Memoirs of Montparnasse” by John Glassco. To mark the occasion I treated myself to a steak lunch at Chez Paul and started reading:
Wherever the limelight is, you’ll find Ernest with his big lovable boyish grin, making hay. Balls. We’d better go to the rue de Lappe. I crave genuine depravity.
One of the cool things about living in Paris is reading old novels and actually knowing some of the streets and places they are talking about. In this case, the Rue de Lappe sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. As I was pulling the Paris Practique out of my bag to figure it out, I glanced at the street sign across the way. It said “Rue de Lappe.” What are the chances?!
L’Observateur : Pompidour Edition
Last week I posted about the dream Kim Kight had involving she and I and some helium balloons that made Theremin noises. Well, last night was the aforementioned Monolake concert at the Pompidou Center – the one which promised helium-filled balloons and funny noises in real life – and Robert Henke, from his monodeck with Ableton Live, delivered. The setup was an 8-by-8 grid of white helium balloons with white lights inside of them, which moved up and down tethers – creating 3-D shapes and patterns – while flickering in concert to blippy music. The closest thing I can think of to relate this experience would be to imagine a 3-D Tenori-On. The weirdest moment came when one single, lit balloon floated to the top of the auditorium at the exact moment that the first non-blippy noise came in: the sound of a Leslie speaker slowing down, which sounded remarkably like a Theremin. A weird moment to say the least.
Matt Davis and I have been playing street ball along the canal with random kids half our age. It’s like Rucker, but more like Suck-er. French kids don’t really get the game. Lots of pointless dribbling, hand checking, and traveling. But the last time we showed up, les homies were in la maison. One dude was wearing a Ben Gordon/Chicago Bulls #7 jersey and as Matt pulled the ball up the court the dude started singing “How Deep Is Your Love” in a deep French accent and then said, “Hey Bee Gees!” about ten times in a row. I thought it was funny because I think Matt looks like the lost Gibb brother, but I don’t think he was all that amused. Then the dude started singing “Stayin’ Alive” as we were exiting the court.
One of my students at Parsons has been to Norman, Oklahoma because her parents went to school at the University of Oklahoma. The only reason I find this noteworthy is that her parents are Iranian and she grew up in England.
Patrick Badgley arrived in Paris this week and hand-delivered the ill-fated package his brother Shawn sent me in November – which was returned tout de suite – because it was addressed to “Sr. Showpony.” The French just don’t roll that way – as you can see on the package – where it says “pas de nom sur boite” or “not the name on the (mail)box.” This is the most ridiculous looking parcel I have ever laid eyes on:
Petanquetanque Butt
“The Rumble in the Mumble” did not go down as advertised. In fact, it turned out to be a game of petanque. Twas with steely balls and without the timely intervention of Sheriff Kenny Buxton that the score was settled and Plus Tard miraculously emerged the victor. And so, our two potatoey combatants were more interested in mashing me than hashing it out with each other. Polaroid by Marla Brose.
L’Observateur : March Madness
March Madness is in full effect here in Paris. Thanks to ncaasports.com, all 65 games of the NCAA basketball tournament are streaming to my laptop. This is a treat after years of the first two rounds of the dance coinciding with the SXSW Music festival and not being able to watch for so many reasons. And I love being able to switch between games whenever I want to.My friend Kim Mellen Kight sent me an email this week regarding a dream of hers that I was in:
We were in a big rock band that was part of a contest. We had to improvise music in front of a middle school or high school audience. You and I chose to front the band playing this contraption that involved holding balloons over different sized pots of boiling water. The steam rising around the balloons made Theremin-like sounds. In fact you said it was the real Theremin. Like the man-behind-the-curtain of the Theremin we know in waking life, I guess. That might have been when the baby or the alarm woke me up, because I don’t know the results of the contest. If it was like most band contest movies, we probably came in second but learned valuable lessons along the way and gained the approval of our conservative parents.I didn’t think much of it until later in the day when I got a call from my buddy Andrew here in Paris. He said he got us tickets to see Monolake at the Centre Pompidou on April 4 and that he thought they would have some “floating balloons that make high-pitched noises.” What are the chances?
Lately, Paris has the strangest weather pattern I’ve ever seen. It will be sunny, then the sky will turn dark gray, the wind will pick up, it will rain, it will clear, and then the sun returns. Repeat. Yesterday, it snowed/sleeted/hailed today while the sun was shining.
Wow, What Are the Chances?
(Tester prepares for the big rematch by reviewingfound footage of the Moscow Mauling of ’92.)
After reading the post regarding the gig at the Australian embassy, old pal Tyler Mallory of Austin, Texas, (who happens to be married to Elli Shoemaker’s best friend Christine Furbish Mallory) sent this email:
Tyler: I was just reading about your Aussie gig and recognized a name you had mentioned, Steven Tester. I went to jr high with a guy of that name. Any relation you think? Just curious. I cant wait to get over there and fuck you guys up!
Taylor: i know he lived in oregon for awhile... more info please.
Tyler: I know he was a military brat and lived in germany for a while. He is the one person who has ever punched me in the face. I’ll elaborate more on that later.
[I had been at the pub having beers with Steven Tester not 20 minutes prior to receiving this email. He plays bass to my drums in Bombazine Black. We met in Paris because we both responded to the same Craigslist posting looking for people to play in a Mogwai/Slint-inspired band headed by an Australian couple. I called Steven. Indeed, he went to junior high school in Moscow, Idaho with Tyler Mallory and punched him in the face in front of the sheriff’s house because some kids were telling Steven that Tyler had said some stuff about him and vice versa.]
Steven: I was a pacifist. I’m not sure how it happened.
[I had been at the pub having beers with Steven Tester not 20 minutes prior to receiving this email. He plays bass to my drums in Bombazine Black. We met in Paris because we both responded to the same Craigslist posting looking for people to play in a Mogwai/Slint-inspired band headed by an Australian couple. I called Steven. Indeed, he went to junior high school in Moscow, Idaho with Tyler Mallory and punched him in the face in front of the sheriff’s house because some kids were telling Steven that Tyler had said some stuff about him and vice versa.]
Steven: I was a pacifist. I’m not sure how it happened.
Tyler: I find this truly bizarre. I remember his braces and bleached bangs, he was a skater or a freestyle biker, something like that. We became friends the year after he kicked my ass, then he moved away.
Tyler and Christie are coming to Paris in March. I can just see it now...
I da ’Ho?! No, YOU da ’Ho!THE THRILLA IN VANILLA
Tester/Mallory II
March 22, 2008 : Paris, France
Under the Eiffel Tower, BITCH!
AFTER SCHOOL
Tester/Mallory II
March 22, 2008 : Paris, France
Under the Eiffel Tower, BITCH!
AFTER SCHOOL
I mean, really. Wow. What are the chances?
Bye Bike
About a month before leaving Austin, some jerkwad stole my cherished Madwagon bicycle from behind my house. Ever defiant, I went and bought a new one. Two weeks later the new one got stolen from outside a friend’s house. After our arrival in Paris, we shopped high and low for good used bikes, but ended up settling on some cheap new ones at the Decathlon sports store around the corner.Today, I had just finished playing tennis with my buddy Matt when, instead of getting on our bikes and riding to our respective homes, we decided to go for a quick coffee. When I came back thirty minutes later, the bike was gone. I had it for all of two months and two days.
In case you’re keeping score at home, that makes
THREE BIKES STOLEN IN FIVE MONTHS.
I mean, what are the chances?
Not that I’m PISSED OFF or anything. The only solace I can take in the whole thing is dividing the cost of the bike by the number of days I had it, and coming up with the figure: $3.78 per day “rental,” which isn’t bad considering a round-trip Metro ticket costs 3 euros, or $4.50.
Wow, What Are the Chances?! (Part 2)
A few months back, I spammed my coterie soliciting possible people connections for my future life in Paris. I got a handful responses, all of which panned out. One led me to underground hippie comix legend and former Texan Gilbert Shelton of Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers fame. Since then, I’ve hung out with Gilbert a few times at his studio, attended an art opening of his in Montreuil, and gone with him to his weekly jam session at Le Jackomo (See also: http://taylorholland.blogspot.com/2007/10/la-photo-du-jour-17.html). He’s an accommodating dude, and I find him and his drawing partner Pic not only talented, but intriguing. Turns out, Shelton and I have mutual friends not only in Austin, but in Real de Catorce, Mexico. I mean, what are the chances?! Hold that thought.
Also a few months back, I was browsing Craigslist: Paris, and found a post by an Australian guy named Matt Davis who was looking for people to play in a Mogwai/Slint-inspired band. Sympathetic, I responded. Turns out, he and I have a mutual friend in Oklahoma (what are the chances?!), and we hit it off. These days, we get together about twice a week to play tennis or ping pong. In the first week we were here, Matt invited us to meet him at a bar called Chez Jeannette for beers. There was an interesting looking man sitting at a table nearby, and someone said he was once married to Michelle Shocked. Then someone else told us he was in the movie Amélie, as the guy who receives international postcards from the stolen lawn gnome. I had just seen the movie a few weeks prior – while wasting time in Mexico – and I was reasonably convinced that it was the same actor. We are in Paris, after all. Later in the evening, I saw him and Matt sitting at the same table but thought little of it, as it is often customary in Europe to share tables. Hold that thought as well.
Fast forward to yesterday. After getting home from getting blasted at tennis yet again by Matt (4-6, 0-6), I received a very complimentary email concerning Plus Tard from an as-yet-unkown-to-me American in Paris named Bart Bull: bartbull.blogspot.com. I checked out his blog, and it turns out he’s an old journalismo like myself, who also happens to know a hell of a lot about my old friends at The Austin Chronicle (what are the chances?!). Duty called, so we decided to meet for a beer this afternoon. He suggested Chez Jeannette, and I of course thought, “What are the chances?!”, since it’s one of three bars I know by name in the entire city.
Fast forward to today. After about an hour of whirlwind conversation with Bart and his girlfriend, he starts talking about living on a houseboat with his “ex-wife who happens to be a rock star.” A little light went on inside my head, and I thought “this is the Michelle Shocked/Amélie dude!” I mean, what are the chances?! Turns out, true on the former, false on the latter. It turns out he helped Matt mix his solo album just prior to my arrival. Again, what are the chances?! (There are more delicate aspects to this particular edition of “Wow, What Are the Chances?!,” but the Art Director in me wants to keep it relatively brief so these photos have some black space in which to “breathe.”)
Still, the question remained: How did Bart Bull find me? He did a Google search for Gilbert Shelton, found the aforementioned photo on my blog, and emailed me because he liked what he saw and read. Say it with me now, game-show style: What... are... the chances?!
Also a few months back, I was browsing Craigslist: Paris, and found a post by an Australian guy named Matt Davis who was looking for people to play in a Mogwai/Slint-inspired band. Sympathetic, I responded. Turns out, he and I have a mutual friend in Oklahoma (what are the chances?!), and we hit it off. These days, we get together about twice a week to play tennis or ping pong. In the first week we were here, Matt invited us to meet him at a bar called Chez Jeannette for beers. There was an interesting looking man sitting at a table nearby, and someone said he was once married to Michelle Shocked. Then someone else told us he was in the movie Amélie, as the guy who receives international postcards from the stolen lawn gnome. I had just seen the movie a few weeks prior – while wasting time in Mexico – and I was reasonably convinced that it was the same actor. We are in Paris, after all. Later in the evening, I saw him and Matt sitting at the same table but thought little of it, as it is often customary in Europe to share tables. Hold that thought as well.
Fast forward to yesterday. After getting home from getting blasted at tennis yet again by Matt (4-6, 0-6), I received a very complimentary email concerning Plus Tard from an as-yet-unkown-to-me American in Paris named Bart Bull: bartbull.blogspot.com. I checked out his blog, and it turns out he’s an old journalismo like myself, who also happens to know a hell of a lot about my old friends at The Austin Chronicle (what are the chances?!). Duty called, so we decided to meet for a beer this afternoon. He suggested Chez Jeannette, and I of course thought, “What are the chances?!”, since it’s one of three bars I know by name in the entire city.
Fast forward to today. After about an hour of whirlwind conversation with Bart and his girlfriend, he starts talking about living on a houseboat with his “ex-wife who happens to be a rock star.” A little light went on inside my head, and I thought “this is the Michelle Shocked/Amélie dude!” I mean, what are the chances?! Turns out, true on the former, false on the latter. It turns out he helped Matt mix his solo album just prior to my arrival. Again, what are the chances?! (There are more delicate aspects to this particular edition of “Wow, What Are the Chances?!,” but the Art Director in me wants to keep it relatively brief so these photos have some black space in which to “breathe.”)
Still, the question remained: How did Bart Bull find me? He did a Google search for Gilbert Shelton, found the aforementioned photo on my blog, and emailed me because he liked what he saw and read. Say it with me now, game-show style: What... are... the chances?!
Wow, What Are the Chances?!
Having enjoyed a sunny afternoon in the Jardin de Luxembourg finishing up George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London (I’m now feeling much better about my possible future as a downtrodden bum in the freezing climes of northern Europe, by the way), I promptly bike the unemployable over to Shakespeare and Co. to shop for another. I choose this store, not because of its’ annoyingly cheesy romanticism, but because it’s the only place in Paris I know of where I’m sure to find literature in a language that I read beyond “menu” level.
Walking into the store there’s a staircase toward the back with a sign that reads something like: “Books Upstairs Are Not for Sale, but Feel Free to Read Them at Your Leisure.” Fair enough, I climb up. Peering into the back room, I see an elderly gentleman poring over typewritten notes, and sitting on the table in front of him is a hardback copy of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. And I’m thinking, “Wow, what are the chances?!” I envision pulling the paperback copy out of my bag, shaking it in his face, and saying “Wow, what are the chances?!”, but he looks old and rapt, so I instead reverse course back through the musty hallway and contribute to a multi-lingual human logjam at the top of the stairs. You first. No, me? Pardon, madame. No, vous. Moi? Merci. Whatever. Somebody walk.
Moments later, browsing the fiction section, I see most of the Haruki Murakami canon and begin an unreasonably long internal debate concerning which one to purchase. I’m a late-comer to Murakami, so I want to make sure I’m not totally screwing up, like the time I read Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy out of order. Back and forth, I can’t decide between Norwegian Wood (his first big hit), the more-recent Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, and some other non-fiction work of his about the 1995 sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway. I pick each one up and put it down at least three times before finally selecting Norwegian Wood. And this, only because it is revealed in the first paragraph that the protagonist is one year older than I am, and I’m vainly hoping that a fictional Japanese man might somehow mystically guide me through what is already (at 36) my second mid-life crisis. So, I buy it for an incredible 14 euros, head out to my bicycle to unlock, and consider whether afternoon coffee is a good idea today.
En Seine, I pull my iPod out of my pocket and lazily choose “shuffle songs.” It plays “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).” Some pigeons in the vicinity disperse. I look around for Allen Funt. Wow, again. I mean, what are the chances?!
Well, in this case it’s 1-in-2938, because that’s how many songs are on my iPod.
Walking into the store there’s a staircase toward the back with a sign that reads something like: “Books Upstairs Are Not for Sale, but Feel Free to Read Them at Your Leisure.” Fair enough, I climb up. Peering into the back room, I see an elderly gentleman poring over typewritten notes, and sitting on the table in front of him is a hardback copy of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. And I’m thinking, “Wow, what are the chances?!” I envision pulling the paperback copy out of my bag, shaking it in his face, and saying “Wow, what are the chances?!”, but he looks old and rapt, so I instead reverse course back through the musty hallway and contribute to a multi-lingual human logjam at the top of the stairs. You first. No, me? Pardon, madame. No, vous. Moi? Merci. Whatever. Somebody walk.
Moments later, browsing the fiction section, I see most of the Haruki Murakami canon and begin an unreasonably long internal debate concerning which one to purchase. I’m a late-comer to Murakami, so I want to make sure I’m not totally screwing up, like the time I read Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy out of order. Back and forth, I can’t decide between Norwegian Wood (his first big hit), the more-recent Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, and some other non-fiction work of his about the 1995 sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway. I pick each one up and put it down at least three times before finally selecting Norwegian Wood. And this, only because it is revealed in the first paragraph that the protagonist is one year older than I am, and I’m vainly hoping that a fictional Japanese man might somehow mystically guide me through what is already (at 36) my second mid-life crisis. So, I buy it for an incredible 14 euros, head out to my bicycle to unlock, and consider whether afternoon coffee is a good idea today.
En Seine, I pull my iPod out of my pocket and lazily choose “shuffle songs.” It plays “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).” Some pigeons in the vicinity disperse. I look around for Allen Funt. Wow, again. I mean, what are the chances?!
Well, in this case it’s 1-in-2938, because that’s how many songs are on my iPod.
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