Veggies For Vermin

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Veggies For Vermin ~

Veggies For Vermin, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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What, you may ask (go on, ask, ask), is what looks like a perfectly good mixed salad sandwich doing all forlornsome sitting on a sidewalk in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris on a rather nippy February evening?

There are many mysteries in this city. Some are architectural; frequently they're sculptural; oftentimes sepulchral; certainly historical; but sandwichal? This is a new one on me.

There's been a bit of an underground backlash against the omnipresent and not very traditional kebab and burger which has pretty much taken over the fast food market in recent years; a call for the comeback of the good old 'jambon beure', as they call it.

This latter is often, it has to be said, a bit of a sad affair - a bit of tired looking ham stuffed into a stale baguette, only slightly improved with a slim slice of sweaty rubber emmental if you're 'lucky'.

Not that I'm dissing this classic French fare and if fact just yesterday I had such a craving for a traditional and well stuffed (and fresh) version that I bought the entire ingredients myself from the supermarket and quite enjoyed myself with this relatively healthy handful in extremely generous proportions.

I tried following the direction of the arrow with my gaze just in case it was the latest loony urban guerilla marketing effort from some alternative sandwich outlet but to no avail; not a baguette bandit in sight.

Thus the question remains hanging, or rather lying there almost in the gutter where I found it, and I guess I'll never uncover the mystery of the lonesome lost mixed salad sandwich but if you see one near you I'll like to hear about it. My appetite for info, if not for foot-trodden fodder, has been whetted.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

What's The Point?

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ What's The Point? ~

What's The Point?, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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A strange, stubby little inhabited obelisk in the middle of Paris? Now you didn't know about that one, did you?!

OK, well it's not really an obelisk but it is inhabited and it is in the middle of Paris and it has to be one of the nuttiest looking buildings around when taken from a specific angle.

The point of view is purposely sneaky, but it doesn't look much less weird in real life - a singular wedge of a thing comically and almost desperately trying to make a living space out of a tiny triangle of real estate.

There's another curiosity, closely linked to the bizarreness of this building. What do you find if you go back about five numbers along either of the sides of this thing, i.e. away from us and 'into' the picture as we are looking at it? I'll give you a clue: it's the somethingest something in the city ;~S

Other point of interest, so to speak, ho ho, is that this facade precisely one window's width across has received the accolade of being named, if not exactly a street, at least a 'pointe', the Pointe Trigano, no less, and to my knowledge is unique in Paris. Rues, boulevards, places and squares abound, but of pointes, it would seem, there is but one.

I do know of another very silly little street which is hardly worth the name and seems to consist of two modest store fronts on the tips of two separate buildings, comprising the evocative rue de la Lingerie, although you'd hardly know it. Any more useless facts required? You know where to come.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Rabbits & Rub Downs

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Rabbits & Rub Downs ~

Rabbits & Rub Downs, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Ritual spa? Massages du monde? A hammam on the Rue Saint-Antoine? Facades full of scantily clad nymphs (well, one) clutching keys and bottles named 'Bois Moi' (drink me), and, umm, blue caped rabits... Ooh err, missus! It makes the mind boggle. A man's mind, that is. From what I've heard the women of Paris are much more clued up about these things.

In fact the reputation of these places has been sullied by a veritable regiment of dodgy Chinese or Thai massage parlours with young ladies sitting prominently in the entrance not dissimilar to certain Amsterdam, err, establishments (so I'm told).

The truth is though that most of these places are actually highly reputable havens of peace and innocent (if indulgent) pleasure for those who like getting rubbed down in various exotic concoctions worthy of a hallucinatory children's classic.

Unfortunately, my stiff British reserve, not to mention a couple of terribly ticklish spots, has always prevented me from even considering entering one of these places. I make do with admiring the often intricate and invariably beautiful ceramics as we can see here.

If anyone has any experience of these places I'd be fascinated to hear a first-body account, as it where. And I'd definitely love to know where the bunny comes in.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Knock All You Like

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Knock All You Like ~

Knock All You Like, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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I'm hesitating with this one. Should it become a prestigious member of my Top 10 Naughty Paris Knockers series, of which it would represent a worthy addition?

Or should it constitute part of one of my 400 Paris Quirks, because, although you can't see in this photo, it forms part of a very curious Paris street feature indeed. Does anyone know why, by the way? (Clue: remember that old song by Dave Edmunds, 'I hear you knocking...'?)

For the time being I'm satisfying my impulsive nature with placing it here on my good old Paris & I iPhone street photography blog, in the anticipation of offering it an even greater destiny shortly. I love blue and orange together, don't you?

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

You Are Here

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ You Are Here ~

You Are Here, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Where do you think this is then?

You know, when I first saw it, it made me think uncannily of the upside down Louvre pyramid which, of course, it isn't. I wanted to find a picture I'd taken for Paris & I to prove my point, but unfortunately my effort was so searingly artistic (right?) that it didn't actually resemble this much at all (but it does in reality, honest).

So anyway, what is it, if it isn't an upside down pyramid, or triangle at least? Well, we're actually looking down onto a grid of flat screen monitors showing a composite Google Maps image of the city of Paris. It's part of an exhibition at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal at the Bastille showing the evolution of the urban landscape over the centuries. It also devotes a lot of space to the imagined or planned Grand Paris of the near future and is quite an eye-opener.

If anything, there's information overkill - this thing is DENSE - and the Google Maps thing is a bit of a gimmick, but I shouldn't really complain for having too much choice, now should I? That would be wingeing pom territory, and I wouldn't want to go there.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Facelift Time

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Facelift Time ~

Facelift Time, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Sous les pavés, la plage (Under the paving stones, the beach) is a famous Paris '68 student uprising slogan.

Whether Sous les panneaux publicitaires, la Concièrgerie (Under the advertising hoardings...) can be considered in the same quad is debatable, but that's what we've been faced with for the last few months.

Paradoxically, it's given me more fodder for my frantic fingers than any other single Paris site in recent times.

Here we can see the Swiss Swatch company pretending to be fervent French patriots, which it has to be said is a bit less crass than the stupid perfume ad which started the whole thing off.

Also quite pleasing is the fact that the renovations these ads are theoretically 'sponsoring' include the oldest public clock in Paris, a fuzzy representation of which can be seen on the far left.

The poor old fella on the side of the appropriately named Tour de l'Horloge ('clock tower' - did you guess?) was looking a bit down in the dumps, so the anticipation is mounting as his brand new look is set to be revealed later in the year. Who says facelifts can't hold back the hands of time, at least for a little while?

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Fat Lot of Good

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Fat Lot of Good ~

Fat Lot of Good, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Bathroom scales have a perverse sense of humour. I don't know about yours, but mine tell me that I'm 10kgs more than I should be, despite my best mental imaging of an idealised svelter me.

Yesterday on French TV was a documentary about twins from the south who took around six hours to eat a bowl of rice because they had to do so grain by grain, making sure that they each ate exactly the same number of grains so that one wouldn't sneakily become a hair breadth's skinnier than the other (they are twins, after all).

They weren't fat. They weighed about 35kgs. Each. They'd probably have liked that to be the cumulative figure.

Parisian women are reputedly slimmer than most and the apparent envy of wannabe waifs the world over.

They're not all slim though, although quite a few of the supersizers we see may not be native noshers.

Anorexia is also a huge problem here, so to speak, and you often see someone painfully thin on the metro or in the streets. You can't help wondering to what extent the incessant images of 'perfect' people plastered on every wall and magazine cover, all airbrushed to hell, are to blame for this epidemic of under-eating.

Competing in the advertising stakes of course are thousands of products designed to slam on the killer kilos in the most unnourishing and addictive way possible. Sweet.

It makes you wonder, what with the certain 'poor me' satisfaction that comes with being constantly 'over' or 'under', if anyone would actually openly admit to being 'just fine' the way they are. It's a well known fact that advertising agencies are paid millions to convince us in no uncertain terms that we shouldn't be.

For me it's the smile that counts. That's worth it's weight in gold(en maxi best-of menus) any day.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Vaulting Partition

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Vaulting Partition ~

Vaulting Partition, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Popping in to a church is becoming a regular pleasure for me in this city. The thing is, you never know what you're going to find, from intriguing architectural treasures to surprising exhibitions of exotic art or, quite simply, people exercising certain personal preferences.

I honestly couldn't say which of the above is more fascinating, and sometimes they turn up in twos or even threes, a sort of holy trinity if you will, but manifestations of the latter are rare to say the least.

Here we have worshippers enjoying another extremely rare sight: the only remaining jube, or rood screen in Paris. I kid you not. It's the delicately sculpted passageway we can see separating the nave from the chancel. It also has the most sumptuous double spiral staircase on either side. Stunningly capped by the fabulous rib vaulted ceiling.

Enrapturing, you might say.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Of Shadows 'n' Shards

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Of Shadows & Shards ~

Shadows 'n' Shards, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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A curious shot, to be sure.

I had intended to take a few pics of the atmospheric Cloître des Billettes, a rare mediaeval cloister dating from 1427 which these days is often used to hold temporary art and sculpture exhibitions. The 'billettes' of the name, by the way, comes from the heraldic designs the monks had the habit of sporting, and meaning literally 'little beads'.

It's a modestly charming place I've stumbled across more than once on my Marais meanderings, and on this occasion there was, indeed, an exhibition of mind-boggling African sculpture in wood, metal and stuff.

In the end, however, there were a few too many of these sculptures to do justice to the origins of the place, puritanically speaking, which can hardly be said to be African, and I wasn't feeling particularly inspired anyway so was about to move on when I spotted the image you see here.

What we've got is the shadow of the top of the neighbouring Eglise des Billettes being cast upon an adjacent building. So not much to do with cloisters in the end I'm afraid, although it was taken from one, but the images come to me, you know, not the other way around!

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Life, The Universe & Everything

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Life, The Universe & Everything ~

Life, The Universe & Everything, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Back in my student days I think it was, there was a radio and then a TV show and somewhere around then the scripts and books came out and so on and they were called the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe".

And in one of those programmes the not insignificant revelation was shared with us, and it was the answer to life, the universe and everything.

And the answer is 42.

This seemed pretty cool at the time; concise, elegant and fairly easy to remember.

Now that time has gone by, along with the years, including the year I was 42, I am able to reassess this fundamental (if admittedly humorous) conclusion.

And you know what? It still pretty much holds up!

Given the alternatives for the answer to what is the meaning of life, the universe and everything being, most probably, "There isn't one", or far less probably "There is one and I just happen to know it so you'd better listen to me and preferably give me all your money", I think I'll take 6x7...

Paris is in on the act with a little twist to the tale: perhaps there's something more to add to the classic if symbolic and tongue-in-cheek '42'.

Maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe we can create our own meaning. Maybe there's a '42 Bis', as the walls of Paris are hinting. That suits me fine too.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Serendipelicious

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Serendipelicious ~

Serendipelicious, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Serendipity is a beautiful thing.

And also getting off your arse and wondering what could be.

I saw this street-level bridge crossing the line 6 of the metro, as it happens, in one of its spooky excursions above ground, on its way to Nation, or is it Picpus from Bel-Air, but whatever, I almost passed it by.

So I didn't and this is the result. Irrespective of what you think of the shot, I'm pleased that I've added another slender slice of Paris existence to my life, and I thank the city for that.

Perhaps if I died tomorrow, or why not today (we all die today, don't we?), this pic would symbolically sum it all up. A ghost soul diabolically destined to ride the Paris metro on an endless loop from Nation to Charles de Gaule Etoile, with the occasional light relief of a day trip to Porte Dauphine. Are day-trips allowed in hell?

Serendipity will tell us.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Wet Weather Warning

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Wet Weather Warning ~

Wet Weather Warning, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Collecting plaintive Paris 1910 flood plaques has become a semi-obsession of mine.

Not to mention the fact that this mega-flood is supposedly operating on a 100 year cycle, which suggests we could be swimming any time now...

If you check the records, the people actually paddled around Paris, and the pics are amazing.

As are the gentle reminders you come across on a regular basis if you keep your sea legs on as you wander around the city in the vicinity of the flukily furtive fleuve.

Closing your eyes is one option but me, I just imagine being up to my thighs or worse (I'm a wet-water-wimp) in stinking Seine sewage as the waters rise...

Don't forget your paddle.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Talking Head Tsunami

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Talking Head Tsunami ~

Talking Head Tsunami, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Nightmare, this time of year here in France. Election time I'm talking about, unless you love watching a million people talking and talking about politics pretty much non-stop, 24/7.

And the French love talking politics. The TV is full of talking heads as it is, people blah-blahing on channel after channel, so this is just a slight change of emphasis.

What's the most difficult to swallow is that politicians in particular, and their interviewers often enough, insist on talking all at the same time, so you end up with a bunch of people shouting over each other and you can't understand a thing, and this is considered good programming.

Obviously I can simply ignore TV, which is what I do most of the time, but sometimes you can't escape it.

The problem is, with the massively increased personalitification à l'Americaine of the whole thing, you end up getting caught up in the process as you get interested in the people involved, which is yet another major waste of creative time of course, and particularly futile for someone who can´t even vote in the country.

So spare a thought for your Paris correspondent trying to stay productive as the full weight of the French presidential election process does its best to throw me off course. Only two or three months of braincell bombardment to go. Good grief.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.