Spit It Out Lad

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Spit It Out Lad ~

Spit It Out Lad, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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There's a strange but very official kind of enclosure with these three lion-headed fountains spitting their ire down three standard issue ribbed drain covers of the type incorporated into street skeleton graffiti as I showed you here. I say 'official' because the ends of the crescent are sealed with two particularly fine examples of the Paris boat symbol, which will be the subject of another post on another blog not far from here in time or cyberspace.

You might not think that's particularly strange, but if you saw the whole little wall-enclosed semi-circle, it's a world away from the rather prosaic stubby post fountains you might see newly installed in the capital today.

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My theory, awaiting validation and which I'm welcome to, of course, is that it was an abreuvoir of old. A watering hole, that is to say. Paris used to teem with literally thousands of horses, and not so long ago either - imagine the... Anyway. What came out (and boy did it come out) had to go in somewhere and I reckon this is where the liquid part came from. And maybe the food was distributed here too in a sort of low-tech trot-through equestrial eaterie long before McDonalds and its ilk reinvented the wheel.

I've tinkered with the colours as I often do, to move it just a notch away from cold reality towards the world of fantasy, for, after all, we're looking at a Paris we would only find in films and fairy-tales these days. But what I wanted to say was that, as is often the case, the layers of Paris can be seen peeled away onion-style here; these lions used to be blue.

The original seems to be brassy but I like the meeting of the two, neither brash nor bleeding painted bloody blue, I ask you. Rather old meets new, and wild beasts couldn't get me to budge on that. Thank god I'm living today. Honestly wouldn't want it any other way. Which is fortunate really, given the choice I have in the matter. RooaAAHhrrr.

And why not...

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

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