Hut Mutts & Other Nuts

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Hut Mutts & Other Nuts ~

Hut Mutts & Other Nuts, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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The Ville de Paris welcomes you right in the wan light of a fading afternoon in yet another of these omnipresent parks I keep sharing with you. For you to discover which one if you have a few days to kill and I even know one or two who will!

I love the Paris boat sign atop this little hut-cabin thingy where your ever-vigilant, if chain-smoking and surreptitiously imbibing park attendents spend a certain part of their days, when they're not 'doing the rounds'. For the right person I could see that as the dream job; picking up the odd beer can here, warning the ducks to stay off the grass there, scolding the squirrels for dropping nutshells everywhere and blowing their little whistles at people playing with their balls where they shouldn't be.

Not the job for me, though. Couldn't stand the monotony and lack of actually 'doing' anything much. It's a wonderfully sociable role, mind you, and seeing all these people just...leisuring themselves whilst doing pretty much the same yourself and getting paid for it... can't be too bad.

And you get your own little cabin as one of the perks of the job, we mustn't forget that, with it's little Ville de Paris (VP) boat shield logo and everything. It's thanks to them that I learned that black swans get shipped, err, flown in every summer as I enquired whether it was a problem that one of them seemed to be trying its damnedest to ingurgitate someone's plastic supermarket bag from the bottom of the lake.

Oh, and a hat. I'd seriously look into the employment possibilities for the position if you think it sounds like you. You can't say fairer than that.

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.

Unpretentious Pied-à-Terre

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Unpretentious Pied-à-Terre ~

Unpretentious Pied-à-Terre, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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And just what, you may be wondering, is so remarkable about number 7, Place Valhubert in the 5th arrondissement?

Good question, and the answer's 'nothing, really', apart from the fact that what looks like it could be any fairly posh residence in the 8th or 16th or somewhere is, in fact, the Jardin des Plantes. As simple as that. It's like calling the Jardin des Tuileries number 1, rue de Rivoli or the Jardin de Luxembourg number 47 Boulevard Saint-Michel or something like that; it's just a bit bizarre, that's all.

Valhubert was one of Napoleon's generals killed at the battle of Austerlitz who at least got his own place on the Seine for his efforts.

Apparently numbering was only introduced in the 1950s, but I didn't see a letterbox, and who would you be addressing it to anyway? One of the animals in the menagerie perhaps. Or that stegosaurus or the wooly mammoth who stares woefully over the road to the local McDonalds maybe.

Does anyone know what number 67bis, Quai Branly, would be, according to my calculations, by the way? You should check it out some time. Apparently there's quite a nice view from the roof.

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.

Barmy About The Babes

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Barmy About The Babes ~

All About The Babes, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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The area around Rue de Seine and Rue Mazarine is a curious one, full of little galleries, boutiques and even the odd antique bookshop to tittliate our fancies.

Between those two is an equally singular street, Rue Jacques Callot, with, notably, a gallery called Pièce Unique which shows only one exhibit at a time and you can never guess what it's going to be. Also a beautifully intriguing statue which I'll try to show you from a recent Paris and I post called All Cut Up if you click here.

But this is all about babes, as seen from the aforementioned street. The roving and the derobed, if you will. Something funny about it. You'll decide if you like it or not, but for me it's a not unpleasing image (I'm British, remember ;-)

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.

Tarred and Feathered

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Tarred & Feathered ~

Tarred and Feathered, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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Who needs guard dogs when you can have guard swans, and mean-looking black ones at that, specially imported for the seasonal occasion?

Actually, the white ones with whom the above beauties share the lake exhibit the more menacing behaviour. These two just want food, which reminds me of my beautiful, impressive-looking, but ultimately nosh searching Czechoslovakian wolf dog / pooch. Their stomachs rule their world.

It's funny to see both pairs, the pure white and pure black swans, inhabiting different parts of their Paris pond, keeping a wary distance and studiously ignoring each other. The black ones seem to have taken over the most propitious food filching end of the lake but the white ones are more aloof and less concerned with grub grabbing than their antipodean cousins.

The pigeons don't seem particularly nonplussed and the geese and ducks just get on with it, business as usual. Even the cheeky little sparrows still manage to sneak in there where heavier webbed feet clumsily fail to tread.

Our tardy couple are only pitched here for the summer and then are somehow shipped off to milder climes I suppose, for their disappearance is almost as unsettling as their arrival. Which is another reason the Parc Montsouris in the 14th is probably my favourite Paris park. What about 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.

Things Are Looking Up

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Things Are Looking Up ~

Things Are Looking Up, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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People are always posting pictures of this building as seen from the Promenade Plantée, which goes out from near the Bastille to the west of the city, but rarely from ground level. So I thought I would.

There's a fairly good reason for the usual vantage point - it's picturesque and popular - while the area I took this from is rather grim and uninviting, hanging around the backside of the Gare de Lyon, with dark, sinister tunnels and strange goods entrances and the last thing you'd normally be doing is walking around those parts without a very good reason.

Although a good reason could be to look up and wonder why a police station is crowned, turretted or even wreathed, if you prefer, with Adonis-types looking suitably beautiful and desirous. If it weren't for a whacking great triangle that's quite visibly... missing from their thoraxes, especially when seen from the back, that is.

Apparently this was to reduce their weight but has also increased their intrique and quite a splendid sight it is too, especially when you consider the rest of the almost Stalinesque edifice.

There's a lot to be said for scouring the outer reaches and lesser-trodden areas of Paris, and this is just one more good example why. What have you spotted recently you'd write home about?

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.

Bottoms Up & Anchors Away!

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Bottoms Up & Anchors Away! ~

Bottoms Up & Anchors Away!, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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This has always struck me as one of the dodgiest parts of the city, this microscopic Seine-side walkway, and if you look closely you can just about see someone waywalking...

Not to be negotiated on a murky moonlit night when you've had a few.

I'm always surprised the thing exists at all, this person-wide passageway in between the Pont d'Austerlitz and the Viaduc of the same name, it's just so dodgy, but I'm repeating myself...

There's a flood memory inside that same viaduct which few people see reminding us of just how high the flood of 1910 got - it's on a 100 year cycle, you know. Woops. That's the one that had people paddling through the streets of the city, and we're just waiting for the repeat showing anytime at a riverbank near you...

That little walkway wouldn't be much use in such circumstances, it'd be quite a few feet under and just a bitter-sweet memory. Maybe we'll see such an occurence again and will have to rewrite all those 1910 flood markers with 2012 ones. Or 2013. Or 14... I'll keep you posted, if you keep the canoes at the ready. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. They do. Cheers. Bottoms up.

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.

Cunning Punts & Other Stunts

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Cunning Punts & Other Stunts ~

Cunning Punts & Other Stunts, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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My Paris and I creative process, for what it's worth, goes something like this.

Hit the streets of Paris with camera in hand. Wander around with my eyes wide open, looking for anything interesting. Something strikes me as interesting and I try to photograph it even more interestingly than reality. Sometimes I succeed.

Get rid of the total crap on the train ride home if I'm feeling disciplined. More often than not, though, start working immediately on the pics I like the best. Play around with them in one of several iPhone apps I use regularly. Have fun. Publish to Flickr, either on the train or at home.

Go to Flickr at some later point and see what's sitting there, waiting for words, coz I do words with my pics, you know...

Let the photo inspire some thoughts and start getting them out there. Polish up article. Sometimes not. Publish to Blogger. Tidy up obvious cock-ups. Publish to Facebook. Watch visitor count mount for a while. Enjoy. Bask in joy of three and a half views, two of them mine, no, four. Move on.

And that's about it. Back to the Wall. Getting stuff out there. Of Innocents or Facebook.

They say the internet never forgets. For me, in that case, it's way too late. To preserve any semblance of anonymity. Seems. Futile. Although... it all may be a mask, have you considered that. Affront. Just to be blunt. Another cunning stunt  ;~S

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.

Poisoning The Pigeons In The Park

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Poisoning The Pigeons ~

Poisoning The Pigeons In The Park, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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Going to the park to feed the ducks used to be such a simple pleasure, what seems like a lifetime ago.

That was before the powers that be decided that not only was bread far from the ideal nutritional suppliment for our webbed-footed friends, but that it also created an unhealthy dependence upon man and his oft-dodgy culinary habits.

Hence... the sprouting of signs like the one above. 'If you love the birds... don't bloody feed them'!

I can't help feeling a little sad that this classic childhood activity has gone the way of playing in the road or going 'down the field' like I used to when I was young at the risk of getting molested or flashed at, or why not kidnapped and ripped to bits like so many pieces of scattered stale crusts...

You still get the 'unconditionals' of course - slightly shady types who arrive with what looks like an entire boulangerie's cast-offs and procede to get mobbed by illiterate pushy pond-life.

But not your average kid, who now risks a night in the nick if so much as suspected as throwing a casual crumb to a duck or a goose or a swan. Sparrows and especially flying rats, err, I mean pigeons are another case altogether and worthy of their own web post if they haven't had one already. For another time. From another time.

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.

Sanguine Sepia

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Sanguine Sepia ~

Sanguine Sepia, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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This reminds me of the vandalised Dali sundial on Rue Saint-Jacques which I featured recently in my Paris Sundials feature over on Paris If You Please.

Some moron has thrown some red paint at Dali's masterpiece and the ink has contoured the eye and run down the cheek. Pretty much as has happened here although in this case it might be deliberate on the part of the artist for all I know (I didn't look closely enough at the time of taking the pic, and even if I had it could still be on the part of the artist)...

Here the bloody addition fits in pretty well, right down to the gruesome trail of gore on the sidewalk, just like some sort of drive-by shooting, yikes.

I'm pleased with the treatment, which has rendered the scene in uneasy shades of sickly sepia apart from the face and the facial damage. 'Graffito gouged', I almost expect the papers to be screaming tomorrow morning.

If this is 'creative vandalism' it's a sight better than the mindless smashing of Gregos' wall faces, for example, which is why I'm hesitating to actually put my versions of his plaster masks up in the streets. Anyway, I'm rambling, so I'll ramble on and see you the morrow. Or one of these days.

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.

Manège Fermé

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Manège Fermé ~

Manège Fermé, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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Kids, and indeed childhoods, get remembered through poignant little refrains, and I imagine Léo and Léo's will be no exception.

'Manège fermé' (merry-go-round closed) is his current favourite, closely followed by 'Métro fermé' (metro closed), 'église fermée' (church closed), 'parc fermé' (park closed) and practically anything else that is, well, fermé(e). Can you spot a recurring theme here?

In their little worlds and hearts, something as simple as the carousel being closed can be a major disappointment in their day, if not a serious international incident, so you hope it doesn't occur too often.

Here it was the case, though, but luckily the pony's weren't fermé and so the day was (just about) saved, but it was a close call. In my son's mind it's utter madness to close the merry-go-round, although he just about accepts things like parks and churches having their non-funtioning moments.

Ernest proclamations of things being 'cassé' (broken) is another favourite, and it occurs with frightening regularity, given the price of toys nowadays, the little... rascal. So far he hasn't found a way of breaking the carousel, however, so the only potential crisis source is, of course, it resembling the above pic, and in general you sincerely hope it doesn't.

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.

Are You There, Paris?

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Are You There, Paris? ~

Are You There, Paris?, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.

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This one's part of my 'Totally Crap Paris' series over on Paris If You Please, but I thought I'd share it with you here just in case you thought I was getting too touristy with my shots of Eiffel Tower keyrings and cute graffiti and sober statues and goodness knows what else.

This is pure, pristine Paris grunge, and there's plenty of it if you just get a little off the beaten track, and often on it too. This is just behind the Institut de France, opposite the Pont des Arts. Whether Paris is there or not, or whether the scrawler found the Paris they were looking for is anyone's guess.

There are plenty of people who come here looking for... something, even if they're not really sure what it is. Sometimes they wait for it to find them, and that can take some time. Which is one of the reasons some of us have been here nearly twenty years. Either we've found the mythical 'it' and chosen not to leave, or we're still looking and hoping. I'll let you decide what my case is. What's yours?

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.

Locked On Paris

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Locked On Paris ~

Locked On Paris, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Kitch as you like but kinda cute I guess. We're here on the Pont des Arts of course, looking at a particularly 'touching' couple of lover's locks, linked by a heart-shaped Paris trinket. Ahhh...

As I keep mentioning, they risk being taken away though as all the locks are damaging the barriers, making them unsafe and giving the authorities the perfect excuse to get rid of the things.

I guess about 12 years ago I might have put my own lock up somewhere but these days it's so common I think we need to find a new, more original way of sealing our lurve.

I don't have any ideas though. Some attach their locks in less conventional places such as on statues, but they'll almost certainly be removed pretty quickly. Others still do the old graffiti thing, but that's so teenagery it's almost a joke.

Why not spraying your love on the sidewalks of the city on the route of your inamorata's way to work - that's pretty cool, if a tad embarrassing for the concerned party. In a worst case scenario she may end up thinking you're just a bit too nuts to continue with, which would rather defeat the purpose.

Anyway the locks are still going strong for the time being, and my photos of them apace. They're becoming a bit like the Eiffel Tower - something which you can't help photographing on a regular basis but which has to be taken from a different angle each time. For the moment, ça va.

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.

Causeway of the Condemned

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Causeway of the Condemned ~

Causeway of the Condemned, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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The strangest thing. And this is no joke. I'm finding it harder and harder to justify taking one step after another.

Now that sounds strange, let me clarify. When I run, I find myself dividing the last few turnings into numbers, so I can count them out - that's three... two... one... and I'm home!

But what's infinitely more worrying is that when I'm out walking, even if it's just to the supermarket around a few corners, I can't help asking myself why I'm spending my life walking along these aimless corridors.

Well, there is an aim, but it's one I'm having more and more difficulty focusing on.

I'm finding that I need to be spending more and more of my life on producing and not just 'hovering'. But this is not good, I recognise this. We need time to reflect. But for me, walking to and from the supermarket isn't it. Although it could be.

The paving stone you can see in the photo above... isn't. It's one of the supports for a gallows which hung hundreds of people way back when, but only a few generations. Now it sits quietly along with its four sinister sisters on an anonymous street in the 11th. Until the next time.

As for my worrying wanderings, I don't know what I'll be doing with them, but if anything significant happens, rest assured, I'm sure I'll find a photo to coerce into the conspiracy of my coagulant cogitations.

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.