Taxiing My Patience

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Taxiing My Patience ~

Taxiing My Patience, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

***Here's one for all my virtual (and sometimes real) US readers, friends and Paris tour clients - and there's a lot of you guys out there, thank you! While the French might have their rêve americain, it seems that more than a few of you are living your own Parisian dream, at least on a part-time basis. I'm delighted and honoured to be able to feed it for you! ;~Sab

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Joni Mitchell, eat your big apple heart out; there's one waiting and beating for you in Paris too!

A big yellow taxi indeed, in fact three of them, right there on the very un-American Boulevard du Montparnasse.

I'd write amusing things like "You wanna graab a cawfee ona cawnuh de toidy toid an Meydison? Are you fuckin wit me? Fuggedaboudit." but I couldn't type in Robert De Niro font if he was standing behind me with a baseball bat.

So three BYTs (Big Yellow Taxis) on the good 'ol BDM (Boulevard de Montparnasse), all the way from NYC (Never You Care?), what's going on?

Did you guess? Marketing raises its Medusan head in the streets of Paris once again. And what is it this time? Oh, some new American clothing boutique or other opening on the Champs Elysées no doubt; it usually is. You can just about make out which one if you're eagle-eyed, but I'm not going to grace them with my recognition here.

Actually, maybe it'll capture some searches, sooo... ok. It's Tommy Hilfiger, which seems to be... oh, hey, an American clothing boutique with a store on the Champs Elysées - how about that!

The taxis were certainly getting some attention anyway, parked outside the timeless Montparnassian bistrot, the Indiana Café. I don't think they were actually in service, unfortunately, as would have been kinda cool to cruise the French capital in a yellow cab.

Not in Luc Besson style in 'Taxi' and certainly not in Robert De Niro style in 'Ronin', heaven forbid (the wrong way around the péripherique at breakneck speed!), just a leisurely saunter past the sights would do me just fine.

"Taxi?!" Fuggedaboudit.

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.

Model Makeover

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Model Makeover ~

Model Makeover, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Just round the corner from Rue Saint-Denis in Paris, that notorious red light street and its environs, a new 'concept boutique' has seen the light of, well, night.

Drawing heavily on its Amsterdam counterparts for inspiration, this boutique-with-a-difference offers affordable debauchery on a come-as-you-are basis.

Narrowly escaping city indecency laws, this 'poor man's prostitute shop' only gets away with such a blatant street front display through the fact that the goods on offer, far from flesh and finary, are more like plastic and polystyrene.

But still, in these hard-up times, there's generally a market for anything, and if there isn't, well, you know what they say: why not start one yourself?

Judging by a straw poll on customers leaving the shop, the general feeling is that the service on offer is rudimentary but 'correct' for the price, as the French would say.

It's pretty much self-service, with clients even having to hump the models out of the window and into the back room themselves before humping them back there after the business has been concluded.

Never having sampled the delights of any such services à la personne (which I believe you can get a tax rebate on if you're clued up), I honestly couldn't say how this initiative measures up to the 'real thing'.

In any case, after a few moments of awkward hesitation nervously fingering the hard wad in my pocket, I finally decided to keep my readies, let the pixels do the talking, and slunk off into the night, whence I came.

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.

God Bless Humanity...

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ God Bless Humanity... ~

God Bless Humanity..., originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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... and all who fail in her.

Of all the weird religions in all the world, this one might just be the weirdest.

What we are looking at here, ladies and gentlemen, is the last remaining bastion on this side of the world of the curiously and somewhat paradoxically named Réligion de l'Humanité. Or the Church of Positivism if you prefer. The Temple of Reason might be taking the concept a little too far.

The history of all this is fascinating - a valiant attempt by a possibly misguided philosopher to create the world's first scientifically-based, and therefore genuine and 'proper' universal religion. Faith by universal principles, if you like. Brilliant. Except that as I mentioned above, the building you see here, along with another in Brazil (witness the two national flags on the balcony to confirm this) are practically all that's left of this wonderfully inter-era initiative, founded back in the middle of the 19th century.

We hadn't managed to definitively kick god out of the rafters quite yet, and yet, what all the most recent reasoned discoveries were telling us, including vitally what we really weren't finding any evidence for whatsoever, meant that a strange and slightly queasy period was underway, where it was still rather delicate to question the existence of a postulated, all-powerful, creator, but his invisibility and silence was starting to seriously thunder in a lot of people's ears.

In the end, of course, Auguste Comte's grand dream for an ethically and morally sound feel-good club for the faithless was either ahead of its time or simply didn't hit the right hot buttons. The result is this curious listed historic monument you might come across one day if you turn down a certain street in the Marais you haven't investigated before.

If you do, lift up your eyes and absorb the motto for this hopelessly utopian, half-baked, best-of-both-worlds, have your gâteau and eat it, physicists-for-saints, humanity-as-deity Faustian folly.

"L'Amour pour Principe, L'Ordre pour Base, Le Progrès pour But"

Love as principle; order as basis; progress as goal. We can reflect that although Comte's basic principles of order and progress are now just an arcane inscription on a south American flag, his ideas opened doors to more developed movements such as religious humanism and ultimately secular humanism, and altruism (the word, not the behaviour) was also a Comteism.

And whatever happened to love? Maybe, in the end, it's above all that.

(As an interesting endnote, this wasn't the first attempt in recent French history to replace Christianity with a more modern and revolutionarily compatible pseudo-'faith' system, no doubt with the usual intentions of maintaining control of the populace and 'guiding' them in the 'right' direction, despite the self-proclaimed godlessness of the nascent republic. Quite a few Parisian churches were converted into 'Temples of Reason' during the French revolution, and one of them, even larger than Notre-Dame de Paris (now there's a secret!) has an inscription above its front door pledging allegiance to the 'Supreme Being' amongst other things (not including God). Yet another story!)

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.

No Go Zone

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ No Go Zone ~

No Go Zone, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Should I share this with you? Any peer standing I may have had in your eyes could be irrevocably flushed down the toilet, which would be a shame. Nevertheless. Frankness has always been my aim here on Paris & I, so I guess I should really follow my initial idea. Oh dear.

Of a late and loveless, and more to the point looless night on a lonely Paris platform, after a few jars, there's an irresistible urge that comes over a chap, and it's not a very sociable one.

We do have one big advantage (well, I guess that depends on your definition of 'big') over the gals, which is that we can just whip it out and syphon the python in pretty well any dark corner, much to the disgust and perhaps a teeny bit of peeness envy of any member of the fairer sex who happens to be passing by.

Above I'm exceptionally sharing such a shameful place with you, a place that yes, I admit, I have done what it's really best not to admit having done.

As you can see, this unfortunate practice is not unknown to the powers that be. The end result is that the ends of the platforms stink and become a no-go area for a fair number of commuters, thus rendering the middle of the train full while the front and back are woefully underemployed.

To counter this their latest initiative is to set up 'No-Pee Zones', complete with scary black and yellow stripes (y'know, like a bee, sting, ouch, that sort of thing) and highly dissuasive messages plastered underfoot.

Someone also started a rumour that they had actually electrified the metal grills through which certain degenerates had developed the habit of relieving themselves at the end of a well-watered evening.

The spectacular result of this, so the story goes, is that the minute your urine hits the live fence a powerful bolt of several thousand volts zaps up your zeezee and you are instantly electrocuted in the most humiliatingly painful way imaginable.

As no-one (until now) will admit to actually performing such an act, much less to receiving such an embarrassing comeuppance, there are very few eye-witness accounts to rely on, and so the rumour persists. Apparently the campaign has been a great success.

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.

Green Day in Paris

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Green Day in Paris ~

Green Day in Paris, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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This was a pure exercise in photographosity* if ever there was one, and I admit that quite freely. I'm even going to say so in the video; I make no claims whatsoever about the merits of this snatched street pic save one: it demonstrates admirably the way my fotographic fraught-processes work, for what that's worth.

I'd turned my back on these two (well, four) and was well on my way to the Picpus metro when I remembered that I'd said I really must grab a shot of them for a possible future 'Sab's Top 10 Cool Paris Columns' feature...

Now, there's column shots and there's column shots. And when it comes to something as classic as this, you can imagine just how many people have simply raised their cameras to their eyes and snapped, and there you have it; another tourist

So, to cut a long story short, I looked around for something to add to the shot. Not to mention a bit of a wander to see how the relationship between the two pinacles changed with my point of view. But anyway, I saw this little green man as I was waiting to cross with, would you believe it, two little green towering figures in the background. I went with it.

In the end I couldn't get the green man and the green statues acceptably exposed at the same time, and the shot was also seriously lacking punch, so I went with Mr. Red.

And in the end that was better for another reason too. This little red guy looking somewhat nonplussed at being surrounded by all these grandiloquent greenies. Or even taking off their pompous poses. I thought that was a bit funny. That's it.

*Don't ask me, I haven't a clue. 'Photography for photography's sake', maybe? That might be it...

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.

Be Seeing You

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Be Seeing You ~

Be Seeing You, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Paris is a strange city. In fact it's two cities. At least.

There's what's visible street-side. And then there's the hidden back-side. Did you know that the city of light was riddled with dark holes and passages?!

You know when you're walking along and someone comes out of one of those big heavy double doors, or maybe through a mini door in a bigger one, and you try to sneak a glimpse through the rapidly narrowing gap to see what lies beyond?

Well we should really take a few longer and more detailed looks, methinks, because there's wonders in them there courtyards, there is.

As a fiendish fetishist of all things corroding and rotten, imagine my deranged delight when I discovered this superb example of the genre...

Slip through some of those (usually) deep green double doors and you can often discover first, second and sometimes even third courtyards, getting progressively more bucolic or simply begrimed as you work your way in.

This wasn't the case here - it's just a single, pretty charmless 'hole' surrounded by apartments, but one thing does distinguish it: a series of gloriously grotty enamelled plaques, more examples of which I'll show you somewhere someday.

This is the best though, and what's doubly intriquing, is that although it's attached to the wall with a nifty little swivelling socket thingy, you can see quite clearly that at one point it was nailed to some other wall by its four corners.

A venerable war veteran, then, with a visibly long and devoted service to the sacré escalier 'C' behind it. Honoured to make your acquaintance, sir, and long may you reign, err, hang, and the weather not, lest you wane and rot even more than you already have.

Vive l'esprit de l'escalier; I'm one of your biggest adepts...
bCnu

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.

Trainspotting For Tots

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Trainspotting For Tots ~

Trainspotting For Tots, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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This one's for my little two-year-old son, but I have to admit I'm a bit worried about him. His crèche says he's sur la lune (on the moon), which whilst not exactly meaning he's completely loony is a sneaky French way of saying he's on another planet, or at best has his head in the clouds. Ahh, that's my boy!

But back to this pic. He's got a thing about trains, shouts with excitement whenever he sees one, and can spend hours with his little mitts clinging to the railings looking down on the platforms at Denfert Rochereau, completely fascinated by every monstrous RER which thunders by.

And then there's planes. Despite the fact that Spanish, French and English are all competing with each other in his head at the moment, I'm quite pleased to say that 'aeroplane (up in the sky)', give or take the odd syllable or three, is what automatically comes out of his mouth every time he spots a you-know-what. And he spots a lot.

He seems to have a sixth sense for the things. Two seconds out of the door, and the sky-gazing has begun. Eyes aloft, finger pointing, voice rising with excitement: "Eh-play uppi skaheey! Eh-play uppi skaheey!" Lack of equivalent adult minder enthusiasm is highly frowned upon. This is not to be taken lightly. Each plane deserves its very own delerium.

We live on the Orly airport flight path just to the south of Paris. We know about aeroplanes up in the sky. Oh yes.

I comfort myself with images of a lucrative air traffic controller career for him in later life and can't help thinking that there's a certain truth to the old 'like father like son' adage.

As I wander around the lesser-known outer arrondissements of the city I often find myself coming into close contact with these slumbering snakes shown above, and they're generally pretty photo-worthy to my eyes.

Hence this picture for my little train-spotter, hoping that these latent anorak tendencies don't worsen into something more serious as he approaches adulthood. For me I think it's already too late.

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.