Paris and I ~ 'How Soon Is Now?'

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ How Soon Is Now? ~

How Soon Is Now?, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Chugging into town on a murky Monday can still hold some surprises and make you think the week isn't going to be so bad after all.

This isn't this Monday, it was the last one, but the effect was still the same. OK, I've exaggerated the colours, but this is really what my brain saw, a glorious sunrise which only lasted a few mintues, but while it did, above the head of the dozy commuters, glimpsed between rushing trees and houses and fleeing stations, it inspired not a little.

They say the higher the pollution, the better the sunrise or set, which is a sad way of looking at things, a sad reality perhaps, but we don't need to think about that now, do we? Should we be wondering and worrying about whether we can go swimming this summer, given the higher level of radioactivity in the seas at the moment?

Perhaps we should be thinking about it, but worrying? It depends what good that will do. This makes me think of Aesop's philosophical puzzle about the grasshopper and the ant.

The ant sweats and toils all summer putting food aside for winter while the grasshopper laughs and dances and thinks the ant's mad not to enjoy himself now. Then later, in the winter, the grasshopper's dying from hunger and asks the ant for charity. Depending on the version (this comes from 2500 years ago!) the ant refuses or grudgingly helps out, chastising the grasshopper for his rashness and lack of prudence.

Actually, it wasn't written as a philosophical puzzle but as a simple and quite clear moral tale, ending bluntly with the weighty "It is best to prepare for the days of necessity", or "It is wise to worry about tomorrow today". In the cuddliest, kiddy-friendly version I found, the grasshopper is scolded by the ant but doesn't die, puts his newfound wiseness into practice the following year and survives the next winter swimmingly (biologically impossibly, given their lifespan) and the clanging moral becomes the gentler "He had learned to think ahead and plan for the future".

So what's so philosophically puzzling about that, you may be wondering. Well, quite simply, should we worry about a time other than this one, and which indeed may never come, not for us in any case, if we happen to pop off the planet in the interim? It may seem prudent to prepare for the future, but what if that interferes with 'now' to the extent that you are not enjoying your present moments? Is there anything but 'your present moments'? Are not our 'present moments', in fact, our life?

Going further, we think that we will be the same person next winter as we are this summer, but will we? We, as this current, summery person, thinks that the wintery person will feel the same way as we do now, and will therefore appreciate our efforts to make that wintery person happy, and content, or at least not hungry. But do we have the right to impose our beliefs on someone who is not there to defend themselves - i.e. the person we will have become in a few months' time.

If that seems too obscure, consider all the old people living in misery regretting their lives and not having done more or vising exciting places or telling people certain things which would have brought pleasure or relief in what was, at that time, the present.

Sitting on this train, I could be tempted to think I'm wasting my time (as I have done in other posts on this blog), and may think that just as soon as this boring journey is over I can get on with enjoying my life again. And yet for most of my fellow travellers, at the end of this particular tunnel lies grain gathering and storing, as opposed to cheery chirping and carefree prancing around, which many of us don't consider to be that much fun, in fact.

Do we have another moral brewing here? I'm I going to go all hippy on you and quote about a million trippy songs and say "Live for today, coz tomorrow never knows..."? Nope. Because as with many philosophical puzzles, there aren't always clear answers, and many of our moribund morals can quite easily be shown to be doubtful at least, and highly judgemental, self-righteous or dictatorial at worst. I remain neutral, then, but it makes you wonder a little, doesn't it? Have a nice day, y'all ;-D

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

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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Paris and I ~ 'Dogwatch Diary'

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Dogwatch Diary ~

Dogwatch Diatribe, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Now this is weird. Oh, hang on, I don't start all my rambles with those words, do I? With my obsession with Paris Quirks and Curios I sometimes get the feeling that's all I ever talk about. Oh well, so be it, but this really is, honestly.

There's a rather well-known and mightily used bridge, which goes from Place Saint-Michel to Ile de la Cité, called, logically enough, Pont Saint-Michel.

And if you stand with the Saint-Michel fountain behind you, on the left-hand side of the bridge, just before crossing it, and cast your gaze across the river to the little stone staircase which goes down to the water, you will notice something rather strange.

Tucked away on the actual edge of the little flight of steps is an old stone arch which looks like it used to frame a door or something long ago. Nowadays it's sort of concreted up.

I say 'sort of' because the concrete creating a perfect seal at the top of the archway doesn't make it all the way to the bottom. Down in the lower right-hand corner it seems to have been nibbled away by what must be one hell of a river rat by the looks of it. There's a gaping hole, in otherwords.

One of the strange things about this doorway is that if you happened to be in that doorway, and had the very unsensible idea of stepping outside for a bit, you'd find yourself teetering on a very dubious and slippery-looking ledge and if you moved a few centimetres forward you'd be taking a bath in the Seine.

As I said, that's one of the stange things about this thing. The other strange thing is that there's a dog living in there. You can see his nose in the picture above. Occasionally he pokes it out and sniffs around a bit. Sometimes he retires within. Otherwise, he just lies there, without so much as a 'Bark, who goes there?' to signal his presence, no doubt thinking his existential doggy thoughts, or maybe he's like the apocryphal dyslexic agnostic insomniac, who lies awake all night wondering if there really is a dog...

Anyway, apart from what you can see, there seems to be no other obvious way in or out no way no how. An old rag looks like it once provided some rudimentary protection from the elements, but whether by our ruminating friend here or by the great river rat himself, it seems to have been well and truly gnawed right up to the edges of the concrete which remains. On the concrete above the rag someone's written something that looks a bit like 'Heuresement' (happily). Is it a code?

Maybe it's not concrete but some sort of easily chewable panelling. Perhaps he's on a special spying mission for unknown powers whose name must never be uttered, but who are expected under the Saint-Michel bridge at any moment, they just don't know which one.

Or could I have unwittingly discovered the entrance to a secret tunnel which burrows right under Notre Dame or the mythical Palais de Justice and maybe even the Concièrgerie itself, giving direct access into the witchy towers where Marie-Antoinette was imprisoned before getting the chop. Could she have slipped out by this watery oriface and never really have lost her head and now her descendents are living is a secret room under the inverted Louvre Pyramid waiting for the time to be right to rise again and claim the vacant throne of France as their own?

Probably not. Does anyone know? Or do I have to go down there, fight my way past the mutt, and find out for myself? I'll be your new best friend if you've got any ideas, coz I'm not that into dark tunnels, mutt-fighting or chilly river dips to be honest with you...

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

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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Paris and I ~ 'Word On The Street'

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Word On The Street ~

Word On The Street, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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I could hardly believe my eyes. One of, if not the biggest chain of opticians (i.e. spec-sellers) in France seems to have graffitied, yes, there's no other word for it, if it isn't 'tagged', the pavement just in front of the old Marine Ministry across from pricy Maxims-of-Paris.

Three equally unlikely theories instantly come to mind. One is that a graffiti artist is somehow mocking this brand, but all we can see is the company's faithfully repoduced logo and a picture of a dog wearing glasses, so I can't find too much irony there, unless it's supposed to be an ad targetted at pooches themselves (ah yes, maybe that's it).

My second idea is that it's an unofficial piece of guerrilla marketing which the company has surreptitously commissioned to raise brand awareness in a street-cred kind of way. Sunglasses manufacturer Raybans did it a while back I think, with their 'Never Hide' slogan, but it doesn't seem quite in the style of a boring high street group.

And finally, maybe brands can actually legally do this these days. And why not? If the walls and platforms of the city can be sold to and defaced by the highest bidder, then why not the sidewalks too? I'm interested to know.

Although that could prove tricky. I can't quite see how the authorities would be able to distinguish between 'official' advertising graffiti, and unofficial street art. Especially when the really urban wags got going. And you could easily say that genuine art had a far greater right to adorn the street and bombard our aching eyeballs than adverts for perfume, glasses and watches we are never likely to buy. In terms of adding value to the public domain and our lives overall I know which I'd chose. I'm not talking tags and signatures here, but proper reflective pieces with genuine artistic merit.

Every now and there there's a flash attack on the advertising billboards in the metro, covering them in derogatory slogans and humorous slander, and although I'm not that radical I can see their point. Another initiative was for students (it generally seemed to be students) to go around switching off all the neon shop signs that wasted electricity all night for no good reason.

But anyway, back to Place de la Concorde and this strange apparition. What is the answer to the riddle? Whence this initiative? Can anyone do it? Will four-eyed canines soon be as commonplace as their daily dejections... I think we deserve to be told. May I suggest a suitable wall just near where I come out of the metro at Saint Michel-Notre Dame? There's a big church there with loads of space available...

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

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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Paris and I ~ 'Thank Frog It's Friday!'

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Thank Frog It's Friday! ~

Thank Frog It's Friday!, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Honestly, never have a seen such a miserable face staring right at me and yet through me, pressed up against the door of a suburban train in the rush hour, gazing out into the breaking dawn I see... only my reflection and catch myself thinking... "Cheer up, you miserable git - you're heading into Paris, remember?!"

It's sometimes difficult to remember why you're here and what it is you were supposed to be enjoying anyway when the sleep is pouring out of your eyes and you're dying for your first coffee and, ahh yes, it won't be long now, that first reassuring bite of croissant as you hurry up the stairs and out into the streets of the world's, err, what was it again.. oh yes, the World's Most Romantic Capital, that was it.

They read much less on French commuter trains than in the UK, I've noticed. At least, they seem too. But then again the ritual of the morning paper is much more a British thing than French. We still have paper boys, don't we (the Brits), or is my first gainful employment a thing of the past, consigned to the annuls of history and worthy of sociological interpretation like a character from a Dickens novel?

Free papers are both to blame and to praise I guess - they must be killing the paying press and yet more people are reading these days than before, I'm sure of it.

Can I be totally judgemental and probably intellectually snobby right now? Well, of course I can, it's my blog after all, but I just thought I'd ask you anyway.

Why, oh What The Frog do people see in doing Sudoku puzzles? If that's even how you spell it, can you see how little I care to not even go and check? Ha!

I know they say it's supposed to stimulate the grey matter or whatever, but since when did reading the proper bits of a newspaper not do the same thing? Or reading a... book, yes, that's it, a book, you know, those collections of dried flattened tree droppings people still sometimes cart around.

Hmm, I'm going to get into dangerous territory here, with my own thought processes, because if anything's for sure, it's that I do some things just as mindless which others would consider me a complete nutter for. Colouring in bits of cloth, for example. I call it... painting. Not only that, but I don't even attempt to reproduce anything vaguely resembling something anyone outside of a mental institution would recognise. I call it... abstract.

So there you go, I've just booted myself up the backside for my Sudoku comment in the space of about three paragraphs, and what's more, I can't even do my ridiculous passtime on the way to work - I have to give up my own personal time and that of my family to do it. GO FIGURE! My favourite expression scores again.

Then again, pointless or not, at least my creations continue to (dis)grace the walls of certain appartments or streets for a bit longer than the discarded number-graffitied pulp-rags lining the wastepaper bins and platforms of the city. Maybe that means something.

Anyway, it IS Friday, the sun is shining gloriously, spring is most definitely in the air, oh, listen, there's a bird chirping cheerily, my latest creations are probably ready for the next coat, I'm ready for another coffee (I'm clean out of croissants, darn it!) and you should really be doing something better than reading me right now.

Actually, I'm only kidding, there's absolutely NOTHING better you could have done with the last three minutes of your life than read me. And if you don't agree with me then why did you do it?! Please please tell me it was better than Sudoku. It was, wasn't it? Pretty please...

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

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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Paris and I ~ 'Keeping Abreast Of Things'

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Keeping Abreast Of Things ~

Keeping Abreast Of Things, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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There was an article on one of the on-line news services about breasts the other day which grabbed my attention.

Nothing surprising about that, you may be saying. That there was a news piece on breasts in France, I mean.

Anyway, apparently a local mairie (town hall) has been told to 'tone down' its patriotic Marianne bust, which proudly presides over all the daily goings-on such as court hearings and civil ceremonies. The problem seems to be that the Marianne bust is just a little too... busty. And it's true that this particular version of the republican icon does look as though she's got a couple of falsies in there.

You can just imagine defendents gazing dreamily over the heads of severe judges or young men about to tie the knot being nudged back to the present.. "Err, ugh? what?! Oh yes, um, I do, I do! - Sorry, my mind was on something else darling..."

Which is rather strange, given the omnipresence of the aforementioned appendages here in France. For a start, more than half the population has them. Furthermore, they have few qualms about getting them out for general ocular consumption for a few weeks every year on holiday. And finally, places like Paris are positively heaving with the things on any public building you might care to contemplate. Boobs are, literally, all over the French capital (and we haven't even started on advertising...)

There was a funny interview with an elderly Monsieur who couldn't understand what all the fuss was about (been there, done that, got the grandchildren to prove it), and another with the local po-faced mayor saying something surely politically correct about the affair and not wanting to shock the sensibilities of some.

If anything, I'm most takenaback by images like the above, from a museum courtyard just off the Place des Vosges in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. Isn't it just slightly bizarre to have a decidedly pert pair stuck on the female torso of what quickly metamorphosises into a lion(ess)? She's not even covered up, for crying out loud! At least Marianne was wearing a dress of sorts.

In every park, on any monument, all over the Louvre, on the front of the Opéra Garnier ferchrissakes (although once attacked with ink, it's true), breasts are everywhere. It's a fact we have to live and deal with every day of our lives, and I for one am prepared to face up to the challenge. If there are any further devolopments on the Marianne issue, rest assured, I'll keep you abrea... oh never mind.

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

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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Paris and I ~ 'Sit You Down Father, Rest You'

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Sit You Down Father, Rest You ~

Sit You Down Father, Rest You, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Oooff! I know this is another church image, but I did tell you that Paris places of worship, or simply calm are inspiring me at the moment, didn't I?

In this case I'll probably make it a quiz question, because there's something in this picture which is a little more interesting than just chairs, although I wouldn't mock or denegrate the tapissier's calling for a moment, as this posting hopefully proves.

So nothing political or religious or contentious of any sort, shape or form... except, perhaps that an element of this photo was sneakily twisted for dubious literary purposes and vast commercial gain not so long ago - can you guess what and where it is?

Probably the most talked about Parisian church in recent popular adventure novel publishing history, if that helps! Believe it or not :-S

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

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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.

Paris and I ~ 'Make My Day'

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Make My Day ~

Make My Day, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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What have we stumbled on here - a war of the street artists? One of them aggressively challenges another, who responds fearlessly? Symbolic violence on the streets? Haven't we had enough of the real thing to last us a lifetime?

OK, it seems like a violent image, indeed, and it is. But then there's the context and the unseen facts behind it. Don't worry, the brains of our favourite refacer of the walls of Paris is not about to be decorating the vaults of some graffitied Valhalla anytime soon.

I actually took this picture about two minutes before meeting the creator of the colourful and wildly popular Paris painted faces - his face - that are all over the city now, so I asked him what it was about.

He told me that in fact it was a bit of a joke between these two artists (yes, the guy who put up the Clint Eastwood 'Make My Day' piece is a street artist too. He was featured in the first number of a new street art magazine and Gregos is in the second and the twain did meet through the Clint guy 'preparing the terrain' for Gregos, and Gregos rising to the challenge. So not as nasty as it seems and anyway, we see images like this all the time in our seething streets, don't we..?

I have three or four of my own 'Gregos' chez-moi which will be finished soon and then I'll become part of the Gregos legend on the streets of Paris for however long they last. Would you be surprised if I told you that I'll post pictures of them here when they're ready and up? No, I didn't think you would. Have a nice day!

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

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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.