boxed-in

a minuscule cubicle not much larger than the chimney and garlanded by a lush floral smile perches solitary upon the roof...
what could this diminutive protuberance possibly hold - a chair? a cat-box? a kettle?...perhaps a small television set [already so retro sounding!] for which the antenna still stands on guard!

absence du tronc

a soft-focus study in pale greys and stone, the faintest traces of a cross and lettering on the wall...
a creamy ray of light accuses the missing donation box...as if the very spirit of a sacred place has evaporated...
in this large and hollow space of the chapel of the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, reverberating silence drifts along with the revelatory light and I cross paths with the shadows of unquestioning statues...

autoboxes

something about the graphic simplicity and basic lettering and the double language usage of the words in this sign appealed to me [although I have cut out a qualifying word before "BOXES" in this image]...
as if lulled into a semi-surreal auto-suggestion of box-shaped cars or enormous boxes for cars or unenergized objects versus powered machines...
but nothing as mundane as a secured garage to tend to your average automobile...

[Rue de Belleville, 20e Arr.]

les petites puissances

a rough and ready altar for a pair of pugilistic babies commemorated behind shattered glass and a gilt frame...
a pugnacious display of the early training regime of man-on-man dominion in a dog-eat-dog world...
"rien ne m'est étranger de leur joue à ma joue..."*

[*from "Une autre âme s'avance..." Jules Romains]

[Rue Denoyez, 20e Arr.]

rust in peace

I come upon a narrow rusting door, an ambivalent oxidized portal shut tight to a dusty darkened chamber...
what lies within are perhaps a few tangible symbols of a life long faded...or some consecrated offerings to an obnubilated spirit...
what then when the metal wears thin and the neglected vault finally tumbles to the ground?...
the death of a tomb - a double-death unsung in a sepulchral alley, with only heavy rutilant elements of iron still suspended in the dewy corrosive air...

[Cimetière de Belleville, 20e Arr.]

a sign for signs

another old sign flaking off into obscurity...this one for a manufacturer of small plaques and furniture hardware, those exquisite functional and decorative metalwork that one can still find rusty bits and tarnished pieces of in dusty boxes at flea markets, and reproduced for the organized bins in the hardware department of the BHV...

[Rue Amelot near the Bastille, 11e Arr. - and I do believe that is a bullet hole between the A and the R!]

beau comme un camion

the grittiness of the Marché d'Aligre spills out of many forms of transport modes...
a daily olio of stuff tumbles out of vans as primitive as they get on the streets of Paris...some with panels of crudely vibrant graffiti stop for a while at a brocante to disgorge their messy innards onto the ground, then move on again weaving through traffic and flashing their bold images to weary commuters...