re-tabulation

the most immutable and durable of signboards - inscribed in marble, framed in stone - can still succumb to the ravages of age and weather... and yet, this fading but solid evidence of a once flourishing enterprise remains in place as a memorial tablet, a relique to the thousands of objets once fabricated here for the deserving populace...

revelation

the whimsical energy of lives lived within escapes in abstract squiggles from the revamping of a centuries old edifice...
uncovering the upper portion of an ancient faded sign, if only one can decipher its mysterious provenance...

le timide telamone

hiding from the myriad tools of industry, the distracted telamone turns his muscular back to a honest day's work... preferring to hold up his load of ponderous reveries instead...

l'embonpoint

corpulent flesh immortalized in bronze...
voluminous words preserved in print...
the sculptor's hands tire from molding so much corporality while the writer's mind fades out from terminal exhaustion...

[more wordy essay on the museum where this rotund piece resides on Parigigi's site under the "musées" category]

la garantie

as if...

french bleeng

serious bling for the one who wants to lead the most:::
...the emphatic emperor with a nudity clause
...the enlightened suzereine who prescribes junk food for the masses
...the delirious president infected with a napoleon complex
...the bulimic autocrat whose gilded plunder purges corporate dross

[bling by J.C. de Castelbajac displayed at the Musée Galliera, Paris]

anti-romeo

not a welcoming situation for any aspiring romeo, or even a few tired birds... the medieval elements striate this façade in rough-hewn solidity, determined to deter and repel all interlopers...

la vache sauvage

it's quite disconcerting to think that so much is extorted from this poor shy animal for another species' greedy consumption...
squeezed dry for its milk, cut up for its meat, skin stripped and tanned for leather goods... they were clever to pretend to be mad for a while [although that got some executed, too]!

l'étoile mineure

the minor star formed simply by only a few perforated dots...pas pour MOI, mais peut-etre pour la boutique MODE quelque chose... now long closed for business?

l'étoile majeure

what major creative force it must have taken to forge this portal gate into existence...multi-starbolts to speed Mercury on his way...

photo-cine

such an odd retro reminder of a world of imagery that has now accelerated to beyond the wildest imagination...
if only the scope of my visual intake can keep up!
[note to self: limit viewing of interesting blogs!]

deco-rum

the "epitomb" of art deco elegance strains against the messiness of the living above and all around...
even high upon this little hill, Ruhlmann must rue the day they planted him here!
[I jest...this compact and half-hidden Cimetière de Passy is a repository of some haute privileged remains indeed]

driving into delirium*

like a sleek black panther crouching outside a disheveled garage, this shiny dew encrusted machine was primed to take flight...
I prowled around it a few times absorbing the primal energy of italian engineering and wished that I could drive away into my delirium...

[*"Driving into Delirium" is a song title from Malcolm McLaren's Paris album]

red-i-vivus

a prairie barn in a field of wheat??...reflected back onto a Pariscape of monumental edifices...
hard to guess where this mirrored image is located, isn't it?

mes boulets royaux

roll with them here...tilt their world to catch the light...loosen the chains and let them free...float them up to the silver skies...let them fall as mercury bubbles...to burst upon the cold hallowed ground...

wolf at the wall

it is always jarring to walk by a solidly bricked up façade of a seemingly still usable building...
what is it shielding behind such a finite barricade?
how long has it been this way and for how much longer?
does the wolf still come huffing and puffing to blow the house down??
and what of this curious altar-like niche so perfectly placed to break up the brick pattern and perhaps even endow it with an art installation status?

om

the transcendent soaring of a vertical garden sends the eye gazing heavenward... an uplifting meditation upon a living green wall to dispel thoughts of the rampant consumerism transpiring behind this "slice of nature" billboard...

[this mur végétal by the innovative and eccentric Patrick Blanc is part of the entry façade of the BHV Homme department store on Rue de la Verrerie]

naufragé

a sabotaged ship, an abandoned ark, cut adrift below the colossal glimmering glass barge that is the Bibliotheque Nationale de France...
its smashed glass windows howling helpless angst at its sinking, the pattern of black jagged openings an expressive code for a mercy rescue before it completely submerges...

sarko

five green letters methodically spray-painted on five closed shutters of an aristocratic abode on the Ile Saint-Louis...
a minimalist and simplistic statement for or against?
a high-jumping child with green paint to spare?
mere blank canvases evidently begging to be defiled?
a spontaneous tag by a deliriously voluble president out on a walk??
[most probably:: a love-giddy declaration of a well-fed and victorious first lady!!]

orangina

on the window of a closed up grocery store, this artistically modified advertisement for the iconic french fizzy drink is worthy of the company's grateful endorsement...
I am often gifted with bottles of this barely orangey tasting drink by kindly frenchmen just because my name is part of its name!...[one even awarded me with an "orangina" trophy cup that he had found at the flea market!]

for more "orangina" fun facts, visit www.musee-orangina.com