Summer officially kicked in in the later part of the week but whoever up there who’s supposed to dish out the correct weather condition seems to have missed the memo. We started the week with crazy storm and there were reports that some parts of Ile de France were hit by large pebble-sized hailstones, then we had a bright sunny day, just to get another day of storm, followed by a day torrential rain before clearing up in the afternoon. Trying to fit all the awful weather in before it turned 21 June and really need to get into summer mode?
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17 Jun: Paris plunged into darkness today. There was raging thunderstorm all morning that I was pondering if I should even stay online or shut down the laptop. The lightning could be seen running all the way from the sky down to the earth, and this is not a common sight. Right around 11am, barely a slither of natural light remained and it felt like night. I love this shot because it reminds me of the quality of Impressionism. Peer closely, it’s mostly random water blobs. Step away and perhaps you’ll start to see what I saw in my apartment that memorable moment.
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A whirlwind week away can only be matched to a whirlwind week at home, right? Well, it may not look it but it certainly felt like it. As I set my to-do list for the next few days, and reviewed my calendar for the coming weeks, I realised things are liable to be crazier than ever. On the plus side, I manage to sneak in some reading time, which makes me pretty content at the same time.
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20 May: I know, a photo taken at Marks & Spencer is hardly exciting but have a read at the labels of these bottles. Juices with red pepper or asparagus in them? We tested out the one with asparagus in it and it actually was quite nice. Granted, there wasn’t too much asparagus in it to start with, but enough to give a hint of the taste. Honestly though, I miss the food hall of M&S. There are a couple of them in Paris; the food section in the branch on Champs-Élysées is very limited and the other branch is a bit far in Levallois-Perret (actually outside of Paris), thus why I’ve not yet been there, but it does boast a much bigger food hall so maybe I should at least check it out once!
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Now that spring has truly arrived, a massive spring cleaning is required chez nous. Not that we’re normally incredibly messy people, just that we had workmen in for a good few days fixing and repainting the windows. The layers of dust that settled on just about every surface had me cringing silently, so a top-to-bottom cleaning is definitely required. Still, I’m taking a little break to bring you the latest round-up of Project 365.
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22 Apr: A Keith Haring retrospective is currently running in the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. For a week, the métro station of Alma Marceau was transformed into a cultural station, showcasing some posters of this pop-art master, featuring the iconic jelly bean-like figures in striking bold colours or in black and white. This exhibition – themed Political Lines – is on my to-visit list, and if you are in Paris, you shouldn’t miss it either.
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It’s time for a new instalment of cultural station, don’t you think? I happened to be on my way to Madeleine today so instead of taking a bus like I normally would, I took the metro instead so I can photograph this panel of stained glass of Ryaba la poule (Ryaba the hen) by Ivan Loubennikov. Unfortunately, in my hurry (I needed to make it for my tango lesson across town), I didn’t notice that poor Ryaba is now headless, oops.
This is the story of Ryaba as inscribed next to the mural:
Il était une fois un vieil homme et sa femme
Ils avaient une petite poule du nom de Ryaba
Un jour elle pondit un œuf extraordinaire : tout en or !
Le vieil homme tenta de le casser : toc toc ! : rien à faire !
Sa femme tenta de le casser : toc toc ! : rien à faire !
Une petite souris qui passait par là fit tomber l’œuf et le brisa
Le vieil homme se mit à pleurer. Sa femme aussi
Alors la petite poule leur dit : ne pleure pas grand père
Ne pleure pas grand-mère
J’en pondrai un à nouveau, mais pas en or…
My attempt at translating this:
Once upon a time there was an old man and his wife
Who had a little hen called Ryaba
One day it lays an extraordinary egg: it’s all in gold!
The old man tried to break it: toc toc!: nothing happened!
His wife tried to break it: toc toc!: nothing happened!
A little mouse in passing knocked the egg down and broke it
The old man began to cry. His wife too
And so the little hen said to them: do not cry grandfather
Do not cry grandmother
I will lay another, but not in gold…
Ps: spot the egg which is reportedly 80kg in weight!
At the first glance, the walls of the Concorde station (for métro line 12, not 1 nor 8) seem to contain a whole bunch of decorative and alphabetised tiles, but surely that cannot be. If you take a little time though, words start to jump out, in French, but trying to make sense of it all is quite a daunting task. Without punctuations and spaces, to a non-native speaker like me, after a couple of lines, I was quite lost.
These tiles actually carry extracts from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen), a document dated back to the days of French Revolution. (Back then, however, they forgot women’s rights.) This was put in place in 1989-1991 during the renovation of the station by Françoise Schein.
The métro station of Saint-Germain-des-Près is special, in that, unlike all other (cultural) stations in the city, it doesn’t have large billboard spaces. Just clean, white-tiled curved walls. And glass display panels. Perfect as space of temporary projections of works of art and literature.
I was running late for my friend’s party near Odéon this evening. When I looked out the window of the métro at Saint-Germain-des-Près, there were projections of illustrative works by students of an art school (sorry I forgot to jot down the name). I made a mental note that I must return to this station later, on my way home. I love the vintage Hollywood vibe of these sketches. Think Cary Grant and Gregory Peck. And now go, awwww.
I’ve previously blogged about a couple of cultural métro stations, and I think it’s not a bad series of sub-category to write about when it comes to things related to Paris. If I recall correctly from an article I read a while ago, there are some 50 such stations in the network. It would be fun to uncover them as I go along ;)
This work of mosaic on the ceiling of Cluny la Sorbonne was created by Jean Bazaine. Entitled Ailes et Flammes (Wings and Flames), some 60,000 handcut tiles were used to complete the piece that also includes forty-six (mosaic) signatures of Kings of France, politicians, architects, physicians, scientists, philosphers, poets, painters and writers. If you ever travel Line 10 and passing this station, keep your eyes peeled.
A number of métro stations in Paris are not your typical stations bombarded with advertisements and just tunnels and stairs to get places. These are known as cultural stations. At times, the cultural aspect is rather temporary but for others, they’re more permanent fixtures. My favourite so far? Arts et Métiers.
Just to put things in context, Musée des Arts et Métiers is a museum of all things scientific and inventive. It is a shame that this gem of a place is often overlooked by visitors of Paris. In 1994, during the bicentenary celebration of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, the métro station was redesigned to evoke the atmosphere of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus from “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”, a science-fiction written by Jules Verne (of “Around the World in 80 Days” fame). It’s quite a perfect tribute, don’t you agree?
The very first time I walked past the kiosque des noctambules (sure, I didn’t know the name back then either) I was perplexed by its colourful bejewelled state (who installed a glass bead-like art sculpture here?) and then noticed people coming up from underneath. Curious. A quick investigative effort revealed that it is the entrance to the métro station of Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre.
A contemporary art piece by Jean-Michel Othoniel, it was commissioned for the centenary celebration of the inauguration of métro in Paris. First introduced in 1900, métro line 1 was used to transport visitors of the city to enjoy the sites and sights during the Exposition Universelle of 1900. Back then, the line runs between Porte Maillot and Porte de Vincennes and Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre was one of the eight stops of the line. Pretty steep in history eh?
