on the backside of carriacou...

...there's a whole bunch of shipwrecks. and a landscape that reminds me of vietnam (although i've never been to vietnam). standing here on the side of the road i thought to myself that this would be a good place to shoot a movie about vietnam. i also thought how thirsty i was and how great it would be if i found a drinks shack before too long. of course i did find a drinks shack within minutes and really enjoyed the cold orange soda (100% artificial) i purchased there.

i love eating lunch in places like this...

only i wish it happened more often.

sexy graffiti

in carriacou in the grenadines

i am amsterdam

went for a visit to the venice of the north to see some friends.

it's been a long time

i've been away. to the south. with my cellphone. we went sailing in the grenadines. i was a little worried about the salt air and what it might do to the insides of my trusty sony ericsson state of the art 2005 phone. but luckily all went well.

shades of gray

the sky in autumn in paris. for my friend evy who asked me if i was staring out my window at the "gorgeous grays".

almost everyday

i ride over the seine from the right bank to the left bank and each and every time i am left speechless by the view. it was a little like that when i lived in manhattan and saw the empire state or chrystler buildings or the brooklyn or queensboro bridges on a regular basis. of course the photos never really manage to capture the true majesty of real life but still...

man in a plexiglass box

a concert at the pompidou center. the audience lsitens on headphones. i heard say that the music was too loud and so people had to hold the headphones a couple of centimeters from their ears.

hand in the cookie jar

i have cats and i have goldfish and apparently they live in complete harmony. the fishes's ecosystem funtioning as the cats's water bowl, with no untoward behavior up until now.

flora

for some reason, i have always had a childlike love of scientific illustration. or whatever you would call these types of drawings of plants. i saw this in a park in central paris. i have yet to verify that these are indeed the primary species of trees in the city but i will.

baby emperor II

if i was a baby emperor lit from beneath and behind, i might look like this.

went to the louvre today

always fun. although i often find myself in the same rooms with the same pieces year after year deade after decade and curse my timidity. why can't i appreciate asian or islamic art in the same way i do the traditional european classics. even after four years at brown in the 80s. i understand that it's white european male prejudice and still can't get over it. oh well. next time...

a series of wheatpaste posters i saw in the 6ieme

fiac

can you see what is going on here? it is quite amazing. a bird is suspended in mid-air with transparent fishing line. around the bird is a sphere created with hundreds (if not thousands) of dandy lion seeds. eash threaded through with fishing line. the incredible lightness of being.

baby emperor

if i were an insane roman emperor with the head of a baby on the body of a grown man, i would look like this. i would be starring in some crazy-assed low budget horror film about blood sucking infants and a very dark ruin in italy where some young, attractive and innocent american exchange students came to visit...

lately...

i've been getting into barefoot running. it's a real kick.

behind the library...

...is a place you wouldn't expect.

girl power

view from the bridge

standing on the bridge that links ile st. louis to ile de la cité, we saw a giant african woman lying on her side sleeping. she ignored the fishermen miiling about her belly button, transfering minnows from bucket to basket.

nuit blanche

art invades the streets of paris from dusk 'til dawn. a little like mardi gras but with a heavy cultural bent, the streets are packed with kids (that's to say people under thirty) chugging wine from the bottle and checking out the installations, videos and performances all over the city. my take: very mediocre stuff in general, a good argument against state-supported art.

but i did see spiderman.

inspired

bocage, the shoe company, always does great print ads. this one is no exception. totally politically incorrect it would never appear in the usa (propagating racial stereotypes - native americans as bloodthirsty savages). what i like is that at first glance it looks like the squaw has taken the woman prisoner to steal her boots but... on closer inspection you see that not only has she stolen her boots but has in fact skinned her and is wearing said skin as a tunic. a totally gratuitous detail that pushes this into the sublime for me.

some people say...

...that french landscape artists are control freaks but for the life of me i don't know why they say that. sometimes nature just needs to be kept in line.

cloud house

the moat at the chateau de chantilly

the backside of the bibliotheque mazarine

clouds rolling in

september in paris, like march and april, is a time of impetuous weather. sun, clouds, rain, wind... it's hard to imagine what's coming next.

the ends of the day

the end of the day. the end of the summer. almost.

walking in the sun

walking on this bridge looking for a velib to ride to montreuil. hot and bored with a long straight away ahead of me and no real idea of how far i'd have to go to find a healthy bike. the sun beat down on my back and my shadow stretched far in front of me...

ruins

in the forest: i ride further and further from home now. sometimes i get lost but i always find my way back. unexpected discoveries jumpstart my imagination. they are the reward.

the forest

yesterday i want for a bike ride through the forest. i went off my beaten track to explore and discovered a grove of pines. they reminded me of the Mediterranean. i swore i could hear the waves but it might just have been the wind in the branches.

something i saw one morning

they were unhappy with the treatment of the workers on the eurostar. so they met every day at 7am to greet the morning commuters and make their opinion known.

changing weather

hurricane season has arrived on the east coast and there still hasn't been a single one. the latest we've gone in years without an "A" name storm. but there is moisture down there in the caribbean around florida and it's coming up north and making clouds...

6pm at Longnook

i will say nothing about this photo of truro on the cape because everything there is is to say about the light and landscape and the air here has been said many times already and with much better words than i could ever muster.

dune grass

delaware river - july 7 - 8:00 am

on the way to the dump...

the other day, i passed a meadow of lovely wildflowers. i wondered if nature had put them there? or if they had been planted there by people?

london calling

i was in london the other weekend. the trip was strange. existence felt heavy. the trials and tribes of life confused. as i walked and shopped, ate and thought i came to the shockingly obvious realization that the second half of life kind of sucks.

time keeps on ticking

days turn into weeks and weeks into months. nothing gets posted. the blog is forgotten, neglected. like an ugly child. i know i should be more involved but the more time passes the harder it becomes. inertia. and the lack of energy. tonight i will right my wrongs; i will post a photo ...

what are you supposed to do?

what are you supposed to do when you see your dream car and then realize that it is for sale and then realize that it's for sale for cheap and then confront the realization that there's absolutely no good reason to buy said dream car because... well, you don't really need it? seriously. what are you supposed to do?

the simple pleasures

The simple pleasures are really the best. A still life from your life. That you see for the first time. Because of the light. Or because for once you're there, really there, in the instant. The harmony and interplay between all the elements in the picture tickle your fancy and push you to capture that which the brain sees through the eye at that time. In a vain attempt keep the present from the past.

if norman bates's mother...

...had summered in a belle époque mansion on the english channel, it might have looked like this. or not.

have you ever been to deauville in may?

i have.

hail

hail caesar. emperor of all the world. may all that he sees and all that he touches be graced with by his divinity. may the monuments he gazes upon obey the golden mean and be please the eye. may his memory live on. for centuries and millenia. and may men pay homage to him in the far distant future, building monuments to his name, hotels and casinos like the which he can not even imagine. the scale of which he dare not conceive. hail caesar. and his palace.

Tahiti 80 in paris

having discovered tahiti 80 in a tiny room in a tiny town on the river oise not far from where i live, i decided to see them again. this time in paris. the show was as good as the first time. they are consummate professionals.

back at the window

looking out the window...

... as the day sinks into night, i notice how beautiful the light is. i take out my cellphone and snap a photo, trying to capture the fleeting beauty. later i see that i caught only fraction of what i saw. where did the rest go?

sunday

sunday afternoon i was in the forest again, turning around in circles and keeping my eyes peeled...

not scary

scary

the cherry tree is in blossom