Play ground for the head

photos: Le style et la matière

 Ai Weiwei's Er Xi or Child's Play 

- an art exhibit in a department store, Le Bon Marché.

Like three dimensional line drawings...

These bamboo sculptures follow the rules of traditional kite

 construction and are covered with tissue paper. 

The crowd was captivated. 

All the passers-by seemed to marvel at the stores windows.

I like to find out more about things, scratch the surface and ponder,
but I really love this sort of immediate reaction with no need for background,
no intellectualisation.

photo source

Ai Weiwei might not always intend this approach and I might not like
some of his his media-grabbing actions -
but this, Child's Play - without a second thought - was a breath of fresh air in a busy day.

photo: source

English article and more (and better!) photos of the exhibit inside and outside
here.

Jeans and crinolines in parc Monceau

photos: Le style et la matière

I was away in the countryside over the weekend but the weather was nice in Paris too - much sunnier than in these pictures taken two weeks ago at the parc Monceau.  

There was an air of  the 1860s afoot. Found in a flash - the idea of the promenade spectacle dear to our ancestors comes to life in the right setting! A living tableau...with some anachronisms.

source Parc Monceau

The next time I'm there, I guess I'll see Seward Johnson's bronzes inspired by Manet and  Renoir that were just installed. It is a nostalgic kind of place.

Time for play , time for reverie.

Less self-conscious moments benefit from a nice setting, too.

More about ruins and faux ruins, passing by parc Monceau, here.

Parc Monceau

In passing

all photos Le style et la matière

The wheel keeps turning but I'd promised myself to post more often 

and even when times are busy and exciting projects are at hand -

 I'd like communicate something of what I see - a slice of life, an ambiance, a little lèche-vitrine -

 in the whirl of the day.

I could give a quote

and hope to turn your head

but today is simply about beauty wherever it's found 

it's one of the things that makes my heart sing  most

in my twisting and turning paths through the city -

 in the  walk-by whizz of places to go -

lacquer screen at 

La galerie des laques 

velvets

at Lelièvre

and at Veraseta

color and cords at Christian Astuguevieille

all photos Le style et la matière

a golden moment -

in an ordinary day

World of Reflections

photo: Le style et la matière

chez Deyrolle

Dites, si c'était vrai

all photos Le style et la matière

This is the store front of a traiteur who sells many lovely delicacies in St Germain des près. The charm of the scene with ox and donkey is not without a lovely touch of wit provided by pretty little piggies who seem more interested in the food than the baby Jesus.

Thin as a pin and a stocking cap

all photos Le style et la matière

Passing fancies

boutique Costes

bakery Paris 8ème

5bis

Outside, marks of affection from his fans.

Inside, nothing much has changed.

 

2 avril 1928 - 2 mars 1991

 

these pictures and more from: Serge Gainsbourg Legende

 

Oh je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Cette chanson était la tienne
C'était ta préférée
Je crois
Qu'elle est de Prévert et Kosma

Et chaque fois les feuilles mortes
Te rappellent à mon souvenir
Jour après jour
Les amours mortes
N'en finissent pas de mourir

Avec d'autres bien sûr je m'abandonne
Mais leur chanson est monotone
Et peu à peu je m' indiffère
A cela il n'est rien
A faire

Car chaque fois les feuilles mortes
Te rappellent à mon souvenir
Jour après jour
Les amours mortes
N'en finissent pas de mourir

Peut-on jamais savoir par où commence
Et quand finit l'indifférence
Passe l'automne vienne
L'hiver
Et que la chanson de Prévert

Cette chanson
Les Feuilles Mortes
S'efface de mon souvenir
Et ce jour là
Mes amours mortes
En auront fini de mourir

Architectural Assortment

photo Le style et la matière

1722, 1930s, 2010-11

Three buildings, three architectural periods and one construction/renovation project 

to link them as the new improved Postal Bank's headquarters.

from left to right: hôtel de Choiseul-Praslin; postal sorting center;

new office building with a post office on the ground floor

photo Le style et la matière

Oops. Four architectural periods, in fact! This building is located behind the hôtel de Choiseul-Praslin and is part of the enormous project as well. I believe it dates to the 1880s.

views from la rue Saint-Romain



Lights, place Vendôme

Pattern in all things

yesterday: snow in the Parc de Saint Cloud

 photographic explorations by Bentley, the snowflake man
image Wikipedia 

Of all the forms of water, the tiny six-pointed crystals of ice called snow, that form in such quantities within the clouds during storms, are incomparably the most beautiful and varied.

W.A. Bentley

lace pattern from Foillet's compendium of 1598

***

image of snowflakes and more information on Bentley, here

Eye-catching

 Morning light at the Ministère de la Culture  rue Saint-Honoré.

The 1920 building was wrapped in a lacey stainless steel web by architect Francis Soler as part of its renovation in 2005. The laser cut shapes were inspired by an Italian Renaissance painting reworked and then deformed to abstraction. 

Guiding Eiffel

for P-K

When in Paris, it's nice to be directed on your ambles and your scrambles through the city.

You may forget about about la Tour, then it comes right up on you and you you can't resist tilting your head back to see what's going on at the top. They meant to melt her down after 20 years of taking a stance along the Seine, recycle that metal, clear the view ! After all, she had served her purpose of commemorating the one hundred year anniversary of the Revolution that was 1889.

In these days of Grai Paris, as in all seasons, the Iron Lady continues to hold her ground - 

watching over, though you wander from her sight.

No, this beacon isn't visible from every one of the 20 arrondissements of the city, but a glimpse of it has reassured many in their wanderings.

Monomaniac