a rainy day in paris

the tuileries, with eiffle tower, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

The sun barely rose. Another set of antique markets, selling overpriced Pastis glasses and cracked power ranger figurines, is going on downstairs.

Suddenly, my heart starts racing: I need to find Christmas presents! Insane crowds, a biting wind, rain. I go into a toy store and there are children crying everywhere, while parents ponder the age suitability of everything around them. Do I want my gift wrapped? Do I want batteries (for batteries are not included)? I escape outside...

Then, to the English bookstores to see if they have a certain something I am thinking of getting someone. They don't. What they do have is Marmite in large quantities, tourists and even more crying children.

christmas decorations, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Outside, the city has gone festive. Huge puddles on the street reflect christmas lights and jogging yuppies. A huge group of tourists are climbing over each other to get into a patisserie store. The weather finally gets to me and I make my way home, having bought only two presents.

Thank god for amazon.co.uk (and .fr).

mushrooms in november

finding two at once!, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

So, it is your first weekend in 9 weeks - what do you do with it? a) party like hell and drink till dawn or b) decide to take a train an hour south of Paris to your family's town to go walking in the woods and listen to great-aunts complain about their failing health.

Why, b of course! Below: Josh taking in all the autumness..

autumn again, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

It turns out that the mixture of rain and warmish weather we have been having means there are mushrooms everywhere! Behold, two mushroom villages:

sun on mushiness, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

the mushroom village, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

After half an hour of looking we finally stumble upon our first edible mushroom.. woo!

our first edible find (after half an hour), originally uploaded by julienpaul.

And then a whole lot more... it made for a great lunch!

our lunch, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Then we found a whole lot of mushrooms we thought were edible (see our full bags) but when we got home and looked them up online we were less sure...

walking back with bags full.., originally uploaded by julienpaul.

These, obviously, were not edible..

red and scary, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Though something tried on this one..

something ate it, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Join me next week, when I try to find a topic even MORE exciting than mushrooms!

sweet october

the grand palais, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

It seems that for the last few months when people ask me how I am going I would just blurt out a rant about my work. Well, it wasn't all work (though it kind of seems like it). The 25th of septembre was the first SFR electro night at the grand palais. I was mostly there to see the set up in the stunning grand palais, but the headline act of birdy nam nam was an added bonus.

I arrived a little too early and had to wait around while a few young djs played and the SFR adds were broadcasted everywhere. Finally, birdy came on... the show was good, but the crowd wasn't. A bunch of teenagers with too much money, getting drunk on a friday night and getting into fights and just generally being stupid. Two guys were fighting and one of the asks: what band is this? They were f**king front row and they didn't even care what band it was.

At one point, a girl ran up onto stage and started dancing before the security guards could take her down. That was kinda fun:

an uninvited visitor I, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Then the teenagers started breaking the barriers between us and the stage and the security guards propper them up, one by one, as the night progressed. This resulted in a solid barrier, worthy of any drunk 18 year old, but sadly it also meant the security guards were trapped in their own web...

chaos..., originally uploaded by julienpaul.

There was also a moment where a photographer came out for birdy and made for some kinda cool photos against the rainbow background..

the photographer I, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

After birdy, I decided I would stand a bit further back in the crowd to see Etienne de Crécy and his 3 x 3 boxes. The visuals they acheieved by such a simple device were a joy to behold...

cube: white, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

That night it was Josh's birthday, but he was in Istanbul. When he came back it was the white night, which has given us fond memories over the years.

This year there was a huge disco ball hung over the luxembourg gardens which lit up all of the clouds over paris but the queue to get close it was over an hour long, so we opted out.

We headed towards Notre Dame and did as the locals did.. we jumped the queue and got in under 10 minutes:

sacred crystals I, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

All of the side chapels had been filled with, er, crystals. Deep.

Just outside, the bridge linking the two islands had a rather cool sound and light display on it:

neon bridge II, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

This was a bit more my thing, blending the boundaries between architecture and art (the set up was designed as a mobile clubbing setting..).

Other highlights of the otherwise slightly dark last month was seeing Patrick Wolf again, where he vowed to become the male britney (though currrently with only 3 costume changes):

wolf rocking, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Oh, and if you should be passing by the pompidou, the "elles" exhibition is still on... An exhibition the size of a football field done only by female artists:

toothpicks III, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

possessions

bookshelf, originally uploaded by todaytimesone.

A few weeks ago I received an email from my parents: they are going to do a bit of work on the bottom half of the house to make it into a separate apartment that can be rented out. Sounds great, except that the bottom half of the house is where my room and all my junk is, compiled pretty much since I was born.

Even before they sent the email, my parents had started by throwing out a bunch of children's books that they assumed we couldn't possibly want:

mother: no, no, there was nothing important
me: did you through out the Henry the squirrel book?
mother: *silence*
me: err....
mother: how can you possibly remember that book!

So I insisted they take photos of the books before throwing them out so I could say yes or no. So I received the first batch today, and it forced me to ask myself a few questions: When will I be back in Australia, what is the point of owning these books if I don't go back, or even if I DO go back? Will I even read the ones I haven't read?

Every house I live in becomes an accumulation of STUFF, and it seems the STUFF just gets dragged around by you, never truly being sorted or properly thrown away, half forgotten and filling every corner.

untitled n°1

untitled n°1, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

So, I finally gave in and bought three photos from one of my favourite shops in the marais that specialises in found photos, including a lot of polaroids. This photo is apparently from the 50s or 60s, most probably at one of the gates of Paris. The shop owner insisted that it was particularly rare due the quality of its colour. Apparently colour snap shots from this era often turn red.

Both of their expressions seem so familiar, 60 years on. It almost feels like a snapshot into our own memories...

(Anonymous photo bought at: ¨PHOTOGRAPHIE - 35-37 rue charlot 75003 PARIS")

the empty chair

chair on stage I, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

I have been sitting here for an hour now, on my bed, looking out the window. The day is slowly, oh how very slowly, departing; it is almost ten pm and the clouds are dark blue, pink and white all at once. It will only really be night at around eleven.

The weekend is ending, though it was a beautiful one. Friday night, while having a picnic beside the canal with a few friends, we found out that a new festival was being held throughout the city: "Paris, in words." Poets, authors, singers, musicians, all interpreting texts, mixing and melting words and making them into something new.

So today we managed to chose an event held in the 'Bouffes du Nord", an amazing theatre I have been wanting to visit for a while now. The theatre is frighteningly tall, though rather small, giving a startling intimacy where everyone can see everyone else. It feels like an religious space, elegant in volume though lovably decrepit with age.

Arriving half an hour early, we found our seat and looked out onto the stage; empty except for a chair. An empty chair, though banal in many ways, is such a powerful object. The chairs of the Tuileries and Luxembourg seem have personalities of their own, scattered around the park, while this chair said simply "I will be filled, shortly. I take importance from the person who will be sitting on me."

Finally, the chair was filled and the subsequent show was wonderful. It is so unlike what I would normally go and do, or see, and it was refreshing for something that could have felt rather academic and stale.

europe/australia

europe australia, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

I have always had the impression that the south of Victoria, or perhaps Tasmania, had a similar climate to Normandie, France, and could be found at a similar, though inverted, latitude. The same went for Rome and Sydney. And yet, one day, curious on google maps, I found out that nearly all of Europe has a higher latitude than Australia and that Sydney has a latitude closer to Morocco and Algeria. It certainly explains the weather here.... which is much colder than any point of Australia can offer.

Market day!

marketday, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

It's nearly midday and I have managed to drag myself out of the house to go to the markets just outside. Sun calls and we both find ourself hunting down vegies. We go to the eggman, the potato guy, check out around 10 veggie stores and before we know it we are going veggie mad, spending close to 60 euros between us! Our spoils:

1,5 kilos of soup potatoes, 1 kilo of curry potatoes, two whole fennel roots, 4 bunches of coriander, 1 bunch of basil, 4 stalks of rhubarb, Eggplant, 13 echallot onions, zucchini, 1 kilo of spinach, 4 lemons, capsicum, leek, olives, coriander tapenada, 4 types of cheese, over a kilo of tomatoes bursting with flavour, strawberries, radishes, asparagus, salad, water cress, bread, eggs.

the field of crosses

cross: close up, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Easter weekend was spent in Marseille(s) with Zen, Hugh and a bunch of Josh's workmates.

Marseille was quite unlike any city I've been to before. It doesn't quite fit the European model I know of (old central town + suburbs), nor a damaged European city (ie Rotterdam), nor a western city (sky scrapers CBD). Tall public housing towers collide into old streets, all sculpted out of the hills and cliffs, jutting into the sea.

An unexpected highlight was an old ammunition storage facility on the Frioul islands. They had been built in ww2 to look like a cemetery from afar. The floor planks have since disappeared (where they made of wood? pre-fabricated concrete that was taken away?) and what is left is a grid of beams and columns with crosses at each peak. Haunting, intriguing.

Of course, we also saw corb..

the silliness factor

ayano, zen + james @ alex's birthday, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

The greatest factor against living in Paris for me is the lack of Karaoke. It single handedly represents the unbalance between silliness and 'reality' that has weighed me down at times and made me want to cry.

Don't get me wrong - there have been some utterly delirious moments here in Paris, usually involving large amounts of wine and running through streets singing. But these moments are not as plentiful, nor as varied as in Australia: the fact that I had friends from different stages in my life, with different interests, meant that I could be called out on any given Friday night to do.. well, whatever. And often it would be silly, fun, and utterly different to my work life.

Paris, on the other hand... its funny how much more exposed you feel when you a) don't have your parents in the same country and b) no one knows you.

You arrive, having difficulties with the language. You have to build up a new version of yourself that can't rely on earlier conquests. When work batters you down you have so little to prop yourself back up with.

Paris is so much stress and so little silliness. It is definitely lacking in anime, karaoke, gigs, and all those little escapes from reality that were more easily available in Sydney.

error!

error!, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

The Rise and fall of my Canon G7 camera:

- January 2007 - Bought 3 weeks before leaving Sydney, early 2007, it lasted 4 days in Japan before deciding to stop working after a rather bad rain storm in Okayama.

- September 2007 - 6 months and many phone calls later, I send it back to Australia to get fixed and they reply: "the camera is working perfectly, it was your charger that wasn't working."

- August 2008 (so only a year of real use), the zoom lever breaks and zooming becomes unreliable.

- September 2008 dirt gets into the lens and ever since various particles enter my photos at random moments.

- November 2008 white bands start to appear on photos and exposure seems to be unreliable.

- January 2009 photos often seem to be purple in the lcd screen but come out ok

- March 2009 photos are now coming out purple, with duplicate copies, strange lines across the image, often overexposed.

What next?

It took 5 years...

le raincy 05, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

...but I finally went to see the Church of Notre Dame du Raincy by Auguste Perret and Gustave Perret. We had studied it in class and, along with the Maison de Verre, it remained an architectural must-see in the Parisian area. It was an early reinforced concrete church and the first to express the concrete as a material in its own right, rather than covering it up or having it imitate masonry.

More photos can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcorners/sets/72157615254238701/

paper, paper everywhere

paper, paper everywhere, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

I went from a sustainable architecture firm in Sydney where we recycled and carbon offsetted everything to my current firm in paris, where the TONNES of paper we throw out every week goes straight into general waste.

I was shocked when I first arrived and the simple answer to my question "why don't we recycle" was "apparently you need to PAY for them to pick up your recycling if you are a company!" (tone of shocked outrage).

And we aren't the only ones. It is quite common for even very large establishments, such as my aunts university, to not recycle. Actually, for a country that is supposedly meeting environmental requirements on a national scale, you don't at all feel the "carbon offsetting, solar powered, recycle everything" movement that has hit Australia. No, most initiatives seem to come from the government: excellent infrastructure for bikes, public transport, urban central heating systems. Leaves the individual to lazily go on guzzling up resources happily....

yamaha mm6

yamaha mm6, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

I played around with the Yamaha in the shop and it won me over. Now I just need to resolve the problem of lag when I connect it to my computer....

PS. This blog layout seems to be very unforgiving of non landscape photos. Not entirely sure how to resolve this other than downsizing the column in its entirety.

a snake ridden star

neuf brisach, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

It was in the middle of the heatwave of 2003 (where 14,000 people died in France). I remember the bus leaving me stranded a little distance from the town gates. I also remember that I couldn't work out whether there would be a bus going back that day that could take me to my hotel in Colmar, but that I had set off nervously that morning regardless.

The town, near the german border and forming part of Vauban's magnificent forts that surround France, was called Neuf Brisach. It was deserted, except for a few people hiding in the intense shadows below the trees of the main square. Midday struck, so the bakery was shut and wouldn't open for until 3:30pm - I would have to go hungry.

Wide, straight streets led me to the Vauban Museum, which was only open on Wednesdays and hence was also shut. So, despite it being the hottest time of the day, I decided to do the tour of the moat. Someone had warned me there were snakes so I stamped around furiously but I think it was too hot even for them. Instead, I spotted some deer and a Japanese tourist, no doubt having strayed too far from Ronchamp (the tourist, not the deer).

On re-entering the town an old man came up to me and started chatting. He asked where I was from and when I answered Australia he acted as thought this was the most amazing event of his life - a genuine Australian, here talking to him! As we parted, he told me to check out one of the southern towers that had an artwork in it (though I can't remember the artwork, so it was obviously stunning).

Back in the square, the bakery was open and so was tourist info. They also weren't clear about the buses but suddenly one appeared, not existing on any of the timetables, and the offered to take me back to Colmar. I waved the sleepy fort-town goodbye.

music nerdom

So, Josh and I have been sick now for 4 days. I spend around 14 hours in bed, I get up, consume some nurofen, then shuffle over to the computer with ginger tea. What have I been doing with my fevered free time? Trying to work out which of these two keyboards I am going to buy when I'm well enough to get out of the house: The Casio CTK 5000 or the Yamaha MM6.

I have been wanting to buy myself a midi keyboard since we arrived here and I decided if I didn't get it soon, I would never buy one.

The Casio, pros: The Casio is 130 euros cheaper, has some limited sampling, better touch sensitivity. The cons: It only has a USB out, which limits it's use later, it doesn't have a very good control system and it's a bit junky.

The yamaha, pros: Better sounds, midi out, good design. Cons: Everyone hates it. This seems to be due to the fact that it's a cheaper version of a very very good keyboard so it fails in comparison.

Ah well, I need to chose before Saturday.

Photos from the archives

threegirls, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Li ann is getting married in less than four days, which inspired me to look around at photos from uni times. Ahh, those were the days. Somehow, the camera lens filters away the stress, the doubt, the uncertainties and leaves the smiles, the silliness and the coffee.

Meanwhile, welcome to my third blog. Will the blog stay here? Who knows. My first blog was about my final year of uni, my second blog was about the three years after that.

Now I am in Paris, and life moves on. My blog will be less about mope and more about projects and plans, along with observations on this silly city I am living in.