Batwoman lives in my neighborhood

Berkeley, CA. United States of America

In response to the LBAM aerial spraying my mother-in-law says: "I plan to hold my breath every other 30 days for a month and wear protective clothing, like astronaut suits." I told her she'll blend in perfectly with such a suit in Berkeley.

L' Enfer de la Bibliothèque, Eros au secret—prolongations!

A few more days to go check out erotic drawings at the BnF. Lots of great illustrated small books, very entertaining illustrations (i.e: a man sharpening his penis on a grindstone, a bunch of nuns gathering around one who has a lobster hanging onto one of her coochie lips, a series of drawings where men are represented as dicks and women are doing all sorts of things to them...), a copy of Histoire de L'Oeil by Georges Bataille aka Lord Auch with illustrations by the awesome Hans Bellmer, and much more.

Here are a few quotes of lines seen along the exhibit:
-"Almanach des adresses des demoiselles de Paris, de tous genres et de toutes les classes ou Calendrier du plaisir."
-"Liste de tous les prêtres trouvés en flagrant délit chez les filles publiques de Paris, sous l'Ancien Régime avec le nom et la demeure des femmes chez lesquelles ils ont été trouvés et le détail des différents amusements qu'ils ont pris avec elles."
and in a more graphic style:
-"...et tu gobes le foutre quand tu suces une pine" excerpt from "Trois filles et leur mère" (1926) by Pierre Louÿs. A prostitute telling her daughter that she will swallow when giving head. Basically.

Narbonne-Madrid via Barcelona

A few hours to kill in Barcelona before going to Madrid. We jump on the subway and head to a bar to quench our thirst with cañas and fill up our bellies with basque tapas. Walking around our old neighborhood, el Born, passing by our favorite around-the-corner bars: Taller de Tapas for its sangria, la Taverna vasca Irati for its cidra and La Vinya del Senyor across Santa Maria del Mar church for its wines.
And then there was the mandatory stop by my favorite candy store: Papabubble where you can stand and watch confections being made for as long as you want.

It's good to see the older spanish ladies again, with their big shoulder pads and hairdos that seem to have gone through decades without any kind of alterations. Loving the typical blue or green eye shadow covering most of the eyelids, like a monochromatic rainbow across the face.

One of my favorite landscape stretches between Barcelona and Madrid: endless miles of a red and ochre rocky barren land, a dust bowl reminiscent of spaghetti westerns in the heart of Spain.

Retouching fashion photographs (part II)

Chromatic (part IV)

Chromatic (part III)

Chromatic (part II)

Paris—BHV (Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville)

Trapped in an elevator. Chess and I are on the 5th floor of the BHV and decide to go downstairs in the elevator. The doors open, we get in, it stinks. There's a sweaty overweight guy who is standing near the door and who, thank god, gets off at the top floor. Then a massive amount of people get in and the two of us find ourselves sort of squished against the back of the elevator. And then the unimaginable happens: someone breaks wind! It might've stank earlier but this time it smelled like someone sold their ass to the devil. Halfway between the fifth and the fourth floor I said to Chess, out loud, "we are getting off at the next floor!" As I tried to wade through the crowd I said "ce n'est pas gentil!"(that's not nice). The old lady I passed by said "il faut savoir supporter" (one has to bear it). mmmmhhm... HELL NO, I ain't inhaling no fart! I ain't sharing no old lady's "good manners"!

Paris—France

I have no word to describe how beautiful Paris is. Mind-blowingly stunning. Breath-takingly gorgeous. Strolling with loved ones along the Seine, on a street that is closed off to traffic for most of the day on weekends, and passing underneath a succession of bridges that all tell a different story while the light casts its golden glow over the city, leaves me with one word only, JOY.

Saturday. There was a bunch of us, brother, girlfriend, cousins and friends, walking across the city, trying to wade our way through an uninterrupted flow of people and traffic, stopping here and there in different neighborhoods for a drink or two and enjoying each other's company in a city like no other. The springlike weather made us feel like the world belonged to us. Too late in the evening to find seats in the neighborhood's Japanese restaurants, we ended up sipping a few bottles of Billecart Salmon champagne at the Hotel Costes before satiating our hunger with cheesburgers and fries(really good ones) down the street at Cafe RUC at one in the morning. And when the metro no longer runs we have the Velib to take us home.
We'll save Kai restaurant for another night (Sushi Ran, i miss you so).

Paris—a wolf in the city

So here we were, walking down the street in the Marais; we got close to two guys and a dog. Chess told me it was a wolf. Yeah right, no way Josey. She insisted it was a wolf so i decided to ask its owner. Chess said he was on the phone and i told her i'd wait until he gets off it or go ask the guy walking by his side. So i asked and it turned out my girl was right. Again. The guy told me it was a Czech wolf and the wolf owner pulled his cell phone away from his ear to tell me it was 65% wolf. Chess informed me that wolves were illegal in the states. I asked if it was legal, he answered that he had all the papers to prove it. Tonight i saw a white wolfdog walking down the streets of Paris, it looked really quiet and mellow, and was held by a broad metal chain.
Wait, so this whole time i've been slaloming between dog shit i might have also been dodging wolf excrement!

Chromatic (part I)

Super "duper" tuesday

Ten things I like about France

-Some really unsophisticated t.v commercials that are so bad they are good (a baby's arm sticking out of its mother's belly, flipping her the bird, and looking like some alien erection...!?)-i mean bad.

-The 30 year old (cute)guy who gets his afternoon pain au chocolat (kid)snack when buying his evening baguette. I see the child in him.

-More than a decade after i left home, i can still see naked women on yogurt/shampoo commercials. Some things never change — home sweet home!

-Dog owners have started picking up after their pets, albeit not enough.

-Velib

-Smoke-free bars, cafés and clubs (apparently clubbers have been complaining about body odors since the cigarette ban!)

-Good wines under 10€

-TGV

-Securité Sociale

-Profusion of boulangeries/patisseries/chocolatiers

When color photography takes my breath away

The whole Yangtze river series is amazing!

Paris—book exchange

Circul'Livre is a book exchange activity that was started in 2004 by one of Paris' neighborhoods. Started with the idea of promoting reading, and bringing back some vitality to neighborhood life, it consists in people gathering in order to exchange books and then bringing them back into circulation once read. It's totally free and open to anyone interested in reading and sharing books.

Sarkozy-Bruni tie the knot

The two are now married. I hope Sarkozy's into the idea of having more than one partner since Carla seems to be into polygamy/polyandry. I'm sure he wouldn't mind another woman at his side, but what if Carla brings another man at home...?
Sarkozy on Saturdays, Sundays and Monday nights, X on Tuesdays, Y Wednesdays and Thursdays, Z on Fridays. Nice. "Alternance" at the Elysée Palace (the official residence of the president of France)-not in the bipartisanship sense!

Color photography—Interiors

Food Habits

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats "details each family's weekly food purchases and average daily life. The centerpiece of each chapter is a portrait of the entire family surrounded by a week's worth of groceries accompanied by interviews and detailed grocery lists."

You know there is a problem when a family of six in Chad lives off of a few bags of grains and a handful of fruits for a week, while some are fighting obesity and other degenerative diseases in other parts of the world.
What's up with the Coca Cola fascination outside of the U.S.A? Also, can someone tell those families in North Carolina and in England that processed foods really shouldn't be the base of their diets? Last but not least, if anyone's traveling to Bhutan, would you mind dropping off half a dozen of dentures for that family of 13 who lives off of $5 worth of food per week?

Mark Morford

another highly entertaining and pertinent article by sfgate and sf chronicle columnist Mark Morford.

Photo-montage

Paris—vietnamese food

Paris Hanoi and Little Hanoi, same house, two different restaurants, same arrondissement, different metro sations.
good, cheap and simple vietnamese food in a nice atmosphere with a rather young crowd.
Paris Hanoi: 74 rue de Charonne 11eme. open 7/7 12h-14h30/19h-22h30
Little Hanoi: 9 rue Mont-Louis 11eme. open m-sa 12h-14h30/19h-22h30

Traveling by TGV for less

If you are traveling from Paris to the province or vice-versa, depending on your destination (currently only 16 routes are available), check out
idTGV for best fares.
One way tickets to all their destinations start at 19 euros (the earlier you book, the cheaper the tickets.) new destinations are regularly added to the iDTGV itinerary.

idTGV tickets are sold exclusively online, 24/7.

Desktop

Watchin' a chinese version of the L Word.

When color photography makes me happy

An afternoon à la Secu.

A mother, with her child in a stroller, walks in the "securité sociale" office; the kid is very animated, not A.D.D like, just a kid with stories to tell and maybe not getting much attention. So the kid's talking without his mom answering or asking him to turn it down and all of a sudden one of the securité social workers yells across the room: we are not in a park so calm your joy down!
That was so gracious!It sent me right back really deep into the good old testy french culture. Which reminds me of a very good book written by a couple of canadian journalists, Jean-Benoit Nadeau & Julie Barlow, titled: sixty million frenchmen can't be wrong (why we love france but not the french). which is now titled: sixty million frenchmen can't be wrong, what makes the french so french. Dommage, the first title was much funnier!

"Calmer sa joie" is a french expression that pretty much means: stop getting all excited.

Beaubourg museum—strike

"Thousands of teachers and other public service workers are staging a one-day strike in France over jobs and wages." Right. I didn't think the musée Beaubourg would close because of the strike but it did! A first for me. Too bad for the two groups of elementary kids lead by their teachers who apparently had no clue they would find the doors of the museum closed either.

Paris—Le Pain de Sucre pastry shop

Paris is such a tease!
I happened to stroll by a very pretty pastry shop — Le Pain de Sucre, with its perfect looking pastries and jewelry-like glittering marshmallow cubes on sticks. It felt like a very sophisticated and tiny factory where macarons are made for visual delight as much as for gustative bliss. Imagine a sour cherry/pistachio macaron: two deep lip-smacking red round meringue-like domes tenderly squeezing a mouthwatering dark green layer of pistachio. If you want to be lured into a world of ambrosial pastries and luscious color combinations, all you have to do is walk down rue Rambuteau. you don't need the address, as you pass by the shop something will instinctively attract you, pull you in, whisper to you until you push open the front door and step in.

Closed on Tuesday & Wednesday.

Paris en couleurs—photo exhibit at the Hotel de Ville

Lucien Lorelle


my favorite. Peter Cornelius.


Robert Capa

Some of the first color photographs of Paris in this exhibition at the Town Hall and some great fashion photography. 300 photos of Paris taken between 1907 and today featuring works by Saul Leiter, Ernst Haas, Patrice Molinard, Franck Horvat, William klein, John Rawlings, Henry Clarke, Bob Richardson, Guy Bourdin, Gisèle Freund, Peter Lindberg, Ina Bandy, Jean-Philippe Charbonnier... And also photos by the awesome Martin Parr.

Tom Cruise (i never thought i'd write about him)

5 seconds of pure delight in this segment
of the video countdown: 5.04 - 4.59
The comments are pretty entertaining too.

"...it's not how to run from an SP, it's PTSSP how to shatter suppression. confront, shatter suppression. you apply it, it's like BOOM..." Tom Cruise.

India's Hijras—third sex

Males, transgendered or transexuals, sometimes intersexed, considering themselves neither man nor woman, but dressing up as women.

On castration:
Hijra#1
-Does it hurt?
-Not really, it hurts like the bite of an insect.

Hijra#2
-Isn't it terribly painful?
-No, the goddess gives us the strengh to go through it. one can die from a cut on the finger but with the help of the goddess the procedure's harmless.
-What about the hemorrhage?
-There isn't any. it only bleeds for ten minutes and then it stops. And two days later we throw some oil on the wound.
-What do you do with the penis?
-We bury it in the ground.

What surprises me the most isn't so much the lifestyle of the hijra but rather the widespread habit of "straight" men, married or not, to visit hijra prostitutes, or even better, lead double lives with some of them.

Paris—musée Rodin

La femme poisson (study for a foutain)

Room after room, piece after piece, it became hard to pay attention to the multitude of sculptures displayed all over the Rodin museum. Every once in a while C. helped me look at them with a fresh eye when she'd see a nutcracker in one of Rodin's beautifully sculpted butts or other evocative things such as the femme poisson...

Paris—chocolate: fabrique CHAPON

After a visit to the musée Rodin, we walked by a chocolatier that evidently caught my attention.
I tried the dark ROCHER (i always go for the dark praliné) and o H m Y g O d!
I want a Chapon rocher for every hour of the day. I understand why Paris' town hall gave Chapon the "grand prix du chocolat".
Little did i know that Mr. Chapon worked with the Crazy Horse girls and dressed them up in chocolate outfits. It reminds me of the time when Elizabeth Falkner from Citizen Cake covered my torso with warm chocolate sauce and gold leaf. mmmmhh.