Carole Palais and Emmanuel Gillet - two of France's top comedians

Two of France's most talented actresses, actors, and comedians - Carole Palais and Emmanuel Gillet 

Music in the park

A lovely concert by Orchestre d’Harmonie du Pantin- in Luxembourg Gardens

What is a Persian Santour from Iran?

Playing lovely music for coins - Paris - yesterday - that's Pont Neuf in the background - Paris's oldest bridge.

A wedding in Paris

Photo session in the City of Love - Pont Alexandre - yesterday

Tilda Swinton and the paparzzi

The amazing actress Tilda Swinton and her gaggle of paparazzi - Palais Tokyo

 - Paris Fashion Week - Today

The Olympics are a sham

Interesting article about the Ben Johnson debacle of the 80s. What it doesn't mention is that the Olympics is a sham and so is their testing regime. 

Not one athlete who steps up on that winner's podium hasn't cheated with the possible exception of chess players. Hyperbolic chambers, blood doping, steroids, uppers, downers - the list of pharmaceuticals and tricks is endless and constantly evolving. The Olympics is about making money - period.


Read the article on CBC News

Lovely choral concert

Lovely concert by the Choir of the Paris Universities - Richelieu Auditorium, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 , Paris - today

Fish! I'm waiting!

Pond Mare Saint-James, Bois de Boulogne, Paris, France - today

"Strollin' Along Lollipop Lane" - Paris

From Pont de la Concord - Paris - Yesterday

Josephine Baker's own square - Paris

Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, activist, and French Resistance agent. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. During her early career she was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un Vent de Folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a girdle of bananas, became her most iconic image and a symbol of the Jazz Age and the 1920s.

Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937.^[ She raised her children in France. "I have two loves," the artist once said, "my country and Paris."^[

.... Wikipedia

This prison is closed for renovations

"La Santé – Maison d’arrêt de la Santé – last of Paris’s intra-muros jails. And along with Fresnes and Fleury-Mérogis one of Paris and its region largests. (Fleury-Mérogis is also Europe’s largest.)

Since last December France’s Ministry of Justice has been transferring La Santé’s inmates to other jails, and at 6 a.m. on Sunday, July 20, the final 60 were driven away in police vans – paniers à salade (salad basket)  – to serve the rest of their incarceration sentences in another prison, that of Saran outside the town of Orléans.

La Santé in Paris’s 14th district – arrondissement – with a capacity of 1400 had these past years been home to around 2300 at a time, and one of the inmates’ complaints was that due to such overcrowding when there was a call from nature they had to oblige in front of their cell mates.

I am inclined to say ‘poor things’, as the prison in its 147 years of existence (was opened in 1867) has been home to a fair share of France’s criminals – thieves, robbers, rapists and murderers, the latter having had their heads chopped off with the guillotine in one of the prison’s courtyards."

... Marilyn Z. Tomlins

Parc Monceau: Paris's loveliest park

Parc Monceau  is a public park situated in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, at the junction of Boulevard de Courcelles, Rue de Prony and Rue Georges Berger. At the main entrance is a rotunda. The park covers an area of 8.2 hectares (20.3 acres).

The park was established by Phillippe d'Orléans, Duke of Chartres, a cousin of King Louis XVI, fabulously wealthy, and active in court politics and society. In 1769 he had begun purchasing the land where the park is located. In 1778, he decided to create a public park, and employed the writer and painter Louis Carrogis Carmontelle to design the gardens.

The Rotunda (pictured) was built in 1787. 

French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty, which was built by Gustave Eiffel,  a block north of Parc Monceau. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

A store front you'll never see in America

Here's a store front you'll never see in America (or Canada for that matter). Too bad the tenets of communism (and capitalism) are so incompatible with human nature.

"Hyde Park" by Claude Monet

"That Monet guy has potential. If it applies himself he just may sell a painting or two someday."... Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris , Paris - "Hyde park" 1871 - by Claude Monet - today

Les Invalides - stormed by the people, who then seized its cannons

Les Invalides (French pronunciation: ​[lezɛ̃valid]), commonly known as Hôtel national des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), or also as Hôtel des Invalides, is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. 

The buildings house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the Dôme des Invalides, a large church with the tombs of some of France's war heroes, most notably Napoleon Bonaparte.

Because of its location and significance, the Invalides served as the scene for several key events in French history. On 14 July 1789 it was stormed by Parisian rioters who seized the cannons and muskets stored in its cellars to use against the Bastille later the same day. 

Napoleon was entombed under the dome of the Invalides with great ceremony in 1840. In December 1894 the degradation of Captain Alfred Dreyfus was held before the main building, while his subsequent rehabilitation ceremony took place in a courtyard of the complex in 1906.

.... Wikipedia

"Packing for Paris" :-)

Even Picasso loves Joan Mitchell

"Un jardin pour Audrey", 1974, oil on canvas by Joan Mitchell. Riopelle/Michell exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario - today

Happy Birthday Mila Ramsay

Love you lots and lots...miss you lots and lots.

(if this video does play then please click HERE)

"Taps with Character" - Le Coupe Chou

Washroom - Le Coupe Chou restaurant - built in the mid-1400s - Paris, France

Roca, Korenaga, and Francesco: Just three of the amazing artists of 59 Rivoli

Marilyn and I always make it a point when we are in Paris to visit 59 Rivoli, a four floor building housing amazing artists and their works.

Francesco Bouhbal, one of the founders of 59 Rivoli

Kazuhiro Korenaga

Carla Querejeta Roca - pages from her Spain exhibition catalogue