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France, Day 10: Paris

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“coucou les amis,

comme je l’ai déjà sig­nalé, nous organ­isons donc un petit apéro (et il y aura des trucs à grig­noter par la suite) ven­dredi prochain à par­tir de 19h et ça sera avec grand plaisir de vous accueil­lir tous.

les enfants sont les bien­venus bien sûr.

ça sera non seule­ment l’occasion de vous présen­ter Jeff, le vidéaste cana­dien avec lequel je tra­vaille et de lui dire au revoir car il par­tira samedi pour l’écosse mais égale­ment un bon pré­texte pour se retrou­ver entre amis afin de clô­turer la semaine comme il le faut! ;-)

alors au plaisir de vous voir tous ven­dredi prochain,
karin et olivier”

macaroons

This shop had some of the most unique mac­a­roon flavours I’ve ever tasted, Earl Grey and bub­ble gum being two of my favourites. Very fresh and rich and mouth-wateringly good.

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Date  June 12, 2011
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France, Day 9: Paris

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My time here is com­ing to an end, and I start to won­der more and more what the prac­ti­cal­i­ties are of me mov­ing here. Karin asked if I miss any­thing about home (before already giv­ing me one answer, my cat). I thought about it, and decided that I do miss days in my paja­mas where I sat around doing noth­ing, and the smell of my guitar.

creme caramel

 

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Date  June 11, 2011
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France, Day 8: Paris

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I finally got to expe­ri­ence a Paris night1, walk­ing back to the hotel at 2:30 in the morn­ing. I thought Paris never slept the way New York never does, but the streets were mostly empty, save for a few cou­ples still drink­ing at the only bistros still open. It’s a won­der­ful inter­lude of calm amidst the din dur­ing the day.

The weather has turned lovely, closer to 20°C and much less oppres­sive than the last week. The only prob­lem is that depend­ing on the way clouds move, it can alter­nate between warm and brisk quite quickly, so an extra hoodie or sweater becomes a neces­sity. Today, the low tem­per­a­ture in Ottawa is higher than the peak in Paris, and I’m glad to be here instead of there.

on the move

On the go. Paris is a fast city, and Parisian’s dif­fi­cult to capture.

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  1. Last time I stayed in Chartres and only made day trips to Paris. [↑]
Date  June 10, 2011
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France, Day 7: Paris

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We filmed one of the most amaz­ing sub­jects today. Our top­ics have been exactly the things I’d want to expe­ri­ence if I was in a new city. I’ve only been here a week, but it feels more like a month cause I’ve seen and done so much.

Paris is such a cos­mopoli­tan city. Every region of France has their own spe­cialty — whether it’s a cheese, wine, fruit, or pas­try — but Paris has them all. The more I get to know it, the more it reminds me of Hong Kong: dirty1, busy, small, crowded, old, loud, and absolutely charming.

apple chausson

Apple chaus­son, a spe­cialty of the bak­ery, made with half a fresh apple baked inside instead of apple­sauce which is what most bak­eries do.

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  1. There’s dog shit on almost every side­walk, and men both young and old have no prob­lem pulling their pants down and pee­ing on the side of the street. [↑]
Date  June 9, 2011
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France, Day 6: Paris

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You’d like it here.

Maybe that’s why it feels like you’re miss­ing from every meal, every seat I’ve taken at a bistro with the sun on my face, every cor­ner I’ve rounded with a new expe­ri­ence just beyond.

gazing at the Eiffel Tower

Wish you were here.

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Date  June 8, 2011
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France, Day 5: Paris

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Karin started her project months ago cause she didn’t have enough of a cre­ative out­let in her pro­fes­sional life. It’s great to work with some­one who’s given up so much already in the early stages to see it come to fruition. I tend to invest so much of myself in work like this, so it’s always appre­ci­ated to have a client who’s so pas­sion­ate about their ideas too.

Karin gives me lit­tle hints about what to film and how to edit, but trusts me enough as an artist to give me final cut, and also under­stands that as a cam­era­man and cin­e­matog­ra­pher, I need to be well rested to work at my best, so she never sched­ules any shoot­ing before 10:00am. It’s a dream to work with peo­ple like her.

love wall couple

I Love You: The Wall, an artists piece in a park, with the phrase writ­ten in over 250 lan­guages on tiles that span over 40 square metres.

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Date  June 7, 2011
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France, Day 4: Paris

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My favourite things to cap­ture when trav­el­ing are the lit­tle details that belie the true life of a local. One may get a gen­eral sense of a city from the weather and archi­tec­ture and lan­guage, but to travel and eat and shop like they do here is the most enrich­ing experience.

I’m so lucky to be here.

boy in market

 

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Date  June 5, 2011
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France, Day 3: Paris

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The hotel man­ager is some­thing of a bum­bling old man who barely speaks a lick of English and wears a check­ered sweater and cap even though it’s boil­ing out­side. When I asked him for his name, he said, “Monsieur ________”. “And you”, he said, “are Mr. Laenin”?, as the room was booked under Karin’s name. I laughed and shook my head. “Better you with a girl than a boy with a boy”, he said, touch­ing the tips of his index fin­gers to rep­re­sent some non­de­script rela­tion he didn’t approve of. Even though it was a com­pletely homo­pho­bic com­ment, his Parisian charm almost let him get away with it. Almost.

Every time I see him now, he asks me if she slept over last night. I think he assumes I came to Paris for some kind of booty call.

faces on Belleville wall

 

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Date  June 4, 2011
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France, Day 2: Paris

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It hasn’t quite clicked in that I’m here yet. I was occu­pied with so much back home that this trip for­ever felt like it was far away, even when I was fly­ing out the next day. It’s Ascension Day in France — a coun­try made up mostly of Roman Catholics — so every­one has the day off and most shops are closed.

Paris at night

9:30pm and it’s still bright out.

During the day it’s close to 30°C, and the heat makes cer­tain smells come out in Montmatre, rem­i­nis­cent of Chinese mar­ket­places (though nowhere near as pun­gent). The tem­per­a­ture drops to a brisk tem­per­a­ture in the evening though, and one needs to carry a coat or sweater when trav­el­ing at night.

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Date  June 3, 2011
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France, Day 1: Paris

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I find myself in Paris once again, this time for a video con­tract over the next 10 days. Karin approached me to work with her in cre­at­ing sev­eral films around this beau­ti­ful city, and I have the plea­sure of being involved with this amaz­ing per­sonal project of hers.

view from Sacre Coeur

This is only the sec­ond time I’ve been at Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, and both times there’s been weed in the air. I even passed by a man try­ing to roll a joint while sit­ting on a park bench, his paper madly flap­ping in the wind. There must be some­thing really trippy about the church.

I’m doing it bet­ter this time. More effi­cient, lighter lug­gage. Luckily, I’ve made this trip before and the expe­ri­ence is pay­ing off. Pushing my lim­its last visit has given me the con­fi­dence to han­dle any­thing that may hap­pen. I can retrace my steps with­out a map, remem­ber­ing where I took what pho­tos on which walks.

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Date  June 1, 2011
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far, far away from my heart

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I’ve been feel­ing nos­tal­gic about Toronto ever since I drove down for John’s wed­ding. The other day I stepped out­side and the spring air brought me back to Camp Creative when I used to live there, between semes­ters in grade 5–7. At some point this year I hope to drive home again and take pic­tures of those old schools where I spent the days mak­ing gimp bracelets1 and lip-syncing as Javert in Les Miserables.

Places are only as good as the peo­ple though, and I’m sure I miss Toronto for John and Darren as much as those old child­hood mem­o­ries, when life was so sim­ple that the fact that it was dis­gust­ingly hot never entered my mind, even though I was out­side for most of the day.

Ullapool cafe

Scottish faces in Scottish places. This was lit­er­ally the size of half the cafe. Off-camera is Mike work­ing his magic to con­vince these two baris­tas to let us film inside.

I miss Mike and rainy London nights too. I want to be part of a cre­ative team again, work­ing towards a com­mon vision, with some­one who can com­pli­ment my weak­nesses with their strengths. It’s been too long since I had some­one to bounce ideas off of, some­one to give me hon­est crit­i­cism and inspire me to improve. Mike does all those things, and I’ve yet to find some­one like that here in Ottawa.

Stores in Chartres

Night shop­ping in down­town Chartres.

I miss France, and Misun and Frédéric, and how they could truly appre­ci­ate who I am. I love the cul­ture in that coun­try, and the fact that you can buy a fresh baguette by walk­ing a minute from any­where. And I’m far from being fin­ished with Paris; there was so much I had left to explore, so many things I’d yet to do. I want to go back as the right per­son, not as a per­son try­ing to escape my thoughts and memories.

Kowloon Walled City entrance

Gateway in Kowloon Walled City.

Hong Kong I miss most of all, and my fam­ily there. I want noth­ing more than to walk those streets with Uncle Joe or Uncle Eddie. Sometimes, I sit by my back door with the win­dow open and just lis­ten to cars pass­ing by in the dark­ness, pre­tend­ing it’s the din of those high­ways and the diesel of the trucks. Nothing ever comes close though, and it only leaves me feel­ing like all these places are so far away.

  1. Square, cir­cle, and but­ter­fly were my favourites. [↑]
Date  April 21, 2011
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Sketches from Europe

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A few moments from my trip that didn’t fit in any­where else, but moments filled with life, con­nec­tions, wit, and joy nonetheless.

Watching this only makes me miss France, Britain, and all the peo­ple there even more. Maybe I’ll get to see them again soon.

Date  January 24, 2011
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France: Day 19, Chartres + Paris

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Last day.

There was much left to do and see, but that’s all for another time.

Chartres

Chartres view

Overlooking Chartres.

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Date  January 4, 2011
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France: Day 18, Paris

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The detour took a week off my time in France, and soon I was on a mis­sion to do the most impor­tant things with the two days I had left. I decided to visit places that meant some­thing to me, instead of tourist attrac­tions like the Louvre and Eiffel Tower that didn’t have as much of an emo­tional connection.

Four Graves, Four Songs

Pere Lachaise Cemetery road

 

I’d only found out about ceme­ter­ies Montparnasse and Père Lachaise — both of which are notable for hav­ing many famous peo­ple buried there — after my arrival. They’re both huge (nav­i­gat­ing them requires look­ing up the proper street name), but Père Lachaise in par­tic­u­lar has the rep­u­ta­tion of being the world’s most vis­ited cemetary. I made no plans to visit them until I found out that Serge Ganisbourg is in Montparnasse, and Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, and Chopin are in Père Lachaise. So I made a trip to some­what oppo­site ends of Paris to find the graves of each of these musi­cians. For each one that I vis­ited, I put on my head­phones and lis­tened to one of their songs, imag­in­ing they were singing or play­ing to me at that moment.

Serge Gainsbourg (La Chanson de Prévert)

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It wasn’t hard to tell that Serge is one of France’s most beloved artists; the tomb was lit­tered with var­i­ous baubles, plants, and even por­traits left for him. As I was lis­ten­ing to this song (co-incidentally, ref­er­enc­ing songs sung to Jacques Prévert’s poems, such as the one by Edith Piaf below), a tall, sandy-haired young man walked up to the grave, lit a cig­a­rette, and left his lighter stand­ing upright on the tomb before walk­ing away.

The French youth seem to have an healthy obses­sion with the genius that was Serge. I’d just like to know where these peo­ple are, because I don’t know a sin­gle per­son who loves Gainsbourg as much as I do. I need to find them so we can smoke cig­a­rettes, mock pop cul­ture, and talk about want­ing to fuck Whitney Houston.

Serge Gainsbourg's grave

 

Serge Gainsbourg's grave - details 1

The small white strips are metro tick­ets (they get spit out from the machine as a receipt when enter­ing the subway).

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Date  January 1, 2011
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France: Day 9, Rochefort-en-Terre

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It’s so nice to be accepted into another fam­ily, and to be able to live the way they do for a bit. You get a taste of some­one else’s life and habits. That’s when a trip is more than just a visit to a dif­fer­ent place, and becomes an experience.

And on our last day in Rochefort-en-Terre, there were still things to do and dishes to eat.

cleaning mussels

Cleaning the mus­sels for steam­ing in white wine and onions. This is how Frédéric won Misun’s heart.

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Date  December 6, 2010
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