Blue Things 012

Blue straw, rue de Couëdic – 29 June 2017

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Found money 056

Cumulative total 2017: €4,81, 0,05 £

 

5 pence, rue de la Tombe-Issoire – 23 June 2017

 

—– Not Pictured

042 20170516 10¢

043 20170518 5¢

044 20170521 1¢ Marché bd August Blanqui, not pictured

045 20170527 2¢, Ave. de Clichy

046 20170527 1¢ rue La Fayette

047 20170528 2¢ Place Denfert-Rochereau

048 20170528 1¢ Place Denfert-Rochereau

049 20170528 5¢ Place Denfert-Rochereau

050 20170529 1¢, bd du Montparnasse

051 20170531 1¢

052 20170608 20¢

053 20170616 1¢, rue Froment

054 20170618 1¢

055 20170621 10¢, Le Petit Bar

 

Monuments and plaques (003)

1bis rue Vaneau*/**, 31 mai 2017

 

 

*The plaque beside the door reads:

André Gide

né à Paris le 22 novembre 1869

habita cette maison de 1926

jusqu’à sa le 19 février 1951

 

Three random facts about Gide (courtesy of http://www.andre-gide.fr/ ):

1. Sometime in 1891, Gide met Oscar Wilde.
2. Gide was a Dreyfusard.
3. On 13 November 1947 Gide received the Nobel prize for literature.

 

An audio essay I think Gide would have approved of: Notes on an imagined plaque*** (The Memory Palace)

 

**Rue Vaneau is named for Louis Marie Anne Vaneau (Rennes, 27 March 1811 – Paris, 29 July1830), a student of the École Polytechnique killed during the Révolution de Juillet/Trois Glorieuses, the second French revolution.

 

***Monuments and plaques have been all over the (American) news this month of May: Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s speech on removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments (The Times-Picayune)

 

Monuments (002)

Mort pour – 21 May 2017

 

The inscription reads: To the memory of the orphans* of the Seine who died for France (for nothing) – 1951 (There is another inscription, possibly the name of the sculpture that I couldn’t decipher.)

 

*Pupille can be translated as either orphan, ward, or pupil. This monument stands beside an old orphanage so I went with orphan.

 

Monuments (001)

(Green) Monument*, Cimetière du Montparnasse – 22 May 2017

 

 

I have been on a podcast binge of late. Among other things, I’ve been working my way through Nate DiMeo’s The Memory Palace**. A few mornings ago, I listened to A Washington monument, a piece in which DiMeo describes an alternative Washington Monument***. He created such a vivid alternative that his other imagined monument keeps popping into my mind.

 

Today, while cutting through the Cimetière du Montparnasse, I saw the monument pictured above and thought again of DiMeo’s audio piece/portrait.  You’ll have to have a listen to understand the (rather tenuous) connection.

 

This week: monuments and plaques and audio and cartoons.

 

 

*I looked under the ivy for a family name but could only read the last inscription at the foot of the grave stone. I think it says: Roger Goldner 1923-1966.

 

 

**I recently read Sébastien Martinez’s Une mémoire infaillible: Briller en société sans sortir son smartphone. Which is about building Memory Palaces, and memory tricks in general. My goal for this summer is to learn all of the UN recognized countries and their capitals.

 

 

***A few years ago, I got into an argument with a cab driver over the statue of George Washington in front of the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet. He said the statue depicted La Fayette (Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, 6 September 1757, château de Chavaniac, paroisse de Saint-Georges-d’Aurac – 20 May 1834, Paris). Nothing I said could make him change his mind. I just read that La Fayette named his only son Georges Washington de La Fayette! Reading a little further, if I understand correctly, the name on the young La Fayette’s birth certificate is Georges-Louis-Gilbert Dumotier de La Fayette.

The statue of George is the work of Daniel Chester French (20 April 1850 – 7 October 1931) and was inaugurated on 3 July 1900. The statue is bronze and was a gift of a committee of American women in memory of France’s aide during the American War of Independence (1775–1783).

An inscription on the pedestal reads, « Offert par les femmes des États-Unis d’Amérique en mémoire de l’aide fraternelle donnée par la France à leurs pères pendant la lutte pour l’indépendance. »

 

Doux ou demi-sel?

Vivre c’est butter*, 11 May 2017

 

*My non-literal translation = Life is better with butter (and, oh, how good the French butter is!)

 

Vivre c’est Lutter = To live is to fight (for)/struggle (against)

Butter = To shore up (with earth)

Butter (argot)** = To bump off/kill

Butter (slang) = To waste

 

**”Butter: Assassiner. — Du vieux mot buter : frapper, renverser” Definition courtesy of Argoji, Argot français classique

 

 

 

 

Found money 041

041 20170508 20¢ bd Auguste Blanqui

 

Cumulative total 2017: €4,20

Total 23/11/16 – 31/12/16: €10,21

 

— Not Posted

040 20170506 10¢ (5¢, 2¢, 2¢, 1¢) Marché Port-Royal

039 20170422 1¢ Paris

038 20170412 €1 Carrer Ciutadella-Sa Caleta, Ciutadella de Menorca, Illes Balears, Spain

037 20170403 2¢ My lobby, Paris

036 20170326 10¢ Paris

035 20170325 2¢ My lobby, Paris

034 20170321 6¢ (1¢, 5¢) various locations, Paris

033 20170320 €2,3 (1¢, 2¢, €2) various locations, Paris

032 20170319 1¢ Paris

031 20170311 2¢ Paris

030 20170226 2¢ Paris

029 20170224 4¢ (2¢, 2¢), various locations, Paris

028 20170205 2¢ Paris

027 20170130 1¢ Paris

026 20170126 1¢ Paris