A Week in Our Life

I just read the news about Paris.  This Friday night.

 (First and last pics "Cloud Tsunami" over Sydney, OZ via the Guardian)

I hope you all are safe.

 (Fireworks at Guy Fawkes Day in Lewes, Sussex, UK also via the Guardian)

I always wonder why/how/whether I should even post under such circumstances.

 (Moses on the Mesa)

These are beautiful images

 (Singapore, via Hello Sandwich also below)

which arrived on my doorstep

in a way of speaking.

 (Camilla Engman)

Somehow they all seem linked - aside from all ending up on my computer last week.

 (Anonymous marches, Guardian again, this and below)

Faces.  Places. Voices.  Facades. Masks.  Expression.

We humans have so much power - in groups.

 (Jenny Lewis' photo of Paul Reynolds, curator via Spitalfields Life)

And as individuals.

 (This and the following two pictures, Steve McCurry)

And yet.

There can be so much loneliness.  As much when we're together.

As when we're apart.

There are days when it seems that the storm clouds have gathered and will refuse to ever clear.  For some of us this is not hypothetical.  It is our present.  Our reality.  Can any of us be certain of our safety?  When we don't feel safe that is also when we feel most alone.

I wish you all the very best this weekend.  I grieve for you Paris.  And I grieve for all the ideas/truths that you represent:

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite

And Another (L.A.) Break - Pottering in the Past

So Mr. Paradis and I were having a walk the other day

and wandered past a warehouse

whose open door winked beckoningly at us.

Inside, a browser's paradise.  No anxiety of acquisition in the equation!

Well not for us, at least.  If you've ever wondered how they dressed those Mad Men sets

this place just might provide the clue.

All the pieces - scrupulously dust free and ready for pick-up.... (I can't imaging the army of cleaners who must descend here every night.  Literally, "ARMY")

There are many places like this all around L.A.  For the obvious reasons.

All these items are available for rental for TV, film, fashion shoots.

Or,  I suppose, my own 20 minutes of Doris Day delusion.  A warehouse of my dreams!  (More soon.  Because this place just went on and on and on!)

Pedro del Toro - This Week's Artist

Taking a break

from travel pics

to introduce this

stunning artist.

Pedro del Toro.

Don't these make you want to take up wood carving?

I found him at Art Room Plant where his website appears on her blogroll.  Sadly his website, "Magic Hairball" has been invitation only since I discovered it.  

Wonderful work.  Wish I could know more about it.

How was the weekend all?  Good I hope!

Briefly, Barcelona

Here.  Pictures of facades I still haven't shown you.

 Of our rainy walk up the Ramblas from the Boqueria

past beautiful buildings of all eras

and especially the art nouveau

masterpieces

that line

the avenues

on the way

to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia.

Most were taken on a phone because of my acute delinquency in not charging my camera the night before.  But the haziness almost adds to the fantastical qualities, I think.

A disgrace that this is the best I can do for the Sagrada Familia but you know, it's really something you should see in real life.  And it's almost finally finished.  Make sure to schedule lots of time for your visit - and to probably book ahead.  When we arrived, it was a 1 1/2 hour wait to gain entry.

Here's an article about its imminent completion after 123 years in the Atlantic Monthly with an amazing and beautiful YouTube time-lapse video showing various components in progress.  I actually think I like it better "as is" since the finished project is a little space age-y for my tastes.  You decide for yourself.  Has anyone written a love song to Barcelona?  If not, they should!  What a gorgeous town.

It's finally gotten a little chilly in L.A.  Hope you are staying warm where you are.

BESOS for a LOVELY weekend!

The Relais Serrabonne - Between Prades and Ceret

So we set off one morning for Prades for the medieval market

that it is known for.  But we'd slept too late...and lingered

too long over our breakfast tartines and coffee.  Prades had more or less rolled up its sidewalks

and the lunchtime and sieste hush had fallen over the town.

We drove around town in circles and circles at the bidding of our highly confused GPS.  (3 times! And we'd not received our invitations for the party.)

Finally we busted out of town and past medieval villages to take the route to Ceret.

Much of that route took us onto an empty winding mountain road dotted with the occasional tiny hamlet.   Midway we came to an unassuming little place.  With not A LOT of character - on the outside.

Just a few wildflowers and piney mountains.

We left a refreshment order at the little house, poked our fingers and clicked our tongues at a fat rabbit in his/her cage.  And went to wait at a picnic table.  With Mr. Paradis' brand new friend.

The little one had no interest in me at all.  But only declared his fealty to my other one.

I busied myself taking pictures of the surrounding.....nothing much of note.  Perhaps some cherry orchards in the valley below.  And then, from the inside of that unprepossessing little house:

This!!!!!  IMPECCABLE.  Exquisite.  HEAVEN on a plate.

 (a delicious espresso, cherries in syrup, honey nougatine, gingerbread with plum compote)

So simple.  So fresh.  All made locally.  Artisanally.  i.e., as in the old ways.  You couldn't have found better in a fancy fancy expensive restaurant.  In America, you will not be rewarded gastronomically by getting off the beaten track.  But in France, it is entirely another story.  I dream of this.  (Always.)  (ALWAYS!)

The air was so clean and pure and it was p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y quiet.  A sweet sweet place.

The Relais Serrabonne (click for Facebook page).  All of the above edible goodies available for purchase and take away with you.  If you should be sooooooooo lucky.

Be gentle.  Seek it out.  Enjoy it.  Treat it as respectfully and tenderly as it does you.  It is a gift and a small handful of a world that is too too rare nowadays.