Twenty to Ten in the Eleventh, and Nothing Open Yet
The graphic art gallery I had walked across Paris for does not open until half past twelve. So I got the street instead, and the street was better.
Archives
Thirty Square Metres of Nothing, and What It Costs
I stood in an empty white storefront in the Marais and worked out how many drawings would fit on the walls. Then the Bourse de Commerce filled its rotunda with fog and made the sums feel small.
The Tower in a Puddle, and a Street Art Salon at the Petit Palais
First full day in Paris, out at half five. Trocadero before the crowds, four hours in the Petit Palais, and sixty street artists hung salon style in among the marble.
Two Empty Bottles and the Most Famous Object on Earth
What the Eiffel Tower’s doorstep looks like at six in the morning in August, before anybody has swept it. Last night’s champagne still lying in the grass, and a floor pattern nobody looks at.
A Painting on the Shelf, a Piano in the Station, and Then Paris
Eight days on the Sorgue done, and a whole day spent getting north. A thank you left on an empty shelf, an hour of somebody else’s piano at Avignon TGV, and Burgundy through a dirty window.
Sunday on the Sorgue: Everything Out on the Footpath
The famous Sunday market at L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, walked from twenty to nine while it was still cool. Rusted chairs, a canal hung with old linen, a wall of masks, and a lesson in selling from a leaflet.
A Whole Village Built on the Habit of Making Paper
Saturday’s list said one thing, go to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and find paper. What I got first was a cliff with a castle stuck on top of it, a ruined garden, and a river that comes out of the ground and will not tell you where it has been.
Where the Sorgue Comes Out of the Ground
Before the paper mill, the reason the paper mill is there at all. The biggest spring in France coming out from under a cliff, a ruined castle above it, and a poet who moved here to get away from everybody.
Two Dogs, One Cat and a Squirrel That Was Never There
An early loop around the town before the shutters went up, which turned into a dog in a doorway, a cat under the postcards and a brocante with nobody in it. By midday the lot of it was in blue biro.
The Day Gordes Did Not Happen
Gordes was the plan. What I got instead was a weir at ten to nine, a dog holding an empty lane on its own, a pavement table of cyanotypes, and the place where the Sorgue splits itself in two.