Anzac Day

G'day you lot,

just a short note from Normandy.

Months ago we saw a program on television of an old Australian Air Force veteran visiting the village in France where he and some of his bomber crew were hidden from German capture by the villagers and given assistance to escape after being shot down.
After some research I found a group of Australian airmen's graves in a cemetery not far from where we would be staying and decided that it would be good to visit on ANZAC Day and pay homage to these aircrew who died and were buried so far from home.

St Desir War Cemetery, Normandy

Pilot Officer  J.T.N. Frost
R.A.A.F
20-8-1944
Age: 22

Flight Sergeant E.H. Gunders
R.AA.F.
15-8-1943
Age: 22

Flight Sergeant E.Harrison
R.A.A.F.
11-11-1943
Age: 32

Pilot Officer M.A. Line
R.A.A.F.
11-11-1943
Age 26

Warrant Officer L.L. Mc Kenny
R.A.A.F.
15-8-43
Age: 24

Flying Officer A.H. Reardon
R.A.A.F.
15-8-1943
Age: 34

St. Desir War Cemetery

German Section, St Desir.


Hoo-roo, Possums,
Shane.

Rouen: No Country for High Heels

Shane in Rouen

G'day Possums,

…and as the loquacious waiter from Chalet de Isles who being a native and migrates to and fro to Paris for work explained in a guttural back-of-the-throat-and-through-the-nose manner, “….it’s Ooo-uun.”

Apart from the delights of leaning medieval timbered facades and a city hall being selectively left with the pock marks and cratering from Allied determination in dislodging almost as much of the architecture as they did the Germans inJuly/August 1944, there are the cobblestones…and little footpath steps which in their 50-60mm difference to the path are barely perceptible and can offer surprising steps into space unknown or with only a 1/3 of a foot purchase and ankle twist, the opportunity to make brilliant imitations of a drunken tourist.




This could explain the number of shoe shops…. selling flats.

Gothic Flamboyant

Of which, there are almost as many as there are Bars, Bistros and Restaurants in which to practice the drunken tourist; but I didn’t and watched my step instead.

Rue Cauchoise

Bang, Bang...

Mrs Wombat and I saw some very nice shoes, too. A beautifully crafted pair of handmade men’s shoes were a comfortable E1000.00 and a matching colour Mont Blanc Pen, a laid back E450.00. But as we know …”the age of entitlement is over!” Well nearly.

St Ouen

The Musee de Beaux Art had some fine stuff, a nice Bourdelle “Pomona” and a surprisingly emotional David D’Angers’  Marble, lovely Corot’s, and Monet’s, some wonderful macabre Gericault’s, and Sisley who is much better on longer looking than some of his contemporaries like Renoir…and some huge works by one painter whose subject matter could only be termed the C19th prelude to “snuff” movies. 

Rouen reflections

There are also some very interesting Modigliani's and Villon’s… and a brilliant modern carpet… and added to this was a exhibition of quattrocento panels from Siena showing the rapid development in Italian art during the renaissance and detailing that the then prevailing orthodoxy of the elites getting the rewards and the plebeians, the dross is still current. 

shoes.

Medieval Plague Mortuary

Judging by the contemporary morals exhibited in a “Last Judgment,” cuddling prelates and amorous aristocrats seem to have more chance of benign judgment than the grovelling peasants who are condemned to genital tickling and other mild S and M strictures in Hell but by the looks on their faces they may well be considering that their Hellish Lot an improvement on their last situation. 

Deeper into Normandy tomorrow,

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

and some street shots for those interested....

street...

Oliver

 

Break Dance

the Mask.

being seen, being seen.

Shane at Versailles

G'day Petals,

It seems a long time between drinks but that's only because we've been flat-out like the proverbial Lizard and buzzing around Paris like blue-arsed Flies.

Versaille, The Marmottan, Dorsay,  Louvre/Arts Decoratif,  Magnum show at Hotel de Ville, Concergerie, St Chapelle,  Orangerie, a belt up the Tour Montparnasse for some panoramas across the city at dusk with the added spice of a day of death at Montparnasse cemetery followed by the completely "over-the-top" brilliance of Opera Garnier...  and all after Cluny, Ateliers' Zadkine and Delacroix and the Jardin de Plantes in the Luxembourg Gardens.  All possible only by the brilliance of the Paris metro and rail system....... and when you hear Rabid-the-Hun is spitefully holding back monies for the extension of Melbourne's underground you really have to consider that the ruling rabble's leader is not competent....in any capacity!
Some of the Paris transport has good entertainment, too....

These fellows were hopping between trains busking and making a fine noise....

...as were these classical types..







...and these two were bopping along in Bv St. Michel this afternoon.. which sort of ties with this posts theme of  being seen.... being seen.



So many of the "Big Venues", D' Orsay, Versailles, Opera etc  are very crowded.... not just with the most wonderful art, architecture, history and collections of talent but also with people; people who are there to tell every one else that they are there and will have a "selfie" to prove it. One for every minute, in front of every art work, pillar, sculpture, tapestry, vase, ring, building, landscape, tree, blade of grass that is there to justify their existence.

Opera Garnier selfies

It strikes me that so much time is spent preening for the position, look, pose and pout that there mustn't be a lot of brain left over for the "thing"they are using as a vanity prop.

Versailles selfie

The picture above has around 60 people crowded into this not overly large room in Versailles.. I counted about 12 looking at something and not through a camera... but perhaps the best was seen at the Orangerie where three young women whose quality of dress, attitude and looks could only be described as indifferent, took turns in pressing Monet's Water Lilies into service as wallpaper for their ego boosting face-book updates.

Orangerie

The democratisation of access to media and ability to proliferate it has meant that all the visual and conceptual lessons learned from advertising have been put into play. 

There was, when old advertising appropriated "art" as a status vehicle on which to drive its product, a diminution of the apparent value of the art happened through over-use but now the massive amount of media we are subjected to with its hyperbole necessarily ramped up to maintain a presence has completely obliterated the core value of the object and replaced that with a concept of its "thingness."

St Chapelle

It seems that the "selfie," in the art gallery context and quite apart from its extreme narcissism, has developed from a genuflection to art as a thing of wonder to a genuflection to a self who admits no possibility of creating anything except an ongoing self referential dialogue. The identification with self is so strong that that it precludes anything (or one) equivalent or better because that would destroy the primacy of self.  

It's a scary thought that society, for a narcissistic selfie-producer begins and ends with them and that collective action on anything is not possible without a loss of self.

The Fascists dream.... but oddly enough, not much in the way of selfies being taken in the Concergerie.... a trifle too macabre I dare say.

The Concergerie

Then there were other people on the street and here they are....

Effigy

"Effigy" a 3D portrait outfit by Vincent Haeffner and his assistant Max working in St Germain..... a  really interesting concept... check them out on face-book.

Effigy

Gilbert

A rather poignant portrait for Gilbert taken outside his late parents home...

Petit Trianon

Petit Trianon

Petit Trianon

and fountain this makes great playof light...

Carpeaux

a room with a view.... but Rouen calls...

Hoo-roo Possums.,

Shane