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The River Fountain, Place de la Concorde. (Eiffel Tower in the background.)
Yes, I’m inordinately fond of photographing things with the sun behind them but the cloudscape was especially attractive on this afternoon. There wasn’t as much visible water coming off the fountains as there had been previously but the spray was most welcome on a […]

The Obelisk, Place de la Concorde.
I love the way the thin layer of tarmac in the Place has been worn away by the traffic to reveal the cobblestones beneath. The Paris Obelisk seems more impressive than Cleopatra’s Needle, not least because of its dramatic setting and the way it’s aligned with the Tuileries promenades and […]

The 2006 Jack Trevor Story Grand Prix was decided on Friday afternoon at L’Horizon, rue St Placide in Paris. The sans precedent prize can be seen above. After much deliberation the judges decided that Mr Steve Aylett was a worthy recipient of this most ingenuous of literary awards. Mr Aylett now has to spend the […]

77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno, Laforet Museum, Harajuku, Tokyo.
Brian Eno is in the latest Wire talking about his forthcoming DVD-ROM, 77 Million Paintings. He also mentions coining the term “generative music” in 1995 to a resounding silence. 77 Million Paintings continues the generative project:
This will be available later in the year as a DVD-ROM […]

Photography by Eugène Atget (1857–1927).

For once the hyperbole about a new band is justified.
Through the Windowpane is a great album.

Thomas Pynchon – A Journey into the Mind of [P.] (2001)
Written and directed by Fosco Dubini
and Donatello Dubini
Music by The Residents
Language: English
Runtime: 96mins
“Things are not as they seem.” In US writer Thomas Pynchon’s case, this is a mantra, cornerstone to a life and labyrinthine oeuvre freighted with ceaseless speculation. In books like V. and Gravity’s […]

I’ll be in Paris this week so some French-related postings are in order.
Michel Houellebecq’s HP Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (which I still haven’t read) has been in the news again recently, with a number of reviews appearing in UK newspapers and magazines, most of which present the by-now rather tired spectacle of reviewers […]

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Fencers