I may have spent 2 days in what we call the 21st arrondissement of Paris (that is what we call Deauville because, during weekends, you find more Parisians there than locals!) it still feels good to be back home. To celebrate, let me offer you - and Suzy in particular LOL - a real cliché(!). Now I have to work on my next trip to the US (I have no idea where to organize a PDP party in the big Apple?!) and take enough Paris photos to keep you guys busy while I'm away ;)
There is a very nice Mexican-Cuban restaurant in Chelsae area where they have wonderful mojitos.
ReplyDeleteI am sure Alexa knows a lot of nice places
Have fun
The Eiffel Tower always looks good, in black and white or in color.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a cliche because of the black foreground! Wonderful!
ReplyDeleteEiffel Tower!!!
ReplyDeleteEiffel Tower!!!
Eiffel Tower!!!
It's beautiful!!!
You should organise it at Central Perk of course! ... What do you mean it doesn't exist? ... well, what about ... Father Christmas? He neither? O.M.G. .... :(
ReplyDeleteBeautiful shot :)
Eric
ReplyDeleteWitha photo like this... well you are my hero!
The Time Warner Bldg. in NYC has spectacular views,and a few cheaper places in which to sit and drink on the lower floors.
ReplyDeleteJust like the Eiffel tower has!
P.S. Can't you just see this ET on Suzy's head?
I just love the Eiffel Tower!! Such loveliness is free to look at as well. *sigh* Someday!
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a great time in NYC with all those fortunate enough to be able to meet as well, Eric. Safe travels!
Voila, la belle dame! She's quite domestic, doesn't ever like to travel, iron consitution, flirts with tourists (such a coquette), tall, slender, shapely, romantic views, and never seems to age. Hmm, what else can we add? (Where's Lucio when you need him?) :-)
ReplyDeleteLove this classic-looking shot. Especially in B&W.
ReplyDeleteOooooooh pretty!
ReplyDeleteWhere's Suzy!!? ET!!!ET!!!ET!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat are all these guys looking at?! Thousands of people are looking at something else than the Eiffel Tower?..
ReplyDeleteWhat happened in your back, Eric?
This picture is a real mystery.
Have a nice Sunday all. Off to Reims for an auction sale.
What a romantic picture, It's just lovely to look at!
ReplyDeleteLucio - I am about to take off my "Mask"....
Hello Eric and Hello to all!!!
Eric - My name is Jessie, I was the anonyme who played " the guess who's who game" in your Le Marchand de Masques photo! I live in NYC and I have been following your PDP for the past 6 month, I do look forward to your photo every evening when I get home from work. I DO MISS PARIS A LOT and so lovely to have you here to provides us all these wonderful pics! Thank you.
I would love to join the PDP party if you don't mind having this stranger " me" there. ;o}
what about this place? got fantastic rooftop view of the city but I must say that this restaurant it's a bit pricy though. http://www.dreamny.com/index01.html
Bella!!! I agree with everyone who's commented thus far.I think Coltrane described this photo best:)
ReplyDeleteI too Guille am wondering what that guy is recording? Everyone seems to facing opposite the Eiffel Tower.
BTW Eric:
I love NYC almost as much as I love PARIS!!! x x NYC comes in a close second though.
I hope you have a wonderful time on your visit to the USA!!
Can't wait to hear about it.
Au Revoir.
and Soosha to answer you question,
ReplyDeleteI can't pick just 1 photo of Erics that is my favorite. Unlike most of the PDP 'regulars' I'm a newbie ;-)
I have to say though I am a complete and total sucker for photos of the Eiffel Tower.I love to see how other people or artists may see it.
I also like when Eric only shows 1/2 or a little part of the photo.
Eric, how about meeting a few of us in Portland, OR? It's only, you know, another 3000 miles or so. Just let me know what time to pick you up at PDX.
ReplyDeleteEric
ReplyDeletePDP fans would love Les Halles, Anthony Bourdain's French bistro in NYC (Gramercy Park area)
http://www.leshalles.net/
Voila!
What???? the PDP party is not going to be held in BIrmingham, Alabama for pete's sake?? I am so disappointed.
ReplyDeleteI am just thrilled to see la tour Eiffel in all her glory, and it's a fabulous perspective at that, and not some tawdry topic like we were all accomplices to the other night! A good , wholesome Paris attraction that we can all oooh and aaah over and not be tempted in the least to be naughty.
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ReplyDeleteJessie: Hi! Thank you, again, for playing the guessing game with me. It was a welcome respite from tasks which, though much more pressing, were much less fun.
ReplyDeleteColtrane: You should be careful what you wish for! LOL...
For me, as for so many others, the Eiffel Tower is first and foremost a soaring synecdoche for Paris itself. While there are a clutch of other buildings and monuments that convey something of the city’s history, and countless works of art that give form to its soul, the Iron Lady remains unsurpassed as a symbol of Parisian daring, innovation and optimism. World events since 1889 have certainly tarnished the modernist credo of which she is such an eloquent and elegant manifestation, but she is yet to become a mere cultural cliché – although, I have to agree, she could never honestly plead “not guilty” to this charge. The evidence against her is far too overwhelming, and continues to grow exponentially: digital photography and the internet having continued to fix her reputation as an international trope of touristic consumerism. Indeed, how many of us who have visited Paris can honestly say that, despite our precious “worldliness”, our first glimpse of the tower after arriving isn’t also the moment when we feel, with hale and blissful certitude, that we have actually arrived?
One of the many paradoxes of progress is that, if one lives long enough, one is likely to see the triumphs of one’s youth become the trivia of one’s old age. If, for example, you are old enough (as I am) to have watched the live broadcast of Neil Armstrong’s “great step for mankind”, I urge you to contemplate first what it means to you, then what it might mean to someone born after 1970, after 1980, after 1990, after 2000. Obviously, it is now a moment in history for all of us, but one’s perspective on history is determined as much by when one became a historical being as by the extent of one’s historical knowledge. We who were there, so to speak, when Armstrong etched our collective signature in the Moon’s virginal dust will “know” it differently to someone who “knows” it simply as a recorded fact. Likewise, if you will forgive the anthropomorphising gist of my speculations, the Eiffel Tower has had to endure the gradual but irreversible recession of her glory days into the haze of mechanical reproduction and moist-eyed nostalgia.
This brings me back to the Eiffel Tower’s status as a global cliché, which can’t be denied, but which, at the same time, is nothing any of us should be apologetic about: least of all you, Eric. I, for one, look forward to your occasional portraits of her, much as I look forward to receiving photos of my aging parents – part of whose lives are, and always will be, “unknown” to me in terms of lived experience; submerged in a mystery that will always be just within, yet just beyond, the reach of my filial curiosity. I feel much the same way about your images of our beloved Dame de Fer, whose slender, tapering profile and latticed silhouette still resonate with the astonishment, vitality and excitement that must surely have greeted her “birth”. Thus, while she might be old in years, she retains her youthful aura, along with her coquettish, “iron-clad” promise of future pleasures, which belong to those for whom life, and history, are yet to begin. Hopefully, some of them will (like some of us) be able to penetrate the tangle of clichés which enfold her – and which, by then, will be considerably denser than it is now – and see not a relic but a survivor, not a dowager but an enchantress, not a weary stereotype but a living expression of human aspiration.
For this reason, I derive immeasurable joy from seeing photos of her that are, in a manner of speaking, “hot off the press”. Only in this way can I see how she looks today, at this hour, or this minute, while I am far away, wishing like mad I were not.
Lucio -- WOW! I'm at my (usually Internetless) mom's house—and yet, miraculously, here I am.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm now speechless ...
(except to say, incredible back-to-Paris ET shot, Eric, and more soon on a good place to meet in NYC).
While we're all looking at the Eiffel Tower, something's going on on the other side, behind Eric, since someone is photographing, but what?! Could it be ... another bunch of PDP fans ? ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck... one for the road!
Eiffel Tower!
Eiffel Tower!!
Eiffel Tower!!!
Eric,
ReplyDeleteWhere did you take this photo? I would love to be able to come close when I am there next month. Fabulous perspective!
Merci,
V
Uh, was it good for you, Lucio?
ReplyDeleteJust kidding! :)
The rest of us just say:
Eiffel Tower!
Eiffel Tower!!
Eiffel Tower!!!
Yeah, I know, I couldn't help myself.
PS. I remember exactly where I was when Armstrong took his giant step for mankind. By the way, I heard somewhere that Armstrong may also have said as he took next few steps: "and this is for you Mr. Wilson." Does anyobody know who Mr. Wilson is or if the story is true?
Lucio, that's a tough act to follow, so I won't try. I'll only say that seeing La Tour Eiffel, even when I only knew it in photographs, always made me nostalgic for a life I imagined I would lead. It is, as you say, the living expression of human aspiration. When I see La Tour from any view my heart fills with my own aspirations and my visions of adventures--those I've had and those I desire. For me, La Tour Eiffel is a symbol of transforming dreams into action.
ReplyDeleteEric, you know you can post anything and we'll love it and be grateful for it. Oh--and listen, while you're in the states, after you drop by Birmingham and Portland, you might as well stop in Los Angeles. Lots of folks here want to see you.
I am late on responding to comments yesterday (one in particular), but this photo of the Lady brings it into context. Beauty is not defined by hair color. Une belle femme est une belle femme, est une belle femme. That which we call a rose, by any name will still smell as sweet.
ReplyDeleteTomate Farcie: I guess after three consecutive days of "naughtiness" on this blog (and in the comments box), I was kind of lining myself up for that punch - which, though it caught me square on the jaw, felt strangely like a kiss. Or maybe it's just the post-composition afterglow talking. :p
ReplyDeleteEric once again a beautiful photo of Paris, from a new perspective and with a hint of mystery as to what's going on in the shadows. I enlarged the photo so much on my iPod that it crashed so I just had to go to bed without commenting. I might not have made sense last night after an amazing Parisian dinner follows by drinks at an Irishpub served by none other than the beautiful and charming (and oh so young!) Guille. Michael you are LAME for not showing up.
ReplyDeleteAnd Lucio thank you for your amazing words to describe the Eiffel Tower. So perfect. (And I will so endeavor to become not a dowager but an enchantress in my old age!)
On this my last full day in Paris (I know, no one feels sorry for me in the least), I will try to soak up everything so that I take a bit of the Parisian spirit with me when I go home tomorrow. And of course I'll always have PDP!
Alexa/Petrea/Katie: Sometimes a piece virtually writes itself. Fortunately, one has never typed itself, so I have not yet outlived my usefulness.
ReplyDeleteWhen enlarging enough the picture, it reminds me of the free concert given last Bastille Day, very crowded and a lot of lights and sound.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's THE reason why no one looks at Eric, as incredible as it seems !
On another subject, I love Eric's calendars for the new year. I'm buying them as X'mas gifts for colleagues. Eric, you rock! PLEASE don't run out of stock.
ReplyDeleteThe cliche's can be very nice too Eric :)
ReplyDeleteEvery once in awhile at PDP the shot by Eric is the catalyst for a series of comments that speak from individual emotions while drawing the whole community closer. Dozens of short but perfect expressions and others that swell with sheer beauty, gifting us with moments to be awed - together.
ReplyDeleteKatie,
I do feel sad for you as I'm imagining what a last night in Paris would feel like.
Lucio,
Astonishing writing.
Jill,
I'm near Portland so count me in after you get Eric's itinerary (we wish!).
Petrea,
"For me, La Tour Eiffel is a symbol of transforming dreams into action." That pretty much says it all.
Eric, et al,
I think Vicky Hugo's suggestion sounds ideal, but still have to recommend a cliche' - Tavern on the Green in Central Park. My husband and I ate there on our wedding night.
Bonnes vacances, Eric !
ReplyDeleteProfites-en bien !
O.M.G...Its Soooooo...Pretty..!!!!
ReplyDeleteKatie -- I feel bad for you having to leave Paris (never an easy thing to do). But it's not your last day in Paris. It's your last day in Paris THIS trip, that's all. Here's to la prochaine visite!
ReplyDeleteKatie, "sorry" isn't the word. I don't feel sorry for you, no. But I do feel the sadness, with you, at having to leave this time. Thanks for sharing it with us, I've enjoyed it so much.
ReplyDeleteAhh, several weeks in Paris. It sounds like you had a great trip, Katie. Bon voyage.
ReplyDeleteLucio...nice word solo! I expected nothing less from you.;-) You are right...she is an "enchantress" (never a dowager) and perhaps even a synecdoche that extends beyond the confines of Paris proper. No doubt, besides Notre Dame, she is the other lady in town boys!
ReplyDeleteClassic!
ReplyDeletePDP in NYC - yeah! When are you coming? (I'm only a 2-hour train ride away!)
ReplyDeleteSo Beautiful, Eric!
ReplyDelete