Untitled (1985)

Photos from what I like to call “Keith Haring‘s other expo”.

Haring’s show at the Musée d’Art moderne (or MAM, Museum of Modern Art) is (deservedly) getting a lot of attention, but not many people know that the exhibition of his larger works continues in my back yard, at the Centquatre (104 rue Curial, 75019).

Keith Haring at the Centquatre

Twin Cities New York Tokyo (Sister Cities, 1985)

Untitled (Head through belly, 1987)

Untitled (Mural, 5 panels, 1986)

Untitled (1985)

Untitled (1985)

Keith Haring at the Centquatre

The exhibition runs until August 18, and tickets bought here will get you a discount at the Museum of Art show.

_________________________

A little heads-up. I stuck this photo at the end of the post as it’s sexually explicit. I decided to include it because the title for both expos is “Keith Haring – The Political Line”. As Haring was an AIDS activist who died from the disease in 1990, I thought it important to include a sample of his political work as well.

If you are offended by sexually explicit paintings, now would be a good time to click away as fast as your fingers will take you!

Safe Sex (1985)

Note: I posted some additional photos of this expo over at Paris By Cell Phone.

© 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

Click to view slideshow.

All photos © 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

__________________________________________________________________

Up on the table and under the knife

You struggled with my Kebab-Frites Pizza. You fought to keep the Taco Pizza down and spilled your guts to my Sweeza. Now, just when you thought it was safe to go back on the internet, i unleash this beast to bludgeon your taste buds.

What is the latest monstrosity I’ve cooked up in my lab? Straight from the Trailer Park, the unholy marriage between Tex-Mex and Fat Food has spawned this bastardization: Frankenggets. Half nachos / half chicken nuggets / half fridge contents pumped onto the plate, it’s all you’ll need to induce an artificial food coma.

Nacho Nuggets rose up from South of the Border and crossed over the line like an inedible alien trespassing into your heart. To soothe the savage treat, you should try listening to another Mexican crossover, the very late Jenny Rivera and her song about the fifth food group: Tequila.

Frankenuggets – It is alive, or at least ‘alive’ got for you today.

• Difficulty Level: not too scary
• Price: less than ten bones
• Serves: 2 of my friends, 4 of yours, more if you just want to use it as ‘crappetizers’, which any food doctorer worth his salt could totally do

Ingredients

They must be good, they’re in a bag!

• A box of 25 recycled chicken parts
• Artificial cheeseburger cheese / Velveeta
• Shredded Swiss cheese in a bag
• Real Tomatoes
• Onion
• Olives (get black olives with no pits if you can, and then send some to me here in Trailer Park, Paris where we have to make our own and it’s…the pits [oh please, like you haven't heard me say worse--and yet you still come back for more]
• Sour cream / Crème fraiche (the sourer, the fraicher)
• Half a jar of salsa
• A couple grown-up spoons of guacamole (and if you make your own, don’t blame me if your nuggets aren’t as freaky as mine)
• A bag of lettuce but you’ll only need like a third of it–wouldn’t want it to be too healthy

Optional

• Jalapeños
• Hot sauce
• Dips: Barbecue sauce, Greek sauce, samurai (spicy liquid cheese) sauce, mayonnaise, yellow mustard, ketchup…
• Tequila shots

Cinqo de Mayo–nnaise!

Directions

1. Start playing Jenni and crank up the oven to whatever wattage it says on the box of nuggets
2. While the oven is making like a freshly exhumed corpse (i.e. warming up), cut up the onions, the jalapeños and the tomatoes (lazy ass tip: buy cherry tomatoes–you just have to cut them in half and they don’t spill their guts all over the place)
3. Line up the nuggets on a metal tray and slide it like a morgue drawer into the hot oven
   

   Why the chicken crossed the road…

4. Now you can get dirt under your fingernails by ripping the pits from the olives
5. Cover your ‘serving plate’ (or ‘pie tin’ as we say in the Trailer Park) with some of the bag lettuce
6. When the nuggets are done, take them out before they get cremated
7. Pile them up on a paper plate and cover them with imitation cheeseburger cheese slices (or Velveeta if you’re in the States) and shredded Swiss cheese
8. Put the plate in the microwave and nuke them puppies until the cheese is melted
9. Now comes a delicate operation: you’re going to slide the melted nugget mass onto the lettuce. Just hold the paper plate over the serving plate and tilt it enough so that when the Frankenuggets start sliding off, you can move the plate and they’ll land evenly across the salad
10. Schlop a glob of sour cream, then guacamole and at the end some salsa
11. Sprinkle the onions, olives, tomatoes over the hot steaming mess (and the jalapeños and any other crap you want)
12. Hurry up and eat them before the cheese turns back into plastic

Bon Courage & Bone Appetite!

Click here if you’re not ready to leave the Trailer Park just yet.

Click to view slideshow.

He was walking past the Louvre when he ran into the door that waited in an archway beside the sidewalk. Usually, Eddy ignored things as commonplace as doors (or buildings, or the ground), yet this mass towering over the shadow it cast was past description because it stood unattached to any building. That it loitered free, unencumbered like a sculpture, seemingly the entrance to nowhere was the least remarkable aspect of this very remarkable portal.

What made this door unique was that, more than personality, it had a personality. The door was a proud door that bore its scratches like war wounds received in battles justly chosen and bravely fought. The door guarded its secrets preciously, kept them locked up jealously and would not open up to anyone except Eddy.

He paused in front of the door, reached out for the handle, and felt the warm brass give slightly, as if it were shaking his hand in return. With that first touch, Eddy understood the key.

The door opened up to the past.  By crossing its threshold, the visitor could enter certain rooms of history and remodel them.

Eddy may have been a newcomer to this type of situation but had seen movies and read books before. While he had certainly made many mistakes before today, he also knew that changing one thing in the past could have horrible repercussions in the present. Demons could be lovers, hurts could be uncovered, and favorite songs might be left undiscovered.

He decided on an experiment where he would open the gateway and make one single, insignificant alteration as a way to measure the suitability of tailoring his past.

A cartoon frog sat perched on his shoulder since the evening he turned eighteen. That summer’s night, reason not so much dictated as slurred that the tattoo would be a good way for him to remember his youth as he clumsily stumbled into adulthood. He was also drawn to the drunken poetry in the badass act of getting a tat of a child’s Saturday-morning-cereal-in-pajamas-on-the-floor memory.

Obviously, the morning after the birth of the tattoo, the symbolism he’d seen the night before had evaporated into the pain of his hangover and sore shoulder, so all that really remained of his decision was a painful stain that would not go away yet remind him daily never to drink that much ever again.

Standing at the threshold, Eddy knew without trying that this mistake would be a good one to erase. The frog (he couldn’t even be bothered to name the damn thing) was an indiscretion he regretted, yet any repercussions in erasing it would undoubtedly be limited to little ripples that would serve to ward him off making any weightier changes.

The door opened as easily as thin fabric ripping, not with the sound of a creak but a tear. Eddy, as someone familiar with the story of the sword in the stone and the stubborn determination of destiny, suspected this gesture was easier for him than any other.

On the opposite side of the door lay a playground, and when Eddy passed through the door he stepped into the exact same playground, except that the colors were brighter, like an overexposed photograph developed cheaply and in a hurry. The sun, now in summer, shone younger, hotter and smelled like it had been left on too long.

He was in his past, but kept the memories of the man he’d been before stepping through, which was why he checked his tattoo. Rather checked the skin on the back of his shoulder where a tattoo frog had once refused to budge, but now had vacated.

Along with the lifting pressure, Eddy also felt the joy of being eighteen and on his birthday. The feeling was such a high that he hoped he could come back through the door specifically to this day over and over again, like alcoholics reliving that one drink that tricks them into thinking all drinks felt this good.

But not all drinks were the same, and Eddy remembered that drinking with River and Ben, his two best friends, was the first step towards the indelible error that would be his tattoo.

“Hey, Eddy.”

Eddy nearly cried, and then he did because this is what you do when you hear the voice of your best friend while he’s still your best friend, before the wedge of time creates a distance no memory can span.

He turned and quickly pulled Ben into a hug to hide his emotion as best he could.

“Are you drunk?” Ben asked.

“Just happy to see you, man.”

“Careful, once you hit the bottle…”

“…the bottle hits back,” Eddy finished, recalling the running joke they had borrowed from a film and shared throughout the years.

Then, over Ben’s shoulder, Eddy noticed River.

She took his breath away. Not because she was impossibly younger than he could ever remember her being, though this was true. Neither did the sight of her amaze him because she was so much more beautiful than the picture he kept in his mind’s eye. Because this was not true.

The years he had not seen River had been kind to her memory, and now that he was looking at the real her he didn’t recognize how plain she was.

Her face seemed rounder, her smile fatter, her hair messier and Eddy realized River was not the most exquisite girl he’d ever known, as he would later come to suspect. But as soon as she spoke…

“Hey guys, room for one more?”

… he understood he’d remembered her as movie star gorgeous because she was beautiful all the way through. She joined them in their hug and before breaking off, she wished Eddy a happy birthday.

“They party’s at my house,” Ben said. “There’s a case of beer there with our name on it…if our name is Heineken.”

“Wait, let’s go hang out at the park first,” Eddy said. He knew from his experience that the three of them would finish that case before finding some of Ben’s parents’ wine which would lead to the slippery slide that ended in the tattoo frog.

“You’re the birthday boy,” Ben said, so instead they spent the afternoon drawing out the sunset at the Parc Monceau. They laughed light in the face of the shadows on the faux Roman columns, they tainted the austerity of the Egyptian pyramid with their frivolity, and they taunted the solemn monuments to deceased relics with the force of their life. When the sun finally gave up and set, the trio still had not yet left and the alcohol was abandoned in a different past.

“You guys ready to get the party started?” John asked.

“Yeah”, Eddy said. “You guys go ahead. I’m going to stop by my place and I’ll meet you there.”

The hugs were a little longer before Eddy left because he didn’t know which Eddy would show up at John’s door later, but he knew Old Eddy was going back to the door and the future to which it would lead him.

He hesitated at the handle, wondering if it might not be better just to stay, but he’d already lived those years and he wanted something new. He’d had an unbelievable afternoon with his friends, but he also knew that each day he spent with them would dilute the buzz he now felt and he wanted to keep that fresh. Unadulterated.

 After passing through the door into the future present, there were many things he remembered. He remembered the door before him led to the past and he remembered he’d just returned from reliving a great time with his childhood friends. He remembered every minute of that as if it had really happened because it had.

He also remembered he’d gone back into the past, but did not recall what he had changed because it had no longer happened.

But he felt light. He felt young. He felt reborn and he decided he was going to hit a café and celebrate with a pint or three and then maybe get a tattoo to commemorate this spectacular day. Maybe something that would remind him of his youth.

© Paul Prescott 2013

All photos © Paris Paul Prescott 2013

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________

[Note: If you're curious, I'm posting this here and not ParisByCellPhone.com because I took it with my "real" camera.]

__________________________________________________________________

© 2013 Paul Prescott

The derelict’s loose fitting clothes accentuated his scrawny frame and were as stained and patchwork as his scraggly beard. The brisk wind swept him like refuse down the sidewalks of Paris, with his empty bag behind him as he shopped for Christmas.

He tripped under the lights fantastic hung like neon nooses on the trees lining the Champs Élysées. Though their dim illumination offered no warmth in the cold shadow of winter, he nonetheless left the area with his step a little lighter and his outfit a little brighter.

He could barely afford to pay attention to the automatons mindlessly making money in the shop windows, but when he deserted the displays, his beard appeared more lavish and he himself felt richer.

He chased the aroma of the Christmas cakes escaping from the bakeries and though his belly yelped, he could not reach the treats behind the glass. Yet when he finally passed he was sated with the Christmas spirit and his bag seemed full as well.

He had come to Paris to shop for Christmas and Christmas he had found. He took his color in the shine of lovers’ eyes as they walked through the elysian night. He collected strength in the sparkle of a child’s smile as she watched the Christmas windows. He stuffed his suit and bag with the generosity of those who gave to those with less.

When Nicholas flew out of the city, his suit was as rosy as his cheeks, his stout belly as full as his beard and his bag overflowed with the Christmas he got in Paris.

© Paul Prescott  2012

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________

In another time and another place lives a man who was born a unique case, for he had no flesh on his face nor anyplace else on his frame.

Worse than thin skinned and bearing no shield against the wilds, leaving the cocoon of his home hurt him as he was so sensitive.

He could feel others’ eyes burning into him and each of their wise cracks broke him until traversing each day felt like walking naked through an ice storm where the winds blew blades through him.

To provide a layer of protection, he first covered up with liquid cloaks but these ran off him and the spirits ate his nerves raw, leaving him in more agony than when he had begun.

Next, he protected himself by erecting an electric fence around him but the devices he carried were cumbersome and when they became troublesome they shocked him with charges that charred his heart and made him even more vulnerable.

Finally, he raised a wall so that nothing could reach him and sat tucked behind his fortress with no windows and no doors, secure until the loneliness began to sting but by then no one was able to get inside and take the pains to assuage him.

That was when he discovered the secret. He surrounded himself with friends. Some led the way and others stood by him and still more had his back so that the harsh days burned less while the company of others soothed his weary flesh. Besides, that others came to him meant he got close to others and so he found pleasure in giving his friends shelter as well.

© Paul Prescott  2012

All photos were taken at the Louvre Museum, Paris. Move your cursor over the picture for the Artist’s name and name of the work.

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click here for more photographs of the Louvre

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________

Louvre Museum – Cour Puget

Winged Human-Headed Bull – Taureau Androcéphale Ailé

The Three Graces – Les Trois Grâces

Madeleine Marchand, Spouse of President Le Jay – épouse du président Le Jay

Funeral Statue of Marguerite Valon – Statue funéraire de Marguerite Valon

Scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Hippolyte – Scènes du martyre de saint Hippolyte (detail)

Scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Hippolyte – Scènes du martyre de saint Hippolyte

__________________________________________________________________

© 2012 Paris Paul Prescott

All photos © 2012 Paris Paul Prescott

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

The weekend of October 13-14 sees the annual celebration of the Harvest Festival (or Fête des Vendages) in Montmartre. Each year the grapes at the Clos Montmartre — Paris’s only operating vineyard — are picked and made into what the New York Times reportedly called the most expensive bad wine in the city. To celebrate this, fireworks are set off at the Sacre Coeur, and this year I made the trip for you.

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

__________________________________________________________________

© 2012 Paul Prescott

Every child thinks his father is the most important man in the land, but my father truly is. He is the Afterdark Apothecary, for the sleep he sells is a panacea for all ailments of the Heart and Soul.

I rested atop the wood counter of 39 Winks when a man as restless as his eyes skittered in.

“Shanman, I haven’t got much time to spend, and I really need some sleep.”

“Mr Paterno,” my father gently replied, “I’ve sold you nearly every type of sleep we carry and none of them has taken you. I think we know the problem.”

That’s true, I thought, he’s sampled most of them. I looked up at the shelves surrounding me, rising to the ceiling, lined with all models of bottles, casks, sacks, carafes and flasks, miles of vials, vessels and receptacles brimming with potions and powders, tonics and mystic elixirs, medicines and mixtures plus spirits, good spirits all in such a variety of colors the rainbows envied us and each providing a unique sheath of sleep for those who dreamed of the subtle escape.

He’d sipped, of course, Ocean Blanket that is so deep it drowns you with warmth, sniffed Slipsdream with its shallow shadow gliding, and injected Rebel Drift which fought to keep the sleeper down regardless the intrusion that arose. Paterno had elected to try Political Slumber which worked to keep the sleeper numb and in the dark; he had learned the rules of Philosophoric where the mind becomes so sluggish it shuts down; he had thawed a pack of Arctic Sleep that lasts nearly 24-hours but, no, he did not warm to this one any more than he had the others.

Mr Paterno had tasted our menu of Loaf Loaves (from sweet and light to heavy and rich), played with Classical Sleep (major, minor, or full of rests), reached for the Land of Nod (distant, high and languid)…he had tried it all and still had received no comfort for his time.

“We must face the facts, Mr Paterno.” My father brushed some of the dust from his smock as he spoke. “None of my wares will work on you because you are not getting your sleep—it is being robbed from you by your newborn twins.”

A resigned sigh fell from our patron like the sag of his shoulders. “Have a good sleep,” he said in parting, and he took his time and he left.

He took his time and returned it to his pocket, I should specify, as the currency used for sleep here is Time. The more Time one can afford, the better the sleep will be. One of the cheapest sleeps on offer in the store is “Drunkard’s Dream” (or “Sailor’s Sleep”) which makes the bed a raft bobbing on a troubled sea and is a most unpleasant slumber, I am told, but purchased mainly by revelers who don’t have much time left for sleep. Then there is “Beauty Sleep” which is in short supply and hard to come by because it requires more time than most can afford. Spare time is spent on napping, and if you have enough time for a sleep of the dead, that’s a real luxury, but only if you succeed in waking in the end.

© Paul Prescott  2012

All photos were taken at the Louvre Museum, Paris. Move your cursor over the picture for the Artist’s name and name of the work.

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click here for more photographs of the Louvre

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________