Mel and Justin, and a little Kock too



more visitors.  I've only been here 7 weeks at this point and already have had 4 people stay.  Here are photos from when Melissa stayed and then Justin.


I took a timelapse of this cloudy night with the moon popping through now and then.  Again i'll get to making my grand travel video someday and you'll see it.



the weather in paris is pretty unpredictable.  it will be sunny on one side and stormy on the other.  it makes planning things hard but makes for dramatic photos all the time.


I live in the basement.  it has significant water damage and mildew and cracking/peeling paint.  I set out to scrape, repair and prime and paint the walls.  first i had to move a lot of their stuff into a storage room that was already packed to the gils or find ways to store it in the room.  I played tetris with boxes and stuff for two days down there before i could really get to work.


in the end this whole wall had to get plastered up.  tons of plaster was used.  tons of wearing a respirator to sand for hours and hours and hours.


this meant sleeping up on the couch for a while.


Italie 2 shopping mall, or 1 or whatever.  Place de Italie


friends of the Paris Commune 1871.  ok after looking this up on wikipedia its about some stuff that is beyond my attention span to read about.  so if anyone want to tell me what's going on here in laymans terms please do.  


the huge famous salads at chez gladine.  in the end, they are just huge salads.  if that's your thing then awesome for you, but if you want gourmet quality salads then this is not for you.  but i guess you come here more for the atmosphere and energy and not by yourself because you have no friends and you forgot your keys and locked yourself out of the house and had to wait for 2 hours for your 14 yr old cousin to come home and let you in. No it's not for that.


i saw some people doing this graffiti on the sidewalk from the window of chez gladine and this is it.  its ca vous em on a pile of dog sh!t.  Oh by the way Paris and france has dog sh!t everywhere.  be prepared.


Les Abeilles, the honey store on rue de la butte aux cailles.  its pretty awesome.  when i went the first time the door was open and there were bees flying in and out of the store.  their soaps are awesome.  i bought one made with propolis (some crap that comes from bees) and it is pretty sweetballs.


in the USA box wine is a joke and horrible but here even my french friends have said that box wine is pretty decent.  check out this 10 liter box!  thats like 7 bottles in 1 box!


what i came home with.  i bought it at "Nicolas" which i found out is a chain wine shop.  the staff in there were older and i don't know if they spoke english and they certainly didn't want to help me.  I them helping a rich old lady who bought like 10 expensive bottles and then helping some other higher end customers.  even if i wore a suit in there they would know that i'm just a gorilla in a suit.  anyway i like the store around the corner on rue de la butte aux cailles better, they're nice and friendly.


the pure vegetable based propolis soap from the honey store.  i've had it for 2 months now for washing hands and its like 1 mm smaller.  it's gonna last like a year! 2 Euros


Nuit Blanche is a big city-wide art thing in paris for 1 night every october.  i guess they have it in NYC now too.  this is at the butte aux cailles pool


rue de la butte aux cailles gets me everytime in the afternoon with the sun coming down the stone street on this corner.



this is pretty funny to me.  Pschitt!  i guess this is a classic cuz i saw it on a poster in the film "Funny Face" with audry hepburn which is from 196?


another wine store near butte aux cailles on bobillot.  they had tons of wines that had the coolest labels ever.  i bought this one which i thought was the coolest label ever but i'm sure i'll find something more awesome next week.


getting there.  it's all primed now.  brain damage.


a forbidden picture inside the butte aux cailles pool!  somehow the dude saw me take this photo and said it's "forbidden".



car exiting place des vosges in the Marais


(from wikipedia) Justin Jitae Chon (born May 29, 1981) is a Korean American actor best known for portraying Eric Yorkie in The Twilight Saga Film Series.  I used to skate with Justin everyday in Korea in 2001-02 when we studied abroad there.  I haven't seen him for 10 years since he started acting.  we are both calmer and don't have that youthful energy we used to have.  this time around we spent most of our time drinking wine and then being really tired instead of skating all day then drinking soju and then going ape-sh!t and doing it all again the next day without skipping a beat.  I don't even want to know what 10 more years will do to us.  Hopefully things level off?


what the h!ll is Tonkinoises?  


Pho 14 is the most famous place in chinatown for pho.  this has also been verified by two big pho eater friends.  its pretty good you guys.  there is pho 13 down the street that has tried to capitalize on pho 14 but their place looks like crap.  I guess i'll have to try it sometime though and report back.


Justin and Mimi


Mimi and Nabil doing the shocker


i've seen a few of these cool old cars around.  what is it?  a version of the duck?


in france its where is charlie not where's waldo.  also now that i look at it it looks like waldo is raping a tourist.  oh the french and their french versions.  what's wrong with a little light hearted french raping waldo/charlie?


oh and a little Kock for you

Movie Inspiration - Stanley Donen's "Funny Face" - 1957



from time to time a movie is so visually inspiring that i take screen shots and post them on my illustration blog.  this time since i live in paris now i am posting this on my travel blog as well since the bulk of the movie is shot in France.  screen shots from "Funny Face"  from 1957 directed by Stanley Donen, with choreography by Fred Astaire.  Starring Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, and Kay Thompson.  Based on Richard Avedon who actually set up most of the photography in the film according to IMDB.  copyright paramount pictures.  I'm living in Paris on an artists visa and there is an exhibit at the hotel de ville about Hollywood in Paris so i set out to watch a few of the films featured in the exhibit like Funny Face and An american in paris.  Disappointing that there was only one solo fred astaire dance number because the rest of the cast are not dancers.  Very cool art direction landing this in my movie inspiration folder.


Fred Astaire plays a photographer and his character is based on Richard Avedon, famous fashion photographer.  Avedon actually did all these title cards.




i love mid century style


the first 15 minutes are a visual treat in pink










she's an actually famous model at the time.  i like how there is a like string quartet playing at this little photoshoot.


old school new york, check out those taxis!



really makes you want to shoot on film and miss film


Richard Avedon is responsible for this famous photo, this is a screen cap but a cropped photo exists that we've all seen.


awesome special effects back then


this is hollywood's styling of mont martre in 1957


and an avant guarde bar


Audrey Hepburn's famous quirky dance scene that was remixed into a Gap commercial a few years ago


through out this whole movie i was saying that they need to bring this back and start shooting films like this, with this look


Fred Astaire's only solo dance scene.  he's the man


she cleans up nice



photo shoot scenes all presumably done by Richard Avedon, or "overseen" by him




top is an example of what it looks like on cinema film, bottom is what they showed as what it looked like as a final printed photo.  






top is an example of what it looks like on cinema film, bottom is what they showed as what it looked like as a final printed photo.  






what a stylish movie.  if you love 1950's stylings or Paris, check this film out.  if you love Fred Astair you will be a little disappointed   if you love Audrey Hepburn you will be slightly disappointed.  but other than that this is a solid film especially for artists, designers, fashion peeps, and nostalgics.  If you want dancing check out an american in paris with gene kelley.  most say Astaire is the better dancer but there's not much of that going on in funny face.