Saturday, January 24, 2009

Paris Episode 2


Jan 21st cont...

There is something pleasing about a map. TI's lines and etchings ay 'here i am, all of the knowledge you need, and I can be trusted, I am the culmination of all of the great thinkers of life that may have wondered across my pages and folds. What better way to finish a meal then to have that wonderful coated feeling of formage, and a cafe with it's somkey darkness. Thankfully our waiter at the bistro is helpful and understanding of our troubles and helps us with our poor pronunciation and lives through our bastardization of the language of love. If only everyone in the world was as polite and understanding of peoples faults. I think of the novel that I'm reading now, 'Le Flaneur' about the consumate wonderer, the one who travels Paris to purposely lose themselves in its streets. Ah this is me, I would walk the whole of Paris if the opportunity presented itself at the right time. Ah the possibility that is the American Western Front, home of the pioneers and outposts. It suits me all to well. I keep thinking of jobs back in Boulder.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Paris Ep. 1 part 2. Jardin Luxembourg and The Pantheon

Jan 21st -
-- AH! out on a walk to the department store today to purchase some clothes for the next week (luggage is still lost) we passed by a true traditional book binder that was hand tooling the leather binding. OH!!! I have a new dream job!


*Le Jardin d' Luxembourg*
It's beautiful here, serene. The terns and pigeons disturbed from the fountains lift off and dance lazily around the palace. It's cold here, the french scurry about to and from work tightly wrapped in wool scarves and coats. What else can be said about them, then a people in perpetual motion living i a city stuck in time. I would love to see this Jardin in spring or summer, but for now it remains a place of possibility and probably beauty.


There is a carousel in the Jardin, with each revolution a kid yells out how many times he has gone around. "Trois, Trois, Trois!!" he is quite enthusiastic about it. It makes me think of all of the flocks of scooters rushing around town. I swear I have seen them, certain ones, a few times. Zip, zip, between the cars and buses. I am amazed that I have yet to see one sprawled out across the pavement. A fat little black pigeon sits down beside me, hoping I might shed a scrap or two of something unfrozen in his direction.


*Pantheon*
As we walk past the paintings of the story of Joan of Arc, the crowning of Charlamagne, and many more, it feels surreal to be standing at the site of the original Foccault Pendulum, or to be standing in the crypt of Marie Curie, Voltaire, and other magnificent people of the past. These have always been only names in my books, references, merely only existing as figments of my imagination. They didn't seem real until this moment, the one which I am sitting here, writing at the feet of Voltaire and hoping that one day I will achieve such literary greatness. It is cold inside the Pantheon, not nearly as much as it was outside, but the small heater we sit next to under a mural of Joan d' Arc warms us as we choose our next location. I would love to go to Notre Dame, but that might have to wait till another day when the battery in the camera has a greater charge. Definitely one of the joys of Paris in winter is the lack of tourists. I could only imagine how crowded the historical attractions are when they are full of 8 million camera toting Chinese, fashionable Russians, and rotund and obscure Americans on a holiday. It might be biting at Tom's nerves that I continually want to stop and write, but being in a part of the world that was once the bohemian capital of the world and was home to some of the greatest authors in history inspires me to express myself. Even if every now and then I imagine myself on this trip in other conditions.

I love our little hotel with it's sloping stairs, broken spring arm chairs, toille wallpaper, and the sweet old lady behind the counter who appreciates my frustration at losing my luggage and all of my clean clothes. Oh well, making the best of it.

Paris episode 1


I step off the plane , and it's cold and grey, as only Paris in winter can be. They lost my luggage, the hope is that it will be at the hotel sometime tomorrow. It seems every architect ever called on to design an airport has conspired to use the same color scheme. Grey and drab. Maybe it's an effort to camouflage the soot and grime, but instead of hiding the filth it makes one feel as if they will never be free of it. Can't believe they lost my luggage, and i'm not in my 'admirable attire' Our driver darts and whizzes among the flock of cars leaving the airport. hurtling us out of the gray confines onto a stretch of 10 lane tarmac. Past power lines and idyllic statues of cows. I wonder if the namesake of this place, Charles De Gaulle knew that a side effect of greatness is to have a place like this named after them. It takes awhile but we finally leave behind the sad derelict 1970's apartment buildings topped with the blazing signs of Sony, Telecom and Autos, and enter the old Paris. The old town where the buildings all try to occupy the same space, great stone buildings with wrought iron, gables and gargoyles towering high above, yet all under the french flag. At their feet lay a thousand cafe's, jewelers and boutiques.

The hotel and the room are delectably small by US standards, but perfectly comfortably by French! Even walking in I feel as if I want to pull the desk up in front of the window, pour myself a glass of wine, and work on the next great literature masterpiece.

Friday, January 09, 2009

mistakes...

ok.... after reviewing, editing, making, and reviewing yet again. I made and sent out 20 books without noticing some mistakes that were there. So I do apologize for those of you with the first editions of my book that have some of these errors. Just appreciate that I make mistakes and I am sorry!!!

Other then that, enjoy.

Nic

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Random muttering

I have a world to conquer, and I wonder if I am ready for it. A world of adventure and opportunity, a world I have only barely come to understand as of yet. There is definitely an inherent truth I believe I have come to understand. An unspoken truth about life, people, love, beauty. It is something I have always tried to put into words and fail at miserably. I think of that ethereal feeling now, a clear cloud in my mind, translucent and ever changing. It doesn't cloud my thoughts, instead it adds density to my internal analysis of human emotions and actions. It's where worlds collide and emotions jump out at you like your name in print. Chaotic, explosive, and full of a tragic yet joyful beauty. The singular act of destruction and creation at the same moment in time. Like the implosion of a star. Shafts of light radiating out in arcs throughout the vacuum of space. Beautiful and terrifying. I see the same on the backs of the koi in the pond at the teahouse. They move, undulating through the water, the light refracting in a thousand directions off of the golden scales along their backs. Beautiful as a thousand sparkling diamonds, tragic in their captivity. It's wishful to believe that they could dream of anything bigger, that they could know their world beyond the visible confines. Does that show that it is therefore in their nature to accept? Even birds, the quintessential mascot of freedom are territorial. Whether Birds of Prey, or flocking types, they still adhere to a pattern, a prescribed flight path, an instinctual/habitual journey.

Does life dictate where are footsteps fall? Are chance encounters really chance? We are utterly insignificant in a univers of an infinite number of solar systesm, yet there must be some cosmic link, and unseen bit of connective tissue that binds ut so sould similar to our own. Thus begging the question, is there a cosmic manetism? a drive, a pull, an attraction? Or are we just a bundle of bumbling atoms colliding into one another. I return to watching the koi with the eyebrows.

Times like these, I wonder for my sanity. Focus, clairty, understanding; all words I attempt to classify. To write with the meaning I intend to capture without belittling it in ducile tones. The difference between the siren adn the choir boy. In my head, the siren screams for attention.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Books are in the mail!

Well I have sent off the first 20, some of you still need to send me your addresses so that I can get the books off to you. For those of you that already know yours are in the mail, you will love the amount of postage I used. All old stamps from the days when they kept bumping up the postage every few months for 3 years. Hope everyone enjoys them!!! I must remind you... it's not Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Hemingway, or any of the other greats, it simply is my journal, and it is also my first time ever doing a hard bound book myself.

Enjoy!!


ah yes, and here is a photo from a month or two ago taken of me just hanging with the Persian boys of CU.