Observations of a Rennes at night.

A tradition I developed back in Seattle was that I would go for a long walk and admire the beauty of the city.

October 2007 I go for a walk on Capitol Hill. Its raining hard. I put Hang Me Out to Dry by the Cold Wars Kids on repeat. Or rather I just pushed the back button each time it came to an end. A faulty download that ended a few seconds short. Mid breath. Last word lost.

Thankfully the nights have started warming up again and allowing me to walk and see them once again. Cloud cover trapping the heat. The stars become lost and replaced by the street lights above.

I have loved wandering Rennes at night. The inspiration it provides. The way the light dances off the buildings. The way the cobbled streets shine irregulary when wet from the latest rain. The mixture of colors of lights. The complex beauty that is a city at night. Where people are either illuminated by the lights around them or shrouded in darkness. The idea that one can become lost.

One thing I have noticed is that when I walk around in the States the windows seem to glow with a blue light emminating from a television placed near the windows, but in France I see less of the blue. Sure, people still watch television, but it seems to be less of a status symbol put out on display. Like that mini-mansion Jessye and I went to for its open house. Almost every room with its own television. But then hardly a book to be found. Something on fishing, but not a real book. Just a small collection of dvds. But perhaps that is just what the culture for people who build houses that are too big for themselves and out in the middle of nowhere.

What I have been finding, and being inspired by, is that as I walk through the town at night the in through the windows another world exists. The colors are their own and not something of the street, or else there is no light and there is nothing. Like in this building I saw while walking around at night with a gorgeous red chinese lantern as chandelier. Trying to take a picture of it was so difficult. For where the camera metered for the street the interior would become washed out. But when I metered for the interior the street became lost in darkness. Still with the best picture I could take between the two problems the chinese lantern is but a globe of light. The intricacies of the lantern have become lost. The idea that it is red is only assumed when the room glows a red.