High Contrast Grey.

So, I haven't written much lately.. but from the doldrums of the end of semester I then entered a time period of a flânerie across France. A last hurrah. Jessye came to visit again and the tiny room was packed up all into a few suitcases, the largest being named Bertha, and Rennes was left behind, although not before having a picnic in Thabor for the last Saturday market... We got the essentials. Madeleines (where as I reached the front of the line the vendor greeted me with a question of, '6 madelines?') with a few more of that vendor's delicious delights, like those bite size rolls with jams and caramel and chocolate.. Then of course the impossible cow cheese that acted like goat cheese and was rolled in Provencal  herbs. And of course a baguette from the amazing bakery covered in tiles. A trip to Thabor with Jessye was never complete without a stop at the aviary. And some people watching. A mohawked punk rocker walks a little girl hand in hand through th...

 The weather was too beautiful to stay indoors in front of a computer screen. Lightly overcast. Raining, but not in that sense that anyone from a rainy region would call it raining. And a wind that was neither cold, nor warm. Only something to direct the refreshing water onto one's face. Since I had heard that everything was going to be closed due to the Monday after Easter being a bank holiday I decided to wander the streets of Rennes in what I assumed would be empty. I wanted to find something new. I was looking for a section where the old and beautiful architecture had stretched out an arm like an amoeba and wasn't restricted to the small sections I had already wandered. In taking the train to Nantes I had remembered seeing sections of the city from the speeding train that looked interesting so I went to Gares to begin my wanderings. I headed West along the tracks. Soon I came across one of those many areas that I have been finding while wandering about Rennes. The edg...

 As I wandered the Saturday market I thought up the idea of getting different things in which I could make a picnic for one. I got my usual large madelines with the little bump on the bottom. Some cheese covered in herbs. It acts like a spreadable chèvre, but the lady reassured the ladies in line in front of me that it was actually cheese from cows milk. Then some avocados. Baked crisps with sea salt and seaweed. The quintessential bagette. And a small bottle of white wine. Everything for a perfect little picnic.  Except it was a picnic in which everything went wrong. One of the avocados had started to turn and had exploded. And the wine cork had been soaking for too long and just deteriorated every time I tried to get it out. The wrapping for the top of the bottle sliced the side of my middle finger. A cut that looked like a bloody version of the 'crack on Amy's wall.' In the end I was forced to push the cork down into the bottle and drink the wine through ...

 I received an SMS about my cell phone being fixed so I decided to take a break from studying to go and pick it up. Wander Rennes and see what the commencement of spring has done. The leaves has started to return. Flowers are budding. I roll the sleeves up on my shirt and don't take a jacket. The tie has felt too formal lately. I see a french man on the metro and think differently. His hair is long and shaggy and a mess. His tie is not too wide and not too thin. Dark blue with dots. As I wandered the neighbor hood near by I realized I was near the old building that I saw months ago when Fulya and I rode bikes looking for Emmaus. I sadly didn't have my camera with me and I wanted to come back and take a picture, but I just hadn't gotten around to wandering this part of town since. I was thinking I wouldn't again before I left since Emmaus had moved away. If I were to choose a neighborhood in Rennes in which to live I think I would choose not too far from here,...

The weather here in Rennes lately has been gorgeous. Warm misty fog.

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 n...

Bringing a bit of Paris with me, in the sense of simple breakfast food. I made myself a bagette with butter and jam for breakfast. A bagette that has lasted me days in making the same meal multiple times. The crust has become hard and crumbly, but the center has remained soft. Last night I started to make myself some ravioli I bought cheap from the carrefour, but as I poured the noodles into the water beginning to boil I noticed that mold had started to form on them. (The downside of buying things on their day of expiration.) Let down and left a little hungry I decided to treat myself to a nice sunday brunch the next day at L'épicerie. One of the few places open on sunday. It has a cozy interior. /I noticed them selling antiques at one of the local antique markets once/. Paying attention to when being seated I ask to be sat in the back room with Inga. Filled with antiques and coated in wallpaper. The menu is rather limited to just tartines (the specials of the day always ...

A cold night and bar hopping around. The enterior if this bar is always so gorgeous. The wooden walls. The low beamed ceiling. The old picture frames on the walls. But the dance music last night just didn't fit, but like many things, perhaps that is why it fits. A pastis served in a tumblr. Dark yellow brown like the absinthe in San Francisco. Stiff.

I am not sure what is going on here, but as I walked by this rather modern building I was taken back to see the salon style setup of art on the walls inside. Voyeuristic tendencies. This is the same place that will be hosting the broadway musical Cabaret in less than a month after it leaves Paris. I should really get on trying to get tickets for that becfore it gets to be too late.

It seems that none of the architecture, nor the city planning is straight in France. The nights have been cold and where the ability to take reference photos of Rennes at night was presented, I had to cut it short as my fingers began to freeze so much that even the simple operations on my camera became difficult. J’ai lu une article sur le sujet de… I have a feeling that when I return that all these photos that I have taken will become my lifeline for artistic inspiration. I still have 800 some photos left on my SD card.. it feels strange that I will have not cleared the card for almost a year by the time I return to the states. A collection that I hope to never lose.

At one point a local street artist had taken a marker to give her a speach bubble with “sexe=$” I feel as though this Delacroix reproduction represents the problem with white consumer culture and the rest of the world. It doesn’t help that a few of them look like they could be extras for Jersey Shore. I will admit that I do like that I am able to see exposed breasts while walking around in France for the simple fact that people shouldn’t feel ashamed of their own body. We are all human and we all have either one set of sexual organs or another (sometimes both..).  Things to miss when returning to a conservative america. A contradictive conservative america.

The moon rises over the trees as I run out of my room to catch the metro. Hot chocolate with something mint flavored and alcoholic. A silent film addresses the emergence of the talkies. A culture of reflection.

The troupe that puts on the shows of Rocky Horror Picture Show in Paris came over to Rennes for a free show. The film was shown in English but the jokes being said by the performers were a mixture of French and English. This was probably the one time I have seen the show in public and was still able to follow the film because the crowd in Rennes didn’t know all the things to yell, like they do in Seattle.

Classes have started up again, although I am still not feeling the realization of that fact. For some reason it seems that none of the classes are interesting this semster and I am having the hardest time trying to figure out which classes to take. Like a psych class where the information is interesting as it talks about the linguistics of language, but is in the third year so I lack all kinds of background in different studies that the other students already have. Dropping names of researchers like rockstars. On the upside, I think I finally found “my bar” in Rennes. Le Sambre. Wood walls. Red velvet. And old pictures all over the walls. The music doesn’t fit, but not everything is perfect. At least it is more just better rock music than something like top 40.

These past few mornings have been gorgeous as I watch the sun rise from my window. Of course everytime I see the beautiful colors that are made, like the deep red on the horizon that gently transitions into a firey orange and then a fleeting green, that can almost be easily ignored, before reaching the dark blue that is almost black left over from the night, I have to think of the reactions to these colors by the impressionists and how these vibrant colors are only possible because of the pollution in the air. Although when I bring this up to people, like when sitting in an 8am class, I don’t think they share the same inner turmoil interest. The conflict with how beautiful the colors are but yet knowing that their presence represents something wrong in this world.

For the music festival, Trans Musicales, here in Rennes the bars as well established their own music festival called Bars En Trans but sadly my knowledge of French bands is lacking and I didn’t know who most of the list was but I did recognize Mister Heavenly. I had feared that I would miss the show because it started at 19.30 and I had class until 20.00 and of course that means not really getting out of the apartment until 20.30, but as we arrived at 21.00 the door man told us that no, the show starts at 21.00 and we had missed nothing. Which still made no sense because the tickets even said that it started at 19.30, but whatever. Nothing is ever on time in France, except museum tours. The first band was a group called Monogrenade which I have searched for the music on the internets for and it seems that there is just a lacking of the emotion and beauty of their music when it becomes recorded. Their cellist shreaded her cello with a maniacal grin on her face. During the br...

Thanksgiving in Rennes under a dense fog.

I took my bike for a ride and instead if turning to go back to my apartment I decided to ride straight ahead and explore. The countryside and the city have a thin line of distinction between the two in Rennes. Which bordering that line, or perhaps being that line, is this old abandoned farm house. Decorated with graffiti. The only people I come across while biking though the countryside are old people going on walks. Old men with canes. Somehow the grass is still a vibrant emerald green even though it is almost December and there is a slight fog snaking along the bottoms of the green hills. The magical realities of France, perhaps.

L’épicerie, Rennes. I order a tea by its name. Casablanca. It is served to me in a muslin bag and is so delicious that as I pack up to leave I hide it in my camera bag. Green tea with mint and bergamot. “I sit in the corner at an old wodden table numbered 42. The walls look like they might have had wallpaper at one point but now it is a splatter of peeling subduded grey and tan paint. Exposed lightbulbs hang from the ceiling and jazz music whispers in form the backroom to be drowned out in a sea of voices and the noises that only a café can produce. My saucer is chipped and in no way matches the cup, but yet, perhaps that is how they match.” - sketchbook entry.

Yesterday for Armistice day I went to the center of town to see what the French did to celebrate the end of WWI. I noticed lots of pretty outfits. A woman was speaking but I couldn’t figure out from where. Just noise from speakers. For some reason gendarmes in full riot gear with sheilds stood around every corner. Just out of sight as they bullshitted with one another. I left at some point during the handing out of medals.