Kafka On The Shore

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Kids in Paris having the times of their young lives watching a puppet show

This photo was taken in 1963 at a Guignol puppet show in Parc de Montsouris, Paris…Le theatre de Guignol has been getting this types of reaction from French kids for more than 200 years.

A typical scene from Guignol would have the ugly bad puppet approaching our hero (Guignol) very slowly from behind with the intention of knocking him down with a big ugly stick. The kids would go insane trying to warn Guignol of what’s about to hit him. Repeat that about 10 times and by the end of the show, the kids will have lost both their voices and the will to live. I’m telling you, it’s not for sissies.

From the series “Being twenty in Iran” by Iranian/French photographer Isabelle Eshraghi

Click here to see the whole series
Listen here to the Persian music she’s chosen as the soundtrack to her website

A rare portrait of the camera-shy Albert Kahn on the balcony of his office in Paris in 1914

“In 1909 the millionaire French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn embarked on an ambitious project to create a colour photographic record of, and for, the peoples of the world. As an idealist and an internationalist, Kahn believed that he could use the new autochrome process, the world’s first user-friendly, true-colour photographic system, to promote cross-cultural peace and understanding.

Kahn used his vast fortune to send a group of intrepid photographers to more than fifty countries around the world, often at crucial junctures in their history, when age-old cultures were on the brink of being changed for ever by war and the march of twentieth-century globalisation. They documented in true colour the collapse of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires; the last traditional Celtic villages in Ireland, just a few years before they were demolished; and the soldiers of the First World War — in the trenches, and as they cooked their meals and laundered their uniforms behind the lines. They took the earliest-known colour photographs in countries as far apart as Vietnam and Brazil, Mongolia and Norway, Benin and the United States.

Kahn died in 1940. His legacy, still kept at the Musée Albert-Kahn in the grounds of his estate near Paris, is now considered to be the most important collection of early colour photographs in the world.”

Kahn’s palatial home at Cap Martin on the French Riviera, photographed around 1910

Albert Kahn’s much-loved garden at his home near Paris in 1911


Guests in the gardens of Kahn’s cliff-top residence in Cornwall on 25 August 1913

Ladies of leisure striking the pose in Albert Khan’s Gardens, Boulogne Billancourt (Paris), 1910

Last time I was in Paris, I found myself on the grass of some overly sculpted park, shooting the breeze with old friends. We talked about green spaces and agreed that the Albert Kahn’s Japanese Garden was one of the best kept secrets in Paris. Then, one of us pointed out how funny it was that we were having a conversation about where to find the best green spots in Paris while 15 years ago we probably had the same conversation about the best bars in town. Interesting how one’s relationship with the city evolves with age.

Sidenote: The Japanese garden, conceived between 1895 and 1910, is surrounded by other gardens of various styles (a French garden, an English garden, etc…), forming Les Jardins Albert Kahn.

Phoenix @ Koko, London, June 09 

Perfect little gig that was. Good energy, good crowd; it started early, finished early and I left with my hair dry. It was all very civilized and yet pleasantly loud and messy.

I’m a big fan of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix so that gig was a real treat as it showcased quite a few songs from that album. They kicked off with “Lisztomania”, which set the mood and energy beautifully for the rest of the night. They kept their energy levels and the noise up until halfway through their set when they interrupted the frenzy with “Love Like A Sunset (Part I)”, a nice instrumental interlude that gave Thomas Mars the chance to catch his breath (and have a lie down on stage). I loved the slow build up of that number and the explosive finish; making it my personal highlight of that gig. “Rome”, however, was a flop, comparatively. It’s probably the song from the album I’ve listened to most, so I was really looking forward to roming it in unison with Mars and my fellow gig monsters. Mars did try to warm us up with some clapping excercises and some “Rome Rome Rome” chanting but it didn’t work as well as the earlier “Run Run Run” and overall the crowd was simply not inclined to make that song a hit the way, say, “Too Young” had been just a few minutes earlier, and the way we were all prepared to make “1901” the climax of the night. Which we did during the encore.

Sidenote 1: The drummer tried his hardest to break his drum kit, battering his cymbals from a standing position for maximum force. He was rightly compared by last.fm’ers with Animal from the Muppets.

Sidenote 2: French peeps everywhere. There was a lot of talk about how personal hygiene was overrated and the stinkier the cheese, the better.

Sidenote 3: The guy next to me managed to give Thomas Mars a music demo of his stuff while Mars was crowd surfing on “1901”.