Without Lifting A Finger

laocoon and his sons , a photo by Eri King on Flickr. In the Vatican Museum.

 

Hipp Chronoscope , a photo by ninniane on Flickr. Sounds pretty hip. Hipp chronoscope, a device used to measure short intervals of time with an accuracy of 1/1,000th of a second. Hipp chronoscopes were used to measure reaction time in experimental psychology labs in the late 19th Century. [From the Huff Post ]

Alluded to multiple times in Transit . Of course it's a large part of the machine the protagonist is caught up in. Thought I'd better review a little French history. Vichy France , officially The French State ( l'État français ), was France during the regime of Marshal Philippe Pétain , during World War II , from the German victory in the Battle of France (July 1940) to the Allied liberation in August 1944. [ 2 ] Following the defeat in June 1940, President Albert Lebrun appointed Marshal Pétain as Premier of France . After making peace with Germany, Pétain and his government voted to reorganize the discredited Third Republic into an authoritarian regime. The newly-formed French State maintained nominal sovereignty over the whole of French territory as defined by the Second Armistice at Compiègne . However, Vichy maintained full sovereignty only in the unoccupied southern Zone libre ("free zone"), while retaining limited authority in the Wehrmacht -...

Happy Memorial Day! Saw too many cats and none of them wanted their portraits snapped (don't know why, they've got lives to spare); a man shoring up the sandy garden around his beach house; a family climbing a hill of sand; Davy Jones' Locker;...                                                                  

Ducked down an alley yesterday morning to see what I could see. Someone was looking at me.                 

People are getting "dumber"? Why a study suggests women are to blame! |

Isn't raining this time. The palm wants to be as tall as a building. Waldo says the pizza here is the best in town. 

It's been slowly going up (as though crawling) in a somewhat empty lot I pass on the way home, in the LA Art District. It's either a large installation (work in progress) or I-don't-know-what. 

Salvidor Dali's Click-Stand , a photo by Click-Stand on Flickr. My Vladimir Saldi is a cross between Dali and Nabokov (quit using that "character" some while ago). Wrote and published a poem a few years ago (it's in "the book")--I'd have to run down the title--that was "riffing off" of a Dali calendar.

Figueres, Dali Museum by m. muraskin-spain , a photo by m. muraskin on Flickr. Saw it from a distance (we were headed to the Costa Brava) but that was as close as I got. Love the eggs.

I take the 1st Street Bridge in and the 4th Street out. This view isn't much (the road to beautiful is built by humans) but I see it almost every morning. 

Downtown L. A. from the 1st Street Bridge , a photo by Snap Man on Flickr. Modern Perspective.

First Street Bridge Over Los Angeles River EB , a photo by Metro Transportation Library and Archive on Flickr. Historical perspective.

US_CA_44_1404_4th_Street_Bridge.jpg , a photo by peterbphoto1390 on Flickr. Modern perspective.

4th Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River 1930 , a photo by AdamFromTheVillage on Flickr. Historical perspective.

In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals  on a wet, black bough.   

Metro sign Paris , a photo by www.FranceHouseHunt.com on Flickr. Hope to catch a few attractive Metro signs off guard in Paris.

Been getting off at 1st Street for the better part of the school year. Didn't notice Rob Neilson's "About Face" until recently: hadn't been looking up (see more of Rob's work here ). My photos aren't the best because of the poor lighting (6:30-ish) and the fact that I couldn't get too close (cars and train make approach difficult).                                                     

Robert Graham (August 19, 1938 – December 27, 2008) was a sculptor based in the state of California in the United States . His monumental bronzes commemorate the human figure and are featured in public places across America. Graham was born in Mexico City , Mexico on Aug. 19, 1938, to Roberto Pena and Adeline Graham. Roberto Pena died when his son was six years old, and the boy, his mother Adeline, his grandmother Ana, and his aunt Mercedes left Mexico and moved to San Jose, California . Robert Graham began his formal art training at San Jose State University . [1] He continued his studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in California , finishing in 1964. Within five years he had one-man exhibitions of his sculpture at important contemporary art galleries in Palo Alto, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Cologne, and Essen, Germany. He lived in London for a period before settling in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. His first solo exhibition in a museum was at the Dallas Muse...

Jacques Lipchitz (August 22 [ O.S. August 10] 1891 [1] – May 16, 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz , in a Litvak family, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai , Lithuania , then within the Russian Empire . At first, under the influence of his father, he studied engineering, but soon after, supported by his mother he moved to Paris (1909) to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian . It was there, in the artistic communities of Montmartre and Montparnasse , that he joined a group of artists that included Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso as well as where his friend, Amedeo Modigliani , painted Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz . Living in this environment, Lipchitz soon began to create Cubist sculpture . In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d'Automne with his first solo show held at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie L’Effort Moderne in Paris in 1920. In 1922 he was ...

Again got to the heart of the matter quite early, so I turned right on Hope and parked across from the Music Center and in front of the DWP. These pics are the result of the early morning photo shoot.                                                           

A little poem of mine ("Open Book") has gone up recently (not sure exactly when it came out) at Poetry Repairs .

The next day was windless and overcast. The air felt as gray as the gunboat still lying at anchor in the Old Harbor. People never tired of staring at it as if it could tell them what Admiral Darlan was planning to do with it. The British were approaching the Tripoli border. Would the French voluntarily surrender the harbor at Bizerte, or would they refuse? Would the Germans then occupy the south of France too? -- These were the questions of the day. If the latter were to happen, the British might bomb Marseille to smithereens. That, for the time being, would solve all transit visa worries. I went to the Cafe Mont Vertoux. The table where I'd sat the day before was free. I sat down, lit a cigarette, and waited. Waiting at the same place made no sense. But where else should I have waited?

Rodin Museum, Paris , a photo by khera875 on Flickr. Thinking about Paris today, amongst other things.

Old Mill/Vieux Moulin , a photo by Clio7 on Flickr. Thinking about Vernon today, amongst other things. I think, though I could be wrong, we'll pass real close to this as we bike from Vernon to Giverny.

Lily Pads at Giverny, France , a photo by Colin Cronin on Flickr. Thinking of Giverny today, amongst other things.

Pont Neuf , a photo by Quang Huy PFIEV on Flickr. Thinking of Paris today, amongst other things. At least two bridges I want to cross: Neuf and MIrabeau.

Mona Lisa , a photo by JKleeman on Flickr. Thinking of Paris today, amongst other things. We will perhaps try to get closer than we did last time. Last time too many people were crowding her, snapping photos (which is supposed to be a no-no, I believe).