un Voyageur

Sep 10

on circling notre-dame de paris

Notre-Dame de Paris is being repaired and rebuilt. If President Macron is correct, it should be finished in 2024.

I have seen it many times, and I have often climbed up its towers, but many years ago, when one could spontaneously leave the street and climb the stairs, winding to the top. I would pay a few francs.

Once one could freely enter the cathedral itself and not wait in line. It was like the église Saint-Étienne-du-Mont today, another favorite church, close to the Pantheon, where one can enter without pausing in a line.

It cannot be ignored, really, the cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris because it is in the center of Paris and to go north or to go south through the center, which is easiest, one cannot ignore it. It is there in the center of the city.

(Many of the photos here are taken with a film stock simulation, Kodak Tri-X 400 and thus have a grainy, old fashioned appearance.)

The towers are often visible from a distance. In another time, the towers, or steeples, of cathedrals in France pricked the sky and travelers used the sighting of the steeple as a marker to follow. The steeple on Notre Dame no longer exists. A construction crane is currently a replacement for the spire. (Click on any photo to see it larger and in more detail. Cliquez sur une vignette pour l’agrandir.) But wait, there’s more!

Aug 23

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on sleeping on the streets of portland, part 2 (b & w)

Continued from . . . “on sleeping on the streets of portland, part 1 (color).

Outside my apartment during the past two weeks, a lady in her fifties, maybe, with an overfilled shopping cart, her possessions piled high and secured, had chosen to pass the day and the night, not moving far, often prone on the sidewalk but out of the way for pedestrians to pass without stepping on or over her.

The other day I walked by a stretch of street with two adjacent popular restaurants. The tables were taken and the terrace tables, newly installed during the pandemic to provide safe, out door dining, were all taken. Brunch is popular in Portland. Across the narrow side street and clearly visible to all were four tents, neatly pitched, and no trash cluttering the pavement.

On another day I happened to pass Voodoo Donuts. As usual a long line extended along the wall from the entrance to West Burnside. The patrons generally were young, although some adults stood patiently waiting, well dressed and clean and fresh. A jazz saxophone player played music. (Click on any photo to see it larger and in more detail. Cliquez sur une vignette pour l’agrandir.)

But wait, there’s more!

Aug 23

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on sleeping on the streets of portland, part 1 (color)

The two story Fremont Bridge in Portland is large, really big. It is a major conduit that crosses the Willamette River, and cars and trucks use it to head toward Washington state to the north and to travel south on I5 toward the California border some 250-300 miles away.

Underneath and adjacent to the bridge are stores and restaurants and schools and parking lots and . . . homeless camps.

One does not fully appreciate its size until standing underneath and looking up, and from certain vantage points, one can see the trucks and cars, the size of toys, rush by.

And underneath it all are many homeless camps.

The Fremont Bridge and the freeway cut through and over the more wealthy sections of Portland—the northwest areas of the Pearl, Nob Hill, the Alphabet District, Slabtown.

In those neighborhoods, one of which I call home, the residents are comfortable. They have money, generally. Those neighborhoods have many residents on the streets as well. That is where they sleep. And eat. They use the Portland Loo toilets when they can. (Click on any photo to see it larger and in more detail. Cliquez sur une vignette pour l’agrandir.)

I have criss-crossed the streets and walked in and around the pillars that support the Fremont Bridge. I have seen the camps and watched them grow and die and sometimes be taken down and swept away by the city. (Click on any photo to see it larger and in more detail. Cliquez sur une vignette pour l’agrandir.) But wait, there’s more!

Aug 15

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on the vanishing point of portland streets in color & black and white

The vanishing point in paintings forms part of a linear perspective scheme. It is the point in fictive space which is supposed to appear the furthest from the viewer – the position at which all receding parallel lines meet. —National Gallery

1 : a point at which receding parallel lines seem to meet when represented in linear perspective
2 : a point at which something disappears or ceases to exist. –Merriam-Webster Dictionary

When the neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon—my home town—were planned, I suspect a city planner took out a sheaf of graph paper and a ruler, then chose parcel of land, and set about drawing straight grids, checkerboards from the sky, with streets straight and long with vanishing points at each end.

Portland is flat, more or less, and in most neighborhoods, including mine in NW Portland, one can stand in the middle of the street and look one way and then turn 180 degrees and look in the other direction and see two long, diverging lines to a vanishing point in the distance.

Few hills obstruct the view. Few buildings will abruptly block the gaze.

Most of these long and narrow streets are lined with trees whose branches extend out and over, touching and overlapping from one side to the other. They are one more example of the tree hugging reputation that exemplifies the liberal Portland.

But wait, there’s more!