Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

The weekend of October 13-14 sees the annual celebration of the Harvest Festival (or Fête des Vendages) in Montmartre. Each year the grapes at the Clos Montmartre — Paris’s only operating vineyard — are picked and made into what the New York Times reportedly called the most expensive bad wine in the city. To celebrate this, fireworks are set off at the Sacre Coeur, and this year I made the trip for you.

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

Sacre Coeur Fireworks at Monmartre Harvest Festival (Paris 2012)

__________________________________________________________________

© 2012 Paul Prescott

As a follow up to my flash fiction piece “The Sleep Seller“, I’m posting some pictures I took at the Louvre one evening. I’ll be posting my next flash fiction story in a few days. Until then…

Louvre Museum – Cour Puget

Winged Human-Headed Bull – Taureau Androcéphale Ailé

The Three Graces – Les Trois Grâces

Madeleine Marchand, Spouse of President Le Jay – épouse du président Le Jay

Funeral Statue of Marguerite Valon – Statue funéraire de Marguerite Valon

Scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Hippolyte – Scènes du martyre de saint Hippolyte (detail)

Scenes from the Martyrdom of Saint Hippolyte – Scènes du martyre de saint Hippolyte

__________________________________________________________________

© 2012 Paris Paul Prescott

All photos © 2012 Paris Paul Prescott

In another time and another place lives a man who was born a unique case, for he had no flesh on his face nor anyplace else on his frame.

Worse than thin skinned and bearing no shield against the wilds, leaving the cocoon of his home hurt him as he was so sensitive.

He could feel others’ eyes burning into him and each of their wise cracks broke him until traversing each day felt like walking naked through an ice storm where the winds blew blades through him.

To provide a layer of protection, he first covered up with liquid cloaks but these ran off him and the spirits ate his nerves raw, leaving him in more agony than when he had begun.

Next, he protected himself by erecting an electric fence around him but the devices he carried were cumbersome and when they became troublesome they shocked him with charges that charred his heart and made him even more vulnerable.

Finally, he raised a wall so that nothing could reach him and sat tucked behind his fortress with no windows and no doors, secure until the loneliness began to sting but by then no one was able to get inside and take the pains to assuage him.

That was when he discovered the secret. He surrounded himself with friends. Some led the way and others stood by him and still more had his back so that the harsh days burned less while the company of others soothed his weary flesh. Besides, that others came to him meant he got close to others and so he found pleasure in giving his friends shelter as well.

© Paul Prescott  2012

All photos were taken at the Louvre Museum, Paris. Move your cursor over the picture for the Artist’s name and name of the work.

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click here for more photographs of the Louvre

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________

The derelict’s loose fitting clothes accentuated his scrawny frame and were as stained and patchwork as his scraggly beard. The brisk wind swept him like refuse down the sidewalks of Paris, with his empty bag behind him as he shopped for Christmas.

He tripped under the lights fantastic hung like neon nooses on the trees lining the Champs Élysées. Though their dim illumination offered no warmth in the cold shadow of winter, he nonetheless left the area with his step a little lighter and his outfit a little brighter.

He could barely afford to pay attention to the automatons mindlessly making money in the shop windows, but when he deserted the displays, his beard appeared more lavish and he himself felt richer.

He chased the aroma of the Christmas cakes escaping from the bakeries and though his belly yelped, he could not reach the treats behind the glass. Yet when he finally passed he was sated with the Christmas spirit and his bag seemed full as well.

He had come to Paris to shop for Christmas and Christmas he had found. He took his color in the shine of lovers’ eyes as they walked through the elysian night. He collected strength in the sparkle of a child’s smile as she watched the Christmas windows. He stuffed his suit and bag with the generosity of those who gave to those with less.

When Nicholas flew out of the city, his suit was as rosy as his cheeks, his stout belly as full as his beard and his bag overflowed with the Christmas he got in Paris.

© Paul Prescott  2012

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________

The weekend of January 18-20 will go down as one of the biggest snowfalls in Paris in recent memory. I walked through the Parc des Buttes Chaumont today (Sunday, January 20, 2013) and came away with these mementos.

__________________________________________________________________

© 2013 Paul Prescott

The best way to find something is not to look for it. On that day, Eddy wasn’t looking for trouble.

He was walking past the Louvre when he ran into the door that waited in an archway beside the sidewalk. Usually, Eddy ignored things as commonplace as doors (or buildings, or the ground), yet this mass towering over the shadow it cast was past description because it stood unattached to any building. That it loitered free, unencumbered like a sculpture, seemingly the entrance to nowhere was the least remarkable aspect of this very remarkable portal.

What made this door unique was that, more than personality, it had a personality. The door was a proud door that bore its scratches like war wounds received in battles justly chosen and bravely fought. The door guarded its secrets preciously, kept them locked up jealously and would not open up to anyone except Eddy.

He paused in front of the door, reached out for the handle, and felt the warm brass give slightly, as if it were shaking his hand in return. With that first touch, Eddy understood the key.

The door opened up to the past.  By crossing its threshold, the visitor could enter certain rooms of history and remodel them.

Eddy may have been a newcomer to this type of situation but had seen movies and read books before. While he had certainly made many mistakes before today, he also knew that changing one thing in the past could have horrible repercussions in the present. Demons could be lovers, hurts could be uncovered, and favorite songs might be left undiscovered.

He decided on an experiment where he would open the gateway and make one single, insignificant alteration as a way to measure the suitability of tailoring his past.

A cartoon frog sat perched on his shoulder since the evening he turned eighteen. That summer’s night, reason not so much dictated as slurred that the tattoo would be a good way for him to remember his youth as he clumsily stumbled into adulthood. He was also drawn to the drunken poetry in the badass act of getting a tat of a child’s Saturday-morning-cereal-in-pajamas-on-the-floor memory.

Obviously, the morning after the birth of the tattoo, the symbolism he’d seen the night before had evaporated into the pain of his hangover and sore shoulder, so all that really remained of his decision was a painful stain that would not go away yet remind him daily never to drink that much ever again.

Standing at the threshold, Eddy knew without trying that this mistake would be a good one to erase. The frog (he couldn’t even be bothered to name the damn thing) was an indiscretion he regretted, yet any repercussions in erasing it would undoubtedly be limited to little ripples that would serve to ward him off making any weightier changes.

The door opened as easily as thin fabric ripping, not with the sound of a creak but a tear. Eddy, as someone familiar with the story of the sword in the stone and the stubborn determination of destiny, suspected this gesture was easier for him than any other.

On the opposite side of the door lay a playground, and when Eddy passed through the door he stepped into the exact same playground, except that the colors were brighter, like an overexposed photograph developed cheaply and in a hurry. The sun, now in summer, shone younger, hotter and smelled like it had been left on too long.

He was in his past, but kept the memories of the man he’d been before stepping through, which was why he checked his tattoo. Rather checked the skin on the back of his shoulder where a tattoo frog had once refused to budge, but now had vacated.

Along with the lifting pressure, Eddy also felt the joy of being eighteen and on his birthday. The feeling was such a high that he hoped he could come back through the door specifically to this day over and over again, like alcoholics reliving that one drink that tricks them into thinking all drinks felt this good.

But not all drinks were the same, and Eddy remembered that drinking with River and Ben, his two best friends, was the first step towards the indelible error that would be his tattoo.

“Hey, Eddy.”

Eddy nearly cried, and then he did because this is what you do when you hear the voice of your best friend while he’s still your best friend, before the wedge of time creates a distance no memory can span.

He turned and quickly pulled Ben into a hug to hide his emotion as best he could.

“Are you drunk?” Ben asked.

“Just happy to see you, man.”

“Careful, once you hit the bottle…”

“…the bottle hits back,” Eddy finished, recalling the running joke they had borrowed from a film and shared throughout the years.

Then, over Ben’s shoulder, Eddy noticed River.

She took his breath away. Not because she was impossibly younger than he could ever remember her being, though this was true. Neither did the sight of her amaze him because she was so much more beautiful than the picture he kept in his mind’s eye. Because this was not true.

The years he had not seen River had been kind to her memory, and now that he was looking at the real her he didn’t recognize how plain she was.

Her face seemed rounder, her smile fatter, her hair messier and Eddy realized River was not the most exquisite girl he’d ever known, as he would later come to suspect. But as soon as she spoke…

“Hey guys, room for one more?”

… he understood he’d remembered her as movie star gorgeous because she was beautiful all the way through. She joined them in their hug and before breaking off, she wished Eddy a happy birthday.

“They party’s at my house,” Ben said. “There’s a case of beer there with our name on it…if our name is Heineken.”

“Wait, let’s go hang out at the park first,” Eddy said. He knew from his experience that the three of them would finish that case before finding some of Ben’s parents’ wine which would lead to the slippery slide that ended in the tattoo frog.

“You’re the birthday boy,” Ben said, so instead they spent the afternoon drawing out the sunset at the Parc Monceau. They laughed light in the face of the shadows on the faux Roman columns, they tainted the austerity of the Egyptian pyramid with their frivolity, and they taunted the solemn monuments to deceased relics with the force of their life. When the sun finally gave up and set, the trio still had not yet left and the alcohol was abandoned in a different past.

“You guys ready to get the party started?” John asked.

“Yeah”, Eddy said. “You guys go ahead. I’m going to stop by my place and I’ll meet you there.”

The hugs were a little longer before Eddy left because he didn’t know which Eddy would show up at John’s door later, but he knew Old Eddy was going back to the door and the future to which it would lead him.

He hesitated at the handle, wondering if it might not be better just to stay, but he’d already lived those years and he wanted something new. He’d had an unbelievable afternoon with his friends, but he also knew that each day he spent with them would dilute the buzz he now felt and he wanted to keep that fresh. Unadulterated.

 After passing through the door into the future present, there were many things he remembered. He remembered the door before him led to the past and he remembered he’d just returned from reliving a great time with his childhood friends. He remembered every minute of that as if it had really happened because it had.

He also remembered he’d gone back into the past, but did not recall what he had changed because it had no longer happened.

But he felt light. He felt young. He felt reborn and he decided he was going to hit a café and celebrate with a pint or three and then maybe get a tattoo to commemorate this spectacular day. Maybe something that would remind him of his youth.

© Paul Prescott 2013

All photos © Paris Paul Prescott 2013

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________

Untitled (1985)

Photos from what I like to call “Keith Haring‘s other expo”.

Haring’s show at the Musée d’Art moderne (or MAM, Museum of Modern Art) is (deservedly) getting a lot of attention, but not many people know that the exhibition of his larger works continues in my back yard, at the Centquatre (104 rue Curial, 75019).

Keith Haring at the Centquatre

Twin Cities New York Tokyo (Sister Cities, 1985)

Untitled (Head through belly, 1987)

Untitled (Mural, 5 panels, 1986)

Untitled (1985)

Untitled (1985)

Keith Haring at the Centquatre

The exhibition runs until August 18, and tickets bought here will get you a discount at the Museum of Art show.

_________________________

A little heads-up. I stuck this photo at the end of the post as it’s sexually explicit. I decided to include it because the title for both expos is “Keith Haring – The Political Line”. As Haring was an AIDS activist who died from the disease in 1990, I thought it important to include a sample of his political work as well.

If you are offended by sexually explicit paintings, now would be a good time to click away as fast as your fingers will take you!

Safe Sex (1985)

Note: I posted some additional photos of this expo over at Paris By Cell Phone.

© 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

Click to view slideshow.

All photos © 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

__________________________________________________________________

Promenade Plantée / Viaduc des Arts (Paris)

Paris Has Green Eyes

Paris has eyes greener than the absinthe green of sweetened dreams, deeper than the Guimard green of Metro scenes and clearer than the jealous green of a tourist’s envy. Paris’s eyes are the green breathing in the trees and living in the leaves, letting her see her history.

The Promenade plantée (sometimes confused with the Coulée verte, to the south of Paris) is a 4.7k (2.9 miles) green walkway stretching between the Opéra Bastille and the Paris beltway north of Porte Dorée. Much of it is elevated and built on abandoned train tracks.

The most difficult part of the walk? Finding the beginning! I seriously spent 45 minutes looking for the entrance, so I decided to make up my own maps detailing the Bastille entrance.

Promenade plantée map (the lightning bolts show beginning ending points) – Click on image to enlarge

The Bastille entrance is located near a public parking garage at 34 Rue de Lyon, 75012. The other end is located where the boulevard Carnot meets the avenue Emile Laurent at the boulevard Périphérique.

Promenade plantée in Paris – Click on image to enlarge

__________________________________________________________________

© Paul Prescott

Today I visited the exhibition Cinema Paradiso at the Grand Palais and took these shots to give you an idea of what’s going on there.

There is, for example, a working drive-in, complete with cars.

The Drive-in

There is a roller rink (roller blades and pads provided at no extra cost)

The Roller Rink

There is an imitation diner with nachos and cheeseburgers (and champagne!?). Plus lots of Coke and even more Coke signage. (Count 10€ for a cheeseburger and 20€ for a decent meal–I didn’t price the champagne.)

The Diner

There is also a selection of American junk food in an impromptu convenience store.

Junk Food Convenience Shopping

There is an interactive History of the Video Game tour, and no charge for the games.

Interactive History of Video Gaming

The Games I Grew Up With

As well as the more traditional games, also free.

A Pinball Wizard Top Model

And this… You wouldn’t want to forget this…

‘Barbie Foot’ (based on ‘Baby Foot’, or French for ‘foosball’)

Display purposes only! Don’t play with the Barbies!

__________________________________________________________________

Cinéma Paradiso

Nef of Grand Palais
June 10-21, 2013

Activities only: 13€ at the door
Reduction for -12

Activities & Drive-in: 19€
Place in a car with complimentary glass of champagne: 39€

© 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

All photos © 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

Today was the official inauguration of the new Place de le République, after a year and a half of renovations. I went there for you and came away with these.

Statue de la République – Place de la République (Paris)

Place de la République inauguration – Fun & Games (Paris)

Place de la République inauguration – Fun & Games (Paris)

Place de la République – New Fountain (Paris)

This is an ingenious new fountain where a cool mist comes out of the grating at regular intervals to create this ‘fountain on the ground’ which is perfect for kids (and real people, too) to cool off in!

Statue de la République – Place de la République (Paris)

__________________________________________________________________

© 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

All photos © 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

“Dayiwul Lirlmim” by Lena Nyadbi

The Barramundi was the most beautiful fish in the river. Her scales were large and bright and she beamed proudly as they glistened in the sunlight trickling though the water.  

Like with many beautiful things, however, people wanted to capture and possess her, because some believe beauty is a thing you can own.

One morning, three old women wanted to catch the Barramundi, so they waited for her in the river. When the Barramundi saw the jealous women, she took her jeweled scales to a shallow and dirty place in the water. She swam quickly, but she soon noticed she’d entered a cave and was at a dead end.

To remain free, the Barramundi returned to the mouth of the cave and with all her strength jumped over the women holding their grass nets. Once above them, she shed her precious scales in the air where the sun turned them into diamonds. Those diamonds are still scattered over the sands at the bottom of the Barramundi Gap.

The old women stayed in the water and looked for the colored jewels for so long that they turned to stone, and remain there today as three white rock formations. 

As for the Barramundi, after she cast off her artifices, she landed in a deeper and cleaner place, where she swam freer than she had ever been before.

“Jimbirla and Gemerre” by Lena Nyadbi

_____________________________________

This story is dedicated to indigenous artist Lena Nyadbi, whose painting ‘Dayiwul Lirlmim’ was transformed into a giant mural now stretching across the roof the Quai Branly Museum. I’m including pictures of the original work, the mural, and other of her works that make up the walls of the Musée Quai Branly.

Nyabi’s ‘Dayiwul Lirlmim’ and this story are both based on the same ‘Ngarranggarni‘ (aboriginal dreaming story). I referred to a copy of the story I found at the Argyle Diamond Mine website when I wrote this piece.

It was my intention to pay tribute to this rich culture, and I in no way mean to denigrate their history or traditions with this text.

“Dayiwul Lirlmim” original painting and copy on roof of Musée du Quai Branly

Under a white hot sun, the young man towering over her daughter yelled at the child until his face burned fire-engine red. Viviane stood too stunned to act as the flames of this stranger’s anger licked at little Nadia’s face.

“Stop your crying for God’s sake!” he screamed. “So what if you lost your stuffed frog? Do you know how many children have lost everything? I bet you wouldn’t care so much for your silly doll if your mother were dying.”

Those words jarred Viviane from her shock like a slap.

“Go to hell,” she spat, placing her hands on Nadia’s shoulders and steering her away from the fever of the man’s rage.

Later that night, alone in her bed, she replayed the scene on the screen in her head and wished she’d been harsher with the stranger. Instead of telling him to go to hell, she wished she’d taken him there.

Soon smoke from her incense clouded her thoughts, and carried her off to sleep.

When she awoke soon after, her life was on fire. The walls melted the air above her burned the floor glowed and reflexively she lept from the melting bed and ran through her bedroom door calling her daughter’s name but before she could make the end of the corridor a hand clasped her arm and yanked her shrieking out of her apartment.

“My daughter’s still in there! Where is my daughter do you have Nadia, Nadia, we have to go back for Nadia!” she screamed all the way to the street where paramedics collected her. Seeing her daughter wasn’t there, Viviane had to be restrained while the EMTs gave her oxygen to feed her sobs and cover her cries.

She fought against the hands that held her while she watched the blaze eat the building alive, and the only clear thought she could manage was that she wanted to go back inside to die with her daughter.

At that instant, a lone man burst out of the inferno through the front door. He was not immune to the flames, but had become one of them. He was empty handed until he opened his protective coat and Nadia tumbled to the ground. She scrambled away to safety as the firefighters gathered what remained of their fallen compatriot.

It was months before he could say “You’re welcome”.

Viviane knew this because she went to thank him in his hospital room every day after leaving work and before picking up her daughter from school. She sat beside him in ICU, read to him through his coma, stifled her cries when he opened his eyes and tried to but could not when the bandages came off.

She spoke to him before he could answer her back, but when he was able to speak he told her of his past.

With each layer of skin grafted onto his raw frame, he told her a little more about losing his parents in a fire when he was nine years old. About that pain. About that anguish. About that anger which sparked his decision to fight fires for a living.

With each layer of skin laid upon his scarred body, Viviane soon understood the rage that protected him from the flames had been consumed by the fire. Because she had seen him rage once, she could see the wrath that burned him inside-out was being extinguished.

With each layer of skin coating his wounds, making him whole, Viviane eventually recognized the man that saved Nadia’s life as the same man that had yelled at the little girl earlier that same day, before the heat had burned his loneliness away.

© Paul Prescott 2013

All photos © Paris Paul Prescott 2013

The first and last photos are of the Centre de secours – Château d’Eau, 50 rue du Chateau d’Eau, 75010 Paris.

The middle photo is La Tour d’exercice (The Practice Tower), by Wang Du and stands in front of the Centre de secours – Champeret, 1 place Jules Renard, 75017 Paris.

Click here if you’d like to read more of my fiction.

Click to view slideshow.

__________________________________________________________________

I was fortunate enough to score an invitation to the inauguration of Paris’s latest upscale mall, Beaugrenelle last night (October 22, 2013).

These are some of the shots I came away with…

__________________________________________________________________

Mobile by Xavier Veilhan

Beaugrenelle Shopping Center
12 Rue Linois
75015 Paris

Hours and Access

Activities only: 13€ at the door
Reduction for -12

© 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

All photos © 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

Withering away in Paris’s shadow, a deserted burg lingers like the scent of melancholy elegance floating from a pressed flower…

Goussainville (the vieux village) is a town about 12 miles north of Paris. The small hamlet thrived for centuries, until the early 1970′s when the construction of Charles de Gaulle Airport chased many of the inhabitants away.

Then, on June 3, 1973, a Russian version of the Concorde crashed during the Paris Airshow, plowing through 15 homes and a school (fortunately closed) in Goussainville. In addition to the crew of six, eight people on the ground lost their lives. This tragedy all but signed the village’s death certificate.

In the face of the mass exodus out of the town, the courts forced airport authorities to buy up the properties, which they did, and maintain them–a task they preferred leave to time…

Continue on for my photos of the poetry and desolation that remain.

I first learned of Goussainville-vieux pays from the informative article written by Messy Nessy Chic. Her piece is very thorough, and she includes some great photographs and even a video as well! Check it out.

I also used an article that appeared on The Atlantic Cities website for research.

For those interested in the 1973 Airshow Crash, Wiki has a great reference entry about it.

All photos and text © 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

Click to view slideshow.

© 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

A few nights ago I took my annual stroll down the “plus belle avenue du monde / most beautiful avenue in the world” to take in the lights. Here’s what the Champs Elysées looks like this holiday season!

I started at the top, at the Place de l’Etoile, and its most famous resident, the Arc de Triomphe.

Then I headed down the avenue.

To the Rond-point des Champs Elysées-Marcel Dassault…

And then I finished up at the Place de la Concorde, with the Grande Roue (Big Wheel) and the Jardin des Tuileries / Tuileries Gardens.

Happy Holidays to all!

© 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

All photos © 2013 Paris Paul Prescott

The Saint-Séverin Church on the edge of Paris’s Latin Quarter is a beautiful example of what illuminates the City of Light.

These photos are from my post about the miracles associated with this church.

Église Saint-Séverin Church
1 Rue des Prêtres Saint-Séverin
75005 Paris

All photos and text © 2014 Paris Paul Prescott

Click to view slideshow.

The Human Zoo

I saw the man there, every day.

He came to the Ménagerie in his tight gray suit with a packed lunch and sat on the bench that faced the elephant’s enclosure. Whatever the weather, Monday through Friday (yet not weekends or holidays), I saw the man in the suit watch the elephants, and one elephant in particular.

This particular elephant walked in an endless circle around his pen, stopping only to sleep or feed. He lumbered as close as he could to the imitation rock barrier bordering the moat that separated the pack from the herd of visitors. I know he did this every day, including weekends and holidays.

At times the beast moved slowly, plodding as though his legs were trees he was constantly uprooting against their struggle to take hold. Other times he would almost run until the ground shook beneath the shoes of the businessman, as though he were racing against the reality of his confines.

Every day, from the opposite side of the enclosure, I watched the man in the suit watch the elephant for forty-five minutes. Through the spaces in the bars, I watched as he finished his lunch and resumed his long walk. I watched from the other side of the pen, like looking through a net, like looking through the hole in a net. Like looking through a net into another world and suddenly seeing the net is not around the world, but has been around me the entire time.

__________________________________________________________________

© Paul Prescott

Last night I published a photo of the Pyramide du Louvre at night over at my Paris by Cell Phone blog, and as it attracted some very kind attention, I thought I might post some of the other photos from that set here.

All photos and text © 2014 Paris Paul Prescott

Click to view slideshow.

Esplanade du Dinh / Dinh Esplanade

Once upon a time, people were imported to France from the colonies and put on display in Paris’s Parc de Vincennes.

Porte Chinoise / Chinese Gate

The year was 1907, and the occasion was the World’s Fair. In a back corner of the expansive park, buildings were erected to recreate the look and style of six French colonies: Madagascar, Indochina, Sudan, Congo, Tunisia and Morocco. Great care was taken to the details to ensure that the visitors would feel that they were strolling not thorough a Parisian park but through a foreign land.

Pavillon de Tunisie/ Tunisian Pavilion

So much attention to detail, in fact, that natives were brought in to occupy the structures. Human beings were uprooted from their homes and brought across the seas from as far as 5,500 miles away to inhabit the park for 6 months.

Pavillon de Moroc / Moroccan Pavilion

Over one million people visited the site to inspect the specimens.

Pavillon de la Réunion / Reunion Island Pavilion

Temple du Souvenir Indochinois / Indochina Temple of Memories

Mosaïc de l’Esplanade du Dinh / Dinh Esplanade Mosaic

Pavillon de la Guyane / Guyana Pavilion

Fragment du monument “A la gloire de l’expansion coloniale” / Remnant of the monument “To the Glory of Colonial Expansion”

All photos and text © 2014 Paris Paul Prescott

For more information, check out:

• UNCOVERED: The Haunting ‘Human Zoo’ of Paris
• Paris’s forgotten human zoo

Click to view slideshow.

Gone with the tide

They rely on our fear, be we will not hide our eyes. Instead, we will look up and stare them down until they see we are not blind.

They thrive on our apathy, but we will not throw our hands up nor lay our arms down. Instead we will rise together and stand tall, blocking their way until they have run out room for their drastic steps.

They prey on our prayers, but we will not plug our ears and wait for their noise to stop. Instead, I will raise my voice and it will grow with yours into a sea of hope where the tide of our movement will carry them away in a wave of compassion.

__________________________________________________________________

All photos are from the Anti-Extremist demonstration on Paris’s Place de la Rébuplique, May 29, 2014.

All text and photos © Paul Prescott