| Maximo Park Diary Entries |
| These are diary entries by Maximo Park members from the Official Maximo Park Website. |
Weekend Paris Light |
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| 13 Mar, 2007 |
Light hits the edges of buildings in vertical strips that break up the
streets. A brown boxer dog silently pleads to be free of the metal post
to which he is bound. Its neck flexes then relaxes, flexes then
relaxes, turning every now and then, displaying its prominent jaw.
Expensive boutiques stand alongside vibrant displays of the newest fruits in baskets made from woven cane and blue plastic .
Air
conditioning filters up into a skirt worn by a headless mannequin,
making the fabric billow and vibrate, somewhat unnervingly.
The
gentle slope of Rue Debelleyme carries gushing water down to the main
street. It manages to catch the cobbles every now and then, creating
rippled patterns in the water, through which you can see the flow
enliven the grey mortar until it hints at the colour of sand.
The sun shines hotter today than it has done all year.
Shattered glass mars the window of the Socialist party headquarters.
There's
an election approaching and tempers are clearly rising. The face of
Segolene Royale, the Socialist candidate smiles away beneath the
crooked lines created by an unknown impact.
Two lambs, crammed into
a metal tray full of straw make wobbly noises underneath a portable
canopy. Three garish toy clowns hang on miniature swings from the edges
of the canvas, dangling in accordance with the lightest of breezes.
The animals munch away at the same dirty blonde fibres, their spines bending, leaving their tufty backsides high in the air.
In the newsagents, a kid snores away to himself in a pushchair weighted down by shopping bags.
High
above a silent street, attended only by twittering birdsong, a canvas
has been propped up against the decorative barrier that covers the
lower section of the long, open window. Tantalisingly faced inwards, I
wonder how good or bad it is. Chimneys that stand equal next to each
other fan out, backwards, as perspective takes hold of them from my
position far beneath.
Its Sunday now and I'm inside with a coke watching the English FA Cup.
Outside,
the shop shutters are clamped down and the trees on the other side of
the street appear as shadows on the corrugated steel. The shadows get
stronger and more defined in slow waves as the sun fades and then
strengthens, irregularly, unnoticed by the children on their
skateboards and bicycles.
I was on my way to the cemetery, but my mind wanders back home when I think of football.
The
Pere Lachaise cemetery stretches upwards, making the sounds from the
main road invisible. It's like a village with archaic rooftops set
against the modern Parisian skyline that surrounds it. Many of the
graves consist of a stony house with a thin door allowing mourners to
enter and lay flowers. Turquoise bleeds from stone wreaths and ornate
metal the colour of dark conifers crumbles. Through these doors you can
see small stained-glass windows bearing religious figures or patchworks
of coloured light. Crinkled, old leaves twist around trellis-like
metallic designs and moss brightens up the grey dust of the floor.
A
man and a woman pour water over a black marble grave whilst catching
the water with rags before it drips down the staggered sides of the
slabs. They put a lot of effort into it. They could be siblings or they
could be married.
More books made of stone.
A hard, sculpted
sheet lies over one grave; its creases and folds are rictused and
permanent like the grain of a nearby tree's bark.
Everything's
susceptible to change though, proven by the lonely shards of glass
protruding from the occasional broken edifice or the two graves that
lean away from each other like exaggerated, warring neighbours, comical
and odd. Shattered terracotta rubble slumps on the floor of a few of
the graves. Another contains a solitary wooden chair behind the cloudy
glass.
Faded rockers wearing bandanas and pendants walk sadly
by, a tear forming behind their blacked-out aviator shades; tributes
printed onto their cheap merchandise. A sketchy impression of Jim
Morrison stares back at me from the chest of a man in blue jeans
smoking on a rotting, wooden bench.
Eventually, I'm ushered out
of the cemetery by a fleet of officials who drive around the grand
space at closing time shouting, "Ferme!" and beeping their horns.
The
main reason for my coming here was to visit the grave of Marcel Proust,
but I never made it up that far. I haven't read much of his writing,
but perhaps my visit was a tribute to someone else I once knew.
Later,
after dark, I walk past a launderette where a student makes notes on
top of a washer, lit by the bright whiteness of these places. |
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