Shanghai Li, member of the Red Lanterns triad. By Hugo Pratt (c). In “Corto Maltese in Siberia”. “Tercera llamada” (“Third call”). Ernesto Cabral. 1926. A talemnted Mexican artist, Cabral sketched those daring young ladies who threw away their mothers’ long dresses and long hair by the window. Quite “osé” in 1926. De Gaulle. By the…
Kabul, 1953. Long before the many wars. My father Cyril was Air France General Manager in Pakistan. Karachi was the road to the Far East. Paris sent him to Kabul to investigate the possibility of opening a line to Afghanistan. My parents had lived in Pakistan for 6 years already. They spoke Urdu fluently. He…
A Paris sky. The Eiffel tower as seen from the Trocadéro, across the Seine. Summer 2022 A gentleman from Punjab maybe? A restaurant somewhere in Marylebone, London. Chicken Tikka Masala was excellent. Brussels, at the Mont des arts. A monument to rectitude? No. The statues are called “Musique et chant”, Music and song. By Oscar…
The pyramid of the Magician. Uxmal. c.1882. Désiré Charnay expedition. Charnay was a French explorer who documented a number of abandoned Maya cities in the peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico, in the second half of the 19th century. See the pyramid then: a heap of stones and earth, invaded by vegetation. The very same pyramid of…
“From the faraway, nearby”. Georgia O’Keefe, 1937. Met. Born in 1887, she was fifty when she started experimenting with those paintings. I didn’t realize she’d lived until she was almost a hundred, she died in 1986. Sadly, she lost most of her eyesight in the 70’s which must be a curse for an artist. She…
“Don’t make my brown eyes blue”. Sopó, Colombia. 2021. (c)ourtesy my wife. Looking for the Little Prince. Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2022. (c)ourtesy Gini. The Brontë sisters. Bogotá, Colombia. “Somewhere under the rainbow….”. San Francisco, 2016. “I feel a little pale today”. Paris. Artist: Poulain. Catherine Poulain is a French artist. I will look her work…
This past summer, after the Jubilee, the Queen was everywhere in London. Even street artists paid homage. London, July 2022. Where does one start in London? Big ben? Westminster? 1649? When Cromwell declared England a Commonwealth and Free state? Later annexing Ireland and Scotland with a single Parliament in Westminster? The Underground’s a good start.…
He lived in a small flat, in a small town, in a small rainy country, a country so small it did not even reach the sea. He had a small job, in a small insurance office. Every day, at precisely eight in the morning, he arrived at the office. He always carried an umbrella: it…
The heat in Paris last summer was unbearable. I figured Brussels would be cooler. I grabbed the train to the Gare du Midi. The Southern Station. (Above at the Gare du Midi: Tintin in America, second Tintin album) I had a drink at a local friendly bar. Try the new shot. Only 5 Euros. “Feck…
“Frères humains qui après nous vivez, Human bretheren who after us shall live, “N‘ayez les cœurs contre nous endurcis, Have your hearts against us not hardened, “Car, si pitié de nous pauvres avez, For if mercy on us you have, “Dieu en aura plus tôt de vous Merci… God will sooner on you have Mercy……
Equinoxio 