New York
Pyongyang
London
Abidjan
Lisbon
Moscow
Kolkata
Montgomery
Paris
Tokyo
Bécon-les-bruyères
Fr : version française / En: english version
The bus
...and of course buses that go all over town!
Narrative.
One day at about midday in the Parc Monceau district, on the back platform of a more or less full S bus (now No. 84), I observed a person with a very long neck who was wearing a felt hat which had a plaited cord round it instead of a ribbon. This individual suddenly addressed the man standing next tohim, accusing him of purposely treading on his toes every time any passengers got on or got off. However, he quickly abandoned the dispute and threw himself on to a seat which had become vacant.
Two hours later I saw him in front of the Gare Saint-Lazare engaged in earnest conversation with a friend who was advising him to reduce the space between the lapels of his overcoat by getting a competent tailor to raise the top button.
Alexandrines.
One midday in the bus - the S-line was its ilk
I saw a little runt, a miserable milk -
Sop, voicing discontent, although around his turban
He had a plaited cord, this fancy-pants suburban.
Now hear what he complained of, this worm-metamorphosis
With disproportionate neck, suffering from halitosis:
A citizen standing near him who'd come to man's estate
Was constantly refusing to circumnavigate,
His toes, each time a chap got in the bus and rode,
Panting, and late for lunch, towards his chaste abode.
But scandal was there none; this sorry personage
Espied a vacant seat - made thither quick pilgrimage.
As I was going back towards the Latin Quarter
I saw him once again, this youth of milk-and-water.
And heard his foppish friend telling him with dispassion:
"The opening of your coat is not the latest fashion."
- Back of a bus, Cartagena de Las Indias
- Ferdinando Scianna
- __________________________
- Rush Hour
- William Roberts
Ferdinando Scianna
The photographer Ferdinando Scianna, a member of the Magnum agency, was born in Sicily. Having studied literature and philosophy at the University of Palermo, he published his first photographs at the age of 21, in a book with Leonardo Sciascia, Feste religiose in Sicilia, which won him the Prix Nadar. Scianna then went to Milan and later Paris, where he worked as a photojournalist and fashion photographer (notably for the then unknown Dolce & Gabbana). Sicily and literature have been recurrent themes in his work and one of his books is a portrait of the writer Jorge Luis Borges. The Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris held a retrospective of Ferdinando Scianna's work in 2009.
William Roberts
The son of a carpenter, William Roberts was born in London in 1895. He trained in drawing at an early age, originally with the intention of becoming a poster artist. He was interested in Post-Impressionism and Cubism and left for Paris as soon as he finished his studies. Back in London, he became associated with Vorticism, an obscure and short-lived British art movement, situated somewhere between Cubism and Futurism. In 1916 he enlisted in the Royal Artillery and subsequently became official artist to the Canadian Army. One of his most notable paintings is The First German Gas Attack at Ypres, in a style akin to German Expressionism. After the war, he devoted himself to portraiture and depicting scenes from urban life as well as teaching. Though a member of the Royal Academy, he was by nature somewhat reclusive and withdrew from society, giving very few interviews. Towards the end of his life, his taut, powerful style was nonetheless influenced by Pop Art. He died in 1980.