The Frogmarch

"I've got to pull up my stakes and roll, man." --Jean-Jacques Libris de Kerouac

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Let's Welcome the Circus People


Yesterday was an uncommonly nice day for February, and taking advantage of the suddenly not-unbearable weather, I was biking back from a previously unexplored park on the eastern edge of town when the breeze brought to my unsuspecting nostrils the odor of barnyard--most unexpected in the no-man's land between the Part-Dieu railyards and the former prison. Looking around, I quickly spotted the source, a traveling circus big top thrown up on a patch of waste ground between the SNCF rail lines and the tramway/bike path. More intriguingly, the big top was surrounded by circus trucks full of tigers [2nd photo, click to enlarge so you can see them], and random camels stood around in the vacant lot [hard to see, in center of the 3rd photo].

Besides the circus folk, this stretch of ground is also occupied by a sizable gypsy camp [far right in the last 2 photos] of scavenged wood and corrugated metal. The gypsies (or Rom, as they are more politely known) are probably worthy of an entirely separate blog post by dint of their unique position in the French social strata-- below dogs and other domesticated animals but slightly above rats-- but it's tempting to imagine the dirty-faced children, weary after a long day of begging and pickpocketry at the train station, stealing away from the campfire to stare in wonder at the tigers in their cages, eyes glinting in the darkness, as laughter and accordion music carry from the tumbledown shanties across the vacant lot.

5 Comments:

  • At 9:03 PM, Anonymous YoMama said…

    Both blogs are very interesting. Why is there the sudden interest in commorating TJ?

     
  • At 2:34 AM, Anonymous majordad said…

    Good stuff... both. 'Though I'm not a Jefferson fan.

    Somehow, with your success with "Johnny Cash Beset by Darkness", I'm not surprised that you were attracted to the circus.. will there be a Gallic sequel?

    Hope the storm left you unscathed.

     
  • At 4:05 PM, Blogger Frogmarch said…

    I don't know that the interest in Jefferson is sudden, especially, but he is well-regarded in France for contributing to the philosophical underpinnings of the French Revolution (in which a number of his Parisian social circle got whacked).

    The storm really only affected the Atlantic coast--it was just a particularly windy day for us here.

    Y'know, I've occasionally come up with story ideas set in France or among various French cultures or subcultures, but I consistently reject them (or fail to develop them) on grounds that I don't feel I can really inhabit the characters sufficiently. My few experiments along that line have all turned out to feel cartoony and fake. Maybe one of these days...

     
  • At 1:02 AM, Anonymous majordad said…

    You could always do "cartoony and fake" and write for the movies!

     
  • At 7:43 PM, Blogger tamer said…

    بلوجر
    شركة مكافحة حشرات بالرياض
    شركة مكافحة حشرات بالرياض
    تعتبر الحشرات من أقبح الأمور المزعجة جداً لدى الجميع أطفال و كبار و توجد أنواع من الحشرات صغيرة الحجم و سريعة الانتشار و تتسبب في الإصابة بالعديد من الأمراض الخطيرة و المعدية أيضاً لذا تحرص شركة مكافحة حشرات بالرياض على إبادة كافة أنواع و أحجام الحشرات المختلفة بشكل نهائي و الحرص على عدم ظهورها مرة أخرى حيث تعتمد على أجود أنواع المبيدات الحشرية المستوردة من الخارج و التي تستخدم في عملية رش المبيد و التي تتمتع بتأثيرها الفعال و طويل المدى و يتم ذلك من قبل مجموعة كبيرة من العمالة المدربة و الفنيين على أعلى مستوى في مجال مكافحة الحشرات و تستخدم أحدث الأدوات و المعدات المتبعة في القضاء على الحشرات و إبادتها نهائيا بدون عوده .
    شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بالرياض
    شركة مكافحة الصراصير بالرياض
    شركة مكافحة الفئران بالرياض
    شركة رش مبيد بالرياض
    مكافحة الحمام بالرياض

     

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