bad in a bad way

a really beautiful scene from my blueberry nights - but probably the worst wong kar wai movie to date. i remarked that maybe he needed tragedy to befall him before he makes another film and cheryl said this was probably it. i can't believe how bad it was, i wouldn't even watch it for kicks. norah jones' character has absolutely no emotion whatsoever, and her "spiritual journey" seems like it left her fairly unchanged. jude law is likeable though, and natalie portman and rachel weisz actually do really well considering the heinous dialogue written in the script. also, chan marshall's appearance -- while they keep a stupid opening/closing doors metaphors going for too long -- was gorgeous. it seems like everything i ever loved about his movies was totally missing..

weather is cold, then hot. hate paris for that. weeks are flying by. brian will be here in no time at all. my summer options are dwindling. need to think about life, arts, in general.

dream: okay, so basically i am in a house (my house? someone else's house.) and the parents kill their son's girlfriend for his own good. their son is my friend, i am at their house and we can't find her and we don't know where she is. but then we find her, in the shower, her body looks horrific but my friend keeps saying that this is good that we found her even though she is dead and bleeding while we all have to take showers there. (literally, in my head, i shower and see her dead body). meanwhile, turns out we all live in a house together and a girl from the lithography studio is downstairs investigating the water, turns out it is diseased because there's blood in the water -- but not red water, but stream of blood red. so we can't drink the water.

pretty disturbing.

Tripes a la Tomate

I accidentally ordered cow stomach today at dinner. I thought "tripes" was a type of fish. Turns out its cow stomach boiled or something with tomatoes. It smelled pretty bad and to be honest I was done after four bites. At least I can say that (a) I've tried it and (b) I will never eat it again.

Last night, Cheryl and I went out to the Marais and decided to try some bars after dinner at Le Colimacon (so full, very french, excellent and really cute). First we went to Politburo, which is kind of a small, indie rock (i guess) bar, kind of kitsch with its wood bearings, red walls, and apparently a chinese-restaurant style decoration on the ceiling. Drinks were pretty cheap, but the crowd was okay. Next we went to Stolly's which had a really good atmosphere and again, pretty cheap drinks (I don't know where we've been drinking, but it was amazing to get a beer for 5 euro) and after that, we hit Flavela Chic. We had been rejected the previous night for most likely random reasons, but got in and it was actually pretty fun. I love the decoration in Flavela Chic and the music is pretty different from most of the techno clubs we've gone to so far. The crowd was luckily less underage than Le Truskel, the "punk rock" bar we went to the night before and the free drink ticket was a nice bonus. We ended up dancing on the benches as it was the safest way to veer from the strange, older creeps hanging around trying to make conversation..

Going to Porto on Thursday! can't wait.

courtesy of: when deren was in paris

these past few weeks have felt kind of rough. my landlord decided to kick us out (pittsburgh, pas paris) and attempted to get me to move out before I was back France (pas possible, that would a damn mess), which only added to an excellent stew of bad things happening while I'm over here, such as the stolen bike, the lack of a summer "thing" since I didn't get the SURG grant, and not being able to see my family when I get back because I have to be back in pittsburgh to move. things are getting better, but I don't really want to move out, and I wish I had a summer job. 

last weekend I went to Bruxelles to visit a friend of my mother's. I felt a real urgency to get the fuck out of Paris, even though I'll be embarking on easter break stuff soon. Bruxelles was pretty neat, not really like Paris, maybe a smaller version. Bruges was very cute, and the buildings reminded me of Amsterdam. maybe some pictures, later. the countryside was just incredibly flat and gorgeous, the trees were really odd and tall. the road we were on reminded me of a scene in the girl with the pearl earring. 

today I tried, unsuccessfully, to find photographic inspiration. it's hard in a city that's probably the most picture-sque city in the world or something. it makes sense then that almost all the photo students at ENSBA do not photograph in paris. I took some okay pictures 2 weeks ago at a gymnase/stade next to a school in the middle of the les puces area that me and Deren had wandered into while she was visiting. it's a cool place, and I'm kind of obsessed with taking landscape-ish pictures now (oh noooo) so I tried to find a place similar to it, as in a place of activity...sports things...to no avail. The places I found were neat, but full of children which is fine except who wants to be the creep taking pictures of kids playing soccer? I just felt weird about it. and obviously I would probably need to ask for permission..it's hard to be discrete carrying a tripod. and I hate finding these places by myself. 

starving for a grand macaron. later.