No Speed Bumps

The Perfect Paris Holiday Souvenir

2003. And we'd been living in Paris in the Le Marais (equivalent of Sydney's gay Paddo-Surry Hills area) at 17 rue du Bourg de Tibourg for a few months ...



... in absolutely the world's smallest oak beamed C17 studio flat:


... with it's very own and perfect 'La Boheme' (bohemian) outlook ...


... feasting on the local produce ...


... and decorating with the local flora ...


Our gay local was L'Open Cafe, where you'd bump into persons such as Jean-Paul Gautier (big deal!):


I'd staked out my favorite Picasso work at La musee national Picasso de Paris:


And had been looking for something major-ish to bring home to remember the major time we'd had. But we'd found nothing. Well, an C18 Miao solid silver bracelet (Southern China near the Loas border) pictured centre desk:


The piece had been part of the world-famous collection of tribal jewelery put together by Colette and Jean-Pierre Ghysels. It was illustrated on p.251 in 'A World of Bracelets' by Anne van Cutsem, one of three vast coffee table books documenting the collection before it was broken up on the death of the owners.

Then, on the second to last day, we were walking past the showroom ('Two Be') of a couple of hot Milanese gay guys and saw THE lamp, a Fil de Fer by Catellani and Smith, Milan. The original had been commissioned by Museo della Cartografia, Rome as an enormous ethereal chandelier globe of steel wire and tiny halogen lights to symbolize the universe. And now you could buy the lamp in various sizes - from bedside table top to ginormous.

We had to have it NOW, rather than sent. And so had it packed and bullied it through Customs and into 'Left Luggages' in countries round the world till we eventually had it back in Sydney:

I particularly love the shadows it throws on the walls when lit.

It's now one of my favorite things. And I spend copious amounts of time, usually late at night, staring into its depths. Letting my mind wander round its universe.