Sunday, June 10

Le Bain De Mer


I snap this photo from an ad on the Paris Metro where I am this late evening.  The contrast with the otherwise disinterested Parisians interests me  : "you can have this," the bather suggests (or maybe even "you can have me").  Do they want it, skipping between tunnels, no natural light ? London's underground ads are less nude.

So this puts me in the frame of .. age nine : Donovan (a bad kid whose parents were hippies) and I used to bike on our choppers ( baseball cards in spokes) to 7-11 on Solano for super-hero Slurpees and comic books and a brief scan of Playboy which, back then, was not behind the counter requiring an adult engagement. This my first look at a woman's figure. How innocent compared to a few clix on the Internet.  From then to the metro : that glance remains as fascinating as ever.

The family hunkers down to watch "Rambo" which has captured Madeleine's imagination (being rated '15'  gives the film further cred).  Despite all the retreads and subsequents, Stallone created two indelible heroes : Rocky the underdog and Rambo the forgotten vet. Both use violence to express themselves and we root for them all the way.