John Tynan's Tumblr Blog

For a great long time, I would walk past a corner gallery here in Boulogne, and through the window, I would admire the paintings by a particular artist. One day, the artist’s work suddenly disappeared from their familiar placement in the windows and gallery walls without my ever catching his or her name.

Earlier this afternoon, I picked up a flyer for an upcoming exhibition at the FAE Galerie l’Atelier and noticed that the artwork for the event was indeed by the artist that I had admired, and that her name is Issabelle BARD.

Well, it is finally good to place a name with the images that I remember liking so well. I always admired how the tops of her trees are like shaded, slowly passing clouds hovering close above the tranquil landscape. To me, these are like images of silence and the passage of time spent in quiet contemplation.

My crazy contraption to weigh and pack everything for the next year., originally uploaded by johntynan.

The sun is bright today in Paris just as as it was yesterday. On the sidewalk, men have taken off their suit jackets and pressed shirts in favor of (gasp!) tee-shirts, women’s sunskirts are fluttering in the breeze, groups of friends are meeting in lively conversation at tables outside brasseries… and we are inside packing. I’ve made a contraption out of a child’s swing, a travel scale and a basket to weigh all of our personal belongings. We are sorting out our most essential items, weighing them, then storing them in this closet for the movers. Imagine having a limit of 600 pounds for a family of three (soon to be four) to last you for a year. Of all your items what would you take?

It’s Labor Day in Paris which means a lot of businesses (including Rene’s work and Miles’ day care are closed). To add to the celebration, it was the first non-rainy day in what seems like a month. So, to mark the occassion, we headed out for a family picnic at Parc Monceau. You can view the complete slideshow here. Happy Labor Day!

Miles has been making some novel new sentences lately and being real inventive with language. For instance, this morning, we were making a fort out of couch pillows and he wanted me to put a roof on it. He didn’t know the word for roof, so he said “hat for house!” Which I thought really clever and delightful. But what really had both Rene and I laughing was when, this afternoon, he was running around naked (and not wanting us to put on his clothes) and, excuse me for getting all scatalogical here, he farted… and then exclaimed “baby burp bottom!”

Trumpet player at the Centre Pompidou, première mise en ligne par johntynan.

Today, I heard a trumpet player blowing a melody into the cold air outside the Centre Pompidou. It reminded me how much I love music in open spaces. I loved the natural reverb and the way the notes effortlessly floated and expanded to fill the entire place and on into the surrounding streets.

Aujourd’hui, Miles et moi avons fait son premier bonhomme du neige. Today, Miles and I made his first snowman.

You can view a slideshow of all the pictures here.

Well, it finally snowed here in Boulogne. We woke up to a world of white. What a surprise!

You can view a slideshow of the photos here.