Palomino Productions: On the road again (late Feb. 2015)

Saturday, February 28, 2015

On the road again (late Feb. 2015)

I'm in Paris now, on my way to Jerez (Jerez de la Frontera, Spain). The main purpose of this trip is to film material that "we" have agreed is needed in order to make our trailer for the flamenco documentary a knock-your-socks-off trailer that will bring in grants, funding, and, well, money.

It's winter in Paris. No surprise there. The skies are grey and heavy with water. It hasn't really rained since I arrived day before yesterday, but the air gets thicker at times and delicate droplets of water permeate the air. Sometimes they even fall out of the sky.

A grey winter's day on Blvd. du Montparnasse, Paris.

It's cold, but not frozen cold with ice and snow. Cold enough, however, that I'm very glad I brought a winter coat and a sweater.

I have now walked around the Jardin du Luxembourg two times. It's an immense park, formerly the "back yard" for one of the palaces of the French kings, right in the center of Paris. It's at least a mile long, and one of my favorite places on earth. In the mornings, it's more a land of joggers than anything else. Serious joggers. Muscular joggers. If I were here longer, I'd join in but I don't have the clothes, I'm not going to get the clothes, and I will just walk.

The lone jogger...but many more in front and behind.

The joggers - of all ages, both sexes, mostly white but some Moroccans and I even saw one black person. About half are plugged into their music with earphones tightly ensconced in their ears and the other half are open to the world, as it were.

Most of the joggers are also solitary, but there is one large group at a certain point in the morning: men from a nearby fire station with their fire station jogging suits, keeping very, very fit.

Children playing in a section of the park.

There are also some other people: people out walking their dogs (dogs are permitted in certain sections of the park), a few people out with children in strollers, a few people like me, simply walking.