![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
"Brendan, this is what the world looks like all the time to me. Just a little fog. It’s a fine day for boating on the Great Lakes.” Without missing a stroke he turned to dart a skeptical glance at me. Brendan the Navigator. When we named him I didn’t tell his mother everything the legendary Irish name implied. But I imagined him taking on the role of navigator for me. Growing up with Coastal Survey charts and tales of Great Lakes shipwrecks, he came to know Superior as another home. He never doubted the wisdom of canoeing there with a father who was half blind. ![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in 
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
Wait a minute, those barbarians at the gate, they don’t look like Jacobins. They’re wearing Armani suits. They’re investment bankers, tired of toxic debt, demanding a bail out!
About the image: Prise de la Bastille by Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel [Source: Wikimedia Commons]
Read Surfacing at Place de la Bastille and Fashionista Street: Selling Short
Entries Tagged as 'French history'
Forget Wisdom of Markets, Storm the Bastille!
1
September 21, 2008 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
French history · IVe · Paris Add Your Comment
Surrealist Manifesto Sells for Real Money
3
May 22, 2008 at 12:15am
by Mark Willis
“All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.”
“Had this yearning been for money, rather than revolutionary art,” says the Guardian, André Breton would today have seen his dream realised, on learning that a selection of his personal effects have been sold at auction in Paris for a total of [...]
1920s · Art · French history · Paris · poetry · surrealism Add Your Comment
Imaging Paris: La Liberté guidant le peuple
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May 17, 2008 at 2:38pm
by Mark Willis
Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]
La Liberté guidant le peuple – 28 July 1830
19th century · Art · Delacroix · French history · Paris · free culture Add Your Comment
Café Mouffe: Paris S’eveille
1
May 16, 2008 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
Paris S’eveille by Jacques Dutronc became an anthem for the student revolt in May 1968. Il est cinq heures, Paris s’eveille (“It’s 5 a.m., Paris wakes up”). Café Mouffe opens every Friday at 3:00 p.m. Please drop by for a listen and a chat. Sometimes the embedded videos don’t work here due to bandwidth constraints, [...]
1960s · Café Mouffe · French history · Paris · Playing by Ear Add Your Comment
Imaging Paris: Documenting May 1968
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May 15, 2008 at 6:30pm
by Mark Willis
Protesters march down Boulevard Saint Michel on May 10, 1968. The banner reads: “Sorbonne Teachers Against Repression. [Photo by Serge Hambourg/via Art Knowledge News]
French photojournalist Serge Hambourg documented the turbulent student revolt in Paris in the spring of 1968 for the weekly magazine Le nouvel observateur. His images have been assembled in an exhibition [...]
1960s · French history · Imaging Paris · Paris · VIe · Ve · street Add Your Comment
Imaging Paris: May 1968
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May 14, 2008 at 12:05am
by Mark Willis
Photos de Paris en 68. Montage: yoy’. Musique: Rosa Park -” la revolte gronde.”
1960s · French history · Imaging Paris · Paris · VIe · Ve · street art Add Your Comment
Paris May 1968: Under the Cobblestones, the Beach
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May 13, 2008 at 9:10am
by Mark Willis
Students dig up cobblestones to throw at police. The layer of sand below the stones led to the slogan, “Under the cobblestones, the beach.” [Photo by Serge Hambourg/via NPR]
Sylvia Poggioli has an excellent radio story on NPR, Marking the French Social Revolution of ‘68:
Forty years ago, millions of French workers joined protesting students [...]
1960s · French history · Imaging Paris · Paris · VIe · Ve Add Your Comment
Fashionista Street: Balenciaga’s Erotic Knowledge
2
February 29, 2008 at 12:05am
by Mark Willis
Is this Colette, Balenciaga’s favorite model from the 1950s? [Photo source: Fashion Spot/Vogue]
In Couture Clash (Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2008), Benjamin Schwartz reviews four recent books that document the golden age of couture in postwar Paris. He crafts a narrative of contrasts between Christian Dior and Cristobal Balenciaga:
Dior, a charming if exceedingly plain-looking dilettante, came to [...]
1950s · French culture · French history · Imaging Paris · books · fashionista Add Your Comment
Fashionista Street: Dior’s Media Triumph
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February 28, 2008 at 6:30am
by Mark Willis
Christian Dior created a media sensation by changing hemlines season after season in the 1950s.. [Photo by Roger Wood; source Britannica/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]
Christian Dior exhilarated Paris and its most important industry in February 1947 when he presented his inaugural couture collection. Benjamin Schwartz sets the scene in Couture Clash (Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2008): “In [...]
1950s · French culture · French history · Imaging Paris · books · fashionista Add Your Comment
Café Mouffe: “Non, je ne regrette rien”
3
February 1, 2008 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
Set 1: Édith Piaf. Non, je ne regrette rien 1961.
Ms. Modigliani picked the program for this week’s Mouffe after sampling the universe of Édith Piaf recordings on YouTube. She chose two live versions of her favorite Piaf song, “Non, je ne regrette rien” (“No, I regret nothing”). The 1961 recording features the song’s [...]
Café Mouffe · France · French culture · French history · Ms. Modigliani · Playing by Ear Add Your Comment