LYON - Bellecour

    When I think back on Bellecour, I remember Ben Crouzet driving his Peugeot like a maniac, reversing us full speed up a narrow cobblestone street adjacent to the city's hallowed meeting place.  Still Lyon, still in the summertime, but twelve years prior.  Europe seen through teenage suburban American eyes – the beauty of it simply shocking – its dreamlike quality like the cyclist passerby in The Smiths' "Back to the Old House."  Before London, before Prague, before Berlin, before Stockholm and every other city encountered in the wandering years that followed – Lyon awakening into dreams.

Il y a des noms sur toi que je voudrais mettre et ce sont ceux des amis chez qui j’ai frappé ce jour-là, le printemps débutait juste, on a ouvert des bières, Lyon frémissait en dessous, j’avais faim, tout commençait.

LYON - Place de la République

     I never photographed Place de la République.  Paradoxically claustrophobic in open city spaces yet at ease in narrower confines, I preferred side street shadows to the many broader boulevards that converge to form PDLR's swirling center.  So it was only while in motion that I took in its whimsical features – a glass carousel and expansive rectangular pool – typically when darting across the square on weekly espresso capsule runs.  Safely back in the shoebox-sized attic of the church, I would imagine a more tranquil wintertime version of the scene, with brisk air and the carousel covered in holiday lights.

C’est en escaladant la montée de la Grande Côte qu’il avait très clairement compris le sens du mot incertain – chaque marche il comprenait que rien jamais sur lequel s’appuyer, pas un seul jour qui débouche naturellement sur un autre, pas une épaule, rien – un souffle seul et sans repos – la ville s’offrait en contrebas dans un glissement de lumières et il escaladait la Côte – rien, aucune surface plane sur laquelle compter pas même ces marches dont il connaît pourtant la moindre aspérité – mais il monte, essoufflé, vers le plateau et son amour, qui bientôt s’envolera, et il sourit.

Leaves (V)

     Please enjoy a new video for "Leaves (V)" -- the coda to the opening track of LYON - FOUR SEASONS, and revisit Leaves (IV):

MOON

01. Moon 

02. X of Swords

03. Disappearance

04. All the Same

05. Prequel

06. Portent

07. Neon

08. Unknown Light (II)

09. Rising

10. In the Morning Light (II)

11. Last Leaves

12. Leaves (III)

13. Spooky

14. Moon (II)

15. Darkening

Featuring 5 previously unreleased recordings and 10 from the Japan edition of Slanting Rays of the Setting Sun (2014), Moon will be available at Bandcamp on the October 16 full moon.

LYON - Cours de la Liberté

    The front entrance of the Grand Temple de Lyon is located on Quai Victor Augagneur – a long & lovely street that runs along the Rhône from Pont Lafayette to Pont de la Guillotière.  Around back on the much quieter Cours de la Liberté are the clergy's residential quarters.  It was there that I – the atheist in the church's attic – would enter through a large wooden door and ascend a winding staircase to my living quarters.  This ascent was a daily & dreaded demonstration of the thermodynamic principle that hot air rises, with cool street level air giving way to a reality-altering curtain of heat.  Outside, activity in the neighborhood – the city's 3rd arrondissement – mirrored this principle of verticality.  Calm, grey mornings that hosted more pigeons than people in little Square Jussieu would rise up into evenings that drew throngs to drink in riverbank bars under molten copper sunsets – a ritual of altitude in reverse, tracked through a fever gaze.

Son rêve d’Hollywood et d’un rôle de princesse scandinave rescapée des flots lui revint brusquement en tête au moment d’entrer dans le passage bruissant, qui l’avala.

LYON - Fourvière

     Atop Lyon sits La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière – a 19th century cathedral of white marble and stained glass.  More magical than even views from its terrace that on a clear day reach the Alps beyond Lyon's edges is the tumble of subtle wonders from the basilica down to the Saône.  A long road winds around Parc des Hauters and the Jardin de Rosaire, offering glimpses of city lights through the branches of trees.  Slopes of stone descend to narrow cobblestone streets that flow away from Place St. Jean, spilling out onto Quai Romaine Rolland and its curve along the river.  An ethereal cascade, unfurling sight upon sight from the tallest spire.

À l’angle de la place Edgar Quinet, beaucoup de nuit dans l’œil de l’enfant aux genoux écorchés.

LYON - Presqu'île

     Caught between conspicuous Americanness and a kind of stateless ghostliness, I almost never experienced Lyon as the Lyonnaise do.  Tantalizing glimpses down the narrow & lively streets of Presqu'île reflected back a vague sense that entire worlds were going unexplored.  Until one June night when a chance invitation to a garden party in the city's suburbs would ultimately bring about my sole encounter with its center.  I was living, for a few weeks, in a kind of dormitory for international students and travelers.  Self-conscious of my limited French language skills and ever at-ease with solitude, I mostly kept to myself.  So when a Spaniard across the hall named Sam asked me if I wanted to go to a party, I was surprised to hear myself reply, "...uh...yeah...Qui...sure...uh...thank you...Merci."  I ended up pinballing from the 5th arrondissement out to the suburbs back to a birthday party in Les Terreaux to a Jamaican bar to a jazz club in a vaulted ceiling basement to a sweaty discotheque on one of the very Presqu'île streets I thought I'd never set foot down.  It rained at sunrise, and I was the only soul crossing the Rhône on Pont Lafayette.  

C’est le corps de la ville que j’ausculte passionnément.