 Newsletter No.1
Wednesday, 20 October, 2004
Dear New "Paris Set Me Free" Visitor,
Welcome to the very First Edition of the brand new and unique
FREE Creative Paris Newsletter: "Paris Daze".
Contents
Welcome, Paris-lover and friend!
This is a brand new FREE newsletter from the creator of the "Paris Set Me Free" website (currently still under construction).
Paris Daze is for anyone who loves Paris: artists, writers, poets, photographers, historians, walkers, gourmands and tourists - you're all welcome and you will all find something of interest here!
I am all of the above and more - that's why I want to share my PASSION for this incredible city with all of you out there in Webland, wherever you may be.
It doesn't matter if you live around the corner from me near La Motte Picquet-Grenelle metro and can pop over for a coffee and a chat this afternoon, or if you live on the other side of the planet.
Just think of this newletter and our developing web site as your virtual Parisian Café (complete with buttery croissants and tiny mean little thimble-coffees you philosophise over for hours (how can a coffee possibly be quite this damn small...?) while the Grumpy Distainful waiters b-r-e-e-e-e-e-z-e o-n b-y !
I'll do my best to share all this and more with you as the weeks and months pass. I'd love to have you share this journey with me too.
This month's sponsors are: EAGERLY AWAITED !!!!!
Paris is constantly in motion. Here's the view from my window a few days ago. BUT SCROLL DOWN to see how it was this afternoon, Just TEN days later!
Here's the result of the changes that I've watched daily in the warm light of a Paris autumn day. From the deliciously rich, saturated tones of red, green, golden brown, yellow and orange, the ivy has miraculously transformed itself into a solid mass of orangy-peachy-pink!
And I'm so lucky to see it every single day. The ironic thing is, the people that live there across the way, twixt ivy and I, only have my drab modern concrete building to gaze over at. AND I can see the top third of the Eiffel  Tower from my window if I stretch my neck! They may own their cute little Parisian appartment, but they can't see what I see!!! Rough justice has been done for once, in a way ;-)
A crazily surreal thing just happened - it's a bunch of brass players who walk through the streets of the 15th district of Paris from time to time, playing jazz and big-band tunes for everyone, hoping they'll get a bit of cash for their efforts. I'm including a pic of a guy below I had to lean over my non-existent sixth-floor balcony to shoot. The quality was awful, so I messed around with it a bit. Think 'impressionistic'.
The surreality and weirdness reminded me of that Levi's ad with Screaming Jay Hawkins growling "Heart Attack & Vine" as a guy is accompanied by this bizarre cortège of musicians and other hangers-on on his way to bury his old jeans. Anyone remember that? There's something haunting about a lone trumpeter sometimes.5) Pause Poétique
What with this being the very first "Paris Set Me Free" newsletter, and the web site not really being ready yet (to understate the situation quite significantly..) I have no choice but to inflict one of my own pieces upon you - I hope you'll forgive me.
If you have a Paris Poem then send it in and it will appear here or on the web site if it's any good! Let your creativity flow!!!
Paris Is Going Down
Paris is going down
In a seething rush hour of new life
Strong young fronds are shooting out of gutters
And ripping tiles off roofs
While unshaven grinning squirrels
Revolutionaries down from the hills
In full combat gear
Shatter windows with brutal blasts
From sawn-off hazelnut shells
Once sleepy cats are snipers
Cutting off dozy commuters
At the ankle
With well-placed razor swipes
Heavily armoured turtles are rising up
From the city's sewers
Squeezing toughened carapace through drain covers
Impenetrable, unstoppable
Relentless cruel plodders
Sweep the sleeping enemy
Off its feet
Onto a shifting, drifting sidewalk
Of undulating grey
High above unprotected heads
The aerial bombardment
From brave pigeons
Clad in uniform slate
Has been determined and vicious
Forcing the fools to dash for cover
From the burning stinking rain
And who could have predicted
An even deadlier foe
Deep in their midst
Dogged ground troops
Hiding in handbags
A new breed of canine mole
Biding his time
Leeching his unwitting host
Of time and resources
Stockpiling his deadly charge
Until his day came
Now proud pooches march
Tails held aloft
Laying slimy land mines
Communication nerve centres
Smeared and booby-trapped
With the deadly brown peril
Unsuspecting city slickers
Slip-sliding away
Now a new Paris is rising
From the ruins of the old
Camargue ponies canter carefree
Across rotting 2CVs
Exotic birds of green, amber and red
Nestle in every blind traffic light
Salmon swim unhindered
Up a sparkling, see-through Seine
And the lambs gambol barefoot
In the fragrant Champs Elysées
© Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free 2004
Let's start at the very beginning; a very good place to start.
More than a million years ago, the first dudes shuffled over to what we now know as good ol' Europe. They had to deal with an extremely dodgy climate, vacillating between somewhat inconvenient ice-ages and more agreeable periods not dissimilar from our own.
Two vitally important happenings mark their progress: the discovery of fire, and the invention of agriculture!
To be continued... (My average attention span in history lessons was around 3 seconds, so I'm bearing that in mind here.)
Paris is riddled with underground tunnels and caverns, of varying history and provenance.
And I'm not talking simply of the metro lines, their ventilation ducts, the water, gas, electricity and telecommunication conduits, disused railway tunnels or even the notorious drainage network which echoes the overground world in a spooky underground otherworld...
No. I'm talking about something else altogether. I'm talking about something quite unique to Paris, and so laden in history and legend that it will take quite a few "Paris Set Me Free" newsletters to give you a really good idea of what it's all about. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (iluvesmeralda@nd-paris.fr) might be able to give you more info if you get impatient waiting for PSMF No.2! Suffice it to give you a hint of the Shady Netherworld awaiting you in future PSMF Newsletters, if you so choose... but we cannot be responsible for the consequences... and we haven't even mentioned the 41 Club yet...
In The Next Issue of this Newsletter: the Creepy Warning given by a secret group of Parisian Speleologists (Nutty Cave Divers!), which begins...
WARNING
"NEVER Go Down Without A Guide !"
Now here's something not many tourists will ever do, and yet it's a crying shame to miss...
You know the world-famous department store, "La Samaritaine" - an absolute Parisian landmark? You can't help but see if from anywhere near the bridge 'Pont Neuf', metro of the same name. The 'New Bridge'... the oldest bridge in Paris... should be in the "Weird Paris" section, methinks...
Well anyway, here's the Hint of the Week:
Go into La Samaritaine. And apart from the amazing store that it is, make your way, unerringly up, up and again up, to the very vestiges and heights of the vertiginous vespiaries...
Don't accept the temptation of the second-best restaurant-cafe, no! Go on up to the very top, clutching sandwiches in hand - through the little neck-bending spiral staircase, and discover, suddenly and magnificently, the whole of central Paris just awaiting your gaze. Breathtaking... all those roofs! Now THAT'S worth of being the Hint of the Week!
There aren't any yet, stoopid!!! This is the First Issue of the soon-to-be-legendary Paris Set Me Free Newsletter Series. We can't wait to hear your comments, suggestions and, of course, foolsum, sorry, I mean fulsome praise. Either that, or I'll write the @$*&!?# things myself. And that isn't a pleasant thought, for anyone, now is it..?
Ditto for point 9 above. Here you can send in your event if it's in or around Paris and it's cool, and we'll do our best to list it. Keep it concise, coz mindless verbosity is reserved for the megalomaniacal author of the current missive. For the moment.
"MRS ALLONBY: They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris.
LADY HUNSTANTON: Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?
LORD ILLINGWORTH: Oh, they go to America."
Oscar Wilde 1854-1900: "A Woman of No Importance" (1893)
"Her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English accent."
Saki 1870-1916 "Reginald" (1904)
"People don't talk in Paris; they just look lovely... and eat."
Chips Channon 1897-1958 "Diary" 22 May 1951
OK, here it is!!! Err, well, actually, I haven't actually got a special offer this week, but I'll tell you what... if you get a few people to subscribe to this newsletter (and give me their names and e-mail addresses to prove it!), then I'll send you my complete first collection of Paris- and life-inspired poetry (32 poems) as read at Shakespeare & Co. (Paris) from time to time, no less!!! Anyone who wants to actually offer an attractive prize in return for some free publicity in this great newsletter, please get in touch!
You can visit the web site at http://www.parissetmefree.com where you can read previous newsletters (only, err, there aren't any yet... err) and loads of other great Paris-related stuff (only, err, there isn't much yet, but we're working on it - HEY! You've gotta start somewhere, RIGHT?!).
We have very close (almost incestuous, one might say... ;-) links with various other web sites in various states of development. Do feel free to drop by any of them to see what's happening at any given point. You may be disappointed! But give us time - our credit is good!
Here they are:
Language Fun Farm: http://www.languagefunfarm.com
(for Teachers & Lovers of English)
Hotch Potch: http://www.hotchpotch.com
(Absolutely No Idea... still working on this one - cool name tho', isn't it?! - also doesn't exist...)
To RECEIVE THIS NEWSLETTER REGULARLY, simply send an empty e-mail from your regular address to:
To UNSUBSCRIBE, just as simply, although obviously this would be a REALLY DUMB thing to do, send an empty e-mail from your regular address to:
Please note that all the words contained in this newsletter are copyright by default, but obviously the poems, photographs and articles in particular. None may be reproduced with out the original artist or author's express permission. You are, however, more than welcome to send on this newsletter in its entirety to anyone you like, and indeed we very much hope you will do just that. If you do want to use any of the original photos, poems or articles contained herein then it is normally a formality to ask the author for permission and then simply include an acknowledgement and a link with the new reproduction. Please get in touch for further details.
Thanks for reading! See you next time.
And tell people about it - please! 
Sab
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