Saorge, France and the forks in the road

 

It did not occur to me when we were walking, and climbing, the streets of Saorge, but it occurs to me now that the most striking difference to that particular village, in contrast to any other town I've been to, is how when one walked through it, and one came to an option for which path to take forward, the options weren't so much left and right, rather they were up and down. Saorge wasn't built climbing the cliff, like many hilly or steep towns are. It is built along the face of it. And a lot of the time one can walk through it on an almost normal seeming flat street between buildings, but excitingly everything in always veering off in a plunge or a climb, and suddenly one is walking over some other way, or walking under it.

We are on day two of our pictures of Saorge where I show seven of my 42 meticulously completed pictures everyday. We were in Saorge at the end of last week, a respite before our seemingly unending adventure with covid decided to resurge.

Luckily I have all these beautiful memories as the sound of coughing rings out once again through the house.

Forty two views of Saorge France

 

At the end of last week we got up early (for us), walked up to the train station (a short walk), and got on The Train of Marvels. This train, really just a regular local train but with a bit better, less scratched up windows, climbs up into the mountains of the French Alps and in less than two hours deposited us up among the fresh air and flowing mountain streams. 

It was kind of a miracle.

Our station, near to the last, was called Fontan Saorge. Absolutely nothing is around the train station of Fontan Saorge, but you can walk 15 minutes down the narrow mountain road to Fontan, or up it, for about as long, through a tunnel, along soaring valley views, until you arrive at Saorge, officially one of the 100 most beautiful villages of France (there are actually somewhere closer to 180 of them, but France is BIG).

I'm pretty sure this day was the kind of thing we meant in retiring here.

Saorge is like,

what you get born for.

It's sort of perched on a cliff there, like something vaguely Tibetan, and it's winding, layered in its Seussian qualities so strongly that this odd thought once flitted through my mind there: 

Dr. Seuss wasn't that inventive, he just went to France.

I took hundreds of pictures in and around Saorge. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. I brought them back in my phone and have been working on them non stop over the weekend. I have settled on, or worked my way to 42 pictures of Saorge to tell the story of the place. These are not really travelogue pictures. I did not make them to tell you about our day exactly. I took them from pure interest, and then tried to put everything I felt about Saorge and even France, into them. Some of the pictures are barely edited, or even completely as they came out from my camera. Some are elaborate fantasias so meticulously built out of the scene I started with that they might as well be paintings.

But they're all Saorge.

Each day for the next six days I will tell you a little about lovely Saorge, the Mountain village, and I will show you seven pictures. The pictures are not an explanation for what I have to say. They more invite you to figure out what they might be, or feel what it was like. They're just Saorge.

There are a lot of cats.

I hope you like them.

 

Lazy Sunday France

 

Having gone off on an ambitious day trip to a mountain town called Saorge, where I took so many photographs my phone died of exhaustion, I feel reluctant to get started on the story of the wonder of that journey before clearing out some of my notes, images, outtakes, and experiments from the past week first. Sunday, a bit of a low traffic day on Clerkmanifesto, is a good day for this, and so that's what we're up to today!

These are all random bits from around my city, mostly with extra layers of editing, image manipulation, and AI. Some of these are alternates from themes or series in my earlier posts, and a few are one offs. But I think they each tell their own story well enough, so I present them without individual introductions:

 

Preparations for the World Cup

 

The World Cup begins in a few weeks, and what better place to follow it than Clerkmanifesto, especially if you are not interested in it. 

But maybe you’re only interested enough to wonder who will win.

I don’t know, but pessimistically speaking, and probably realistically too, stupid France will win, which I say with all due respect and love as a person living in this beautiful country. 

The French are a team positively crammed with talent, and they keep winning or almost winning the World Cup so much that we are all worn out by it!

But having started negatively, let me tell you what I really wish for this World Cup, even if I know what I wish for is beyond my meager abilities in this direction.

 I would like everyone to win, so that, whenever anyone does win, I will rejoice: 

Even France, or England, or the Netherlands, or Portugal, or Germany!

Though I think this nice plan would be a lot easier for me if it were Argentina, Spain, or Brazil who won.

In the past I would run a World Cup betting pool at the library which was fun and a lot of work. I actually miss it. There was something about nudging people into a mild interest in the World Cup that weirdly appealed to me and my Quixotic nature.

Luckily I still have Clerkmanifesto for this kind of endeavor. So pick your team! 

Pick your team!!!!!

Post it in the comments.

I mean it.

 

If your team wins you will receive REDACTED BY THE CLERKMANIFESTO LEGAL TEAM. 

I promise.

I know it sounds too good to be true, but on my life I swear that REDACTED BY THE CLERKMANIFESTO LEGAL TEAM. 

So choose a team in the comments below! Dreams really do come true.

For myself I would delight in seeing our ancient Messi get one more World Cup, but I don't think that lightning will strike twice and though willing, I am also ready to move on. 

Always hostile to the soccer vanity of England in the past, I am suddenly finding my heart softened by my beloved club team, Barcelona, having signed an English player in Anthony Gordon. 

Maybe, dare I say it, England has suffered long enough?

And the same for Brazil.

But in the end, and when choices must be made half the Barcelona team is playing for Spain, so I simply cannot resist them. Plus, I choose Football! This is delightful, intricate yet direct soccer, with some of the most dazzling technical players in the world. 

But don't worry. If you're at loose ends you can pick Spain too!

Or Ecuador.

Japan?

Norway?

Senegal?

Curacao?

Wait, Curacao is in the World Cup?

Ah fuck it. Let's just all adopt Curacao.