PARIS

Bright light, blind culture.

Writing sample, Kem Walker, freeshare 2014






What follows is the story of how I came to live, work, party and study with the old
Parisian aristocracy, how I got taken in, kicked out, taken in again, and then left
France with nothing more than a bunch of certificates, a cigarette addiction, and a
swag of confusing memories.


In 2008, I was a naive and starry-eyed teenager, a thin, athletic private school boy
in Sydney, Australia. Six months before the final exams, my French teacher
finished class early one day to propose an offer. There were two positions
available to teach English at a high school in Paris. I had no compelling plans, so I
applied.

I arrived in France, like so many before me, with a suitcase, a guitar, and an
excellent textbook vocabulary. A young German fella met me at the front of the
school. He took me to the loft of the original 1856 school building and showed me
where the other four assistant teachers lived. We drank some beer, talked about
simple things and smiled a lot.

The next day, I met my laid-back-yet-serious supervisor, Monsieur Fontanive. I
was to take half a class each day, and lead a few smaller groups in conversation
classes. Twelve hours of work each week in return for a room, food and a visa. I
was stable and ready to explore.

Over weeks and months, the young folk of Neuilly slowly became my friends. They
were fascinated by glamour and fame. Following in the footsteps of the great
Parisian culture heroes, they smoked a lot of cigarettes, drank a lot of beer and
wine, and listened to loud music. The more sociable kids smoked hash and took
other drugs. They went to underground secret clubs in Paris at night and on the
weekend.



In class we spoke about problems, questions, solutions, social life, people, parents
and dreams, and we shared our culture. In Neuilly, the stamping ground of
conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, the culture was aristocratic, Catholic, and
super Parisian, which help if you like being superficial and unhappy, but not if
you like being confident or joyful.






We made the best of what we had. We were learning about the other side of the
earth and becoming conscious of what is common between us.

I spent many hours in museums memorising the details of famous artworks.
Occasionally I talked with people, but mostly it was solitary, concentrated time
with myself and my music.

Emerging from the blinkers of state education, I pondered the paintings long and
hard. Hubert Robert became my favourite, the revolutionary painter who first
took me behind the scenes of the great cultural spectacle. In the Louvre, one
painting shows a scene of the same room in which it hangs, abandoned and
overrun. Intelligent, pastoral people dance and make conversation among these
ruins of consumer civilisation. Robert broke me through the illusion of produced
reality, as if pulling me out of the audience and onto the stage. Civilisation falls
away to nature.

I learnt that the French Revolutionary visionaries imagined a new society based
on earth principles, pagan festivals and free will celebration. It seemed that my
high school history class had avoided the most interesting bits. Im still not sure
about the pyramids, though.



As the weather got warmer, and talk grew more and more around the summer.
The highlight of the first week was a party at Lancelots chateau. To be clear, the
chateau is Lancelots house. The residence occupies one wing, and the rest of the
place is a sort of private museum.

My friends from the Catholic school had a lot of feral energy. They drank a lot,
danced a lot, smoked a lot, and chased the hens around. In the morning we went
for a peaceful walk to see a 19th century passenger train sitting on a private
stretch of railway which goes through the property. I was quite hungover and
busied myself taking photographs.
















Lancelots chateau in Orlans:
Mathieu lights shots of Cointreau
at the party, view of the moat, and
the old train carriages in the
propertys adjoining rail yard.