With the anniversary of the birth of our nation this past weekend, it is the perfect time for Americans to pause and reflect on what those early days as a country must have been like when there were no such things as the iPhone, or the internet, or even the automobile. A world void of technology may be scary to some; I mean how would we communicate and get around from one place to the other? Well, unlike many Americans including Angelenos who harbor a strong dependence on the beloved motor vehicle, a large number of Parisians have captured a piece of a simpler time and place by using bicycles as the primary mode of transportation. Even in this advanced day and age, the French have found a very basic way to master transportation that is healthier not only for the human race, but the environment. Not only that, but they manage to make riding bikes look sexy at the same time! Luckily Gil Garcetti went abroad to Paris to shoot these beauties in action, obtaining clear proof that cruising in a convertible Porsche is not the only way to look cool when going to the grocery store. The beauties in this case are not so much the actual bikes, but the people riding them—French women. I’m sure French men on bikes are photogenic too but Garcetti focuses on the women as they seem to posses something extra special, a kind of air it seems. One trip to the Annenberg Community Beach House where the exhibit is on display will give you a better picture, literally.

On Father’s Day weekend, June 19th and 20th, Pasadena hosted their 18th annual Chalk Festival in which over 500 artists from across Southern California came together to create 175 chalk murals on Paseo Colorado. If that sounds impressive, that’s because it was; the artists actually made history by setting the Guinness World Record for the Largest Display of Chalk Pavement Art. That involves a lot of organization, and a lot of chalk.

Never was the land together,
cohesive, an uninterrupted mass
of soil, rock, sand, grass
all bound in a harmonious package, leather
spread-eagled in one faultless piece.
Always were places disparate.
Sky unbroken, but land split
and ponded, rivered. Water reached
out from every fissure, issuing
lacklessly. The ground’s appendages
multiplied, fresh edges
made into shores and ocean chewing
into them eagerly. In the beginning,
this wasn’t a big problem for
people. They swam well, explored
by boat. At length, the constant crossing
of distances somehow seeped
into their bodies, their cores. They’d say,
“It can’t have always been this way,”
and dream of land gathered up in a heap.