iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

A small selection of the breathtaking masterpieces at the wonderful @museecluny.bsky.social, which I've just revisited for the first time since its big overhaul.

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

The sweet conceit of a scale #model on show in the building it models. The Panthéon has a mini Panthéon, the Invalides a mini Invalides, the Musée d'Orsay two mini Orsays (not on view). This 13,400-piece #Lego mini St-Sulpice was installed last year in the St-Jean l'Evangéliste side chapel. #Paris

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Souvenir affectueux d’une projo de presse au Max Linder vers 2002: une copie restaurée de ‘Kagemusha’. On n’était que quatre dans cette salle immense!

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The Paris Almanac @parisalmanac.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

A #ParisBook for #InternationalWomensDay: ‘Women of the Left Bank’, by Shari Benstock (Virago, 1987)

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Heartbreaking biographical entry for Emile Cohl in the ‘Dictionnaire des illustrateurs 1800-1914’ (Ides et Calendes, 1989): “Il mourut vieux et misérable dans une maison de retraite des environs de Paris, sa longue barbe blanche ayant pris feu à une bougie.”

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Looking forward to reading ‘Impossible City: #Paris in the Twenty-First Century’, latest from @simonkuper.bsky.social, now out in paperback from @profilebooks.bsky.social. (That Indy puff on the cover, though… *former* City of Light? Ouch!)

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Centre Pompidou @centrepompidou.fr · 26/02/2025

Rendez-vous le 19 mars pour notre grande exposition « Paris noir » ! 🎉 L' #ExpoParisNoir retrace la présence et l’influence des artistes noirs en France depuis 1950. Elle met en lumière 150 artistes dont les œuvres n’ont souvent jamais été montrées en France. En savoir plus 👉 bit.ly/Expo_ParisNoir

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Come, friendly rock, and fall on [INSERT NAME HERE]

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Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Friends, May we never forget that while negotiations,statements, addresses and the rest of the (undoubtedly important) diplomacy track are happening,exhausted #Ukrainian men &women in military uniform are holding back evil on the frontlines. Without them,there would be no diplomacy track at all.

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

#Paris, #manège, April 2003. www.paris.fr/pages/les-beaux-maneges-parisiens-c-est-parti-pour-un-tour-24393

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Centre Pompidou @centrepompidou.fr · 10/02/2025

Il vous reste un mois pour découvrir la collection permanente aux niveaux 4 et 5 ! ⏰ Le Musée fermera le 10 mars pour préparer sa rénovation. Pendant cette période, la collection sera accueillie par de grandes institutions à Paris, en France et à l’international. Plus d’infos 👉 bit.ly/CP_Musee

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Marie Ruiz-Vidal @ruizvidal7.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

"On peut aimer s'entourer de livres pour rêver de les lire. Et si la fonction la plus efficace de toute bibliothèque était d'inciter à une lecture sans fin qui n'aura jamais lieu ?" Un fantôme dans la bibliothèque Maurice Olender

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Discovery of the week, possibly month: US #photographer David #Turnley, who clearly spends a lot of time in #Paris. The home page of his website is a portfolio of fantastic b/w Paris shots in the humanist vein of #Ronis, #Doisneau, #Cartier-Bresson, #Brassaï etc. www.davidturnley.com

Photo by David Turnley: www.davidturnley.com

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

How would one translate the title into English? 'Alice in Ponderland', perhaps.

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Sabzian @sabzian.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

“Cinema is important to me. It’s like a prism. A good film... is part of my life. With every good film I see, I feel reborn. It feels as if I made it myself, as if it were my creation.” Hossein Sabzian

sabzian.be

Hossein Sabzian, Zéro de conduite, 1996

“Cinema is important to me. It’s like a prism. A good film... is part of my life. With every good film I see, I feel reborn.”

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Génial, mais tout ça nous présage quoi?

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La Cinémathèque française @cinemathequefr.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

🎞HENRI Découvrez "Rachmaninoff's Prelude", inspiré de la nouvelle d'Edgar Allan Poe "The Premature Burial" et du prélude en ut dièse mineur de Rachmaninoff. 👉 Véritable découverte de la Cinémathèque en 2009, qui possède la seule copie nitrate teinte originale. www.cinematheque.fr/henri/film/1...

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

This is glorious: 1850s #Champs-Elysées society by Constantin #Guys, 'peintre de la vie moderne' endorsed by #Baudelaire; it's currently at the @museecarnavalet.bsky.social. I love the arrangement of that focal top hat and the foliage above, with an arc of daylight between.

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

This, on a shameful episode in British press history, is superb: astute and humane.

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

“[Author Sarah] Gensburger said that while the spoliation of artworks and other valuables has been recognised and addressed, the loss of homes has not.”

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Some thoughts while returning on the Eurostar from Paris. 1. It’s a cliché but nonetheless true that the intellectual culture in France reminds us what we are missing in the UK. 🧵

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Shakespeare and Company @shakespeareandcompany.com · 28/01/2025

“Be existential to each other!”

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Saddened to learn, very belatedly, that Wilhelmenia Fernandez has died – way back last February, at the age of 75. She was the unforgettable diva of 'Diva', Jean-Jacques Beineix's glorious and often critically misjudged 1981 operatic fantasy that launched the so-called 'cinéma du look'.

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Kim Willsher @kimwillsher.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, reposting this from a visit just after 7 October 2023. Never forget. www.theguardian.com/world/2023/n...

theguardian.com

‘The perpetrators were people like us’: the burden of history at Auschwitz

On a visit to the former death camp, journalists reflect on the dehumanisation of wars past and present

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2️⃣0k 😊 Paris FB @parispaname.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

📷 Brassaï. Pont Neuf la nuit 1934-35. #Paris

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Blog Les Montparnos @blogmontparnos.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

#CeJourLa Le 21 janvier 1938, le père des effets spéciaux au cinéma, Georges Méliès, décède à l’hôpital Léopold Bellan #Paris14. Découvrez son lien avec le quartier #Montparnasse dans cet article du Blog Les Montparnos blogmontparnos.paris/georges-meli...

blogmontparnos.paris

Georges Méliès à Montparnasse | Les Montparnos

L'histoire de Georges Méliès, considéré comme le père des effets spéciaux au cinéma, est surtout attachée au théâtre Robert-Houdin dans le 9ème arrondissement de Paris ou à ses studios de la Star film...

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Blog Les Montparnos @blogmontparnos.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Anecdotes insolites, archives, actualités, le @blogmontparnos.bsky.social propose une déambulation dans le temps et l'espace autour de #Montparnasse à Paris 👉 blogmontparnos.paris

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

David #Lynch in #Paris: 'Idem Paris', his 2012 short film made at the #Montparnasse print studio of the same name.

youtube.com

IDEM PARIS by DAVID LYNCH

YouTube video by Idem Paris

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Emma Pearson @emmapearson.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

These are such good reads, I especially love the one on the French history of ballooning and the Olympic 'vasque' 👇

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Superb film, unsettling and poetic.

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Emma Pearson @emmapearson.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

This is a lovely article on how learning French (or indeed any foreign language) opens up your world, and I'm sure the French will forgive the missing cedillas. There have been worse crimes against their language perpetuated by anglophones! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A note at the bottom of the article indicates the corrections that had to be made to the French bits - a missing accent and an 's' and 2 extra cedillas (the little thing under an s that looks like a 5 - ç. This one actually is important because it changes a hard 'c' sound into an 's' sound)

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Sa vie et rien d'autre? Certes, dans la mesure où la vie de l'auteur fut remplie à craquer de #cinéma, de musique, de livres, de voyages, d'engagements, d'amis. Passionnants 'Mémoires interrompus' – hélas – de Bertrand #Tavernier, sortis en novembre dernier aux éditions Actes Sud.

Livre: 'Mémoires interrompus', par le cinéaste Bertrand Tavernier, aux éditions Actes Sud.

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Remember this? Paris is getting a whole new Metro network. It’s huge. And built fast. “The venerable #Paris Métro is about to get its most significant upgrade in decades with the arrival of the Grand Paris Express, a new 200km system with 4 new lines & 68 new stations.” www.cnn.com/travel/paris...

cnn.com

Paris is getting a whole new Metro network. And it’s huge | CNN

The Grand Paris Express will add four lines, 68 stations and 200 kilometers of track to the French capital’s 120-year-old Metro system, providing vital suburban links – just not quite in time for the ...

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

#Sherlock Holmes in 'The Sign of Four': “I never guess. It is a shocking habit”. Sherlock Holmes in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles': “I had [ ] guessed at the criminal before ever we went to the West Country”.

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Simon Johns @penjohns.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

For all the best reasons, #Notre-Dame is getting a lot of press at the moment, but other #Paris churches are available… This is the Eglise St-Germain l'Auxerrois, which faces the @museelouvre.bsky.social and is known as the 'paroisse des artistes'.

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