( Métropolis )

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all pictures © mara zampariolo

(Click onto pic to elarge it. Please ask me before using my pics)

Paris, Sunday 6th, December 2009

I'M WEARING:

Destroyed T-shirt (prototype): Maison Martin Margiela; sweatear: Dries Von Noten; mens pants: Comme des Garçons; studded boots: Demonia, vintage leather blazer: Kenzo; snake ring: Estrosia; bag: vintage (Adom, Paris rue de la Roquette); scarf: Burberry;

Have you ever read "Zazie in the Subway", a novel by Raymond Queneau? The story is charming.

Zazie is a little girl who gets to spend the weekend at her uncle's in Paris, while her mama is screwing her new boyfriend.

All the girl wants is to take the underground.

Unfortunately, the subway workers are on strike, so she runs away from her uncle's apartment, angered with him and those lazy asses who "dare doing this to her".

Since I moved to Paris, they dare doing this to me all the time. When they don't, I take the subway and get to witness some interesting characters.

Click Onto Pictures to ENLARGE 'em, you Punk!

So without further ado, I bring to you my RATP Horror Picture Show

( aka: My Métro Memories )

1 - the Chinese Esthetician.

This woman sat right in front of me on line 2. First off, she cleaned up her ears with her bare hands. Consequently, she started clipping her nails.

I suggested that she'd give me a baseball glove for me to catch her biological leftovers.

She shrugged, spat on the floor, and got off.

©mara of Elegantly Wasted_091205_MG_9760

2 - the Goth-est Employee on the Month.

I thought I checked into the RATP agency just to cancel my annual subscription. I didn't know I would get a free lecture on the following captivating subjects:

- The top ten of successful suicidal spots in the parisian subway, divided per line

- Funkiest flasher ever*

- How to to interpret the messages from the voice over.

Because you deserve to know if you must wait because of a passenger who fell ill, a technical problem, or if actually somebody threw himself on the rails and they are collecting his bodyparts.

* You want to know it, right? You sicko.

So it's a woman who wore nothing underneath her fur. She layed completely naked on the rails spreading her legs and screaming "Jesus Loves Me". They were able to rescue her. She is now maire in a small town in southern France. Not.

- Madame Le Pigeon

Pigeon Lady would carry problably the ugliest living volatile on earth in her purse. And she'd whip it out inside the train; and she'd talk to him.

"Don't worry my dear, mama is with you. They don't understand you are handicapped, humans are mean, they are worth nothing. But you, my dearest, you have a heart of gold".

The Ugliest Pigeon on Earth, standing on his only leg, nodded diagonally with his mangy, twisted neck. Moved by this precious moment, I drew my Iphone and shot'em both.

They no longer suffer.

The parisian subway is actually one of the best I've ever tried. I grew up in Milan in the Eighties and by then all we had were two lines, the red and the green one. I guess only a color blind could get lost in it.

Today I live in Paris and I ride a bycicle. Because God knows I'd rather be pedalling in the blizzard with no gloves, 10 kilos of litter hanging on each side of the handlebars, avoiding suicidal grannies while inhaling Co2 directly from your exhaust, instead of going underground ever again.