In which the city is a canvas

I’m back! And have free time! For now, anyway. So I’m going to do my best to get all these up. Let’s start with Nuit Blanche, a night in October where things stay open really late and they put art exhibits in weird places.


It started in the afternoon, really, with performances in the street. This is the view from my window of a group of dancers in the square.


They were filming a Bollywood movie at Gare de Lyon. I was the only one tall enough to be able to see; this picture was taken at arm’s length.



The clock tower at Gare de Lyon and its reflection in the glass building across the street. I nearly got left behind trying to get the second picture: I kept trying, because my camera wouldn’t capture the fantastic quality of light there. I could’ve used a better camera on this trip, but I rarely use it at home, so it's hardly worth it.




This alley between two apartment buildings was absolutely packed with people, and it was one of my favorite things that night (not the best; that’s still to come). They were projecting these colored lights into the windows and playing really cool techno music in time with the lights. It got old after a while, but for some time, it was very cool.


There were lots of weird light displays that night.


But this was my favorite: a HUGE projection into the sky at the Tour Montparnasse, which could be seen from everywhere in the city. We loved it and spent about an hour there, and we weren’t the only ones: everyone was drawn to it, exactly like moths to a flame, fixated and immobile. A little creepy and a little cool.


From close up, the big beam separated into dozens of smaller ones arranged in a grid.


The first view of the crowds around the base of the lights.


Absolute fascination. And oh, the number of X-Files jokes I made that night! (We do all look like alien abduction victims, though, don’t we? And up close, everyone was grinning and staring into the lights.)


Not sure what happened here, but I quite like the effect. Nothing new, to be sure, but pretty.


People kept sticking their hands into the lights or climbing up to sit on the boxes that housed them. They couldn’t get close enough.


I love this angle. This was from when we ventured into the crowds around the lights.


A final parting shot. I think the lights were meant to be a reflection of the Tour Montparnasse, which is right behind them (and which, despite its reputation, is actually a lovely, elegant, and stealthy skyscraper. It just suffers from being out of context).

Next we went to my neighborhood, since that was a major center of the displays, and also we wanted to sit down and have something to eat or drink. On the way to my apartment, we stopped in this little cathedral around the corner (St. Merri).


This was one of the art displays suspended from the ceiling. It reminds me of a molecule.


I thought this was kind of hilarious and awesome: chairs on the ceiling! Why?


This didn’t answer my question, but it did put it somewhat more in context!

We also went to another cathedral, where we watched a video about blind people discovering an elephant. It was actually a very cool documentary-type thing, but it was dark and so we all started falling asleep, and that was the end of our night. But it was very cool, and definitely worth it for the light-tower.

In which we visit the Eiffel Tower and are baffled by French culture

November, on the Internet, is affectionately known by writers who hate themselves as NaNoWriMo: National Novel-Writing Month. By those of us who hate ourselves less, it’s NaBloPoMo: National Blog-Posting Month. In honor of this, I’m not going to update every day – that’s impossible, and I’d run out of things to say – but I will get up to date. I am shamefully, pathetically behind, and I’m going to fix that.

So, here’s the story of our first visit to the Eiffel Tower (lasted only as long as it took to see the line) and Techno Parade.


I love this shot. It’s very standard, but I love the colors and how they combine. Apparently, when it was first constructed, the Eiffel Tower was brick red. When we were told this bit of trivia, one of our group misunderstood and thought it was made out of brick, wondering aloud about structural integrity and how in the world they’d done that. Answer: they didn’t.

9 Eiffel Tower
This is the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, and said line. This is also why, contrary to popular opinion, “under the Eiffel Tower” is not a romantic spot. On top of, sure: there’s even a very expensive restaurant with a famous chef. But not at the bottom. There, it's more like a spacious prison, with the concrete floor and iron bars and crowds.


I just liked the angle.


This is Julia, me, and Emma in front of the tower. (Not my photo; saved off of Facebook.) The stars are because Sarkozy is the nominal head of the EU. We’ve had quite a few discussions of what exactly that means, but I’m still not quite clear. I just know they look like cheap cardboard.


Me, Megan, and Emma on the terrace at the Place Trocadero. (Also not my photo. Megan wanted a picture in front of the Tower and also wanted proof that she had friends.) Before us, in this spot, was a gothy teenage girl getting that “look I’m flying” shot by jumping off that wall. While I’ve always kind of wanted a picture like that, she looked like such an idiot doing it that I didn’t want to anymore.

After that, we headed over to where the newspaper said the Techno Parade would be passing. We got off the metro right into the crowd; it was insane, utterly unlike any parade I’ve ever been to. It wasn’t even – it was more a mobile discotheque.


These guys are sitting on top of a bus shelter. Later, there’d be more people, and they’d be dancing.


This is the first float – it came around the corner painfully slowly, pushing slowly through the crowds. There were men in front of it, holding out a rope that was tied to the sides of the truck, preventing people from getting close enough in front to get run over. This was one of our favorites, because the girls kind of look like hookers but also like they’re having fun, and also it was shooting confetti out of that funnel in front of the first dancing platform.


Confetti!


The girl in front in the neon looks like she’s really enjoying this. The outfits in the whole parade were INSANE. Wait’ll you see the later ones. We couldn’t help wondering, though: how do you get to be on one of the floats? I suspect you have to work for the club sponsoring it, but there were a LOT of young people on them, so I don’t know.


Bunny ears…


…and matching I <3 NY shirts.

I love how this all took place around this very dignified statue of something-that-it-was-too-crowded-for-me-to-find-out-what-it-was. Very European.

The crowd following one of the floats. As they came by, people would pour out into the groups behind them, following their favorites, to afterparties or even just till they got bored.

Most of the signs on the floats were in English. I’d like to say “bad English”, but sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear this phrase spoken by Americans. It’s a little awkward, but not unusual. Most of the songs were in English, too, though a few were German.

The speaker display on the back of a float.

People were really into this. There was also a LOT of public drunkenness – we saw a girl who looked about 14 dragging her friends down the street carrying an open vodka bottle in one hand. (The legal age here is 16 for fermented alcohol and 18 for distilled, though I don’t think there are really rules forbidding open containers of alcohol on public property, unlike in Providence.)

This was our favorite DJ. She was the first woman we’d seen, which was cool, and she was wearing a skirt, which was BRAVE. She was also playing our favorite of the music we’d heard.

It definitely helped that there was a sax player accompanying the techno. It sounds like a weird combination, but it was absolutely fantastic and worked perfectly. This video will give you a taste of what it sounds like, even if it’s not very good. The techno was significantly louder in person.


This guy was amazing. The other half of his face is painted white. This was not unusual.


This is awesome. They REALLY wanted to see the next float coming, I guess.


Hahahaha. The first of the awesome costumes ON the floats: a weird robot thing.


A full view of a float, so you can get an idea of what they looked like.


SpongeBob balloons. There were LOTS of things like this, aimed at small children (we think it’s connected to Ecstasy?)…


…and a disturbing number of ACTUAL small children.


The costumes continue! Evil Android and his pole dancer, apparently.


Techno hippies?


The float with the funny spinning wheels of light. Pretty cool, actually.


This float would be the last one we saw: it was stuck in front of us for about 10 minutes, until the hilarity and amazingness wore off and we all got headaches.

I’m not sure what the point of this costume was, but it amused me greatly.


Not as much as this guy, though. Another thing that reminds me of Doctor Who. I’m such a nerd.


On the other hand, HE’S the one wearing a pointless gas mask and leaning upside-down off the side of a float in a Techno Parade. I’m not sure I have anything to worry about. I think I’d like to have met this guy, though.


Everyone in the crowd was jumping and dancing and going insane. It was utterly marvelous.




I leave you with the video I took while that float was parked in front of us. The sound quality is horrible, and my hands aren’t very steady, but you get the idea.

Biarritz, hopefully Thursday! Maybe Friday, if it takes too long to write, but still!

(PS: FAIL, blogger. UTTER, EPIC FAIL. It took me TWO HOURS to put the photos in and post this entry, partly because I had to do it twice and partly because it just takes forever. Also, it kept messing with my formatting. If this looks anything like I want it to look, it'll be a miracle.)