A walk through the Latin Quarter inspired me to make another short video about the ancient Roman amphitheater in the neighborhood, and a visit to the Paris Plages event this summer inspired me to make a video about that.
The Roman amphitheater is called the Arènes de Lutèce by Parisians, and is about 2000 years old. It was completely covered over and forgotten more than a millennium ago, then was rediscovered in the 19th century. Part of it had been destroyed by then, but most of it was still intact, and it has now been fully excavated and partially restored. It is surprisingly well built.
For some reason, it feels a bit eerie to visit this amphitheater and see people playing soccer in it, perhaps because there were probably people doing exactly the same thing there twenty centuries ago. Once again, it makes me think of the stability of Paris, and how the more Paris changes, the more it's the same. The neighborhood around the amphitheater is lively and popular these days, and so it was two thousand years ago. As I walked around the amphitheater, which was in shadow as the sun prepared to set, I reminded myself that the light, the weather, and the people were essentially the same way back when, with one of the few differences being that the people playing in the amphitheater would have been yelling at each other in Latin in the old days, instead of the distorted descendant of Latin that they use today (i.e., French).
The east side of the main arena in this amphitheater contains structures that supposedly supported a stage in the days of the Romans. And there are cages around the periphery of the playing area that supposedly held wild animals for certain spectacles. Nobody's quite sure, but that's what the specialists say. It's not hard to believe, especially when you are standing in front of these things and looking at them.
Anyway … this summer I briefly visited Paris Plages, the subject of my other video. This event was created by the city government to entertain Parisians who couldn't or wouldn't leave the city on vacation in summer. Originally it consisted of closing the Georges Pompidou expressway that runs along the north bank of the Seine River, and then dumping tons of sand on the expressway, along with beach chairs and umbrellas, so that Parisians could enjoy a sort of beach of their own on the banks of the river. It was very successful from the beginning, and has become a tradition in Paris. Today the event extends beyond the banks of the Seine, but I only visited and filmed the part along the river, which is still the major part of the event.
Paris Plages isn't intended for tourists, although they are welcome to attend if they want. Most tourists don't know about it. Tour companies and guide books don't talk about the event because it's temporary and more oriented to the locals, so sometimes tourists just stare at it, wondering what all the activity down by the river is all about. The recorded patter on the excursion boats on the Seine doesn't mention Paris Plages, either, so tourists often look bewildered as they pass the artificial beaches on their boat cruises.
These days, it's not just sand and umbrellas. There are snack bars (dramatically overpriced), some activities for kids such as playgrounds, a real swimming pool, some concerts and live music, a few sit-down restaurants, and lots and lots of beach chairs and hammocks. There are misting devices at some points to cool people off when it gets hot (although July of 2011 was unseasonably cool). Back in 2003, when a recording-breaking heat wave drove temperatures on the street up to 110° F during the day, people actually slept on the ground during the night at Paris Plages, in order to escape the stifling heat of their apartments (which generally are not air-conditioned in Paris).
I only visited Paris Plages a few times this year. I actually preferred the cooler weather, though. When it's really hot, I stay at home with the A/C running, rather than go outside and suffer heat exhaustion. But July this year was unusually cool, and August was warmer than normal, but not like 2003.
Paris Plages runs every summer from roughly July 20 to August 20.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
A Moveable Feast redux
I'm not a fan of Ernest Hemingway, but I do have a well-worn copy of A Moveable Feast, his semi-fictional account of his time in Paris in the 1920s. I bought the book long ago because it's about Paris, not because it was written by Hemingway. It's the only work of his that I've ever read, and it will probably remain so, because I don't much care for his writing style, and if anything the book has discouraged me from reading anything else he has written.
Hemingway was depressed when he wrote the book, forty years after the period that he describes therein, and his depression casts a dark shadow on the entire text, like a huge storm cloud. There are some snippets of humor in the book, but for the most part it's just terribly morose, and this despite the fact that it's about my favorite city—and despite the fact that presumably the period Hemingway describes in the book was happy for him at the time he lived it. Still, it talks about Paris enough to be interesting, in moderate doses.
Of course, the city has changed since he lived here, greatly in certain ways but hardly at all in others. I don't think goats and their owners still ply the streets advertising fresh goat milk, for example … although I do hear the unmistakable braying of a goat in the street outside about once a week, and one of these days I'm going to peek out the window when I hear it to see if there really is someone still selling raw goat milk in the streets of Paris. Hemingway also talks about septic tanks being emptied by honey wagons in the 1920s, whereas I think that just about everyone is now linked to the extensive municipal sewer system that the city has had since long before Hemingway lived here. But there again, I do see trucks that look exactly like those described by him parked in front of certain buildings from time to time, so I do still wonder. It's true what they say about Paris: the more it changes, the more it remains the same.
Once of these days, I have a project to visit each and every spot mentioned by Hemingway in the book and document them all in some way, just for fun. Some of them have hardly changed at all; others have changed greatly. In an old picture of Hemingway with his son, I immediately recognized the street corner on which they were sitting, even though the photo was presumably taken nearly a hundred years ago.
A problem with A Moveable Feast is that the author likes to describe everything he eats and drinks in detail, which makes me a bit queasy. He never seems to drink anything that does not contain a great deal of alcohol, which further alienates me, as I don't do drugs. He seems to enjoy physical sensations, because he talks about eating, drinking, the environmental conditions around him as he walks about the city, and sex with his wife a lot. These discussions don't do much for me and make his book less interesting.
He also describes his poverty at the time he lived in Paris. In reality he wasn't poor at all, but apparently he thought it more interesting to exaggerate in the book. Unfortunately, I really am poor, and being reminded of the unpleasantness of poverty does not enhance my enjoyment of the book.
Still, I like the book, because it's about Paris and describes Paris in considerable detail. I don't have too many books like that, outside the category of guide books, so it's entertaining to go back to the book and read a few pages from time to time.
Hemingway was depressed when he wrote the book, forty years after the period that he describes therein, and his depression casts a dark shadow on the entire text, like a huge storm cloud. There are some snippets of humor in the book, but for the most part it's just terribly morose, and this despite the fact that it's about my favorite city—and despite the fact that presumably the period Hemingway describes in the book was happy for him at the time he lived it. Still, it talks about Paris enough to be interesting, in moderate doses.
Of course, the city has changed since he lived here, greatly in certain ways but hardly at all in others. I don't think goats and their owners still ply the streets advertising fresh goat milk, for example … although I do hear the unmistakable braying of a goat in the street outside about once a week, and one of these days I'm going to peek out the window when I hear it to see if there really is someone still selling raw goat milk in the streets of Paris. Hemingway also talks about septic tanks being emptied by honey wagons in the 1920s, whereas I think that just about everyone is now linked to the extensive municipal sewer system that the city has had since long before Hemingway lived here. But there again, I do see trucks that look exactly like those described by him parked in front of certain buildings from time to time, so I do still wonder. It's true what they say about Paris: the more it changes, the more it remains the same.
Once of these days, I have a project to visit each and every spot mentioned by Hemingway in the book and document them all in some way, just for fun. Some of them have hardly changed at all; others have changed greatly. In an old picture of Hemingway with his son, I immediately recognized the street corner on which they were sitting, even though the photo was presumably taken nearly a hundred years ago.
A problem with A Moveable Feast is that the author likes to describe everything he eats and drinks in detail, which makes me a bit queasy. He never seems to drink anything that does not contain a great deal of alcohol, which further alienates me, as I don't do drugs. He seems to enjoy physical sensations, because he talks about eating, drinking, the environmental conditions around him as he walks about the city, and sex with his wife a lot. These discussions don't do much for me and make his book less interesting.
He also describes his poverty at the time he lived in Paris. In reality he wasn't poor at all, but apparently he thought it more interesting to exaggerate in the book. Unfortunately, I really am poor, and being reminded of the unpleasantness of poverty does not enhance my enjoyment of the book.
Still, I like the book, because it's about Paris and describes Paris in considerable detail. I don't have too many books like that, outside the category of guide books, so it's entertaining to go back to the book and read a few pages from time to time.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Some further strolls through Paris
The weather has been unseasonably warm but not too extreme, thank goodness, with many nice days, and too little rain to break the drought. I've produced two new videos, one a rather long video of the rue du Bac, and the other a short one of the infamous rue Cler.
For the former video, I walked continuously from one end of the rue du Bac to the other. This is a small and very charming street in the chichi Seventh District of Paris, running roughly north-south. It is lined by many cool shops and restaurants, and it caters entirely to locals. There are very few tourists on the street, which is nice. I follow the street from where it begins on the rue de Sèvres, next to the Bon Marché department store, up to its northern end on the Seine River. It is intended as one of my “you-are-there” videos, and I think that objective has been achieved.
The other video is a very short video showing Rick Steves’ sacred rue Cler, also in the Seventh. I show it before dawn, though, which is a slight departure from the norm. It's very quiet at that time of day, with no locals and no tourists clutching their little green guide books. I have no special affection for the rue Cler, but I know that many Americans worship it because Rick Steves has told them to.
I like to prepare videos that simply show a walk along a street, with no voice narration or music, because it's about as close as one can get to actually being in Paris. Originally I thought about adding music, which requires expensive licensing, but feedback from viewers of my videos has made it clear that they are more appreciated without music and with only ambient noise. In Paris, ambient noise generally means traffic noise, but these latest two videos are mercifully light on the traffic noise, becaue the rue du Bac simply doesn't have much through traffic, and the rue Cler is nearly silent (like most of Paris off the major avenues) before sunrise.
For the former video, I walked continuously from one end of the rue du Bac to the other. This is a small and very charming street in the chichi Seventh District of Paris, running roughly north-south. It is lined by many cool shops and restaurants, and it caters entirely to locals. There are very few tourists on the street, which is nice. I follow the street from where it begins on the rue de Sèvres, next to the Bon Marché department store, up to its northern end on the Seine River. It is intended as one of my “you-are-there” videos, and I think that objective has been achieved.
The other video is a very short video showing Rick Steves’ sacred rue Cler, also in the Seventh. I show it before dawn, though, which is a slight departure from the norm. It's very quiet at that time of day, with no locals and no tourists clutching their little green guide books. I have no special affection for the rue Cler, but I know that many Americans worship it because Rick Steves has told them to.
I like to prepare videos that simply show a walk along a street, with no voice narration or music, because it's about as close as one can get to actually being in Paris. Originally I thought about adding music, which requires expensive licensing, but feedback from viewers of my videos has made it clear that they are more appreciated without music and with only ambient noise. In Paris, ambient noise generally means traffic noise, but these latest two videos are mercifully light on the traffic noise, becaue the rue du Bac simply doesn't have much through traffic, and the rue Cler is nearly silent (like most of Paris off the major avenues) before sunrise.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Twenty Minutes at the Louvre
I've finished my masterpiece on the Louvre, Twenty Minutes at the Louvre, which I've uploaded to YouTube. It's a look at the logistics of getting into the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, along the standard tourist track. I was a bit more imaginative than usual in preparation of the titles. Watching the crowds trudge through the museum in the video is rather tiring, but rest assured that it's even more tiring in real life (especially when it's 90° F inside the museum).
Earlier this month, I splurged on a ticket to the Louvre. I don't normally visit the Louvre on my own, since there really isn't anything there that I'm interested in seeing, but on this occasion I wanted to make a short video about the museum. I particularly wanted to show the “Greatest Hits” of the Louvre, meaning the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. The ticket is only ten euro, which is a pretty good deal in exchange for the opportunity to see a quarter-million works of art, but my budget is so limited that even this expenditure counts as a great extravagance.
As with all major tourist attractions, tourists visiting the Louvre follow a well-worn, well-defined pattern that does not vary over time. Most tourists enter the Louvre through the main entrance under I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid in the central courtyard (the “Napoléon courtyard”) of the museum. They do not know that there are several entrances to the Louvre, all of which are far less crowded than the main entrance. They wait up to two hours or so in line just to get past security at the front door of the pyramid, then they wait in line again inside the pyramid to buy tickets. Of course I shot some views of the long lines for my video.
The tourists do not know that there's another street level entrance 200 feet away that allows them to get tickets, enter the museum, and see the Mona Lisa in about five minutes flat, with no waiting. And another entrance, in the shopping center beneath the courtyard, is nearly as fast, with handy ticket machines and a very short security line. I show this in my video, too.
Tourists going through the main entrance or the shopping center entrance end up under the pyramid, which is below street level. From there, they have to climb multiple flights of stairs to get up to the second floor, where the Mona Lisa is. There are lots of signs and to some extent they can just allow themselves to be carried along by the current of humanity flowing towards the famous painting. In high season, the temperatures in the museum are in the 80s or above (Fahrenheit), with no humidity, no air conditioning, and no air movement. I've seen people close to passing out in the heat and crowds.
Once you get up to the Grand Gallery (as seen in The Da Vinci Code), it's a short walk to the Mona Lisa. This painting, the Louvre's priceless golden goose, is mounted behind bullet-proof glass in a gigantic wall all by itself, with a sturdy wooden railing in front of it to prevent people from standing too close. There's always a crowd in front of the painting. Most people looking at it are tired tourists trying to get their own photo of the Mona Lisa to bring home (apparently there's something special about a photo of the Mona Lisa that you've taken yourself, even though millions of better photos of the painting can be found all over the Web). Since they cannot see the painting directly because of the people in front of them, they hold the cameras above their heads to get pictures. Once they have pictures, they linger for a minute or two, and then they leave.
The museum establishes one-way traffic lanes to route people to and from the Mona Lisa, so you can't go back the way you came after seeing it. Instead, you get flushed into a different set of rooms filled with French painters. There are a few moderately famous paintings here, such as the Coronation of Napoléon, and after you pass through these rooms, you get a good view of the Winged Victory of Samothrace (the goddess Nike). Then you go down multiple staircases again to reach the Venus de Milo, a bit further east in a street-level wing featuring ancient Greek art. The Venus de Milo also has a crowd around it, but it's already much smaller than that in front of the Mona Lisa, because the Venus de Milo is far less known.
Beyond the Venus de Milo, things get really quiet. In other words, once you've followed the hordes to the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, the crowds disperse. Most people leave the museum and go to Starbucks or somewhere else to rehydrate and eat before they collapse, but a few press on. In any case, once you move beyond the Greatest Hits, the entire atmosphere of the museum changes, and it starts to look a lot more like the quiet, calm place you'd expect a museum to be. Entire wings of the museum have hardly anyone in them, and most of the people wandering around outside the beaten path have at least some interest in classic fine art, otherwise they would have headed for the exits as soon as they saw the two main attractions.
I include all this in my video, including some snippets of the quieter parts of the museum, for contrast. Lots of people take pictures of the art in the museum, but nobody takes pictures of the crowds and the exhausting logistics of visiting the museum, so that's a niche I can fill.
Oh, and if you are curious, yes, you can photograph and film the permanent collections of the Louvre freely. You are simply requested not to use flash. The Louvre did try to outlaw photography for a while, but that only lasted for a year before they had to give in. The Orsay museum also outlawed photography a few years ago, but they haven't rolled back the change (yet).
Earlier this month, I splurged on a ticket to the Louvre. I don't normally visit the Louvre on my own, since there really isn't anything there that I'm interested in seeing, but on this occasion I wanted to make a short video about the museum. I particularly wanted to show the “Greatest Hits” of the Louvre, meaning the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. The ticket is only ten euro, which is a pretty good deal in exchange for the opportunity to see a quarter-million works of art, but my budget is so limited that even this expenditure counts as a great extravagance.
As with all major tourist attractions, tourists visiting the Louvre follow a well-worn, well-defined pattern that does not vary over time. Most tourists enter the Louvre through the main entrance under I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid in the central courtyard (the “Napoléon courtyard”) of the museum. They do not know that there are several entrances to the Louvre, all of which are far less crowded than the main entrance. They wait up to two hours or so in line just to get past security at the front door of the pyramid, then they wait in line again inside the pyramid to buy tickets. Of course I shot some views of the long lines for my video.
The tourists do not know that there's another street level entrance 200 feet away that allows them to get tickets, enter the museum, and see the Mona Lisa in about five minutes flat, with no waiting. And another entrance, in the shopping center beneath the courtyard, is nearly as fast, with handy ticket machines and a very short security line. I show this in my video, too.
Tourists going through the main entrance or the shopping center entrance end up under the pyramid, which is below street level. From there, they have to climb multiple flights of stairs to get up to the second floor, where the Mona Lisa is. There are lots of signs and to some extent they can just allow themselves to be carried along by the current of humanity flowing towards the famous painting. In high season, the temperatures in the museum are in the 80s or above (Fahrenheit), with no humidity, no air conditioning, and no air movement. I've seen people close to passing out in the heat and crowds.
Once you get up to the Grand Gallery (as seen in The Da Vinci Code), it's a short walk to the Mona Lisa. This painting, the Louvre's priceless golden goose, is mounted behind bullet-proof glass in a gigantic wall all by itself, with a sturdy wooden railing in front of it to prevent people from standing too close. There's always a crowd in front of the painting. Most people looking at it are tired tourists trying to get their own photo of the Mona Lisa to bring home (apparently there's something special about a photo of the Mona Lisa that you've taken yourself, even though millions of better photos of the painting can be found all over the Web). Since they cannot see the painting directly because of the people in front of them, they hold the cameras above their heads to get pictures. Once they have pictures, they linger for a minute or two, and then they leave.
The museum establishes one-way traffic lanes to route people to and from the Mona Lisa, so you can't go back the way you came after seeing it. Instead, you get flushed into a different set of rooms filled with French painters. There are a few moderately famous paintings here, such as the Coronation of Napoléon, and after you pass through these rooms, you get a good view of the Winged Victory of Samothrace (the goddess Nike). Then you go down multiple staircases again to reach the Venus de Milo, a bit further east in a street-level wing featuring ancient Greek art. The Venus de Milo also has a crowd around it, but it's already much smaller than that in front of the Mona Lisa, because the Venus de Milo is far less known.
Beyond the Venus de Milo, things get really quiet. In other words, once you've followed the hordes to the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, the crowds disperse. Most people leave the museum and go to Starbucks or somewhere else to rehydrate and eat before they collapse, but a few press on. In any case, once you move beyond the Greatest Hits, the entire atmosphere of the museum changes, and it starts to look a lot more like the quiet, calm place you'd expect a museum to be. Entire wings of the museum have hardly anyone in them, and most of the people wandering around outside the beaten path have at least some interest in classic fine art, otherwise they would have headed for the exits as soon as they saw the two main attractions.
I include all this in my video, including some snippets of the quieter parts of the museum, for contrast. Lots of people take pictures of the art in the museum, but nobody takes pictures of the crowds and the exhausting logistics of visiting the museum, so that's a niche I can fill.
Oh, and if you are curious, yes, you can photograph and film the permanent collections of the Louvre freely. You are simply requested not to use flash. The Louvre did try to outlaw photography for a while, but that only lasted for a year before they had to give in. The Orsay museum also outlawed photography a few years ago, but they haven't rolled back the change (yet).
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Parisian Statues of Liberty
The weather has often been seasonal so far this summer, which is a welcome change from the standard succession of dry heat waves. It has even rained quite a bit at times. We need the rain, so I can’t complain, although I’d prefer that it rain during the night, rather than during the day when I sometimes need to go out.
I took a picture of the Eiffel Tower from the Mirabeau bridge recently. This bridge is about a mile downstream and southwest of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a good spot for a photo because it shows both the tower and the Grenelle bridge, and the Grenelle bridge is interesting because there's a 1/5-size replica of the Statue of Liberty on the central island on which the bridge is anchored. So you get both the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower in one shot, which is great for confusing tourists and others who don’t know the city well.
There are actually several Statues of Liberty in Paris. One is next to this bridge, as I’ve just mentioned. It's not an exact replica of the one in NYC, but it’s similar—it was a gift to the city from a group of American expats in 1885. Another is much smaller, and in the Luxembourg Gardens, and it’s not an identical replica, either. It was a gift from the sculptor himself (Bartholdi) to the City of Paris.
And that’s not all … there’s a full-size replica of the flame of the statue in NYC alone, at the intersection on the place de l’Alma, where Princess Diana died. After she was killed, people thought the flame was a monument to her, but no, it has nothing at all to do with her. So many people left junk at the site that they put a little rope around it, although it appears that most of her groupies have grown up or forgotten her because there isn’t much junk around the flame these days.
If you’ve ever seen Roman Polanski’s film Frantic (which is a moderately interesting film), the final shootout occurs around the first of these replicas, near the bridge.
Excursion boats on the river, like the Bateaux Mouches and the Bateaux Parisiens, used to go all the way out to the statue at the Grenelle bridge on their 70-minute river cruises, but after an accident a few years ago in which several boats bumped into each other, this part of the cruises was removed. Too bad, as you could get some really nice shots from the boats. I don’t know if any other companies pass by the statue.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Latest videos, and Bastille Day
One advantage of digital technology is that it costs essentially nothing to produce digital photos or videos, once you have the equipment. This allows me to go out and take pictures or videos freely … one of the few activities that I enjoy that doesn't cost lots of money. As my school has given me very few hours of teaching lately, I've been shooting more videos in order to take my mind off the fact that fewer hours mean even less money to live on.
I finally did a video on the Promenade Plantée. It’s 23 minutes long, which is about ¼ of the time required to walk it in real life. It’s the only video that someone has disliked so far. Maybe it’s a bit on the long side. But I did want to show how the parkway looks. And much of it is in my hand-hand traveling “you-are-there” style.
I’ve also done a throwaway video on the rue de l’Échaudé, a tiny, quiet street in the Latin Quarter just slightly off the beaten track of tourists. Despite its proximity to the touristy areas, it's usually almost deserted. I selected it just because I liked the quiet of the street; it has no particular sights of interest.
And I’ve also finished a video on the Marché d’Aligre, a market on the east side of town. People talk about it in the same way they talk about the rue Cler (i.e., they exaggerate a lot), but it's really a street market like any other in Paris, and street markets are legion in the city. I suppose visitors come to the city, see one street market, and are struck by its charm, and assume that it is unique. But Paris has street markets in every neighborhood, and they all have that same charm … that’s one of the attractions of Paris.
I found many of the merchants at the market to be very hostile. France is a country that is hostile to photographers generally, which is unfortunate since it is very photogenic. Some degree of paranoia is par for the course whenever you take pictures in public. But this market was worse than most. I felt as though I was not welcome there, whereas at most street markets the merchants seem to be happy to see customers. Maybe I looked too European, although there were plenty of customers there who looked very French. The merchants seemed mostly to be of recent immigrant ancestry, so perhaps they regarded those who are obviously not of the same ancestry with suspicion. They weren’t all that way, but enough of them were like that that I don’t have any pressing desire to shop there in the near future. I just wanted to get it on video because some visitors to Paris ask about it, having read wonderful hyperbole about it in a travel guide somewhere.
In other news … today is Bastille Day, the French equivalent of the Fourth of July in the United States. There’s a huge parade on the Champs each year on this date, although it’s essentially a military parade and some French people question the appropriateness of a strictly military parade these days. There are also huge firework shows throughout France in the evening, especially the big one at the Eiffel Tower. The crowds watching the parade are enormous, so I’ve never even tried to go to see it in person. And in the evening, the city is filled with drunks who use the holiday (and every other holiday) as an excuse to binge drink. So I just stay home on Bastille Day. It’s a day off work, which is all that matters.
I finally did a video on the Promenade Plantée. It’s 23 minutes long, which is about ¼ of the time required to walk it in real life. It’s the only video that someone has disliked so far. Maybe it’s a bit on the long side. But I did want to show how the parkway looks. And much of it is in my hand-hand traveling “you-are-there” style.
I’ve also done a throwaway video on the rue de l’Échaudé, a tiny, quiet street in the Latin Quarter just slightly off the beaten track of tourists. Despite its proximity to the touristy areas, it's usually almost deserted. I selected it just because I liked the quiet of the street; it has no particular sights of interest.
And I’ve also finished a video on the Marché d’Aligre, a market on the east side of town. People talk about it in the same way they talk about the rue Cler (i.e., they exaggerate a lot), but it's really a street market like any other in Paris, and street markets are legion in the city. I suppose visitors come to the city, see one street market, and are struck by its charm, and assume that it is unique. But Paris has street markets in every neighborhood, and they all have that same charm … that’s one of the attractions of Paris.
I found many of the merchants at the market to be very hostile. France is a country that is hostile to photographers generally, which is unfortunate since it is very photogenic. Some degree of paranoia is par for the course whenever you take pictures in public. But this market was worse than most. I felt as though I was not welcome there, whereas at most street markets the merchants seem to be happy to see customers. Maybe I looked too European, although there were plenty of customers there who looked very French. The merchants seemed mostly to be of recent immigrant ancestry, so perhaps they regarded those who are obviously not of the same ancestry with suspicion. They weren’t all that way, but enough of them were like that that I don’t have any pressing desire to shop there in the near future. I just wanted to get it on video because some visitors to Paris ask about it, having read wonderful hyperbole about it in a travel guide somewhere.
In other news … today is Bastille Day, the French equivalent of the Fourth of July in the United States. There’s a huge parade on the Champs each year on this date, although it’s essentially a military parade and some French people question the appropriateness of a strictly military parade these days. There are also huge firework shows throughout France in the evening, especially the big one at the Eiffel Tower. The crowds watching the parade are enormous, so I’ve never even tried to go to see it in person. And in the evening, the city is filled with drunks who use the holiday (and every other holiday) as an excuse to binge drink. So I just stay home on Bastille Day. It’s a day off work, which is all that matters.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
I come to save snails, not to eat them
I was walking home through the snooty Sixteenth for a change, on a day that was becoming increasingly warm despite heavy rains the night before, and I happened across a fleet of snails trying to cross the asphalt sidewalk in front of me. There were a dozen of them or so, all moving at a snail’s pace (of course). The asphalt was dry and extremely hot, and I became concerned that these snails would not make it to safety before dehydrating, as they depend upon their snail-slime when moving, and the supply of that is in turn closely related to their hydration.
So I hit upon an idea. I went to the first supermarket I could find and bought a jug of water. Then I returned to the spot with the many snails and poured some water around them on the sidewalk in order to provide a non-dehydrating path to safety. A man passing by suggested that they might drown, however, which seemed plausible (my knowledge of snail respiration being rather limited), and he commented that it might be easier to just carry them to safety. Additionally he suggested that a nearby planter might be the source of the snails, as well as their salvation. The planter was about a meter off the ground, and it was hard to imagine how the snails could have made the trip from the planter to the pavement, but it was the only place nearby that might have harbored snails, as far as I could tell.
So this man and I picked up some snails and carefully put them in the planter. Some of the snails had their shells broken, but they were not squished, which would be consistent with a fall from the planter onto the pavement. Perhaps they tried to escape flooding in the planter during the rain (?) and were unable to hold on to the sheer, textured concrete wall of the planter. Anyway, I returned all the snails I found, including the ones with broken shells, although I wasn't optimistic about the future of the latter. I then poured the remaining water around the planter so that it might remain moist for the snails benefit.
I don't know how many ultimately survived. But just leaving them to die on the hot asphalt was out of the question. I was surprised that anyone offered to help, but perhaps the man who helped simply thought he was humoring a psychotic or something. French people are usually very diffident, and are not the type to lend helping hands to strangers.
I don't know the species of snail that I found. They looked a lot like the kind that end up on people's plates at some restaurants. These, hopefully, will lead a happy and unmolested life, if they survived the encounter with the hot asphalt.
(By the way, sidewalks in Paris are paved with asphalt, not concrete. The roadway is usually asphalt, too, although cobblestones are still quite common in Paris, thanks to their easy maintenance and superior wear characteristics.)
So I hit upon an idea. I went to the first supermarket I could find and bought a jug of water. Then I returned to the spot with the many snails and poured some water around them on the sidewalk in order to provide a non-dehydrating path to safety. A man passing by suggested that they might drown, however, which seemed plausible (my knowledge of snail respiration being rather limited), and he commented that it might be easier to just carry them to safety. Additionally he suggested that a nearby planter might be the source of the snails, as well as their salvation. The planter was about a meter off the ground, and it was hard to imagine how the snails could have made the trip from the planter to the pavement, but it was the only place nearby that might have harbored snails, as far as I could tell.
So this man and I picked up some snails and carefully put them in the planter. Some of the snails had their shells broken, but they were not squished, which would be consistent with a fall from the planter onto the pavement. Perhaps they tried to escape flooding in the planter during the rain (?) and were unable to hold on to the sheer, textured concrete wall of the planter. Anyway, I returned all the snails I found, including the ones with broken shells, although I wasn't optimistic about the future of the latter. I then poured the remaining water around the planter so that it might remain moist for the snails benefit.
I don't know how many ultimately survived. But just leaving them to die on the hot asphalt was out of the question. I was surprised that anyone offered to help, but perhaps the man who helped simply thought he was humoring a psychotic or something. French people are usually very diffident, and are not the type to lend helping hands to strangers.
I don't know the species of snail that I found. They looked a lot like the kind that end up on people's plates at some restaurants. These, hopefully, will lead a happy and unmolested life, if they survived the encounter with the hot asphalt.
(By the way, sidewalks in Paris are paved with asphalt, not concrete. The roadway is usually asphalt, too, although cobblestones are still quite common in Paris, thanks to their easy maintenance and superior wear characteristics.)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
A&F on the Champs, assault at the Lipp, nuclear power
A few days ago, a new Abercrombie & Fitch store opened on the Champs-Élysées. The Champs is the standard location for flagship stores of famous brands. I was moderately surprised to see a line in front of the store, which occupies the very pretty building that used to belong to Thai Airways. I'm not sure what the store contains that justifies waiting for an hour in line, but what do I know?The store has an interior garden protected by an ornate gate, and a sign next to the gate says that A&F was founded in 1892. The sign is designed to look hundreds of years old, even though it has only been there for only a few days. I suppose some people will actually believe that the store is more than a century old. But today's A&F is only 23 years old at most, not 119. The original A&F went bankrupt 40 years ago, and today's Abercrombie & Fitch was part of the vast kingdom of brands owned by Limited Brands until 1998 (it is independent now). This is the store that sells push-up bikinis to seven-year-olds, something that David Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch could have scarcely even conceived back in 1892.
At the gate of the store complex, there are bouncers/greeters of a sort. At first, I thought they might be hobos hired off the streets to work at the store, but then I noticed that they were all wearing the same hobo-garb, and it dawned on me that it was actually a store uniform, right down to the left shirttail strategically left outside the jeans. They still looked like hobos to me, but these were hobos who were probably wearing $400 worth of clothing. Marketing is a strange business, and the influence of Limited Brands, expert in that domain, can be seen here. I imagine that current A&F management has taken that further.Anyway, moving right along … a few days after this, on a very nice afternoon in the city, I was assaulted by an employee of the Brasserie Lipp, right in front of that famous coffee shop. I was taking a picture of a sign at the entrance of the restaurant that emphasized a dress code, which is a rather quaint and over-the-top anachronism for a coffee shop, no matter how famous it might be. As I took my picture (video, actually) from the sidewalk in front of the place, a man scampered out of the restaurant and struck my camera. He insisted that I couldn't take a picture without permission, even though the sign is visible from public right of way and is designed to be so (not much point in keeping a dress code secret until after someone enters the restaurant, is there?). He didn't seem to understand this. His devotion to his job was as touching as his lack of intelligence was worrisome. You have to really like your job to risk a prison term for it. Of course, the camera was running, so it recorded the assault. I suggested that a video of his assault on YouTube might draw a lot more views than a simple picture of the sign, and he said he didn't care about it being posted to YouTube—which sounded like an autorisation de publication to me. (Unfortunately, I can’t stand the sound of my own voice, which is audible on the recording, so I probably won't bother posting it.) Judging from his fin-de-siècle personal grooming (which makes it easy to ID him in the video), I rather doubt that he'd care about anything that runs on newfangled electricity, apart from cameras pointed at his dress-code sign.
The last time something like this happened was in 1997, when a rent-a-cop in front of Fouquet's assaulted me because I was measuring the intensity of light on the restaurant terrace with a light meter (which he incorrectly believed to be a video camera). There again, I was on the sidewalk, doing nothing actionable or illegal, but Robocop made physical threats against me just the same.
Sometimes I consider filing a complaint against these losers, but why should I have to spend time and money on legal remedies just to get people to behave? And even if they behave temporarily, they're just going to make the same mistakes again, because they're too stupid to learn not to.
I do note that both Fouquet's and Lipp are among a handful of exceptionally snooty establishments that somehow still remain in business in Paris. Fouquet's used to turn away unaccompanied women, and forbid them at the bar (not sure if this is still in effect), and Lipp segregates guests by social rank. And so on. Not the sort of place I'd frequent, but some people like that.
It's unfortunate that France is simultaneously so photogenic and yet so hostile to photographers.
Today I was walking past the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), when I came across a small anti-nuclear demonstration. The demonstrators were demanding that France abandon its nuclear power program. Never mind that 85% of electricity in France is generated by nuclear plants, with a spotless safety record. Some of the demonstrators actually suggested that France return to coal, oil, and gas-fired power plants. They must be very paranoid indeed about nuclear power to prefer the myriad disadvantages of fossil-fuel plants to the cleanliness and safety of nuclear power. It all seemed very irrational to me—especially when I noticed that many of the demonstrators (some of whom had dressed up in cute costumes with cute props) were puffing away on cigarettes. In any case, I made a brief video of the demonstration, which you can see here.
One thing curious about this demonstration was that I noticed no real media presence. I couldn't find any mention of it in the newspapers. I guess it wasn't considered newsworthy. It was a rather small protest, but not so small that I'd expect the media to ignore it entirely.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Return to the Promenade Plantée
I went back to visit the Promenade Plantée a few days ago, which I haven't visited in ages. It's a strip of parkway on the east side of Paris, built about 25 years ago, along the path of an abandoned railway that used to end near the Bastille. The western end is elevated, the eastern end is below ground level. When I first visited it, long ago, most of the trees along the parkway were freshly planted saplings; today, they've grown quite large, and the parkway is a welcome and refreshing change of scenery from the concrete and asphalt that dominates Paris.I was inspired to return there by recent references to the parkway among friends and acquaintances. In fact, I decided to make a little video that shows it, which I'm still editing.
It takes 45 minutes to an hour to walk the parkway. At the western end is the Viaduc des Arts. It's a converted viaduct for the old railway, with a parkway on top, where the tracks used to be, and shops beneath the arches of the viaduct at street level. The shops are heavily slanted towards skilled craftsmen, such as makers of musical instruments, ceramic art, etc. Many of the shops are quite interesting and even a bit eccentric. At several points, there are stairs that allow you to access the parkway on top of the viaduct. The parkway is a twisty central sidewalk surrounded by plants of all sorts, with occasional landscaping decorations such as fountains, plus many benches where you can sit as long as you want. The height of the viaduct isolates it a bit from the surroundings and makes it quieter than the sidewalks at street level.
As you walk east, the viaduc eventually yields to some interesting paths that cut directly through apartment buildings. These eventually lead to the Jardin de Reuilly, a very nice little park located at the site of a station on the old railway line. The line is gone but the station has been preserved. A suspension bridge leads over the main grassy area of the park. This park is interesting because it's the first place in Paris that has a free public water fountain that dispenses fizzy water instead of flat tap water. The fizzy water is refrigerated and carbonated because … well, just because the city wanted to offer free fizzy water to its citizens. People come to fill their water bottles with the free sparkling water. There's free ordinary water, too. Both dispensers get their supplies from the tap water network, but making the water fizzy makes it more fun to drink.Continuing east from the park, you go through a small commerce area with mostly restaurants that is level with the surrounding streets. Beyond that, the street level rises, and the Promenade Plantée continues below street level. Most of this is in a kind of open valley where the trains used to run, but there are also a few tunnels. It's even quieter than the elevated portion of the parkway. There are usually lots of people throughout the parkway, but the eastern end has somewhat fewer people than the western end much of the time. There are lots of joggers and cyclists (there are bicycle paths to keep them apart).
After walking below ground for a while, you come to another park, and the path splits up in several directions, only one of which actually continues east, so you have to make your way carefully if you wish to continue following the parkway. Beyond that is a quieter portion of the parkway well below street level.
Following a relatively short walk in this area, you come to a dead end with a spiral staircase. A barrier prevents you from going further east. This is right near the city limit, just short of the boulevard Périphérique (beltway) that surrounds Paris. The staircase leads back up to street level, to a small path that runs parallel to the beltway. Beyond the barrier, the tunnels continue for a short distance and then dead-end in the suburb of Saint Mandé, which is just northwest of the Bois de Vincennes, one of the two massive parks that sit on either side of Paris and belong to the city (the other one is the Bois de Boulogne, on the west side).All in all it's a nice one-hour stroll. I walked the parkway all the way to its eastern end, then walked back to the Bastille and then home through the city streets.
I was particularly struck by how much the trees have grown. It really looks like a jungle at some points, but that's a nice change of pace.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
More on French film
I've passed some posters advertising a new animated science-fiction film, The Prodigies, and I was surprised to see that it was produced by a French company. The French film industry can just barely finance the standard-issue French slice-of-life film, so to see a feature-length computer-animated film in 3D from a French company implies that either some truly wealthy backers were miraculously found, or someone broke the piggy bank for a one-off extravaganza.
France has one of the world's largest film industries, but it still trails way behind Hollywood and Bollywood. It's hard to find financial backing in France, and one of the most common sources of backing turns out to be a semi-government agency, upon which French filmmakers have come to depend (to an unhealthy extent, in my opinion). Often financing is a hodgepodge of nickels and dimes from a long list of partners, all of which seem to require that their logos appear in a hokey list across the bottom of the movie posters. The government has a taste for “artsy” films, which further complicates things, because it makes it harder to finance a film that might actually make money at the box office.
Another complication is the frequent leaning towards the auteur model of filmmaking, in which one guy (it's almost invariably a guy) writes, directs, acts, edits, and does just about everything else for a film, giving him complete control over the result. The problem is that there are probably only about five people in the world who have sufficiently diverse and significant talent to undertake all of those roles at once in a movie production, and the myriad others who haven't such gifts usually produce garbage when they attempt to do it all themselves. So a lot of French films tend to be arthouse B-movies, rather than successful blockbusters built by a team of specialized artists and technicians.
Then there's the dialog. In French movies, there are tons and tons of dialog. Talk, talk, talk. It's characteristic of French films. Action is quite limited. This may work for domestic release but it's a big problem for export, because you have to subtitle or dub all of the 36,483 pages of dialog. Many markets (notably the United States) just will not tolerate dubbing or subtitling. That's one reason why several French vehicles that were successful in France were remade by Hollywood for the U.S. market (e.g., Trois hommes et un couffin, which was remade as Three Men and a Baby).
Here's the typical French film: One man and one woman in bed. They talk (a lot), they have sex, and then they smoke cigarettes. Repeat this for two hours.
Most French films are slice-of-life films, without the multiple-act structure of American films. You feel that you've walked into the middle of something at the start of the film, and you feel you've been pushed back out at the end.
Are these bad or good things? Well, that depends on your tastes. Some people like prolix, slice-of-life films. They do well enough in France. But they don't export well, and it's worth noting that seven out of ten films at the local Parisian multiplex will typically be American blockbusters, dubbed or subtitled. You're more likely to find Oscar winners on the schedule rather than winners of the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
The one thing that probably is indisputably bad is the lack of money for filmmaking in France. Films are often made on a shoestring, crews and talent are poorly paid (or sometimes not paid at all), there's no room for special effects or much of anything other than the most banal location shots, and so on. There have been a few big-budget films, some of which have been extremely successful at the box office, but unfortunately these are exceptions to the rule. Most of the French box office ends up in the pockets of Hollywood these days.
It seems that French audiences respond to much the same things that please American audiences: lots of action, special effects, a clear structure to the film, with a simple plot and a good ending. But French filmmakers don't often produce this, so their films struggle even as Hollywood rakes in the cash. The few French films that have been made according to this Hollywood model have been just as successful as the American films. But I sometimes think that French filmmakers consider it below them to produce a movie that simply provides entertainment for a fee, whereas American studios have no such qualms.
Of course, you might look at the incredibly lame videos I've been putting on YouTube and wonder what qualifies me to criticize anyone else's work. But I don't think you have to be a talented filmmaker yourself just to form valid opinions of other films or the film industry in general. I think Roger Ebert is a good film critic, but the best he could ever do himself as a screenwriter was … Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens!
Anyway, I don't go to see movies much these days. It's too expensive. I can't even afford DVDs any more, and in any case I have nothing to play DVDs on, since I had to sell that long ago in order to buy groceries and pay rent.
France has one of the world's largest film industries, but it still trails way behind Hollywood and Bollywood. It's hard to find financial backing in France, and one of the most common sources of backing turns out to be a semi-government agency, upon which French filmmakers have come to depend (to an unhealthy extent, in my opinion). Often financing is a hodgepodge of nickels and dimes from a long list of partners, all of which seem to require that their logos appear in a hokey list across the bottom of the movie posters. The government has a taste for “artsy” films, which further complicates things, because it makes it harder to finance a film that might actually make money at the box office.
Another complication is the frequent leaning towards the auteur model of filmmaking, in which one guy (it's almost invariably a guy) writes, directs, acts, edits, and does just about everything else for a film, giving him complete control over the result. The problem is that there are probably only about five people in the world who have sufficiently diverse and significant talent to undertake all of those roles at once in a movie production, and the myriad others who haven't such gifts usually produce garbage when they attempt to do it all themselves. So a lot of French films tend to be arthouse B-movies, rather than successful blockbusters built by a team of specialized artists and technicians.
Then there's the dialog. In French movies, there are tons and tons of dialog. Talk, talk, talk. It's characteristic of French films. Action is quite limited. This may work for domestic release but it's a big problem for export, because you have to subtitle or dub all of the 36,483 pages of dialog. Many markets (notably the United States) just will not tolerate dubbing or subtitling. That's one reason why several French vehicles that were successful in France were remade by Hollywood for the U.S. market (e.g., Trois hommes et un couffin, which was remade as Three Men and a Baby).
Here's the typical French film: One man and one woman in bed. They talk (a lot), they have sex, and then they smoke cigarettes. Repeat this for two hours.
Most French films are slice-of-life films, without the multiple-act structure of American films. You feel that you've walked into the middle of something at the start of the film, and you feel you've been pushed back out at the end.
Are these bad or good things? Well, that depends on your tastes. Some people like prolix, slice-of-life films. They do well enough in France. But they don't export well, and it's worth noting that seven out of ten films at the local Parisian multiplex will typically be American blockbusters, dubbed or subtitled. You're more likely to find Oscar winners on the schedule rather than winners of the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
The one thing that probably is indisputably bad is the lack of money for filmmaking in France. Films are often made on a shoestring, crews and talent are poorly paid (or sometimes not paid at all), there's no room for special effects or much of anything other than the most banal location shots, and so on. There have been a few big-budget films, some of which have been extremely successful at the box office, but unfortunately these are exceptions to the rule. Most of the French box office ends up in the pockets of Hollywood these days.
It seems that French audiences respond to much the same things that please American audiences: lots of action, special effects, a clear structure to the film, with a simple plot and a good ending. But French filmmakers don't often produce this, so their films struggle even as Hollywood rakes in the cash. The few French films that have been made according to this Hollywood model have been just as successful as the American films. But I sometimes think that French filmmakers consider it below them to produce a movie that simply provides entertainment for a fee, whereas American studios have no such qualms.
Of course, you might look at the incredibly lame videos I've been putting on YouTube and wonder what qualifies me to criticize anyone else's work. But I don't think you have to be a talented filmmaker yourself just to form valid opinions of other films or the film industry in general. I think Roger Ebert is a good film critic, but the best he could ever do himself as a screenwriter was … Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens!
Anyway, I don't go to see movies much these days. It's too expensive. I can't even afford DVDs any more, and in any case I have nothing to play DVDs on, since I had to sell that long ago in order to buy groceries and pay rent.