Saturday activities - books, arts and garden ramblings
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 6/10/2007 02:36:00 AM.
What a great Saturday morning (my morning is actually 2 pm, but still) starting off newspaper hunting and strolling uneventfully through the Tuileries gardens, as it suddenly appears to me that there was something wrong here: most of the wonderful green metal garden chairs on which people used to rest themselves around basins and alleys have mysteriously been replaced by ugly white plastic garden chairs... !
Where are we, on the back-alley terrace of a cheap italian restaurant? Why would someone change aesthetic to ugly? Is that what they mean when they say the economy is bad? Will we get at least some genuine sand in the children's sandpit? Are the flowers now plastic?
Where are we, on the back-alley terrace of a cheap italian restaurant? Why would someone change aesthetic to ugly? Is that what they mean when they say the economy is bad? Will we get at least some genuine sand in the children's sandpit? Are the flowers now plastic?
This is what has become of the Tuileries at the present moment: White plastic next to verdoyant green metal... an artistic statement possibly?
On this I went to the place in the gardens where I knew I could investigate better on this, and schlepped myself over to the maintenance areas, where, in the middle of the usual chaotic piles of anything improbable to be found in a garden, I come across a huge pile of unused green metal park chairs... guarded by a very angry dog who started barking at me as soon as I got too close.Maybe I'll find out more next week, sorry to have bothered you with this unusually boring story on mysterious events, but we are getting close to the traditional summer hole, where really important news just happen to be as scarce as good haircuts on US presidential candidates... so I just wanted to prepare you for what may be lying ahead...
Next stop: the old National Library, for god knows what reason. Maybe because I couldn't find the paper I was looking for earlier.
One of the 2 main reading rooms is filled with readers and researchers again, which is good to see. People working on a Saturday...
The other big reading room, Salle Labrouste (named after its architect) is still empty, with no more books on the endlessly long shelves, looking like a long forgotten crypt of knowledge. Most of the library got transported off to the new buildings of the Bibliothèque Francois Mitterrand. Since then, no one really knows what will become of this huge empty space...
The courtyard of the library
Things you should avoid carrying around with yourself when in the streets.
On the Beaubourg Piazza, waiting for Haily to finally materialize. The asian guy with his guitar on my left wouldn't stop vandalizing music classics for at least 45 minutes...
"Meet me at the big flower pot" has become a real catchphrase at this place
The exhibition we wanted to see: french artist Annette Messager, a major figure on the international contemporary art scene. No pictures allowed inside, so I only took the big sculptural pieces in the atrium: big puffy body parts hanging around and dropping down in regular intervals
A big foot and some woman's spare breastsHaily posing with the attitude of a Burberry model, at Rue Montorgueil
On our way to get some bottles at the supermarket, taking pictures of buildings on Rue Reaumur, next to my apartment.
Details, details, details...
The clock tower on the local bank
Labels: Architecture shot, Art, Magazines and books, MUSEUMS, Paris street stuff (NOT a TOILET)
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