THIS Summer in Paris

I’m taking a Frenchward twist this summer to fill you on things to do (fun and otherwise if you get here in the month of August when your Parisian friends are all away on vacation) and to talk about some of my own projects in the hope that it’ll make more disciplined.

Le Grand Palais across the Invalides on the other side of the ornate Pont Alexandre III has a weird exhibition of machines used in performances on until the 13^th of August. These contraptions have served on film sets and were often conceived in the late eighties and nineties though they have an air of the 1800s about them. Some twenty orange vested guides walk from set to set explaining how each machine works and demonstrate its principles. Unfortunately to get their jokes you must speak French but the basic demo is self-explanatory. Don’t miss the cannon that shoots out eggs (no really!) or the person strapped in a circle to the inside of a large wheel who manages to play a set of drums as she is rotated within the wheel. Despite these few oddities, the real reason to visit Le Grand Palais is not the temporary show but the structure itself. Created for one of the Exposition Universelle this building with its immensely high glass ceiling and magnificently exposed green-pipe skeleton that keeps it aloft is worth a visit. A charming wooden bar serves refreshments, another more enticing one offers a view from the heights. This building is unlike anything you’ve seen. So go.

Also I have started my open-ended very long term Pont Neuf Project. This is an attempt at roughly (as in very roughly) sketching the gargoyle men that dot the bridge. Don’t ask why… The project got off to a rather rocky start on the 2^nd of August since the south-eastern exposure of the bridge, which was also my point of departure, is undergoing some heavy duty travaux. It is therefore noisy, polluted, and unpleasurable at the moment. Here is the seventh man starting from the left done in ink on paper. Along the way I hope I’ll stumble on more about the Atelier of Germain Pilon which produced some if not all these faces. There is a rue Germain Pilon in the eighteenth but cela n’a rien avoir avec le pont. There are also two fallen gargoyles at the Musée Carnavalet (which by the way is a free museums) one can inspect at close quarters. By the time I’m done with half the bridge, as in a lot of faces, I’m wondering if my hand will get even rougher and more impatient or the opposite. I’ve never had a long term project like this so let’s see where it goes.

Finally a reminder, if you’re in town on the 14^th of August, that is next Monday, then I’m reading at the historic Shakespeare and Company 37 rue de la Bûcherie across the river from the Notre Dame.