Day 5
Basket. Of. Sausages.
Yes, you read correctly - we went back to the same restaurant again.
Did I mention before that they included unlimited wine and beer with the meal???? Well, they do.
It rained today so we spent the afternoon at the Pompidou. Most of our time was spent at their "Big Bang" exhibit. Not about "the" big bang, but about the place of modern art in contemporary consciousness and arranged according to themes. It was very cool - multimedia mixes with photography with painting with sculpture with books. I loved the interdisc iplinarity of it! Although, I have to say, my favorite thing was in the children's light and shadow exhibit - an interactive shadow table. I took a movie before I got caught and will post it tomorrow, I promise.
The late afternoon / evening was clear and lovely. We walked to Les Halles and the Bureau of soemting or other - it was round and glass and pretty.
Au revoir for tonight.
p.s. Happy Birthday to Jane of ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
billandjane - we thought about you lots today.
Day 5 Redux
Now is a better time for a more full account of Saturday.
We got out of the hotel in time to see the one o'clock show at Le Defense du Temps - the clock with the mechanical man that defends time against a Dragon, a rooster, and something else. We settled in at a cafe directly across from the clock and because it was raining, we had a front row seat. It wasn't long before we realized that the time on the clock was wrong. In fact, it was not moving at all. We sat there and had lunch and coffee and the darned thing never moved. Although we never saw the man fight, we could watch the dragon's belly expand as it "breathed" and we got to watch all of the other tourists stand around and eventually realize it wasn't working.
From there we headed to the Georges Pompidou center - the modern art museum. This was the perfect activity for a rainy afternoon. Here is a shot of the view from the top of the centre:
As I said in my earlier post, the interactive shadow table was my favorite exhibit. Check out a short video of it here:
http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~kimberly_knig
The Big Bang exhibit was next. The pamphlet touted this as "an exciting first at the Pompidou". The exhibit was organized by different themes - Destruction, Constructin/Deconstruction, Archaism, Sex, War, Subversion, Melancholy, and Re Enchantment. At first it seemed that the art was a bit too mediated. Every single room had a description on the wall that seemed to tell you what the art should mean. For example, the first room in the Destruction section was called "Disillusioned Body" and was described thus: "A favorite for plastic art experiments, the body, sometimes glorified, sometimes afflicted, is the centre of all conflicts, a reflection of the world's instability". By the end, after 41 different rooms of art, I really appreciated the mixing of media. Other than the shadow table, my next favorite was seeing the print from Josh and Yvette's wall live and in living color! I always assumed it was a painting but it was a ginormous collage.
To give you an idea of the scale:
Other exhibits that we saw were an Antonio Segui show in the Graphic Arts section and another called "D-day" all about interesting modern design. It featured everything from an experimental Peugot to low income housing units to installation pieces. You'll be glad to know that the 2000 U.S. voting debacle made the exhibit as the new portable butterfly ballot machines were one of the featured designs. Lol.
We then walked to Les Halles and through the Jardin des Fleurs back to Notre Dame and our hotel. A few shots from our ambling:
Les Halles
St Eustache
Bourse de Commerce
Scary bird man:
Notre Dame
As I wrote yesterday, we ate at the basket of sausages place again and definitely got our money's worth in the unlimited alcohol. I felt very lucky to wake up today with no hangover. Mind you, not the best I've ever felt, but no headache and no upset tummy. I got my ship out just fine :D
