i heart my new camera

nuit blanche

So this past Saturday was when Paris "does New York" and becomes the city that never sleeps. But of course they had to do it the French way and incorporate contemporary art into it.

Knowing full well that my relationship with contemporary art is at best tolerant, I decided to go anyways since I figured heck, I'm in Paris and should check it out, right? Plus the purpose of Nuit Blanche is to incorporate contemporary art into every day life and by extension to the masses (read: me).

We started by going to one exhibit where a large line was forming to get into an enigmatic boxlike structure. Filled with the desire to not miss out we immediately got in line. For what we had no idea, but it had to be good, right? Just look at the line!!

20 minutes later I found myself in a room listening to the voices of a couple arguing. No video just voices and other people sitting around listening to the voices which coming from each of the four walls randomly.

I was not impressed and neither were a lot of people if I judged the looks on people's faces correctly as they finally entered the room (first a look of "That's it?" Followed by hope that maybe there's more. And finally the disappointment that there wasn't).

Next we saw a video entitled "All the world's fighter planes" which consisted of newspaper clippings of fighter planes set to music.

Then we saw a video entitled "A Voyage in Dwelling" which the voyage consisted of a woman roaming the halls of what appeared to be a mental institution and decided to go down the stairs like the Grinch did in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" only I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be humorous. At the end she cried on the deck of a cruise liner.

Other exhibits included flashing lights in a swimming pool to mimic lightning and a in a ice skating rink with a orange glowing picture thingy. Both were not worth the walk to get there.

We were very close to leaving at this point. However I was stubborn in my faith in Paris that it MUST have something cool to offer in this Nuit Blanche of theirs so I insisted we check out something called the "Light Machine" (I like light) at Parc des Buttes Chaumont.

And I was not disappointed.

macaroons

So after one hour wait at Laduree I left with 6 mini macaroons. The math doesn't seem quite to add up.



They are good little buggers though. Next time I'll avoid going on a weekend.

(h)appy (h)our

So I got roped into going to a BI meeting to discuss "lessons learned" from current projects. The meeting started at 6:30pm, lasted for 2 hours and a half, and was all in French.

And since I can barely carry a conversation about the weather in French I was pretty much useless to my "Bleu" team when trying to figure out things like this:



Then about half way through the meeting (which was held in a meeting room at CSC headquarters in La Defense) an assistent wheeled in "refreshments".



Indeed.

the office - paris

So my client site is a company that produces and distributes paper.

That's right I work in an environment reconstructed by a comedy to parody the ridiculous mundaneness of office life.

Oh and the name of the manager in my office?

Wait for it...

Mickael.

en face du client

So they sat me in front smack dab in front of the client which means I have to concentrate on doing things like sitting properly. I seek refuge in the building's rooftop terrance:

montmartre art attack

So this weekend I finally had the chance to do some exploring in Paris. Armed with my newly acquired and a way too expensive lonely planet's paris city guide, I headed to Montmarte for a walking tour L.P. dubbed the "Montmarte Art Attack". Below are the highlights in picture form.



Moulin Rouge (starting point)



Van Gogh's house



Detour for two hours at a cafe overlooking Rue Thoroze



Passe-muraille statue



Cabaret au lapin agile



Eric Satie's house



Basilique du sacre coeur



Guy doing crazy soccer moves



Enjoying live music and the view



Bateau lavoir (housed Kees Van Dongen, Max Jacob, Amedeo Modigliani, and Picasso)