Further adventures

Saturday, October 3

Another day began cool and foggy, only to soon burn clear and become, once again, sunny and mild. My quest of the morning was for an internet center. I'd seen a couple from a distance while combing through St.-Germain on Thursday; now I just had to see whether they'd disappeared now that I needed one (I'm sparing you gory details of the meltdown when, after backing up and wiping, the computer came to life sporting the Windows 10 home page yet again. Which is incompatible with the computer. So--no computer. Stopped credit card payment, but no computer). For a while it appeared they had all gone into hiding, as I foolishly cut up various angles and meanders. In The End, after warming up enough to remove my jacket, I did spot one (note to self: behind the Banque Populaire on bd. St.-Germain--and I've definitely kept one of their cards for future reference), paid my three euros for half an hour (!), and did a little bit of catching up.

There was a special tour beginning at 3:45 over in the Palais Royal area, of old passages, some of them not always open to the public (and some that can be hard to find, I know). So when I left the internet center I went striding off toward the river and Hotel de Ville, calculating in my head only which stop I should get off at. But as I neared my own street, it was registering that it was already 2:00 P.M., the tour wouldn't end until 4:00 at the very least, and I'd had only breakfast. In obedience to hypoglycemia, and the unpleasant results of neglecting it, I screeched to a halt on my corner, bought a sandwich (Brie with cucumbers and tomatoes), and hurried home to eat at least half of it.

But of course, as the law of everything taking longer than you expect dictates, once upstairs it gradually became obvious there was to be no way to still walk to the Hotel de Ville station, take the train, and locate the group before the tour's starting time. Missing it was probably the best outcome for my sore body: I needed a break before La Nuit Blanche began. So, with the chicken, the potatoes, turnips, carrots, and mushrooms, I made very satisfying stew.

By early evening, 6:00 or so, the bright day had disappeared under overcast. Before night fell, I made my way across the river. I set out first walking up along rue de Rivoli in search of a performance by the CRISIS Collective--which I never could locate. (Much later, I realized I'd misremembered the starting time.) So, along with ever-growing crowds, I headed back in the opposite direction toward the Hotel de Ville, Ground Zero of this year's events. I was sorry to miss a performance that was a culmination of almost a month of performances in keeping with this year's theme of climate change, but then, I would have to miss many other intriguing shows and installations. There seemed more than I remembered there ever being--and more and more people surging through the streets to take part. 

Back at the already very busy Hotel de Ville, in the now-darkness, the entire place was taken up with an installation by Zhenchen Liu, "Ice Monument." This was 270 ice steles in different colors (translation from the Nuit Blanche guide I didn't yet have at that point: "symbolizing the different countries of the world" evoking "the twilight beauty of a world constructed by man but which will no longer be able to exist, if nothing is done by man." It was haunting (someday I will be able to add photos), though the jockeying for position at the ropes around the groups of blocks did detract somewhat from contemplation.

Since it was just up the street (and I knew the way!), I headed then to the Pompidou Center, whose permanent collections were open free for the night. The masses of people kept growing, and not just growing, but gradually becoming jollier and more boisterous. Almost the first thing I saw--maybe because it was huge and a blinding, lighted blue--as I came even with the parvis, was a Windows 10 installation for some imminent promo. Giving that a wide berth, I went around onto the sloping parvis itself. Large numbers of people were sitting there in scattered groups, or milling about so that, in the dark, it was difficult at first to make out the actual line. This disorientation was perhaps heightened by other-worldly music emanating from a stage at the far end: "Echo of the Specters," the guide says (it also says there were to be pyrotechnics, but I missed those). But there it was, a shambling mass several people wide leading to the center entrance. Mercifully, it did move pretty quickly, even though bags had to be examined.

And then we were ascending, on the snaky series of escalators along the front of the building. First the clots of antlike people, darker against the darkness of the parvis, we saw, then, as we rose above the buildings opposite, the whole night view of Paris unfolded: the Eiffel Tower with its slowly revolving searchlight, the Church of St.-Merri past the large pool and its moving sculptures, the towers of Notre-Dame past that, in the midst of the Seine, and in the opposite direction, far away, the domes of Sacre-Coeur. Snapping photos was tricky due to interior lights and streaked glass; I tried.

I walked again through one entire floor of the museum. By then, overly warm because I'd dressed for outdoors, and having done a lot of walking, I thought I'd call it a night. Even before emerging into the seething night again, I could see the size of the line waiting to get in had doubled, and the parvis was much fuller. The band was taking a break. Weaving and dodging my way through the crowd (and keeping my distance from Windows 10 for fear of any further contamination), I decided to walk toward the church, just to see whether it was doing anything for a Nuit Blanche (too late and too dark to consult the guide at this point: it was seat-of-the-pants, follow-your-nose (or the crowd) time). Sure enough, past the big pool with its fanciful (not to say bizarre) sculptures, and the wall-sized painting of Dali near it, in the dark, I saw a stream of people coming out of St.-Merri's side door. So I went around to the front and went in

--into a cacophonous assault on the senses that seemed surely (and was) the climax of--something. Of Djeff and Monsieur Moo's "Presage" (I'm told). Searchlights pierced the hazy air of the nave, highlighting many small hanging objects, as weird organ music reached a crescendo, and there was something at the bottom of it all I couldn't see for the mass of jockeying bodies silhouetted against the light. Eventually, and by then the music had ended and the searchlights gone off, leaving just regular interior lights in the nave, I wormed my way close enough to see a small boat resting as if coming toward us on--plexiglass? waves. It was interesting. Disturbing, even. I took photos, having to assert my right to have a turn at the rail. (To follow, I hope.)

Then I was surely done for the night, footsore, back aching from the slow-motion standing in the museum. Except that, as I stepped out into the cool night once again, there--moving unseen somewhere in a dark mass of bodies at the far end of that plaza, right alongside the Pompidou--there was a drum corps, drumming away (a band, I thought at first, though it was in fact only drums). Far too many miles of marching in a marching band ignite my feet, still, and a hammered-out, insistent beat gives new life to exhausted limbs (there's certainly a reason armies used them). As fast as I could scurry, dodging people, desperately hoping not to miss them, whatever "them" was, I got mysef back to where they--had recently been, to join the rest of a dark swarm being sucked along in that Pied Piper's wake, jostling, laughing, some shaking big noisy, lighted rattles they'd bought from vendors in the square.  Some conscious part of me was asking how far they were going, how far exactly I would tag along, but my feet were in charge, red shoes or no.

Dodging and darting, up on sidewalks when there were any (for we were entering the Marais, and by twisting back routes), wary of idiots tryiing to drive this night, or of motorcycles, stepping in a puddle invisible in the dark at one point, trying, trying not to fall or twist an ankle, I followed. There were scores of us. It was for all the world like a wild Mardi Gras: that African, Caribbean beat, the red head scarves of the main participants, the dancing crowd. The drummers never stood still for more than thirty seconds, then they were off again. By darting and weaving, and walking very fast, I finally caught up to them, for I did want to see who, what, they were.  All black, of course, and the crowd at least half so. Yet I never found out whom exactly.

By this time we'd come so far I thought we (and see, by now it did seem to be "we," in this headlong, rhythm-driven dash) must be going all the way to Place de la Bastille. (At one point one idiot driver leaned on his horn as we poured across the street: the crowd roared jeers back at him and shook their noisemakers.) But no, the drummers surged around a corner, and all their swarm turned with them like blackbirds, fish. Lemmings. We were heading back toward Hotel de Ville after all. Were we going to burst into the square itself?

We did not. At something of a wall of buses, cabs, private cars trying to turn onto rue de Rivoli from rue du Temple, the drum corps had to pause longer than usual (still drumming). Spell broken, I peeled quietly away, sweaty, now really footsore and exhausted. Slowly, I managed to cross Rivoli, dodge my way back through Place de l'Hotel de Ville, and finally make my way home.

(Note: As this event has grown and grown, it really is incredible the city has not yet taken the step of blocking certain streets for safety's sake.)