S.C.U.B.A.
My first time under the Eiffel tower was to attend a birthday for this Brazilian male model that went to my school that all the girls loved. He played guitar and had long hair, so he had this kind of nice guy/model crossover potential that pretty much killed it with girls of every nationality. Anyways, it was early on in the year, so it seemed like a safe bet for a Saturday night.
We loaded up on cheap champagne (2 Euros) and headed up, secretly planning to make some sort of entrance that would put a damper on the guest of honor. Upon nearing the Champ de Mars, we each opened two bottles of champagne to greet the crowd and look really really cool, cause that’s what modest people do, right? Anyways, there was lots of cheers-ing, clanging of bottles, and staring at the girls staring at the Brazilian dude.
Suddenly….cops! Two vans drive onto the sidewalk, lights and sirens bearing down upon the group of international political optimists. Cops here to bust up the party, I immediately presumed. I seemed to be the first one to see the fiasco about to unfold, and I acted in the only way I knew how. I walked quickly up to the Brazilian and his friends, handed them my two bottles of champagne in mock congratulation, and ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
Alas, the cops drove right by. Worse than my shame of returning to the group and requesting my champagne back was learning to suppress my high school tendency to run from the cops. Such youth, after all, were merely making the best use of the public space, a tradition taken very seriously in the French capital.
Since 2004, to kick off the coming summer months and onslaught of international visitors, the Seine transforms into a beach, complete with pools, petanque concourses, and tons and tons of sand. Paris Plage, for better worse, made quite an impact along the city center.
Most recently, France’s 5th largest structure and most notable phallic iron rod became home to a massive scuba tank. Free one-on-one scuba diving lessons under the Eiffel tower. Free. The same tower that was sold by a con-man for scrap metal, twice. The same guy. The same tower whose elevator cables were cut so a certain someone would have to walk to the top.
I know many readers who love to hate France are reveling in the seemingly endless depths (!) of irony of this defiant act of Gaullist artistic expression, be it an eternal embrace of art, or weird for the sake of being weird.
Regardless, the ability to reinvent oneself as a city. New York needs more of this. Band in a Bubble does not count. I suppose turning McCarren Park into a concert venue is great, but wouldn’t it be better as the giant pool it is?
Informatics - Proximity Switch (Accidents In Paradise) || Last Chance
