| Sunday, September 12, 2004 |  |
| Finding Paths |
 One of our regular activities is to go to runs with the local Hash House Harriers club. One runs or walks for an hour or so, and then one drinks beer, and there are various crazy rituals involved in both. And one meets some other fun people, mostly expats.
Today was the second time we were the "hares". The hares find a location and lay a track one needs to follow, which is marked with flour or chalk marks. Just finding a location isn't all that easy. It should preferably be a new and different place each time, and one should be able to mark a 3-6km walking path, and a 6-10km running path. Which preferably should be a bit adventurous and non-obvious. And now, what is interesting is that when you look at an area as somebody who needs to lay an interesting path, you discover all sorts of things you might not have if you were just passing through. You start following trails you don't know where lead, and get surprised when you find out. You try to connect up differerent areas, to make your trail work, and are sometimes surprisingly successful in finding paths when you thought there were none. You walk along a stream where there's hardly a path through the heavy growth, and you find ruined old bridges, abandoned sheds, un-noticed infrastructure, quiet ponds, dried-out waterfalls, and then you come out on a street next to somebody's house, by what you would have assumed to be just a driveway if you had come from the other side. It is fun to find hidden trails, and new entrances and exits. Today's run was mostly in an area called Les Quinze Sols. It is called that because around the time of the French revolution, the area got divided into little parcels that were sold for 15 Sols. Sols were a monetary unit at that time. 15 bucks. Later it became a really depleted area, as it was exploited in various ways, for example to extract sand. Now there is a 50-100 year project going on of reverting it to be a well-functioning natural eco-system. Which seems to be going well, as it is quite a jungle, and lots of people were fishing. Our path also went through the ruins of an old mill, out in the Garonne river. [ Diary | 2004-09-12 22:20 | 2 comments | PermaLink ] More > |
| Paris Underground Cinema |
 Interesting mentions at BoingBoing here and here about an underground cinema in Paris. Guardian story here. Now, this is underground in the actual sense of under the ground. A group of urban explorers called La Mexicaine de la Perforation is on a mission to "reclaim and transform disused city spaces for the creation of zones of expression for free and independent art". I.e. they poke around in places they're not supposed to poke, and find interesting facilities that often not even the city authorities know about. And then they stage events there, like rock concerts or film projection. Ha, splendid venture. The cinema, with restaurant and bar annexe, was open for a seven-week season this summer, showing a suitably subversive programme which included works by Chinese and Korean directors but also Alex Proyas' Dark City, Coppola's Rumble Fish, David Lynch's Eraserhead, and Terry Gilliam's Brazil.Now they're in a little bit of trouble, because the police found the cinema. But they can't quite figure out what to charge anybody with. Maybe stealing electricity, but they can't even figure out where the electricity came from. And they're not sure who to charge either. And the organizers aren't worried, as there are plenty of other unused spaces where nobody's looking. Indeed, seems like there is: Parts of the French capital are riddled with around 250 kilometres (150 miles) of underground tunnels, some of them dating from mediaeval times, and adepts who call themselves "cataphiles" are known to frequent them illegally and occasionally decorate galleries to hold parties or meetings.Some more good info and links from here. And there are many sites about the catacombs of Paris, like this in French. The catacombs are mostly spaces left over from underground quarries, which then were connected together in the 18th century, and some of which were filled up with bones from decommissioned graveyards. [ Culture | 2004-09-12 23:21 | 2 comments | PermaLink ] More > |