i took the above video with my digital camera. the song is “Nantes” by Beirut. most of the video consists of a 45 minute giant elephant ride that Kourtney and i took. the first part of the video features a bunch of french high school students riding some prototypes for a giant marine carousel that they are planning to build.
Les Machines was created after founding artist, François Delarozière split up with Royal de Luxe, a company responsible for this shit.
i saw this french info-graphic at a customer service phone at Paris CDG airport. i’m really interested in the symbol in the top right corner with the two overlapping faces. it reminds me of this (check out 1:26).
i think it’s supposed to mean “meeting point.” weird.
i am a huge nerd. i love physics. specifically theoretical physics. specifically string theory and the quest to discover a T.O.E. (theory of everything). science today is extremely close to unlocking the secrets of the universe and the place on earth that is making the greatest contribution to this quest is CERN, the european center for nuclear research.
CERN is home to the brand new large hadron collider or LHC - the world’s largest particle accelerator. basically they shoot protons around this 27km long ring buried 100m underground until they reach 99.9% the speed of light (!). then they smash them into each other and observe the results. it was a total dork-dream come true to visit this place, and even though i didn’t get the tour that i had tried to book months in advance (seriously) i still had a great time visiting ‘microcosm’ - this exhibit that explains the history of CERN and what they’re trying to find.
and i got to play with things like this ! :
yep, that’s a geiger counter. this is what it reads when detecting radiation from a watch made with radium in the 1950s. that’s high, btw.
when particles smash together, the various detectors that are set up track the trails and energy emitted by the smaller particles that compose them. protons are made of quarks, for instance, so when two protons collide they emit quarks - and a whole bunch of other interesting things. above is picture of the methods they used to map particle paths in the 70s. basically using a big overhead projector.
here’s a photo of a photo of what that looks like printed. and a physicist (with awesome 70s hair) observing the results (in the 70s).
i came back to lyon just in time to partake in this crazy electro music festival called les nuits sonores. it basically takes over the whole city and turns everything into a techno party. above is a picture of the street in front of alexandre’s apartment.
my friend cécile made some videos of her dancing crazily in her apartment in paris, so i decided to make this video for her in my friend alexandre’s apartment. we were sitting in the kitchen with some friends when someone put on a kim wilde vinyl and i decided at that moment that i would dance to this song the next day. and so it was…
i spent two nights in my friend cécile’s fabulous apartment in le marais (the super chic gay district of paris). here are some photos from the extremely limited amount of time i spent there. above : sacre coeur - church on montmartre.
*yes the above nasty images are a result of me being drunk on champagne and falling into a pebble wall in lyon, but i want to say that this was no fault of my own. french people, particularly artistic ones, seem to like to celebrate as much as possible when appropriate, and if it wasn’t for their generous hospitality, i would not have downed glass after glass of champagne and dance like i’ve never danced before.
like my friend cécile (who lives in paris) said : “of course they had free champagne. we make it here.”
viva la france!
miraculously i still haven’t had a cigarette for over a month - despite being inebriated to the point of face-planting it into an inanimate wall and being surrounding by nicotine fiends.
i heart you lungs.
liver? maybe next time.
[p.s. the above photos were taken by my friend jess in the bathroom of our super cool hostel room in madrid]
