Saturday, August 20, 2016

La Défense The Opposite Of Paris

Most of Paris is relatively life size and people friendly.  Below is a view from Montmartre.  Except on the southern edges of Paris the buildings are mostly about five stories or less.


But out west is a sprawling area of high rises and large sterile plazas called La Défense that are the opposite of what Paris seems otherwise to be.   Where we are staying is close to La Défense and we walked over there our first day.


Here's a huge pond of water with whimsical poles sticking out.  In the background you can see a huge arch (red and white) that mimics in its own way the Arc de Triomphe, which when I turn around, I can see in the distance.  (See picture below).  If all Paris were built like La Defense, such a straight line view would likely have been blocked by sky scrapers.  I would note one clever feature of this pond.  The water flows toward where I'm standing and then there's a flow along the close edge.  I suspected something like that when I saw all the garbage collected in the corner to the right (not in the picture.)  I confirmed this with a man working on the fountain there.

OK, now here's the view when I turned around and you can see the Arc de Triomphe in the distance.


In The Flâneur, Edmund White writes about some of the Paris neighborhoods and on page one quotes a definition of a big city as including tall buildings.  He goes on,
"By that definition Paris is deficient in tall buildings, although President Pompidou had a scheme in the sixties and early seventies to fill Paris with skyscrapers, he succeeded only in marring the historic skyline with the faulty towers of a branch university, Paris VII at Jussieu (which recently closed because it was copiously insulated with asbestos), the appalling Tour Montparnasse - and the bleak wasteland of the office district, La Défense.
La Défense has few apartment dwellers other than Africans and the rootless, whereas the young white middle class for whom it was intended are all off living in the restored Marais district with its exposed beams and period fireplaces.  La Défense went directly from being futuristic to being passé without ever seeming like a normal feature of the present."
Now, that's a pretty sweeping and racist sounding statement, but I've heard echoes of his concern about the anti-Parisian high rise forest from others, without the racist undertones.  So I suspect his main thrust is that the high-rises and broad cement plazas are the problem.

While there are architecturally eye-catching buildings, my sense is more that these are examples of architects trying to do something different than the typical rectangular skyscraper.  But they don't succeed in my opinion.  Like this one that looks like it's got a cancer growing inside that's almost bursting at the seams.


Or this one.


















Or this one.    

I suspect I'm just being cranky, reflecting the thoughts of others who know Paris far better than I.  I know nothing about how functional these buildings are.



But is this sweets shop in this massive mall preferable to walking a bit from your house down a people scaled street to a little boulangerie? 










There are some trees, but they are carefully spaced the same distance apart in rows.  Though I suspect if I look at other parts of Paris I'll see the same things.  More trees may eventually make this more human scaled.









This giant sculpture is interesting, but not particularly warm, though I can see kids finding fun in its twists and turns.  But it does look like some sort of huge menacing insect.




Better is this Joan Miro sculpture.  I found a writer praising it for bringing color and life 'in this harsh cold environment' [La Défense].'








Friday, August 19, 2016

Paris Walkability - Off The Chart [Updated]



Most subway cars I've ever been on have signs that mark all the stops.  But this Paris subway car had a sign with each stop lit up. Once you left the stop, the light went out and the next stop blinked. It was extremely easy to see were you were, where you'd been, and how far you were from your own stop. Note: we only saw one train that had this sort of sign, but over all getting about Paris is incredibly easy.

The metro cars in some cases come minutes apart. There are buses that crisscross the city too. Wherever you are you aren't more than - I'm not sure but our experience has been less than half a mile from a metro or subway stop.



This platform has glass walls so you can't fall onto the tracks, though  most  stations don't.  They have this in Singapore too.










I'm doing this post just because it's been so very easy to get around, something other places should emulate. The sidewalks are good with lots to see and there are many bigger, non-sidewalk areas to walk.




We got on this car near the beginning of the route, which is why it's so empty, but we've gotten seats on every ride.










So while I really just want to get something up here, so I can explore more, I did check on walkability scores and found this website.

It seems most of the sites focus on the US, but this one allowed you to write in any city anywhere.  But I couldn't find a way to do Paris as a whole.  This one picked a specific neighborhood.  I'm not sure all of Paris would have been quite this high.

If you click on the map, you'll get to the Walk Score website.





[UPDATE NOON August 20, 2016 (Paris time)I should add another point - the bike's available all over town.  We've seen them, but I'm only just checking how they work now.  You can get a year pass, a seven day pass, or a one day pass.  We might try that today, but I need to see if they come with locks.  We may try this today because my own walkability is being affected by a flare up of my old heel problems.  The picture below is from the other day.]


Triomphe To Luis Vuitton Foundation's Frank Gehry Designed Museum

I'm in Paris, I don't have time to blog the way I'd like so here are some appetizers.  Two stops:  The Arc de Triomphe and the Louis Vuitton Foundation museum.   See this Vanity Fair story on this Frank Gehry creation.


A lot of people have walked these stairs to the Arc de Triomphe.





And then there was the Frank Geary designed Louis Vuitton Foundation museum yesterday.  So much to think about.  Main reactions, briefly - while I love Geary's work, the colors on the sails of this one set me off when I first saw it.  In many ways the building itself overpowers whatever is inside it, even though the exhibit rooms are huge and small and wonderful.

The building makes you question what a building is - the inside flows into outside, which was obvious because it was raining.  There was basically one exhibit - of contemporary, edgy Chinese artists including a tree by, perhaps, the most famous - Ai Wei Wei.  Enough said for now.






















Such an incredible space to be in down inside/outside by the water.















Zhang Huan's Sudden Awakening.










Zhang Xiaogang's  My Ideal.








And my favorite part of the space, the sloping waterfall.  



Lots more to ponder, but there's a metro to catch.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Eiffel Tower Pieces

We're in Paris, so naturally, I'm going to avoid the stereotypical things to do. Like go to the Eiffel Tower.  We spent our first morning wandering near our hotel - getting ten packs of public transportation tickets (carnets0 that are good on subways and busses and maybe something else.  We also got a sim card for J's new phone and walked the huge cementscapes at the  La Defense that our friends here in Paris and one of the books I'm reading  talked about with disdain.

But the magnetic pull of the Eiffel tower was too much and we used two of our new tickets to take the metro to the Eiffel Tower.  Here are some shots I took as I walked round it.  And then there are some extra shots - like the view from the plane landing Monday night and from the rooftop dinner Tuesday night.







People lined up to buy tickets.  It didn't look too bad. 

 

























This was the nicest view, from the north.
















Look carefully and you can see a couple of people on their way down from a climb up the tower.   You may have to click on the image to focus it.
















He saw me with the camera.  I signed could I take his picture.  He signed ok.  I took the picture.  He put his hand out for money.  I offered to delete the picture.  He nodded no, that was ok. (Yes, I'm assuming the clown was a he.  But we assume about everyone don't we?)





Security wears a lot more clothes today than the guy with the horse in the background


From across the Seine







There were lot and lots of towers for sale starting at 3 for a Euro to 5 Euros each for the smallest.






And in addition to towers, selfie-sticks were for sale in abundance too.  Here two young men take their picture with the tower in the background across the river.










This was our first view of the tower flying in Tuesday night.  It's a  little below and to the right of center.  Click to enlarge and focus.







We could see the tower and the rising moon again after a rooftop dinner with the people we're here to celebrate a significant birthday with.













When you look carefully through a lens, you see a lot more than when you just look.  Of course, if you paint something, you have to look even more carefully.  One of the things I noticed through the lens was the gallery of names on all four sides of the tower.  When I get a chance I'll do a post on them.





Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Another Election, Same Problem - State Gives Lindbeck 56% When He Really Got 68%


The Alaska Democrats agreed once to the ADL ballot (Alaskan Independence, Alaska Democratic and Alaska Libertarian (A-D-L)), which means that candidates from various parties all appear on the same ballot in the Alaska primary elections.

One rational is that it's more democratic, unlike the Republican ballot where only Republicans can vote.  But a primary originally was supposed to be where the parties chose the candidates that they preferred to run in the election.  You could almost say it was like letting your opponent pick what players you were going to have on your team against them.

The issue I have in particular showed up again in Tuesday's election.  In a primary, not only are candidates trying to win, but to win decisively enough to convince funders that they convince funders that they have a good chance of winning.

Here are the results for the ADL ballot for the Democratic primary Tuesday from GEMS (it's the third race down):
Hibler, William D. DEM        2578      9.40%
Hinz, Lynette         DEM        4445    16.21%
Lindbeck, Steve     DEM     15493     56.50%
McDermott, Jim C. LIB        3533     12.88%
Watts, Jon B.           LIB        1371       5.00%
The casual observer would go, "Oh, Lindbeck did pretty good.  He got 56.5% of the vote."  But compared to Don Young's (his November opponent)  89% in the Republican primary, that looks pretty weak.

The problem, as I see it, is that the ADL combines candidates who ARE NOT running against each other, and the state election office treats their percentages as though they were.  But the DEM's are running against the DEM's and the LIB's are running against the LIB's.

So against the other Democrats, Lindbeck actually got 68% of the vote, a pretty decent tally, a landslide in many people's minds.

I wrote about this issue at length after the 2008 primary.   Here's the summary of that post:

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:  
  1. The Alaska Primary elections had ballots that combined candidates for the Democratic Party, Alaska Independent Party, and the Libertarian Party of Alaska. The Republicans had separate ballots.
  1. By combining two or more parties onto one ballot, the primary is no longer a contest between the two party candidates for the nomination of their party. The percentages of vote for candidates that are not running against each other makes no sense at all.
  1. The state law says "The director shall prepare and provide a primary election ballot for each political party." To me, that sounds like a separate ballot for each party.  [A document put out by the state says a blanket primary is legal.]
  1. The Division of Elections Media Guide says that "In Alaska, the political parties determine which candidates will have access to their ballot and which voters are eligible to vote their ballot."
  1. Both the Libertarian Party and Alaska Independent Party by-laws call for what is known as a 'blanket" ballot which lists all candidates for all offices. That makes sense since they don't have more than one candidate for any office. Between the two parties, I could only find a total of three candidates in only the US House and Senate races. They have provisions for other options if the other parties do not allow blanket ballots.
  1. I couldn't find the Democratic by-laws, but their Plan of Organization says, " The Alaska Democratic Party’s primary election is open to all registered voters." That doesn't say open to all other parties. 
It all seems to hinge on whether the Democratic Party by-laws call for an open primary or a blanket primary.


You can go there to see to see the details. (And since I'm on vacation in Paris right now, I haven't reread the original post carefully, so there may be some aspects I would change.  You can point them out.

At this point, though, I think the Democrats disadvantage themselves by letting the percentage reflect more than the candidates they are running against.


How Many People Speak Icelandic?

If you fly Icelandair (yes Kathy), you can stopover in Reykjavik for free.  The stop is free, but Reykjavik is not an inexpensive place.  We spentTuesday there.  Here's a glimpse.

Jonas Hallgrimson is the Bard of Iceland.  We didn't know that when we saw a statue of him in the park, or when we went to the church named for him.  But I found out as I was checking up on the photos and who the people were.








Here's the organ inside.








Bertel Thorvaldson was the subject of another statue in that same park.  The two statues were of a poet and and artist - not war heroes.  What a pleasant surprise.









And there were flowers in the park.  I'm not sure what these are, but the remind me of the false sunflower we saw in the Anchorage garden tour - but those had variegated leaves.










We stopped in one of the many coffee shops for a snack and wifi.





This blue bike was being used as a gate to block cars from this street.


The Art Museum offered some interesting contemporary Icelandic artists.  This is  Erro's Bureau of Propaganda Fucky Strike








The artist who paints with birds is Helgi Porgies Fridjonsson. (There are some Icelandic letters in his name that I didn't try to duplicate here.  The passengers are getting off the plane we're taking to Paris and I don't know how much time I have so I'm just going to get as much up as I can.)


[I couldn't find anything useful about either of these contemporary Icelandic artists.  Maybe I needed to use the Icelandic alphabet when I googled them.]





The art museum is in a former storage building for fishing boats.  It sits on reclaimed land.  This is and exterior inner court.








There's a lot of construction going on in downtown Reykjavik.  But like Anchorage, they probably have to get as much done in the summer months as possible.




















And finally on the bus back to the airport.  They said this was a lava field.



How many people speak Icelandic?  I'm not sure.  Iceland has  329,000 residents.  Wikipedia says says 93% of them speak Icelandic.  And then there Icelanders who have emigrated to other countries. But it can't be much more than 349,000.


Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Flying Over Greenland - Icebergs and Glaciers

It was cloudy much of the way, but then I looked out and saw what looked like icebergs.  We left Anchorage at 3:30pm Alaska time and flew north and then east I'm guessing.  So it never got really dark.  And there were icebergs.




You'd think an Anchorage guy wouldn't get that excited about a few icebergs, but we were still at maximum altitude and the landscape was very different from the Alaska/Canada glaciers I'm used to. I suppose this would be a great time to comment on climate change, but never having been over Greenland before, I can't leap to any conclusions from these two pictures.




But the National Snow and Ice Data Center can make claims that I can't.
"Surface melting on Greenland’s Ice Sheet proceeded at a brisk pace, with three spikes in the melt extent in late spring. At this point, the pace rivals but is slightly behind the record surface melt and runoff year of 2012 (record since 1979), although ahead of the three preceding seasons. Melting in 2016 is especially severe in southwestern Greenland, and moving beyond the 1981 to 2010 rate everywhere except the northwestern coast (northern Melville Coast). This has led to the early formation of melt ponds along the southwestern flank of the ice sheet and early run-off from the ice sheet."
Reading the term 'melt pond' took me back to a photo I hadn't planned on putting up where I clearly saw a bright blue pond on one of the glaciers we flew over.  Doesn't look that bright in this picture, but it's the blue mark near the bottom slightly right.



The NSIDC site has images of Greenland showing the days of cumulative ice melt this year.   So, while I can't leap from my pictures of icebergs to comments about climate change, others who study this daily can make such comments.



Here's another glacier with the red moon far in the distance.  I was looking south.   At the time I wasn't at all sure what time it was in Greenland.  It was about 8:15 pm on my watch (Anchorage time) which would make it 4:15 am in Iceland (since it was a 7 hour flight and so we had two hours to go.)  I just checked and there's a two hour difference between Iceland and Greenland, so it was 2:15 am when I took these pictures.










The colors in this picture are very accurate.  The tiny pink moon is in the center of this picture.













It got cloudy again.  Now we're in Reykjavik for the day, our plane to Paris is at 4:20pm.  It's grey, 12˚C, windy, but not raining.