Plenty of people collect
Disneyana, the toys, books, animation cels, and theme-park souvenirs. Then there are those fans who collect information and details on the Disney parks themselves,
collecting official park maps or
drawing up their own ride blueprints,
assembling the design history behind the attractions, and even
collecting vintage tickets and
ticket books.
Yesterland (previously:
1,
2,
3) is an ever-growing collection of Disneyland history, and has
an updated collection of links to similar fan sites and Imagineering blogs, which is a whole collection of rabbit holes of nostalgia and behind-the-scense information. So grab a
riding crop and
pretend like it's the 60s all over again!
posted by filthy light thief
on Mar 15, 2012 -
9 comments
This stealthy undertaking was not an act of robbery or espionage but rather a crucial operation in what would become an association called UX, for “Urban eXperiment.” UX is sort of like an artist’s collective, but far from being avant-garde—confronting audiences by pushing the boundaries of the new—its only audience is itself. More surprising still, its work is often radically conservative, intemperate in its devotion to the old. Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.” The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris. - Wired.com
"The New French Hacker-Artist Underground"
posted by The Whelk
on Jan 24, 2012 -
20 comments
Around the time of the flooding in Troyes a plant in the south-east of Paris which supplied compressed air to the owners of ‘pneumatique’ equipment – lifts, ventilation, industrial machinery – was submerged. Parisians were fond of compressed-air technology. It was how the postal service delivered mail from one office to another in small brass shuttles propelled along a network of tubes. It was also used to keep the clocks ticking on the streets of the city and, by subscription, in private apartments. When the plant went underwater during the night, pneumatic time stopped dead.
Pavements Like Jelly is an article by Jeremy Harding describing the 1910 Great Flood of Paris which started 100 years ago today.
Photo exhibition with 1300 photographs focusing on Paris.
Even more photos, taking in the entire Seine. Both sites are Flash heavy, for a smaller selection of non-Flash pictures go
here and
here.
[1910 Paris Flood previously on MetaFilter]
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 21, 2010 -
14 comments
He has
cavorted naked with Charlotte Rampling [this is VERY NSFW] and
covered himself in caviar for Marc Jacobs, but
Jürgen Teller thinks "fashion is a wank".
Teller's first solo show in Paris is entitled "Nurnberg", it consists of
a sequence of images (annoying Flash site, sorry) taken at the infamous
Zeppelintribune parade ground,
site of Nazi propaganda rallies, which was designed by Hitler's favourite builder, Albert Speer. Over several months,
Teller (.pdf) has photographed the monument, the podium and the steep, ruthless steps, all of which have been left to decay. Or not. "It wasn't really maintained, but if there was a broken step, or a smashed wall, it would be mysteriously replaced with a new one."
Teller's photographs show the delicate weeds, flowers and lichen [NSFW] that have grown up around the stone blocks. "In Germany, there is a saying about letting the grass grow over things, meaning that events will eventually be forgotten".
posted by matteo
on Mar 22, 2006 -
19 comments
The Riot of Spring. Théâtre
Champs-Elysées, Paris, May 29, 1913. Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Proust, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy are among those present at the premiere of
The Rite of Spring (the score is
here), written by
Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by the great Russian dancer
Vaslav Nijinsky.
The music and the choreography shocked the audience with its daring modernism, ripping up the rulebook of classical ballet with its heavy, savage movements. Many in the audience promptly booed, then yelled, insulting the performers and each other. Then fistfights broke out. The police was summoned, but was unable to stop an
all-out riot.
Now
the BBC has made a TV movie about that night. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Mar 11, 2006 -
27 comments
Rephotographing Atget: Eugene Atget photographed Paris from 1888 until his death in 1927. Christopher Rauschenberg retraced Atget's steps in 1997 and 1998, photographing the same scenes, and documents his project in a gallery at Lens Culture. The gallery includes an audio discussion of the project. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu
on Feb 24, 2006 -
19 comments
Mythmaker of the Machine Age. In the statue erected above his grave in Amiens, in Picardy,
Jules Verne, who died exactly 100 years ago, resembles God. He is, after all, the second-
most-translated author on earth, after Agatha Christie.
To celebrate the anniversary, there's a Verne exhibition at the
Maritime Museum in Paris, one of a series of events from Paris to the western city of
Nantes, where Verne was born on Feb. 8, 1828, to the northern town of
Amiens, where he died on March 24, 1905. His many fans,
some of them quite famous, will be treated to exhibits, concerts, films and shows in Verne's honor. “
Underground City”, a lost classic written by Verne and never before published unabridged in English,
emerges this month in not one but two new unique editions.
100 years later, questions remain about his life: Why did he have two homes in Amiens? Why did he burn all his private papers? Why was he shot in the foot by his nephew, Gaston, in 1886? Gaston was locked in an asylum for 54 years after his attack on L'Oncle Jules. Was Gaston, in fact, Verne's natural son? More inside.
posted by matteo
on Mar 23, 2005 -
8 comments
![cavorted naked with Charlotte Rampling [this is VERY NSFW]](http://www.kunsthallewien.at/downloads/presse/Teller/09)Louis%20XV%20no.%203.jpg){kind=link}