Gay Pride Parade Saturday, June 25, 2011
Your taste of life in Paris and France
ParlerParis.com
Monday, June 27, 2011 • Paris, France
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Little did I know when a friend invited me to see the Anish Kapoor Monumenta 2011 exhibit at the Grand Palais Thursday evening that it would be the closing of the exhibition punctuated by a concert inside the 'monumental' structure.
For those who missed the event, there is simply no way to describe the massive single object which filled the Grand Palais, as every journalist seems to have painted a different picture, even describing the 'thing' in different colors -- the amoeba-like 35-meter-high 'beast' that took only a week to build of PVC welded together and swollen like a balloon.
The two-hour wait on line did not deter us from entering Kapoor's Monumenta to hear a 'concert' by Keiji Haino where we laid down on the soft PVC sides and entered a rather meditative state at the sound of the ethereal music and prose. Could it have been any more surrealistic? For a re-creation of the concert in sight and sound, visit:
http://www.monumenta.com
Exiting the Grand Palais and heading to the Métro station at the corner, fireworks loomed overhead -- from what and why was impossible to tell. Again, could it have been any more surrealistic? Sometimes you just want to say: "Only in Paris."
Saturday's plan to view the Gay Pride Parade worked like clockwork, as it does every year. A group of friends and Parler Paris readers gathered at Café Français to drink, eat and be merry in advance of the parade spilling onto the Place de la Bastille about 5:30 p.m. When the first signs of the parade hit the corner, we took to the streets to walk against the parade so as to see as much of it as possible and mingle with the paraders and spectators.
Normally one big laugh after another, this year's parade seemed like a subdued version of years past -- with less costuming and outrageousness than before. There were way fewer breasts on show (by both women and transsexuals), way fewer buns (by mostly men) and not as many drag queens in mile-high heels that you know are giving them great pain.
Meanwhile in New York, unprecedented euphoria hit during Sunday's Gay Pride Parade thanks to the legalization of gay marriage was passed earlier in the week. My daughter described it as 'nuts in New York' and took her own set of photos of the surrealistic revelry.
Seeing it is believing it. Only in Paris? Maybe not. Looks like New York may be our rival.
A la prochaine...
Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris
with Karen Hernrich,Tapbooks.org
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