Melbourne White Night 2014

Melbourne White Night 2014 successfully enjoyed and ticked off the To Do list.

It started with a Victorian Opera special performance in the Sofitel hotel, where they did extracts of Verdi and Puccini. A soprano,  a tenor and a pianist. In Ms L's absence I was accompanied by her friend BC. Afterwards we walked across the city grid heading to the City Baths.

On the way we saw queues for the regular Old Melbourne Jail experience and the White Night feature Purple Rain. Not being dark yet, this didn't look anything special. When we reached the Baths we found the queue was an hour long already. So we sauntered through the growing crowds, past one of the live band stages and into the Wheeler Centre where there was a live interactive story writing session in progress.

This involved an author on stage typing into a notebook computer with the screen replicated on a larger screen behind them. Plot cues were being taken from the audiences via small cards and from live interjections. When the writer was stuck they'd call out for suggestions, almost as if thinking out loud.

From the Wheeler Centre we launched ourselves onto Swanston St and the disturbing crush of people moving along it. In two places the crush became so bad that I really felt we were seriously at risk but we eventually squished our way through. The were a few places where small stages had been set up and some had live performers in action but the crowd depth was too hard to see or hear anything. Disappointingly this year there were no projections aimed at the Town Hall and in the end there was very little value from walking down Swanston St.

The payoff finally came from reaching and turning into Flinders St along Federation Square. Here there were large scale projections onto the buildings from one next to the cathedral up to the Forum theatre. The latter was once again majestic to behold.

From there I accompanied BC back to Bourke St where she caught her tram home.

I then made my way down to Birrarung Marr and the various light installations there. Two of these I could see from afar - one that looked like a conical tent and one made of intersecting searchlights. When I got closer I could see that the tent was really a mound, presumably of sand, onto which two or three projectors mapped static and dynamic patterns.

Now it was clear that the other one was inside Alexandra Gardens as were numerous other light installations. The major one I'd already spotted was a giant double cone of intersecting light beams mounted on a large elevated ring with ambient sounds playing. After criss-crossing, the beams made a circle of big spots in the clouds above.

Then, I went past the vast NGV facade, this year the projections on it was a series of edits of photos of people with tattoos. Magnified to gigantic proportions the tattoos return to being primarily pieces of art.

Next I spent some time relaxing in the main stalls area of Hamer Hall. Here was a roll-play piano on which a sequence of recordings of Rachmaninov playing his own works were being run through the machine. Quite a treat to hear such original performances, the style is distinctively different from current renderings. It was also quite curious to watch people unfamiliar with - well any part of the Hamer Hall space and its norms - meandering in and out. In that there was no human performer to be miffed or insulted by peoples behavior this was, in a way, a stroke of genius as a program for White Night.

After hearing a few piano works I found a place in Hamer Hall to relax and recharge my phone battery. Comparing notes with some fellow resters I heard that I'd missed some tree projections in Alexandra Park. Also, they offered me a spare ticket they had for a 3am theatre ghost tour in the Arts Centre.

To fill in the hour we all walked back to see the tree projections, which were amazing examples of images that only resolve as you get to the right angle.

Arriving back in the Arts Centre to find the tours running a little late, we waited near a remainder street piano, which a couple of people whiled some time by playing. One guy played an ambient version of November Rain.

The Arts Centre ghost tour was a very proficient affair. A backstage and on-to-the-stages tour combined with various bumps in the night. Was worth it just to stand on stage and look back at the seats I've sat in watching performances.

 Half of my (free) ticket donors called it a night but the other opted to come with me through to see the Baths and State Library. En route, we looked into several lanes where projections had been mounted. Now that there were only stragglers spilling out of the nightclubs, these lesser projections (compared to the giant multicolour extravaganzas elsewhere) now seemed banal.

There were bands playing in the Bourke St mall and in La Trobe St. Some of the street performers in Swanston St were still going. It isn't easy to label their act - trailer trash burlesque perhaps?

There was now no queue to enter the library. As with last year we were directed straight to the reading dome. This time, while there was ambient sound, the main activity was light projection of patterns that filled the entire dome ceiling and walls. The image on the ceiling was a pulsing coiled up mass of tissue that looked like a brain. Around the walls were stands of double helix DNA that twisted and turned yet managed to always fit in the walled gaps between bookshelves. On two sides were printed a number of deaths caused in 1914 and 2014, the proportion of people infected and the usual symptoms - for each organism displayed in sequence was a disease agent. Disease information is fascinating but became a bit much so it was soon time to move on.

Inside the baths was synchronised swimming and we were in time for the last run. It was the first time I'd been in the baths building - I only go past it every day. As the run we'd come in midway ended several knob-heads dangerously leapt into the pool from the upper surround balcony. Security staff quickly contained and detained them. A final round of applause for the swimmers and this feature was all over after ten hours. I said goodbye to my walking companion who needed to get back to Flinders St station.

As it was 5am by then I headed back to the Wheeler Centre where The Book of the Night was still under way. It was much quieter and calmer and the new writers quietly typed away, asking the semi-napping audience for plot tips. I had picked up a coffee from the 24 hour Pie Face around the corner. As each writer finished their hour long stint they have a 5-minute handover summary to the next. This process was almost as bizarre as the conglomerate story itself. I stayed for last writing session and then, it was all over. At 7am, a short "Thanks for coming" from the Emerging Writers Festival hand and a promise that the full story would be published after a good sleep.

I staggered sleepily out into the morning and walked up to Carlton for a café breakfast. Bought the Sunday paper from the newsagent who said that yes I looked like I'd been up all night. Sent an SMS, set an alarm and crashed into bed.

Paris to Dubai

Final morning in Paris, we packed ready for flying then went out for a wander to pass the time. We went to a part of the Marais area with lots of food shops - breads, meats, cheeses, sweets etc. Then we wandered down to the quite odd Forum des Halles shopping centre, which as well being largely underground is currently a labyrinth of rebuilding. Apparently there is a large number of shops in there somewhere. Then it was back to the apartment to face the combination of logic puzzle and strain test that would be getting our luggage back down a very small spiral staircase. We managed it, but I badly strained a tendon in one hand. Then the boring bits of travel: taxi to airport, long flight to Dubai. How to pass a six hour flight: step 1, listen to a four hour opera (Cecilia Bartoli in Norma by Bellini) while eye-grazing four other passengers screens showing movies I'll never watch myself; step 2, watch a 2 hour Japanese action rom-com movie (Library Wars, which yes, is about militant librarians defending their books, and every library should have a copy). Take one's own noise isolation/cancellation earpieces with plane socket adapter. On arrival in Dubai we took a taxi to the apartment where our gracious host had waited up for us (2am local time). By then jetlagged and glad to have no set times for the morrow, we crashed into bed.

Paris Day 5 Pompidou & Louvre

We walked to the Pompidou Centre and after going to the top level discovered that the exhibits there are not covered by the Paris museum pass. This was not an issue really as we were there to see their main collection anyway, just once again signage in French galleries is less than clear. The free galleries are two floors of modern art - from 1905 onwards. I liked that it's all in chronological order - as it meant I could mentally doze off once we got to the abstract art of the 1940s. Once again this was a case where for quite a few artworks that I've known for a long time I was finally seeing them first hand. The Pompidou clearly rotates their collection a lot, with only a few rooms devoted to surrealism the display had too few of my favorite artists to be believable. For example there wasn't a single painting by Yves Tanguay that I would say showed his real quality (visions of an infinite field). I guess the payoff is that locals will over time get to see more of it - and I can't begrudge them for doing that. We had lunch at the nearby Cafe Beaubourg. A curiosity was that the waiters were dressed very formally but the waitresses not. From there we went back to the apartment for a rest before our next sally. And fittingly, for the finale gallery-wise we spent the late afternoon and evening at the Musee du Louvre. We took the subway to be foot-ready for the gallery. Or museum passes let us bypass the queue of people getting tickets. It is impossible to do it all of course, so we settled for a full sweep through their Egyptian holdings and then took stabs at several other areas. I was pleased to get some surprises as well as see some familiar works being either mobbed or ignored by the throng. Also, it was as I had hoped, a chance to see art and artists that we don't get to know about in our home galleries. Alas there are too many of these and time is too short to pause in the gallery to make notes. From memory, two unfamiliar artists that were well represented with interesting works were Derain and Maillot. We also saw a lot more sculptural works by Degas than I knew existed. Of course, like the Hermitage in St Petersburg, this is a former palace, so in many spaces there is as much to marvel at in looking up and around at the walls and ceilings as there is at the art thus framed. In one particular long room, which now holds many portraits of artists, the degree of magnificence makes it hard to understand what King Louix XIV thought was so deficient about this palace that he had to build Versailles. Other areas of the Louvre are inherently modern and practical but these don't seem to clash. The covered inner courtyards that are now sculpture galleries had a relaxing open, spacious feeling. Depending where you go there are either voids or crushes of people. The oddest of these is of course at the Mona Lisa. It was probably more civilised than I was expecting but still had a crush of people about 8 persons thick around the third semi-circular barrier that guards it. Staff were opening the rope barrier to let people out (from the front in effect) so they wouldn't have to work their way back through the crush. It was like a paparazzi pack, all cameras, phones and tablets raised in the air rather than a bunch of people using their own eyes to view this famous painting directly. Do they not get the irony of seeing it through a device despite getting so close? I held back at a distance, luckily it's placed high enough that I could see it directly from a few paces behind the crush. I've seen enough detail explorations of it anyway. I know what I think of art - I only get confused about what most people think about it. At least no-one was being able to do the "here I am in front of the Mona Lisa" photos. It would be interesting to know which paintings get all the attention. In a large room of paintings by David, it was Napoleon crowning Josephine that had a crowd. Nearby my interest was caught by a painting of his that is referenced in a series of Magritte works. I think we were running out of puff just before they started announcing that closing time was approaching. We opted to walk back home through a pleasant Paris evening.

Paris Day 4 Notre Dame

We walked to Notre Dame cathedral, going first into their new Crypt archaeological display. This reminded me a bit of the one we saw at Bath in England. That is, an example of a place finding and showing its roots as a Roman settlement - all from fragments of stones reworked and reused over the centuries. Quite a jigsaw puzzle. Then we went into the cathedral itself. While it looks like a mess of flying buttresses on the outside, inside it is simply spacious. The upper vaults are so high that the stained glass designs there are lost in the distance. In other respects it's quite modest, with very few noble entombments cluttering the side chapels. We walked up to the Musee d'Orsay and went straight to level 5 for lunch. Going through the galleries we played spot the familiar painting - not just because some are mega-famous but because we saw them when they were loaned to the NGA in Canberra a few years ago. I was keen to check out some artists whose work I have liked but seen little of. For two of these - Moreau and Courbet seeing more was disappointing. Oh well. On the other hand, some of the Bouguereau was interestingly different to the ones that make it into printed annual calendars. Oh, they also had lots of Van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin, Manet, Renoir etc that people were crowding around. We also saw so many Rodin sculptures there it seemed superfluous to go out to the Rodin museum so we decided to just stay at the d'Orsay a bit longer before taking the Metro back to the apartment. For the evening we went back to Sainte Chapelle for a violin+harpsichord concert. First time I've heard Bach and Vivaldi played in a building older than the music! Quite something to watch the outside daylight fading through the high walls of stained glass. Performance was itself stunning - violinist Paul Rouger soaring and crunching through a chaconne by Vitali with virtuoso form. We felt compelled to buy the CD of him performing it, and were embarrassed to be a couple of Euros short of the set price. He magnanimously waived the difference as no issue.

Paris Day 3 Walk about

We started the day by walking down to The Conciergerie. This building has a long history being an early palace but later became an infamous prison. As a tourist feature the focus is on the first French revolution and its prisoner Marie Antoinette. For a now clean and neat place it was still a grim visit. Adjacent buildings are still part of the justice system. Inside the walls of one of these is Sainte Chapelle, a very early yet ornate gothic church. Hence to reach it we had to go through a police run security scanner just as if we were visiting the courts. For an older design it had a decayed elegance not seen in the later styles. There were adverts for concerts during the weeks, which we noted. Then we walked along the Left Bank, going past the booksellers who use large green folding storage boxes perched on the river edging. We crossed the river and went into the Jardin du Carrousel (gardens). Next was the Musee National de L'Orangerie, famous largely as the place where there are two oval rooms of Monet murals. Next we crossed the Place de la Concorde, now a simple space in the middle of a roundabout but this was where thousands were guillotined during the turmoil of the revolution. Then we walked up the Champes Elysee. At first this is just an extension of the gardens with seats and small kiosks selling foods and drinks. Then abruptly it becomes a modern strip of upmarket brand labels and remains so all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. At the Arc, while Lee took the lift to the top I was treated to a brief French military dedication at the eternal flame (the Arc has France's tomb of the unknown soldier). We decided to walk from the Arc to the Eiffel Tower, which was simple once we'd identified the right road. Nearer the tower was unsurprisingly busy with tourists. We took some photos and walked back over the river to the Trocadero, which is clearly an excellent shot to take photos including the tower. We did the whole day on foot - perhaps to get the queueing mode out of our legs - but that was enough so we took a Metro ride home.

Paris Day 2 Versailles

Where do I begin? To tell the story of the longest most tiring, strenuous and tedious day of tourism that I've ever known. Though I should preface the above by saying it was well worth it and Versailles remains a must see feature. But let me put the pain to bed while I'm still feeling it now that I'm back in our apartment with my feet up and a cool breeze wafting through. The queuing to get in was a matter of standing in the sun on hard cobblestones for 90 minutes. This was much worse than we expected, which meant that we weren't as prepared as we might have been. The catch-22 involved here is that I carried enough water for us to cope, which meant standing/shuffling up and down the snaked line bearing the weight of the water and our other survival paraphernalia. All the while rotating and rearranging hats and bags to keep things out of the sun. While that was the worst of it, for the rest of the day we had very few places to sit and rest. We even had to stand to eat/drink from the internal cafe. Rant over, I'm glad we went and just a little chastened that I'm getting old enough that doing these things can hurt quite a lot. We got to Versailles by taking a Metro subway train to Montparnasse and then buying return tickets on a suburban train to Versailles Chantiers. From there we walked for 15 minutes through the town of Versailles before seeing our doom in the huge queue to get through security scanning. At least we hadn't needed to first queue for tickets. Once inside, perhaps because of the pace of the scanning, there was no crowding although Lee did immediately have to queue for a toilet. The way it works at Versailles is that you enter through the Chateau (Palace really). This directs you through a sequence of rooms, there are toilets, a cafe, a restaurant and two shops. You can leave the room sequence in several places to go out to the gardens. The chateau is much like similar royal palaces/apartments around Europe but with a few twists. Some parts are simply bigger/better, e.g. the famed Hall of Mirrors. Others had interrupted histories because of the Revolutions plural and restoration of the monarchy. Some spaces had been overtaken by Napoleons (I & III). As I've written before, being able to see and compare these across Europe has been the unexpected payoff of this holiday. While the palace is itself the feature, it became a museum since the revolution so there is a lot of art about too. So, once again we were able to see works of artists who we don't see in art history books. Ditto for avenues of busts of writers, artists, composers etc and see which were enough noted in the past, all lined up and some familiar and many not. After walking through the chateau we queued with quite some patience, in the sun again, for a very bumpy little pseudo-train to take us to two auxiliary buildings - the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon. Like lesser palaces these still had elements of grandeur but had open vistas and the feel of seaside villas, albeit with no beach, just more sculptured gardens. At this point we were very tired and after queuing again for the return little train ride we didn't have the energy to stop at The Grand Canal. This was clearly very popular and being outside the central gardens is available to all, much like Kings Park or the Domain. The mini train is ticket controlled and was thus able to get us back in the grounds. I suspect that if we hadn't had to queue so much then we would have managed to walk more of the main gardens and its fountains. Timing was an issue for that as they block it off for separately ticketed water fountain shows. It had been blocked as we waited for the train. Thus, this is what we lost from being in the long entry queue. But as we were too exhausted we just walked out the gates and headed off through Versailles town for the train station. We had left the apartment at 8:45 and were back at 18:30.

Paris Day 1 Boat and About

We started with a river cruise up and down the Seine. For this we walked from the apartment down to the river and then tried to dash as we felt we might be running late for the timed ticket that we had. Proof that judging walking times is a tourist's peril. The tour was fairly simple, along the river to the Eiffel Tower, then back past our origin to go around the island in the river that has the Notre Dame cathedral. Using binoculars on the famous metal tower was more effective than I expected. Such a boat trip is inherently about going under bridges, so almost all were named and described for us. What I hadn't realised until the second pass is that what I assumed was gold decorations on some bridges was a bazillion padlocks that had been left locked to the gratings. Apparently the tradition is for lovers to affix a lock and throw the keys into the river. After the boat tour we walked along the right bank, which was made up as a beach for people, esp children who hadn't left (Paris) for the summer. Thus we made our way, mostly back the way we had come, heading for the Musee Carnavalet. Somewhat hungry we found another excellent Chinese restaurant. Good prices and it was funny that while we were able to choose dishes by sight more than with English, some French speakers who came in after seemed to need more guidance (might be my mistake as I didn't understand a word). The Musee Carnavalet almost defies description but is run by the City of Paris and has a sometimes bizarre assortment of art, furniture, curios and historical gems. For example, kept under blinds were personal artifacts of Marie Antoinette. There were also entire reconstructed rooms in various period styles, frequently with authentic matching (if sometimes decayed) furniture. It's hard to call it must-see but I can't easily imagine having not seen it. As some staff were on lunch breaks whole sections had been closed off for an hour. Next we headed to the Metro to zip over to Le Palais Garnier (National Opera/Ballet), where we paid for a guided tour. Our guide was quite fun in a grumpy way but had to contend with a very loud busker nearby (singing a Leonard Cohen song in French). Like so many things in Paris the opera house has a mixed history being built before, through and after the Revolution. Even so, the key word is lavish although with many a theatrical stage painting technique. Our guide was keen to point out the fake bits. A particular feature is the theatre space ceiling, where an original but smoke stained painting has been covered by a modern painting by Marc Chagall. It's mostly used for ballet now as the national opera prefers a larger capacity venue. Then we walked all the way to Montmartre to see the Sacre-Coeur basilica. Another choice that looked easier on the map than it proved to be. Certainly I had under-estimated the size of the hill. However, it did mean that we walked through Montmartre, which is clearly a little bit hipster just as its reputation has it. As we neared the church we saw a few people using a clearly dodgy practice to distract tourists - classic pickpocket technique. Needless to say we avoided them. Every church is in many ways just another church and few are really alike - I can't now recall if Lee was taking photos, or whether it was allowed in this one. Back on the street in front of the church is a very good view of half of central Paris. The quality of the view and our tiredness from the hill climb gave us the excuse to drop the plan to take the Metro down to Montparnasse where there is a tall building with 360 degree views. Instead we hopped off the train near our apartment.