Friday, February 10, 2017

"It's an Aesthetic Perimeter"















“It’s not a wall, it’s an aesthetic perimeter” in the words of Paris' deputy mayor.
I'll have to remember that one.

According to the French daily Le Parisien, this charmingly named security countermeasure will be eight feet high and made of bulletproof glass. So then, imagine a big ballistic sneeze guard surrounding the Champ de Mars.

Visitors will have to go through airport-type security screening to get into the public spaces around the Eiffel Tower. A little strange-looking, maybe, but entirely reasonable given the frequency and ferocity of terrorist attacks on public places that France has experienced in the last two years. Expect similar aesthetics to spring up around other public attractions in Paris and other European cities soon.

8 comments:

James said...

“It’s not a wall, it’s an aesthetic perimeter”, takes impressionism to it's logical extreme, but as you said, it is France.

TSB said...

French Impressionism! I like that. You know, I was tempted to write that post in a Hemingway style. He modeled his writing on the techniques of Impressionist painters, or so he claimed.

To do Hemingway parody that is clean and true you must face the white bull that is paper with no words on it. Like this.

A Clear Well-Secured Place

"They sat together at a table that was close against the ballistic glass wall near the bollards that kept the Puegeots and the Citroëns a safe distance from the door of the cafe and looked at the terrace where the entry control points were all empty except where the young man sat in the shadow of the magnetometer that moved slightly in the wind. A girl and a soldier went by in the street. The street light shone on the assault rifle that hung around his neck by a three-point sling. The girl wore a head covering and hurried beside him."

It's infectious stuff. I may very well get my Hemingway on for one of these posts about Paris.

James said...

Don't forget Hemingway's style had more periods than an all girls high school.

TSB said...

James: I loved this old Bad Hemingway Contest they used to have (still do? I don't know) where the idea was to write a parody that was good enough to be Hemingway on a bad day. Good bad Hemingway, in other words, not bad bad Hemingway. I thing real serious Hemingway fans hated it.

Anonymous said...

Keep going with that Hemingway stuff!! gwb

TSB said...

GWB: You want to be careful with that stuff. Too much of it drove Hemingway over the edge and to electroshock therapy and suicide.

Anonymous said...

TSB: If you think the government or a wall is going to protect you think again. One of the biggest dams in the world is collapsing tonite.

BREAKING: Marysville, Yuba County evacuated as Oroville spillway collapse feared.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article132332499.html

TSB said...

I never thought the gov't was going to protect me, but if I were a Californian, I would want to know why the state didn't adequately maintain a dam.