Vide Greniers De Printemps: Neighborhood Street Sale

Early in my ramblings in April I had picked up a leaflet advertising a neighborhood street sale in St. Germain, just north of us. From an experience Vicki had on Boulevard Voltaire in 2014, we knew what this was about: a day-long spring cleaning neighborhood street sale, well worth looking into. The one she shopped was just a couple blocks long. But the sale we saw Sunday stretched for 4 or 5 blocks of Boulevard Raspail and several side streets too, and took us a couple hours to cover. It was better than a flea market in that these "yard sales" are mostly families, not the pros, selling, and, although there is a great deal of junk, there are also some pretty interesting things, and probably some serious bargains as well. From an entertainment/amusement perspective, it was one of the better things we've done.

Because of the tax system in France, you can't just open a stand on the street and sell personal stuff. Everything is subject to the value-added tax and relevant documentation and payment of taxes. But neighborhoods can petition their local governments for exemptions, stipulating that they will prohibit the pros from participating. What we saw were mostly families, with maybe a few arguable exceptions. Neighborhood sales like this occur only in the spring and fall. We're already on the look-out for another one this month in our vicinity. What a hoot!

Oh, we did actually buy something, a small used electric space heater, for €4. The heating element doesn't work. How do you say caveat emptor in French? Acheteur mefiez-vous!

Looking south on Boulevard Raspail: a block away is the 1910 art
nouveau Hotel Lutetia, and facing it, across a small park, is the Bon
Marche; not a bad neighborhood by any means; average room rate
at the Lutetia, as I write, is €1,887 per night

Looking north

As we'd discover, you're apt to find most anything

Now on a side street

Most interesting floor lamp ever, so far

Still processing this one

Snails not included

Another side street scene

Serving dish for white asparagus (in season now)

All kinds of innovative display

The only vacant space we saw

Changing tent...we used to have one of those

Lots of kid stuff

Violin not included

Nice rhododendron already blooming...very tempting,
but we didn't think it would pass US Department of
Agriculture inspection

Satisfied customer

Very old canteen

"You want a toe? I can get you a toe..." [running
gag]

"Merry Christmas, Mao" it reads...definitely should have
bought this instead of the heater!

Bourse de Commerce And The Pinault Collection

Why the Pinault Collection, you ask, for our European Night of Museums? Two reasons: 1) it was the only one Vicki could find tickets for when we were roaming the South Island back in February, and, 2) we knew a bit of the collection, enough to know that we definitely did not want to pay to see it. We are not big fans of contemporary art, at least the stuff you see in museums. Plus, we knew we could do it in short order and not have to stay out way past our bed-times.

Two great shots of the Bourse de Commerce from aloft (off the web)

Dating from the 18th century, it was originally the grain market, at
the other end from the vast Les Halles market; then it became part of
France's stock market; totally redone and renovated in the 21st century,
along with Les Halles; and now a museum of contemporary art

Over the entry

Helpful model #6,328

The first of many very large paintings and installations, Frank
Bowling's Texas Louise, from his Map Paintings series; if you can't
paint well, I always say, paint big; a similar dictum applies also
to contemporary (popular) music: if you can't play well, play loud

Helpful map of the paintings and installations

Animatronic mouse involved in some sort of soliloquy;
at this point Vicki announced she'd already gotten the gist
of it all and was ready to go back home; animatronics
seem to be a growing segment of contemporary art...
perhaps I should re-think my attitude toward Disney...

But I wanted to see the building; alas, the array of contemporary
art permitted only glimpses here and there

Cy Twombly was well represented; of course

Huge kelp cocoons inside of which assorted animatronic critters
were flitting around; Anita Yi is the artist; I'll spare you the profundity
underlying these creations

The dome; alas, created before art nouveau

Lined up to gaze into Robert Gober's Waterfall; something about
nature and culture; and gazing

Vicki's turn

What you see; I let my phone do the gazing for me

Thus; we have decided that if you can write a good
paragraph of artistic gibberish, you can slap anything 
up on the wall and they will call it art; perhaps, after
you die, someone will pay millions for it

Gimme that old-time art and architecture

Closer up; note Old Glory there; the pigeons on the railing are
artificial; more profundity; nature and culture again?

Ever more profundity

This one almost appreciable

The profundity spills out onto the walls; actually it's the capitalist
and imperialist history of the building that is oozing out (seriously)

Another humongous painting, see below for explanation

Click to enlarge; click twice to skip

Beautiful old marble floor over which we walked on
our way out into the night