Rollin, Rollin, Rollin

Between the wheels of the endless Métro cars and the countless rolls of microfilm....indeed

I started bright and early at the BnF this morning again.  A few problems with their automated request system, but eh...nothing too interesting.  Fortunately, I was able to finish everything up by the time I had to leave.

At 1 PM, I booked it to the Centre Pompidou, the research appointment that was kind of the raison d´être of my trip to France.  And of course, I showed up like half an hour too early.  Needless to say, the area around the Pompidou is bustling with activity and culture and wasn´t too difficult to find something distracting.  For instance, I´m walking around the building and  something in the window catches my eye: CHRISTIAN MARCLAY.  My first reaction was: wait....NO!  But yes.  Much to my surprise, the Pompidou is going to be hosting a 3 day long 24 hour a day screening of Christian Marclay´s renowned The Clock while I´m hear.  Amazingly epic win.  Also, there were quite a few hippies around...just sayin...

So I was awkwardly hanging out by the employee entrance I was supposed to go through, and thankfully one of the employees had come down to look for me.  We went through a dizzying assortment of tunnels under the Pompidou (seriously, look at the outside of the building and imagine the basement...yes, it´s that crazy) to get up to the library.  It became more and more clear (thanks to the ever-present language barrier) that they had really gone above and beyond to help me out with my research.  The library is currently closed to everyone as they are undergoing a massive inventory check.  They wanted to reschedule my appointment to the 16th, but decided to honor it when they realized I had already bought my flight and made arrangements.  For this, I could truly not be more grateful.  Whilst going through plentiful correspondance, I´m pretty sure I ran across a letter signed by the Louis Vuitton.  Cooly.  Also, a band started to play in the piazza aside the museum.  As the curator explained, the piazza in front of the museum is owned by the Pompidou and they can control it, but the side one is owned by the city...i.e. no rules.  So when brass pep bands decide to have a random performance like today, there is nothing they can do.  However, I will say that it was mildly amusing hearing them transition from Tequila to the Spice Girls, culminating in Britney Spear´s Toxic.  Yeah France.

Tick tock, I realized I have but a week left here...and it´s certainly going to be jam-packed.  I really don´t want to leave again having missed to do something!