I can't wait til Maya visits you in Paris either. Maybe there'll be some more sweet photos of her...Not that the ones today aren't fun (-; PS That movie about lying is so funny and sweet and thought provoking. A real gem of a film IMHO.
________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, May 1, 2013 11:40 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Un matin magique [ I was sitting earlier in one of my favorite people-watching joints, the Café Beaubourg, opposite the Centre Pompidou. Wrote this then, but waited to post it until I got back to my apartment, because I needed to process and upload the photos. ] I spent the morning very pleasantly walking through the Marais, one of my favorite areas of Paris, ending up at my destination, l'Académie de Magie. It's a small, private museum dedicated to magic. It's got a wonderful collection of old magic paraphernalia, posters, and the price of admission even includes a few short performances of close-up magic. Not to mention a collection of automata -- those animated sculptures that the French were so famous for. Best of all, the place -- this being a holiday and all -- was full of kids. The wonder on their faces made the wonder of the museum even more wonderful. The place is full of great interactive exhibits that allow them to *participate* in the illusions, so they really get into seeing through their own hands or laughing at the funny shapes of their bodies in the distorting mirrors. Here's me, after a few weeks on the Croissant Diet: All in all, it's a delightful place (although far too expensive at 12€), and I have an enormous smile on my face. It's been a really fun way to start my holiday. That said, it's not as nice a place as the *other* museum devoted to magic in France, la Maison de la Magie. That one is in Robert Houdin's old house in Blois, and is about ten times the size of this one. Houdin was the most famous magician of the nineteenth century; the American magician Houdini took his stage name from him. And the museum itself is just *wonderful*, an utter delight. If you're ever touring France, you'll probably have to go to Blois anyway to see the summer palaces of the King and his court, and la Maison de la Magie is only a few steps away. It's worth the walk. It contains a veritable treasure house of magic history, combined with live shows, and, on one of the upper floors, one of the best illusions I've ever seen in my life. It's an undersea world that you get to walk through. Really. The trick is that the undersea world is on the ceiling, crafted in three dimensions and incredibly detailed. You walk through the winding course of this exhibit, holding on to a railing for support. Why? Because you're wearing a kind of helmet apparatus that takes your forward vision and transforms it via a set of mirrors until you're looking at the ceiling as you look straight in front of you. The result is breathtaking, and the illusion nearly complete. You walk cautiously along the sea bottom, avoiding sharks and pits in front of you, enjoying what it would be like to be Jules Verne as he dreamed up "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea." WAY cool. I simply can't wait for Maya to come visit me here in France. I want to take her both to L'Académie de la Magie and La Maison de la Magie. She'll just flip. I could hear her laughter ringing in my ears as I walked through the museum this morning. Made my day...
