Expo At the Hôtel de Ville

'La Terrace,' on the terrace of the Galeries Lafayette, stays open until the end of September.

Bargain Day At Apple Expo

Paris:- Monday, 18. September 2000:- This is a thin issue. I didn't realize this until I was looking up 'Metropole One Year Ago' and two years ago at the bottom of this page. I didn't know about Saturday's Techno Parade until I bought Saturday's edition of Le Parisien.

The weather forecasts at the end of the week were completely wrong for Thursday and Friday - it was nice instead of not - but were right for the weekend which was definitely a 'few degrees below normal' for the season.

The Techno Parade has had its reports in Metropole before so I was not heart-broken about not spending hours walking around surrounded by over-loud machine-noise, being a 'few degrees below normal.'

I've never been to the big 'Fête de la Huma' - but I decided against it in favor of staying home and wearing a lot of extra clothing. On TV, I heard rock-movie star Eddy Mitchell tell Communist Party secretary Robert Hue that he'd been a young, non-card-carrying commie in his crazy youth.

Not getting out to Vincennes for the '1st Open Pétanque' over the weekend was another weather-based decision. Grey skies don't suit pétanque; which probably explain why its big leagues are in the south of France.

Whatever it was I did during the week didn't translate into proper feature articles; not even this week's 'Downtown, Dark Street, Bright Roof' which came about by accident - weather again - rather than design. This leaves:

Paris Sous le Ciel de la Peinture

There are subversives around who mock 'modern art' even if it is served up with great fanfare and roasted cow meat. Luckily there are also occasional exhibitions of old-fashioned avant-garde art.

'Modern' as a term to describe art, only came into use in the late '40's, to distinguish between avant-garde art that made a bit of sense and forms of art that usually do not have much 'sense' to display; and may even lack elementary technique.

The Hôtel de Ville's Salle Saint-Jean is not known for its major exhibitions, but in its quiet way it seems to have put one on. Its title, 'Paris Sous le Ciel de la Peinture,' is a bit misleading, if poetic.

If the title was 'Paris by Masters' I'm sure there would by lines waiting to get in all the way around the block to the Place de la Hôtel de Ville.

Before photographers came along to take their snapshots of Paris, its representations had to be done by hand. Even after photography, artists kept applying their hand to it.

This started in the 14th century, and still goes on. 'Tableaux Parisiens' is an introduction by Jérôme Godeau, 17 pages long, which sums up this exhibition pretty well. Since I can't reproduce it here, the simplest thing is to suggest you don't miss this show.

If you do, you will see works by Bonnard, Caillebotte, Chagall, Corot, David, Delacroix, Dubuffet, Feininger, Giacometti, Granet, Jongkind, Léger, Marquet, Matisse, Picasso, Pissarro, de Staël, Utrillo and Vuillard - and about 20 others; represented by about 160 works.

Many of these are from private collections, so they will not be on view together elsewhere. The exhibition space in the Salle Saint-Jean is comfortable, with large, high-ceilinged open spaces and smaller corridors, for smaller pieces. A 300-page catalogue is available for 270 francs, but entry to the exhibition itself is free.

At the Salle Saint-Jean, Hôtel de Ville, 5. Rue de Lobau, Paris 4. Métro: Hôtel de Ville. The exhibition continues until Sunday, 17. December. Except Monday, open daily from 11:00 to 18:00. InfoTel.: 01 42 76 51 53.

It makes no difference to me if 90 percent of Metropole's readers use PC-type computers to view and read the magazine; which is put together using an elderly Macintosh.

The Internet reduces the differences between the two types of computer and their software systems to a common denominator. Since I have nearly nothing to do with the server side of producing Metropole, only minimal software is necessary.

So there is not much reason for me to even go to Apple's annual expo in Paris. Free apples are no longer offered to all visitors. Instead, many of the outfits that sell parts and software in Paris for the Macintosh are present, and their prices are a bit lower than during the rest of the year.

Apple had two new things to plug: its 'G4 Cube' and its new operating system, 'OS-X,' which would otherwise be known as OS-10 if 'X' didn't sound so spacy.

This operating system, in a 'public-beta' version - which means it is unfinished and has rough edges - it's not crashproof! - was being retailed for a hefty 249 francs and Macfanatics were eagerly lining up to pay real money for it.

'Macfanatics' is a good name for them; because they should know as well as I do that 'OS-X' will only be stable and safe to run about the time 'OS-11' is being flogged. In fact, it might be better to keep using 'OS-8' or 'OS-9' for another couple of years.

All of these ever-ritzier operating systems require huge amounts of hard-disk memory. Since all of my stuff is elderly, I prefer to use the little disk space I have for doing this magazine - which is very 'retro' when it comes to techno.

Also 'retro' were some of the dealer stans. 'Macfanatics' wait all year for the bargains offered at Apple Expo, and show up with big shopping lists. It is also the only place in Paris where prices can be compared.