Billy's Lines Of Gibberish

The more I read and learn about Blogger, the more I am enthusiastic about it, or rather, about real weblog softwares. I had not fully realized before how poor a blogging tool Yahoo 360° is. For example, you can easily post one picture at the beginning of posts, but if you want to illustrate them with several pictures, you must write a couple of lines of HTML code for each pic, which is annoying and time consuming.

Also, among the points I missed most in Yahoo was the lack of real archives and research tool. Now that it is a total mess there, I can hardly — or not at all — have access to many of my own posts, even if I remember when they were posted.

Fortunately, I've kept a copy of every blog I posted on Yahoo. Some of them are worth not being lost in the ether of Internet cyberspace, methinks. Since you can back date your posts in Blogger, I will do that, for some old blogs of mine I like particularly, in forthcoming days or weeks.

Manhattan by Woody Allen (1979)

"Fifty-five seconds. That's the time Woody Allen needed, in 1979, to make this place — in his dear Upper Side, by the East River — one of the most famous places in the world. A pilgrimage as much necessary to lovers than Venice [...] This sequence is made in the image of Woody's Manhattan: it's a dream, a fantasy. One more time, artifice created the reality of art." (Pierre Murat)

Simon & Garfunkel – The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)

Every week on Wednesday, I will receive Telerama, a French culture magazine to which I subscribe. I have not received this week's issue of the magazine though, because I left home before mail distribution yesterday for a one-week trip to New-York City. However, I found out what is the main topic of this week's issue of the magazine when I reached Charles de Gaulle airport: the cover coincidentally ran New-York, 24 hours in the life of a city. Of course, I bought it and read it in the plane.

I translated into English a few sentences of an article by Pierre Murat about New-York and the cinema, that was illustrated with the iconic photo above, part of the famous sequence in Woody Allen's movie Manhattan.

Queensboro bridge. Upper East side, Manhattan — April 2008

Woody Allen is considered one of the main US film directors by the French – whereas I've been told he is not acknowledged as such in his country – and I love Manhattan particularly.

I have wanted for years to be in this place, in the same way people from elsewhere may long to go and see the banks of the Seine River. Because of the movie by Woody Allen, because of the song by Simon and Garfunkel also. So, a couple of hours after the plane landed only, I was at the Eastern end of the 59th Street in Sutton Place Park and was gazing at the Queensboro Bridge.

It was 10 am in Paris when my plane took off yesterday. It was about 5 pm in New-York on the same day when I took the picture on the right. A dramatic scene shift in a few hours from Amélie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet to Manhattan by Woody Allen, sort of.

Built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution, the Eiffel Tower has become a global icon of France, and one of the most recognizable structures in the world.

It wight have a new look next year though, in time for its 120th anniversary: Serero Architects of Paris recently won an open competition to redesign its public viewing platform and reception areas. According to the new plan, the top floor plate of the tower would be extended by grafting a high performance carbon Kevlar structure on it.

A spokesperson for Serero explained that the plan to restructure the top of the tower aims to increase the quality of access. I would be useful indeed, because the average waiting times for the tower's elevators currently run at more than an hour at peak times.

The New Top

The design is already causing controversy. Some think it would be pleasant to see the Old Lady with a new appearance. On the opposite, critics question the wisdom of tinkering with the famous silhouette and spending money on upgrading a tourist attraction which attracts 6.9 million visitors a year. Others wonder if this is something else than a promotion campaign for the architect team... It would not be the first time that the Eiffel Tower is used for promoting a hoax.