Boing Boing: How the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris is going. “Three years ago the world watched in horror as one of our most recognizable landmarks became a towering inferno. French President Emmanuel Macron wants Notre Dame ready for the 2024 Paris Olympics. French public TV shares this update on the project.”
Thanks to Esther S. for giving me a heads-up on this one. Journal of Cultural Analytics: Shakespeare and Company Project Data Sets. “This article describes three data sets from the Shakespeare and Company Project. The data sets provide information about Shakespeare and Company, Sylvia Beach’s bookshop and lending library in interwar Paris. The first data set focuses on the members of the lending library. The second, on the books that circulated in the lending library. The third, on the events—borrows, purchases, subscriptions, renewals, deposits, reimbursements—that connected members and books. Together, the three data sets promise to address and bridge concerns in modernist studies, the digital humanities, and the public humanities. Work on the data sets began in 2014. The first two versions of the data sets were released in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The current version, 1.2, was released in 2022. Over forty people have contributed to the data sets.”
BBC: Paris hits back at filthy streets hashtag campaign. “Paris officials have blamed a ‘political smear campaign’ after angry comments and pictures of filthy streets spread on social media criticising a ‘trashed Paris’. The hashtag ‘saccage Paris’ went viral over Easter, with many of the messages accusing the city’s Socialist leadership of ruining the capital.”
AP: Paris doctors warn of catastrophic overload of virus cases. “Critical care doctors in Paris say surging coronavirus infections could soon overwhelm their ability to care for the sick in the French capital’s hospitals, possibly forcing them to choose which patients they have the resources to save. The sobering warnings were delivered Sunday in newspaper opinions signed by dozens of Paris-region doctors.”
The American Legion: Paris Post 1’s history digitized. “Paris, the site of the first American Legion organizational caucus in March 1919, has never since been without a Legion presence – Paris Post 1 was founded that year. One of its public functions is the celebration of The American Legion’s birthday (March 15-17, the dates of the caucus). This year, that will take place at 11 a.m. Paris time March 20, at the site of the American Legion Caucus plaque in the 7th Arrondissement.”
The Guardian: Legendary Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company begs for help in pandemic. “One of the world’s most iconic bookshops, Shakespeare and Company, has appealed to its customers for help as it is struggling, with sales that are down almost 80% since March. The celebrated Parisian bookstore told readers on Wednesday that it was facing ‘hard times’ as the Covid-19 pandemic keeps customers away.”
BBC: Coronavirus: Louvre reopens with masks and one-way system. “The Louvre museum has reopened in Paris after its closure nearly four months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic. Masks are compulsory, a one-way system is in place and numbers of visitors will be controlled. There will also be a spaced queue to view Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa painting.”
Hyperallergic: Images of 100,000 Artworks From Paris Museum Collections Now Freely Available to the Public . “Paris Musées announced yesterday that it is now offering 100,000 digital reproductions of artworks in the city’s museums as Open Access — free of charge and without restrictions — via its Collections portal. Paris Musées is a public entity that oversees the 14 municipal museums of Paris, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais, and the Catacombs.”
The Connexion: Paris museum welcomes ‘Instagram artist in residence’. “The Musée d’Orsay in Paris is to welcome a French ‘artist in residence’ on its Instagram social media account, who will each week highlight one of the museum’s great artists as if they were still alive today. Artist Jean-Philippe Delhomme, who works in both France and the United States, is best known for his humorous cartoons. They have appeared in publications such as Le Monde, Vanity Fair, GQ, Vogue, and The New Yorker.”
Google Keyword: Hip-hop dancers show Paris in a new light on Street View. “When I see videos of myself dancing, it’s hard to imagine that person was once a shy girl from the outskirts of Paris. Thanks to hip-hop, I’ve found my path, and now I seek to help others do the same by encouraging them to use dance as a vehicle for expression. When Google’s Street View team asked if I’d like to show Paris and its iconic Gare de Lyon train station with the world through the lens of dance, I immediately said yes. “
Mashable: Residents of Rue Cremieux in Paris are fed up with Instagrammers. “On Thursday, the BBC reported that Parisians who live on Rue Cremieux have asked Paris’ city council to erect a gate blocking off access to their street at peak hours. Apparently, the quaint block has become such a hot spot for travelers, influencers, or anyone else in pursuit of the perfect ‘gram, that residents have gotten fed up.”
Bloomberg Quint: Google, Facebook Target Paris as a Center for AI Expansion. “Paris is gaining ground as a European hub for artificial intelligence research as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. pledge to hire staff and invest in labs, after their top executives met with French President Emmanuel Macron.”
Reuters: Uber opens up Paris travel database to help city planners. “Uber said on Friday it would open up its trove of travel data in Paris to the public to help city officials and urban planners better understand transportation needs, as the company seeks to woo national authorities. The U.S. ride-hailing app collects huge amounts of data from the billions of trips taken by customers which it uses to improve its services and has recently started to make it available for a number of cities including Washington D.C., Sydney and Boston.”
The High Court of Paris has ruled that Google and Bing do not have to scrub torrent-related results from their search results. “Google and Bing are not required to automatically filter ‘torrent’ related searches to prevent piracy, the High Court of Paris has decided…. More specifically, the court notes that the word ‘torrent’ has many legitimate uses, as does the BitTorrent protocol, which is a neutral communication technology. This means that blocking everything ‘torrent’ related is likely to censor legal content as well.” Good. Would have been a terrible precedent.
Whoa! Google’s Paris offices were raided! “French police have raided Google’s Paris offices as part of an investigation into ‘aggravated tax fraud’ and money laundering allegations, authorities said Tuesday.”
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