"I took a risk when I hired you, Manny - don't eat muffins when I'm developing you - I took a risk when I gave you this job. A lot of people would
have said 'who is this rudderless hippy? How do I get away from him? Has he got a hunting knife strapped to his shin?' But I saw through that." First, let's start with what I hope will be my last installment of Getting Hit On In The Metro. So this morning I'm on the way back from running errands, on the escalator up from the quai, when this guy walks by me, checks me out so blatantly that he's leaning over as he's leering at my chest and says very enthusastically, "FRRRESSSHHH."
Now, over the past few years I've lost my ability to pinpoint English accents, so the best I can do is say this guy was from either Africa, or maybe he was West Indian, but whatever it was, he was clearly comfortable with English, 'cause as he continued up the escalator, he loudly (and in English) says "All the French girls are UGLY. But that blonde down there? I'd hit that." A few people look back at me, and then this older gentleman who had smiled at me earlier when I'd held the exit door open for him comes up a few steps, stands next to me, and says (this time in French) that I have quite the admirer. I laugh a bit, tell him that it does seem that way, and then reach the top, managing to dodge the FRESH dude when I go into my bank. Le sigh.
And here we have part deux, which lucky for you will be full of pictures. Welcome to the series that I'm calling
Death Star: A Library. I know I've talked a ton about
the BNF because I sometimes feel like I live there, but I don't know if you can really appreciate the experience unless you've seen what it's like just going into the place. See, the library has this highly intelligent design, as the books (some of which are very old and/or very rare) are all stored in
book-shaped towers above ground, and the people are below ground in these ginormous reading rooms. To read the majority of the books, you request them online and someone pulls them and they come down from the towers and then you pick them up at this desk. The whole thing is really not too terribly efficient.
The Death Star parts are the bases of the towers, where there are sorta lobby-ish things and bathrooms and the entrances. When you pass through the first of three turnstiles (provided you've managed to get a research card, giving you access to the ultra-special research level), you push through one set of heavy metal doors and pull open
the next set. If you look to your left, you see
this. Look to your right, and you get
the first escalator. You go down the
first escalator, trying to not get caught as you surreptitiously take pictures even though you vaguely recall being told cameras aren't allowed when you got your first research card a couple of years ago. You get to the landing, turn right, and you can start your way down the second, even longer
escalator, and now you can see
the ground and the people several stories below you.
Because there are guards and a librarian at the bottom of that tower, I put the camera away and then took pictures from the bottom in another tower that isn't used as an entrance, and instead just contains an available bathroom and serves as a place for people to use their mobiles. The picture here is at the base of the Tour des Temps; please note the walkway at the top. Here are two views from the back: one more of the
escalator and another walkway, the other more of the
concrete walls. You probably can't tell (I tried to get pictures of the texture, but they didn't come out) but above the concrete, the walls are thin wire cables woven into a mesh pattern, and those big round things are for ventilation. You might think that this area is just unfinished, or in the middle of a remodel, but no, it was designed to be concrete and woven metal mesh. If stories and stories of metal walls with mostly pointless walkways (maybe they serve as plot development for a nerdy researching Luke and Leia?) don't add up to a library version of the Death Star, then I don't know what ever will.
Fresh.
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