I Left the French Party on the Left
Thursday, October 8th, 2009France announced a big party. They called it Nuit Blanche.
My daughter and I are in Paris and she said she went to one when she lived here and it was one hell of a party.
“Let’s go!” It begins around dark with a half dozen key ‘party zones’.
We had dinner and bought a couple of bottles of wine (awesome red at $4) and off to the chaos. The streets were riotous in a good way. Gendarmes everywhere. Machine guns, too, in a good EU sort of way.
People carousing, drinking, open liquor everywhere… partay! But Ashley and I keep our wine in her “Hackers Are People Too” tote bag. The line to get into Luxembourg Gardens (a huge gorgeous public park) is eternal. Partay! Crazy music. Noise. Shouting. Honking. Traffic like… why the hell are you even driving?
I am thoroughly prepared for a French pat-down. Uzis around. So, yeah, I expect security. Aha! We’re at the gate. And what do the police want? OUR FRICKIN’ WINE!
No drinking in the public park… vin rouge is cascading down the streets… Uzis are everywhere… what are they trying to protect against?
Security Metaphor: Make noise in the East and take their wine in the West. (Sun Tzu) The massive presence of heavily armed police makes one feel reasonably protected (in a hit the ground quickly sort of way) and indeed, Nuit Blanche was 100% calm. There were no signs to indicate “intercict du vin” (no booze allowed) but that’s the beauty of Sun Tzu. An additional layer of unannounced security (that did p*** me off) but completely understandable in retrospect. If an alcohol fueled riot had commenced inside Luxembourg Gardens, with only a handful of entrance/exits, the effects could have been most problematic. Nip it at the bud. Lessons to be learned.