It was the Albertville Olympics, and it was the first time that I remember the opening ceremonies as being absolutely whacko. The teams were lead in by women dressed as snowglobes, for one thing, and someone kept reciting twee little couplets, in French, of course. It was artsy beyond belief.
So, when I tuned into the opening ceremony of this year's summer Olympics, I kept in mind that this was Paris, and likely to be even more off-the-wall.
And it was. It was also, by turns, baffling, boring, and sometimes, moving.
The baffllement could be helped, in some cases, with a little background in French history, which I don't really have, but was supplied this morning by Greg Jenner, who hosts the You're Dead to Me podcast for BBC. I follow him on Instagram, so he posted a quick explanation of why the heavy metal group Gojira was performing with a decapitated Marie Antoinette, perched on various outcroppings of the Conciergerie. The song they were playing was "Ça Ira", a song associated with the French Revolution, and the Conciergerie was the prison where many people destined for the guillotine were held.
So now I know. Still have no idea why Snoop Dog was a torch-bearer. (Perhaps because the torches resembled giant spliffs?)
Three things I found moving:
1) The haunting spectacle of a mechanical silver horse with a masked rider charging down the centre of the Seine. I haven't found a definite explanation of why, of course. Some news agencies decided it was Joan of Arc; the CBC commentators, who didn't seem that well-informed, were mentioning something about a river goddess.
Anyway, the rider, a retired member of the Gendarmerie, eventually switched to a real horse, lead the flag-bearers to the base of a platform shaped like the Eiffel Tour, and then delivered the Olympic flag, which was promptly hoisted upside down. Can't win 'em all. (A reasonable motto for the Olympic athletes.)2) The remarkable Olympic torch, in the shape of a hot air balloon (very Parisian!), which rose after it had been lit, and hung, suspended in mid-air, above a fountain in the Tuileries.
3) Céline Dion, looking very well and remarkably like Eva Peron in Evita, powering out Edith Piaf's passionate "L'Hymne à l'Amour" from the Eiffel Tower, as a finale. She had a pianist next to her, sitting at a piano with water pooling on top of from the teaming rain.
So we have a distraction. A circus, if not bread, to take our minds off the rest of the world.
I couldn't help but think how nice it would have been to relieve Paris of the rain, and bring it to Jasper, Golden, Barkerville, and California.
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