Façade (première partie)
Pages from Façade, a magazine published approximately twice yearly in Paris between 1976 – 1983.
Taking inspiration from Interview Magazine, Façade covered cultural high life in france, documenting night clubbing, music, fashion, and general fabulousness.
The first example shows an article about Guy Cuevas Carrion a Cuban-born writer who morphed into one of the trendiest DJs during the disco years, holding court at Club Sept in Paris. He also recorded several singles, including the legendary “Obsession”
[Please alert the editors of Room 26 if anyone makes a mix of the songs listed in the interview!]
The Moon at one Meter
A souvenir from the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, an attraction that allowed visitors to view the moon through a giant telescope.
The imagery for the attraction may be related to the Georges Méliès 1898 film “La Lune à un mètre” (or “The Astronomer’s Dream”)
A Woman’s Paradise
UNION FRANÇAISE DES INDUSTRIES EXPORTATRICES. l’Elegance Francaise. Paris Ateliers d’Impressions et de Cartonnages d’Art, [1940].
A deluxe book showcasing all of the beautiful products a woman can find in Paris. Intended for distribution at the World’s Fair in New York in 1940, this item never made in across the ocean, due to the occupation of Paris in June, 1940. Contributing authors include Marcel Prévost on Robes; Ferdinand Divoire on Chapeaux; Abel Bonnard on Bijoux; and Maurice Rostand on Parfums.
Choco-Choc
A group of labels for brands of chocolate sold in France in the middle of the 19th century.
Snobbery and Decay
Masquerade ball : Rustic tableau, Paris, 1931
A view of Lake Ontario with a broken yacht, men and railroad tracks against the shoreline. undated.
Ogden Nash on Gertrude Stein
Ogden Nash’s “They Don’t Speak English in Paris”, ca. 1935, with his reactions to the increasing
fame and acceptance of Gertrude Stein’s writing (including a crude reference to the all African-American cast
of “Four Saints in Three Acts”)
The pocket dictionary . . . of Sabotage!
A curious addition to the Beinecke Library’s collection:
This miniature booklet displays a cover title declaring it to be a “thumb dictionary” of French and German terms. The inside cover betrays its true role, since that is distributed by the “Parti Socialiste Clandestin”. Instead of translated words and phrases, this book is full of instructions for members of the French Resistance on how to sabotage German machinery, manufacturing plants, trains, and automobiles.
Dictionnaire Poucet: Français-Allemand (Paris: Garnier Fréres, cicra 1943)
Three Men in a Car(?)
A photograph of the gallerist Anatole Jakovsky and two friends astride a car-like contraption in Paris, ca. 1950.
(The shop, named for Jacques Damiot, might provide a clue about the odd vehicle:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Damiot)
Going Up
The Eiffel Tower under construction, 1888-1889.
And completed, as seen in 1941.
A Garden by the Sea
Selected poems and images from a privately distributed volume from 1935:
Noailles, Anna Elisabeth de Brancovan, Philippe Gonin, and Jean Berque. 1935.
“Les jardins”: Poèmes de la Comtesse de Noailles. Paris: Frères Gonin.
Le champion du monde
Cover image: Leon See, Le champion du monde Jack Johnson,
Paris : Imp. Paul Dupont, [1910?]
Party City
Montmartre en 1925 by Jean Gravigny
A guide to the high life and low life in a fabled section of Paris in the 1920s.
[Illustrations “de RM” – otherwise unsigned.]
With jazzy illustrations . . .
La dérive
Guy Debord’s Guide psychogeographique de Paris [1957].
For a scalable version go here: http://highway55.library.yale.edu/PATREQIMG/sids/D0987/1044447.sid
[Apparently not SAFARI friendly, unfortunately.]
Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography
and here: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/octo.2006.115.1.13
To see films by Debord and many other revolutionary filmmakers, go here: http://www.ubu.com/film/
Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities 
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