sparkle lights

We have just returned from a stunning fireworks display.

About a three minute walk from our apartment is the main city library (or médiathèque, if you prefer). It is a strange, upside-down U shaped building straddling the top of one of the city's main boulevards.  Behind the médiathèque lies a square where there's some kind of city-related-something, some little stores (convenience store, pharmacy, bakery kind of thing; mostly we care about the bakery) and apartments.  It is here that the city has chosen for les feux d'artifice du 14 juillet (it's Bastille Day).


We watched from the square behind the médiathèque, facing towards the boulevard.  You could tell that the display was designed to be seen from the boulevard (as if the temporary pavilion on the other side of the médiathèque from where we were, where there was an open-air concert just preceding (we did not attend) wasn't clue enough).  There some pretty spiffy two- and three-layer effects with a background of glowy sparkly gold feather boa fireworks with the classic koosh-ball poofs in front, or the smaller spray fireworks, or both; we were watching through the background of gold feather boas.  There were also some fireworks that were exploding pretty low - couldn't see them through the top of the upside-down-U.  However, the vast majority were just fine from our perspective, as far as I'm concerned.

The weather is perfect for fireworks.  After a day of deceptively cool weather (I had all the doors and windows open all day, which kept a light breeze going through the apartment, which probably fooled me into thinking it was cooler than it actually was, but either way, waaaaay cooler than it was yesterday), the evening proved to be the same.  There was just enough air movement that the smoke from each round of fireworks had drifted out of the way by the time the next round was sent up.  The sky was virtually cloudless.  There were kids shouting "PAAAM!" after each round, people of all ages oohing and aahing and applauding during the pauses.

Did you know that France has a flag that can be recreated with fireworks?  Pretty cool.  In the US, the 4th of July fireworks are the same three colors for the flag-waving bit... but reconstructing the American flag with fireworks is a pretty daunting task.  French flag - no big.  It was spiffy (if backwards, but I'm a stupid foreigner and didn't realize any different til G reminded me :P).

I feel bad for any animals that live in the apartments around the square and otherwisely nearby though.  The fireworks launchers were probably about a 35-second walk from where we were standing - I've never been that close to the fireworks launch point before.  The explosions themselves weren't as loud as I expected, but it was still pretty deafening - mostly because we were standing in the center of a concrete square, surrounded by tall, hard-surfaced buildings.  The echo was at least twice as loud as the fireworks themselves.  Probably not much quieter indoors.

While watching the bright, colorful lights, I started wondering - do fireworks display/show designers work year round for fireworks-making companies (I presume those exist, along with firework-designers, who figure out how to make the narrow sprays and the big poofy balls, and the delayed 2 or 3 explosion things, and the different colors, and the spinny bits and all that... I vaguely remember something about that in high school chemistry, anyway...).  Or do fireworks show designers work freelance for an extremely seasonal market?  Do the fireworks companies sell the fireworks à la carte, or as prepackaged shows and you buy the set you want?  And when I watch fireworks, I perceive them to be two-dimensional, but they are presumably actually 3-dimentional (like Koosh balls), and how does that work, and fit into the design scheme? Things to ponder.

I was also surprised... when we came home two of the three cats were there to greet us, as they generally do when we come home (though a little twitchier than usual), and the third came out a minute later, meowing in his worried voice (also twitchier than usual).  I wasn't here last year, but G says that it took orange cat at least a couple hours to come out of hiding from under the living room couch-bed.  I'm glad they don't seem to be more traumatized - we do live pretty close to where the loud noises were going off for 20-30min.

But shiny sparkly lights.  One of the better displays I've seen :)