[a195] — MdAeM

Musee des Arts et Metiers

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Le Musee des Arts et Metiers — Norene asked me what 'Metiers' meant and my 200-word vocabulary couldn't quite handle it; I said "Arts and Crafts".  Actually, that's not far off.  "Industrial Arts" is about as close as English will get to it.  Engineers and like-minded people find this a fascinating place.  Even Norene liked it enough that MdAeM is now on the daily-ever-growing list of "Museums Which Have Escorted Us Out At Closing Time".  The place is full of models (called maquettes) of bridges, tunnels, cathedrals, palaces, railway stations, you-name-it.  All the models exist to show you fine details of things like arched vaults and pressure caissons and...  They have early examples of almost everything: a Remington adding machine, a Royal typewriter, an IBM electric tw, telephones, switchboards, fire alarm boxes, phonographs, tape recorders, steam engines, a Model A Ford...  the list goes on and on.  It's France's Smithsonian Institution.  And they have this finger...


Pop quiz: whose finger is that pointing to Norene's shoes?  Hint: there's one in this country, too, and we got ours the same place they got theirs.  Click here when you give up ;-)