The Grand Opening of the OuLiPo Exposition

On Monday evening, I skipped my Hebrew class (and will probably never go again) in order to go to the "vernissage" or grand opening of the new exposition about the OuLiPo at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. If the name sounds familiar, it's where the Perec archives are located (see previous post), and it's also coincidentally enough the home of the OuLiPo archives. Camille (one of the two organizers of the transcription project) did the whole thing and sent out invitations to everyone participating in the project, as well as the beautiful catalogue (which she just gave me in person). It felt very exclusive, especially to get to see the exposition before the official start date, wandering around the displays in the presence of real Oulipians (a few of whom I actually spoke with!).

The exposition is basically a more organized version of this blog and contains just about all the information that was in my first draft encyclopedia entry had. It has basic background information, pictures of every Oulipian, documents and even the typewriter on which Perec wrote La vie mode d'emploi! My favorite part were the ludic exercises, little games for the inclined museum-goer. You could play with Marcel Bénabou's proverbs, recombining them into new nonsensical phrases; or you could try to make a "snowball" poem whose verses increase by a certain number of characters each line.

For anyone who might happen to be in Paris soon, the exposition is at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal until 15 February. Here is the information: http://www.bnf.fr/documents/cp_oulipo_expo.pdf

And here are some pictures from that night:

A comic book in the form of a Möbius Strip, which means it goes on FOREVER since a Möbius Strip has an infinite number of sides. 

Calvino's drafts for "Comment j'ai écrit un de mes livres" 

More of that

Perec's typewriter on which he wrote La vie mode d'emploi