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I say elves, because a great deal of what you can see at the salon is hand-made and a lot of it is extreme. Extremely big, small, high, deep, fast, light, heavy, noisy, amazing, silly, fun, and entertaining. Even if you have a general interest, you can not see everything in one visit. There are just too many items that are either so amazing or delightful, that you ...just.... get hung up - and miss the 194 mini-locomatives towing the 26 ton railway wagon, for example.
A model circus at the Salon
The program of the salon is oriented towards action. In fact there is no other program. In the games area; visitors play ...games. At the boat basin visitors watch boats do their stuff; some of them assisted by wind machines, others by internal combustion engines. The air show features objects hurtling through air, up into the air, and presumably, into the protective mesh. Some round-roundy car racing is done in this space as well at speeds of over 200 kph. There is another race track for land vehicles that can go in different directions; in addition to several very elaborate model train layouts for both steam and electric varieties.
Since there are so many models along with their their operators-builders, demonstrations are usually programed for 25 minutes. The big boat basin has the big sailboats from 2:10 to 2:55 pm and from 7:30 to 7:55 in the evenings. The rest of the big basin's time is occupied by motor boats, 11:30 to noon minus 5 minutes; reasonably-sized sailboats from 3:30 pm to 3:55; ocean liners from 5:30 to 5:55; aircarft carriers at 8:30 to 8:55; and 'Chalutiers' sometime in the evening. Whatever they are. The same sort of schedule is more or less repeated for cars, trains, and planes on their specific circuits.
Big ones, little ones, green-eyed, shiny new
and old, model planes. Some are not models either.
You'll have to go more than once because some things are on at the same time; unless you like trains. They are in motion all the time. Although there is a lot of stuff for sale at the salon; basicly it's all toys. But it's not Christmas or anybody's birthday in particular, so you can feel free to buy a toy for fun. And after that, the other two-thirds of the Salon are free. These people are here because they want to talk to people. Not to sell something. Hey, I made this thing. Look at the detail; hundreds of hours of hand-made perfection there. Hey right. D'accord, tres chouette.
The people who do these kinds of things are not, never will be, nor want to be stars. Like you and me, ordinary people. Well, a little cracked or fanatical maybe, but really, just folks. Making toys. This is the kind of Salon where grumps are not allowed. You have to show your 'enthusiast' card to get in the door. If you don't have a specific card with you , just say, "It's great" and pay the money. I shouldn't have said grumps are not allowed. They just don't come to anyplace that is fun, and they certainly won't pay for it.
Posters for the Salon.
Forget the election. It's for grumps. Make a toy instead of worrying. And it's probably healthier and cheaper than going to the wine salon. Unless you're into wine of course. Then the wine salon can get very interesting as the hours pass. But winefandom is a sort of specialist thing, for unimaniacs, like baseball cards - not like toys, which each and every one of us 'played' with one time. The only thing we, you, me, ever had, have, in common, once upon a time. You might find it again at the Salon of Models and Games, in Paris.
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Updated 04/95