The Concours Lépine--or the French at their most eccentric

Yes, the key words here are en principe, one of those alarm bells in the jungle of the French language. En principe, means literally, "theoretically." But anyone who's lived for a while in the labyrinth of French experiences a little internal warning sign that pops up at the utterance of this phrase. The warning sign says, "Watch out! The words following this phrase describe something that only exists in theory and in reality will never happen."

Well, that's a very complicated paragraph to begin to explain to you the quintessentially French event called the Concours Lépine, where the country's inventors get to display their latest Rube Goldberg devices in the hopes of attracting financial backing, customers, or just some attention.

In a country where reinventing the wheel is a way of life, the inventions presented at the Concours Lépine are for the most part likely to be taken seriously only by the French. As the American journalist Mary Blume, who wrote for the Paris bureau of the International Herald Tribune for many years so adroitly put it, quoting Jean Mantelet, the inventor of the Moulinex vegetable masher, these are the "luminous ideas" of the Concours Lépine. But if you want to experience the French at their Frenchest, the Concours Lépine is not to be missed. And not to be entirely mocked either, for it was here that contact lenses, the ballpoint pen, the steam iron, and the pressure cooker were first introduced.

A regular rite of spring, the Concours is held in early May as part of the giant annual Foire de Paris, a sort of huge commercial fair where you can buy just about anything from mostly small vendors. Held in the impossibly disjointed and confusing multiple-leveled buildings of the Parc des Expositions at the Porte de Versailles, the Concours Lépine occupies the farthest corner of the gadgety part of the Foire de Paris. As you press your way through the throngs, you'll note you're in the midst of myriads of marvel cleaning products, oyster openers, kitchen gadgets, and foot massagers, perhaps many of them past winners of the Concours Lépine. You'll see how-can-you-live-without-it items like the magnetic window washer that washes both sides of a glass pane at once, pictured here.



But when the carpet color changes to bright green, you know you're in the hallowed quarters of the cutting edge--the guys who are really--you know--out there.

And they really are guys. In all of my two years of attendance at the Concours Lépine, I've never seen any female inventors. Supposedly the contest is juried, but there is always a liberal number of entries that resemble nothing so much as junior high school science projects. Among there number I recognized some of the same entries I'd seen last year. Perhaps they're allowed in for tradition's sake, or for their own psycho-therapeutic benefit. An example is the gentleman with the plan (only) for the solar-powered car, and when I say "plan," I'm being generous, as you can see from the picture of his giant poster below.


In a similar vein, there was a sort of aged hippie type whose entry consisted of a truly Rube Goldberg-ish flower-shaped contraption which supposedly followed the sun and focused its light on a destination of your choosing. The "Tournesol", or "Sunflower," as he had appropriately named his somehow innocent brainchild, sadly wasn't attracting much attention.

The least glitzy but in some ways most practical entry was a sort of umbrella halter (worn by its inventor, below) which holds an open umbrella in perfect position over your head, leaving your hands free for whatever horribly heavy bags you needed to schlep about Paris in the rain.

Not bad, thought I, myself a car-less shopper. Another invention for car-less shoppers--an electric shopping caddy, which I found rather clumsy and impractical--actually won the Concours this year.

The winner, in my estimation of the "en principe" category was a gentleman who had entered the contest with a photograph--and only a photograph--of a public and self-cleaning toilet for dogs. The photo showed a large, panting dog emerging from the somewhat tubular toilet structure. How, I asked, as a long-time former dog owner, would one manage to get one's dog to, well, go (in the biological sense) in the toilet and only in the toilet, when the choosing of the appropriate spot always seems to be a very idiosyncratic dog behavioral process? Ignoring my question, he answered, "But look! The dog likes it! See, he is smiling!" He deftly avoided answering my discouragingly practical questions about the self-cleaning mechanism.

There's also an international contingent at the Concours Lépine. Last year, this included a Russian entry which we mocked at the time as being the perfect example of Russian paranoia, and which turned out to be scarily prescient: a portable sort of gasmask kit to carry you with you at all times in case of toxic emissions. Did they know something we didn't? No, now I'm the one being paranoid. This year, the international department was pretty dull. Even the Chinese, who in the past have proposed inventions as scintillating as magnetic socks to combat foot odor, this year offered nothing substantive.

Of course, no French public event would be complete without paying homage to Style, Design, and Beauty. This lofty position belonged to the Canon de Beauté, or Cannon of Beauty, mounted on a Ferrari car, pictured below.



Well, just what is the Cannon of Beauty? I don't get it, Denis and I shrugged at each other. Granted, this was only a "proto", as the French love to call "prototypes,"--one of their favorite concepts, because it remains in the domain of en principe and does not yet require all the dreary reality of practical details. Even though this display was accompanied by extremely long and complicated verbage, Denis and I remained unable to figure out what this design statement was all about. Which made it perfect, of course, for the Concours Lépine.

As these postcards have testified, dogs play a big part in the life of the French, and especially of Parisians. So it's no wonder that this year there was the afore-mentioned canine public toilet proposal, and last year a cunning device for collecting semen from prime male dogs and then delivering it to likely, distant females--a sort of AI (and that's not Artificial Intelligence) kit. But this year the real glory of the Concours Lépine, as judged by Denis and me, was the (drumroll...) Toutou Box (see proto in the main photo at head of article). As I have informed you faithful readers of the postcard, the mayor's office is embroiled in a difficult battle to reform the recalcitrant dog owners of Paris from being doodoo droppers to dutiful pooper scoopers.

Applying his genius to a civic call of duty, Monsieur Jean-Pierre Muscarnera has invented the Toutou Box, a truly ingenious device which combines all the best of French creativity and sense of style in a pooper scooper that is so clever and so beautiful that if it doesn't convince Parisians to scoop, nothing will. Unlike the fly-by-night canine toilet inventor, M. Muscarnera had several beautifully developed Toutou Box protos, all displayed in a very impressive booth designed to resemble a Greek temple.

The Toutou comes in three convenient sizes and three stylish colors: a bright, Chanel-like red, navy blue, and deep green. The box contains 30 specially designed plastic bags. Why is it called the "Toutou" box? Because "Toutou" is an affectionate, all-purpose French nickname for "dog," often crooned by lady dog owners of a certain age, as in Ah, mon petit Toutou..."



M. Muscarnera's representative helpfully demonstrated use of the Toutou (at left). The plastic bag is drawn out, covering the jaws of the box, the poop is scooped, and enclosed in the bag without the dogowner's hands ever coming in contact--even through plastic--with that distasteful byproduct of the beloved dog. The Toutou box--which remains impeccably clean--can then be stashed in a color-coordinated leather case that resembles a small under-the-arm handbag.

Will the Toutou Box be a commercial success? It will be available by the end of the year, and I, for one, intend to offer it for sale on this website. Of course, only the French can judge for sure. But if the comments of a Parisian in her 50's was any indication, Toutou has the potential to be a hit. Watching the demonstration of its use, she pronounced it "absolutely chic"--definitely the first requirement for French commercial success. But, she added, with a note of skepticism creeping into her voice, even the smallest model was too large for the miniscule excrescences of her little dog!

Next year, the new, improved Micro-Mini Toutou...

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