Hidden In France

My Pink Paris

Helloooo blog world!

I've had to tone it down in the blogging department because I'm feverishly working on two books at once.  One is my next novel (It's not a sequel to Hidden in Paris. That will have to wait a bit or else I'm going to lose my mind.) and one is a self-help book for neurotic writers, which, as you can imagine, I am uniquely qualified to write. 

I'm planning to write the weather away skipping --if possible--the madness of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Although I am celebrating the season in my own way by experimenting with pies (a future cookbook perhaps?)  I'm trying to produce  *The* perfect crust.  Flaky, golden, but that won't crumble into pie shrapnels when you slice it. There's been a lot of failures as in any scientific endeavors, and I'm my own guinnea pig, and I'm left to I'm eat hits and misses. So if by Spring time they have to send a crane to dislodge my butt from my desk chair I will blame it on science and on my readers. I do it all for you.  You know I do!

Meanwhile here are a few photos I took in Paris last April. You remember how it rained and rained?

But really all this rain was lovely.  I loved that popular streets were eerily deserted.

When you want to take tourist-free pictures in Montmartre, just go early in the morning and make sure the rain is coming down by the bucket full.

Nostalgia was in every corner. From sounds, to smells and sights, it all came back, rushing in.  It was as though I had never left. I wandered thinking of my novel, placing my new characters in this quartier or that one.  But really, I was gorging on Paris. It was also my first time in over 20 years when I got to have a husband and children-free Parisian experience. This means I got to do precisely what I wanted, go where I wanted, eat and rest when I wanted. That freedom was the greatest luxury of all. 

When I was tired I sat at a café or a bistro and ordered something unbelievably delicious and wrong, and proceeded to spy on French conversations. I secretly took page after page of notes about interesting Parisian quirks. That's the good thing of being an expatriate.  You get to look at your country of birth with fresh new eyes. Parisians (i.e. me) really made me crack up. The shrugs, the eye rolls, the onomatopoeia, the énervement... Stuff straight out of Inspector Clouseau!

 

I was amazed at the elaborate flower shops at every Parisian corner. Who buys all those flowers I wondered?  In Los Angeles  or New York you can buy flowers at the grocery store. But how can so many shops survive by selling flowers exclusively?  The result is that in Paris you can't forget love and romance even for a minute. Good: I was writing a love story.  It put me right in the spirit.

This bistro (above) had just opened for the day when i took this picture. Ten minutes later it would be bustling. There would be delicious cafés au lait on tables, and demie baguettes and butter and jam. But I was off to the next street. I had no itinerary.  I went from one shiny thing to another.  I got lost on purpose.

To people who say they've always wanted to go to Paris but haven't found the time or the money I say save up, save up. One round trip ticket and a few nights in a cheap hotel and you can experience bliss. Even if it takes you several years to organize, make it a goal, not a dream. And don't wait to deserve it, or for Prince charming to show up in your life, or for your honeymoon, or for a girlfriend to save her money. Go alone, you wouldn't want anyone to spoil your fun! 

Parisian street quirks

Do you read the blog France Daily Photo?  It's filled with well written articles and tips about France and is great for expatriates and travelers.  France Daily Photo is hosting a giveaway of Hidden in Paris so you might want to check it out. 

Speaking of photos , here are a few I took of bizarre things (at least bizare to me) you can find in Paris. I've lived abroad for so many years that the last time I went to Paris I found myself seeing things as if for the first time.  

 

A random wall with so much soul.  What is old and decrepit to some becomes art in Paris. In LA this facade would be torn down or stuccoed in a hurry. Same for faces. You can't age gracefully in LA. You've got to re-stucco.  Like this: (thank you Isabelle for the terrifying reminder.) 

In France it is forbidden to sell books at a discount.  The law makes it possible for small bookstores to exist without being driven out of business by mega stores. Also, in France, books and writers are revered. Like they're actually special. The book store above was baffling.  How can you find anything in it? How can it sell enough to stay afloat? It reminded me of this Gaston Lagaffe comic:

In Paris, while some people marvel at the Louvre or the Galeries Lafayette, I stood puzzled in front of this contraption.  The contraption, annoyed, said to me 'take a picture it will last longer'. So I did. 

This is a parisian public mailbox, typical in color and design.  Notice anything strange? How can it be so puny???? Can someone explain to me why American public mailboxes are the size of small cars.  Is French mail magical and reduces in size the instant it passes through the slots like in a reverse Marry Poppin's bag? 

Parisian Fontains.  They are everywhere so they must be important. But why so low? How do you drink from them? Crouched?  Lying down face up? Were they built for the height of a malnourished French person after the great war?  Or are they meant to clean your shoes after you stepped in dog dodo? After walking past them, oblivious, for the first 23 years of my life I found myself taking pictures of them like they were supermodels.

oops it's 9:47... Allright, I've wasted enough time on this today.  I apologize if I wasted yours. Go back to work!

 

Antoine et Lili and the Canal Saint Martin

Paris I am sorry!!!!!  I apologize for complaining about your sucky weather. I had no idea what I was talking about.  Because right now, where I live, it's 110 degrees and I can't even fathom getting out of the house after 9 am. 

The heat has taken what was left of my work ethic away.  I reason that it's back to school tomorrow so why beat myself up for loafing for a few more days of official summer break.  I stayed cool these last few days by watching synchronized swimming. Did you watch it too?  Tell me, is it completely ridiculous, or genius? And the outfits and little hats they wear.. and the thick makeup, and the perfect unison, and the little pinchers on the nose, and the gaping mouths?  How very strange and awesome. 

Another way to cool off is to go through my Paris pictures. I took these pictures on my last trip.  My friend Flavia was showing me parts of the city I did not know very well (some pretty louche ones, flavia :)  

 

Fighting our umbrellas and the blustery rain we stumbled upon the Antoine et Lili home shop.  (turn down the volume before ckinking or you'll jump out of your seat)

uh ho... color on quay de valmy... how to resist?

Egad!  Rice melamine cups!!!

Everything in that store is cute overload

Flavia and I wanted everything, but we settled on a few Rice melamine cups. 

That's just a random stairwell.  How inviting, somehow... 

Here are my rice melamine cups at home. Awesome (methink) on top of my red-polka dot oilcloth bought at the marché Saint Pierre:

Okay, returning to all important task at hand:

 

Off we go:

(source google images) 

 

 

The Francophile, the Francophobe and the Critic

Why should there even be such a thing as a Francophile?  Is to be assumed that when you’re not a Francophile you automatically at risk of being a Francophobe?

Non-fiction books about the French culture, those that put the French on a pedestal those who shoot them down are everywhere.  Peter Mayle started it.  Because a little controversy doesn't hurt some of the most popular books on French culture; French Women Don't Get Fat, Lunch in Paris, Bringing up Bébé, Sixty Million French Men Can't be Wrong sell like petits pains.

When you live in the United States long enough, as I have, people forget that you have not always been one of them. So I get quite the earful of mystifying French bashing, especially coming from people who’ve never set a foot in France and don’t intend to.  Once they learn I'm French, or hear my accent, the reaction is often, "You're not like them.'  Sometimes I'm the only French person they’ve ever met and I just don’t fit the description. I’m friendly. I’m not rude. I don’t act all superior and intellectual. I don’t wear a beret. I don’t speak like Maurice Chevalier. I don’t have bad teeth (okay i do, damn molars ...but shut). I take showers on a fairly regular basis. They’re delighted to know me, and relieved that there is at least one nice French woman out there.

For the most part I'm stoic and resigned about this. I try to educate people about France and the French, about Paris and I spend a whole lot of time explaining that all French people are not ambulatory clichés. I do criticize the French of course, but for the same reason I get to criticize the Jews: by being one.

Gone (for now) is the time of 'Freedom Fries', and of 'Boycott France' bumper stickers proudly displayed by ‘real Americans’. When the French government did not support the US in invading Iraq it became very much acceptable, at least temporarily, to openly unleash ones hatred of the French.  Hating the French is like hating the Jews. People don’t know what or why they hate, they just do. I continue to make the analogy, however unsavory,  because prejudice is a subtle and catchy thing. Of course it doesn't compare. The French have not (yet) been exterminated for their Frenchness. But I'm making the point that ignorance and prejudice, when combined with just the right amount of government sponsored propaganda against any culture and it’s open season.

It's Bullying 101, if you ask me.

A nonfiction book recently came out, which I have not read yet. The title is “Paris I Love You but You’re Bringing me Down.” By Rosecrans Baldwin. I’m understanding this is one couple’s experience with living in Paris for 18 months.  I’m not going to make a comment about a book I am yet to read. But I will make a comment about a review of that book I did read today on the New York Times, that made my jaw drop a few floors. This review was written by a book reviewer named Susannah Meadows.  Here I will quote an exerpt from the New york Times’ Arts section of Thursday May 31^st, 2012. You can read the entire review here.…  She writes “Mr Baldwin also gives the pompous city he adores the ribbing it deserves. “Every Parisian man wore a scarf,” he observes. Some even wore coats.”…

Aside the fact that the single quote chosen reveals precisely nothing about the book or the French, (What? Men in France wear scarves? … and coats? You mean just like every man in the world where the temperature might drop below 50? ) I was struck by the choice of adjectives. Paris a what city?  Pompous? Of all the adjectives you could use to describe Paris, this is the one she decided fitted best? Did the reviewer think no one would read her review? (Perhaps no one ever has in the past.) When did she decide that Paris was a pompous city? Is it really what the author of the book tried to express, or is this the reviewer personal opinion of Paris? And why would Paris deserve a ribbing?

I was curious and dug a bit to find that the reviewer had lived in France and also reviewed “bringing up bébé” and made copious disparaging remarks against Parisians there as well. 

It freaks me out just a little that in the eyes of some people, France, Paris, French people will never do anything right. I'm fine with the concept that everyone is entitled to their own prejudice. My problem is that in the U.S. it's culturally acceptable to make negative blanket statements against the French and France. Why? What other segment of population, what other country triggers and receives such unchecked, negative generalizations? How many cities and countries 'deserve ribbing'? There are none that come to mind, and that includes countries against which we’re actively at war. No decent Americans would delight, all in good humor, in casually dissing Africans, Asians, Armenians, or Italians, or the Swede, or the Dutch, or the Japanese. Not in polite conversation.  It would feel and be seen as morally reprehensible to express casual hatred of a population as a whole. But somehow, it is perfectly all right to express hatred and dislike of the French in books, conversations, articles, and in book reviews. It’s a fun sport. The French are bizarre, they are offensive. Their molars are a mess. We don’t understand them so don’t like them. Of course the peculiar fascination oscillates between both extremes. The French also get put on ridiculously undeserved pedestal as has been done lately in many non fiction books. French Women Don't Get Fat? Oh yes they do! Just look at my butt.

I know... I'm making way too much of a short review. I'm too reactive. (Too French?) But think about it, when this sort of thing happens over and over again, to your own people, and your ears are constantly ringing with ignorant, denigrating remarks big and small, you grow a bit weary.

When we travel to any other countries we expect to be surprised, we absorb the customs with eager curiosity and an open mind. We delight, in fact, in the differences. Why not apply this to France?  I would reassess the French bashing. It reveals much more about the person who indulges in it than it reveals about the country it bashes.

I’m grumpy when I have to defend my country of birth. It’s just a country, with lots of different people in it, snooty ones, simple ones, generous ones, ignorant ones, the full spectrum of humanity, just like here. The only difference is that they all wear berets. 

 (all pictures of that pompous city of mine are by me.)

April in Paris.

Once in Paris, I braved the unkind elements and never stopped for a minute.  I took tons of pictures, walked perhaps 6 hours a day, only stopping at every other boulangerie for chouquettes, and to do research at various museums and libraries for the historical parts of my novel. 

Beside being wet and cold, my main peeve with my time in Paris was to continuously look for bathrooms. It's an OCD thing. If I begin to think I might need to go it turns obsessional.

The only places to go to the bathroom in Paris are the cafes. But when you go the bathroom in a cafe you end up drinking something, and an hour later you have to repeat the process: obsess. pee. drink. repeat.

That first day I stopped to pee at Parisian cafes so many times I believe in hindsight that I was doing the human equivalent of marking my territory.

The following days I bypassed the problem entirely by avoiding tea and only drinking espresso (less liquids.) So I pretty much spent a week running on espresso and chouquettes. I had tons on manic energy, it was great!

I believe I decoded the whole French Women Don't Get Fat thing.  It's really a simple alchemy: walk 6 hours a day+ freeze your butt off + drink espresso + eat chouquettes + pee = look fit and skinny and show fangs like a true Parisienne. 

* about those pictures:  The rain does have its advantages. No harsh lights and contrasts, and no tourists.

These pictures were taken around my beloved Eiffel Tower.  This was Day Two. I started at Métro Passy. Bought chouquettes (twice) in my old neighborhood. Then I walked toward Trocadéro and down to the gardens that surrounds the Eiffel Tower. The marroniers were in full bloom, it felt like such a gift to be in Paris at the peak of blooming season for wisteria, clematis AND Horse Chestunut trees. When I got to the tower, it was grey and pouring rain, and then, suddenly, as though she was recognizing me and brightening at the sight of me, her old friend, the clouds parted, blue sky peaked through and the sun shone brightly (though not for long).

I was so thankful and happy to be there. So happy to be taking my time. I walked all around the Eiffel tower at my pace. No husband eager to run to the next thing.  No kid tired of walking. I was in heaven.

How not to dress in Paris

A sure sign that you've lost your blogging mojo is when you can't even remember your blog's access password. 

So I went to Paris and it was fabulous. But before I show you all my pretty pictures, I thought I would share with you the most important bit I learned on my trip. And that is: how not to dress for Paris.

The French ‘météo’ said the week would be warm and cold, rainy and sunny.  I’m a terrible packer to begin with but this was no help at all. I was clever to bring a hip trench coat, fitted and belted, bought for the occasion at the Gap (a wild fashion move for me.  When you’re used to target brand clothing, gap clothing makes you feel senselessly extravagant.)

Remember that line they say constantly in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris: ‘Paris is so much more beautiful in the rain’ ? Well I can’t say if it is more beautiful.  But I can guarantee that it’s a great deal wetter. Over the course of 20 years in Southern California I must have acquired a romanticized vision of rain. I thought, no sweat. I can handle rain and a temperature in the 50s. I am a born Parisian after all.

Wrong! I cannot! Not with that kind of rain, and not with that kind of wind.

Within an hour of Day 1, my boots were drenched, my socks were wet, and I found out that my too long wide-legged jeans made for a terrific sponge. The fabric being stretchy (for comfort) my pants became heavier and heavier as I walked, and as it absorbed more gutter water. At the point of saturation they began an irrepressible downward motion. Soon it felt like my undies were being pull down with it something awful. So for the rest of the day, as I walked through Paris, I had to constantly pull my jeans up.  Not easy to do when you’re wearing a raincoat that’s tied at the waist. Well, easy enough but definitely not the French Chic I was going for. I was cold. I looked like a chien mouillé. I was miserable.

By day two, I was prepared. The jeans were painfully constricted into the boots, and I had layered every sweater I had brought under the tight- fitted raincoat. The choice being to be ridiculously sausaged or frozen solid, I chose what they call in France the ‘saucisse’ look.

Because they don’t make windshield wipers for eyeglasses, ( had forgotten all about glasses and rain!)  I bought a cheap umbrella at Monoprix. It was too cheap. It did not even last the week, what with being overturned by a new violent gust of wind every minute or so. My hair, which is used to the zero percent humidity of Southern California regressed to its primordial kink.

And here you have it; my attempt at looking dignified and fashionable in Paris, the wishful before and the unfortunately after.

Things got better, much better from there (though the weather continued to suck) and I'll post images in the next few days. If I can remember my password next time.

A trip to Paris, and amazement

How about this for willpower?  No post in over a month?

This has been an amazingly productive and creative period. 

- My cookbook is done and soon available for download (i will keep you posted and if you have not done so yet, go to the left hand column and sign up for your free copy)

- I've completed 60% of a non fiction book and 70% of my next novel. Amazing.

-I've mustered the courage (well, not courage, really. I have my friends Lenora and Robin to thank for my so called courage) to go to Paris.  Better yet, I'm, amazingly, going solo for the first time since I left France over 25 years ago (flying there and back when my father passed away does not count) .

This going to Paris thing is not a vacation.  I'm going to do important research for my book.  I mean, my next novel is set in Paris and here I am, unable to accurately describe the taste and consistency of a Religieuse au chocolat, a baba au rhum or a chouquette?

I don't want to lose all credibility with my readers. ha. 

I also want to point out that I am able to finance that trip thanks to the sales of my novel, Hidden in Paris. And that is the most amazing thing of all.

Paris is complicated

Why do i always feel compelled to compare?  Paris is entirely unlike New York City, everyone know that, and no one is asking me to choose. 

But New York is my new love and my feelings toward Paris are messy, like a lingering love affair one should really think of ending. Paris is beauty, grandiose beauty everywhere, but it doesn't dazzle me the way New York does anymore.

New York is awesome, gritty, electrically charged and so full of possibilities.  New York is a city that pulsates, and I along with it.  New York wants to sweep me off my feet and carry me along.  New york tells me that everything is possible, and I believe it.  

Paris tells me that the way things are is the way things have always been and will always be.  Part of me wants to challenge it, but part of me is already thinking of the next eclair and says, 'a quoi bon?'  Of course, Paris is so much more tender and gentle to me, but here i slip into a a casual comfort that is just a tad claustrophobic.  I know where things are, i know how they work, I know why I got the hell away.  

Still, in every street i drool guiltily in front of ads for apartments for sale just as i did in New York, imagining the life that could be.

But New York?  Paris?  Who am I kidding.  Neither are mine.  Lets not forget that in a short week I will be in L.A.  Not awful mind you, i have no right to complain, (as Isabelle was right to remind me) but at this point in my life L.A. feels about as thrilling as an arranged marriage.

sanity break

Mental illness is on code red.  Or is it just the weather?  When it starts raining we're simply not equipped here in Southern California.   

The rain is torrential and the outside drains around the house are refusing to cope.  I have to be out ever fifteen minutes wearing a floor length industrial grade raincoat and boots and I have to plunge my hands into icy yuckky water to remove the leaves that keep clogging the system.  

Also: The shadow of a stain keeps growing on a portion of the ceiling, clear indication that the roof is leaking in a bad way.  

And: The pool is close to overflowing and so is the fish pond.  What's happens next I don't know.  Is the water going to drain toward the house?  It looks like it might.

Not to mention that: The dog is terrified of the rain and is refusing to go outside. I have to follow her everywhere to make sure she doesn't go the bathroom inside the house on the carpet, which is really her preferred way to relieve herself when under stress.  (I think I might have to try it myself, maybe she's on to something.)  

Wait, that's not all:  the kids are off school and for some reason our cable box is toast.

I'd rather be in Paris right now.  If i must be under the rain, then I'd do it in style in the city of light. I'd wear fascionable boots I don't own and a lovely coat that will not be made out of yellow plastic.  I'd start the day with a stop at Fauchon and have a Joconde éclair, and stay away from the special Valentine's day éclair that is Foie gras and strawberry.  Ghaag.

Then, Robert Down Jr and and I ( well, it is my fantasy is it not?) would  try the new Ladurée  bar?  Look it:

Then we would go see David Lachapelle's exhibition entitled 'Delirium of Reason', which I think is particularly appropriate.

Mmmm.  Yes, that would be better.  Okay, off to scoop off leaves from clogged drain now.

I found these images  and links via the Materialiste website. 

Paris restaurant Kong

Dining in style in Paris.  Is the food as wild as the decor?

It is via beautiful wooow...yk celine that i discovered the existence in Paris of Restaurant Kong. The French-Japanese fusion restaurant imagined by Philip stark is perched atop the headquarters of Kenzo in Paris, in a sublime frame-less glass roof with view of Pont Neuf.  The building and location are "à couper le souffle."  The decor is pretty daring I think.

Here is a list of elements the website says you will find in the restaurant:

A sumo lavatory attendant (if they mean the picture above, I think it's sad because this is a little boy they're calling a sumo.)

A fluorescence (?)

Golden sofas

A field of orchids

Epidermic tables (??)

A Louis XV DJ

A very zen pebble rug

A jap bric a brac

One arm chairs

A dishevelled geisha

Punk walls

Beatrice Ardisson

A different geisha, very distinguished

A modern kawaï from Omotesando

An elegant parisian

A new Starck story 

The most beautiful view of Paris ( i have to agree that it must be awesome)

A racoon

(Okay, whatever.  This sounds a bit chi-chi parisian pretentiousness.  Not a big fan of faux-poetry)

By night, a entirely different atmosphere.  The restaurant is open until 2 a.m

Could this be the epidermic table?  maybe.

Deyrolle, taxidermy shop.

Some crafts are better left to professionals, non?

For those of you taxidermically inclined, Vert Cerise visited the beautiful and oh so creepy-good Parisian taxidermy store Deyrolle. Vert Cerise calls it “la boutique la plus étrange de Paris”, the strangest shop in Paris, and I have to agree with that assessment.

I did go there once as a teenager when Deyrolle opened back in 1831 (kidding, but I did go years later). Back then I was transfixed, now I can see that there is something thoroughly disturbing about the whole process, but then again natural history museums the world over are populated by those magnetic and scary stuffed beasts.

You never know when you might need to rent an animal:
preserve your cherished pets and so much more.

Visit Deyrolle fascinating website, then on your next visit to Paris, make a stop at the famous address, 46 rue du bac. If I may suggest, you might want to leave small or impressionable children home.

Images courtesy of Vert Cerise and Deyrolle.

Christmas in Paris

I long for Christmas in Paris. Paris is glorious at this time of the year, each arrondissement trying to outdo the other. It's not just the lights, the energy, the shopping which is beyond compare. It's also the food. They've (the powers that be in california, I'm not naming anyone) outlawed foie gras, those savages. now what am I going to EAT!?

I'm serioulsy homesick.

Images borrowed from L'internaute,

Iluminations from Printemps Haussmann department store.

Image taken from under the 'coupole byzantine' which is a historical monument inside the Galeries Lafayette department store. The giant tree was decorated after a concept by the designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac.

A merry go round near Montmartre and the métro Abesses.

Higher on Rue de Montmartre, the pleasure of walking in the streets at night under Christmas twinkling lights.

Temporary installation on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower of a magical ice skating rink.

Hotel Everland

I have an itch to get out of here. It has something to do with the facts that fires are raging all around, in Malibu, San Diego, Lake Arrorwhead …. So much so that the skies have a doomsday look to them and getting out of the house means inhaling the fumes of burned chaparral (and 1700 or so homes) But I’m not big on hotels, they are so impersonal, and you don’t get to decorate your room.
Maybe the solution is to be on wheels, a roulotte maybe, or even something larger in scope such as this moveable pod or traveling module from the Swiss company Everland.

This I discovered in a French blog full of discoveries and whimsy J’ai flané pour vous. (Which means, essentially, ‘I took a stroll for you,’) The blogger says she doesn’t understand English; so don’t feel bad if you don’t understand French. Just look at the great pictures.

Part traveling, part cocooning and part art statement (Dadaism I think). I was attracted by the colors of hotel Everland, but the view(s) isn’t bad either. Check out Hotel Everland’s photos here and even the Everland Webcam with, for a little while, breathtaking views of the Eiffel tower.
My favorite was the virtual tour. Enjoy!

Paris nuit Blanche. You had to be there!

But I wasn’t. Grrr. So I had to rely on others to take photographs.

What is Nuit Blanche? It is a cultural event when Paris (and recently other large cities around France and the world) devotes an entire night to the arts.
Is there an expression equivalent to Nuit Blanche in English? Is there even such a concept as to stay up all night, not to get smashed and laid, but in support and appreciation of the arts? (And then maybe to get smashed and laid)

Ron Haselden - 1000%, Vidéo, performance

Logo Nuit Blanche in lights behind the Hotel de Ville

Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, and man responsible for the summer even Paris Plage, and for making it perfectly natural to run, and be elected as a gay man, organized the first all night celebration of art and culture six years ago. The night of the first Nuit Blanche, in 2002, someone later found to be insane stabbed Bertrand Delanoë for his homosexuality.

Concert in motion

In the United States, when we talk about culture, we think race, language, skin color and holiday celebration. In France they mean La Culture. A concept that encompasses a broad education and to the French, education cannot possibly be complete without an understanding, a knowledge if not an appreciation of sculpture, theater, painting, performance art, but also more modern mediums such as movies, or light shows.

Set up by Trafik, on two screens, words made up of thousands of stars disappear suddenly like fireworks

This is described as six giant paraboles, piece for soprano and interactive video.

and finally, Delanoë himself on his big night, wearing a relaxed jacket and open shirt, admires a set of cars transformed into mini glass houses. Pourquoi pas?

These pictures are borrowed from the site Paris.fr Please go to the site for all photo credits

an english man in paris

I realize my links to Damiel, an English man in Paris were all messed up the other day, and he just posted insanely beautiful photographs of Normandy, so I'm passing them on to you. Make sure to visit his blog for the historical bit about those photogrpahs and to find out which cathedral this is. Can you guess?

I miss Paris in August

August is my favorite month in Paris. Half the Parisians are out of town--which means much les traffic and a more relaxed atmosphere--and are replaced with wide eyed tourists. Paris metamorphoses when the weather is beautiful.

Oh I miss the terasses of restaurants, the food eaten with friends late into the night, the atmosphere of romance, the sense that anything is possible.

At the moment, Paris-Plage is on. The city brings in on: Tons and tons of sand are deposited in the most surprising—not to mention historical—locations. There are activities, games, puppeteer, clowns, rock climbing and dancing. and the people watching is unsurpassed.
What do I do to get my Paris fix? I go here. Damiel, has a inquisitive and tender eye for the city. One thing about expatriates is that we marvel at things in ways locals might no longer be capable of. And I don’t know about you, but I think he’s a top notch photographer.
I also go to the English man in Paris’s blog for his selection of jokes in French and English, which are guaranteed to be in extremely poor taste, just the way I like’em.
Here are photograhs he took while visiting Paris Plage, click on each one to see details.

I’m sorry, I know we Parisian can be negative and grumpy, and I know we can have a tendency to snootiness. All of this is true, but I believe that NO one knows how to party and how to simply enjoy the small pleasures of life like the French do.

All photograhs in this post are by Damiel.

Fauchon

What is this store? No it isn’t Sephora. It isn’t a fancy Parisian lingerie boutique either.
It's the new and improved Fauchon Place de la Madeleine in the eight arrondissement of Paris. Fauchon is the place for extravagant, over the top, and wildly over priced food glamour where you can find the ultimate in fruit basket, chocolates, spices, and patisserie de luxe.

A new blog about France and design (written in French and English,) city rats, posted pictures in April of those hip looking éclairs.
The sight and thought of éclairs threw me back twenty years, at a time when I lived within five minutes walking distance from Fauchon. A time when a single éclair was equivalent to my daily food budget. I remember peeking in the window in awe, and trying not to look entirely pathetic doing so.
Now I can afford Fauchon’s éclairs every day if I darn well please, but what gives me trouble is the twelve hour plane ride.
When it comes to éclairs actual taste, I’d stick to the tried and true coffee or chocolate flavor that can be found at any corner boulangerie. But if you’re visiting Paris and can’t shop at Hermes of Chanel you can still indulge in a little luxury, by going to Fauchon and purchasing one of the following designer's edible:

Will it be marzipan dots and green tea filling?

Or mango?

Nah... boring. How about these, then?

Or, if you are in a nautical kind of mood:

Patrick Blanc

This is old news, maybe, but beautiful too. I’ ve been fascinated for a while now by the work of French artist/ landscaper/botanis/dreamer Patrick Blanc. Unfortunately I could not steal, ahem… borrow photos from his website, but I did find some great photos of one of his vertical gardens installed on the Musée du Quai Branly on this fine website: Inhabitat where you can go for info on why, how and accessorily some interesting points made about the potential lack of sustainability of the whole enterprise. I wonder what it looks like now. Is it all fané (wilted) I hope not.

There! There she is! The old Tour Eiffel! (Sorry, I get excited...)

Full credit must given to Kstyle for this post. Thanks Karen!

paris at dusk

I miss Paris. I want to stroll through the city on a hot summer evening. I was born in Neuilly (which at the time was considered part of Paris, so purists would say I was born in Neuilly but I say I was born in Paris. Paris is where I met my American husband. Now we live near Los Angeles where I get to experience sunshine 350 days out of the year. Could I trade sunshine for Paris? Sun is like crack, once you've experienced it you're hooked. I don't think I could live in the grey anymore.

And still, Paris, I love you and miss you.