Paris Update
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STREET PARTY The area around the Canal Saint Martin, known for its community spirit, has been blossoming with new boutiques, restaurants and cafés for the past 10 years. On Friday, Sept. 12, the shopkeepers on the Rue de la Grange … Read More
Flash News
VIVE LE MINITEL! Believe it or not, the clunky Minitel, the forerunner of the Internet introduced by France Telecom 26 years ago, lives on. A million of the networked boxes, now used mainly as telephone directories, are still in use, … Read More
Expression
“Tu es tout en foufelle aujourd’hui!” That’s Ch’ti (or Picard, a language spoken in Northern France) for “You look great today!” To hear it pronounced, click on the video below starring two former Parisians, photographer Maxime Dufour and Pascal Biencourt, … Read More
SUNDAY SONGS
SUNDAY SONGS Alexandre (Castagnetti) and Clément (Marchand), two scruffy, good-natured thirty-something French musicians, have won the hearts of the French with their Chansons du Dimanche, bouncy, humorous songs composed and recorded on Saturday – often while the pair sits cross-legged … Read More
Donne-moi la Main
Donne-moi la Main, the first feature-length movie by Pascal-Alex Vincent, stars a pair of identical twin brothers, Alexandre and Victor Carril, who live in Paris’s Marais. On the evening I saw it, at the MK2 Beaubourg cinema, just on the … Read More
C’est Magnifique !
Without wishing to minimize the very real plight of those immigrants to France who are denied papers and (all too often) living quarters, I did note a wonderful side to the French approach recently while passing a group of homeless … Read More
C’est Magnifique !
Without wishing to minimize the very real plight of those immigrants to France who are denied papers and (all too often) living quarters, I did note a wonderful side to the French approach recently while passing a group of homeless … Read More
Le Bal des Actrices
Singing and Dancing their Way Into Our Hearts
Going to see Le Bal des Actrices on the same night as the orgy of self-congratulation that is the Oscars, I must admit to having felt some apprehension. A film about an actress/director making a documentary about other actresses portended … Read More
Jean Marais: L’Eternel Retour
Jean Marais (1913-1998) is justly famous for his cinematic career and for his creative and personal partnership with Jean Cocteau (the two remained together from 1937 until Cocteau’s death in 1963). Far less is known, however, about his… Favorite
MBC
Everybody starts their articles these days with a nod to the crisis, so here’s mine. One of the first victims of real-economy meltdown in Britain was Woolworths (affectionately known to Brits as “Woollies”). All 807 stores in … Favorite