Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Paris Update on February 8, 2017. For my most recent birthday, a friend gave me a bottle of a Pauillac grand cru classé from 1986. If you don’t have a friend like that, … Read More
As some readers know, I am also a composer. Since I started writing C’est Ironique in 2010, I have been saying, mostly to myself, that I was developing the “humor lobe” of my brain so that someday I could combine … Read More
My dear readers! After seven years, four months and nearly 300 articles, I have decided to stop writing C’est Ironique on a regular basis. An irregular basis is not out of the question, but it’s time for me to … Read More
A week ago I posted a photo of a French (I repeat: French) magazine entitled “Oh My Mag.” For those who prize and appreciate the French language, that by itself is offensive enough, but in fact it’s only the tip … Read More
Editor’s note: This piece was first published in Paris Update in November 2016, but Thanksgiving is forever, and so is David’s origin story, so here it is again. Every year on Thanksgiving, I make a big fire in the living … Read More
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Paris Update on February 10, 2016, but seems even more pertinent today after the latest round of transit strikes. All right, all you youngsters out there, gather ’round and listen: when I was … Read More
As though we didn’t have enough problems in Paris already, what with facing a cold snap, eyeing a presidential election in May and stomaching a surge in the rat population, now we have wolves roaming the streets. Or at least … Read More
I hate to say it, but if Paris and Rome were pitted against each other in an all-out, go-for-the-jugular cultural history smackdown, Rome would win. It’s true that Paris has the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame, 1.5 godzillion other … Read More
Like all people of any nationality, the French are associated with a number of stereotypes based more on assumptions than facts. The natives of my adopted country are supposedly great lovers and terrible soldiers, well dressed and ill mannered, with … Read More
Paris has long been a magnet for dreamers of all kinds: poets, painters, composers, philosophers, wisenheimers… Oh — and people who are intent on killing themselves in the dumbest but most mediagenic way possible. I was reminded of the last-named … Read More
