Un boxeur, ça boxe...

Last night, I went to see "Rocky" with my friend Matthieu and two of his friends. Matthieu, being an ardent Rocky fan, was quite excited and had proposed the outing a few weeks ago. It was really amusing to see "Rocky" in Paris, especially with the French subtitles with such elegant translations that seemed to highlight dramatically those sometimes hard to grasp, philosophical differences between English and French. A good example is the line when Rocky says: "Fighters fight" which in French gets translated to "Un boxeur, ça boxe." It was doubly touching when at the end of the film, several French boys applauded Rocky's victory over the heartless Mason "The Line" Dixon. Vive la Rocky !

A valentine

I found Cupid and son ami on an apartment building in Passy. xo

Another grey day in Paris

While this comic is actually about Bretagne, I think it applies to Parisian grey days too...

And the view from the Pompidou...

Last Sunday afternoon dawned and I had a headache but I had resolved earlier in the week to take advantage of the Pompidou being free (first Sunday of the month and all). I am so glad I did. Le Pompidou is magic! Gliding up the escalator with the ambient sounds of hip young people ascending, I took in the vistas of Paris, orienting myself by the familiar repères: la tour Eiffel, Sacre Coeur, Saint Eustache (seen for the first time)…Two little boys rushed next to me and crowded around my legs on the balcony and they called and pointed out every church as Notre Dame… although none of them were actually Notre Dame. Later, as I left the museum a group of boys had gathered in the square near the fountain and they were playing football while people at the café next door looked on. It seemed like such a pleasant thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.

Ze Pompidou is Magic !

La Tour Eiffel

Yesterday it was brilliantly sunny so I went for a long walk. Around two o'clock, I ate a handful of some lovely fours salés. I descended a bit down a hill and found the Seine, brilliantly muddy, like vomit glazed over with a fine Chardonnay, cheery and dirty and lapping up all the attention. Tourists swarmed the Champ de Mars and I gave in to my amorous feelings for la tour Eiffel.

I have been struggling against it; it just seems so cliché, but the thing is truly beautiful, more so in the varying shades of daylight than at night. Her metal bends, it seems to yield, to thrust up a joyously curlicued fantasmagoria of arches and crisscrosses and height, height, height. The numerous throngs of Indian men selling the silver, gold and bronze miniatures of la tour seem like her priests, hawking, pressing indulgences or effigies of the grand deity upon the grateful, hypnotized pilgrims who gather at her base.

Long delays

I am not quite on top of the whole posting with regularity thing yet. I think I was discouraged after the first post when I re-read it and noticed many typographical errors, which was discouraging, especially when one prides oneself on one's love of copy editing. The wireless is also extremely fickle chez moi so that can make for slow going.

Alas. Tis a vendredi soir and I just are dinner with M et Mme Chenain. Madame cooked some langue de veau (tongue of veal), which I had no desire to eat whatsoever, but I tried to meekly choke down some bites to be polite. I almost lost all sense of politesse when I noticed the small tongue depressions on the bottom of the piece that I had chosen. I suppose it was quite tender, but I couldn't stop thinking about my own tongue as it collided with the cooked langue.

On a happier note, I'll include some pictures from my trip to Bourgogne this past weekend where it was chillingly quiet and snowy and the food was delightful and saucy with amazing moutarde.


7.3o a.m. on a snowy field in Bourgogne



The caves of the vignoble La Reine Pedauque



"It's better to put your nose in a glass of Burgundy than in other people's business."


The Abbaye de Fontenay, founded in 1118 by Saint Bernard.


The view from the Basilique de Vezelay