Mid-week pause

Kiki le Mouton came by, after walking his dog Max, for a drink and stayed for dinner. Talk of the islands of Greece (where he and Eva have a house at Andros ... must visit), taxes, auto repairs, Tatanka (I put on the music from "Dances with Wolves"), and other mundane stuff you'd discuss with your upstairs neighbor.

Also a furious discussion of how best to market images via the Internet ("Kiki" heads up Studio Bastille) - do you have some ideas? Your comments appreciated!

No manif ... so art today.

Met Odile mid-afternoon at the main Paris city hall - stood on line 45 minutes - for their expo "Paris au Cinéma". Quite well laid out and plenty of clips showing Paris throughout film history - from various perspectives: the women of Paris, the rooftops, bistros, etc.

Afterwards walked over to the nearby BHV department store where we ran into Denis & Eleane - so we all stopped for some java at the Café Bricolo in the basement hardware area.

Tonight a fine shrimp dinner and The Mackintosh Man (en VF) with Paul Newman.

A closing thought for our friend, Bunny ... RIP (ten years already).

An excellent dinner with our sixth-floor neighbor, Jean-Marie, made by his sister, Titi. Also at the forks: Odile, Helène and Carlos.

Flaneries de dimanche

Heading off to Myriam's for a café then the near-suburbs (Bagnolet) to meet Hélios and Regina at her nephew's home for a Brazilian hoedown. More details tonight.

Lieu bis

The lieu noir with pears/rochefort sauce makes a return at tonight's Mouton dinner with our friends: Geneviève & Bernard, Anne, Pascale & Jean-Pierre. Odile's handling the starter - I'm
covering everything else (so I'm off to get cooking - update/s later).

HB Félix

Happy birthday, Félix!

Art, artchitecture and vino

We're off shortly to meet Regina and Hélios at a vernissage for Sergio, our Cuban film-maker friend, at 42 rue de Vertbois over in the 3rd (near the Picasso museum). Afterwards over to le Entrepôt for a jazzy farewell party for Gregorio, our Brazilian/Italian architect friend - he's moving back to Milano after working with Renzo Piano here in Paris.

Coño ... se fueron !

All good things come to an end ... heck, even GREAT things come to an end. Manny and Olga flew back today to NY ... we are très triste. Plans are underway to meet soon in USA or Italy!

¡Gracias por una tremenda visita, amigos!

Marais madness ...

Manny at la manif (again!) near the Paris city hall.

Le Baron Rouge

Les amis (Manny, Jaimie, Olga) @ the "oysterthon" at le Baron Rouge.

Puerto Rico à Paris

Forthcoming post on PR dinner (by Olga).





Eiffel Tower opened to public

1889: The 984-foot (300-metre) Eiffel Tower, a wrought iron technological masterpiece created by Gustave Eiffel to commemorate the French Revolution, was opened to the public at the Centennial Exposition in Paris this day in 1889.

Tourisime MO1

After our de rigeur ascension of the Eiffel Tower, I visited Napolean's tomb, at les Invalides, thanks to Manny & Olga, which, even after a dozen years of living in Paris impressed me greatly. If you go be sure to take the free audio tour - it's quite informative. Also don't try to lead any demonstations/marches as Manny is doing in this photo (Olga and I decided to hang back - given the vociferous crowd).

Our walk up the Champs-Elysées was marred somewhat by the rainy weather, but we had a nice time anyway.

Wonderful shrimp, piperade, rice (can we ever get enoough?) dinner by Odile. We were joined by Fanchette, in fine fettle pre-smoking arrêt.

D-Day: Anti-CPE protest march

Odile and I are meeting Denis around 3:00pm at the demonstration start point: Place d'Italie.

It's rainy and cool, so that may affect turnout, but at least we, diehards, will be there! YOU coming?

UPDATE: Let's split the difference and call it 2 million people who demonstrated throughout France today. What will that change? Stay tuned ...

With Denis we walked all the way up to the Bastille where we met Janine - we all stopped for a drink nearby and then met again, post-manif, for dinner at Le Bistro de Beaubourg. Good food (as usual - and at really reasonable prices), good post-march conversation and plans for an Indian dinner this Saturday at Janine's in the 19th.

Strum und Drang?

In expectation (1) of tomorrow's nationwide strike and demonstrations (and perhaps De Villepin's Götterdämmerung) we are off to the theater tonight: Marie's daughter Félice is part of the cast in "Sainte Jeanne des abattoirs" by Bertolt Brecht. I'm looking forward to seeing the play. What seems clear is that France has reached an impasse regarding the CPE. Which way out?

UPDATE: Brecht's play, "Saint Joan of the Stockyards" (in part about labor strife in Chicago), written in 1929, holds up surprisingly well 77 years later - especially the capitalism/religion connection. This version, although a bit longish and sluggish at times, has a number of clever staging ideas (mmm, smell that grilled steak) and, overall, very good acting. If you're in town drop by the Théâtre du Nord-Ouest (13 rue du Faubourg-Montmartre - Paris IXe) to see it.

(1)
"Je vécus parmi les hommes au temps de la révolte. Et je m'insurgeai avec eux."
"Dialectiser, c'est extraire la dimension politique de toute chose."
- Bertolt Brecht

Daylight Savings Time

We got invited by Hélios and Regina to dinner ... but at Denis' rather than their apartment (still being remodeled).

A really excellent dinner. Plus good talk, plenty of dancing (Odile was a regular Terpsichore) and we were all up until 4am (actually 5am with the advancing of clocks by one hour).

I met (re-met) Eliane ( kindergarten teacher) and heard about Béatrice's plans for guiding groups on trips to Vietnam, China and Turkey (she'll have a website soon - if you're interested in guided trips just return here as I'll post a link). Sylvie was there also - and in fine form.

Magia ...

Harry Houdini, born today in 1874, adopted his last name based on French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin.

That gives me pause to think that it'll take some kind of magic for us in France to get out of the pickle (1) we're in (not just related to the anti-CPE demonstrations this week ... and next). I'm still planning on participating in the nationwide strike/march on Tuesday (although Odile is getting cold feet), but I will be prepared to scoot should violence break out (as in the most recent events in Paris).

Hopefully Dominique de Villepin will pull a magic card out of his sleeve ... and things will calm down ... but I doubt it.

On the home front - a productive day (of banging away to get the new laptop in line) and a nice, quiet dinner with our neighbor, Anne. Simple grub, red wine,honest and warm conversation on a rainy Parisian night - that's the real magic.

(1) not definition #4!

Despair?

After two full days of beating my head against my new laptop computer I finally have my mail (a half-decade's worth) transferred from my old (and ailing) PC to this gleaming, over-clocked XPed monster. So you all can write now ... I'll actually get your mails!

I plan to get ruthlessly effective in e-mailing (friends, especially) more often in 2006 (since I have no metrics on this blog I don't even know how many people visit it). There remains tons of stuff to copy over but luckily (Saint) Benj told me yesterday that he "happens" to have a nifty Ethernet USB-ish cable that will plug the two beasties together for some kind of unholy mass-transfer! Vive l'informatique !

Hasta luego, amigos ...

Today is the last full day that Lara and Daniel are spending in Paris ... such a short but FRUITFUL visit for us ... always great to make new friends.

The four of us went to have dinner at Le Paradis near the Montparnasse tower for a fine, fun time. Of course everyone had escargots for a starter (well, except Odile - naturally the one French person passed on the snails).

Afterwards we stopped at the Rosebud for a post-prandial drink, then (around 2am) walked together to say adieu near their hotel. Luckily the Falstaff pub was still open so we stopped in for a wee doch-an-dorris before parting ways (until a near future, I hope). Mucha ginga!

Anti-CPE protest march

All over France today we're in the streets to protest the CPE (a new law that allows employees under the age of 26 to be fired without cause until they have held their job for two years). I took this photo near the Observatoire.

In Paris the sendoff for the march was from nearby Denfert-Rochereau. Odile and I went with Denis, met Milène and other friends along the way. If there is no appropriate reply from the government there is now talk of a nationwide strike in the coming days.

Feliz San Patricio

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."

Friedrich Nietzsche (I didn't know he had it in him)

Anyway, we're going out tonight with Lara (Puerto Rico) and Daniel (Brazil) to La Parrilla (21ter rue Voltaire - 75011) for a Latin American dinner ... with dancing and laughing included. Juan Carlos Rossi will be playing his guitar and singing ... so come join us!