Nouvelle exposition à L'usine

We ran into Clément (he goes by his last name) and Totoche at one of our favorite Portuguese restaurants (name on request) at lunch today - totally by chance. A bottle (or  two) or red wine later we decamped to La Commedia for café and now plan to meet at his vernissage tonight.

La Cité de la Réussite

Last week I received an invitation (via the Greater IBM network) to attend a breakfast session at the Sorbonne, where Alain Bénichou, chairman of IBM France, discussed IBM's vision of "Building a Smarter Planet". Even though early on a Sunday morning (and the same day as the Paris marathon - not that I'm running these days due to a herniated disc) I did indeed get up and over to the Sorbonne (a truly marvelous venue).


This event was part of La Cité de la Réussite, the largest forum for debate and intergenerational dialogues in France. The 2-day event, brings together high-level speakers from diverse professional backgrounds to focus on issues facing the city. Established in 1989, La Cité de la Réussite has been held annually at the Sorbonne ever since. La Cité is a center of public debate for all citizens and an international think tank where leading figures from academia, industry, the arts, sciences, politics, social sciences and religion gather to exchange ideas and confront different points of view.


Odile and I spent most of today there - in three different sessions (I'll add the details later in this same post). Suffice it to say that it was all quite invigorating.

Dante's smiles ...

''Les Sourires de Dante" is a little bistro, cozy and quiet (but not too!), on the Place Michel Audiard in the 14th arrondissement - not far from us. They serve "bio" wines and quite good "Italian-ish" dishes.  It has taken over the location that was "Le Godet d'Or" - run by our quirky friend, Jimmy La Watt (who chanced to stop by tonight). The new, and quite amiable, owner is Francis - well-versed in wine (and knows our chef friend Kevin - we all need to go to his place "Autour d'un Verre").


This was our first visit here (it'd been open a bit over a year and a half) and, although not warm enough to eat outside tonight, we look forward to returning.