Stealing Paris

Today I received a notice from a reader that someone was using a photo from my blog, which had been doctored and captioned,  for a hateful and racist post on a Facebook page.

Steam poured out my ears.  As if this week hasn't been awful enough for everyone who loves Paris and France.

It is bad enough when people use photos or other artistic creations without attribution or permission.

Alas, sadly we bloggers get accustomed to that sheer theft for our finer works of art or prose.  It shouldn't happen, but it does, and we try to remedy the situation as best we can. (I've been writing this blog for 8 years without remuneration, just for the love of sharing my bit of France.  I cringe to think of the number of people who have used images or text from this blog without asking.)

Just ask me, and usually -- USUALLY -- I will give permission.

Fortunately, Facebook was responsive to my report of copyright abuse today.  And for the pages which had shared it.

Here's what I wrote to my friends.  I rarely swear, so you have to understand my outrage:

There are lots of photos of Paris, I know. But dammit, *I* spent the money to be there for that moment, to take my kids to Paris for New Years, to rent the apartment on that street, to take the time and effort to get up early to take the photo, to post in on my blog. All for free, to share the love of Paris on my blog. And some idiot A-hole thinks he can just appropriate it to promote some anti-Islamic crap? That's the outrage.

Here is my original blog post, dated January 1, 2011.

The New Year's photo from that post.  I love Paris!  I love so many friends in Paris, of all different races and nationalities.

And  -- gahhhh --here is the doctored photo that some despicable thieves used to promote their own hateful agenda this week.

Whatever can be done to knock down these messages is not soon enough.  Not only did they steal a photo of beloved Paris, but they contorted it and turned it into a message of hatred.  Thankfully, Facebook has been prompt in stopping these pages.

Let's get rid of these thugs' photos!

Valérie Trierweiler’s Brother Recounts the Break-Up with François Hollande

[Vanity Fair France has a great article about the Hollande-Trierweiler split, explained by a family member, which hasn't been published in the anglophone press. Since I am a professional translator, I whipped up a verbatim translation  (and sent it to Vanity Fair France, gratis, but didn't hear back from them.    The orginal is here.   So here you have it.]

“What François Hollande did was brutal;  it goes beyond mere betrayal,” he says in the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair, revealing new details about the break-up less than a month after the official announcement of the Hollande-Trierweiler split.

The oldest brother of Valérie Trierweiler, William Massonneau, has discussed the break-up of his sister and French President François Hollande, for the first time, in the February 20 issue of the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair.  The monthly’s cover story, The Secrets of the Valérie Affair, cites as sources a number of those close to the President’s former companion.  “What François Hollande did was brutal;  it goes beyond mere betrayal,” says Massonneau.

William Massonneau, a 50-year-old computer engineer, continues:  “The relationship between my sister and François Hollande was altered by political events.  They weren’t Valérie and François.  They were the President and the First Lady.”

On January 25, François Hollande announced to Agence France Presse that he was ending his eight-year relationship with Valérie Trierweiler.  Two weeks before, the magazine Closer had broken a story about the relationship between Hollande and actress Julie Gayet.

Massonneau  gives a harsh assessment of François Hollande’s behavior towards his sister.  “I have never behaved in such a way, and hope I would never do so,” he confides to Vanity Fair. “Hollande is a man with a lot of empathy.  But his capacity to lead parallel lives is unbelievable.  His powers of seduction are immense.”

Hollande « pleasant and congenial »

The article published by the Spanish magazine recounts the last few weeks of their life as a couple, including spending Christmas Eve with Valérie Trierweiler’s family.

“We had dinner at my house.  My mother, my brothers, some nephews, Valerie and François. We are a large and close-knit family,” he explains.  “The unemployment statistics were about to be published, and the news wasn’t good.  Hollande knew that it would affect his image, which was already very weak.   Despite all that, he was pleasant and congenial with everyone.”

Admission to hospital on advice of the Élysée

The article in Spanish Vanity Fair also supplies some new details about Trierweiler’s hospitalization following the break-up.  Relying on a source who claims to be a close friend of Valérie’s, the magazine explains that her admission to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris was “advised by the doctor of the Élysée.”

According to this anonymous source, “Valérie Trierweiler was sedated for 48 hours…  When she woke up, she thought she had been asleep for a few hours, whereas it was actually almost two days.  She was under the effect of the tranquilizers.  She was feeling nauseated and had difficulty remembering what had just happened to her.  Her two cell phones had been taken away and no one could contact her.”

Valérie Trierweiler’s brother said he too visited her in the hospital, despite doctors’ orders.  “I realized that she could hardly put two words together.  She needed to get out of there as soon as possible to start to take charge of her life. » 

“Willing to forgive the infidelity.”

The two Spanish journalists who wrote the story explain that they obtained the information during a secret meeting in Paris with a close male friend of Valérie Trierweiler’s.  Hollande visited Trierweiler only once in the hospital, said the friend, and that the doctors wanted the visit to be brief, a maximum of six minutes, but that it lasted more than half an hour.

« Valérie was willing to forgive the infidelity, that’s certain.  But Hollande didn’t refer to the affair a single time.  He asked only about her health.  It was then that she fully understood that their eight-year relationship was over,” explains the anonymous friend, who says he was present at the pavillon de la Lanterne the day that François Hollande issued his statement to the press.

Tense exchange of text messages

The Spanish edition of Vanity Fair also published an exchange of text messages between Valérie Trierweiler and François Hollande, giving the timing  of January 25, a few hours prior to AFP’s 6:50 p.m. publication of the official press statement by Hollande.

François Hollande: “We should send a joint press statement.”

Valérie Trierweiler: “Out of the question.  It’s your responsibility.  You are the one who got into this mess and it’s up to you to set it straight.  I won’t sign any press statement.”

A 3 million euro settlement?

Frédéric Gerschel, a journalist for Le Parisien and another a close friend of Valérie Trierweiler’s,  also spoke with Vanity Fair Spain. “François was prepared to listen to her and reassure her.  He knew that he needed to compensate her somehow for their eight years together.”  A contractual agreement in effect stipulates that the President give her financial support until the end of his term in office that would allow her to continue to live in apartment in the 15^th arrondissement of Paris, which they rented together up to the time of the break-up, as well as a monthly allowance to pay for the education of her three children (the total was rumored to be close to 3 million euros, for which Vanity Fair did not cite the sources.)

“Hollande is sad”

The article also quotes Julien Dray, regional counselor for the Île-de-France and a close friend of François Hollande’s. “For the President, it was very difficult to leave someone whom he had loved.  Hollande is sad.”

In the January 31^st Parisien Magazine Valérie Trierweiler was quoted as saying that she “hasn’t ruled out writing a book” after the break-up with Hollande.

Her brother does not deny that possibility.  “Until now, all the First Ladies who had been cheated on just accepted the situation.  They never spoke out… It is not normal that women remain silent.”

And, the magazine writes, based on confidential information from a friend of Valérie Trierweiler’s, that she warned Hollande “I’ll destroy you just as you have destroyed me!”

Jérémie Maire, Laure Cometti et Philippe Mathon

Translated from the French by Polly Lyman

A few iconic views of Paris

Most of this recent visit to Paris, I just wasn't interested in taking photos.  It seemed too clicheed, too... I don't know what to call it.  Everybody and their brother are taking photos of everything there is to see in Paris.  What could I document that wasn't already documented by a hundred thousand instagrams, Facebook photos, and more?

So I revisited Paris mostly with my eyes, ears, and heart. I absorbed Paris in my pores.  Wow, did it feel good.

My cautionary tale:

The summer I was 19 I returned to France to revisit the wonderful friends I had made the previous summer, which had been my first and tremendously pivotal experience in France.  That subsequent summer, I borrowed my mother's Zeiss Ikon 36 mm camera and took 6 rolls of film, to document all of the magic that I had lived the year before.  Returning home, I had the film processed -- only to discover that the camera's shutter had stuck after the second frame,  and I had zero pictures.  Zero.

On that awful day, I vowed never to live a moment through the lens of a camera... NEVER.  I understood that the moment lived is far more important than the documentation of it ... to me.

How could I have envisioned 2013, when not a moment goes undocumented and immediately shared with friends?  Sometimes I want to just chuck the camera (and everyone else's) and then some times I'm so grateful for those fleeting moments captured by camera.  It's a toss-up.

That said, I did take a few photos of recurring sights of Paris that I simply had to document for posterity. All from the vicinity of my rental apartment on the Esplanade des Invalides.  When you walk out the door and this is what you see every day, you simply have to take a quick snapshot, eventually.  Too breathtaking!

Polly-Vous Francais: Very Pinteresting

It's a challenge, some times, to keep up with all the latest digital connection places.  Back when I was a digital neophyte in 2006 and started this blog, the world of bloggers was a small one and often under siege by the mainstream media.  But as a group we hung together, and no other group hung together better than the bloggers for the Paris Blog. And now, we old-world bloggers are SO thrilled that the mainstream media have joined our ranks.

But  -- wow -- how to keep up with all the new media?  And, umm, I now have a day job.  As technology and cool social media sites have proliferated, I've done my best to keep abreast of all the sites for communicating my message.

This blog of course, has a Facebook page, and if you haven't yet liked it, I encourage your participation.

I am also on Tumblr (for which I have a kind of visceral aesthetic love), and Twitter, which I attend to in fits and starts.

I am even on etsy and ebay, should I ever find the time to sell some of my French trouvailles. Working on it!

But when I joined Pinterest, I was irked, annoyed, upset to see that someone had taken my name, "Polly-Vous Francais," to use for one of her Pinterest pages.  Awkwardly, I do also have my own, authentic, Polly-Vous Francais  Pinterest account.

Why would anyone want to siphon credit, SEO, and Google page hits from my personal blog, which has spent six years delivering knowledgeable fun and news about Americans and their relationship with France?  Especially since this other person who copied my copyrighted nom de plume is not named Polly in real life and has never even lived in France?  Polly-Vous Francais is my personal brand, built with pride and quality and a true raison d'etre.

I've left a few comments on her page, asking for a name change. A few loyal fans have done the same.   No response.  Naturally, I'm not encouraging readers to flock to her page because that will only increase her page hits.  Arrgh!   But I wish that common courtesy still existed in the cyberworld.

What do you think?  Next steps?

TV5 Monde to the rescue...

Here on the island of Manhattan we are gearing up and battening down in anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane Sandy.  Who knows what the storm will bring -- will it be Frankenstorm, the epic storm for the history books?  Will it be just a lot of water from all angles? Will we lose power?

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I am delighting in a little gift-bag goodie I received two weeks ago at the annual meeting of the Federation of Alliances Francaises in the U.S.  A number of corporate sponsors had interesting (or frivolous) logo-stamped tchochkes.


But none were more timely or more potentially helpful right now than TV5 Monde's gift of a solar-powered phone charger.  It's warming up by the window.

I adore watching French TV in the US via TV5, and this is another reason to love the company.

Merci, TV5!

Lafayette: the Lost Hero... et moi: the Lost Heroine

I'm often asked "What did you do when you lived in Paris?"

Ouf.  The answer is, to opt for an oft-used phrase, "It's complicated."

I did some free-lance consulting, editing and copy-editing, and of course I created and fed this blog, my third child.

But one of the most fun, intriguing, and personally fulfilling volunteer gigs I had in Paris was to be a part of the Lafayette 250th anniversary celebration a few years ago.  Bright lights!  Big city!  Cameras rolling!

It turned out that a big part of the Lafayette anniversary woop-de-doo was of serious interest to acclaimed American filmmaker Oren Jacoby.  How he and I initially connected is too long a story to be of interest (it has to do with librarians, historians, and archivists, so don't fall asleep).  But ultimately, I ended up as an enthusiastic, starry-eyed participant in Oren's great documentary about the Marquis de Lafayette and his involvement in the American Revolution:  Lafayette, the Lost Hero.

But.

There is always the but, right?  And biz being biz, after all those hours, I ended up on the cutting-room floor, so to speak. (Actually, I'm in the outtakes on the DVD, which you can purchase, or if you simply need to believe me.)

Such is life. But, seriously, I wouldn't have traded the learning-curve experience for anything. For example, for one memorable day, camera crews were rolling all day in my apartment in the 7e arrondissement (which I dubbed Studio 54, for the address.)

Bright lights at 54 rue Vaneau

Of course, there's zero stress in having your apartment filmed for posterity...

In Paris, I was filmed tootling around the Marché de Saxe on my bike, climbing the stairs at the French Senate (the Palais du Luxembourg) and at a gala at the Palais de Vincennes, interviewing the director of the Musée Carnavalet in  private tour of the museum's galleries, just to name a few segments.  My then-college-aged kids agreed to be filmed as I lectured them about the "Declaration des Droits de l'Homme" in the Concorde metro station. I counted among my Lafayette co-stars such journalistic luminaries as Michael Oreskes and Jim Gaines, plus the mayors of Lafayette cities in the US.

On the other side of the pond, too, I was there.  Back on home turf to see my son Harry, I plodded around the Bunker Hill monument in Boston in the rain, cameras running  as I chatted about Lafayette history.  In Charleston (while on a visit to Miss Bee in college), I learned a lot about South Carolina history as we focused on Lafayette's arrival there in  1777.   All for my hero, Lafayette.

And a plus:  I learned a lot of film lingo. Such as "sticks," and "wrap." You know, how cool am I?  Heady stuff.

Here I am with the great guys of the crew, South of Broad in Charleston.

Sometimes I felt like Snow White! 

But how do I put any of this on my resume?

I guess I don't.

French Vanity Fair

This is big news.

Condé Nast has announced that it will launch a French version of Vanity Fair.  Michel Denisot, of Le Grand Journal, will be editorial director.

90% of the content will be original to France.

A vos plumes!

image via wikipedia

Our Maids are Squeaky Clean

This flyer just arrived in my mailbox from the folks at MaidPro.

Surely a coincidence (ha!) or surely NOT a coincidence in timing?

"The wrong maid is an accident waiting to happen."

"MaidPro -- We're squeaky clean."

And their other motto: "Talk dirty, live clean."

Who is the Parisian male?

THE PARISIAN MALE…Who is he? Where does today’s Parisian man go for nightlife, to dine, for entertainment, or to shop for clothes?

Of course we are all salivating to know the answer to these burning and relevant questions. Aren't we?

Through its annual survey, Le Figaroscope a few months ago offered a quick sketch of the typical male denizen of Paris: "at once perfectible but seductive, snob yet distinguished, lighthearted yet erudite."

The survey had some interesting responses: the vote came in for the handsome and talented Edouard Baer as the icon of French male-ness. Can't argue with that. And details of his favorite haunts and habits are spelled out for you. Even if your French isn't le top, you can read the article here and find out the cool, hip places to be a man in Paris. And statistics about the runners-up.

Ah, then the tables turn! None other than Inès de la Fressange opines in the article, offering her view of the typical Parisian man. I didn't want anyone to miss this, so I translated it all for you.

According to Inès, the typical Parisian male

• takes his car to go exercise (e.g. jogging in the Luxembourg Garden) ;
• goes to cafés but only drinks coffee at the office;
• never wears brown suits;
• uses neither an umbrella nor a hat;
• buys his books in a local bookstore, even though he spends his life in front of the computer screen;
• has lunch on the Left Bank on weekends, but on the Right Bank during the week;
• reads the International Herald Tribune and subscribes to it when away at his vacation home;
• has a taxi-service subscription because he knows it’s delusional to think one can hail a taxi in the streets of Paris;
• drops his kids off at school but is never the one to pick them up;
• has two cars, including one Smart Car, but makes everyone think he arrived by Velib;
• votes in the countryside, where he has a second home: the only way to have his voice heard;
• skis in Megève, vacations on île de Ré or at Cap-Ferret, because there are plenty of Parisians there;
• makes snide comments about people whom he will then greet ceremoniously at Brasserie Lipp;
• is on a diet (he is a personal friend of Pierre Dukan);
• doesn’t manage to lose weight because the gym is under renovation, or too far away, or closed, or whatever…;
• loves going to London, IF it’s for work;
• doesn’t want to change residences, but his wife does;
• has a dog (more so than in any other city), but no place to walk it without a leash;
• wants to live in the 5th arrondissement in order to enroll his son in the Lycée Henri-IV (“you will be in the elite of the nation, my boy");
• “never goes” to the Marché aux Puces (« it’s too far, too expensive, no good finds») ;
• has furniture that comes exclusively from the Marché aux Puces;
• goes to Habitat to look like an American;
• buys his swim suits at Ralph Lauren, to look like Bobby Kennedy;
• “never” goes to the hairdresser (even though his hair is always short);
• doesn’t have a mistress, only « co-workers »;
• doesn’t have a guest bedroom;
• goes to bed early and gets up late, then is in meetings and unreachable;
• wasn’t born in Paris;
• starts out spearheading the search for child care for the new baby; and then, ultimately, asks his wife to figure it all out;
• doesn’t carry a plastic bag to pick up after his dog;
• never sees high chairs for the baby in restaurants; but since he isn’t Swedish it doesn’t surprise him.

Eh, oui, those fascinating, inscrutable Parisiens!

Edouard Baer image via Wikipedia

Paris Match, May 1950

I recently came upon an issue of Paris Match from May 27, 1950, a yellowing 61-year-old chronicle of la vie Parisienne. Think about it: just 6 years after Paris was liberated.

When my scanner is back in order (long story), I'll include some of the great vintage ads and visuals. Meanwhile, I feel compelled to report on a Paris briefing found in the end of the magazine.

Entitled "Elles et Eux," written by Cecil Brunet, it is a compilation of tidbits: social, literary, political. Here are a few random selections (translations by me). A glimpse beyond the cliche-ridden images of Paris in the 1950s.

Bing Crosby, who had settled in to the Ritz upon arrival in Paris recently, found that hotel too noisy and left it to stay in the Lancaster. He then left the Lancaster, and found an apartment in Auteuil.

Paul Claudel, replying to an actor who was praising him for the dialogue in his work L'Otage, said, "Well, what do you expect? It's Claudel!"

Monsieur Pestche is very interested in the images of la Marianne proposed for the soon to be minted 10-franc coins. He says: I want a well-proportioned Marianne!" (bien fichue)

Charles Trenet will sing in Central Park in New York on May 20. When he enters the stage, 40 New York policemen will give him a grand salute. This idea amuses Trenet no end, as this will be the anniversary of his detention on Ellis Island.

Gaston Gallimard, looking at the crush of people gathered at his cocktail party, said "It's amazing how many friends I have!"

Sartre had written a letter to a judge in support of Boris Vian, to address the legal action between Vian and the Cartel d'action morale. The letter didn't arrive in time, and Vian was found guilty.

(image: Boris Vian, via Wikipedia)

Polly-Vous Francais on the Airwaves!

Polly-Vous Francais is silent no more! If you'd like to hear my real voice live, tomorrow is your chance. On Saturday May 21, I will be the guest on the radio program "Franco Fun" on KUSF in Exile in San Francisco, at 5:00 p.m., Pacific time.

Every Saturday, DJ Fari provides a weekly francofix for Franciscans and francophiles around the world with the program Franco Fun, featuring music, lifestyle, culture, and interviews. And this week the feature is moi. Some in English, some in French. Tune in!

I was originally scheduled to be on air in January, but five days before show time, the University owners in a surprise move sold the station's air rights for a cool $3.75 million without any advance notice. (I always have impeccable timing, n'est-ce pas?) So KUSF is now live-streaming here.

If you have requests for music, let me know ASAP. Featured guests are asked to BYOM (bring your own music), and my CD collection of French music tends to the classic crooners: Maxime Le Forestier, Serge Gainsbourg, Georges Brassens, etc.

I could throw in a few brief comedy sketches like Franck Dubosc, Florence Floresti, and Sylvie Joly if there's time. An hour is pretty short, especially with all the yakking I'll be doing.

What music would you like to hear? What questions would you like DJ Fari to ask me? Any shout-outs (within reason)?

BTW, If you miss the show, you can always hear it on the archives

Who put the 'cozy' in Sarkozy?

France24 is a great news source for just about everything having to do with France, or world news from a French perspective.  Frankly, since I'm not in Paris I'm somewhat rabid about keeping up with French news, cruising the French dailies' websites, trying to keep au courant. 

Yet I fail.  Why, you ask?  Well, partially because when I start watching half-hour panel discussions such as last week's France 24 roundtable with top Anglophone journalists in Paris, I get... distracted.

I know, I know.  I should be following the substance of the discussion, and ... yet... in the mean time I am swept away by one persistent thought:  Why does Alison Smale of the IHT refer to the president as sar-koh-ZEE while Mark Deen of Bloomberg refers to him as sar-KOH-zee?  Didn't they referee the Proper Presidential Pronunciation before going on air? 

And secretly, I am delighted.  I love pronunciation battles, and this one is ripe.

On the one hand, of course, in French no syllables are accented.  So officially it's pronounced sar-koh-zee, equal emphasis on all syllables; but in reality it ends up sounding a bit more like sar-koh-ZEE. Americans, on the other hand,  need to find a syllable to stress in English, and somehow in popular US media, it's most often pronounced à l'américaine, sar-KOH-zee.

I still recall the mild sting of being reprimanded by my dear late friend Polly Platt for saying 'sar-KOH-zee' in mid-sentence.  "But, Polly," I pleaded, "I'm speaking in English right now.  When I'm talking in English, for example, I don't say 'Paree,' I say 'Pariss.' So in English I should say 'sar-KOH-zee,' as Americans do."

She didn't buy that defense, and told me it sounded ill-informed.  Since I deeply admired her, in all subsequent conversations with Polly I was on my sar-koh-ZEE best.

But otherwise, I was cozy with sar-KOH-zee.

Then. The ultimate revelation: French newscasters pronounce our president's name oh-ba-MAH when discoursing in French.



But of course they should.

You say 'to-MAY-toh.'  I say 'to-MAH-to.'

Let's not call the whole thing off.

'French in Action' - 25 years later

Boule-dogue, boule-dogue, waouh, waouh, waouh!?

I've always known that Yale has some great reunions. Been to one or two myself, and had a rollicking good time.

But here's the Yale reunion to beat all reunions, in my book: The 25th Anniversary of "French in Action", slated for October 30-31 in New Haven.

Either you know and remember all about French in Action, or it doesn't ring a bell. A revered French-language program aired on PBS and in classrooms across America, its language and cultural sequences are seared in the minds of devotees ...and less-than devotees, also, I dare say. I know students of the show who can still recite entire episodes.

Pierre Capretz will be on hand for the reunion, as will be the lovely Mireille. I was and am a big fan, and wish I could be there for the shindig!

Just remember, time doesn't stand still.

But for those who remember the antics of Robert and Mireille, the Man in Black, and Pierre Capretz giving the language lesson, you can join the reunion and rekindle all those fond memories.

Update: see photos of the reunion here.

Dear Abby: Should I go to France?

There's always a first time for everything.  Today I wrote to Dear Abby. 

No, no, no.  I didn't ask her how to solve any of my dilemmas (what? me worry?) but to commend her for a spot-on response to a college student's quandary.

Dear Abby:
I'm a college freshman, majoring in French but taking other languages as well. I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I know that I love learning languages.  My friend, "Lacey," has offered me the chance to stay with her family in France during our next summer break...

You can read the rest here (after the grandma's grooming query). 

I'd been out of the Dear Abby habit for a long time, until recently when I subscribed to our local daily as an implusive gesture of solidarity for the print industry.  (The recycling bin is taking a hit, though, as is my green-er social conscience.)

I whip through the news section (I've already read most of it online), and settle in on local events, comics, Eugenia Last's eerily accurate horoscopes, and then dear Dear Abby.  Cover to cover, about four minutes.  It takes me longer to walk down the hill to fetch it than to actually read the thing.  So I do have a quandary:

Dear Abby:

Should I cancel my newspaper subscription?

Paris Notes

It is with great sadness that I learned today that Paris Notes, a venerable insider's guide to the BEST of everything Paris, is ceasing publication.   For so many years before I lived in Paris, it was my umbilical cord to France when I was longing to live there; and it was a source of irreplaceable information and tips even when I was a denizen of the City of Light.

Editor Mark Eversman reports:

During the past 17 years it has been our distinct privilege to provide you with passionate, reliable, quality Paris information. We've visited every corner of the city, dined in hundreds of restaurants, checked out countless hotel rooms, had more than a few coffees in a multitude of cafés, ogled art and artifacts in every single museum in the city, walked hundreds of blister-prone miles of Paris sidewalks, interviewed luminaries and lightweights alike, endured weather of all extremes, and kept a daily vigil for even the smallest shred of information that would be of interest to you, the Paris Notes reader.

Good news for those who love Paris is that the last 50 issues of Paris Notes are now available for free to read and save -- and savor.  Should be bound -- enshrined --  in book form, in my estimation.

When a door is shut, a window is opened, I guess,  So fabulous France Today magazine has agreed to meet the needs of current Paris Notes subscribers for the remainder of their subscriptions.

Happy reading to all, and best wishes for future endeavors to all who contributed to almost two decades of such a wonderful publication.

Curious (non) connections?

This photo just appeared in the Huffington Post's "Funniest Protest Signs of 2009," which admittedly has some real doozies.  Check 'em out.

But curiously, the HuffPo caption for the photo was "Polly Vous Francais?"

Trust me, HuffPo, I didn't submit that.

It's Sum-sum-summertime!

Ah, summertime.

One news item we can always depend on in late July: where French politicians will be spending their 3-week vacations. Here it is, complete with a map.

Roast that French!

Oh, brother. Do we not even know how to pronounce the word café in this country?
Apparently McDo doesn’t think so. Check out the latest McDonald's ad touting the new McCafé.  Pronunciation lessons?

Lame attempts at Frenchifying ordinary workaday words is bad enough (commu-tay, cubi-clay?) Trying to make it seem “French” to be sipping a whipped-cream-topped iced mocha on the way to work is… a stretch. 

But must McDonald's really massacre the poor, unsuspecting, much-misunderstood accent aigu?

Win a DVD from France Today

If you act fast and respond by today, you could win a DVD of the critically acclaimed 2008 French film I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime), starring Kristin Scott Thomas, in France Today's contest for online readers. To enter the contest, just send an email to info@francetoday.com with your email address and the email addresses of five friends you think would enjoy the weekly newsletter, Le Petit Journal. Put DVD CONTEST in the subject line.

If you're not already familiar with it, Le Petit Journal is the e-newsletter of France Today and France-Amerique. I was a long-time subscriber to the paper version of both before moving to Paris. Being transatlantic, I quickly became enamored of the online versions. And now France Today has revamped its website and is even more luscious than before. Great writing, photos, and insider tips: I think they mentioned my blog once.

My quandary: back in the US I rediscovered my carefully saved, much beloved back issues of France Today. There is even more in the paper edition, more time to savor each article. Should I subscribe again? There is something so comforting about reviewing old issues. But so much paper. Oh well. I guess there's room for both.

Can't stop to think on it too much. Must go enter that contest.

A+

Monsieur Jacques a Dit?

Ooh, I love to read supposedly scathing articles about the French in the New York Times. So provocative. But, um, not really. Today there was a great slice-and-dice piece about food critic François Simon, perhaps more popularly recognized outside gastronomic circles as the ultimately-redeemed villain Anton Ego in Ratatouille.

I can't presume to judge the culinary dialectic. But I do have another bone to pick. For, although the NYT article refers to his Monsieur Simon's two food blogs, as a blogger I was disappointed that it contained no hyperlink to either the French- or English-language versions of "Simon Says!" Seems a disservice to their readers. So I'm glad to oblige.

Well, even if Simon is sometimes a demanding, dismissive restaurant critic and occasionally a biting cynic, his image was measurably softened in the film version by Peter O'Toole's sentimental portrayal of a character with an artichoke hide and a mousse center. And a lover of the genuine article.