'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.

Salon de Provence!

Wow. Some people have all the luck, and get to spend a year in Provence.

One such person is my darling daughter.  Yes, at the end of September the lucky college grad is heading off to lovely Salon-de-Provence to be an English teaching assistant. 

Not that I am living vicariously or anything.  Qui, moi?

So, heck, what good is a francophile blogger maman if she can't post a notice?:

Lodging needed!

If you know of anyone in Salon-de-Provence with a chambre de bonne to rent, seeking a roommate, or other accommodation possibilities at grad student rates from October to May, please contact me asap at pollyvousfrancais [at] yahoo. 

Pollyvous et famille will be eternally grateful!

Summertime in Paris

Thought I'd post a few photos of Paris in the summer.

The Seine can be cold and grey or serene and sunny.  Lately it's been the former. Ugh.

Paris closes down for vacation in August.

Place de la Concorde.  Some of these doors go to underground parking garages.

Tabac sign with geraniums. I wonder if these will disappear some day.

I never tire of blue doors.

But I am fed up with Blogger "improvements"!  I may be switching to a new blog platform.  This format is awful!!

Stay tuned.

Paris vu du Ciel

Oh my.

If you're jonesing for Paris like me, take 15 minutes and watch this splendid video, Paris vu du Ciel, by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.


Paris vu du Ciel de Yann Arthus-Bertrand
Uploaded by mairiedeparis. - News videos from around the world.

On the downside, it doesn't cure the itch. 

Not one bit.

Cultural Tidbits from and about France

It's summertime.  Ah, and I'm feeling weary, mes amis.  Weary of contemplating the iPhone4, of finding the Next Best Thing, of being cutting-edge and hip (or vaguely trying). Yes, I think a little nostalgia is in order. 

So here are a few new-but-old happenings from the French cultural scene. Or are they old-but-new?

1.  Step back in time and visit Jean Cocteau's house in Milly-la-Foret. which is now open to the public.

2. Every Sunday evening through August 8, you can (re)discover the tradtional guinguette -- bal populaire -- on the Canal d'Ourcq.  Dance the night away!

3. If you're inspired by the breathtaking television views of ancient architecture as the cyclists from the Tour de France speed by on the country lanes, well, you can dream of buying a chateau yourself.

4.  Remember the days of classic French cuisine without the guilt?  Remember the days of dining with silver and crisply-ironed damask napkins (or at least seeing photos of glamorous celebrities doing so)?  Do the names Elizabeth Arden, Tallulah Bankhead, and Emily Post ring a bell?  Would you like to know their favorite recipes?

You can re-kindle the flames of celebrity gastronomy of yore by picking up a copy of the recently re-published Spécialités de la Maison.  Originally published in 1940 by the American Friends of France (founded by heiress Anne Morgan), the book is now available in a new edition, with a foreword by VF editor Graydon Carter.  Still the same wonderful drawings by Clement Hurd and others.  Still the same old-fashioned recipes that we forgot we needed so desperately.  I drool:  Cold Roquefort Souffle (Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt);  Filet of Sole Veronique (Vivien Leigh); Mrs. George Washington's Crab Soup (Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, The White House).  And on it goes. 

You need this cookbook.  You know you do.

24 Hours in Paris

So many times when my circadian cycle was off-kilter with the "regular" hourly schedule of my fellow Parisians, I longed for an hour-by-hour guide that might tell me where I could be amused or consume lovely French fare while the rest of Paris slept or ate breakfast or was busy with their charming cinq-a-septs.  To no avail.  "Ah, there's a book waiting to be written," I thought.

Well, wait no more:  24 hours in Paris is here!

I could wax poetic about Marsha Moore's quirky and lovable new round-the-clock guide to La ville lumiere.  But instead, I'll simply offer you 24 reasons why I love 24 Hours in Paris:

24. A turkish bath where you can order dinner

23. La Chapelle Expiatoire

22. Unmentionable!

21. She loves Deyrolle as much as I do.

20. Metro line 14

19. Chapelle de la Medaille Miraculeuse
18. O Chateau -- we love Olivier!
17. The Dog Cemetery
16. Merci

15. Fabulous factoids. "It would take 24 days, using every hour in the day, to briefly view all the exhibits in the Louvre."

14. Drouot

13. Drouot again.

12. Drouot again.

11. A bar that is open from 9h to 7h.  That is not a typo.

10. Midnight movies followed by breakfast.

9. Going to see "Auntie."

8. Berthillon (I drool!)

7. "24 hours with the kids."

6. Cimetiere de Montparnasse

5. Polly Maggoo.  Because there's more than one Polly in Paris.

4. Eternal favorite Shakespeare & Company

3. La tour Montparnasse

2. Stripper School.  Non, pas wallpaper: oui, va-va-va-voom!

And -- drumroll please:  numero un is

1.  Cafe de la Mairie (a fave):  Marsha spells it correctly.  Not Cafe de la "Marie," people!

Great book, a must-have for anyone who loves and frequents Paris.

Le quatorze juillet

Happy Bastille Day!

By the way, no one in France calls it Bastille Day.  Or even Jour de la Bastille. Just le quatorze juillet or maybe la fete nationale. And of course, you know the proper way to say "Yay France!" in French.

Since I have the day off, I think I'll pick up a copy of France Today and dream of being in France today.  Or better yet, I'll just subscribe so I have a chance to win a fabulous luxurious trip to France.  (But shhhh -- don't tell anyone, because I want to improve my odds of winning.)

Then maybe I'll order some French goodies from French Feast.

And I'll finish the day singing La Marseillaise somewhere.

Meeting Ella Fitzgerald, part 2

So I ended up at an Ella Fitzgerald concert, totally, totally inappropriately dressed.  Read part one here.

I was entranced, thrilled, watching and listening to every Ella move, every note.  Thankful that the sun was setting, all eyes were focused on Ella on stage and hoping no one could see me in my grungy get-up.  Ella sang all the familiar favorites, and it really was a dream come true. About 20 feet away from my idol.

K no doubt noticed that I knew every tune by heart.  To her, Ella was someone famous that her father knew, but she clearly wasn't in the die-hard fan group with me.

Then.  Intermission.

All I wanted to do was cower in my seat, arms crossing over my lap.  I spotted the Deputy Mayor of Boston, a few other luminaries whom I knew vaguely and I just wanted to don the cloak of invisibility. You have to understand, I looked totally gross and shabby: windblown, unshowered, salty, sandy, wild mane of hair.  Everything unkempt one can look like at the end of a day at the beach.

Intermission.

"Let's go backstage!" says K. "With my VIP pass we can go back there, no problem!  You're such a fan, you can meet Ella."

Daggers of pain, angst.  "No, I can't possibly -- look at me!"

"Jeeeez, Polly, when will you ever have this chance again?  Don't be ridiculous.  Who cares?"

"I care."  Talk about being torn in two.  No. No. No.  Yes. Yes. Yes.

But I bit the bullet.  I rose from my seat, followed K past the "No admission" sign to the back of the stage, and after we waited outside the makeshift dressing room for a few minutes, out came Ella.  Elegant and larger than life in her long shining satin dress.  I think it was purple. Was it my imagination, or was there a halo-like aura about her?

I stammered.  What can you say to Ella Fitzgerald that isn't a cliche?  What can you say to explain meeting her while looking like a bum?  Nothing.  I shook her hand. And I said, "Miss Fitzgerald, you have been my idol since I was 12.  This is the greatest moment for me."

She smiled kindly and looked a little tired. I think she pretended not to notice my insultingly slapdash appearance. "Why, thank you, dear."  At least I think that's what she said. My ears felt filled with cotton.  My brain was in another planet.

"Could I have your .... signature?"  I had never asked for an autograph before.  Damn, that was the word I meant to say:  autograph.

"Of course."  She signed my program.  I think K winked at her or gave some other inside signal, and we left. 

My heart was pounding, and to this day, I don't know whether it was because I was actually meeting Miss Ella Fitzgerald, at long last.  Or whether it was from sheer embarrassment.

Meeting Miss Ella Fitzgerald

Starting a new series of summer posts.
Boston, 1982.

It is a steamy Massachusetts August evening, and I've just returned to my Beacon Hill apartment after a long weekend at the shore. The phone rings. It is my energetic and fun-filled friend, K.

"Hi, Poll. What are you doing tonight? Are you free?"

I'm always a sucker when questions are phrased this way.  I forget to ask "Hmm, what did you have in mind?" Instead, I quickly mentally prioritize the probabilities and give a hasty yay or nay.

"Oh, K, I'm just exhausted. I was with [new beau] at the beach house all weekend. And I simply have to go to Lewando's and do my laundry. Can we get together some other night?"

Then the killer.

"Oh... sure," says K.  Then, slyly, "It's just that I have two free tickets to Concerts on the Common, and Ella Fitzgerald is singing." Pause. "Do you like Ella Fitzgerald?"

My heart hurtles out of my forehead or somewhere, and my voice catapults from exhausted to panicked. "OH-GOD-OH-GOD!! I'd love to see Ella Fitzgerald in person! Forget laundry and everything else, this is a dream come true!" After all, I'd been faux-scat singing along with Ella at least since I was 12.  I knew all of her songs. I owned most of her Verve records on vinyl. She was my idol.

K sighs or snickers or harrumphs faintly on the other end of the line, I think. Like, "Oh thanks, you wouldn't want to get together if it was just me, but you will if it's Ella Fitzgerald?"

But wouldn't you?

So we hastily arrange to meet in half an hour in the middle of the Boston Common, outside the enclosed area for the concert.

"Concerts on the Common," to me, sounds like a picnic-and-blanket affair, so I stuff my red canvas LL Bean rucksack with an old tablecloth, some Triscuits and cheese, a swiss army knife and a bottle of wine, and climb up the hill to the concert area, wearing tennis shoes, ragged old shorts, and a faded polo shirt, my salty hair pulled quickly into a high pony tail to keep cool in the hot summer evening.

I circle around the chain link fence, looking for K. Finally I spot her, outside a gate marked "VIP entrance." She is bubbly and blonde and wearing chic summer whites. "C'mon," she admonishes, "we're the last to arrive."

She steers me over to the rows of seats (seats?? where on earth are our fellow picnickers and blankets? I'm wondering.)

But no. Are we to be sitting in an anonymous 18th-row seat where my abominable outfit will go unnoticed?

No, we are not.

Are we on the fourth or fifth row where I could at least attempt to hide my grungy get-up?  No, we are not.

Are we in the second row of the VIP section, with the silk-and-linen-clad dignitaries from the City of Boston?  Yes, we are.

Is it dark enough so that no one can see me? No, it is not.

Can I hide under a rock?

Not if I want to see and hear Ella.

K, um, has neglected to tell me that her father is Ella's Boston PR agent. There is no escaping.

I try to sit demurely on the folding chair and be incognito until the concert begins. Covering myself with the vintage tablecloth is a fleeting option that I quickly abandon. Blessedly soon, the lights go on, and the show cranks up. Oscar Peterson warms up the crowd, then Ella -- MY Ella -- arrives on stage. I am in heaven. She is dazzling, warm, fabulous.

-- to be continued

French Grocery List

In the French-American school where I work, lunchtime conversation in the faculty kitchen is invariably lively and spiced with the latest French news, gossip, and debate.  The dry-erase board's grocery list, however, is usually rather bland and limited to all-American staples such as sugar packets and disposable wooden coffee-stirrers.

Ah, but the end of the school year is upon us, and the crowds are clearly craving more adventurous fare, from all corners of the Hexagone.  I spied this list today:

1. Piment d'espelette, a spicy pepper from the Basque region.

2. Champagne.  Needs no intro, but hails from, duh, the Champagne region of France.

3.  Chocolate cake.  Universal.  Many of my French friends have a special family chocolate-cake recipe which they will never divulge.   Ever.  The "I-love-this-cake-can-I-have-the-recipe" ploy falls on deaf ears.

4. Calvados.  Ahh, Calva!  Now we've got northern France covered in this list.

5.  Pineau des Charentes.  A personal favorite. Try it some time in a sweet, tiny half-canteloupe as a first course.  From my beloved Ile de Re.

Glad I've got my shopping list.  Now I'm ready for the long weekend!

Grocery store confusion

Can you blame me for loading up on too much PT and not enough TP at times in Paris? 

(Hint: TP on the left, PT on the right).  I'm too accustomed to American branding!
Henceforth I will always be Cartesian and look at numbers on packaging.

Eiffel Tower, the documentary

Hoping for a little cultural edification tonight, I watched Modern Marvels:  the Eiffel Tower on Netflix instant play.  Granted, it was produced in 1994, so the documentary techniques seemed a bit outdated.


But what the heck. I was enjoying seeing footage of the Tower under construction in the late 1880s, the tower during the two World Wars, and so I even swallowed some of the rosy prose.  I love the Eiffel Tower, and this slightly geeky documentary was giving me some entertaining and informative background. Interviews with Eiffel's great-great-granddaughter.  Shots and engineering explanations of the underpinnings of the structure as it was being built.  Visits to the bowels of the tower, where the engineer showed that animal fat and leather were still used to operate the elevator machinery.

Everything was just peachy, and I bought the whole story, until they interviewed the electrical workers who spend all their days prowling the structure and repairing the lighting systems.

These guys gushed to the camera, "I love my job, working outdoors every day, on this wonderful monument."

Okay, fine, I can buy that.

But then they started waxing about les oiseaux charmants who sometimes build their nests in the framework of the Eiffel Tower.  "It's so great to observe pigeons making a home here. These days, it's so unusual to see pigeons in Paris."

N'importe quoi.

Champagne Corks

I was wandering around the French American school where I am now employed, looking for inspiration.  And it never takes me more than a few footsteps before I find it.

There is always something that stops me in my tracks, and this was no exception.  The second or third grade art class had been given the assignment of making works of art from des bouchons de champagne.  Finding the raw materials at home was no object, I guess. 

 But -- waah. 

By the time I returned to my office, dealt with administrative stuff, retrieved my camera, and returned to take some photos, most of the art project had been dismantled. Dang!  Being a newbie, I had missed the exhibit, which had been on display for a few weeks.  I quickly snapped these photos of the remaining chefs d'oeuvre before the whole exhibit was taken down.

Anyway, it's great inspiration.  Time to celebrate springtime with some good bubbly and create a bit of art in the process.  N'est-ce pas?

Polly-Vous Francisco?

What, you call yourself a blogger? I say to myself in the morning as I peer bleary-eyed in the bathroom mirror. You haven't updated your blog in weeks! 

True, too true.

No excuses, but justifications aplenty.  I've been leading a rather nomadic life, not all the romance and adventure that some might imagine it to be. But I try to capture the day's fleeting joy wherever I am.

I do write constantly.  Really, I do!  Did you know, for example, that I still have a whole Longchamp-bagful of absolutely incredible prose that I produced in Paris which still hasn't found its way to this blog, or any other publication?  Well, I do, and here it is:

Observe it sitting coyly next to the Ed supermarket bag which I use for all my urgent correspondence.

But the real reason I haven't written much of late is that I am moving. I am moving to San Francisco. And believe me, if you can't be in Paris, there is virtually no more francophile city on the planet than San Francisco.  It is so verrrry French.

Well, I have to go pack (again!), but wanted to offer a little France-in-San-Fran photo essay from my most recent treks  -- the cafes, the Legion of Honor Museum, the boutiques, the pollarded trees, the government buildings.

Tempete de neige

SNOW!!

Well, it may be vaguely solipsistic (gee, I love to use the litterati words I learned in 20th-century French theatre class), but to me it sure seems as though it's snowing everywhere.  Snowing in Paris today.  Snowing in the Alps.  Snowing where I was just living (Virginia). Sure as heck snowing where I am living now (coastal New Jersey).

Being snowbound isn't all bad, even if there are power outages threatening like Damocles's sharp blade.

When there is a great gourmet store nearby, preparing for a blizzard can actually be a joy, don't you think? Indulging in some great French prepared food is the best revenge against that capricious Mother Nature.

Which is why this evening I am enjoying D'Artagnan Mousse au Poivre and a glass of red wine while the wild winds swirl outside, plastering snow against my windows.

My advice is to always prepare for a blizzard with the best possible ingredients.  Forget the mere bread-and-milk staples:  go for the finer cuisine. So you can make it into an event.  It's worth every penny.

As what's-her-name said, let them eat cake!




Merci to Little Shiva for the Paris video.

Americans in Paris during the Occupation

For someone like me who is fascinated with

1) day-to-day life of Parisians during the Occupation,

and

2) Americans in Paris ever since there have been Americans,

Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation 1940-44   by Charles Glass

is one I simply have to read right away.

Eiffel Tower for Sale

What?  Of course it's not the Eiffel Tower.  Though a piece of that did get sold at auction last month.

No, this Eiffel is 40 inches tall (48 including the flag), a cool wire sculpture.  There just won't be room for it in the storage containers;  and I'm downsizing anyway.

It's funny, when I was living in Paris I didn't have Eiffel-Tower objets or posters around the apartment, because I had the real razzle-dazzle deal in my arrondissement.

I'm reluctant to part with this, but practicality is outweighing sentiment this week!

What price tag should I put on it?

Demenagement

Well, I'm moving.  Again.  sigh

The last time I moved, in Paris, I was mostly focused on international shipping issues and the état des lieux. 

But we all really know that the most important part of moving any household is having enough boxes. 

Funny, I just got around to unpacking the last of my Paris boxes in September.  Something about those Parisian corrugated cartons made me so wistful.  (Yeah, I know, it doesn't take much!) 

To prepare for the move in Paris I had done the regular drill:  go to the neighborhood store and beg for discarded boxes.   My Shopi supermarket on rue de Sevres was a boon:  they kept a constant stack of cartons up front. No begging necessary!

And when the shipment finally arrived in the U.S., oh, about four months later, I felt pangs of nostalgia when I saw all those French grocery-store boxes.  The labels, the warnings, the descriptions on the boxes shouted "Paris!" to me. 

So of course I photographed them.

"Fears the heat and the humidity."  Sounds so poetic.

Joyeux Anniversaire, a la recherche du temps perdu.

Today is my birthday.  At least I think it is.  That is, I think today is today.  It all depends.

Yesterday morning I received a heartfelt "Happy Birthday!" on Facebook from a friend in New Zealand.  I thought she had the day wrong, but sure enough, it was already January 6 in Auckland.  I double-checked here, of course, because I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the International Date Line shenanigans.  Likewise, this morning I received a "belated happy birthday" wish from a friend in Tokyo.   But... but... it's still my birthday where I am.  So is it really my birthday? 

See what I mean?

Straddling just the simple 6-hour time difference between the U.S. East Coast and Paris is challenge enough for for some folks.  It can cause Parisian phones to ring in the wee hours with calls from otherwise considerate American friends who counted backwards instead of forwards. Or did they count forwards instead of backwards?  Never mind.  But that is why I installed the nifty clock on my blog that tells the current time in Paris. And for an added twist, there is the fact that the US and France spring forward and fall back at different times, so that for a few weeks each year there is only a 5-hour time spread.  Love that Daylight Saving; keeps me on my toes.

But it's nothing compared with mentally crossing the International Date Line.   I once asked an Australian reader of this blog what the time difference was between Sydney and Paris.  His response:  "I think it's, like, 27 hours."  Whoaaaaa.  Take that plan into orbit.  But he is not alone.  Take this excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on the International Date Line.

The International Date Line can cause confusion among airline travelers. The most troublesome situation usually occurs with short journeys from west to east. To travel from Tonga to Samoa by air, for example, takes approximately two hours but involves crossing the International Date Line, causing passengers to arrive the day before they left.

Whenever I try to keep the east-to-west, west-to-east notion straight, in my mind's eye I picture the globe slowly spinning at the opening of "As the World Turns." 

I'm not sure this is a help.  The show just got cancelled.

image via wikipedia

Just like Paris!

Baby, it's cold outside!  And the 3-bedroom farmhouse that I am renting in Virginia had a teensy little problem while I was away over Christmas. The furnace broke, and I won't bore you with the mechanical details but they're not pretty. Suffice it to say that I now find myself residing in the local Holiday Inn until the sweet adorable charming intelligent handsome heating contractors find the right part for the burner and restore toasty warmth to my below-freezing abode.

Reflecting on my 5 days of hotel-dwelling, I realized how Paris apartment living prepared me for this.

1. Space. Living in 26 square meters is No Big Deal. Granted, my Paris apartment was larger. But having  lived in a relatively small space for years, this is almost second nature.  I can pace around in my hotel room, talk on the phone, use the internet, and watch TV without getting antsy. Then I can exit quickly to forage for acceptable take-out food, do errands. Tres parisien.

2. Noisy neighbors. Ah, it's just like the good old times in Paris, where I knew exactly what my neighbors were up to. And when I cross paths with them in the hallway, being all grown-up, pretending not to acknowledge anything that I heard last night.

3. Hearing French on TV. Okay, this is a stretch. I'm watching HGTV on location in New Orleans and they are saying "parterre" "looks like Versaille" and "ooh la la magnifique." My ears perk up when I hear the TV host saying (no joke) "Polly-vous francais?" No, of course he wasn't referring to me -- he was attempting to speak French. Of course HGTV isn't quite the same caliber as Le Grand Journal. Or as much fun as those French home TV shows such as Recherche Apppartement ou Maison or C'est du Propre!

4. Riding the elevator. Yes, just like in Paris, I'm on the third floor and take the elevator to the lobby. Just like Paris, there is a lady on the ground floor who greets me and observes my comings and goings. The difference is that the hotel elevator is the size of some Parisian studettes.

5. Storage. A little closet with 8 hangers. Four bureau drawers. Just like Paris apartment living!

But there are significant differences between all-American Holiday Inn and living in a Parisian apartment. Unlike Parisian plumbing, the hotel shower is a dream. I could live in this shower.

And then, there's the ... the... the... hotel coffee.

At least they claim it's coffee.