French films — they’re the stuff of legend or at least really pretentious seminars at pricey liberal arts schools. One can’t help but conjure up images of a roomful of young cynical-before-their-time hipsters, smoking unfiltereds and deconstructing Jean-Luc Godard’s futuristic vision in Alphaville. Well, think again, folks! While back in the States, “ordinary” people roll […]

Even if you don’t keep up with sports you couldn’t escape the excited testosterone in the air yesterday before the big soccer match between Paris and Marseille. On the metro from Montmartre my eardrums nearly exploded when a heated discussion escalated among young fans. It bothered me until I decided it was a like […]

This week has been depressing. Maybe it’s the weather. “April is the cruellest month.” Spring has not really arrived, and you still need a coat. My French friends are all in a bad mood. K told me he’s unemployed as of last month, and H’s new job isn’t working out. C wants to move into […]

This photo is from Google Earth and was taken from space. You can actually see the people lining up to take the elevators up the Eiffel Tower! They say that now photos taken from space can photograph something as small as a one euro coin. That is serious zoom in power at work.

I met Karen Moller in January at her house overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. It was a glorious January afternoon and we stood standing in the windows admiring one of the most marvelous cities in the world, as little canal boats rocked in the spirited waters below. We sipped prosecco and talked about […]

I am heading down to rue Louise Weiss in the 13th with Wendy Billingsea on Saturday. We reckon it’s a good place to distribute more of our I V Y paris propaganda. Get off the metro at Chevaleret (line 6) and head for rue Louise Weiss, rue Duchefdelaville and rue du Chevaleret. The galleries in […]

As you may know, if you read People magazine - or the equivalent in your country - Mr Tom and pregnant wife Katie Holmes came to Paris to have their baby daughter Suri. And while he was here Mr. Tom took advantage of his stay to promote his latest movie Mission Impossible III at La […]

My upstairs neighbor, whose husband is foreign, met me as I was going out. We exchanged various tales of woe. She told me that she was sending her younger son out of the country to boarding school after a vain attempt to find a school here in Paris where he felt happy.
He is a free-spirited […]

This is your last chance to see L’Homme Paré, an exhibit that’s been hosted at Musée de la Mode et du Textile since October. The collection includes 300 period costumes ranging from the 17th century to modern times. It highlights the changes and commonalities in men’s fashions through the years. I don’t think we ought […]

One of the most francofile American literary lions has renounced the city he so beautifully depicted in fiction and nonfiction. Edmund White, author of The Flaneur (essays on Paris in the ‘80s) and The Married Man (an novel about a relationship between an expat and a Frenchman in Paris) said last night he has “lost […]