About three months ago I received an email with a most unusual request: A woman named Catherine Jones from High Point, North Carolina wanted to know if I would take her and her girl scout troop of seven girls aged 15-21 on a tour and also find out details on how I could I become […]

Technically speaking, I played and sang for my first Parisian audience last night in a crowded after hours bar in the 3rd arrondissement at 3AM. Upstairs in the corner was an upright piano. As two French boys made their way over to it, my own French Boy convinced me to play a song. I asked […]

After 13 hours of train travel, I was glad to arrive at the Gare de Lyon. I was really looking forward to ditching my heavy suitcase, which I had over-packed as usual. I headed to the taxi stand to be the 132nd weary traveler in line waiting for a cab. It was slow going, but […]

Every single person who works at my neighborhood bakery is always really nice and smiley with me (I am there every single day) EXCEPT this one woman who messes up my order every single time and then acts like I killed her family when I correct her order. She is seemingly the only person in […]

There were over 50 of us that gathered at the American Library to hear Edmund White read from his new book “Hotel De Dream”. It was an excellent time. I’ve never gone to one of these free gatherings- the wine was flowing much like wine, which doesn’t mean anything to me but the bottled water […]

Quite amazing little round-the-world tour of Matt…dancing. I especially love his dancing in the streets of East Jerusalem, in the rain in Zanzibar, with crabs in Australia, in the Demilitarized Zone in Korea and getting knocked out by a wave in Tongatapu, Tonga. And yes, in Paris, France, too. Maybe you were there. If we […]

I crossed a new cultural threshold the other day. I was at the annual end-of-the-year lunch for a select group of moms who hang out at the park next door with their kids. A bottle of 15-year old Morgan was set out on the table and after it was opened, the only person deemed qualified […]

There are lots of billboards all over Paris, in the subway, on bus shelters and buildings, and like these, simply popping up in the median of a busy boulevard. Many of these freestanding billboards feature three different ads that scroll in succession, stopping for a few moments on each panel. The four boards here I […]

I live very close to Passage Brady, a quaint passage of Indian restaurants that I’ve been meaning to try. After Savate class recently, I announced I was going to meet a friend at Passage Brady to have lunch. The local students asked me in unison if I liked to eat rats. At first I thought […]

This is probably one of the best secrets that is not really a secret happening at the moment in Paris. A modest exhibition of paintings and drawings by the Swedish artist Hilda Af Klint, who lived between 1862-1944, is on view at the Swedish Cultural Institute in the Marais. Set in a beautiful hotel particuler, […]