The Conciergerie is one of my favorite buildings in Paris, and I was horrified to see it covered last Thursday in advertising – and for Apple, no less. Most of the time when they are redoing building facades here, they will put up scaffolding covered in a photo of the building, so you at least [...]
Cross over the city limits into the surrounding towns and you will immediately see that the urban appearance changes. City planning here has tended to be less rigid than in Paris, and modern rebuilds less frequent, meaning that many interesting traces of the past are still visible. Ghost signs are a good example of these [...]
When you buy a newspaper in France, you enter a time warp. The laws of physics no longer apply. If up-to-the-minute reporting is what you are after, you may be in for a surprise. Say you want to buy Le Monde, France’s most prominent national paper, on a Tuesday. You go to the newsstand Tuesday morning, [...]
Spring has definitely sprung in Paris. Just ask these ladybugs, who seem to have caught more than their fair share of spring fever in this wine ad. Translation: “Finally! A really natural Muscat wine!” Those bugs sure are au naturel, heh heh.
Ever had an annoying song stuck in your head, those lyrics plaguing your thoughts all day long? That’s how I feel about the article “No Dowdy Women” which appeared recently on the Bonjour Paris site. The author’s premise is obvious from the title, made even more ridiculous by the assertion: You can walk anywhere in [...]
Spanish artist Oskar Alegria suggested that I may be interested in a film he made about Le Dauphin, perhaps the most talked about restaurant in Paris at the moment. He was right. This playful five-minute film looks at the establishment’s unique architectural style, and investigates the role this plays in relation to the food that is served there [...]
A friend at Bookspread reports from the Salon du Livre The Salon was divided in, roughly, five zones: comics and manga, children’s books, e-books, French publishers and international stands (Argentina, Nordic countries, Lebanon, Hungary and Poland were among them). The only book in English that I found was a fake guide to Beirut, but there [...]
Can a country be considered a brand whose values, attractions and cultural gifts should be promoted like a product or service? Absolutely. Here’s an interesting approach by France’s primary multilingual reference portal, France.fr. Commentary (English/French) from figures like Elie Wiesel, Moby, Jeff Koons, Marc Jacobs, Roberto Cavalli, and Kanye West, among others, serve to remind us [...]
When I was little, my brother and I had a subscription to a kids magazine called Highlights. One of the cartoons that I loved in that mag was called “Goofus and Gallant” about 2 brothers who were presented with different social dilemmas in each issue. Goofus always took the low road (”Goofus doesn’t share his [...]
A recent New York Times article documents a thrifty weekend in Paris on $74 total, excluding lodging (the author stayed with a friend). As the Readership knows, Experienced Travelers are always on the lookout for cost savings. How else would we accumulate “Found Money” for frivolous spending later on? But we feel obliged to comment [...]
