Cinderella didn’t have glass slippers until Parisian Charles Perrault made his own version of an old Chinese tale. It is often thought that this came from a mistranslation in the English version but Perrault specifically refers to glass, not squirrel fur. The confusion comes from the similarities between the words “verre” (glass) and “vair” There [...]

This photo reminds me of the frustrating hunt through the Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Élysées (a fun store otherwise) when you are looking for a specific DVD in English. The store sells lots of DVDs in version originale (abbreviated V.O.) but the title is rarely the one you are looking for– it’s always sold by its French [...]

Like many Woody Allen fans, I didn’t much care for Midnight in Paris. It had less emotional depth than Allen’s last European valentine, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and while I could watch that film’s leading man, Javier Bardem, for hours on end, I run out of patience with Owen Wilson. Still, I ate up Midnight‘s ample [...]

It’s a strange thing how trends work in France. Many things here become fashionable only after the Americans have started the fashion. Offhand I can think of: blue jeans, living in former industrial spaces, and the riots of 1968. Sometimes this is a good thing; but there are certainly American trends I would not like [...]

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 [...]

Making its way around the Internet right now is a primer on France, perhaps useful for people planning a first-time visit: THE NATION France is a medium-sized country situated in the continent of Europe. It is an important member of the world community, though not nearly as important as it thinks. It is bordered by [...]

I took this shot at rue Denoyez, a street located in the 20th arrondissement that you have to visit if you come to Paris and are looking for an off-the-beaten-track place to see. It’s one of the rare streets in Paris where graffiti and all kinds of street art are tolerated by the Paris town hall. [...]

Check out Bluto croon “Sittez-vous,” and “Ma cherry” in this 1956 Popeye cartoon entitled “Parlez-Vous Woo,” in which he impersonates a French-accented radio announcer known as “The International.”

Here is the trailer from one of Elizabeth Taylor’s memorable films, The Last Time I Saw Paris, made in 1954 also starring Van Johnson, Donna Reed, Walter Pidgeon, and Eva Gabor. Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it’s about an ex-pat couple living the Paris high life in the late 1940s after WWII [...]

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 [...]