“Oh, very well” was the rather dry response. The rejection hit me like a cold shower. Whatever had I done to offend this woman that she wouldn’t even tell me her name? Our daughters were seven, went to school together and spent most of their afternoons at the playground with each other. The mom had a full-time job, so our paths rarely crossed. I could not for the life of me figure out what I had done wrong.

Such was my introduction to French society. This mother was an extreme example of traditional French manners, so extreme that she eventually pulled her daughter out of public school because it was just a bit too much for her. But the story stuck with me and taught me a very valuable lesson about French culture. Names here are a valuable commodity and not easily shared.

Understanding this helped me feel less ostracized from the neighborhood. When I met other moms at the park, and other parents who joined our coffee circle every morning at the café, I no longer took it as a snub if we did not exchange names. Eliminating the “Hi, my name is Sylvia” introduction put them at ease and let them know I was one of them. Eventually I’d learn their names. Or not.

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Since the mid-1990s the Library has been fortunate to host the talented and inventive San Francisco performing arts company Word for Word for annual productions of American short stories. The stories are performed exactly as written — that is, the actors speak not just dialogue but the narrative in its entirety. Watching these performances is an exercise in the unexpected on one level; on the next, it puts a writer’s style and tone into an entirely new context. The experienced is heightened, in my experience, by reading the story beforehand so that you can concentrate on its interpretation.

This year, on Thursday 15 April, Word for Word brings us a 1951 Tennessee Williams story, “Two on a Party.” Williams is best known for his plays — “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Night of the Iguana,” “The Glass Menagerie” — and wrote few stories, but these too reflect his staging and pacing skills. “Two on a Party” is about two lonely drifters, hookers we might call them today, who strike up a strange bond that transcends their different sexualities and their separate longings. As Williams writes in the closing section, it’s about “a female lush and a fairy who travel together, who are two on a party… Two queens sleeping together with sometimes a stranger between them…”

Anyone queer or queer-friendly knows the importance of this seminal (pun intended!) short story. It’s sure to be an exciting evening. If you can’t make it, bookmark Browser for alerts to other cool events.

]]> http://www.theparisblog.com/american-library-starts-a-blog/feed/ 1 http://www.theparisblog.com/is-paris-hardening-my-heart/ http://www.theparisblog.com/is-paris-hardening-my-heart/#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:08:36 +0000 Misplaced Texan http://www.theparisblog.com/?p=3187 The other day, a busy and rainy Sunday afternoon, as Gui and I were leaving McDonald’s to get on with the day, a young boy stopped me and asked me if I had a euro. We were still inside the McDonald’s when the boy approached me, and I had to ask him to repeat himself because I wasn’t really sure what he said the first time. When I understood that he was asking me for a euro, I told him, “no,” continued walking out of the restaurant and then proceeded to feel like the scum of the earth.

Being asked for money from strangers has just become part of my daily life as a Parisian city-dweller. I come across homeless people on a regular basis, and I’ve managed to grow a thick skin of indifference, knowing that my usually overly-emotional self is just not suited for denying a beggar some change. But, it wasn’t until I firmly and quickly rejected this child’s bid for a bite to eat that I realized how cold and callous I’d actually become. I walked by the McDonald’s again a few minutes later and saw the boy sitting at a booth eating a burger. I wanted to cry.

A friend of mine makes it a point to give food and not money to beggars he encounters on the streets and in the tunnels of Paris, and I generally agree with that approach. But, rarely do I find myself with an extra piece of fruit or bag of chips in my handbag, and sometimes it’s just not all that practical for me. And, I realize the trouble with handing out cash to people when they ask for it; that there’s an organized ring of criminals who make people beg and take their money, but how am I supposed to pick and choose who I help and who I don’t help?

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Yes, bars and clubs have taken a hit due to loud smokers on the sidewalks at all hours and an increasingly intolerant residential population, but there’s still much to do after dark if you know where to look. You can read my article in the March/April 2010 edition of Paris Magazine, available in English bookstores and major newsstands (or read it on their website).

For those of you who don’t get out much, here’s a brief rundown of some of the latest changes and noteworthy additions to the Paris nightlife scene:

• Flèche d’Or has reopened after a long closure for renovations. Concerts aren’t free anymore (not that €8 including a drink is going to bankrupt anyone, even during la crise), but at least the bathrooms have been spiffed up. Pete Doherty and Gossip have had shows, and Juliette Lewis will be singing in May.
• The Chacha Club was closed down by the authorities in January after the staff were caught dealing drugs (and none too discreetly, it seems), but the latest reports are that they will reopen the end of March.
• Le Loco nightclub was purchased by the neighboring Moulin Rouge in November and reopened in February as La Machine du Moulin Rouge. For the moment it’s still a club hosting live bands (mostly rock and pop) and DJs, but rumor has it the cabaret will eventually incorporate it into their lounge, gift shop and museum.

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Girl groups from the swinging 60’s were a dime a dozen. Record labels paired songwriters with producers, handpicked the voices, and stylists went to work creating a palatable package ready for eager consumers. Parisian starlets The Plastiscines may not have been assembled by executives, but their rise in popularity comes from modern mechanisms pioneered decades ago. A group of middle class teens who could double as models, the band was guaranteed attention from their first struggling chords. Nylon magazine launched a record label to release the debut album, grooming their flagship act for the media blitz to come. First France, then Europe and finally the States were invaded, The Plastiscines appearance on TV demographic hot-spot Gossip Girl as profound a victory as D-Day.

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The Plastiscines play at La Maroquinerie on March 16, 23 rue Boyer, Mº Méniolmontant/Gambetta, Tickets: 17 euros

During the warmer months, you can order your pizza and plan to eat it outside either on the banks of the Canal Saint Martin or at a park in the Marais, depending on which location you’re eating, and they will bring the pizza to you!

Pink Flamingo will be our “go to” pizza place whenever we’re in Paris. It’s a perfect place for American expats to grab a taste of home. It really tastes more American than European, if that makes sense. (Possibly because one of the owners is from Boston?) Thankfully, there are NO pizzas that feature olives WITH seeds or an oozing, raw egg smack dab in the middle.

67 rue Bichat, 75010, 01 42 02 31 70, Métro: Jacques Bonsergent and 105 Rue Vieille du Temple, 75003, 01 42 71 28 20, Métro: Saint-Sébastian-Froissart

The building dates from the early 18th century and had a long history of aristocratic tenants before the Revolution, and students and artists after, including Isadora Duncan, Jean Cocteau, Henri Matisse, and of course M. Rodin. The rooms, which are badly in need of a major updating, are filled with Rodin’s own work (finished and in draft form) as well as pieces by other artists he collected for himself. The process of creating bronzes is complicated but the curators have assembled models to explain the different steps in the process.

Nomiya also has cooking classes, so a friend and I came in on the tail end of a kid’s baking class, where they were putting the finishing touches on some yummy chocolate concoction. We climbed the stairs up to the restaurant and before we even entered, we were blown away by the views. It was dusk, so the light was magical. Once inside, the dramatic purple, blue, and pink lighting lit the view in such a romatic way.  Of course the Eiffel Tower took center stage as it always does but the amazing thing was the reflection bouncing off the other side of the window made it look like it was placed in a different spot, like an optical illusion. Try and tell which ones are actually the tower and which are reflections.

13 Ave. du President Wilson, 75016, Metro: Iena, reservations