The names are different and so are the taste. Fresher, finer, fuller. Cauliflower becomes ‘chou-fleur’ and squash becomes ‘courge’ and in the transformation the flavor expands. Maybe it’s in the butter or the cooking, or maybe in the herbs, but somehow they also seem better in the markets. Actually if you have a long enough memory you can remember when vegetables tasted this good in America. It was before cans, frozen food, supermarkets, and genetic engineering. It was back when the vegetables were fresh not just looked fresh. It was back when taste mattered.

Original appearance June 07, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 021, OO 22, RD 04, YP 30/11-4

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Sing, sing, sing, sing. Run and kick. Run and kick. Reality, or their version of it. French television! In about those proportions. And it is all in French. I’ve stopped watching. Occasionally a decent movie. The only good thing is the timing of the advertising. Before and after, not during. But that is all in French too, and very reminiscent of our advertising in the fifties and sixties. Been there. Done that. And, if you are a real American, be sure and never, never, never watch the news. Especially if you understand French.

Original appearance June 07, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 076, OO 22, RD 04, YP 30/11-4

They say it is the largest building in France. I believe it. Three concentric incomplete circles and a 24 story rectangular tower with a lid form the Maison de Radio- France. It is a striking and impressive building designed by Henri Barnard that still looks extremely modern despite being inaugurated by General de Gaulle in 1963. It is the Headquarters of state run Radio-France and contains 60 studios and an extensive museum of broadcasting since 1880. they say the museum is really worth a visit. Nearby are the Palais de Chaillot, the Eiffel Tower, the Musée Rodin and the Trocadero. Find it bordering the Seine at 116 Ave du President Kennedy.

Original appearance Mar 2, 2006, © 2006 / RADIO-FRANCE / MUSÉE DE RADIO-France, (MUSEUM) / 116 AVE DU PRÉSIDENT-KENNEDY, 75016 / 01 53 92 01 23 / KEYS : SUPER HUGE BUILDING,THREE CIRCLES AND A SQUARE, BROADCASTING, TV / CIP 200, OO 25, RD 02, YP 30/11-2

A group of friends used to hang out at the Café Guerbois in the late 1800’s. The French are world champions at hanging out in cafés. Were then, still are. This particular group of lifelong friends included Monet, Bazille, Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. They gave the world Impressionism, and fleeting impressions of the delightful intimate settings of the Parisian middle class, mostly in cafés, dance halls and boat houses. One, by the Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876) sold for 78 million dollars in 1990. To be perfectly honest I think that is preposterous, but he and they did produce some great paintings. Renoir was a lover of the female form and concentrated on bathers, portraits and dancers though he also did occasional landscapes. He was slowed in later life by arthritis and rheumatism but continued working till his death in 1919. His son, film director Jean Renoir (#94), wrote a touching biography Renoir, My Father (1962).

Original appearance Dec 2, 2005, © 2005 / Pierre-Auguste RENOIR / 1841-1919 / artist, impressionist, painter / A-/C / 77 / CIP 377, OO 25, RD 02, YP 30/11-2

Life as a roller coaster careening between debauchery and religion – the angst of Poètes Maudites (1883, Accursed Poets), to use the title of his influential article. Early on there was an involvement with the revolutionary Commune of Paris in 1871, and after it’s collapse, escape on the lam. By 1885 he was considered the leader of two new literary schools: Decadence and Symbolism. In his youth there was the tempestuous and torrid turmoil with the even younger Rimbaud – debauchery on a grand scale. In spades, the excesses of youth. In his maturity alcoholism and poverty and the lionization of young poets everywhere. In between bouts of relative acquiescence and religion. In the latter mode he produced Sagesse (1881, Wisdom), probably his masterpiece with it’s subtle use of rhythm and ambiguity. In short a poster child for the costs of creativity. And everywhere wormwood.

Original appearance Dec 2, 2005, © 2005 / Paul VERLAINE / 1844-1896 / author, poet, melancholic / best / A/B / 70 / CIP 370, OO 25, RD 02, YP 30/11-2

He was both the essence of Romanticism and the soul of the Enlightenment. Along with Voltaire and a couple of others Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the seminal thinker of 18th century Europe. The French claim him, but he often insisted he was a citizen of Geneva, and indeed he was born Swiss. While his Social Contract was perverted almost beyond recognition by future ideologues, it contained many seeds of genuine insight. His ideas regarding the state of nature metamorphosed over time providing justifications for many points of view. Interpretations of his concepts of the noble savage, private property and the will of the majority likewise will often reflect the political leanings of the reviewer rather than the coherent whole he presented. Thus it may be that his political writings should be deemphasized in favor of his educational concepts which have been virtually adopted intact by many modern educators. He strongly believed book learning was over emphasized and that a child’s emotion should be educated before his or her reason.

Original appearance Dec 2, 2005, © 2005 / Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU / 1712-1778 / author, philosopher / best A- / 71 / CIP 371, OO 25, RD 02, YP 30/11-2

Talk of a shooting star. Here is an alienated boy genius who quit writing at the age of 21 and is still remembered today as the precursor of Surrealism. Despite his tender age he built a considerable body of work whose mainstays were, ‘The Drunken Boat’ (1871), and his major classic ‘A Season in Hell’ (1873), which became the bible of anguished everybody everywhere. Arthur Rimbaud launched Symbolism, but when the Paris literati rejected him, and he finally rejected Verlaine in a sordid affair, he was gone. Actually in his second life (18 years) it is said he became a gunrunner and perhaps a slave trader in Aden, Java, Cyprus, Yemen and Ethiopia. Despite two lives he still died young, during an amputation of a cancerous leg – he had been to hell twice and was gone.

Original appearance Dec 2, 2005, © 2005 / Arthur RIMBAUD / 1854-1891 / author, poet, precocious / best / A-/F* / 84/ CIP 384, OO 25, RD 02, YP 30/11-2 /
For more relevant information see* On Recognition and Ranking

I stumbled on the place a couple of years ago now. I was drawn by the name. A step inside and I knew I was home. Amid musty volumes and crooked nooks the true lover of books is always home. The name Shakespeare & Co goes back to the 1920’s and 30’s when Sylvia Beach was the owner and James Joyce part of the pantheon, along with Hemingway and a host of others. The Germans and the war closed it down. Flash forward to the 50’s and 60’s and you have George Whitman the owner, and Ginsberg and the rest of the Beat Generation the stars. Between 1920 and now almost every author of note in the English vernacular has slept, or read, or been read, or written here. George built it up again and then it slowed as everything must. It’s still inching forward though perhaps George Whitman is withering. The good news is that Sylvia Beach may just possibly be reincarnating in the form of his aptly named daughter Sylvia Whitman. The stories and the names, if you are literate, are phenomenal. The history is here, and now there is even a little hope for the future.

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Sixty years of slowly deteriorating Franco-American relations seems to be coming to an end. It may take 60 more years to get back to where we were in 1945. De Gaulle started it and Jacques Chirac is, I hope, the end of it. He may be the last heir, and, from where I sit over here, he appears to me to be very close to finished. Old Europe is dying around him and France appears ready for a change. Nicolas Sarkozy would be breath of fresh air, but even if it is Dominique de Villepin he would at least be a paler shade of blue, and, if it's the Socialists and Segolene Royal they are usually more pragmatic. After Chirac there is no where to go but up. Recriminations are a waste of time. Analyzing, debating, and criticizing are best left to the French. Let him sink. Let’s rebuild ever so slowly with a new generation. And let’s never ever try to save the French again – it’s much too hard on their ego. The war is over*.

Original appearance Nov 29, 2005, © 2005 / Jacques CHIRAC / 1932- / politician, President, Prime Minister / better / B-/C / 42 / CIP 342, OO 24, RD 29 OR 01, YP 30/10-29 / For more relevant information see * On the Tricolors

Girl, soldier, patriot, perjurer, saint. Leader, heretic, maiden, savior, warrior. Witch, general, holy, genius, lunatic. A thousand histories, each a facet; all of them with slivers of truth and false barbs. Different perspectives from across the channel ( see On the Tricolors *). The stuff of legends. Everyone agrees she was burned at the stake at the age of 19. It is said she rallied the French forces of Charles VII and broke the siege of Orléans. It is said she received a revelation at the age of 13 and increasingly heard ‘voices’ directing her. Jeanne d’arc may have been captured in the town of Campeigne on May 23rd 1430. She was tried and convicted of perjury and witchcraft. She was tried again and exonerated 20 years later. She was burned by the French. She was burned by the English. For sure her standard was the Cross of Lorraine. It was a heavy cross*.

Original appearance Nov 29, 2005, © 2005 / Jeanne D’ARC / 1412- / leader, Saint, heroine / better / B- / 31 / CIP 331, OO 24, RD 29 OR 01, YP 30/10-29 / For more relevant information see * On the Tricolors