If you believe him, he is absurd because he is going to die, which he did. That is a reduction to the absurd. Okay, I over simplified and it is life which is meaningless because you die. Okay, his novel La Peste (1946, The Plague) is an assertion of human dignity and endurance despite the absurdity. It seems L’etranger (1941, The Stranger), with it’s themes of alienation, remorse and responsibility, is his finest work. Yes, The Rebel (1951) has an element of humanism. Still the idea that the rebel is always for justice but always ends up more tyrannical than what he rebelled against in the first place – that is absurd. Except of course it is usually true. And Albert Camus did win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. Then he died in a car accident with his publisher Michel Gallimard on January 4, 1960. That was also absurd. Because now we can never understand the concept of existentialism. Because we are not French. Which is absurd on the face of it. So he didn’t have to die.

Original appearance Nov 23, 2005, © 2005 / Albert CAMUS / 1913-1960 / author, philosopher, writer / best / A / 57 / CIP 357, OO 22, RD 23, YP 30/9-23

Before there was Bo Derek there was BB. Almost contemporaneously on one side of the Atlantic there was MM, and on the other side BB. They were inventing the sex kitten as movie star. Brigitte Bardot was in 46 films between 1952-1973, mostly lightweight, except her 17th film And God Created Women. That one, directed by her husband of five years Roger Vadim, was hugely controversial, dealt with adult themes, and had some substance. In 1973, worn out by the paparazzi and the fans, she retired and became an animal rights activist and a vegetarian. Currently she is very much out of favor as she has moved steadily towards the right and that is a giant no-no in France, particularly in the cinema, Paris or the media. Once, when asked what was the best day of her life, she famously replied “it was a night.” Still, I prefer the quote: “It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.”

Original appearance Nov 23, 2005, © 2005 / Brigitte BARDOT / 1934- / actress, film, animal rights / good / C/D / 67A / CIP 367A, OO 22, RD 23, YP 30/9-23

Before there was the movie, there was the Moulin Rouge, in fact probably before there were any movies. It opened in 1889 and is arguably the most famous nightclub on the planet. Lisa Minnelli, Maurice Chevalier, Elton John, Edith Piaf and Frank Sinatra have all headlined there, but today the show is more like a Las Vegas Revue. Feathers and froth and a spectacular light show. Still the cancan, immortalized in the posters and drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec, is the staple. The district still reflects some of the bohemian lifestyle, the dancing and dining goes on till the early hours, but the mill (Moulin means mill in French) is now neon.

Original appearance Aug 22, 2005, © 2005 / The current show in 2005 is called ‘Féerie’ which translates roughly into ‘extravaganza’. Moulin Rouge, A Montmartre Nightclub / 82 BLVD DE CLICHY, 75018 / 01 53 09 82 82 / CIP 144, OO 19, RD 22, YP 30/9-22

Peugeot, Renault, and Citroën are the big three. They do not have the dash of their Italian brethren the Ferrari or the Maserati. They cannot match the engineering marvels of Porsche or the Mercedes. They do not have the élan of the Rolls-Royce or the Jaguar. But they are safe, they are solid and they are French. There is not a great deal of difference between them but they dominate the market here. Much like Ford, GM and Chrysler dominated the American market 40 years ago – only the French big three still do. They are comfortable, careful and conservative and most of all they are French. And that makes the French comfortable in them. Me too for that matter.

Original appearance May 25, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 031, OO 19, RD 22, YP 30/9-22

July 14th – their Independence Day. They have a parade. If you saw it you might think it’s the Soviet Union in the Seventies and it’s May Day. But it is not the parade I want to talk about, it is above the parade. They have virtually the entire French air force (or at least what I hope is the entire French air force) fly relatively low the length of the Champs-Elysées. But what I truly want to talk about is my vantage point. I can look right out my bedroom window and see, perhaps two or three blocks away, the whole French air force fly by while I watch it simultaneously on television. One eye on the TV, one eye out my window, and it is identical. Only I am much closer than the TV cameras. Amazing.

Original appearance May 25, 2005, © 2005 / CIP81, OO 19, RD 22, YP 30/9-22

In some ways Paris itself is a museum and certainly it is the museum capital of the world. My limited and culled data base has around 60 Paris museums listed, but I have seen rosters ranging way above 100. The Louvre, the Orsay and the Pompidou are the big three, but there are many others, some quite offbeat. There is Les Egouts for example, the sewer museum, or Musée de la Seïta whose specialty is the history of tobacco. Many of them are centered on art and/or particular artists, often famous like Picasso or Rodin, but sometimes a little less well known like Zadkine or Mickiewicz. The latter two are a Russian cubist and a Polish poet, but I had to look them up. Personally I love the variety and think most of the museums are worth a visit, some repeatedly.

Original appearance May 25, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 082, OO 19, RD 22, YP 30/9-22

The media in France is hopelessly biased. If it is possible to put the United States in a bad light the media will do it. Newspapers, television, movies or books - the editorializing never stops and there is virtually only one point of view permitted. Often it is just the selection process. They frequently play American movies both on television and in the theaters, but the ones they select nearly always show us in a less than savory situation. With Hollywood it is not too difficult. Positive news stories get 15 seconds of coverage, negative ones 5 minutes. It never stops. The big lie lives. I just turn it off or tune it out.

Original appearance May 25, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 028, OO 19, RD 22, YP 30/9-22

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel is the third arch in more ways than one. Of course it was the first arch built by Napoleon in 1806-1808 to commemorate his various diplomatic and military triumphs. He started the second, the Arc de Triomphe on the same line, but that wasn’t completed till after he was gone in 1836. Mitterrand had the third one, La Grande Arche, built in 1989, also on the line. Of course the third vault made the first arc the third and now almost forgotten arch. The architects were Charles Percier and Pierre Léonard Fontaine, and their creation primarily commemorated Austerlitz (1805). The rose marble monument is located just west of the Louvre which of course is also on the line. It is also really three arches itself (or 4 if you include the transverse arch through the three). But by now perhaps you are tired of arches no matter what the number.

Original appearance Feb 20, 2006, © 2006 / CARROUSEL / ARC DE TRIOMPHE DU CARROUSEL (ARCH) / PLACE DU CARROUSSEL, RUE RIVOLI, 75001 / NONE OR NL / KEYS : ARCH, IN LINE, 3 ARCHES, 1805, NAPOLEON, GREAT AVENUE / CIP 196, OO 21, RD 20, YP 30/9-20

A hulk rather than a hunk managed to be France’s leading actor in the 1980s and 1990s. He lumbers around, he’s a bit ungainly, originally he was a juvenile delinquent, and he’s very popular. Gérard Depardieu has made over 150 movies since 1967, some of them quite good. Actually won a couple of Best Actor Awards (Césars over here) for The Last Metro (1980) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1990). Versatile too – in 1984 he wrote, directed, and starred in an adaptation of Tartuffe – to do a Molière play about hypocrisy takes moxie. Green Card (1990) with Andie MacDowell introduced him to American audiences, and I liked it a lot, even if some of the critics were less kind. He had a motorcycle accident in 1999 and a quintuple heart bypass in 2000, but he still seems to keep on chugging.

Original appearance Nov 20, 2005, © 2005 / Gérard DEPARDIEU / 1948- / actor, film, ‘Green Card’ / good / C+ / 99 / CIP 399, OO 21, RD 20, YP 30/9-20

A ‘French Great’ father-son combination. Jean Renoir (#94) is the son of the Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir (#77). Wow! What a dad! And what a son! Entertainment Weekly lists him as the highest rated French filmmaker ever. As he was connected to the Popular Front in the 1930’s, and made the (banned in Germany by Goebbels) film La Grande Illusion (1937), he skedaddled in 1941. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1946. While his 1945 film The Southerner won him an Academy Award nomination, he is best remembered for Rules of the Game (1939). This film was panned roundly in Paris at its premier, and indeed was banned shortly thereafter in France. Gradually critics and filmmakers came to rate this as one of the best movies of all time, often as high as #2 to Citizen Kane (the popular vote usually goes to the Godfather and/or Casablanca.). In 1975 Renoir was awarded an Academy Award for Lifetime Contribution, and in 1977 the Legion of Honor. He died in 1979 in Beverly Hills.

Original appearance Nov 20, 2005, © 2005 / Jean RENOIR / 1894-1979 / cinema, director, son of Auguste / better / B- / 94/ CIP 394, OO 21, RD 20, YP 30/9-20