What Michel Jordan was with his hands and arms to a basketball, Zinedine Zidane is with his feet and legs to a soccer ball. Poetry in motion, mastery in action. To watch him come down the field controlling the ball is a thing of astounding and nearly unbelievable beauty. It’s all in the dribble, and the passing, and the scoring – a deft touch. FIFA Player of the Year 1998, 2000, 2003; and Real Madrid paid roughly 65 million dollars for his services. Big time, world class! In 2004 he was both an Athens Olympic Torchbearer and became a Chevalier (Knight) Légion d’honneur. And now, coming out of FIFA international retirement last month, he will try perhaps his most difficult feat of all. To resurrect the so far fumbling French team in the 2006 World Cup, and reprise his 1998 triumph. It’s impossible, but I am not sure I would bet against him. Stay tuned.

An update: He did it. Got them all the way to the final. Unbelievable. Then he was human. After Jean Moulin, right now, Zidane is my Favorite Frenchman Ever. And then he retired but they won't see his likes again for a long, long time!

Original appearance Oct 20, 2005, © 2005 / Zinedine ZIDANE / 1972- / sports, soccer / better / A- / 21 / CIP 321, OO 11, RD 20, YP 30/4-20

I doubt there is a Frenchman alive who doesn’t know this name. They take their soccer seriously here (even though they call it football). Between the greatest player ever and the greatest current contender, there was Michel Platini. European Footballer of the Year a record three consecutive times (1983,84,85); twice World Player of the Year (84,85); greatest scorer in the history of the French national team (41 goals) – the accolades fall like grains of sand in a dust storm. He scored an incredible 68 goals in 147 games with his last team Juventus (1982-87). This in a game where the most common final score is 0-0 or 1-0. Then, at his peak, he retired in 1987 and went on to be a quite successful manager of the French national team (1988-1992), and then a FIFA official. While he never was able to win the World Cup as a player or coach, he was the Co-President of the Organizing Committee of the 1998 World Cup Finals were France finally won at home. It doesn’t get any better than that, unless you go back to Pele or perhaps forward to Zidane.

Original appearance Oct 20, 2005, © 2005 / Michel PLATINI / 1955- / sports, soccer, football / mixed / D+* / 41 / CIP 341, OO 11, RD 20, YP 30/4-20 /
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No question – Le Palais des Papes is the jewel, but there is more to Avignon. I went to Simple Simon and I loved it. I won’t tell you what it is, but if you grew up in England it is worth finding. Avignon itself is a walled city on the Rhône that contains numerous museums and byways. All worthy of wandering. Still it is the Palace of the Popes that will be your main focus. In the 14th century Avignon rivaled Rome as the center of the Christian world. You can still see why. History truly becomes animate here. You can feel the weight of it. And it is in the middle of Provence a magical place in the Southeast corner of France.

Original appearance apr 22, 2005, © 2005 / AVIGNON / OUTSIDE PARIS / STILL IN FRANCE / CIP 105, OO 09, RD 19, YP 30/4-19

Right next to each other on Boulevard Haussmann you will find the two premier department stores in all of France. They are called Au Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. It is in December that you can see why they are such fine stores, and you don’t even have to go inside. The colorful and imaginative, magical, mechanized displays, in all of their windows, delight children and adults alike. And they have a lot of displays and large crowds. Each exhibit has a raised platform on the sidewalk for all the children to get a better view. With the lights, and the glow, and the fantasy everyone is transported. They really capture the spirit of the season.

Original appearance Apr 19, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 098, OO 09, RD 19, YP 30/4-19

For sure it is only a little thing, but it is a charming little thing. From tiny twitches of a facial muscle to the famous Gaullic shrug the French have a genius for expression. Every fleeting emotion is telegraphed in a graceful and subtle manner that demonstrates the art of communication. It is not the words but the body language that speaks volumes. Surely, deftly a mood is transmitted, perhaps by the tiniest inflection or almost imperceptible flutter of an eyebrow. Maybe it is in the angle of the perching on a chair or the ferocity of the stride towards or away, but somehow something gets expressed. Nobody does it better than the Parisians.

Original appearance Apr 19, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 069, OO 09, RD 19, YP 30/4-19

It’s the totality of everything. The good, the bad and the ugly; the good the better and the best; the mixed and the minus. Take it all. Mix it up. In the end, ambiance. It is hard to imagine a better ambiance . I remember for years saying if you died and went to heaven you woke up in Big Sur (that’s in California, just south of Monterey, for the uninitiated). But of course you lived and you didn’t. Short of Big Sur the ambiance here is very close to as good as it gets. The totality is terrific. Mostly good, much of the best and only a little of the least.

Original appearance Apr 19, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 047, OO 09, RD 19, YP 30/4-19

They (the amorphous they) tell me the French language is a glorious tongue. If one sees how they honor authors one would have to believe it so. In fact, if you are fluent, it probably is so. If you are even a little bit linguistically impaired don’t believe a word of it. The grammar and syntax are exceedingly precise, complex and difficult The French listen acutely, correct incessantly, and judge accordingly. Their broken English is charming our broken French is not.

Original appearance Apr 19, 2005, © 2005 / CIP 012, OO 09, RD 19, YP 30/4-19

It’s the story of a suburb and a stadium and a basilica. It is modern and ancient France. Two buildings, two stories, two ages all in one small suburb that isn’t even in Paris. Saint-Denis is a fairly small industrial area just across the Peripherique that is home to perhaps 100,000 souls and two major icons. The first is the Basilique Saint-Denis, a Gothic masterpiece that was the burial place of all French Kings from Dagobert (638) to Louis XVI (1793). This was actually the first major structure ever built in the Gothic style (between 1137-1281) and right over the original church site built in the 5th century. The second is the Stade de France built to the greater glory of France’s new religion, sports. Nothing is more important in France today. Music comes close and vacations even closer, but day in and day out sports is the opiate of the masses and the new king. It is a little ironic that the two palaces of the old and the new France are almost cheek to jowl in a little area just outside of Paris.

Original appearance Jan 17, 2006, © 2006 / SAINT-DENIS / BASILIQUE SAINT DENIS, (CHURCH) / 2 RUE DE STRASBOURG, 93200 / 01 48 09 83 54 / KEYS : BASILICA, 1137-1281, BISHOP/ PARIS, EARLY KINGS & LOUIS XVI, REVOLUTION, / CIP 185, OO 10, RD 17, YP 30/4-17

An actor, a singer and a painter – in that order. While he was born in Italy he came to France at age 8 because his father was anti-fascist, and it was 1930. A lifelong love of the Left was ensured. He made over 70 films from 1938 to 1998, and started a second career as a singer in 1965. Serge Reggiani had a bad boy image and symbolized the heyday of the Latin Quarter in Paris. “The Woman Who Is In My Bed” was one of his better known songs and he was helped along greatly by Jean Cocteau and Yves Montand. After his son committed suicide he suffered from major bouts of depression and alcoholism but very gradually was able to pull himself out with the help of his therapeutic painting. He is little known in the US, but legendary in France and Europe.

Original appearance Oct 17, 2005, © 2005 / Serge REGGIANI / 1922-2004 / actor, singer, theater, film / good / C+ / 98 / CIP 398, OO 10, RD 17, YP 30/4-17

Tonton Georges (Uncle George) they still call him affectionately 30 years after his death. An irreverent popular artist with a marked antiauthoritarian streak to him, he was a softer Bob Dylan or Janis Joplin who wrote Simon & Garfunkel lyrics in poetic French. With articulate and diverse syntax he popularized French poetry in music. His wise humorous insights radiated integrity and touched on the universality of themes, often with words that bordered on the bittersweet. ‘La Traîtresse’ is a ballad about a woman who betrays her lover by sleeping with her husband. His song about a gorilla , a judge and sodomy is interesting to say the least. Georges Brassens died of cancer in 1981, but most French people can still sing his songs by heart.

Original appearance Oct 17, 2005, © 2005 / Georges BRASSENS / 1921-1981 / musician, singer / better / B / 12 / CIP 312, OO 10, RD 17, YP 30/4-17