Sartres says “others”.
I say: “others, checking out sales at a major Parisian department stores on a hot Summer day”.
On the other hand, that satin-lined tux is so gonna get me envious looks from every last pimp in the neighbourhood.
Yes folks, satin-lined.
Damn. There goes my vacation plan to Manaus next year.
If you happen to live in France, 9pm to 10:30pm tonight is possibly the best time of the decade to:
On the other hand, if you’re looking for a quiet romantic evening, I’d stay out of Brazilian restaurants.
Anyway: we’ll be on the Pont des Arts with some fine food and a bottle of red wine, enjoying the quieter surroundings until late, quite likely all night, if Brazil’s pummelling of the French goes as planned.
Tonight, in Paris and most other urban areas, is La Fête de la Musique
Not that there’s any point mentioning it: if you don’t live in France, you rightfully don’t give a flying rat’s ass, if you do, I reckon you are all too aware of it by now.
To the attention of the shopkeeper who has repeatedly been trying to shortchange me during my lunch pause:
Sir,
Either you are in good faith, and truly unable to count up to 20 euros without getting it wrong more than 60% of the time.
In which case, I would strongly advise for a career change.
Or…
You are just another average money-grubbing lowlife trying to improve his profits and survive in the dog-eat-dog world of small businesses by less than commandable means.
And I would then have to question the wisdom of running such a trade across the street from one of Paris’ major universities, specializing in Science and Mathematics.
If anything, I feel a bit insulted.
A while back, I posted about finding some specific ingredients in Paris (mainly Japanese but also Thai and generally all sorts of non-French food) without having to pay for overseas shipping each time.
Following some kind readers’ suggestions and with a bit additional exploration, I have since resolved all my culinary woes. I figured I’d post a quick recap and a few extra advice for the sake of past and future seekers of exotic food in Paris:
First off: the bestest, cheaperest, fresh tofu, along with countless other goodies (can you believe they even had konnyaku!?!) was found at Supermarket Paris Store on Avenue d’Ivry (about 10 minutes from Place d’Italie, on the left side), thanks to Chrys, whom we shall dearly miss now that she has relocated…
Unlike most other Asian stores in the area (Tang Frères etc.), this one stocks up a fairly consequent aisle of typically Japanese products.
Of course they also carry the usual south-east asian fare, though their curry paste didn’t turn out all that convincing to my humble curry-loving tastebuds (their coconut paste: not at all). But these are much easier to find anywhere else in the neighbourhood… I still want to find some of this mucho combiniente cononut powder (same taste, much lighter to carry around), but the canned stuff is available everywhere… On my next trip, I might even try some of their kimchee (kimchee ramen… yay!).
E. is currently visiting and has retained my services as personal bodyguard and multi-purpose interpret.
Expect lighter-than-usual blogging while I’m busy scaling Parisian monuments and translating food menus into Japanese.
My mum always told me that when you have nothing nice to say, you should keep your mouth shut.
Obviously my mum has never heard of blogging.
I was really looking forward to hearing Bumcello live. I have loved many of their electro-loungy-hip-hop productions of the past few years.
Seeing the ‘acoustic’ mention on the bill when we got there was a big tip-off: when your band is a two-people act and so much of your music relies on sampling and overdubbing, pulling a proper live show would already be enough of a challenge. But choosing to strip it down to a couple drums, a cello and two lo-tech samplers while mostly improvising outside of your usual repertoire… is taking a huge leap of faith in your own live performer abilities.
Something they did, unfortunately to very mitigated results.
It may be the “most famous avenue in the world” (at least outside of the single-digit-as-name category), but trust me: whether visiting or residing, you have no business venturing anywhere near the Champs Elysées.
Of my previous residing years, I don’t remember ever setting a foot there in broad daylight. Even our recurrent late-night excursions to some of the ridiculously haughty Parisian nightclubs that seemed to flourish in the area were never an excuse to dally around. And neither should they be to you, unless you are a bored teenager making it your ambition to crash through as many bitchy door policies and crappy discopop tunes as humanly bearable in one night.
By day, it is an endless sea of tourists walking the avenue in either direction, past the alignment of prominent international luxury brand boutiques and much-less-prominent but no less expensive greasy food stalls. Shopping-wise, nothing you won’t get in a dozen other neighbourhoods or department stores in the city, and about as typically Parisian a sight as the Ku’damm, Omotesando or a dozen other similarly lined high-end avenues in the world. In fact, I am quite positive you will see less Japanese walking down Tokyo’s version of the Champs Elysées.
But it’s not all tourists and tourist traps.
… that I haven’t had a proper BLT sandwich.
Where do they hide the bacon in this damn country?
Do I have to start raising pigs in the courtyard of my building?
Oh boy. What did I get myself into…
Gotta stop taking on huge epics that bore even myself to tears, halfway through realization.
Not only am I no longer finding the motivation to write the (otherwise entirely planned out) remaining paragraphs of this post, but it will be poisoning my every thought and inspiration until I get done with it.
Here goes: the second of three parts in our increasingly-inaccurately-named diptych on French society, laws and politics:
As seen previously, you are free to express yourself in France, as long as you are neither a holocaust-denier nor advocating antisemitism, racial hatred or homophobic positions. Incidentally, a separate text also restricts your right to openly question recreational drugs laws (”presenting drugs under a positive light”). These are a lot of restrictions on what some think should be the unfettered right of people to freely express their views. The more 1st amendment-conscious US readers among you might even be appalled by the practice. Although you better make sure beforehand that you do not live in a country where many have once dubbed it “unpatriotic”, “treacherous” and therefore a crime, not to stand behind their leader… Dissent in times of “war” is just as much a part of freedom of speech as the right to express your twisted hatred for one group of people or another.
… something about serving it cold while listening to 100 Watts of bass-heavy electroclash?
Guess what the French Post finally delivered to my doorstep this morning (don’t ever use their “48 hour” delivery service if you fancy seeing your stuff in less than two weeks)…
How ironic my brand new speakers should arrive on the morning following one of my dear neighbour’s bi-weekly all-nighter.
9:30 am couldn’t be too early to run a full sound-test, now could it?
While blogging the most mundane details of my daily existence, there has been a plethora of more serious topics I have been wanting to discuss for many weeks now. Just never found the time or the motivation to dig up all the data and roll it into something coherent and mildly interesting. At long last, and in no small part thanks to the wonders of modern urban warfare on academic grounds, I am about to fill up my quota for heady controversial postings on France, for the whole year at once.
Hang on to your baguette and pop a few aspirins, because today we are not going to focus on recent anti-government demonstrations, nor on the ongoing work-law reform that prompted them, or the already fading debate over France’s antisemitism, its suspected racism, the fuss over the Danish cartoons or the ever recurrent theme of freedom of speech and limits thereof in the birth country of Mr. Arouet.
No. Instead, we are going to talk about all these issues at once, and even attempt to weave some sort of grand theory throughout.
We are about to set some new record for lengthy pomposity on this blog and you will soon be longing for my endless digressions on weather and French flu medication, but you must realize I currently live in France: over here, it is uncouth not to have a strong opinion on every matter political and shout it as loud as your understanding of the material is thin. Besides, I see no reason to leave the business of spouting inane drivel on foreign countries, solely to the local pros.
So let’s begin:
The question is not: “How could fifty guys and a couple crates keep 50,000 students off university for a week?”
No.
The real question is: “Why would one build a campus in the middle of Paris and surround it with a moat?”