Moved

That's it, the move is official. Come visit me at my Blogsome site. Drop me a line if I've forgotten to update your link, of if you think you deserve one!

Moving

I'll be moving my blog soon... I'm running away from the Blogspot platform... will tell you as soon as the new site is ready.

ask and ye shall receive

As requested, the fondue picture...

Unfortunately, the fondue has already been eaten and all that remains is the little shallow pool of cheese at the bottom of the bowl. Please take note that the model's reaction was due more to shame than indigestion. Really people, it's a giant bowl of melted cheese mixed with alcohol and garlic that you dip into bread into.

Les Coqs en Suisse

The disgrace of the bird flu has hit Frenchmen hard. Look at them hang their heads in disgrace!



Actually, this is a photo I took at the Natural History Museum in Neuchatel, where we were this weekend. They had a special exhibition on chicken... good timing I'd say. It was very entertaining, though I found the permanent exhibition equally stunning. The dioramas were simply gorgeous.



Switzerland is exactly what everybody imagines it to be. A land of stunning civility, with tons of great chocolate, fondue, and no shit on the streets. Very picturesque, and lots of beer. We spent a quiet time walking up hills, appreciating snow, mountains and lakes, and feeling rather happy being far away from Paris.

L'Equipe's 60th Birthday Party

Last night I went to L’Equipe’s 60th anniversary party. It’s the French sports paper, which also runs its own magazine. The party was hilarious, gigantic and filled with obscure sports celebrities.

First, I have to say that I hadn’t slept much the night before and was bothered by an unusually vivid dream. In the dream, I lived and worked in a gigantic warehouse space that I shared with others. This isn’t the first time I’ve dreamt that I lived in a huge warehouse where each room was a playground for the twenty/thirty something: a slanted wall dollhouse done in slightly less than human proportions, or Japanese mime artists kicking soccer balls against tuned chandeliers, thus playing some kind of crushed glass symphony. This time, in my dream, my downstairs neighbour complained that the Japanese orchestra in my room was tapping their feet too loud. As I ran to the lift to go up to my floor, I met a boy. He was enormous, really tall, a kind of double-sized Rhett Butler with a vaguely Russian face (ahhh, Marat Safin!). Then I woke up anxious and was unable to sleep again.

So, with this in mind, imagine a half-sleepy slightly anxious girl in her best party clothes, taking a train to the other side of town for a party with the sports obsessed. I was so groggy and nervous that I barely managed to swallow a mouthful of the sashimi with shaved coconut, the tapenade and eggplant sandwiches, the mountains of shrimp, the flying pastas, the row upon row of cheeses, the roast beef and mashed potatoes, the apartment size table of cakes, tarts and desserts. I ate hardly a bite before developing a permanent station in front of the far end of one of the five bars. There, because it was suppose to be healthy and sane, people were drinking Perrier and orange juice, instead of the wine and champagne available. I busted out a cigarette and tossed back the champagne. Already, the decadence and the bubbly were waking me up. Pretty soon after, I started conversations with complete strangers.

Somewhere during the night I managed to shake hands with Mark Madiot, head trainer of Les Francais des Jeux, a cycling team, Henri Pescarolo, famous car driver, wave affectionately at a surprised Laurent Jalabert, famous cyclist, glance warily at the head coach of Lyon, Gérard Houiller, and scream in the general direction of Ladji Doucouré, current men’s hurdles world champion. I also managed to corner the editor of Vélo Magazine by my erudite questions on cycling. “Did you notice that most of the teams have cited the Tour de France as their target this year? Don’t you think that’s interesting?” “Between the two of us, who do you think is going to win the Tour?” “Don’t you think cycling is a Nietzschean sport?”

In the end, my corner was filled with Vélo Mag journalists, circling around this girl with her vaguely figure skating dress, being taken for turns round the dance floor by various different men. I was so flat out drunk that I missed the part where my husband danced in the arms of the managing editor of Vélo Mag and made everyone uneasy with his non-stop cackling at a cake covered zeppelin circling the room.

I can’t really remember how we managed to get out in one piece, but wow, what a fun party. If only I was an aspiring journalist, what a job I could have milked.

Les Filles in Marseilles

bullies always pick on the wrong man

Today's news from the INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE:

Frontpage

Pace of Protectionism quickens, Economic fallout could be harsh
accompanied by photo of Industry Minister François Loos, looking particularly daffy yet dashing with euro-wirebrush hair, surrounded by three very dour non-descript men. Mixture of private and public officials.

Article detailing recent tide of protectionist schemes. Though the article cites British and American examples of protectionism, Centrica (British gas company) vs. Gazprom (state-owned Russian gas company) and Unocal (US oil company) vs. Cnooc (state-owned Chinese oil company), the article hinges particular on recent French protectionist efforts: the merger of GDF and Suez to prevent a takeover from Italy. This, coupled with the recent EU intervention preventing the takeover of Arcelor (French) by Mittal Steel (Dutch based Indian company), are the central foundations of the article. Though US, Britain and France are all implicated, the focus, as told by the photo, is on the obstinate French attitude. Protectionism given negative slant.

Photo of a young duck being injected
BIRD FLU SHOTS - "A french veterinarian vaccinating a duck against bird flu Monday. Vaccination of thousands of geese and ducks has begun in France."

Page 3
In France, a meal of intolerance. Nationalists assail multiculturalism.
accompanied by picture of a man, "former day laborer who now lives on the streets of Paris," eating a pork soup distributed by far-right groups.
Far right and nationalist soup kitchens distribute pork soup to homeless. They refuse to call their acts discriminatory and have labelled the soup "Identity Soup." "Our freedom is being threatened... If we prefer European civilaztion and Christian culture, that's our choice.... In France there is little tolerance for anything that challenges the republic's egalitarian ideals. But the authorities initially left the pork soup kitchen alone, shutting it down only once to avoid an altercation with a group of indignant French leftists."

Trial opens over Paris bombings
The apparent banker of the Paris Metro bombings of 1995 goes to trial after lengthy extradition trials. Allegations that "Islamist suspects were subjected to torture by interrogators in Paris and Lyon" are currently under investigation. The story ends with "the bloodiest attack, on July 25th, 1995, killed eight people at the Saint Michel Metro station and wounded 150. Two other people were killed in later attacks and scores more were wounded."

Page 4
France starts vaccination of poultry
Vaccination of geese and ducks has begun in Landes in southwest France under fears of the bird flu virus. Two other departments, Loire Atlantique and Vendée have also been opted vaccination but have opted for confinement. The spread of the virus is updated to being unchecked in Nigeria, Indonesia, China and Egypt. The Netherlands is also considering vaccination though Britain is anti-vaccination, believing that it only masks the effects though does little to check the spread.

Page 15
Suez deal poses quandary for French labor
Suez deal with GDF is a subtle and quiet way of privatising yet another state company. From business point of view, it's a shrewd manoeuver. The deal was government brokered and under the guardianship of Dominique de Villepin. A move towards privatisation has always been on the table, but was only made politically feasible with the imminent economic threat from outside the border. "The government is using the Enel [Italian] offer as a Trojan horse."

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If I didn't know better I'd say that France was a protectionist racist country which can't protect itself against migrating birds nor the dissolution of its socialist values. Pretty rough day for La France, according to this most venerable paper. Not to say that I have any arguments against the "facts" but, taken together, they do provide quite an unnecessarily alarmist picture of France. My question is was it necessary to highlight all of these stories today? Were they really of urgent international importance? Why is the international version different from the online international section, where more cogent issues like increased tensions between China and Taiwan when Taiwanese president Chen Shui-Bian scrapped the Unification Council, or the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA), a UN agency, new report saying that it has received little to no aid from Iran on its recent nuclear activity and weapons, are highlighted? I somehow feel these issues are much more important that sly threats on protectionism and economic sanctions, nor a surreptitious form of national bullying.

However, will say that that pork soup thing is a bloody huge disgrace and makes me STEAMING MAD! How can food be used as cultural blackmail?! How can anybody use starvation as a weapon for discrimination? Angry against these racist soup kitchen people, not France.

all the pleasure and none of the pain

The other night I had dinner another neighbourhood restaurant called La Boulangerie (15 r des Panoyaux, 75020). I take it the site was an old bakery, though there's nothing that remains of the original. The floor is rather a quaint rustic french pattern, though hardly the thing one associates with bakeries.

Anyways, we had decided to go there out of Kim's suggestion. She has the most bizarre sense of food I've come across in awhile. On one hand, she swears by kaiseki, only the best bread and rather good scotch, on the other, she's dipping surimi (fake crabmeat) into cheap chinese hot sauce and mayonnaise. Rather reminds me of myself, except that I make no claims to being a gourmet... only gourmande.

Kim's suggestion, though, is a good one. We start with a nice bottle of white (I never remember what I drink because I have no head for Chateaux, dates and whatnots) and pondered the menu. I picked Utah oysters in a beet and horseradish aspic as a starter, Kim seconds the notion, Benoit picks some kind of effiloché (tangle) of fish and potatoes, Leo picks the velouté de l'étrilles (cream of velvet swimming crabs). My oysters are pretty darn happening, though quite standard as far as that kind of thing in a high-class restaurant goes. Benoit's fish is lovely, but it's Leo's soup that skins our teeth. It has that kind of pure essence of sweetness hidden beneath barbed shelled vermin one needs to have in a crab soup. But it also has something more. The sweetness of a crab is lightly mixed with something strangely green in taste which evokes the sea. It is a subtle humming from the past Sirens, and it has us in gushes, oohs and awws.

Aside: Apparently Sirens would drown themselves if they let a boat pass without successfully seducing them. Crabs, as you might know, are necrophiliacs. Which would mean they'd be pretty happy if those Siren things chucked themselves into the water... maybe we were eating crabs that had eaten Sirens... in which case, we'd still be us. But, enough with that crock. On with the show!

Afterwards I settled for a roast duck with honeyed spice bread and salsify. There was a nub of very unattractive yellowing broccoli on my plate which I managed to eat first thing. Definitely points off for letting such aged folk crawl around haphazardly. I'll eat aging broccoli in the comfort of my own home far from prying eyes, the same way I can eat Chef Boyardi when nobody's around to testify. Anyways... that duck was pretty darn good but it was the salsify that made me happy, which, when you think about, speaks a lot for the mediocrity of that duck.

Benoit had the most atrocious and ostentatious dish on the menu, a brazenly enormous chunk of pork gratineed with parmesan and served with some kind of risotto and sauced with parmesan!!! Horrific on paper, tasty on the plate. Only he could have ordered it. Anything with meat and cheese and the man hops down the aisles in ecstasy. It was a little unconvincing, though, when he winked a little too saucily at the girls while downing his heart attack special.

At this point I'm pretty liquored up already. We're into our fourth bottle of something else... I push myself into picking a dessert and such is my state of satedness that I don't even bother to touch anyone else's plate. In truth that's a bit of a lie because if I didn't taste anyone else's plate it was because my dessert was the best of all. I had a minute du chocolat served with lavender sorbet sided with some pickled orange peel. Hah! You can guess what it tastes like. I just know I pushed out my belly quite unselfconsciously for the rest of the evening and rolled my eyes around like a cartoon raven after it gets knocked out.
_________________

To properly end this kind of tale, something bad must happen. People always like the epitaph to be either winning, after a losing tale, or losing, after a winning tale. In this case, I'll just tell you that moving between metro lines the other day, I noticed a man at the head of the stairs, looking down rather curiously at a woman midway. He seemed concerned. The woman, herself, was clothed in an expensive black wool coat, almost to her ankles. Her whole body was hunched towards the wall so I was unable to see her face. Halfway down I heard the unmistakable sound of someone retching violently, and, before the smell could reach my nose, I ran fast and far away.

That should help everyone with their diet.

gripe #432

I just got back from Marseille, where the show happened. But, this isn't about that. This is about how I feel I'm drifting away from some people. Well, one person in particular...who's only and first reaction to finding out I had a show was to ask me whether I sold anything, not what it was about. In the immortal words of Donald Trump: You're fired.

comments moderation

I have turned comments moderation on because it's not a free world and I refuse to publish the comments of people I think are incapable of understanding subtleties in reasoning. You know who you are and I hope you get your own blog to launch your one-man politically correct war. Naive and hypocritical indeed.

Par for the Course

I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from high school, thus it was with some surprise that I learnt recently that an old classmate of mine was involved with music through a rather prosaic message from my old bandmates. I googled his name, came up with his website and subsequently his email address. We made contact.

What followed was a quiet kind of correspondence. Polite and warm. During these emails I managed to convey the fact I now live in Paris and he told me how occasionally he would have the chance to tour in Europe and would most probably drop by to play a show. A couple of months ago, in a group email, I found out that he was playing at Instants Chavirés, a concert hall in Montreuil.

Last night was that show. I managed to drag a bunch of my drunken friends over, but really, it was for my pleasure alone. He plays guitar in a style quite close to John Fahey and it was a real delight to hear someone make a certain elegant form out of one sole acoustic guitar. Really, an undeniable pleasure. Both of us had plans afterwards so we agreed to meet up today.

What I remember about Harris: his exploding hair, his burnt Milli Vanilli tape, slamming each other into our lockers (I think we once had a locker side by side), and that I shared creative writing class with him. Harris was a bundle of energy, played in a punk outfit called Mudfish, and frankly, that’s about all I remember.

So there he was again, my high school friend, playing in front of an audience in Paris, playing well enough to cast a spell over the crowd, and looking almost exactly the same as how I remembered him. He hasn’t really changed physically.

He came over this afternoon, just as I popped out of the shower, and we had some tea to nurse our hangovers.

And that’s when we started to really talk… what we did after high school, what choices we made, how we saw people around us change, what it was like to be and work as an artist, to be and work as people, opinions, ideas, a lot of interesting parallels. Before leaving I broached the subject as to when we would realise we were adults. He said, “I think you just wake up one day in the morning, look in the mirror and realise things have changed.” For example, one day, if I had a cleaning lady and a job that required me to wear a suit, I would just look in the mirror and realise something had changed.

But we weren’t really talking about becoming adults. We are adults. We were talking about a certain freedom of spirit, a certain hope, that hasn’t yet perished. I thought to myself, well, if I’ve managed to hold onto this spirit into my thirties, it can’t be all that bad. And, I do feel like a certain line has been crossed, that I like, that keeps me away from the dullness of eyes. It’s strange to recognize in someone else, to see the same curiousness and sensitivity in someone else’s eyes that you recognize as youth.

As we walked out the light was a changing blue, right before the sun drops out. I thought to myself, as we walked down the alleyway, what could happen in the next fourteen years since these last fourteen have passed in a wink of an eye. Perhaps the sensation of compression in time is what is most striking in our encounter since neither of us has seen each other in such a long time. And yet, walking down these steps, I thought to myself, how lucky we both are, to have gone through a certain phase, parallel in fact, and come out fairly intact. And who would have guessed, fourteen years later, that he would be the only one I would be in contact with, that I would feel kindred with. How wonderful in fact.

Open Gaz de France

Another tennis post. I spent all day yesterday inside a tennis court, watching the quarterfinals for the Paris Open Gaz tournament. The semi-final match-ups were as follows: Patty Schnyder vs. Elena Dementieva; Tatiana Golovin vs. Nadia Petrova; Mary Pierce vs. Emilie Loit; Amelie Mauresmo vs. Dinara Safina.

We got there for the end of the first match, which Schnyder won handily. It was amazing to see Dementieva up close since one never really imagines how muscular these girls really are. Dementieva's legs were a lot more muscular than I imagined and she had such an athletic style of walking... They really are like Amazon women.


Tatiana Golovin

Golovin was pretty in her little Lacoste dress, and really pushed back the feisty temperamental Petrova. Petrova could probably be in the top five if she didn't auto-destruct everytime she plays a bad point. The girl certainly has a gorgeous top-spin forehand.


Mary Pierce

Mary's game, up close and in real, is a lot more powerful than on television. She catches the balls early and tends to slam them from corner to corner. Though she was aggressive and powerful, I would have to say the most impressive thing about Mary is her new-found love of the game. She laughs, she smiles... she's a joy to watch and such a competitor. Really... lovely.


The crowd as Amelie came out.

Of course everyone was really waiting for the new Australian Open Champion, Amelie Mauresmo.


Australian Open Champion 2006

Amelie Mauresmo is certainly looking very calm and relaxed. We called her the concrete wall because she seems to get everything back. Her shot-making and baseline control, the consistent depth in her baseline shots is very very remarkable, make her a bit the Ivan Lendl/Thomas Muster of her generation. However, nice to see a player that happy and confident, especially after so many years of unease and nerves. The tournament looks like it hers for the taking.



Tickets for this tournament, from Thursday to Sunday, were sold out in advance, which I guess is no small testament to the type of appreciation Mauresmo's Aussie win generated.