What calls you back when you return to Paris?
Feb 26th, 2006, 05:16 PM
#21
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Ira, I just saw a movie on HBO about Josaphine Baker. She was quite an amazing lady. She joined the French resistance. If I understand correctly, Hitler lived in her house for a while. She got into a tiff with Walter Winchell about civil rights and adopted 12 or more children all from foreign countries, to save them.
Feb 26th, 2006, 05:47 PM
#23
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jules4je7 - not to derail this excellent thread but I read that La Varangue had gone downhill after being toted by RS - something about serving microwaved pre-prepared meals. Have you been lately?
Feb 26th, 2006, 05:55 PM
#24
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The thing that amazes us each time we are in Paris is that the ordinary is so extraordinary. You will walk down the street and see an amazing house or building and look for it in the guidebook and find it isn't amazing enough for a note. That and the potato & cheese galettes at the Sunday organic market on rue Raspail.
Feb 26th, 2006, 06:44 PM
#26
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It isn't the first place we seek out, but we enjoy sitting on the bench at Etoile to watch the traffic ballet and everyone posing for 'the' photo.
Got to have one of those creamy cafés with the sugar cubes on the side.
Got to have one of those creamy cafés with the sugar cubes on the side.
Feb 26th, 2006, 06:52 PM
#27
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What is a galette? Sounds like something I must try too...
I will look for Jazzy Cleopatra. What an interesting story, her life. She did more than just wear bananas. But that was how she got her start and became the toast of Paris.
Now, could someone explain the deal with Jerry Lewis...
I will look for Jazzy Cleopatra. What an interesting story, her life. She did more than just wear bananas. But that was how she got her start and became the toast of Paris.
Now, could someone explain the deal with Jerry Lewis...
Feb 26th, 2006, 07:13 PM
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http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a991001.html
"Do the French really love Jerry Lewis?"
In 1984, with the opening of his movie Retenez-moi . . . ou je fais un malheur ("Hold me back . . . or I'll have an accident"
, he was made a commander in the Order of Arts and Letters, France's highest cultural honor. Two months later he was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest any kind of honor. Sure, this was for his charity work with the Muscular Dystrophy Association. But you don't see them giving it to me.
French affection for Jerry Lewis has always mystified Americans. Highbrow critics (the only kind France has) wrote appreciatively about his work beginning in the 1950s, but things didn't really get rocking until Jerry's visit to France in 1965. Though past his peak in America by then, he was mobbed at the airport by fans and the press and was the toast of Paris for a week. French critics, who had voted The Nutty Professor the best film of the year, gave him an award, an art cinema put on a three-week Jerry Lewis festival, and the French film library held a retrospective with seminars on Jerry's art. Rosenbaum recalls Lewis hosting a two-hour prime-time show on French television in the 70s, with "guests like Louis Malle literally at his feet." ........
French audiences took to Lewis in part because he exemplified the French notion of the auteur--the individual, typically the director, who imposes his artistic vision on the production, which Lewis definitely did. But it's probably equally true that the French, despite or maybe because of their devotion to art (you know, pushing the envelope and all that), were also suckers for low comedy. One recalls the legendary French stage performer Le Petomane, aka the Fartiste. Not that Jerrymania was strictly a French thing. Lewis was voted director of the year three times in France, but he won the same honor in Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands. .......
~~~~Cecil Adams
"Do the French really love Jerry Lewis?"
In 1984, with the opening of his movie Retenez-moi . . . ou je fais un malheur ("Hold me back . . . or I'll have an accident"
, he was made a commander in the Order of Arts and Letters, France's highest cultural honor. Two months later he was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest any kind of honor. Sure, this was for his charity work with the Muscular Dystrophy Association. But you don't see them giving it to me. French affection for Jerry Lewis has always mystified Americans. Highbrow critics (the only kind France has) wrote appreciatively about his work beginning in the 1950s, but things didn't really get rocking until Jerry's visit to France in 1965. Though past his peak in America by then, he was mobbed at the airport by fans and the press and was the toast of Paris for a week. French critics, who had voted The Nutty Professor the best film of the year, gave him an award, an art cinema put on a three-week Jerry Lewis festival, and the French film library held a retrospective with seminars on Jerry's art. Rosenbaum recalls Lewis hosting a two-hour prime-time show on French television in the 70s, with "guests like Louis Malle literally at his feet." ........
French audiences took to Lewis in part because he exemplified the French notion of the auteur--the individual, typically the director, who imposes his artistic vision on the production, which Lewis definitely did. But it's probably equally true that the French, despite or maybe because of their devotion to art (you know, pushing the envelope and all that), were also suckers for low comedy. One recalls the legendary French stage performer Le Petomane, aka the Fartiste. Not that Jerrymania was strictly a French thing. Lewis was voted director of the year three times in France, but he won the same honor in Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands. .......
~~~~Cecil Adams
Feb 26th, 2006, 07:17 PM
#31
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Josephine Baker adopted a dozen children and brought them all to the Château des Milandes in the Dordogne, near Castelnaud. You can visit her château there and learn about her sad life..she ended up bankrupt and the kids had to fend for themselves. One of them runs a restaurant in New York devoted to her and her life.
For me, after 70+ visits to Paris, I gravitate to the little garden at the end of the Ile de la Cité behind Notre-Dame de Paris and the Jardin de Luxembourg and the Parc Monceau...
For me, after 70+ visits to Paris, I gravitate to the little garden at the end of the Ile de la Cité behind Notre-Dame de Paris and the Jardin de Luxembourg and the Parc Monceau...
Feb 26th, 2006, 08:04 PM
#32
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To see the old willow tree at the very tip of Ile de la Cite in Square du Vert-Galant used to be my one prilgrimage.
Since it's demise about three years ago I now go down to check on the new "baby" willow which seems to be doing fine.
I loved that old tree and thankfully have lovely photos to bring back memories.
Since it's demise about three years ago I now go down to check on the new "baby" willow which seems to be doing fine.
I loved that old tree and thankfully have lovely photos to bring back memories.
Feb 26th, 2006, 11:29 PM
#33
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I return to Paris in a little over two weeks. I've been there over a dozen times in the last thirty years, staying, on average 15 or 16 days at a time, and the five years since I last visited have seemed an eternity.
Like the famous surrealist artist Man Ray "I discovered it was delightful to be a foreigner, not only could I start with a fresh viewpoint but I was pardoned many faults I wouldn't have been."
But that of course does not explain why Paris.
The reality may be a bit prosaic.
I hold Paris to be the most bourgeois city anywhere. It is comfortable and well set up for fairly routine middle class people like myself to live stylishly and with a certain flair.
The sidewalk cafe is the perfect venue for affecting the air of a philosopher and if $5.00 cups of coffee were agreeable to J.P. Sartre then I pay the tariff with a smile and pretend to draft revolutionary tracts with my pocket full of credit cards and travelers cheques.
And I have come to know Paris well enough that I shall show my comely young traveling companion, who has never been there before, Notre Dame and explain how the revolutionaries cut off the heads of the statues on the front facade thinking them to be of the kings of France (they were not) and the abortive attempt of Robespierre to center his Cult of Reason there. She will smile somewhat breathlessly and evince an admiration for my fund of knowledge.
But mainly I will be on the same streets which seemed such a great adventure to me when I was young and making my first visit outside the comfort zone of the North America and England that I was so familiar with.
If that had been Prague or Copenhagen perhaps I would feel the same way about those cities. But it was Paris and so it shall always be Paris and I shall embrace her with both arms and be young again.
Like the famous surrealist artist Man Ray "I discovered it was delightful to be a foreigner, not only could I start with a fresh viewpoint but I was pardoned many faults I wouldn't have been."
But that of course does not explain why Paris.
The reality may be a bit prosaic.
I hold Paris to be the most bourgeois city anywhere. It is comfortable and well set up for fairly routine middle class people like myself to live stylishly and with a certain flair.
The sidewalk cafe is the perfect venue for affecting the air of a philosopher and if $5.00 cups of coffee were agreeable to J.P. Sartre then I pay the tariff with a smile and pretend to draft revolutionary tracts with my pocket full of credit cards and travelers cheques.
And I have come to know Paris well enough that I shall show my comely young traveling companion, who has never been there before, Notre Dame and explain how the revolutionaries cut off the heads of the statues on the front facade thinking them to be of the kings of France (they were not) and the abortive attempt of Robespierre to center his Cult of Reason there. She will smile somewhat breathlessly and evince an admiration for my fund of knowledge.
But mainly I will be on the same streets which seemed such a great adventure to me when I was young and making my first visit outside the comfort zone of the North America and England that I was so familiar with.
If that had been Prague or Copenhagen perhaps I would feel the same way about those cities. But it was Paris and so it shall always be Paris and I shall embrace her with both arms and be young again.
Feb 27th, 2006, 03:21 AM
#34
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Just beautiful, R
(He said, blinking back a manly tear.)
Paris was not the first European city I visited in my youth, and I have returned to them.
However, Paris is the most "alive" city I have ever visited.
(He said, blinking back a manly tear.)
Paris was not the first European city I visited in my youth, and I have returned to them.
However, Paris is the most "alive" city I have ever visited.
Feb 27th, 2006, 05:19 AM
#36
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Yeah food and wine; of course that incredible architecture but I also really love the live and let live attitude in Paris. Their lack of attention somehow gives me peace.
And the age of the town...from the Parisi through the Romans onwards...
Amazes me and leaves me a bit humble and even hopeful ... that there is hope for the world, even when its always been a "mad" place.
Sancerre and Oysters don't hurt either.
And the age of the town...from the Parisi through the Romans onwards...
Amazes me and leaves me a bit humble and even hopeful ... that there is hope for the world, even when its always been a "mad" place.
Sancerre and Oysters don't hurt either.
Feb 27th, 2006, 05:37 AM
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robjame -- I was at La Varangue in September for a couple of dinners, and it was fabulous.
It was busier than the time before that when we were there in 2003, but Phillippe hasn't changed a bit, and his food is delicious.
Jules
It was busier than the time before that when we were there in 2003, but Phillippe hasn't changed a bit, and his food is delicious.
Jules
