Paris

Paris Was Ours

mandy — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

“Paris lives in its details,” observes one contributor to this collection of essays. But equally true is the idea of Paris that thrives through clichés. You’ll find spare references to the Eiffel Tower, berets, cheese, and wine in Paris Was Ours, although the apparently ineluctable forms of French snobbery are discussed. What this anthology delivers instead are a wide breadth of creative and nuanced meditations on the culture, history, and inhabitants of the City of Light, confirming that all our romantic associations with Paris, despite the city’s faults, are quite justified.

Paris Was Ours offers a diversity of voices and topics, and in this regard, it is a superior resource among the proliferating anthologies on the city. (Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon and Sarah Turnbull’s Almost French come to mind.) The contributors range from well-known writer David Sedaris and poet C.K. Williams, to a homeless woman, a chef, an Iranian revolution escapee, and various scholars. There are translations in the book from Arabic, Spanish, and French.

Paris Was Ours serves as a useful introduction to French culture, and even the most frequent travelers to France will find it illuminates what can oftentimes be perplexing Parisian mores, such as their disdain for discussing money matters, heavy-handed parenting style, chic fashion sense, tangled bureaucratic systems, insistence on a well-rounded and balanced quality of life, and greater acceptance of human shortcomings in their political leaders. Reading the book had the satisfying effect of gaining a greater appreciation for living in France, and perhaps by some comparison, the United States.

One discovery I made is that, for many of the writers, living in Paris afforded a certain liberation that led to greater self-knowledge and appreciation. “People just find themselves here,” says one Uighur journalist. Valerie Steiker, in “Fledgling Days,” whose sojourn was motivated by her desire to connect with her deceased mother by re-living similar Parisian experiences, learns about humility and self-reliance. In “Understanding Chic,” Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni discovers that “[t]he secret to acquiring chic… is to correct negative thinking.” In “Just Another American,” African American student Janet McDonald describes how Paris freed her from being perceived mainly through the confines of racial assumptions:

The French drew no such [racial] distinctions, which meant I no longer had to worry about making African Americans look good. Or bad. Whatever I did was attributed to Americanness, not blackness. What a switch – a black person with the power to make white people look bad.

No discussion of Paris is complete without mention of seduction and romance, and there is certainly plenty of that in this collection. One standout essay is “Love Without Reason,” where student of post-structural theory Caroline Weber draws comparisons between Lacan’s views on human desire and her foray into becoming “a one-woman band of seduction.” In “Ma Vie Bohème,” Karen Shur sensually describes the days and nights spent with her lover in their scant apartment. Brigid Dorsey, in “Litost,” tells the heartbreaking story of her failed romantic relationship with the father of her child.

Paris Was Ours will conjure nostalgic feelings for those who have lived in Paris, and wanderlust for those who have yet to visit. Many aspects of Parisian life are captured in such original and surprising ways that I found the book tough to put down and almost as good as walking down the Champs-Élysées.

Written by: Abigail Licad, April 16th 2011

Dreaming in French

barbara — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Megan McAndrew

Simon & Schuster

On the surface, Dreaming in French sounds like the type of book I would love. It’s about a strong-willed girl named Charlotte growing up in Paris during the 1970s until she and her mother are forced to move to New York. I love anything about Paris, especially during the 1970s with its yé-yé girl singers that ruled the charts, inventive fashion, and sexual freedom. I also love reading about New York during that time period, when a lot of powerful, creative music and art were coming to light.

Sadly, the book is not really about Paris or New York, but about a spoiled, pretentious girl and her equally spoiled, pretentious mother, Astrid. A teenage Charlotte can be forgiven for her self-absorption, but as we watch her grow up, she only becomes more selfish. Astrid is even more selfish than her daughter, breaking the family apart when she has an affair with a Polish dissident and, in a Kafkaesque twist, ends up in jail. Her daughters rally to Astrid’s side, but her faithful husband feels betrayed and will never forgive her. They divorce, and Astrid leaves for New York to start anew. Charlotte, who adores her mother, decides to go with her. Her sister Lea remains in Paris with their father Frank, while his Swedish secretary slowly carries out her plans to marry him.

Charlotte goes from a life of comfort to a life of… slightly less comfort. Her father provides her with some money, and she attends a private school after she and Astrid check out the local high school and find “a group of black girls…tough urban girls with knowing eyes.” This is but one of several racist statements McAndrew makes throughout the novel.

It is hard to sympathize with Charlotte’s troubles when it seems that she has everything going for her: she is thin, white, beautiful, extremely intelligent, and wealthy. She is aware of her privilege but never thinks about it extensively, providing the perfect example of how acknowledging privilege is not the same as understanding it. Rather than use her privilege to try and change the world or examine questions of inequality, Charlotte seems to take pride in how spoiled she is.

Charlotte reminded me a lot of Rory Gilmore from the TV show Gilmore Girls because she is also smart, pretty, and white, except that Rory is humble and likable, whereas Charlotte is not. No doubt due to her pedigree and upbringing, Charlotte gets into Yale, and busies herself studying post-structuralist feminism. At Yale she has a disturbing relationship with a man named Azher, who attempts to enter her almost brutally. Their forceful, violent sex and bordering-on-abusive relationship is treated with the same detached superficiality of everything else in the novel. McAndrew handles cancer, eating disorders, cross-cultural interactions, AIDS, and political uprisings with the aloof tone of one talking about the weather.

Eventually Charlotte comes into her own working for Glamour magazine and the reader is supposed to be happy for her, but Charlotte is still more of a petulant child than amiable heroine. McAndrew’s tendency to rely on clichés only exacerbates the situation. By the end of the novel Charlotte has discovered that she holds the key to her own happiness, her father has remarried a sweet widow who is also the mother of Charlotte’s childhood best friend, and her sister Lea is literally living happily ever after in a castle with her husband who’s a legitimate Prince. It’s all the stuff of an airplane book, and not a particularly good one at that.

The world really does not need another book about a privileged young woman trying to find herself through shopping and sex with men she doesn’t love. To this type of ridiculous, pointless novel, I say j’en ai marre—I’ve had enough.

Written by: Arielle Burgdorf, March 11th 2011

Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris

admin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:19:00 +0000

By Jennifer Anne Boittin

University of Nebraska Press

Interwar Paris conjures up images of romance and renewal. From the ashes and rubble of the First World War, families reunite and rebuild under what seemed to be the end of the most dire of circumstances. Unfortunately, Colonial Metropolis fails to capture this magic, and yet it is an extremely thoughtful and methodical review of the local primary source material available, and would serve as a very strong academic referral source.

The author, Jennifer Anne Boittin, has a clear passion for the subject matter and conveys this well through her enthusiastic descriptions of the characters of the period who populated the anti-colonialism and feminist movements. The problem, for me, stems from the fact that we never feel the interaction between these players. These characters never seem to weave together into the larger story of feminist and anti-colonial activism, the tale that Boittin is seemed so hopeful to tell at the outset of the book.

Boittin lifts directly from the historical record to bring a multitude of characters from this period to life, but none so well as that as Josephine Baker. Pages and pages are dedicated to bringing her tantalizing and mischievous performances to life. Imagine the dedication and zeal of Marina Abramović crossed with the free wheeling sexual spirit of Isadora Duncan. Who wouldn’t want to be warped back to the front row for that show of an old theater in Paris?

With these high sensory moments scattered throughout, readers catch glimpses of the time gone by that was advertised to them, but even the best of these moments failed to sustain me from page to page. Clearly, Boittin’s integrity to the historical record speaks to her virtues as an academic; it just doesn’t make for a particularly interesting read.

Written by: Nicole Levitz, August 2nd 2010

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Elizabeth Bard

Little, Brown and Company

While the memoir fad is nothing new, Elizabeth Bard’s new book confirms the emergence of a memoir subgenre to contend with: the memoir with recipes. In May 2009, the New York Times proclaimed these books as the brainchild of the “money-making imagination of the publishing industry.” Certainly, a spate of globe-spanning titles have followed, many born from blogs. However, the story of the American in Paris has long been a favored literary subject. It has sparked writers’ imaginations from Henry James to Anais Nin to Elaine Dundy to David Sedaris. Elizabeth Bard’s adventures in Paris have a more chick-lit feel to them than even Nin or Dundy, and have a liberal sprinkling of Julia Child and Peter Mayle throughout. In this recipe-infused book, Bard navigates a long-distance relationship with a French archivist, decides to move to Paris, and eventually gets married and builds her writing career.

At first, Elizabeth Bard’s life seems impossibly charmed, complete with buying the perfect apartment on the increasingly trendy Rue Oberkampf and negotiating cultural differences that seem more endearing and eye-opening than frustrating. However, what sets Bard’s writing apart from others of her nascent genre is her thoughtfulness and realism. She paints a very true and convincing portrait of herself as a driven, New York striver, bent on academic, artistic, and financial success at an early age and agonizing over why it has not yet arrived. While she is highly educated, she does not come from a place of easy breezy privilege, and in between recipes inspired by fresh finds at her Parisian market, Bard contemplates her family and personal history.

As much as it documents her courtship, relationship, and marriage to Gwendal, a digital archivist and entrepreneur, Lunch in Paris is about Bard’s acclimatization to a Parisian pace of life and ultimately, self-acceptance. Bard finds her stride by finally finding a peaceful balance between her Parisian and New York lives and selves. While this revelation is not particularly groundbreaking and her feminist-tinged reflections stay in safe mainstream territory, Lunch in Paris satisfies readers with a good story, intelligent and heartfelt reflections, and mouth-watering recipes. It’s not clear if these recipes have been kitchen tested the way one would for a professional cookbook, but they serve as solid guidelines for readers interested to add a French twist to their cooking.

While it may not become part of the Americans in Paris literary cannon, Lunch in Paris is a satisfying, straightforward read that feels like a good friend telling you a particularly tasty—and truthful—story.

Written by: Eleanor Whitney, March 31st 2010

From Paris With Love

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:18:00 +0000

Directed by Pierre Morel

Lionsgate

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent — Isaac Asimov

Luc Besson is credited with the “story” for this violent comic book of a thriller that is an insult to Paris. Years ago, Besson wrote Le Dernier Combat and The Fifth Element, flicks that are still worth seeing. He either wrote From Paris With Love in one second on the back of a postage stamp, is imaginatively bankrupt, or really needs the money. (All three perhaps?) Here’s the so-called story.

James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), personal assistant to the American ambassador in Paris, dabbles in tame black ops, such as clandestinely swapping license plates. One day, Charlie Wax (John Travolta, gun in one hand, ham in the other) arrives from the States for some extra-special ops, and Reece gets to be his partner. You can tell Wax is a badass because he’s built like a wrestler, has a bald head and black goatee, and cusses out French Customs. Sure enough, Wax is not in Gay Paree two minutes before he annihilates a Chinese restaurant, walks off with a vase full of cocaine, punches out six gnarly Asians at once, and announces plot points (how postmodern!). He proceeds to liquidate Paki terrorists. Yes, “Paki,” because that's how Wax talks, spouting racist jive that we’re apparently supposed to think is jocular because, you know, it’s Travolta, and he can so do glib-cutesypoo-charming-funny while mowing down foreign baddies. That’s acting for you. Hah-hah.

Reese, downright priggish on mayhem and slaughter, reproves Wax’s methods. Not to worry. He is bound to come-on-over to righteous American slo-mo killing. What happens, see, is that Reece gets blood on his face from an offed terrorist and then observes himself in a mirror. (Get it?! He sees himself baptized in blood!) Consequently, he begins to male bond with Wax. In the end, Reece proves he is a pistol-packing man—just like Wax has taught him to be—so much an hombre, in fact, that he can shoot his girlfriend and strut off to play chess with Wax. Yup, that's Reece’s character arc: He changes from being reticent about killing to wholeheartedly embracing it.

Admittedly, the fight and slow motion sequences are crisply edited, but the narrative is just one set piece after another of shoot kill, shoot kill, kill kill kill. That’s why the film exists. The many males and couple of females gunned down are nearly all swarthy or almond-eyed types. Beaucoup spurting blood squibs interspersed with jokes accompany les massacres. Thus the rancidity of the violent, big-American-star, buddy film is on display once again.

You will notice I’m not disposed to speak well of From Paris With Love. Alas, honesty compels me to note that near the end of the second act there is a car chase. From The Keystone Cops to Bullitt and beyond, car chases are a worthy subset of film genres. In this “how-did-they-do-that?” chase, Travolta/Wax, clutching a bazooka, hangs out the side window of a monster silver Audi doing about 150mph (flagrantly effective product placement). Wax needs a clear bead on a car in front so he can blow it to smithereens. The road is a European super highway, so the other cars all around are zipping right along, too. The pursuit swerves between comical and death defying. Whichever, it’s a knuckle-biting gas and up there with the best car chases ever on film.

But is a great car chase a good enough reason to watch a stupid, ugly film that makes yet another spectacle of killing people? Perhaps Luc Besson and everyone associated with this dross may still be perceptive enough to discern a rhetorical question when they encounter one.

Written by: Neil Flowers, February 17th 2010

Moonlit Necklace & Flying Home Ring

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:07:00 +0000

By Bohème Jewelry

Having made its premiere in the northern Italian city of Turin in 1896, La bohème is now the second most frequently performed opera in the United States—so says Wikipedia. Ordinarily, the near-winner might be a little miffed at the first place slot being granted to another, but Tuscan composer Giacomo Puccini loses to no one other than himself. The foremost operatic popularity goes to another of Puccini's masterworks: Madame Butterfly.

Using a visually aesthetic motif similar to that of the aural designs of Puccini, Bohème Jewelry crafts unique pieces that are at once forward-thinking and vintage. Sheryl Pang's handcrafted designs are thoughtful and complex, yet not overly so as to render them inaccessible to the average wearer. They have an air of nineteenth century Parisian cosmopolitanism with a smidgen of Gothic art.

Imagine yourself as a ragtag artist in the French capital under Russian occupation and during the period of Restoration. Your city is on the cusp of a wave of industrialization that will lead to a great number of transformations. With technology, trade, and tourism at your doorstep, the opera houses become a refuge for creativity.

The Moonlit Necklace and Flying Home Ring are anachronistic pieces of jewelry that hearken to the tragically romantic allure to which Puccini's compositions have given voice. Nestled in the center of an oxidized brass fern is a Swarovski crystal the color of sky. The pendant hangs from a sixteen-inch chain that matches the brass of the flora. Painted with a verdigris patina, the brass ring is twisted into a delicate pattern that features a swallow holding two pink-toned Swarovski pearls and a baby blue Czech glass bead in its beak. Both pieces have a feminine sensibility that is delightfully contrasted with the sturdiness of the design.

A chain smoker of both cigarettes and cigars (a staple of the European artistic elite), Giacomo Puccini died of throat cancer just a month prior to his sixty-sixth birthday. As the story goes, a New York orchestra played Chopin's Funeral March the moment news of Puccini's death reached the city, which was, ironically, in the midst of a performance of La bohème.

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, November 30th 2009

The Women Incendiaries

admin — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:03:00 +0000

By Edith Thomas

Haymarket Books

The Women Incendiaries was reprinted in paperback this year from the nonprofit book publisher, Haymarket Books. This classic feminist text was first published in France in 1963 and translated to English three years later. It describes the role women played in the Paris Commune, an anarchist-socialist government that took hold of Paris for two months in the spring of 1871.

This book is not a light read, but for anyone who has interest in the current political atmosphere, this revolutionary tale provides historical significance. It was a time, much like our own, when military defeat and poor political leadership encouraged an ever-widening disparity between rich and poor. The disillusionment of the working class was at an all time high, and personal dignity was often sacrificed in the name of survival.

And of those who suffered, women were one of the most transgressed. Their mother-wife role in the patriarchal society was clear, but as the working poor they were unable to live up to this moral standard, and those with money and power condemned them for it. Many of the female revolutionaries of the time rightly believed that women’s rights were an inextricable part of worker’s rights, and you could not have one without the other. With this conviction in mind, they took a large part in organizing and fighting within revolutionary organizations, including the French socialist movement that gave rise to the Paris Commune. The role they played in this battle for dignity, and its effect on the future of women’s liberation, is not mentioned in history books. But thanks to historian Edith Thomas, we have a detailed and unflinching account of these inspiring feminists.

Unfortunately, the author isn’t writing for the uninitiated. Her audience is primarily women’s studies students and historians. Thankfully, she takes extensive footnotes, and leaves a trail of books to which the reader can go for more information. If you’re a fan of classic feminist literature, this book is a must for your collection.

Written by: Jessica Star Rockers, September 1st 2007

Un Amour à Taire (A Love to Hide)

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:02:00 +0000

Directed by Christian Faure

Picture This! Entertainment

Christian Faure’s A Love to Hide is a deeply powerful film. Set in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France, the film depicts the violent effects the Nazi criminalization of gayness. The story begins with Sara’s (Louise Monot) escape from her home, after Nazi’s have murdered her entire family. Out of desperation she contacts an old friend (and potential love interest), Jean, played with startling effect by Jérémie Renier. Jean convinces his lover, Philippe (Bruno Todeschini), to hide Sara, placing the three characters in an awkward love triangle that eventually leads to a deep friendship. Family politics between Jean and his brother Jacques (Nicolas Gob) lead to Jean’s arrest by Nazis on charges of sexual deviance. The remainder of the film deals with Sarah and Jacques’ attempts to get Jean released.

The narrative itself is dense with emotionally charged with issues of love, jealousy and violence, however, Faure ultimately fails to deliver on the promise of his powerful storyline. The first half of the film is a wonderful depiction of Jean and Philippe’s relationship, the challenges of integrating Sara into their secret world, and the underground queer culture thriving in Paris. With the introduction of Jacques, the film fizzles into little more than soap opera. The film is further strayed after Jean is arrested, shifting its focus onto the blossoming relationship between Sara and Jacques.

Regardless of the narrative flaws, the film retains its effectiveness in the performances of all the lead players. Renier, in particular, depicts with equal sensitivity Jean’s vulnerability and the strength he receives from his love with Philippe. A flawed effort, but noble nonetheless.

Written by: Ashvin Kini, July 20th 2007