Don't stand so close to me (s'il vous plait)

So. Americans have a reputation for being loud and obnoxious, and easily spotted as the ones wearing sneakers. To quote fellow ex-pat David Sedaris from a line in Me Talk Pretty One Day, "comfort has its place but its rude to show up in a country looking like you're ready to mow its lawn."

Despite our inability to use "indoor voices," we have Great Expectations when it comes to our non-verbal communications, namely: our body space. As Americans, we demand a lot more of it than the French do.

I simply can not get used to how closely the French stand to me. It's a cultural thing, I know. Perhaps one of my mom's oft-quoted clichés sums it up well, "You give them an inch, and they'll take a yard." And so while the French were the first to adopt the metric system around 1790 (indeed some argue they invented it, no wonder you can't find a foot-long sub here), there is little point in nudging forward to give the Frenchie behind you a little more room, because they'll take that near meter (i.e., 1 yard = 0.9144 meter) and more. No exaggeration. I'm forever getting bumped in the bum, and seldom is it accompanied with an "excusez-moi." Harrumph.

Hence, the American "in your face" culture, in fact, isn't so in-your-face after all. Seinfeld captured the discomfort of standing-too-close brilliantly in his "close talker" episode (the close talker character played by Judge Reinhold must have picked up his technique on the visit to France he references).

photo courtesy: ShockMD

Mmmmm...frangipane

Frangipane is a yummy almond filling, not unlike marzipan, and you find it a lot in these parts this time of year as part of a celebration of La Fête des Rois, or the Epiphany (when, among other things, the three wise men made their way to Bethlehem to meet baby Jesus bearing gifts.)  In purely secular fashion, one celebrates by eating la Galette des Rois (or King Cake), a flat, flaky, buttery, round cake filled with frangipane.

The official holiday is on January 6th, but you can find galettes featured in French bakeries immediately after Christmas and throughout January. Inside the cake is hidden a porcelain or plastic figurine, or la fève, that can do some serious dental damage to unsuspecting choppers. Whoever gets the fève is king, or queen, for the day, crown included.  Originally the fève was a bean, but today it can be anything from the very random to the very topical (e.g., we got an Avatar action figure in our first galette of the season).

We shared our 3rd galette with French neighbors today.

Not only am I big fan of the cake, but I have a little soft spot for the holiday: my husband and I met at a champagne and galette party he held nearly 10 years ago in NYC, so it's touching to see our daughter Camille's "coronation" years later.

This is not your grandmother's strip mall.

I was in a weekly conversation group with a bunch of classy middle-aged French and Anglo ladies-who-lunch.  I was easily one of the youngest there (and I'm not so young), but no matter, the conversation was always topical. We'd spend the first hour speaking French, the second English. Often, we'd have a field trip planned, the first of which was a tour of the passages couverts of Paris.  I was enchanted.

The passages couverts, or covered walkways, were early day shopping malls, developed in the early 19th century, just as Haussman was seriously overhauling the design of the city and before the development of the department store.  This was also at the time when strolling and people watching (the French word flâneur, as Baudelaire defined it: "a person who walks the city in order to experience it") became a national pastime, and importantly, before the sewer system was put underground.   These are the origins of the downtown arcades you'd likely find in your old hometown.  We had one in Schenectady, NY.

So these walkways were a glorious respite for walk-about Parisians. In the day, there were over 150 of them, today there remain under 20.  I've visited a handful of them, and rejoice when I accidentally stumble upon one of them.  The walkways are typically marble-paneled corridors with glorious glass ceilings, allowing for natural light from above, and dotted with high end boutiques.  But not always.  Some are seeing a real resurgence like Galerie Vivienne, abetted by Jean Paul Gautier establishing his flagship store nearby, while others remain in disrepair.

A New York Times travel section article provides a good primer on these civic jewels. Above is a photo of friend Miki preparing to do some damage outside Galerie Vivienne.

Friend Fiona outside Christian Louboutin in Galerie Véro-Dodat 

In the day.

Several years ago I rented a weekend summer house in the Hamptons with friends. We'd stay up late playing games wearing summer sweaters and drinking any-season beer. The first game was called "Hump or Die." The premise was that you'd either have to sleep with someone completely revolting or, you know, die. Most of us value our life too much to forfeit it completely versus sleep with someone repulsive, so we quickly exhausted that game and graduated to a celebrity face-off. It was similarly fashioned, in that you'd have to choose the celebrity based on the assumption that you'd imagine yourself having sex with that person. Generally speaking, we'd pit similarly branded celebs against one another, low-brow or high-brow, loathsome or lovable. So, for example, Oprah or Rosie? Redford or Newman? Stewart or Colbert?

For a select number of celebrants, the ones whom never really aged very well or their career was seriously in the toilet, you'd be allowed to qualify your choice by saying "in the day..." So, think: Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, or hell, even a Shelly Winters. (Granted, no matter of qualification can save some, and you're just as happy reverting back to "Hump or Die." So, think: Limbaugh or Beck.)

Years later, it's this "in the day" that defines my all-time celebrity crush. His name is Alain Delon, and although he is one of the most renowned of French actors and alive and kickin', I discovered him rather late in life via my Netflix queue. I feel silly mentioning him here as he's so damn ubiquitous in France, but he never made it big in Hollywood (not for want of trying), so I'm forgiven if this Yankee arrived late to the party.

I say "in the day," not so much because he hasn't aged well, but he's gotten rather cheesy. Early on he knew the value of brand and so started a company selling everything from perfume to watches to sunglasses ('famously' worn by Chow Yun Fat in one three of his movies). His smoking shows, and he's made bad role choices. But in the day he was simply ga-ga gorgeous, dark and brooding, rebellious and unapologetic. This working class boy made it big time. Moreover, Monsieur Delon has a lot of one degree associations of stuff I like:

• he was the face of The Smiths' album "The Queen is Dead"
• he starred in the original film version of Patricia Highsmiths' The Talented Mr. Ripley (called Plein Soleil)
• he's alleged to have a love child with tragic singer/Warholian Nico (he's consistently denied paternity, although his parents raised the kid)

And as if luxury brand Dior had the same "in the day" qualifier in mind, they recently launched a campaign for Eau Savage, using a photo taken of Delon in 1966, the year the perfume was first launched. "In the day"- oh for sure.


photo courtesy images de parfums

Who did JR shoot?

A family day out found us doing one of the most touristy of touristy things: a Bateaux Mouche ride down the River Seine.  As if the tour allowing you a duck's eye view of the fabulous buildings and bridges gracing the river weren't enough, we enjoyed some black and white photography of the most startling kind. 

The exhibition along the Seine was called "Women are Heroes" and featured enormous black and white photos of women's eyes.  The show's photographer simply goes by "JR," and his objective was to pay tribute to women from around the world (from 10 countries, across 4 continents). 

The photos were on billboard/poster paper, and as the exhibition ran for a month in the open air, the gradual erosion of the posters was intentional and only added to the ethereal quality of the images.

Here is a link for greater information on the Women are Heroes exhibition, including more examples of the photographs, as well as behind-the-scenes prep work required to create the collages.

See Franck and kids riveted by imagery at right.

@JR: you'd make Larry Hagman proud.

Sisters doing it for themselves.

I took a trip recently to Chicago, a place that features the best architecture in any American city. I lived there in the 1990s, but it wasn't until this last trip through O'Hare that I learned that Chicago has been Paris' sister city since 1996.

Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what being a sister city does for you.  Good will, sure, and some "cultural exchanges" no doubt. But I found a really fun and tangible connection just south of the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue.  They erected a "Metra" station in the pattern of Hector Guimard's celebrated and fanciful entry ways to the Metropolitain, aka the métro (the existence of which was first introduced to me via a song by 80s new wave band Berlin.)

Guimard's work is quintessential Art Nouveau and in my estimation rates only second behind the Eiffel tower as the defining Parisian public art.  Not all métro stops have his designs- 86 of the 300 - and I marvel each time I see them; a quotidian reminder of why I'm here.  His first designs were unveiled concurrent with the métro itself at the Exposition Universelle in 1900.
  
Chicago's Metra is a rail system serving the suburbs. From cityofchicago.org, I learned that indeed the entrance was a gift of the Parisian Transit Authority (RATP), and they have been casting replacement parts and additional station entries from the original molds.

Sounds like cities of sisterly love, to me.

A Picard for a New Generation

It's time I talked about Picard. Not Shakespearean-trained Patrick Stewart's Captain Picard, but the greatest frozen sensation since, well, the freezer.

Picard is a retail operation throughout all of France that exclusively sells (gulp) frozen food. Yet, this stuff is so yummy, so you-can't-even-tell-it-was-frozen, that they have a word for it: surgelés, which comes from the verb for to deep freeze, but now can be defined as: “a really tasty alternative to a home cooked meal and way better than take-out.”

The concept: source high quality and diverse food and deep-freeze it to lock in the flavor, pack it up nicely, and sell it via highly accessible (through location and friendly hours) shops. To boot, Picard has a helpful and ready staff, they’ll even bag your purchases (something you're hard pressed to find in any grocery here).

It looks and feels a little retro-futuro, like what they thought the future would look like in the 1950s. You don't see any food upon entry, for they use horizontal freezers that are more energy-efficient. The freezers are typically aligned as a single path with sale items in front, then starters and mains, and as if you're in a veritable Candy Land, the desserts are at the end. True, it can get tricky if you realize you forgot that side of gratin dauphinois you wanted and are forced to retrace your steps, but you manage. A cashier is at the end with a ready smile and a "bonjour" and some plastic bags (while freezer-friendly bags are also available for a chanson).

Everything I've ever had from them is delicious - from ingredients like raspberry coulis and frozen chopped garlic, to full on chicken tikka and croquant chocolat. That have a lot of Bio (organic) options, too. Among my circle, its everyone’s dirty little secret how much Picard one consumes over homemade meals.

I’ve often thought about exporting the concept to the States, but I think there is too great a stigma against frozen foods, and it’s hard to compete with a 24 hour food cycle. But here you can see a steady stream of Parisians, including many well-heeled ones, popping into Picard to fetch that evening's meal. As a colleague of Franck's once quipped, "Parisians have a €50,000 kitchen in order to heat up Picard in the microwave."