Category: The arts

Even when you have two balconies, offering opposing sixth-floor (worth the walk-up) views of the rooftops of Paris off the Boulevard Voltaire, and your own personal Lefty bookstore just down the street, you can still have days that just don’t start off right, writes Paul Ben-Itzak.

Trying to check my dwindling bank account the other morning while fighting a losing battle against the not at all comfy desk chair in my airy summer lodgings, I kept being diverted by the Citibank site to the page called ‘does not exist.’

When it finally became existential, it confirmed that I had enough remaining for cat food — Mimi, my bi-color eyed white Texan, was so pissed off that I’d reduced her to “Leader Price” saumon et thon that she’d knocked the China bowl crashing to the floor (I’d put it on the table to avoid the ants).

My numbers issues weren’t over as Descartes, still cited as the source code for French thinking, apparently wasn’t big on math. First it took one cashier — over at the Leader Price near Pere Lachaise — then one supervisor and one manager to get neither the price nor my change right for the two for one bags of Friskies boeuf and poulet; only my American persistence when it comes to money (see Henry James’s “The American”) got me the full 12 cents due, but not before a language detour in which the supervisor demanded, “You’re Portuguese, right?”

The cheese guy at the Alexandre Dumas outdoor market, by contrast, couldn’t stop apologizing after he confused a 50-cent piece with the one Euro change due for my 1.42 slice of bleue d’Auvergne (appropriately for anything hailing from that region located somewhere in the middle of BFF, the poor man’s Roquefort).

(More typical is the confusion between the one and two Euro coins, which are almost identical and either one of which could be confused with the short-lived Susan B. Anthony dollar. As the French and Belgians continue to argue about the new 2.50 piece — those devious Belges neatly circumnavigated the French veto of their special edition 2 Euro coin commemorating the bicentennial of Waterloo, which the French lost, by utilizing an obscure E.U. law which allows member states to issue without need of approval coins in new denominations — my only concern is that its size is distinct.)

All these banking histories left me with just enough time to hit the post (note to Internet monitors: it’s a turn of speech) for the envelope of flea meds my beautiful mother (belle mere) had shipped from San Francisco which the postman leaving the notice had insisted was ‘too voluminous’ to leave in the mailbox (not true; I tested), rush home down the rue Robert & Sonia Delaunay and through the park Damia (even if the uniformity of the Euro money — Belgian deviants notwithstanding — banished French currency celebrating the Little Prince ((50 francs)) and Cezanne ((200)), at least French streets are still named after artists.

When can we get a lower Manhattan alley named after Stuart Davis? Who were ‘Duane’ and ‘Reade’ anyway?) and open all the windows, tying Mimi to her leash so she couldn’t fly off the balcony in pursuit of the cat-sized pigeon that alighted there the other day less than two feet from where she was taking her afternoon siesta, so I could air the flat out before the arrival of E., the friend of F., the woman I’m subletting from, on the off-chance she wanted to come upstairs for a glass of water after picking up the plant medicine to ship to F. in Chili.

I’d offered to bring it downstairs for her, in theory to save her mounting the seven flights but in actuality because between running around to shows and scouring the vide greniers (neighborhood-wide garage sales; vide = empty, greniers = attics) for better running around shoes I’d let the flat fall into presque Bukowskian disarray, absent the cigar butts and empty wine bottles. Of course, E. turned out to be a drop-dead Latin knock-out, and I’d blown my chance to get better acquainted.

The moral being that if you don’t clean up your nest you’ll never bag your pigeon.

To read the full piece, and find out more about subscribing to The Dance Insider, visit: http://www.danceinsider.com/free/20150618.html

About Paul Ben-Itzak and The Dance Insider: Established in 1998 in New York City and edited principally from Paris & the Dordogne since 2001, The Arts Voyager & Dance Insider provides a uniquely Franco-American inside view of Arts & Culture in Paris, New York, and throughout the United States and the world, with special emphases on insider reviews and travelogues. The longest running arts magazine with content published exclusively online, the Arts Voyager & Dance Insider, publishing daily at http://www.danceinsider.com, is edited by Paul Ben-Itzak, a veteran foreign correspondent who previously covered culture and equities for Reuters, the New York Times, and many others. Paul also publishes Art Investment News, at http://www.artinvestmentnews.com, specializing in illustrated critical coverage of art exhibitions and auctions, focusing on art on auction for less than $100,000.

Sitting in a bar one evening a couple of years ago in Montmartre, the Paris district that has been a magnet for artists and writers for centuries, the novelist Albert Alla lamented the lack of English-language theatre in Paris.

Not the all-singing, all-dancing productions of the established Chatelet theatre, or the weighty offerings from Paris-based Peter Brook, now 90, whom the Guardian recently described as a “human earthquake of modern theatre”, but something more fun, more fringe.

As the drink flowed, Alla, 31, decided to do something about it. He declared that he would stage a one-night theatre competition in the living room of his nearby apartment and told his friends to spread the word.

Within days, it was clear that the idea had outgrown not just the living room, but Alla’s entire Paris home. Thus was the Montmarte Dionysia theatre festival created.

On Monday, Alla and his writer friend, Chris Newens, will oversee the festival’s fourth biannual competition, featuring eight new plays and running until Friday.

MARCO Polo sur son ciné, a Franco-American project being launched via the crowd-funding site Indiegogo, will be a mobile vegan/vegetarian restaurant and portable art house cinema, also offering theatre and dance workshops for children, serving the rural Dordogne department of south west France, writes Paul Ben-Itzak.

Known as the capital of pre-history because it is home to the Lascaux caves as well as the first Cro-Magnon discoveries, the Dordogne is also famous for its delectable cuisine.

But if you’re a vegetarian, let alone a lacto-sensitive vegan, you’re out of luck.

Restaurants serve everything made from ducks, but if you can’t eat meat, you’ll often have to settle for a bland plate of vegetables and make sure they hold the duck fat from those pommes sarladoise.

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WHEN you watch a city, and country, long enough you begin to recognise its idiosyncrasies; its swings and its roundabouts.

And it is these traits that the writing and observations of Matthew Fraser reveal, as he offers up views of life in Paris but also an insight into what lies beneath the French people.

His latest book, Home Again in Paris: Oscar, Leo and Me, tells of his return to the French capital, much changed from when he left it 25 years earlier, with two bichon dogs in tow.

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THE French cinema industry is great export for the country, but also a real draw for lovers of the ‘seventh art’.

Rolling countryside scenes, dramatic coastal views and the streets of Paris have formed the backdrop of many cinema classics.

Such scenes lie at the heart of Abigail de Bruyne’s business idea, Le Movie Tour- Set in Paris, which promises to take film fans to hidden corners of the capital and shine a light on the stories within.

Here Abigail answers a few questions about the business, but also highlights some of her favourite Paris film scenes and why the silver screen has such an appeal to many.

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THE Celtic connection between Cornwall and Brittany is strong, and artist Melanie McDonald has taken this further in capturing coastal scenes from both sides of the Channel.

Here, in a short Q&A via email, Melanie writes on how Brittany compares to Cornwall, her artistic techniques and how some of the characters of the coast are transferred to canvas.

Click thumbnail images to enlarge.

Craig McGinty: How have you ended up in Brittany?

Melanie McDonald: Good question. I’ve lived mostly in Cornwall and first travelled over to Brittany in 2000 to visit friends, I fell in love with it instantly.

Many people say that Brittany is like Cornwall was years ago. It’s always felt somehow familiar and yet invitingly different. The dream was to buy an old farm with land on the north coast near Locquirec, which is what we’ve done.

The old farmhouse kitchen is my make-shift studio, it’s great. The five year plan is to build my dream studio where the old hanger is.

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I AM most probably the last person in France to have read Bruno Chief of Police, by Martin Walker, but just in case I’m not here is a quick review having just finished it.

The crime story takes place in the small Périgord town of St Denis, and the solving of a particularly grizzly murder falls upon the shoulders of Captain Bruno Courrèges, the town’s chief of police.

In the book Martin Walker brings his observation skills as a long standing journalist for newspapers around the world to the small details of French village life, capturing market scenes, petty administration but also the bonds of community that exist between family and friends.

And Bruno’s understanding of that community is what helps him get to the heart of the crime, while others cast accusations and threats of prison upon the heads of local villagers.

Anyone who has holidayed, explored or lives along the Vézère Valley will recognise many of the scenes described in the book, from hidden caves to the site of the local bank and cafes.

It is an enjoyable feature of the book to spot these places in the text and compare them to the real layout in the towns and villages of the area.

Bruno Chief of Police is not a deep book, or a blood thirsty crime thriller, more a pleasant stroll through the lives and foibles of an entertaining list of characters that find themselves thrown together in a market town in south west France.

WITH a bit of a cool chill in the mornings, your thoughts may be turning to one or two advanced preparations before autumn tumbles in.

If you enjoy knocking your knitting needles together then thanks to regular reader of This French Life, Gina, here is a website that will help you with some of the French phrases involved.

The Chez Plum site offers ‘knits with a French twist’ and features tips and advice on knitting, as well as free and paid for patterns.

But one page on the site, Knitting from the French, may prove useful if you are out in a French market and need to decipher patterns, there is also a dictionary on the site to help work out different terms.