Terrasse

Sexy Cheese

Mr. K and I were remarking last night that only in France are the cheese commercials so unavoidably sexy.

In France cheese is sexy.  No joke.

Cheese is a revelation

And one from the 80s proving that sexy cheese is a long-standing tradition

Amazing Site-specific Project

Check out this amazing project by a design studio in the Czech Republic, where a group of artists have cached sound-producing sculptural works in the forests surrounding Brno.  Their works are fantastic and industrial at the same time, playing off both natural (wind) and industrial (train tracks) phenomena.  The website itself is beautiful and imaginative, make sure to turn your volume up.

There are more interesting works than the one pictured above: podvedomim

Tricothé! (a parisian version of stitch n’ bitch?)

I finally found a Parisian knitting group - held once a week on wednesdays at 7pm at a lovely tea house called L’Oisive Thé, which is located in the 13th.

I have yet to insert myself into this little group (let alone choose a new project) but I’m excited to try it out.  And now this little tea house is selling yarn to boot!  What’s more, the location (butte aux cailles, the former home of my favorite former parisians) is one of my faves in Paris, and I’ve walked past the tea house many many times without even knowing it housed the Parisian incarnation of a stitch n’ bitch.

Regardless of the salon de thé’s appeal to this specific craft nerd’s woolly yearnings, it offers the non-crafty seemingly delicious treats for the tummy in a cozy setting.

Check it out here

Imagining what was Missed

A new favorite blog - I love this artist’s illustrations and the idea itself.  What a great source of inspiration, to build a visual story from these little narrative snippets - lovely and playful and funny (read the one about flatulence).

http://missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com/

An Estival Farewell

Summer is officially gone.  The trees are brown, the sun is orange gold and I wear sweatshirts to bed at night.  In homage to one of my most insane and busy summers ever I present to you the cream of my collection of Parisian sunbathers.  Toward the end of the summer - late july, early august - I began to see more and more sunbathers around town.  They were everywhere in various states of undress - park benches, stairs, chairs by the fountains, sidewalks, and grassy knolls.  And I became a shameless voyeur, recording their whereabouts gratefully undetected. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my voyeuristic labors.

Genies On My Feet

I picked up these beauties while completing my obligatory visit to the Walmart in Southern Shores, NC.  They’re slippers, but they’re also mops.  Genius, huh?  Little mops for my little feet.  So I’m testing them out today as i putter around the house, unpacking, cleaning, writing, smoking  . . .

The packaging specifies that slipper genie is not a toy (it is a serious cleaning product, you see), they are not to be used to slide across the floor ala Risky Business, and they are not to be used if one’s balance is unstable.  I think I’ll break all these rules to truly put them to the test.  I will: dance in them, jet myself across the living room clad solely in my underpants and a pair of sunglasses in imitation of a young Tom Cruise, and I will continue to wear them even after downing too much 1664.  Slipper Genie?  Slipper joy.

Home (Paris) Again, Again

Just returned from two amazing weeks in North Carolina.  Already missing it.  While I didn’t grow up there, my sister and her fiance went to grad school at Duke, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time visiting and it feels comfortable enough that I even sort of think of it as a second home.  Durham specifically has all my key ingredients: good food, heat, informal, great music and art, small town vibe.  I like it.  I could wear a tube top and flip flops down to buy a popcicle.  Unlike this town where I live, where I need to be fully clothed and made up to purchase a Berthillon ice cream cone.  In short, a trip to the states did nothing to appease my chronic homesickness.

BUT, that’s besides the point as the purpose of my visit was the marriage of two incredible people: my sister and her mister.  And they put on quite an event.  For all the stress and anxiety they faced the final days before hand, the wedding sure paid off. AMAZING.  I cried until the dancing started.  Cried from joy and, of course, also loss - missing the mama something fierce.  Hard to believe how life keeps moving without the one who seemed to move it before.

After all the beautiful celebration (culminating in my husband, my sister, her husband and me drunkenly awaiting a cab at 3 am in downtown Durham - last ones standing) we all headed out to the outer banks for a week on the beach, where my sister and her mister procured us a HUGE beachside castle to share.  Though constant social interaction can wear me down (particularly when I’m feeling a tad emotional and having a mild mama freakout), the week was truly wonderful.  Favorite moments: swimming with sister+mister, my dad, my man, riding bikes with my 75-year-old dad and my own mister cooper, beautiful dinners on screened-in porch, quiet time with my sister all to myself.

Loving the beach and heat and tan skin and my people, it has been a rough 24-hour welcome back to Paris.  I am missing family fiercely, missing convenience and familiarity, missing the burritos.  And I’m coming back to a Paris where the small community I built up over the last year has entirely dissipated, everyone having returned to their own respective corners of the world.  So in some ways I feel again as if i were starting all over, though I now have regular activities to occupy me.  But, I continue to take on this project of trying to establish life here in Paris, determined as ever to embrace its alienation, its blessed anonymity, its quirks, charms, and luscious vices.

La Rentree approaches, and all the Parisians return from vacation.  And with them the art wakes up from its own month-long nap.

come on and raise up

hey - in north carolina for a few weeks (sister’s wedding) - be back soon!

The Vonnie Chronicles

My dearest siobhan (vonnie to me) came for a visit to Paris.  Hijinx ensued.  pictures will come later (i do not have the energy to upload right now)  but here are some highlights:

vonnie’s orangina got stuck in a metro-side vending machine.  so she kicked it, and hit it, and pouted at it until an older french man came over to see what all the fuss was about.  Then he hit it.  and likewise frowned at it (silently willing his disapproval to dislodge the over-priced bottle).  then vonnie yelled “beat the CRAAAAP out of it!!!”   he simply smiled and nodded in agreement, having no idea what the fuck she just said, but really wanting to help such a distressed damsel.  i can’t exactly explain why, but this episode was hysterical.

on the metro one day (as most days), people were packing in like sardines, pressed tight up against the sliding doors.  we were sitting in those flip-up seats reserved for the elderly and the pregnant.  so i said, we should stand up, make room for more people.  she stood on the seat.

getting late-night half-drunk “grecques” (kind of like extra greasy shawermas) and vonnie asking me to translate the word “dick head” to a man who refused to throw away his own trash.

dancing to mc hammer on an illuminated dancefloor painted with the face of a panther.

drinking hobo beers at the parc des buttes chaumont.

vonnie painting her toenails to match the color of the eiffel tower.

on the metro (again) vonnie deciding to ask tired, wary parisians to sing songs for her video camera.  we had one taker.  and one person decided to tell her that everyone thought she was weird, but maybe she’d have better luck somewhere else.  so we sang songs for her camera instead.

dancing on a boat in the murky, black seine.

endearing and adventurous, vonnie is a force to be reckoned with.  and paris loved her.  we love her.

Mon Anniversaire!

Yesterday was my birthday, and though I have no pictures here are the highlights:

1. present from my dad in the mail

2. a million messages from friends wishing me happy birthday

3. finding a new (and very steep), tucked away staircase up to the sacre coeur.  it was dripping with ivy and beckoning for a photograph (i should have learned to keep my camera with me at this point)

4.  lighting a candle at the sacre coeur to honor the memory of the amazing woman who gave me life

5. lovely friends arranging a last-minute soiree

6.  the sweetest birthday letter from my mister that poked my heart and prodded tears

7.  a lovely nightime walk home with mister koupal

thanks for a beautiful birthday!