Tag Archives: Paris
On a fait des valises (my bags are packed…)
Mes cher(e)s lecteurs, lecteuses, The winds of internet change have blown me from this simple but undiscoverable forum to the more complex universe of substack. (Learning curve as yet incomplete.) Please click the link for the latest posts, and join me there (at no charge) for the usual PointdeVue sensibility, book reviews, and a wider-ranging […]
The Bells of Notre Dame Are Ringing!
To tell the truth, today I am content to listen to the newly resurrected bells (a trial run), or to classical music, or to small kids playing in the park. It grates, though, to hear the repetitive lamentations and blame-throwing, or American tourists in Paris who chatter and whoop… as if. As if anything. Leave […]
All Quiet Along the Seine
Paris feels uncharacteristically subdued these days. Even the demonstrations (Women’s Day, Palestine) are less raucous. Are we holding our collective breath in anticipation of the JO—Jours Olympiques? Going to be a long wait to exhale. Some predict chaotic crowds, while others argue that most Parisians will flee, leaving empty streets to the athletes and happy […]
Bastille Day Ruminations
July 14th. Bastille Day. Hallowed holiday in the Hexagon, celebrated with military marches and fly-overs, politicians’ cliché-crusted speeches—and fireworks! Millions of Frenchpersons lustily belting out the Marseillaise. A somewhat bizarre choice of national holiday, given that the glory that is la belle Patrie existed long before enraged crowds stormed the Bastille in 1789. Which was […]
Parallel Lives in Paris
Is any other major city as starkly, yet silently, divided as Paris? Not brawling London, not in-your-face New York. I recall also my teenage years in West Berlin before the Wall came down. There, on both sides, despite official enmity and opposing socio-economic scaffolding, intense curiosity reigned about how the ‘other half’ really lived. Letters […]
May 1st: A Hard Rain on The Parade
May 1st has forever been a big day in France. Long before the invention of trade unions (credited today to the USA by a Paris radio station!) and street demonstrations, it was a day of festivities and magic. Pots and bunches of lilies of the valley are sold on street corners now as centuries ago, […]
Brushs and Pens
Any denizen of France will tell you: Certes, Athens, Florence and a few other cities had their moments, but Paris has reigned as the Western wellspring and magnet for arts and artists for centuries. The influence of French visual art, music and literature reaches beyond Euro-America into Asia and Africa, while drawing freely from those […]
POINT de VUE: PARIS 
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