Salon.com > Paris

Pick of the week: I was a teenage anarchist!

Thu, 02 May 2013 23:30:00 +0000

“Something in the Air” tells the story of a French teenager caught up in the half-crazy early-‘70s climate of political radicalism and artistic experimentation, an era that can seem so far from our own as to be a science-fiction alternate reality. It’s a terrific film, wonderfully atmospheric and alive, but also a curiously appropriate one to encounter right now, as we deal with the aftermath of a cruel and pointless crime apparently committed in the name of some abstract revolutionary ideal. Writer-director Olivier Assayas (of “Summer Hours” and the terrific terrorist miniseries “Carlos”), one of the leading figures in French cinema, has described this movie as generally autobiographical. While Assayas’ young protagonist and his anarchist pals never come to the point of blowing up civilians, they get pretty close, and indeed avoid committing murder mostly through luck. Is this a true story? I obviously have no idea, but it’s a convincing and disturbing one.

Fed up Louvre staff strikes over roving bands of pickpockets

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:48:00 +0000

Tens of thousands of the visitors who mob the Louvre each day drawn by those sirens the slightly smiling Mona Lisa, the amputated beauty the Venus de Milo, and the windswept Winged Victory of Samothrace had their hopes dashed like ships against the rocks by a staff strike in response to pickpocketing. Adding to France’s storied history of disruptive strikes of questionable impact, the Paris museum was shut down Wednesday with a 200 member staff walkout, the AFP reports. Reportedly, there have been roving bands of pickpockets of up to 30 members strong, swaggering through the stately galleries, infiltrating the crowds that stop to balk at the priceless works of art, twirling mustaches no doubt as they eye the hapless tourists taking photos with iPads or rummaging through their purses jumbled with passports and multiple types of currency. These gangs even sometimes include children (taking advantage of the museum’s free admission for the young, like sly Oliver Twists).

Outsider art invades Paris

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:36:00 +0000

PARIS — For a brief time, a former Catholic seminary on Paris’ classy Boulevard Raspail was overtaken with a psychoanalyst’s jubilee of art from self-taught creators who worked in secret or seclusion, in mental asylums or hospitals, or just from their own particular perspective of the world. The Museum of Everything is a traveling exhibition started by British filmmaker James Brett in 2009 that’s been widely successful in its unique curation of overlooked art, having now collaborated with the Tate Modern and the Missoni fashion house. Its Exhibition #1.1 popped up from October 2012 to March 2013 in the Saint-Germain space of the Chalet Society, a project of Marc-Oliver Wahler, the former director and chief curator of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. I was lucky enough to catch it in its last days, and it was one of the most fascinating experiences I’ve had of viewing “outsider” art, as it’s usually classified, from the sheer overwhelming density of the work to the truly talented, and truly bizarre, artists corralled into one alternative arts space.

Fred Le Chevalier haunts the streets of Paris

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:29:00 +0000

PARIS — As I’ve been wandering the streets of Paris this week, one artist seems to be haunting my path with his dark and elegant street art. Fred le Chevalier, as he signs his work, has paste up drawings of red-lipped pale women posed with strange creatures like owls, large cats, and anthropomorphic suns. Each has its own identity while being immediately recognizable for their hand-drawn details and illustration style. And they’re prolific. I’ve come upon them all over the Marais, Bastille, and Montmartre neighborhoods, each work blending in with Paris’ own identity of beauty, but one that is often dark and strange, with its long twists of history winding through its alluring streets.

Paste ups by Fred le Chevalier

Porn shoots in Parisian catacombs? Mais oui!

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:38:00 +0000

When you think of settings for porn shoots, you usually think of a dingy soundstage with a lice-ridden mattress in the corner, or a fluorescent-lit, all-white living room in some sketchy producer's San Fernando Valley home. You usually don't think of eighteenth-century Parisian burial grounds.

Yet if reports from the Local, an English-language French newspaper, are to be trusted, that's exactly where scores of enterprising smut peddlars are headed. Recently, the historic Catacombs of Paris has become a popular destination for adult filmmakers, models, and photographers, who are heading sixty feet underground to shoot against the backdrop of millions of human skulls and skeletons.

A spokesman for the Musee Carnavelet, the company that manages the catacombs, says that they receive at least one request for permission to film or take photos there every week. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are not at all pleased with this trend.

“Obviously, we say no. This is a sacred place, which houses the remains of six million Parisians. We only allow serious or scientific documentaries,” the spokesman said.

Paris rallies to support same sex marriage

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 21:58:00 +0000

Tens of thousands of people marched in Paris on Sunday in support of a government-sponsored bill that would legalize marriage and adoption for same-sex couples.

Demonstrators waved banners emblazoned with phrases such as "Equality of rights is not a threat" as they began marching Sunday from Denfert-Rochereau square in the southern part of the city.

The march drew 125,000 demonstrators into the streets, according to police. That was well above the number counted by police at a similar march in December, but far less than the estimated 340,000 that turned out for a demonstration by those opposed to the proposal two weeks ago.

About 63% of French people favour legalising gay marriage, according to a survey released on Saturday, up from 60% in December.

The Socialist-dominated parliament is due to begin debate on the bill on Tuesday and is expected to pass it. If the bill is approved, France would become the 12th country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage.

Death by soap opera?

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 21:31:00 +0000

Soap opera-crazed Indonesia is watching a tragically ironic drama play out in the death of a 9-year-old, whose parents blame a hit soap for playing a role in their daughter's death.

"Love in Paris" is a romance starring a young starlet, actress Michelle Zudith, whose character suffers from leukemia and is expected to die before 20 -- a plot device that affects her search for love.

Ayu Tria Desiani was a 9-year-old who suffered leukemia in real life. According to the Jakarta Globe, she frequently required treatment in hospitals. After experiencing a burst blood vessel, the Globe reports, she was rushed to an ICU ward yesterday.

Turns out the ward was filled with atypical guests: the perfectly healthy cast and crew shooting a scene for "Love in Paris."

The greatest bookseller of all time: “Shakespeare and Company owns me”

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000

George Whitman reopened Shakespeare and Company Bookshop in Paris in the 1950s after the WWII Nazi occupation closed Sylvia Beach’s beloved store. In the Beach era, Shakespeare and Company had been a haven for the Lost Generation, and under Whitman’s guidance, it became a hub for Beat Generation writers like William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Whitman created an open-door policy for writers to sleep in his shop by night in return for their labor during store hours. He called them Tumbleweeds, and that tradition continues to this day. A few years ago, George retired, and handed over the reins to his daughter Sylvia Whitman. Last year, I took a trip to see George. He’d had a fall that morning, and Sylvia wasn’t sure if I should go up. But she checked in on him, returning with a vibrant smile, and led me up three flights of stairs and into his cozy room where George lay in bed. His bright sky-blue eyes instantly struck me — they were identical to his daughter’s — as did his sharp wit. The bookseller died a year ago today, at the age of 98. This is the last known interview with him.

George, what has it been like to own the world’s most famous bookshop?

An American alcoholic in Paris

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:37:00 +0000

Something odd occurred to me when I first got sober: “If I go to Paris, how will I not drink wine?”

It was this fantasy that stuck with me, of sitting in a charming Parisian café, wearing a boucle jacket, holding a glass of Rosé in one hand and a gold-tipped Nat Sherman in the other, and I was going to exchange this perfect set piece for what? Sobriety? Oh hell no.

Thankfully, I have always had good sponsors. And mine at the time said, “I’m sorry, are you in Paris right now?”

“Well, no….”

“Then I guess you don’t have to worry about that, do you?”

But guess what, dear old sponsor? I'm in Paris now.

Which gives me license to ask, nearly eight years since I first asked, does that glass of Rosé in Paris still sparkle? Yes it does.

Two weeks ago, I moved Los Angeles to Paris for graduate school. As you might expect, I have been to many, many Parisian cafés since I arrived (in fact, I have never drank so much coffee nor eaten so much bread in my life), and I have spent time watching people sit and drink—Rosé, chardonnay. But I do not crave the glass of Rosé sitting at the café. Because my cravings do not work the way normal people drink.