Sedulia

LATEST ARTICLES ( 315 )

• The New French Gesture: What is a Quenelle and Why Does Anyone Care?

  

  Unless you live in France, you may not have heard of the quenelle. Or thought of it, if you're a foodie, as a delicious fish dish. Read more

  Posted on 04 February 2014 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Paris: the Yellow Coin Collection

  

  I haven't felt like writing anything lately-- nothing to do with circumstances especially. Maybe I've just been in Paris too long. It doesn't feel fresh any... Read more

  Posted on 03 February 2014 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Paris: Hazing, the Revenge

  

  As I went into the supermarket on a Saturday before Christmas, I noticed that there was a Christmas fair at the Catholic school next door. Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Paris Post Office Incident

  

  Yesterday I had to go pick up a package from the post office, which is conveniently right around the corner and open till 7 p.m. Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Paris: the Lovable Metro Driver

  

  The métro pulled in to the Franklin D. Roosevelt station on the Champs-Élysées, one of the busiest stations in Paris, but no one got off. Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Paris Life: Buying Christmas Calendars from Public Employees

  

  Today, it was a tall African man outside my door, selling the calendars. The garbagemen make very little money, although they have good benefits, so I bought tw... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Anomalies of French Life: Defamation Laws

  

  "I want to die alive" Bob Dylan had some major ennuis in France last month, based on an interview he gave Rolling Stone in 2012 in which he made remarks that ar... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Paris Life: "quarter-price Admirals"

  

  An older French acquaintance of mine was talking about the military and for some reason we got on the subject of admirals. "I get the feeling a lot of people ar... Read more

  Posted on 02 December 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Anomalies of French Life: Autoroute Blockades

  

  Today, the truckers are blockading autoroutes all over France. Monday, it's the horse people. They're protesting against the new écotaxe. Why does this happen s... Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Paris Taxi Trouble? Ask for the Receipt

  

  Sorry I haven't written anything lately. Been feeling morose, like a lot of people in this weather! But Thanksgiving is coming and that's always a good thing.... Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• 11th November 1918: "The Sudden Silence Was the Voice of God"

  

  The great bell of Notre-Dame de Paris, Emmanuel, rang for eleven hours straight to proclaim the joy of the end to the First World War I will come to a time in m... Read more

  Posted on 11 November 2013 EXPAT, TRAVEL

• Paris Halloween

  

  The bust of Benjamin Franklin is by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, who knew Franklin, but apparently Franklin did not actually sit for the portrait. Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Posts from My First Year in Paris: the Big Children's Birthday Party

  

  Today I don't have much to write so I dredged up my diary for my first year in Paris. It was a pretty tough year, tempered by having cute little kids in the... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• "Ici C'est Paris!"

  

  Today I took a stroll through the Tuileries for the last day of the FIAC , a big modern art fair at the Grand Palais that includes public art in nearby spaces.... Read more

  Posted on 28 October 2013 EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Perils of Paris Life: Mimes

  

  The first time I ever saw a mime was in that wonderful movie, Children of Paradise, which a more sophisticated friend introduced me to when I was 19. Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Perils of Paris Life: Manifs (demonstrations)

  

  Pretty much every day in Paris, you run across demonstrations, large and small. On a recent Sunday at Trocadero, above the Eiffel Tower, there were four separat... Read more

  Posted on 21 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Woody Allen's Crime

  

  This is a perfectly nice (if overpriced) bookstore but it is not the original Shakespeare Co. Last night at a party I met a Chinese girl who spoke very good... Read more

  Posted on 20 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• Perils of Paris Life: Street-fashion Photographers

  

  A told me that while a friend from L.A. was visiting last month, they'd been photographed for a Paris street-fashion feature in a Japanese women's magazine.... Read more

  Posted on 18 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL

• The Tea Party (not That One) on the Pope

  

  One of my neighbors, whom I'll call Madame LeBlanc, had been very nice to some of my visitors during the summer, when I was away and they locked themselves... Read more

  Posted on 14 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION

• Anomalies of French Life: Obligatory Champagne

  

  Long ago when I arrived in France I met Polly Platt, author of the wonderful French or Foe?, a book I recommend to all expats in France. Polly died a few years... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2013 CULTURE, EXPAT, SELF EXPRESSION, TRAVEL