A reeeeally degrading Top Ten list, man...

Don’t you just hate Top Ten Lists? They’re soooo degrading. I mean really, how can you narrow down and chalk up and sort and sift through and screen and say who is – and isn’t – list-worthy? How does one come up with the criteria? And what does that criteria mean? And who’s to say that one’s criteria isn’t complete crap, that their priorities are misaligned, that their values are all out-of-whack, and that they’re perpetuating society’s increasingly fucked-up perspective on cool and cute and hip and hubba-hubba-hot? What gives one the right to play Top Ten List God? Who died and made Top Ten List writers the kings and queens and princes and princesses and dukes and duchesses and dauphines and dauphins of qui est in and qui est out ? Just where do they get off??!

They should be ashamed of themselves, those Top Ten List writers, in all of their subjectively objectifying glory. They’re like those scoogie guys on the corner who stand around all day scratching at their crotches and making those whistley-woofy dog sounds when a girl walks by, followed up by a “huit sur dix !!” or a “nice legs – too bad about the face!” I bet they think they’re really something. I bet they all think that they’re a ten sur ten. No, non, I bet those knobs are like the knobs on that amp in This Is Spinal Tap! I bet they all think they’re an 11. I bet they all think that they’re God’s gift to Top Ten Lists. Oh, you just know they do.

Jerks.

Meanwhile, I don’t know if you know this but in Paris there are a lot of cute men. Frenchmen – all French and manly (well, in a French way) and fine. Running loose in the streets and the rues and the courtyards and the passageways…especially now, especially since it’s September, especially since they’re all back from the South for la rentrée, hair all surfy and sun-bleached and just so. You know that little petite moi wouldn’t descend so far as to create a list — you know me. And this isn’t really a list at all — it’s more of a rundown. You know, in an effort to assist you in your French education. (Oh, and it’s in no particular order. Not really. Anyway . . .)

10. Frédéric Taddeï

Ooooooh…O.K., I’m gonna break my own rule, just this once, just this one time, and when you take a look at him I think you’ll understand. (Quit looking at him like that!) (Bitch!!) You know, that he can’t be called anything else but a 10-out-of-10. The loosened tie? The goofy-boyish grin? The way he actually looks interested in what his guests are actually saying? The way he actually looks like he knows what they’re talking about? Ce soir ou jamais ! – it’s the name of his show. “Tonight or Never.” Well said, Fréd.

9. That Boy In The Métro (Line Two)

I saw you, you saw me . . . and something, Some Thing, un petit truc, passed between us. (Well, O.K., perhaps it was merely my Pariscope, which you borrowed because your iPhone was on the fritz, and you’d forgotten which cinéma on which quai in that dual-MK2 cinéma/resto complex thingy they built up over there along the Bassin de la Villette.) You were running late, late, late for a very important date, late for dinner and a movie. Dommage. Nice flippy-floppy hair, but too bad about the girlfriend. Oh, and not to be degrading or anything, but I’d give you a sept (7) sur dix (10). Lose the extra girl-baggage and I’ll give you an 8.5.

Monsieur Bové and his waxed moustache

8. José Bové

O.K. Ok-a-a-a-y. So he kinda looks like the leader of your dad’s Harley Owners’ Group. The one that spends far too much time twirling wax into his moustache. But he did blow up a McDonald’s (no casualties except us chickens!) and he did start the last election campaign from jail, which, you gotta admit, is kinda rad in that bad-boy/rad-boy/jail cell kind of way. Six-sur-dix (I know, I know) … I’d bump it up to a seven if it wasn’t for those awful denim shirts. (José, chéri, Paris is prolific in producing unemployed stylists…give me a buzz and I’ll introduce you to some, sometime.) (Petite question : What do you wear on a date to go and blow up McDonald’s?)

7. Le Garçon de La Timbale

You kinda know you’re hubba-hubba-hot, don’t you, as you sit there all slinky and sexy and smooth, stirring your coffee on the terrasse of La Timbale? You’re kinda the reason I take that route to get to Monoprix in the mornings – you know, the one that takes you right past the café? You kinda remind me a lot of Slash – you know, back in the good ol’ poofy poodle hair days, when he could still afford the good drugs. Except that underneath that ten-gallon top hat, I don’t think Slash was hiding an ever-expanding bald spot. Too bad about yours. Huit sur dix. Get your own ten-gallon hat and you’ll get your own neuf.

6. Jean-Marie Périer

I’ve always wondered whether Jean-Marie boasted the nickname Jules or Jim – you know, after that movie Jules et Jim starring Jeanne Moreau? – during that period when he alternated between playing second and third wheel in the whole Périer-Hardy-Dutronc love triangle. Talk about a typically French ménage à trois ! Nice photography, though. And while she’s never been my type, he did sleep with la Bardot back in her day. Which is something. The high-waisted pants, however, have got to go. Still, for an old dude, he’s pretty sexy, so I’ll give him a break by giving him a nine. Maybe the whole high-waisted trip is a generational thing?

5. Frédéric Beigbeder

The thing is, I didn’t put Frédéric Beigbeder on this list … not voluntarily anyway. He broke into my computer and added himself. I swear! He’s that way, you know. This is a guy who, on the dedication pages of his books, dedicates them – (“À moi !”) – to himself. I’ve never read 99 francs – his exposé on working in advertising – but you gotta admit that it is kinda cool he got fired “as planned,” by Young & Rubicam upon its publication. But for a guy who claims to know so much about ads, you’d think he’d know a little more about Photoshop. I mean, what was with that Galeries Lafayette advertisement that ran a couple of summers ago in the Métro, the one featuring him with a three-day beard but no chest hair? What’s with that? Cinq sur dix. Some of us like real men. (Oh, and I’ll check back later to make sure he hasn’t broken back in to raise his score.)

4. That Other Boy On The Métro (Line Four)

This time it was your Blackberry that was on the fritz, this time you were going to the MK2 Hautefeuille cinéma on the Left Bank. Nice nerve making fun of me for buying the Pariscope . . . after flipping through it. And what’s with walking me all the way to the cinéma – we were going to see the same film – and then you ditching me as if you had never even seen me before? And what’s with your girlfriend’s fashion taste? Doesn’t she know that those hippie pants look like diapers? Soooo unflattering to hippie-hips. I’ll give you a quatre-sur-dix, but that’s just because of my high esteem for cheekbones.

BHL: Representing Lame and Nice Hair

3. Nicolas Sarkozy

Ummm . . . so joking about this one.

2. Bernard-Henri Levy (dite BHL)

Yeah, he made The List, because some of us don’t discriminate, and someone has to represent Lame. Nice hair; too bad about the writing. God, so self-indulgently annoying, yet also so annoyingly self-indulgent. I’ll give him a two-out-of-ten, though. But that’s just because I want to know what hair product he uses. Do they give him the TV- philosopher’s discount?

1. That Other-Other Boy On The Métro From The Other-Other-Other Night (Line 12)

Hello?! Pouty-Lips? The Line 12 is not the kind of Métro line on which we drink beer. In public. And then spill it on nice girls’ Pariscopes. And by the way, beer’s not so great for iPhones, either. Did you ever make it to your movie date at La Pagode? Like I care. (You do get a sept-sur-dix for the lips, but that’s only because I have an imagination and can imagine them when you’re not slobbering.) A tip? Get your own Pariscope, Monsieur 1664.

Paris, home of sleek, chic femmes non?

Ah, Paris! Fashion capital of the world. Home of sexy-sleek women with sultry-sexy sex hair, wearing sleek-chic suits and chic-sleek heels. While steering slick-sleek SmartCars (or sometimes Minis or Maseratis) (or pigeon-poop spattered Renaults . . . in that kind of slick-sleek Jackson Pollock-y pigeon-poopy way…) between visits to slick-sleek boutiques employing super-chic-sleek salesgirls. Paris. It’s one big museum, a catwalk the size of a city, a living, breathing, come-to-life issue of Vogue . . . and while wandering and whirling and twirling and swirling amidst all the scarves and the suits and the silks, you can’t help wondering: “Where did she get those pants?”

And: “Who does she think she is, wiggling around in them that way, as if she were God’s gift to butt floss?”

And then: “Bitch!!”

And finally: “I’m gonna get her arrested.”

Whaaat? Wait:

Ladies, chances are you wear the pants in your family. Even though, you know, you let him think he does. (And if you do, don’t worry, I’m feminist-lite  – toute l’attitude, half the calories! – but a realist, too, so you won’t be getting any lectures from moi.) But be careful when boasting and bragging and gabbing about it to your girlfriends, be sure you really know who your real friends are. Really. Because if any, or all, or some, or even one of them is having one of those “I feel fat and worthless” kind of days, and then thinks your ass is cuter than hers, well . . . She just might get jealous. She just might crave sickly-sweet-scrumptiously-satisfying revenge. And the next thing you know, you and your heart-shaped, Comme des Garçons-clad derrière have wound up in jail. A French jail. Manned by French cops. And that would be bad. Because French jails are bad. (Just ask the E.U. – they’re frequently fining France for it.) People are always committing suicide in French jails, and not in that glamorously-addled-Valley Of The Dolls-Patty Duke “I’m Neely O’Hara, dammit!”-champagne-and-sleeping pills kinda way. So when it comes to French jails, try to stay out.

Whaaaaaat? Wait. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Let’s go back in time, back to the turn of a century, back to the fall, in Paris, in 1799. Le préfet de police de Paris (that’s ‘police chief’) signs a law prohibiting women from wearing pants, unless they could prove they’d ditched their skirts for medical reasons. Clearly, Monsieur le Préfet was a leg man. The law remained on the books . . . until 1968, when somebody asked the new Monsieur le Préfet to take it off. (The law, not his pants.) But he was a leg man, too. So he refused.

The law’s still technically on the books, even though – sure, O.K., all right, fine – technically it’s not being enforced. Kinda like that new law they’re trying to push through – you know, the one that says you can’t wear a burqa? Sure, if anyone’s gonna tell everyone what everybody should wear, it should be France, but for a country so fascinated with fashion, you’d think they’d be a little more flexible, a little more open-minded, slightly less coincé. I mean, for us girls, it’s difficult enough. If they keep coming up with new and exciting restrictions, things’ll be even harder. Don’t they know that each morning it’s already a struggle, as we groggily face the godforsaken closet and ask that scary-searing the-outcome-of-the-entire-day-depends-on-it question: What am I going to wear?

And if we can’t wear pants or burqas, what are we supposed to put on…mini-skirts? Every day? All the time? Tous les jours ? Try that in my neighborhood. Go ahead, you’ll see what I mean. My neighborhood is made up of an entire quartier of leg men, from the préfets and garbagemen and gadabouts right on down. Wear a mini-skirt in my neighborhood and you’re guaranteed to make new friends. Oh sure, all right, O.K., fine – no one’s denying that it’s a little flattering. Especially on those “I feel fat and worthless” kind of days. And when we’re not trying to abuse them and lose them and bail on them and bail them out once we’ve got them arrested for wearing pants when we’re having one of those “I feel fat and worthless” kind of days, you gotta admit we need friends. But most of these ‘friends,’ the ones in my neighborhood, aren’t the kind you want or need. Sure, they can spit real good to impress you as they’re out there barking and hollering and hooting at you in the street, but that’s about it. We all know that with relationships of the deep, meaningful, profound, earth-shattering variety, good spitting skills count, sure, but they only take a couple so far. So when it comes to the wearing of pants or burqas or mini-skirts or otherwise, I’m all for a little liberté.

Carla looking demure for a change...

But Ladies, when it comes to liberté, my ferociously-acute feminist-lite realistic instincts tell me that we’re really not gonna get it. I mean, everyone knows that since Nicolas Sarkozy took l’Élysée, la France has become more flicquée. That’s ‘copped-up,’ not ‘mobbed-up’ in case you’re wondering, but hell, admettons, it’s the same damn thing. And poor Carla Bruni – la première dame, current rock star, ex-top model (French accent obligatoire) and present First Lady of France – poor Carla seems to have silently succumbed to the situation. For the Bastille Day Parade? You know, the one on July 14th? The one with all the horses and légionnaires and planes and tanks and guns? No pants, no siree, non, nope, nein, at least not on Carla. (She wore a dress, a simple one, and – gasp! – flats!!) So don’t look to Carla –she has no pull. Or, apparently, any pants.

One more thing: You know about the plan d’austérité, the big deal that France and Germany and Spain and a bunch of other countries have been going on about, ever since it all hit the fan with Greece? Where they promise – promise! – to cut government-funded housing for bureaucrats and government-funded cars for bureaucrats and government-funded government funding for bureaucrats to make it look like they’re really, actually, in truth, honestly – promise! – frugalling-up?  Well, it’s hit fashion, too. The austerity plan, that is. Because on Carla? At the Bastille Day Parade? In her simple dress and simple flats? Not one single-simple rock, no stones, no jewels, surtout pas de bijoux. It was a shame, really, because aside from the colonial-style marching demonstrations from all of the ‘special guest star’ West African ex-colonial armies? There really wasn’t much to bitch about.

But the larger, farther-reaching, paramount, all-important issue is: If Carla Bruni can’t wear pants or burqas or bijoux, what’s to become of the common (wo)man, the proles, Jo(sephine) Blow, le petit peuple ? The next time we’re groggily standing in front of our closets, how will we resolve that life-altering question: What am I going to wear?

The Italians showing off those zigomi

Nothing like cheekbones to transform a girl into a full-fledged fan of le foot. Ahhhh – cheekbones. Sweet, smooth, sometimes-stubbly, sexy-sultry macho-macho-manly, cherubic-but-chiseled cheekbones. Especially French cheekbones – les pommettes. Although the ones on the Italians (zigomi) and the ones on the Brazilians (os pômulos) and the ones on the Argentineans (los pómulos) are pretty hubba-hubba-hot, too. Don’t cry for moi, Argentina! Cry over those gorgeous cheekbones!!

(Have you ever noticed when they actually play Argentina’s national anthem before they actually play an actual football game . . . have you ever noticed how some of the players actually do kinda break down and cry? And how the tears sort of glisten there, and actually accentuate their Argentinean cheekbones?)

Anyway. I’m talking cheekbones, as in World Cup Cheekbones. That’s World Cup Football Cheekbones for some of us and World Cup Soccer Cheekbones for others of us. La Coupe du monde du foot (des pommettes), to be precise. And France, France – well, say what you want about Her, but when it comes to producing great cheekbones, She’s got it down to an art. Or a science. Or a sport. Go ahead –  allez, Les Bleus ! – tune in and look and see and watch for yourselves. But do it quick, like right in the beginning – before the eighth-finals and the semi-eighth finals and the semi-quarter finals and the quarter finals and the after-quarter finals and the semi-semi finals and the semi-demi-quadruple finals  – because judging from l’Équipe de France’s performance in the leading-up-to-the-real-thing friendly-preparatory matchs amicaux, well, let’s just say that France didn’t perform so well. Let’s just say that when it came to their performance, ça n’a pas été du tout. Let’s just say that when it came to their command of the ball, well, they flubbed in the foot department more than a few times. (I mean they lost to China! To China! In a match against the Chinese! Didn’t even score one goal! Against the Chinese!) (Not that I have anything against China or the Chinese or the undeniable beauty of Chinese cheekbones, but. . .) (Losing? To the Chinese? To China?) Let’s just say that’s probably why Carrefour – you know, the place where you can get fish andfromage and Faugères and filet mignon and trinkets and trivets and TVs – well, let’s just say that it’s probably why they have a promotion on the premises that promises a 100-percent reimbursement on the purchase of a plasma screen. If Les Bleus really actually truly win. The entire thing, entirely. Let’s just say that if I was some kind of football dictator, and I saw these French players farting around with all of these flubs and flops and flips and fits and farts and faux pas, I would not be très amicale. Non, I’d be demanding a decrease in their pay. And the repossession of their German 4×4’s. And the firing of their coach, Raymond Domenech. (I mean, what is up with that guy?) (How has he managed to hold onto his job?) (Has he got the right pictures of the right guy with the wrong underage high-priced hooker or what?) (Oops – well in a way he kinda does, or at least he kinda probably tried to prevent photos from being taken in an effort to save a few of his players – especially Franck Ribéry – from taking the flack that followed the big scandale involving Ribéry and an underage prostitute that worked in a ring that worked out of a café on the Champs-Élysées. . .) (And what’s up with that? If you’re a footballer, do you really ever need to pay for sex? Or is it just that you really need a real professional that can really keep up with your, er, athletic stamina?  Preferably a young one?)

But that’s not the real story. The real story is cheekbones. Real French cheekbones. So here it really goes:

Chiselled cheekbones on Mr Malouda

For the most discerning football fans, the finest cheekbones belong to Florent Malouda. Ooooh, Florent – when it comes to cheekbones, his really are the most refined. Then there’s Thierry Henry’s and Nicolas Anelka’s (hellloooo, Nico!), and Bacary Sagna’s and Alou Diarra’s and Djibril Cissé’s and the ones belonging to Eric Abidal. So you can see that on the cheekbone front, when it comes to cheekbones, the determining factor that so few of my fellow sportswriters seem to comprehend, to grasp, to caress . . . Team France – Les Bleus – is really in pretty fine shape. And form. And function. And, it goes without saying, physique. When it comes to their Cheekbone Strategy, Les Bleus really got it goin’ on.

Of course, the Argentineans aren’t unaware of the power of los pómulos either, which is clearly why they do the whole crying for Argentina thing whenever their national anthem sounds. Because think about it: Tears of the big, hot, wet crocodile-tear variety are a strategic accessory for highlighting and tracing and drawing attention to and pointing out supremely sculpted, shaped, statuesque, modeled-and-formed museum-ready facial structure. When those Argentineans turn on the waterworks, you just can’t help but forget everything else. All you can think about is their status as (hot, passionate, fiery, Latin) lovers. You know, lovers as in lovers – not fighters. As in Make Football Love, Not Football War. That’s how they get you. So you gotta watch out for them.

Then there’s the issue of the Italians, or, more specifically, their hair. Like cheekbones, hair is a big factor in le foot – everyone knows that. Have you ever wondered if the Italian team is sponsored by Pantene? Or Prell — no, not Prell; too drying —  or Garnier or Desert Essence or Elsève or Vidal Sassoon or L’Oreal? I’ve never noticed any of those logos on any of their jerseys, but that’s mainly-mostly because I haven’t been paying any attention. I’ve been analyzing other stuff, like how those long, lush, lustrous locks offset those perfectly prominent cheeks. Bellissimo ! And have you ever wondered, when one of the Italian players is “injured,” and he throws himself down and starts thrashing around and it’s all so obvious and over-the-top and operatic, and then the rest of his team shows up, entering from stage left or stage right or from plain up front-and-center, all spear-carrier and soldier and chorus-like at the climax of the big hit, the reprised over-and-over-again song, the power-ballad, the reason we all showed up . . . Have you ever wondered if the Italians have super- secret-subversive training sessions at Milano’s opera house, La Scala? Surely they must, judging from the way that – as they’re thrashing and thrusting and throwing themselves around on the turf – the way that they know precisely how to pitch and position and poise and pose so that their hair frames their cheekbones just right. Those Italians, they really know how to put on a primo performance! It makes you wanna start humming the theme from “The Barber of Seville.”

(Remember last time around, at the last World Cup, how in the last game in the last round of finals at the last minute one of the Italian players received a top ticket-price-worthy head butt from French favorite, Zinedine Zidane? Playing his last game at his last World Cup ever? They say it was because the Italian insulted him, but I’m not sure that I buy it. This was his last game, his last performance, his last production number, his swan song, his grand finale after all. There would be no more reprises, no more encores, no more understudies, no more supporting tenors or back-ups or back-up chorus and the whole bordel. He wanted to do it up right. He wanted to go out like a primo uomo. Bravo, Zindane, bravo ! Molto bene !! Fortissimo !!)

Don’t worry – I haven’t forgotten about the Brazilians. Who, among us full-fledged football fans, could? We serious sports strategists/analysts know a thing or two about the Brazilians; mainly-mostly this:  that with them it’s got less to do with cheekbones and hair and mainly-mostly that it’s got more to do with something Further Down. You know what I mean. Because when they’re out there on that field? Spinning and swirling and whirling and wiggling and pirouetting and minuet-ing and samba-ing that ball across the turf? It’s like The Village People-meets-Fred Astaire-meets- the full original cast of Carmen-meets-Gilberto Gil and they’re all onstage (oops, le gazon) together.

Erik Estrada, king of the workout

They know how to shake those Brazilian booties, those boot-iful Brazilians, and let’s face it, it’s a beautiful thing to watch. Makes me wonder why they, of all teams in all the world, gave up on Seventies football fashion. You know, the short-shorts. (Kinda like the ones that you see Erik Estrada wearing on old re-runs of C.H.i.P.S – even though he’s not Brazilian, and even though in C.H.i.P.S. he mainly-mostly ever wore a cop outfit except for the short-short scenes, rather short in length, when they showed him, in short spurts, working out.) (I know C.H.i.P.S has nothing to do with football, but when I think of short-shorts I always think of Erik Estrada…working out…)

I still don’t know who I’m putting my money on, but it may well be Brazil. Especially if those cute, wiggly, tight-butted Brazilians take my advice. And they should – I am a serious sports strategist/analyst/fashion consultant after all. They should really consider the whole short-shorts thing.

Or hell, better yet – what about hot pants?

Shop here if you're splashing the cash

To speak of grocery-shopping in Paris, we must speak of war. To speak of war, I’d like to propose the Parisian grocery store. Ever been grocery-shopping in Paris? No, not in the, ‘Chéri, let’s buy a bottle of water before we climb that big set of steps leading up to Sacré Coeur,’ kind of way. And no, not in the, ‘Chou-chou, let’s hit that cute-typique-authentique bakery shop and that cute-typique-authentique cheese shop and that cute-typique-authentique wine shop and that cute-authentique-typique butcher shop with the cute-typique-authentique French butcher with the chubby red face and the chubby black moustache and the chubby red pencil behind his chubby pink ear, so we can bring it all back to our sublet vacation rental in the Marais – sooo typique !! – and play chubby wooden-beamed French house,’ kind of way, either. I mean, really grocery-shopping?

You’re missing out. And not just on the cheap wine. Because if you live here and love here and exist here and subsist here and go grocery-shopping here, on a regular basis, regularly, you’re a damned-by-default social commentator. No, non, you’re a philosopher. No,non, excusez-moi, you’re a sociologist. With a minor in philosophy and another minor in social commentary and a major in patience, and . . . Well, bref. If you’re paying attention, patiently, while you’re grocery-shopping in Paris, you only have to go a few times to know more than Alexis de Tocqueville ever gathered about democracy and/or the United States and Bernard Henri-Levy will ever gather about anything, including how to achieve wispy-wavy-wistfully philosophical, democratically dramatic French hair.

I’m talking Monoprix (when your deadbeat clients finally pay you) and Franprix (when your deadbeat clients say they’re going to pay you, and offer a check number and mail date and everything) and E.D. (when you start asking yourself if your deadbeat clients are ever going to pay you) and Leader Price (when you finally conclude that your deadbeat clients are just a bunch of damn deadbeats, and that from them you are going to see the dough, le pognon, le fric, le blé never, ever, plus jamais, again). Because: if you look and you watch and you observe and you see, and you’re in a grocery store in Paris, you’ve pretty much got a handle on French society. And how it works. And how it doesn’t work. And how it sort-of works. And how it is.

Let’s take a step back, back behind the safety of the Maginot Expess Line. You know how some countries are called The People’s Republic Of Wherever and The People never have a say in anything? Or how some other countries have snappy-smart slogans about progress and achievement and freedom and justice but the word-count limit doesn’t allow for the part about ‘for those with Swiss bank accounts?’ France has a slogan, too, you know: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Means ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’ in English. Or, ‘liberty, equality, brotherhood,’ but that latter translation always pisses the feminists off. Anyway, France has a slogan, and I feel sorry for the poor slob who wrote it. His word-count limit was strict! Because there’s another word the French really love, and that’s solidarité. In English, it means ‘solidarity;’ in French, it means chacun pour sa gueule. Which is just a slightly less-polite way of saying every man for himself. Or every woman for herself. Sorry.

Again, grocery-shopping in Paris? C’est la guerre. As you may recall, the French know War. Or at least they’ve been in and around and beside and above and underneath and in the vicinity of one or two. And just like good old-fashioned fix-your-bayonet-and-off-we-go trench-warfare, the Battle of le Supermarché demands its own set of weapons and warfare and strategies and tactics and torture and Machiavellian/Sun Tzu-esque art. Because there are buggy-blockades and basket-caches, and unstoppable tank-like caddy-chariots and knee-capping baby strollers weighed down with fierce French babies, and even dual-strollers and dual-babies, and their single mothers and their elbows . . . dual-elbows . . . . and tsk-tsks and oh là là’s and hurled insults and free zones and occupied territories and collaborators and collateral damage and denunciations and friendly fire and plain-old prison-camp psychology when all you’re trying to do is stand in line. Or tunnel out. It’s a jungle out there – or in there, as it were – and silly is the soldier without a strategy all their own. Un pour tous, tous pour un ! Chacun pour sa gueule ! Solidarity forever! Bombs and baskets and buggies away!!

In Germany, even though the grocery stores are a bit more – how you say? – civilisés, they can’t stop talking about war. Especially that Second Big One of theirs. In France, they talk about war, too, every now and then, quite often, sometimes, and sometimes, quite often, every now and then it’s about the Second Big One as well, but that’s mainly on the Arte TV channel (where every Wednesday night is Nazi Night – don’t forget the schnitzel!) and one mainly surmises that that’s because, mainly, Arte is half-owned by the Germans. Because while the Germans are mainly trying to remember so that they mainly don’t forget, the French would like to forget mainly. Not the entirety of war per se, and not the Second Big One, entirely, but there are a few specific specifics, a few damning details, a handful of horrifically horrible horrendous horrors that mainly place into question the real French definition of the term solidarité. Like: Did L’Academie Française quietly declare it synonymous with collaboration somewhere between, say, 1939 and 1945?

Not a question posed in director Roselyne Bosch’s new film, La rafle. In fact, more to the point, La rafle poses few questions. In point of fact, as the unfortunately-named Bosch points out, pointedly, in a pointed interview in the in-house magazine distributed at strategic drop-off points by the movie chain UGC, the point of La rafle was not to question, no, but simply to show: “It couldn’t, at any price, place blame or emphasize the good points. . . I contented myself to show what happened, and I leave the viewer to find the admirable and to condemn, in their mind, the Vichy government, whose decisions – it must be made very clear – went against those of the French populace.” (Huh?) (WTF???) Really???? Er. . . I don’t know. Maybe Ms. Bosch gets her groceries delivered. Oh sure, go to any real French dinner party with any real French people at it, and somewhere along the line you’re sure to hear a real, honest-to-goodness, real-life, surely based-on-a-true-story story about how somebody’s uncle or cousin or grandfather or great aunt or long-lost bastard brother was surely a part of the Résistance, but . . . Once again, have you ever been grocery-shopping in Paris? I mean, really grocery-shopping? Giving you the real-life, true-blue, honest-to-goodness opportunity to experience, first-hand, on the front lines, in-the-trenches, the real French application of the concept of solidarité ?

Monsieur Jean Reno in La rafle

Here’s the based-on-a-true-story story: La rafle recounts the real-life, actual, entered-in-the-history-books tale of La grande rafle du Vél d’Hiv, when, over the course of July 16 and 17, 1942, the French police, in collaboration with the French Vichy government, in an incrediblecoup of collaboration and cooperation and complaisance with the German Gestapo and the German Führer and the German Nazis, rounded up 13,000-some-odd French Jews, their own fellow countrymen, their own neighbors-parisiens, all libre-like and égal and fraternale and solidaire, and packed them into the Vélodrome d’Hiver, a sports stadium designed not to hold Jews, but bicycle races. While it was far from being the only rafle the French police ever staged, La rafle du Vél d’Hiv was the biggest round-’em-up-and-ship-’em-out job the French authorities had ever conducted on behalf of their Nazi occupiers in the history of the Second World War.

So there they were, 13,000-some-odd-Jews, French Jews to be precise, some who had immigrated and done the paperwork and been naturalized and some who had even fought for the French in the First Big One too, there they were, right there in the Vélodrome d’Hiver, right there in the XV arrondissement, right there not far from the lovely Eiffel Tower, rounded up, herded, pushed and prodded and pronged by the French-Parisian police into one cacophonous cell, an ante-chamber to the ones where the real business at hand would eventually take place. It was a waiting room of sorts, only without the back issues of Marie-Claire and Marianne and Elle and Glamour and Vogue. The medical staff was skeletal, and there was no food to speak of; there wasn’t any running water, either, nor toilets or showers or sinks. There was, however, alternately, en abondance, the stench of sweat and vomit and urine and feces and fear. The weakest dropped dead; the more proactive took their own lives, and anyone who tried to escape. . . well, the gendarmes did the job for them. The rest waited, and suffered, and waited and suffered some more, until several days later they were once again herded and hoarded and harried and harangued into the buses that took them to the trains, and then into the trains that took them to the non-Michelin Guide-approved, un-starred accommodations they would temporarily inhabit in the camps of Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers and Drancy. Next stop after that? For most of them, Auschwitz. Also, for most of them, when talking ‘accommodations,’ temporary. For those who managed to make it that far, bien entendu.

It had a cute little code name, La rafle du Vél d’Hiv : ‘Vent printannier.’ Means ‘Operation Spring Cleaning’ in English. Sure, O.K., all right fine, it was July, you gotta admit. But you gotta also admit ‘Summer Cleaning’ didn’t have the same ring to it. It just didn’t pop.

Here’s the kicker: The Gestapo’s quota for this particular mid-summer spring-cleaning sale was 22,000 Jews. But the French police, under instructions from the super-ambitious-dynamique-initiative-taking Vichy government salesman Pierre Laval, were aiming for 27,361. Vichy, in true-bureaucratic-blue, épaulette-sporting, paper-pushing, fastidiously-French fashion, had conducted a census, after all, which had been carefully, complicitly, conscientiously conceived of and compiled and composed by the tediously tenacious André Tulard – the guy in charge of the distribution of the yellow stars. The fichier Tulard has since been mainly-mostly-meticulously destroyed, but at the time it offered an extremely helpful and detailed breakdown of the Jews that resided in Paris. Think of it as a sort of telephone book for which you don’t have the right to request an unlisted number. (Oh, wait — that’s the Internet.) And the listings comprised so many more than a mere 22,000 Jews. For there were, of course, the women to think of . . . and then there were the children! So this time, for the very first time, for this very ambitious and arduous Spring Cleaning, the French didn’t just pawn off French-Jewish men, but their wives and offspring, too. The Gestapo really didn’t want ’em, but it eventually saw Pierre Laval’s point: once their parents were carted off, what was the famous French social system supposed to do with a bunch of screeching, squalling, weeping, wailing, wandering Jewish orphans? It was, you gotta admit, un gros problème.

So they brought the quota up, way up, to 27,631. Why, then, in the end, at the end of two days, for this particularly purposeful and purposefully-planned rafle, were only 13,152 Jews rounded up? In an interview with À Paris, the quarterly propaganda rag published by the Paris City Hall, historian Annette Wieviorka attributes this to the “true solidarity of the Parisian people,” hailing all of the concièrgesand restaurateurs and non-Jewish families and the odd rebellious French cop or two for helping to hide and hole-up and rescue and save over 10,000 Jews. Once again: Er . . . um . . . I don’t know. Some historians and some movie-makers have a funny way of cooking the books, flambée-ing the facts, depending on who they’re selling their books and movies to, and if sales are good enough, everyone can afford to get their groceries delivered, skipping the notoriously troublesome cheese aisle altogether. So let’s, for a moment, let’s forget the numbers. And let’s, solidarily, for solidarity’s sake, let’s consider the following:

The ever charming Jacques Chirac

It took until 1994 for them to get around to erecting a monument – in Paris, of all places, veritable capitale of monuments, where monuments breed like mosquitoes – in memory of the victims of La rafle du Vélodrome d’Hiver. (It’s in the XV arrondissement, on the quai de Grenelle . . . not far, once again, from the Eiffel Tower, for you touristy types!) It took until a year later for a French government official – it was the newly-elected President Jacques Chirac – to recognize, publicly, in a snappy little speech, France’s participation in and responsibility for aiding and abetting and assisting the Nazis in sending its own citizens to their deaths. There are plaques on the Parisian schools in memory of the deported Jewish schoolchildren . . . those started, started appearing about 2000, 2001. And while Vichy super-salesman Pierre Laval was executed in 1945, André Tulard – the yellow star guy, remember him? – escaped prosecution, and kept his grade de chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur to boot. Maurice Papon, who oversaw similar rafles in and around Bordeaux, enjoyed a stellar post-war career. Once done with the Jews, he moved on to the Algerians and, as chief of the Paris police force during the course of the Algerian War, was implicated in the October 17th Massacre of 1961, during which Parisian cops slaughtered hundreds of pro-independence Algerian protestors and threw their bodies in the Seine. Papon wasn’t prosecuted for his crimes against humanity until 1998, and he only did three years of his ten-year sentence because, pauvre bébé, he was old and, as legend has it, he had a weak heart. Yes, mesdames et messieurs, legend has it that Maurice Papon actually had a heart! Only he placed more priority on its health than he did on the hearts of Jews. And the hearts of Algerians. And pretty much every other heart deemed to be part of a France-related minority that he could get his grubby genocidal hands on. Vive la solidarité ! Ain’t it magnifique ?

La rafle, which covers an event, a major one, one that took place way, way, waaayyyy back in 1942, is the first full-fledged treatment of La rafle du Vél d’Hiv in the history of French cinema. Might make those of you who think Hollywood took its time to attack America’s role in the war in Viet Nam, well, it might make you think differently. And it must be stated, as far as World War II movies go (in fact they should think about putting this in the testimonials featured in the trailer): Finally, a Holocaust film that’s even worse than Schindler’s List! Because La rafle is bad. Really bad. Surprisingly bad – even though you know as soon as you see the movie poster that it’ll be pretty bad because it’s starring Jean Reno and any film with Jean Reno in it isn’t going to be any good. (What? You think I’m being harsh? I have three words for you: Da Vinci Code. Two more: Luc Besson. Four more: Collaborated with Luc Besson.) (Need I say more?) (O.K. — Godzilla.) It’s a shame, because Jean Reno seems like a nice guy, even if he is close friends with Sarko. But like his taste in friends and French presidents and directors and dictators, he has lousy taste in scripts. La rafle is so bad it makes you wanna cry, which is the only reason you wanna cry during this film because the actual movie is so bad and cheesy and embarrassing and uncapitivating that it could keep you from crying during a raging case of PMS. You know, one of those spells where you cry at TV commercials about telephone plans that urge you to ‘reach out and touch someone?’ Yeah, that bad. Really, really baaad. Soooo bad it’s a catastrophe.

But wait! There’s worse: You know the Vélodrome d’Hiver – the sports stadium that once held bicycle races before it held Jews? They tore it down in 1959. In its place, up until 2007: the domestic counter-intelligence offices of the Ministère de l’Interieur. You know: The far-reaching French governmental body that’s in charge of the French police. Soon to be a division of Franprix. Clean-up on Aisle Trois, s’il vous plaît . . .

Or, as Fraulein Direktor so pointedly said: “I contented myself to show what happened, and I leave the viewer to find the admirable and to condemn, in their mind, the Vichy government, whose decisions – it must be made very clear – went against those of the French populace.”

Bienvenue à Monoprix; the Express Line starts over there.

Dear Certain Journalist,

Hey! How’s it goin’? Or, I guess you guys say, ‘Comment ça va ?’ Well, that’s about all I know in French for now.

So I’m coming to France in a couple of weeks, and I’m kinda broke. Can I sleep on your couch?

Sincerely,
A. Dude

Dear Dude,

Thanks! This totally reminds me that I have to book that rental truck for my trip to Ikea! They were on strike a few weeks ago, you see, and there was absolutely no way I was going to set foot in the store at Roissy then. En plus, you never – ever – want to go to Ikea on a Saturday, what with all the squealing, squalling, slurping, glurping little brats running around bouncing Swedish meatballs off one another. Weeknights are out, too. I mean, what’s with the couples that seem to think Ikea is the ideal perfect theatre-of-cruelty in which to play out their bitter resentments, their unresolved issues, their prickly-petty pet peeves, their irreconcilable differences? Really, those Ikea people who run Ikea should think about opening a divorce court. They could tuck it away somewhere in the back of that enormous basement alongside the discount slightly-damaged furniture. Pre-packed divorces with funky names like skilsmässa rörig or skilsmässa grotig or skilsmässa kinkig! And they could bundle them with a deal on furnishings for your new place!

Oh, and I don’t have a couch. Oopsie.

Francifully Yours,
Caro-leen
——————

Dear Carolyn,

I know we haven’t spoken in, like, five years or something, since when you decided to just up and abandon Vancouver and me, but really that’s your fault ever since you stopped taking my calls. (BTW, I finally did find someone to lend me the cash to repair my vintage tweed Fender Twin amp, just so you know.) But the Marshall stack is still in the shop.

So anyway, I got this call from a major promoter who’s based in France. He really digs my stuff. Says I’m definitely going to be the next Thom Yorke! But in France! He’s got genius taste. So anyway, he’s set up this whole huge tour thing for me — for us — and I’ll be passing through Paris in a couple of weeks. And then we’re coming back through a few weeks after that. He says this is more of a promotional tour, and he’s not paying for hotels. Would it be O.K. if I crashed on your couch?

EXEXEXEXEXEX, Your Ex That You Abandoned In Canada

Dear Dumbass,

Thrilled beyond words to learn that your whining has finally been compared to someone who actually succeeds at making money at being a professional whiner. Really, this is great news for you.

About the couch: That would be a non. Don’t have one. They’re expensive – and I’m still finishing off the bills you stuck me with. I sleep on park benches myself  — might I recommend a few local favorites for your stay?

Francifully No Longer Yours,
C.
——————

Dear Certain Journo:

What is up with the men in Paris? Are they all perverts or something? Do all they think about is sex? Have they not heard of Simone de Beauvoir?

I just came back from Paris (I made a very special trip for the distinct purpose of visiting Ms. Madame de Beauvoir’s grave), and I was constantly being approached by complete strangers – all men. One dared to offer to help me with my backpack. Another, chillingly, offered me a glass of wine. And I can’t count the number of times I received lewd comments. There was one man — you will really have a trying time believing this — who actually said, “Joli cul.” When I looked it up I discovered that it meant “nice ass.” The cheek!

Oh, and the vegan cuisine in Paris is absolutely abhorrent.

Regretfully,
Baffled in Bristol
P.S. The next time I’m in town, would it be possible for me to sleep on your couch?  I’m returning next weekend to confirm my impressions.
B.i.B.

Dear Baffled,

Hey! That reminds me — I just read something pretty baffling myself: Apparently some British scientist woman just did some research that just proved that women don’t have G-spots. Is this true? Or does it only apply to the British?

Your lovely story reminds me of this time I went walking in Montmartre and was approached by just the cutest guy. He had this amazing loft studio that used to belong to a notable famous artist, as so many of them do. Well, there I was in one of those cute little quaint stairwells and all of a sudden I hear this deep, gravelly voice and at first I paid no attention until I realized he was talking to me! And he said I looked like a model and everything! Which I guess meant he thought I had a nice ass. And nice ass cheeks!

Anyway, he invited me for a glass of wine, so we had one, and then another, and then we had dinner, and then we went back to his famous artist’s loft-studio-atelier and we drank some more wine and then . . . and then . . .  Well, let’s just say that I don’t think that the whole non-existing G-spot thing applies to any of the former British colonies. Especially to people from Canada. Comme moi.

He eventually left me for his wife. Which was kind of dramatic and involved a certain degree of plate-throwing (by the wife, not moi). But it was fun while it lasted. Thanks for reminding me.

They have vegan cuisine in Paris?

Francifully Yours,

Caro-leen
P.S. No couch . . . no can do!
——————

Dear C.,

Well, do you have any friends in France who have couches?

Your X.

Cher Jackass,

I have lots of friends in France. Loads. Couch-loads. Lots of friends with lots of couches. Great, big, puffy-fluffy-frilly couches. Citröen-loads of ’em! But none of them – neither the friends, nor the couches, nor the Citröens – are in need of a pet musician. That’s what cats are for. Oh, and you might want to check and see if the litter box needs cleaning, since I’m not there to do it for you.

Très désolée and Francifully Still Not Yours,
C.H.
——————

Dear Mlle-Sait-Tout,

I am a budding poet. An aspiring one. Actually, I would say an exceptionally accomplished one, and an exceptionally experimental one in that I consider each poem I write to be an experiment. As is my life, my very life. My poetry is like no other. Perhaps this is precisely what has held me back. Publishers are so unwilling to take risks these days; they only seem to print the repetitive, the safe, the cliché, the banal. The finished, the completed. . . the spell-checked and double-spaced. It is a troubling state of affairs. It speaks of the decline.

Despite — or as I like to think of it, in spite of — my current status as As-Yet-To-Be-Published Experimental Poet, I have heeded some success with one of the admissions departments at one of America’s more respectable graduate schools. Father, as you might imagine, is delighted. And, as a little parting gift before I embark on my prestigious post-graduate journey, he is sending me on a little gad-about Paris. Rather frivolous, I know, but that’s dear old Dad when he wants to be. Which leads me to my question: I have heard that, while it can’t exactly be categorized as ‘rich,’ there is quite a, shall we say, active poetry scene among members of the city’s Anglophone expatriate community. Do you suppose that they are ready for someone as experimental and avant-garde as I? And if you suppose this to be the case, would you by chance know with whom I should speak about organizing a reading?

As a writer of lighthearted meaningless fluff, I’m well aware of your brutal lack of literary sensitivity. I am also aware, however, that the expatriate community of Paris is quite inter-linked. I thought that as a so-called “journalist” charged with covering the so-called goings-on in the city, surely even you might have crossed paths with the more poetic among us at some point in your travels?

Quite relatively cordially,
Pensive and Poetic in P.E.I.
P.S. While I in no way wish to hint that Father’s generosity is limited, it appears as if, for this little gad-about Paris, locating accommodation has been left to me. Would it be possible if I slept on your couch? It would only be for a couple of months. At most. And I could pay you in poetry.
P.a.P. i. P.E.I.
P.P.S. Please note that this correspondence is under copyright, and I am hereby authorizing one-time publishing rights, as it may appear at a later date in my memoirs, on which I am also currently working and which I have also not yet completed. Or spell-checked. Or double-spaced.
P.a P. i. P.E.I.
Copyright © 2010 Pensive and Poetic in P.E.I.

Dear Pap,

You so totally reminded me of this poetry reading I went to on the Left Bank a few years ago. It was only a few days after I’d arrived in Paris, so you can’t really blame me – I was just trying to be social. But it was soooo bad.

Like there was this woman? Whose hairdo looked like she’d pinned a dead dog to her head? Kinda like Margaret Atwood, only it wasn’t Margaret Atwood, which was probably better, or worse, or well, let’s face it. . . ça mettait égale. Anyway, this Dead Dog Woman was reciting this poem that took forever. (The guy running the reading had said that each poet had to respect the 15-minute time limit, but for her I think he made an exception. . . maybe he had some kind of dead dog fetish?) It was The Poem That Would Never End.

So anyway – and this is the kicker – the poem was about a guy climbing a beanstalk. Only it wasn’t Jack – it was some other guy. Or maybe it was a girl, Jill? I can’t remember. Truth be told, I’ve kinda tried to wipe the entire experience from my memory. I’d pretty much succeeded until you just pretty much reminded me all about it.

The worst? She recounted Jack’s or Jill’s or whoever the hell’s journey up the beanstalk, step by step. And it was a tall beanstalk, lemme tell you.

Francifully Yours,
Mlle Caro
PS. Oh, I don’t have a couch. They’re so cliché, so unexperimental, don’t you think?  I sleep in Shakespeare and Company most nights. You’ll adore it.
——————

Dear Caro-leen (mind if I call you that?!),

Isn’t Facebook just the most amazing? For years I had no way to get in touch with all of my old high school friends. Oh sure, every now and then I bump into one of them, usually around Christmas when the whole crew is home for the holidays. You can’t really BE home for the holidays without going to Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire or Tim Horton’s or the what’s left of Wintercrest Mall, so those are as good places as any for bumping into each other. But you know how hectic the Christmas season is, with everybody rushing around trying to find those last-minute gifts, and then Madison’s really involved in her school choir and there isn’t a day that goes by when little Carter doesn’t need to be carted off (!!) to hockey practice, so when I’m at a place like Tim Horton’s or Canadian Tire or Wal-Mart or the plain old mall I just zip in and zip out. So when I DO bump into someone at one of those places, there just isn’t enough time for catching up. I’m sure YOU know how it goes!

But with Facebook it’s so easy! Last Friday night after the kids were down and Brad had gone off for beers with his buddies, I logged into my account and found the profile of this gal that went to the same high school as me. We didn’t really run in the same crowd — it was the end of the Eighties back then and she used to dress a bit like Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink and that wasn’t really the same look we were going for in my social circle – I’d always felt, even back then, that there was something special about this girl.

So like I said, I found this gal on Facebook, and you’ll never guess what: She lives in your city! In Paris! And she’s a journalist just like you!! And just like you it sounds like she’s living this amazing life where all she does all day is drink wine and flirt with really charming men and run around in heels. . . just like on “Sex and the City!” And then I got all excited and then I looked around and then I thought: Well, if these gals can do it, so can I! And so before I knew what had happened, I’d logged out of Facebook and booked a flight! To Paris!! For me – all by myself!!!  Not for even Carter or Madison or even Brad!!!! I arrive next week!!!!

Now all I have to do is rush-order my passport. And, of course, break the news to Brad. . . boy, will he be surprised!

The thing is, I only had enough money to cover the cost of the tickets. And it’s been so long since I’ve even spoken to this gal. In your opinion, what’s the best way to go about asking her if I could sleep on her couch? Any advice?

Couchless in Caledonia (Ontario, Canada)

Dear Couchless in Caledonia (Ontario, Canada),

(And tell me…what your name was again…?)

So sorry to hear how your life turned out. But oh, I do lo-o-oo-ove Pretty In Pink! I can never decide who was funkier — Molly Ringwald or Annie Potts? I kinda liked Annie’s outfits better, but that dress Molly wore to the prom was awfully cute, too. Though I never did understand what she saw in that simpering Andrew McCarthy – doesn’t he look like impotence personified? Jon Cryer was way sexier. And funnier! And deeper and more complex. Plus, he had cooler shoes.

Did you know that Molly used to be married to a Frenchman? She lived in the South of France and everything. Just like Johnny Depp now. Who provides governesses and maids and au pairs as a buffer against his spawn.

Here’s hoping you have the nicest holiday! Are you even sure that your old high school acquaintance even has a couch? Many don’t, you know  — or the one they have is currently out being re-upholstered. Sorry.

Hope this helps!

Francifully Yours,
Caro
——————

Carolyn,

Well, if I can’t sleep on your couch, can my soundman at least crash at your place? At least? He’s willing to sleep on the floor . . .

Ur Ex

Dear Ass,

You mean Max? The Maximum, as I like to call him? How’s he doing?! I still have such fond, warming memories of that one bright, blissful, brilliant night when you were on tour with another woman, and with another soundman, if memory serves correct . . . Well anyway, of course he can sleep here!! He must!!! I insist!!! So gifted with buttons and knobs and dials, that Max. Ahem. Well, maybe not s-l-e-e-p, per se. Especially not on the floor. Nor the couch. Unless . . . unless . . . well, do, please, make certain to give him my number. Wheee!!!

Francifully Never To Be Yours Again, Ever, In Any Lifetime,
Caro-leen
P.S. Bisous! xo

Serge avec cigarette

There he was.

He was easy enough to pick out. Even in the grim grimy-greasy jaundiced not-so-flattering subterranean Métro light. Oh, it was him all right – no doubt about it. Or a fabulously finely-formed facsimile thereof. His profile, pitched in a precisely preconceived profile of a pose, the enormous ear, the prominent nose. His chin – smooth, not yet his signature unshaven chin— juts serenely, sagely, slightly upturned. The lips, sensual-soft, poised in mid-exhale. As if he were singing. Or smoking. No mistaking him, this finely-formed facsimile of one of France’s most famously infamous artists, one of the Fifth Republic’s most notorious agents provocateurs, the man who flipped la chanson française upside down and inside out and right side in and right side up all over again. He was Serge Gainsbourg. Or at least he was meant to be. Only, come to think of it, on closer inspection, he wasn’t singing. Only, on closer inspection, come to think of it, he was smoking. But where was the damn smoke? And the cigarette? What in hell had happened to Serge Gainsbourg’s cigarette?

Because the thing about this country, the thing about France, is that you can’t be here, really be Here – as in exist within and live with and operate amidst and integrate and mingle incognito among the natives – without learning about Serge, and sometimes this means you learn more, so much more, than you might care to know. And the first thing you learn is this: Serge sure liked his cigarettes. Or, more specifically, his Gitanes. And Serge without his cigarette, Serge sans Gitanes, well, it’s like the proverbial birthday sans proverbial cake. Like the proverbial cake without the icing. Like the proverbial ice cream sundae without the cherry on the proverbial top. Like Bastille Day without the proverbial parade along the Champs-Élysées, or worse, a proverbial parade featuring only Sarkozy and no runaway horses from the Republican Guard to make it all better. In a word, in three words, in a phrase: it’s just wrong. All of it.

In other words: What was the R.A.T.P. thinking?

That’s Régie autonome des transports parisiens, in case you didn’t know. The men who man the Métro. And the autobus. In all fairness, in all truth, to be honest, to be frank, the R.A.T.P. doesn’t typically think of much else than going on strike. Or raising their rates. Or raising their rates while on strike. But still. . .

They removed, they extracted, they air-brushed, they photoshopped, they snatched away Serge’s Gitane. They metaphorically crushed it into an art-director’s ashtray. Blasphemy! Heresy! Disorder and disarray and misconduct and disrespect! Serge sans cigarette? What a diss! And weirdly, up in the above-ground atmosphere, at the bus stops, his Gitane had been restored — Serge was allowed to smoke at the bus stop, apparently . . . but the Métro was interdit. Not that one should ever question the logic behind the costards-cravates — the Suits — that run the Parisian transport system, but still . . .

Given the cigarette so rudely snatched from Serge’s mouth in the Paris Métro portion of the movie’s ad campaign, one wonders how extensive the Gitanes budget was for Gainsbourg: vie héroïque. Le Bio-picque. Had the manufacturer acted as sponsor? Had the French film industry finally gotten hip to product placement? Either way, it would be accurate, in some form or shape, to declare that the movie was, in its own way, (a clearing of the throat) smoking.

In the early days, in his early shy and whispery way, Serge observed that, “At the cinema, people like to see films that are violent and terrible.” Gainsbourg: vie héroïque is neither. In point of fact, it’s pretty damn good. In point of fact, when you think about it, and when you think about biopics in general, and when you think of the state of cinema in general, and when you think of the state of French cinema in general, in point of fact with Gainsbourg: vie héroïque, they did a generally classy job.

Because here’s the thing, cinéphiles: there are some fabulous shoes in this movie. Damn sexy. On the boys and on the girls. The pianos? Pure porn. And Juliette Gréco’s dress? (Well, it wasn’t the actual real Juliette Gréco, it was an actress, Anna Mouglalis, but still . . .) The backless one? Held together with a string of diamonds? Hot. (The real actual dress was black, but I think it’s safe to say that it was red-hot.) As was Anna, or Juliette, or . . . And then there were a few filmic devices, clever and aesthetic and generally pretty surprisingly great, that got the directors and writers and producers and crew people and best boys and extras and actors and the audience in and out and around some un-classy, un-clever, un-conscionable classic biopic characteristics. Especially the violins.

Because: There’s a certain unappetizing reality, a certain Ugly Truth about a certain segment of the French film industry today. A certain set of French directors of a certain set of mind almost certainly always try to copy a certain style of cinema. A certain style of foreign — and thus non-French —  cinema. From abroad, that is. Abroad as in Hollywood-abroad. As in America. Which means American-style formulas (in French) and American-style scripts (in French) and American-style starlets (in French) and, worst of all, American-style violins (almost certainly imported directly from France). You know the ones. The soaring, sailing, swooping, sweeping kind that almost certainly always swoop and sweep and soar and sail in the background, right at the climax of the film — immediately after the crisis but before the dénouement — and here’s Bruce Willis, his broad balding brush-cutted head baldly braving a barrage of bullets, and in the background there they are, the American violins, and there’s probably almost certainly an American flag, too, and there’s definitely Bruce, brave, bold, bald, buzz-cutted et al, and the bad guys are coming and his M16 or AK-47 or whatever the hell it is is jammed and . . . and . . . cue more American violins! And the American flag!! Land of the free, home of the bald!

Serge and Jane

Well, thankfully, in Gainsbourg: vie héroïque there’s none of that. No Bruce, no brush cuts, no American violins, thank you, Dieu. And thank you, Director Joann Sfar. Oh sure, there’s violins, but they’re Serge’s own. At least in some shape or form. Only arranged and performed by somebody else.

Here’s the formula:

Feed a Frenchman two glasses of cheap Bordeaux and it’s near-impossible for him to resist slipping into a little Serge. At parties, they huddle in little Frenchmen herds, not really Rugby-scrum-like, but more fashionista Frenchman-like, bunching up around the iPod or the laptop or the CD player or, if they’re super-ultra-hipster-chic, the record player, as Gainsbourg Big Bad Wolf’s his way through “Je t’aime moi non plus,” with Jane Birkin or Brigitte Bardot, one or the other, depending on how many versions of the song are on hand, uncontrollably gasping, panting, crying out, coming, climaxing, wheezing in the background. With Serge on the sono, these Frenchmen begin lighting their cigarettes differently, with a flourish, a figure-eight, a Fosse-esque flick. Those Frenchman lucky enough to have landed an English girlfriend — or hell, any girl from the U.K., or any girl from any of the former U.K. colonies, or any girl who can at any time at all accurately imitate an English accent, or, hell, any girl at all, at any time, no matter what language she speaks, that wears micro-nano-mini mod dresses over lustrous-lush-long-lisse legs — at some point, sometime, in some way, somehow imagines himself, considers himself, to be Serge. You know, in the context of Jane.

And then, through a screen of smoke that’s twisting, twirling, curling, whirling like a dancer performing a sexy-sad swan song, they start telling you, in detail, over and over again, at length, repeatedly, raptly, about Serge. They even adopt his ticks – the little wave of the chin, the jerky-quick nods of the head, the sneery-snarly-smarmy-cynique style of speech.

Like did you hear about the time that he was on Michel Drucker’s show and he told Whitney Houston that he wanted to fuck her? Live – en direct ? You shoulda seen her face! Or that tune, “Les sucettes,” that he wrote for and performed with blonde, innocent, teenage, practically France’s own version of the All-American-girl-next-door France Gall, and she had no idea, none whatsoever, that the song strongly hinted at not only how much Annie liked lollipops but Something Else Too, that there was a double entendre, that it wasn’t just lollipops that Annie loved sucking? Then there was that TV show where he burned three-quarters of a five-hundred franc note for all the country to see, to signify what percentage of his profits were going toward taxes, and of course it’s completely illegal to burn money in public or otherwise because, well, money’s for the State to burn. And did you hear about the time he re-recorded France’s national anthem, the magnificent Marseillaise, a tribute to blood and war and violence and arms and the eradication of all who are not of pure blood, of those who are of sang impur, reggae-style, with Bob Marley’s Sly & Robbie performing and Bob Marley’s back-up singers singing back-up, summing up all that war and blood and violence and arms and impure blood as “et caetera ?” It’s a catchy little chorus – here, let’s play it for you. Pierre — merde! — throw it on . . . I want to show her why it really pissed people off! Oh, and then there was that video clip, the one for “Lemon Incest,” the one Serge filmed with his pre-pubescent daughter, Charlotte, that features the two of them rolling around an enormous satin-sheeted bed — Serge all bear-y and bare-chested, Charlotte clad in a skimpy blouse and white cotton panties — and in breathy bed-tones they’re discussing the unique, sacred, unrealised love, a love that can never be consummated, that’s shared between father and daughter? That — that — well, what would they make of THAT back in YOUR country, Caro-leen?

“It’s not fair to reduce Serge’s notoriety to his long list of scandales,” they’ll conclude, lighting another Lucky or Marlboro or Winston or Camel while wishing, secretly, silently, that, if just for that soirée, beforehand, at the Tabac, they had substituted their usual brands for the famed, if foul-smelling, Gitanes. “He was respected for his amazing body of work. He was loved for advocating and protecting freedom of thought, freedom of spirit, the libre-esprit.”

(Really what they’re saying is that they admire and laud and love and envy Serge for getting to go to bed with Bardot, Birkin and Bambou.) (Especially when you took into consideration his un-Aryan, un-Adonis-like, unappreciated ears and nose.) (It’s fair to say, in all fairness, that it’s too easy to call Bambou “Bimbo,” but we will anyway, in all unfairness.)

“The first time I met him I thought he was horrible,” confessed a wide-eyed British Jane Birkin in wide-eyed British French in a television interview, back in the day, back when Serge was still alive, back when she was his wife, the love of his life. “But what I had originally taken for aggression was actually enormous shyness.”

If you didn’t know much about Serge, if you just took him at face value, if you just examined him, as they say, au premier degré, you might write him off as an elegant misogynist. A charming one, not much of a looker, perhaps, at least in the classical sense, and — if you’re into cool suits and Cartier watches and Dupont cigarette lighters — an elegant one, sure, but a misogynist all the same. Or maybe, if you don’t know Serge as well as some of us do, you might write him off as a rip-roaring, smoke-breathing sexist male chauvinist pig. And if you only knew Serge superficially, if you hadn’t really taken the time to get to know him, really get to know him, you know, in that deep-down-profound-getting-to-know-him-way, if you really only took him at face value, and if you really get quite squeamish any time anyone’s just a wee bit nasty, a tad bit dirty, a weeny-teeny-little bit vulgaire, well . . . Well. To each her own. No, no really — every girl deserves to have her own opinion, after all. No matter how uninformed it may be. When it comes to opinions, ladies, don’t worry your pretty little heads — no one’s saying that you’re not entitled. Au contraire !

It’s just that you’d be wrong. If you were of the Serge-was-a-misogynist opinion, you’d be completely off the mark. But that’s O.K. — not all of us ladies can grasp and get and understand and comprehend the double entendres, the plays-on-words, the puns. Even when they’re translated into our own native tongues. You know how we women are with jokes — some of us even date them. And then there’s the fact that Serge almost certainly exclusively wrote for women, women like Gréco and Deneuve and Birkin and Bardot, and Hardy and Paradis, too, women whose careers and creativity and artistry and craft he launched and nourished and cultivated and helped to blossom and grow and bud and bloom. Some of them couldn’t even really sing, at least not if we’re going to get all tight-assed and analytical and annoying about classical chops, but he knew what to do with them anyway. How to direct Jane’s shaky baby-girl voice that was never sure of hitting the right note in the right direction; or how to make la Deneuve’s uptight, pickle-up-the-butt comportement, well, kinda cute. Hell, Serge even made it seem O.K. that Bardot sang like a dying cow, as if he understood in advance the animal activism to come. And the fact that she couldn’t act? No matter — she didn’t look like a dying cow, after all. He merely had her stand still, in a tableau, for the clip for “Bonnie and Clyde,” stunned . . . as if he’d clubbed her like a baby seal.

Why? a journalist once asked him. Why do you mainly only write for women? “Because it’s more agreeable. . .” And the puns, the plays-on-words, the harsh, gimlet-eyed reversals and inversions and sous and double entendres ? Well, listen louder, ladies, because most times? In that breathy-bedroomy-surly-snarly-cynique voice that made it sound like he was dirty-talking directly to you? Serge, I swear to you, was making fun of himself.

“We take women for what they are not,” Serge said, with, no doubt, a matter-of-fact swirly swoosh of his cigarette, “and we leave them for what they are.” Take that for what it is, but take it with a lot of thought and even some consideration, because it’s arguably one of the most feminist statements and accurate observations a dirty old alleged misogynist has ever made.

Jane left.

Jane left Serge, after a long spell, not for what he was, but for what he had become. “He’s very difficult to live with . . . but who wants easy?” she’d challenged an interviewer back in her wide-eyed micro-skirted British-French days. But after a while, “easy” was probably pretty seriously attractive, because Serge had now become his real-life alter-ego, Gainsbarre. The bloated, belligerent, boozed-up Gainsbarre, the Gainsbourg/Gainsbarre who, in the tradition of lost, aging, lost mid-life men who know they’ve screwed up a good thing and lost it for good, tried to replace Jane with the simulated Jane-simulation who was Bambou. He might have done better with a red Corvette, but he just wasn’t American. It’s all so sad to watch, especially the clip for “Charlotte for Ever,” as, on a grey, windy beach, he clings to his daughter, apologizing to her, but not only her, but obviously, inadvertently, profusely, abjectly to Jane, Charlotte’s mother, his estranged wife, so much the love of his life. But it’s real-life, and real love, and alter-egos and all their warts and all, and the thing about Serge is that he wasn’t afraid of being human. And all honour to him. Because being human, really human, not a man, not a woman, but merely human, is pretty damn courageous. And complex.

Gainsbourg: vie héroïque begins at the beginning but doesn’t end exactly at The End. And to the movie’s credit, it doesn’t try to cover everything in between, exactly. Which, despite the probable protests from all of those cigarette-wielding Frenchmen fashionistas, is probably for the better. Because in France, or in French cinemas, at least, or at least in Parisian cinemas, people normally stay to The End. As in The End — the very post-credit End, when the final credits have rolled, finally, bitterly. But at the Gainsbourg film? Which lasted two-and-a-half hours? People couldn’t wait. They just couldn’t wait to leave. They were desperate. Because after vicariously living through and vicariously living with and vicariously witnessing and vicariously, voyeuristically watching all of those graceful and generous and gratuitously-glowing Gainsbourgian Gitanes, it was time. It was time to go out for a smoke.

Falling in love with a dead man...

(ACJ’s Note: A certain journalist had intended, for all intents and purposes, to compose a resolution-related entry, for that added New Year’s flavor and all. Even though a certain journalist’s recurring resolution is not to have any; for some reason, this year she felt like playing along. But then she fell in love, and you know how all hell breaks loose when one does that. She fell in love! With a dead man. Oh, so it’s never happened to you? Like you didn’t think Brandon Lee wasn’t hot in “The Crow.”)

There’s this woman. She owns a women’s clothing boutique on the rue du Poteau. She’s a Woman with a capital “W,” kinda like the Women Of FIP, but Flashdance-style. She wears off-the-shoulder blouses and off-the-shoulder dresses, and off-the-shoulder shirts and sweaters and cardigans, too. Her voice is off-the-shoulder radio-raspy and her hair is sex-hair sexy, and around her, off the shoulder, there is never a shortage of men. Of men who, in appearance at least, are 20 years younger than she. We’ll call her Jolene.

Jolene’s shop, her women’s clothing boutique, has been there for years, decades even, and for years and even decades has specialized in some things off-the-shoulder and many things sequined, and all things suitable for wear if one were to suddenly dye one’s hair and toenails and fingernails and eyebrows an especially vivid orange and jet off, on a moment’s notice, to Vegas or Reno or Atlantic City for drinks and dancing and debauchery and dinner and drive-thru weddings and loose slots. It’s unclear as to whether anyone on or near or beside or in-and-around the rue du Poteau has ever done this, jetted off to Vegas or Reno or Atlantic City on a moment’s notice, that is, but these, these are the kind of clothes that Jolene’s been selling. For decades and even years.

The rue du Poteau – on the Right Bank, in the 18th arrondissement, over the wrong side of the hill from Montmartre, down past Lamarck, right by the Mairie du XVIII, just off the Jules Joffrin Métro – is what you might call typique: a throwback, lined with cafés, a brasserie, a tabac, a handful of butcher shops, one still exclusively dealing in horse meat, a bakery, a fish shop, a cheese shop, several wine shops, a traiteur Chinois for quick lunches, an Arab shop for late-nights when you forgot the Bordeaux, a quincaillerie for all of your hardware needs, a Pakistani bazaar for odds and ends you may or may not need, the GigaStore – a sort of mini Parisian Wal-Mart – a couple of stands selling everything from batteries to Super Glu to leg warmers to gloves, a Franprix supermarket for discount groceries and a Monoprix for more luxurious ones. And there’s Jolene, of course, and her beloved canine, Myrtille (Blueberry); the soft-spoken-but-not-without-humor independent bookseller next door; and the fruit-and-vegetable guys just up the street who, late in the day, burst into song to boost their beet sales. There’s Alladdin The Flower Guy, arguably the most enterprising of all the enterprising Sri Lankan flower guys whose lot it is to – after purchasing their wares from their one source, the Indian Flower Mafia – peddle long-stem roses, some red, some white, some slightly withered, from bar to bar in hopes of seducing those who are trying to seduce into purchasing one, or maybe two, or maybe more, to slide the seduction along. Yes, the rue du Poteau is très typique.

As was, once, the rue de la Huchette, just barely hanging on to the Left Bank, and described so plainly, so lovingly, so fiercely by Elliot Paul. If one could write like Elliot Paul, the rue du Poteau would gleam legendarily, would shimmer and shimmy in  the freezing cold air, would warm you like new gloves from the basement of Monoprix.

Except that in Elliot Paul’s time there was no Monoprix – or just the one, but it was in Rouen. Nor, come to think of it, were there any Franprix. Come to think of it, today on the Left Bank, they hide Franprix as some, in Elliot Paul’s time, might have hidden a handicapped child. And while today there is a Greek épicerie on the rue du Poteau, the rue de la Huchette of Elliot Paul’s time was as yet unsaturated with Greek restaurants. There was Mary the Greek, but that, as they say, was that. Now, where neon-lit nightspots for unadventurous tourists take over when the t-shirt shops shut down, the rue de la Huchette has been transformed. Back when Elliot Paul was bold enough to live there, this was a back street of backwater brothels and by-the-month hotels with bathrooms down the hall. There was a threadbare thread shop, and the taxidermist’s window showed stuffed rats at play. You had to go elsewhere to buy a postcard.

But no matter, because Elliot Paul is kind of forgotten. As in completely forgotten. And that’s a damn shame. Because the thing about Elliot Paul is that he’s damn sexy. Or was damn sexy. Or must have been damn sexy.  Damn!

(SPOILER ALERT: Unless you’re into bald spots and big prominent bellies and big prominent Bismarck beards, or unless you have one of those inexplicable Kaiser Wilhelm fetishes, it’s strongly advisable to resist typing the keywords “Elliot Paul” into Google Images. Or you could just for once stop being so superficial and recognize that while beauty is only skin deep, sexiness is next to, uh, deepness.)

The tome in question

At least a certain journalist thought so. Thought that Elliot Paul – an American expat – was damn sexy. At least after reading his book, or merely one of his 30-some-odd books, “The Last Time I Saw Paris” – which, by the way, is his memoir of Paris, and more specifically, by the way, of the rue de la Huchette between World Wars One and Two, and which, by the way, has nothing to do with the movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. And which, by the way, has nothing to do with one or more years in the merde or talking to snails or equating Parisians or Paris or France or the French with the Moon. Which is one reason why a certain journalist thinks that Elliot Paul is Damn Sexy. At least that’s what she surmised. And how couldn’t she have? How couldn’t she have thought and surmised and supposed and presumed anything different? Because when a guy – non, a man – when a man looked to see and saw and thought and mused and pondered and wrote like that...  Well, when he Wrote Like That, there was only one thing for him to be, and that was damn sexy.

Because here’s the other thing: he looked to see and therefore he saw and when he saw, he saw beautifully, even if whatever he was looking at wasn’t associated with beauty at all. He saw beautifully and so he wrote beautifully, and most important of all, ladies, he wrote beautifully about women. Women with a capital “W” and women with a small “w,” beautiful ones and unbeautiful ones and ones somewhere in between. He saw them. With clarity and honesty and flair and love and grace. You know that feeling you have right after watching a Pedro Almodóvar film? You know, when all of a sudden you want to tease your hair and poof your skirt and wear lots of dark lipstick and swing your hips this way and that – budda-bing, budda-boom, budda-bing!?! Well, that’s kind of the way you feel after reading Elliot Paul. Damn!

Take the take that he took on Madame Mariette, the “madame” of Le Panier Fleuri (The Flower Basket), the local house of ill repute: “I liked Madame Mariette. I think of her as a friend, an interesting and beautiful woman with genuine understanding, wide experience and something deep inside her that no man has yet aroused or even touched and but rarely suspected…”  Damn!

And then there’s Hyacinthe.  Ah, but then there’s Hyacinthe.

“She was perfume and morning and rest and atmosphere and sky, and she honored me with her friendship because, a stranger from a distant land, I wandered into the little street where she, too, was a stranger…”  Who doesn’t want to be written about like that? Hyacinthe sure as hell did, having fallen in love with him pretty much instantly. And then there’s Paul choosing dining spots whose interiors complemented her somber clothing, since poor Hyacinthe, who adored the brightest colors, was in mourning, perpetually, thanks to a steady stream of distant dying-or-dead relatives: “Not that she was not ravishing in black, so pale and demure, with those haunting hazel eyes and curved lashes, not too long. But black does not compose well with pastel colors; so I selected for Hyacinthe the best cafés where the chairs or benches would supply her black clothes and white skin with a strong intermediary red, ultra-marine, gold – or corn – yellow, and sometimes royal purple or violet…” Once again: Damn! There’s a man who knows how to take a lady out in style. There’s a man.

It’s probably time for a little disclosure. It’s probably the proper occasion upon which to fess up. Elliot Paul arrived in Paris in 1923, at the ripe old age of 32. At that time Hyacinthe was the ripe old age, uh, she was, well, uh, she was. . . well she was six. It was not long after their first encounter that Paul began taking Hyacinthe to the children’s theater in the Jardin du Luxembourg:

“Little Hyacinthe did not like the show at all. It was not romantic. But the day I took her to a matinée in a variety theatre and Loïe Fuller’s girls performed their scarf dance, I began to love Hyacinthe whole-heartedly, forgiving freely her snobbishness, her relentless practicality, her selfish outlook on the social world. Her intensity was touching and tremulous. Then and there she resolved to be an actress…”

Now. Now chill out. Just cool it, hold up, and hold on! Before you jump to conclusions. Before you get your noses out of joint and your bums in a twitch, and your panties in a knot, before you tsk-tsk and huff-huff and oh-my and oh-dear and oh-my-gawd; before you jump to contemporary conclusions about this and about that and arrive at current-day decisions about this and about that and impose modern morals about this and about that and take down and size up and judge and sentence and slam, just calm your current-day modern contemporary sensibilities down! About this and about that. Or don’t. As a matter of fact: Don’t. It’s not like anybody else does these days, after all. And it’s a good thing Elliot Paul wrote that kind of stuff back then, because nowadays he’d probably be going to jail. Or at least going to court. Next courtroom over from Roman Polanski. But the thing is, unless you’ve read the book, you don’t even know what went on. Oh, and how I bet you’d like to find out! Wouldn’t you? You’d just lo-o-o-ove to find out what went on between Hyacinthe and Elliot Paul. You’re just dying to know. I bet that somewhere, down there, deep down within the bowels of your bowels and the cavities of your cavities and the recesses of your recesses and the souls of your soles, you’re scratching, smarting, seething, breathing, burning, itching, yearning to know just what the hell happened. And you’re hoping, not so deep down within, not so slyly, not so secretly. . . and a little sordidly and salaciously and sexily too, that whatever it was that went on was sexy and salacious and sordid. Liar! You know you do! And you know what? I’m not going to tell you. On whether or not Elliot Paul and Hyacinthe got it on – sordidly, salaciously, illegally – I will not expound. I will neither confirm nor deny. Wild horses could rip me asunder, and my lips would remain sealed (yet luscious and tempting too). You’re just going to have to find out for yourself. You know, the old-fashioned, old-school way. By reading the book.

Which is becoming increasing difficult, since “The Last Time I Saw Paris” isn’t easy to get your hands on, and Paul’s follow-up, “Springtime in Paris” –  which recounts his return in 1949 – is out-of-print. They have a copy in the reading room at Shakespeare & Company that’s yours to peruse on premises, but good luck finding it because I haven’t finished it yet and have therefore hidden it in the stacks. With a fake dust-cover, a deadly dull cookbook-y one, something about Culinary Delights From The North Of England. All of this being, as mentioned, a damn shame. Because the reading public is missing out. And not on culinary delights from Northern England.

“Only the boors Americanize themselves,” Paul once remarked to Hyacinthe as they chatted about foreigners in America, “as the worst type of Americans here imagine they have become French.” One wonders, a little gleefully, a little beyond gleefully because one can guess at the answer, of how deftly, how delicately Elliott Paul would have dispatched those authors who recount their phrasebook-flipping years in the merde while talking to snails, or those who manage to compare Paris to the moon, without having actually encountered more than a smattering of Moonmen. Without, even when they’re there, really being there. Paris or the Moon, for that matter. In Paris, it’s apparently permanently true that the worst type of expats imagine themselves to be French, and there are some – this I have heard with my own shell-like ears – who declare it outright. But there’s another type of expat who, while maybe not so belligerently-bold-brut as to proclaim themselves to be one of the natives, certainly consider themselves to be a notch or two or three or five or eight higher. They wouldn’t call them natives, per se – not in public – and if you called them on it they’d turn it around and label you racist. With these people, you can’t win. You just have to feel sorry for them. For those who attend their dinner parties, you feel even worse.

Because the thing about some people, some people who are not from Here, the thing is they come Here and stay Here and live Here and exist Here, only to spend much of their time, Here, wishing that things were the way they are back There. They announce that they have to take the last Métro home just as the party’s getting started. They hold up their hands in a stop-gesture when one pours them a second glass of wine. They say things like, “my French friends,” they way that some people, some people we hate, say, “my gay friends.” They influently correct your fluent French incorrectly. They cough – cough! – when someone lights up a smoke. They cough! Out loud! And they’re smug about the smoking ban. Couldn’t wait for it to be enforced! It must be stated, right here, right now: these people must be avoided.

And Elliot Paul did. Avoid the annoying brand of expat, that is. Or at least he didn’t spend much time writing about them. Oh sure, he hung out with his fair share of foreigners. People like Picasso and Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Joyce and Stein; and even Louis Armstrong, and even especially Josephine Baker. (Damn!) And even though it’s hard to imagine any one of them turning down a second glass of Bordeaux or Beaune or Bergerac or Brouilly or anything else, for that matter; and even though it’s hard to imagine any of them announcing they need to catch the last Métro home just as the party’s getting started; and even especially though it’s next to impossible to visualize any single one of them coughing – coughing! – when someone lit up a smoke, some of them or at least a few of them or a couple or them or maybe at least one or two of them could surely most certainly be a little annoying. I mean, anyone who’s ever flipped through “A Moveable Feast” has gotta admit that ol’ Ernie H. was one helluva dishy bitch. Miaow!

Sure, Elliot Paul hung out with and danced with and drank with and debauched with a great number of expats. But he also chatted with and chatted up and dined and drank and danced and debauched with real French people too. When Paul wrote, “my French friends,” that’s what he actually meant. And as the irreplaceable stars of his book, they were twinklier and glitterier in their grime and grit and grease than any protagonist of the lost Parisian jet set. They were, astonishingly and uniquely for a book about Paris written in English, not merely bit players and spear-carriers and backdrops, but the original starring cast. But not everybody gets it. A 1942 Time magazine review of “The Last Time I Saw Paris” (which, by the way, was the first book to make the first slot of the first edition of the first ever New York Times Bestseller List) notes, in typical, telltale, tacit, taciturn Time-ese, that Elliot Paul was, “…one of the rare writers who has been able to turn an amiable yen for the gutter into pay dirt…”  Damn straight he was rare, O ye dead-and-dusted anonymous Time-keeper! And damn straight he did! But the silly touristic tendency toward disdain for anything that doesn’t depict Paris in all of its bright City of Light, un-gritty, un-greasy, un-glossy, un-grimy, all-glittery-all-glowy Gay Paree glory is, apparently, Timeless.  Just ask a certain journalist who has penned a certain number of articles for a certain several travel publications whose editors — they’d visited Here, if only once —  certainly don’t want to read about the real City of Light when they read about it. Kills the romance, I guess. Kind of destroys the mood. But they’re sure hot to edit it!  Or spin it, anyway. Screw ’em, and the all-expense-paid journo-junket they rode in on.

Ah, but let’s come back to Hyacinthe. She became an actress, you know. A successful actress, a screen actress, a budding star. One who made several films. Not long before, just prior to Hyacinthe stepping up to the spotlight, right before it all went up and came down, Paul takes the seventeen-year-old ingénue for oeufs à cheval at the Café de la Régence. You know, one of those joints that went well with her pale skin and dark clothes. “Hyacinthe adored eggs on horseback, and watching her enjoy herself is one of the lost pleasures I mourn from the bottom of my heart…”

I won’t honor you with a spoiler alert, you who so gracelessly leaped to your contemporary conclusions, when I tell you that in the end, in the final page of  “The Last Time I Saw Paris,”  Hyacinthe dies. A purely perfect Parisian of her time and place, a girl who turned her black mourning dress into spring pastels in the mind’s eye of the one writer who’s written better and more beautifully of Paris in English than any I’ve ever read. Committed suicide, along with her mother and ailing grandfather, a few months after the Nazis took Paris. Elliott Paul doesn’t reveal who Hyacinthe really was, and today, at No. 32 rue de la Huchette, amidst the t-shirt shops and Greek sandwich shops and the late night neon tourist bars, there is no plaque. Her obituary, the one slated for Les Dernières Nouvelles, was omitted by the Nazi censors.

Perhaps they thought it killed the romance.

It’s a charming little place, La Sauterelle. In a charming little workaday neighborhood up in the 18th, on rue Montcalm, between Jules Joffrin and Porte de Clignancourt. All faux finishes and mood lighting and mismatched furniture and antique lamps and old photos and etched wine carafes and a map of the Parisian Métro, circa 1948. Done up traditional-style without playing at it. . . though there’s something playful about La Sauterelle all the same. As in play-ful. As in when you’re there, right there, in there, right there inside La Sauterelle, whether at the bar (stage right), or at one of the tables along the wall (stage left), or in the cubbyhole of a kitchen (up-center-left), you feel like you’re in a play. You are in a play. As in the theatre. As in high drama and high kicks and laughs and slapstick.

And stage fright.

Patrick (slowly rolling his last cigarette before opening time at 20h00): There is no need to be nervous, Caro-leen. You must remember if it is hell tonight, it will be hell only for a couple of hours.

The American (raising his glass): Yeah, don’t worry. He hardly ever throws any plates when it’s someone’s first shift. (He finishes his wine, sets the glass down and disappears into the kitchen.)

Patrick (calling over his shoulder): It happened only one time. And Princesse Sondra – the last waitress –that evening made four mistakes.

The American (reappears with a basket of cutlery): Boy, I remember those beautiful gambas sailing through the air in slow motion. The arc was perfect. (He hands the basket over to A Certain Journalist, center.) They landed behind the bar. A beautiful presentation.

A Certain Journalist (to herself): Oh god. (Starts setting the tables, clumsily.) What happens if I only make three mistakes?

It was the cork that had her worried. Last night’s cork. Last night’s cork that ripped in half. Last night’s cork from last night’s bottle of wine that she served at last night’s dinner, last night at home. Last night was, after all, like any other night. And like last night, like any other night, she was charged with uncorking the wine. She had done it hundreds – hell, thousands – of times. It was one of the things that she had been properly taught to properly do when she was properly partying in Paris. When it came to uncorking wine she was, properly put, purely and positively proper.

Probably a fateful omen. Last night’s cork ripping in half probably signified something, something significant, something tragic, something dark and ugly and bleak. Some impending significant doom. Because here, at La Sauterelle, she would have an audience. A Parisian audience. A whole restaurant’s worth of Parisians who loved and ate and knew about wine and food and cuisine and gastronomie and the whole bit. And because Patrick, the patron, the boss, the chef, the chief cook and dishwasher and bottle-washer, too, had learned his métier at The Ritz. The Ritz as in Le Ritz – you know the one. And at The Ritz, pardon, Le Ritz, you see, corks just didn’t rip in half. At The Ritz, pardon, excusez-moi, Le Ritz, you see, this quite simply just wasn’t done.

So it was a damn good thing this wasn’t The Ritz. It was a good thing it was La Sauterelle. But still. And it was a good thing that this whole uncorking/cork-ripping exercise was just practice, when you thought about it, that there had been no big Parisian audience, aside from a certain Frenchman, that a certain journalist had done this at home. It was a good thing that, last night, she had decided to stay in, that her personal bar was well-stocked. And that two, three, five, well seven bottles later, she had this uncorking thing down in a snap. A sort-of snap. Or a pop. A sort-of pop. But definitely not a rip. Sort of.

But still. . .

She had been a waitress once before, you know. Another time, another continent, another town. A bar for frat boys and tanned girls and cheerleaders and jocks. It was the Nineties. She was the alterna-chick. The alterna-waitress. As in when no one could find a real waitress, they came to her, as an alternative. She slung beer. As in she spilled beer. She spilled beer on the bar and on the floor and on the clients, too. She mixed T&V’s. She spilled lots of gin. On the bar and on the floor and on the clients, too. She poured lots and lots of cranberry juice into lots and lots of vodka. She cleared all of the tables of all of the empties before they were really empty, before they could be held at interesting angles by people in interesting positions to make interesting shattering sounds when cracked, interestingly enough, over someone’s head. The bouncers were boxers. It was a helluva party. But no one ever ordered food. And especially no one ever ordered cuisine. And no one gave a damn about gastronomie. And no one – no one – ever ordered wine.

So when Patrick – originally from Normandy and formerly of The Ritz, pardon, Le Ritz and now, for the last eight years or so, the patron of his own 22-seat establishment, as well as the boss, the chef, the chief cook and dishwasher and bottle-washer, too – called to inquire about a certain journalist’s disponibilité for the following night, said journalist decided it was time to get to work. Or at least practice getting to work. A whole twenty-four hours early.

He said he needed an extra hand, Patrick, but what he really needed was an extra leg. Or a new one, a new left one, one that went from the mid-thigh on down. One that complemented the perfectly good one he had on the right. The victim of an illness, you see, an illness he managed to fend off for a good couple decades before it got him, Patrick had spent the last two years or so suffering the adjustments and modifications and testing and tweaking and prodding and poking that accompanies being the proud owner of a prosthetic leg. In a country that had spent centuries at war, wars in which hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions and billions of men lost arms and legs and toes and teeth and fingers and various other extremities, in a country famously celebrated for its famous healthcare system, a famous healthcare system one would expect to be not only famously proficient at, but damn near famously perfect at, the adjusting and modifying and testing and tweaking of prosthetics, the doctors can’t seem to get it right. The adjustments and modifications and tweakings and tests on Patrick’s prosthetic leg, that is. It really sucks. And so, on some days, on some good days, on some good days when the painkillers actually work and therefore the leg does, too, Patrick assumes his duties not only as patron and boss and chef and chief cook and dishwasher and bottle-washer, too, he’s also head barkeep and server. And there are some other days, some other bad days, some other bad days when the painkillers don’t do a thing and therefore the leg doesn’t do much, either, he needs an extra hand. And an extra set of legs.

La Sauterelle. Means “grasshopper” in French. Don’t worry – Patrick has already beaten you to the irony.

SCENE TWO. (Wednesday evening, 22h00. The restaurant is at half-capacity. We hear soft piano music playing in the background. There is a rowdy table of four well-dressed businessmen seated at the table at the foot of the bar, down right. A quartet of giggly young women are seated directly across from them, down left. It’s clear that the businessmen are trying to get the girls’ attention, and as the lights are fading up one of the men crosses to their table and squeezes onto the banquette that stretches along the wall to sit beside one of the women. A silent couple sits directly beside them, the man hunched solemnly over his meal, the woman tall and regal as she cuts her meat between throwing disapproving glances at her neighbors. Another couple is seated directly under the kitchen window, up left. The man signals to A Certain Journalist for wine and then gets up to sit beside his date, also on the banquette. They kiss. We can see Patrick and The American in the background, up-center-left, working in the kitchen. A Certain Journalist is behind the bar, nervously attending to the wine. She pokes it with the corkscrew, reconsiders, pokes it harder, twists, stops, twists some more, stops again, reconsiders again, untwists, recommences, stops, looks around guiltily, takes the bottle off the bar and turns her back to the clientele, sticks the bottle between her knees and begins yanking. Not entirely succeeding, she stashes the bottle under the bar and tiptoes into the kitchen. She reappears with Patrick in tow. He stops in the kitchen doorway and uses his apron to mop his brow.)

There is a type of Frenchman, a certain type of Frenchman of a certain type of mind at a certain type of time that certainly almost always compares certainly almost everything to making love. And on almost certainly all of these occasions, all one can do is stand back or stand aside or stand up straight or sit up straight, uncertainly. In some cases, one may lay back and think of England. But no matter the position, one just has to take it and let your Frenchman finish. Otherwise, on certainly almost all of these occasions, one is, as they say, screwed.

Can you guess where this is going?

Patrick (retrieving the hidden bottle from underneath the bar): Timidity is très mignonne, Caro-leen, but too much timidity is not very interesting.

A Certain Journalist (nodding, standing up straight, standing back, standing aside): Oh yes, I agree. Certainly.

Patrick (slams the bottle down on the bar, untwists the corkscrew that’s still stuck in the top): You must be bold!

A Certain Journalist: Bold!

Patrick (reinserts the corkscrew): And forceful!

A Certain Journalist (shakes her fist): Forceful!

Patrick: But at the same time, très délicat. (He begins slowly twisting the corkscrew.)

A Certain Journalist: Oh yes. Yes, of course. That’s really my favorite. . . I mean my preferred. . . I mean I like it like. . . I mean it’s the best way. Certainly.

Patrick: You must be gentle. . .

A Certain Journalist: Oh yes. . .

Patrick: And patient. . .

A Certain Journalist: Mmmm-hmmmmm. . .

Patrick: And then when you wrap your hand around it. . .

A Certain Journalist: Oh yeah. . .

Patrick: . . . like this. . .

A Certain Journalist: Oh! Yeah. . .

Patrick: You must be firm. . .

A Certain Journalist: Oh, I like it firm. . .

Patrick: That way you will feel that little spot. . .

A Certain Journalist: Oh, that little spot. . . I love that little spot!

Patrick: And then you give just a little tug. . .

A Certain Journalist (breathless): Yeah?

Patrick: Oui. And then. . .

A Certain Journalist: And then. . .

Patrick: And then. . .

A Certain Journalist: And then. . .!

Patrick: And then. . .

A Certain Journalist (slams her fists on the bar): Oh My God!!

(Cue popping sound.)

Oh, my. . . and then there’s the food.

There’s a dirty little secret about Paris. Not a sexy one, not a sensational one, not a sordid one, not a salacious one. . . not even a naughty one. A dirty one – one that Parisians and non-Parisians and locals and non-locals and tourists and non-tourists don’t really want getting out. In Paris, you see, Mecca of food and gastronomie and cuisine, there are a lot of bad restaurants. In Paris, a lot of the restaurants just aren’t up to snuff. In Paris, you can pay a lot of money for not a lot of food, or a lot of money for a lot of bad food, or a lot of money for food that’s not really very good, or average, or just plain rotten. Or just plain. The consistency lies in the price. And in the choice. Or lack thereof. Just can’t get enough of pavé de rumsteack à la sauce au poivre ? No worries – you’ll find plenty of that here. Restaurants-full of it. Streetsful of restaurants full of it. In the winter and the summer and the fall and springtime, too. Same goes for salade au chèvre chaud. And salade Nordique. And salade Niçoise. And soupe à l’oignon, and gratin Dauphinoise and cassoulet and poulet confit and canard confit and escargots and entrecôte and tartare de saumon and tartare de boeuf and terrine and foie gras and. . . and. . . You get the idea.

So it’s kinda new, kinda nouveau, and kinda sexy, even, when you find a place like La Sauterelle where the food has real distinction and the prices feel like a distinct deal, too. There’s something to be said for the ol’ bang for the buck, the ol’ rapport qualité/prix. And for a joint where the patron, the boss, the chef, the chief cook and dishwasher and bottle-washer, too, chooses to change it up to adhere to what’s in season. Or to do things, as they say, à sa sauce. In his own particular way.

SCENE THREE. (Thursday morning, 12h30. The customers are gone. Dirty glasses are lined up on the bar. The tables have been cleared, save for the one at which Patrick and A Certain Journalist are seated, down left. The American enters via the kitchen, carrying three plates, which he sets down on the table.)

The American: How’d it go tonight, Patrick, even if we weren’t full?

Patrick (breaking off a bit of baguette, yet shrugging): Not bad. The clientele ordered a lot of wine.

A Certain Journalist: (Standing, not thinking of England.) Tell me about it. (Corkscrew in hand, she reaches for the Gaillac that’s on the table, slowly strips it of its foil, pierces the cork boldly, then delicately begins twisting. She gently sets the bottle back down, strokes it, gathers a firm grip around its neck and lifts the lever. Cue popping sound.)

The American (sitting): I don’t know if you noticed, but when they ordered the rognons, I put some champignons on the side. Thought it’d give them a bit of choice.

Patrick (pausing diplomatically; then points with fork): This is acceptable, but you must remember one very important thing. Be careful about giving people a choice. When you give people too much choice, you give the world la merde.

The thing about FIP Radio is that the more intriguing the music is, the more you’re intrigued with what’s really going down in the studio. Or, to be frank, who’s really going down in the studio.

At least a certain journalist was. More interested in what, or who, was really going down in the FIP-uh studio, that is. As she drowsily, dazedly, dreamily, jet-laggedly adjusted the glow-y little dial on the tiny little Parisian ghetto blaster in the tiny little Parisian apartment on the tiny little Parisian street, she wondered what or who was really going down over there, chez FIP. Was interested? Still is!

Because this is the thing: the Women Of FIP – and they are all Women, unmistakably and undeniably Women, with a capital ‘W,’ not dames or even broads or even ladies or even gals or even girls, especially not gals and even especially, most definitely not girls, but women, as in Women, as in WO-MEN — remind you of cream-colored blouses unbuttoned just a little too far. Like Mrs. Robinson’s lingerie in The Graduate. A sheer, black-stockinged foot trailing lazily up the pant leg of a gentleman caller. Musky perfume and musky night air and musky liquor and muskily, huskily, bruskily whispered nothings. Like orgasms. And afterglow.

It doesn’t matter that we never see them; makes no difference if we all know why some people get into radio instead of TV. Never mind what they dress like or what their hair is like or what their faces are like or what their bodies are like or what, overall and all over, they look like. You just have to hear their brusky-musky-lusty huskiness once to understand that the Women Of FIP(ah) are h-o-o-o-o-t.  Hot with multiple O’s.

Come to think of it, there are a few guys working at FIP. Come to think of it, they only deliver the news. Ten minutes before the hour, every hour, come to think of it. And yeah, there’s that one guy who co-hosts the jazz program around apéro time. So there are at least a couple of guys in the studio chez FIP. Come to think of it, they all sound spent.

It makes you want to send in your CV, with your little job application all a-flutter.

“Vous écoutez FIP-(ah)…” the musky-husky-brusky feminine mezzo-alto breathes over the wet-damp airwaves of l’Île de France. “…il est une heure moins quart.” On a Tuesday afternoon. Or was it Wednesday? Jet lag made it hard to tell. It was definitely October, though. October 2004. William Shatner, Monsieur Star Trek, faithful friend of Spock, begins declaiming his way through Pulp’s “Common People.” Satire or serious? Or serious satire? Too hard to tell, and certainly Shatner wouldn’t know. It mattered not. In a way, a certain journalist mused as she popped another olive into her mouth, chasing it with a generous gulp of vodka, the mystery surrounding whether it was satire or serious or both was kinda like Shatner’s coup de grâce, his fait accompli, his…

Olives – green, unpitted – are all that’s in the fridge. They’re Leader Price olives, the no-frills, no-thrills non-nom de marque that could be found, according to the little map left by the flat’s owner – at the no-thrills, no-frills Franprix supermarket just up the street, around the bend, down a few lanes, through a few passages and around the corner. The vodka – chilled, spiced, Polish, Zubrowka – was in the freezer. Both constituted sustenance for the last sixteen hours: the former as nutritional nourishment; the latter as an antidote to a hangover, a beery one, one acquired in another town in another region in another province in another country on another continent forty-eight hours before. A certain journalist concludes that eventually, pretty soon, as in like the immediate near future, quite urgently, she would have to quit being such a baby about the jet lag and venture downstairs, outside, out in the streets, up the street and around the bend and down a few lanes and through a few passages and around the corner for some more nourishing nourishment, the nutritional kind, sustenance, food, before the olives-and-vodka-only deal transformed into a slightly classier, slightly less cold, slightly more Parisian version of the Donner party. It was just a thought.

“…Vous écoutez FIP…(ah)…” It was just past two. On a Wednesday (or could it be Tuesday?) afternoon. No matter. The stores would be open for a while. Plenty of time to stock up on more olives and Zubrowka. She helps herself to a healthy helping of each as the Woman Of FIP softly, silkily, seductively slips into what sounds like a traffic report.

There were sticky notes everywhere. All over the flat. Because it could really, only, exclusively, realistically be called a flat, even thought it was not entirely flat, technically, on a technical level, because of the spidery-spindly little ladder that led up to what the Parisian classifieds classified as a mezzanine, but was really, only, exclusively, realistically, technically a bed. So the flat wasn’t really flat; it was really on two levels. But it couldn’t be called a loft. Most certainly not. And it most certainly, most definitely, most decidedly was not an apartment. A compartment, maybe. Or maybe even a pad. Perhaps a pied à terre. The girl who had handed over the keys – not the landlady, but the girl the landlady had arranged for to carry out this precise task – had said that they had nicknamed it “the freight elevator.” As a nickname, it was apt. And there were sticky notes everywhere. All over the place. All over the flat. Affixed to appliances and mirrors and doors and walls. Explaining things like what to do if the shower plugged up and how to use the phone, what to do to get the Internet up and running and the extraordinary intricacies involved in getting the vegetable steamer to work. Sticky notes. Everywhere. On everything. All over the place. Like wallpaper. In pink and yellow and baby blue. There was even one stuck to the little ghetto blaster that was crammed behind the stack of books in the corner. Specifying the frequency of FIP(ah).

The thing was, it seemed, to a certain journalist at least, it seemed like the musky-husky-brusky feminine mezzo of FIP got muskier and huskier and bruskier and baritone-ier as the day dragged on. She wondered about the recruitment practices over there. She wondered about the criteria that job candidates had to fill. Was FIP like The Playboy Club or more like Hooters? Only instead of having to be able to bust out in a certain-sized bra, instead of having to be of a certain cup, when you went to apply for a job at FIP you had to not only be feminine and a near-baritone, but you must also be a musky-husky-brusky one to boot? And then once you did get hired, if you fulfilled the criteria, if you passed muster, if you aced the test, once you did get hired was there some kind of musky-husky-brusky rating system designed to classify the musky-husky-bruskiness of your baritone, you know, for depth, and the deeper and muskier and huskier and bruskier your feminine baritone was, the later and later and later they scheduled you in the day? Was that what was really going on and going down over there chez FIP? Over there, across Paris, on the other side of town, at the other end of the sixteenth arrondissement, on this side of the river?

Another couple olives, another drink. It was really hard not to wonder about the Women Of FIP. What was going on over there, anyway? The Women Of FIP all probably had lots of lovers, younger ones and older ones and ones their own age, too, lovers with whom they scheduled secret sordid salacious rendez-vous for cinq à sept or deux à quatre or minuit à deux or midi à deux or whenever they could, depending on how bassy their musky-husky-brusky feminine baritones were and how early or late they had to get to work. And they all probably had fabulous flats, or lofts even, and apartments, too, decorated just so and arranged just right and filled with art and books on art and music and books on music and books on literature and philosophy and sociology and social commentary, too, books that made their lovers sit up and take notice and think and muse and dream and fantasize about how intriguing and intelligent and enlightened and cultured and therefore how seductive and therefore how astonishingly sexy they were. And they all, every last one of them, every single Femme du FIP, every single one, they all definitely, decidedly, undoubtedly, undeniably wore gorgeous lingerie. Gorgeous, lacy, detailed, dangerously distracting lingerie. Like garter belts and panty hose and corsets and bustiers and bras. Like Mrs. Robinson’s. Only better than Mrs. Robinson’s because it was French.

They were so damn sexy it made you want to be just like one of them.

“But you can be like us. You can be like us, too…”

Zubrowka sloshed. Zubrowka spilled. Zubrowka dribbled onto a certain journalist’s bare toes. She could have sworn someone had just said something. In English. A woman. A whispery, breathy, brusky, musky, husky woman. But there was no one else in the room. “Hello…I mean, âllo…?”

Nothing. Nada. Silence. Rien. Or at least the sounds thereof.

“You can be like us…too…”

Again. There it was again.

“You can be like us…”

It sounded like it was coming from the ghetto blaster.

A certain journalist set down her glass and waded through the mound of shoes that she had dumped out onto the floor earlier, not entirely sure of where she would find the space to store them but increasingly certain that they would wind up back in her suitcase. They were summer shoes, mainly, all straps and sandals and faux snakeskin and such, completely impractical for the début of a Parisian winter and therefore completely useless for a three-and-a-half-month séjour. But she had packed them, a certain journalist had, along with her summer clothes and her winter clothes that she had stuffed into the two suitcases she had allotted for the trip. Her three-and-a-half-month trip. She knew that in doing this she would rack up extra freight fees for the extra weight of the extra luggage —which she had —but it had seemed like the right thing to do. In a wrong kind of way.

“Mais non !  It was…it was the right thing to do…”

Definitely — it was coming from the ghetto blaster. No doubt about it. She touched the knob, fiddled with it, fumbled with it, fondled it, tried to turn it back and forth. Stuck. It was stuck. Stuck on FIP. Or FIP(ah).

“Do you not think it peculiar that you packed so much, so much you didn’t need, for so brief a voyage? Do you not think it strange, Caro-leen?”

Why was she speaking English?! And how did she know that name??!! It was definitely coming from the ghetto blaster, and a certain journalist was pretty sure it was definitely coming directly from FIP(ah). But why was this woman, this siren of the airwaves, this public radio nymph, why was she speaking directly to her? Directly to a certain journalist? Directly to her, Caro-leen? In English? Sure, the Women Of FIP had spoken English before, a sexily-accented English, an English sexily-accented in French, musky and husky and brusky and baritone, but that was when they were citing the names of songs. English songs. Songs with English names. But other than that they spoke French. French-French. France-French. Parisian French. You know, French-y-French. Which was why, in the first place, a certain journalist had tuned into FIP(ah). She needed to practice. She was far from fluent. She had a base, of course — she was Canadian, after all.  She had taken French, which was mandatory, gone through French Immersion, followed French lessons, enrolled in French extra-curricular activities, participated enthusiastically in French kissing…had even hired a French tutor – a cute one, a real-live French-from-France one, one that was, you know, French – six months before she knew she was coming to Paris. He would come to her office, her office in Vancouver, this cute, real-live-French-from-France guy, to converse and counter and clarify and correct. He helped her brush up on her subjunctive tense. Charged twenty dollars an hour. She wore mini-skirts. That was that. And now she was listening to FIP – FIP(ah) –  for practice. Wanted to become fluent.

“You will not succeed to become fluent in three-and-a-half months, Caro-leen. It is not enough time…”

Why was she…?! How was she…??!! How did she…???!!!

A certain journalist clambered back over the mound of shoes, over the pile of straps and faux snakeskin and buckles and sandals and such, stubbed her toe, barked her shin, and poured another shot. Yeah, sure, O.K., fine…when it came to being fluent, three-and-a-half months was probably pushing it. Three-and-a-half months was probably too short. But still, it didn’t mean…it didn’t mean…

“It did not mean that you had planned to stay in Paris, for good, in the first place?”

Of course not! How could she kn…how could she say that? Everyone knew that Caro-leen was only staying three-and-a-half months. Everyone. That’s why…that’s why…that’s why…that’s why…

“This is why all of your friends from home were placing bets on when they would receive news that you were never coming back…?”

That was just absurd. Completely over the top. Well mainly, anyway. O.K., sure all right, fine…there was only that one person that one time at that one going-away party who placed a bet. But they were drunk. And besides, they didn’t really know her that well anyway, and she didn’t really know them. Like, they had only really been acquainted for like five or six years. So it wasn’t fair to count them. It didn’t really count. Because everyone else knew, everyone else who knew and had known a certain journalist for a very long time, longer than five or six years, everyone else had heard, everybody else had been informed and brought up to speed and kept in the know that a certain journalist, a certain Caro-leen, would be returning to Vancouver. Vancouver, British Columbia. In Canada. In North America. In three-and-a-half-months. Everybody knew that.

“So why did you purchase a ticket one-way?”

Ahem. Plane tickets were expensive, you know. She had been waiting for a seat sale. Anybody could understand that.

“Like your boyfriend?”

What boyfriend?

“Oh là là, Caro-leen… only seventeen hours and you forget already about the boyfriend? The one you left behind? The one who you insisted not come along with you? The one you refer to, under your breath, when you’re on the phone to your girlfriends, as your ‘pet musician?’”

Oh. Him.

“Yessss????” Maybe it was all the William Shatner Star Trek-y stuff they played, but the Women Of FIP were beginning to sound like The Borg.

Well…well. Well, he was kind of busy right now. Had a lot of projects going on. Creative projects. Artistic projects. Music projects. Important ones. Like that open mic night he hosted every Monday night. There was that. And then there was that song that he had been working on – the one he had started last year – he was just about to nail it. And then there was all of that recording software that she had just bought for him, and then there was that new guitar, and of course that amp had finally just come back from the repair shop, some hand-made, specially-designed, one-of-a-kind custom job that had cost an arm and a leg and kept blowing up, and then there was that car she had bought him, the shiny black fast one that he said he needed so he could drive around and gather inspiration and write lyrics in his head and think, there was that, too, and it would’ve been a shame to have insisted on him coming, all the way to Paris, only to bow out on that gig that he had in a few weeks, the one he had booked at the local pizza joint, the one that paid fifty bucks if enough people showed up, when they could really use the money. And then there was the fact that she was kind of getting in the way, you know, in the way of his creativity, in the way of his art, in the way of his music, you know, with all of her venting and stressing and freaking out about and going on about how despite all the writing jobs she had, despite the fact that she was working overtime, despite the fact that she was at the office, in front of her computer, typing and clicking and inserting and deleting all damn day and night, that they couldn’t make ends meet. It was kinda getting in the way of his groove.

“But he is a loser…”

Well…

…well.

“A loser…”  She pronounced it FIP-ah style:  “Loos-zair…”  It had a certain flair when you put it that way.

Well… Well… Well… Well she wouldn’t really call him a loser. Perhaps “loser” was being a bit too harsh. And besides, “loser” was really a subjective term when you thought about it. Wasn’t it? Like, for instance, a certain journalist thought many people that wore three-piece suits to work were losers, even though they paid the bills and bought cool stuff and could actually afford the slick cars they drove around in and could actually cough up the cash if they had wanted to purchase fancy musical equipment, you know, to play on the weekends when they were sitting around listening to The Eagles…a certain journalist thought many of those guys were losers, not because of the three-piece suits or the cool stuff or the slick cars or the fancy musical equipment, but mainly because of The Eagles. And that probably wasn’t fair. Among all of those three-piece suit-wearing, cool stuff-buying, slick car-driving, fancy musical equipment-on-the-weekend-playing, Eagles-listening dudes there were probably one or two nice guys. But, as she had said, the term “loser” was subjective. So maybe it wasn’t that her boyfriend, the one she had left back home, was a loser; maybe he was just misunderstood.

“Oh come now, Caro-leen…we could never play this music of his on FIP-ah.  It would be too…. too… too….”  Even the Woman Of FIP-ah was at a loss for words for how awful it would be.

A certain journalist bit into her last olive — she was tempted, a little histrionically, to declare it The Final Olive — and chased it with a swig of Zubrowka. There were some things that one couldn’t argue about. There were some things that, if argued about, made it hard for the argue-ee to save face. Maybe the Woman Of FIP(ah) was right. Maybe she should…Maybe she could…Maybe she would…

“Perhaps you might wish to dump him…”

Or she could…

“Abandon him….”

Or she would…

“Throw him in the air!”

What??!!

A clearing of The Voice. “It’s a direct translation from French for jets-le en air. It is to say that you should not leave…”

Where?

“That you should live…”

Here?  (She was having trouble telling whether the Woman of FIP-ah was saying “leave” or “live.”  It was all so confusing!)

The Voice of the Woman of FIP cut through her confusion.  “That you should stay…”

In Paris?

“Yes, in Paris.  Mais oui —of course!  No one but farmers and the indecisives lives outside of Paris. It is why you came, n’est-ce pas ?”

Well, ye…well, yea…well… But what about work?

“Stay…”

Paris isn’t cheap, you know…. she couldn’t stay here forever without working.

“Stay-ay-y-y…”

But a girl’s gotta pay rent and buy olives and Zubrowka and shoes and clothes and champagne and…

“Caro-leen, really! You are a writer. There are many writers in Paris. We are known for these. Writers may work from any spot, true?. Did you not bring your computer with you? Had you not planned to work a little bit during your séjour? Do you not have some deadlines?”

She knew. She had. She did. But what about the apartment? What was she going to do about that? She only had it for three-and-a-half months.

“FIP-ah is but a radio station, Caro-leen, not a real estate agency. For this I propose to consult the classifieds, comme tout le monde. Your search for an apartment is not FIP-ah’s concern.”

O.K., all right, sure fine…if you wanted to be that way. She would find her own damn apartment, thank you very much. Or, en français : merci beaucoup. She didn’t need the Women Of FIP(ah) to help her. No siree. Or, no ma’am. Or, non madame. Or, non mesdames. She had already found this apartment, after all, all alone, on her own, of her own accord, toute seule, and that was when she was still overseas. Across the Big Pond. On the other side of Canada. On the Western coast of her country. So she would be just fine, thank you very much, merci beaucoup, muchas graçias, danke schoen.  Or no, non,  better yet – screw the classifieds! She didn’t need ’em!! Had no use for them at all!!! She had better plans, bigger plans, more effective plans…plans of action. She would find somebody who knew somebody who had heard of somebody who was friends with somebody who sought somebody to rent their apartment. That’s what she would do!!!! You couldn’t stop her!!!!! She was unstoppable!!!!!! Once she met somebody, that is.

“You see, Caro-leen? Tu vois ?”

Of course she saw. She was beginning to see lots of things. And lots of doubles of lots of things. Starting with the empty bottle of vodka.

“You are a resourceful girl…”

Well, duh.

“And resourceful girls can find solutions to any problem…”

They could. It was a fact.

“Trust yourself, Caro-leen…you make the right decision…you will be ver-ry, ver-ry ’appy in Paris…”

She knew she would. Or at least she was pretty sure. Who couldn’t be ’appy in Paris? It just seemed like the right thing to do. In a ver-ry, ver-ry right kind of way. But there was one more thing, one last question, one last matter that needed clearing up. What if…? What if…?

She waited. She wondered.  She clinked her nails against her glass. She tried pouring herself the last drops of Zubrowka, but it was all gone. So, too, was The Voice. It had slipped away, silently, silkily, a secret lover sneaking stealthily out into the night. And then…and then…

Music. Fast and then slow and then sparse and then full. Loud and then soft and then big and then bold. It was a famous tune, a show tune, a tune she knew all too well, a tune she knew by heart. It was Kander and Ebb and Fosse and Liza. Liza, with a “z.” The height of show biz. Show biz, with a “z.” Liza whispering, Liza dancing, Liza high-kicking, Liza singing, belting “Mein Herr.” Ditching him. Dumping him. Leaving him. Escaping him. Throwing him in the air.

And so, in that tiny little Parisian apartment, on that tiny little Parisian street, as the tiny little afternoon dwindled into dusk, a certain journalist danced. And sang. And high-kicked. And then danced and danced some more. Through the mountain of shoes, amidst a shower of sticky notes, she sang and she danced some more. She could do this, she would do this, there was no stopping her now, she was unstoppable, unshakable, unbeatable, undefeatable, kicking her leggy legs and heel-y heels in the air––

Silence. And the sounds thereof.

The plug. The plug attached to the little ghetto blaster crammed behind the little stack of books in the corner, somewhere beneath the big blizzard of sticky notes. In all of her dancing and singing and high-kicking, a certain journalist had knocked the plug out of the wall. No more Liza. No more Fosse. No more Kander and Ebb.  Worst, no more  “Mein Herr.”

No more FIP(ah). No more Women of FIP(ah). No more Women of FIP(ah) to lead the way.

What could she do now? What would she do now? How unstoppable was she if a little loss of juice, whether electrical or Zubrowka . . . well, made her stop?

Then something happened. In her head, something clicked. In her body, something ticked. A certain journalist resumed dancing, and singing, and whispering, and high-kicking, and singing and dancing some more. Much as she loved her, she didn’t need Liza. She could certainly do without Fosse and Kander and Ebb. And the Women Of FIP(ah)? Well, she was sorry their little one-on-one was over, was kinda sad to hear that they had gone, but beyond that, she had no regrets. She would listen sagely to their traffic reports, and their sexily French-accented introductions to English songs, and the musky, husky, brusky way that they delivered the hour. But beyond that, above and beyond that, after all that, well, that was pretty much that. Their conversation had reached its natural conclusion. It was time to move on. Or rather, to stay put. In Paris.

There was one thing, though. One final issue. Just one small matter she wished she had cleared up. One last question she wished she had asked.

If she wanted a voice like the Women of FIP(ah), did it mean that she should start to smoke?

There he was, right up there on the silver screen, on one of the many silver screens in one of the many cinemas in Paris. More precisely, it was a silver screen in one of the many screening rooms in the cinema in Les Halles. More precisely, it was a silver screen in one of the many screening rooms in UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, not one of the silver screens downstairs in Les Halles, in one of the screening rooms in the UGC Orient Express. No, he was up there, Louis was, right up there on one of the larger, more expansive silver screens in the larger, more expansive Main Venue. In Salle 4. On a Wednesday afternoon. To be precise.

Monsieur Garrel in THAT shirt

Louis Garrel. In all of his French actor-inspired glory…

…wearing a lumberjack coat.

A lumberjack coat! On Louis! Enfolding Louis! Engulfing Louis! Enwrapping Louis! Enveloping Louis Garrel!

It was all very upsetting.

There had to be an explanation – it was an art film, after all. A film d’auteur. A typically French film d’auteur with a typically snappy French title: Non ma fille, tu n’iras pas danser (No Daughter, You Won’t Go Dancing). A certain journalist doesn’t recall much dancing taking place, unless one counted that bizarre-o period sequence in the middle, that part that took place out on the moors somewhere, if you could call that dancing, which a certain journalist certainly doesn’t because as far as dancing went it was un-seductive and un-suggestive and un-sexy and therefore un-fun…and nowhere, nowhere in the title was there any mention of lumberjacks. Or lumberjack coats. And anyway, everyone, everyone knows that lumberjacks come from Québec, not France, and that Louis Garrel is French, not Québécois, and that this was a French film d’auteur, not a Québécois one. A French film d’auteur that took place in France, not Québec. To be precise.

It was all so very upsetting.

In all fairness, in the interest of remaining calm, in the interest of keeping one’s wits, in the interest of not going off the Deep End, in the interest of maintaining journalistic accuracy, it must be stated, fairly, calmly, pragmatically, accurately that Louis Garrel would look hot in just about anything – even a lumberjack coat. To be precise. But still…

Here’s the thing: there exists a certain number of us, a certain journalist included, who visit and come to and settle down in and plant roots in Paris, Paris France. We say we come for the language and the culture and the cuisine and the champagne, and it’s true, it really is. But some of us, a certain journalist included, some of us aren’t afraid to admit and concede and confess and declare that the other thing, the Other Thing we come for is the men. The French men. Frenchmen like Louis Garrel. Frenchmen with messy hair and pouty lips and finely-formed cheekbones and well-tailored coats. Well-tailored three-quarter-length coats. Like the ones that Louis Garrel normally wears in his movies.

Mr Canada 2009

And here’s the other thing: there exists a certain number of us, a certain journalist included, who live here in Paris but who hail from Canada. That’s C-A-N-A-D-A – you know the one. Right? Or at least you’ve heard of it once or twice. Second largest land mass in the world, next to Russia? Polite, modest, unnoticed, overshadowed cousin to the U.S. of A.? You know, home of hockey and maple syrup and back bacon and whale blubber and beavers and beaver tail pastries and yes, the odd igloo or two and yes, the odd lumberjack or two and yes, the odd guy or two, or three or four hundred, or three or four thousand, or three or four hundred thousand that wear lumberjack coats even though they rarely, if ever, go trekking through the bush? You see, you know the Canada of which I write! And you’ve probably never even been there!!

And yes, this is all accurate, it must be stated, for the sake of journalistic accuracy, for the sake of accuracy for accuracy’s sake, to be precise. But allow a certain journalist to elaborate, permit her to dispel a certain few myths: there exists a certain number of us, a certain journalist included, who don’t like hockey, who rarely consume maple syrup or back bacon for that matter, who have never, ever been near or seen a whale or its blubber for that matter…and well, we’ll just leave the beaver thing alone. We came to Paris, a certain number of us, a certain journalist included, for the language and culture and cuisine and champagne and Frenchmen and Inherent Lack of Lumberjack Coats. We HATE lumberjack coats! Loathe them!! We curse the mass production of them!!! We despise everything they stand for!!!! So when a certain number of us, or at least a certain journalist, is sitting around a certain cinema on a certain Wednesday afternoon, minding her own business, only to discover that a certain French actor, one of her favorite French actors, has stooped so low as to sport the certain offendingly offensive, shapeless, formless, black-and-red checkered eyesore, well…

…it’s all so very certainly upsetting.

Saturday night, 10:23 p.m., to be precise. Precisely three days and a few hours proceeding the Lumberjack Coat Sighting. Central Paris. The Marais, to be precise. The Marais as in The Swamp. Not The Woods, not The Bush, not The Forest or any other derivative in which a lumberjack may be inclined to hang out. The Swamp. As in Le Marais. Only it’s not a swamp. But still…

It’s a big night for the artsy set. As a kick-off to the fall expo season, the galleries have thrown open their doors to exhibit the first oeuvres of the season. It’s technically art, and technically technical, but not technically beautiful, technically, but it doesn’t matter because beauty, on this balmy Parisian eve, is everywhere all the same. It’s in the pools of soft lamplight spilling onto the tiny sidewalks, it’s in the rivers of pale moonlight that bathe the narrow streets. It’s in the wafts of expensive perfume that cling to the mild night air, and it’s in the swishy sway of a sugar baby’s hips as she leads Sugar Daddy to his next investment. It’s a beautiful soirée filled with beautiful people…and language and culture and champagne. And everyone, everyone is fashionable and stylish and gorgeous and glamorous and so damn chic.

And then there they were. Right there, arm in arm. Customarily honoring Marais custom. Strolling, stopping, sauntering, sidling up, chuckling at, presumably, some inside joke. Right there on the rue Saint-Claude, just around the corner from the rue des Arquebusiers. Two French boys, arm in arm. Messy hair and pouty lips and finely-formed cheekbones and the whole bit. Wearing matching LUMBERJACK coats.

It was all so extremely upsetting that a certain journalist needed to get a drink.

Sunday morning, 12:19 a.m. On the sidewalk terrasse of a bar on rue au Maire, on the edge of Le Marais, not far from Arts et Métiers, right beside the Tango nightclub. A line has formed outside the club; the crowd is patient, amiable, lighthearted, fun. And then there they were: two more French boys, different ones, ones with shorter, less messy hair, but with pouty lips and finely-formed cheekbones nonetheless. Wearing, well…take a guess. And a third French boy, his pouty lips and finely-formed cheekbones further accented by a short, neat crew cut, sporting a shirt-like version of the original coat. A certain journalist chugged her 1664 and signaled to her friends that it was time to split. She wasn’t in a hurry to get home, kind of dreaded daybreak, didn’t really want to imagine breakfast, but still. What if, after all, there was some subversive conspiracy that was attempting to wipe out Parisian culture? What if Paris was being invaded by some kind of fellow lumberjack travellers? First through fashion…and then what? Were they going to replace morning croissants with beaver tail pastries? Her beloved steak-frites with bacon and blubber? Soccer and rugby with hockey and…and…

The thought was, well, quite upsetting.

Wednesday afternoon again. Precisely a week after Lumberjack Coat Sighting Number One, nearly almost to the hour, to be precise. A certain journalist is placidly perusing the Pariscope to see what’s playing, but she’s decided to avoid Louis Garrel films for the next little while. A certain Frenchman is in the next room, organizing his closet. A crash, a thud, a few cheery cuss words en français, a gleeful little outburst of triumph.

“What do you think, chérie ?” said certain Frenchman inquired as he appeared in the doorway. And then there it was, dangling from his outstretched arm in all of its black-and-red checkered glory: a Canadian-issue lumberjack coat, circa…well, does it matter?

“I considered disposing of it, but I will not,” he explained earnestly. “That would not be très correcte. I cannot throw away a souvenir I purchased while visiting your country! En plus, I hear they’re coming back into style.”