Destination: France
Inside David Sedaris’s Paris: An Audio Tour
by Michael Yessis | 08.27.06 | 2:46 PM ET
On this weekend’s broadcast of This American Life, host Ira Glass visits writer and radio commentator David Sedaris in Paris. I caught part of the show in my car yesterday and Sedaris, who has been living in the City of Light for several years, gives Glass a tour of his favorite Paris spots which include, among other places, his local hardware store. The 10 minutes I heard were typical Sedaris—insightful, neurotic and funny. This American Life doesn’t stream audio from its Web site during the weekend the show is being broadcast around the country, but you can still catch it later tonight on individual stations. Find a station here or try KPCC at 7 p.m. PT Sunday night. Update: It can now be heard at This American Life’s Web site.
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Young and Restless’ Travel Column Debuts
by Jim Benning | 08.07.06 | 1:52 PM ET
Terry Ward debuted her promising new monthly column for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s travel section Sunday, aptly titled “Young and Restless.” The first piece focuses on the pleasures and challenges of studying French in Toulouse. Among the highlights, she recalls her early conversations with Emmanuelle, the 48-year-old woman she lived with: “[W]e found ourselves laughing at our ‘Franglish’ over steaming bowls of verbena tea. We pondered the irony of my ‘L’oreal Paris’ cream that I bought at an Orlando Wal-Mart, and her ‘Vichy New York’ cream purchased from a pharmacy in Toulouse.” Terry is a contributing editor of World Hum and has written about France for the site. Terry’s stateside now, but for how long nobody knows. She is young and restless. As she told me today, recollecting her time in France, “I wanna go back.”
Photo courtesy of Terry Ward.
De-Politicizing the French Fry
by Terry Ward | 08.03.06 | 9:48 PM ET
Francophile that I am, I was glad to hear a short snippet on the NBC Nightly News yesterday evening mentioning a menu change on Capitol Hill. “Freedom fries” and “freedom toast”—so dubbed on congressional cafeteria menus when tensions rose between Washington and Paris during the looming invasion of Iraq in 2003—have quietly reverted to their original monikers, French fries and French toast. A USA Today blog noted that, back in 2003, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, angry about France’s anti-war position, “wielded his legislative authority over the House cafeterias and mandated a change of menu, which had been suggested by Republican colleague Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina.” The blog goes on to say that there are no official comments from the hill on the decision to re-Frenchify the names.
Zidane and the Head Butt Debated Around the World
by Terry Ward | 07.19.06 | 8:00 AM ET
Along with a billion-plus World Cup watchers, I was tuned in to the last minutes of the final between France and Italy when Zinedine Zidane nailed Italian player Marco Materazzi with that now infamous head butt. More than shocked, I felt instantly sad. And then, strangely, embarrassed, because I could just imagine the emotions on the streets of France, in that Berlin stadium, and around the world at that moment. I doubt many people truly enjoyed watching a star like Zidane go out on that note. The next night, when I watched the nightly network news (France’s loss was largely blamed on Zidane for being ousted with a red card), it irked me how the American anchorman had denounced Zidane as having gone “from legend to lout.” Where was the middle ground, I wondered? Or at least some hint that Zidane’s action could lie somewhere between salvation and sin? The anchor’s quick condemnation brought to mind a certain French friend of mine who always insisted that Americans (particularly, perhaps, yours truly) are too quick to see things in black and white.
Happy Bastille Day!
by Michael Yessis | 07.14.06 | 3:33 PM ET
I’ll be commemorating the beginning of the French Revolution tonight at a French restaurant here in D.C. with a three-course prix fixe meal that’s an excellent price for so many reasons. That price? $17.89.
Montélimar, France
by Ben Keene | 07.14.06 | 11:25 AM ET
World Cup Fans: Do You Know What Your Country Smells Like?
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 1:09 PM ET
Coca-Cola? Ripe mangoes? A piña colada? An After Eight mint? Chanel No 5? According to the Telegraph, retired perfume maker Ernst-Adolf Hinrichs of Holzminden, Germany, has identified the scents of the countries competing in next month’s World Cup tournament. Kate Connolly writes that Holzminden is “home to one of the world’s leading industrial producers of smells,” and that Hinrichs has created the scents for “smelling posts” around the city. Visitors are instructed to, of course, “follow their noses.” So which of the scents listed above belong to which country?
Brits to French: You’re Unfriendly, Ungenerous and Boring
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 7:12 AM ET
So say 6,000 voters surveyed by the travel site Where Are You Now, according to an AFP report. Germans finished second in all of the same categories. Respondents in the survey ranked countries in various categories, including most cultured and most unstylish. The “winners” respectively: Italy and the United States.
Trouble in the Paris Travel Blogosphere?
by Jim Benning | 05.09.06 | 10:40 AM ET
It seems some aren’t too happy with Los Angeles Times travel writer Susan Spano’s ongoing blog from Paris. While I find Spano’s newspaper columns to be a cut above most material in newspaper travel sections—we link to them occasionally here—I’ve never found her blog to be terribly compelling. I don’t often read it. Kevin Roderick at LA Observed sums up the recent flap, which centers on a remark Spano made in her blog next to a photo of tents provided for the homeless along the Seine.
France, Interrupted
by Terry Ward | 04.10.06 | 10:20 PM ET
Photo by Terry Ward. In a lake house near Rodez, the wine was flowing and party-goers were immersed in a rugby match on TV. Terry Ward was chatting with locals, enjoying the moment. Then the telephone call came from home.
Peter Mayle: In Provence, I’m Regarded as “a Fairly Benevolent Oddity”
by Jim Benning | 04.05.06 | 9:20 AM ET
Top 10 Apres-Ski Spots
by Jim Benning | 02.21.06 | 2:25 PM ET
I love snowboarding, but I probably love kicking back afterward even more. There’s nothing like that feeling of exhaustion and satisfaction after a long day on the slopes, when it’s time to soak in the hot tub, reward yourself with a great meal and relax by a crackling fire. So I was happy to see MSNBC.com offer a list of the top 10 scenes to do just that. Aspen makes the list (Hollywood stars, great restaurants). So does Killington (check out the Wobbly Barn and the Pickle Barrel) and Lake Tahoe (casinos galore). Internationally, Cortina in Italy and Argentina’s Bariloche are included. And so is Chamonix-Mont Blanc, my personal favorite. MSNBC cites its “location on the crossroads of France, Italy, and Switzerland that makes it a natural multicultural mecca for serious skiers and serious partiers.”
Tourist Architecture: Kitsch Curios and Vainglorious Monstrosities
by Michael Yessis | 02.13.06 | 10:02 AM ET
I think the proposed Grand Canyon Skywalk is unnecessary. Jonathan Glancey thinks it’s a travesty. And his criticism extends to other questionable developments in well-traveled spots around the world. In Saturday’s paper, the Guardian’s architecture correspondent listed his picks for worst additions to natural landscapes around the world. He pulls no punches.
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Suffering From “American Vertigo”
by Terry Ward | 02.10.06 | 12:38 AM ET
Photograph of Bernard-Henri Lévy by Thierry Dudoit/L'Express/Editing. Terry Ward asks France's rock star philosopher, BHL, about his journey in Tocqueville's footsteps and the value of traveling par hasard
Oslo Tops List of World’s Most Expensive Cities
by Michael Yessis | 02.01.06 | 10:59 AM ET
Norway’s capital unseated Tokyo, Japan, which had been number one on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s biannual survey for 14 years. Reykjavik, Iceland ranked third on the list, with Osaka, Japan and Paris, France rounding out the top five. The AP has a report on the survey.
Photo by Sarah Schmelling.