Category Archives: france

Delusional Deja Vu – Le Abbee of Saint Michel de Cuxa

February 22, 2025 – 3:15 pm

In 1988 I spent the summer in Perpignan, France. My good friend, Olivier Brial, arranged my stay with his cousin, Jacques Vial. The family house on the Quai Nicolas Sidi Carnot was in the center of the old Catalan city. The River Basse coursed past the fourth-story mansion east to the sea in Olivier’s parents […]

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A Bacchanalian Mirage

July 30, 2024 – 12:23 pm

Associated Press – Paris Olympics organizers apologized to anyone who was offended by a tableau that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’ during the glamorous opening ceremony, but defended the concept behind it Sunday. Da Vinci’s painting depicts the moment when Jesus Christ declared that an apostle would betray him. The scene during Friday’s […]

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Bastille Day 1789

July 14, 2024 – 1:11 am

2 July 1789 The Bastille – Paris The Marquis De Sade was in the stone fortress on charges of perversion. In the afternoon a prisoner cried from his window. “Ils tuent les prisonniers.” The guards subdued the inmate, but his words sparked a smoldering rumor and the rumor spread through the poor neighborhood awaiting a […]

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Les Frogs

July 14, 2024 – 1:02 am

Most Americans have an unfavorable attitude toward the French. This antipathy is based on the abuse many US tourists have suffered from dismissive Paris waiters during their weeklong summer vacation. Few of my countrymen realize that these garcons are rude to their own countrymen as well as any estrangers. That is not to say that […]

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BETTER LUCKY THAN GOOD by Peter Nolan Smith

June 18, 2024 – 8:02 am

Back in October of 1990 a greasy nor-easter ruined Columbus Day weekend for New York. I shut my windows for the first time in months and dressed to leave my apartment for breakfast at the Veselka Diner on 2nd Avenue. The shoes and jacket seemed unnaturally heavy after a season of shorts and sandals. Luckily […]

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