Cara Black blog

atelier in Paris

2011-07-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

Ghost Metro Station in Paris

2010-05-26T04:45:00.001-07:00

This station was closed in 1939....do you know where it is?

Cara

Metro in Paris

2010-05-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

Twilight at the Metro...do you know where this is?

Simone joins the Academie Francaise

2010-03-22T21:37:00.000-07:00

On Friday Simone Veil, Auschwitz survivor and stateswoman was inducted into the Academie Francaise, one of six women ever to join the ranks of the 'immortals'.

2010-03-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

Doors in the Marais

Murder by Arrondissement on Scene of the Crime

2010-02-19T10:22:00.000-08:00

Here's the link to my interview on Sydney Jones's blog
Scene of the Crime
http://jsydneyjones.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/murder-by-arrondissement/

In the footsteps of Aimée Leduc

2010-02-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

My friend Pierre-Olivier
filmed this in the Palais Royal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF644edgVc4

A year with Aimée Leduc

2010-01-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

Here's the article
Thought you might enjoy A year with Aimée Leduc.
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=886314&category=life&TextPage=1

2009-12-28T10:16:00.001-08:00

A mysterious print at the Museum Arts et Metier.

Old Paris by Atget

2009-12-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

I photographed this Atget print at the archives last week

Murder in the Marais is in French

2009-10-02T09:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.city-editions.com/WebPages2009/RomansMeurtreMarais.htm

Adieu Willy Ronis

2009-09-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Willy Ronis photographer extraordinaire passed away this week at 99 years old.

Merci, Willy et adieu

brain work can be Parisian according to the Doc

2009-09-08T08:36:00.000-07:00

my blog interview with Doc Gurley this summer.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gurley/detail?blogid=114&entry_id=47047

Aimée's perfume

2009-09-02T09:07:00.000-07:00

decisions, decisions...should Aimée change perfume?
http://www.ysl-parisienne.com/fr

what do you think?

11 arrondissements to go - my Interview on Matt Benyon Rees' blog

2009-08-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

my interview on Matt's blog

http://mattbeynonrees.blogspot.com/2009/08/11-arrondissements-to-go-cara-blacks.html

very cool blog

2009-07-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

I like this...
http://www.garancedore.fr/en

Anne Frank le Musical...

2009-06-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

Playing at Theatre Dejazet near Republique is Anne le Musical and
yes it's about Anne Frank...I saw the posters in the Metro and my
Dutch friend snorted in disbelief...

Passages and Cours in Paris

2009-06-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/cours-paris/pool/show/with/377486380/

Mechanic's Library April 30th

2009-04-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

Let me know if you can come to our event below and I'll put on the guest list, complimentary. Wine and hors d'oeuvres, too.
April 30, 2009. AN EVENING OF MYSTERY & INTRIGUE IN PARIS!! CARA BLACK presents MURDER IN THE LATIN QUARTER: AN AIMEE LEDUC INVESTIGATION. Mechanics’ Institute, SF. 57 Post St. SF 6:00 pm The Bay Area’s doyenne of mystery offers the ninth in her ever-popular female “star” detective series set in Paris’s distinctive neighborhoods. Postcolonial politics, past and present, and global commerce ignite the murder of a Haitian academic in Paris’s bohemian Left Bank in this compelling narrative. Aimée LeDuc is stunned when a mysterious woman named Mireille arrives at Leduc Detective and announces that she is Aimée’s sister. When Mireille suddenly vanishes, Aimeé sets out to find her, and is quickly involved in this murky international murder. With PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION, discussed by SARA HOUGHTELING – Family secrets, the world of black market art, and the mysteries of post war Paris are elements that make for a gripping story set in Europe still recovering from World War II. Max Berenzon’s family returns from hiding to find that their priceless art collection has vanished. Max becomes obsessed with tracking down the Matisses, Picassos – and a mysterious Manet -- that were part of his father’s gallery. Sara Houghteling reveals an eye for historical detail and an ability to weave together a story of heroism, corruption, resistance and collaboration in a haunting and unforgettable first novel. Members Free; Public $12.

Paris the Levitan labor camp in Paris

2009-04-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

Here's the link to the camp described in Murder in the Rue de Paradis

http://www.sarahwildman.com/Paris__Dirty_Secret.html

Paris Bookstore

2009-04-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare and Company is an institution on the Left Bank with a lot
of history and connected to the birth of writers carreers ie. James Joyce, Hemingway, Laurence Durrell and the list goes on:
http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/index.php?categories=113:1&width=1262&height=706

Leighton Gage and I will talk there on Monday May 11th upstairs. You reach upstairs by creaky, groaning wooden stairs dim lit and none too steady. You make your way, shifting sideways, past the bookcases and piles of books, a cat or two who scurries under your feet, careful not to step on a reader engrossed crosslegged on the floor. Even in May Paris can chill the bones and the sky turn leaden so the smell of damp wool overcoats lingers. But the warmth of too many bodies cramped on the little chairs in little more than a Balzacian like garret with a window behind it that overlooks Notre Dame is, mes amies, like joining history.

French Flics and Flip Flops - at the firing range in Paris

2009-03-05T07:50:00.000-08:00

Photos and more!
http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress/?p=2924#comment-6136

Dining at le Bristol

2009-03-03T10:30:00.000-08:00

Secret visit to le Bristol in Paris upon award of it's 3 Michelin stars.
Look at the prices!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNLCsXTu_Vo

Is Cara Black good for your health?

2009-02-21T09:32:00.001-08:00

http://www.docgurley.com/2009/02/20/joy-habit-escape-to-paris

Bookmarks Interview with Jessica

2009-02-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a question Jessica asked me about Murder in the Latin Quarter

BM: When we spoke with you last year, Murder in the Rue de Paradis, which explored the crimes of a militant Turkish group, had just come out. How did you get from there to the Left Bank and Haitian politics?

CB: My editor had been suggesting that Aimée go the Left Bank, a part of Paris I didn’t know so well at the time. I really liked the Latin Quarter (except for the touristy area), but, when I visited in 2007, I found it hard to get a handle on the place. Then, one of my last days there, I had coffee with a documentary filmmaker, who told me about a great place out of Jules Verne—a laboratory near Jardin des Plantes. I was totally intrigued, so with two friends, in the rain and dusk, walked up and down the streets. We came upon a crumbling wall, walked around, peered through the windows, and saw specimen cabinets and bones hanging from the tall ceilings. We didn’t have an appointment, but talked our way into the lab. We were greeted by an older man, an expert on imported and domestic pigs in Haiti, who talked about Haiti and took us on an informal tour. This was my inspiration for some of the novel’s plot.

The rest on
http://www.bookmarksmagazine.com/paris-intrigue-part-ii-another-interview-cara-black-spring-2009/jessica-teisch

My review of Spade and Archer Joe Gores prequel The Maltese Falcon

2009-02-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/06/RVO415I1FO.DTL&type=books

Cows and Pigs in Paris

2009-02-02T07:52:00.001-08:00

3211592239_728edd9f93_o
Salon de l'Agriculture
Alright die-hard foodies- Salon de Agriculture is one of the best food shows you will ever attend. Taste your way through over 1,000 exhibitors and 700 producers from France who give away free samples of foie gras ,wine, cheese, and meats. There are also 4,500 farm animals on display with an aquarium, doghouse, pony village, and last but not least a pig village. (Is that where Porky lives?).If you miss Green Acres farm life there's a full scale working farm.

Salon de l'Agriculture
February 21 - March 1
Porte de Versailles
Metro: Potre de Versailles
Open 9AM-7PM, till 11PM Friday February 27
Admission:12 euros
http://www.salon-agriculture.com/no_cache/en/home/

Murder in the Marais

2009-01-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

MURDER IN THE MARAIS, published ten, yes, ten years ago the first in the Aimée Leduc investigation series hit the Independent Mystery Bookstores Bestseller list again this year and went into a twelfth printing. Shelfari named it on their Best of 2008 list.

Questions Shelf Awareness asked me and some answers

2009-01-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Cara Black lives in San Francisco with her husband, an independent
bookseller, and their son. Murder in the Latin Quarter, her ninth book
in the Aimée Leduc Investigation series set in Paris, comes out in
March. Caught at her desk littered with street maps of Paris, a student
guide to the Sorbonne and a flakey brioche she had this to say

************************************

On your nightstand now: 2001 French and English Idioms by Barron’s,
indispensible for the perfect bon mot, Reasonable Doubt by Gianrico
Carofiglio, featuring a Sicilian Perry Mason who cooks, The Lincoln
Lawyer by Michael Connelly because I want to read it again, an advance
copy of The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer who writes Eastern Europe like
no one else since Eric Ambler.

Favorite book when you were a child: Robinson Crusoe. Hands down. My
father would read it to us on Sunday afternoons, a chapter at a time.
It wasn’t just crawling on my father’s lap, finding space between my
brothers and peeking at the old illustrations but we’re talking
ship-wreck, a desert island, Robinson and his man Friday, adventure,
daring-do, self-sufficiency, restless natives, building a tree house...
all the things kids love.

Your top five authors: John le Carré he just gets b
etter - those
mulit-layered characters that live on the page, his breadth of
knowledge about espionage and the human heart. Diane Ackerman, whose A
History of the Senses opened my eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste to
sensory details, Alan Furst, his prose and atmosphere, Raymond Chandler
the noir master of language and metaphor and Graham Greene for foreign
intrigue and the gold standard for moral dilemna.

Book you've faked reading: A Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel
Proust. Give me a break, I’d rather eat a Madeleine instead. But that’s
between us, ok. I can fake it pretty well.

Book you are an evangelist for: ‘Paris Stories’ by Mavis Gallant.
Exquisite, poignant, finely honed short stories that take your breath
away. Why don’t more people know about her?

Book you've bought for the cover: Lock 14, an Inspector Maigret novel
by Georges Simenon. What’s not to love about this cover; a black and
white Doisneau-like photo of 30’s Paris with the dark Seine and barges
backlit under the shadowed bridge. Mysterious.

Book that changed your life: All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich
Maria Remarque. I read this in high school. Especially the scene where
Paul shares a WWI shell hole with a dying French soldier, and
contemplates on the brotherhood of man, and on our universal
commonality, and of the utter uselessness of war.

Favorite line from a book:
"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a
vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat
and a gun." Farewell, My Lovely - Raymond Chandler

Books you most want to read again for the first time - The Lover by
Marguerite Duras

Which writer - dead or alive - would you like to have all to yourself
in a quiet corner of a bar? Oscar Wilde. Over a bottle of Absinthe
somewhere in Saint Germain des Prés.

Profile in Publisher's Weekly

2008-12-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a profile in Publisher's Weekly

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6621840.html.

Washington Post Books Best of 2008

2008-12-08T08:51:00.000-08:00

Murder in the Rue de Paradis made the Fiction/Mystery list
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/features/2008/holiday-guide/gifts/best-books-of-2008/

Markets in Paris

2008-11-26T14:39:00.000-08:00

There are hundreds around the city, but here are some favorites:

* Marché Raspail (6th) - organic and expensive. Sundays 9am-2pm. Métro: Rennes.
* Marché Bastille (11th) - the city's largest with a huge range of produce and specialty products. Thursdays 7:00-2:30. Sundays 7am-3pm. Métro: Bastille.
* Place d'Aligre (12th) - in addition to the indoor market, a sprawling outdoor market operates on Tuesday and Saturday morning. Métro: Ledru-Rollin.
* Marché biologique Batignolles (17th) - plenty of unusual produce that you won't find elsewhere. Saturday 9am-2pm. Métro: Rome or Place Clichy.
* Marché Place des Fêtes (19th) - brimming with immigrants and excellent produce at low prices. Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Métro Place des Fêtes

The market at Place d'Aligre is supposedly the oldest continuously running market in Paris. I love it on Saturday mornings. Matter of fact a lot of Aimée's action in Murder in the Bastille takes place on the streets surrounding it.

a bakery with a woodburning oven in Paris...one of only four

2008-10-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

I discovered this wonderful bakery by sheer chance after walking around 'the countryside of Paris' as they call the area La Mouzaia in the 19th arrondissement. It's near the park Buttes Chaumont and the nearest Metro is Botzaris. We'd found a Russian church then turned the corner and saw La Boulangerie par Véronique Mauclerc, 83 rue de Crimée, Paris 19ème, +33 (0)1 42 40 64 55. The baker showed us his centuries old woodburning oven in the back...fantastic bread!

Paris underground bars, Gestapo and a slice of culture

2008-09-22T00:36:00.000-07:00

At last I'm on my latptop in Montmartre and not at the mercy of the French keyboard. Apologies to anyone who received my incomprehensible emails pecked out with excruciating frustration...desolée. In Paris finding Wifi or 'Weefee' as they say is getting easier and more fascinating is that there's a hundred something Euro fine for NOT picking up your chien's poop. Is this newsor what? Now I realize why my shoes have been so clean...

My recent explorations; Via a manhole in the sidewalk near Trocadero, we descended to underground phone cable tunnels and then the recently 're-opened' sort of bar and movie theatre hewn in the quarry under Palais Chaillot...right across from the Eiffel Tower. Yes, hewn in limestone, and part of the quarries under the 16th arrondissement. We literally squeezed thru a hole - the only entrance now - took photos at the 'bar'....the CATAFLICs underground police raided this four years ago and shut it down but lo and behold it's reopened...when Patrick, a cataphile and engineer here in Paris sends me photos I'll post them here.

On a more cultural very bourgeois note - during the Jours de Patrimoine - when buildings are open to the public I toured the Ministry of Culture and Conseil d'Etat in the Palais Royal....not too shabby to have an office overlooking the garden I'd say. Also the Ministry of Interior on Place Beauveau which several years ago I visited at midnite once courtesy of my friend but now I saw it in the light, the display of the gendarmes and CRS riot gear which they proudly say can withstand 'un cocktail molotov'! But the other entrance on rue des Saussaies is notorious for being used by the Gestapo (one of their hq's) and the torture cells with the surviving grafitti by the victims during the Occupation....very moving.

More later...
Cara in Montmartre where the sun is breaking over the slanted rooftops thru my friend Anne's window to prism thru the coffee press

going to Paris

2008-09-02T10:24:00.001-07:00

A quick note before I leave for Paris next week...I just got back from the great Decatur Book Festival outside Atlanta this weekend. I shared the van from the airport in with John Dean (the ex-Nixon aide who testified at Watergate) but I didn't catch his name and silly me kept asking 'now what do you write?' Evidently he writes 2 books a year and has gone to the radical Left...but
I shared a panel and the van back to the Atlanta airport with Louis Bayard, his partner and two sons. I can't wait to read his historical mystery on Vidocq, and he told me Vidocq long ago lived on rue Hirondelles, street of the swallows, in Paris. I'll go and check..

Sarah, my sweet and wonderful publicist also gave me the galley of Murder in the Latin Quarter that I now have in my hot little hand and can take to Paris...

I'll try to blog, at least once in awhile from Paris, when I find wifi!

a bientot
Cara

Charlotte Gainsbourg in Paris and me

2008-07-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

I caught Charlotte Gainsbourg in the Marais one afternoon. Charlotte's the celebrated actress, wife of Yves Attal the actor and director, and the daughter of film/music royalty Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg...
Yes, here she is without makeup and very sweet to allow me to photograph her in a courtyard of rue Birague in the Marais.
I'm behind the camera and took the photo. Amazingly my hands were steady enough and it didn't blur.
Charlotte's trying to turn her father, Serge's, place at 5 bis Rue de Verneuil into a museum, it's all in the Vanity Fair issue Nov 2007. Serge died in 1991 and his small house is as he left it, like a time capsule...

Enjoy et merci Charlotte,
Cara

Charlotte Gainsbourg

2008-06-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

07/14/08
Amour Non Partage? Panel
Learn about our love-and-hate affair with the French

Amour Non Partage?

Cara Black, Author, Murder in the Rue de Paradis
Georgeanne Brennan, Author, Pigs In Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France
Pim Techamuanvivit, Blogger, Chez Pim - Moderator

Americans have had a long love affair with France, though some of us are never quite sure if our love is returned. Countless American tourists have had their hearts handed to them on a platter by haughty Parisians or, closer to home, by waiters at fancy French restaurants around town. Do the French really abhor us that much, as popular culture suggests? Panelists go tete-a-tete to find out whether the love between Americans and le Francois is really a one-sided affair.

MLF: BAY GOURMET
Location: Port Commission Hearing Room, 2nd floor, Ferry Building, Embarcadero
Time: 5:30 p.m. champagne reception, 6 p.m. program
Cost: $15 members, $25 non-members
Also know: In association with the Ferry Building Marketplace Market St. San Francisco, CA
Program Organizer: Cathy Curtis

The end of the Affair...from Paris to Venice

2008-05-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Sophie Calle a French writer asked 107 women friends for help after her affair with a married man ended...she showed them the email he sent ending it and look what happened.

German Bunker in a Paris suburb

2008-03-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

What's happening in the Marais

2008-03-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

I strolled in the Marais with my friend Sarah in January this year and sadly concur with
the article below from The Guardian. The narrow rue des Rosiers has been repaved and there
were hordes of shoppers during les soldes, the big sales. We ate at L'As de Felafel
one night, my favorite, but I remember when L'As was a hole in the wall known only to
the locals and we talked with everyone...zut!

Have you been to the Marais recently? What do you think?
Cara

For Paris's Jewish quarter, a fight to save its soul
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
The Guardian, Thursday March 6, 2008

The Marais

It is the falafel capital of Paris, where hordes of tourists converge on Sundays for Middle Eastern takeaways or salt-beef sandwiches and Yiddish cheesecake. But Rue des Rosiers, the heart of Paris's historic Jewish quarter, has fallen victim to the tourist onslaught and rocketing property prices. A protest group is staging weekly demonstrations to save the street's "soul" from the gentrification that is turning the once thriving community of Jewish shops into an identikit line-up of middle-range international fashion chains.

For many the final straw came this week when Paris's most famous Jewish restaurant and delicatessen, Jo Goldenberg's, shut down. Until the late 1990s its homely red banquettes attracted government ministers, film stars and celebrities dining on caviar, herrings, goulash or its famous chopped liver. On the Pletzl - Yiddish for square - Goldenberg's was symbolic of a neighbourhood where thousands of eastern European Jews arrived from the late 19th century, and which was the focus of Nazi round-ups during the occupation of Paris in the second world war. More than half of the local Jewish community would die in concentration camps.

The restaurant founded by Jo Goldenberg, who lost his parents and all his sisters in Auschwitz, became a symbol of resistance and revival, a meeting place for Holocaust survivors and former resistance fighters. In 1982 it was targeted in a grenade and gun attack in which six people were killed and 22 injured.

After changes of management, rows and damning hygiene reports, the restaurant has been shuttered since 2006. This week property developers put it up for rent and expect a fashion chain to take it.

Protesters who saw off an attempt by McDonalds to move in in 2000 are campaigning against the fashion-chain onslaught that has already seen Lee jeans and others arrive. This spring H&M will open a branch and other stores are to follow. Some locals attempted to woo a New York bagel shop to open in Goldenberg's, but rents are soaring in the central Paris location, once one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods.

The street's future has become a political issue ahead of mayoral elections this weekend. Paris's mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, a Socialist, is said to be concerned. Dominique Bertinotti, the Socialist mayor of Paris's 4th arrondissement, said she favoured a business that would carry on the Jewish heritage, perhaps a Holocaust memorial library, but the local authority could not afford to buy the building.

Mikael Marciano, who works in his family's Jewish bakery across the road, said: "Goldenberg's is not an isolated case. It's a phenomenon where the old community are being offered huge sums of money by expensive fashion labels to move out. The area has started to lose its Jewish soul and the village atmosphere of 30 years ago."

Aimée in Paris

2008-03-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Muerte au Sentier is in Paris bookstores now

Chanel's apartment, Aimée Leduc and Murder in the Rue de Paradis

2008-02-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

You've got to read this article in the Telegraph if you've ever worn Chanel No. 5 or bought a knock off Chanel
bag as I have...it's a fascinating, a 'visit' to Coco Chanel's apartment on rue Cambon!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/main.jhtml?xml=/fashion/2008/02/27/efchanel127.xml&DCMP=ILC-traffdrv07053100

And yes, there is a link to Aimée Leduc and Coco Chanel...Aimée wears Chanel No. 5 even though her refrigerator may be empty. Some things are more important.

Tomorrow, January 28th is La Soiree Officiel, the launch party for Murder in the Rue de Paradis at my local independent mystery store. I'll talk about Paris and the 10th arrondissement where the story takes place - a fascinating little known quartier with the Canal Saint Martin, the Gare du Nord and warrens of passages with names like Passage du Desir. I hope wherever you are that you join me at one of the independent bookstores they're all on www.carablack.com at events. On my book tour I’m doing events at independent bookstore exclusively because frankly mes amies, the independents need our help and support. In this age of the internet (and you know who I mean) our indie bookstores are struggling, sadly many are closing and as far as I’m concerned, we NEED them. Real bricks and mortar stores when one can spend an hour browsing, talking to the bookseller, getting recomendations and finding new authors. I always learn about a new book, a new series, or a new author from my bookseller.

So spray the Chanel and hope to see you.

French Women

2008-02-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

This is from an article last Sunday in the Washington Post...

What do you think?

The actress Nathalie Baye, who's 59 and looks it, has made some 20 films in the past decade, including romantic roles. She told an interviewer that at the 2003 César awards (France's version of the Oscars), Meryl Streep asked her whether "things were as difficult in France as in the U.S. for actresses of a certain age. I told her that thankfully, French cinema is very faithful to its women."

These French actresses are products of the generation of '68, France's sexual and social revolution. But in the French version, women weren't expected to forgo high heels and chivalry in exchange for equality. So it's not surprising here when successful women retain their charms. In the United States, the two can seem mutually exclusive. The right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh felt free to question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy in December by sneering, "Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?"

Of course, things aren't all rosy in French bedrooms. France has its share of lonely widows and divorcees. All the Frenchwomen I spoke to also stressed that older women must keep up their looks to stay appealing. Liftees are becoming a more frequent sight.

In the United States, men tend to treat older women who've done age-erasing work with either horrific awe or chaste respect. France is more sanguine. Last year, Paris Match magazine put a photo on its cover of a topless 50-something Arielle Dombasle -- looking like a reengineered 16- year-old -- to celebrate her new cabaret act.

Ghost stations in the Paris Metro

2008-01-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

I'm just back and it's colder here than Paris! A highlight of the trip was a morning spent underground in the old Metro stations.
Julian, the Metro Man, a wizard who works for the RATP and has been a Metrophile since he was 8, took several of us down into two of the unused Paris Metro stations. We visited Saint Martin, full of peeling posters and old French ads and Villiers, a loop line that went under Parc Monceau, an underground site for officials during WW2, then a training center and now unused.
This is in French with photos but gives a great overview.

http://membres.lycos.fr/metro/5inat/1fantome/fantome.html

Any one else been down there?

Paris Cultural Guerillas

2007-12-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

Can you believe this?

For a year from September 2005, under the nose of the Panthéon's unsuspecting security officials, a group of intrepid "illegal restorers" set up a secret workshop and lounge in a cavity under the building's famous dome. Under the supervision of group member Jean-Baptiste Viot, a professional clockmaker, they pieced apart and repaired the antique clock that had been left to rust in the building since the 1960s. Only when their clandestine revamp of the elaborate timepiece had been completed did they reveal themselves

Crimespace Cara's page

2007-07-26T10:48:00.001-07:00

I started a page at Crimespace. Please visit the link (title)

Aimee speaks Italian in Baratro (Abyss) the Italian edition of Murder in the Marais

2007-07-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Bastille Day July 14

2007-07-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

If you're in Paris drop by one of the fireman's balls...

http://www.pompiersparis.fr/accueil.htm

Prepare to drink champagne, flirt with the fireman and dance until 4am..

36 quai des Orfevres

2007-06-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

Sarah Weinman posted this on her blog...

sad news about Maigret's old haunt

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2682338.ece

Cara

My Paris Readings

2007-05-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

May 20th at 7pm
Dinner and Reading at Chez Patricia: 13 rue de Mulhouse, 75002 Paris. Metro: Sentier (line 3). Take the rue des Petits Carreaux exit (very important). Cross rue Reamur. The street on the left should be rue des Petits Carreaux. Walk 2 blocks up on rue des Petits Carreaux. You’ll face an HSBC branch . (There’s Café Honoré on the right). That’s rue de Clery. Make a short left (30 seconds) onto rue de Clery and then immediately a right onto rue de Mulhouse.

May 25 Friday at 7pm Reading from Murder on the Ile Saint Louis and
discussion
The Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore
22, rue St Paul
75004 Paris France
Tel / Fax (+33) 01 48 04 75 08
red.wheelbarrow@wanadoo.fr
www.theredwheelbarrow.com

May 28 Monday at 7pm Murder on the Ile Saint Louis Reading and
discussion
Shakespeare and Company.
37 rue de la B°cherie,
Paris, 75005.
France.
www.shakespeareco.org

Stained glass in Paris and hot Toile de Joui

2007-05-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

Here is the web site for my friend Gilles' stainglass workshop:
http://www.aupasseurdelumiere.com/sommaire.htm

also, one of the hot things these days, the hot Toile de Jouï:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JUoH2-gp31Q/RchVqCP-djI/AAAAAAAABAM/IVUKLZHFjDc/s1600-h/laie+rose+2.jpg

somebody just had to do it, Aimée would love it.

Areas of the 10th arrondissement worth visiting

of course there is always rowing on the canal on Saturday, eating on
the cobblestone along the Canal Saint Martin,
the reflection of the trees in the canal at night from the top of one
of the bridges, the less known canal boat trips that take you along the
gates, and the different ways the bridges go up to let the boat go
(sideways, upward), the funky bourgois boheme Chez Prune for a coffee,
the artistic studio next to Stalingrad, the fight of the heir of the
architect to keep the Stalingrad plazza has bad as it is now...

a little q+a with Swedish writer Helene Tursten

2007-05-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

I met Helene Tursten (another Soho author) and bestseller in Sweden in Los Angeles. We were on a panel at the Swedish consulate somewhere overlooking the Pacific ocean along with Swedish crime writers Inger Frimansson, Kjell Ericksson and Hakan Nesser. I love Helene's series with Detective Inspector Huss and asked her some questions.

Q - The murder in the 1980's of a Swedish minister and more recently the murder of Anna Lind, a member of Parliament, has brought attention to the world that Sweden is more than the land of the Nobel Prize...did these or other events prompt you to write crime novels? Did you think crime fiction was a way to explore the changing society in Sweden?

A - I can truely say that the murders above did not promt me to start writing. It was more my intention to tell a really good story and show the effects of the changing society in Sweden. I´m very much of a story-teller and my stories takes place in todays Swedish society.

Q - I love that your protagonist is married, has a family life and a husband who cooks. Who's the inspiration for your protagonist Detective Inspector Huss? Is it true you were a policewoman...and are now a dentist?

A - I´m not an ex-policewoman. I´m a registered nurse and also a qualified dentist. My husband was a policeman for six years, before he started to study and become a dentist. We met at the university when we both started at the dentistry school.
My inspiration for Irene Huss were all the real female policewomen that I had met, thanks to my husband. They where all "normal"; they had families and normal social lifes.

Q- Does your husband cook?

A - No. That´s me.

Q - I hear that your novels will be filmed for tv and a movie. Did you get to consult and advise on the filming?

A - Yes, I have worked as an editor of the scripts. But I told the scriptwriters that they could use me as a resource and not look at me as a threat. They didn´t have to change in the scripts as I thought they should. It was up to them to decide. And we have cooperated very well!

Q - Can you describe Detective Inspector Huss in a few short sentences?

A - She is intelligent, has good intuition but is not intellectual. Her whole life is her work, her family and her training. She has no time for other things.

Q - What's she investigating next?

A - No idea! Do you have any good ones to spare?

Q - Who influenced your writing?

A - I really try to write as "myself". It´s important that a writer has his or her own voice. But I like the AngloSaxon writers: PD James, Ruth Randell, Ian Rankin, Val MCDermid, Denise Mina, Michael Conelly, Dennis Lehane, Elisabeth George (but her books really are a bit too long!). I think that my books suits the American readers, because they are not "slow" as other Scandinavian crimenovels tends to be.

February 2007 News

2007-02-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

February News

Bonjour Everyone,

I was just in NYC and received the first copy of Murder on Ile Saint-Louis from my editor in my hot little hands...and it was hot...the books had literally just come from the printers. I hope you like the cover...and whatís inside. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review which rendered me gobsmackedthatís Brit speak for knocked over the head.

Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis, the 7th Aimée Leduc Investigation, official publication date is March 1,2007. The idea for Murder on Ile Saint-Louis came from a real event - the chill Paris night my friendís neighbor discovered an abandoned infant left in her doorway. Doing the research, with the help of a prominent Left Bank attorney, I discovered the archaic Napoleonic law still in effect about abandoned babies, adoption and the sticky legal options. Sometimes real life is more amazing than fiction! Iíd love to see you if you can make it to a bookstore or library event, please check the tour schedule at events on www.carablack.com. Come say bonsoir and weíll talk Paris raise a glass of red...or white...or whatever.

The Redhead, my short story based on an incredible conversation I had with a woman who was a Resistance member during WWII, will be in PARIS NOIR. PARIS NOIR, a short story anthology edited by Maxim Jakubowskiwill be published late 2007 or 2008 in the UK by Serpentís Tail Press...a very cool publisher and Editions Rivages in Paris.

When ís the next trip to Paris people ask...Soon. I'm building up those frequent flyer miles and getting ready to sleep on my friend Anne-Françoise couch in Montmartre. The couch sits beside her one year old daughter Zouzou's crib...last October I fell asleep on it to an old French lullaby and Zouzouís little snores, the shadows of Montmartre cemetary outside the balcony windows...

Meanwhile all the best and hope to see you

Cara
http://www.carablack.com

Book club au naturel

2006-11-04T21:52:00.007-08:00

Nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains on acres of brush and redwoods, in a spacious canvas yurt, the member of the nudist colony - they prefer to be called naturistes like the French - asked me the question I'd asked myself driving here. "So what did you expect a naturiste book group to be like?" Should I say seeing flabby, pale bodies that I'd avert my eyes from and in vain try to concentrate on answering questions about my book? Or the fear that I'd giggle and pull my sweater tighter or some remnant of my Catholic school upbringing would kick in and I'd flee in embarassment? None of those seemed to fit since I faced a yurt full of clad bodies straining near the heater on a crisp November afternoon. Jackets, jeans and sweaters all around. "Actually, I was told to expect probing questions, insightful comments that would send me fumbling in my brain searching for a response," I said. Everyone laughed and we took care of the nudist elephant in the yurt. Ok, I did see naked people earlier in the afternoon, at the pool, near the sauna and in the parking lot but it was no big deal. They were part of the atmosphere like the sand volleyball court, the cedar wood dining room - and a natural accompanient to the photographic exhibiton of naked women ranging from 1 to 100 years old proudly displayed on the walls of the lodge. The book group members were warm, welcoming, funny and very smart people. Even though they espoused a 'clothing optional life' I actually forgot that and we got into a serious discussion of French anti-semitism, in the past and now and at dinner debated over European facsism and the supposed charisma of dictators like Stalin and Hitler. I left with an invitation to return in spring when it would be warmer and I could be 'clothing optional', too.

New Photo Link September -October 2006

2006-10-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

Here are new images from my Paris visit September _-October 2006! hope you enjoy.
click on the title its linked !!

Cara's review on a new book " Suite Française"

2006-05-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read this novel, read my review, it's worth checking out

http://www.paris-expat.com/guide/5-06nemirovsky.htm

Magdalen Nabb responds to the Proust Questionaire from Florence

2006-01-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

Magdalen and I share a love of champagne and raise a glass or three or fourwhen we're together, but since I missed her at New Year's I thought why notask her some questions and let everyone I know (if they don't already) seehow brilliant and witty and good hearted she is, apart from being a damngood writer. Enjoy.

Who is the historical persona you don't like?
Churchill
Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Mr. Knightly
Your most marked characteristic?
Being quixotic
Who are your favorite prose writers?
Tolstoy and Jane Austen
How would you like to die?
In a riding accident with a beautiful and beloved horse
In what country would you like to live?
In the one I live in...(ITALY)
The quality you most like in a man?
Energy
The quality you most like in a woman?
Intelligence
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Faults of passion
What are your favourite foods and drinks?
Red wine, bread, potatoes
What do you most value in your friends?
Their frequent presence
What is it you most dislike?
Wilful ignoance
What is the historical reform that you esteem the most?
Liberation of the serfs, it needs doing again.
What is the military fact that you esteem the most?
Wellington's generalship at Waterloo
What is your dream of happiness?
Being alive, at home or on horseback, with The Man I Love i.e. more of the
same
What is your favorite bird?
Penguin
What is your favorite color?
Indigo
What is your favorite flower?
Apple blossom
What is your favorite occupation?
Writing
What is your motto?
Carpe diem
What is your present state of mind?
Delighted
What is your principle defect?
Being quixotic
What natural gift would you most like to possess?
A singing voice
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
Anything bad happening to my son
What would you like to be?
As good a writer as I can be
Who are your favorite composers?
Mozart, Verdi, Schubert
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Elizabeth Bennet, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Natasha Rostov
Who are your favorite painters?
Leonardo, Benozzo Gozzoli, Filippo Lippi, Masaccio
Who are your favorite poets?
Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, Yeats, Anon. - not a joke, my favourite poem
is by a 15thC anon:
Westron wind when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.
Who are your heroes in history?
Wellington, Garibaldi, Giovanni Delle Bande Nere
Who are your heroes in real life?
The Man I Love and all the Médicins Sans Frontières
http://www.magdalennabb.com

Here's something I've been meaning to post

News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
November 27, 2005
Mysteries
Here's a twist on the old "Give a man a fish ... Teach a man to fish"
proverb. If you get the whodunit mavens on your holiday list a shiny
new book by some brand-name writer, they'll read it once and shelve it. But
introduce them to a first-rate series by a little-known writer, they'll be
good to go for years. Some suggestions:
Cara Black's sprightly series set in Paris featuring private eye
Aimee
Leduc, a heady mix of Miss Marple and Carrie Bradshaw, introduces with each
book a new crime (usually tres passionelle) and a different,atmospherically
depicted Paris neighborhood. Best so far are the debut "Murder in the
Marais" ($13, paper) and "Murder in Clichy" ($24, both from Soho Press).
Prefer foccacia to baguettes? Try Magdalen Nabb's lengthy series of
Florentine mysteries starring the brilliant but self-effacing police
Marshal Guarnaccia. In just published "The Innocent" (Soho Press, $22),
Guarnaccia
reluctantlyleaves Florence for Rome seeking links to a wealthy woman's murder in a parkbehind his office. Also notable: "Death of an
Englishman" and "The Marshal's Own Case."

Just Returned from Paris 11/06/05

2005-11-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Just back from a research trip to Paris. Here's some quick highlights.
Caught the Willy Ronis photography exhbition at Hotel de Ville, fantastic.
Photography Willy Ronis à Paris
Salon d'accueil, Hôtel de Ville, 29 rue de Rivoli, 75001 (www.paris.fr). Métro Hôtel de Ville. 10am-7pm Mon-Sat. Free. Until Feb 18.
In his series of photographs devoted to Belleville and Ménilmontant taken in the 1940s and 1950s, Willy Ronis captured some eternally
enduring - and endearing - images of old Paris and a now lost way of life. But this show in honour of the photographer's 95th birthday
contains more than misty-eyed nostalgia. See his documentation of the political movements of the 1930s, unpublished photos of rue de la
Huchette, fashion shots and an elderly Ronis making a parachute jump.

Theatre wise after macaroons and hot chocolate so thick the spoon stood up by itself at Ladurée we saw Love Letters, at Theatre
Madelaine, the play with Phillipe Noiret, a national treasure and my favorite actor and Anouk Aimee - no relation to Aimée but maybe you
remember her from the film A Man and A Woman.

Trip highlights: talking with Jean-Noel, a retired undercover flic formerly with the Brigade des Stupifiants et Banditisme, kind of like the
DEA, and his tales of capturing Mesrine, France’s most wanted, in the 90’s. Did you know the French police have no right to search or
interview suspects between 9 pm and 6 am? Seems suspects know this too and arrive home at 9:30 and leave at 5 am.

Paris fashion trend pointed out by friend Pierre Olivier as we sat near the Palais Royal on a warm, sunny Sunday knee high boots, tucked
in jeans, mettalic handbags and short corduroy jackets. His father contributes to http://www.memoresist.org
a site with memories of Resistants and Survivor from WWII.

On November 1, called Toussaint, everyone visits the cemetary to bring flowers and clean up family graves. Yellow and white
chrysanthemums are the symbolic flowers and you never give chrysanthemums otherwise, I discovered. I visited Chopin’s grave, bedecked
with multi-colored arrangements and many of the Polish community who gathered there and place candles. Oscar Wilde’s grave is
plastered with lipstick kisses but I avoided Jim Morrison.

Foodwise - discovered Les Lucioles corner of rue Cendriers and Boulevard Menilmontant in the 20th arrondissement by the Belleville
market - fantastic filling salads - 8 Euros - old bistro feeling where locals mix with the trendies. On 63 rue Jean Pierre Timbaud in the 11th
Mémère au Piano, homestyle French with a light touch, and near Chatelet, La Robe et Le Palais 12 rue des Lavandières Ste Opportune
http://www.robe-et-palais.com
with great Corsican wine. Try the Renucci from Calvi area!

Shopping: If you need to find shoe polish, a stud for your leather belt or buy leather hides wholesale ( one never knows!) go to Sarl
Gérard Diffusion 31 rue Yves Toudic near Place de Republique http://www.gerarddisffusion.com.
Rue Meslay behind Place de Republique in the third arrondissment has tons of shoe stores and good quality ie Charles Jourdan boots cheaper than anywhere else.

Aimée’s sixth investigation - can't believe it myself - Murder in Montmartre comes out in March 2006 Hint: there's Corsicans involved,
René goes undercover and it wouldn't be Montmartre without those wonderful steep staircases ...All the best, à la prochain - until next time,
Cara

http://www.carablack.com

Cara interviews Leonard Pitt author of Paris Disparu

2005-08-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

I met Leonard with a burning question concerning an enigmatic photo I found in Paris - a Luftwaffe officer caught on camera in front of bar des deux ponts during the Occupation - I couldn't find those buildings. Even that part of the street in the photo. Neither could my friends at the Marais Historic Society or the old brocanteur, who'd grown up in the Marais, and walked with me around the Marais and Ile Saint-Louis. I turned to the only person who could help and Leonard found the street, the buildings and the bar des deux ponts from photos in his huge collection. The bar and the buildings, gems, had been torn down in 1942. No doubt shortly after the photo.
There went a plot point down the drain but now I knew. Thanks to Leonard.
I wanted to ask him some questions because his work is amazing.

Leonard, one of your obessessions is Paris and you call yourself a forensic photographer. Your book ‘Paris Disparu’, a bestseller in France, is on my shelf and will soon be translated into English...but even if one doesn’t speak French the photo’s of then and now Paris speak for themselves. What led you to assemble this book and document the lost or altered architectual gems of Paris?

This book was born out of ignorance . I knew nothing about the subject even after having lived in Paris for seven years in the 1960’s. One day in 1996 I picked up Marville's book at Cody’s in Berekely which has hundreds of photos of pre Haussman Paris. Leafing thru the book I was shocked to see photos of the neighborhood where I had lived that resembled nothing that I knew. That's when Idiscovered the enormous transformation Paris had undergone in the 19th century. I wanted to know everything about its history. I read everything I could find - David Jordan’s Transforming Paris, David Pinkney - Napoleon the Third and the Rebuilding of Paris. I spent hours looking at tons of photos especially those of Eugene Atget.
I took copies of those Marville photos back to Paris and walked around finding the exact spot where he stood to take the photos. Seeing the difference was overwhelming. And they say if you wnat to learn about something, write a book about it. Paris Disparu took five years and twelve trips to Paris to write.

Any interesting things you discovered in your research that you hadn’t planned on?
The French are as bad as Americans They’ll tear down anything at the drop of a hat. It’s only because individuals have organized and protested and put cultural heritage on the map that buildings have been saved. I’m a member of Paris Historique Society in the Marais, like you, and they sell my book there.
Unforgivable crimes have been commited by the demolishing of developers and landowners and city agencies. In the Marais on rue Saint Paul near the Seine, Hotel de la Vieuville (an early 17th century hotel particulier, townhouse) was torn down in 1927 by Ernest Cognacq who replaced it with a warehouse for the Samaritaine department store. This sophisticated man who collected French art and has a museum in his name tore this down for a warehouse. Later it was converted into apartments. That to me is a crime.

Where do you find your photos?
I find photos in the museums; archives. I spend a lot of time in the archives of Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris and the Carnavalet Museum.I scour flea markets, photo dealers and postcard sellers around Paris and on-line.

Tell us how you research.
For my second book, it’s photo driven so I sift thru archives of hundreds of photos of a neighborhood that I can do something with.
Rue Beauborg, so well photograped and so compelteiy oblitered in the 1900’s that comparing the two together was phenomenal. A stunning difference.
I’ll be standing on a corner and so struck that I grab someone and they rarely seem fazed. They shrug.

What’s next?
More Walks Through Lost Paris comes out in Paris in 2006 and we’re negotiating with an American publisher for first two books. I concentrate on the Left Bank, Place Maubert and towards the Pantheon, construction on the bouleveard of Saint Germain in 1860’s. On the Right Bank, Les Halles, rue Beaubourg, ave de l’Opera where I used to live.

In your painstaking research, what architectural areas have have you discovered that’s been the best preserved?
Sections of the Marais; rue des Rosiers, rue des Guillemites
Rue de Seine, Rue Bonaparte,

Why is it important to you to document the past?
I'm not motivated to document the past so much as for a book like mine to inspire more Parisians to fight for their city, their beautiful buildings. That would make me happy.

What's the response you've had in Paris from the French?
It appeals to them because an American is showing them the past of their city. Sometimes after they take one of my walks through their neighborhood they shake my hand and I know their seeing thru different eyes now.tI show photos and talk. Visuals count. I always encourage everyone to look up, because good stuff is up above the ground floor. Down from the Brasserie Lipp is a wonderful sculpture and no one notices because they don’t look up.

Paris Walks with Leonard Pitt
Leonard Pitt, author of the bestselling Promenades dans le Paris Disparu, will be in Paris for one month, September 15 to October 16, and is now organizing groups for walks through the city.
Walks in Paris
The Left Bank, Ile de la Cite
Marais, Paris and Chocolate begin in the Louvre, the Palais Royal and the Passages, cross to the Opera and end up at Maison de Chocolate September and October
For information, contact Leonard at leonardp@sbcglobal.net
To see his book, go to: www.leonardpitt.com

www.leonardpitt.com

"Leonard is completely legitimate, he's impregnated with Paris. He sees things that we don't see."
- Le Figaro -
"This American friend knows Paris like the back of his hand and illustrates clearly what the serious stroller would have a hard time deciphering on his own - the history that runs beneath today's buildings."
- Le Nouvel Observateur -

Modesto Bee Article 5/22/05

2005-05-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

Author clears up the mystery
Cara Black tells how she weaves history lessons into plots with Parisian dectective Aimee Leduc.........

People want justice in their lives, author Cara Black said.

Real life doesn't always provide the quick retribution they seek. But books can wrap up conflict and resolution, particularly Black's crime fiction series revolving around private investigator Aimee Leduc.

"People like when some form of justice is served," Black said. "That's what Aimee does. (The stories) are also a way of talking about social issues and the world people live in. It's more layered, more dimensional."

Black's latest novel, "Murder In Clichy" is the fifth Leduc story. It is The Bee's June Book of the Month. Black will answer readers' questions at McHenry Museum on June 14.

The book revolves around ancient stolen jade and a struggle over who the rightful owner is.

Part of what makes the heroine attractive is her ability to meet a series of weighty challenges in a relatively short time span. She's supposed to be slowing down due to a temporary vision impairment, but each story takes place within a few months of each other.

In the first 20 pages of "Murder in Clichy," Leduc is sucked into running an errand for her yoga instructor, has a man die in her arms, is shot at, chased and "comforted" in the office of her doctor boyfriend.

Despite the exotic location the series is set in — early 1990s Paris — and the excitement the single young computer expert and investigator has, the stories are easy to relate to.

It may not be the kind of drama most readers deal with, but Leduc also has everyday things to do, such as running a business, paying bills and walking her Bichon frisee puppy.

"Every book stands alone," Black said. "You should meet her and learn about her every time you open the book.

"That's the challenge of writing a series. Some people who've never read one get a sense of who she is."

More than character development, Black uses Leduc to tell a story she's interested in. When Black started writing 11 years ago, she had no idea she'd end up writing a series. She just wanted to tell a story.

Her inspiration was the childhood of a friend's mother. Exploring the story of a Jewish child whose family was taken to a concentration camp during World War II was the basis for her first Aimee Leduc installment, "Murder in the Marais."

"I was looking at the street where this happened, where people were rounded up right there where I was standing, a street kings had gone down," Black said. "It haunted me."

Black wants to do more than write an intriguing crime novel. She uses her series to educate readers on French culture, present historic lessons, provide social commentary and do it all in an entertaining fashion.

During research, Black learns about the past and is eager to share that knowledge with her fans in a modern way.

She lives in San Francisco, but spent much of her childhood in Switzerland, France and Germany, and still spends long periods of time in France.

Especially for readers who haven't been to Paris, Black wants people to get a feel for the city, not just the tourist destinations, and love it as she does.

"I have to do the job of taking people there," Black said. "If France gets the Olympics (in 2012), it would be great for France's economy, but the whole area will change. Maybe it's selfish, but I'd love for it to stay the way it is. I don't want the flavor to change."

Black said she often is asked how long the series will last. Her sixth book, "Murder in Montmarte," will be released next year. She said there are 20 districts in Paris, and she'd love to build a story around each one. A faded picture of a French soldier with a sour expression standing next to an Asian woman is her latest inspiration.

"They're like children and each child is an exploration," Black said. "There's something there that intrigues me, and I have to track it down. In each one there's each one there's something I want to say."

For more information visit www.carablack.com.

Bee staff writer Kelly Jones can be reached at 578-2300 or kjones@modbee.com

By KELLY JONES
MODESTO BEE STAFF WRITER

Bertillon on L'ile Saint-Louis

2005-04-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Ok...the article's in French but had to post this from Figaro's cuisine et vin about
Bertillon, the ice cream place around the corner from Aimée's apartment. And the best in the world.

Berthillon nous fait fondre depuis un demi-siècle
Réglisse, mangue, fraise des bois, rhum raisins... Dès les premiers beaux jours, une longue file d'attente se dessine sur le trottoir qui mène chez Berthillon, le fameux glacier de l'île Saint-Louis. Et cela dure depuis un demi-siècle. C'est en 1954 que Raymond Berthillon, alors boulanger, reprend le petit café-hôtel de ses beaux-parents dans l'île Saint-Louis. Afin d'égayer un peu l'atmosphère du bistrot familial, Raymond compose bientôt des crèmes glacées qu'il vend aux enfants du quartier. Jusqu'à ce que deux gastronomes de Paris-Presse, Gault et Millau, conseillés par les gourmets de l'île, découvrent sa production et lui consacrent un article dithyrambique. Berthillon devient alors une référence dans la capitale. Cinquante ans plus tard, le succès ne s'est pas démenti et ce sont les petits- enfants de Raymond Berthillon qui perpétuent la tradition artisanale de la maison.
31, rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Ile, Paris-4e. 01.43.54.31.61
And there's more about Nutella, too
http://www.lefigaro.fr/adv-cuisine-vins/20050425.FIG0513.html

The French Scarf

2005-04-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

The French always wear scarves
Scarf Tying

In Paris, women wear scarves all the time! Not only do they wear them, they look great in them and I've decided that there must be a special 'scarf tying' gene that's missing from my gene pool!

I have included a website with instructions on tying scarves for those of you similarly challenged http://members.aol.com/modefrance/tying/scarf_tying.html

More about the caves

2005-02-18T09:07:00.000-08:00

Just when I was checking out Troo this wonderful article appeared
in the SF Chronicle...serendipity or meant to be?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/02/16/FDG44B8THM1.DTL

Now I can't wait!!

Trodgylote village - living in caves

2005-02-14T13:38:00.000-08:00

So I'm going to be a cave dweller. The first weekend I'm in Paris we'll
take the high speed train to Vendome (1hr) then twenty five minutes away
by car is Trou...check out the village website.
I hope to hook up with Jean Francois who has many caves and will
show my friend Sarah and I around. Kate Kilbourne, an American,
who owns a cave which is also a museum has given me some
tips and I can't wait. Evidently the limestone mined from the caves
was used for local chateau in the Loire valley and people have lived in these
caves since the Romans, on and off during the 100 year war, hid Jews there
during WW2 and now is an artistic colony.

Paris webcams

2005-02-11T06:24:00.000-08:00

This is a great site,
Paris webcams
http://www.wanadoo.fr/bin/frame.cgi?service=ma_ville&u=http%3A//paris.wanadoo.fr//homeThematic/homeSection/homeSubSection_1//index.html

French Word A Day (link)

2005-02-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, time to brush up on French.
I love this.

bouder (boo-day) verb
1. to pout or sulk

Also:
la bouderie (f) = sulkiness, (fit of the) sulks
un boudoir = a ladyfinger (finger-shaped cookie, cake)

.....................
Expressions:
bouder quelqu'un = to refuse to have anything to do with someone
avoir des succès de boudoir = to be successful with women

....................
Proverb:
La bouderie en amour est comme le sel ; il n'en faut pas trop.
Sulkiness in love is like salt; you mustn't have too much.

......................................
A Day in a French Life...

"Do you want me to take the kids to school?" I say, sure that my
husband will do it, seeing he is almost finished shaving.
"Si tu peux le faire, ce sera bien. If you can do it, that would be
good."

Somewhere between registering his mousse-covered cheeks and hearing
his request, it occurs to me that he is going somewhere.

"Ou tu vas? Where are you going?"
"En tournée."*
"Prospecting where?"
"In St. Raphael."
"St Raphael?"

My mind fills with visions of the foamy sea, sandy beaches, beachfront
cafés and brasseries, the boardwalk, the marché, the glamorous Belle
Epoque architecture... Suddenly a pulsion* overcomes me. The pulsion
to pout.

"I didn't know you were going prospecting today..."
"Well, do you want to come with me?"
"I can't come with you. I have work to do."
"That's what I thought."
I abruptly leave the bathroom; in my wake, a piercing silence.

In 1994 the only conseil* Jean-Marc's ailing grandmother gave us
before we married was to "ne pas bouder -- to not pout." I had to look
the word up just as soon as I returned from her modest apartment in
Lyon to our studio in Marseilles, not quite sure I wanted to ask my
husband-to-be what it meant.

"Germaine" as she was called, was a tough woman who saw the collapse
of a family fortune. In Morocco, after the war, she peddled house
linens from her Estafette (a converted military supply vehicle) to
support four children. When her husband, a prisoner of war, returned
from la guerre,* Germaine continued to "wear the pants," selling her
linens door-to-door, while her husband went seaside to cast out
horrific war images along with his fishing line.

Our first encounter had me watching the once-authoritarian-now-frail
woman eat the eyes right out of the fish on the plate before her.
Apart from her advice to "not sulk" she taught me where all those
forks, knives and spoons belong on the French table, at once
thoughtful about her bourgeoisie upbringing, and méprisante* of it.

From "bouder" comes the noun "boudoir," which originally meant "a
place to sulk in." Though the dictionary says that a boudoir is "un
petit salon de dame"* -- it is really nothing more fancy or exciting
than a pouting room.

I return to my sulking place, and continue to work and sniff.
"We'll leave in 10 minutes?" my husband says, popping his head in from
the hall.
"I didn't say I was going."
"Well, if you change your mind, know that I am leaving in ten
minutes."

I continue to "faire la tête" or "be in the sulks" while my husband
prepares for his surely glamorous tor-nay* along the French Riviera.

Pecking at my faded keyboard, staring into the hospital-room-white
screen, I obsess about his freedom with an enthusiasm reserved for a
sour, steam iron-yielding housewife:

"Mr. Espinasse goes to the sunny Riviera. Mr. Espinasse would like the
plat du jour. Mr. Espinasse has a rendez-vous. Would Mr. Espinasse
like champagne with his foie gras?"

My boo-fest is short-lived and I know that, in reality, my husband is
lugging 18-kilo boxes of wine from one cave* to another, navigating
medieval one-way roads trying to find parking in an obscure French
village, weaving in and out of traffic, struggling to get to the
basketball court in time to pick up our son at the end of the day. I
know that for lunch he will probably stop at a grimy roadside
service-station and pick up one of those preservative-rich salmon
(salmonella?) sandwiches and a bitter cup of instant coffee.

Meanwhile I will be lugging words from brain to faded key board. To my
left, a café-au-lait. Before me, the adventure of my choice, if I will
but find the words to transport me there.

"Do you know what the word 'boudoir' means?" I say, out of breath,
catching up to my husband who is loading cases of wine into the
Citroën.
"Comment? What's that?"
"Boo-dwaar. It's French."
"No. I don't know that word. What does it mean?" he says, opening the
car door for me.
"Nothing much."

Boudoir: a noun better used to represent sunshine-yellow, dainty
sponge cakes,* than dark, fleeting moods. Bouder, a verb to flee,
whether by hopping into your husband's Citroën, or by taking a similar
break from the train-train* of daily life.

....................
References: une pulsion (f) = an impulse; un conseil (m) = a piece of
advice; la guerre (f) = war; méprisante = contemptuous, scornful; un
petit salon de dame (m) = a woman's sitting room; tor-nay
(pronunciation for tournée (f) = a sales round); une cave (f) =
cellar; a miniature oval sponge cake in French is also a "boudoir"; le
train-train (m) = routine

2005-02-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

My friend Marion sent this and it really makes one think.
Marion's mother passed away this week at 89, a creative, unique woman
who'd survived WW2 in Poland.

'Remembering' Philip Johnson

By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, February 2, 2005; Page A23

When Kurt Waldheim, a former U.N. secretary general, was found in 1986 to have served in a German military unit that may have committed wartime atrocities, his reputation was ruined. Although elected president of Austria, he was forbidden to visit the United States. Shunned by the international community, he eventually dropped out
History repeated itself as farce this month when Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, appeared at a costume party in Nazi uniform. The full wrath of the media -- and of everyone else -- came down on his boyish head. "Harry the Nazi," proclaimed the tabloid Sun in its largest typeface. Politicians called for his expulsion from college. Jewish groups -- along with his father, Prince Charles -- demanded that he visi

In between the extremes of Waldheim, who actually fought for Nazi Germany, and Prince Harry, one of the British royal family's dimmer bulbs, lies a wide range of celebrities whose fascist sympathies have rightly brought them disgrace. Charles Lindbergh, at one time the most admired man in America, retired from public life after World War II because he had received a medal from the Nazi government. Ezra Pound, the poet who helped launch T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, spent 13 years in an asylum for the mentally ill, largely because he had made propaganda broadcasts for Benito Mussolini. Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher, was temporarily prohibited from teaching after the war because he had briefly joined the Nazi Party in the early 1930s. His work, like that of Pound, remains under a
It seems like a pattern -- but it isn't. Take, for example, Philip Johnson, who died last week just as the world was marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In its obituary, the New York Times described Johnson as "architecture's restless intellect." The Post proclaimed him a "towering figure." Both articles, like most of the other obituaries, described Johnson as the "elder statesman" of American architecture. Both also mentioned, more or less in passing, Johnson's "early admiration for fascism and anti-Semitism that he soo
But read a bit more and it turns out that this "early admiration" lasted for the better part of a decade. During that time, Johnson didn't merely sympathize, like Lindbergh, or make a juvenile joke, like Prince Harry. On the contrary, Johnson helped organize a U.S. fascist party. He worked on behalf of the Nazi sympathizer and radio broadcaster, Father Charles E. Coughlin. He attended one of Hitler's Nuremberg rallies in 1938, and in 1939 he followed the German army into Poland. "We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed," he wrote afterward. "It was a stirring
In the week since his death, a few articles, including one in the New York Times, have examined Johnson's in fact elaborate and widely known fascist past in more depth. But in his lifetime -- as his obituaries reflect -- nobody was very interested. Johnson won every major architectural award, built dozens of buildings and received commissions from the likes of AT&T and the Lincoln Center. He occasionally apologized for his youthful politics, but with ambivalence. Asked in 1993 whether he would have built buildings for Adolf Hitler in 1936, he answered, "Who's to say? That would have tempted anyone." He frequently described himself as a "whore," a phrase that seems to have amused him -- he liked to shock -- and to have provided another sort of excuse for his past.
I leave it to others to determine whether Johnson's amorality bears a relationship to the chilly skyscrapers he built, or whether his politics influenced the celebrated glass-walled house he designed for himself, whose brick interior he once said had been inspired by the brick foundations of a "burned-out wooden village I saw," presumably in Poland. But his death makes me think that the rest of us should occasionally reflect a bit harder about why we find it so easy to condemn the likes of Prince Harry, a silly, thoughtless boy, and so hard to condemn Philip Johnson, a brilliant, witty aesthete. Or why it was thought scandalous when an allegedly anti-Semitic Ukrainian businessman was allowed to ride on Colin Powell's plane to Kiev last week, while Johnson, who once wrote a positive review of "Mein Kampf," lectured at Harvard University. Or why the Nuremberg tribunal didn't impose the death penalty on the urbane Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, or why the Academy Awards ceremony in 2004 solemnly noted the death of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's filmmaker, or why Herbert von Karajan, a Nazi Party member who never apologized at all -- party membership, he once said, "advanced my career" -- continued to conduct orchestras in all the great concert halls of Europe. We may think we believe any affiliation with Nazism is wrong, but as a society, our actual definition of "collaboration" is in fact qui
In the end, I suspect the explanation is simple: People whose gifts lie in esoteric fields get a pass that others don't. Or, to put it differently, if you use crude language and wear a swastika, you're a pariah. But if you make up a complex, witty persona, use irony and jokes to brush off hard questions, and construct an elaborate philosophy to obfuscate your past, then you're an elder statesman, a trendsetter, a provocateur and -- most tantalizingly -

1 of 119

French Red Tape

2005-02-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.carablack.com

I really love this article. Jon Henley, the Paris Guardian correspondant and a friend,
really gets it right!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1385678,00.html

Here's a taste
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A brief entanglement with the charms of French red tape

Jon Henley in Paris
Saturday January 8, 2005
The Guardian

There exists, as all residents of France know, a gnomic Gallic god who occasionally decides, for reasons unclear to mere mortals, that the time has come for you to be re-acquainted with the very singular charms of French bureaucracy.

This painful but doubtless improving experience can take many forms. You will be peacefully living your life - your last bruising bout with French officialdom no more than a distant memory - when a harmless-looking letter from the Centre de Gestion de la Caisse d'Allocations Familiales will land on your doormat.

You are soon plunged into a strange and terrifying netherworld. Clinging desperately to the limp scrap of your queue number as if it were your only hope of getting out alive, you must confront ranks of pale and impatient people waving impenetrable forms and demanding why you still have not provided an officially approved translation of your maternal grandmother's birth certificate, or just when you were thinking of furnishing copies of your certificat K bis along with your last two déclarations trimestrielles aux services fiscaux. (I am not making any of this up.)

The letter can, of course, also come from the Centre Générale de Sécurité Sociale, the Service du Traitement des Demandes de Logement or, if the gnomic god is feeling particularly playful, the Union de Recouvrement des Cotisations de Sécurité Sociale et d'Allocations Familiales. Only one thing is quite sure: come it will.

Anyway. It was, as I'm sure you had guessed, my turn last week. The only consolation, when the letter stamped Direction Départementale du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Formation Professionelle arrived, was that it was aimed only tangentially at me, concerning mainly the nice Polish woman who cleans and irons for us once a week and who, after nearly a decade as an illegal alien, has embarked on the administrative equivalent of one of those awesome obstacle courses for would-be SAS members. She wants, as the French say in such circumstances, to regularise her situation.

Interview with Rebecca Pawel, author of the Edgar winning Tejada novels set in Spain

2005-01-31T09:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.carablack.com
Some tough questions for Rebecca Pawel, the author of the Edgar
winning Tejada crime novels set in Spain

What book would you most like to have written?

Feet of Clay, City Watch or Going Postal, by Terry
Pratchett. Pratchett is a genius. 500 years from now
he'll be read, or he should be.

Pitch your new book , "The watcher in the Pines," to us in 25 words .

Terrorists or freedom fighters? Loyal franquista
Tejada battles the "maquis" - who are either bandits
or heroes. The problem is, his wife disagrees with
his definition.

(Exactly 25 words, as specified.)

What are you reading at the moment?

Elemental, mi querido Chaplin (Elementary, my dear
Chaplin) a Sherlock Holmes pastiche narrated
(obviously) by Charlie Chaplin. It's written by Rafa
Marin, who translated my first book into Spanish.

What are you working on now?

The corrections on the fourth Tejada manuscript, "The
Summer Snow." Since that's going to be the last
Tejada book (at least for a while) I'm also looking
around for new ideas. I have half an idea for a
historical novel about the seventeenth century, but I
don't want to jinx it by describing it yet.

What's the greatest film ever made?

I haven't a clue. Hopscotch, Singing in the Rain, The
Gay Divorcee and Teachers are all favorites of mine.
In terms of documentaries, I have to say The Sorrow
and the Pity. Which brings me to Woody Allen's work
(uneven in quality, but I love Deconstructing Harry
and Annie Hall). Other brilliant but uneven
directors: Fellini, Almodovar, Michael Moore.

You're going to die tomorrow. What would you do
today?

Go to school, and write sub lesson plans if it's a
work day. Organize and finish manuscripts if it's a
weekend or a summer vacation. Finally get my will
properly signed and witnessed. If time, clean
apartment so that I will look like a falsely neat
person for whoever goes through it. If not, skip to
step two: Write love letters, and make sure I eat all
my favorite foods.

What music would you have played at your funeral?

I've never been to a funeral, so I don't know. (My
family isn't religious. We've always just done quiet
cremations, and then had friends drop by the house to
pay respects on a given day.) But I'll go with
Langston Hughes; "Tell all my mourners, to dress in
red/Cause there ain't no sense in my being dead."

What's the most terrifying thing that's ever
happened to you?
When I thought a close family member might have a
terminal illness. (False alarm, fortunately.)

What's the most ingenious crime you've got away
with?

If I tell you, I won't have gotten away with it.

What's your most treasured possession?

Practically speaking, my computer. It has my entire
life on it; everything from short stories to lesson
plans to love letters.

What would you most like to have invented?

I have no idea.

If you could change one thing in the world what
would it be?

Do poverty and injustice count as two things?

a lost novel discovered in France

2004-10-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Marion sent me this article....

Wow!

A lost novel by a once-famous Jewish authoress who was murdered in Auschwitz is being hailed as the literary event of the year in France, not least because of the extraordinary and moving story that has finally led to its publication.

Suite Francaise was written in 1942 as Irene Nemirovsky waited in rural France for what she knew was her imminent arrest and deportation. It is a powerful account of the effect on ordinary people of the military collapse of June 1940, the panicked flight from Paris and the arrival of the German army.

Described by the publishing magazine Livres-Hebdo as the "most important novel of the year," it caused a sensation at the Frankfurt Book fair earlier this month, where after fierce bidding English language rights were snapped up for an undisclosed sum by Random House.

The novel has even been hailed as a French equivalant of Anne Frank's diary because of the rare authenticity with which it treats one of the most painful episodes in the country's modern history.

"It could become one of the key books of France under the occupation. You can count on the fingers of one hand the number of works of this force that were written not after the war -- but right in the thick of it. From the literary as well as historic point of view, it is big news -- and a masterpiece," said Olivier Le Naire, literary editor of L'Express magazine.

Nemirovsky was born in 1903 into a family of rich Russian Jews who were forced to emigrate during the revolution. In Paris she studied at the Sorbonne and in 1929 shot to fame with her novel David Golder, which was followed over the next decade by more than 15 others.

Multilingual and well-connected -- she counted Jean Cocteau among her acquaintances -- she led a charmed life, marrying Jewish businessman Michel Epstein and having two daughters Denise and Elisabeth. But with the war all changed.

Abandoned by her friends and boycotted by the publishing industry for being Jewish, she and Epstein fled Paris in 1941 for the village of Issy-l'Eveque in southern Burgundy, where in a leather notebook she began to write out what she hoped would be a five-part epic on the aftermath of defeat.

On July 13, 1942 French police called at her home and arrested her. Deported to Auschwitz she died there the following month. Her husband wrote to the Vichy leader Philippe Petain asking for his help, but in October he too was arrested and later killed at Auschwitz.

One of Nemirovsky's last acts before her arrest was to entrust a suitcase containing photographs and family papers to her two daughters, who for two years travelled from safe house to safe house to avoid the attention of the French police.

Three decades later Denise finally summoned up the courage to read the hidden notebook and was astonished to discover that it was not -- as she had supposed -- a diary, but the first two parts of the novel. She and her sister, who is now dead, then waited another quarter of a century before finally deciding to publish.

Suite Francaise consists of a first section entitled June Storm which recounts the tangled stories of several families forced to flee northern France as the invading Germans approach. The pettiness and cruelty of the population is mercilessly exposed, as suffering rips away the veneer of respectability.

In part two -- Dolce -- Nemirovsky examines the compromises and moral confusion that ensue when a village is occupied by German soldiers.

Now aged 74, Denise Epstein says the book is not just a novel. "Above all it is a log-book written by my mother through the dark years. All the people she writes about and takes such pains to create -- we knew them. All the situations -- we lived through them," she said.

"During the 1930s my mother wanted to believe that France would defend the Jews. Afterwards she was for years seen just as a victim and her talent was forgotten. I hope this book will do justice to what she was above all else -- a writer," she said.

www.carablack.com

2004-10-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Bonjour...just back from Paris and got it together to blog...well, Aimée decided to really. Paris in late September and sunny October is jumping...Jours de Patrimoine with historical buildings open to the public. I visited Bertrand Delanoes office, the mayor, and wouldn't mind his corner view of the Seine.Then on Saturday it was blanche nuits the white night, everything opened all night and free breakfast for all at the Hotel de Ville...we went to St Germain de Pres swimming pool with a dj, light show and everyone in the pool. Fashion note...shoes, yes I found a ten euro pair of suede ankle straps in an old theatre with bins of shoes in the Goutte d'Or in the 18th arrondissement. Did lots of research for the next book and a reading at WHSmith on rue de Rivoli...right around the corner from where Coco Chanel opened her first boutique on rue Cambon...